“JEHOVAH HIS GOD”
Ron D Plant
1 Samuel 30: 1-6
“David strengthened himself in Jehovah his God”; this was David’s God, with David at a very low point in his history; he had lost heart. He had become certain in his mind that the persecutions of Saul were going to be successful against him. He says, “I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul”, 1 Sam 27: 1. He became low in his soul and he went away, seeking what he thought was refuge, to the Philistines, the enemies of God’s people; he joined with them. This is David, the one anointed of God; he is so very low in his soul. He had lost heart; he had become afraid; the clouds, as it were, had closed above his head, and it is possible for that to happen to all. He comes back to Ziklag, because God had intervened and preserved him from joining with the Philistines against the people of Israel in battle. He comes back to Ziklag, and he finds the whole place devastated. The city was not only captured, and wrecked; it was burned with fire. It was destroyed and all the women taken as captives, including his wives and also the children; all the dependants - which is what they would perhaps represent in this scripture - they had carried away. Everything that was defenceless and dependent upon persons remaining strong and steadfast had been captured and carried away. The people were embittered, and they wept; and David wept amongst them. They spoke of stoning him, such was their anger and distress; what a low point! What does it say of David? “David strengthened himself in Jehovah his God”: “his God”.
We can speak about “the God”; Paul in that remarkable address in Athens speaks about this, “The God who made the world and all the things which are in it”, Acts 17: 24. Paul speaks about how He dispersed the nations; he speaks about the reason why He did that - that they might seek God. He set “the boundaries of their dwelling”, v 26. We can go through Scripture and find references to “the God”, His glory and His greatness, the great object of faith and reverence, but it does not say here that David strengthened himself in “the God”, but in “his God”.
Beloved brethren, it is open to each one of us here, and I am sure we do, to have a personal relation with God ourselves. We know what that is; He knows all about us, individually and personally. It is not exactly the God who made the worlds, not exactly the God who maintains everything in life, not exactly the God who purposed before time was, although all those things would be true, but the God who speaks to me. He is the One that I know, the One who brought me salvation, the One who so loved that He gave, who knows us in the circumstances in which we are, so often, of weakness. David’s weakness here was possibly the lowest point of his life: I might think he really was in no fit state to approach God, to take the ephod and speak to God. Yet he “strengthened himself in Jehovah his God”, and if you read the Psalms, you see how David speaks about God and he speaks also about men, and he speaks as fearful of them. He cries to God that He might preserve him from them. Sometimes he almost runs away from situations in his thoughts. I have been reading the Psalms, and in many you see the struggle in the dialogue and conversation between his belief in God and the overpowering pressure from without that is upon him. You get a sense with David that he was one who particularly had a relationship with “his God”. It says in Psalm 23 -
Jehovah is my shepherd …
… he leadeth me beside still waters.
He restoreth my soul”, v 1-3.
It is the same God; it is the same “God who has made the world and all things which are in it”; and gave life and breath to everything there. I believe none of us are very strong in life’s circumstances; we all know what it is to have times where the clouds close over our heads and we do not know quite where to move and what to do. What a thing it is to have this link, this blessed unbreakable link, with the God we know who knows us and loves us ‘notwithstanding all’, Hymn 107.
Take a man like Peter who was a great lover of Christ, yet if put in certain testing circumstances he reacts completely out of character; he denies the Lord. He not only denies Him, he denies Him with oaths and curses. You may say that is just unforgiveable. It was at the time of the Lord’s greatest need, you might say, as the cross and all that was to transpire was drawing near yet there is that lovely touch where it says, “the Lord, turning round, looked at Peter”, Luke 22: 61. I think that was “Jehovah his God”. It says he, “wept bitterly”, v 62. He knew what that look was; perhaps no one else did. He knew what it was. What it is, beloved brethren, to develop; and I think in these times where we have been so restricted and things have been so difficult, we have learned something. It is the way that we know God; it is the way that we speak with Him, not in a traditional way perhaps, but the way that we know Him.
Take a man like Nehemiah who was exercised about Jerusalem (Neh 1); he was the king’s cupbearer, and there he is in his duty before one of the mighty autocratic kings of the captivity in the Old Testament, a man who was an absolute monarch, and Nehemiah was the king’s cupbearer. He is sorrowful and exercised by news he had received about Jerusalem in ruins and the affliction of the people; and he comes to the king. You can imagine him bringing the king’s wine, and his sadness manifest in his face to the point that the king notices it and asks why it is. Nehemiah becomes very afraid, and at such a moment he prays to Jehovah, v 4. You may think that it was not the place to pray: he is just about to serve the king his wine, but he could turn to the God he knew. He could turn to Him in those circumstances; he could turn to Him in the deepest straights. It did not need a special meeting room or an appointed time in that sense; he did not need a church or a cathedral. The God he knew he could speak to wherever he was, and he could draw strength and he could draw help and was dependent upon it. Do you know God like that? The strength of the local company would surely be underpinned on this certainty, and the growing security of us each having to do with “his God” and having to do with “my God”.
Paul uses that expression, “my God”: “my God shall abundantly supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”, Phil 4: 19. I would just encourage the brethren. David takes the ephod and he speaks to God. He has been away; he has been unfaithful in joining the ranks of the Philistines, and he speaks to God and he asks Him what he should do, and God says, “Pursue; for thou shalt assuredly overtake them and shalt certainly recover”, 1 Sam 30: 8. You might ask whether God would speak to him; would He answer him? He answered him; it was ‘His God’, and he knew Him. David becomes adjusted, and you can read the rest of that history.
It is just that thought, beloved brethren, not only do we know ‘the God’ - wonderful blessing; in His majesty and in His glory worshipfully we would regard Him in all that way. But what a thing that the One who made the world, and all things that are in it, and gives life and breath to every creature is the One who loves me and the One who has to do with me. If you take the illustration from Scripture, it is the One like the Lord Jesus, seen in scripture as the Shepherd that went after the sheep; He puts it upon His shoulders and brings it back, Luke 15: 5.
May we be encouraged in this, to be developed in what it is to know what “my God” would involve at the present time.
For His Name’s sake.
Word at a meeting for ministry, Birmingham
5th May 2021