A Desert Psalm - Part 2

Christian you recruit new move for those mountains of experiences with little but what happens when you produce over the droid visits.

34. Dr. David Jeremiah returns to Psalm 63 fetishes have gone through the business of life, just like this and that was the conclusion of his message. Some want to thank you for joining us today. We are studying Psalm 63 it's called a desert.

Psalm it's like how do I worship God when everything is going on in my life doesn't make me want to worship anybody or be thankful for anything. David teaches us that in the midst of our difficult times.

That's the time when we need to worship God more than any other time. We don't do it because we feel like we do it in obedience to the Lord. Worship is an option its command and will follow the command. It's an amazing thing. What happens when we worship God. So today we look at the part two of a desert.

Psalm tomorrow going to study Psalm 30 on Friday. Psalm 142 sets of our Bibles again to the middle.

That's right open to the middle Nubian Psalms and then find 63 and finish up our discussion Psalm seeking after God thirsting after God longing for God. Notice he says my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water word longing here is actually the word to faint. David says what I'm such a place where I'm literally without strength and I ain't all God for your presence. What is happening to him physically is taken on a spiritual yet a deeper physical dimension so that he feels the pain in every part of his body and get that pain drives him to long for God CS Lewis is written a wonderful expression on the Psalms called reflection on the Psalms. If you enjoy reading the Psalms and you ever find the book by CS Lewis. It's worth having.

Because he writes about the Psalms is no one else I have read and he made this comment about David's hunger for God.

He said the poets in David's day knew far less reason than we do for loving God, they did not know that he offered them eternal joy, still less that he would die to win it for them, yet they express a longing for God for his mere presence, which comes only to Christians in their best moments when we been isolated by trouble or difficulty, then that hunger and that cry for God become so paramount what a graphic picture of the psalmist's painting force in the early versus the dry and thirsty land that surrounds him physically is the picture of his soul. Without God, he has lived long enough to discover that the world even the palace is a desert place of disappointment and discouragement and defeat and would not bring him pleasure. Someone has made this very valid analogy that Satan doesn't know anything at all about pleasure.

His specialty is amusement. Only God knows anything about pleasure.

How many of us have learned the hard way that when we been seeking after pleasure.

What we end up with is amusement pleasure comes from God. In fact, the psalmist writes in Psalm 1611. You will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

True pleasure comes from knowing God and knowing that we are known of God and being at rest in his presence. Then David makes a very important decision about God. In this section. In verse two he says so.

I have looked for you in the sanctuary to see your power and your glory.

Now, in order to understand this. I have to fill in a little empty place about the story of David as he is fleeing from Absalom record tells us that as he was leaving the city. Unknown to him by phone. Some of the priests say Doc had gone back into the sanctuary where the ark of the covenant was kept in without David's permission. They had put the iron bars through the rings, and they lifted the ark of the covenant on the shoulders and when they got out of the city and were crossing the Kedron Valley. David realized that they had taken the ark of the covenant from the city of Jerusalem and they had brought it out into the wilderness where David was fleeing from his own son. Now if you study the Old Testament you know that the ark of the covenant was a very important piece of furniture in the tabernacle, for it represented the visible, tangible, almost touchable presence of God when the ark was stolen. Israel was in great disarray. The presence of God was symbolized by the ark of the covenant. I don't know about you but if I'm David. If ever there was a time in my life when I wanted the ark of the covenant going along with me into the wilderness wherever I would go this would amend the moment. I'll take all the help I can get thank you but I want you to read with me what happened from second Samuel chapter 15. Notice what it says. There was a duck also and all the Levites with him bearing the ark of the covenant of God, and they sat down the ark of God and the buyer far went up until all the people had finished crossing over from the city. Then the king said to say Doc 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.

Therefore say Doc in a bias far carried the ark of God back to Jerusalem and they remained there hasn't been a strange thing which you've done that. I don't know if I would have regulated in this situation the David found himself and I think I might've said just bring the ark. Will let it trail along with us wherever we go, we need presence of the Lord. David send it back to the city because he knew. First of all, that's where it belonged, and secondly, David needed more than the token presence of Almighty God. He needed the actual presence of Almighty God. He sent the visible representation of the presence of God back with this statement in his heart.

If God wants me to be all right with this. I will be and if he does it.

I won't be but what I need now is not the ark of the covenant I made Almighty God himself to descend upon this encampment and be with me through this wilderness experience. How many of you have been there you've gone through this experience and you don't need somebody to give you something to hang around your neck.

You need Almighty God to be there with you in his presence in the midst of it.

So he makes this decision and he sends the ark back and he goes out into the desert with the promise of God's presence in the third verse of the song we see David's delight in God. He said because your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you.

David's life is hanging in the balance, and yet he realizes that true life is only found in God and he says to the Lord in his prayer, Lord God, your better than life to me. Your lovingkindness is better than life to me how many of you know why God's lovingkindness is better than life, it's better than life because it extends beyond life doesn't. As we know it here. You know what a picture this is the heart of David made a lot of mistakes in his life. He was a human leader and yet the one thing that is consistently true of him was that he was a man after God's own heart, and when the pressure was on. He grabbed hold of his relationship with God. With both hands and he sought after God with all his heart during my almost people asked me some interesting questions. Sometimes task me if I was afraid and I said no. I was scared to death mess. The honest truth couple people asked me if I cried. I want to tell Ms. know their business. But that's not a godly thing to do and up until the period of time after the procedure I could've said you know what I didn't cry, knew what was coming and God prepare me for it. But there was one day when I cry.

I'm not happy about.

Tell me about my tears, but it serves a very important point here, so let me tell you about was Easter Sunday Don and I were holed up in a hotel and Delmar California for the outpatient stem cell transplant program at Scripps clinic. Probably the lowest time in the experience just happened to be that weekend and I was feeling lousy, but it was Easter was Easter Sunday. So I got up early and I made my way out to the living area and I fell him to sit down and turn on the television find something to encourage me on this Easter Sunday there was Easter music and great pageantry in worship and I turn it on and I started to watch it and then almost without any knowledge that it was coming, I began to sob convulsively I was embarrassed. Donna came in from the other room and she said are you all right said no I'm not.

I said I want to be in church. I won't be here. I don't belong here. Belonging church and I realize that day home that is to be a sailor pastor, Jeremiah, you're the preacher you supposed to be there on its beyond that it's not just preach. I long for the opportunity to worship God and to be with God's people, and to realize the joy of being in the house of God, desiring to be with him. Now I know you can be with God without being in church understand all that but there's something special about God's place with God's people, and especially on resurrection Sunday a man and I bowed in my heart to get better as fast as I could. I think that's what David felt out there in the desert. He remembered the experiences in the tabernacle worshiping with God's people. He remembered the great feast days and all the pageantry of lifting up praise to God as he sat there in that desert tent, his heart, look back over those years to that experience and he cried out for that time of intimacy with God, desiring God well in the next few verses, David gives us some very important clues to what happens when were in the desert and how we walk with God in the desert. We've expressed his wanting God in the midst of this difficult time. But now we learn what were supposed to do one were with God in the desert in we learn this from reading David's own words. First of all, he begins with this very important key that when you're walking with God in the desert. You began by praising him. Verses four and five because your lovingkindness 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 is with Marilyn, fatness, and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips. David begins his experience in the desert separated from his kingdom chased by his son, wondering what's going to happen to him in this twilight of his life and he says the first thing I concentrated on was praise and Almighty God, you say that it makes sense. I didn't say it made sense. I just said he did it and when you get into a situation, you discover that a lot of times the things that other people say don't make sense are the very things that God draws you to do and how many of you know, when you begin to praise God even in the desert experience things begin to change in your own heart and in the matter of perspective. In fact, this whole Psalm teaches us how David praises God. He tells us that as long as he lives. He's going to praise the Lord and almost have the sense in his note that he didn't know how long he's going to live.

What uses Lord from which life you give me. I want to praise you and him.

Psalm 104 verse 33 there's another echo that very thought I will sing to the Lord as long as I live I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.

In other words, Lord, whatever breath you give me.

I want to give it back to you and pretty.

And if you go through the Psalm. It teaches you how to praise the Lord. There are seven different ways to praise God in the first six verses of Psalm 63. When you show them to you quickly. First of all, we praise him with our lips. Verse three my lips shall praise you, then we praise him with our tongue us will I bless you. Verse four. Then we praise him with our hands.

I will lift my hands in your name, and we praise him with our will. My soul will be satisfied. We praise him with our mouth.

Verse five my mouth shall praise you we praise him with our memory. When I remember you on my bed and we praise him with our intellect. When I meditate upon you in the night watches not just look with your lips your tongue your hands your will, your mouth, your memory, your intellect in the midst of the desert experience what you do friends. You praise God say will pastor Jeremiah, how do we go about doing that. If you're not learning that they were not teaching very well tell you something you can learn to praise God in the midst of difficulty and it will make all the difference in the world not only to God but to you praising God and then the next thing we learned that David did is in verses six and seven, he began to picture God. I'm not talking here about visualization in the worst sense of the word, but notice what he says in verse six 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. David was not somebody to toss and turn it night fretting over things that were beyond his control.

He was in a mess.

Frankly, when insomnia drove sleep from his eyes.

He had one sure remedy. You know that was.

He would meditate upon God. How many of you have ever had trouble it's been so troublesome… Be real honest about this that you've lost just a little bit of sleep over.

Maybe it's been a child is a word or a business problem that you don't know what to do with marriage issues or whatever, or sickness. I don't think ever lost a night of sleep till I got sick and then I didn't sleep for three nights in a row and not only make don't how to explain managers happened. What David did when this thing happened. Was it says he remembered God on his bed and he meditated on him in the night watches when he would wake up he wouldn't threaten turnaround in ring his hands but he would just begin to meditate on God and to remember God and to think about what God had done for him.

Lewis meets is a wonderful book on hold and in the book. One of my favorite authors as written these words he said a person who has the habit of hope also has the habit of remembering. Hope means memories the way a writer needs notes. This is partly because hope depend so much on imagination, or images of the future sweepings from our remembrances of things past.

If we expect to keep hope alive.

We need to keep memory alive, happy memories of good things we hope for that were fulfilled and grateful memories of bad things we survive when we are going through a desert experience. Men and women.

One of the most helpful things we can do is to remember the way that God is helped us and to realize that the problems we face now are not a surprise to God. But in the midst of those problems to look back over her shoulder and realized the other two is helped us and we have built in our memory bank some very important deposits of the things that God has done for us in the past, and we think back over them and my friend everyone has the everyone has them the things God has done for you in the past often think that when this giant of despair begin to sweep over David in the night and woke him up but he couldn't go back to sleep. He began to think about another giant giant that he faced many years before this giant was 9'6" tall and is a young lad. He stood in front of them with five smooth stones. Only one of which he really needed and he saw Almighty God make him the champion over that giant. Perhaps David reasoned in the night watches. If God can help me overcome the Goliath of my youth is surely can give me what I need to get through the experience that I'm facing right now.

Don't ever forget the things God does for you.

I keep telling you this, if you keep a journal. You remember the things he does for you will become great fuel for your fire when you need it in the future. Listen to the words of verse seven.

Again, because you have been my help in the past. Therefore, in the shadow of your wings.

I will rejoice in a great verse. Therefore, because you have been my help there. I'm just gonna relax under the shadow of your wings for you God are able to do what needs to be done. He praises God that he pictures God in his life and then finally he prays to God. Verse eight. My soul follows close behind you. Your right hand upholds me literally. The text says my soul clings to you oh God, how many of you know that when you go through a desert experience if you're wired right spiritually forces you to grab hold of God in a way that you would any other way to understand it when trouble comes one of two things will happen for us to say for our visual picture that God is here and I'm here when trouble comes, I must be very careful not to let the trouble get between me and God. Because what happens when I do that is the trouble in the pressure in the midst of this situation. If I'm here and God is there trouble pushes us apart is in the true watch this when trouble comes even when I may not know why or how to deal with it. If I run to God and I cling to him and hold on him with all my heart and the trouble won't be between God and me, the trouble will be in the outside of both of us and the pressure will push me tighter to him is not true. David said when I was in the desert. My life seem like it was falling apart.

All I knew to do was a hold on the God and the prey to him last part of the Psalm. I won't deal with just tell you this that has to do with David's waiting on God and it simply has to do with his reminding himself that God is going to deal with the problems that he fears he's going to take care of his enemies. He's going to give them victory.

He's going to vindicate him. Ultimately, David sees that now in his mind how many of you know that sometimes when you're midst of a problem when you cling to God he can almost give you kind of a premonition that everything is going to be all right. That is going to take care of your you get that subtle assurance in your heart and actually that is what happened because one day Absalom's armies went out against David's armies and the Scripture says that Absalom's armies were defeated and that more of them were defeated by the forest and by the opposing army and we may not understand that. And then of course you know the story of handsome Absalom riding his mule as fast as he can but he's got this huge head of hair any rights under a terebinth tree in his hair is caught in the treaty hangs between heaven and earth till Joab.

David's general comes and takes his life against the wishes of David and all of the trouble that started it was so serious is now over. David still has a broken heart but the kingdom was back in his hands, how many of you know that the desert would come and I'm not a prophet of doom even in light of what I've experienced. I am a very positive forward thinking person.

Don't worry about the past just aggressively move into the future with all of your heart, but a realist also knows that there will be sometimes a bump here and there a desert journey now and then. And why is the man or woman of God who takes the Scripture as his resource book and recognizes that God does have for each one of us a desert.

Psalm packet in your rations, put it in your special kit and remember that when the desert time comes, God has preparation tell you what to do friends tomorrow were going to go to the 30th Psalm and 10 we've given about one life's ups and downs, ups and downs in life we have had a lot of ups and right now having some downs but he's the same God in every situation will learn that tomorrow. I hope you join us then we have a wonderful resource for the month of June. It goes right along with everything were experiencing.

It's called shelter in God the government saying shelter in place we get that we should do what they tell us to do as much as we can. But here's another way to shelter shelter in God. Find your hope in your help and your encouragement from God say where do I go to get that to go to the Bible, and specifically you go to the Psalms. See you tomorrow is message comes from Shadow Mountain Community Church with Dr. David Jeremiah serves as senior pastor. If Turning Point is ministering to you when your eyelid is not Turning Point PO Box 3838, San Diego, CA 92163 visit our website at David Jeremiah/writing you a copy of David's new book shelf and brought sure to encourage you in this unprecedented time was because of the Jeremiah study Bible stand and you international visions and stand in the large print in the new King James variety Henson, visit David Jeremiah.org/radio Gary who join us tomorrow as we continue the series were falls upon Tehran for Jeremiah. Thanks for taking time to listen to find a nice trim piece in question