Recognizing Foolishness: 1 Samuel 25:2-22

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Two three four, good, good morning, good morning. We talk home, not. Through good morning, good morning to two four. Hey, we want to welcome me to the Bible guys. I think that would have made that better is if you would have done like a dance step right then too. Hey, my name is Chris, this is Jeff Forrester, and we are two guys who work at the church in Michigan who are talking about the Bible today. In fun and practical ways. I'm pretty not in practical ways. Fun and and. Practical ways, yes, very good. Hey, we're gonna start off with my favorite. I think I think this is my favorite as long as as long as they're good, as long as they're good jokes. But this is a dad Joe competition, okay. And and when they're super big, awful groaners, it is obviously not my favorite. But usually they're pretty decent. Okay, don't you agree they're pretty decent? Usually? All right? You want to start A broken drum is the best present you can gift. Nobody can beat that. Yeah, Okay, Okay, there broken drum. Nobody can beat it, Yes, nobody can beat it. How about this one? I was going to cook alligator for dinner, but I realized I only had one crock butt. Okay, all right, hey, not bad, not bad. It's a groan, all right. What do priests say to get rid of insects in the church? What let us spray? Oh? Wow, wow, let us spray between the three? I like that one the best. Okay, okay, good. How about this one? I noticed that my ironing board cover was wrinkles. What was rings? How about wrinkled? Yeah? Okay, I noticed that my ironing board cover had wrinkles and laughed at the irony. But then I laughed because the word was irony. Okay, that's rough. That that was a rough one. Nose jokes stink, but eye jokes are cornea. Oh no, that's that's rough. That was rough. Okay, I'm going to go back to the priest one. How about this? People are usually shocked when they find out I'm not a very good electrician. That's a good one. A good one. That's a good one. People get shocked. Okay, why are toilets so good at poker? What we're telling toilet jokes now, why because they always get a flush. Oh that's a rough. It is rough that. It'd be great to get a fresh every time. Talk about stinking. There's another put How about this one? What happens when a microscope crashes into a telescope? I don't know, a kaleidoscope. Okay, that's a good one. It is really clever. That's clever. I like this one. Kaleidoscope. You get it? Two scope, a microscope and a telescope. They yeah, I get it. Okay, this one's clever. I love the way the earth rotates. It just makes my day. That is good. That's a clever one, makes my clever one. It literally literally makes my day. How about this one? This is the last one for me? Oh that was your last one? Yes, okay, how about this one? Felt uncomfortable driving into the cemetery? The GP. This is really good. Let me start over. Felt uncomfortable driving into the cemetery. The GPS blurted out that you have reached your final destination. I really liked that one. Along reached your final destination. You've reached your final destination. That is really really clever. That's funny. Oh, boy Mercy. All right, so we're jumping back Jeff into First Samuel chapter twenty five. Yes, and David is still running from King Saul. Yes. At this point he is in an area called Mayon, which is in the area of what is modern day Hebron, just south of Jerusalem. This would still be in the West Bank portion of Palestine, so it says then David moved down to the wilderness of Mayon, and there was a wealthy man from Maon who owned property near the town of Carmel. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and it was sheep shearing time. This man's name was Nabel, and his wife, Abigail, was a sensible and beautiful woman. But Nebel, a descendant of Caleb, was crude and mean in all his dealings. When David heard that Naball was shearing his sheep, he sent ten of his young men to Carmel with this message for Naball, peace and prosperity to you and your family and everything you own. I'm told that it's sheep sharing time. While your shepherds stayed among us near Carmel, we never harmed them, and nothing was ever stolen from them. Ask your own men, and they'll tell you this is true. So would you be kind to us, since we have come at a time celebration, Please share any provisions you might have on hand with us and with your friend David. David's young men gave this message to Nab in David's name, and they waited for a reply. Who is this fellow David? Nabal sneered to the young men, who does this son of Jesse think he is? There are lots of servants these days who run away from their masters. Should I take my bread and my water and my meat and that I've slaughtered for my shearers and give it to a band of outlaws who come from who knows where? So David's young men returned and told him what Nabel had said. Get your swords was David's why as he strapped on his own. Four hundred men started off with David, and two hundred remained behind to guard their equipment. Meanwhile, one of Nayball's servants went to Abigail and told her David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them. These men have been very good to us, and we never suffered any harm from them. Nothing was stolen from us the whole time they were with us. In fact, day and night, they were like a wall of protection to us and the sheep. You need to know this and figure out what to do, for there is going to be trouble for our master and his whole family. He's so ill tempered that no one can even talk to him. Abigail wasted no time as she quickly gathered two hundred loaves of bread and two wineskins full of wine, five sheep that had been slaughtered, nearly a bushel of roasted grain, hundred clusters or raisins, and two hundred fig cakes. She packed them on donkeys and said to her servants, go on ahead, I'll follow you shortly. But she didn't tell her husband, Nabel, what she was doing. As she was riding her donkey on a mountain ravine, she saw David and his army coming toward her. David had just been saying a lot of good it did to help this fellow. We protected his flocks in the wilderness, and nothing he owned was stolen or lost. But he has repaid me evil for good. May God strike me and kill me if even one man of his household is still alive tomorrow morning. Where are we reading through verse twenty two? Okay, well that's it. Well, what's the end of the story? I can't tell you. No, So his wife comes. Do we read the rest of the story. We read the rest of the story tomorrow. Don't don't don't ruin it? Oh is that what happens? Yeah? Yeah, okay, all right, all right, well then let's let's not talk about the ending, and let's talk about the fact that Nayball is kind of a jerk. Yeah, kind of a jerk. All right, well we got that. Thank you for tuning in today, join us tomorrow, and so. Don't be a jerk. Don't be a jerk, like yep, you know, it's it's interesting. How don't poke the bear either, Yeah, David come out a warpath. Yeah, that's right. But here's the thing. We may hear that, and we may sympathize perhaps with maybel you know, we may think, well, you know, Nabel was within his right. The law was on his side. Because technically the king, oh everybody knew, you know, probably. Most likely in the kingdom they sort of knew. The few, you know, the jealousy of Saul, and you know, Saul's slain in his thousands, David and his tens. And thousands and things like this. But the law was on Nayball's side. They technically were outlaws, right, and so he was within his right to say, this is my personal property, and I don't have to feed you if I don't want to. So we may sympathize, but we have to also understand that people in this region number one knew and understood which God that they served as a nation, right, and so they understood that David was a man of God. They understood everything that David had done. You know, he knew, he knew his father was Jesse. Right, he's acting like he doesn't know who David is. Who's his son of Jesse? Right? Yeah, yeah, he knows who he is. He knows everything about him. He knows his exploits, he knows the songs, he knows everything and all that. But you know, why would you ever bite the hand that feeds you? Why would you be ungrateful for somebody who was actually responsible for your pross parity? So here is well known that his men protected his his sheep and in his goats. They were like a wall of protection, they said. And yet ball is just going to be selfish. That's really what comes down to is looking for a reason. I'm going to use the law on my side to be selfish with my riches. Yeah, because social custom in the Middle East, even still to this day, is when travelers come, you feed them. It's demanded, right, you feed all of them, you have to. And was rich. This guy was rich. I mean three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. Typically in pastoral places like that, one goat is worth a month's bless you excuse me, you did you develop suddenly an allergy to me. I'm allergic to goats, to goats, and just mentioned goats. He sneezes. That's more clever than you, all of those fathers are. Yeah, that's exactly right, his dad jokes. But one goat, typically in a pastoralist type of society, is valued at about a month's income. Sheep are worth a little more. So he's got a thousand months worth of goats and three thousands. Of years twelve years of income. No, a thousand months, yeah, so twenty years, yeah, earned twenty years, eighty three eighty three years. Well, math is math. Yeah, math helps. I got this little I got this little machine I carry my pocket sometimes and you can do math right on it. There's nothing wrong, isn't it? Trying to be independent of machines. I was trying to do math in my head. Yeah, yeah, no, it's okay, it's okay. So he's got eighty something right there, and then three thousand sheep and sheep usually would be considered a little bit more valuable than goats because you know, you can share them, which is sharing time now, and you don't have to eat the goats, eat the sheep. So the sheep will produce milk and meat if you want it, but they'll produce wool every year, and you can sell the wolf, so they were worth a little bit more. So you're talking this guy had more wealth than he could ever spend in his lifetime, right right. That's really where So we're not talking about David rolling in with six hundred men on a poor guy. We're talking about the richest guy in the area. The other thing is this the fact that he's been able to prosper out on the plains. He's not inside of walled city. You have to remember, back in those days, they had walls around their cities because it's roving bandits outside the cities. It's just it's the wild wild West. It's you know, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, it's you know, all the bad guys. You get Wieter kind of world, right, whereas it's gun slinging and fighting that they didn't have guns. But you know what I'm saying, you had to fight in order to protect your stuff. I'm just curious as to how many more fifty year old references. One hundred and fifty years old. I'm just saying people our agel like, yeah, whi yeah, would you say American history? It's American history. Yeah, that's hilarious. Okay, So again you're thinking movies, Well it's a book. Butch, Cassie and Sundance kids, they're. Real guys in history, right, Yeah. Great, we read about them in books and then it became movies. I'm not just thinking about Boes, I get it. But you were thinking, you know, Paul Newman is a movie. Yeah, he was a real guy too, but it was also books history. Before he was a book, he was a real person. Wow. I know. So anyways, uh, that's what it was back then, is they were just if you weren't inside a walled city, you better be capable. This is you know that you oftentimes build your own own fortress, you'd have a lot of servants that can protect your animals. And then the servants were saying David's six hundred men were like a wall for us, literally saying, we were always protected when we were around, When we wereround David's men, we'd never lost a sheep. They were always respectful, They protected us. And so David's rolling in and going, hey, we protected you, you know, quid pro quote kind of an idea here, Hey, we took care of your stuff. You're wealthy. It's sharing time. The only reason why you're able to shear all three thousand of these sheep is because we made sure that nobody stole any of them, right right, So, hey, if you could share a meal with us. And we also have to realize as well, we have to put ourselves in that culture and realize that to say no to them is in some ways to condemn them to starvation. So they're out in the middle of nowhere, they go to Naball for help because you know, they're saying, hey, we're in the middle of the wilderness. Our men are hungry. You know. Again, we don't want to impose greatly on you, but you know, you know, the things that she packed up was a fraction, right. I mean they only took what five slaughtered sheep, right, five out of a thousand. Now they had three thousand sheep, right, and so five sheep. So it's just a fraction of the wealth. And so to say no is to say go out to the wilderness and die. So we have to understand too, from David's point of view, that this was in some ways an active war, not of aggression, but rather just of you know, just throwing out every single custom out the window. It's disrespectful to David, disrespectful to him the fact that he's the next the Norty king. It's also saying we would rather you die than for me to help you. It's just an insult on the highest levels. So we may think, wow, they're going to go and not leave a single person alive, or you're kidding me, right, But that's really it was. We have to understand back then, we don't live in the wild well West. That was an active war. It was an insult upon him and his men. So you know, we may not understand it, but you know. Well, yeah name ball was is sentencing him to death, not only him, but as six hundred men. Right, there's the other side. I made a joke about it at the beginning, but don't poke the bear. There is having an awareness of your power versus the power the people that you're squaring off with. There's a lot of wisdom in that in negotiating. If you're in your job, you wind up him. To negotiate, you have to understand where the power sits and how to shift the power you're in your way. But then also to respect the you know, give respect to where respect should be given, or honor to whom honor is due. And in this situation, you've got a farmer who has some servants, and you've got a warrior who killed a giant and has six hundred warriors with him. And just to put it in perspective, Saul, when Saul went hunting, this is in chapter twenty four, When Saul went hunting David, he had three thousand men to go after David's six hundred, right, So in Saul's my and I need five for everyone, David has right, that's that's the quality of the fighters that followed David. David. Later on we'll read about David's mighty Men, and these guys are are elite, the elite of the elite of the elite. These guys are unbelievably tough guys and so and. Why wouldn't they be attracted to David, the only one who is willing to stand up to the giant. That's right, that's right. So I don't know if you know this this answer, but I know you know the first answer this question. But how many Giant Killers were in Saul's army? Uh? In Saul's army? Yes, just David, but he wasn't in Saul's army. It's a trick, yeah, right, So the answer is technically zero because nobody stood up to Goliath, and David wasn't even technically in Saul's army. He was immediately after he killed Goliath. Yeah, okay, all right, because he was put in charge. So technically you could argue and say. It depends on when you didn't specify whens Okay, but here's another question. How many Giant Killers were in David's army? Yeah? Multiple? So he had a couple of giant killers in the answer six six, Yeah. And the exploits of them are exactly the exploits that you're talking about. So you can go back and read the exploits of the Mighty Men and the three. The three were among them, but there were six giant killers. And why because like attracts like, that's right, right, And so if you're an exceptional leader, you're going to be you know, you're going to attract exceptional leaders. If if you're a person. Of excellence that has the high you know, bar raised Listen, if you're in a work environment and you don't do anything right and you're not you know, you're how should I say, like morally flexible? Right, then the people who are who have high morals are not going to stay around you, that's right, right, They're going to leave because like attracts like. And so you know, if you want to be an exceptional person, you know, then be around people who are. More exceptional than you. Right, That's just the way it is. If you want to be a better ping pong player, guess what, don't play with people who are worse than you. Play with people who are better than you. Right, And you're going to become better and sharper. And so that's a good moral of the story, right there. Like attracts like, which is why David's army was so exceptional, because David was exceptional. Right, that's right. So now Solomon, later on, David's son writes about the idea of you know, being careful how you negotiate understanding. Hey, sometimes the best thing is going to make peace. Jesus talks about it. Hey, you better count the cost before you go to war. What king doesn't sit down and consider does he have enough to go up against this bigger army or not? Right, So, in this situation, Nayball's temper just him being selfish, and his temper get him to the point where he grossly overestimates his own power and grossly underestimates David's. And so David's like, all right, that's it. You just imagine, man, He's brushing the dust off and going, come on, boys, grab your swords. And not only that, he decides he only needs to take two thirds of his army. He's leaving a third of his army back just to watch the stuff. Right, we don't need all you guys come on, And not a single person is going to stand, and so he grossly over Nabel, grossly overestimated his abilities and underestimated David's. But even Jesus talks about, hey, you need to be wise, you need to consider a wise person considers what's the cost going to be if we go to war, and should we make peace. Jesus not multiple times talks about you should run out and make peace, Go make peace in this situation, and he doesn't. This was a simple thing for Nabel to do, except for the fact that he thought that this was all his rather than a gift from God. And he decided he was going to go against social customs and social norms, and he was going to reject the service that David and his men provided. All those things, and the only one in the whole house that had any intelligence center at all. The servants came and they skipped they skipped Nabel because he's kind of a jerk, and they go straight to Abigail and say, Abigail, hey, we're all gonna get wiped out unless we do something, and she she goes to the pantry and cleans the pantry out and starts heading towards David, which tomorrow we'll we'll pick up the rest of that story. It's great, she's the only one with any wisdom in the house. Yeah. And you know what, this is a great lesson which is pretty much waited in my house too. Is it? Yeah, right right, your wife, My wife is the better part of me too. This is a great lesson to not be Likenabel and to be like Jesus taught us, which is like, what would it have cost Nebel to be kind? What would have really. Cost him to you know, share his uh, you know, his wealth. You know, when you're that blessed and you can't afford to throw you know, some beggars some crumbs, then what kind of person are you? So Jesus says, you know, in essence, he didn't say these exact words, not in the Bible, but like what. Goes around comes around? Yeah, right, So what is the Old Testament? But the book of Psalm says, you know, rollerstone get hit with it, did get pit fall in it. That's sort of like what goes around comes Proverbs. Proverbs has that, and there's a there's a. Way cast your bread upon the water and do season will come back. That's right? And so what is that what's the sort I'm looking for? Reciprocity, right, So there's a reciprocity sort of idea that Jesus says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treat your neighbors, Love your neighbors as yourself. What you plant is what you harvest. What you plant, that's right. What you reap, you're you're going to sew uh what you sew is Yeah, yeah, I get that backwards Willy Wonka. You know, he always says, gene wat goes strike that reverse it. That was me right there. So anyway, I just think that it's a great lesson for us to you know, say, you know, a person who doesn't believe in God would say, put it out in the universe, you know, and it'll come back to you. Well, that's just a person who doesn't believe that. They just instinctively know that that's one of God's values. Right to treat others as you would be treated. There's a reciprocity factor about what goes around does come around. So why not why why would Nabel do the things that he did, because you know, he's going his his circumstances are gonna they're he's gonna find himself against David type armies all the time, right, and that's no way to live, right, right, So just be kind, be generous. It doesn't take that much effort to be kind. That's the lesson of the day, really it is. And it's on the verge of costing him anything, right, everything kindness would have just David would have moved on him. Choosing not to be kind. Him choosing not to be generous put everything that Nabel considered important at risk. Yeah, and God calls us to live with open hands. Yes, he doesn't call us that live with clenched fists, you know, as God receives, you know, or as God gives, we receive. Do you want to know? The cool thing about closed hands versus open hands is that when we hang on to all of our stuff, we now have posted ourselves. We're not in a position also to receive from God. So we open up to give, and we also have the same posture to receive from God. And so God calls us not to live like this, but to live like this. And so when we live like that, then we're able to, you know, understand how God wants us to live. So that's all right, well, hey, that's our time and we will see you hopefully next time on the Baba Guys.