Morning Light, June 1st, 2015: Speak to the King in Your Husband

Morning Like June 1st, 2015
Today: [1 Samuel Chapter Twenty-Five]: Speak to the King in Your Husband. In this chapter David meets his second wife Abigal. At the time she is married to a man whose name means fool. When she first meets David – he is also acting like a fool. She knows this character well because her own husband is a fool like David. Yet in spite of dealing with two angry and bitter men she speaks to the king in David and he repents. Her husband becomes so angry that he dies and as a result David sends for her and marries her. Every man has both a king and a fool on the inside of him. If you speak to the king in your husband – the fool will die and the king will arise!
[1Sa 25:1-44 KJV] 1 And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran. 2 And [there was] a man in Maon, whose possessions [were] in Carmel; and the man [was] very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man [was] Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail: and [she was] a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance: but the man [was] churlish and evil in his doings; and he [was] of the house of Caleb. 4 And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep. 5 And David sent out ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name: 6 And thus shall ye say to him that liveth [in prosperity], Peace [be] both to thee, and peace [be] to thine house, and peace [be] unto all that thou hast. 7 And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there ought missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel. 8 Ask thy young men, and they will shew thee. Wherefore let the young men find favour in thine eyes: for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David. 9 And when David’s young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David, and ceased. 10 And Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, Who [is] David? and who [is] the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master. 11 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 whence they [be]? 12 So David’s young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings. 13 And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff. 14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he railed on them. 15 But the men [were] very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we any thing, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields: 16 They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household: for he [is such] a son of Belial, that [a man] cannot speak to him.
In the previous chapter David proves to King Saul that he will not do him harm by cutting off the corner of his garment but not taking his life. Saul laments before David and acknowledges that he knows David will replace him as king. This is a watershed moment. Nothing outwardly has changed but hearts are changing and God is positioning people to prepare for the shift to the rule of David. The next thing that happens is the death of Samuel. It is interesting what David does next because he removes himself from Engedi to Paran. Engedi means “fountain of a kid”. It speaks of God communing with us in immaturity. It is the place where David is acting presumptuously and then finding his heart convicting him for toying with King Saul by cutting off his garment. Yet God was with him – but now we find the primary prophet in David’s life is gone and David moves to Paran. Paran means “beauty or glory”. Col. 1:26,27 says that that the glory of God is IN YOU. There will come a point in your maturing in God that you will discover and begin to lean on the glory of God in your own life more than the glory of God found outwardly in the lives of others.
David winters in Paran and without being asked watches over the flocks of a man by the name of Nabal whose wife is Abigail. Nabal is descended from Caleb therefore has a noble lineage but he is a brutish person that no one can get along with. Abigail is a woman full of wisdom and of a beautiful countenance and will figure prominently in David’s life. After the winter season David sends word to Nabal asking for provisions for his men. Nabal is not disposed to acknowledge David and insults him and rebuffs his request. David becomes very angry. He determines to wipe out Nabal and his family and take his vengeance.
Now I ask you where is the sweet, spiritual humble David who in the previous chapter bows down before his sworn enemy King Saul? There is no joy in being insulted but surely an insult and a rebuff does not warrant or justify the murderous rage that takes David now. 2 Peter 2:19 says that of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought into bondage. David has been hounded by Saul a man of great wrath with murder in his heart. Yet God will not allow David to touch Saul. Yet here is Nabal – much like Saul in his character but God has not forbidden David to punish him. Thus in the rage of David against Nabal we see what was in his heart toward Saul and we also see at a certain level that David is not unlike Saul in his ungodly character. This happens with us today as well. We hold our peace in certain relationships because they affect us but we take out our wrath on those we think we can afford to harm without suffering consequences. This is a Nabal attitude.
18 Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched [corn], and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid [them] on asses. 19 And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she told not her husband Nabal. 20 And it was [so, as] she rode on the ass, that she came down by the covert of the hill, and, behold, David and his men came down against her; and she met them. 21 Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this [fellow] hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that [pertained] unto him: and he hath requited me evil for good. 22 So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that [pertain] to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall. 23 And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, 24 And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, [upon] me [let this] iniquity [be]: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid. 25 Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, [even] Nabal: for as his name [is], so [is] he; Nabal [is] his name, and folly [is] with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send. 26 Now therefore, my lord, [as] the LORD liveth, and [as] thy soul liveth, seeing the LORD hath withholden thee from coming to [shed] blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal. 27 And now this blessing which thine handmaid hath brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men that follow my lord. 28 I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: for the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the LORD, and evil hath not been found in thee [all] thy days. 29 Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, [as out] of the middle of a sling. 30 And it shall come to pass, when the LORD shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel; 31 That this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself: but when the LORD shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid. 32 And David said to Abigail, Blessed [be] the LORD God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: 33 And blessed [be] thy advice, and blessed [be] thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to [shed] blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand. 34 For in very deed, [as] the LORD God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall. 35 So David received of her hand [that] which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person.
Abigail sees what is about to happen and without her husband’s permission takes provisions to David and entreats him not to do the violence that is in his heart. When she looks at David she is quite familiar with what she sees. David is angry. Nabal her husband is angry all the time. Abigail’s name means “Daddy’s little girl”. Nabal’s name means “fool” and she tells David “as is his name so is he”. So Abigail is dealing with two men who are both angry fools. What does she do? She speaks to the king in David. She reminds him of his destiny. At a moment when David was at his worst she calls him up to his destiny. She could have recriminated him. She could have accused and weighed a heavy burden of guilt against him. But she was full of the wisdom of God. She spoke to the king in him. Every women will have occasion to deal with the Nabal’s and the David’s in her life. Every man has both of these characters in his heart. Every man has both a KING and a FOOL on the inside of him. Will you as a woman speak to the king or to the fool? If you speak to the fool then the fool will arise. If you speak to the king then the king will arise. Speak to the king in your spouse and as we see in the remainder of the chapter – the fool will die!
36 And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal’s heart [was] merry within him, for he [was] very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light. 37 But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became [as] a stone. 38 And it came to pass about ten days [after], that the LORD smote Nabal, that he died. 39 And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed [be] the LORD, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil: for the LORD hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife. 40 And when the servants of David were come to Abigail to Carmel, they spake unto her, saying, David sent us unto thee, to take thee to him to wife. 41 And she arose, and bowed herself on [her] face to the earth, and said, Behold, [let] thine handmaid [be] a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord. 42 And Abigail hasted, and arose, and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that went after her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife. 43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they were also both of them his wives. 44 But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Phalti the son of Laish, which [was] of Gallim.
If you speak to the king in your spouse – the fool will die. Nabal finds out what Abigail did and dies of an apparent stroke. Notice she didn’t talk to him when he was in a good mood. He was partying, drinking and merry in his heart. She ignored this opportunity. She waited for the God moment. She waited in this case for a time that seemed like the worst possible time to deal with Nabal, the fool. She was following the leading of the Holy Spirit. What is the end result? At the end of the chapter she is married to King David and becomes his second wife, replacing Saul’s daughter Michel who was given to someone else.
There will be times that your husband will be a Nabal and times that he will be a David. He has both characters in him. If you live out of your reactions nothing will change and you will both be unhappy. Many think that this kind of unhappiness is par for course in marriage and that it is wrong to expect anything to change. Bitter root judgments set in and both man and woman live for decades in misery because neither is willing to take the risks that Abigail took. Many spouses use the sanctity of marriage to barrage their spouse with abuse taunting them that they have to put up with it simply because they are married. This is a heartbreaking situation that robs men and women of any hope that things can be different. What is the solution? Speak to the king in him. No matter how worldly your spouse might be, or how brutish and uncaring – if he draws breath there is a king on the inside of him. Speak to the king in him and your outcome will be as Abigails – you will be married to the king!