Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2924
“And David said to Abigail, Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me, and blessed is your advice, and blessed are you, because you have kept me this day from coning to bloodshed, and from avenging myself with my own hand.” 1 Samuel 25:32,33.
I MUST tell you the story, for if you do not realize the circumstances, you will not understand these words. David was in the position of an outlaw in his county. He knew that he was one day to be king over Israel, but he had such reverence for Saul, the Lord’s’ anointed, that he would do nothing that would look like usurpation, or seem in any way to injure the reigning monarch. Some 400 restless spirits who had been impoverished by the tyrannical government of Saul, persons who were in debt and generally discontented, came to him in the caves of Adullam and there formed an army of freebooters of which David was the head. A little while afterwards, 200 others, men like-minded, came and united themselves with this force so that David found himself at the head of an army of 600 men of war, all of them valiant men, ready for exploits. You will see he was in a very difficult position—he must find work for these men. They were soldiers of fortune and they must be employed, yet it was impossible for him to act like a traitor—he would not lead his men against his king. He would not begin a revolution in order to provide for his followers.
What, then, must he do if he desired to still be loyal to the king and, at the same time, not to disband his men? He occupied his forces in peacefully guarding the herds of the great sheep-masters who fed their flocks on the high steeps of Carmel. This is not a thing uncommon in the East even today. Certain sheikhs, with their body of followers, sometimes undertake to keep off the Bedouin Arabs and other marauders who attack the flocks of the sheep-master and, of course, they expect to have some kind of remuneration for their trouble.
Now, all through the time that the sheep were in the pasture, David and his men watched over the flocks of a certain sheep-master called Nabal. When the time came round for shearing the flocks, David sent some of his followers to Nabal, to the feast of sheep shearing, presenting his request that some contribution might be sent for the support of his men on account of their having taken care of Nabal’s flocks which otherwise would certainly have been diminished by systematic plunder. But Nabal had got all the good he wanted from David and he refrained not from answering David’s messenger in a most rude, surly manner. “There are many servants,” he said, “now-a-days, that break away, every man, from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not where they are?”
Such a churlish message could not fail to nettle David. Indeed, we know that it stung him to the quick. He had not run away from his master, but his master had driven him away and, as one who was apart from Saul, but yet was not Saul’s antagonist, he was doing the best he could to maintain the peace. His blood boiled over. “Have I guarded the flocks of this miserable wretch,” he said, “all this time, and kept my men there merely to attend his sheep, when they might have been profitable at some other work? And now, when I send to him, instead of giving me a donation, he answers me in this churlish manner!” Then, turning to his men, he said, “Gird you on, every man, his sword, we will show this fellow how to treat us.” So, leaving 200 men to guard the caves, 400 marched out, David at the head, his hot blood all ablaze within him, his anger showing in his face. “God do so to me,” he said, “and more, also, if I leave so much as a dog of that man’s house alive by the morning light!” He sallied forth doubtless with the full intent to destroy Nabal, to make his house a heap of ruins and then to devastate the sheep-master’s estate! What a false position for a child of
God! But David was naturally impulsive and somehow men that have any life in them do sometimes get their tempers aroused. We hear of some people that are as quiet and as peaceful and as easy as a pond of stagnant water—certainly their peace does not flow like a river, and their righteousness is never lashed to fury like the waves of the sea. David was not one of these.
As the son of Jesse rashly pursues the man of Mount Carmel, he meets a woman, Nabal’s wife. Perhaps a hard thought comes over him to smite her, but no—she is a woman—David cannot strike her! And, what is more, she is at his feet, asking him to lay all the blame at her door. Then she goes on to tell him that her husband is a very foolish and churlish man and she hopes David will not take offense at his words. She has brought him a present and she tells him that when he shall come to be king, it will be a great ease to his mind to think he never fought his own battles, but only the Lord’s. She reminds him of the future and so she makes him forget the present. After a while his heart yields to quiet reflections—he acts rather as a saint than as a soldier, putting up his sword into the sheath and leaving the matter with his God. Righteous vengeance was soon asserted, when barbarous revenge was stopped, for ten days afterwards Nabal died. The Lord Himself dealt out retributive justice to the adversary, while the Lord’s servant was held back from indiscriminate slaughter.
That is all we shall have occasion to say about the narrative. It suggests our subject, which is “Preventing Grace”— the Grace which God sends to prevent saints and sinners from running into sin. I hope before the service is over many of us, in looking back upon our past lives, will gratefully bless the Lord—bless His Providence and bless the man or the woman whom He has sent to teach us and to keep us back from evil—that we shall thank Him because we have oftentimes been turned back from doing the wrong thing and by an overruling counsel been led of Him in the paths of righteousness.
Of this preventing Grace we shall speak in two ways. We will deal first of all with the people of God and with them but briefly, though they are the only persons who will ever be able to recognize the value and feel thankfulness for this precious benefit. Then we shall see how Grace often prevents even men who are notfollowers of Jesus.