A Longing Soul in a Thirsty Land 2
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II. But I pass on to show the spot where David was when he uttered these words, "A dry and thirsty land where there is no water."We must not suppose for a single moment that David had respect to any local circumstances in which he then was placed. We have no reason to believe that he was at that time in a natural desert, or that his tongue literally cleaved to the roof of his mouth for the lack of a flowing brook or a cooling stream; but the literal desert, of which there is no lack even in the very vicinity of Jerusalem, presented itself as a figure to his soul, to express his spiritual feelings. Viewed in this light, there is something very expressive in the words, "a dry and thirsty land where no water is." Thus looking at it as a figure, and seeking to gather from it spiritual instruction, we may enquire from the Scriptures and the records of inward experience, What is this "dry and thirsty land?"
1. "A dry and thirsty land." First, we may explain the words as referring to the earth on which our lot is cast; this valley of tears in which we at present dwell. Now this to the natural eye is not a dry and thirsty land. The natural eye, especially when undimmed by sickness or sorrow, sees much beauty in it; and, indeed, in a sense, earth is still beautiful, though the fall has sadly marred its primitive and original beauty. But as this is not seen except by the believing soul, the natural eye gazes with delight upon the rich pastures, the verdant hedges, the blooming meadows, and the smiling rivers of our earthly scenery; and with still greater delight upon the lofty mountains and rich valleys of Alpine lands. Looking at these romantic prospects, many a heart swells with emotion; and at such seasons earth to the natural eye, seems full of beauty and glory.
But O, amid all these scenes of earthly beauty, what does the spiritual eye see? Misery and wretchedness, and all flowing from one source– sin. It has often been remarked, that the fairest scenes hide the foulest sins; and that the most blooming portions of our earth are most polluted with crime; as if to show the greater contrast between the works of God and man. But whatever beauty earth may wear to the eye, sin, sin, horrid sin, has marred it all; the curse of God rests upon the whole, for the original sentence still remains unremoved and unalleviated, "Cursed is the ground for your sake; in sorrow shall you eat of it all the days of your life." (Gen. 3:17.)
David, then, viewing the prospect around him, spoke of earth as a "dry and thirsty land," as expressive of the feelings of his soul towards it. What did he need? What earth could not give. The earth, then, to him was "dry." What charm has a beautiful scene to a dying man? What attraction has mountain or valley to a guilty conscience? Or, to use David's figure, what water to relieve a parched soul can gush from a romantic landscape? Earth could not give the Lord's presence to David's heart. Could it have given him what he longed so ardently to feel and enjoy, earth then would not have been "dry;" it would have been full of water, such a land spiritually as Moses described the promised land to be, "a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills." (Deut. 8:7.)
But earth could not give him what he wanted. He wanted God for what he was in himself, that he might personally enjoy the manifestations of his love, the blessedness of his presence, the smiles of his countenance, the whispers of his favor. Especially he coveted God as his Father and his Friend, as his Rock and his Fortress and his Deliverer; his God, his strength; "his shield and the horn of his salvation and his high tower." (Psalm 18:2.) These heavenly streams he thirsted to enjoy; but earth could not give him a drop of what he thus longed to drink. To him, therefore, it was "dry," because it did not give him that which his soul thirsted for. It might give him everything else; and we know that, as king of Israel, he had the largest share possible of earthly good. But that was not what he wanted. There was one thing his heart was fixed upon; and not having that, he felt he had nothing.
Look at a poor widow just bereaved of her husband– she walks out in the flush of early spring, but is solitary and desolate, for she has lost the arm upon which she leaned; and sees the meadows clothed with beauty, and children gathering flowers in the valley; but what is all this to her? How looks earth to her dimmed, weeping eyes? Clad in sackcloth, dressed in the same mourning garb in which she herself is clothed. Or look at a mother who has lost her only child; perhaps mourning over a daughter who perished in a miserable manner in India– hurled down the well at Cawnpore, or dragged naked through the streets of Delhi. She walks through London streets, where all is gaiety and splendor; she sees rolling carriages carry maidens which now are what her daughter once was. What is their beauty, or rank, or dress to her? As she sees these daughters of pride and fashion, she inwardly cries, "Oh, my daughter! my daughter!" The very contrast only fills her heart with racking thoughts of her miserable child, who perished far away from her in a way that chills her very blood.
Now, why do not the fields in spring give to the widow the same delight they yield to others; and why do not the London gaieties afford the same pleasure to the mother sorrowing over her lost daughter that they do to so many spectators? Why but because her soul is filled with bitterness and grief? So it is in it spiritual sense– the world is full of trouble and sorrow to distressed consciences and mourning pilgrims. The things of time and sense cannot amuse them as they amuse others; for they feel with David– "The troubles of my heart are enlarged," "my spirit is overwhelmed within me– my heart within me is desolate." (Psalm 25:17; 143:4.) God is absent; the Comforter withdrawn; Jesus not there; and this makes earth to be a dry land where there is no water.
And what a mercy it is that it should be so. Unless earth be dry, heaven will not unfold to you its rich stores of wine and milk and honey. If you are full of earth, heaven has no charms for your soul. Drink in sin as the ox drinks down water; take your fill of pleasure, and gaiety, and amusement, and all the things that delight the carnal mind; drink them all in; drink them all in! You have now no heart for Jesus or his love. But find all things dry, and barrenness and death stamped upon all below the skies, and wherever you cast your eyes earth a sterile desert because Jesus and his love and blood are not there– then you can enter into the feelings of the Psalmist, when he said "in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is."
2. But he calls the land "thirsty"as well as "dry." How can the land be thirsty? The figure is borrowed from our natural thirst, and the expression implies a quality of never being able to be satiated. "The thirsty land" is one of such a porous and sandy nature that through it all the showers of heaven run away; ever insatiable, yet never fertilized, for no amount of rain can communicate the moisture necessary to impart fertility. Such is the world in its cravings for happiness. All the bounties of God in his kind providence cannot enrich the world, and especially the worldly heart that still dwells in the saint's breast. The craving desires of the carnal mind are like the two daughters of the horse leech, which are ever crying, "Give, give!" "Give, give!" cries covetousness. "Give, give!" cries pride. "Give, give!" cries every carnal desire of the earthly mind as its various lusts and passions are stirred up.
But could all be given that sin could lust after, the result would be still the same– satiety for a time, but insatiability for the future. Sin is like a man in a dropsy, ever craving, ever craving liquid; or like a drunkard, who the more he drinks the more he wants to drink– ever craving, ever craving stronger and stronger drink, as if nothing but drink, drink, could cool his parched tongue or wind up his sinking spirits; and so he drinks until he dies, a poor miserable, drunken suicide. Such, as opened up by divine light, is the natural heart of man to himself– a "thirsty land, where no water is."
3. But taking the words in a wider signification, we may say that wherever the love, mercy, and goodness of God are not to be found, that place is "a thirsty land" to a child of God. You may have providential mercies showered upon you; but like "the thirsty land," all these showers run through and run away, and leave your heart a barren desert. In fact, to a child of God all is "a thirsty land" where God is not. Search the world from pole to pole; rove and roam from land to land; cross seas and oceans; and whether you live in the crowded haunts of men, or inhabit a hut in an Australian wilderness, if the Lord's presence and power be not in your soul, every climate and country will be a thirsty land where no water is. As the same sun shines in every climate; as the same wind everywhere blows, and the same rain everywhere falls, so is man the same in every country, in every state, and every condition; and the heart that beats under the purple and fine linen is the same as that which beats under rags and dirt. Nor can the whole range of human intellect, or human knowledge, or the advance of human society, in any of its varied forms, take God's curse off the earth. It is the pressure of this upon a spiritual mind and the view of this with a spiritual eye, which brings every one taught of God to the same conclusion as to what this world really is, and that it truly is to every believing heart a "thirsty land, where no water is."
4. But the words are not only expressive of what the earth is to the saint of God, but descriptive also of the dry and thirsty land of HIS OWN SOUL;for there we need the streams to flow; there we wish the springs to rise, and there we desire the water of eternal life to come. "Spring up, O well!" is the cry of the soul to the Lord continually that has ever felt his presence and his power, had a taste of his grace, or a view of his glory. To be then in those spots into which we sometimes sink; to have nothing within that seems like life; no enjoyment of his presence, no sweet peace or joy in believing, no feeling of love to the Lord, or to his people, no satisfaction or contentment with his dealings in providence or grace; to be thus in the feelings of the heart is to be in a "dry and thirsty land, where no water is."
The marginal reading gives us a very expressive term, descriptive of this state of mind, "a wearyland." Is not this very expressive of the feelings of your heart when you are weary of everything and of everybody, and weary of nothing so much as your miserable self; weary of saints, weary of sinners; weary of professors and weary of possessors; weary of earth and weary of everything upon earth, but after all weary of nothing so much as your own miserable heart. "But," you say, "is it possible that a child of God can ever be in that state of mind?" May I not meet this question by another? How came the Psalmist so to describe it, if it were not so? For he could not mean that the land itself was "weary," but that he was weary in it; as we say, sometimes, "what a weary road," or "what a weary journey," when the weariness is not in the road, but in us. Nor do I think that I have deviated from the teaching of the Holy Spirit in thus opening up the experience of the Psalmist's soul, as pointed out by the expression, "a weary land." Does not the Lord use the same language where he speaks of his dear Son as man, being "as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land?" Oh, it is not the land that is weary, but the traveler in it; and "the shadow of a great rock" is only acceptable to the weary traveler.
The Lord himself says, "the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary" (Isaiah. 50:4); and again, "I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul." (Jer. 31:25.) And we may well ask why should the Holy Spirit have recorded these characters and these promises in the Scriptures of truth except the saints of God, and highly favored saints of God too, were at times in the condition of mind, described in the character and addressed in the promise?
III. But I pass on to our next point, which is, what David, in this dry and thirsty land, longed to see.
1. "To see your power and your glory."He was done with the power of man; at least as far as regards the things of God. If this psalm was written when he was driven from Jerusalem by the rebellion of Absalom, he had been a powerful monarch; he had sat upon the throne of Israel; thousands upon thousands had bowed before his scepter; and his word had been law over a vast tract of country. But now in the wilderness he was not longing to see his own power re-established. That never had and never could satisfy his soul; and now in his eyes was nothing. What he now wanted to see was the power of God, and that by no external display of his greatness and majesty, but by the revelation of this power to his heart. As regards earthly power, we are but humble subjects compared to this mighty king as he sat upon his throne at Jerusalem. But in spiritual things, we may have the same feelings as he experienced in the wilderness. We feel with him that it is not our own power, the power of the flesh, that we wish to see displayed.
If any lesson has been written upon our heart by the finger of God, has not this been deeply printed there– OUR lack of power to believe, to hope, to love, to obey; that there is no strength, wisdom, or goodness in the creature; in a word, that man by nature has neither will nor power to seek or serve God? As this sense of creature helplessness is felt in the heart and made known in the conscience, there is created by the same blessed Spirit, who makes us to feel our helplessness, a longing to see the power of God, and that as especially put forth in the Person, the work, the blood, the obedience, and the love of Jesus; for he is "the power of God" as well as "the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24); and "the kingdom of God," of which he is the Lord and Head, "is not in word but in power." (1 Cor. 4:20.) It was "the power of God" that raised Christ from the dead; and the same power is put forth in every believing heart, according to those words of the apostle, "And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places?" (Ephes. 1:19, 20.)
Is not the gospel itself "the power of God unto salvation?" (Rom. 1:16.) Does not all true faith stand in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Cor. 2:4)? and does not God give "the spirit of power and love" to those who fear his great name? (2 Tim. 1:7.) In fact, we know nothing of true faith if we know nothing of "the power of God," for it is "the work of faith with power." (2 Thess. 1:11.) In longing, therefore, to see God's "power," we long to see first that power as displayed in the Person, work, and resurrection of Christ; and then to feel that power put forth in our own soul. Thus the desire of Paul was that he might "know Christ, and the power of his resurrection," as a most blessed experimental reality in his own soul. (Phil. 3:10.)
Salvation by grace is the greatest act that the mind of God ever conceived, or the power of God ever accomplished. It was easy to create the world. God had but to speak, and the sun sprang into the sky; when he said "Let there be light," there was light. But to save a sinner, a rebel, a transgressor, taxed, if I may use the expression, God's wisdom to the utmost. And view the power displayed in the putting away, the blotting out, and the thorough removal of sin, and I may add, of millions of sins.
Look at what sin has done! How one proud thought hurled thousands of bright spirits from heaven into hell, and turned holy seraphs into the foulest fiends, the implacable foes of God and man. Look at the Deluge! Look at Sodom and Gomorrah! Look at the siege and destruction of Jerusalem! Look into the abyss of an ever opening hell! Or to bring the matter nearer home, look at the weight of sin upon the conscience of one guilty sinner! And then, take the weight of all the sins of the innumerable millions redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and view them all charged upon the head of Jesus! What a power was put forth in him to sustain the weight of all those sins, and thus reconcile and harmonize all God's inherent attributes– that mercy should not triumph at the expense of justice; that justice should maintain all her claims, and yet mercy have her fullest exercise; that the Law should sustain to the utmost its rigid, unbending rights, and yet that the Gospel should hang around it its glorious trophies.
What a display, too, of wisdom and power is continually manifested in the personal salvation and sanctification of every redeemed, regenerated child of grace. Fully, freely, everlastingly to save a poor, miserable, guilty sinner from the depths of the fall; to change him by the power of divine grace into a saint; to prepare him for the eternal participation and enjoyment of the glory which the Son of God had with the Father before the foundation of the world; to make him fit for the inheritance of the saints in light, by giving him a nature capable of enjoying all the holy perfections of a Triune God, as displayed in the glorious Person of Immanuel, and that to all eternity! What a power is displayed here!
What is creation with all its wonders to this? What are seas, with all their strange, innumerable inhabitants; what is earth, with all its mineral, animal, or vegetable marvels; what is sun, or moon, or stars, however great or glorious this mighty host, compared with hosts of millions of sinners, all saved by sovereign grace, all washed in atoning blood, all clothed in Immanuel's righteousness, and all sanctified by the Spirit's work upon their hearts?
Is not every saved soul a miracle of almighty power? Are not all the dealings of the Lord with him and for him acts of omnipotence? The way in which the Lord defeats Satan, with all his wiles and snares, overcomes the strength of sin, and delivers the believer from its dominion– a miracle which none but he can effect; begins, carries on, and completes the work of grace in his heart; overrules all events and circumstances, and makes them work together for his good; delivers out of every trial; subdues and subjugates every evil; and eventually brings him unto the eternal enjoyment of himself– O what a display of infinite power is revealed in every vessel of mercy!
David longed to see this power, as the right arm of the Lord, displayed and especially put forth in his own case. For is it not in our own case that we want to see that power displayed; in our own heart that power made experimentally known? Have not unbelief and sin and guilt power there? And where would we want to see and feel the power of God but in the same heart, that he there might be stronger than they? I am very sure that if a man knows nothing of the power of God in his soul he can know nothing of true religion or vital godliness. The strong man armed will keep the palace until the stronger than he comes upon him, overcomes him, and takes from him all his armor wherein he trusted. Either sin must reign, or grace; unbelief or faith; the flesh or the Spirit; Belial or Christ. Every true Christian is sighing, I may say daily, after the power of God; and the more that divine life springs up in his heart the more he longs after its felt, enjoyed manifestations; nor does he ever feel his need of it more than when he is in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.
2. But David desired to see also "glory"as well as "power". "To see your glory." Was not this also the desire of Moses? "I beseech you, show me your glory." And what is this but the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? for this is that which God gives and the soul sees when he shines into the heart, as the Apostle speaks, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Cor. 4:6.)
The Lord Jesus Christ, as the eternal Son of God, is "the brightness of his Father's glory and the express image of his Person" (Heb. 1:3); and this was the glory which his disciples saw and which drew their heart toward him, as John speaks, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14.) It was in this way faith was raised up in their heart, as we read, "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him." (John 2:11.) To see this glory by the eye of faith has a transforming efficacy, for by a view of it we are renewed in the spirit of our mind. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. 3:18.)
The glory of Christ, in his suffering manhood, was veiled from the eyes of all but those who were taught by the blessed Spirit and enlightened to see it. And what glory is still to be seen by believing eyes in an incarnate God! The grandeur of Deity, tempered by the weakness of humanity, and yet shining through it, as the noonday sun shines through the clouds, which so far veil his rays that though they permit him to be seen they do not dazzle nor blind the eye! The Son of God in the babe of Bethlehem; the "only begotten of the Father," sweating great drops of blood in the Garden, and hanging upon the cross at Calvary; yet in his lowest state, when covered to man's eye with ignominy and shame, glory streaming from every pore of his sacred body, majesty and beauty shining forth from every lineament of his marred countenance; and love and mercy characterizing every word issuing from his languid lips!
None will ever see the glory of a risen, ascended, and glorified Christ in the open bliss of heaven who do not first see him on earth in his humiliation as a suffering Christ; and indeed it is his suffering glory which is now so blessed and so suitable to a guilty sinner. To see this suffering glory of the Son of God revealed to his soul by a divine power, made over to him as his salvation, and containing in it the essence of all his present and future happiness; this is the glory that a redeemed and regenerated saint longs to see and feel.
What glory can "the world" give, compared with the glory of the marred countenance of the suffering Son of God? By the side of his cross all earthly glory pales, withers, and dies; for death puts an end to everything naturally bright and glorious. Well has God spoken of the end of all human glory; "Therefore hell has enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoices shall descend into it." (Isaiah. 5:14.)
But that glory which begins with the cross ends with the crown; for "if we suffer with him we shall also be glorified together." (Rom. 8:17.) To see this glory of a suffering Christ by the eye of faith; to feel the heart deeply penetrated and inwardly possessed by it; to have it for our daily bread and our daily drink; to come as led by the Spirit to this ever-spread table of the flesh of Christ, this ever-flowing fountain of his atoning blood, and hear the Lord himself saying, "Eat, O friends; drink, yes drink abundantly, O beloved. Here is food to feed your immortal soul; here are streams of pardon and peace; here the rivers of eternal life– Let him that is athirst come, and whoever will let him take the water of life freely"– to see, to enjoy, to feel, and experience this in his own dry, thirsty, and weary bosom, this is to see the glory of God, as revealed in the Person, work, blood, obedience, and love of his dear Son.
IV. But I pass on to our last point, which is, the remembrance that came over the Psalmist's soul of what he had seen and felt in time past, and the place where he had enjoyed it, "To see your power and your glory, so as I have seen you in the sanctuary." We may understand by the "sanctuary" here not merely the tabernacle set up in the wilderness, or the temple afterwards erected at Jerusalem, though we have reason to believe that the Lord did specially manifest his power and glory there to believing Israel; but taking a wider view of the subject, we may say that every place in which the Lord manifests himself, is a sanctuary to a child of God. Thus the Lord promised to his scattered people that "he himself would be as a little sanctuary in the countries where they should come." (Ezekiel 11:16.) Jesus is now our sanctuary; for he is "the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man." The tabernacle of the wilderness was but a shadow, and the substance having come, the shadow is gone. As, then, David saw the power and glory of God in the sanctuary, so we see that power and that glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we may give a further sense to the word. Every place is a "sanctuary" where God manifests himself in power and glory to the soul. Moses, doubtless, had often passed by the bush which grew in Horeb; it was but a common thorn bush, in no way distinguished from the other bushes of the thicket; but on one solemn occasion it was all "in a flame of fire," for "the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire" out of the midst; and though it burned with fire, it was not consumed. God being in the bush, the ground round about was holy, and Moses was bidden to put off his shoes from off his feet. (Exodus 3:2, 5.) Was not this a sanctuary to Moses? It was, for a holy God was there. Thus wherever God manifests himself, that becomes a sanctuary to a believing soul.
We don't need places made holy by the ceremonies of man, but places made holy by the presence of God. Then a stable, a hovel, a hedge, any unadorned corner may be, and is a sanctuary, when God fills your heart with his sacred presence, and causes every holy feeling and gracious affection to spring up in your soul. If ever you have seen this in times past, you have seen God in the sanctuary; for then your heart becomes the sanctuary of God, according to his own words, "You are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them." (2 Cor. 4:16.) Are not your very bodies the temples of the Holy Spirit? (1 Cor. 6:19.) Does not Christ dwell in the heart by faith? (Ephes. 3:17); and is he not formed there, the hope of glory? (Gal. 4:19; Col. 1:27.) It is then not only in Christ without but in Christ within that we see the power and glory of God. It is in this way that we become consecrated to the service and glory of God, set our affections upon heavenly things, and obtain a foretaste of eternal joy.
But, alas! the soul is not often or long here. We lose sight of these blessed realities and get into a "dry and thirsty land where no water is." But the Lord in mercy again revives his work upon the heart, and then springs up afresh the longing desire to see his power and his glory. If we have once seen it, we shall long to see it again– if we have once enjoyed it, we shall desire to enjoy it again. Nor will the Lord deny the earnest desires or turn a deaf ear to the cries of his people. Every visit of his presence is a pledge for another; for whom the Lord loves, he loves to the end, and the grace that he gives he will most certainly crown with glory.
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