Ps Darin Browne - Australian Bushfires

Psalms 42:1-5 (ESV Strong's)

 

As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?

My tears have been my food

day and night,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

These things I remember,

as I pour out my soul:

how I would go with the throng

and lead them in procession to the house of God

with glad shouts and songs of praise,

a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God.

 

Right now our nation pants for streams of water to fall from the skies and douse the flames of these devastating fires. Whatever you think the cause might be, we know scores of them have been deliberately lit. God us not punishing us, this is life in Australia, but God can intervene, and I believe it’s time for God’s people to rise up and pray for our nation.

 

We have known for a long time our nation has struggled under drought, and our people have similarly struggled in a spiritual drought.

 

Psalms 42:1-2 (ESV Strong's)

As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?

 

For too long our people have dried up in their spirit. What happens in drought? You get a dry and crusty surface, and when the rain does arrive, it simply runs off and fails to penetrate.

 

The leaves of trees dry off and die off and become tinder on the ground, primed and ready for one spark to creat an inferno. Our nation is dry, we are desperate for rain, for a life giving flow of water, and this Psalm talks about that.

 

And they mock us. The media and social media attack mercilessly those who oppose them in their ideals, and that’s nothing new…

 

Psalms 42:3 (ESV Strong's)

My tears have been my food

day and night,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

 

It’s time we man up, folks, and stand for Jesus in our nation. Listen to this from a business owner in Mallacoota…

 

“I was praying. I was an atheist. I was praying to God, praying to Jesus, turn the wind. You wouldn’t believe it—but I’m going to tell you the honest-to-God truth. It pushed this thing back against itself.

 

“Literally we felt the wind come from off the beach, it shouldn’t have, but it did, but it went back at it. I don’t care if anyone else doesn’t recognise it. It was unbelievable… I believe [it was] God’s intervention, absolutely, through prayer…”

 

This is a moment for us to shine God’s love to our whole nation, no matter how they attack, and to lead our people to the living water they so desperately thirst for.

 

When you’re dry you thirst for water, and our nation thirsts this very day for the water of the Spirit of God.

 

Psalms 42:5-6 (ESV Strong's)

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God.

 

Our nation is cast down today. The Hebrew word for cast down is sahah, which means to bring down, stoop, be prostrate, laid low, weakened and depressed. But it also means to be humbled, and we need to humble ourselves today for our people.

 

The Hebrew for turmoil is hamar, which means a roar, a noise, a raging. If you get on Facebook you  will see hundreds of people ranting and raging against, God, Christians, the Prime Minister and anyone who doesn’t accept their version of environmentalism.

 

We cannot drown out the roar, the hate speech and rants, but we can pray and humbly accept the responsibility on behalf of our people and repent.

 

You see, it’s not about governments, lobbyists, greenies or laws, it’s never been about them. It’s not about this opinion or that opinion in the biased media, it has and always will depends on us. We, the people of God, need to pray now!

 

2 Chronicles 7:14 (ESV Strong's)

if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

 

We are responsible for the souls of our people in our generation, and they are so confused and broken and without hope because we don’t care enough to make a stand for our people!

 

Ezekiel 22:30 (ESV Strong's)

And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.

 

That word stand in the gap is amad, and it means not only to stand, but to stay there. This means we don’t walk through the gap, we stand, and we stand as long as is necessary to plug that gap and stop the disaster coming.

 

2 Chronicles 16:9 (ESV Strong's)

For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.

 

God is looking for those who earnestly seek Him, who will pray and believe and stand in the gap for their people. Most Christians struggle to get to church on time, let alone lay their life down for their people!

 

Psalms 63:1 (ESV Strong's)

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;

my soul thirsts for you;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

 

The time for casual Christianity is finished, we need to get serious and pray and believe God for our people, starting with these fires. Because we have not back-burned for so long, these fires have virtually unlimited fuel. My daughter and her husband and family are right in the centre and have been evacuated from their home in Nowra.

 

I can’t stop the flames. I can’t stop the devastation. The Prime Minister can’t, and not even the all powerful media, for all their ranting and rage, they cannot stop this disaster. They can complain and accuse, but can’t help.

 

Only God can pour His mercy upon us. Only God can do this. So today I’m going to ask us to intercede for our nation, for our people. We need specifically a change of wind direction, a dying down of the wind, and we also need rain.

 

Numbers 11:2 (ESV Strong's)

Then the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down.

 

Our only weapon right now is to pray, to cry out to God for our people. I’m going to ask us all to pray right now, to believe for a breakthrough with the fires, a breakthrough with the drought and a breakthrough with the moral bankruptcy that afflicts our nation.

 

But before we pray, I want to you’ve you the opportunity to give in a practical sense.

 

Let me remind you of one story of such a miracle…

 

1 Kings 18:42-45 (ESV Strong's)

 And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’” And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.

 

Lord, even now start forming a raincloud over the sea, and let it grow by the power of God to save our nation from fire and drought!