When he came there it was a heap of smoking ruins. Everything was gone; property, cattle, wives, children--and all was desolation. His turbulent followers rose against him, a mutiny broke out--a dangerous thing amongst such a crew--and they were ready to stone him. And at that moment what did he do? Nothing. Was he cast down? No. Was he agitated? No. 'But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.' Now the first thing I notice is I. The grand assurance which this man gripped fast at such a time. It is not by accident, nor is it a mere piece of tautology, that we read 'the Lord _his_ God.' For, if you will remember, the very keynote of the psalms which are ascribed to David is just that expression, 'My God,' 'My God.' So far as the very fragmentary records of Jewish literature go, it would appear as if David was the very first of all the ancient singers to grapple that thought that he stood in a personal, individual relation to God, and God to him. And so it was _his_ God that he laid hold of at that dark hour. Now I am not putting too much into a little word when I insist upon it that the very essence and nerve of what strengthened David, at that supreme moment of desolation, was the conviction that welled up in his heart that, in spite of it all, he had a grip of God's hand as his very own, and God had hold of him. Just think of the difference between the attitude of mind and heart expressed in the names that were more familiar to the Israelitish people, and this name for Jehovah. 'The God of Israel'--that is wide, general; and a man might use it and yet fail to feel that it implied that each individual of the community stood by himself in a personal relation to God. But David penetrated through the broad, general thought, and got into the heart of the matter. It was not enough for him, in his time of need, to stay himself upon a vague universal goodness, but he had to clasp to his burdened heart the individualising thought, 'the God of Israel is _my_ God.' Think, too, of the contrast of the thoughts and emotions suggested by 'My God,' and by 'the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.' Great as that name is, it carries the mind away back into the past, and speaks of a historical relation in former days, which may or may not continue in all its tenderness and sweetness and power into the prosaic present. But when a man feels, not only 'the God of Jacob is our Refuge,' but, 'the God of Jacob is my God,' then the whole thing flashes up into new power. 'My sun'--will one man claim property in that great luminary that pours its light down on the whole world? Yes. 'The sun whose beams most glorious are, Disdaineth no beholder,'