Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 37, reading from our
text, verse 4. It is particularly the latter
part of this verse. The whole verse reads, Delight
thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires
of thine heart. He shall give thee the desires
of thine heart, and it is specifically the subject of desires of the
heart. How vital it is that we have
right desires. What if those desires are wrong? And then the Lord grants those
wrong desires. And what a blessing where those
desires are right desires, and the Lord grants those desires. How powerful a force is desire
in man. We read even of David, a man
after God's own heart, left to his corrupt and lustful desires,
he enters into adultery and then murder, and the sword does not
depart from his house all his days. And all of that sprang
from one wrong, lustful desire. We never think lightly of what
a desire can spring forth. We think of what flowed out from
that. Part of the chastening of the
Lord for David was again instigated through desire, the desire of
Amnon after Tamer, his sister, that so consumed him, lustful
desire, that he then obeyed the subtle advice of Jonadab, and
how that then he lay with her, brought on him the wrath of Absalom,
who two years later slew him. The scriptures are full of those
examples of the desire of a fallen heart and the consequences of
following those desires. But they're also full of the
desires of the righteous, right desires. And in our text, it
gives one of the secrets to a right desire and that is delighting
in the Lord. Delight thyself also in the Lord
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Because those
desires then will be in consistency with a delight in the Lord. So I want to look firstly at
the desire of a natural heart, a heart that all men have by
nature. And then secondly, the desires
that spring forth from God's grace. And then lastly, granted
desires. But firstly, the desire of a
natural heart and we would be reminded that all of God's children,
they have an old nature as well as a new nature. In our unregeneracy,
we only have an old nature. And so if there are spiritual
desires at all, then often those desires, they arise, as James
says, to consume it upon our lusts. In Christ's day, the desire
of the scribes and the Pharisees was that they might be seen of
men. To that end, they wore long robes, greetings in the marketplaces,
long prayers, prayers on the corners of the streets. And their
desire was for the praise of men, for their own honor and
glory, not the praise of God. So the desire of a natural heart
might be religious desires. It might be desires that you
could say are godly desires. But the end result, the thing
that is to be achieved, is not to God's honor and glory at all. It is consumed upon our own lusts. Really one of the great things
that characterizes the desire of a natural heart is the absence
of desire after the Lord. Not a positive thing at all. Yes, there are many desires for
sinful, vile things, corrupt things, evil things, and we could
have long, long lists of that, but really it can be summed up
In the wicked, God is not in all their thoughts. They do not
have desires after the Lord. They cannot. They have no spiritual
life. They have no real wanting or
desire after the Lord at all. And so their lives reflect that. They reflect that desire. If
we have a desire after something, That which begins in the heart,
very soon it is put into practice. If we really desire to do something,
we'll make every effort to do it. Our whole aim, our intentions
will be to bring about what those desires are. We read about the
desire of the sluggard shall perish. Why? Because he desireth
and hast not. he doesn't add actions to his
desire at all. If we had a student, a young
person, that desired really to get on well in life and to attain
a certain profession, then they would desire to do well with
their studies, they would work very hard, they would attend
their classes, they would do their homework, and everything
about them would say, Well, they are really desiring to attain
this purpose. But when we look at the things
of God, before I was called, I had no desire for the things
of God, no desire to read the word of God for myself, no quiet
time, no private worship, no desire for the house of God.
When I did attend, it was only by constraint. I didn't love
it. And that characterized, it was
a lack of desire for the things of God. And that then resulted
in a lack of practice as well. And so we would know that very
often the desire of a natural heart is a lack, it is a lack
of the things of God. I wonder how that finds us this
morning. Now it's said that there is in
all of God's children a natural as well as a renewed heart. And I believe that one of the
things One of the desires that do come with a renewed heart
by grace is to be free from the desires of the natural man, and
also a grief that our desires for the things of God are so
small, so little, and it will feature much in our confessions,
much in our prayers, and it will cause us many searchings of heart. We have a natural heart, but
does that cause us grief? And when we come to what we may
hope is a spiritual heart, are we really content with desires
that are so small after the Lord, to his people, to his house,
that we are content to go through this world with hardly any evidence
of a child of God. A desire of a natural heart,
felt in a renewed heart, will cause much grief and much sorrow. Unless, of course, we are very
low. David, when he fell, must have in those intervening months,
continue to put on a profession of religion while walking in
sin. But when he is brought under
conviction, then we have that beautiful Psalm 51. And what a blessed thing it is
to walk in a psalm like that. So many desires that are there,
so different from the condition that he was in. In the letters
to the churches in the Revelation, the Lord had controversy with
some of them because they had left their first love, that is
the Lord Jesus Christ, a church that no longer really had a desire
after Christ. Another church that had a name
to live and yet they were dead. no life, no love, no going out
unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach, following afar
off like Peter did, and then ended up denying the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord deliver us from the
desires of a natural heart and desires that do not at all feature
after the things of God. We want to look then secondly
at the desires that spring from grace. And I do want to really
emphasise this. We might think, well, what we
need to do is to go back to the law. We need to know that we
are sinners in a greater measure, to fall under our sin and to
desire a saviour. One of our hymns says, law and
terrors do but harden, all the while they work alone. Now, we
are to make every effort to turn from evil ways, to walk in the
ways of the Lord. But if that is done on its own,
with the thought that we shall make ourselves to be recovered
from a dead and hard and cold and worldly condition, then it
will fail, it will miserably fail. What we'll find, we'll
deal with one thing, and another thing will rise up. We might
feel we fall into a snare by something on the internet, we
put a block to that, stop that, and then our deceitful, wicked,
evil heart will find something else to look at, or something
else to hear, and it won't go to the Lord. Often think of What
was said of the children of Israel going into the promised land,
that they weren't to take over that land all at once, because
they were only a few people, and the beasts of the field would
increase upon them. But as they grew, then they were
to take over that land. And the word that is spoken in
Romans 8 is that if ye through the Spirit to mortify the deeds
of the body, ye shall live. And that is, it is by walking
in a positive way, desiring and going after the Lord in a positive
way, delighting ourselves in the Lord, that then our delight
in the things of the world will diminish. That will be weakened. It will be mortified. because
we are spending our efforts and time in going after the things
of God. One said that either prayer will
stop sinning or sinning will stop praying. And that is in
the same way of teaching of Romans. By a positive act of worship
in prayer, it then has an effect of stopping and restraining sinning. Too often we make the mistake
and spend our energies decrying our fallen state, our wicked
evil heart, mourning over our lack of godliness and our lack
of desires of the things of God. And our efforts are as if it
all depended on us to deal with our sin and to bring us into
a place of blessing. But the Gospel is the Lord Jesus
Christ, He shall save His people from their sins. And we are to
seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. We are
to seek that salvation that is in Christ. Many of the reproofs
that Paul had to the churches that he wrote to was that they
were going away from the gospel to the law. And so they weren't
prospering, they weren't getting on. Now, don't get me wrong,
we are not to sin that grace might abound. But, you know,
if we could, and if God left his people, they would be content
to make their lives, outwardly and inwardly, nice and holy and
godly, independent of God, separate from Him, and be smug and proud
of our godliness and our religiousness. But when we come as a poor, broken-hearted
sinner, and come seeking mercy through the precious blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and delight ourselves in His salvation, in
His mercy, in His blood, in His grace, in His long-suffering,
then before we are aware of it, then our desires are right desires,
and our desires are all after the Lord. I mentioned in the
hymn that we've just sung, and I often think about hymn, you
know, my mother used to teach us this, So we should know it
off by heart. And she did not know the Lord
for herself until the last week or so of her life. But this was her desire, her
desire herself and also for us children. And the desires translated
then into supplications, into things that are asked of the
Lord. Show me that I am born of God,
that my treasure is above, and then the supplication that all
my sins may be subdued. Wonder how we come in there,
our sins, that they be subdued. How strong they are, how powerful
they are, how defiling they are. Do we ever pray and desire that
they might be subdued? What about the promises of God?
Do we pray like the hemrider? that they might be to me and
for my good. Do we desire the Lord to seal
our pardon to our soul, proclaim our peace with God? And that
conscience, our conscience so wounded by the sins that we do,
in thought, in word and deed, that we might have that conscience
made whole. And that the Spirit of God rule
in our hearts, governing all our words and ways and that grace
abound in every part, teach my tongue to sing thy praise. These
are real desires that are turning into prayers and it leads to
assurance and comfort of salvation. We have the same with that beautiful
prayer of Jabez, 1 Chronicles chapter 4, you read You might
turn away from it because it's full of names. But then you have
two verses and the character Jabez, he comes in just so suddenly. You don't hear of him elsewhere.
We read this, and Jabez was more honorable than his brethren.
And his mother called his name Jabez because, saying, because
I bear him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of
Israel and said, saying, Know that Thou hast blessed me indeed,
and enlarged my coast, and that Thine hand might be with me,
and that Thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve
me. We read this simple word at the
end, and God granted him that which he requested. Desires will
end up in requests, in prayer, and those two, they go together. How much of our prayers are real
desires? Desires that spring from delight
in the Lord, spring from not slavish fear, but love, and not
from doubt in the gospel, but in the provisions of the gospel
and wanting to have those provisions. We think of the Lord and the
Sermon upon the Mount and how in the Beatitudes, Matthew 5
and verse 6, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness for they shall be filled. That is a real desire. after righteousness. Why? Because they feel so unrighteous,
so ungodly, not like the Lord. Their poor prayers, their poor
following, their poor profession, their poor obedience. You know,
the world that is before us is not coming from one that views
themselves as holy. His view comes from a sinner,
comes from one that is desiring what he does not have, and what
he feels he does not have, but that he needs, and he wants,
and he longs after. You think of going back ten psalms
to Psalm 27, and how that psalm begins. Psalm 27 verse 4, one thing,
have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may
dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold
the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. And this is the desire then,
it's the desire of the soul, and they were exhorted to desire
things. Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians,
he exhorts them after he has set forth the blessings of love
especially, charity, a practical love, and he says follow after
charity and desire spiritual gifts. but rather that ye may
prophesy. And he does direct them as to
what they should desire. Peter, he says, desire the sincere
milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. And so we're exhorted
in that way to desire those things that are right and those things
that are good. And it is by God We don't come from our old nature
and it really should be a great encouragement to all who are
being quickened and who feel desires however feeble and weak
after the Lord, that it is the Lord that puts those desires
in the heart. with me at the very beginning,
and I believe with all of the people of God, it'll be that
which begins not in full assurance, not in knowing that they are
a child of God, but with desires. Ruth had those desires after
Naomi, after where she was, after her people and her God. That's what she desired. And
it's a blessed thing. If there are desires there, we
can say, I have desires today that I did not have in my unregeneracy. Or it is that we say that we
are so concerned that once we had very strong desires, but
now I am backslidden. I don't have these strong desires. They don't come out in prayers.
And the desire of my old nature is so strong, and it grieves
me, and I struggle against it, but my weak resistance, like
the hymn writer says, are how vain. And there is that aching void,
the desire of the heart, it is longing after the Lord, to appear,
to deliver and to save, and to pour fresh life upon the whole. All these things, they don't
come, from one that is dead in sin, one that has no concern,
one that is not at all mindful of the state and condition of
their souls. In Hebrews we read of those that
desire a heavenly country, the things below. They confess
that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth, The Lord
hath made these things to be as nothing. And they that say
such things declare plainly they seek a country. And that desire
will be to be where Christ is. And you know the Lord Jesus Christ
as well has those desires after his people. How that he says,
Father, I will that they whom Thou hast given me be with me
where I am, that they may behold my glory. The desire of the Lord
is toward His people. Desire of His people will be
toward the Lord. When we think of even in a natural
relationship, a man and a woman that are really in love, their
desires are toward each other. They want to be with each other.
They want to behold each other, hear each other's voice, see
each other. Their desires will be strong. And as far as they are able,
they'll put those into practice. Desires that spring from grace. Lord Jesus Christ, for all of
his dear people, has suffered and bled on Calvary's tree. He's
redeemed his people, redeemed them from sin, from Satan and
from the grave, redeemed them from this world. He says, whosoever
will be a friend to the world is an enemy of God. The Apostle
Paul says, the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. I don't want the world and the
world does not want me. And it is the grace of God that
springs forth from what He has done at Calvary in paying the
debt of His people and loosing them from that debt and delivering
them from the power of sin and Satan to work in them that which
is well pleasing in His sight. And one of those things, one
of the very first things, will be desire. You know, even a baby,
when it is first born, can't speak, can't tell the parent
what it wants, but it desires the breast, and it cries for
that, and makes every move towards it. The feelings of hunger are
very evident in its desires in that early, early stage. And so I proved it, and so it
is a real sign of life. the desire of the righteous. There will be desires in the
heart of God's dear people that are there because of the grace
of God. He has put them there and He
has drawn them. Now the Lord said, no man can
come unto me except the Father which sent me. Draw him and I'll
raise him up for the last day. How is that drawing? Felt. How is it reflected? How is it
realised? In a believer is drawn, it is
realised in the desires after Christ. He draws their affections. He draws their thoughts. He makes
them to have a desire for Him that was not there by nature. Now I thought, standing in the
porch this morning, And I thought of that early church, and how
many thousands, well there were 5,000, 3,000 that believed at
Pentecost, and later on, many, many thousands. There were thousands
that followed after the Lord. And I thought, who gave them
that desire? Who brought them to come and
to hear the word of the Lord? The Lord is the same God today. And He is able today to put in
the hearts of men and women a desire for the Lord and a desire after
Him. And yet we live in such a discouraging
day that none seem to desire the cause of the Lord. Men shall
be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. And we see it. And yet the Lord is still the
same. And may we have those desires like the Apostle Paul did when
he writes in the 10th of Romans. And he says, brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer, you see the two things that are going together
again and how that searches us as ministers like Paul was. He says, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israelis, that they might be saved. That's what
he desired, that they might be saved. And what was he seeing? He was seeing a people that weren't
just not religious, he saw a people that were ignorant of God's righteousness
and going about to establish their own. They wanted to be
religious, and to get to heaven by their own works, but they
had no time for Christ, his sacrifice, his death, his righteousness,
his mercy, his grace. They did not need that. They
did, but they didn't fear that. We can see for salvation we can
desire things, and he says, here I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. May we have a zeal
that is according to knowledge and our desire be for the salvation
of the Lord and the salvation of the Gospel as it is set before
us in the Word. Not of works lest any man should
boast. The desire that glorifies the
Lord Jesus Christ and that results in obedience Go ye into all the
world, preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and
is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. And what follows from that obedience? This do in remembrance of me. As often as ye do eat this bread
and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death till he
come. And there is that obedience,
and it flows forth from that desire. to obey God. The apostles, when they were
persecuted for preaching the word, they said we ought to obey
God and not man. And so there was that desire,
even taking up the cross and following the Lord and suffering
for it as well, and may that desire be with us, that we have
evidences of desires that spring from the grace of God. Paul says,
what I am, I am by the grace of God. But we don't need to
be apostles and ministers or walk like the apostle did in
that way, but to be as a broken-hearted sinner with desires after the
God of our salvation. after him who suffered, bled
and died on Calvary's tree and rose again to redeem our souls
from hell, to save us. The Apostle says, you are not
your own, you are bought with a price. Wherefore glorify God
in your body and in your spirit which are his. And there will
be a desire to glorify God, a desire to be used of him, You know,
I don't often mention things like this but I had a dream last
night and having this text on my mind and I was picturing this
man speaking to someone else and they were pouring out their
desires and what they wanted to be and to serve the Lord and
to be spent and to serve Him and to spend their days with
the Lord and I was listening to this and I just so broken
down in my dream and just crying to think here was one that longed
and wanted to be of use and a blessing in the Church of God and for
Christ and amongst his people and I thought how rare that is
today And I just remember how broken
down I was because of how rare it was to see someone with such
a desire to be a blessing and to be used and to be a help to
the Church of God. Well, I want to then think lastly
of granted desires. the desire of the righteous shall
be granted. Well, what are those desires
that are granted? You know, there's a beautiful
text in the Word of God of those granted promises and desires. You think of in Proverbs, Proverbs
10, Verse 24, the fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him,
but the desire of the righteous shall be granted. A solemn thing, if the Lord should
just grant desires of the wicked. When we are in many of the Lord's
people of utter things that they trample, if the Lord took them
at their word and at their desire in unregeneracy, The Lord has
disannulled it. He hasn't given them that, but
he's given them desires that he has then fulfilled in them
and granted to them. Psalm 20 speaks of the desires
again of David and testifying that Some will they trust in
horses, some in chariots, but we will remember the name of
the Lord, our God. The desires after the Lord. And he says in Psalm 21, that
the King shall joy in thy strength, O Lord, and in thy salvation. How greatly shall he rejoice,
thou hast given him his heart's desire, and has not withholden
the request of his lips, zealot. And again, we have the desire
and request of the lips is answered prayer. Desire is put, and then
prayer. And you have it later on in the
Psalm 145, And in that psalm there's two
beautiful verses, one often we quote in prayer, Thou openest
thy hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. And it's
a blessed thing, that's not just in a natural way, though it is
in a natural way, but when we are a living thing, a living
Christian, a living soul, And the Lord satisfies that desire
so that we can't desire anymore. And then we have the calling
and desire again joined together in verse 18. The Lord is nigh unto all them
that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of
them that fear Him, He also will hear their crying and will save
them. We read of Solomon that he gave
to the Queen of Sheba all her desire. And may we be assured
of this, as sure as the Lord has put in our hearts those right
desires after Him and given us prayer for those things. that
He will grant those desires in His time and in His way and obey
to His honour and to His glory. May the Lord then grant us the
desires of our heart and put those desires there, right desires,
flowing from a delight in the Lord. Delight thyself also in
the Lord and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. May
the Lord add his blessing. Amen.