Male Emphasis Sunday
Encourage Yourself
in the Lord
1 Samuel 30:6, 8
Dr. William S. Epps, Senior Pastor
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And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, everyman for his sons and for his daughters: hut David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.” “And David enquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.
1 Samuel 30:6, 8
Life challenges are common. No one escapes. We must overcome in order to make of life what it has the possibility of becoming. We all face losses, failure and setbacks which are disappointing and distressing. We either determine to overcome or succumb. Those who overcome get beyond what happened. Those who succumb give up, give in and give out. What do you do when confronted with the inevitable reality of roadblocks that put you on a collision course with calamity, confusion and contention?
There is a passage of scripture of a person who found himself in that kind of predicament. Let me share with you how he handled it and possibly this can provide what we need to manage reality when confronted with what we have to overcome to write the outcome of our life’s story. This is a passage about a person who faced life’s challenges of loss, failure and setbacks while encouraging himself in the Lord.
David and his company of six hundred men had been off serving in the military of King Achish of Gath (that’s right Gath, the enemies of Israel) and in the process had left their wives and children in Ziklag, unprotected. A raiding band of Amalekites, the persistent and longtime enemies of Israel, came down on the village, capturing the women and children for slaves, looting the place and carrying off everything of value, leaving behind nothing but a smoking pile of rubble.
In the midst of a time of great distress, it says, …But David encouraged / strengthened himself in the LORD his God. Let's see if we can determine how David encouraged and strengthened himself in the Lord so we can do the same when things are just appallingly dreadful.
Consider what it means to encourage yourself in the Lord
when facing distressful developments.
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We all need encouragement from time to time. All of us at some time or another face a crisis when everything seems to fall apart. There are times of disappointment and discouragement. There are times of uncertainty when we don’t know how things are going to turn out. There are times of stress, when our load seems heavier than we can bear; the task is more than we can handle. There can also be times of fear when our very sense of security is threatened. In those kinds of situations we need to be encouraged in the Lord.
Consider a few implications of this passage for us.
First, consider David’s distress was due to his decision—“David was greatly distressed.” His city was burnt, his wives were gone, the sons and daughters of his comrades were all captive, and little Ziklag, where they had made a home, smoked before them in blackened ruins. The men of war, wounded in heart, mutinied against their leader, and were ready to stone him. David’s fortunes were at their lowest ebb. To understand his position, we must go a little further back in his history.
David was greatly distressed for he had been acting without consulting his God. It was his general habit to wait upon the Lord for direction, for even as a shepherd lad it was his joy to sing, “He leadeth me”; but David had gone without the Lord’s leading. He neglected to do what the wisdom writer says, “in all thy way acknowledge him and he will direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:6). Without asking divine direction he fled to the court of the Philistine chieftain Achish, hoping to be quiet there. See what came of it! When he stood among the ashes of Ziklag he began to understand what an evil and bitter thing it is to lean to our own understanding -forgetting the Lord who guides and directs us with our choices. (In fleeing from Saul, he seeks safety among the enemy of his people). Imagine seeking safety and security among your enemies; a real hornets nest, fraught with difficulties and complications.
Decisions determine destiny and choices have consequences. Maybe you have realized that what may have seemed like a good idea at the time turns out to bring disappointment and distress. I can’t help but think of the political landscape with all of its vitriolic verbiage, the perpetual violence, the divisiveness that permeates the fabric of our society, all being nothing more than the result of our doing what we want, our way, without consideration of ordering our steps by the, One in whom we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28). When you are distressed and disappointed due to a protracted sense of uncertainty and fear looming on the horizon, you, like David, acknowledge that decisions made without consulting the Lord, lead to calamity, confusion and bitter contention.
Consider what it means that our decisions bring about
the distress we experience.
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David also followed what was considered a golden rule in his day. The golden rule in David’s day was, “Do others, for others will certainly do you.” (colloquially speaking, “do others before they do you.”) David became the commander of the bodyguard of Achish, king of Gath, and he lived in the royal city. At David’s request, Achish, the king of Gath, gave David the town of Ziklag. David and his men warred with the various tribes of the Canaanites who dwelt in the south of Palestine, and took from them great spoil, but he greatly erred in making Achish believe that he was fighting against Judah. We read, “And Achish believed David, saying, He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; therefore, he shall be my servant forever.”
This was the result of David’s lie, and lest the falsehood should be found out, David spared none of those whom he conquered, saying, “Lest they should tell on us.”
So from beginning with “do others, for others will certainly do you,” and from one falsehood he was driven to another, and his course became much different as he was sucked into one falsehood after another. Now comes the fruit of his falsehood! Ziklag is burned with fire: his wives are captives, and his men speak of stoning him.
Yet was his distress the more severe on another account, for David had sided with the enemies of the Lord's people. When Achish gathered the Philistine army to battle with Israel, we read with shame, “And the lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds, and by thousands: but David and his men passed on in with Achish.”
How dreadfully troubled David must have felt in this false position. Think of David, who was ordained to be king of Israel, marching his armed band to fight his own countrymen! They wept until they had no more tears. (verse 4)
As expressed by one of my favorite poets, You cannot do wrong and feel right,
you cannot give pain and gain pleasure, for justice avenges each slight.
Consider what it means that we act in ways that exacerbate
what we are experiencing.
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Secondly, consider how David encouraged himself in the Lord. Some of the best conversations in the world are those which a person has with him or herself. It has been said that the one who speaks to everybody except himself is foolish. 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, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”(Psalm 42:11 / 43:5).
David encouraged himself. He encouraged himself “in the Lord his God.” That is the surest way of being encouraged and strengthened. In my distress I called on the name of the Lord. (Psalm 18:6)
He did not sit down in sullen despair, nor did he think, as Saul did, of resorting to wrong means for help; but he went to the Lord confessing his wrong straight away
to his God, and asked for the priest to come that he might speak with him in the name of the Most High.
Let us try to conceive of the way in which David would encourage himself in the Lord his God. Standing amidst those ruins he would say, Yet the Lord does love me, and I love the Lord. I love the Lord because he heard my cry. (Psalm 116.1)
And the song writer says, "... and pity every groan and long as I live when troubles rise, I’ll hasten to his throne."
Though I have wandered, yet my heart cannot rest. As the deer pants after the water brooks so pants my heart after thee O Lord. (42:1).
He would look back upon those days when he kept sheep, and sang psalms unto the Lord his God amid the pastures of the wilderness. He would recollect those peaceful hours of happy communion, and long to have them o’er again. His own psalms would tend to comfort him as he saw how his heart had once been glad. He would say to himself: “My experience of divine love is not a dream, I know it is not a myth or a delusion. I have known the Lord, and I have had near and dear interaction with the Lord, and I know that the Lord changes not, and therefore will help me. The Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting and his truth endures to all generations. He will put away my transgression.” Thus he encouraged himself in the Lord his God.
Consider what it means for you to reflect on the ways you
have been encouraged in the Lord.
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Then he went further, and argued, Hath not the Lord chosen me? Has he not ordained me to be king in Israel? Did he not send his prophet Samuel, who poured oil upon my head, and said, ‘This is he’? Surely the Lord will not change his appointment, or suffer his word to fail. I have been separated from my kinsfolk, and hunted by Saul, and driven from rock to cave and from cave to wilderness, and I have known no rest, and all because I was ordained to be king in Saul’s place; surely the Lord will carry out his purpose, and will set me on the throne. He has not chosen, and ordained, and anointed me in mockery.
David would reflect on all the past deliverances which he had experienced. Imagine him seeing the panorama of scenes about what the Lord has done for him. He pictured himself going out to meet the giant Goliath, with nothing but a sling and a stone, and coming back with the monster’s head in his hand; and he argued,
“Will he not rescue me now?” He saw himself in the courts of Saul, when the mad king sought to pin him to the wall with a javelin, and he barely escaped. He saw himself let down by the kindness of Michal (Saul’s daughter) from the window to escape when her father sought to slay him in his bed. He saw himself in the cave of Engedi, and upon the tracks of the wild goats, pursued by his remorseless adversary, but always strangely guarded from his cruel hand. He cheers himself, as one had done before him, with the inference, “If the Lord had meant to destroy me, he would not have showed me such things as these.”
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.
So, amid the conflict whether great or small, / Do not be discouraged,
God is over all; / Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.
Count your blessings, name them one by one, / Count your blessings,
see what God has done! / Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your many blessings, see what God has done.
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Take out your journals and diaries and reflect on the days when the Lord helped you. Think of how the Lord has blessed you. Remember how the Lord has helped you time and time again. Count your blessings, name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
You can say as a believer in Christ, The Lord has brought me out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, set my feet on a rock and established my goings. (Psalm 40:2) The Lord has not rewarded me according to my iniquities.
(Psalm 103:10)
Consider what it means that the Lord had not rewarded us
according to our iniquities.
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Thirdly, consider how David inquires of the Lord God. Now David has learned to inquire of the Lord about how to proceed when distressed. “And David inquired at the Lord, saying, shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them?”
Oh, that we would learn to acknowledge the Lord with the assurance that the Lord will direct our paths. For when we lean to our own understanding, things, well they make life and living distressful.
Observe that David presumes that God is going to help him. He only wants to know what he is to do. Notice that David does not expect that God is going to help him without his participation. He inquires, “Shall I pursue? shall I overtake?”
He means to be up and doing. Sad as he is, and faint as he is, he is ready for action. The Lord helps us by enabling us to help ourselves.
David was thus ready for action, trusting in God. 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? And what a blessed state of heart that is when we have no strength of our own, but seek unto God!
It is good to be insufficient, and to find God all-sufficient. When I am weak, then I am strong. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
David recovered what he had lost.
Consider what it means to enquire of the Lord about what you
shall do to pursue and overtake in order to recapture what was lost.
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Hezekiah Walker has a composition entitled, Faithful is our God:
Faithful, faithful, faithful is our God
Faithful, faithful, faithful is our God
Faithful, faithful, faithful is our God
Faithful, faithful, faithful is our God
I'm reaping the harvest God promised me
Take back what the devil stole from me
And I rejoice today, for I shall recover it all
Yes, I rejoice today, for I shall recover it all
Holy, holy, holy is our God / Holy, holy, holy is our God
Holy, holy, holy is our God Holy, holy, holy is our God
I'm reaping the harvest God promised me
Take back what the devil stole from me
And I rejoice today, for I shall recover it all
Yes, I rejoice today, for I shall recover it all
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is our God / Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is our God
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is our God ‘ Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is our God
And I rejoice today / And I rejoice today / And I rejoice today
And I rejoice today / And I rejoice today, for I shall recover it all
Conclusion
Rise up, O men of God! / Have done with lesser things;
Give heart and soul and mind and strength
To serve the King of kings.
Rise up, O men of God! / His kingdom tarries long;
As faithful workmen, watch and pray / And light the night of wrong.
Rise up, O men of God! / The church for you doth wait—
Your strength unequal to the task, / But Christ in you is great!
Lift high the cross of Christ; / Tread where His feet have trod;
As brothers of the Son of man, / Rise up, O men of God!
I want to close with this poem, When Men Do the Right Thing
When men do the right thing, the earth trembles knowing what’s near
Faith, hope and love are here to disperse the harm that hurts to disappear
When men do the right thing, they change the life they have you view
A life of dignity, freedom and integrity that’s new
A life of faith about possibilities beyond life’s fatalities
A life of hope beyond all hindrances to align you with proper allegiances
A life of love that transcends the limitation of all contingencies with righteous tendencies with inexhaustible synergies producing infinite positive eventualities Amen
Consider what it means when men rise up and do the right thing.
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Faithful is Our God
Hezekiah Walker
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2412 Griffith Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90011
Phone: (213) 748-0318
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