The Fool and His Wife

The title of the message this morning is the Fool

and his Wife. Of course, it makes a husband look

pretty bad. The title am all right, yeah it does now.

Magnan McLaughlin was a world renowned journalist who lived in Baltimore,

and she was well known for her wise sayings that

were collected in many books. Mignan once said this, a

successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with

the same person, whether she knew it or not. Mignan

resonates with the apostle Paul, who wrote this admonition to husbands,

take up, gentlemen, open your bibles for this one. Colossians three,

verse nineteen. You can look on the screen. You should

mark this one. Put a big bookmarker in your Bible,

and don't forget it. Okay, Colossian's three nineteen. Husbands, love

your wives and do not What does it say? Come on,

be come on. I want to hear it loud from you, gentlemen.

Come on, do not be harsh with them. Wow, now,

I'm saying right now. In the Christian life, if a

woman bounces up and down in your family situation, it's

the godly duty of a man to not be harsh

with his wife, and to try to avoid at all costs.

Sometimes it's not easy, but it's nonetheless God's calling. Now,

perhaps Paul had the person of Nabel in mind when

he penned this admonition of the church at Colossia. I

think he did. Nabel's name in Hebrew means fool. He

was married to Abigail, and her name in Hebrew means

my father's joy. Now let's turn our bibles to First

Samuel twenty five to one for the introduction to the

story of the Fool and his wife. First Samuel twenty five,

verse one. Then Samuel died, the greatest of the judges,

the transitionary figure from the time of the job to

the kings. And it says, and the Israelites gathered together

and lamented for him and buried him at his home

in Rama. And David arose and went down to the

wilderness of Paran. Now there was a man in my

own whose business was caramel, and the man was very rich.

He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. How

many of you like to be rich? Come on, you

dishonest folk, raise your hand. If you want to be rich, well,

you need three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and

then you'll be rich. Now, my son raises goats and sheep,

and I'm telling you, I think it makes you poor

in this day and age. They eat so much and

the like. It says that he was shearing his sheep

in Carmel. Now we know from antiquity that occurred in

the spring, around the time of the Passover. And the

name of the man was Nabel, and the name of

his wife Abigail. And she was a woman of good

understanding and beautiful appearance. But the man was harsh. And

notice what it says. The man was what harsh? And

then what's the next word? And evil in his doings,

And he was of the house of Caleb. And we

should pay attention to those verses in this passage. The

attributes of Abigail and Enable stand clear. In stark contrast.

In the story, Nabel, whose name means fool, has the

perfect match for him. It would appear someone who has

everything he needs. According to the Hebrew text, his wife

was beautiful and formally she also possessed what he lacked.

The Bible says she was a woman of good understanding.

The sharpened Hebrew meaning is literally. She was good at insight,

good at perception, what we might call that intuitive emotional intelligence,

able to sense the need in others. She had the

innate gift of empathy, insight, understanding, wisdom, qualities that God

highly values in a believing woman. Now, not every woman

has those in great measure, but the Holy Spirit can

height the feminine aspect of insight to where that can

be president every woman. She was also very pretty, and

that didn't hurt her either. Gentlemen, want to raise your

hand to that? Is that a good idea? Yeah? Now,

Abigail was named by a father who named her My

father is Joy. That's what her name means. Abigail was

named by a father who named her my father's Joy.

If he was thinking about God, that was a good thing, right.

If he was thinking about himself, he was a narcissist

because he was just praising himself in naming his daughter.

Clinical psychologists have chronicled the fact that people who have

narcissistic tendencies or who are clinically narcissists, are naturally drawn

to people who are empathetic, insightful, and caring. They often

match up. They seek out their opposites in life to

feed their need for dominance, control, narcissistic supply information. And

yet these wise impaths, who seem to be in the

way of the narcissist, hold the very key that would

help them if they allowed the impath to guide to

redirect those negative qualities. And a. Nabel's father named him

with the awful name fool. Imagine having a son. You're

there at the nursery trying to think of the perfect name,

and you say, I'm going to name my son fool.

What kind of father would name his son fool? No

doubt a fool would name his son fool. Fools beget fools.

The Bible planning states that Nabel was harsh and evil,

so probably an abusive father would do that. Harsh father

would create a harsh child. When a person is consistently harsh,

when they don't allow their anger to come under the

power of the Holy Spirit, when they will not reason,

when they have to blow their stack to get their

way and they refuse to dress it as a character fault,

they are well on their way to become an evil.

Did you hear it? God calls on his people woman

alike to be kind, tender hearted, merciful, because he is kind,

tender hearted, and merciful. I've been a pastor many years,

and you see all kinds of things in ministry. I've

seen people who held high offices who just went out

of their way to let other people have it. I

had a pastor who called me just this week on

the phone. I'm not going to let you know who

he is, where he's at. He was struggling with the

situation in his church where there was a lady, multi

very talented woman who couldn't prevent herself from losing it

in the church at other people, and yet she would.

One day she slipped and actually said that she had

a problem, but then she quickly forgot that she did.

Now is the church for people like this? Yes or no?

It is? Where else can you be healed and become

whole If it isn't the church. The church is the

place where God meets us in our needs. We're all

in a continuum. We all have our faults, we all

mess up. We can blow up or not. We can

lose it or not based on our time of life,

our circumstance, our waning or growing relationship with God affects

all of this. But when it settles in deep like

it did with Nabel. You got a problem. A mean

spouse who gossips or politics to get their way, or

who bullies to get their way or manipulates to get

their way, is on evil ground. Would that we had

many Abigails in the church who are kind, insightful, patient, respectful.

They have the feminine strength of sensitivity, void of the

arrogance and evil of Nabel, and is kind. Do not

buy into the in your face model that we see

in the modern era that women must be. Whether we

had Abigail's how Abigail could keep those good qualities with

her husband around, who was harsh and explosive is beyond me.

Of Nabel. The English translation of the Bible says he

was a klebite. The Hebrew itself could read. In fact,

the Hebrew does read he was like his heart. That's

what it says, So I'm not sure Calebite is a

good translation. It suggests that Nabel was the outworking of

an evil and unconverted, unsurrendered heart. We all struggle with

sin and theory, don't we. How many of you struggle

with sin in your life? You know it's healthy to

say that James says we should confess our faults, not

our sins, but our faults to one another. We should

admit that we're sinners. I mean, God doesn't need some

holy saints saying well, you know, I'm the Lord's gift

of the church. If I weren't there, it wouldn't be Okay,

we're sinners here. We all struggle with sin and theory.

But there's some people who don't struggle with it at all.

Believe it or not. They just like it and they

give in to it. They think it's their freedom to sin,

do whatever they want to do. The true believer in

the church is trying to do right, will struggle against

the evil drag of our culture. I appreciate the Saberscool

class this morning that Sherlin had where she focused on compromise.

The Kings went wrong because of spiritual compromise and it

led the whole nation down, and she said, we're living

the last days. We have compromise. You were right on

in that Saberscool class. The true believer in the church

will fight against compromise. We'll fight against evil in the

character and evil in the culture. With the theater, the

wrong kind of entertainment, media in the home, the bars.

You'd be surprised how many seventh they avenues go to bars.

I've been in homes. I've seen alcohol. You know, they

open the refrigerator to get something there there. It is

anything else that would corrupt the Christian character. Jesus is

coming good people who are struggling with sin. They know

that we're in the world, but we're not to be

of it. I've had people, I've had ministers look at

me in the face and say, you know what, what

we need the church is to have more freedom. And

then they tell the young people we need more freedom,

and then they compromise their Christianity, their integrity, their walk

with God to where they end up as lost souls,

leading more to being lost. My prayer before God is

that the young people I've worked with over the years

will stand their ground for righteousness and their generation that

will not compromise with evil in our culture, who will

be soul winners, who will give their life and energy

for the saving of others, who will really be careful

what they watch and what they listen to and their

entertainment to the degree that Jesus could be there and

they could give glory to God with integrity in it.

And as for the rest, it's all going to be gone.

And so the really truly converted person will ask the

salient question, can Jesus be here with me in this place,

right now, watching this, or doing that. I've noticed in

our culture here at Reaching Hearts that there have been

times in which we walk with God closely, and there

have been times in which we haven't. Every now and then,

I've taken note of the fact that a member will

parade their Christian freedom on the Internet through Facebook. But

it's not Christian freedom, it's slippage. Yeah, there's nothing great

about hanging out in a bar with young people, and

there's nothing great about flashing alcohol in the face of

others and saying isn't this cool? Would to the Lord

that we had none of that. In Reaching Hearts, every

person must honestly answer that question for themselves in order

to be a good person in God's eyes? What is

wrong with me? How can I walk closer with the Lord?

Are we looking into our lives to see where we

have gone wrong, where we can correct our ways? Fools

like Nabel don't bother with the struggle for virtue. To

be a good person and the pressure is on to

give in to evil. Nope, they just give in. Fools

find excuses to stay the same way and to do

the same thing, to never grow in God's direction in

their life. At this point, David, who is not yet king,

is introduced into the story of the Fool and his wife.

David's name in Hebrew means two things. He means beloved.

It comes from the Hebrew word dodi. Now dody doesn't

mean a fool. It means beloved in Hebrew, and it

also means sick d'v ah, the verb. David was not

a perfect man. He was beloved of God sure enough,

but he also had problems showed that he was spiritually

sick at times. He wrote one of the greatest confession

psalms in the Bible, create in me a clean heart,

O God. There's something about that when a person can

admit that they need to grow, they need to confess

that person is someone that God can work with and

they are beloved to the Lord. Verse four continues the

story for Samuel twenty five to four. When David heard

in the wilderness that Nabel was shearing his sheep. David

sent ten young men and David said to the young men,

go up to Carmel, go to Nabel 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 here.

David's language is disarming. David is bent on peace and

not war. His heart is cleaned toward his neighbor. Nabel

should know this verse seven. Now I have heard that

you have shears. Your shepherds were with us, and we

did not hurt them, so that ten youth are communicating

to Nabel in this verse, 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 hand to your servants and to your son. David.

Nabel was loaded, He was rich off the charts. He

had cheap that could feed a city for a long time.

The feast was like the Thanksgiving feast for the Jews,

probably pass over as in mind. And David and his

men held the peace, and they'd done so much good

for the land. They wanted to be renewed. Like at

Nabel's response, Look at Nable's response to David's offer of

peace and friendship in verse nine. Here it is so

when David's young men came, they spoke to Nabel according

to all these words in the name of David, and

they waited. That's the key word, waited. They waited because

Nabel made them wait. He strung them out before he

could give them an answer. He wanted a maximum impact

on them, to discourage these young men so that they

would be humiliated. He didn't give two cents about anybody

or anything but himself, which is the perfect description of

a fool. Now in verses ten to eleven, Nabel answered

David's servants and said this, 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 have killed for my shearers, and give it

to men when I do not know where they are from.

What an answer he made him wait for? That kind

of an answer. Nabel's long awaited answer hoisted on the youth,

was pure demoralizing to them. First, he diminishes them by

claiming that they are just one among many would be

achievers in life. Who are you? You're a would be achiever?

Number two, he implies that they are rebels against the king,

when they are freedom fighters for the king and the

true ideals of the kingdom. Number three, he states that

giving something to them would deprive his servants of food. This,

of course, was a lie. And finally he feigns ignorance

when he knew good and well who David was in

Saul's kingdom and who Jesse was as David's father. That's

a pretty bad series of messages to give young people

Verse twelve. So David's young men turned on their heels

and went back, and they came and told him all

these words. The Hebrew expression turned on their heels that

follows indicates discouragement and the humiliation in the heart of

David's young men. They have just suffered insult, emotional abuse.

They've risked their lives for him at the hands of

the man who should be grateful. They got that kind

of reception. Now, three times Mabel says I, three times

Mabel says my friend. Mabel is absorbed with I and

my instead of others. In the form of these young

lads who needed a boost to get ahead. Nabel's whole

life rotates around himself, Nabel the fool, Like Lucifer, Nabel

is all about and here are the keywords I, me

and my not about God and others and service twice

in the Psalms and Psalms fourteen one Psalms fifty three

to one, the Bible says, and David wrote both of

those psalms. The fool has said in his heart there

is no God. Perhaps he was thinking of Nabel the

fool when he wrote both of those psalms. Psalms fourteen

one in New King James version on the Screen to

the Chief Musician, a psalm of David the fool has

said in his heart there is no God in the Hebrew.

Just know God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works.

There is none who does good. The Lord looks down

from heaving upon the children men, to see if there

are any who understand, who see good. Now, Abigail was

a woman of understanding. Fifty three one and two says

exactly the same thing as this. It's a repetition. One

thirteen holds David's first reaction to this evil man's insult

and humiliation. So let's go back to Fir Samuel twenty

five thirteen. Let's see how David responded. Then David said

to his men, every man gird on his sword. So

every man girded on his sword, and David also gird

on his sword. And about four hundred men went with David,

in two hundred stayed with the supplies. At this point

in the story, we were introduced to a young man

in Nabel's house who knows where the wisdom is at

in the house. He's figured out it's not with Nabel

the fool, it's with Abigail, the woman of insight verse fourteen. Now,

one of the young men told Abigail, Nabel's wife, saying, look,

David sent messengers from the worlderness to greet our master,

and he reviled them. The Hebrew word translator reviled is

if won't you say that with me? If if, and

it means scream when you're iffing at someone, you're screaming

at them. Can also mean a dart, like darting greedily

back and forth in an exchange. The hebreword captures the

idea of verbal aggression and then physical aggression, moving back

and forth as you want to get your way, to intimidate.

When someone comes into your face and these body language

to intimidate you, they're acting like Nabel, the fool. Nabel

was in their face, physically moving in and out, and

he was loud in their ears, screaming at them, moving

in and out. And that is the perfect posture and

language of a fool. Enable the fool. They spoke the

truth to Abigail because they were worried and concerned for

themselves and for her. They didn't want to live at

the hands and be the outcome of the fate of

a fool. In verse fifteen, they speak to Abigail, Look

what they say. But the men were very good to us,

they said. And we were not hurt, nor did we

miss anything, as long as we accompany them. When we

were in the fields, they were a walled to us,

both by night and day, all the time we were

with them keeping the sheep. Now, therefore, know and consider

what you will do, for harm is determined against our

master and against all his household. For he is such

a scoundrel that one cannot speak to him like that verse.

He is a scale. Have you ever met a scoundrel

in your life. Yes, yeah, well, I'm not gonna ask

you if you've ever been one, but don't be one.

There's so much here in the text. First, David and

his young men were friends, and Mabel should have known

this if you've been approachable. He was friends with his shepherds.

They had befriended them. They also shared that David and

his young men had protected them from danger by placing

themselves in harm's way so that they would not be hurt.

They spent time together, they learned, and these were good men,

not evil men. And they since that Nabel had placed

his whole house in mortal danger by heaving like a

scoundrel in this way. Finally, they told Abigail, and she

but she already knew because she had lived with him,

that Nabel is a scoundrel and no one can talk

to him now. The word translated scoundrel is literally son

of belile. You ever hear that phrase. That's with the

Hebrew benay belile, Okay, Nabel the fool in Hebrew a

son of belile. Now blile means worthlessness or destruction. Nabel

is the son of worthlessness or a son of destruction.

The apostle Paul uses this expression in Tewo Corinthian six

point fifteen as a name for Satan. Second Crinthian six fifteen.

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what

fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has liked

with darkness? And what a court has christ with belile?

Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever. So

being unequally yoked with people who associate with demons, it's

called belile. Poor Abigail, she was equally yoked to a

man who is just like Satan, loud, abusive, mean, manipulative, insensitive, explosive.

He was a son of Belile. At this point, Abigail

knew she had to do something quick. In verse eighteen,

she made haste to load up supplies for David and

his young men, and she sent her servants ahead of

her with these things for David. She took two hundred

loaves of bread that's like the bread ministry used to have.

Two skins of fresh wine, which is grape juice, five

sheep dressed up for roasting. Sorry they weren't veggilinks. Five

large containers of roasted grain. That's a good thing, because

you need to roast grain or he actually can harm you.

The lectins in it are broken down by roasting. This

is why parched grain. In fact, I've been told that

oats unparched can actually affect your mintal your mind a

little bit. So they put in antiquity. They learned to

roast things. One hundreds of raisins and two hundred cakes

of figs. I go for the figs. They loaded them

all on donkeys, which symbolize fools in nature. What animal

symbolizes a fool a donkey? And Abigail wrote on a

donkey herself, because she was married to a fool named Nabel.

She went down the cover of the hill and met Mabel,

and met David and his men coming towards the house

of Nabel for revenge. David was mad he had had it.

I mean, this was the wrong time to push his buttons.

For one brief moment he was in danger, becoming just

like Nabel the fool. Look at verse twenty one the

following first Samuel twenty five twenty one. 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 was he has repaid

me evil for good. May God do so and more

also to the enemies of David, if I leave one

man of all who belonged to him. By morning light,

now Abigail saw David. She hastened to dismount from the donkey,

fell on her face before David, and bowed down to

the ground. Paul says in Romans twelve seventeen that we

are not to repay evil for evil. Doesn't he say

that Nabel had repaid David evil for good? And yet

hear David was now ready to repay evil for evil.

When you repay evil for evil, you become evil. You

see how the trap David's in a trap to overreact.

Sister White says that in the rebellion that occurred in Heaven,

God bore long with Lucifer. When he finally disciplined him,

it was not out of resentment. It was an intervention

to save Heaven. In the universe, friends, Satan, who had

gained his foothold on Earth through deceiving Adam and Eve,

put David in mortal danger. David was in mortal danger

becoming evil, and in the heat of his anger. He

didn't even know it. The problem with anger is that

if it's not dealt with, it makes you blind. Abigail

knew it, and God knew it. Abigail got off that

donkey that represented her husband who was a fool, and

she fell at David's feet in humility and submissiveness. She

was no fool for anyone. She was not an in

your face kind of woman or wife who bullies others,

or who wants to show how strong she is as

a woman. She had inner strength, inner beauty. She was

a woman of God, a daughter of Sarah, as Peter

calls godly women in the church, a possessor of inner

strength and character, the hidden jewel of a humble and

quiet heart that Peter says, it's precious in God's eyes.

When someone whose wise speaks, we should listen to her.

The her there, My wife is very wise in many areas.

She has helped me to prevent a lot of grief.

It's important to listen to your wife, but it's also

important to be the leader of your home. There are

times when you have to you have to listen, but

you have to make a decision based on the council.

But you know I give you full permission, and God

does too. You can ignore fools. If a fool gives

you advice, don't take it. In Proverbs one twenty, wisdom

is a woman who cries out in the marketplace and

at the street corner for someone to choose the right

path instead of the evil one. The same thing. In

Proverbs eight, Wisdom is personified as the creator of the universe.

It's Christ, but it's portrayed in feminine terms. In Proverbs eight,

she cries out in the marketplace. Why is wisdom personified

this way? In the Hebrew language, all abstract nouns are feminine.

Wisdom is an abstract now, and therefore it's feminine. Wisdom

is a woman. Maybe Solomon knew Abigail when he wrote this,

and he was thinking back of how Abigail had helped

to save his father. So let's look what Abigail said

to David Verses twenty four to thirty one. I could

hear paraphrase this, but I'd rather read it. Give me

a second heard. So she fell at his feet and said,

on me, my lord, on me, let this iniquity be,

and please let your maid servant speak in your ears

and hear the words of your maid servant. Please let

not my Lord regard this scoundrel. Mabel prays his name,

so is henpel is his name, and folly is with him.

But I, your maid servant, did not see the young

men of my Lord whom you sent. Now, therefore my

Lord is the Lord lives, and as your soul lives.

Since the Lord has held you back from coming to

bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hand. Now,

then let your enemies and those who seek calm from

my Lord be as Mabel. And now this present which

your maid servant has brought to my Lord, let it

be given to the young men who follow my Lord.

Please forgive the trespass of your maid servant, for the

Lord will certainly make for my Lord an enduring house,

because my Lord fights the battles of the Lord, and

evil is not found in you throughout your days. Yet

a man has risen to pursue you and seek your life.

But the life of my Lord shall be bound in

the bundle of the living with the Lord your God.

And the lives of your enemies shall he sling out

as from the pocket of a sling, And it shall

come to pass when the Lord has done for my

lord according to all the good that he has spoken

concerning you, and has appointed you ruler over Israel, that

this will be. That this will be no grief to you,

nor offensive heart to my Lord, either that you have

shed blood without cause, or that my Lord has avenged himself.

But when the Lord has dealt with my Lord, then

remember your maid servant. I mean, this is an amazing thing.

What is she saying there? She is articulating in the

most brilliant and beautiful terms what it means to be virtuous.

She said, when the Lord has dealt with my Lord,

then remember your maid servant. She did not know that

she had prophetic utterance at that moment to predict that

David would be king, that God would deal with her

husband appropriately. Abigail asked David to forgive her even though

she had done no wrong. She identified with her husband

in respecting him, even though he was a fool. She

respected him and she was not disrespectful of him, but

he was disrespectful of her person. David realized this. She

reminded David that God is the one who used the

slain to kill the giant, and not David, and she

reminded David that he is a better man than a fool.

David was moved by the wisdom of this humble woman

of God, who spoke the truth in his that day

much needed Verse three two. Then David said to Abigail,

blessed is the Lord, God of Hosts, who sent you

this day to meet me. David recognizes here that the

Lord is the one who brought about this intervention. He

saw that Heaven cared enough about him that he would

bring a woman with humility and grace to bring kind

words and wisdom into his life. And he was not

too big a man that he could not take advice

from a woman like Abigail verse thirty three. And blessed

is your advice, he wrote. Imagine that blessed is your advice.

And blessed are you because you have kept me this

day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with

my own hand. For indeed is the Lord, God of

Israel lives who has kept me back from hurting you.

Unless you had hastened and come to meet me, surely

by morning light, no males would have been left to Nabel.

David is saying that he was on a wrong course

that would have ended in evil the Lord had not

intervened with the help of a godly and wise woman.

That man, you're grateful for Abigail. I tell you, Abigail

should be the model of feminine leadership in the church.

Blessed is your advice, and blessed are you because of it,

he said. Fools don't take advice. Fools act without counsel.

David's response to Abigail is perfect verse thirty five. So

David received from her hand which she had brought him,

and said to her, go up in peace to your house.

See I have heeded your voice and respected your person.

Mabel never took his wife's advice, and Nabel never respected

her person. He was the abusive husband, the harsh husband.

He was the husband who wanted to exert his will

and to pulverize his wife and use her as a

trophy wife because she was pretty. She's just an object

for him to own, a mere possession, to scream at,

to abuse, to show that she was pretty because of

the Lord, because the Lord was in his life. David,

in contrast, was not that kind of man. That's why

David could write that the fool has said in his

heart there is no God. When Abigail returned home, Nabel

was holding a feast for himself inside his own house.

The Bible says it was like the feast of a king.

Nabel was celebrating his own life. You know, happy Nabel.

Look at me. I'm just babulous personal wealth, my friend's sheep.

The delusion that he was a king, King Nabel, the fool,

king of fools. Really. When Abigail broke into the party

and told Nabel what it had just happened, how close

he came to death, what David was prepared to do,

his heart fell within him, fears set in within him.

Ten days later he died on God's timetable. God sent

ten young men to Nabel, and he mistreated them. All

days later Nabel died. Nabel had no regard for the

Ten Commandments and the twin principles of mercy and justice.

He was all about himself and not about others Verse

thirty nine. So when heard that Nabel was dead, he said,

blessed be the Lord who has pleaded the cause of

my reproach from the hand of Mabel, has kept his

servant from evil. For the Lord has returned the wickedness

of Nabel in his own head, and David sent and

proposed to Abigail to take her as his wife. When

the servants arose, they went to Abigail and informed her

of David's desire to marry her. She rose fell down

at their feet, as a servant who gladly watched the

feet of the master's servants Verse forty two. So Abigail

rose in haste and rode on a donkey, attended by

five of her maidens. And she followed the messengers of

David and became his wife. And that is the story,

the fool of his wife. Is that an amazing story?

But it has a happy ending for the wife, right,

unhappy ending for the fool. But as for the fool,

let me say in a broader sense, fools, beware, who's

a fool, well, a harsh husband. I'm not talking about

a husband who may get upset, that's human nature, who

just wants to really nail his wife all the time.

Harsh husband is a fool, pure and simple. Fools. Beware.

God doesn't deal lightly with fools. God bless you, dear Father,

Thank you for Abigail. Sweet Abigail, who is a daughter

of Sarah, who modeled the kind of femininemy I'm tongue

tied today. Lord, you know what I mean, the feminine

beauty that is a Christian heritage. And Lord, I think

thank you for David who had enough sense to listen

to her, who his strength and prowess did not use

his strength unnecessarily. And thank you that all of that

brought us Jesus eventually, who is the wisdom of God,

into salvation. Help us to be wise in his name

and for his sake in Jesus' name. Amen.