Isaiah 41:17-18 When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the LORD will hear them… I. Here is POVERTY OF CONDITION. "Poor and needy." This description applies to poverty of spiritual condition. 1. Most of us would take the position of great poverty as to anything like merit. 2. We have poverty as to anything like strength. 3. As to grace, many of the children of God are, to their shame, obliged to confess that they are poor and needy where they ought to be rich, and where they might be rich; poor in patience, in courage, in faith, in hope, in love, in private prayer, in public influence, poor in every way. There axe many of God's children who seem scarcely to have a penny of spending-money, and they never appear to go to the King s treasury, and dip their hand in, and take out great handfuls of the precious gold of grace. II. URGENCY OF NEED. "When the poor and needy seek" — what? Money? No; that is only to be poor and needy. Bread? Ay; that shows a harder poverty than merely being "poor and needy." But it is not bread that these poor and needy ones are seeking, but "water." Why, that is generally to be had for nothing, — a drink of water. It must be very hard times indeed when poor souls are in such a state that they axe longing for water, and seeking for it afar, as though there were none near at hand. Are any of you in such a condition, sighing after the living water? Though you have drunk of it before, you are still sighing for more of it, and feel as if you could not tell where to find it. 1. This is an urgent necessity, for it touches a vital point. A man can exist without money, he can live without garments, he could live longer without bread than without water. 2. Do I address one in whom this vital necessity has become an agonising thirst? 3. Further, there is an immediate necessity. When a man's tongue faileth for thirst, and he seeks water, he wants it at once. III. The third step down — and it is a very long one — is this, DISAPPOINTMENT OF HOPE. "There is none." 1. "There is none" even where they have found it before. Have not some of you at times found it so in attending the means of grace? 2. It makes their case even more disappointing when they have, side by side with them, others who are seeking water, and finding it. Have you never been to the Lord's table, — say, with your own wife, — and when she has been going home, she has said, "Oh, what a precious communion service! Was not the Lord manifestly among His people in the breaking of bread?" — and you have hardly liked to tell her that you have not seen the Lord even in His own ordinance? 3. If you go to places where there is none of the living water, then you have only yourself to blame when you cannot find it. IV. THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER. "And their tongue faileth for thirst." 1. They cannot speak; they cannot tell their fellow-Christians about their trouble. They are ashamed to tell others what they feel If a hymn is given out, they feel as if they must not sing it. If there is a promise quoted, they feel as if they could not appropriate it, and sometimes the prayer of a joyous brother seems to shoot over their head, — they cannot attain to his experience. 2. If they were called upon to state their own feelings and convictions before the living God, it may be that they have become so mournful that they could not describe themselves. I think we have gone about as low as we can. Here is a man who, to begin with, is poor and needy. Here is a man who is wanting water, who has sought it, but who cannot find it. Here is a man whose tongue is so parched with thirst that he cannot now say a single word, he must sit down in sorrowful silence. V. Yet, strange to say, now is the time that he learns that SALVATION IS OF GOD. "I the Lord will hear them." What? Why, they cannot speak: "their tongue faileth for thirst." 1. That brings me to this point, that God's great object in bringing His people down so low as this, is to make them pray directly to Himself; that now they may not seek any water, but just cry to Him who is the Fountain of living waters; that now they may not tell their friends about their need, nor even tell it to themselves, but just, in the very silence of their soul, speak with God, for there is a kind of speech which is perfectly consistent with silence, — the speech of sorrow, — the exhibition of the wounds of misery, — the opening up of the brokenness of the heart, — the setting before God, not in eloquent descriptions, but in indescribable revelation, the intolerable want which lies within the soul. The text does not even say that they pray; because, sometimes, even prayer becomes a mechanical act, and we are apt to rely upon it for comfort, instead of upon our God. 2. The prayer which is hidden away in the text — for although there is no mention of prayer in it, yet it is hidden away there — is the prayer of inward thirst. 3. This is the prayer of one who despairs of all means. 4. This is the prayer of faintness. 5. Now comes the declaration of God. "I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them." Is it not something that God hears you? I have frequently had to explain this word by speaking of the poor woman who was so pleased to see her minister. She was very poor, and so was her minister; what good, then, did he do her? Did he speak to her a very comforting word? No. The good man did not happen that day to be in much of a mood to do so, yet he did that sister a deal of good, she said. Why? Because he let her talk, and she just told out all her trouble, and he looked sympathetic, for that is how he felt, and that was just what she wanted. She wanted somebody who would listen to her. It is wonderfully condescending on God's part to listen to us. Many of our complaints are only rubbish, yet He hears them patiently. Sometimes, when people begin groaning and grumbling, I wish I was down the next street; but God is so patient and long-suffering, that He hears all that His people say. 6. You know that you have only to get a hearing from God, and you know what the consequence will be when your Heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. |
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