All right, take your Bibles and
turn back with me to Psalm 107. Entitle this message, Hope, Hope
for the Wanderer. Hope for the Wanderer. Our text is gonna be found in
verses four through nine. The scripture says, they wandered
in the wilderness in a solitary way. They found no city to dwell
in hungry and thirsty. Their souls fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.
And he led them by the right way, that they might go to a
city of habitation. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children
of men For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the
hungry soul with goodness. Now, the beginning of this psalm,
I preached this last Lord's Day, that the redeemed of the Lord,
those who are redeemed of the Lord, are here exhorted to give
thanks. to give thanks to God for His
goodness. And we talked about the goodness
of God being manifest in the offering of His Son, in the giving
of His Son to redeem us. We who have been redeemed have
been redeemed not with silver and gold, not by our vain works,
our vain conversation. but with the precious blood of
Jesus Christ. Therefore, the redeemed of the
Lord are exhorted to give thanks. And we were redeemed long before
we experienced it. I was redeemed. I was bought
long before I knew it. We were born captives. We were
born enslaved to sin. And yet he delivered us by his
one offering. He has forever satisfied the
justice of God for all our sins. And then after that, he gathered
us. This is the experience of the
redeemed. In verse three, he says, and gathered them out of
the lands of the east, the west, the north and the south. He gathered
us by the Power of the Holy Spirit. We read that in Ephesians 1 verse
18. That faith, the giving of life
and faith, it takes the power of God. Again, how foolish is man to
think that faith and life come by mere decisions or mere works. It's a power of God that has
to give men faith. You can't get faith by earning
it. It's something that God must
give you. And when God gives us faith,
we see that Christ has redeemed us. We trust in His blood and
His righteousness. He gathered us. And so this is
the hope for sinners, that God will gather all his redeemed
and not one of them shall be left. God says my word goes forth
out of my mouth and it does exactly what I send it to do. Isn't that
something? How the word of God goes out
and one's life changes. You were dead in sins and all
of a sudden you hear the word of God and you live. While the
person next to you, around you, they hear it and it just bounces
off of them. You know what? That word did
exactly what God intended it to do. He intended to save the
one and leave the other. Men don't like that. They don't
like that. I do. Because I would have never
chose him. He gave me life. He gave me faith. He redeemed me from all my sins. He redeemed me from the hand
of the enemy. He gathered me. Now, in the rest
of this text, he is going to use four different characters
to describe this. There are four characters. There
is the one we're going to deal with today, the wanderer. In
the character of the wanderer, every redeemed believer should
know this by experience. The second is the rebel, the
fool, and the last one is the mariner. So we're going to deal
with this matter of the wanderer, this picture of every believer's
experience. Every believer here should relate
to the wanderer. And I want to see three things
about the wanderer. I want us to see, first of all,
his character and condition. What is the character and the
condition of the wanderer? Secondly, I want us to see the
cry and the salvation of the wanderer. And thirdly, I want
us to see this, everyone who is saved, every wanderer who
is saved, we are still prone to wander. I want to see this. So first of all, the character
of the wonder of the illustration here, he says, and they wondered
who those that were redeemed, those who give thanks, those
who he has gathered. Who is the they? They are the
redeemed. And every redeemed say, I know
this. You bet they wondered. This wonder is a traveler. I
get the picture. He's traveling. He's traveling
down a road through a desert place, all right? And all of
a sudden, a windstorm comes up, and the road is now covered with
sand. Everywhere he looks, it's the
same. There is no distinguishing marks. There are no signs in the desert. He has no direction. He has no
idea where he is. He's lost. And he'll be lost
until someone comes and gives him direction. Therefore, seeing he is in such
a lifeless place with no lasting markers, this lost traveler,
he wanders back and forth. He goes this way for a while,
and he says, oh, well, that way looks better. And he turns this
way, and it's still no better. He turns back this way and it's
still no better. He's wandering. The scripture
says in a solitary way, that is no matter which way he goes,
there's only desolation. There's only a lifeless desert
around him. And then he comes to the point
where he runs out of food and water. See, there's always hope
as long as you have some food and water. He can always hold out for hope
as long as he has enough to sustain him. But in this character, he
runs out, verse 5, hungry and thirsty, his soul faints in him. Now then, he's out of water,
he's out of food, he's out of strength, he just lays down and
is ready to die. That's what it means. His soul
gave up. His soul gave up all hope. At this point, the wanderer is
without any hope of life. Now you that believe, you that believe, was this not
the condition that Christ found us in? This is the condition of everyone
that God gathers. So in what spiritual condition
does God find us wandering in the wilderness? Over in Deuteronomy chapter 32,
listen how God describes how He found Jacob. In chapter 32
and verse 9 He said, For the Lord's portion is His people.
Isn't that amazing? You know what the Lord's portion
is? His people. Who does He love? His people.
What does He do everything for? His people. Listen, Jacob is
the lot of his inheritance. Now the lot of our inheritance
is God. I know this. We're getting a
better deal. He found him in a desert land,
in a waste howling wilderness, and led him about. He instructed
him and kept him as the apple of his eye. This is where Christ
finds and gathers every sinner he redeemed. He finds us wandering, finds us in a desert place. This
word, uh, wander, it means simply to go astray. That's what it
means. They went astray. They went astray. It means they
were lost their way and they cannot find their own way back. This is a description of us by
birth. Listen, we weren't born and then wandered. We were born
wandering. Listen to what God says about
us from birth. He said the wicked are estranged from the womb.
They go astray, that wander, as soon as they are born. Listen,
speaking lies. Before I could speak, I was speaking
lies. We don't teach our children to
lie, do we? Carson, anybody teach you to
lie? Anybody teach you, set you down and say, oh, Carson, this
is how you lie. We do that on our own. Why? Because that's who we are. We
wandered away from God as soon as we are born. We're not born
pure and then by commission of sin go astray. We're born that
way. I tell you this morning that
if you have not been gathered by God the Holy Spirit to believe
on Christ, if you've not been gathered, if you've not been
a wanderer, listen, if you were never lost, you've not been saved. You see, God only saves the lost.
He only saves the wanderer. We, by nature, do not know the
way to God. We have set out not to please
God by the way God describes, but by our own way. That wanderer,
he's going his own way. I think this is the way to God.
And another religion says, I think this is the way to God. And we
thought, I think this is the way to God. See, the way to God
is not opinionated. I don't care what your opinion,
there's only one way to God. But we all set out on our own
way. Isaiah told us this, we like
sheep have wandered, gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. But here's the hope of God's
sheep. The Lord had laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now this
word solitary, we know what wandering in the wilderness means. They
wandered in a solitary way. What does this mean? The word
solitary means desolation or destruction, a desert place,
a lifeless place. We wandered in a way of desolation that could never bring us or
make us acceptable with God. Now, we all, by nature, believe. You can tell by every religion,
every false religion has this same notion. that you can make
yourself, somehow, you can make yourself acceptable to God. If
you just do this, if you're a good boy, a good girl, God's going
to accept you. And we like to have our children
to be good. There's nothing wrong with that.
That makes them acceptable to me, but that doesn't make them
acceptable to God. We think salvation is somehow
accomplished by what we do. And so we dig into religion and
we hear this, you know, you shouldn't lie. You shouldn't steal. You
knew that before you went to church. That's already in your
heart. But you want an affirmation of
it. And that's what men want. They want affirmation. I was
listening to this one man. He was speaking against adultery,
you know, and there's a guy in the back. He's saying, Hey, man, You know what he was saying?
He said, look at me. I don't have that temptation.
Look at me. I've done what he's saying. You
all need to start doing that just like me. Either that or
he is the biggest adulterer in the whole room. I don't know.
We're all trying to look for something within ourselves to
make us acceptable for heaven. A lot of people look to Jesus
and they say, yeah, I believe that Jesus died for my sins.
I believe that His blood covers my sins. But there's a part of
this that I have to put into it. There's a thing that I've
got to do. Jesus redeemed me. He gave me
righteousness. But you know what? I need to
sanctify myself. I need to set myself apart from
everybody else. And so what do you do? It's an
unholy mixture of your works in Christ. That's what you're
trying to do. You're trying to mix your works with His. You
know what Paul said about that? He said, if you be circumcised.
Now what he means by that is that church in Galatia, they
were trying to add that one thing, circumcision. They said, I believe
in Jesus Christ, but I also must be circumcised. And Paul said,
listen, if you be circumcised, if you add that to Christ, Christ
profits you nothing. You got that? You add one work
you do to all his works and he will profit you nothing. You've
defiled his work. You defiled his work. And I'll tell you, Works religion
just seems right to us. I'm saying to us as humans as
men by nature works seems right. It's just logical to our minds
that we've got to do something. Proverbs 1625 there is a way
that seemeth right. Unto a man. At one time, it seemed right
to me that I should try to earn God's favor. Just seemed right. I knew I was a sinner. I knew
I needed to do something. There's a way that seemeth right
unto the man, but the end thereof is desolation, death. The way of salvation by works,
religion, and ceremonies and salvation by the act of will
is nothing less than a solitary way, a way of desolation. There's no life there. There's
no life. I pray that God would open the
hearts of anyone who is wandering in this destructive way. And listen, he found us, we who
have been wandering, we who were wandering in that solitary way,
that desolation, When he found us, he found us having no refuge. Look at that in the text. They found no city to dwell in. In the desert, it is vital to
have a place of protection, shelter, shade. This idea of the wanderer
is wandering in a desert and he has no protection. He has
no place to rest. He has no shelter. There are no cities in the desert
for good reason. There's no water, there's no
life, there's no reason to have one there. There are no shades to rivers
to cool our parched tongue, no walls of fortification, even
so it is with one who is spiritually wandering. Those who are outside
of Christ have no place to rest, no abiding comfort. They travel
from sin to sin, from mirage to mirage. You see the man in
the desert. He's wandering and he goes from one mirage to another. Oh, there it is. There it is.
And he gets there. He disappears. He wanders over
here. Oh, look, that's it. And isn't
that how we wander from sin to sin? I just had this. If I just had this, then it would
all fit. The puzzle pieces would come
together, my life would be wonderful, and you get there in what? Mirage. The joy lasts for a moment, and
it's gone. This is how we wondered. We went from one religion to
another. We said, ah, this religion's it. This is the way right here. This church, this this this doctrine
of works, this is the way. And you get there and you say,
no, that's not the way you jump from church to church, the church,
the church trying to find it. It's a mirage. These religious wonderers, Paul
said, they have a form of godliness. You see them in the church and
they're all dressed up. Raising their hands. Hallelujah.
Praising the Lord. They're making all kinds of joyful
sounds. Wonderful. They give all their
money, give all their time. It's only a form of godliness.
Why? Because they deny the power of
it. They deny that salvations of
the Lord completely. If you deny the salvations of
God completely, you just have a form of godliness. You're just
pretending. That's all. He says, ever, ever learning
and never able to come to knowledge of the truth, always learning.
Never saddest. The truth is simple. And you're
going to see this in a minute. The truth is very simple. The
truth is one person, Jesus Christ. Salvation's in one person. It's
not in you. It's in him. All the power to
give it belongs to him. All the right to withhold it
belongs to him. Well, sure, it's got to be more
complicated than that. Well, you go learn and never come to
the truth. Such are those, and this is, I say this because
this is me I'm talking about. This was me. I was wondering. I had a form of godliness. I
denied the power thereof. Everyone who's redeemed, we all,
I'm not, when I say these things, I'm not thinking of you. I'm
thinking of me. Because that's me. I was the
wanderer. I was lost. I had no shelter. And notice this next thing. They
hungered and thirsted. Now listen, a man will wander
in the desert and be content so long as he has food and water.
When you run out of that, you run out of what? Hope. It wasn't until God brought me
to the end of myself that I realized I had no hope. You that are gathered, have you
been there? Have you been at a place where there is no hope? You know, if you've got one more
place to go, you'll go. If you've got one more work you
think you can do, you'll go do it. But everyone God saves, he brings
them to a point where they have no more hope. No more hope. Notice their souls fainted within
them. Every redeemed person has been
there. And I ask you this morning, are
you there? Are you without any hope? Well, God's word does not stop
there. I'm thankful. That's a pretty
bleak message so far, isn't it? It's pretty bleak. I'm just telling
you the truth. But I'm here to give hope to
the wanderer. I'm giving hope to those so you
can stop wondering. Notice this. Look then at verse
6. Notice the result. When everything's
gone, what do the redeemed do? Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. Here's the remedy for the wanderer. Cry unto the Lord. Why? Because I can't help you. In this world, I do not believe
there's anyone I love more than my children. But I cannot help them. I cannot save them. I know this because my parents
couldn't do it for me. Therefore I cried unto the Lord. You know what he did? He delivered
me out of my distress. My distress. He gathers us and delivers us. You see, I know the way to God. And I can show you the path of
salvation. Here it is. Jesus Christ is the
only way to God. He's the only way. The wanderer is in an uncertain
way. The wanderer is in a way of many
opinions of men. But God says this, Christ said
this, I am the way. Now is that, is that not clear
enough for you? I am the way. In other words, there is no other
way. I'm the truth. Men are searching
for truth. Well, truth is a person. Jesus
said, I am the truth. Men are searching for life. Jesus
says, I am the life. And no man comes to God except
by me. That's narrow, isn't it? Men
don't like a narrow way. They like lots of options. We
like options. You buy a car, you want a lot
of options. We like options. Leave your options open. No. This is only one way. There's not many ways. I am the
way to God. If you are wandering, you can
only come to God by Jesus Christ. And when we are coming to Christ,
what are we coming to? We are coming for refuge. Isn't
that what the wanderer needs? He needs shelter. He needs protection. From what? What is the protection
you need? If you're wandering into spiritual
wilderness, what is the protection? I need protection from God. You see, I've sinned against
God. And the wrath of God is against
me. So what do I need? I need shelter
from the wrath of God. I'll give you a picture. Remember
Noah in the ark, right? God said, I'm going to destroy
the world because of sin. The judgment of God was coming
on the whole earth. And you remember, Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord, and he said, build the ark. And
they built that ark. They got all the animals in there.
And the justice of God fell on all the earth. What saved Noah
and his family? The ark. It was the ark that
absorbed the justice of God. That's a picture of Jesus Christ.
That's what he did. We being in Christ, he endured
the wrath of God for me. He was my refuge. We flee to
him for refuge. and everyone who has fled to
him for refuge. Listen, I want you to know this.
You that are in Christ, you're in Christ. He's endured the wrath
of God for you. Listen, beautiful for situation. You got a beautiful situation.
If you're in Christ, you are in a perfect situation. Beautiful for situation, the
joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north,
the city of the great king. God is known in her palaces for
a refuge. I like this. That Mount Zion
where they worship God, it's naturally surrounded by huge
mountains. It's perfectly protected. And
listen, there was only one road that went to Zion. See how God
pictures this again and again and again. There's only one way.
There's only one way to be accepted. Only one way to God and everyone
who is in Zion. You are perfectly sheltered from
the wrath of God forever. Perfectly sheltered. God is our
refuge. So we find inhabitation. He gathers
us into heavenly Jerusalem and we are founded upon the rock
of ages. He takes the sinner, he washes us in the blood of
Christ, he wraps us in the robe of his righteousness and none
are able to remove us from this refuge. I find this very comforting because
often I don't feel like I'm in the refuge. Can you imagine Noah 18 months
in that ark? Year and a half. You suppose
it was comfortable in there? I don't know, you ever been in
a confined space with your family for a long time? I imagine it was not very comfortable. I got one dog, and I'm often
not comfortable with one animal in the house. I'm just saying
we are in Christ. We often experience tribulations
and trials and difficulties and pains. But does that mean we're
outside the ark? No. No, we're safe. I like this song. Listen to this
song. We've sang this before. Against
the God that ruled the sky, I fought with hand uplifted high, despised
the mention of his grace, too proud to seek a hiding place.
Enwrapped in thick Egyptian night and fond of darkness more than
light. Madly I ran the sinful race,
secure without a hiding place. But thus the eternal counsel
ran. Almighty love arrests that man. I felt the arrows of distress
and found I had no hiding place. Ere long a heavenly voice I heard. and mercy's angel form appeared. He led me on with gentle pace
to Jesus Christ, my hiding place. On him, almighty vengeance fell
that must have sunk a world to hell. He bore it for a sinful
race and thus became their hiding place. should sevenfold storms
of vengeance roll and shake the world from pole to pole, no bolt
of lightning daunt my face, for Jesus Christ is my hiding place. Those who wander, when he gathers
them, he brings them into the refuge. And the blood of Jesus
Christ is sufficient to cover all my sin. His righteousness is sufficient
to make me acceptable to God. You know what I have to add?
Nothing. Not one thing. And next, look at this, he gives
them food. He gives the wonder of food. He led them forth by the right
way that they might go into a city of habitation, a refuge. Oh,
that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, for his wonderful
works to the children of men. For he satisfied the longing
soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. We hungered and
thirsted for righteousness. When God gathers us, we find
in Christ all that our hearts could desire. We find that we are now made
the righteousness of God in him. When he said this, he delivered
us out of our distresses. What were our distresses? Well, first of all, we didn't
know the way. You know the way? I know the way. I didn't have a place of rest.
I didn't have a place of refuge. I didn't have a place of shelter,
protection. He delivered me out of that distress.
Christ is my refuge. Christ is my shelter. Christ
is my rest. I was hungry and thirsty. And
he gave me the bread of life. Isn't that what Jesus said about
himself? I am the bread of life. Whoso
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood shall never hunger or
thirst. For what? Righteousness. For
acceptance. We shall never hunger. We feed
on his body and his blood by faith. By believing on Him, that's
what it is to eat Him. It is to believe on Him. It is
to trust Him. And we constantly do this. We
who are believers, we who have been redeemed, we are constantly
dependent on Jesus Christ. We are dependent upon Him to
bring us home to God. And I tell you this, everybody
who is a wanderer and been gathered by Christ, I am completely satisfied
with Christ. He's enough. He's more than enough. I don't need anything else. I
don't want anything else. He's my refuge. He's my way to
God and He's my substance. Daily believing, daily trusting
Him. And the last thing I want you
to see this is the wanderer who has been redeemed, the wanderer
who has been found. We are still prone to wander. Consider this, we have been chosen
by God. Why me? Ask God. There's no other
reason. I'm not going to give you any
reason to myself. I was telling a lady this the other day, and
she said, why are you putting yourself down all the time? I said, not so much I'm putting
myself down as I want to exalt him. And in order to do that,
I must abase myself to exalt him. If I exalt myself, then
I must abase him. Can't do both. Why exalt him? We were chosen of God, redeemed
by the blood of Christ, called and gathered by the Spirit. And
listen, right now I'm being kept. Why is it that I haven't left?
You that believe, why have you not left? He keeps me in His hands. Nobody can pluck me out of His
hands. Especially myself. If anybody
would, if it were possible for anybody to pluck me out of the
hand of God to be my myself, I'd do it. Peter says we are kept, listen,
by the power of God. Isn't that something? What keeps
you? The power of God, nothing else. I can't keep myself. You got
that? If it were up to me to keep myself,
I would go. I would leave. But we are kept
by the power of God. And yet being found in Christ
with all of these benefits, we still understand that we who
have been gathered have a daily constant struggle within ourselves.
The spirit lusts against the flesh, and the flesh against
the spirit, and these are contrary one to another, so that you could
not do what you want to. What does the spirit want to
do? What does the new man want to do? I want to be righteous. I would long to be without sin. I long to be with Christ. I long
to feel His presence. I long for prayer. I long for
study. And what does the other man want
to do? completely opposite of what that man wants to do. The
old man wants to go away. The old man wants to pull you
in the opposite direction. And so you are struggling constantly
as a believer in Christ. We just sang that hymn. Prone
to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. What's my hope then? Here's my
heart. You seal it for your courts above. You keep me. And this
constant wondering, you know what? We often wondered. Do you realize why God likens
us to sheep? Have you ever figured that out?
Why sheep? Because sheep are the dumbest
animals alive. They just are. They're the most
helpless and needy animals in the world. I'm going to send a video of
this sheep. He was caught in this ditch.
He was ditching. He couldn't get out at all. And
they had to get down there and they had to grab him by the legs.
And they pull this sheep out of this ditch full of, he's all
filthy. They clean him off. You know
what the sheep does? He runs right around and jumps back in
the ditch. Anybody identify with that? Believers
identify with that? Stupid. It's just nature. How gracious and patient is our
shepherd to constantly pull us in, clean us off, and watch us
jump right back in, and pull us out. And that shepherd's psalm, it
says, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me, It's the same
stick and one's got a hook and the other one's got the end of
it. You know what he does with that
rod? When a sheaf is constantly goes astray. You know what he
does? He takes that sheaf's leg and he breaks it. Why does he do it? It seems mean,
doesn't it? I mean. And then he carefully takes that
leg and he binds it up. You know what he does with that
sheaf? He puts it on his own shoulders and carries it around.
Can't walk, he carries that thing around. And when he puts a sheep down, that
sheep is more prone to be by the Savior, be by a shepherd. Why God chastens us, not for
our hurt, but because we're prone to wonder. What? All that men should praise
the Lord for His goodness. Can you find anyone better than
Jesus Christ? I can't. I was a wanderer. I was lost. Had no place to go. Destitute
and dying. And He found me. He showed me
he was the way, and he's the refuge, and he's the life, and
he's my substance. And even now, he constantly gathers
me. This is the testimony of every
redeemed sinner. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord. You that are redeemed, why do
you give thanks? Because he's good. His mercy endures forever. Hope for the wanderer. I pray
God will bless it to you. Stand and be dismissed in prayer. Gracious Father dismisses with
your mercy. Pour out your spirit. We are
destitute without it. We pray for it. Because the spirit
alone gives us life and faith to look to Christ. Save your people. Gather them. Keep them. I pray you do this
for your own glory in Jesus name. Amen.