River of thy Pleasures
In Ps 36:7-8, the Lord shows us that he will make his children, who trust him, drink of the river of his pleasures. We’re going to discuss this verse along with a few other verses to glean an important truth about the “river of thy pleasures”.
Remember how the children of Israel drank water out of the rock when they wandered in the wilderness, 1 Cor 10:4, Ps 78:15-16. You would think that after this divine provision from Christ, they would have never wanted any other water.
However, the world offers lots of alternatives to quench the thirst of men. Eventually, Israel lost their desire for the “river of thy pleasures” and sought something that would appeal to their earthy lusts and desires.
Look at Judah in Jeremiah’s day. Jer 2:13 “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water”.
God is the fountain of living waters. Judah didn’t thirst for his waters. They thirsted for water in a cistern. As you see in Jer 2:13, cisterns can leak after a while and if there is nothing being pumped into them, they dry up. The water just evaporates or gets used up.
This is exactly how it goes with sin. You can’t satisfy your lusts and desires for long. Eventually, your fun dries up. The place of your pleasure is like a broken cistern. There’s nothing in it that can quench your thirst.
In our age, when a person hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he first must get saved and tap into God’s well of water. This well flows out of a spring…
Jn 4:14 … “the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”.
This well is the only water that can quench a man’s thirst for living water. Once he gets a saving drink out of this well, then he should drink continually out of this well, rather than the world’s rivers. Sadly, many look to the world to fulfill their lusts.
When a man will forsake the world and put his trust in God, then he will enjoy what God promised in Ps 36.
Ps 36:7-8 … “therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures”.
We find satisfying pleasure while quenching our thirst in God’s river. No matter what lust we try to satisfy in the world, there is no way that we will ever be “abundantly satisfied” like we are with the fatness of thy house and the river of thy pleasures.
When we’re drinking from this river, not only will we quench our thirst, but we will also be a genuine testimony…
Jn 7:38 “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. People in the world can, in essence, see the water flowing out of him. There’s something noticeably different about a Christian who seeks his pleasure from God and the Christian who seeks his pleasure from the world.
And not only will we be a good testimony, but we will also be a faithful witness. People can come to us to find out about the water they need. We can tell them, firsthand.
Prov 10:11 “The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life”.
Conclusion: Quit going to the world for a drink. You’ll just end up thirstier than when you took the drink. Go rather to the “river of thy pleasures”. God’s water is an eternal flowing stream. When you drink from it, you are satisfied. And you come away with a fountain of water flowing from you to others who are thirsting for living water.