Please stand as we recite The Shema together.
Hear O Israel!
The Lord is our God – the Lord Alone.
Love the Lord your God
With all your heart,
With all your soul,
And with all your might,
And love your neighbor as yourself. Amen.
Thank You Lord for Your Word. Please be seated.

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.
	Lord willing we will draw our consideration of this passage to a close this morning. However, truly, we do so with a sense that what is needed in our hearts and minds is a constant drawing from the Word of God. This is in the manner of a definite and manifest practice of our learning to strengthen ourselves in the Lord Our God. We are not ending this practical reality of how to deal with the strains and the stress and the pressure and the threats that each day puts forth upon the Body of Christ Jesus. 
We each, individually, as well as corporately, need to know, without any shadow of doubt, that God is working His great plan and purpose in the building together of His church. Therefore, as we grow together into Christ Jesus, there is the constant need to strengthen ourselves in the knowledge and the working manifestation and the honor and the reverence and the faithful appreciation of what God is bringing forth unto His own glory and praise! 
We continue, therefore, with the encouragement of The Lord through the Psalmist, reading together Ps 62:1-8. Herein is the truth that we need to learn to wait on the Lord, no matter what! Even as our world is shaking and splintering apart around us, we need to be taught what it means to wait quietly and confidently for the Lord to prove Himself. This is one of those tremendous aspects that requires that we learn to trust God as we wait for His will to be accomplished.  
Ps 62:1-8, My soul waits in silence for God only; From Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken. How long will you assail a man, That you may murder him, all of you, Like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence? They have counseled only to thrust him down from his high position; They delight in falsehood; They bless with their mouth, But inwardly they curse. Selah. My soul, wait in silence for God only, For my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest; The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.
Many times this is the most difficult and arduous necessity for us to learn. When everything around us is swirling and falling down and the ground seems to be opening up to swallow us, and all we can do is wait silently for God to manifest His salvation, we need to strengthen ourselves in Him. We have to learn to wait on The Lord, with quietness in our hearts and minds and mouths. This is especially while everything within us is telling us to do something, to do anything! The whole mass of our consciousness is beating a rhythm of move, move, move! Do something more, say something brilliant, act as a man, run here or there, anything but just waiting for Jehovah to deal with all the mass confusion and dire imaginations of our doomed and dejected psyches. 
	… My soul, wait in silence for God only, For my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest; The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.
	Then in Ps 118:8-16, The Lord makes known the fact that He, Alone is trustworthy and able to keep our lives from disintegrating into the dust of oblivion. God is our refuge and our place of safety in the midst of all the horror and the schemes and the lies and the frustrations and the defilements of this age. 
	Ps 118:8-16, It is better to take refuge in the Lord Than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord Than to trust in princes. All nations surrounded me; In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off. They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me; In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off. They surrounded me like bees; They were extinguished as a fire of thorns; In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off. You pushed me violently so that I was falling, But the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation. The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous; The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted; The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. 
	Again, we have the place of honor given to The Lord for His great and marvelous redemption in the midst of the chaos and the dissension and the buzzing noises and stings of the masses arrayed against us. No matter what, He proves Himself mighty and glorious and more than wonderful to show the strength and the power of His plan and His purpose being accomplished. He is the Great and Awesome Lord God Almighty, full of grace and truth! 
	For that, He is to be praised and honored and reverenced with joyful shouting in the tents of the righteous. He is exalted and He is to be praised and honored above all else! Thank You Lord, Our refuge and Our strength to deal with the every issue of today, tomorrow, and all the days of our lives!
	This is reinforced for us succinctly in Prov 18:10. Prov 18:10, The name of the Lord is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe. 
	It is in God that we have our safety and security from all that would assail us. He is that tower of Omnipotence which stands strong and firm against all the gales and storms of this age. He is the One to Whom we must trust as we wait to see how He will deal with us and with those whom we love with all our hearts.
	The Prophet Isaiah joins in this chorus of the safety and the salvation that we find in God, Alone. Please consider Isa 25, verse 4 as but one expression from the heart of God toward us.
	Isa 25:4, For Thou hast been a defense for the helpless, A defense for the needy in his distress, A refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; For the breath of the ruthless Is like a rain storm against a wall. 
	The image of how we are walled in by the Lord against the storms and gales of this age is amazingly vivid and vital. Think on those times when the wind and the rain were violently pelting and splattering against the walls and roofs of our houses, and yet we were inside, safe and dry. It makes me think of those brick walls on the houses of the old colonial homes back east, built to stand against the fiercest of weather conditions on a regular basis. The water hits and then slides down the side of the walls to run off into the gutters and the ditches and culverts away from the house. 
That is the image of our being walled in by Jehovah against all the futile and worthless attacks of those who would berate and disparage and abuse His people. Our refuge is in God! Our safekeeping is in His Hands! He is our shade in the heat and our refreshment in those times of dry desert regions. In Him is life and life everlasting. As the tempo of the trials and tribulations increase, so much more do the depth and the care and the security of His hand upon us multiply in His absolute victory over every enemy arrayed against us. 
When Jerusalem and King Hezekiah were being besieged by the forces of Assyria which were devastating the entire known world, it was The Lord Who determined that those invaders could only go so far and no further. It was not that Judah could wield an army that would match the innumerable forces surrounding Jerusalem. They could not even manage a significant defense of that city for any length of time. They were doomed to complete annihilation, except for the hand of God being their Defender in the midst of this earthly, utterly impossible situation. Please open to Isa 37:14-20 and let us read how Hezekiah brought before Jehovah the human desperation for the salvation of Jerusalem for the very sake of the testimony of the name of Jehovah in all the world.
Isa 37:14-20, Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord saying, "O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, who art enthroned above the cherubim, Thou art the God, Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. Thou hast made heaven and earth. "Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and hear; open Thine eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to all the words of Sennacherib, who sent them to reproach the living God. "Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated all the countries and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. "And now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou alone, Lord, art God."
	Notice the heart of King Hezekiah as he took this letter from Sennacherib, which derided Jehovah and told Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem that the Living God of Israel was no different from any of the other gods that were supposed to protect their worshippers. Assyria had destroyed nation after nation and god after god and this would be no different. If Jerusalem trusted in Yahweh, they would suffer the devastation that the rest of the nations had suffered as their idols were cast away and the cities and the peoples plundered and destroyed.
	Hezekiah took the stand before God that it was not for the sake of the people, it was not in order to protect the city of the Lord, but rather it was for the name of God and His witness and His glory that Hezekiah besought the work of God. Hezekiah knew that if God did not come forth in some measure of His Omnipotence, the world would just see Him, the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and earth, just like any of the other gods that had been destroyed. It was for God’s glory and for His witness in all the earth that Sennacherib needed to be put under the working might of Jehovah. This would show all the nations that there absolutely was the True and Living God of Israel, Who Alone was God!
	As we know, Jehovah did put forth His hand against the king of Assyria and sent him back to his own country. We have this recounted in Isa 37:33-37. 
Isa 37:33-37, Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, 'He shall not come to this city, or shoot an arrow there; neither shall he come before it with a shield, nor throw up a mound against it. 'By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come to this city,' declares the Lord. 'For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake.'" Then the angel of the Lord went out, and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, all of these were dead. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and returned home, and lived at Nineveh. 
	This was the direct intervention of the Lord on behalf of His testimony. He saved His nation and this city of David for the working might yet to be revealed in all the glory and the grace of the even greater manifestation of His saving power. This was an intercession of God against anything that would try to eliminate the plan and purpose of the salvation of humanity by the giving of His Only Begotten Son, through the earthly lineage of David, the Promised Messiah and Christ.
	We conclude this morning with the encouragement of the Prophet Habakkuk as recorded in Chapter 3, verses 17-19. Here is a picture of how things often go in our lives from our vantage point and through the vision of our imperfect and oh so limited eyesight. 
Hab 3:17-19, Though the fig tree should not blossom, And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail, And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold, And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds' feet, And makes me walk on my high places.
	We often are in those dry desert patches of our walk on this earth where there seems to be no growth, no blossoming evidence, no food, no water, no produce of anything measurable in our lives. We feel the starvation of our spirits and the parched souls gasping for some relief from the heat, and the beating sun, and the dust filled fields which once were fertile with crops and all manner of life. 
Yet the Prophet, in the midst of this dry and arid reality of essence encourages himself in the Lord. This is the very basis of everything that we have been considering to this point. Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds' feet, And makes me walk on my high places.
	Yet! What a wonderful word which separates the dry, dusty, barren condition of our mind and our hearts from the truth that it will not at all prevent us from exulting in the Lord. There is a rejoicing, even in the midst of the physical depravation, that will extol the greatness and the awesomeness of the Lord God Almighty. He is the strength to provide what is needed as we traverse those dry and bitterly empty dustbowls of our spiritual walk. Our lives may have suffered the loss of everything, and yet we need to rejoice in the goodness and the grace and the provision of the Lord. He keeps us upright and moving through the harshness of our lives into the splendor of His majesty and His glory and His magnificence!
	When we tear our eyes from us and from our circumstances and from our losses and from our pitiful condition, and see the One Who is working on our behalf, we must rejoice despite the turmoil! We must give Him praise in spite of our dry and parched mouths. We must extol His Saving hand upon us which raises us up out of the depression and into the joy of knowing that He has us well in His hands!
	This brings to the forefront an aside at this point which we would do well to consider. There have been those who, when faced with difficulty and with depression and with dread of the night and fear of the day, who choose to separate themselves from coming together with their fellow saints to worship or to pray or to read the Bible. Somehow, they think that they have to avoid being with other Christians in praise and in worship. 
	There might be that sense of unworthiness in the midst of the trial and tribulation that we are not able to drag our pitiable being into the assembly of the saints. Or it might be a case of such concentrated vision of what we lack, and how miserable we are, that we refuse to step into the light of Jesus. There may be a hardness of heart that has developed, which does not want to see the Light. 
Whatever the reason, the simple fact remains Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds' feet, And makes me walk on my high places.
	We are exactly intended, just as we are, with all our bruises and sores and desperation, to be before the throne of God in worship and in adoration for His Glory! We gather with each other for His uplifting praise, without any concern that we are somehow unworthy. That is a lie, because the truth is that none of us are worthy of anything but death. 
God, and God Alone has done the work necessary. He has given that salvation in Jesus Christ freely to anyone who will but call on His name and receive it. The very best place to be, when all is crumbling, when everything seems aimed at our ruin and our destruction, when we are depressed and abandoned and destitute,  is in the safety of the worship of our fellow saints to the Glory of God and God Alone! 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 Jer 10:10. But the Lord is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation. Amen.