Now tonight's word that I feel
impressed of the Spirit of God to bring to you is found in Isaiah
chapter 32. Isaiah 32. We'll read verse 2 and verse
3 as our text. The message is entitled, Water
in a Dry Place. water in a dry place." Isaiah
32, verse 2. And the man shall be as an hiding
place from the wind, and a covert, or a covert, from the tempest,
as rivers of water in a dry place. as the shatter of a great rock
in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see
shall not be dimmed, and the ears of them that hear shall
hearken." Now mentally underscore the first three words of our
text, verse two, and the man, a man. Our Lord Jesus Christ
is nearest and dearest to the believer as a man. The scripture says, and a man
shall be the hiding place, and a man shall be the cupboard,
and a man shall be the rivers of water, and a man shall be
the great rock that gives us shelter. The Son of Man, Christ
referred to himself often in this way. The Son of Man is come
to seek and to save the lost. The people, the Jews, said, Thou
being a man, that's what they saw, a man, makest Thyself God. Pilate pointed to Him as he stood
before that great multitude and said, Behold the Man, the Scripture
tells us there's one God and one Mediator, and He's a man. He's the man Christ Jesus. So our Lord Jesus Christ is very
God of very God, but He's nearest to me and dearest to me as the
man Christ Jesus. For in His incarnation, when
He took on Himself the seed of Abraham, In His incarnation,
when He assumed my flesh and nature, in His incarnation He
became one with me. He assumed, actually assumed,
my nature. He became, in all ways, a man. In His life on this earth, for
thirty-three years, He honored that nature. For the Heavenly
Father said of Him, This is my Son, in whom I'm well pleased. In his death, the Lord Jesus
redeemed my nature. The Scripture says, but this
man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin, this man sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. He actually
redeemed my nature, body and soul. In his resurrection, He
raised my nature. He came forth from the grave
as a man. And Paul wrote in Philippians
3 that he's going to change this vile body and fashion it like
unto his glorious body. So as a man, in incarnation,
in a life on earth, in death, in resurrection, in intercession. There is a man at God's right
hand. Christ is nearest and dearest
to us as a man, and that's what Isaiah is writing here, and a
man. Hundreds of years before the
Lord came, hundreds of years before he became a man, Isaiah
wrote, a man shall be the hiding place from the storm, from the
wind. A man shall be a refuge from
the trials and heartaches A man shall be a cover, a shade from
the heat, and a man shall be," and this is our thought tonight,
and how beautiful, rivers of water in a dry and thirsty place. And happy is the man, verse 3,
that can see it. Happy is the man whose eyes can
see in this nature. in this work, in this ministry. For his eye shall not be dim,
and after the man who can hear him speak, for his ear shall
always recognize the voice of his Lord. Now I want to bring
out four things in dealing with this subject. A man shall be
rivers of water in a dry place. The first thought is this, and
we know it, human nature is a dry place. But do we know this? Human nature is, and will continue
to be, a dry place. Now we know that human nature,
because of Adam's fall, is a dry place. It's called spiritual
death. All who are out of Christ are
dead in trespasses and sin, and in death there's no moisture.
In death it is dry and parched. In death, spiritual death, we
are without God, without Christ, without hope, without help, without
strength. And as we look at human nature,
as we look at the people of this world, sons of Adam, The land
is parched and dry. Oh, how dry it is. No flowers
of love bloom in this world. Self-love, perhaps. No shade
trees of grace welcome the weary. If the weary finds any chattel
under which to hide from the heat of life, he won't find it
out yonder. No pastures of gospel await the
hungry to feed them. no streams of mercy to quench
the thirst of men, no fruits of kindness that gladden the
mournful and the sorrowful. To all who behold human nature
as it is, he sees nothing but greed, envy, jealousy, hate,
selfishness, blood and vengeance, and it's a fearful, horrible,
terrible sight. It's a parched, dry, lifeless,
dull land. That's what human nature is without
Christ. But now let's look at our natures.
Let's look at Christians. Let's look at ourselves tonight.
We know that because of Adam's fall, that we're talking about
a dry land. And every time I use this statement
of waters, rivers of water in a dry place, when I picture that
dry place, I picture that sandy colored soil, the burning sun
scorching it even more, parching it. I see it cracked. I see no
vegetation. I see no flowers. I see no trees. I see no grass. I just see that
old dry, dusty, barren, parched soil, and that's what human nature
is because of the fall. But every man who knows Christ
in sincerity, every woman here who knows Christ also knows himself
and herself. And we're made aware daily of
our need for the rivers of water in a dry place. Now let me go
through two or three things that I've jotted down here from my
own personal experience, and you see if it's not true that
maybe not tonight, maybe tonight, and maybe not this week, but
maybe this week, see if there's not actually a continuation of
drought. of a dry place in need daily
of this river of water. First of all, the minister reads,
or the elder reads, as Brother Jeff just got through reading,
God's Word. Psalms 107, verse 1 through 21. Then the minister reads the text. Here is a beautiful text. Here
is a soul-gladdening text. Here is a God-glorifying text. The minister reads the Word.
And what else can we do? And preaches the word. But often
we experience no benefit. We experience no growth. We experience
no joy of soul. We experience no personal application. Isn't that drought? Isn't that
a dry land? The Lord's table is served. The
people of God come to this solemn, sacred feast, this commemorating
memorial, showing forth the death of our Lord, the shedding of
His blood, the very climax of God's redemptive work. Yet we
mechanically partake of it. We feel little joy of redemption,
little gladness of heart. little beating of the heart in
gladness and joy over Christ's redemptive work. For such as
we, the gospel is preached. But we feel overfed with gospel,
overfed with grace, overfed with the cross, overfed with the blood. We want to hear a new sound.
We want to hear a new truth. We want to sink our teeth into
a new revelation. We're weary of the gospel. Or we continue the formality
of table blessings, Lord bless this food with which we're about
to partake and make us thankful for Jesus' sake. Amen. The formality
of prayer is kept up. We have our bedtime prayer. But
there's no real pleading with God. From the soul and the heart,
there's no intercessory prayer for others. Lord, help me live
from day to day in such a self-forgetful way that even when I kneel to
pray, my prayer will be for others. A lady wrote me today from up in
West Virginia who watches the television broadcast. If I can
remember this, I don't know whether I can or not, But I'll try to. But she said, Brother Mahan,
have your church pray for me the following things that I want.
I want them to pray, first of all, that I can find out the
trouble between my husband and me. Secondly, I want the church
to pray that my children will all live and grow up and do the
things they ought to do. Thirdly, I want you to pray that
we'll all have good health. Fourthly, I want you to pray
that we'll all be saved before we die. She didn't want much,
did she? That's a tall order. But the
whole thing is abounding in, wrapped up in, exclusive of self. That's the whole thing. S-E-L-L. We attend services of worship,
and we do so often from a sense of duty or responsibility or
obligation. How often do we go to the house
of God with the enthusiasm of the one who said, I was glad
when they said to me, let's go to the house of the Lord. We
attend worship services, but how often do we go with the joy
and enthusiasm of the one who said, I'd rather be a doorkeeper
in God's house than dwell as the master in the tents of the
wicked. Oh, we value the brotherhood
of believers. We're glad they're there. But absent too often is that
deep and fervent and personal love that leads us to a unity
of spirit, a singleness of heart, a thought for someone else. At
the day's end, someone suggested that we do this at the end of
the day. It'll frighten you sometime if
you do it. At the end of the day, just sit
down in the chair. and think back over the whole
day and ask yourself, what have I done or said this day to lift
someone's burden or lighten someone's way? What have I done through
this entire day to make somebody besides myself and my family
circle happy? What have I said? What have I
done? What effort have I put forward this whole day, this
24-hour day that God gave me, maybe my last day on this earth,
to contribute to somebody else's well-being, spiritual growth,
and happiness? Oh, we love Christ. We long for
His personal holiness. But that ever-present flesh is
with us. and fills us with thoughts and
desires and things that are contrary to that holiness, oh, what a
dry land. So we not only say of those who
are in Adam, no flowers of love bloom. How many flowers of love
bloom in our garden? No shade trees of grace that
welcome the weary to come to us and find some help. How many
shade trees of grace grow in our garden? No pastures of good
news to feed the hungry, no streams of mercy to quench the thirsty
soul that's lonely and weary and mournful, no fruits of kindness
that reach out in a forgiving spirit, no. We begin to criticize
and fanfare and take one another for granted And soon we wake
up and our lives are spent and our days are gone and our life
is over and it hadn't amounted to a whole lot except for ourselves. So to every honest believer,
and I'm weary with those who insist that to be a Christian
you have to be a hypocrite, who insist that to be a Christian
you have to be dishonest, who insist that to be a Christian
you have to deny what is real and what is truthful, To every
honest believer, not only is human nature in Adam a dry place,
but human nature, even associated with the life of faith, can get
to be a pretty dry place. Otherwise, why did Isaiah cry,
who knew God, I'm sure, woe is me? Otherwise, why did Job cry,
who knew God, I'm sure, I hate myself? Otherwise, why did Paul
weep and cry, O wretched man that I am? Or why did David,
in his repentant psalm, plead, God take not thy Holy Spirit
away from me, give me another chance. Give me another chance. Yeah,
human nature, even in Christ, can get to be a mighty dry and
thirsty land. But here a man shall be rivers
of water in a dry place. What can I do about it? I think
I can do four things about it. This is my second point. In the
first place, be honest before God and confess my dryness. Be honest before God and confess
my sin. The scripture says, if we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us. The scripture
says, come let us reason together. God invites us to a conference. Though your sins be as scarlet,
the conference is not to determine whether or not I'm a sinner,
it's to determine what to do about it. Though your sins be
as scarlet, I'll make them as white as snow. He that covereth
his sin, he that covereth his infirmity, he that covereth his
shortcomings shall not prosper. And that's what we're in the
business of doing, covering our sin, covering our guilt. But whoso confesseth his sin
and forsaketh them shall find mercy. I'm sure God gets weary of hearing
us say, I'm ashamed of myself. I'm going to do better when we
fully have no intention of doing any better. Secondly, acknowledge our dependence
on him. Turn to 2 Corinthians 12. Listen
to the Apostle Paul. Now, 2 Corinthians 12, the Apostle
Peter said this, Sinking, sinking, sinking. He cried, Lord save me or I perish. It's totally in your hands. And
here in God's hands. Here in 2 Corinthians 12 verse
7, listen to Paul. And lest I should be exalted
above measure, through the abundance of the revelations that were
given to me, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. the
messenger Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above
measure. And for this thing I have assaulted
the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said,
My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect
in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ might
rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in
infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecution,
in distresses, for Christ's sake. But when I'm weak, then am I
strong. Let's confess, as Paul confesses
here, our dependence is on him. Not in our strength, in our weakness. That's when Christ visits us,
that's when Christ comes to us, when we confess our dryness and
acknowledge our dependence and cry unto him, that's when he
visits us. And then thirdly, I suggest we
do this, look alone to Christ and not to myself. This dry land will never be brought
into a livable state unless the river of water comes down through
it, unless it's irrigated by the water of life. Human nature
is flesh, it's going to stay flesh. And in the human flesh
there is no good thing, dwelleth no good thing. Paul said that.
In the flesh no man can please God. I'm going to work, I'm going
to resolve, I'm going to make an effort, I'm going to do this.
No, sir, we're going to have to look to Christ and say, Lord,
do something about this. Do something about this. Now,
it'll be a permanent work if he does it. If we do it, we'll
go out tomorrow and seek to recover the dry land. We'll seek to irrigate
the dry land, and we'll ask for a day or two, and then we'll
be back in the same drought. But if Christ comes with a river
of refreshing water, if He does the work, He can change the heart. He can deliver me from self-centeredness. He can deliver me from egotism. He can deliver me from envy. He can deliver me from malice.
He can do that. He can save me. I cannot do it
myself. It must be a divine work. It
must be a supernatural work, because it's against the grain.
It's against human nature. Human nature is dry and lifeless
and dead, and it'll stay that way. And deadness is sand piled
on sand. But a divine work is when God
puts the water to it, and the desert blooms like a rose. But
only God can do it. Only God can do it. It cannot
be done by philosophy. It cannot be done by psychiatry. It cannot be done by resolutions. It cannot be done by decisions.
It cannot be done by getting together with others and resolving
to work it out. It can only be done when the
divine power of God's Spirit changes a man's heart and sheds
abroad in that heart the love of God. That's a divine work. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. So let us confess our dryness,
let us acknowledge our inability, our dependence on Him, and let
us look to Christ, not to ourselves, look to Him, totally and completely
looking to Him. If the water stored up in the
mountain of grace does not come down by His sovereign power to
this dry and thirsty valley, it will never bring forth fruit
for His glory. He's got to give the water. A
man shall be rivers of water in a dry place. It's got to be his work. It's
got to be his divine work. It's got to be spiritual work. Now the third thing. And when he comes to that dry
land, in his sovereign power, That nature's dry condition enhances
the beauty of Christ. The longer the drought, now think
of this, the drier the land, the deader the vegetation, the
more welcome the rain, the more welcome the water. A river is more quickly discovered
where? In a desert. And so the precious
water of life, the Lord Jesus Christ, that healing stream,
is discovered more quickly by the man who is what? Dry and
thirsty. Dry and thirsty. The needy seek
Christ. The needy want Christ. The needy
pant for Christ. The needy seek for Christ. The
needy what? They welcome Christ. If they're
thirsty enough. I've got to get a good look at
this dry land. I've got to go out and stand
on my farm and look at it, and I see that the flowers of love
are not blooming. The trees of grace are not growing. The fruits of God's Spirit are
not falling from the trees. They're not there. And I cry,
Oh, in this dry and thirsty and parched land, Lord, send a refreshing. Send some water. And I'll guarantee
you the man who sees the true condition of the land is going
to certainly discover the water more quickly. And secondly, he'll
value it more abundantly. He'll value it. He'll prize it. I saw a TV program the other
day about a tribe in Africa. And I'm telling you that's one
thing that appealed to me about this verse. That was dry land. Honestly, they didn't have any
water. It was right there in the desert
of Africa. And these people walked and rode
donkeys for miles to these wells, and all these precious wells. They'd draw that water from the
wells, and they'd fill their little old goat skins and whatever
skins they had, and they'd put that water on their back, and
then they'd go to their little village there in the desert,
and they'd pour that water between the rows where they'd planted
their seed, and that precious, precious water would flow through
that old dry, dusty brown soil, and that soil, you soak it up.
It's so impressive. I go into the sink, and I turn
on the tap, and the water runs down the drain, and I absentmindedly
stand there and wash my face or brush my teeth or get a glass
of water, and I don't pay any more attention to it. But I'll
tell you this, in a desert country, water is a precious commodity.
And the people in the desert are more thankful for the water
than we are. And the man who sees the dryness
of his soul and the deadness of his nature is more thankful for Christ,
the water of life. I was out in Comanche, Texas
one time holding a meeting years and years ago. I got out there
in the summertime. And it hadn't rained in weeks
and weeks and weeks and weeks. This is way up in the central
part of Texas, up above Waco. It was dry. Oh, the dust looked
like it was four inches deep. There wasn't a blade of grass
anywhere, anywhere, I mean. It was all dry and dead and trees
were withered. It was a terrible, terrible drought. And I went to eat one night with
a man, I forget his name, But he had a dairy farm. He had about
100 or 200 dairy milking cows. And we were eating supper that
night, that afternoon, about 4.30 or 5. And he said, I'll
tell you this, preacher, he said, we don't get a rain. I'm going
broke. He said, I'm buying every bit
of food those cows eat. I'm paying cash for everything
they're eating. They're not getting a thing out
there in the pasture. Everything they eat, I buy it
and bring it in here on a truck. And believe it or not, we were
sitting there eating supper and it started thundering. And we
looked out the window and it got black, just black. And in a few minutes, it commenced,
as the fellow said, to rain. And I've never seen rain like
that before. It rained. I'm telling you, it
looked like the heavens opened up. and just emptied all that's
stored up all those weeks. It rained, and that man got up
from the table, believe it or not. That man got up on the table. Those Texans wear these long-sleeved
sport shirts with those rope ties and high-heeled boots, you
know, and fancy breeches. He got up on the table, and he
went running through the living room off the front porch, ran
out there in the yard, and stood there while it rained on him.
He got soaking, sopping wet. And he stood there and clapped
his hands and praised the Lord out there in that rain for about
five minutes. I thought about that when I was preparing this
message. A man who's really desperately, desperately in need, who knows
the condition of his soul, the dryness, the parched dryness
of his soul, if he ever had that refreshing rain of grace, he'd
know it, he'd thank God for it, he'd welcome it, he'd value it,
he'd praise the Lord. That's the purpose of the water
of life, to come where there's a need. The dry place is where
the water does its effective work. The glory of the water
is to give life. People that live in the valleys
of the rolling meadows and the rippling streams and the abundant
rainfall, they don't pay a whole lot of attention to water. But
there where the land is dry and parched, they welcome the rain. So Christ's glory is to come
where he's needed. His glory is to come where he's
needed. And that's where he's coming,
where he's needed. He said he'll be covered from
the what? The tempest. When the storm is
so great that a man dares not face it alone, he runs for the
cover. He'll be a hiding place from
the wind. When a man knows he can't stand
alone, he runs to the hiding place, Christ Jesus. He'll be
a shadow of a great rock in a hot and weary land when a man knows
that sun gonna burn him up if he doesn't get to some shelter.
And he'll be rivers of water in a dry place. This is implied
in his offices. He's a what? He's a Savior. A
saviour's for sinners. He's a what? He's a priest. A
priest is for the what? The ignorant. He's a mediator. A mediator's for what? Mediator's
for the guilty. This is seen in his qualification. The scripture says he's mighty
to save because we are awful lost. The scripture says he is
faithful and true witness because we're unstable. The Scripture
says he is sinless. In his mouth is no guile, because
we're so sinful, and in our mouths is so much deceit. He's full
of grace and truth. Why? Because we're so empty of
it. And then this is also, turn to
1 Corinthians 1. This is also true. The glory
of Christ is in coming where he's needed. That is revealed
in his office. That is revealed in his qualifications,
and this is also revealed in those to whom he comes. Look
at 1 Corinthians 1, verse 27. But God hath chosen the foolish things of this world,
and God hath chosen the weak things of this world. And God
hath chosen, verse 28, the base things of this world. And God
hath chosen the things which are not. So Christ, the purpose of Christ,
the glory of Christ, to come where it's dry, to come where
it's dry, and to bring that refreshing life, giving water, That's his
glory. Moses says, show me your glory.
Somebody preached on this at a conference in Birmingham. Lord,
show me your glory. Now Moses had seen a lot. Moses had seen that burning bush
that did not consume. Moses had seen that great sea
divide and the people walk through on dry land. Moses has seen the
manor in the morning. Moses has seen the rock belts
forth its water. Moses has seen the death, the
judgment of death, the river of blood. Moses has seen all
these things, but Moses still wanted to see God's glory. And
God said, all right, I'll make my goodness pass before you.
Moses, my glory is. I will be merciful." That's God's
glory. I will be merciful to whom I
will be merciful. And Jesus Christ, our Lord, His
glory is to come as rivers of water to a dry place and transform
it into a blooming garden. There's no greater glory than
for God to take a man self-centered, egotistical, unthoughtful, ungrateful,
unthankful, his whole life centered in himself, ungodly, caring for
no one, without kindness, full of envy and self and sin, jealousy
and hatred and malice and vengeance, dry and parched, and for the
water of life to come on that old bleached, barren, fruitless
land, and change it into a garden of God, that's His glory. 1 Corinthians 1, look at it. Why does He do this? God has
chosen the foolish things, the despised, the outcast, the hopeless. Verse 29, that no flesh should
glow in His presence. Verse 31, that according as it
is written, he that gloweth, let him glow in the Lord. First thing we've got to do is
face the dryness. Acknowledge the dryness. Become
weary of the dryness, the selfishness. We've got to take inventory.
We've got to take stock. We can be religious and still
be dry. The Pharisees demonstrate that. We can be theologians and still
be, and most of the time are, as dry as a desert. We can be
officers in the church and be utterly, utterly, totally self-centered. And that's to be ungodly, because
Christ said, I didn't come to be ministered unto, I came to
minister. and to give my life a ransom
for many. What we've got to do is face
the dryness, acknowledge the dryness, acknowledge the deadness,
face our inability to do anything about it. All of our resolutions
are not going to change the taproot that gets its source from the
dry, dead desert in which we're planted. We're not going to be
able to do anything about the spring that went dry a long time
ago. God's going to have to create
a new spring. God Almighty's going to have
to create a new nature. God Almighty's going to have
to send this one who is the rivers of water into that dry place
that the desert might blossom like the rose. This is my last
point. John 4, 14. Now listen to the
Lord here. Here was a woman. I think she
was a female Solomon. Solomon sought happiness. First of all, he sought it in
wisdom. Wisdom. Oh, we are so thirsty
for knowledge, intellectualism. He found out that was vanity.
Then he tried wealth. He didn't deny himself anything
he wanted. He had the money. He could reach
in his pocket and pull out anything he wanted. He had the money. He found out there wasn't anything
to that either. It brought no happiness. It brought
him nothing but sorrow. He tried women. He married many
and he had many who were not his wives. And he found out that
brought no joy. Vanity of vanity. He tried wine. He drank till his heart wanted
no more, and he found that there wasn't anything to that. And
he got to the end of the whole thing, and he said, Vanity of
vanities all, all, all is vanity. And here this woman in John chapter
4, this woman had been married five times, was living with a
man who was not her husband, well known, notorious, the female
Solomon, I'm sure. She came to the water down to
the well to draw water, and our Lord said to her, Whosoever drinketh
of this water," talking about Jacob's well, verse 13, he'll
thirst again. And you can try everything this
world's got to offer, and you can succeed at it. You can take
your full draught of it. You can take not a sip, but a
big swig of it. You can give yourself to it.
You can give yourself to all of the efforts of fame and wealth
and companionship and wisdom and all these things. Just dive
into it and submerge yourself totally, and I guarantee you,
you'll come up as dry as a desert. I guarantee you. You can't improve
on Solomon's efforts. He made a bigger effort than
you can ever make. But our Lord said, verse 14,
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall
never thirst. If you can ever get there, if
you can ever get there, if you can ever find it, and I believe
if a man knows his need, I believe God will show him the remedy. I believe man ever comes to the
end of himself, like Jeff read a moment ago, if he ever gets
hungry and thirsty, and cries unto the Lord in his trouble,
I believe God will do something for him. We hadn't come there
yet. We just hadn't come there. We
just hadn't realized just how far away from God we are, just
how dry and thirsty it is. We're drinking from the cisterns
of the world, and they're satisfying our sins, but our souls are still
thirsty. But our Lord said, you drink
of this water, and this water's Christ. That's who that water
is. You'll never thirst again, and the water that I shall give
him shall be in him. A well, a tireless spring, an
exhaustless spring. springing up into everlasting
life. His sinfulness is purged. His heart is glad. I didn't say
his sinfulness was eradicated. I said it was purged, cleansed,
daily cleansed. His despair is driven away. His guilt is turned to joy. Why should I live in the past?
Don't bring up to me what happened yesterday. It doesn't matter.
And I mean that. Our nature's renewed, our trials
are overcome, and this living well is inside. And it never runs dry. That's
where it is, because that's what God says, and a man shall be
a hiding place from the wind. and a cover from the tempest,
a shadow of a great rock in a weary land, and rivers of water in
a dry place." Our Father, we thank Thee for the Word of the
living God, which is to us the living Word. We thank Thee that
Thou hast revealed to us our need. We are not deceived. We can say with Isaiah, Woe is
me, in a sincere way. We can say with Job, I hate myself. We can say with the Apostle Paul,
O wretched man that I am. And not be hypocritical, and
Thou, O Lord, knowest our hearts. We can say, I long for the river
of water. I long for Christ to come where
there is no life, where there is no fruit, where there is no
joy, and bring the refreshing stream
of the water of life and make the desert to blossom as a rose.
Lord, do something for us which we cannot do for ourselves. Change us. Direct us. By thy Spirit, teach us, guide
us, bring to our minds thoughts not of self, but of others. Not
thoughts of ingratitude, but always rejoicing in our hearts
for what thou hast done.