Psalms 68:5-7 TPT “To the fatherless he is a father. To the widow he is a champion friend. The lonely he makes part of a family. The prisoners he leads into prosperity until they sing for joy. This is our Holy God in his Holy Place! But for the rebels there is heartache and despair.
7 O Lord, it was you who marched in front of your people, leading them through the wasteland. Pause in his presence”
In the Amplified version, heartache and despair are described as the parched land. What is a parched land? The parched land is a taste experienced in verse 7. It is the wilderness or desert.
Definition of Parched land: “A land that is very dry, usually due to a lack of rain and hot weather.
Here are some characteristics of parched land:
1. Rain cannot filter through the ground
2. It can make it more difficult to dig
3. Other synonyms: arid, scorched, thirsty, withered, burned, dehydrated, and shriveled”
God took His people from the world (slavery and bondage of Egypt) to take them into life, which constitutes the prosperity of spirit, soul, and body. But there is another path, the road of headache and despair which is experienced in the wilderness if left without a destiny.
Now the question is, are we on a path of spiritual prosperity, experiencing glory to glory, making our lives want to sing in joy? Or are we still feeling empty, thirsty, lacking, hungry, and shriveled? Do we feel like a parched land even though the Holy Spirit is present in the fellowship of the saints, yet the rain and seed cannot penetrate the soil because it is so hardened? The rain and seed symbolize the Holy Spirit and Word, respectively. The land is your heart. The sermons are putting you to sleep. You come to church because you have to? Your mind continues to drift, swaying back and forth. Where are you at?
When the Israelites rebelled and could not face the giants, they were sent back to the wilderness to go in a circle representing an eternal judgment. In verse seven, God led them through the wilderness not because they were rebels but to give the Israelites a taste. The purpose of the wilderness was to refine and show what a life could be without God, their Savior. The wilderness is a place where people will drop unnecessary baggage as their bodies are taxed and need to survive. People will only carry what is absolutely needed. The purpose of the wilderness was to drop their idols in the midst of thirst and hunger and to cling onto God, their Savior, who is to give them the living water and bread. But the living water and bread can only be appreciated when all unnecessary baggage is abandoned.
Freedom comes when you let go of your past, the hurt, traumas, old mind, the anger, unforgiveness, and your old man/woman and realize you cannot drink and eat without letting go of the idols that are so firmly and stubbornly clinched in your hands. You must trade one for the other.
Whether you are in the wilderness, leopard city, or discipline, the purpose is for you to realize that you are carrying baggages of idols that will not give you what you think you need. The wilderness is a place you are forced into fasting so that you may behold the Living God and feed on His life.
The old person wants to keep their idols, thinking he/she can carry them into glory. This is why the lives of many Christians or God’s people continue to wander in circles because they fail to drop their idols. In fact, many will die in the wilderness and in their sin, holding onto their idols, living a defeated life circling into eternal perdition.
But we are not them if ….
Additional Comments:
Read carefully, and stop skimming! Stop saying “Amen” and faking it when you have not carefully read it. Cheating does not move you forward. In fact, you get sent back to the end of the line.
Pastor Steve Kim