1 Sam 25:32, Then David said to Abigail, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me…
As we are here before the Lord, reading His Word to His people, we should be struck with the sense of what it means to express the truth that God is to be blessed. This is merely a phrase to some, just something said as a customary greeting. However, it needs to be brought into the depth of our beings with the actuality of what it expresses. 
God is to be blessed in the course of the lives of His people on this earth. God is to be blessed in the manner in which we interact with others. God is to be blessed in the every conversation and every action and every thought of those who belong to Him. The Lord God Almighty, the Altogether Awesome One, the Creator of the heavens and earth, the Redeemer and Lord is to be blessed now and evermore in the dedication, commitment, consecration, and devotion of those who belong to Him.
David was giving God the credit and the honor and the praise for the fact that Jehovah had prevented David from carrying out his plan of retribution and indignation against Nabal. It was voiced to all that God had intervened through the wise words of Abigail and thus He deserved the glory for keeping David from killing Nabal and all the males in that household, including servants, and shearers, and shepherds. All were spared by the grace and the mercy and the loving intervention of God in the movement of the heart of Abigail. She responded as God directed. Accordingly, therefore all were to acknowledge that this was the Hand of God in operation and thereby give Yahweh the honor and the acclaim and the adoration.
This simple statement is loaded with the weight of eternity. It is recognition by created beings that the Creator, The Lord God Almighty, is to receive the blessing that He, Alone is due for the manner in which people obey and honor and trust in Him. This highlights the full measure of what is at the heart of the matter. 
Does God get the credit or does the humanity whom He created? Is it a work of God that prevented the whole house slaughter of all the males of Nabal, included Nabal, himself? Or, was it the wisdom and forethought of Abigail with her human intuition? 
That basically sets before us the two world views with which every one of us struggles throughout the day. Does God get the credit for everything since He is the One Who credited all and works in every man, woman, and child according to His divine wisdom and knowledge? Or is it the opposing viewpoint that humanity stands or falls by the measure of his or her own common sense and learned abilities differentiating the manner of each one’s behavior? 
Is it God Who deserves all the blessing and the honor and the glory, or is it all the work of humankind who has somehow evolved into the higher level thinker who determines the fate of each lifetime experience? That is what we have before us every time we believe that we have the ability to decide for ourselves the course of our walk on this earth. 
David gave God the credit because he was well versed in the manner in which God worked within his life. He honored God and God Alone with the intervention into that which would otherwise have stained David’s eventual claim as the chosen King of the Israel. The murder of this household would have become a beacon call for any who stood against David, highlighting the fact that David would so murderously exact revenge by his own hand against the very people he was supposedly chosen to lead. 
Abigail gave voice to this truth. However, as evidenced by both David and Abigail, it was because the Lord had made that known to her. She was willing to obey the Lord and His guidance as the means of her wisdom, rather than trusting in her own devices. God was to be blessed because He so created this woman to intervene at this precise time in the history of the entire nation as it was coming into place and soon to be under the kingship of God’s own chosen man whose heart was after the Lord. 
That is the worldview of those who believe in the Sovereignty and the Divine intervention of God to accomplish His plan and His purpose that has been in place since before the foundations of the earth were even created by His Word. 
Conversely, the other world view, that of those who decry the idea that there is a God in Heaven Who rules and overrules in the affairs of humanity, would state that it was all happenstance. It was by human wisdom that this intelligent woman happened to decide to intervene with the events as they were unfolding. 
This viewpoint would present itself as luck, or fortune, or simple fate that Abigail decided to bring food and supplies to the man who was so disrespected by her husband. She did what she did out of fear that she would lose everything to the hands of this vengeful man who might become king. 
Maybe she did it to garner favor in his eyes when he took the throne. He might remember that he had been dissuaded from violence by this woman. There are so many ulterior motivations that are posited, rather than admitting that it was by the work of God that this event took place. 
As we know, David chose the view of seeing the Hand of God operating with all His Sovereignty. We need to look at how we consider each aspect of our day in the terms of is it God or is it me? Even the smallest items of our day can become a battleground in our hearts with respect to trying to take the credit to ourselves. This is in opposition to giving God the thanks and the acknowledged blessing for the manner in which He cares so intimately for His own and makes the every provision as the days unfold. 
Let us follow the course of this wondrously seeing the working power of God in place as delineated in the Bible. Please turn to one of the tremendous accounts that can be traced to the very feet of Jesus as was recounted in Gen. 14:18-20. 
Gen 14:18-20, And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand." And he gave him a tenth of all. 
Jesus was compared to Melchizedek, the priest of God Most High, who met Abraham after he had rescued his kinsmen from the hands of those marauding kings who had captured Lot and his household. Melchizedek voiced his blessing upon both Abram and upon God. However, note that in the blessing upon then Abram, there was full glory given to God and the fact that Abram belonged to God. Then the blessing was fully lavished solely upon Jehovah for the great work that was accomplished through His empowerment and guiding of Abram in the victory. "Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand." 
All the focus, all the credit, all the honor, all the praise was centered fully upon God Most High and the fact that Abram belonged to God and had obeyed God. The victory was the Lord’s and He, Alone, was due the adoration and the praise and the glory.
Thus it is to be in our lives. Every time we accomplish something, it must be The Lord to Whom the credit is due. In every manner of our success, it is God Who is to be praised and thanked and honored and reverenced in our hearts and with our mouths. 
Even in every failure, it is The Lord Whom we recognize as Sovereign. He is the One unto Whom we look for the manner of His proving Himself great and awesome despite the seeming disappointment of our feeble and frail hands and minds and hearts. 
Whenever we fail, The Lord is still to be thanked that He intervened to bring us to the place where we will more steadfastly count on Him to pick us up and to make a place for His glory in the ashes and dust of our discontent and self-resignation. Jehovah will always and forever prove Himself glorious and mighty, no matter how meager the works and deeds of our endeavors. For all things, whether we see them as good or bad, God is to be blessed!
The next passage we will consider is Gen 24:27. This is when the servant of Abraham was sent to seek a wife for Isaac. There was a need for the intervention of the Lord with regard to even finding the family from which the young bride would come. The servant went with the instructions of the Lord regarding the manner in which God would show the exact woman He had prepared to be the helpmate of Isaac. This was in the vital capacity of the wife through whom the lineage of the Messiah would be preserved. When the servant was led to Rebekah, he made it very clearly evident that it was God Who had brought him to the home of the one who was to become the wife of Isaac.
Gen 24:27, And he said, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master's brothers."
	Jehovah was the One Who was to receive the glory and the praise in being the One Who was blessed, He had guided this servant to exactly the correct family from whom God’s chosen maiden would become the wife of the son of Abraham and Sarah. That choice was vital in that the entire line of Abraham was at stake. 
If the servant was not obedient and not following the plan of the Lord God Almighty, he could have just gathered any young girl and brought her back to Isaac. But the Lord’s plan and purpose was brought forward through the perseverance and the determination of the servant to obey and to find the one so chosen. 
Thus, as the Lord directed the manner of the choice, so the servant was forthright in declaring that God was to be blessed! Yahweh is ever loving and faithful and just and majestic in the manner in which He cares for those who belong to Him.
	The next aspect of this consideration is shown to us in Ex 18:10+11. This is where Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro not only voiced the blessing upon the Lord for the salvation of Moses and the Children of Israel and for his own family, but also made it known the reality that this provision of God was so recognized. It caused Jethro to see that Yahweh was the God of gods. There was the saving grace and mercy of God in operation, not only for the nation as a whole, but for a singular man to see Who God was in the magnitude of what God had accomplished. For that, God was too be blessed forever and forever.
	Ex 18:10+11, So Jethro said, "Blessed be the Lord who delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of Pharaoh, and who delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods; indeed, it was proven when they dealt proudly against the people."
	This is an aspect of what needs to take place in the hearts of God’s people in the witness of God unto those who are enabled to behold His awesome work being accomplished. It is part of the great blessing that is brought forth to the glory of God. When He is exalted by those who are the witnesses of His mighty hand in action, there will be that drawing of those hearts and minds to call out to Him. They will recognize Him as the Lord God Almighty, the Only Living and True God Who holds the whole of His creation in place. There will be the expressed acknowledgement by the entirety of creation that He, Alone is to be praised and adored and honored and proclaimed in all His glory!
	Ezra, in Ezra 7:27+28, expresses the blessing that God was to receive in the course of how the Lord opened the eyes of the king of Persia so that Ezra was sent back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple of God. This was no small matter to undertake, and it had to be done with the king’s approval and support. It was all because The Lord had moved the king of that mighty empire to bring forth the honor that the God of Israel should receive throughout the world.
	Ezra 7:27+28, Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to adorn the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, and has extended lovingkindness to me before the king and his counselors and before all the king's mighty princes. Thus I was strengthened according to the hand of the Lord my God upon me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. 
	Ezra not only received permission for this undertaking, but he received the funding and the support in men and even the energy to undertake such a massive task. Everything was done in accordance with exactly what was needed as the Lord moved the hearts of all to accomplish this task. For that miraculous work, God, Yahweh, was to be blessed forever and forever.
	This brings us back to the matter of our opening consideration as we will highlight, once more, the heart of David in the situation with Nabal. Please refer to 1 Sam 25:39.
	1 Sam 25:39, When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be the Lord, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and has kept back His servant from evil. The Lord has also returned the evildoing of Nabal on his own head." Then David sent a proposal to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 
David blessed the Lord for the manner in which God had prevented David from taking revenge upon Nabal and his whole household. He, as well, blessed the Lord for the manner in which God intervened against the unrighteousness that was in the heart of Nabal. This is another of those elements of our consideration in the fact that we are to leave everything to the Lord for the manner in which He will deal with all the wrong that takes place in our lives. 
We are not to try to set things right through revenge or vengeance or any other form of human indignation against the elements of evil that arise against us. We are to bless the Lord for His Omnipotence which overcomes all the forces of darkness as He will make Himself abundantly and righteously known through His Holy and Perfect and Just and Divine Integrity. 
No one will get away with anything devised in the heart of wickedness because there is no hiding from God! He sees and He acts in full accordance with the plan and the purpose that He has put forth from before the eternal ages were even in place. 
Nothing and no one can thwart His Holiness and His Righteousness and His Just retribution against those who bring the wrath of this age down upon the heads of His children whom the Lord so loves. For that, He is to be eternally blessed by the praises and the adoration of those for whom God has shown Himself the Protector and the Sustainer and the Provider!
We will continue with this wonderful proclamation of the majestic honor and praise and glory that God, Alone deserves, the next time we are together. Until then, please ask The Lord to bring forth that blessing from our hearts in increasingly multiplied magnitude to His honor and His glory Alone! So be it!
Then David said to Abigail, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me… Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Gal 5:25. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Amen.