Sermon
Everyone That Thirsteth, Come
September 15, 2002
Pastor Donald Sheley

We've spent the summer in the Psalms, and our last Psalm for the summer was Psalm 23. It's so rich and so full of spiritual truth that we're just lingering along, taking a number of days to consider each of the phrases.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me besides the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Yea; though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

And because our theme today has been drinking that water that shall never be diminished and brings eternal life, I went back to Isaiah and he says:
Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live.

And in the New Testament Jesus talks to a lady about this water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give Me a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."
The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself as well as his sons and his livestock?"
Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

And again, the words of the Good Shepherd: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled."

In the early moments of our country as they moved from the East Coast to the West, many efforts were made to convert the Indian tribes as they moved along, and many of the tribes were exceedingly responsive to the Christian message. We're told that the Plains Indians were so impressed with the gospel as well as the 23rd psalm that they wanted to share its beauty and its power with neighboring tribes, but it seemed impossible to overcome the language barrier.

Tribes had their own individual language, but finally a thoughtful Indian suggested they translate it into their universal sign language. It must have been that there was a language spoken by the tribes themselves, but a sign language that was universal and various signs meant certain things to all tribes. So they decided we're going to translate 23rd Psalm into the Indian sign language.

Now the sign language then was translated back into literal English by a missionary named Isabel Crawford. This is the way it reads. If we were indians and we were talking to each other this would be the way the 23rd Psalm sound years ago:
The Great father above a shepherd Chief is. I am His and with Him I want not. He throws out to me a rope and the name of the rope is love and He draws me to where the grass is green and the water not dangerous, and I eat and lie down and am satisfied.

Sometimes, it may be very soon, it may be a long, long time, He will draw me into a valley. It is dark there, but I'll be afraid not, for it is in between those mountains that the Shepherd Chief will meet me and the hunger that I have in my heart all through this life will be satisfied.
Sometimes He makes the love rope into a whip, but afterwards He gives me a staff to lean upon. He spreads a table before me with all kinds of foods. He puts His hand upon my head and all the "tired" is gone. My cup He fills till it runs over. What I tell is true. I lie not. These roads that are "away ahead" will stay with me through this life and after; and afterwards I will go to live in the Big Tepee and sit down with the Shepherd Chief forever.

Now someone said here's a vest pocket edition of the 23rd psalm:
Beneath me, green pastures.
Beside me, still waters.
With me, my Shepherd.
Before me, a table
Around me, my enemies.
After me, goodness and mercy.
Beyond me, the house of the Lord.
That's the vest pocket edition of Psalm 23.

Now to our notes. I've suggested that this is a Psalm of a shepherd. It's a poet's Psalm. David's metaphor, the Lord is my Shepherd, was the metaphor picked up by the Lord Himself in John 10 -- and we read that a couple of weeks ago. When you read the writings of Hebrew, the writer says that Christ is the chief Shepherd, or the great shepherd.

When you read John's revelation he speaks of the Lamb that shall lead us unto living water. When you read the Scriptures from the very early pages of the Old Testament, even to the closing verses of the New Testament, you'll find the theme that God is the Shepherd and that He cares for us, and He calls as His flock -- His sheep. The theme is always there.

I suggest that it's believed that David wrote this Psalm in his later years. There is fullness of experience about it. There is a tone of subdued, quiet confidence which speaks of a heart mellowed by years, and of a faith made sober by many trials. Age does affect our faith.

My mother is 90 years of age and I went to Chico on Friday and sat down with her. She's losing her hearing and so our conversation - she has to yell at me or I have to yell at her, because she can't hear herself. When I sat there on Friday afternoon I thought to myself here is a 90-year-old lady who has served Christ for at least 75 years. She's gone through a lot.

In the early years when she started her family it was during the depression of the 1930s, and my father was without employment for five years. They had to beg for food for their little boys. Mother never did have good health, and she's gone through over 20 major operations; 5 times for cancer.

She's 90 years of age, but as she sat there I thought to myself, what the a deep confidence she has in God. A sober confidence knowing that life is not always green pastures; sometimes it's turbulent waters. But as you live with God and as you journey with Him, there's a seasoning and a mellowing that takes place in one's faith. I suggest to you that David has journeyed a long time.

Let's go to page 2. The singer of this sweet psalm is one who has traveled far on life's way, and his path has not always been bright and smooth. He knows that there are sunny nooks and corners, that life is not all a wilderness, but that there are bright patches of green where for a brief noontide hour one may lie down and be happy. He knows that its thirst is not such as cannot be slaked, for a gracious Providence has caused the waters to bubble up and run through it, and that by the banks of its restful waters a man may quench that thirst and rest his weariness awhile.

But he knows, too, that life is not all pastures of greenness and waters of rest; for he has had to tread many a dark way, and walk through ravines where the sun never shone, and in whose gloomy recesses there lurked dangers from robbers and beasts. Life has been a checkered experience, but through it all one thing has been very real to him; he has always been sure of God.

And from those long years of journeying with God, he sits down to write for us one of the most beautiful pieces in literature of history. Now I'm not a shepherd and I'm not a farmer; I'm a city boy. And so I've had to learn about sheep and then share my learning with you as we go along through this passage. And I've told you the book that I have found was written by a shepherd, Philip Keller, who for 8 years had his flock in South Africa.

As that man, who later became a scientist, as he watched his flock he studied the characteristics of sheep, and then he compared their characteristics to human characteristics. And now I know why God calls as sheep, were so much alike. But, in order to understand this Psalm, you have to see it through the eyes of the shepherd because he has meanings in these phrases that you and I as city folk don't understand. But he understands it as a shepherd, and so Dr. Keller studied the animal for 8 years and with his journal then he brought out some of the great spiritual nuggets of comparing a shepherd's life with the great truths of the 23rd Psalm.

So we come to our next phrase today: He leads me beside still waters. Now the original language indicates that a better translation would be...He leads me beside the waters of rest. Rest comes when thirst has been satisfied.

Dr. Keller tells us that sheep thrive in dry, semi-arid country, but they still require water. They are not like some of the African gazelles which can survive fairly well on the modest amount of moisture found in the natural forage.

The body of an animal such as a sheep is composed of about 70 percent water on the average. This fluid is used to maintain normal body metabolism. Dropping down a couple lines -- When sheep are thirsty, they become restless and set out in search of water to satisfy their thirst. If not led to the good water supplies of clean, pure water, they will often end up drinking from the polluted potholes where they pick up such internal parasites as nematodes, liver flukes or other disease germs.

What the shepherd tells us is that sheep in their desperation to satisfy their thirst do not have the ability to make the choice whether it's good water or bad water. And off times other flocks have come through the area and they have polluted the pools; they've come through with all their debris and they've urinated in the pools and everything else. They go on their way and the other flock comes along, and if the shepherd isn't watching so he can guide them away from those polluted potholes, those sheep will drink anything because they are thirsty.

Our notes suggest that generally speaking, water for the sheep comes from three main sources: dew on the grass, deep wells, and springs and streams. Most people are not aware that sheep can go for months on end, especially if the weather is not too hot, without actually drinking, if there is a heavy dew on the grass each morning.

Sheep, by habit, rise just before dawn and start to feed. Or if there is bright moonlight they will graze at night. The early hours are when the vegetation is drenched with dew, and the sheep can keep fit on the amount of water taken in with their forage when they graze just before or after dawn.

In the spiritual, there is a thirst of the soul that only God can satisfy. Christ, our Good Shepherd, made it clear that thirsty souls of men and women can only be fully satisfied in Himself. That's why He said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink," and "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."

But the difficulty in all of this is that men and women who are "thirsty" for God, who do have a deep inner sense and a searching and a seeking; who are in quest of that which will completely satisfy, often are unsure of where to look for reality for what they are looking for. The quest is there; the yearning, the thirsting is there, why? The

Because the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes that God has put eternity into our hearts. We are spiritual creatures. We were made in the image of God, and only God is going to satisfy that question -- that thirst. And because we are spiritual beings, only the eternal is going to bring satisfaction. All of us have that thirsting, what is life all about, why am I here, what will bring this ultimate satisfaction? The answer simply is -- only Christ.

This week I was with a gentleman, a father, and after normal greetings I noticed a tear drop from his eye. I'll call him Jim. I said, Jim, is there something wrong? He said, Pastor, I have one son. My son is 30 years old. My son, since he's been fourteen years of age, has been hooked on drugs. Mom and I have tried. We've had him in every program, rehabilitation. But every time he gets out of prison he's back looking for his new treatment of crack.

And he said, Pastor, it's an ever searching. He's a boy with a an IQ of 150+. He has all the capacities of being wonderfully successful, but this thirst -- and he's found some temporary enjoyment in a treatment of crack cocaine. But he finds that after a few hours he needs more. It never satisfies. It's true, as human beings we'll drink from every pothole, no matter how polluted it is, if we don't turn our thirst towards God.

Some of you folks sit here today and you'll say, Pastor, it's true. Prior to coming to Christ I searched; I drink from pothole after pothole, and I walked away empty. Jesus said if you thirst, that thirst can only be quenched in Him. My prayer today is if you're here, and you're the one that's searching, listen, Jesus wants to be your good Shepherd. And if you put your trust and faith in Him and believe in Him as Lord and Savior, and you allow Him by His Holy Spirit to come dwell within your heart, He'll satisfy your thirst. It's interesting -- even though He satisfies us, we still keep yearning after Him. Right?

I remember back 50 some odd years ago sitting in a Bible class and we as students are told to prepare a sermon and all the students were going to evaluate our sermon. I don't know what I preached on, but I know what Doug preached on because I never forgot his title; and the title was this "Satisfied with an Unsatisfying Satisfaction". And what he was simply saying is Jesus does satisfy, but the more you're with Him, the more you want to be with Him; the more you love Him, the more you want to love Him -- satisfied yet with an unsatisfying satisfaction. It's so true that only He can satisfy.

Let's go to the next phrase. I'm in the middle of page 3. The next phrase is an interesting one. He restoreth my soul. We don't understand that as city folk, but I want you to look at it through the eyes of a shepherd. And what David had in mind, he was thinking about the restoration of a cast sheep.

You say, Pastor, what's a cast sheep? Let's me explain. Throughout the summertime it's wool keeps growing. It's coat becomes exceedingly heavy. You've seen the pictures of this great big sheep with all the wool and four little legs out the bottom of his ball of wool. And you wonder how the little guy gets around. There's a center of gravity that's pretty high.

What happens is that sheep will at times want to lay down. So when it lays down you see the shifting of the center of gravity and if there's a hollow or a depression in the ground, that little body rolls over a little more and it isn't very long till the center of gravity shifts and that little sheep is laying there on its back flailing through the air with its legs, and it can't do a saying. It cannot turn itself over, because the center of gravity is on the bottom and there's no way he can turn over. And he becomes frightened, oftentimes bleeding, but beating the air frantically with his little legs.

Now the shepherd tells us that what happens is that gases begin to build up in the rumen, and as it does, the little sheep's circulation begins to be cut off and it's not very long were there's no circulation in the legs and his little legs are useless. And what the shepherd has to do is he's got to constantly keep on the lookout for the cast sheep, because he knows he's the only one that can turn it upside-down and bring it back on its feet. What the shepherd does - he's sometime out in the flock two or three times a day.

I had a man who attended university up in Davis. Some of the dormitories for the students are out near the farmlands, and near his student's little apartment next door was a farming area and it had a lot to sheep. He would watch those sheep, and one day he saw the owner out there so he went out and talked with him. The owner said, these are the most stubborn of animals.

I'm always having to give them attention -- if it isn't pulling their head out of the fence, it's having to turn them over. He said if I could get rid of these sheep I would. It's no fun being a shepherd. As you know we've learned sheep are the dumbest animal -- and we are called sheep (congregation chuckles).

This is why Jesus said, you remember the 99 that the shepherd left in the fold and he went looking for the one -- the one sheep that was lost? So the shepherd will be out looking for the cast sheep. Now when he finds that sheep, what he does is he tenderly picks up. It can't stand on its legs. You know that when your legs go to sleep you can't walk on your legs. You tumble all over.

So what he does is he puts that sheep right between his legs and hold up, and then he starts massaging the little legs to get circulation back into the legs. And he knows that sheep has been frightened by this experience. He's talking and he's very kind to that little animal trying to sooth it's fright. And if he can't get the legs strong enough after some time of massaging them, the shepherd will pick up the sheep and carry it until the circulation has gained full back in his feet then he can put it down and it can join the flock. That's called a cast sheep.

But when you observe it's the cast sheep that gets the most attention from the shepherd. Now put that across in the spiritual. There are times in our spiritual journey where we become cast sheep. It seems like things in life, the problems, the tragedies, whatever it is that's got us turned on our side that we feel totally helpless, useless, and we beat, as it were, the air. Sometimes people say, well you don't have enough faith. Yes I do, but I'm cast, I hurt, I'm discouraged, I'm disappointed, I'm wrestling with life and it seems like my prayers are going nowhere and God is a million miles away. And I'm frightened, and sometimes I don't know what to do, and I'm flailing away trying to be spiritual and I'm going nowhere. I'm cast.

As Dr. Keller points out, many times we're led to believe that when we come to that place of being cast, when we're spiritually deficient, and maybe even backsliding a little bit, and disappointed and discouraged, that God's mad at us and He doesn't like us. Folks that's not true. It's the cast sheep that gets the attention. And that is true in the spiritual.

You say, Pastor, do you every get cast? Oh yes. I go through times when I just almost seem to be topsy-turvy spiritually in the sense that situations around me -- everything just seems to be just too heavy to handle. All of us, if we admit it, we go through our times when we're cast. We are flat on our back and we're flailing away and we're getting nowhere.

That's why David said in Psalm 42, why are you cast down, oh my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? And then he answers his own question -- hope thou in God. He knew that the only one who could turn the cast sheep around would be the shepherd, because the sheep can't do it itself. We should realize when we come to those cast moments in our spiritual journey there's only one -- and that's our shepherd.

The beautiful thing about it is the shepherd went looking for the sheep, those sheep didn't go looking for the shepherd. If you're here today but you're spiritually cast; you just feel like you haven't got it together spiritually -- it's just not fair. Just remember, I believe the shepherd brought you here. He'll pick you up and if necessary, hold you.

I have found that when I get cast I go up to my prayer room and I simply say, Jesus, I cannot handle this -- You've got to help me. I'm going nowhere; I'm flailing and my spiritual activity is seeming so meaningless. God, where are You? In the quietness of that moment for Good Shepherd comes because He's been looking for me all the time.

If you've gone through that experience, or maybe you're in it, you say, Pastor, I'm getting nowhere spiritually. I feel just like that sheep. All the things of life have just toppled me over and God seems a million miles away. No, the Shepherd is looking, and the Shepherd is coming, and the Shepherd is here.

I pray that truth sinks deep within you. That is -- the Shepherd seeks the fallen, ready to help. And I want you to know the Shepherd is here.

I'd like for you to all bow your heads, and if you are desperate and need the Shepherd in a very real way to come alongside you and turn you backside up on your feet so that you can get spiritually on your journey; whatever it is, you may be discouraged, you may hurt, you may be disappointed, you may feel like your spiritual life is totally ineffective, but you want the Good Shepherd to come in heal you now -would you just quietly raise your hand?

Jesus, You promised as our Good Shepherd to restore us and we've got our hand raised. We're flailing as it were our limbs to You. We invite You, Good Shepherd, to come today. Make Yourself very real to us, to me. Your presence and Your nearness, I feel Your strength. I know You love me. And I know I'm meaningful and important to You. But I need You today Good Shepherd, I need You. I open my heart and my life to You. I need restoring today. I need Your touch, and I need Your peace. Come, Good Shepherd.

Lord Jesus we close this service and thank you for making us a part of your eternal flock. And I pray that throughout this week we will be able to say that beautiful Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me besides the still waters. He restores me when I've fallen. Thank you for hearing our prayer, for we prayed it in Jesus' name, amen. God bless all of you.