Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Honey From the Rock

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Psalm 81 tells us how to handle the wilderness times of life. It tells us how to use various spiritual disciplines as practical skills in order to handle our times of suffering, our times of pain, our times of difficulty.  There are four things we learn here: 1) life is a wilderness, 2) there’s a rock in the wilderness, 3) there’s honey in the rock, and 4) there’s something else that I’ll tell you when we get to it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 19, 2002. Series: Psalms: Disciples of Grace. Scripture: Psalm 81. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Thanks for listening to Gospel in Life. Today, Tim Keller is preaching through Psalms, the songbook of the Bible. This Old Testament book shows us how we can turn to God through every season of life, in joy, in sorrow, in doubt, and praise. After you listen, we invite you to go online to Gospelinlife.com and sign up for our email updates. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. The reading is from Psalm chapter 81, verses one through 16. Sing for joy to God, our strength. Shout aloud to the God of Jacob.

Begin the music, strike the tambourine, play the melodious harp and lyre. Sound the ram's horn at the new moon, the new moon, and when the moon is full on the day of our feast. This is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. He established it as a statute for Joseph when he went out against Egypt where he heard a language we did not understand. He says, I removed the burden from their shoulders. Their hands were set free from the basket.

In your distress, you called and I rescued you. I answered you out of a thundercloud. I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Here, O my people, and I will warn you, if you would but listen to me, O Israel, you shall have no foreign God among you. You shall not bow down to an alien God. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your

mouth and I will fill it. But my people would not listen to me. Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes? Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. But you would be fed with the finest of wheat. With honey from the rock, I would satisfy you." This is God's Word. We've been looking at spiritual disciplines in a series of study. We were looking at how spiritual disciplines, these are the practical skills that you have to be able to exercise

in order to grow into the people God wants you to be. But tonight, we're looking at a psalm that is not so much giving us a particular individual discipline like we've been looking at in some of the other weeks, but so much as it tells us how to use the various disciplines to handle the wilderness times of your life, the times of suffering, the times of pain, the times of difficulty. There's four things we learn here in the passage in this psalm. We learn that life is a wilderness, but that there's a rock in the wilderness, that there's honey in the rock. And we learn a fourth thing that I'll tell you when we

get to it. There's a life in the wilderness, there's a rock in that wilderness. There's honey in the rock and something else. Now, first, this passage, this psalm, is actually about the feast of tabernacles. Verse 3 says, sound the ram's horn at the new moon and when the moon is full on the day of our feast. Now, the shofar, the ram's horn that was blown, was blown to announce the great feast, the annual feast that Israel observed.

And the only month in which the ram's horn was blown twice, it was blown at the new moon, which is the beginning of the month, and the full moon, which is 15 days from the beginning of the month, it was the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, and it was the month in which they observed the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, the Feast of Tabernacles was the annual time in which Israel remembered their wanderings in the wilderness. They remembered what it was like to live in tabernacles in tents.

And that's why the entire Psalm is about that. Verse 6 talks about how God led them out of slavery from Egypt. Verse 7 talks about how I spoke to you in the thundercloud. That was Mount Sinai in the wilderness. And how I tested you at the waters of Meribah. That's at the rock. We're going to get to that in a second. In the wilderness.

And all the rest of the Psalm is about how, what the people of God did and didn't do in the wilderness. Now, the wilderness is a very important theme in the Bible. It's not simply something that Israel went through, 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. But as we see, first of all, God asked them, forced them, every year to remember their wandering in the wilderness, to go back and think about it again. When you get to the New Testament, the very, very first voice we hear is the voice crying in the wilderness. John the Baptist called the

people back into the wilderness again in order to be baptized and to meet God in a new way. The first thing that happens after Jesus Christ is anointed with the Spirit, the very first thing he does in his public ministry is he's sent into the wilderness. And the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, especially chapter three and four, but the whole book, says that God calls all of us to consider ourselves still in the wilderness. In other words, the Bible calls us to take the narrative pattern of wandering in the wilderness. In other words, the Bible calls us to take the narrative pattern of wandering in the wilderness out of slavery but still wandering in the desert on the way to the promised land. The Bible calls us all to use that as the paradigm through which we understand our lives.

We're supposed to use the wandering in the wilderness narrative as a paradigm through which we understand our lives and our existence and the things that happen to us. In other words, the Bible says, right now, life in this world is a wilderness. Why should we know that? Why would that be? When you and I think of the word wilderness, we tend to think of a forest, at least I do. I think of Upper Maine. I think of the mountains of western North Carolina. I mean, I think of certain places. When I

think of wilderness, I think of the forest. But when the Bible uses the term wilderness, it's talking about the desert. And that's important to understand because when the Bible talks about the wilderness, it means the desert. And the desert has this salient characteristic. It cannot support human life. You can't grow enough food to live there. You can't catch enough food to live there. The people, the nation, move through the wilderness, the desert, and the only reason they didn't all die was because of the miraculous intervention of God.

Only through the miracles of God, the manna, the water, the light by, the cloud by day, and the light, the pillar of light by night, only by God's miraculous intervention were they able to live because the desert, the wilderness, by definition is a place that cannot support physical human life. So why does the Bible say you must understand that right now you're in the wilderness? Right now your life is a wilderness. Here's why. Bible is saying something about your life, about the world.

It's saying just as the physical desert could not support physical human life. So the world as it is, the world in the condition you see it today, can never support or fulfill your deepest human longings. It can never support the deepest needs of your life, the deepest desires of your heart, never. The world will never satisfy you. It will never be able to give you what you need. So, why is that important? Think about this.

Most people, when things go wrong, when they have wilderness experience, when the things that, the wells they were, the water they usually look to, the food they usually look to, wilderness experience means the things that you were looking to, they dry up, they go away. Your health goes, a relationship goes, your career goes, your money goes, something goes,

something important goes, and you find yourself in the wilderness. And almost immediately, the first thing we say is, why did God let that happen? Now, there's nothing wrong with that question, per se. The psalmist often ask it. But underneath that question often, especially for modern people, but I guess that's always been the case. Underneath that question is very often an assumption. If my career hadn't gone south, if that relationship hadn't broken up, if only I had gotten married by now,

or if only I had not married the person I was married to. In other words, if only this hadn't happened or this happened to happen, this hadn't happened, I'd be happy. And we understand that God's job, the reason we get mad at God, God's job is to arrange the circumstances of the world so my health and my career and my relationships, so everything is working out so I'm happy. And the Bible says, get real. The Bible says, you don't understand then

that this world can't support the deepest needs of your heart. It can't fulfill the deepest longings of your heart. The best marriage can't. The best career can't. The best relationships can't. Even if you get them, they don't at that moment, and you're losing them. It's the nature of this world to be a wilderness.

It can't support. Your heart cannot find its rest in anything here. Second law of thermodynamics should prove that to you. What is the second law of thermodynamics? Everything is falling apart. What this means is a very simple but vivid illustration I heard years ago. Take the chicken you're cooking out of the oven and put it on the table.

Mmm, smells good, doesn't it? But let's just wait. Let's wait for three hours and it's cold. Let's wait for three days and it stinks. Let's wait for three weeks. Keep it there for three weeks, keep it there for three weeks and now it's a health hazard and now people are getting sick because of it. But when you say, well of course that's what happens because

everything is falling apart, everything is losing energy, everything is going to pieces. Fine, well look at that chicken. Look at it first getting cold, then getting smelly, then getting rancid, then becoming diseased and awful, falling apart, you know. And it's a picture of your future. But not just your future. Not just your future. Every family, you get it, just where you want it.

It won't be long. Things will fall apart. Every family, every neighborhood, every relationship, every face, every person. Even if somehow you could get all of those circumstances just right at that moment, go to the people who have had the very best marriages, the very best careers, the very best faces, the very best everything, and even then, this world cannot give you what you need without God. The people of Israel would have perished in the desert except God miraculously intervened and you will never ever ever get the deepest needs of your heart satisfied by anything in this

world unless you have God. This world can't do it. So the first thing the text tells us, the first thing the Bible says is, you're always going to be mad at yourself or somebody else or your mother or your father or God because the circumstances in your life aren't right because you have an assumption that this world can satisfy me and it can't. Life is a wilderness. You need to think about that. That needs to be the paradigm. Life is a desert.

There's lots of good things in it, but they can't satisfy your heart without God any more than the desert could sustain the people without divine intervention. It's the first thing. Second thing, but though life is a wilderness, though life is going to continually disappoint you, though the circumstances of life cannot support the deepest needs of your heart. There's a rock in the wilderness. Now, notice at the very end of the passage, and we're going to get to this in our third point, it says, if only you had done this and this and this in the wilderness, I would have satisfied you from the rock.

But the rock is also mentioned, the rock in the wilderness is also mentioned up in verse seven, even though not by name, where it says, in your distress you called and I rescued you, I tested you at the waters of Maraba. Now what happened at Maraba? Twice, not once, but twice, in Exodus 17 and in Numbers chapter 20, God miraculously saved, rescued the people from dying of thirst by giving them water from the rock. Twice. And that's the reason why, at least twice, maybe more, because Psalm 78 says this, Psalm 78 15, he guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire at night, he split the rocks in the desert.

And he gave them water as abundant as the seas. He brought streams and made water flow down like river." And when he says, he split the rocks in the desert, that means at least twice and perhaps more. So that by the end of Moses' life, after all the wilderness wandering, at the end of Moses' life, he composed a song, the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32. And this is what he says in that song. He's the first one to say, God is the rock.

It says, this is Deuteronomy 32, I will proclaim the name of the Lord. I will praise the greatness of our God for he is our rock. Our rock in the wilderness, a faithful God. The Lord will have compassion on his people when he sees their strength is gone. And therefore, the Lord will say, now, where are your gods? The rock you took refuge in, can they rise up to help you? Can they give you shelter?

See now, I am he. I am the rock. There is no God besides me. Now, what does all this mean? It means this. Even though life is a desert, spiritually speaking, even though life is a wilderness, in the wilderness is the rock. What does that mean? It means that the wilderness is the place that you meet God. If you start to understand this, the wilderness times of your life are not just things to be endured, not just things that you get mad at God for, not that you say,

why is this happening to me? You know, I guess I'll just cling and hold on till it's over. No. The scripture says that it's in the wilderness that you meet God. The wilderness experiences are the premier place and time in your life where you can meet God. You think about this. When did Moses meet God?

Where did he meet God? He knew about God. He believed in God. But where did God become an existential reality? Where did God meet him face to face? In the wilderness, the burning bush. Where did Elijah have the experience of the earthquake and the fire and the still small voice?

You know, he was depressed, he was discouraged. Where did he meet God? He went into the wilderness. The Gospel of Mark very specifically says that when Jesus went away to pray, he went into the wilderness to pray. And of course, you have John the Baptist saying, come into the wilderness to repent and to be baptized.

It's in the wilderness that you meet him. What does that mean? Oh my, this is a simple fact of human nature. I wish it wasn't true in a way, but here's the simple fact of human nature. You may believe in God, you may pray to God, you may subscribe to belief in God. I mean, God can be there. You can believe in him and pray to him. I'm not...

But God will only become your rock. God will only become your shelter. God will only become the thing that you go to. The way a person in the desert runs to the rock just to have shelter from the lethal heat or runs to the rock just to find a little bit of rainwater left because it wouldn't be on the sand, it would only be in the rock. And what the Bible is telling you is you never really, hardly ever meet God except in the wilderness.

And that's great. See, that's just, in other words, to say life is a wilderness, to say let's use the wilderness wanderings of the people of Israel as the paradigm by which you understand what's going on in your life, doesn't simply mean a gloomy thing which is, you know, life will never be, you know, all that satisfying and disappointing. It's also a hopeful thing. It's because it's in the desert that people met God, and it's true for you. I know it's true for me. God is an abstraction, but he's not your rock. He's not the thing you build your whole life on. He's not the thing you run to.

He's not the center. He's not the thing you connect to. The Feast of Tabernacles had a ritual of water pouring because it was in the desert that God gave water. The Feast of Tabernacles had a light ritual because it was in the desert that God gave water. The Feast of Tabernacles had a light ritual because it was in the desert that God was the pillar of fire at night and gave light. And every time something really bad happens to you, there is a voice, as it were, I'm a Presbyterian, there's a voice, as it were,

that comes to you saying, make me your rock in the wilderness because all other rocks will crumble. Make me your light when all other lights go out. Make me your water when all other wells dry up. Don't you see now that in this life all other wells will dry up, all other lights will go out, all other rocks will crumble, but me. It's only in the wilderness that you really meet him. You know, I think I might have told you this before, a couple of years

ago, a group of people in my first church in Virginia got together and had a reception for me and Kathy. I haven't...I've been away from there for 20 years or something like that. And yet, a lot of the people who were in the church got together and had a reception. It was one of the nicest things that, you know, that's ever happened to me. But one of the most fascinating things was that at one point they got up and they decided in a sort of words of tribute, they said, everybody wanted to share the thing they most remember from my ministry that helped them in their lives. Now I don't know why I'm even telling you this

except to make a very important point. There was about 20 of them that shared and what shocked me afterwards, I talked to Kathy about this, I said nobody said anything about any of my sermons. Nobody said, I'll never forget, you know, I'll never forget the sermon where you said this, I'll never forget. And one of your sermons said, nobody said that.

Let me tell you what they remember. One guy I remember, for example, said, I'll never forget that when my son had been arrested and you came down to see us, we were in the waiting room of the prison, we had no idea what was going on, and you got out John 13 verse 7, where Jesus says to Peter, you do not know what I'm doing right now, but later you'll understand. And he said, that changed my life. I never forgot it. I've gone back to it over and over again. Now, I didn't, I wasn't stupid enough to say,

I preached on that. I taught that. You sat right there in the front row and you took notes. Why didn't you get it until your son was in prison? It was the wilderness. He was in the wilderness. He had to go to the wilderness for that to become a living reality to him. In the wilderness you'll find the rock. In the wilderness only he'll be a rock.

He'll be the light when all the lights... It's almost not until all the other lights go out that he becomes your light and not just an abstraction. It's only when all the other wells dry up that he really becomes your water, your food, your hope, your meaning. I mean, I don't want to say that you only grow when you suffer, but what the Bible must be telling you, what the Hebrew... The brighter the Hebrews must be telling you, what the Hebrew, the brighter, the Hebrews must be

saying when he says, remember that you're still in the wilderness, is to say unless you recognize this, that when things go wrong, you won't see the opportunity. You won't see the possibility. And you'll just grin and bear it and hope for it to go away. So first of all, we're taught here that life is a wilderness, and secondly we're taught here that there's a rock in the wilderness. This month, we're excited to let you know about a brand new resource based on Tim Keller's best love books. Go Forward in Love, a year of daily readings from Timothy Keller, features

a short passage each day from one of Dr. Keller's books to use for daily reflection. Each day's reading offers deep insight, biblical wisdom, and spiritual encouragement. The passages are meant to lead you into worship, help you reflect on God's attributes, and encourage you to live more missionally. Go Forward in Love is our thanks when you give to Gospel in Life in November. To receive your copy, just visit Gospelinlife.com slash give. That's Gospelinlife.com slash give. And thank you for your generosity, which helps us share the love of Christ with more people.

The third thing that we're taught here is that you don't just get strength. You don't just get sustenance, but there's honey in the rock. See? If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, with honey from the rock, I would satisfy you. You know what's so amazing about this? This is saying there's more in that rock than you imagine.

See, imagine this. If you go to the rock, if you're in the desert and you see a rock blooming up here on the rock, if you're in the desert and you see a rock looming up here on the right, would you go to it? Yes. We've already suggested why. You'd say, I need the shade by day. I need the warmth at night. By the way, the rock would stay warmer. You know how cold the desert gets because there's nothing that holds onto the warmth. The sand doesn't hold onto the warmth, but the rock would stay warmer at night. It would be cooler during the day. There might be water there. Rainwater might stay in the rock in a way that obviously wouldn't remain

on the desert ground. You'd go to the rock, but you wouldn't expect honey. And the whole idea behind this idea of honey from the rock, it's God's way of saying out of the most promise, the most unpromising situation, I can bring something good. Out of the most rocky times, I can bring love, joy, sweetness, and beauty. In other words, if you come to me in your times of trouble, I won't just give you enough strength to hold on, but I'll make...

I will bring out of the bad times something sweet and something joyful and something beautiful. Now, somebody says, oh, that's interesting. That sounds like Romans 8 28. And it does. And it is, I think, linked to Romans 8 28. But let me just caution you. Romans 8 28 is a famous verse. Lots of people love it, and it goes like this, all things work together for good to those that love God. All things work together for good. And a lot of people say, well, it's just like this, that God is saying, if you trust me, I'll bring good out of something that's unpromising. I'll bring sweetness out of something that's bitter. And that means all things work together for good.

Yes, that's true. But you know what? People, I think, often misunderstand this promise and you can misuse it and you can set yourself for disappointment. First of all, all things work together for good does not mean every individual thing has a good result. See, I think a lot of people feel like every bad thing that happens to me, if I just look enough or if I understood it, I could see that it's having some good result.

So you know, I had the chance of my career to get this great part, but I broke my leg and I didn't get the part and my career took a dive, but I went in the hospital, I met a nurse and we fell in love and we got married and everything's fine now. And somebody would say, see, that's what it means. All things, it doesn't say everything has a good result. That is minimizing the tragicness of life. That is minimizing the wildernessness of life. New word today, first time ever.

Just keep this in mind, it started here. The wildernessness. When people say, oh I'm just sure that somehow there's a silver lining in every cloud. The Bible does not say that. The Bible talks about the tragicness of life. What it says, God says, is all things work together. Not everything has a good result, but all things work together for good. And the other thing we have to keep in mind is that does not mean that every bad thing is really a blessing in disguise.

When Jesus Christ gets to the tomb of Lazarus, where poor Lazarus had died tragically and young, he doesn't say, with a big smile on his face, you know, this is just a blessing in disguise. Because after all, you're going to get him back in a minute and your faith will be built up, and I will be able to show the world my divine power. This really isn't a tragedy.

This is a blessing in disguise. No, he's weeping, and he's mad, and he's's snorting in anger and he's grieving. Why? Because God hates the evil. He hates it. He didn't build us for a world like this. If you want to see the world he built us for, go back to Genesis 1 and 2. It didn't have death. It didn't have tragic death. It didn't have these things in it. He hates it. To bring something good out of something evil doesn't mean it's not really evil. It doesn't mean God likes it. It doesn't mean that…do not go around saying to people, well, you know, this bad thing happened. I'm sure that God has something good in it. That's superficial. It's saccharine. It's minimizing what the scripture says about

the wildernessness, the tragic nature, the brokenness of life. Jesus Christ, though he was going to bring something incredibly good out of Lazarus' death, did not say, oh, it's really a blessing. He didn't say that. So having said all that, what are we being told here? Here's what I think the Bible tells us. Here's what I think the Bible is telling us. That out of your wilderness, God makes you something sweet. Out of wilderness experiences, God can make you like Jesus. He can make you something beautiful. He can deepen your joy.

He can make you something incredibly sweet for other people in their wilderness to eat from, to be nourished by. Quick, for example. Wouldn't you like the sweetness of being a forgiving person? A person who doesn't stay angry at anybody? A person who never knows the misery of being bitter? How do you get that forgiving spirit? You can't get a forgiving spirit easily because the reason why you have trouble forgiving

people is because you feel superior to them. You only sustain your anger and bitterness towards somebody that you say in your heart, I would never do anything like that. In the wilderness, you'll be humbled. In the wilderness, you'll be humiliated. In the wilderness you'll find you're nowhere near as courageous as you thought you were, nowhere near as smart as you thought you were, nowhere near as noble, nowhere near as spiritual, nowhere near as unselfish, and you'll be humiliated by what the wilderness will show you about the fragility and the weakness of your heart and character. But out of the horrible humiliation, out of the rockiness of that, out of the humbling experience in the wilderness, you'll be able to forgive.

Out of the rock, honey. God will make you something sweet. And one more point here. Almost nobody really finds sweetness in prayer except in the wilderness. I mean, everybody starts to pray. We have your quiet time, and you read your Bible, and you say your prayers, and you're supposed to do adoration and confession and thanksgiving.

But I know this. Where do you learn to really get God? Where do you learn to really sense his presence? Where do you sense him being something real? Where do you get the existential connection with him? Almost always it happens. It starts anyway, in the wilderness. And therefore, what we're being told is that there's honey in that rock.

God will not just give you the strength to keep on, not just that, but God can transmute the terrible experiences, the truly evil experiences of the wilderness into making you something courageous, something joyful, something grateful, something forgiving, someone like Jesus. It's almost the only way you get the sweetness in your life. If, now what's interesting here is you say, how, how's that possible? I know people who have suffered

who have not become more forgiving. I know people who have suffered who have not become more forgiving. I know people who have suffered who have not become more grateful and joyful. I know people who have suffered and have not gotten closer to God, but further away from God. Right, because of the word if. Look at verse 13.

If my people would do these things, then you'd get honey from the rock. And that really means there is a condition here. It's only in the rock you get the honey, only by going to God that you get the sweetness. I cannot tell you how severe this is. Everybody in this world will go through the wilderness. Everybody.

No matter how charmed their life looks, everybody. And the wilderness will either make you a more sour or a more sweet. It'll make you a better person or a worse person. It'll make you more like Jesus or less like Jesus. Depending on whether you do what the text tells you. You have to pass the test in the wilderness. Verse 7 says, I tested you in the wilderness. You have to pass the test. How do you pass the test? How do you go to the rock to make sure you become something sweet instead of sour. There's three things. Three things that Psalm 81 says, if my people. First of all, rejoice on schedule.

Secondly, listen to his voice. Thirdly, repent of your idols. These are three disciplines that you must do, and some of you are in the wilderness now. I'm sure. Why? Because you look at this crowd. You get five, six, seven hundred people together.

Some of you are in the wilderness now. It's inevitable. These are three things you must do. And if you do them, they'll be honey in the rock. The first discipline is corporate praise. Notice how the whole Psalm starts. Sing for joy to God our strength. Shout aloud to the God of Jacob. Begin the music, strike the tambourine,

play the melodious harp. Why? Because it is a decree, it's a statute, it's an ordinance that the seventh month of every year feast the tabernacles. Now, don't overlook this as a discipline. God calls you to rejoice on schedule, whether you feel like it or not.

God calls you to come and sing and praise and prayer with the people. Corporate worship. What most people do in terrible times of wilderness is they don't feel like going. Of course you don't feel like going. You don't feel like rejoicing. That's not what you're being told to do here, rejoice on schedule. And by the way, music is important. Derek Kidner, my favorite commentator, says something fascinating about these verses. He says this.

He says, the mention of decree, ordinance, and statute raises the question of how one can rejoice on cue. How can you rejoice on cue? But neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament finds this a difficulty, since there are always solid grounds for gratitude to God. But listen to this, and the most valid means for awakening your heart and reminding your heart of it

is corporate worship, but especially music. Do you know why that would be? When you don't feel like worshiping the king, you need to come to church and sing with everybody else, I worship the king, all glorious above, oh, gratefully sing his power and his love. There is nothing that will gently force your heart to remember the things he's done like music. That's what it says. Rejoice on schedule. The first thing you must do is do not neglect the discipline of corporate worship.

The second thing you must do is you have to meditate. Now, we've talked about these things in the last few weeks. If you haven't been there, all right. But, I mean, if you have been there, this will probably be a little more helpful. But even if you haven't, listen. Over and over and over again, God says to the people in the wilderness,

listen to my voice. Listen to my voice. He doesn't actually just say obey, does he? He says, listen to my voice. And I think this is, when you are in the wilderness, more than anything else, you don't need just a stoic obedience,

though of course you should obey God and you should never disobey God. But you need to go to his word, you need to go to the scripture, you need to reflect, you need to read, and you need to meditate until you sense him speaking to you. You need his counsel. You need to hear his voice in the word of God. You mustn't neglect that discipline because he'll say, you know, John 13, 7 meant nothing to my friend until he was in the wilderness. And what I did with him, you know, I just, I helped him meditate and suddenly he heard

God. You must, you must listen to God's word. That's personal meditation. You must do corporate worship. And then the third thing, this shouldn't surprise you, should it? I say it fairly often. The third thing he says to people who are in the wilderness is, you shall have no foreign God among you, you shall not bow down to an alien God. Now, what he's saying is, in the wilderness,

especially in the wilderness, look for your your idols and here's the reason why This is very hard to keep balance when you are suffering You must know you must not give yourself too much credit or too little Part of the suffering we experienced during times of trial wilderness experiences part of the suffering is unavoidable if You've lost your job, that should hurt because we want to work. If you've lost someone who you've loved or something's going wrong with your relationships, that hurts because you need relationships. Of course, some of this is unavoidable. But when your relationship or your job or your

status or your reputation that has been lost, if it's too important to you, if it's all important to you, if it's your main source of meaning in life, if it's your rock in a sense, then your suffering is going to be magnified through idolatry. And there's always idolatrousness clinging to our normal relationships and our desires and the normal things we do, our attitude toward our reputation, our attitude toward people around us, the way in which we look at ourselves. And therefore, God calls you, especially in the wilderness time, to the discipline of self-examination and repentance for inordinate desires,

for idolatrously magnified desires, which magnify, self-impose a certain amount of your suffering. That's what I, when I said, I said it's important to be balanced. You mustn't think that all of your suffering comes from idolatrous desires, nor that none of it comes. Now those are three incredibly important disciplines. If you do them, if you do corporate worship, scriptural meditation, and self-examination repentance for your underlying idols and inordinate desires, there will be honey in the rock. There will be growing sweetness in your heart.

There'll be growing gratitude in your life. There'll be growing sensitivity to others. There'll be growing wisdom. There'll be growing sobriety and humility, all those things. You'll be becoming more and more like Jesus. If, if my people do those three things, if you pass the test, in a sense, you will find honey in the rock. Now, I told you there's a fourth thing, and here's the reason why. We've said life is a wilderness, there's a rock in the wilderness, and there's honey in the rock. If you pass the test of the wilderness, sweetness, joy, beauty will

come into your life. You'll become, yourself will become sweet, joyful, beautiful. But some of you are saying, I got a problem. And the problem is I don't pass the test when I get in the wilderness. I get in the wilderness now, I understand. In fact, you know, some of you are saying, I get it. I get the paradigm. now, I understand. In fact, you know, some of you are saying, I get it, I get the paradigm, I haven't thought of it like this, okay, I'm in the wilderness, I've been in the wilderness, but you know what?

I don't pass the test, I fail. I don't put God ahead of the other gods. I don't listen to him in his word. I don't, I fail. So, I guess there's no hope for me? Yes, there is. Because life is a wilderness, but there's a rock in the wilderness, and there's honey in the rock, because Jesus is the rock. When Jesus Christ began his ministry, he was immediately thrown into the wilderness for

40 days. He was tested, he was tested, he was tested, and he perfectly obeyed. He passed the test. He did everything that Psalm 81 asks. He passed the test perfectly. He did all the things that the people, in their 40 years in the wilderness didn't do, he did in his 40 days in the wilderness.

So he passed the test that we fail. And you say, thank you for telling me that, but that doesn't make me feel any better. It makes me feel worse. He's Jesus. He can pass the test. I'm not Jesus. I can't pass the test. What hope is there for me? The hope is that Jesus Christ did not pass the test just as your example. If he's only the example, of course he is an example, but if he was only an example, that would just discourage you, but he passed it as a substitute. Exodus 17, the account of the waters from the rock at Maraba. Exodus 17 goes like this, then the people had no water

to drink, so they quarreled with Moses and said, give us water to drink. And Moses replied, why do you put the Lord to the test? And he cried out to the Lord. You know why he was so upset at Maraba? Because when the Hebrew text says they quarreled with God, that word means they lodged a complaint, they sued God. Now, if you're in a relationship with somebody, if you're like in a partnership with somebody

and you sue your partner, you don't want to keep that relationship. You want out. And Moses was a shock. Moses said, you're not just failing the test. You're flunking out of school because they came and they said, bad things are happening in our lives.

We're filled with thirst and we want out of this relationship with God. And Moses was frightened. How in the world could God handle, how could God respond to this kind of rebellion? And of course, God says something to Moses that would have confirmed his fears. And the Lord answered Moses, walk on ahead of the people, take with you some of the elders, and take in your hand the rod with which you struck the Nile, and go stand near the rock at Horeb. Take the rod with which you struck the Nile, and go with the people and the elders, and stand by the rock at Horeb." Now right away, Moses would have said, oh, oh, here it comes.

Because that rod was not just a walking stick. The rod of Moses represented the judicial wrath of God, the justice of God. It was the thing that smote the Egyptians. It's the thing that smote the Nile. It was the justice of God. And God is saying what Moses expected. The people have failed the test. They've utterly failed the test.

And the rod must judge them. That's what Moses thought God was saying. But to Moses' absolute astonishment instead, here's what happened. And the Lord said, I will stand by you before you at the rock. I will stand before you at the rock. Strike the rock and the water will come out of it for the people to drink." So Moses did so. And Moses must have been absolutely shocked. These people failed the test and they still got the water. These people failed the test and they still got provision from the rock. How could that be? And of course, Paul understood, because in 1 Corinthians 10, 4, Paul says this. He says, our forefathers passed through the sea, and in the desert they drank from the rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

Here's what Paul understood. When Jesus went into the wilderness, he passed the test. When you and I go into the wilderness, we fail the test. But what happened when Jesus Christ died? The Bible says, God made him sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And what that means is, when I believe in Jesus, that he died for me, when I say, Father, accept me because of what Jesus has done. God treats Jesus as if he'd failed in the wilderness and he treats me as if I passed. God treats

him. The rod comes down on him. The rod that I deserve, the rod that you deserve. And what that means now, get this, here's what this means. I'll tell you very, very practically, it means now I don't have to be afraid of him in the wilderness. Because of course, if I pass the test the sweetness will come faster. Of course, if I obey him and I do the disciplines, the sweetness will come faster. But I can tell you personally that I find that God changes me and God loves me and God pulls me closer and God meets me not only through my successes, the few that are there in the wilderness, but even through my failures. He meets me not only through my successes, the few that are there in the wilderness, but even through my failures. He meets me in my failures now, not just in the success.

He meets me not just when I pass the test, but usually when I fail the test. Why? Because the rod came down on Jesus. I don't have to be afraid. I don't have to be afraid of the wilderness. He's leading me to the land of promise. He's taking me to the place where there will be no sorrows. He's going to get me there, faster or slower, depending on how much I obey Him.

But regardless, and that's the reason why in the hymn, Jesus can say to you, I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. He can say in the John Newton hymn, these inward trials I employ from self and pride to set thee free and break thy schemes of earthly joy that thou mayst find thine all in me. If you take shelter under the blood of the lamb and God leads you out of slavery, where does he take you? To the desert. But there's a rock in that desert, and there's honey in the rock, and he will change you into the likeness of his son. Let's pray.

Father, we want to eat the same spiritual food. We want to drink the same spiritual drink. And we do that now in the Lord's Supper. Make these truths real to our heart. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. In Jesus' name, amen. from Tim Keller by subscribing to our quarterly journal at GospelinLife.com. When you subscribe, you'll receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other valuable resources. We also invite you to stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's sermon was preached

in 2002. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.