Sometimes the best way to feel God's guidance in your current troubles is to remember His guidance through your past troubles. Today on Turning Point, Doctor David Jeremiah returns to the 63rd Psalm and continues his look at what it means for your soul to thirst for God. From his series, "The Battle for Your Soul," here's David to introduce the conclusion of his important message. Thirsty souls, and the Bible says that when you drink from the fountain of Jesus, it is life-long, wonderful, thirst-quenching.
Well, it's just great. It's what the Bible talks about when you come to Jesus. He satisfies your thirst. And as a Christian, as you walk along, sometimes you think. I'd like to have more of Jesus.
I wish I had more of Jesus. That's the inward thirst that is supplied to you by the Holy Spirit to give you the desire to grow in your walk with the Lord. We're talking about thirsty souls today. We'll get back to that in just a moment. Hey, we're going on a cruise to the Caribbean in December and January of this year, sailing on the Holland American Zuiderdam, December twenty sixth through January the second.
And we'll be visiting Grand Turk, San Juan, Saint Thomas, Half Moon Cay. We'll have Michael Sanchez and Yulio Vega along for music. I'll be teaching the Word of God, and we'll have a great time together as we close out the old year and begin the new year. You can find out everything you need to know about this opportunity by going to our website, which is DavidJeremiah.org. And now let's get started with part two of Thirsty Souls.
Now, if you study the Old Testament, you know that the Ark of the Covenant was one of the most sacred pieces of furniture in the Tabernacle because it symbolized the visible. Presence of God among His people. When the Ark was absent, the people of Israel suffered. Remember, the Philistines stole it one time and took it away. During that period of time, the Philistines suffered because they had the sacred Ark, and Israelites suffered because they didn't have it.
And if I were David, and I had heard, I'm out in this wilderness. I'm having this bad day. You know what, David? They brought the Ark of the Covenant out here to be with you. I would say, "Yay, bring it on!
I need everything I can get. Whatever help you can give, the Ark of the Covenant.
Okay, that'll be fine." But notice what happened. Second Samuel fifteen twenty-five. Then the king David said to Zadok, "Carry the Ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, He will bring me back and show me both it and His dwelling place." And then later on in verse twenty nine, we read that Zadok and Abiathar carried the ark of God back to Jerusalem, and they remained there. David sent the ark back because he knew, first of all, that it wasn't supposed to be in the desert.
It was supposed to be where it was. But he also, more importantly, understood that he needed more than a symbol of God's presence. He needed God's presence. The ark was good, but he didn't want the ark as much as he wanted God, and he was saying in his heart, "If God wants me to survive this, I will survive it. And if He doesn't, I will not.
But what I need right now is not the ark of the covenant. I need the living God to be with me." And that is one of the great lessons of the wilderness, in my estimation. In moments of heartbreak, loss, fear, or uncertainty, you don't need something to hang around your neck. Crosses are good. I don't have any issue with them, unless you think that the cross around your neck is able to do something it can't do.
Symbols can't save. Only the Savior can save. Symbols can remind you of the Savior, but you know I know a lot of people. You do too. They think wearing a cross around their neck is some kind of a Good deal for them if they keep doing that, they're going to be okay.
Not so. You don't need the cross around your neck. You need the cross in your heart. You need Jesus Christ in your life. And David understood that.
He said, "Send the symbol back. I don't need the symbol. I need the reality. I need the substance. I need Jesus." You need God to draw near and carry you through the wilderness, and that's what David discovered.
So he had a thirsty soul. Then, in verses three through five, we discover he had a satisfied soul. All of us know what it's like to be thirsty for God, but we don't have to stay that way. We can be satisfied, and that's what David discovered. Notice verses three through five.
Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. Thus, I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name. My soul shall be satisfied, as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips. David's life is hanging in the balance.
He's lost the kingdom. At least he thinks he has been betrayed by his own son. It's one of the darkest days in his life. And then he realizes that he hasn't lost the most important thing in his life, and he says to God, "God, your loving kindness is better to me than my life." Here is David comparing two very good things: life itself and the loving kindness of God. And he comes to the conclusion that while life is precious, God's loving kindness is even better.
Think about that for a moment. For most people. Life is our most important possession. We do everything we can to protect it, preserve it, and enjoy it. But David says that the steadfast love of God is even better than life.
The word translated loving kindness. Refers to God's faithful, unfailing love. It is His covenant love, a love that never gives up, that never changes, and never goes away. And no matter what was happening with David in the wilderness, God's love was there, and David knew it. Human love can disappoint us.
Circumstances can change. Even life itself can be taken away, but God's love remains constant and it never ends. It endures forever. It endures even beyond this life, if you know Jesus. And because of God's great love, David says, verse four and five: "Thus I will bless you while I live." I will lift up my hands in your name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. When God's love fills the soul, praise becomes the natural response. David says, "My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips." What an interesting thing that is, and we see this in so many of these passages about the soul. That praise enters into the discussion. David knows about this, and he shows us many different ways to praise God.
In the first six verses alone, we see praise flowing from every part of his being. He praises God with his lips (verse three). My lips shall praise you. He praises God with his hands. I will lift up my hands in your name (verse four).
He praises God with his mouth. My mouth shall praise you, verse five. With his lips, with his hands, with his mouth, David praises God. I know that there's a lot of discussion over the years in our churches about what you should do when you want to praise God.
Some of you raise your hands, and you may wonder, is that okay? It is absolutely okay, and it's okay because it's biblical. That's what you should do.
Now, you don't have to do it, but you can do it with his lips, with his hands, with his mouth. David praises God when you are thirsty for God. One of the things that draws you into His presence is your praise. When you praise God, God comes down to be with you in a special way. I remember twenty years ago, thirty years ago, almost.
I had cancer.
Some of you were around at that time. I don't talk about it very much. Haven't talked about it in a long time. It was a pretty serious time. It was lymphoma cancer, and it was stage four.
I was very concerned, and I noticed. People ask me questions. You know, when you're sick like that and you're a public person, people have no problem asking you whatever they want to ask you. And they ask me whether I ever cried during that experience, and I didn't like that question because real men don't cry. But it's been long enough now that I'm over that, and I remember that for a while I didn't cry.
God had prepared me for what was coming. I had a pretty solid attitude about it. Had good people around me, and I was doing all right until Easter Sunday. Never forget it. You see, at that particular time, I was going through a procedure called stem cell transplant, and that's very misunderstood.
It's simply this. They put toxic cells in your body that are supposed to kill the cancer cells you have. Unfortunately, those toxic cells also kill your white cells if you don't get them replenished.
So before you do that, they extract from you bags full white cells. Thirteen bags of white cells they took out of me. They put them in a freezer, and then after they put those Dark cells in to take away the cancers.
Soon as that's done, they replenish your body with white cells, or you would die. I was on that Easter Sunday at the lowest point of that process. My white cells were almost invisible, and I remember getting up to go out into the living room of the hotel where I was staying. We were allowed to stay in a hotel as long as it was 20 minutes from the hospital.
So that if you needed to get to the hospital, you could get there right away. I went out into the living room and I thought, "Well, it's Easter, man! I got to find something on television." And I started to look for a service. I happened to be able to find a service. I don't remember which one it was, but I knew that it was a good one because they had great, beautiful music and worship and celebration.
So I stopped there and I watched. And suddenly. Without warning, I began to sob uncontrollably. I'll never forget that Easter Sunday. It caught me completely off guard.
Donna came in from the other room and she said, "Are you okay?" And I said, "No, I'm not okay. I want to be in church. I don't want to be here. I belong in church. This is Easter Sunday." At first, I thought I was just missing you guys, missing the church.
But as I sat there and listened to those songs about the risen Christ, I realized I was missing something much deeper than that. My soul was so thirsty that day. I had spent weeks thinking about treatments and appointments and medications and all the challenges that come with a battle like that. But that Easter morning, my attention was lifted away from my circumstance and back to the Lord. And as I worshipped, something changed.
I was still sick. I was still in a hotel room. Still had a difficult road ahead of me. But my soul began to find satisfaction in God again. And you know, I've never had a resurrection experience, but that's the closest thing that ever happened.
Because on that Easter Sunday, my white cell count went way up—twenty-eight thousand. It was almost zero. I had a resurrection. I never experienced anything like that in my life, and that is exactly what David is saying in this psalm. He's not sitting at a banquet table; he's sitting in the wilderness.
But he is saying, "My soul shall be satisfied because I'm going to worship God." And he lifts his hands, and he lifts his lips and his mouth, and he worships the Lord. The thirsty soul is followed by the satisfied soul, and at the end of the psalm. The committed soul. The more we allow God to satisfy our needs, the more we become committed to Him. The more we realize, this is what I've been waiting for.
This is what I've been looking for. This is what my soul has been desiring to know Him in that way, to have that kind of fellowship with Him, to the sense that you feel like He's almost in the room with you. Look with me at verses six through eight. David says, "When I remember you on my bed, I meditate on you in the night watches, because you have been my help. Therefore, in the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.
My soul follows close behind you; your right hand upholds me." Notice, David wasn't laying awake at night in the wilderness, consumed with fear and anxiety over the things beyond his control. And frankly, he had every earthly reason to panic. His life was a mess; it was in turmoil. But when insomnia drove sleep from his eyes, David had eremity. The Bible says he meditated on God.
How many of you have ever faced a burden so great, so heavy, so overwhelming that you lost sleep over it? I promise you, most of you would say, "Yeah, it was with my kids." That's where most of those come from. Maybe it was a marriage struggle or a health crisis. Those can be long nights, but David knew what that felt like. And when he woke in the night, he didn't simply lie there worrying and wringing his hands.
The Bible says he remembered God. He meditated on the faithfulness of God. He rehearsed in his mind what God had done for him in the past. Lewis Smee wrote in one of his books a very important thing. He said, "A person who has the habit of hope, also has the habit of remembering." He said, "If you are going to meditate, you need to have a memory like a writer needs to have notes.
You need to look back over your life and say, 'Oh, I remember when God did that.'" And every one of us in this room, no matter who we are or how long we've been with the Lord, We remember things that God has done for us so clearly in our minds. We remember times when only God could have been the answer. And David said, when he was lying on his bed at night, he remembered. You know, I've told you before. There's some value in doing a journal, but journals help you to remember what God does.
And when you remember what God has done for you in the past, it has a very important impact on you in the present, because you realize the God who did that for me back there is the same God who is now in my life. He did it then; He can do it now. God, what you did in the past was so incredible. I remember that. Remember me now, as you remembered me then.
What a powerful truth! Listen again to verse seven. Because you have been my help, therefore, in the shadow of your wings I will rejoice. Do you hear what David is saying? He's saying, "Lord, because you helped me before, I can rest under the shadow of your wings now." That is the confidence of a thirsty soul made satisfied.
It remembers the faithfulness of God and finds rest in His presence. God's blessings did not make David complacent. They inspired a greater commitment to Him. He said, "Lord, as I lay here in my bed, I remember what You did for me. My soul follows close behind You.
Your right hand upholds me." How many of you know that when you go through a desert experience, whatever that might be for you, if your heart is turned toward God, it will drive you toward Him. If your heart is not turned toward God, it will drive you away from Him. How many times have I met people who are still angry at God because He didn't do something they thought He should do? But if you walk with God, when trouble comes, your trouble will push you toward God.
So you will say, "I never felt His presence more than I did during that time." Let me give you a theological truth. I'm not using this to mess you up, but here's the truth. God is never with you at one time more than He is at another time. He's ever present with you. Trouble makes you sensitive to the presence of God in your life.
He's already there. You got in trouble, so God rushed over to see you. No, He's there. But when you have trouble, you realize how desperate you are for Him, and how inadequate you are without Him. Can I get a witness?
How inadequate we are without God. I'm going to illustrate this and embarrass my grandson, but it'll be okay. He'll get even with me. Many years ago, we took our grandson to a baseball game on fireworks night. It was my idea.
I thought it was a cool idea. It was really dumb. I thought it would be a wonderful memory for all of us together. What I did not realize was that fireworks are terrifying when you're a little boy.
So we go to this ball game and we're having a great time. And David's hot, sitting on my lap, watching the game, enjoying every moment. And all of a sudden, they have fireworks in between the innings to get you to stay for the ultimate fireworks. And when those fireworks started in between the inning, you've never seen a kid move so fast in your life.
Now I know I'm his granddad, and that should be something. It meant nothing. He scrambled out of my lap and buried himself in his father's arms. He wrapped both arms around his neck. I can still see it.
Held on with everything he had. He didn't want me. He wanted his father. And I noticed something else. His father had an even tighter hold on him.
And immediately, I had been studying this chapter. I thought of this verse. When the fireworks of life begin exploding around you, when fear overwhelms you and your soul is trembling, what do you do? You climb into the arms of your heavenly Father and you hold on with everything you have, only to discover He's holding on to you. That's what happens, and that's what David discovered in the wilderness.
That's his wonderful discovery in Psalm sixty-three. Do you understand that when trouble comes, one of the two things will happen: you will either be driven toward God or away from Him. If we allow bitterness and fear and confusion or anger to get between us and the Lord, when trouble comes, it'll drive us further away. Stay close to Him. Final verses of the psalm remind us that David eventually learned to wait on God.
He's in this situation, and you know that's the hardest thing for me, for most of us, is to wait. We don't like to wait for anything, but David trusted that God would deal with his enemies. David waited and trusted that God would vindicate him, carry him through the wilderness, and that is exactly what happened. Because we know the rest of the story: Absalom's rebellion eventually collapsed. David's enemies were defeated.
The kingdom was restored, and David was once again in the place of victory and glory. People often say to me, "You know, Pastor Jeremiah, every sermon should end at the cross." I don't know if that's true or not. I think it's hard to do sometimes, depending on what you're preaching about. But I want you to end at the cross with me in this one because this is where we belong. David found God faithful in the wilderness.
God met him there and satisfied his thirsty soul. But David's story points us to someone greater than David. If you want to see the best picture of God's love for thirsty souls, you have to go to the cross and look at Jesus. Do you know there were statements on the cross that Jesus made? And statement number five was recorded in the book of John.
And this is the statement: Jesus said, "I thirst." Before Jesus was nailed to the cross, he endured sleeplessness, emotional stress, scourging, significant blood loss, all of which accelerated dehydration. The one who created the oceans became thirsty. The one who made every spring and stream endured a parched tongue. The giver of living water experienced thirst, so that thirsty sinners might drink forever. Jesus experienced the thirst of your life and mine on the cross.
There's no question in my mind that the apostle John assembled this thread through his gospel, telling us that Jesus suffered intense thirst. But there's something else. The story doesn't end there, because John, who wrote the Gospel of John, also wrote the last book of the Bible, which is the book of Revelation. And toward the end of the book of Revelation, we read this incredible passage: "And the Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' And let him who hears say, 'Come.' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely." The last invitation of the Bible.
Tells us that if you have a thirsty soul, there's only one place where you can find hope, and that's in Jesus. He's the living water. What I'm saying is that in your life, if you're like everybody that I've ever met, there's something in your life that seeks for meaning beyond the everyday things that you experience. You may make a lot of money. You may get to the top of your company.
I remember so often reading about people who have excelled at the top of their game, only to hear them say, "Is that all there is? Isn't there something more?" And I'm telling you that Jesus Christ is the something, the someone more. He's the missing ingredient in your life. If you never accepted Him, you don't know what it means to have the feeling that God is alive in your heart. The reason you have a soul is because your soul is the part of you that relates to God.
God doesn't have a body, so your body doesn't relate to Him. Your soul relates to Him, and what I am telling you, if your soul is thirsty, what that means is that God has placed this desire in you for Him. And you can try to fill that desire with everything there is. I mean, there's all kinds of things that people try to stuff into that emptiness that God created. But you will never be at home until Jesus Christ is at home in your heart, and you've accepted Him as your Savior.
Amen. I hope you've done that. If you have been reading along with us in the book, The Battle for Your Soul. The last paragraph from this chapter asks this question: Have you opened the faucet all the way so that the water of life can flood into your life? Every person is thirsty for something.
Some thirst for success.
Some thirst for acceptance.
Some for pleasure.
Some for inner peace. But beneath every lesser thirst is the deeper thirst for God Himself. Until that thirst is satisfied, all the fountains of earth will leave us wanting for more. A thirsty soul. Can only become satisfied when it drinks deeply from the life-giving flood of the Savior's love.
The psalmist wrote it this way: "Lord, satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all of our day." I hope you know what it means to have your thirst satisfied in Jesus Christ. We'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for joining us today. Today's message originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Senior Pastor Dr. David Jeremiah.
Drop us a note to let us know how God is using this ministry in your life. Write to Turning Point, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163. Visit our website at davidjeremiah.org/radio, or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, "The Battle for Your Soul," and learn to be victorious in spiritual warfare.
It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smartphone or tablet, or search in your app store for Turning Point Ministries to access our content. Visit DavidJeremiah dot org slash radio for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the battle for your soul on Turning Point with Dr.
David Jeremiah.
