WESTSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH
PASTOR: TERRY VAUGHAN
SERMON TITLE: PARCHED PLACES IN THE WILDERNESS
“For God so Loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth in Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18
TEXT VERSE: Jeremiah 17:5 “Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.”
There’s a lot of people out there today who are putting their trust in man. So we find in the word of God that if we start trusting in man or trusting in flesh our heart will automatically start departing from the Lord. Let me tell you a place we don’t want to be this morning and that’s away from the Lord. There’s a lot of people in the world that let trials and tribulations come in their life and they let them separate them from God. One place in the word it says that our sins and our iniquities have His face from us. I want you to be assured today that God will never leave you. There’s a lot of people however who have left God. You start trusting in man and flesh and in your own natural self you might as well write it down that you’re going to go away from God. You’ll not be in a position where God can use you. You’ll not be in a place where God can get to you and do what he wants to do with you in your life. You’ll start going down and going away from God. There’s a lot of people in that condition. Their going away from God instead of to God. Jesus said in His word to draw nigh’ tome and I’ll draw nigh’ to you. I want to preach to you on verse number six on parched places in the wilderness.
I pictured a picture of an old desert. I’ve never seen one in real life but I have seen one on television. But I pictured a desert where there was no water and there hadn’t been any water in a while and all there was, was heat. The desert began to crack. That’s what a parched place is. A place that’s without water. I want you to know that there’s a lot of Christians that’s dried up this morning. There’s a lot of Christians that’s dried out this morning. There’s a lot of Christians that have dry rotted this morning. We’re not the kind of Christian we need to be for God. You people better get into this. I’m not hungry for no earthly food. I’m hungry for the word of God. I’ll preach for two hours. There’s Christians in the world today that’s lacking in every thing. There in a parched place and their spiritually drowning, spiritually starving and they can’t get what they need from God and God knows it.
Psalms 107:5 “Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.” Let me tell you what Ezekiel said in Chapter 37:1-2 “The hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. And caused me to pass by them round about: and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and lo they were very dry.”
We’re living in a world where the Christians are very, very dry.
NUMBER ONE: they’ve gone away from God and their not working for the Lord like they used to work. They’ll work on their job all week and they’ll work for their neighbor, they’ll work at their parents house but when it comes to working for God you can’t find them. Jesus said the harvest is truly great but the laborers are few. That’s the world we’re living in today. Don’t you tell me their not spiritually dead. They are. Paul said if any should not work, neither should he eat. If you’re not getting blessed in the house of God then go out and do some work in the field and you’ll get a blessing. You say but Preacher I come to church every Sunday. Listen this ain’t the working house. This is the praying house. The worship house. The house of God is where you come in and learn and grow and pray and worship. The work is on the outside of the church.
proverbs 14:23 “In all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.” You can talk about working all you want to but until you actually labor he don’t recognize it. We get rewarded for the labor. He doesn’t reward of for talking about it. A lot of Baptist folks I know don’t even know what work is. There so dry you couldn’t pay them to work. We’re not working and we’re not doing enough for the Lord. We try to keep up God’s house. These material things we do won’t account for nothing. The Apostle Paul said he wanted to impart unto us some spiritual gift. These old natural things will not get anybody into Heaven. We need to impart some spiritual gift.
Hebrews 13: 20-21 “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ.”
If we’re not doing his will, we’re not doing nobodies will. We’re not working enough for God. I’m not a full time Pastor here. At least not like some people think a full time Pastor should be. I Pastor this church and work a full time job. I’m what they call a Bi-vocational Pastor. I work a full time job. I Pastor this church full time. I’m a husband full time, I’m a father full time and I’m a child of God full time. I’ll not lay it down for anybody. I’m not who I am because you’re sitting on some pew thinking you’re somebody. If you ain’t got Christ in you’re life, you’re a nobody.
NUMBER TWO: We’ve stopped worshipping him. When they were singing the songs of Zion up here, I thought to myself that somebody ought to be shouting the praises of God instead of wondering what they were going to eat after service. I need something from the Lord today. I can just see somebody shouting and running all over God’s house. I’d like to see that. People don’t do it any more. Now a days they can’t even hold their hand up and praise God. Preacher I’ve never shouted. Get filled with the Holy Spirit and you will. You may not shout but you’ll do something because you’ll be out of the flesh. Baptist people are too quiet. You’re afraid to say Amen, afraid somebody will laugh at you. You do what God says to do. Jesus told that woman at the well that she worshipped you know not what. A lot of Christians are like that today. They don’t know what their worshipping and they don’t know what they want. The Bible says that God is a Spirit and we must worship him in spirit. This church is not a social hall. This is a house of God. The Bible says we’re supposed to come into God’s presence with singing and rejoicing. How many people come in the house of God singing and praising God for what he’s done? He kept us out of Hell, we ought to praise him. We ought to be shouting the victory today. A lot of people don’t even know what the house of God is. I don’t care to see what you looked like. If you came in here to impress me, you came for the wrong reason. I came because I wanted something from God. People getting in patterns and traditions. Years ago there was this man and woman singing a song and I’ll be honest with you they couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. I was about 13 years old and I thought to myself why on earth would they let those people sing? Ain’t that how the flesh is? They was singing “I’ll never die, just be promoted.” Right after I had that thought that they couldn’t sing good, three people went to shouting. Then I couldn’t figure out why. The Lord started dealing with me and showed me that he wasn’t listening to how they sang but to what they sang. Listen to God and start worshipping him in spirit and truth. We’ve lost out vibrance of being Christians.
NUMBER THREE: We’ve stopped praying. James 4:2 “You have not because you ask not.” 2 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray without ceasing.” There’s a whole lot to pray for. People are lost. You’re loved ones could be dying and on their way to hell and thank God somebody is out there praying for them because sometimes we don’t pray for them.. We need to pray for backsliders. They say their saved but their not working and worshipping. If their not capable of praying for themselves then we need to pray for them. We’ve stopped praying for the church and for the Pastor. People are always looking for what’s wrong in the church instead of what’s right. I’ll never have a perfect resume but if you look through me to the Lord Jesus I’m pretty good. We need to stop looking at things in the flesh and start looking at things in the spirit and start praying more. I told Joyce last night I sat down at the computer and typed out about two pages of stuff that I had been studying on for tonight’s sermon. I got up and went in the other room for one minute and I was thinking to myself, Lord this sure is taking a long time to do this and when I came back to the computer, everything I had typed was gone. The computer had gone down. You know what the Lord said to me when I saw it was gone? It’s time to pray. I knelt down and began to pray. No the message didn’t reappear, I had to retype it. The Lord was just showing me that I needed to quit typing and start praying. We’ve replaced praying for one another with talking about one another.
NUMBER FOUR: We’ve stopped praising the Lord Jesus Christ. The Psalmist said: Let everything that hath breath, praise Him. Jesus said once that even if they should hold their peace, even the rocks would cry out. Theirs somebody praising God right now because if their weren’t the rocks would be crying out. Let me tell you why a lot of people don’t praise God anymore. Look at Proverbs 29:2 “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” Whose got the authority in your life? Is it the righteous or the wicked? If it were the righteous you’d be rejoicing. People go around with too many frowns on their faces. They stopped praising God and God isn’t pleased with them. Look at Psalms 113:3 “From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord’s name is to be praised.” No wonder people like to go to Pentacostal churches; they praise God. If they believe the same word of God that I believe then Hallelujah! I’m not putting down any church but if we have it, let’s act like we have it. Don’t just keep it, give it away to somebody else. You’re always trying to impress somebody. I’m not impressed with anybody that’s in the flesh. You say you just don’t understand why your Pastor doesn’t pay any attention to me. Get in the Spirit and God will send me your way.
NUMBER FIVE: We’ve stopped giving. God gave His only begotten son. Galatians 6:7-8 “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” We’ve stopped sowing. We’ve stopped giving. What are we supposed to give? Whatever God tells you to give. We touched on tithes and offering in Sunday school and how the people robbed God. We don’t just rob God by not giving him our money. We rob God by not giving our service. By not sharing the gospel, by not witnessing, by not praying. We’re not giving like we’re supposed to. The Bible says that god loves a cheerful giver. If you have to give it grudgingly or for necessity then God don’t want it anyway. If you throw a dollar bill in the plate and you throw it in because you feel like you have to, you might as well take that dollar home with you because God’s not going to use it anyway. We spend more money on junk food than we do at the house of God on Sundays. Why you’ll go to the movies and spend forty or fifty dollars on the family and come to the house of God and put one dollar in the offering plate. It’s a shame this morning. If you’re not advancing then you’re falling back.
Luke 8:14 “And that which fell among the thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring forth no fruit to perfection.”
NUMBER SIX: We’ve stopped listening to the Lord. God tells somebody to do something and they don’t even hear it. Their so backslid they can’t even hear God. We’re supposed to get our instructions from God. Romans 8:14 “If any man be led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
Hebrews 12:25 “See then that you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.” Paul said in the latter days. He said that they would turn their ears away from the truth.
You tell somebody how God wants them to live a good Christian life and they turn away from it. Stop listening to what your neighbors and friends are saying.
NUMBER SEVEN: We’ve stopped learning. Sunday School years ago was the most important part of service. Now a days you can’t even get people to come. What would happen to your child if you pulled them out of the fifth grade and said you’re not going to school anymore? What kind of an adult do you think they’d be? What kind of job do you think they’d have? It’s the same effect when you don’t bring them to Sunday School. They don’t grow. They don’t learn. Those public schools will never get your children into heaven. But Sunday School will. Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Children come up to their parents and ask them a biblical question and their parents don’t even know how to answer them. If the parents don’t learn, how are the children going to learn? My wife was talking to a young child in the 6th grade one day and he asked about Heaven and how to get there and how to know you’re saved. She had to have the knowledge of what to tell him. An hour later that boy was kneeling and weeping and crying out to God to save him. What do you think would have happened had she said she didn’t know or that she needed to call her Pastor or Deacons to help explain it?
Not only is Sunday School a learning period, but so it Morning worship and evening worship and Wednesday nights.
We’ve stopped all these things because we’re in parched places in the wilderness. People just don’t seem to have the zeal that they used to as Christians. Used to be when you passed a church on Sundays, you could hear them inside.
LET US PRAY: Father we live in a world that has stopped caring. A world that has left you out. I pray Lord that I don’t become one of them. The devil is very strong in this world and when we become weak we allow him to have control in our lives. I want to be a worker for you and not for him. I want to continue to worship you in spirit and in truth. I want to praise you and pray for those that don’t know you. May I always be found giving and not taking. I pray that I will stay close to you so that I may hear you and may I be an example to others that they might want to learn from you. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen
