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(1 Samuel) How Not to Respond to an Insult
David Guzik

David Guzik (1966 - ). American pastor, Bible teacher, and author born in California. Raised in a nominally Catholic home, he converted to Christianity at 13 through his brother’s influence and began teaching Bible studies at 16. After earning a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, he entered ministry without formal seminary training. Guzik pastored Calvary Chapel Simi Valley from 1988 to 2002, led Calvary Chapel Bible College Germany as director for seven years, and has served as teaching pastor at Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara since 2010. He founded Enduring Word in 2003, producing a free online Bible commentary used by millions, translated into multiple languages, and published in print. Guzik authored books like Standing in Grace and hosts podcasts, including Through the Bible. Married to Inga-Lill since the early 1990s, they have three adult children. His verse-by-verse teaching, emphasizing clarity and accessibility, influences pastors and laypeople globally through radio and conferences.
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the preacher discusses the story of a man named Naval from the book of 1 Samuel. Naval was a wealthy man, but lacked character and was harsh and evil in his actions. The preacher emphasizes that being rich in material possessions, accomplishments, or knowledge is not as valuable as being rich in character. Naval's lack of generosity and disrespect towards David and his men led to a confrontation, with David and his men preparing to take revenge.
Sermon Transcription
That's 1 Samuel, chapter 25. We'll jump right into it here at verse 1, where we read, Then Samuel died, and all the Israelites gathered together and lamented for him and buried him at his home in Ramah. And David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. Sort of sobering, isn't it? This great man of God, Samuel, who was dedicated to the Lord and who served him from his youngest days, now he dies. And as godly as he was, and as powerful a man of God he was, and as much as an impact he made on the nation of Israel, that in and of itself didn't preserve him from death. No, he was still born of Adam and so he was subject to death. And he passed from this world to the world beyond. But when that happened, it's important for us to notice that God's work did not end when Samuel's days on this earth ended. God's work is never dependent upon one man. In verse 1 it's written that Samuel died, but it's also written that David arose. God has one man and then he moves on to another. And God's work may begin with a man, but it never ends with one man. God continues and sustains his work just as he pleases. Might I say we're all so sort of gratified to read in verse 1 that all Israel lamented for Samuel when he died. And well, they should have. You know, Samuel seems to have been unappreciated by Israel so often during his life, but at least he was honored by them in his death. I almost wish we could say that we're saying goodbye to Samuel here in the book of 1 Samuel, but we're not. He's going to kind of literally come up again in 1 Samuel chapter 28 in one of the more interesting and maybe bizarre passages of scripture that you'll read, but we'll just have to wait to 1 Samuel 28 to get to that. So now the story moves on to verse 2. Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel, and this man was very rich. He had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. The name of the man was Nagel and the name of his wife Abigail. And she was a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his doings, and he was of the house of Caleb. We're interested in what's really one of the more beautiful stories in the book of 1 Samuel. Beautiful not only because of what it communicates to us from God's truth, but it's just, if I might say, just a very well-written story. Here we are talking about Samuel and Saul and David and all these characters through the book of 1 Samuel, and all of a sudden, in chapter 25, verse 2, we're introduced to two completely new people. We're introduced to a man named Nabal. Now, what do we know about this man? Well, we know, first of all, that he lived in a certain area, Maon. He knew that he worked in a certain area. His flocks were out by Carmel. We also know that he was a very rich man, as it says in verse 2. Now, you might think that that tells you a lot about him already. We know where he lives and we know that he was a rich man. You know, there's a lot of different ways that you can be rich. I'd suggest to you this morning that there are really four different kinds of riches. There are riches in what you have. That's the kind of wealth that Nabal had, didn't he? He was rich in what he had. He had a lot of sheep. He had a lot of tents. He had a lot of flocks. He had a lot of whatever. He had a lot of what you have. That's not the only way to be rich. Some people are rich in what they do. They're people of real action, of real accomplishment, of real achievement. They might be famous for what they've done. They may never make a lot of money at it, but they're well known. They're famous for what they do. Other people are rich, not so much for what they have or for what they do. There are some people who are rich for what they know. Very powerful, brainy kind of people. They know all sorts of things and their knowledge and understanding gives them great success or power in this or that. Friends, there's a fourth way to be rich and I think it's better than any of the other ones. You can be rich in what you have. You can be rich in what you do. You can be rich in what you know, but the best kind of wealth is to be rich in character. It's to be rich in what you are. And that's the kind of wealth that Nabal was completely lacking in. When it came to what you have, he was rich. When it came to the kind of man that you are, Nabal was poor. We know that because it says here in the following verses that he was harsh and evil in his doings, but we'll speak a little bit more about that in a moment, but let's just think again for the moment the fact that, well, that this man Nabal was very rich, but he was very unwise. My friends, we should remind ourselves what Jesus said, that material riches are a definite obstacle to the kingdom of God. Remember that when Jesus said it in Matthew chapter 19, that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into heaven. When Jesus said that, his disciples were blown away. They said, well, then who can enter into heaven? How can anybody be saved? And Jesus said with man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. Friends, it's not impossible for a rich man to be godly, but we should understand that being rich makes walking with God harder. It just introduces another obstacle in your life that has to be overcome for you to keep the right focus, the right attention in your life upon God. And if any man is to be rich and godly, I think that there's an essential thing that has to happen in his heart. That person has to be a generous person. Generosity is really God's key from keeping us from being idolatrous with material things. And so when we read that Nabal was rich, we should want to know, was he generous? Was he a man in love with his riches or was he a man in love with the Lord? Let's see if he was a generous man. So we know something about Nabal. We know where he lived. We know where he worked. We know that he was rich. If you look at verse 2, we also know that he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. That's not Carmel up north, you know. Although he's probably rich enough to live there, but this is an area in Israel. And he was shearing his sheep there. Well, sheep shearing time, if you're a sheep rancher, that's harvest time. I mean, the sheep keepers, the shepherds back in Israel's day, they didn't keep the sheep primarily for the sake of the meat. They kept the sheep for the sake of the wool. And when you shear the sheep, that's when you collect the wool. That's harvest time. You've worked all year. You've put your money, your time, your investment into those sheep, and now you're bringing in the harvest. So sheep shearing time was a time of real joy and generosity and abundance and a time where everything was shared and everybody was generous. So we read all this. Well, great. This man, okay, he lives in Maon, works in Carmel, 3,000 sheep, 1,000 goats, shearing his sheep, very rich. And then we read in the beginning of verse 3, And the name of the man was Fool. That's what Nabal means in Hebrew. Imagine if you're reading this in Hebrew. You read this description of the guy in verse 2 and then you read in verse 3, And the name of this man was Fool. I don't know if his mother named him that or if his friends named him that. I don't know if it was a given name or an earned name, but he certainly lived up to it. Because we read in verse 3 that the man was harsh and evil in his doings. I don't have to explain that. You know what that means. It means he was a hard man, a difficult man, evil in his doings. He was not a man of good character. He was not a man wealthy in what he was. All his wealth was simply in what he had. Harsh and evil in his doings. As a matter of fact, if you want another slap in his face, look at the end of verse 3. It says, And he was of the house of Caleb. And I say, Oh, well, great. That just describes the family that he's from. I don't think so. Caleb in Hebrew means dog. I think it's saying this guy was a dog-ish man. He was the house of the dog, which would be a grave insult to give to anybody. You know, in the Israelite culture, dogs weren't like puppies and lassie and man's best friend. In Israelite culture, dogs were despised, dangerous, scavengers. It was a real insult to call somebody a dog. And I think that's what the Bible's doing. He's harsh and evil in all his doings. And he was of the house of dogs. A dog-ish man. For as bad as Nabal was, look at his wife here in verse 3. The name of his wife was Abigail. And she was a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance. As bad as Nabal was, as wonderful his wife was. It says that she was of good understanding. That means she was wise, that she had knowledge, and she knew how to use it. But it also says that she was beautiful in appearance. You know, that phrase, beautiful appearance, there's only three women in the entire Bible that that phrase is used of. Only three. And so I guess you could say that this woman Abigail, she's one of the top three most beautiful women in the Bible. You know, you've got her, you've got Rachel in Genesis chapter 29, and you've got Esther in Esther chapter 2. That's it. The top three right here. So you think, well, here's Abigail, here's Nabal, here's this beautiful, wise woman, and here's this rich but foolish man. How did these two ever get together? You scratch your head. What are they doing together? You've said the same thing today, haven't you? You've looked at a couple, and it looks like it's Nabal and Abigail. You scratch your head. You say, what are they doing together? Now, in Abigail's day, I think we can excuse her because she lived in a day of arranged marriages, right? She lived in a day where she probably didn't choose the man she was going to marry. Her parents chose the man she was going to marry. And we can understand why Abigail's parents would choose Nabal, right? She won't marry a man. She was marrying money. And the dad's thinking, yeah, great. I'll provide well for my daughter, marry into a family with big money. And he didn't have the care, he didn't have the concern to make sure that he was a man of good character that his daughter was marrying. So we can almost excuse her. We say to Abigail, it's not your fault. But you know, it makes us say something to single women among us here, doesn't it? If you'd like to think of yourself as an Abigail, don't go marry a Nabal. Don't go marry a guy for the wrong reasons. Well, because he's wealthy, because he has this, because he has that. Marry him because he's a good man. Because he's a man of fine character. You look to that carefully. Look to the character of the man. A lot of the other things that people might prize, the superficial things, the things that pass away, don't look to those things. Look and see if he's a man who's rich in his character. And that's what Nabal exactly was. So we say, listen, if you're a single guy, you have no reason to marry a Nabal. And you know, we also look and we say, you know, there's probably some people who feel like they know or people who feel like they are an Abigail in the midst of a marriage. I'm married to a Nabal. What do I do? What's God say to me? I see myself or I see someone else in the same situation. You know, writing almost a hundred years ago, the Bible commentator F.B. Meyer wrote something very striking on this, and let me read it to you. He says, A woman may still find herself in Abigail's pitiful plight. To such a one, there is but one advice. You must stay where you are. The dissimilarity in taste and temperament does not constitute a sufficient reason for leaving your husband to drift. You must believe that God has permitted you to enter on this awful heritage partly because this fiery ordeal was required by your character and partly that you might act as a counteractive influence. You must stay as you are. It may be that someday your opportunity will come as it came to Abigail. In the meantime, do not allow your purer nature to be bespotted or besmeared. You can always keep the soul clean and pure. Well, that's exactly what Abigail did, but we sort of scratch our head at the end of verse three and say, well, what is time? It's nice to know this couple Nabal and Abigail, but what do they have to do with David? Well, we'll find out here, verse four. When David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep, David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, Go up to Carmel, go to Nabal and greet him in my name. And thus you shall say to him who lives in prosperity, Peace be to you, peace to your house and peace to all that you have. Now I've heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds were with us and we did not hurt them, nor was there anything missing from them all the while they were in Carmel. Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever comes to your hands, your servants and to your son David. So when David's young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in the name of David and waited. Well, you get the picture here, don't you? David says, You know, we've been protecting Nabal's shepherds and Nabal's flocks for these many months, and now it's time for us to be compensated for this. He sends ten young men and the ten young men are supposed to appear before Nabal and say, Nabal, we ten are from our master David and David gives his greetings to you, says, Peace upon your household, and we expect to be compensated for the services we've rendered. So whatever's on your heart to give, give. And so they sit there and they wait. What are you going to give us? What's in it for us? Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, this is some slick protection racket that David has working here. Sounds more like mafia than the man of God. No, it's not a protection racket at all. David was indeed providing a valuable necessary service for Nabal. I mean, in that day, there were many, many marauding groups of bandits from the Philistines and the Amorites and the Midianites who would come in and they would see a flock of sheep and they'd say, I want that flock of sheep. Look, there's just a couple of shepherds there. We're taking them. And who could protect them? Who could make sure that kind of thing didn't happen? Well, it had to be sort of David's militia. And in this area, David's militia protected and provided the valuable service of security for all of Nabal's flocks. There was nothing dishonest or under the table or manipulative about this. Nabal needed this service. David provided the service. Nabal accepted the service. Let's just say, Nabal owed David something and it was not wrong for David to come at this time and say, well, now we'd like to receive it. As a matter of fact, I want you to notice that David bent over backwards to make this request in the best way possible. He waited for the right time. He waited until the sheep were being shorn. Look at it there in verse 4. David heard the wilderness and Nabal was shearing his sheep. In other words, the money was coming in, right? David didn't go and ask for payment before the job was finished. Before the money came in, David was going to wait and do it at the right time. And so David waited for the right time. He did it very politely. David didn't appear personally. That might be too intimidating to Nabal, right? He sent messengers. And David sent the messengers with a word of peace. He wasn't saying, listen, buddy, see this sword? Ante up or here's the sword. No! He said, put a blessing of peace upon the household. And I want you to see also that David also, very specifically, did not demand any certain payment from Nabal. I mean, he didn't say, you give me this much money or you give me this much stuff. He just says, if you notice it there in verse 8, please give whatever comes to your hand, your servants and to your son David. Nabal, whatever's on your heart, I'll leave it up to your generosity. So, they leave it up to their generosity and they wait for the reply. There's two things I think we need to notice here. First of all, is please notice that David did everything right in this. Usually, it's not so cut and dry. Usually, when we're in some kind of conflict with somebody, they've done something wrong, we've done something, but not in this situation. In this situation, David's done everything right. He's bent over backwards to lay it all out in the right way, politely, on and on and on, so forth and so on. There it is. And now he just goes before Nabal and says, I'll leave it up to your generosity. You know what the problem is sometimes when you leave it up to folks' generosity. Sometimes you get stiffed when you leave it up to their generosity. That's exactly what Nabal was going to do to David. Look at what he says here. Verse 10, then Nabal answered David's servants and said, Who is David and who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I've killed for my shares and give it to men who I do not know where they're from? So David's young men turned on their heels and went back and they came and told him all these words. What a picture here, right? David's men, in utmost courtesy and utmost politeness, they come and they make this request very politely and they just wait and there's smiles on their faces and they say, Well, Nabal, whatever is on your heart to give, we'll receive and we'll take it back And Nabal, not only does he say no, not only does he say no way, he says no way in the most insulting terms you can imagine. He looks at David and he's David's through his servants and he says, Who is David and who is the son of Jesse? Now, please friends, don't think for a moment that Nabal didn't know who David was. Of course he knew who David was. Everybody knew who David was. The number one hit song in Israel for years was all about David. His fame was all throughout the land after he killed Goliath. Everybody knew who David was. You know he's not saying, I don't know who David is. What he's saying is, Who does he think he is? Who does this David fellow think he is? He's nobody to me. I'm not giving him anything. You could just see the countenance of David's ten servants going, What is he saying? They're probably horrified. They're almost thinking, Mister, don't talk this way about David. We're going to have to tell him you said this. But he goes on. He goes, There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. Ah, this David. He's probably just some runaway slave. I don't care anything about him. This renegade guy out on the run. Get rid of him. I have nothing to do with him. Then if you want to see the selfish heart of this man, Nabal, take a look closely at verse 11. It shows it very clearly. It says, Shall I then take my bread, my water, my meat, my shearers, and give it? My, my, my. See that? That's where Nabal's head is at. It's mine. It's mine. You can't have it. It's mine. Friends, that's not how the Lord wants us to see things. The Lord wants us to see everything that we have belongs to Him. It's His. Friends, it's not a matter of, you know, we give God some and then the rest is ours. That's not how it is. We give God some, sure. Lord, that's what you've called, that's what you told me to give to you. I'm going to give that to you. That's yours, Lord. I give it to you. But you know what, Lord? The rest of everything else I have, that's yours too. I'm just holding on to it. I'll use it however you want me to. You just tell me what to do with it, Lord, and I will use it the way you want me to. You see, biblical generosity isn't saying, this is mine and I'll share it with you. Biblical generosity says everything I have belongs to the Lord, so you can share it. If it belongs to the Lord, then you can share it too. Here, you can have some. Nabal didn't have that kind of heart, that kind of man, that kind of thinking at all. And so David's men, they hear this, they say, well, we're not going to listen to any more of this. It says, verse 12, they turned on their heels and they left and they reported the whole thing to David. Look at what David says in verse 13. Then David said to his men, every man gird on his sword. How do you like that? Not, guys, let's pray about this, what we should do with this fellow Nabal. Not, well, you know, I guess this is just one we took on the chin. No, you know what he says? He says, mount up boys. We're going to get this guy. Everybody strap on your sword. And it says there, verse 13, so every man girded on his sword and David also girded on his sword. And about 400 men went with David and 200 stayed with the supplies. David says, we're going to go and we're going to teach this fellow Nabal a lesson. Now, I know that part of me looks at this and goes, yeah, David, you don't have to take this from this jerk Nabal. You know the feeling you get sometimes. It's like, you know, there's a lot of Nabals out in the world. There's a lot of jerks out there and somebody's got to teach him a lesson. And it's like, yeah, David, go get him. That's kind of how we feel. It's yeah. But you know what, my friends? David was ready to fight and we don't wonder why. It's very easy for us to understand. Nabal had provoked him so greatly, but this is not a high moment for David. David is not shining here. He's not responding the way the Lord would have him respond to an insult or even to an attack. Friends, there's no doubt about it. Nabal insulted David. He just insulted him to his face. And David says, I'm going to get him back. Friends, that's not how the Lord wants us to respond. When we're insulted, the Lord would have us bear it with love and kindness and return the evil with good. Friends, that's pretty high ground to walk on, I'll admit. But it's what Jesus commanded. Do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5? You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you not to resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. A lot of people have misunderstood this business about turning the other cheek. They think that Jesus was talking about like a physical assault. And if somebody's physically assaulting you, don't protect yourself. Just let them beat the pulp out of you. That's not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus isn't saying if somebody hits you across the right side of your face with a baseball bat, then you should just stand there and say, okay, go ahead and hit the left side of my face too. No. The slap on the cheek in that culture wasn't about a physical assault. It was about an insult. Like you've seen the old movies where the Englishman takes off his glove finger by finger and then he slaps some guy in the face. It's the insult. I despise you. You're worthless. You're nothing. Well, friends, that's what Jesus was talking about. And Jesus was saying, when you're insulted, when you're despised, when you're treated this way, turn the other cheek. Take it. Bear it. And there's something in us that's very hard to accept that, very hard to receive that. But, friends, that's where David is blowing it here. David's not going to take it. When you get right down to it, all that Nabal had really done, well, I shouldn't say all because it's true that Nabal insulted David, but he also stole from him. I mean, Nabal owed him this money. But David shouldn't have done what he's going to do right now. He says, mount up, boys. We're going to go and we're going to take vengeance on this guy. There's something else very striking about this, isn't it? We see that David doesn't show Nabal the same kindness and longsuffering that he showed to Saul. Remember in the last chapter, 1 Samuel 24, David had the opportunity to do something against Saul and Saul had treated David a lot worse than Nabal ever treated David. And David had the chance to take vengeance, to unleash the sword against Saul, but he didn't do it. Now, wait a minute. If he didn't do it against Saul, why is he now trying to take vengeance against Nabal? And I think perhaps the fact is that Saul was recognized as David. David could say, he's my superior. He's my king. I will not touch the Lord's anointing. David looks at Nabal and says, there's no anointing on this guy. I can take him out. You see, my friends, sometimes I think this is a principle. Sometimes it's easier for us to be kind and generous and long-suffering towards somebody that we perceive as being our superior. But sometimes it's much more difficult to show those things towards somebody we perceive as our equal or perhaps somehow beneath us in some way. And how you treat the people who are equal to you, how you treat the guy in the next cubicle to you, how you treat the person in the next desk over, how you treat those people, that's a far better measure of your character than how you treat the boss. Because everybody wants to be nice to the boss. That's how you get ahead. Friends, how do you treat the people who are right there with you? That's the real measure of a person's character, isn't it? I remember reading a charming story once about a woman who talked about how she assessed the men that she dated in college. She would go over and she'd see the guy in the dorm complex and what she would look for is not how the guy treated her. She figured, listen, I'm the date. He's going to treat me nice. That doesn't say anything. She looked at how the guy treated the custodial crew at the dorm room. You know, the men, the women who were the janitors. If he just treated them spitefully and laid down trash for them to pick up and spoke meanly or a superior way to them, then she knew something about that man. She could measure that man's character not by how he treated her, but how he treated the people who might be thought of as beneath him. Friends, that's how it is with us. I think David was probably hung up on this exact point. It was one thing for him to show this forbearance and this long-suffering to Saul. It was a whole other thing to do it to Nabal. And so he says, let's get the 400 men. Let's go. Let's have ourselves a little wipe out here. And so he goes and they mount up and they're on the way. Friends, this is a very critical situation. I want you to see the hand of the devil at work right here. If David were to do something in this fit of passion and rage so foolish as to go and to massacre the men of the household there, think of what the repercussions would be. David might be disqualified from being the king over Israel. I mean, what would it be known as soon as it got around Israel that David massacred a whole household of men because they insulted him. That might disqualify him in the eyes of many people as being a valid leader for Israel. I think Satan is at work trying to derail David from his destiny. And he's inflaming his passions. You can imagine what Satan was whispering in David's ear all the while they were riding over to Nabal. You don't have to take this. How can they treat you like this? You've got to stand up here. Come on, David. You've got the men. You don't have to take any more of this. Notice what's happening here on another level. As much as Satan's at work, we know the Lord's at work here. And that's where we pick it up in verse 14. And one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, and he reviled them. But when the men were very good to us and we were not hurt and we did not miss anything as long as we accompanied them when we were in the fields, they were a wall to us both by night and by day. All the time we were with them keeping the sheep. Now, therefore, know and consider what you will do for harm as determined against our master and against all his household, for he is such a scoundrel that one cannot speak to him. Well, the messengers, excuse me, the servants of Nabal who saw this little exchange between David's ten messengers and Nabal, they're horrified. Nabal doesn't know it. He's such a fool. But these guys know it. They say, listen, you don't talk this way to David because this man is a mighty warrior. You don't get in his face this way. And they run to Abigail and say, Abigail, you've got to do something here because you know Nabal, he's such a fool. His name fits him. He's a scoundrel. Listen, you've got to do something for harm is determined upon us. David and his men deserve what they were asking for. And they were treated so rudely. So what does Abigail do? Wisely, she springs into action. Look at this, verse 18, Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already dressed, five sails of roasted grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cages of figs and loaded them on donkeys. And she said to her servants, go on before me. You see, I am coming after you. But she did not tell her husband Nabal. So it was as she rode the donkey that she went down under cover of the hill and there were David and his men coming down toward her and she met them. Now think about this. Abigail is very wise. She says, what was it that David's men were asking for? Well, payment, provisions. That's what they were asking for, just compensation for services rendered. And so she says, listen, let's give them what they were asking for. So she gets up all this food and if you notice here, it's pretty staggering, isn't it? Two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already dressed. Now, consider this. If Nabal had this much on hand around the house, that shows how ungenerous he was to David to not give him this stuff to begin with. I mean, if Abigail could get this stuff together at a moment's notice, it really speaks ill of Nabal that he was so tight-fisted with David. And so Nabal simply, excuse me, Abigail was simply doing what Nabal should have done, but did not do on this occasion. Now, notice here what happened. He would pick it up at verse 21. Now, David had said, surely in vain I've protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness so that nothing was missed of all that belongs to him. And he's repaid me evil for good. May God do so, and more also to the enemies of David if I leave one male of all who belong to him by morning light. I want you to kind of compare verse 21 and verse 22. In verse 21, I would say that David is accurate. Wouldn't you? Surely in vain I have protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness. Well, I could see where David would be accurate in that. He provided a service for Nabal, and it's been in vain because Nabal won't pay him. Okay, David, you got that fact correct. Going on in verse 21. And he has repaid me evil for good. Well, was that accurate? Yeah, it certainly was. David, you got your facts straight. No problem with your facts, David. The problem is, David has his facts straight, but his heart isn't right. Look at what he says in verse 22. May God do so, and more also to the enemies of David if I leave one male of all who belong to him by morning light. I'm going to kill him and every male in his household. Wow. Now, I want you to think about this. Because I think that there are some very important things here. David, who had so marvelously resisted the temptation before to take vengeance, is now taking it, and he has his facts right, but his heart isn't right with God. Friends, doesn't this challenge us? How are you going to take it when you're wronged? How are you going to take it when you're insulted or mistreated? This is going to be a real measure of your own walk with the Lord. David did not do what he should have done in this instance. You know, in so many of the psalms, we read about it, that David wrote this psalm when he was in this situation. David wrote this psalm when he was in this situation. There is no psalm that says David wrote this when he was on the way to go thump Nabal. Because David wasn't talking to God during this time, was he? David should have been. He should have been pouring out his heart to God as he'd done in other psalms. I mean, in some of the psalms, you read David saying, he says, Lord, break their teeth in their mouth. Now, that's a heavy prayer to pray to somebody. But David used to pray that kind of prayer. But friends, it's far better to pray that prayer than for you to go and to go out and break somebody's teeth in their mouth. David said, I'll give it to the Lord. I'll let Him do it. But that's not what he was saying right here. He wasn't in prayer. He was just moving in the passion of his flesh. And since David was a passionate man, he was passionately moved at this moment. And he was going to miss out on what God had. He could have disqualified himself for something marvelous that God had ahead of him. Friends, do you understand what a critical juncture this is? Please, it also makes us say, wait a minute here, wait a minute. David, in the previous chapter, you resisted the temptation to take vengeance when you had the opportunity. But now, you're giving in to it. And doesn't that kind of sober us? Doesn't it kind of wake us up? You know, my friend, you can resist the temptation and resist it time and time again. But let me just tell you straight out, it's going to come back. Or another temptation will come back. And you know how often we have to be on guard? All the time. David resisted it one place, but here he's falling himself, falling prey to it. So what do you do? You just have to resist it again. Now, God's going to show his faith in us, David. I have to tell you, we have to leave it off here. It's kind of a cliffhanger. I don't know what's going to happen with David here. I don't know what's going to happen to Nabal. Seems like there's going to be some bloodshed here, but we'll have to see what the Lord's going to do with this. My friends, do you get what's happening here? Do you understand that here, at this time, at this place, David is being tempted in a place and he succeeded there before, but now it looks like he's going to fall. Alan Redpath said, Does it not show, beyond all possible doubt, that I cannot stand against the enemy of my soul unless the Lord upholds me moment by moment? This story tells me that however long I may have been on the Christian path, however often I may have overcome one temptation or another, however many times I defeated sin in one area, it can strike in another and crush me in a moment. And that's what David was facing. Friends, the Lord has His victory for us. The Lord has His way of sustaining us. And my friends, we've got to trust in Him and look to Him moment by moment. Then we'll have the victory. Then we'll have the joy and the power that He wants to give us. But David was confronted with this. He was faced with this at a powerful place. We'll see what the Lord does to protect David and to preserve him in the midst of it next week. But you need to be protected, don't you? You need to be preserved. So let's pray right now and ask the Lord to do that.
(1 Samuel) How Not to Respond to an Insult
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David Guzik (1966 - ). American pastor, Bible teacher, and author born in California. Raised in a nominally Catholic home, he converted to Christianity at 13 through his brother’s influence and began teaching Bible studies at 16. After earning a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, he entered ministry without formal seminary training. Guzik pastored Calvary Chapel Simi Valley from 1988 to 2002, led Calvary Chapel Bible College Germany as director for seven years, and has served as teaching pastor at Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara since 2010. He founded Enduring Word in 2003, producing a free online Bible commentary used by millions, translated into multiple languages, and published in print. Guzik authored books like Standing in Grace and hosts podcasts, including Through the Bible. Married to Inga-Lill since the early 1990s, they have three adult children. His verse-by-verse teaching, emphasizing clarity and accessibility, influences pastors and laypeople globally through radio and conferences.