[0:00] probably on all of your minds is why in the world choose that passage for a sermon? Didn't he have a choice of any passage he could choose from the entire Bible and he somehow landed on 1 Samuel 25? Did he lose some sort of bet or something to preach this passage? And the question is what do we do with passages like this? Because if you're anything like I am, you come across passages in your daily Bible reading all the time and maybe you're doing a daily Bible reading plan. You come across a passage like this. You just kind of read it, scratch your head. You've never seen a verse out of this on one of those calendars they create or anything like that and you just move on to the next section hoping it's from the Psalms or from the Gospel of John or something like that. But if you think about it, the bulk of our Bibles are really made up of kind of confusing, interesting passages like this. So I think we have to learn what do we make of passages like this? How do we actually, what does God have to say to us in hard passages like this? How do we glean from them? What do we do with these passages? And many of the commentators and pastors as I was studying and preparing for this sermon also seemed very confused of what to make of this passage. My favorite was I came across, now I didn't listen to the sermon, but there was a sermon titled, What to Do When You're in a Bad Marriage on this passage. Now I'm not sure if the advice or application of this sermon was hold a feast and fatten up your husband or bring David and his men in with swords or what exactly it was, but I can assure you that was probably a much more interesting sermon than what you're going to hear. But I think it shows we just kind of don't know what to do with these passages. And let me just say from the outset that I don't think the primary point of 1 Samuel 25 is to tell all of you men, men do not be like Nabal, and all of you women, women be like Abigail, and find your David and get married. I think there are, there are hints of that, and I'll mention them throughout the sermon, but I don't think that's the primary point of passages like this. A biography I was reading recently, it began with this quote. It said, quote, in reality it is impossible to write a person's biography, for what we call a person's life constitutes only half of that person's existence, what he has done, thought, sought, what sins he's committed. A truly biographical sketch would require seeing the other half of a person's life as well, God's dealings with him, God's boundless concern for him, God's gracious watchfulness over him, end quote. And that quote gave me insight into the beauty of what it is we actually have in our Bibles. We don't just have the human perspective, we don't just have stories of what people did and thought and how they sinned, but we're also given the inspired look into behind the scenes of God's dealings with these men, of God's hand, and how he cares for them, and how he works in their lives. And what most of the sermons I heard on 1 Samuel 25 did really only the first half.
[3:17] They talked about the sins of David, the sins of Nabal, and the righteousness of Abigail. But most people seem to miss the second, the unseen half of chapters just like this, of God's quiet, strong hand working in these kind of passages. And I think that's what 1 Samuel 25 is really all about.
[3:39] It's about God's hand intervening in normal, everyday, strange affairs. It's about his silent providence stopping some people's hearts and pulling some people's hearts back and the arm of the Lord being revealed. So to organize this sermon, I just want to introduce you to each of these three characters. I want to introduce you to Nabal. I wanted to introduce you to David. I wanted to introduce you to Abigail. And not just look at what these people did, but look at what God did with these people as well. So I'm just going to introduce you to each of them. So let's begin with Nabal.
[4:14] We're introduced to Nabal. If you look in your Bibles in verse 2, that's where we first meet Nabal. It says, there was a man in my own whose business was in Carmel. That's how this chapter begins. And the first thing we learn about this man is his business. And in the next sentence, if you look at the next sentence, we're told that this man is very rich. And in the next sentence, we're told just how rich this man is, how many sheeps and goats this man really had. Sheep and goats. But we still haven't been told his name yet, which is interesting because at this time, when this was being written, people weren't defined primarily by their occupations yet. People were defined by their families, by their genealogies, by whose son they were. So to introduce a man by what he did, by his possessions, is intentional. It's interesting. It's different than what you would normally find in the Bible.
[5:08] Why have his sheep and goats precede even his own name and even his own family and father? Here's why I think that we're being introduced to the passage this way. The narrator of 1 Samuel 25 wants you to see in the black and white words of this story that this man's life, whatever his name might be, first of all, revolves around his property. It revolves around his wealth. It revolves around his sheep and his goats. In other words, ultimately, this man's life revolves around himself.
[5:41] This man is simply put, selfish. That's what we learn right from the get-go. And only after we're told about his wealth and his property and his goats do we finally learn his name. And if you look in verse 3, we finally learn his name. And it says, now the name of the man was Nabal. In Hebrew, and Abigail will tell you this a little bit later on, the name of the man, Nabal, literally means fool. Now fool doesn't just mean someone who's a little bit slow or someone who's a little bit immature. It means, quote, a vicious, materialistic, and egocentric misfit. It describes someone who has a sphere of influence and who squanders it. He uses his influence for nothing. And he's really, the Bible kind of characterizes him.
[6:29] He's worth nothing himself. This is the same word that's used. If you remember Psalm 14, it says, the fool, the Nabal, says in his heart, there is no God. The same word, the Nabal. And if you've ever read the book of Proverbs and you've wondered, you read about the fool and you wonder, what would it actually look like to meet this fool that the Proverbs talks so much about? That's the Nabal. You're meeting him in this passage.
[7:00] This is the fool. And if you look at verse 9, David's men come and knock on Nabal's door. And the reason they're coming is because they had been watching Nabal's flocks and protecting them.
[7:14] And so they come and they just say, can we just, we know you're feasting. We're just asking for what's rightfully ours because we've been working for you. Is there just even scraps from your table that we could eat? Because we've been working for you and your men can tell you we've been protecting them. We've been nothing but good to them.
[7:36] And look at the end of verse 9. It says, they waited. Now, if we're talking about how to read interesting chapters of the Bible, like 1 Samuel 25, we have to ask, why include a detail like this?
[7:50] And this is kind of the key to learning to read passages like this, is ask questions about the details of these passages. Why include, they waited? Because it just shows, again, how selfish Nabal truly is.
[8:03] He doesn't mind letting people wait while he's going to feast at his door. Even his own people who've been serving him. And even when he does come to the door, the first words out of his mouth only prove the insult he intended.
[8:15] Look what Nabal says immediately. He says, who's this David? Who's this David? Now, let's just be clear. Nabal knew exactly who David was.
[8:28] There wasn't anyone in the land who didn't know the name of David. This wasn't a question. This was an insult. This wasn't a question. This was a challenge. In other words, David, no matter how famous your name is, you're on my land now.
[8:44] No matter your war victories, your fame, your right to the throne, no matter God's anointing upon you, you step on my land, your name means nothing here. Who is this David who's asking for food from me?
[8:59] And he continues, look in verse 11. He says, shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?
[9:14] What do you notice about that sentence? So many first person pronouns. My bread. My water. Mine.
[9:24] In Hebrew, there are eight uses of the first person pronoun in that sentence. Me, me, me, me, me, me.
[9:34] His words are packed with himself. And now we can see just in these first few words out of Nabal's mouth just how fitting our introduction was to this man. Why we met his sheep before we met his own name.
[9:49] His possessions, his sheep are even more part of who he is than his name, which is saying something. And we just might pause here. And this is kind of the first half of how to read the Bible that I'm talking about.
[10:01] And just pause and say, just look at how God has painted a picture of foolishness for us in the Bible. It's this. Foolishness can be broken down into one simple trait.
[10:16] Just one simple trait. Foolishness is selfishness. Foolishness is selfishness. So some of us here this morning might be in the midst of decision making. And maybe you're wrestling with a decision.
[10:28] And you're wondering, is this a foolish decision? And I think you could answer that pretty simply by asking a follow-up question. Is this a selfish decision? You know, how much does this decision revolve around you and your own name and your own possessions?
[10:44] And some of us, the more humble, might even be willing to say, you know, am I a fool? Like, am I still foolish at my core? And you could just ask.
[10:55] I think this passage would guide us into asking. Just a simple test. How often does the word I, me, and my come up in your own conversations? How much do your conversations revolve around your own name?
[11:11] See, our culture wants you to just love and focus on you. The good life will be one that revolves around you. But look how unlovely a life revolving around the self truly is.
[11:23] It's absolutely disgusting to see a life that just is focused on you. Now that you've met Nabal, I want you to meet David.
[11:34] Let's meet David in this passage. This is a fascinating passage for David, actually. Because it seems like when we read this, it seems like we meet a David that we don't really know.
[11:45] Up to this point, we feel like we know David. We knew the David who was the humble sheep boy who wrote psalms to the Lord that we sang some of this morning. We knew the David who went to battle with a giant to protect the name of the Lord, not his own name.
[12:00] He was willing to die for the honor of the name of the Lord. We knew the David who wouldn't pursue the Philistines without checking with the Lord twice to make sure he wouldn't do something that God didn't want him to do.
[12:12] We knew the David whose heart condemned him for so much as touching the cloak of the Lord's anointed. He got crushed when he did that by his own conscience. But as we turn to this chapter, it's like we meet a whole different David all of a sudden.
[12:27] We meet a David who snaps at an insult and tells everyone to put on their swords and to go protect themselves in their own honor. A David who's willing to kill over his own name for his own sake.
[12:40] And I think if we were to have read through all of 1 Samuel, I think you would say, we meet a David here who sadly looks a lot like Saul.
[12:54] Saul was hungry for his own honor. You know that. He wasn't afraid to throw spears and to kill priests for the sake of his name and his own respect. And in this chapter, David almost becomes Saul.
[13:08] He almost does the same thing Saul does. And the question I think we have to ask if we're reading our Bibles well is why didn't he? Why didn't David become Saul?
[13:19] And it's not that David just was riding up and was like, you know what? I'm not that kind of guy. I'm the good guy. I don't do this kind of stuff. David and his men were riding up with their swords strapped to them.
[13:36] David knows what the only difference between him and Saul was. And if you look at verse 34, he tells you what the difference was. He says, the Lord, the God of Israel restrained me.
[13:53] That's the difference. The Lord, the God of Israel restrained me. And the word restrained is used throughout the Bible for pulling things back or separating things.
[14:04] It's the idea of a hand directing something. And in verse 33, David says it again. He says, David says he was kept back. He was pulled back from doing this thing.
[14:16] Again, in verse 39, it kind of begins to pop out when you see it. David says, blessed be the Lord who has, there it is again, kept back his servant from wrongdoing. So what was the difference between Saul and David?
[14:30] Why didn't David become Saul? It was that the Lord's hand pulled David back. Just as the Lord pulled back the waters of the Red Sea to let the Israelites walk through on dry ground, the Lord pulled back the heart of David from doing this thing, from his own sinfulness.
[14:48] Do you see, David wasn't just by nature a better guy than Saul. He didn't just come to some idea that kept him from doing it. God decided, even covenanted, to have his hand actively involved in the life of David.
[15:04] If you look at verse 29, look at what Abigail even says about how the Lord cares for David. Verse 29. It's this crazy phrase in your Bibles that says, The life of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living care of the Lord your God.
[15:19] It's like so superlative language. Bound up in the bundle of the care of the living God. In other words, commentators kind of debate what this means, but I think the idea is simple.
[15:35] God has wrapped his arms around David and covenanted not to let him go. God says, I'm not pulling my arms back. I have you wrapped in my arms.
[15:48] I've covenanted to keep you. And if I can just ask you, and I've been asking myself this question, do you think about grace like that in your own life?
[16:00] Do you think about grace just as something that covers your sin and not as the hand of God holding you back from your own sinfulness? Do you think about grace that way?
[16:11] As the hand of God covenanting and saying, I will hold you. I have you wrapped in the bundle of my care, and I'm not going to let you go. Do you think about grace that way? You see, the crazy reality is that God intercepts us on our own roads to foolish decisions.
[16:28] He gets in our way. He graciously builds walls in front of us that keep us from our own sinfulness. And I just wonder, how would we actually pray if we actually believed that God did that for us?
[16:40] How would we pray differently if we actually believed those realities? Would we pray, God, frustrate my sinful purposes? God, would you get in my way?
[16:52] God, would you pull me back from my own sinful inclinations? God, would you keep my own heart back from the things that it wants sometimes? Do we thank God when he says no to us?
[17:07] Look at how David prays in verse 39. He says, blessed be the Lord. Blessed be the Lord who has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. How often do we say, blessed be the Lord, because he's kept me back from whatever I wanted to do in that moment.
[17:25] The theologian Herman Bovink wrote, how little God is recognized for what he gives us. How little God is recognized for what he gives us.
[17:35] And if I can humbly add to the great theologian a sentence, I would say, how little God is recognized for what he also keeps from us. You see, even in David's folly, even in your folly, God doesn't relinquish his hold on you.
[17:51] He doesn't unwrap you from his care. He still has his hands wrapped around your heart. And the most terrifying reality that could ever happen in any of our lives, a moment.
[18:05] Hold on us that that bundle of living care would unravel just for a second. And for God to let you go, for God to let your heart go after what it wants. For God, as Paul would later write in Romans chapter one, to turn you over, to hand you over to your own desires.
[18:23] Because God's hand is the only thing that kept David from becoming Saul. And you see, when we begin to view our world through that lens, through God's kind hand, it changes the way we view things.
[18:39] We can all of a sudden begin to view the world differently. We can, without dismissing the grief of this world, we can say thank you, and even blessed be the Lord for really hard realities in our lives.
[18:53] We can say, thank you, Lord, for whatever reason that I didn't get that job that I wanted. I wasn't accepted into that school that I wanted. Or life just didn't turn out the way I thought it was going to.
[19:05] Or life is more dull than I thought it was going to be. And we can say, God, I don't understand. I don't understand the reason behind this, but I feel your hand. And you know what?
[19:16] Even if I don't feel your hand, I know because the Bible tells me so, your hand is there. And I know that you're kind. And I know you're doing something here. There's a, basically, if you ever hear me preach, you'll probably hear at least one reference to Sinclair Ferguson.
[19:36] And he was giving a question and answer. And the question that was posed to him was, what do you have to say to those who struggle with trusting God?
[19:46] That was the, that was the question that was posed to him. What do you do? What do you have to say to those who struggle with trusting God in their lives? And in classic Sinclair fashion, he doesn't beat them over the head, but his first word is to not, he wouldn't, he would tell those people not to be too discouraged in their life.
[20:05] Actually, he would say to be encouraged. Why? Because of that word struggling. Because you're struggling. Because the reality is, if God's arm wasn't involved actively in your life, there would be no struggle.
[20:19] And your heart would absolutely not trust God. But in your struggle, you can actually feel God's arm. And you can hear him saying, no, no, I'm not losing my grip on you.
[20:31] I know that life is hard, but I'm not releasing you. My arm is still going to be actively involved in your life. I've covenanted to hold you, even through the struggles of life. And so when you feel that reality in your life, when you go through hard seasons, you can remember God's arm is still involved in your life.
[20:49] And in a crazy way, you can say, Lord, I don't understand, but thank you that you're working. And I trust that this is best for me. Now, we met the first two characters.
[21:03] Let's meet our final character, Abigail. We meet Abigail, if you just back up again, we meet Abigail in verse three. And notice how differently she's introduced to us, rather than Nabal.
[21:19] Nabal, we weren't, we were told about his sheep and then his name. We are told Abigail's name immediately. If you look in verse three, now the name of his wife was Abigail. And if you look at verse three, it actually forms a sort of chiasm, meaning that the descriptions of Abigail and Nabal are wrapped around each other.
[21:42] They go back and forth, back and forth. And I think the reason it does that is it wants you to feel the contrast between Abigail and Nabal. These people don't even belong in the same sentence with each other.
[21:54] They're so different, let alone the same marriage with each other. Nabal is a gorging fool. That's how we're told about this man. Abigail is smart and beautiful.
[22:05] Nabal was introduced by his sheep and his goats. Abigail is introduced by her name and her wisdom and her beauty. And the word used to describe Abigail, it might be discerning in your Bible, but actually it's the word used all throughout the Old Testament, specifically in Proverbs for wisdom.
[22:26] It's the word used for wisdom. Here are just a few examples. Proverbs 12, 8. A man shall be commended according to his wisdom. That's the word used to describe Abigail here.
[22:38] But he that is perverse of heart shall be despised. That's Proverbs 12, 8. Here's just another. This is Proverbs chapter 16, verse 22. Here it's understanding.
[22:50] Understanding, again, the word used to describe Abigail, is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it. But the correction of fools is their folly. Those are just two examples.
[23:02] But do you see how in each of those examples, the idea of wisdom or understanding is directly contrasted to the idea of foolishness and folly? It is the exact opposite.
[23:13] It could not be more opposite. And that is exactly true of Abigail. She is the exact opposite of her husband. She is wisdom embodied.
[23:24] And let's just look at how Abigail is presented to us in this narrative, and then we'll conclude. Look what Abigail says to David in verse 28. If you look at verse 28, she says, For the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house.
[23:41] And she says also, The lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. She also says to him that he will appoint you prince over Israel.
[23:52] Do those statements sound familiar to you? If not, those are the first murmurs, the first traces of the Davidic covenant happening in the Bible.
[24:06] Twelve chapters before God makes the Davidic covenant with David. You see, in her wisdom, Abigail is actually functioning prophetically here.
[24:16] Samuel the prophet has died. That's the first words of 1 Samuel chapter 25. Samuel the prophet died. The prophet over Israel is dead. And we see Abigail step in and speak prophetic words to David.
[24:33] The second thing we see is we also see Abigail standing in between David and Nabal. And the way she presents herself is she bears the guilt for her husband, of her husband's foolish actions.
[24:46] Notice the first words out of her mouth when she meets David. She falls to the ground. And what does she say? She says, On me alone be the guilt for my husband. In other words, I'll bear the sin of literally the fool.
[24:59] I'll bear the sin for him. Take me in his place. Kill me instead of the fool. And she, in essence, says to David and his men, Please put away your swords.
[25:13] And in verse 26, what has she saved David from? She saved him from blood guilt. She saved him from the guilt of his own blood. And she says in verse 28, Please forgive the trespass of your servant.
[25:28] Now when we read, Please forgive the trespass of your servant, I think we would probably all assume she's referring to Nabal. Please forgive the trespass of your servant, Nabal.
[25:39] But actually she's not. The word servant is actually feminine. In other words, she's saying, Please forgive the trespass of me. She's absorbing the guilt of her husband into herself and saying, Please forgive me.
[25:53] I'll bear his guilt for him. In other words, Abigail's acting as both priest and substitution. She's interceding and offering herself as payment for her own foolish husband.
[26:08] And the third way Abigail's functioning is she takes action. If you look in verse 14, one of the servants runs to Abigail and tells her what Nabal has done. And it says, Abigail acted quickly.
[26:20] Starting in verse 14, almost every sentence that's not dialogue begins with Abigail. Abigail is the subject. She's the actor. Just run your eyes down the page.
[26:32] Verse 18, Then Abigail. Verse 19, And she, Abigail said. Verse 20, As she, Abigail wrote. Verse 23, She, Abigail hurried. Verse 24, She fell.
[26:45] Do you see the picture? Abigail took the whole situation into her own hands that was unraveling around her. Verse 14, literally in Hebrew starts, But Abigail.
[26:57] In other words, Nabal has made a fool of himself. David and his men and 400 others are rushing up with swords. But Abigail stands in the midst of this. This situation would have gotten out of hand.
[27:11] But Abigail. She is functioning as the ruler in this situation, controlling both of these people. One is soon to be king, the other described as a king.
[27:22] She stands in the middle and says she controls the whole situation. So do we see how the text is putting Abigail before us? She is the full embodiment of wisdom itself.
[27:34] She is the prophet in the place of the dead prophet Samuel. She is acting as the priest in the sacrifice, in place of the wayward priests and the defiled sacrifices in the land of Israel.
[27:45] And she rules in the place of the fallen Saul. And hopefully, as you hear me describe, that all of the dots begin to fall into place in the shadows of John 12 that would come one day.
[27:58] We see Abigail riding down the mountain toward David on a donkey. Abigail, her name meaning the delight of the father. And this should remind you of the father's words over his son at his baptism.
[28:14] You're my son. I'm delighted in you. And David was a king. And verse 36 compares Nabal to a king. And Abigail stands in between two kings with shadows of Jesus who would stand between two kings, the king of the heavens and the dark king of this age, and says, On me alone be the guilt.
[28:34] I'll bear the guilt for this. And all of a sudden, Nabal makes more sense. He's described twice in this chapter as the son of Belial in the original.
[28:45] The son of Belial in verses 17 and 25, which is how Satan is described in the New Testament. So if Abigail is a shadowy picture of Christ, Nabal is a shadowy picture of Satan.
[29:00] And Abigail comes out to meet David riding down in a donkey just as Christ did. And she said, I'll bear the guilt for the fool. I'll die for the fool, the Nabal. I'll be the atonement.
[29:12] And that's her first coming in this passage. And she leaves and returns to Nabal. And it says in verse 37 that his heart died within him and he became a stone. Nabal is alive but dead.
[29:26] For a period of 10 days, he remains ruler of the land but bound in lifelessness. And I think this is supposed to be a picture of Satan even now, still in power but bound, waiting to be finally defeated by the hand of God.
[29:42] Finally, 10 days later, the Lord struck him with a final blow and he dies. And when God does finally strike him dead, look what happens next. Then, the second coming.
[29:53] Abigail returns a second time. This time not to satisfy blood guilt but for a marriage feast. And once again, she rises and mounts a donkey. And we should hear the subtle rumblings of Revelation 21, of the bride adorned for her husband coming down.
[30:11] And what does she say in verse 41? She says, I will come and wash the feet of the servants of my Lord. And we see a shadowy picture of Jesus in John 13, grabbing a basin and a towel, saying, if I do not wash you, you have no share in me.
[30:27] What a beautiful picture that's been painted for us in such an unlikely place. 1 Samuel 25 becomes what once was a forgotten, confusing passage, a subtle picture of redemption for us.
[30:41] It's like when a painter paints a picture and no one knows what it is and he turns it upside down and you see it all so clearly. It's beautiful. So in conclusion, what do we make of all this?
[30:51] What are we supposed to do with all of this? How does this all fit together? What do we walk away with into our Sunday afternoon with? Firstly, as we talked about in our first point, foolishness is just merely selfishness.
[31:05] And if your life this morning does revolve around you and you have the humility to admit that, then you can't just fix that on your own. You need someone to come and say, stop, stop your feasting, stop your selfishness, put down your swords.
[31:22] You need someone who will say, I'll die for the fool. I'll die for the fool. Take me instead. Instead, your guilt is mine. Take me. And maybe you have said that this morning and you do believe that.
[31:36] You realize your own foolishness and you still find yourself bound up with foolishness and sinfulness. What do you do? If you know you'll go back home for lunch and return to the same old self-seeking arguments and conflict with your family, what do you do?
[31:51] I think you pray this prayer this morning and each moment you pray it on your drive home and at lunch, you say, Lord, restrain me from myself.
[32:03] Lord, keep me back from my own selfishness today. Keep me from that argument today. You know what? If that argument does happen, let me have the humility to lose that argument today.
[32:15] You see, we all need a view of the world that says thank you when God doesn't do things our way. When God says, you know what? You're not going to get your way this afternoon. It's not going to be the perfect restful afternoon the way you want it.
[32:28] And you know what? That's actually good because that means this afternoon is going to be a little bit less about you and a little bit more about other people. And that selfishness will die slowly day after day after day.
[32:39] And ultimately, we all need a heart that rests in God's providence. That's what we need. You need the opposite of Psalm 14 to be true in your life. And here's the opposite of Psalm 14.
[32:50] It's that the wise one says in his heart, there is a God and he will look after me even when I don't know what God is doing. He will care for me.
[33:01] That's what you need to say in your heart of hearts. And so the last question we have to ask is how do we get our hearts to say that? How do we convince our hearts to say that even when it doesn't feel like it?
[33:12] On Tuesdays, how do we get our hearts to say that? The last thing in Zephaniah chapter 3, there's this beautiful section that talks about the future when the Lord will be in the midst of his people and he will have handled all of their enemies and he will be caring for them.
[33:28] And there's this little line that says, the Lord will quiet you by his love. The Lord will quiet you by his love. That's Zephaniah chapter 3. In other words, to get a heart that's quieted, you need to be sure that the Lord loves you.
[33:45] That's what you need to be sure of this morning. That is the only way that you continue on in the Christian life. You need to know that the Father loves you and that his hand is working good things for you.
[33:58] And that's what the arm of the Lord should do for you. When you know that he loves you, it should quiet your heart and say, you know what? The Lord loves me and he's doing good things for me. It should quiet your troubled heart.
[34:09] It should enable you to look at your past and say, you know what? Blessed be the God of Israel. Even when you said no and even when life didn't turn out the way I had planned, blessed be the God of Israel because he loves me and I know this is best for me.
[34:26] And in verse 34, David realizes how lost he would have been. He says, oh, how lost I would have been unless you had hurried out to meet me, Abigail. The destruction that would have come upon my life unless you would have come out to meet me.
[34:40] Unless Abigail had quieted him in her love. And that's the final thing I would say is do you realize how lost you would have been if Jesus wouldn't have hurried out to meet you? Or do you miss the days before you were a Christian?
[34:53] The fun you had as a non-believer? Or do you see how out of hand it all would have gotten? The but Abigail, the but Jesus of your life. What a mess we would be without him.
[35:06] Is that the cry of your heart this morning? Oh Jesus, unless you had come down to meet me, oh, what would have become of me? Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for your word.
[35:27] Thank you. Lord, I pray that you would quiet us all here by your love. Lord, that you would convince us deep down that you love us and that your plans are good and that your arm is for our good and that you are not done working.
[35:43] And I pray that you would give us the heart to see your kind, quiet hand in our life that says no to things that we sometimes want. And I pray that you would revolutionize my prayer life and everyone's prayer life in this room that we'd begin to start our days praying, God, would you keep me back from the things that you don't have for me?
[36:02] God, would you protect me and build walls in my life for sinful things that I might go after without even realizing how sinful it is today or how foolish it is? And I pray that you would give us the eyes to see a world that isn't wrapped up in ourselves but give us hearts to trust and a heart that says deep down in our hearts there is a God and he cares for me.
[36:27] Thank you, Lord, that you are good and kind and you love us. I pray this in Christ's name. Amen. We are going to sing one last song. We are going to sing Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus.
[36:41] If you will stand with me for our final song. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.