Psalm 107. We'll read again the first section of this psalm, which is the first nine verses. Psalm 107, commencing the reading of the Lord's Holy Word in verse 1. O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered them out of the lands from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way. They found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses, and he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. All that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men, for he satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. God add His blessing to that reading tonight from His Word for His own name's sake. Could we bow our heads just for a moment, please? Ask the Lord for His grace tonight. Father in heaven, we know we can't do anything apart from Thy grace. We can do nothing without Thee. And we know our Father in heaven, we can't do anything until first we've prayed. So we pray now, Lord, for that grace for this hour. Grace to preach. Grace, Lord, to preach in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. Grace to be led along by the Lord all throughout the meeting, to feel the Spirit's hand resting upon the preacher. And, Lord, that the people who have been brought in tonight to hear will indeed hear, not not, Lord, just with the external ear, but with the ear of the heart, the soul. Thou art the only one who can give such a hearing, and we pray Thou wilt give it, that Thou wilt be glorified, Lord, in opening wide our hearing. There won't be any other noises that would come and compete with hearing the still, small voice of the Spirit speak through the preached word, that there will be, Lord, a holy hush, and that we will sense that God himself has come down. There is a revelation of thine own presence in our midst. Lord, this is what we need. Grant it, we pray, because not only do we need it, but we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. One of the undeniable results of God's salvation is that those who receive it are debtors to God, not for the years of time alone, to borrow the words of that old hymn, but for eternity. And by describing the Lord's people as those he saves as debtors, I'm not suggesting for a moment that they have a debt to God that has to be paid off so that they will get into heaven when they die. Make no mistake about it, that's the important thing, that when you die, you enter heaven. But I'm not suggesting by saying that we're debtors that there is a debt you have to work off to get there. I admit that there are many who think that way and because they think that way they are trying to do the best that they can and they're trying to be the best they can to live up to what they think will please God. And their hope is that he'll be pleased enough to give them an escape from hell and a ticket into heaven. Those who approach the salvation of their soul in that way are indeed debtors, but they are not debtors to God. Paul states in Galatians chapter 5 that anyone who pens his hopes of obtaining God's salvation by obeying the law, that is, by trying to do the best you can and be the best you can, is a debtor to the law. If you're going to use your efforts to keep God's law as the basis of your salvation and entrance into heaven, then you're going to have to keep all of God's law. Because God also says that cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Galatians 3.10. Cursed if you don't continually keep all the law. Cursed. Note that continueth not in all things. That means perfect obedience always and perfect obedience in every commandment. For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he's guilty of breaking all the law. And that means it's absolutely impossible for a man to be saved by trying to be the best that he can and do the best that he can Impossible to be saved, because no man is justified, as Paul says, no man is justified by the law in the sight of God. He's a debtor to the law, obligated to keep its every command, and it is a debt that, quite frankly, he simply cannot pay. He will go to his grave a lost man, unsaved, unrighteous. And we'll wake up in God's hell, forever lost. Now, those whom God saves are also debtors, not to the law, but they're debtors to God. Read Romans chapter 8, verse 12, and you'll find Paul saying, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. The thing we are to infer is we are debtors to God. to live after the Spirit. By the fact that Christ has saved us from this plight where we can't obey the law of God, we can't do enough and be good enough to get into heaven. The fact that Christ has saved us from that awful state From this bondage to sin and this wrath of God, we are debtors. We are obligated to live to God a life of obedience and a life of gratitude. Ungratefulness is not an option. We're debtors. Debtors to grace and to God. It is this debt to God and his grace that the psalmist has in mind when he cries out in verse 8, O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and his wonderful work to the children of men. He's talking about the debt they owe God, a debt to praise him, obligation. That word translated goodness, is that Hebrew word that speaks of God's mercy. In fact, it's usually translated by the word mercy. It's that word chesed that we looked at a long time ago as we worked our way through the book of Ruth. It is that loving kindness, because that's the second most common translation of this Hebrew word, It is that lovingkindness of God wherein He will do whatever is necessary to bring His loved ones to glory. He will do whatever is necessary to save them. It is His mercy that will endure forever. It will endure, it will outlast all of our sins. It will persevere through all of our failures. It will, that loving kindness, that tender mercy, will make us overcomers at last. Every last one of us who've been saved by the grace of God are also going to end up being overcomers by the grace of God. Even though at times in this side of glory, we think that we're not going to make it to the end. Something is going to come along and trip us up, and we're going to fail miserably, be cast away, or be proven to be deceived all along about being saved. The psalmist summarizes all that he said about this goodness of God in the first eight verses by declaring In verse 9, that God satisfies the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. That's the text that we're considering. It's the subject of hunger for God. Hunger for God. The longing and the hunger he refers to is, as we saw last week, spiritual in nature. And the more that we live in the reality of God's goodness to us, the more we will grasp how much we do owe him debtors, and the more we will desire him. If you were with us last Lord's Day evening, you'll recall that we're examining the subject of hunger for God under four questions. What is it? Number one. Number two, why should we want it? Number three, how does it come? And number four, how is it satisfied? What is it? Why do we need it? Where does it come from? How does it get satisfied? Hunger for God. As we took up that first question to see just what desire This hunger for God looks like, I pointed out, that fundamentally it is a longing for the felt reality of His presence. A longing for the felt reality of His presence. It's a hunger that is not going to be satisfied simply with the intellectual concept that God is omnipresent, therefore God is with me, and God will never be not with me. That's not what hunger for God is. Certainly that is a resting place for the Christian's faith. when the devil tempts him to think that God has abandoned him, that God has forsaken him, that the Lord is a long, long, long way off. You must believe that when you're there, that God has never left you. Job knew that God was omnipresent, and he knew that God had not abandoned him. Yet, what do you think he meant when he said, oh, that I knew where I might find him? What Job was saying was, I want the experience that I had before, the felt reality of God's presence in my life. Not only the theory, not just the being convinced of the theological truth that is there, but to know in my experience. That's part of what it is to hunger for God. Flowing directly from the longing to experience His presence, this hunger for God, in the second place will show itself. What does it look like? It will show itself by a longing and a desire for communion with God. They go hand in hand. If you want His presence, that means you want communion with him. Yes, there's a desire to live in the awareness of his presence. There is this desire to live the God-conscious life, as I've termed it. You find, do you not find that with Elijah in 1 Kings chapter 18, when he appeared before Ahab, the king of Israel, and he said, as the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand. He was standing before the King of Israel, but what was he conscious of? As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand. I stand before you, O King, but I'm standing before the God of Israel. That means that Elijah lived in an awareness of God's presence. But it's more than wanting the spiritual perception of God's presence in your life. It's actually this hunger for God is a hunger for, a thirst for, whatever word you want to use, a desire for communion and for fellowship with God. Now let's just stop right there and ask ourselves the question, am I hungry for communion with God? Strong is the desire. You know what it's like to feel great hunger, don't you? Physically. You know what that's like. If you haven't been able to eat for a good long time, and you finally set your eyes and your sights on something to eat, you go at it. You can't wait to get to it. Because why? You're hungry. I mean, you know, folks, the Lord did not have to make us to be hungry. He could have made us in an entirely different way. We wouldn't even need to eat food. It'll be one day. But why did he make us like this? Is there not a spiritual truth, even in the creation itself, to be hungry? So I've got to be honest with myself and say, am I hungry? for communion with God. I closed the message last Lord's Day evening with a passing reference to those two men on that road that led from Jerusalem to Emmaus, about a seven-mile trek. They were very downcast and discouraged because their Messiah had been crucified and they hadn't seen him. Even though there was talk of those who had risen from the dead, but still they were going back home again in the valley of gloom. Luke 24, listen to what Luke writes, and they drew nigh unto the village. Jesus has come alongside of them, hidden himself from them. But he begins to open up the Scriptures to them, and they talk with him, and he talks with them along that journey to their home. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went, and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us. For it is toward evening, and the day is far spent, and he went in to tarry with them. And when he did that, they sat down, and they enjoyed sweet fellowship together. They enjoyed communion with each other. He spoke to them, and they spoke to him." In other words, to whatever degree there is a hunger for God, there is a hunger for communion with Him. To whatever degree. It just depends on how hungry you are. There is a desire to hear God speak to you through His written Word. That's one half of communion. That's why when the soul is hungering for God, Like you wake up in the morning, you'll be hungering for breakfast. When you hunger for God, when the soul is hungering for God, there'll be an interest in a getting to the meal, a getting to the Word of God, to open it and see just what the Lord has to say to you. How have you responded as you parents have raised kids when you have seen them turning away their meal, not interested. They're not going to the fridge to see what's there. You make their favorite dish and they turn their nose up at it. You know that there's something wrong. They're not healthy. There's a sickness. But my, when they're healthy, they're hungry, they're ready to eat. Lift it up to the spiritual realm. When we're hungry, we will want to open up that Bible in your lap, and we'll want to read it, to hear the Lord speak to us. Not just to accumulate facts. Not just to say we've had our devotions, but we'll actually be listening for the Lord to say something, something from the Word from my heart that day. Because you're desiring God. You're hungry for Him. You want communion. You don't like it when your spouse doesn't talk to you, do you? You don't like it. You want them to talk to you. You want communication. And there's a problem when the heavens are brass. There's a problem when it seems like God is not speaking to you. You're hungry for Him. You long for to hear the Lord speak through His Word. You want to go to church and get a message from God. You come here because you know the Lord speaks through His Word. There's an interest in sitting under and listening carefully to the preaching and teaching of the Word. If it is not there, then you have to conclude, I'm not hungry. I'm not hungry for the Word, and therefore I'm not hungry for God. When you're hungry, you want to hear his voice, as the Shulamite puts it in the Song of Solomon, chapter 2, there's the voice of my beloved. I tend to think that John the Baptist must have had that in his mind. Remember when his disciples came to him and they were really sort of jealous because Christ's ministry was beginning to flourish and John's was beginning to wind down and there was an envy, jealousy going there? But John the Baptist said what? He rejoiced greatly because he heard the bridegroom's voice. That's how he put it. He heard the bridegroom's voice. the voice of Christ. And so, therefore, the hunger for God means there's going to be a real hunger, a real desire to hear the Lord speak right to you. And it won't matter what he has to say. It won't matter. It could be a very strong and stern word of rebuke. You'll just be happy to know it's the Lord speaking to you. There's nothing like silence. There's nothing so awful as silence in a relationship. If you're hungering for God, you say, Lord, be like little Samuel. Speak, for thy servant heareth. Say on, Lord, speak whatever you have to say. It doesn't matter to me as long as I know you're talking to me. The other side of communion, of course, is speaking to God, and that means that hunger for God always translates into prayer. Sometimes you'll hear Christians, who are lonely Christians for their circumstances in life, described as being hungry for fellowship. You heard that term? Hungry for fellowship. What do they mean? They mean that they want to be with other Christians, not only to listen to them, but they want to talk with them. And talk and talk and talk. The greater the spiritual hunger, the greater the hunger for God, the greater the desire is to talk to the Lord. It's communion. It's a two-way street. We have to stop and ask ourselves the question. There's no point in, you know, in God's presence all the masks come off, because he sees us clearly. How hungry are we to talk to God? How hungry? How hungry is the church to talk to the Lord? How hungry is the church to pray? How much of a desire is there? What does it take to put us off? You see, the only answer to prayerlessness is hunger for God. You get hunger for God And you will talk to him. You'll long to be in his presence to talk to him. You'll long for the relationship to flourish, to grow. If there's hunger, that's the answer to it. Resolutions, no matter how earnest they might be, how many they might be, will not make you prayerful. But hunger for God will make you prayerful. It will make you prayerful. It's a natural result of hungering. Here in the psalm, four times, four times, four pictures, the redeemed are in trouble and need to be rescued. Funny enough, it is then, it is then that they hunger for God, they long for God, they desire God, they need God, and so they're moved to pray. You need not wonder why the Lord brings us into these desperate situations. His whole aim is to get us to hunger for him. We might call upon him. I really don't think none of us, not a one of us here, Really, I'm including myself, really understand how much, how deeply the Lord wants, desires, how much he longs for us to be in fellowship with him. Such terms in Scripture actually picture the Lord as pleading with us to pray to him. Imagine that. God pleading with those whom he saved to come to him. Come. I plead with you. Come. Your happiness is in me. Your help is in me. Your health is in me. And I delight in your presence. I delight in your prayers. It's like the Lord says, I love to hear you talk to me. You know there's something wrong in a marriage. Every time there's a breakdown in communication, every time it happens, something is wrong. He doesn't speak to her. She doesn't speak to him. What's the remedy? The remedy is for the old desire, the old hunger for each other to be rekindled. That's the remedy. Hunger? Longing? Desire? When that's there, there's not a problem. When it's not there, there's a problem. Is it so with us, if we were to measure our hunger for God by our hunger for communion with Him, what would the measurement read? Hunger for God, thirdly, is a longing to experience the power of God in your life. Certainly, the psalmist is describing that very thing in these four pictures of the redeemed in deep trouble, longing for God's mighty arm to be made bare. And the Lord comes, and he exercises his power and delivers them in each case. They were longing. They were longing to see his power. Last Lord's Day, I mentioned the opening verse of Psalm 63. If you'll turn there just for a moment, just turn back to it. We'll come back to Psalm 107 in a minute. But back in Psalm 63, I quoted that opening verse of David as an illustration to show how God's people have expressed their longing, their hunger, their thirst for God. Verse 1, O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee, my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. David, in this case, was in the wilderness. The vast majority of the commentators believe that this was because of the insurrection of his son Absalom, who tried to kill his own father to take the throne. In 2 Samuel 15, you'll read about that, listen to what it says, and all – this is those that are fleeing with David from Jerusalem – and all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over. The king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over toward the way of the wilderness. In Psalm 63, David is in the wilderness, far from the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. Far from the place, he says in Psalm 27, that his one desire was to dwell in that house forever. And just as it was with the redeemed in Psalm 107, just as it was with them in that first section, his experience in this wilderness was simply a reflection of his own soul. No doubt he was thirsty for water. He had ridden all night in a desert, barren. But his great thirst, obviously from this psalm, his great thirst is not for water, it's for God. Do you see how he's responding to his wilderness? A thirst for God. You see, David knew that there was nothing in that wilderness that could satisfy the the real desire of his soul. He knew that the more a man has of this world, the more fully he is convinced that the world cannot satisfy him, that the world is a cheat, it is a lie, it is a deceiver, and can't quench the thirst. It's a wilderness. The world is a wilderness. So David's desire in this wilderness is for God alone. O God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee. My flesh pineth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is." Now, here's the question. Brothers and sisters, what is it especially that David singles out with regard to God, the God that he's longing, desiring, hungry for? It's in the next verse. To see thy power and thy glory, so as I've seen thee in the sanctuary. That phrase, that thy power and thy glory, could be better translated, thy glorious power. That's what I want to see. I'm here in this wilderness, and I am longing to see God. I'm thirsting for you. I'm thirsting to see your glorious power manifested in my life. So to be hungry for God is to be hungry for a manifestation of his glorious power in your life. Preacher, what are you talking about? Is that all a lot of homiletical mumbo-jumbo? Is that preacher jargon? No. When he was in the temple, because that's what he's referencing, back in the sanctuary, he experienced the power of God in his life. He beheld that glorious power of God as the Lord manifested his love for David and as God communicated his grace to David in the sanctuary. That is the power of God. And so, to hunger for God is to long for a manifestation of his grace in you, because his grace is his power. It is divine working. It is his divine energy at work in the soul. It is a desire for the manifestation of his grace in you and of his love for you. And I will tell you quite bluntly that nothing will so empower Christ's people to be and to do whatever God wants them to be and to do as this right there. The experience of his power. That's why you and I should be longing to God and praying to God, let me see your power in my life. What are we without it? You see, you want power to pray, then here it is. Here it is. What else will move you to pray but that God manifesting, coming to you, and revealing his love to you? You'll want to pray. You need hunger for the Word of God? Here's the key. You know, whenever the Lord has made bare His mighty arm, that's the term used so often in revival hymns when the God has come down, make bare thy mighty arm. Whenever the Lord has done that, there has been a phenomenal interest in His Word. Phenomenal. There's been a hunger for it. You didn't have to exhort the Lord's people, no, you need to read the Word. They couldn't get enough of it. And they couldn't get enough of the preached Word. That's why they would go on to 2 o'clock in the morning. Preachers would have to preach until they lost their voice. It was done. They couldn't preach anymore. That is why you go to Nepal right now. The ones the Lord is saving, they will walk for miles and miles and miles to hear someone bring the Word to them. What in the world do you think it says about the hunger for God when it's a hard time to get into a car and drive for 30, 40 minutes to church? No hunger? What's needed is power. It's a manifestation of God's, the power of His love, the power of His grace in the life. That's what makes all the difference. You need faith to trust God in the wilderness where no water is, where everything seems to be lost, hopeless. This is what needs to be experienced. You need a strong desire to overcome the world, the lusts of the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life, and resist the devil. I'll tell you what, it will be found by beholding, as David was praying for, beholding the glorious power of God's love and His grace. But to bring you to the heart of the matter, let me remind you from 1 Corinthians chapter 1 that Jesus Christ Himself is called the power of God. And in context, that is a specific reference to the cross. In 1 Corinthians 1.18, Paul says, the preaching of the cross unto us which are saved is the power of God. The preaching of the cross is the power of God. He then says a handful of verses later, unto them which are called, that's saved, the same people, Christ the power of God. The preaching of the cross is the power of God. Christ is the power of God. So we're brought to Christ on the cross as the power of God. In other words, where we behold the power of God and where we experience the power of God's love and his grace in our lives is going to be at the cross. At the cross, Jesus Christ was at his weakest at his absolute weakest, but hanging on the cross, Jesus Christ was, in his weakest state, the power of God. And so, to take the words of the hymn writer, what I'm getting at is this, when I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my riches gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride. See from his head, his hands, his feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown? That's when you can sing and mean it, Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all. It is beholding Christ crucified there There is a display of the power of God. The hunger for God, therefore, is to long to see, long to behold Christ on the tree. To have such a clear sight of the Lamb of God that you feel the power of His love and His grace to you, an undeserving and ill-deserving sinner. It is then that you find satisfaction for your hunger. It is then that you find power to serve. Otherwise, it's like trying to go out in this world and live for God and work for God on an empty stomach. And you grow weak. You become so weary. You grow lethargic spiritually and unproductive. Because beholding the power of God is beholding Christ crucified. What a difference it makes, what a difference it makes when you see Him. You're ready to do anything, to sacrifice anything, to go anywhere, to be anything. Time is no longer an issue. Priorities are straightened out because you've seen the power of God. Hunger for God, finally, will show itself as a longing to know Him. And that's what you would expect. Paul said, everything that the world places value on, it thinks so important, I count it to be dung that I might know him. He's not referring to simple, merely head knowledge of Jesus Christ. That kind of knowledge is powerless. It is barren knowledge. It's the kind of knowledge that puffs man up. And that's not the direction we want to go in. We want to go down so we can be exalted. We want to be humbled that God might lift us up. So, the simple head knowledge, the facts about Christ, even delving into the wonders of redemption and the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, all those things are fascinating, and if all they stick is in the head, then it does nothing at all for the soul. But when there's hunger for God, then it becomes something the soul feeds upon. Judas had that head knowledge. of Christ. Very privileged individual. Was able to sit at the feet of the Master for three years, but it would have been better for Judas had he never been born, had he never known anything about Christ. So it is with many, there are many who are content with A knowledge of Christ that is, what shall I say, unpractical? Because true knowledge of Christ is always practical. It's practiced. It's not theory, it's practical. They're content with a knowledge of Him that's unpractical, that is ineffectual, and merely theoretical. Peter says of them, it had been better for them not to have known. Imagine that, better that they didn't know anything. Because now you're accountable for what you know. The kind of knowledge we're talking about here is a knowledge of God and Christ that not only enters the mind, but it actually enters the heart. This is the heart talking here in this psalm tonight. The heart of David is longing, desiring, thirsting for God. Brothers and sisters, what good is it if it just stops up here? What good is the knowledge if it doesn't go down into our souls and down into our hearts and down into our affections and down into our wills? Isn't that the kind of knowledge we need? Longing for a more intimate heart knowledge of God? Intimate, intimate. Not being content with a casual relationship. Knowing just enough, knowing just enough to get us into glory. but intimacy. I close with those well-known words from Jeremiah, chapter 9. Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this. that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord that exerciseth lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, saith the Lord." I delight in them, that a man knows me. Are we hungry for God? Hungry to know Him. Hungry to see His power in our lives. Hungry to commune with Him. Hungry. Why do we need it? That's the question. We need it. Why? It'll make all the difference in your life every day when you hunger for God. We'll come back, God willing, next week. May the Lord write His Word on our souls for His name's sake. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Let's stick them together. Father in heaven, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ that Thou would even Use the searching of the Scriptures. Thou wilt use our time in the Word of God tonight to search our hearts. We want Lord. We want to be stirred. We admit, Lord, there's a hunger that we know nothing about, and we know we need it. Oftentimes, our God, we confess we don't really know why we need it. how much we need it, but we know, Lord, the result of a shallow hunger for Thee. It always leaves us living shallow lives. When Thou hast taught us in Thy Word, there's so much more. So, Lord, use these messages we pray in our congregation. to stir us to hunger for Thee, to long for Thee. In Jesus' name we pray it. Amen and Amen.