Dry Land — Glenn Meldrum

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Psalm 107 and the Wasteland of Sin

Psalms 107 Beginning in verse 33 he referring to the Lord He turned rivers into a desert Flowing springs into thirsty ground and a fruitful land into a salt waste. Because of the wickedness of those who live there.

The analogy that God speaks of in this situation is he says I see this area as a desert as dry ground and as I prayed for Inkster and I don't say that just Because I'm here. I mean, I genuinely played prayed for Inkster.

I have sought God in tears for this city and that God would move and that God would genuinely send revival. But as I pray I see something and what I see is a desert. What we have to look at is that there was a time Where the land was fruitful where God was.

God walked the earth with Adam and Eve and it was a beautiful plush paradise. How big that paradise was I don't know but because of the fall of man is. Ultimately that paradise was put into a little spot and the rest of the earth was cursed in essence because of the breaking of the covenant that Adam did with God and So the land was cursed it didn't anymore bring forth just abundant fruit.

What was what brought forth had to come to struggle and through pain and through turmoil? Not to ease anymore and. Eventually the flood destroyed the garden. Before the flood came it was still there had to be interesting, you know.

You find the wickedness of Noah's day throughout Noah's day that the the garden of paradise was still there. You know, they could have walked up to it. They could have seen the angels I guarded the entrance to it a testimony to who God was.

What do they do? They fall in the wickedness. They reject the living God and ultimately the garden is destroyed from the flood but why Did the land become a desert? So it's because of the wickedness of the people and so really that's what we need to look at.

We need to be able to look at insert. I'm just I'm referring to insert because you're an Inkster. I mean, I passed it for almost 12 years in Detroit. We could say the same for Detroit. We could say it for Birmingham.

We could say for anywhere in this world. When we look at it spiritually. Spiritually, it is a wasteland. And I want to relate to something that is very very difficult because ultimately the wasteland came upon planet earth because of the sin of Adam.

But I will be very bold to say that the wasteland that surrounds us now is the sin of the church. No other no other reason behind it we're in a desert because of the sin of the church. Because Jesus went and said that when he would send the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit would dwell within us and not just dwell within Us but that he would become as a river of living water that would flow from us flow out of us.

And what's the purpose of that river to go forth in the dry ground and to bring life where there was no life? But what happens in desert and we might get a little sprinkling and it doesn't just change anything.

I mean the ground just sucks it right up because it's so dry. It's so bare and so we have our little Christian things we do little sprinkling, but it makes no difference. It changes nothing of great consequence around us because we don't need a sprinkling.

We need a flood. We need to the point where the ground just doesn't get a little wet, but it becomes saturated. So that it flows over and it starts bringing forth buds and crops and so on so that it's able to feed the people and care for the people as long as the church is.

Without that living water. It just sprinkling that's all it is. When you read the accounts of the revivals of the first great awakening with Jonathan Edwards. He did a lot of writing on the revivals. He begins one of his his books that he wrote where he speaks of Religion that people became so sick of it.

So tired of it the deadness the formalism the same thing no life. No vibrancy just ritual and form. It's part of the desert. I Mean that you go to church and it's dry. It's bad that there's nothing that's there.

Nothing that speaks nothing that that transforms and changes life. I mean go to Kingdom Hall and you can have an individual stop doing drugs because Kingdom Hall will put pressure on the people which is good.

Glad they stopped doing drugs, but that really hasn't changed the person. I mean you can go to church and you can just be a good person doesn't change the individual. It's not until God supernaturally comes into the life and They allow God to do it that they become transformed and that a river living water flows through them.

The Church’s Need for Revival and Action

When was the last time you mourn before God? Because an angst or you haven't seen the dead raised. When was the last time you mourn because the church in America not go and walk along the road and see a lame man and says the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

Because the church is destitute. That's tough for us to hear. We don't want to hear it because what we like is messages that tell us we're good. We're fine. Well, I could be a false prophet to you and I could come and speak.

Peace. Oh God loves you. He wants to do work in your life. Oh, it's so so great, which is truly wants to work in your life. But there's another aspect that we like to reject, you know in a mushy love gospel.

I don't believe you get that from pastor. I believe pastor tells it as what it is but sometimes you need to hear an evangelist that might say the same identical thing the past has been saying for months and months and Just comes from a different voice and all of a sudden you go say well God you're trying to speak to me.

But first we have to begin to look and see where is the church? Where is the city if we don't begin to grasp where it's at? Then we just go along and the same old thing doing the same old things that we've been doing the same old lifestyle.

No burden, no desire. No, no seeking for change. Until we begin to grasp what is really out there. What's really going on, but it doesn't bother us. It wasn't until William Booth was on a train and got a vision from God that God really seized hold of him to start reaching out to the poor and the destitute and Ultimately salvation army was birthed out of it.

And in it he saw he saw a sea of humanity perishing under the violent judgment of God and the church standing idly by in their comfort in there and in their Contentment and doing nothing about it. And so humanity was dying in the sea while the church was in his comfort.

God doesn't call us to comfort. He calls us to action when you look at the call upon the apostles. It wasn't to the aspect of prosperity was the aspect of Passion of reaching out to a lost and dying world.

Hosea’s Warning to an Unfaithful People

I want you to turn to Hosea book of Hosea. Hosea I'll tell you what it's a tough book. I think it's one of the toughest books in the Bible. It is a tough book. God says some tough things. Israel had to come to a terrible place in God.

For Hosea to come God didn't want to send a Hosea. He didn't want the message of Hosea to come to the people because it is a scary terrifying message a terrifying message and So they had to follow long ways from where God wanted them to be they had to to veer off the path that God wanted them and be away from it from a long time and to ignore the cries of other prophets that he sent that didn't speak a message quite as hard and quite as Difficult and quite as point-blank.

Hosea is in your face. Basically what we can look at he was a prophet that was in their face set of plain and simple nothing Disguised or anything else just before them. This is the truth. This is where you are.

This is what's going to happen and that's hard to take. I'll tell you what he was one unpopular prophet. One unpopular man because I don't think that message the church likes to hear because there again we like to hear everything's fine.

Everything's great. We're just doing wonderful a Syria. They're not gonna come and overthrow us and take us away into slavery. They're not going to kill our people in the and the elite of society. They won't do that God will protect us because we're in that Covenant.

But they didn't rely upon God they relied upon a promise that God had given but they weren't living the truth. And so they were actually preparing themselves for judgment. And Hosea the second chapter in the first verse.

Say to your brothers my people and to your sisters my loved one. Rebuke your mother rebuke her for she is not my wife and I am NOT her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from from between her breasts.

Otherwise, I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day She was born and I will make her like a desert turn her into a parched land and slay her with thirst. I will not show my love to her children because they are children of adultery.

Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She says I will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water my wool and my linen and my oil and drink. He goes on to speak and ultimately that he will block the paths of their of her lovers.

But that God was actually the one who gave it and she attributed it. To her lovers who's this wife was Israel. The husband was related to his God, but what does God say here? I'm going to tell you something.

This is scary scary scary Verse and I have another way. I'm going to read to you in a second. He was saying do not call my this woman anymore my wife. God was literally Separating himself from the people.

So often we think that as individuals we can play with sin. We can play with sin. We can play with sin. We can keep doing it and each time we do we don't say forgive me God and we play with sin. Forgive me God play with sin forgive me God and God's gonna keep doing it.

There's gonna be a time where God says enough. You are not mine. You are not mine. I will not tolerate your flirting with sin anymore. It is over. It is done with Scary thought. Now we don't want to think that because as Pentecostals we really believe in free will and so do I believe in free will but I also have come to a greater understanding of something that the Pentecostal Church is less is the very attributes of who God is that he is Sovereign and what it means that he is sovereign is he chooses to do what he does and no person can make him.

You can say the name of Jesus a million times and God will not jump. Name Jesus. That's a magical term that when we say it also not of heaven comes to attention God is God. He gave us that name so we can approach him not so we can dictate to him.

Not so he becomes master to us. We are to be slave to him. Now that's difficult for us because we want to think that we can just say the name Jesus and I have embattled to us. But God is sovereign. What if God says I will not save you who is going to argue with him?

Who is going to stand before me says God you have to I? Have to you can tell me God that I have to save you you. I'm God I choose. You don't say what arguments you're gonna have in a day of judgment for him.

Well, if he chooses say I choose not to save you because you have been so hard you have continued in your adultery. You have a continued in your fornication. You've continued in your drugs in your relationships that God abhors and you say no big thing.

No big thing. And we will just ask forgiveness again and we will go out again and when we follow we do it again. God is just a big God of love and he will once again forgive us. It will all be well. But here God says I am divorcing you you are not my wife anymore.

God’s Judgment on Persistent Sin

If you jump over to the fifth chapter. In the sixth verse he says when they go With their flocks and herds to seek the Lord. They will not find him. He has withdrawn himself from them. They are unfaithful to the Lord.

They give birth to illegitimate children. Now their new moon festivals will devour them and their fields hear that this is scary. They will not find him for he has withdrawn himself from them. Terrifying thought.

Terrifying thought what we have to ultimately see. Is what does God ask of us not what a society ask of us? What does God ask of us? What does God say is moral and the right way to live not what the world says?

Okay, the world has standards that God hates he abhors it. He has called us to holy living in thought word and deed. He has called our bodies to be temples. Where he dwells in that must be holy that cannot be associated with drugs without with with fornications and adulteries.

That cannot be associated with that which I take into my eyes that is immoral to God. We have TV and videos and movies that we can sit out and watch things that God hates. That he says in Scripture that he will have no part of and that he says further.

That those who partake of it will not enter the kingdom of heaven he says no liar will enter the kingdom of heaven. There's no fornicator no murder, but yet we make that our entertainment and we think that God doesn't hear.

We think that he doesn't see. We think that he doesn't care. We think that we can just go on and keep saying Oh God. No big deal. I'll go to church this Sunday and raise my hand and everything will be fine between you and me and I'll go back and open the pornography when I go home.

All right, well, I'll go watch the you know some filth on television. Well, there are a dirty sitcom that all it is is sexual jokes and no problem God because I'll go Sunday. Just raise my hand, but he says you can come and you can bring your sacrifices.

And he says I will not show up because I will not be there. Because you have continued in that which I told you not to and your hands are stained and you have not repented when Ephraim Saw his sickness and Judah his sores.

Then Ephraim turned to Assyria and sent to the great king for help. But he was not able to cure you not able to heal your sores. This is a really interesting idea. That's in the 13th verse of the fifth chapter.

Interesting idea because what God ends up saying there he says who came to an understanding that you were sick. That's important, you know people can see that they're in need today. They're empty. They're sick of church.

They think of all the religion and the deadness and the form. They want some kind of life. They want some kind of newness. They can see that but what do they do they dial up? Up the astrologers to get their fortunes read so that they can know what tomorrow is going to bring.

Or they're lonely and they're bummed out and they're sick of life. They're sick of the abuse that they get from their husband or from the parents or whatever and so they run out they do some Drugs, they know they're sick, but they don't go to the place of healing and they figured this will solve my problems.

But they continue and they persist in it. But you know, it's doing is making a wasteland. It's making a wasteland out here because it is individuals that make that wasteland. And if the church is not able because it has no power and has no spirit that flows through it.

It cannot bring life to that wasteland because it becomes part of it. It thinks like it it acts like it all it doesn't go to church on Sunday but it's still a Part of that wasteland and it is still stained with the blood of it when you read Daniel and you come to the point of Daniel where where it says Daniel read Jeremiah and the Lord opened his understanding to Jeremiah and What the understanding was had to deal with the 70 weeks and that Israel would be in bondage for 70 years and It says when Jer when Daniel came to that understanding God revealed that to him he fell down and mourned and wept before God and it goes through his prayer or prayer of repentance.

Daniel was a man of God and He repented because he saw that the sin of the people Also somehow took him and aligned him with that sin and he repented not just for his own sin but for the sin of those people he was associated with the sin that his father's committed and that is forefathers before that committed and knew that blood was on his hands because he was part of humanity and That if God was going to do anything it had to be rooted in repentance and in a church saying forgive me.

Because I don't have the power to transform this community. Another program another idea another thing that we do. But ultimately the band-aids on cancer because we don't have the power to transform the society.

Because that's what revival is. Revival is where God breaks into the church. Transforms the church so that the church might break out into the world and transform society. But you know as if I were struggling is with the same old sins that we've been struggling with and we're not free from him.

We're not walking. Holy. We're never going to have nothing to give the world and so You might grow because this church falls apart over here and they come here. But you know as if you grow because another church collapses eventually those people leave when pastor says something they don't like.

And you'll be right back where you were and so the growth has to come from out of the world. From reaching out to him seeing him change. People are sick of it. I mean you drug addicts are sick of it. They just don't know how to get out of it.

It's a vicious trap. I mean before I was a Christian. I don't drugs. I was in the whole scene and you know, I could not imagine ever living outside of it. I didn't know what was outside of it. My world view was so narrow so.

So now that all I could see is just every day partying. I could not imagine getting up another day without it. But yet I hated it. I was lonely. I was miserable. People are like that whether they're alcoholics with their pastors whether they're just sleeping with their boyfriend or or whatever.

They're sick of it, but they don't know how to get out. They feel so trapped. They feel so so cornered and saying I'd like some freedom. I'd like some life in my life, but I don't know how to obtain it.

How do I get it? But yet the church doesn't have the power to bring the deliverance and so what we see is brought out in Hosea is that Israel had committed spiritual adultery. It had played the whore by putting its loves on other things.

By loving this world. By loving themselves rather than loving God, you know idolatry is probably one of the most wicked sins because it distorts and Perverts who God is and it worships that which shouldn't be worshipped and takes the worst away from that which only should be God himself.

Sin’s Consequences in the Community

Whenever I would restore the fortunes of my people whenever I would heal Israel. The sins of Ephraim are exposed and the crimes of Samaria revealed. They practice the seats. Thieves break into houses bandits robbed in the streets.

But they do not realize that I remember all their deeds their sins engulfed them. They are always before me. Here the cry of God when I wanted to restore you. You would not let me because you remained in your sin.

And as a result, I kept track of those sins and those sins engulfed you they produced a wasteland around you. That's a witness. Traveling your mind through the streets of the city. And this these streets aren't any different than than streets throughout this country but travel through them and through house after house for this man, he beats his wife and this this one he's living with is this woman and this is third or fourth band that she's been with and.

The 13 year old girl is now finding this man coming into her bedroom at night. Go to the next house and and you just find them just blown away man. They're dealing drugs and one thing you go from house to house.

There's a there's a little old lady and and she's a good woman. But she's lonely as can be because she's never found for true love. There was a house to house to house and and and if you were to look at him through God's eyes.

All you would do is see these people that are aching and hurting and dry. Think of it as the aspect as the alcoholic who goes out in the middle of the of the desert to get a drink. And he takes the glass and he dips it down in the sand and go and keeps doing it.

And all it's doing is filling his mouth with gravel and never satisfying the thirst. That's what sin is. Sin is the thing that we keep sucking down. We keep putting in it, but it just makes us thirstier and thirstier and more greedy.

It's like a fire you put you have a fire and you throw wood to it and it's never satisfied. That fire will always keep burning so more and more it never comes to a point to say enough wood. I'm the fire.

It'll wrap more the more you throw the more consume. Some just wants to burn within us. I mean you do a little bit of drugs. You don't want to do more drugs. You do a little bit of alcohol you want to do more alcohol do a little bit of sleep around.

You don't want to do More because the less of the flesh are not satisfied with the things of the flesh. And as long as you keep seeking after it, it's going to make you so empty so destitute. There might be a time where sin is a pleasure for a season, but I'll tell you what.

It's a snake and it always reveals itself as a snake and it's time and it'll lash out and it'll bite you. No, maybes I mean you might get in a new relationship and be sleeping with somebody new and think that this is true love this man man.

He's got he's gonna really marry you this time. He's gonna really do it. But years down the road after all the lies after all the promises after not ever coming through with it. He never does it. Never does it.

You know just another story another lie, but yet it started out. Oh true love once finally I found it. Finally I found it, but you know the lover of your soul is waiting. To love you has never been love.

Love you as you've never been love. But yet he calls out to you. And then so often we don't even hear and we don't want to hear because he calls us to change and you'll change is scary. Seriously scary.

Radical Change and Separation from Sin

I'll tell you what. God is calling some of you to radical change. He's calling you break off some relationships that you're in that you shouldn't be and he's calling you to change. Stop doing some things that you've been doing you got it.

Do you take the television you throw it in the trash? You don't say radical whatever it is and change is scary because you're going to say what do I do? What now is gonna take this place? And I'm gonna be serious about this even you fill it with something that is good.

You're gonna fill it with something that's evil. You might go and throw throw out the television. But then you're gonna want to fill that time with something else. You're gonna fill it with God or you can fill it with some other worldly thing.

That'll just be a greater snare. You're gonna fill it with something. Because we have needs. And those needs will either be met correctly in Relationship with God or the devil will make sure that he brings across something that doesn't meet our needs but brings us into bondage.

No devil doesn't meet our needs. Things in this world does not. I mean tell me a millionaire who set aside with a million. I mean, he's not I. Mean just never ends these these passions and lusts of the flesh never end.

There's always some you're always Hearing people say if I had a million I'd be happy if I have this. I'd be happy if I have that idea and they get It and it never satisfied because it says this fire. That's always being burnt and you throw more to it and it's still being burnt.

It never says enough. Just like the grave you will never fill the grave. Until Jesus brings an end to it. The grave is always hungry. I always take another one never heard yet. The grave says enough. No people have died.

Hell is always hungry. It'll take another soul and another soul. Another soul never says enough soul. Let the rest go to heaven. It wants to just grab out and say I'll take another one and I want another one and you know.

What's strange is the devil just doesn't want to take you to hell. He wants to mutilate you. One of our CS Lewis's books in the in the space trilogy he has a book called peril andra Paralander is it's a science fiction about Paradise being on Mars and This man ends up traveling there and the Adam and Eve stories taken all over again.

And he watches it before his eyes and here's this one who plays the devil and as he walks along in this paradise. Everything he touches he just whips and shreds and just destroys and just kills any animal.

He can because it's just not that he wants to take people to hell. He wants to mutilate anything of God's creation. He just doesn't want you in hell. He wants you miserable. He wants to hurt you. He wants to make you take everything from you if he can rape you and leave you for dead.

He will. Cuz that's all he's out for. And so he'll do it with a smile. He'll do it with promises. He'll do with all kinds of things as long as in the end. He strips you naked and he leaves you dead. So he doesn't have your best in mind.

Psalm 63 and Holiness in Family Life

Turn to Psalm 63. I Want to look at this from the standpoint of the righteous now. While you're turning there I want to say something. Not just because it's Father's Day because it's something I feel is important to men.

You know as we know because you're male and they are able to produce a baby doesn't make you a man. I don't care if you're 50 years old or 16 doesn't make you man and You know, there's a mentality all across this country in all races in all groups.

That's what a man is. How many marks you can put on his belt? I grew up with it as a kid in the schools. I went to that's all it was me. You just want to know who you could lay. You just wanted another notch in the belt hasn't changed same old thing.

It's worse today just because we got so much media that is just making this as the lifestyle the lifestyle the lifestyle pastor and I were Talking to somebody else last night about the aspect of a Homosexual that got into his church and was leading the choir and caused some serious problems and The sexual crimes are getting worse day by day.

The church has confronted. Has to confront it because what sin is sin and the church has to make a call the holiness of absolute. I'm not talking about legalism. I'm not talking about about making a list of do's and don'ts because I can make a list of do's and don'ts to tell you to follow them and you Can still be just as wicked because wickedness is rooted in the heart.

God gets a hold of your heart and holiness will become what naturally begins to flow from you. And when you find yourself not holy you will weep before God saying God I don't want nothing to separate me from your beauty from your holiness because you are so good God Forgive me for this thing that has caused a vision because he becomes so sweet and so good to us in Psalm 63.

It says you are my God earnestly. I seek you myself thirst for you and my body longs for you in a dry and weary land. Where there is no water and I've seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.

Because your love is better than life. My lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live and in your name, I will lift up my hands. So my soul be satisfied as with the richest of foods with singing lips my mouth will praise you on my bed.

I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night because you are my hope. I sing in the shadow of your Wings. My soul clings to you your right hand upholds me. I Want to go back before I forget to a point.

I wanted to make when I was speaking to men I Related in the very beginning of this message that I believe the church is The fault of the barrenness in our country. But I want to put a further fault on men because I don't believe men are being men.

The families decayed and it's falling apart and It's men's fault because they don't have enough guts and enough courage to be a man. To take care of their children take care of their home to stay married to do it, right?

They want to play the world and try and have a home. It doesn't work. I mean they want to go out there and play the field and and just be a man. You know how you know, this is just the way I am. I got to do my own thing.

Just a joke man. Just a joke. And so they bring Death to this area. They pass it on to their children. I mean, this is sad sad. They pass it on to their children. Men teach their their children how to do it.

And so the boy watches dad that's never home and I'll sleep around and doing this thing and boy watches his father. And he says that's the way you cheat treat women. And so he treats women just like that and so the death just passes from one generation to another generation to another generation and It's sad.

I'll tell you what women what you gotta do is say enough's enough. I'm not gonna tolerate it. I'm not gonna let a man that's not a man in my house, and I'm not gonna let a man in my house. Unless he's my husband.

I mean, I'll tell you God's calling you if you're in sexual sin. Here's something scary. You have to choose between that and heaven. Between that and heaven because the Bible is plain and simple. This is no Fornicator will enter the kingdom of heaven that's serious stuff.

So don't go and say I don't know where to go. There's always a place to go. There's always a place go. I guarantee you talk to pastor. He'll find something might be difficult. You might have some hard times trying to get on your feet and taking your kids.

Is there the right place? But get out of it get out of it. Don't play games. Don't say one day down the road if the man's lying to you and just give me all these fake promises in the future. Understand what they are because the next guy will say the same thing and the next guy.

Until eventually you get so sick of it and you say I'm tired of being abused. I'm tired of being rejected. I'm tired of men that are just wimps and don't have enough guts to be men. I want to see men that can be courageous and stand up and be a father and be a husband and be a priest in the home.

Lead the home and righteousness. Because I'll tell you what it's going to begin with the church. It's going to begin with men that God starts change in the desert and becoming a fertile ground. But until that time.

Till that time the church has a real battle on its hands because it's fight in the desert. And it's dealing with it only with with drizzles only with sprinklings rather than with downpourings. I'll tell you what God wants to pour it out.

He wants to pour it out. Are we going to be vessels that are willing to and able to receive it? In Psalm 63 here David refers to an attitude of the heart and as you look through a time and time again He refers to a heart of rejoicing so important a Verse that we end up using for our ministry, which is in Psalm 16 and also in Acts 2 it says in his presence His fullness of joy.

All you need is in his presence and now that can be sound very Christian cliche. Yes, but the problem is the majority of church doesn't know that they can say oh, yes. But yet they're filling their lives with other things because they have not come to the point to be in his presence.

To live in his presence and to know the beauty of that how precious it is to know of a God who loves them and Manifests that love them not just hearsay not just in words but an action of God who loves them and loves upon them and that they can love back an interaction between man and God between woman and God and.

So here he refers to the joy that comes through this situation. He says I live in a desert. But yet I am well fed. Because I am in relationship with my God and I am in healthy relationship. His presence is in me and I am in him and I am in joy.

Though the world is decaying on me. I'm in joy and he makes me to be different from the world. There's only one thing that separates you from Jehovah Witnesses. Or one thing that separates you from Mormons or separates you from the dead church down the road.

And that's to be the presence of God. So Moses said Moses cried out when he was talking with God says and God's sending him out there. He says if you don't go with us, we'll just be like the rest of the nations and the rest of their gods.