Wisdom in Crisis
“Them are fightin’ words.” Do you have something that’s fightin’ words if someone says it? Like, you don’t talk about my momma. Or you better not disrespect me. When those moments happen, we react based on emotion, and our actions can often get away from us. What feels right in the moment can turn into things that leaves damage we can’t undo and that actually harms us.
That’s exactly where David is in 1 Samuel 25. David’s been walking with God and trusting God and waiting on God. We just saw it with him sparing Saul’s life. Yet here he is, one decision away from doing something that would’ve hurt him.
But praise God that He often rescues us from our own self-destruction. When we don’t pursue Him with wisdom on our own, He puts it in our path in some other form. That’s what we’re going to see today.
Emotional decisions aren’t always right decisions. (1–13)
The chapter opens in verse 1 with, “Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him.” This was a big deal. Samuel was the spiritual backbone of Israel. He was the one who anointed both Saul and David. He was the last of the judges. He was a prophet of God who spoke for God with boldness. And now he’s gone.
So, David is likely emotional. He’s grieving along with everyone else. He’s still living in the wilderness. He’s leading a whole bunch of men who depend on him. He has so much pressure on him. And all of that has to come out, right? You can’t just keep all of that inside.
Then in verse 4, David hears that Nabal (naw-bawl) is shearing his sheep. Ok, shearing season wasn’t just shepherds giving out haircuts. It really was a celebration for the bounty that they had. So David sends his men in verses 5-8, and listen to their tone. “Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.” They’re kind a respectful aren’t they? Then they remind him, “Your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm… and nothing was missing from them.” In other words, we’ve protected what’s yours. There’s a relationship here. There should be some reciprocation, right? “Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.”
But in verse 10 Nabal answers, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?” He knows exactly who David is. Everyone does! He just doesn’t care. He only cares about himself. It’s really like he’s saying, “Who does David think he is?” He’s reducing him to nothing. You can see that because he says, “There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters.” He treats David like he’s a runaway slave or something. Y’all, you know what them are? Them are fightin’ words.
David’s already emotional, and he’s treated this man with kindness. He’s even protected his stuff, and this guy thinks he’s all high and mighty and disrespects David like this? Whew. What would you do? Your blood would start boiling. David’s was. We see it in verse 13: “And David said to his men, ‘Every man strap on his sword.’” Actually, you see that phrase “strap on his sword” three times. Y’all, they’re ready to fight. They ain’t playin’.
I want you to notice something here. They don’t pray about it. They don’t seek the Lord. All they do it react. And four hundred men are ready to fight just like that.
Think about it. This is the same man who refused to kill Saul when he had the chance. The same man who said, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed.” But here, with Nabal, he’s ready to fly off the handle. Why? I think maybe because Saul was an obvious, big test. But this is smaller and personal against him.
You know, it’s really these little personal tests that expose our real character in a lot of ways. It’s the little condescending comment someone makes. It’s the way someone treats us. It’s when we’re not appreciated. It’s minor inconveniences. And then we snap in a major way and don’t look Christlike at all. [I’m talking about myself here!]
We do the same thing as David. You know what we do a lot? We often spiritualize emotional reactions. We say, I’m just standing for what’s right. But if we’re honest, we’re just fighting because our pride has been wounded. We’re just exhausted or grieving and it lowers our discernment. When you’re tired, everything feels more personal. When you’re hurting, everything feels heavier. And if you’re not careful, in those moments you’ll act in ways that don’t reflect the God you claim to trust. I think that may be a little of what David’s facing here. But it’s the foolishness of Nabal that is causing him to act that way.
Foolishness is living as if God does not exist. (14–25)
The scene changes, and we get a clearer picture of Nabal. In verse 14, one of the young men goes to Abigail, Nabal’s wife, and says, “David sent messengers… and he railed at them.” And then he says something about Nabal in verse 17. “He is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.” If someone is in the wrong, do you think it’s foolish if they don’t listen to correction? If someone won’t listen to anybody else, do you think that’s a foolish person? Many people do that about God and the things of God.
Psalm 14:1 gives us the definition of a fool. “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” That’s not just about what someone believes. It’s about how they live. Nabal lives like God doesn’t exist. Though he is a part of Israel, he doesn’t live like he believes in God. And his name, Nabal, literally means “fool.” The text tells us he’s a Calebite. That should mean something. Caleb was a man of faith. He trusted God when others didn’t. He stood with Joshua when everyone else didn’t believe God. And he was from Judah, the kingly line, the line the Messiah would come through. That’s Nabal’s heritage. But he doesn’t live like that whatsoever.
There’s also another meaning though to that name. The name Caleb means dog, and there are overtones of snapping and barking implied when it’s stated here.[1] There’s an irony with him. He comes from something godly, but he lives like God doesn’t exist. Here’s what Nable is: he is a functional atheist, or a practical atheist.
Stephen Charnock, the English Puritan, said it well when he wrote, “Men may have atheistical hearts without atheistical heads… Those…are more deservedly termed atheists who acknowledge a God, and walk as if there were none, than those (if there can be any such) that deny a God, and walk as if there were one.”[2] You can affirm God intellectually yet deny Him practically. That’s a practical atheist. You say God exists, yet you live as if He doesn’t. I bet that’s many people in this room.
That’s Nabal. It’s possible to confess God with your lips and deny Him with your actions. It’s possible to say you trust Him and then live like everything depends on you.
God often uses other people to save us from ourselves. (23–31)
Right when David is ready to fight Nabal, Abigail enters the narrative. And I thank God that she does. Verse 23 says, “When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down… and fell before David on her face.”
What is important, I think, isn’t just what she does, but I think it’s what she says. She speaks truth into a moment filled with emotion for David. When we are in those moments, we need someone to speak truth! In verse 26 she says, “As the Lord lives… the Lord has restrained you from bloodguilt.” David thinks he’s about to act, but she says, God is already stopping you.
Then in verse 29 she says, “The life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God.” That’s a powerful image. She’s saying, “Your life is under the providential care of God, David. You don’t get to step outside of that because you’re emotional and angry and pretend it won’t cost you something.” She reminds him of who he is. She reminds him of God’s promises. She pulls his attention away from the insult he faced and back to the Lord. She brings him back to when he trusted God instead of taking matters into his own hands.
Eugene Peterson describes this moment and says David was “full of himself and empty of God,” and that Abigail “recovers God for David.”[3] Yep. That’s exactly what’s happening. David hasn’t abandoned God, but in this moment, he’s forgotten Him. Just like we do so often. And God sends someone to bring him back to himself.
We need other people in order to see past our pride and emotions. (32–35)
And what makes this moment so powerful is how David responds. Verse 32, “And David said to Abigail, ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me!’” He doesn’t just thank Abigail. He blesses the Lord. He recognizes what just happened. This wasn’t something random. God did this!
Verse 33, “Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand.” That last phrase is important. “Working salvation with my own hand.” David sees it now. He was about to take matters into his own hands and act like it was justice. And then verse 34, “For as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you…” Again, he sees God’s hand in it.
This right here is what humility looks like. Not that you never feel anger. We’re humans living in a broken world. Not that you never mess up. But that when you get corrected, you’re willing to stop and listen. And you’re willing to admit…I shouldn’t have done that. I caused harm. Or that could’ve been bad.
We need people like Abigail in our lives. Because when pride and emotions are in the drivers’ seat, we can never see clearly. So, we need someone who can step in and tell us the truth whether we want to hear it or not.
But the story doesn’t end there.
God doesn’t need our swords to fulfill His justice. (36–42)
Abigail goes home in verse 36, “and behold, Nabal was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king.” There’s irony all over that. He’s acting like a king, completely unaware of how close he came to losing everything. It says, “his heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk.” He has no idea what just happened.
So Abigail waits. She doesn’t tell him right away. Verse 37, “In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.” The reality of it hits him all at once. Then verse 38, “And about ten days later the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.” David never had to do anything. God handled the justice Himself.
And that’s a lesson for us. God doesn’t need our swords to accomplish His justice. If David had gone through with it, it would’ve followed him. It would’ve stained his kingship and his testimony. But God, in His mercy, stepped in and saved him from himself.
We always want justice now. But God doesn’t function on our timeline. He doesn’t do things the way we do. And ultimately, this points us forward. We don’t have to take matters into our own hands because God already has.
The fool says, “There is no God.” The wise receive salvation. (Psalm 14)
Psalm 14, written by David, brings all of this into focus. “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” That’s Nabal. But then it goes further. “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”
That’s not just Nabal. That’s David in that moment. That’s us. We all sin. We all respond out of pride. We all act as if God doesn’t exist every time we sin. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
And then comes his cry in verse 7, “Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!” And the answer to that cry is…it did! His name is Jesus. He is the Messiah from the line of David, from the kingly line of Judah.
Romans 5:8 and 10:9 says, “8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…9 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Where David almost answered insult with violence, Jesus didn’t. “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.”[4] He entrusted Himself to the Father “who judges justly.” And He did that for fools like us. For people who get caught up in emotion. For people who take matters into their own hands. For people who live like God doesn’t even exist.
[1] ESV Expository Commentary
[2] https://www.monergism.com/discourse-practical-atheism
[3] Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 82.
