David Encouraging Himself in God

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

1 Samuel 30:6

And David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved…

I. DAVID'S DISTRESS.

1. David was greatly distressed, for he had been acting without consulting his God. Perhaps some of you are in distress in the same way: you have chosen your own path, and now you are caught in the tangled bushes which tear your flesh. You have carved for yourselves, and you have cut your own fingers; you have obtained your heart's desire, and while the meat is yet in your mouth a curse has come with it. You say you "did it for the best;" ay, but it has turned out to be for the worst.

2. Worse than this, if worse can be, David had also followed policy instead of truth. The Oriental mind was, and probably still is, given to lying. Easterns do not think it wrong to tell an untruth; many do it habitually. Just as an upright merchant in this country would not be suspected of a falsehood, so you would not in the olden time have suspected the average Oriental of ever speaking the truth if he could help it, because he felt that everybody else would deceive him, and so he must practise great cunning. The golden rule in David's day was, "Do others, for others will certainly do you."

3. Yet was his distress the more severe on another account, for David had sided with the enemies of the Lord's people.

4. Picture the position of David, in the centre of his band. He has been driven away by the Philistine lords with words of contempt; his men have been sneered at — "What do these Hebrews here? Is not this David? What do these Hebrews here?" is the sarcastic question of the world. "How comes a professing Christian to be acting as we do?"

5. At the back of this came bereavement. His wives were gone.

II. DAVID'S ENCOURAGEMENT: "And David encouraged himself." That is well, Davids He did not at first attempt to encourage anybody else; but he encouraged himself. Some of the best talks in the world are those which a man has with himself. He who speaks to everybody except himself is a great fool. I think I hear David say, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God; for I will yet praise him." David encouraged himself. But he encouraged himself "in the Lord his God," namely, in Jehovah. That is the surest way of encouraging yourself. David might have drawn, if he had pleased, a measure of encouragement from those valiant men who joined him just about this particular time; for it happened, according to 1 Chronicles 12:19-20, that many united with his band at that hour. If you are in trouble, and your trouble is mixed with sin, if you have afflicted yourselves by your backslidings and perversities, nevertheless I pray you look nowhere else for help but to the God whom you have offended. When He lilts his arm, as it were, to execute vengeance, lay hold upon it and He will spare you. Does he not, Himself say, "Let him lay hold on My strength?" I remember old Master Quarles has a strange picture of one trying to strike another with a flail, and how does the other escape? Why, he runs in and keeps close, and so he is not struck. It is the very thing to do. Close in with God. Cling to Him by faith: hold fast by Him in hope. Say, "Though He slay me, yet will I terror in Him." Resolve, "I will not let Thee go." Let us try to conceive of the way in which David would encourage Himself in the Lord his God.

1. Standing amidst those ruins he would say, "Yet the Lord does love me, and I love Him."

2. Then he went further, and argued, "Hath not the Lord chosen me? Has He not ordained me to be king in Israel? Do you need an interpretation of this parable? Can you not see its application to yourselves?

3. Then he would go over all the past deliverances which he had experienced.

III. DAVID ENQUIRING OF GOD.

1. Observe, that David takes it for granted that his God is going to help him. He only wants to know how it is to he done. "Shall I pursue? shall I overtake?"

2. It is to be remarked, however, that David does not expect that God is going to help him without his doing his best. He enquires, "Shall I pursue? shall I overtake?"

3. David also distrusted his own strength, though quite ready to use what he had; for he said, "Shall I overtake?" Can my men march fast enough to overtake these robbers?"

IV. DAVID'S ANSWER OF PEACE. The Lord heard his supplication. He says, "In my distress I cried unto the Lord and He heard me." Trust in the Lord your God. Believe also in his Son Jesus. Get rid of sham faith, and really believe. Get rid of a professional faith, and trust in the Lord at all times, about everything.

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