Thirsty Ground

[Christsfreeservant]

Tuesday, March 01, 2011, 10:20 p.m. – My husband and I had just finished having our time of devotions together for the evening. We had read a chapter from Jim Cymbala’s book, Fresh Power, What Happens When God Leads and You Follow. We read chapter three about God sending his Holy Spirit upon His people in revival and about the Day of Pentecost in the book of Acts when God poured out his Holy Spirit in great power and in a great demonstration of that power. Then Rick and I had our time together in prayer when we prayed for God to pour out His Holy Spirit on our family and on the church here in America.

We read Ezra chapter nine last night, and we were getting ready to read chapter ten tonight. Rick then told me how the Lord had led him, this morning, to read again Ezra’s prayer of confession of sin for his people, from chapter nine, and how the Lord had moved him (Rick) in his spirit to see how God sees the church here in America today. Then, we read Ezra chapter ten where the people of Israel joined Ezra in confessing their sins and in weeping bitterly over them, confessing, “We have been unfaithful to our God.” Then, the Lord had the people and their leaders make the sins right by correcting the wrongs done.

After we finished our time of devotions together, we went to bed. I continued praying for me and my husband, for our family, and for the church here in America, and for God to pour out His Spirit upon us in revival. Then, I had a vision in my mind of an enormous amount of water being poured out from a pitcher. The water was poured from the east to the west. And, I heard in my mind, “Pour out your water on thirsty ground.” I got up to look up those words, because they rung familiar in my mind, as though they were from a passage of scripture. I found very similar words in this passage in Isaiah 44:2b-3:

Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant,
Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.
3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Grant your servant, I pray, the understanding you want her to have this evening on this subject of you pouring out your Holy Spirit on thirsty ground. In Jesus’ name I pray these things. Amen! I read I Corinthians 10:1-13:

Warnings From Israel’s History
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.” 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.

11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

My Understanding: I first of all wanted to understand the meaning of “thirsty” and of “ground,” so I did a word search on both of these words. The word “thirsty” rendered:

John 4:10,14 :

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” … Jesus answered, “…but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

If ground is thirsty, that means it is dry and is lacking water. It may even be hard, cracked and useless for producing fruit and vegetation. Many hearts are like this. They lack the living water that will never leave them thirsty. Their hearts are hardened just like ground that is lacking water, and they need this spring of living water welling up to eternal life so that they can produce the fruit of the Spirit of God in their lives. So, when God gave me that prayer to pray, “Pour out your water on thirsty ground,” he was asking me, in essence, to pray for him to pour out his Holy Spirit, i.e. this living water that wells up into eternal life, on people’s lives which are hardened, dry spiritually, and in great need of the power of God in their lives if they are ever to bear fruit useful for God’s kingdom.

In 1 Corinthians 10, we learn of the sins of the children of God who drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. So, the Lord is speaking, not to non-believers, but to those who have drunk from the spiritual rock, Jesus Christ, and yet their spiritual ground is now dry, hard, and is lacking that spring of living water welling up inside of them to eternal life. And, this is because they have set their hearts on evil things – idolatry, pagan revelry (carousing, drunkenness) sexual immorality, testing the Lord their God, as well as being grumblers. A pagan is “a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome); one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods: an irreligious or hedonistic person” - Pagan - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary. So, they were following the ways of the pagans.

And, this intermingling with pagans, and with their practices, is what God often chided his children about, what Ezra was pouring out his heart to God concerning, and what the people eventually repented of in Ezra 9-10, too. The sin of the people of Israel in Ezra’s time was that they had intermarried with the pagans and had intermingled with their detestable practices. Worse than this, though, was the fact that the leaders and officials had led the way in this unfaithfulness. At the time of evening sacrifice (3:00 p.m. or the ninth hour), Ezra fell on his knees with his hands spread out to the Lord his God. He prayed a prayer of confession of the guilt of the people in disobeying God’s commands. And, the people eventually followed his lead in confessing and in repenting of their sins.

Another term for pagan, thus, would be “world.” Matthew 16:26 says: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” John 15:19 says: “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” Romans 12:2 says: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” I Co. 2:12 says: “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” Eph. 2:1-2 says: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”

Col. 2:8 says: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” James 4:4 says: “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” 2 Peter 1:4 says: “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” And 1 John 2:15-16 says: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.”

2 Corinthians 6:16-18 says:

What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

17 “Therefore come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you.”
18 “I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”

Instead of intermingling with the world, i.e. with all that stands in direct opposition to God, to his truth, and to his righteousness, we are to be lights to the world – Matthew 5:14 says: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.” Mark 16:15 says: He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”

So, for us to be that light, we need God to pour out his Spirit upon us in revival, and we need to forsake this mingling with the world and this following the world’s pattern. For God to pour out this water (His Spirit; this living water) on thirsty ground, it will mean for that thirsty ground, the worldly church, to fall on its knees before him, to humble ourselves in honesty and confession and repentance, and to be willing to forsake our sinful ways and to correct any wrongs we have committed against God Almighty. Verse 12 of I Co. 10 says: “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall.” We need to make certain that we are not fooling ourselves into thinking we are standing firm when we are not. We need to confess our sins, turn from them, make right any wrongs, and then allow the Spirit of God to fill us to overflowing so that we can be lights to the world instead of becoming one with the world by intermingling with them in their detestable practices.

I noted that, in Isaiah 43, the last verse before this chapter 44, God promised to bring destruction on his people because of their unrepentant hearts against him. Yet, God would leave a remnant. After that strong affirmation of divine judgment, God promised to pour out his blessings and his Holy Spirit on the remnant. Sometimes God must bring judgment on us in order to get us, as his people, to fall on our knees in repentance and obedience. And, sometimes the pouring out of water on thirsty ground can also be a judgment of God in order to bring about that repentance that leads to this pouring out of His Spirit in revival on those with repentant hearts. So, don’t wait until God has to judge us in order to get us to come to him so that he can pour out his Spirit upon us in revival. Get right with God now.

 

[Undeniably Blessed]

This message can't be preached enough. Thank you Ms. Sue! I was listening to a sermon on Sermon Audio yesterday, entitled "How Tragic to be Almost Saved."

Some excerpts:

"How tragic to almost catch a plane, but to be left behind in the terminal. How tragic to almost pass the final exam but to ultimately fail the course. How tragic to almost escape drowning, but to be engulfed in the waters. These are all great tragedies, but the worst is to be almost saved... Hell is full of people who were almost saved...
They have come to church but have not come to Christ. They know Him intellectually but have not known Him personally. They have believed with their head but have they have not yet believed with their heart. They wear a cross but they never bear one."
-Steven Lawson

John MacArthur had a similar sermon recently as well, about the cost of discipleship. I think these are right on with what the Lord has been giving you as well. A large part of the church today believes you can pray a prayer, or make one confession of faith, and be saved. The concept of discipleship, or the changing of a heart to reflect continual repentance as well as faith is simply lost on us.

This passage in 1 Corithinians is an excellent example of how there have always been tares sown among the wheat. Just as many people of Israel were all led by Moses out of Egypt, through the wilderness, passing through the Red Sea and under the cloud, and eating the same Manna from heaven... even today we have many who go to church, sing the same songs and listen to the same sermons, and share in communion and prayer together... yet God is not pleased with many of those people today just as He was not pleased with many people of Israel in the wilderness. Things have not changed. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Therefore, many of these "christians" shouldn't be surprised about how their peace is leaving them and how they're enjoying church less and less, when they're refusing to give up their sin and refusing to spend time truly worshiping the Lord. They don't have the living water. They haven't brought oil for their lanterns. They haven't yet died with Christ to be raised with Him again. They don't have any part with Him.

"But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him." -Romans 8:9

"...as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. -Hebrews 3:7-14

 

[Christsfreeservant]

Undeniably Blessed - Amen to what you said! Thank you so much for sharing that.

I read this today along these same lines - awesome sermon by a young pastor -
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