Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Well, welcome back to the Daily Blade. I'm Dr. Mark Hitchcock. I'm the pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmund, Oklahoma. It's uh the home church of Kyle Thompson and his family, so I have the privilege to be his pastor. I'm going to be uh filling in this week uh for Kyle and Joby. Um our text for today is 1 Samuel chapter 30, uh, verse 6. I'm going to read this verse for us, and I'll fill in a little bit of the context and uh give some some application of this to our lives. Uh 1 Samuel chapter 30, verse 6 says this. Moreover, David was greatly distressed. It's referring here to King David. He 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. Now let me just paint a little bit of background about this passage here. What's happened is David and his men have been living in Philistine country. And they've been able to come back now to their home base, which is a village called Ziklag. And while they were away, uh some Amalekites had come in, taken their wives and children captive, and fled and burned the city to the ground. So David and his men, when they arrive back there and they see what's happened, they've they've been uh going for uh 60 miles in a short period of time. You can just imagine their excitement and anticipation to see their wives and their children, and they get there exhausted, but then they're devastated when they see that their town has been torched. And they're literally drowning in despair. In fact, in verse 4 it says, Then David and the people who are with him lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength left in them to weep. And so the men are so distraught by this that they actually rise up and want to kill David. So David's world is in ruins. I mean, literally, his life's in ruins. This is the blackest point in his life up to this point. He hits rock bottom. But it says here in our text, David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. If we're going to successfully navigate life and all the turbulence and the troubles that are out there, we have to learn the spiritual discipline of strengthening ourselves in the Lord. I hope you have family. I hope you have friends who pour encouragement and strength into your life. I know that this ministry does that. It's a great encouragement to you. But we also have to learn to strengthen ourselves in the Lord as David did. So how did David do this? Just a few things quickly. One is the person he looked up. It says David strengthened himself in the Lord, his God. All he has at this point is God. And David knows God personally. David has a pre-existing relationship with God. I'm like what someone said years ago about King Saul. He was an impressive man, but David was an impressed man. He was impressed with God. So David looked up, he knew God, and he he called out to him. Secondly, I think David looked to the past. Now the text doesn't explicitly tell us that, but one of the ways David must have encouraged himself was to remember back how God had delivered him from lions and from bears and how God had helped him vanquish Goliath. It's very important for us in life. Don't forget to remember, to look back and remember what God has done for you when you're in bad situations or tough times. Number three, we have the promises. We have promises. I think David looked ahead. He knew that God had promised him that he was going to be the king. And I think he relied on that promise of God to give him strength. You know, we can claim God's promises for our lives. Promises like delight yourself in the Lord. He'll give you the desires of your heart. Cast your cares on the Lord, he'll sustain you. He'll never let the righteous stuff fall. I will never leave you or forsake you. Another great promise that God is faithful. Another wonderful promise is I am coming quickly. Hudson Taylor, who founded the China Inland Mission, he was asked one time when he was going to China what he had. And he says, I have ten dollars and all the promises of God. And you and I have all the promises of God as well to allow us to strengthen ourselves in difficult times. But one other thing is prayer. Notice in uh verse 8 of chapter 30 in 1 Samuel, it says, David inquired of the Lord. So David took his problems and his troubles uh to the Lord. Um David uh hadn't sought God probably at this time for about a year and a half, but he begins to pray and to seek God. So David looked up. You can say he looked up to the person of God. He looked back to what God had done in the past for him. Um he he looked ahead to the promises of God and he looked within in prayer. Um there's a great biography I have on David Livingston, the great missionary and explorer to Africa. He was from Scotland originally. I mean, he traversed Africa under the worst conditions imaginable. He was mauled by a lion. He never had the full use of his left arm after that. Constant bouts of malaria and dysentery. I mean, his wife died. His son Robert was rebellious and went to the United States, joined the Union Army, was killed in the Civil War. But near the end of the book, in Livingston's final days on Earth, he and his expedition are slogging on a wet march in extreme weather, day after day of pouring rain, walking in neck-deep water with parasites and leeches. He has chronic intestinal bleeding that gets worse day by day and is slowly draining the life out of him. About a month before he died in Africa, in an entry in his diary, David Livingston wrote these words So many obstacles have arisen, but nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair. I encourage myself and the Lord my God and go forward. That's the spirit that you and I need to have every day. No matter how dark the cloud, even when all seems lost, we strengthen ourselves in the Lord and we go forward. He'll never fail you.

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