1 Sam 30:6, Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
	This morning we are presented with a reality that needs to become a steadfast and bedrock foundation from which we will never allow ourselves to be moved. This is something which necessitates our active participation in that stand upon the Victory of Jesus Christ over every enemy and force arrayed against the truth that He is Lord and that He is Sovereign in the lives and hearts of His people. 
	Everyone one of us has been in the situation described in our morning’s text, although obviously not literally as to actually being in danger of death by stoning. David’s situation varies from ours at that point. 
However, the feeling of desertion by friends and associates; the betrayal of those with whom we have spent many years, even decades; the accusations of supposed wrongdoing; the blame for the hurt of others; the sense that everything is falling apart; and the loss of those so near and dear to us with respect to loved ones; this is what is so distressing to us as it was to David in this episode. He was being unjustly targeted and blamed because of the anger and the fear and the frustration of those who sought some release from their strife and anxiety and despair. 
	Consider the fact that the ones who were picking up the stones to hurl at him were those men with whom David had been in such close union. They had warred against the enemies of Israel together, building that bond of brotherhood on the battlefield. They had fled the incessant hunting of King Saul, considered as traitors to the people whom these men loved. They had endured the months in the wilderness regions, hiding in the caves and the wadis together. They had faced imminent discovery and death at the hand of the army of their fellow Hebrews that was searching so diligently for them. These men had traversed the desert heat together and sought refuge and solace in the Philistine communities. This was for the sake of surviving until the kingship of David would become the banner of their safety and well-being. 
	These were the very ones whom David now had to face in the fear of being stoned to death. This was not by enemies in battle, not by a revengeful and jealous and crazed monarch, but by comrades, friends and compatriots. These were the ones with whom David had forged a kinship in the fires of facing unjust animosity and escape from capture and certain annihilation. This was an utter devastation to the heart and the mind of this anointed, soon to be king of Israel. 
Everything looked to have utterly collapsed and crumbled without any real blame to be set at his feet. Nothing he had done had warranted all the loss and the dissolution of his trust and his honor and his relationship with these brothers in arms. He was blameless, and yet all the blame was heaped upon his head along with the ill-intended, ragged rocks that could quickly spell the end of the Davidic lineage before it had even begun. 
	How many times in our lives have we been subjected to similar feelings and attitudes and actions by others? Not to the point of our lives being physically threatened, but by betrayal, and accusation, and innuendo, and false witness, and misplaced anger and resentment and jealousy with absolutely everything crumbling around us. Our hopes, our dreams, our plans, our promised rewards, our entire portfolio of good will and well wishers gone and replaced with vicious verbal attacks and abuse. Sadly, this is not unusual in the course of the walk of a Christian in the hyper-charged atmosphere of this day. 
	Consider, as the most profound example of this foul and absolutely unwarranted abuse against innocence, what the world did to the perfect and sinless Only Begotten Son of God. It scourged Him and nailed Him to a cross with utmost ridicule and animosity. As followers of Christ, can we expect to be treated with any less acrimony if we present the testimony of Christ with all our heart and all our mind and all our being?
Accordingly, we need to learn the lesson that David learned as stated so succinctly in this morning’s passage. Despite everything that was being hurled against him, even up to the point of those sharp and deadly rocks …David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. David saw it all, and then he turned his eyes to Jehovah, the One Who had chosen this young man as a boy, as a shepherd tending the flocks of his father. Jehovah had directed the Prophet Samuel to anoint this lad as the next king of God’s Chosen Nation. David, therefore learned to lift his eyes to God, and so find the strength to face whatever needed to be done. 
Note the very key aspect that is at the heart of this entire consideration. David did not strengthen himself with the platitudes of other people. He did not sulk away and hide in the shame of being betrayed and slandered and abused by those so very close to him. He did not place the blame on them and seek retribution and revenge. 
David also did not try to minimize or negate and argue and defend himself in the public arena. David simply did that which he had learned through all the course of the battles and the conflicts and the assaults under which God had proven Himself mighty, over and over and over again …David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
He looked to the Lord since he was to be the Lord’s representative king over the people of God. He counted on Jehovah to protect him against all the perceived slights of this realm and against the very real possibility of bearing the brunt of those hurled stones. David looked to Yahweh and strengthened himself in the Lord His God.
This is what we need to learn when we are so falsely accused and abused in this age. We need to set our hearts and our minds on the fact that we belong to the Lord. The battle that is needed to be waged against the fiery furnace blasts of the lies and the allegations and the blame spat at us by all those around us, even our loved ones at times, is all His! He will counter and blunt and reveal it all as nothing by vitriol bitterness and hurt and fear and anxiety aimed at the closest target upon whom it can be spewed forth. 
We need to learn to strengthen ourselves in the Lord Our God. That is how we deal with all those times of great loss. That is where we find the courage and the ability to take even one small step forward when the weight of the entire world seems to be so pressing down upon us. That is the means of our encouragement in the pits of the deepest mires of depression and angst and fear, we strengthen ourselves in the Lord Our God!
Let us read together a number of those encouragements in Scripture which we would do well to highlight and to underline and to work on committing to memory for those times when everything seems to be collapsing around us. The Word of God is wondrous in the manner in which we are shown, detail upon detail, situation after situation, manner after manner, just how much we can trust God! We can rely on Him and wait for Him to make the perfect way in the midst of what we see as hopeless and chaotic mass hysteria!
We begin with the Psalms as we have a vast treasury of those accounts of just how perfectly the Lord God Almighty has proven Himself the Lord of lords and the King of kings. This is through situations and dilemmas which would otherwise utterly destroy any man or woman trying to survive by their own meager strength and feeble abilities of understanding. 
This is a wonderful time to just let our hearts and our minds and our spirits read and dwell on the Word of The Lord! He has given it to be the means of teaching us Who He is and all that He has done and will continue to do throughout the course of His history. It details His Magnificence and His Splendor and His Grace and His Mercy and His Loving kindness. His every essence of Omniscience, and Omnipotence and Omnipresence fill the verses and the essence of these passages as we find ourselves in the place of the writer of these truths. Therefore it is not without merit to just enjoy, truly enjoy to the fullest the declarations held within these passages of the Glory of God, then, now, and evermore!
We begin with Ps 18:6. Ps 18:6, In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears. 
	How often have we found ourselves with no other place to turn, no one else unto whom we could call, no idea of where to go for help in the midst of our calamity? Then, as the Holy Spirit urged us to turn to the Throne of God’s Might and Supremacy, our voices and our hearts were laid bare before His Majesty and Honor and Power. He makes known that we are ever before Him and our presence is always desired in the courts of the Lord God Almighty. 
We can call out to Him in the deepest hours of the night, when total gloom surrounds us. In that bitter darkness, the light of Christ will hearken our souls to know that He is the only One Who can bring us through it all in the absolute and fulfilled joy of our salvation.
	Next consider Ps 26:1-3, with the echo of David in his distress, trusting the Lord and finding the strength to go forward in the power of the Almighty. Ps 26:1-3, Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity; And I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Examine me, O Lord, and try me; Test my mind and my heart. For Thy lovingkindness is before my eyes, And I have walked in Thy truth. 
	There is that call for the Lord to examine us and to try us and to test us as to the full manner in which our lives will give forth the witness of our love for the Lord. Because He has proven Himself so wondrously and mightily in our lives, we want Him to work that core relationship steadfastly into the depths of our beings. We want Him to know exactly how much we love Him, through whatever means necessary to test and to prove the heart that we have for Him. 
It is not for us, but for His joy and His blessing and His pleasure in the great work that He has accomplished. Every time we are laid low on the field of His testing, the only truth that comes forth is that we strengthen ourselves in Him, in the Lord Our God, and no where else. No other means of trying to deal with the pressure. No schemes of man, no ideology or theology or religiosity or methodology or any other avenue of trying to escape that which is the Hand of God at work in our lives! 
	This complete trust in God, in the midst of the greatest of earthly calamities, is founded upon the reality that God has and will ever prove Himself over and over again. There is no place and no situation and no power and no pressure that can stand against the breath of God as His loving discipline establishes the people whom He has chosen unto Himself! No power of man or beast or any other created thing can cause dread or dismay in those who know Him and strengthen themselves in the Lord God Almighty. 
	Consider the great and wonderful proclamation of this as expressed for us in Ps 27:1-3. Ps 27:1-3, The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, My heart will not fear; Though war arise against me, In spite of this I shall be confident. 
	When we know the strengthening power of Who God is and all that He has done and will do, we are enabled to look at every situation, every circumstance, every tribulation, every trial and dilemma in the full assurance that God will prove Himself! He is so vastly mightier and greater than all that our imaginations could bring forth against us. 
We are so adept at blowing things way out of proportion and into vastly darkened pits of despair, much worse than the most horrible of disasters. Yet even here, God proves Himself mighty to save. We have nothing to fear and nothing to dread as we trust and obey when He directs our hearts to strengthen ourselves in His awesome power to deal with the most devastating of human circumstances!
Whom shall we fear? That is the core element of how we strengthen ourselves in the Lord Our God. We know that we have nothing to fear of this realm as our hearts and minds are stayed on Him.
	This brings us to the manner in which this reality of the over abiding relationship with the Lord God Almighty causes us to give Him the praise and the adoration and the glory and the acclaim that He, Alone is due. It is the natural outcome that is brought forth as we see Him prove Himself mighty and glorious to save! 
	Ps 34:1-8, is another of those wonderful choruses which should bring to our minds and our hearts and our mouths the songs of thanksgiving and praise unto God. There is so very much that is revealed in the manner of our deepest and earnest trust in the Lord. In line with that truth, we have no choice but to declare with the fullness of our essence that God is worthy to be praised and adored and honored for the great love with which He loves us.
Ps 34:1-8, I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; The humble shall hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord, and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him, And saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them. O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! 
	We end with this song of worship for this morning. It will be the first of the Psalms that we will consider in our next time together in this passage. 
I just could not but present the awesome truth of how blessed we are that we belong to God! As well, how blessed He is to be that we willingly choose to trust and to obey and to honor Him in the course of our walk on this earth. We are not perfect in this, but we want to be! We desire that God finds that greater and greater satisfaction in the work of His hands. He is our strength to face all that this world uses in its futile attempts to waylay the plan and the purpose of God in His Chosen and Redeemed people! So be it!
Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Prov 28:5. Evil men do not understand justice, But those who seek the Lord understand all things. Amen.