Let's open our Bibles again to
Psalm 63. I titled the message this evening,
A Psalm for the Thirsty. David wrote this psalm while
he was in the wilderness. Remember, he was on the run from
his son Absalom, who tried to take the throne, did take the
throne from David for a time. And it's really hard to imagine
what David must have been going through at that time, isn't it?
To be out there in the wilderness, to be cut off from the throne,
to be cut off from his house and so much of his family, to
be cut off from the tabernacle, the place of worship. David just
had to feel like he was just being squeezed to death just
by the pain of his own son trying to kill him. That's the backdrop. That's what was going on with
David personally when he wrote this psalm. But I can tell you
this psalm is not for everybody. This psalm is only for those
who are thirsty. If you are spiritually thirsty,
if you're in need, this psalm will be a blessing to you. And
that's what I want us to look at this evening. David begins
with our condition. You know, we all ought to be
thirsty. Everybody's not. They don't realize that that
they ought to be thirsty. They don't have the righteousness
that God requires of them, but everybody ought to be thirsty.
Here's our condition, verse one. Oh 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. Now this is our condition. We're
spiritually thirsty. Now why is it that we thirst
naturally. We thirst naturally when there's
not enough water in our body. The feeling of thirst is our
body's way of telling us we need something that we don't have
in us. We need more water. There's a lack of water in our
body. Well, a sinner becomes spiritually
thirsty when, by God's grace, he recognizes he needs something
that he doesn't have inside of him. He needs righteousness.
He needs spiritual life. And he doesn't have any. It's
not just he has a lack. He's a little short. He doesn't
have any. And he becomes spiritually thirsty. You know, what is it that brings
you all out here on a Wednesday night? If you come out to a midweek
service, you made a special effort. You've been working all day,
got school and work and all the responsibilities of this life.
What is it that brings you out on a midweek service that makes
you make that special effort? For God's people, it's thirst.
You need a refreshing. You've been out there in the
wilderness of the world, and you need a refreshing. There's
no water out there. There's no refreshing out there.
You need a refreshing. You come looking for a drink,
something to refresh you, something to revive you. Your spirit's
telling you, I need a refreshing. You remember in Psalm 42, David
said, as the heart panteth after the water broke, so panteth my
soul after thee, O God. But what he's talking about in
Psalm 42 and here in Psalm 63 is more than being just a little
part. It's not like, well, I'd like
to have some more, but it can wait. This thirst is being dehydrated. It's like you're dried out in
a food dehydrator. I've seen food dried out in one
of those food dehydrators. After it's been in there a while,
I mean, it's all shriveled up and hard. Really, it looks gross. It's just all hard. There's nothing. I don't know how you'd chew that
stuff up. That's us by nature. We're dehydrated, completely
dried out. A better description of how dry
we are would be the valley of dry bones that Ezekiel saw. Remember,
he looked out over that valley. It's full of the bones of soldiers
that had been killed in a great battle there many years ago.
Ezekiel looked out. over that valley of dry bones.
He saw all those bones there and he said, behold, they were
very dry, very dry. There's no moisture of life left
in those bones at all. They're all bleached white. They're
turning to dust. Now that's a description of us
by nature. We've been dead a long time.
There's no moisture of life left in us. There's no hope of life
left in us. There's no hope of us producing
any life. We're just old, dry, dead bones. How did we get in this condition?
It was in Adam. I told you, we've been dead a
long time. We've been dead for over 6,000
years. When Adam sinned in the garden,
shortly after God created the garden, the world put Adam in
it, shortly after that, Adam disobeyed God. Willfully, with
his eyes wide open, knowing what he was doing, disobeyed God and
ate that fruit God told him not to eat. And the moment he did,
all of us died. Adam died and all of us died
in Adam. That was 6,000 years ago. And
we're a valley of dry bones. We're D-E-A-D dead. No moisture of life, not even
the slightest hint of life left in us. And there's no hope of
us producing any life. David says, here I long for thee
in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. And certainly that
applies to the world of sin in which we live. I hope that's
why you come out of it tonight. There's no water out there. You
come out of it needing a refreshing, needing a drink of the water
of life. That's a desert land. This world
is a desert land where there's no life and there's no water.
But I'll tell you the real wilderness of sin that David's talking about
here. It's that wilderness of sin the new man is forced to
live in. This body of flesh. There's no
water. There's no life in this nature.
We're our own worst enemy. We are this dry and barren thirsty
land where no water is. Now that's the condition of every
son of Adam. But everybody doesn't know they're
thirsty, do they? You know, some people think when
they're thirsty, well, I'll have a drink of Pepsi or I'll have
a drink of whatever, you know. And they just wonder why they
stay thirsty. Wonder why he doesn't quench my thirst. Well, I'll
tell you when a sinner becomes thirsty. It's when God salts
them. When God gives them life and
they suddenly realize they don't have in them what they must have. They don't have any righteousness
in them. And suddenly they begin to hunger
and thirst. after righteousness. And a sinner
who is thirsty thirsts for one thing. Just one thing. A thirsty
sinner thirsts for God. Just like when you are really
thirsty, the only thing you want to drink is water. Water. David says, my soul thirsteth
for thee. My flesh longeth for thee. He
thirsts for God. Nothing but God can satisfy this
dry, dead sinner. Nothing but God's righteousness
will meet my life or meet my need. Nothing but Christ will
satisfy my need. And you know, when you become
very, very thirsty, your body will not let you forget that
you're thirsty. Your body just keeps reminding
you of it so you can't think of anything else. Well, when
God makes us feel our need of Christ, We cannot forget. I need Christ. I need Him. We just can't think about anything
else. I need Him. I need to hear from
Him. That's why David says, I'll seek
God early. Now, early means more than seeking
God first thing in the morning. Although, that'd be a good idea. If we really would seek God,
it'd be a good thing to seek Him early. Seek Him first thing.
Before we do anything else, before we seek anything else, That'd
be a good idea. But that's not exactly what David
means here. When he talks about early here, he means seeking
God urgently. Urgently. Because nothing else
is more important than having Him. I'm in such desperate need. I need Him. I must have Him.
So I seek Him urgently. Because nothing else is as important
as finding Christ. As having salvation in Him. And
that's the way a sinner seeks Christ. We seek him that way
because we must have him. We can't live without him. Any
more than this body can live without water, the believer cannot
live without Christ. So we seek him early, urgently. And David gives us here such
encouragement. Oh, if you're a thirsty sinner,
if you're desperate to have Christ, David gives us such encouragement.
You seek him urgently. Seek him right now. David says
here, God is my God. O God, thou art my God. And He's my God. So I know He'll
help me. I know God will help me because
He's made Himself my God. He's made me His. He's laid claim
to me. So I know He'll help me. I know
that when I seek for Him, I'm gonna find Him. I know when I
call for Him, He's gonna hear because He's my God. Now that
full assurance, you seek Him, you'll find Him. You seek Him
urgently. You'll have what your soul desires. But now listen
to this. Full assurance of salvation.
Full assurance that God will help me. Full, absolute confidence
that God will deliver me does not make me indifferent about
seeking the Lord. I don't think, oh well, I'll
find the Lord sooner or later. If I call for Him, it's no big
deal. I'll find Him sometime. No. Full assurance that God will
help me. Full assurance that God will
save me. That's what makes me seek Him urgently. I seek God
urgently with all of my heart. Because He's my only hope. But
I also seek Him urgently with all of my heart. Because He's
my God. Not only do I need Him, but I
want Him. I want to be with Him. So I seek
Him urgently. That's our condition with thirsty
seekers who need help from God, seeking after God. All right,
second, here's our satisfaction. Verse two, to see thy power and
thy glory, so as I've seen thee in the sanctuary. David says
he thirsts, he longs to see God's power and God's glory in the
sanctuary. And he's talking there about
the power and the glory of the sacrifices that were offered
in the temple. All those animal sacrifices picture the sacrifice
of Christ. If you want to see the power
and the glory of God, look to the sacrifice of Christ. Look
to Christ crucified. Oh, the power, the unspeakable
power of the sacrifice of Christ. The sacrifice of Christ puts
away once and for all, forever, the sin of God's elect. Millions
of animal sacrifices didn't put one away, but the one sacrifice
of Christ put them all away because of the power of His blood. Sin
cannot be put away any other way because of the power of Christ's
sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ makes
sinners to be what they're not, makes them righteous. All that
power and the glory of God is also seen in the sacrifice of
Christ. God told us His greatest glory is showing mercy to sinners. The greatest glory I can think
of is God showing mercy to sinners by punishing His Son as their
substitute. That's the greatest glory I can
think of. God punishing His Son with the punishment that those
sinful rebels against Him deserve. That's the greatest glory that
I can think of. The sacrifice of Christ is so
glorious that his sacrifice made God's elect to be what God loves,
righteous and sinless and holy. Now that's power. That's glory
to make a sinner to be the opposite of what he is by nature, to make
them righteous in Christ. And this is why I say Christ
and his sacrifice is the only way a sinner's thirst can be
quenched. Because Christ is all that thirsty
sinner wants. And He's all that thirsty sinner
needs. And God gave us a picture of that in the Old Testament.
Remember the smitten rod? The children of Israel were out
there in the wilderness, they had no water. And they were desperate. They were so thirsty, they were
blaspheming God saying, Moses, why did you bring us out here?
God just brought us out here in the wilderness to die. I'm embarrassed we're
staying in Egypt. If they didn't get them some water, they were
going to die. And the people were murmuring
and complaining. This is one of the million reasons
I'm thankful God's not like me. If God was like me, you know
what he'd have done? Eric, he'd let him just thirst.
Just die of thirst. That's all he'd done. But God
didn't do that. God told Moses, Moses, take your
staff in your hand. That staff you smoked the Red
Sea, part of the Red Sea, take that rod, And Moses, you go up
on that rock and you smite the rock. And Moses, when you smite
that rock, water's going to come out of it. It's a quench the
thirst of all these people and all these animals. Now that seems
impossible, doesn't it? That water would come from a
rock? Seems impossible. But that's exactly what happened.
And more than just a picture of Christ, the Apostle Paul told
us that rock was Christ. By the rod of God's justice is
the only way a sinner's thirst can be quenched. Because Christ
crucified by God's justice, by the rod of His justice in our
place, that's the only way that we can be made righteous. That's
the only way we can be forgiven. That's the only way our sin can
be washed away. So Christ crucified is the only
thing that will satisfy our thirst. Our thirst for righteousness.
Our thirst for eternal life. Remember, we're spiritually thirsty
because we don't have any righteousness in us. We don't have any life
in us. The only way we can have righteousness is if Christ is
crucified in our place. The only way we can have eternal
life is if Christ is smitten and dies in our place as our
substitute. Christ, the sinner substitute,
took away all of the sin of his people, took away everything
that made them thirsty and filled them with his righteousness.
He took away the sin. He took away the deadness. He
took away the dryness that made them thirsty and gave them his
righteousness, filled them with it so that they can never thirst
again. And he made sure we understood
it. He made sure we understood that he took away all that sin
that made his people thirsty. When he cried from the cross,
I thirst. You know why he cried that? because
he had been made sin for his people. He had emptied himself
of righteousness. He had emptied himself and he
cried, I thirst, because he had been made sin for his people.
He cried that so we would know that he suffered everything the
sin of his people deserved. He suffered everything that sin
causes. So now his people will never
thirst, because our substitute thirsted for us. And after he
thirsted, He died to show us, to show his people that they'll
never die because he died in our place. And even after he
gave up the ghost, we have more pictures of this. After he gave
up the ghost, remember that Roman soldier came, saw he was already
dead. He break the legs of the other two, crucified on each
side of them so they'd die quicker. But that man on the middle cross,
he was already dead. And that soldier took his spear,
rammed it up in his side. Scripture said outflowed blood
and water, blood to justify, water to cleanse. Outflowed blood
and water to satisfy our thirst, to make His people righteous.
Outflowed blood and water to satisfy both God and men. God is satisfied by that blood
and water that flow from His side. That water sanctified His
people. That blood justified His people.
and made His people what God the Father will accept. And that
same blood and water satisfied God's elect, too. Christ's death
justified His people. Made them without sin. The sin that was there made them
never thirst. He justified them. And the water
pictured Christ sanctifying His people. He made them holy. He
gave them a holy nature that can never sin. So it's impossible
for them to ever thirst again. And once a sinner lays hold on
Christ, that sinner is satisfied. He'll never thirst again. He'll
never want for anything again because Christ is everything
that we need. Now, the Father sacrificing His
Son, His beloved Son. The Father sacrificing His Son
for the sin of His people. It's something we talk about
here all the time, don't we? Just all the time we talk about
that. And it's still more glorious than we have ever imagined. It's
just too glorious for our pea brains to be able to comprehend.
It's just hard for us to believe that Almighty God would do something
so wonderful for the likes of me. That's just hard to believe.
And someone will think, boy, it must be hard. It must be awful
hard to get that righteousness. It must be awful hard to get
to that living water. It must be awful hard to get
it from God because His Son is so precious to Him. God can't
give that out just to anybody because His Son is so precious
to Him. It must be hard to get that righteousness. It must be
hard to get to that living water because I'm so needy. How can
I get to it? I'm so far from God. How can
I ever get to it? It must be impossible. Someone
might think that. But I'm here to tell you it's
not. It's not hard at all. The good news is this righteousness
and this living water is free. Look at Isaiah 55. This water
is not hard to find and it's not hard to get to at all. Isaiah 55 verse 1. Ho, listen up, ho, everyone that
thirsted, come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come
ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. Now come drink, come buy. The
only qualification is, are you thirsty? That's the only qualification. Are you thirsty? If you're thirsty,
it's yours for free. You don't have to, don't worry
that you don't have anything to pay. You leave your wallet
at home. You can't bring anything to pay
for this. You must receive it freely. Come to Christ and have salvation
freely. With no cost. With no cost to
you. It cost the Savior a great deal. It cost Him His life. It cost
Him His life's blood. It cost Him death. It cost Him
humiliation. It cost Him separation from His
Father. But He paid it all. He paid it in full. Now you come
receive it freely. And I ask you, what are you waiting
on? God says, come have it freely.
What are you waiting on? Look at verse two. Wherefore
do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor
for that which satisfies not? Hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto
me, hear, and your soul shall live. and I will make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." Come, have
it for free. Look at John chapter 7. Listen
to what our Savior says here. John chapter 7. In verse 37, in that last day, that great
day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man
thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth
on me as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water. All those poor people came up
there to the feast and our Lord was there and he watched them.
He knew what the Jews' religion had deteriorated to. He knew
there was nothing there. Nothing for him. And he watched
them. And in pity to poor sinners,
he stood and cried that great day. Everybody was gathered together.
Are you still thirsty? You've gone through all this
rigmarole over religion and all this ceremony and all the ups
and downs and ins and outs. You've done it all. But you're
still thirsty, aren't you? And he said, come unto me and
drink. Believe me, I'll give you a river
flowing from your belly, a river of living water. You'll never
thirst again. Look at Revelation chapter 21. Here he's getting ready to close his
book, to end his word to men. Look what he says. Revelation
21 verse 6. He said unto me, This is the
Savior. It is done. I'm Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is
a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. The only
qualification is, are you thirsty? Look at Revelation 22, verse
17. And the spirit and the bride
say, come and let him that hears say, come and let him that is
a thirst come. and whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely." Are you thirsty? Come. Come drink. Come have the water
of life freely. The Savior gives it freely. The
only thing you need is thirst and the inability to provide
anything for yourself. This is our condition. We're
thirsty. This is our satisfaction, believing
Christ. drinking of Him, having the water
of life freely, having His righteousness freely. That's our satisfaction. Christ is our satisfaction. Now
you come drink. There's no excuse in this world
for one of us to leave here tonight thirsty. The Savior says come
drink freely. He is our satisfaction. You come
drink. You'll be amazed how He satisfies
your soul's desire. All right, back in our text,
Psalm 63, here's the third thing, our response. Now, what can be
our only response to this? It's praise, isn't it? Look at
verse three. Because thy loving kindness is better than life,
my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while
I live. I will lift up my hands in thy name. Now, God's love
to his people is better than physical life. It's better than
a healthy body. It's better than the riches of
this world. God's love to his people is better than that. Because
God's love to his people is life. God's love to his people is salvation. Peter told us, you account that
the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. It is salvation. And our only reaction is to praise
the Lord with our lips. How I praise the Lord. for loving
a sinner like me. How's that possible? Oh, I praise
Him for it. How I praise the Lord for loving
a sinner like me enough to sacrifice His own Son in my place. Oh, I praise Him for that. You know, we don't have to worry
about running out of things to do in this life, do we? We don't
ever have to worry about being bored. If we spend the rest of
our days, the rest of our breaths, praising God for His love for
us, It won't be long enough, will it? We don't have to worry
about running out of things to do. We praise the Lord with our
lips because our heart is full of praise for Him. Verse 5, David
says, My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and
my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips. Now, the marrow
is the inward part. It's the life inside the bone.
And our most inward part, the believer's most inward part is
fully satisfied with Christ. Now every one of us were like
one of those old dry dead bones out there in the valley Ezekiel
saw. Lo, I was very dry. But now I have life. Now there's life. There's marrow
in these bones because Christ has given me life and I'm satisfied
and I'm praising for it. But you know, being satisfied
with Christ is more than at least what I think of when we think
of being satisfied. I don't know what grade they
quit doing this, but I remember being in elementary school and
you get a report card, a U or an S. You get unsatisfactory
or satisfactory. And I hated that. I mean, I just
utterly hated that. I wanted excellent. I wanted
to be just not satisfactory. I just didn't want that. I just
don't want to be ordinary, satisfactory. Well, having Christ means more
than just being satisfied. It's more than just a satisfactory
grade. It is to have the very best,
the very best. You know, the Jews considered
the marrow and the fatness to be the best part of the animal
to eat because that's where all the juice comes from. That's
where all the flavor comes from. Life in Christ is abundant life. It's life that's full of the
juice, full of the flavor of grace. There's no dryness there
at all. I used to work with a lady who
said, if you're going to cook, going to cook anything, she said,
you've got to use genuine hog lard. She was all the time talking
about genuine hog lard. She was buying a big five-gallon
bucket. Genuine hog lard. When we're preaching the gospel,
This is our greeting. Genuine grace. Genuine mercy. Genuine Christ. Genuine life-giving
water. That'll satisfy God's people.
Gives them life. Are you thinking that? Christ
gave his people the best. He didn't give them just enough
to scrape by. He gave them the best. He came as the best sacrifice. He didn't just give him water.
He gave him living water. He didn't just give him life.
He gave him eternal life. Our mouth should be full of praises
for our Savior, shouldn't it? Because our heart's filled with
Him. We get together. We praise the Lord. But you know,
the believer praises the Lord when we're all alone, too. You
don't need a crowd of people to whip you up into this. A believer
can be all alone, thinking on the Lord and praise the Lord.
We can be all alone in tough times, tough times, dark times,
painful times, time filled with sorrow, fear. For the believer,
thinking on the Lord will lead us to praise Him. Look what David
says in verse six. When I remember thee upon my
bed and meditate on thee in the night watches, because thou has
been my help. Therefore, in the shadow of thy
wings will I rejoice. And when you're all alone in
your bed at night and those night watches and you can't sleep,
everybody else is asleep, but you can't sleep. I'll tell you
what to do. Think on the Lord. Think on his
character. Think on his mercy. Think on
his loving kindness. Think on how he's helped you
in the past. Has he ever abandoned you in the past? Well, he's not
going to start now. Think on those things and that'll
make you rejoice. It'll make you rejoice in the
shadow of His wings. I tell you this all the time,
the shadow of His wings is the mercy seat. For those wings of
the cherubim went out over the mercy seat, that created a shadow
there. And that's where the high priest
sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice. That's where we rejoice, in the
mercy seat, in the sacrifice of Christ, the blood of Christ
applied to our hearts. That'll make us rejoice. Knowing
the loving kindness of God. Knowing God's mercy to us in
Christ, knowing the freedom of forgiveness, knowing the freedom,
how He freely gives us water of life in Christ, does not make
the believer ever casual about seeking Christ or following Him,
ever. It never makes us think, well, God gives it freely, so
I can have Christ, I can have His presence anytime I want.
I can have this water of life anytime I want. So there's no
urgency. No, the believer never thinks
that. David says, knowing all that, believing that God's going
to give me all this freely, that makes me follow after Christ
hard. Right now, because I've got to
have Him. Look what he says in verse 8. He says, My soul followeth
hard after thee. Thy right hand upholdeth me. That phrase, followeth hard,
means glued to. The believer is glued to Christ. Just adhered to Christ. because
we're one with Him and He won't let us go. Just like my hand
is adhered to my body, my arm is adhered to my body, the believer
is adhered to Christ because we're one with Him and He won't
let us go. Yet we still follow hard after
Him. And what a precious promise David
gives us here. We follow hard after Him and
He says, the Savior with His right hand upholdeth me. It's
like He holds His people, just supports us under his right hand,
just puts his right hand underneath her head and supports her, holds
her up in a warm, tender, loving embrace. Now, that doesn't make
you follow hard after him. Nothing will. Nothing will. All
right, here's the last thing. Our end. Now, there is an eternal
end for every son of Adam. And that end is totally dependent
on one thing. On our relationship with Christ.
So here's the end of the unbeliever, verse nine. But those that seek
my soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the earth.
They shall fall by the sword. They shall be a portion for fox,
excuse me, for foxes. Now those who refuse to believe
Christ, those who are his enemies, who seek to take him off the
throne, they will be damned. They're not going to have what
they need. They have a sense they need this water of life.
They know they've got to do something to make things right between
them and God. They know they've got to have a righteousness in
order to stand before God. That's why they try to do their
best. That's why they try to do better than somebody else,
hoping they'll grade on the curve, you know. They keep seeking the
water of life. They keep seeking righteousness
in the desert of their own worms. And they're going to die of dehydration
because there's nothing there. They keep seeking the water of
life. They keep seeking righteousness in their religion, their religious
works. And they're going to die of dehydration because they're
never going to find any water there. They're going to die eternally
because there's nothing there. That's their end. But the end
of the believer who seeks Christ, who seeks Him urgently, who follows
hard after Him, the end of that person is glory. Verse 11. But
the king shall rejoice in God. And everyone that sweareth by
him shall glory, but the mouth of them that speak lies shall
be stopped. Everyone who believes on Christ
shall glory. They'll never thirst again. They'll all dwell by that crystal
sea because they've been made righteous and holy in Christ. And they'll do there eternally
what they started doing here, praising him eternally. Now there
we'll do it perfectly. There we'll do it for eternally.
Here we do it temporarily imperfectly. There we'll do it eternally because
our soul is satisfied, body and soul satisfied with the Lord
Jesus Christ. I tell you again, not an excuse
for one person here tonight, not one to leave here thirsty. under the water, come to Christ
and drink freely. All right, let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for this blessed portion of your word. How we thank you that you
freely supply salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ, that you made
the water free because Christ paid it all. How we thank you
that you bring your people to the water like the shepherd leads
His sheep to the deep still waters and causes us to dream. Father,
how we thank You for our Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank You
for life in Him. How we thank You for forgiveness
of sin in Him. How we thank You that in Him
we'll never thirst. Father, cause us to run to Him.
Cause us to ever cling to and look to Christ our Savior. For
it's in His precious name we pray and give thanks.