Let's turn our Bibles to Psalm
63. O God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek Thee. My soul
thirsteth for Thee. My flesh longeth for Thee in
a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, to see thy power
and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary, because
thy lovingkindness is better than life. My lips shall praise
thee." If you look at the heading of this psalm, it says a psalm
of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. David, again, he's
being pursued by his son Absalom. Whenever David's other son raped
his daughter, David didn't do anything about it. And Absalom
pounced on that because it was something he could use as a political
campaign. And he began to tell everyone
he would bring justice to Israel. And eventually, little by little,
all Israel turned against David. And now Absalom's trying to kill
David. And David is in the wilderness, alone, again. And this is where
he wrote a lot of Psalms. But that was a place where God
was pleased to renew a right spirit in David. and the word
grace for David. We found this in many cases where
God leads his child into the wilderness alone where God reveals
himself. God made himself known to Hagar
in the wilderness when she was cast out by Abraham and Sarah. Moses was on the back side of
the desert when God appeared to him in the burning bush. Elijah
went a day's journey into the wilderness and there God revealed
himself. There's a type of the church
in Revelation 12, 6. It says, the woman fled into
the wilderness where she had a place prepared of God that
they should feed her there a thousand, two hundred and three score days.
Hosea, you remember, is a picture of the church. I mean, Gomer. And Gomer went after her lovers. And Hosea, picture Christ, said,
Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness,
and there speak comfortably to her. On one hand, as God's saints,
with our citizenship being in heaven, this whole world is a
wilderness to us. We're passing through a wilderness.
But on the other hand, the wilderness is a type of the various trials
that God brings us into. This virus has us in a trial
right now because we're literally scattered about in body in the
wilderness. Others are entering trials that
will be a wilderness. Still others are in the midst
of the wilderness. But God brings his child into
the wilderness by his sovereign free grace on purpose. It's to get us alone with God. It's to prune away everything
that's stealing our hearts from Christ. It's to turn us from
the sin that so easily besets us. We have a few of those. It's
to renew us in a right spirit after Christ alone. It is to
grow us in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. No
brethren, our gospel is not a theory. God will make us experience it.
And if we're a child of God, at some point, God shall bring
us into the desert wilderness where no water is. That's gonna
happen. All God's children in Christ
are without sin. But none of God's children are
without chastening. No child of God goes without
our Heavenly Father's Faithful correction. Whom the Lord loveth,
he chasteneth. And scourgeth every son whom
he receiveth. And God's pruning is painful. It's meant to be painful. I watched
my grandfather prune his tomato plants and he would have a huge
row of tomato plants, very tall tomato plants. And when he would
get through pruning those tomato plants, there would be almost
more branches on the ground than there would be on the plants.
And you'd think he was gonna kill the tomatoes. But it never
killed the tomatoes. It made them stronger. It made
them stronger. As a church, every wilderness
that God's brought us into for 12 years, God's brought us out
of it stronger than we went into it. Everyone. God will not allow the faith
of His child to fail in the wilderness. For His child, our faith will
not fail in the wilderness. He's going to preserve faith
in His child. He's going to draw us nearer
to God. Now David's in the wilderness
and look at this first thing he cries out. Oh God, thou art
my God. Oh God, thou art my God. It means, Oh God, thou art my
El, my mighty God. My mighty God. God made David
worship God in the wilderness. He made him worship God in the
wilderness. That's what he's doing here. He's worshiping God
in the wilderness. He didn't seek comfort in the
wilderness. David wrote a brand new desert wilderness song when
he was in the desert wilderness to worship God. Now only the
grace of God, pure grace of God can bring a sinner like you and
me to say what David just said. To say, Oh God, thou art my God. You know what it took to bring
David to say that? It took God choosing David in
Christ before the foundation of the world by free and sovereign
grace. It took the Lord Jesus Christ
entering into covenant with the God the Father to be David's
surety, promising what he eventually accomplished, coming into the
world and laying down his life for David in order for David
to be righteous in Christ and without sin. It took God the
Holy Spirit regenerating David, giving him a new heart, making
a new man within him so that he could call out to God and
God did that by free and sovereign grace too. And God brought him
into this wilderness right where he was by free and sovereign
grace. The same free and sovereign grace
brought him into that wilderness. If it takes a desert wilderness
to strip us of vain things and or to bring us closer in communion
with God, then that's a wilderness worthwhile. It's a wilderness
worthwhile. We see three things that God
brings His child to do when He's brought us into the wilderness
and brought us to the end of ourselves. Number one, God makes us desire
Him so that we diligently, earnestly seek Him. He said there, early
will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee. My flesh longeth for Thee. Secondly,
God reminds us there's no life for us in this wilderness. He
says, My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in
a dry and thirsty land where no water is. And three, God makes us look
up to see His glory and His power. He says, I'm longing and I'm
thirsting to see thy power and thy glory so as I've seen thee
in the sanctuary. Now if that's where God brings
us in the wilderness, it's a wilderness worthwhile. Now first of all,
when God brings His child into the wilderness, He makes us desire
Him and earnestly seek Him. He says, early will I seek Thee,
my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee. This
word early means diligently, earnestly, preeminently. to seek
as merchants, seek out precious stones that are of the greatest
value. Do you seek God that way? I can answer that for you. You
don't. Neither do I. It takes a wilderness and God
will bring us into that wilderness to make us do it. When times
are good, we can be so lukewarm toward God and so judgmental
It's just lukewarm. Not even know it. And usually
thinking we're strong. When a child of God who knows
Christ is made to realize he needs Christ alone. He begins to long for Christ
and he begins to seek Christ with all his heart. Our Lord gave that parable. He
said, What woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece,
does not light a candle and sweep the house and seek diligently
till she finds it? The woman knew what she was looking
for. And so she knew it was missing.
And she diligently searched for it. She earnestly searched for
it. That's the way it is with grace. We can't seek what we
don't know we've lost. When the child of God senses
a loss of communion with our Savior, that's when he will not
stop seeking Him. until he diligently finds Him. God does this by grace, by free
grace. David speaks of seeking God here
for what He is in Himself. He's not seeking what God has
to give, he's seeking what God is. His gifts are one thing, but
God is another altogether. We love the gifts God gives us.
We love the gifts that Christ has given us. But it's the giver
we have to have. We love the things He gives,
but without the giver, the gifts would be nothing. But having Him, we have everything.
Without Him, we have nothing. Now, this is an intense desire
that the Spirit of God gives us. He says here, My soul thirsteth
for thee. Is your soul thirst for God?
Is your soul thirst for Christ right now where you sit? My flesh longeth for thee. My soul and flesh, He means the
whole of His being. The whole of His being. This
is the intensity of a woman in childbirth. That's not a sinful flesh she's
talking about. It's this whole being. My soul and my flesh. I guess the most painful feeling
we can have if we really have this is a thirst. If you have
thirst and your thirst is not quenched, it's so painful to
thirst. We can go a long time or a lot
longer without food and water. But we're talking here about
a thirst for the water of life. We're talking here about Christ
our life. We're talking about His presence.
We're talking about life and peace. He who is life and peace
being present in communion. That's what we're talking about.
when we're wounded spiritually. That's when you detect Christ's
presence withdrawn. And He makes you like that wounded
deer. David said over in Psalm Psalm
42, he said, as the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth
my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for
the living God. When shall I come and appear
before God? He said, my tears have been my
meat day and night. while they continually send to
me, where is thy God? He takes these worldly longings
that we have and He turns them into longings for Him. If He leaves us to ourselves,
we long for things of no profit. And that's all we long for. Oh,
we talk about grace and we talk about righteousness and we show
up, but we don't long for Him. But when He's working in His
child and He brings His child into the wilderness, He makes
you fall on your face and beg God for His presence. Why is it you go to sleep sometimes
at night and you don't even give a second thought to God? You
just fall asleep and have a good night's rest. And then other
nights you lay your head down on the pillow and you can't sleep
no matter how you try. And all night in the night watches,
you just water your pillow and you just cry out to God and you're
just longing for His presence. You experience that? Why do you
do that sometimes and not the other time? It's not us. It's not us that makes us do
it. It's Him that makes us do it. Carnal, unregenerate sinners
don't know anything about this. They never know anything about
this. And at times, God's saints don't
know anything about it. But when God brings you into
the wilderness, remember in Song of Solomon, He came and He knocked
at the door, and remember she was laid down. She just didn't
feel like getting up and answering the door. It's my beloved, but
I'm already laid down. And He puts His hand in through
the door, and He opened the door. And she saw Him. And what did
He do? He fled away. That's strange,
isn't it? that He would open up the door,
make you open up the door and see Him, and then He'd flee away
from you. What's He doing? He's making
you long for Him. He's making you thirst for Him. Thirsting and longing to have
nearness to God. This is not, we're not talking
about the doctrine of total depravity, the doctrine of election, or
limited atonement, or irresistible grace, or any doctrine. We're talking about a sinner,
saved by grace, longing for Christ himself. Christ himself. It has to do, number two, It
has to do with God bringing His child to remember there's nothing
for us in this dry desert land. Nothing. He says there, my soul
thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and
thirsty land where no water is. One night I came in from college
to my parents' house And I was really hungry, everybody was
in the bed. And I went and got a frozen pizza and I put it in
the oven. And I went back in the living room and sat down
in the recliner and I fell asleep. And I woke up about 2.30, 3 o'clock
in the morning and I went in the kitchen and I could smell
burnt pizza. And when I opened the oven, there
was nothing in the oven. I looked around in the cabinet,
and I thought, well, I guess somebody got the pizza out, I guess. And
they didn't turn the oven off. I turned the oven off and went
back to bed. The next morning, I got up, and
I asked, who got the pizza out of the oven? We didn't get the
pizza out of the oven. And I went back in there, and
I opened that oven up and looked. And we're talking about a frozen
pizza that cooked probably three hours. And I opened up that oven
and looked, and in the very back of that oven, that pizza had
rolled up like a burrito and was just black. And I mean, when
I went to get it out, it just crumbled. That's dry. It was dry. We have to be reminded that this
world and all things in this world is a dry and thirsty land. We get to set our hearts on things
of this world, our jobs, our careers, our loved ones, the pleasures of this world. But due to sin, this world is
a veil of tears. It's a veil of tears. Sometimes He gives us sickness. Sometimes He gives us a loss
of a loved one. Sometimes He convicts us of our
sins and brings us into this wilderness. Sometimes it's other
trials. Sometimes it's all of those. Just when we get taken with this
world. Just when we start thinking we're
in a really nice Oasis, a good place. We're in a good place. God reminds His child it's a
mirage. He reminds us of our fall in
Adam and the result of it. Cursed is the ground for thy
sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it
all the days of thy life. Solomon gave this long list of
things that he did, and he tried, and he collected, and all these
different things in the world. When he got finished, he said,
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and
on the labor that I had labored to do, and behold, all was vanity
and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. I think that before it's over
with, God's going to make us to know
that we didn't profit anything being here. Now God might have
used us and done some profitable things, but he's going to make
us know he did the profiting. We didn't do the profiting. It's a great blessing to remember
that God our Savior will not allow anything or anyone to steal
our affection from Him. Christ must have the preeminence. No thing and no one. Another
thing we have to be reminded of is that our flesh is a dry
and thirsty land. Not only is this earth and everything
in it a dry and thirsty land, our very sin nature is a dry
and thirsty land. There's nothing but drought.
There's nothing but dry dust in our sinful nature. Nothing
good in our sinful nature. But we don't really believe that.
You don't believe it, neither do I. Just look how we treat one another.
It don't take much for us to look down on each other. It don't
take much at all. So God brings us back into the
wilderness to say, you're the worm. I'm the worm, personally. He has to constantly bring us
low and keep us low to see our worminess. Because we forget
it real fast. We don't see a worm when we look
in the mirror in the morning. Once we get all dressed up, ready
to go, we don't see a worm. It's our sinful flesh that becomes
puffed up. It's nothing that God's created.
Nothing God's created within his people's sins. It's our sinful
nature. Pride. Number one sin we got. I don't have a doubt about it.
Pride. and self-righteousness so that
we condemn others and we justify ourselves. And there's only one
that can help us from that and save us from it. And there's
only one cure for it. We need to constantly have our
hearts broken. Broken. Not to see that there's nothing
good in my brother. I can see that. I have to have my heart broken
and know there's nothing good in me. You don't think I was kidding
when I told you all that, did you? You didn't think I was just
talking in theories, did you? I mean it. He brings you to the
dust. He makes you broken. He makes
you cry out in truth. In truth, He makes you cry this
out. Against thee and thee only have I sinned. and done this evil in thy sight
that thou might be justified when thou speakest and be clear
when thou judgest. He brings you down until you
can't even lift your eyes up to heaven. All you can say is
Lord be merciful to me a sinner. What do you need? I don't know. I don't have any idea. Mercy, that's all I know. I do
know I need mercy, that's all I know. Lord, will you be merciful. You remember why God left Israel
in the wilderness? It's a really good picture when
he got through after that 40 years of them wandering in the
wilderness. He left them in the wilderness to purge them. To
purge them. So that Joshua and that faithful
dog Caleb went into the promised land. And that's what He's doing
for each one of us personally. Personally, what God is doing
for each one of us is He's purging us, He's purging us so that the
only two that are going to enter into the promised land is Christ
our Joshua and His faithful dog Caleb. our draws to consume and our
gold to refine. I don't know if I told you the
story about the guy down in Mexico making the little dogs, you know,
and everybody was commenting on how good he whittled out these
dogs out of this wood and he said, how do you do that? Looks
just like a little dog. How do you do that? He said,
I just cut away everything that don't look like a dog. And that's what the wilderness
is for. He's cutting away everything but what looks like His faithful
dog. And then lastly, when He's brought
us into the dry wilderness, and He's brought us to long for Christ's
presence, makes us to see this dry and thirsty land, a land so dry and thirsty, He gives you new meaning to that
verse that says, speaks of Christ as a friend closer than a brother. He's going to make us to know
Christ is the only one you can trust. That's just fact. And then He's going to make you
do this. He's going to make you look up and see the power and glory
of God. He said there in verse 2, I'm
longing, I'm thirsting to see Thy power and Thy glory so as
I've seen Thee in the sanctuary. When our great God has humbled
His child down into the dust, so we can't lift up our eyes
to heaven when He's turned us from looking down on others to
look down on ourselves. Then the tender hand of God reaches
forth and He turns the heart to behold the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ. He lifts down and He takes your
little head that's just down in the dirt and weeping and mourning
and He just gently lifts it up till you behold God, God our
El in the face of Jesus Christ. You know who all Peter saw after
he hid his face and he raised up on the Mount of Transfiguration
and looked again? You know who he saw? Nobody but
Christ. Nobody but Christ. Nobody but
Christ. And He's going to make you know
that the only way you see Him and the only way you were brought
down and the only way you were made to look up to Him is by
His power. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not
of us. That's when, without a doubt,
you know God's speaking. And He's speaking to you without
a doubt. That's when you know it. You don't have any doubt
about it. When He's put your face down
in the dust and He lifts your head up to behold Christ, the
power and glory of God, that's when you remember, I have forgotten what it's all
about. I got taken up with this mirage. I got taken up with this oasis
called the world and called my flesh and all these other things. And now there's just me and Christ.
And now I remember. Now I remember. Then, that's
when we behold His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. You personally behold
full of grace and truth toward you. Particularly. full of grace and full of truth
towards you. Oh, you would have expected Him
to lift your head up and there He'd be with a sword, fixing
to chop your head off. But He's not like me and you.
He's not like me and you. He's going to lift your head
up and you're going to behold Him full of grace and truth. And He's going to sweetly remind
us of His grace and His mercy and His love toward us. We did
not love Him. We've never loved Him. He loved
us. We didn't seek Him. We did nothing
to merit His favor. We demerited it. He loved us
freely by grace. Christ entered covenant for you
and me who hated Him. He knew us as intimately when
He entered in that covenant in eternity as He knows you right
now. And He still entered covenant
to save His people. When we were enemies in our minds
by wicked works, He came forth and He reconciled us into friendship
with God. Who else would have laid down
His life for you? Who else would have laid down
His life for me? When we hated God, Christ loved
us. When we were crying down judgment
on our enemies, looking down our nose at them and giving them
the stink eye, He loved us and cried down mercy for us. When we are a loathsome, vile,
stinking, abomination to God, Christ laid down His life for
His people. He lived the life we couldn't
live. He gave the obedience we couldn't give. He bore the sin
of common harlots like you and me. He redeemed his elect from the
curse of the law by being made a curse for us. Would you be made a curse for
me? I wouldn't do it for you. I love you, but I don't think
I could go that far. I don't love like he loves. He
redeemed some cursed people who deserve nothing but a curse by
being made a curse for us. And then He graciously crossed
our path with the gospel. He took some other sinner saved
by grace and was gracious enough to cross our path with the gospel. And He opened the scriptures
to us. Christ did this. He opened the
Scriptures to us. And He gave us a heart to see
the wonders of His grace and His mercy and showed us what
a God He is. I know you know this is what
He did for you. I know you know this is what He did for you.
But you don't know it right now like you will when you come out
of that wilderness. or when you're in the middle
of that wilderness. He reminds you again, nobody
else did this for you. He did this. And he reached forth his hand
and he opened the prison door and he said, Go forth! And when
he did, you laid hold of him, wrapped around him the arms of
faith and clinged to him. Do you remember when that happened
the first hour? Remember how it felt one minute
to know you were a guilty sinner, condemned? and the next to know you're a
child of God for whom there is no condemnation. Do you remember
the joy of that? We weren't proud in that moment. We weren't self-righteous in
that moment. We weren't arrogant in that moment. And that's why He brings us back
into the wilderness and puts us down in the dust, makes us
to see everything as a dry and thirsty land, including us, and
then lifts our head up and as it were, saves us all over again
to keep us reminded, to keep us knowing what He's done. Brethren, God has a way of making
His children to be mercy lovers. To be mercy lovers. He gives you some things. He
gives you a building. He gives you, you know, things
you work for and things you want and things you've strived after,
you know, promotion and this and that and the other thing.
And we just don't realize that we haven't been serving Him.
We just don't realize that we've been walking around and looking
at this mirage and loving this mirage way too much. And He makes you, He makes the
dust, He makes us be acquainted with dust. So we'll remember
we're just dust. And He makes you acquainted with
your sin all over again to remember, that's all I am. You saw what you were doing one
way and thought it was a good thing and thought you were doing
it and He made you see, well that wasn't no good either. That
wasn't any good either. Not good as God. Not good enough
to make us righteous with God. Not good enough to make us accepted
with God. And when He does this over and
over and over and over, He makes you love mercy more and more
and more and love grace more and more and more. And He does
this for us and we say, Lord, what can I do to show my gratitude?
Go to Colossians 3. He says, verse 10, put on the
new man. Put on the new man. See, we can
read that and we can read a how-to book on how to put on the new
man, but we can't put on the new man. He has to put the new man on
us. Put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after
the image of him that created him. See that word renewed? That means continually renewed. What's David experiencing in
this wilderness? He's being renewed. Renewed in
what? Renewed in the knowledge after
the image of him that created him. where he's being made to
see there's neither Greek nor Jew, there's neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision, there's neither barbarian, Scythian, bond nor
free, but Christ is all. And in all. And you say, Lord, what can I
do? I want to show some gratitude
to you. He says, put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and
beloved, bowels of mercies. How is it that we'll just be
totally constrained with bowels of mercies so that we're just
inwardly full of mercies? How can that be? How can you
put that on? Through the wilderness. through
him bringing us to this wilderness. Put on bowels of mercies, kindness,
humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one
another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all
these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. and let the peace of God rule
in your hearts through which also you are called in one body
and be ye thankful. There's one reason. There's just
one reason David's faith didn't fail when he's brought into that
wilderness. It's the same reason Peter's
faith didn't fail when he denied the Lord Jesus Christ three times
and left. It's the same reason my faith
and your faith does not fail in the wilderness. It's because even when we deny
Him, the power and the glory of God still intercedes for us. He doesn't stop interceding for
us. Has Satan ever desired you that
he might sift you as wheat? His desire, his sifting is not
God's sifting. God's sifting is to get rid of
the chaff and save the wheat. Satan's sifting is desiring to
get rid of the wheat and save the chaff. But the only reason our faith
doesn't fail is because Christ prays for those He purchased
with His own blood. And He continues to show us grace
and mercy. And the whole thing, even the
devil sifting, was all of His hand, all of Christ's hand to
bring us into this wilderness, into this dust to behold our
dryness. to make us look up again and
behold, He's the power and the glory of God. After our Redeemer was baptized,
He went to the wilderness where He was tempted of the devil for
forty days and nights. In the wilderness. And He triumphed
victoriously over the devil. And then He triumphed over the
devil in His life. all the way through without one
sin. And then He went to the cross
and He crushed the devil's head on the cross. And He crushed
him in the grave. And He came out of the grave
victorious. And all His people came out victorious
in Him. And so now, when He's brought
you into the wilderness and got you absolutely alone with Him,
no more distractions, nothing else to glory in, nothing else
to look at, nothing else to think you did something, to just see
your dryness. He comes then when He's accomplished
His purpose and He binds the strong man and He reveals Himself
to you again and you behold the power and the glory of God. Have you experienced this? If we're His, we will. He'll make everybody look down
on you. He'll make everybody hate you. He'll bring you alone. He'll get you alone to where
you don't have anybody you can count on. Nobody! Because you
can't be alone with God and do that. Count on somebody else.
He's going to bring you alone to where you've got God only.
David didn't have nobody. Oh, he had some hangers-on with
him, but there wasn't nobody he could count on. David was
alone with the one he could count on, God. That's where He's got
to bring us. That's how He makes us more merciful,
and more loving, and more forgiving, and more kind. And here's the
thing about that, though. It just won't be very long, will
it? And we get to see something glistening
over in the desert, and we think it's an oasis. And we get to
flee into it, filling our hands up with it. Oh, but we're doing
it for the glory of God. Oh, we're going to honor God
with this. And we justify, and we justify,
and we justify, and we justify, until He brings us back into
that desert and brings us down and makes you see He's just a
sinner. And he lifts your head back up.
And you see the power and glory of God. And you see, that's the
one I can trust right there. That's the one I can trust right
there. I can't do that work for myself.
I certainly can't do it for anybody else. But He can. And He brings you
to cry out, O God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek Thee,
preeminently, earnestly, diligently. My soul thirsteth for Thee. I didn't know I was thirsty,
God. My flesh longeth for Thee. I didn't know. I didn't know.
I just didn't know. I'm in a dry and thirsty land
where no water is. I need to see Thy power and Thy
glory. So as I've seen Thee in the sanctuary. Here's why. Because Thy loving
kindness. Thy loving kindness is better
than life. It's better than life. My lips
shall praise Thee. Thus will I bless thee while
I live. I lift up my hands in thy name. Lord did that for me in the first
hour he ever saved me. And when I say hour, I don't
mean I know what the hour was. I just mean first recollection
I have of being saved. That's what he did for me. And
he's done that for me over and over and over and over and over. And if I'm his, he'll keep doing
it for me. He'll keep correcting me. He'll keep correcting me. And He'll keep making me see
He's the power and He's the glory of God. And that's how I'm brought to
praise Him. The only way. Amen.