Thirsting For God

Minister:
Date: PM
Text: Psalm 42:1,2
Psalters: 134, 29, 9, 115
Confession of Faith, Preparatory
  1. Its meaning.
    1. David likens the spiritually thirsting soul to a panting deer who has been long pursued.
      1. A doe (feminine gender) and thus the weaker member of the species is likened to our soul (also feminine in Hebrew).
      2. She escaped immediate danger, but now faces another dangerous condition: thirst.
      3. It utters a cry, peculiar to the hart, facing imminent death.
    2. The Holy Spirit uses this figure to express the experience of a soul which thirsts for God.
      1. It is to hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matt. 5:6), i.e., a longing for what is essential to one’s life.
      2. The object of the thirst is God, the living God, and loving communion with Him.
    3. Implications.
      1. The presence of this thirst indicates that we are spiritually alive with the Spirit making us desire God.
      2. This thirst puts to shame the times we are indifferent to Him or when we are smugly satisfied with the things here below.
  2. What caused this thirst?
    1. Negatively and immediately, the cause is a real and constant sense of sin and sinfulness, guilt and shame.
    2. Positively and deeply, the cause is God’s love.
      1. The born again David had the Spirit giving him living water so he had a living soul.
      2. But sometimes the living water seems to cease flowing and is not always plentiful and the child of God suffers.
      3. When our spiritual life is low or severely tried, then he thirsts for the living God.
  3. How is this thirst quenched?
    1. David, in the Old Dispensation, sought the quenching in the “house of God” (4).
      1. It was in the tabernacle/temple that God revealed Himself with His presence and communion.
      2. David was far from Jerusalem when he composed this song, so he longed to appear before God in Jerusalem.
    2. In the New Dispensation we have Jesus, crowned with honor and glory, wherever the pure doctrines are preached.
      1. We long for Jesus and for communion with God through Him.
      2. The Word and the Spirit are the means to convey to us the living water of God’s blessed relationship with us.
    3. No one ever thirsted for God like Jesus did when He took our place.
      1. Jesus sang Psalm 42 like no one ever did or will: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
      2. And so do we.