This word to our hearts, amazing topic tonight,
powerful stuff, and I pray Lord God that
we would, Lord, be faithful to deliver your
word and at the same exact time, faithful,
Lord, to put it into action.
We ask you, Father, to bless now in
Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen.
Well, church, grab your Bibles tonight and as
normal on Wednesday nights, we're gonna ask you
to be very, very skilled in the Bible.
Turn to Matthew chapter 28, you know that,
it's our theme verse through this entire series,
Matthew chapter 28, and tonight, Psalm 102.
Psalm 102, Matthew chapter 28.
As we continue on in our series and
the disciplines of life, tonight, we come to
the discipline of desolation.
Desolation, what does that mean?
You're gonna be finding that out in a
moment.
You might say, desolation, how does that apply
to my life?
It will absolutely apply to your life more
than you might think, desolation.
And so tonight, we're looking at part 12
of our 31-week series.
We're almost kind of sort of halfway through
and here we come, Matthew chapter 28 is
the theme verse.
Jesus said to the disciples, all authority has
been given to me in heaven and on
earth.
Go therefore and make disciples.
That's what's happening here tonight.
Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them
to observe all things, that's going on tonight,
that I have commanded you and behold, I
am with you always, even to the end
of the world.
Now, Psalm 102, this is an important Psalm
for what we're talking about tonight, Psalm of
David.
Psalm 102, look at verse 11 and 12.
Psalm 102, verse 11.
My days are like a shadow that lengthens
and I wither away like grass, but you,
O Lord, shall endure forever and the remembrance
of your name to all generations.
Before we go any further, it's good that
we understand this Psalm because we're gonna be
going back to it during the course of
the evening tonight.
David, King David.
By the way, there was a archeological discovery
recently in the land of Israel regarding King
David and it's quite amazing.
In fact, the stone or the tablet that
was found is actually David's enemies who had
written about David and his household and it
was, I forget what tribe or what group
of enemy forces, what nation state it was,
but it was quite an archeological discovery.
David was a man of war, he was
a man of passion, he was a man
of victory, he was a man of defeats.
Let's be honest, it's easy to be a
man of victory.
It's hard to be a man of defeat.
Anybody can win, but it takes a champion
to be able to manage losing.
And this is a very powerful thing and
David had all this amazing emotion that was
wrapped up into one human being.
I have to tell you that if I
had to pick to be or live or
crawled into the skin of, I say this
now because I'm 3000 years removed from him,
but I want to believe that many times
in my own life, I see myself in
a relation with David.
I've got a concept in my mind that
at one moment I could pull out my
sword and cut off a giant's head.
I have no problem doing that.
It's just the way that I'm wired.
I have no problem.
I read our founding fathers and many of
them Christians and they had no problem understanding
the concept of war and fighting and defending
freedom.
It's not until recent American history that we've
gotten so wimpy.
But David was a man of war and
at the same time he was a man
of worship and praise.
How do you reconcile those things?
Now David didn't go out and attack people
just to attack people.
He defended his nation.
But listen, it wasn't always victorious.
David was a man that was often ostracized
and cut away from normal life and living.
The man had been given the promises of
God and yet he had spent over 10
years in the wilderness waiting for the promises
to come to pass.
From this man's life comes the most passionate,
powerful and expressive language known to the human
today.
The book of Psalms.
Read the book of Psalms.
There's nothing in this world in literature that
compares to David's heart and all the aspects
of his emotions from victory to defeat.
In Psalm 102 though, in this Psalm, the
Psalmist David cries out to God and in
his distress, he finds the confidence of God
and he finds his confidence in the Lord.
He finds this, that the sovereign purposes of
God are there as he's crying out to
the Lord.
And he also finds out in this Psalm,
Psalm 102, you can read it at length
later, that we can have confidence because God
is unchanging.
He's immutable.
That is that the God of the Bible
never changes.
You can always know from his revealed word
what he does in certain situations.
What I mean by that is, remember Philip
said, Jesus show us the father and we'll
be happy.
And Jesus said, what?
Philip, have I been so long with you?
And you still ask me to show you
the father?
He who has seen me has seen the
father.
He's talking about nature, the very nature of
God.
The Holy Spirit, the son, the father, and
how you see Jesus act and what you
see in the revealed word of God regarding
the nature of God is what the Holy
Spirit teaches you.
God never changes.
Let me tell you something.
I don't know if you've ever been in
a cult.
Maybe you've been rescued out of a cult.
Maybe you're in one right now.
You know what's great about the God of
the Bible?
He's completely different than the God of the
cults.
The God or gods of the cults constantly
change.
It's whimsical.
It's capricious.
It's crazy.
You don't know if this particular God is
happy this day or not the other day,
or what's gonna happen if I talk to
this God?
And you have the one true God, the
God of heaven and earth, the God of
the Bible, and he's never changing.
In Psalm 102, David is crying out to
God and he finds great strength because he
knows his God never changes.
And his prayer in this Psalm is a
prayer of affliction.
And that comes to every one of us,
especially at times when affliction comes, we're being
attacked.
Could be physically, could be all kinds of
ways, whatever it is.
And we have a tendency to be overwhelmed.
And we get overwhelmed.
And we go through life in seasons where
pressures of life come and they overwhelm us.
Maybe it's some emotional thing or relational thing.
It doesn't matter.
When it comes, the Lord is unchanging.
You can grab onto him like a pillar.
And so in this Psalm, this great Psalm,
he cries out to God and that's a
powerful thing.
The Bible says, by the way, that you
and I have been created in the image
of God.
David had that.
Think about that.
David had that knowledge like you do tonight.
He had the first five books of Moses
to read.
And in that, Genesis 1, 26 is, then
God said, let us, Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
make man in our image according to our
likeness.
What does that mean?
That means every one of us tonight have
the moral likeness of God.
I didn't say you're perfect, far from it.
And I didn't say that God is imperfect,
far from it.
He's perfect, we're not.
When he says I've made you in my
image, what does he mean?
He doesn't mean that we are six feet
tall, so God must be six feet tall.
No, moral likeness.
Let us make man in our image.
It is the moral likeness.
What does that mean?
Well, what's interesting is outside of angelic, created
beings, you and I are something different.
First of all, we are redeemable.
Angels are not redeemable.
When Jesus died on the cross, he didn't
die for angels.
He died for humans, he died for us.
That's weird, isn't it?
Think about that.
Angels are unredeemable.
Satan is a fallen angel, he cannot get
saved.
Wouldn't it be nice if Satan got saved?
Look, I wish he would get saved and
leave me alone, but he's not going to.
You are redeemable.
And the amazing thing is this, that when
God says I made you in my image,
it means this.
You have the capacity to love and to
hate, to write a song or to be
angry or whatever.
And you say, well, how is that in
the image of God?
Well, that's because you and I relate to
that in the negative, because we're fallen creatures
now.
You see, God hates, did you know that?
He hates.
His hatred is absolutely perfect.
He hates sin.
We don't have that holiness in us like
that.
We're not holy like that.
He has declared us holy, but we are
in route to receiving that ultimate redemption the
day that you and I die or get
raptured up into his presence.
Then all that sin nature will be gone
from us.
Until then we struggle every day.
But in a word, what we think and
what we feel, what we desire in this
life is all a result of good having
gone bad.
You and I are fallen creatures tonight, but
we are creatures that have been created in
the image of God.
You are not an animal.
Somebody might try to convince you that in
school, but they're wrong.
And besides, the guy's trying to convince your
kids that they're animals.
He must then himself believe that he's an
animal.
And your kid does not know or believe
that they're an animal.
They believe that they're created in the image
of God.
That's a great verse to show the teacher.
Teacher, excuse me, you can keep talking all
you want.
And I'm gonna give you all the answers
you want.
You want 500 billion trillion years?
I'm gonna write it down.
I just don't believe in it.
You need to write it down.
And the teacher is gonna get all bent
out of shape.
So what's your trip?
You tell him, I believe I was created
in the image of God.
He's gonna say, we evolved.
Everything's an accident.
Everything is evolutionary.
And what's funny is that they wanna talk
about absolutes, but everything's an accident according to
them.
And why should I listen to you if
you're evolving?
You tell me that this is the right
answer on Monday.
It could be different on Friday because you're
evolving.
No, we were created in the image of
God.
And that's important to where we're going this
evening.
The Bible says in Genesis 2, 17, but
of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, you shall not eat of it.
For in the day that you eat of
it, you shall surely die.
Note this, note this next verse, verse 18.
And the Lord God said, it is not
good that man should be alone.
I will make him a helper comparable or
comparable to him.
Isn't it interesting?
Genesis 2, 17 and 18.
God says, don't eat of that tree.
The day that you eat of it, you
shall surely die.
Spiritual death.
The next verse says, man shall not live
alone.
I think those two things are connected in
a very powerful way.
Because listen to this, desolation or delusion or
fear or sorrow cannot be separated from one
another.
If you think about it, they travel in
a pack to be disillusioned, fearful, sorrowful, desolation
of the soul.
I believe the first soul to experience spiritual
desolation was in the garden of Eden and
it was with Eve.
Have you read the Bible carefully?
The Bible says Eve must have been alone
by the way, according to Timothy, because Paul
writes that Satan deceived the woman.
Where was Adam?
He's not even mentioned.
Did you know that?
It appears that Adam shows up later.
Was he gardening?
Was he riding a horse?
What was he doing goofing off?
Was he sleeping under a tree?
What happened?
But Satan came and she did not have
her as God had created her spiritual covering
there, her man to protect her.
I want to believe that if the story
went different, Adam would have tied that Satan
snake, his tail in a knot or something.
And I mean, I don't know, but it's
pretty amazing.
No, she's talking.
God had told them, don't eat this.
And they exercise their will and they partook
of the fruits and they had sinned.
And God said, the day that you eat
of it, you will die.
Well, they lived 900 years on.
They spiritually died in that moment.
And listen, you read the Bible later.
And where were they?
Remember in the cool of the day, God
came to fellowship with them in the garden.
And the Bible says that they were hiding.
It sounds so Victorian that they sowed to
themselves, fig leaves.
Do a little fig leaf.
Like there's all this skin out there, but
there's, you know, she's got three of them
and he's got one of them.
And they're like, hey, God, what's up?
Like what?
He's not going to notice there's fig leaves
on strategic parts of your body.
They were covered like a bush.
Have you ever seen the Jolly Green Giant
on the label?
They were covered with leaves.
They were hiding.
They were together hiding, but were they together?
No, they had experienced desolation of the soul,
separation from God.
That's why the field came upon them.
Oh my gosh, we've got to cover this
up.
Something happened.
I love the ancient Hebrew scholars believe that
Adam and Eve were actually clothed in light.
That when they sinned, their light just went
out, just and they saw their nakedness.
And the Bible says that they were ashamed.
Think about the desolation of that.
Spiritual desolation is one of the worst situations
for United experience because it attacks the very
core of who we are and the root
of our hope, which is faith.
Spiritual desolation.
You say, I need to know what this
means.
This is what we're talking about.
It's those long and lonely days in our
spiritual walk with God, Christian, where we need
to learn the discipline of desolation, meaning this.
There are times in our walks, listen carefully,
where there's a dryness of soul in our
lives.
Listen, every time we have that experience, there's
an answer for it.
You must not write it off.
Some of you need to hear me tonight
more than ever, because you have become comfortable
in a setting or in a place of
being spiritually apathetic.
You fall in the sleep as it were
in the light.
And there's a sense of apathy and laziness
and it's dangerous.
And you don't even know it, but you're
in a spiritual desolation.
And we're gonna talk about that tonight.
The psalmist says, and that's Psalm 102, verses
six and seven.
Listen to what he says about his personal
desolation.
He says, I'm like a pelican of the
wilderness.
I'm like an owl of the desert.
He says, I lie awake and I'm like
a sparrow alone on the housetop.
Listen to his writing.
That's a soul crying out.
He's saying, listen, I'm like a pelican.
Now, I gotta, on the West Coast, we
don't get this.
We don't understand this, because our pelicans are,
yeah, I mean, no, we know what pelicans
look like, but ours are near the water.
But in the Middle East, if you've ever
been to Wyoming or Colorado, you'll see pelicans.
They're white ones with black tip wings, with
orange beaks.
They're same pelican, same big thing, same bird.
And you're in the wilderness.
You're in Yellowstone National Park.
And you see pelicans go by.
What in the world?
And David says, I'm like a pelican in
the wilderness.
What a strange bird.
Think about it.
He's crying out in this great Psalm.
A pelican can't sing.
A pelican can't sit on a branch.
A pelican is an awkward looking thing.
And a pelican often dwells alone.
And David says, I'm like a pelican in
the wilderness.
And you might feel like that.
He goes on and he says, I'm like
an owl in the desert.
Have you ever seen owls hanging out together?
You ever seen a telephone pole and owls
all lined up?
They don't do that.
They're lonely birds in the night, haunting the
night as it were.
And then he says this.
He says, I'm awake.
I'm up all night.
I'm like a sparrow alone on a housetop.
All alone.
So mark this down, Christian.
Are you struggling?
Do you struggle?
Do you have it?
And I'm not talking about struggling with sin.
I'm not talking about that in the text
at this moment.
I'm talking about, do you struggle with your
walk moment by moment, day by day with
God?
Listen carefully in the dynamic of it.
Church, listen.
This is incredibly important.
Your walk with Jesus Christ is to be
a reality that is more true than the
clothes you're wearing right now.
I mean this.
This is not hyperbole or, and I'm not
goofing off right now.
You can't be a Wednesday, Sunday Christian.
You who are Christians, you've come here tonight
to get refueled.
You've come here tonight to get recharged.
Why?
Because you're going back out there into the
world and you take your shield of faith
and you are out there living it day
by day.
Jesus is ever before you.
You are for real.
You are alive.
And that person tonight who's listening to me
right now is a person who also knows
that there's a struggle because we live for
God and our flesh wars against us and
we have a tendency to be tired.
We can get weary.
We can look around at the world and
if we're not careful, we can be experiencing
despair.
You look around the world as a Christian
and it looks like everybody's taking stupid pills
and you see this stuff and you wonder,
what in the world's going on?
While the world looks at us and says,
you guys are crazy.
They're crazy.
They have lost their minds.
You have the new mind given to you
by God and you see things right and
they see things wrong, but they got a
bigger megaphone than we do.
And that's normal.
This is their world.
If you think about it, we're on our
way home.
This ain't it.
You see, pastor, I just bought a brand
new house, pastor.
Don't say that.
It ain't your home.
You're going home.
You're going to Jesus.
We're just hanging out right here for now.
We're just hanging out.
So check this out.
This is important.
If you're gonna live for Jesus, man, this
psalmist, what he says is gonna mean everything
to you and there's gonna be a time
in your life.
Listen, in fact, let me be honest.
I've been a Christian for over 33 years.
There's gonna be many times in your life
you're gonna say, oh God, I'm like a
sparrow on a housetop.
I'm like a pelican in the wilderness.
Where are you God?
When you've been sick or when there's been
a tragedy and you're crying out, listen, where
is he?
You ever had that feeling or that question?
Where are you?
You're a believer.
You're a child of God and you're in
the wilderness.
And this is the discipline of desolation.
I thank my God continually that he's not
a fair weather God.
He's not a part-time God.
He's not a sometime God.
He's not a Sunday God or a Wednesday
night God.
He's always God.
And he's, by the way, an on-time
God.
He's never early.
He's never late.
He's always now.
And in the midst of your dryness, you
might say, well, pastor, I've been praying, but
I haven't heard an answer.
I've been reading my Bible, but I feel
dead inside.
There's a reason for that.
And you need to find out what it
is.
Number one, mark these things down.
Number one, it's this, check it out.
Number one, the discipline of desolation.
Will involve unhappiness.
Unhappiness, the state or situation of being unhappy
actually comes from the outside and moves into
our private lives.
Why if tonight you are unhappy, why are
you unhappy?
Think about it.
You might say I'm unhappy because I don't
love my husband anymore.
My question to you is why?
Don't say it now.
I'm just saying you need to answer that.
You've got to answer that.
Why are you unhappy?
Well, it's a money issue.
Why?
Take your argument and find the answer in
God's word because the cure is right here.
I'm unhappy.
I had somebody tell me I'm leaving my
husband.
Why?
Because I'm unhappy and I know God wants
me to be happy.
I said, where'd you read that in the
Bible?
That is not in the Bible.
God wants you holy.
There won't be a bunch of happy people
in heaven because they're happy.
There will be only people in heaven who
are holy.
And when you get there, if you want
to be happy, you can be happy.
But the cool thing is, think about it.
God just wants me happy.
God wants you holy in this life.
And we get this concept, you know, I'm
gonna marry her, I'm gonna marry him because
it'll make me happy.
No, God invented marriage to make people holy,
not happy.
Are you crazy?
Think about it.
You get married, I mean, you get married,
you know, and then flu season comes and
she barfs on the pillow.
What are you doing?
You've been married three months, she throws up
in the pillow.
She's sick, she's got the flu.
What is this?
Remember?
For sicker, for health, richer, for poorer.
Since I married you, I don't have any
money.
For richer, for poorer.
Marriage is a ministry.
And it's an amazing thing, unhappy.
What is this unhappy?
But watch this.
The reason why you might be unhappy tonight
is because, listen, you have focused your affection
or attention in an area that is outside
what God wants for your life.
Unhappiness comes from the outside and it attacks
us on the inside.
We let it come in.
Think about that for a minute.
It invades you, it's like an attack.
Our happiness is determined by how we perceive
the moment.
And that's the key.
You can choose to be happy now for
the rest of your days.
And they lived happily ever after.
It should say this.
And they lived happily ever after because they
kept Jesus Christ as the center of their
life.
You wanna live happily ever after?
Focus on Christ for your life.
And everything works.
If you lose that focus, you'll be unhappy.
Listen to this.
You say, Jack, I know somewhere it says
for me to be happy.
Yeah, okay, I see where you're going.
Matthew 5, two says this.
You know this.
Matthew 5, two says, then Jesus opened his
mouth and taught them saying, happy or blessed,
same meaning, same word, happy, are the poor
in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
Happy are those who mourn for they shall
be comforted.
Are you listening, everyone?
Happy are the meek for they shall inherit
the earth.
Happy are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness for they shall be filled.
Happy are the merciful for they shall obtain
mercy.
Happy are the pure in heart for they
shall see God.
Verse nine, happy are the peacemakers for they
shall be called the sons of God.
Happy are those who are persecuted for righteousness
sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Verse 11, happy are you when they revile
and persecute you and say all kinds of
evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is
your reward in heaven for so they persecuted
the prophets who were before you.
So be happy.
Isn't that amazing?
That's God's definition of happiness.
What is he saying?
Beyond all circumstances, you can choose to be
happy.
The discipline of desolation is choosing now to
find your life in Christ and to decide,
hey, my world's caving in, my cat left
me, my, I mean, just go down the
list and conclude this.
You know what?
God's word gives me the definition of who
are the happy people.
And it's those listed on the Sermon of
the Mount of Matthew chapter five all the
way there.
You read that.
So I'm unhappy.
Ask yourself, why are you unhappy?
Now I'm laying this stuff on you pretty
hard, but here's the true reality of it.
All of us struggle day to day, week
to week, or month to month, or year
to year with a sense of I'm unhappy.
I'm just not happy.
There's a reason for that.
As a believer, we need to get our
eyes focused.
Now mark this down.
This is the positive side.
What do we do?
We fight off unhappiness by grabbing his word
and crying out.
That's what the psalmist is doing.
This is the answer.
This is the application part.
Write it down.
If you're unhappy, what do you do?
You do this.
You fight off unhappiness by grabbing his word
and crying out.
Looks like this.
Lord, your Bible says, Psalm 144, happy are
those who are in such a state.
Happy are the people whose God is the
Lord.
You wanna be happy?
Make sure the Lord is your God.
Cry out to God using his word this
way, Psalm 84, 11.
For the Lord God is a sun and
shield.
The Lord will give grace and glory.
No good thing will he withhold from those
who walk upright.
What an awesome verse.
Are you unhappy the way things are going
at work or the way things are going
in your home?
How's your marriage?
Take this verse.
For the Lord God is a sun and
a shield.
The Lord will give grace and glory and
no good thing will he withhold from those
who walk upright.
Wow.
See, we start focusing on happiness in the
sense that it's the end all.
And you guys, many times we use that
as excuse to try to get our way
because we're pouting.
And God says lovingly, grow up.
Grow up and focus on me.
Get into my word.
God, listen, he wants us, the Lord wants
us to take the word of God and
say, Lord, I'm not happy right now.
And I know that it has nothing to
do with you, it's me.
And so I'm calling out to you and
I'm saying this, Romans 8, 28 is another
verse.
And we know that all things work together
for good to those who love God, to
those who are called according to his purposes.
We fight unhappiness.
Don't succumb to it.
Anybody listening?
It's so quiet in here.
Are you there?
Anybody there?
We all fight with this.
And the amazing thing is, listen, we live
in such a world where we are so
driven that it affects us physically, mentally, emotionally,
spiritually.
We are very complex creatures, body, soul, and
spirit.
But when we talk about being unhappy, we're
also, listen, we are also insulting God.
You know what we're saying?
When we ride our emotions on the fact
that we're unhappy, well, you don't make me
happy anymore.
Fathers say, you know, I'm not happy with
the marriage, I'm not happy with the kids.
I'm leaving.
Man, I tell you, I can't even begin
to imagine the devastation on judgment day regarding
a man or a woman who abandons the
children.
Jesus said, regarding children being offended, it would
have been better for that person who offended
them in the day of judgment than for
them to have never been born.
God said, in the day of judgment, for
those who offended children, it will have been
better for them to have never been born
when I get done with them.
Man.
Number two, mark it down, it's this.
The discipline of desolation, what we deal with
in our lives as Christian will involve loneliness,
loneliness.
As Christians, when we're lonely, it's a pretty
good indicator that we've often neglected our private
life with the Lord.
When I talk about loneliness, hear me out
on this.
Every Christian will go through a time of
loneliness in this definition, that we feel, sense
that we're far from God.
How does that happen?
It is easy.
Have you learned this yet?
If not, listen carefully.
Have you learned how much maintenance your Christianity
requires?
It is, listen, it is one thing, minuscule
to pray three times a day or five
times a day.
Anybody can do that.
Do you understand?
What is it?
Is that supposed to be a lot?
I'm dead serious.
Well, I pray five times a day.
Are you, am I supposed to be impressed
with that?
The last time I read my Bible, the
Christian lives in an attitude of prayer.
You never stop praying as a Christian, but
the world does that.
That's how the flesh is.
I pray four times a day.
Well, whoop-dee-doo.
What is that supposed to be impressive?
The real Christian walks with a constant attitude
of prayer.
That's why the Bible says in Thessalonians, pray
without.
It's an attitude.
But what about loneliness?
Loneliness is different than being alone.
Loneliness, the Bible tells us in 1 John
1, verse six.
Think about Adam and Eve now when I
read this verse.
1 John 1, six.
If we say that we have fellowship with
him and walk in darkness, we lie and
do not practice the truth.
But if we walk in the light as
he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another and the blood of Jesus
Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
Loneliness, listen, Christian.
If your soul right now tonight, if you're
struggling with an overwhelming sense of loneliness that
the heavens are empty and that your heart
is empty and you're just going through the
motions, you wanna stop and check the bases
and check your pulse.
God, have I sinned against you?
Have I done something to offend you, Holy
Spirit?
It is true that there's times when God,
everything's right, but God takes us through a
desert.
We take a spiritual drive through the desert.
Sometimes God takes us on those drives.
Didn't the Holy Spirit take Jesus on a
drive into the wilderness for 40 days?
He does that with us to make us
grow.
And maybe you're in a desert place right
now spiritually and you're lonely.
You're in a room full of people, but
you're lonely inside.
If you're not careful to be still and
know that he is God and focus on
him, you will jump from the fire into
the frying pan or frying pan into the
fire.
And you'll think someone's supposed to meet that
loneliness.
Oh, I'm gonna go do this thing.
I gotta take a break.
Don't do that.
Sinful conduct doesn't have to be something overt.
It can be something simply that you're neglecting
your private walk with God.
A neglect of God will cause loneliness, which
drives us ever so slowly away from our
intimacy with God.
Sinful conduct.
I think sometimes you and I as Christians
get tripped up more by the stuff that
we don't even recognize as being sinful conduct.
It's like this, you could be here.
Listen, legalist people think like this.
I didn't do this and I didn't do
this and I didn't do this today.
Look at me.
And God comes back and says, okay, you
didn't do those things, but you also, you
didn't do this and you didn't do that.
Meaning you didn't love me, you didn't talk
with me, or you didn't do, sins of
omission.
That's why a legalistic person is a tragic
hilarity.
I mean, it's just worth busting up laughing
about, but it's sad that they can't see
it in their own lives.
We need him.
We need his forgiveness.
We need his grace.
And the person in this room tonight that's
walking the closest with God needs his grace,
needs his forgiveness.
But there's a loneliness that we need to
have the discipline to contend with and this
desolation.
If we don't stay in the word, it's
gonna consume us.
It's gonna get us off track.
Revelation two, verse four, Jesus said to the
Ephesian church he says, nevertheless, I found this
against you that you've left your first love.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen and
repent and do the first works.
Note this, first love, first works, first works,
first love.
Jesus says this to all of us tonight.
He's searching our hearts and he's saying, hey,
go back to the first works of your
relationship with me.
Think for a moment.
The moment you accepted Christ or when you
were coming to faith in Christ and your
first, I don't know, first few months of
walking with Jesus, it was so pure, so
simple, so beautifully easy going with whatever he
says to do.
And then you get messed up listening to
people or you read some knucklehead book that
puts thoughts in your head or somebody comes
along and says, well, that's really great, but
you need to join our group and get
all bummed out like we are.
No.
Jesus said, listen, every believer, maintain that air
of your first love.
You seem to see people in love and
that first love's condition, symptom, condition, you can't
talk to them.
It's impossible to get through to them.
They're blinded by love.
See, isn't she beautiful?
Well, not really, but you're in love with
her.
Look at that.
Isn't he the greatest?
Well, I think he's a bonehead, but you
think so.
They're in love.
He talks about that in the Song of
Solomon.
He talks about that in Jeremiah.
He says, what evil have you found in
me, Israel?
He says, when you, in the early days,
went after me like a lover, you followed
me into the mountains and you pursued me,
God said, and now you've stopped.
What evil have you found in me?
He says, what nation of the world has
forsaken their gods?
No, they cling to their gods.
He said, they've got ears, but they can't
hear.
They've got eyes, but they cannot see.
And they love those silly pagan gods.
Me, he says, I'm real.
And I delivered you from Egypt and you
leave me for carved images and idols?
He says, what nation has done such a
thing?
Isn't that amazing?
Well, you say, yeah, why does that happen?
Because it's a real relationship.
You guys, it's easy to have a relationship
with a totem pole, a carved image.
Hey, how you doing there, Mr. monkey face
tree thing?
It's not a dialogue, it's not a reality.
It's a monologue.
You're the one talking to a piece of
wood or a stone or a statue or
an image.
And God says, no, it's face to face.
The cure for loneliness, write it down, it's
this.
We fight off loneliness by grabbing his word
and crying out, saying things like this.
Lord, your Bible says, Psalm 139, verse five.
You have hedged me behind and before and
laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
It is high, I cannot attain to it.
I can't get there.
You're amazing, God, you're wonderful.
Loneliness, do you have a sense of loneliness
tonight?
Then you stop and say, God, your Bible
tells me that you've hedged me on all
sides.
You know exactly where I'm at, you know
exactly what I'm feeling.
I have this overwhelming sense of loneliness.
It's a desolation of my soul right now.
I can hardly take it.
And yet your Bible tells me that you're
all around me.
God, you gotta help me put my head
around that.
It's so high, I cannot attain to that
thinking.
But oh God, open my eyes to see.
Have you ever been lonely?
God says in John 15, excuse me, Jeremiah
15, 16.
He says, your word was found and I
ate them.
And your word was to me the joy
and the rejoicing of my heart.
For I'm called by your name, oh Lord
God of hosts.
What is Jeremiah saying in chapter 15, verse
16?
He's saying, I was wandering in the wilderness
like a pelican, like an owl, like a
little sparrow on a roof.
I was lost and I found your word
and I began to read it.
And when I read it, I found out
that I'm called by your name.
I found out, listen everybody, I found out
that when I read your Bible, God, you
love me.
You can't wait to forgive me.
You can't wait to have this relationship restored.
Has anyone ever in life pursued you?
Sent you flowers?
You know, all that flirtatious stuff?
The wives are going, honey, remember that, remember
that?
God does that.
The Holy Spirit does that in our lives.
And he does it so gently.
He's often missed.
The Bible says, I wanna love you.
I wanna have a relationship with you.
And you say, well, Jack, I didn't know
that.
I already know that, I'm a Christian.
I understand that, but are you going through
loneliness?
The reason why you're going through it is
because there is some sort of blockade or
some sort of obstruction between you and your
God.
And you need to get that settled.
And so you take the word of God
and you say, Lord, I'm far from you
now.
I don't feel like you're near.
I feel lonely.
I feel like I've got to preoccupy myself
with stuff because there's an absence.
Listen, God didn't leave.
You and I leave him.
And I wanna say this loud and clear.
Are you listening?
This is big deal stuff.
I was talking to hundreds and hundreds of
guys last night.
I don't know how many, there was a
lot of them.
And I gave them a challenge.
And I told them with absolute confidence, and
I'll say it to you tonight.
If you feel lonely with God tonight, he
has given you his word, the truth is
out there.
It's right here.
And he's like this.
Now get this.
He's not like this, okay?
He's like this.
Come on, come on.
And we need to take that step back
toward him.
We need to take that step home.
We need to take that first step.
You say, why doesn't he come get me?
Because he's saying, you're the one who moved.
Get over here, come here.
Something pulled you away from me.
Come on back.
And you come back.
And this is crazy how he does this.
In fact, I'm begging you, if you feel
that desolation in your heart tonight, that it's
just like a dust bowl in your heart.
I know that if you pursue him, you
know me, I'm bent on early morning stuff.
But if it's tonight, if you get home
and you just throw yourself on your bed
or on the floor and you say, oh
God, I'm terrified of my lack of wanting
you, though I know I should, my heart
is dead.
And yet I cry out to you, God,
in my distress.
There's the desolation of my soul.
And Lord, I'm asking you now, bring me
back.
You know what he'll do?
I give you 24 hours.
In 24 hours, listen, anybody here tonight that's
messed up in a cult or listening, you're
messed up with some foreign God.
Listen, I challenge you.
Call upon my God.
Call upon the God of my Bible.
And in 24 hours, you're gonna know it.
He will speak to you.
He'll show you something and you'll know it's
him.
He's gonna say, that's from me.
And Christian, you may have wandered and you're
backslidden in soul and you're desolate.
Listen, 24 hours.
I have so much confidence in him.
In my own life, when I've strayed or
wandered away, or in my case, I get
so busy about Christian stuff, ministry stuff.
Let me tell you something.
Ministry will kill your relationship with God.
I'm serious.
People pulling constantly, phone calls constantly, and invitations,
this, that.
Hey, can you say something about this?
Can you endorse this?
Can you do the other thing?
And can you do, can you what?
And it's like, you know what?
And if you're sitting out there and I
say, well, Pastor, that sounds amazing.
Let me tell you something.
When I was on the other side, they
went, well, you know, that would be amazing.
Boy, it's not amazing.
Because you know what?
You need to love God more than all
that kind of stuff.
Because that's urgent stuff for really good causes.
But it's urgent stuff.
You know what the important stuff is?
Either getting home tonight or getting up early
tomorrow morning and having a love affair with
your God.
Nobody looking, nobody around, just you and your
God.
Let me tell you something.
You do that, your world will change.
And if you're here tonight and you're an
atheist, I challenge you, call out to him.
God, I'm an atheist, but I'm gonna take
that lunatic up on the challenge.
If you're real, talk to me, I'll give
you 24 hours.
Watch what he does.
He will fill that void of loneliness in
the life of the believer or the unbeliever.
Number three, the discipline of desolation will involve
isolation.
You say, wait a minute, you just talked
about loneliness.
No, isolation is different.
Loneliness, you can be in this room, as
I said earlier, and be lonely.
You can be in a room full of
people and be lonely.
Isolation's the next step down into destruction.
Isolation, listen everybody.
Isolation is different from loneliness because isolation is
the result of being lonely over a prolonged
period of time.
It's a slump that you sink down into
and it's overwhelming and you begin to think,
when you're isolated, there's no way out.
Well, that's why God says in Hebrews 10,
verse 25, not to forsake the assembling together.
Believers, Christians, we're to get together.
Did you know that?
We are to be doing what we're doing
right now.
Why?
Because there is a danger of isolation.
I had a famous internationally known pastor tell
me he had fallen immorally at the peak
of his career.
And he said, listen, the final step that
led to my destruction was not identifying the
isolation.
I was whisked away into private jets.
I was taken around, speaking everywhere, speak, driven
back to the airport, get on a plane,
fly to some other country, some other city,
get out, speak, get back in the jet,
fly to some other place, and you become
isolated.
Are you, in America today, it's easy to
be isolated.
There's millions of people who won't leave their
home or won't leave their bedroom, as it
were, they're isolated.
They go to the store, but they don't
know anybody.
And their world is inverted and certainly introverted.
They talk to themselves, they think about themselves,
they worry for themselves, they're dying.
Isolation, it's different.
Loneliness leads us to isolation.
It's a dangerous thing.
And I wanna encourage you tonight, listen, Satan
wants you isolated, this world wants you isolated,
and this'll flip you out.
Sometimes you want yourself isolated.
Stress, demands, pressure, issues.
You begin to think, I can't take this
anymore.
Have you ever been short with people?
Moms contend with this with kids, it's hard.
Mommy, mommy, mommy, listen, mommy, mommy, mommy.
That's why kids today go, mommy, mommy, hey,
Betty.
What is it?
They call the mom's name.
Constant pulling can lead to a sense of
where, I can't take this anymore.
And you begin to have a meltdown.
The stress implodes upon you so strong, and
your mind says, I need to withdraw.
Jesus withdrew when ministry was in prolonged intensity.
He withdrew.
And every time he did, he withdrew alone
and prayed to the Father, it says.
We will withdraw and we'll rent a movie
or do something that's spiritually unredeeming for our
soul.
And we just slip further away.
We draw the curtains, we shut down.
And I'm not talking about taking a break.
I'm talking about this becoming a habit of
life.
It will kill the believer.
I'm like a pelican, he said.
I'm like an owl.
Isolation's dangerous.
One of the most powerful pictures of isolation
is what I mentioned earlier, I think, about
Adam and Eve.
They were together, but they were covering themselves
up.
Isolation deceives you in thinking, I'll just cover
myself up.
Maybe something's gone on in your life and
you're thinking, I can't face those people.
I hear this a lot.
Pastor, today's my first day back at church.
I've been gone for years.
And you know, just that comment, you know
it.
You know that there's a lot of baggage
in that comment.
Isolation.
Psalm 77, verse seven through nine says, will
the Lord cast off forever?
Will he be favorable no more?
Has his mercy ceased forever?
Has his promise failed forevermore?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his tender
mercies?
Listen to that.
God is altogether lovely, but isolation will cause
you to think crazy thoughts.
This is how we fight it.
We fight off isolation this way.
By grabbing the word of God and crying
out like this.
Lord God, your Bible says, Romans 8 35,
who shall separate us from the love of
Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution, famine, nakedness,
peril, or sword?
The answer is no.
Psalm 139, seven says, where can I go
from your spirit?
David cried out, where can I flee from
your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, you are there.
If I just make my bed in hell,
behold, you are there.
He says, behold, you're there, verse nine.
And if I take the wings of the
morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of
the sea, he goes on to say through
that entire Psalm, you're there.
He's there.
In your isolation, he's there, cry out to
him.
He's amazing.
Point four, the discipline of desolation is this.
It will involve grief, life, Christian ministry, living
for Jesus.
Every human being will experience grief, but sometimes
maybe believers have it even more sometimes.
I don't know.
Psalm 51, three, you know this Psalm.
Psalm 51, David wrote this Psalm after he
got caught committing adultery.
For I acknowledge my transgressions.
My sin is always before me against you.
And you only have I sinned and done
this evil in your sight.
He prays and cries out to God.
Grief, your soul can be desolated by grief.
It can be brought on by sin.
It can be brought on by difficulty, death,
swallowed up with grief.
Many times people grieve and they get angry
at God.
I understand that.
It's not right, but I understand it.
We've all been there.
What's happening?
We've got to discipline our lives that, listen,
every one of us who are Christians will
have to battle grief in life.
Just know this.
That's why I thank God for the Bible.
Let me tell you something.
You go to a church that doesn't teach
the Bible and then grief comes to your
life and you're gonna be an absolute lost
mess.
But when grief comes to your life, you've
got an anchor for your soul, man.
And this word, God is so good.
You think, oh, the Bible's cool.
It's cool.
No, it's not cool.
It's beyond cool.
And you won't know how awesome it is
until you have some grief in your life.
That's the test.
How do we fight off this grief?
Look at this.
Lord, your Bible says, 2 Corinthians 1, blessed
be the God and father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God
of all comfort, who comforts us in our
tribulations, that we may be able to comfort
those who are in trouble with the comfort
with which you've comfort us.
Think of that.
Amazing.
Final point right here, number five.
The desolation of soul that will visit us
in life will also involve fear.
Desolation will bring fear.
Fear is a very terrible debilitating thing.
When we're fearful, it means that we're not
trusting God to keep his word.
That's what fear, that's what it, we're not
trusting God to keep his word in our
lives.
And so when that happens, we fear.
See, what does fear look like?
Many times, worry, anxious, worry, always worrying, wringing
of the hands, worried, foreboding, dark clouds coming.
There's people who worry when they don't have
anything to worry about.
Things are going so good, something's gotta happen.
Wow.
Deuteronomy 31, six is be strong and of
good courage and do not fear.
Don't be afraid.
Who says that?
God says that.
Genesis 15, one, after these things, the word
of the Lord came to Abraham in a
vision, saying, do not be afraid, Abraham.
I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.
You gotta take that verse and staple it
onto your head.
Right there, Genesis 15, one.
You're my shield.
God, they're picking on me.
Lisa, was it yesterday or the day before,
whatever?
She goes, you see what this lady said
about you in the newspaper?
I said, what is it?
I don't read the newspaper.
I let all you people tell me what
it says.
I don't even get the newspaper.
Well, this woman, she's saying this, and this
woman, she said this, and she says about
you and the school board, and you ought
to be, and you, and then the woman
shares her view, and I said, praise the
Lord.
And she goes, what?
I go, listen, listen how it ends.
She's all upset with me.
She's all upset with the school board.
And listen, at the end, she says, and
you know what?
And then she spills her beans.
And I told Lisa, praise the Lord.
She said, what are you talking about?
And I go, man, that's a badge of
honor, what I just read, what you just
read me.
That's a good thing.
Listen, when people say to you, oh, I
see, company's laying everybody off.
You'll probably get laid off next.
You're the Christian.
What are you gonna do about it?
I'm gonna pray.
God will give me another job.
The Bible says that he'll never allow the
righteous to be baking bread, so he'll give
me a job.
And when you have that peace, they're gonna
go.
They're gonna, they get all upset.
The boss announces, because the economy, no bonuses
or raises this year.
Everybody starts cussing and swearing and biting the
doorknobs of the building and stuff.
And you're like this, hey, thanks, boss.
Grateful to have a job.
And they'll go, well, aren't you all happy?
What's with you?
God's on the throne.
What's your alternative?
Desolation of soul.
It's not worth it.
Now I end with this.
How do we fight fear?
Grab the word of God and cry out
to him and say, Lord, your Bible says,
Matthew 10, verse 29.
Jesus said, and not two, listen, are not
two sparrows sold for a copper coin?
And not one of them falls to the
ground apart from your father's will.
But the very hairs of your head are
all numbered.
Do not fear therefore, for you are more
valuable than many sparrows.
Who said that?
Jesus said that.
About who?
You.
And by the way, if a sparrow could
read, that's pretty comforting.
In fact, I'm gonna end, we're out of
time.
I'm gonna end with that.
This is a true story.
Happened today at my house.
This morning, I'm looking out the window.
And I told you before, we have a
gazillion birds in our backyard.
So they're out there eating and I'm watching.
And they're all kind of flitting and jumping
around.
And then like something flies by or whatever.
And they always, they go to the trees.
And then one comes back, three come back,
10 come back, 30 come back.
Except there's this one sparrow.
He's sitting there.
And then like the dog runs by, and
they all go back in the tree.
Except this one sparrow, he's just sitting there.
He's pecking, long eating.
He's not moving for nothing.
This is a true story.
And he catches my attention and I'm like
this.
Bird, hawk flies by or whatever it was,
it was big.
Scared him, don't go to the tree.
And he's just sitting there.
Mink, mink, mink, mink, mink, mink, mink, mink.
And every time, he'd never move.
He didn't budge.
Birds of a feather flock together.
He doesn't move.
So I walk out there and they all
fly.
And he's, mink, mink, mink, mink, mink, mink,
mink.
And then he flies over to where the
water is at.
And he goes over there, kind of near
it to get some water.
And he's got his beak down on the
concrete, where there's some, but he's not pecking
on the water yet.
He's not getting a drink.
He's moving, he's getting kind of closer to
it.
And then he finally gets over to the
water, he's drinking.
He's drinking water.
And then all of his friends come back.
And then I move from under the umbrella.
And they all go back and they all
fly away again.
And he doesn't move.
Then he turns and he goes over, flies
again.
This is like 30 feet.
Flies over back to where the food's at.
And he kind of crashes and then gets
back.
He's pecking away and eating.
And I said, Lord, this is fantastically strange
and amazing.
Nothing scares him.
He's a little awkward.
He kind of fumbles around.
But he's eating and drinking and he's fine.
And he can fly.
You know what?
He was there again tonight, right before I
came.
They come in the morning, they come at
night and they eat.
This bird has got to be deaf and
blind.
No, I'm serious.
He has to be.
Because when everyone else is afraid, he's not
afraid.
When they all flinch and fly up because
a hawk flew by, he's not eating.
He's not aware.
He's eating and he's drinking and he's flying
and he's fine.
He's completely different than all the others.
And tonight I thought, Lord, this message, I
wanna thank you, God, for this.
Because that little guy, he might be deaf.
He might be blind.
But he chirps with all the rest of
them.
It's in his DNA.
He's fine.
One thing's for sure.
He's not very nervous about stuff.
And when your soul is desolate and you're
fearful that you're far from God, you're afraid
of everything.
And Jesus says, hey, Jack, I'll give you
a verse for tonight.
That little sparrow out there, my dad, my
father's really keen on that little bird.
And whatever happens to that little bird, it's
not gonna happen without my father knowing about
it.
And you need to think about that.
There's no need for you any longer as
of tonight to be desolate of soul.
The Lord is waiting for you to come
back home.
And for those of you who are saying,
Pastor Jack, I checked all the bases and
I'm fine.
Then listen, just write it out, my friend.
You're going through a time of growth.
There's a desert time for the soul.
That's okay.
You'll make it through.
And when you come on the other side,
oh man, the waters are sweet and the
grass is green and it's beautiful.
And you will not be like an owl
in the wilderness or the pelican in the
wilderness or the owl in the desert.
And you won't be one lone little sparrow
lost on top of the house.
You'll be down there all around people in
this world.
They're freaking out, scared and flinching about everything.
But God has blinded you.
Thank God to the evils that will befall
the world.
He has set your heart on the pilgrimage.
And as a Christian, you're heading home.
And you don't forget that.
Father, we pray tonight, Lord, in Jesus' name,
that we would pursue you, seek after you,
follow you.
Somewhere, maybe in my own backyard in one
of those trees, there's a little fat, chubby
little sparrow just happy as a lark tonight.
Probably dreaming about eating more seed in the
morning.
Is he blind?
I don't know.
Is he deaf?
I don't know.
But if he's not, he's just the most
Christian sparrow.
And what a witness.
And tonight, Father, may we tonight decide here
and now to give it up to you,
to give our worry, care, concern, the fear,
the economy, the issues, the marriage, the relationship,
the engagement, the boss, the employees, the nation,
this world.
Father, now, may we give it up in
Jesus' name.