As The Deer Pants

AS THE DEER PANTS

Psalm 42

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR: DON’T YOU LOVE MODERN TECHNOLOGY?

1. Have you ever sent a text to someone and it came out very different – usually because spellcheck rewrites it.

2. Phillis Howard told how her granddaughter’s husband, an Air Force officer, complained about how spellcheck changed his e-mails.

3. He said, “I sent a message to 300 of my personnel addressed to “Dear Sirs and Ma’ams.” It was received as “Dear Sirs and Mamas.”

B. TEXT

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 people 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 my God. 6 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. NIV1984

C. THESIS

1. The writer of this psalm is most probably David. It’s very similar to Ps. 63, which IS written by David.

2. It’s a conflict between faith and reason. Reason points out the contradictions, and faith answers them. Faith begins, longing with holy desire towards God and communion with him. Reason interrupts to point out the darkness and dire circumstances of David’s life. Faith and reason battle each other, but in the end, faith gets the last word.

3. The title of this message is “As the Deer Pants.”

I. LOSS AMPLIFIES THIRST FOR GOD (1-3)

A. DAVID’S GREAT DESIRE FOR GOD

1. Here we see David’s holy love thirsting, soaring upwards in holy desires toward the Lord. "My soul pants for You, O God,” (vs. 1b); for nothing more than God, but certainly nothing less. David compares himself to the panting of a deer, which is hot and dry, and only comes to water when it is driven there by its raging thirst.

2. Blessed is the person whom God so favors, that He denies them all other satisfactions, until they find that He alone is the only true satisfaction of their soul! Like a baby that refuses to drink anything else but its mother’s pure milk – the very best thing to nourish it and help it grow. So is the nectar of God’s pure Spirit to those who drink of it!

B. THIS GAIN RESULTED FROM LOSS

1. David had lost his wife Michal, his place at the royal table, his position in the army, even his freedom as a common citizen. Most of all he’d lost his access to the Temple of God and its festivities.

2. He’d become a fugitive from justice, an enemy of the state. He was bereft of family, job, money, home, and nationality. In this impasse, David discovered that the greatest deficit of his life wasn’t material, but the presence of his God!

3. Sometimes God teaches us the worth of things by the loss of them, and stirs up our appetite for Himself by the loss of the means of attaining Him.

4. Now an outcast, He went about mourning, deprived to the point of panting. He pants after God, he thirsts for God. It wasn’t just the Temple he missed, but the God of the Temple. "O that I knew where I might find Him! That I might revel in His favor, enjoy His graces, and receive the comforts of his Spirit!’’

5. God as the living God, has life in Himself; He is the fountain of living waters. Only He can slake our thirst! David longs to come and appear before God —to make himself known to Him.

6. "My tears have been my meat day and night during this forced absence from God’s house.’’ His enemies reproached him, “Where is your God?” Since God hadn’t immediately delivered David, his enemies said God had abandoned him. Nothing is more grievous to a dependent soul than to lose its source of comfort. This thought tried to shake David’s hope and confidence in God.