Welcome, friends, to another
broadcast of the Moses for Zion's 4. As the Spirit of God works in
them, both the will and to do of His good pleasure, He brings
His children through many different experiences. There are seasons
of great light and seasons of looming darkness. There are times
when zeal and fervor are at their peak, and then there are times
of comfortable complacency and even apathy. There are moments
of great peace when all is well in mind and soul, and then there
are moments when anxiety and even fear grips that same mind,
causing the child of God to reel to and fro as a drunkard. Paul
describes such varied states when he writes to the Corinthians
telling them of his determination to be found among them as a faithful
minister. In much patience, in afflictions,
in necessities, in distresses, in strikes, in imprisonments,
in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings. One of the most
damnable lies that Satan has seen fit to try to confuse the
saints of God with is the notion that if they are true believers,
then they will always be living in a triumphant state. ever overcoming
all obstacles, and whenever they encounter any troubles they will
always have victory in every situation. The purveyors of darkness
have sought to thus accuse and trouble the saints in every age,
even as those physicians of no value and miserable comforters
sought to upbraid and charge Job with unfaithfulness and disobedience. This same notion is carried on
in our day by those who teach the notion of progressive sanctification,
the power of positive thinking, name it and claim it, and a health
and wealth gospel. They would derive the children
of God as having no faith at all because they are not attempting
and accomplishing great things while confessing victory and
triumph on every hand. The fact is that it is in the
very doubtings and fears, weaknesses and distresses which the Lord
sees fit to bring upon His own, that the Lord is pleased to teach
His children a very vital lesson, which those who are always strong
in faith, going about to establish their own righteousness, can
never learn or understand. This is that which Paul describes
as he relates the trials that were given to him by his thorn
in the flesh. And he said unto me, My grace
is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take
pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I
strong. It is this weakness brought on
by the fires of afflictions in body, mind, and soul that the
true sons of God are driven to Christ, confessing that they
have no strength. It is when a man is weaned from
the notion of discovering any triumph in himself and is in
mind and heart brought down to the feet of Christ, crying out
for mercy and grace to help in time of need, that his true strength
is seen. This is when the sons of God
are strong, not when they are boasting and preening in their
triumphant faith and imagined strength. David speaks of thirsting
after God. My soul thirsteth for God, for
the living God. When shall I come and appear
before God? He uses the illustration of the deer's longing for a cool
drink of water, as perhaps a hunter on horseback with his dogs in
hot pursuit, or possibly wolves that have sat upon his trail
and pursue its very life. This is not a calm pastoral scene,
but one which is fraught with danger, uncertainty, and fear.
When a man is awakened by the Spirit of God and is acquainted
with his own frailty and the perils which beset him on every
side, he, just like the heart, longs for deliverance. He is
panting because of the weariness which besets him, but he is also
panting as one who knows that only the cool liquid of the fountain
of living waters can slake his thirst, cool his fevered brow,
and refresh his aching feet. Paul understood his own barrenness
and confessed that he had not arrived yet at that place he
desired to be. He makes no boast of his triumph,
but looks longingly towards that one who is his strength. He confesses
that he sees the brook flowing in the distance, and like one
who has soothed this part's throat here in times past, presses forward
towards its life-giving flow. that I may know him, and the
power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings,
being made conformable to his death. So panteth my soul after
thee, O God." It is natural that a man should desire his own comfort,
yet this innate desire is the very cause of his destruction
when he becomes satisfied with his own perceived standing and
is not hungering and thirsting after the presence of God as
a man who is perishing daily. That salvation which the Spirit
of God is presently working out in the sons of God is not that
which they can presently boast in, but rather that which they
longingly desire to see manifested in themselves. Do you long to
know Christ?