Does your soul thirst? International Sunday School Lesson for October 31, 2010 by Jed Greenough

Does Your Soul Thirst?

International Sunday School Lesson for

October 31, 2010

by

Jed Greenough

Psalm 63

A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

 ¹ O God, you are my God,
       earnestly I seek you;
       my soul thirsts for you,
       my body longs for you,
       in a dry and weary land
       where there is no water.

 ² I have seen you in the sanctuary
       and beheld your power and your glory.

 ³ Because your love is better than life,
       my lips will glorify you.

 ⁴ I will praise you as long as I live,
       and in your name I will lift up my hands.

 ⁵ My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
       with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

 ⁶ On my bed I remember you;
       I think of you through the watches of the night.

 ⁷ Because you are my help,
       I sing in the shadow of your wings.

 ⁸ My soul clings to you;
       your right hand upholds me.

 ⁹ They who seek my life will be destroyed;
       they will go down to the depths of the earth.

 ¹⁰ They will be given over to the sword
       and become food for jackals.

 ¹¹ But the king will rejoice in God;
       all who swear by God's name will praise him,
       while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

I find myself turning more and more to the psalms in my life and specifically those relating to King David because, as I must admit, I draw much comfort, guidance and inspiration from the scriptures that deal with him.

We know that David was, as I often quote, a man after God’s own heart and yet we can see David the father, husband and king who made the mistakes that we can make.  He wasn’t an idyllic father, husband or king in fact the opposite is true.  So when I am disappointed in myself or frustrated I can look at the psalms and read about different stages of David’s life.

Today’s psalm shows us a confident King, an obedient servant.  No, not servant, that doesn’t grasp what he is.  I think of a servant more as someone who does what he has to, not what he wants to. Rather I am picturing an individual who willingly submits as a slave because he worships his master and the more he is in the service or in the presence of his master the more he wants it. 

Have you experienced that desire for God?  I have and this psalm reminded me of another one.  Let’s look at David on another day, a day where he wasn’t in such a bold position.

Psalm 42

  ¹  As the deer pants for streams of water,
       so my soul pants for you, O God.

 ² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
       When can I go and meet with God?

 ³ My tears have been my food
       day and night,
       while men say to me all day long,
       "Where is your God?"

 ⁴ These things I remember
       as I pour out my soul:
       how I used to go with the multitude,
       leading the procession to the house of God,
       with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
       among the festive throng.

 ⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul?
       Why so disturbed within me?
       Put your hope in God,
       for I will yet praise him,
       my Savior and ⁶ my God.
       My soul is downcast within me;
       therefore I will remember you
       from the land of the Jordan,
       the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

 ⁷ Deep calls to deep
       in the roar of your waterfalls;
       all your waves and breakers
       have swept over me.

 ⁸ By day the LORD directs his love,
       at night his song is with me—
       a prayer to the God of my life.

 ⁹ I say to God my Rock,
       "Why have you forgotten me?
       Why must I go about mourning,
       oppressed by the enemy?"

 ¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony
       as my foes taunt me,
       saying to me all day long,
       "Where is your God?"

 ¹¹ Why are you downcast, O my soul?
       Why so disturbed within me?
       Put your hope in God,
       for I will yet praise him,
       my Savior and my God.

Here David still thirsts for God but instead of confidence we have tears and a downcast soul.  Sound familiar to you from your own life?

I hope so.  The reason I hope this is because life is full of these ups and downs and we cannot long for God in the heights of our confidence and not remember Him when we are at our lowest points as well.

Like David, we will experience the “dry and weary land” that we may sometimes encounter, especially going forward spiritually which bring me to state that for the third week in a row I am moved to take a turn to the prophetic.

David says in verse 1, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

When I read that I had the following scripture leap into my mind:

Amos 8:11-12 

 ¹¹ "The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD,
       "when I will send a famine through the land—
       not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
       but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

 ¹² Men will stagger from sea to sea
       and wander from north to east,
       searching for the word of the LORD,
       but they will not find it.

More and more Christians that long for God will find disappointment that what they are hearing being taught is not the sound teaching that they hunger and thirst for because:

1 Timothy 4:1

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

And:

2 Thessalonians 2:1-12

The Man of Lawlessness

 ¹Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, ²not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. ³Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for (that day will not come) until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. ⁴He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

 ⁵Don't you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? ⁶And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. ⁷For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. ⁸And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. ⁹The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, ¹⁰and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. ¹¹For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie ¹²and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

At that time, whenever that happens to be, if you are here and your soul thirsts for God you may have to be quenched ever increasingly by yourself. 

I feel that the word of God will be outlawed and many will only have the word that they have locked away in their heart but when John was talking of Jesus in John 1:1 he said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

So the more you hear, read, study and speak the word of God now, the more you will have of Him in your heart later.  And though some may seek to destroy your life as David’s was in verse 9 from today’s psalm, it is they who “will be silenced” they will be on bended knee and they will know that Jesus is LORD!

(as an aside to today’s lesson, I have already started preparing for next week’s International Sunday School Lesson and I don’t see any prophecies in our future LOL)

For Discussion:

1. Do you thirst and long for God?  If not, why not?  If so, does it show?
2. From verse 2, what does David mean by, “I have seen you in the sancturary”?
3. David talks about thinking about God through the night.  In my blog http://workofthegospel.blogspot.com/ on the 18^th I wrote, “What is the last thing you thought about last night before you went to sleep and what was the first thing you thought of this morning when you woke up?  I have heard and I agree, that it tells a lot about who we are”.  How would you answer the question?
4. What kind of imagery come to your mind when you read verses 7 and 8?
5. Discuss the character of David.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.