Because Jesus was truly deserted, our desertions are only temporary trials — Timothy Keller

"You see, everybody but God will let you down. God will never let you down. God will never drop you. God’s arms will never fail you, but believe it or not, do you know why? Because there was one person who God’s arms failed. Jesus Christ did not sin, but he was truly deserted. We just feel deserted. He was truly deserted.

Because he was truly deserted, you will never be. That’s the reason why the psalmist can say, “… I will yet praise him …” You see, do you right now say, “Lord Jesus, I thirst”? Can you say this? Can you say, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”? The reason you know someday you will praise him, someday you will drink, you will not starve, you will not die of thirst, is because when Jesus Christ said, “I thirst,” all he got was vinegar.

If you say to the Lord, “I thirst,” I can tell you this: you won’t get vinegar. You won’t get a sop. Because Jesus was truly deserted, our desertions are only temporary trials. Are you thirsty tonight? Are you hungry tonight? We’re about to take the bread and the cup. It represents the fact that anybody who comes tonight … You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be great. You don’t have to have it all together. You might feel as far away from God as this psalmist. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come. Say, “I thirst.” You won’t get vinegar. Let’s pray."

— Timothy Keller

For the Christian, God is the ultimate beauty — Timothy Keller

"…I’ve been reading more of Jonathan Edwards, who is a great American theologian. The one thing he continually brings up … It strikes me over and over again, and I see it more and more in the Scripture.
That is he says the difference between a real Christian and just a religious person, the difference between a real regenerated (he would say) Christian, a Christian with a regenerated or renewed heart by the Holy Spirit, and just a religious person is the religious person finds God useful, but the real Christian finds God beautiful. That’s the essence of the difference. In other words, he would say verse 4 is the very essence of the cry of a real Christian heart. This is the essence.

He would say a Christian and a religious person … you put them together, and they may both be obedient to God. Let me go further. They may both be very committed to God … really, really committed to God. I’ll go further. They may both be bowing to God and submitted to God. One step further. They may even be both desperately seeking God. The religious is driven, and the Christian is attracted.

That’s the difference, because, you see, the religious person may be desperate for God, but the religious person wants what God can give. In the religious person, the eye of your heart has found something so beautiful, and you’re going to God to get it. If God doesn’t give it to you, you walk away because the thing that is truly beautiful to you … You may be very committed. You may be giving yourself, but the thing that’s most beautiful to you in the whole world isn’t God himself.

Therefore, you see, religious people want God to do things for them. They’re very upset if he doesn’t. A Christian above everything else wants only one thing, and that is God himself. When God comes to Abraham, he says, “I am thy shield …” We all want that, but get this. “… and thy exceeding great reward.” The religious person says, “You’re my reward. That’s it? You’re my reward? How about physical safety? How about just a use for my gifts in my work? How about a happy family?”

God says, “I am thy reward.” A religious person doesn’t get that. They say, “That’s it?” You see, a Christian is somebody who says, “One thing. The thing I want is you. The thing I find beautiful is you.” You see, to find something beautiful is to say, “This isn’t a means to anything. This is the thing.” If you’ve ever experienced an incredibly beautiful piece of music … Now, you know, it’s different for all of us, is that not true?

A certain piece of music will just overwhelm you. You put it on, and you sit, and you listen to it. What happens? You weep. You’re overwhelmed. It washes over you, and you forget everything else. It’s sort of like your beauty sensors just can’t take any more. They’re overflowing. They’re backed up into the rest of your system. There’s nothing else you could do. This isn’t a means to anything. This is the thing itself. This is what you live for … to experience the beauty.

You don’t say, “Jesus will be really useful.” No. Useful for what? See, there has to be a bottom line somewhere. There has to be a bottom line. Everything is useful for something, but at some point, you have to rest and say, “This is it. I’m doing this. I’m doing this to get to …” What? For the Christian, God is the ultimate beauty. I was just reading one of Edwards’ sermons (a sermon he wrote when he was 20). It was on the text of 2 Corinthians 2:14.

The name of the sermon is A Spiritual Understanding of Divine Things Denied the Unregenerate. That’s the name of the sermon. Aren’t you glad you have a minister whose titles are different? A Spiritual Understanding of Divine Things Denied the Unregenerate. This is a paraphrase of a typical passage.

“The regenerate soul, the real Christian, sees a beauty and an amiableness and tastes an incomparable sweetness that is all together hidden from the unregenerate. Unbelievers may know about spiritual beauty by hearsay. They may even be able to make fine speeches about spiritual beauty. To the regenerate, God has given a glance and there breaks in upon the soul a heavenly sweetness, such a sense of the amiableness and holiness and an excellency in God and a sweet loveliness in Christ. He sees by new light that was never before let into his mind.”

That’s the difference. A Christian is somebody who actually says not, “I’m in this. I want to pray.” You see, here’s the difference. A religious person prays and says, “I get nothing out of it. God never answers my prayer.” A Christian is somebody who finds praise and contemplation of God far and away the deepest and most satisfying part of prayer."

— Timothy Keller, The beauty of God

When gathering clouds around I view — Robert Grant

"When gathering clouds around I view,
And days are dark, and friends are few,
On Him I lean, who not in vain
Experienced every human pain;
He sees my wants, allays my fears,
And counts and treasures all my tears.

If aught should tempt my soul to stray
From heavenly wisdom’s narrow way,
To fly the good I would pursue,
Or do the sin I would not do,
Still He, who felt temptation’s power,
Shall guard me in that dangerous hour.

If wounded love my bosom swell,
Deceived by those I prized too well,
He shall His pitying aid bestow,
Who felt on earth severer woe,
At once betrayed, denied, or fled,
By those who shared His daily bread.

If vexing thoughts within me rise
And, sore dismayed, my spirit dies,
Still He, who once vouchsafed to bear
The sickening anguish of despair,
Shall sweetly soothe, shall gently dry,
The throbbing heart, the streaming eye.

When, sorrowing, o’er some stone I bend,
Which covers what was once a friend,
And from his voice, his hand, his smile,
Divides me for a little while,
Thou, Savior, mark’st the tears I shed,
For Thou didst weep o’er Lazarus dead.

And O, when I have safely passed,
Through every conflict but the last;
Still, still unchanging, watch beside
My painful bed, for Thou hast died;
Then point to realms of cloudless day,
And wipe the latest tear way."

— Robert Grant

To pray is the obvious, natural thing for a child to do — Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"Prayer is something which is expressive of the relationship between the child and the Father. Now I think that is a very important argument. You show me a man who does not pray very much and I will tell you the real problem of that man. It is that he does not know God, he does not know God as his Father. That is the trouble. The problem is not that he is not a moral man, or that he is not a good man. He can be highly moral, he may be very faithful in Christian church work, there may be nothing he is not prepared to do, but if he does not pray, I tell you that the essence of that man’s trouble is that he does not know God as his Father. For those who know God best are the ones who speak to him most of all.
There is no need to prove a thing like this—the little child always speaks to his Father. Have you not often noticed how the child of some great man talks to him freely, while another man going into his presence is nervous. Not so the child; the child speaks freely, because he knows the relationship and so he speaks to his father. And that is why the most saintly people are the ones who pray most; that is why the Lord Jesus Christ prayed more than anybody else, because he knew God in a way nobody else knew him. That, then, is the way to approach this question of prayer. The whole trouble with people who get into difficulties over prayer is that they start at the end instead of at the beginning. You do not start with the desire for answers, you start with adoration, and it is because we forget this all important matter that we tend to get into such perplexities. To pray is the obvious, natural thing for a child to do and there is nothing that expresses more eloquently or more cogently the whole relationship of man to God as prayer. That is the first thing. So, then, I think that the saints and, supremely, our Lord himself, prayed to God, primarily, not to ask for things but to assure their own hearts and to maintain their contact with God and to make certain of their contact and communion with him.
Our whole idea of prayer is false. We think of prayer only as guidance and requests. Now if you were to put that into practice in human relationships you would regard it as insulting. No, the thing the saint wants to know above everything else is that all is well between his soul and the Father. There is nothing the saint delights in more than to know God as his Father. He likes to maintain the contact and communion, to assure his heart before God and in the presence of God. The saint is in this difficult world, there are temptations from the outside and the whole world is against us, and the saint is tried—sometimes he almost despairs. So he goes to God immediately, not to ask this or that but just to make certain that all is well there, that the contact is unbroken and perfect, that he can assure his heart and know that all is well.
That is what our Lord is doing here in John 17, and that is the thing which stands out most frequently in this prayer. Our Lord is assuring his own human heart in the presence of his Father…"

— Martyn Lloyd-Jones (2000). The assurance of our salvation: Exploring the depth of Jesus' prayer for His own: Studies in John 17 (33–35). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

The greatest ground of security in this world — Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"There is no greater ground of security in this world of time than to feel that you are a part of the grand plan and purpose of God. None of these things are accidental, none of them are fortuitous. It does not matter what may happen in the future, nothing can disturb this plan. My friend, if you are a Christian, do you know that you were the object of God’s interest and concern before the foundation of the world? All these things have been worked out in eternity, before time, so we must always remember that nothing can happen in time which will make the slightest difference. That is the argument which we find so constantly in the Scriptures. We must never be tired of quoting those great words: ‘For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38–39). And if you have ever been in any doubt about that, read this prayer and see the security as he outlines it here…

Can you imagine anything that is more comforting than this, that the Lord Jesus Christ has prayed for you: ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word’? (John 17:20) Do you realize that when he was praying this prayer the Lord Jesus Christ was praying for you? Now, if we are Christians, we all like to have people praying for us… Is there anything that gives greater consolation than to know that people are praying for you? I know of nothing that is a greater encouragement to me, in my work and in my ministry, than to know that people are praying for me. They are going to God who is the source of all power and asking him to fill me with power.
So, then, if you believe in the prayer of a saintly person, how much more should you believe in the prayer of the Son of God for you. Here (John 17) he lets us know that he prayed for us and he goes on praying for us, and, most wonderful of all, what he does is to put us into the hands of God. He says: ‘Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept … and now come I to thee’ (John 17:11–13). ‘Father,’ he says in effect, ‘I hand them back to you, you keep them.’ If only we could somehow take hold of this wonderful truth, that the Lord Jesus Christ, himself, has put us into the safe keeping of God and that we are therefore in God’s safe keeping!"

— Martyn Lloyd-Jones (2000). The assurance of our salvation: Exploring the depth of Jesus' prayer for His own: Studies in John 17 (18–21). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.