It is not by accident, nor is it a mere piece of tautology, that we
read 'the Lord _his_ God.' For, if you will remember, the very keynote
of the psalms which are ascribed to David is just that expression, 'My
God,' 'My God.' So far as the very fragmentary records of Jewish
literature go, it would appear as if David was the very first of all
the ancient singers to grapple that thought that he stood in a
personal, individual relation to God, and God to him. And so it was
_his_ God that he laid hold of at that dark hour.
Now I am not putting too much into a little word when I insist upon it
that the very essence and nerve of what strengthened David, at that
supreme moment of desolation, was the conviction that welled up in his
heart that, in spite of it all, he had a grip of God's hand as his very
own, and God had hold of him. Just think of the difference between the
attitude of mind and heart expressed in the names that were more
familiar to the Israelitish people, and this name for Jehovah. 'The God
of Israel'--that is wide, general; and a man might use it and yet fail
to feel that it implied that each individual of the community stood by
himself in a personal relation to God. But David penetrated through the
broad, general thought, and got into the heart of the matter. It was
not enough for him, in his time of need, to stay himself upon a vague
universal goodness, but he had to clasp to his burdened heart the
individualising thought, 'the God of Israel is _my_ God.'
Think, too, of the contrast of the thoughts and emotions suggested by
'My God,' and by 'the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.'
Great as that name is, it carries the mind away back into the past, and
speaks of a historical relation in former days, which may or may not
continue in all its tenderness and sweetness and power into the prosaic
present. But when a man feels, not only 'the God of Jacob is our
Refuge,' but, 'the God of Jacob is my God,' then the whole thing
flashes up into new power. 'My sun'--will one man claim property in
that great luminary that pours its light down on the whole world? Yes.
'The sun whose beams most glorious are,
Disdaineth no beholder,'
as the old song has it. Each man's eye receives the straight impact of
its universal beams. It is my sun, though it be the light that lightens
all men that come into the world. 'My atmosphere'--will one man claim
the free, unappropriated winds of heaven as his? Yes, for they will
pour into his lungs; and yet his brother will be none the poorer.
I would not go the length of saying that the living realisation, in
heart and mind, of this personal possession of God is the difference
between a traditional and vague profession of religion and a vital
possession of religion, but if it is not the difference, it goes a long
way towards explaining the difference. The man who contents himself
with the generality of a Gospel for the world, and who can say no more
than that Jesus Christ died for all, has yet to learn the most intimate
sweetness, and the most quickening and transforming power, of that
Gospel, and he only learns it when he says, 'Who loved _me_, and gave
Himself for _me_.'
So do not let us be content with saying, 'the God of Israel,' and its
many thousands, or 'the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob,'
who filled the past with His lustre, but let us bring the general good
into our own houses, as men might draw the waters of Niagara into their
homes through pipes, and let us cry: 'My Lord and my God!' 'David
encouraged himself in the Lord his God.'
II. Now note, secondly, the sufficiency of this one conviction and
assurance.
Here is one of the many eloquent 'buts' of the Bible. On the one hand
is piled up a black heap of calamities, loss, treachery and peril; and
opposed to them is only that one clause: 'But David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God.' There was only one possession in all the world,
except his body and the clothes that he stood in, that he could call
his own at that moment. Everything else was gone; his property was
carried off by raiders, his home was smouldering embers. But the
Amalekites had not stolen God from him. Though he could no longer say,
'My house, my city, my possessions,' he could say, 'My God.' Whatever
else we lose, as long as we have Him we are rich; and whatever else we
possess, we are poor as long as we have not Him. God is enough;
whatever else may go. The Lord his God was the sufficient portion for
this man when he stood a homeless pauper. He had lost everything that
his heart clung to; wives, children; Abigail and Abinoam were captives
in the arms of some Amalekites; his house was left to him desolate; his
heart was bleeding. 'But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God'
and the bleeding heart was stanched, and the yearning for some one to
love and be loved by was satisfied, when he turned himself from the
desolation of earth to the riches in the heavens. He was standing on
the edge of possible death, for his followers were ready to stone him.
He had come through many perils in the past, but he had never been
nearer a fatal end than he was at that moment. But the thought of the
undying Friend lifted him buoyantly above the dread of death, and he
could look with an unwinking eye right into the fleshless eye-sockets
of the skeleton, and say, 'I fear no evil, for Thou art with me.'
So for poverty, loss, the blasting of earthly hopes, the crushing of
earthly affections, the extremity of danger, and the utmost threatening
of death, here is the sufficient remedy--that one mighty assurance:
'The Lord is my God.' For if He is 'the strength of my heart,' He will
be my portion for ever.' He is not poor who has God for his, nor does
he wander with a hungry heart who can rest his heart on God's; nor need
he fear death who possesses God, and in Him eternal life.
So, brethren, in all our changing circumstances, there is more than
enough for us in that sweet, simple, strong thought. The end of sorrow
(that is to say, the purpose thereof) is to breed in us the conviction
that God is ours, to drive us to Him by lack of all beside; and the end
of sorrow (that is to say, the termination thereof) is the kindling in
our hearts of the light of that blessed assurance, for with Him we
shall fear no evil. You never know the good of the breakwater until
the storm is rolling the waves against its outer side. Light a little
candle in a room, and you will not see the lightning when it flashes
outside, however stormy the sky, and seamed with the fiery darts. If we
have God in our hearts, we have enough for courage and for strength.
I need not remind you, I suppose, how this darkest moment of David's
fortunes was the moment at which the darkness broke. Three days after
this _emeute_ of his turbulent followers, there came a fugitive into
the camp with news that Saul was dead and David was king. So it was not
in vain that he had 'strengthened himself in the Lord his God.' Our
'light affliction which is but for a moment' leads on to a
manifestation of the true power of God our Friend, and to the breaking
of the day.
III. And now the last thing to be noted is the effort by which this
assurance is attained and sustained.
The words of the original convey even more forcibly than those of our
translation the thought of David's own action in securing him the hold
of God as his. He 'strengthened _himself_ in the Lord his God.' The
Hebrew conveys the notion of effort, persistent and continuous; and it
tells us this, that when things are as black as they were round David
at that hour--it is not a matter of course, even for a good man, that
there shall well up in his heart this tranquillising and victorious
conviction; but he has to set himself to reach and to keep it. God will
give it, but He will not give it unless the man strains after it. David
'strengthened himself in the Lord,' and if he had not doggedly set
about resisting the pressure of circumstances, and flinging himself as
it were, by an effort, into the arms of God, circumstances would have
been too strong for him, and despair would have shrouded his soul. In
the darkest moment it is possible for a man to surround himself with
God's light, but even in the brightest it is not possible to do so
unless he makes a serious effort.
That effort must consist mainly in two things. One is that we shall
honestly try to occupy our minds, as well as our hearts, with the truth
which certifies to us that God is, in very deed, ours. If we never
think, or think languidly and rarely, about what God has revealed to
us, by the word and life and death and intercession of Jesus Christ,
concerning Himself, His heart of love towards us, and His relations to
us, then we shall not have, either in the time of disaster or of joy,
the blessed sense that He is indeed ours. If a man will not think about
Christian truth he will not have the blessedness of Christian
possession of God. There is no mystery about the road to the sweetness
and holiness and power that may belong to a Christian. The only way to
win them is to be occupied, far more than most of us are, with the
plain truths of God's revelation in Jesus Christ. If you never think
about them they cannot affect you, and they will not make you sure that
God is yours.
But we cannot occupy ourselves with these truths unless we have a
distinct and resolute purpose running through our lives, of averting
our eyes from the things that might make us lose sight of them and of
Him. David had his choice. He could either, as a great many of us do,
stand there and look, and look, and look, and see nothing but his
disasters, or he could look past them; and see beyond them God. Peter
had his choice whether he would look at the water, or whether he would
look at Jesus Christ. He chose to look at the water; 'and when he saw
the wind boisterous he began to sink'--of course, and when he looked at
Christ and cried: 'Lord, save me!' he was held up--equally of course.
Make the effort not to let the sorrowful things, or the difficult
things, or the fearful things, or the joyous things, in your life,
absorb you, but turn away, and, as the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews says, in another connection, 'look off unto Jesus, the Author
and Finisher of faith.' David had to put constraint upon himself, to
admit any other thoughts into his mind than those that were pressed
into it by the facts before his eyes; but he put on the constraint, and
so he was encouraged because he encouraged himself.
There is another thing which we have to make an effort to do, if we
would have the blessedness of this conviction filling and flooding our
hearts. For the possession is reciprocal; we say, 'My God,' and He
says, 'My people.' Unless we yield ourselves to Him and say, 'I am
Thine,' we shall never be able to say, 'Thou art mine.' We must
recognise His possession of us; we must yield ourselves; we must obey;
we must elect Him as our chief good, we must feel that we are not our
own, but bought with a price. And then when we look up into the heavens
thus submissive, thus obedient, thus owning His authority and His
rights, as well as claiming His love and His tenderness, and cry: 'My
Father,' He will bend down and whisper into our hearts: 'Thou art My
beloved son.' Then we shall be 'strong, and of a good courage,' however
weak and timid, and we shall be rich, though, like David, we have lost
all things.