Oh He walks with me and holds me
in his everlasting arms. Joy to the heart and love of
all, in the everlasting grace. God's wisdom, love, and truth
that crown the mighty. you. Let's turn in our Bibles to John
chapter 7 to spend some time contemplating the context of
this particular verse, but I want us to take special note in verse
37. In the last day, the great day
of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst,
Let him come unto me and drink. If the Lord Jesus Christ cries,
I want to know what he cries. I want to know why he cries. And
I want to be one. to whom his voice is heard and
heeded. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
the blessed Holy Spirit alone can take the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ and make them spirit and life to our souls and we
pray, Heavenly Father, That might be our portion this
morning, Heavenly Father, that we might find ourselves thirsty.
We might find ourselves hearing the Lord Jesus Christ saying,
come, the thirsty ones, to me and to drink. Drink water from
the wells of salvation. All our springs are in Him. Bless
your word, Heavenly Father, and bless the hearts and the receptive
ears that might hear the Lord Jesus Christ speaking this morning. For we pray in his name and for
his glory. Amen. So the Feast of Tabernacles is
an eight-day feast, began on a Sabbath, finished on a Sabbath.
It was celebrating, it celebrated the in-gathering of the harvest. It was one of three feasts that
men were required to attend. You can read about it in Exodus
and Leviticus. Exodus and Leviticus 23 and it
was supposed to be a time of rejoicing. It was the Feast of
Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles that they made themselves. little
shelters of branches and palm fronds and for seven days they
lived in these and it was a reminder of their wilderness wanderings
and so this is that last and great day of the feast that we
have here before us in John chapter 7 in these verses and as I said
earlier, the great and solemn occasion that the Jews had constructed
by their own religious activity, trying to add to the Word of
God and trying, you can imagine, you can imagine, can't you, hundreds
of priests all dressed in all of their robes and their phylacteries
and all of the fanciness of all of the celebration and the sacrifices
happening and the blood flowing and they go down and they bring
these buckets of water back up to the festival and pour them
on the altar, and there is the altar, and there is the Lord
Jesus Christ, and there is the true sacrifice, and there is
the one who truly has the waters of salvation in him personally
and he cries out. He cries out and I think one
of the reasons he cried out is to be heard above all the noise
that was going on, to be heard above all the religious activity
because Isaiah 42 says that he will not raise his voice. He
doesn't go about making a noise to have himself known. He's not
out to win a popularity contest. He's not a politician trying
to win people over. He's come to seek and to save
the lost, and he goes throughout his life with extraordinary calmness.
But this is a special, special event. And this crowd that he's
speaking to, this crowd that wants to kill him, this crowd
that twice in these passages wants to send people to arrest
him, is a picture religious and confused, religious
and ignorant, ignorant of he who was crying out to them. He
who knew their future, he who knew the emptiness of their religion,
he who knew that they had a zeal for God, but it wasn't according
to knowledge, he who knew that they were ignorant of God's righteousness
and they're going about to establish their own righteousness. They
were empty. They were empty at the end of
the day. as much empty at the end of this
festival as they were at the beginning of it. They were confused
at the beginning and confused at the end. And one thing that's
really significant in all of the Lord's dealings with these
people, especially the most religious people, the most zealous in religion,
the ones that are closest to the temple, the ones that know
the Bible the best, and living God. We mustn't assume
that. Just because their religion is
highly esteemed among men and just because they're extraordinarily
learned, it doesn't mean that they know anything about God. We had a young man staying with
us some six or eight months ago. I asked him when we were sitting
on the ground This was a guy who had spent
20-odd years in religion and he wasn't sitting on the sidelines.
He was extraordinarily zealous and extraordinarily active in
his church in Sydney, leading Bible studies and meeting with
people. And he said, I don't really know. I don't know what happened at
the cross. And he said, my wife and I had
a long discussion about this last week and we still don't
know what happened. And he had 20 years and he was an extraordinarily
intelligent man. And so into this confusion, into
all of this religious activity, the Lord Jesus comes and he steps
forward. And he doesn't try and correct
their errors. He just calls out his sheep.
He calls out his sheep, and that's what he's doing all of the time,
isn't it? He's calling out his sheep. He's come to seek and
to save the lost. And I love what he says. He says,
come. Let's make it really, really
abundantly clear from the beginning. The gospel says come. The gospel
again and again says come. It doesn't say go and do. It
says come and drink freely. come and be satisfied which is
essential for life. The spirit and the bride at the
end of the scriptures say come. This is the message of the church
in all ages. It's come. Come unto me. All believers come to the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. They come to him, not to an outward
religious performance. They come to him, not to some
doctrinal position. They come to him, not to a denomination. They come to him, not to a morally
changed life. They come to him, They come to
him personally. In the previous chapter, 5,000
had been fed and they'd eaten the gifts and had no knowledge
of the giver and no love for the giver. Come and see, come
and see. Come and see is the message of
John's gospel again and again. come and keep coming, come and
believe and keep on believing. That's what the woman at the
well said, didn't she, to that Samaritan, lost Samaritan crowd. She said, come and see a man
who told me all things whatsoever I did. Why don't men come? We've looked at this again and
again in John's gospel, hasn't it? This is the condemnation
that light has come into the world. In the next chapter, we'll
be talking about the Lord Jesus as the light of the world. And
men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were
evil. I come in my Father's name, says
the Lord Jesus, and you've received me not. But if another come in
his own name, you will receive him. You will receive someone
in religion. You'll receive someone performing
these fancy religious activities. And what is the evidence of people
coming? They're coming right now. They
keep coming. They are coming continually. They can only come when they're
drawn by God the Father. You will not come to me that
you might have life, says the Lord Jesus in John 5.40. No man
can come to me. But all that are taught of God,
every man that has heard John 6.45 and learned of the Father,
cometh to me. It means he comes at ETH, he
comes and he keeps coming and he keeps coming. And as I said,
the evidence is that they are coming now. Right now is the
command of the Lord Jesus Christ, come to him. And what do the
coming ones receive from this text of scripture? A drink to
quench their thirst. And then, in the following verse,
What do they then give to other thirsty ones? Listen to what
he says in John 7.38. He that believeth on me, as the
scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. The gospel comes. to the thirsty
and the needy, and out of the thirsty and the needy comes this
river of living water. And that's exactly what fellowship
in church is about. So let's go back and look at
the context of this briefly, and then we'll come to our verse
particularly. As I said earlier, these people
were confused in their religion. Listen to what they say. He says
to them in John 7 24, Judge not according to appearances. You
look at me. And you look at me as a very ordinary man, as you
looked at John the Baptist, and thought, there's nothing there
that's attractive. It's exactly what Isaiah 52 said.
There's nothing about him that was personally and physically
attractive. He said, judge not according to appearance, but
judge righteous judgment. Then some of them of Jerusalem
said, is not this he whom they seek to kill. But lo, he speaketh
boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the real rulers
know, indeed, that this is the very Christ? Howbeit, we know
this man whence he is, and when, but when Christ cometh, no man
knows whence he is. That's not according to the Scriptures.
Where would he come from? 30 years earlier, when the wise
men from the East had come to Herod, those people in Jerusalem
knew exactly where he was coming from, Bethlehem. Did any one
of these people go and examine any of the evidence? It looks
as if they didn't. So they're confused, and it's
contradictory, isn't it? The Scriptures plainly declare
where he'd be born. They plainly declare what tribe
he'd come from. Religious and lost, confused
and contradictory. Verse 28, it's the first cry
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll be looking at the second
one in detail. But then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught,
saying, you both know me and you know whence I am. And I am not come of myself,
but he that sent me is true, whom you know not. But I know
him, for I am from him, and he has sent me. The Lord Jesus Christ
just simply confronts them with the truth of who he is, as if
he hadn't said it before again and again and again to them.
He said it when he first arrived in Jerusalem at the temple in
John chapter 2, didn't he? He said, this is my father's
house. And they knew what he was saying, that he was making
himself equal with God. When the truth is preached, I
really do believe that men know it's the truth. They mightn't
like it. They mightn't like what they're hearing. They mightn't
like what they're hearing about God. They mightn't like what
they're hearing about themselves. But the truth is its own witness. He says to them, you know who
I am. You know that I've come from
heaven. That's what I've claimed all through. That's what John
the Baptist proclaimed. Their problem is that they didn't
know Him, and they didn't know the Father, and they didn't know
the One who had sent Him, even though they were proclaiming
Jehovah's praises as they were doing these very things there.
Then they sought to take him, but no man laid hands on him. They sought to take him to kill
him. That was their purpose, wasn't it? They sought to take
him to silence him, to rid their presence of him, because his
hour was not yet come. The Lord Jesus Christ has an
hour. We looked at that a few weeks ago, and nothing's going
to happen outside of his timing. His timing is perfect all the
time, in every circumstance. And many of the people believed
on him and said, when Christ cometh, will he do more miracles
than these which this man has done? And the Pharisees heard that
the people murmured such things concerning him, and the Pharisees
and the chief priests sent officers to take him. Then said Jesus
unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go
to him that sent you, sent me. You shall seek me and not find
me, and where I am, thither you cannot come. Then said the Jews
among themselves, Where will he go? Thither will he go? That
we shall not find him? Will he go to the dispersed among
the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles? What manner of saying is this
that he said, You shall seek me and shall not find me, and
where I am, thither you cannot come? Isn't it extraordinary
when the Lord Jesus Christ confronts these religious people, he doesn't
try in a sense to unconfuse them, he just tells them the truth
about who he is, he tells them the truth about why he came,
he tells them the truth about who his father is. Confusion,
contradiction and jealousy. is what's going on with all of
these religious people. And that is the backdrop to this
remarkable statement, this cry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I'd just like us to look at these words. I'd like us to think of
why the Lord Jesus Christ cried these things and the fact that
he cried them then, he's still crying them today. These are
living words, aren't they? In the last day, that great day
of the feast, Jesus stood and cried. saying, if any man thirst,
let him come unto me and drink. If any man thirst, let him come
unto me and drink. I want to say at the outset that
this is a command from God. Let him come is a command from
God, the command of God to each and every one of us that hear
and each and every one that heard him was to come. If any man thirst,
if any man thirst. The reality is that men are not
thirsty. It's as simple as that. Most
people are not thirsty. In fact, the thirst that he's
speaking of is a thirst that God alone creates, isn't it?
It's a thirst that those who are born from above truly do. It's a spiritual thirst he's
talking about. There was plenty of water floating around in the
temple that day, bucket loads of water. He's talking about
a spiritual thirst, a spiritual life. The newborn babies cry. They cry, don't they? They're hungry, they're crying
to have a thirst quenched. But not everyone is thirsty. I remember people saying years
ago when I was in religion, there's a Jesus-shaped hole in every
man's heart. Doesn't that sound sweet? There's
a Jesus-shaped hole in every man's heart which he only can
fill. That's rubbish, isn't it? These
people had no Jesus-shaped hole in their heart. These men were
happy in their religion. They found the Lord Jesus Christ
in irritation. They found him a divisive man.
And that, again, is the experience of God's people throughout this
world when they confront people in religion, isn't it? People
are happy. People are happy in their religion. They're happy with their religious
experiences. They're happy with their doctrinal
knowledge. They're happy with all of the
circumstances that surround them. And they don't want to be troubled.
Don't trouble us about God in his true character. Don't trouble
us about what happened at the cross. Don't trouble us about
the fact that man-made religion, rather than leading people to
God, hides the Lord Jesus Christ from them. There is a thirst,
there is a hunger, isn't it? Blessed are they who hunger and
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be fulfilled. The
blessing is being thirsty, brothers and sisters. The blessing is
being hungry, isn't it? For they shall be fulfilled.
The Lord Jesus Christ came and came to call the thirsty, but
then, as well as there being a particular group that are thirsty,
he then says, if any man, if any man. So the gospel is not
for everyone, but the gospel is for any man, isn't it? Anybody. Don't you love that word whosoever? This any man is like that, whosoever. I can fit into a whosoever category. I can fit into an anyman category. Anyman. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. what your
credentials are. It doesn't matter how ignorant
you are. It doesn't matter how confused you are. It doesn't
matter how sinful you are. It doesn't matter how dark your
past has been. It doesn't matter how good your
past has been. It doesn't matter how dark your future appears. It doesn't matter how religious
or irreligious. It's any man, any man. Whosoever will, revelation finishes,
doesn't it? Whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely, freely. You don't have to find a reason
within yourself to come and drink. If any man thirsts, let him come
to me and drink. What is it to be thirsty? Most
of us know what it is to be thirsty. I love how the pictures of salvation
and the pictures of coming to the Lord Jesus Christ are so
incredibly simple, aren't they? And they're so extraordinarily
common of all life, aren't they? I don't know if you remember
times in your life when you have been extraordinarily thirsty
and desperately in need. of water. I remember once I went
up to the mountain property that my family owned and I was only,
I might have only been in primary school, but I was just a young
fellow and we were up there picking up rocks while this man ploughed
all these paddocks and I didn't take anything and I don't know
if I had any breakfast and they had all the food with them and
I was too shy and embarrassed to ask for anything and I remember
I remember to this day absolutely starving, absolutely desperate. I can picture the scene of my
desperation as I tried to pick up these rocks and not look at
them as if I was hungry. But it's indelibly printed on
us, isn't it? To be thirsty is to be in need,
isn't it? It's to have an absence of something
which is is to have a lack. It's a lack
and it's a needing of something that has to come from without
you. It doesn't come and it cannot
come from within and it cannot be produced for you. And it's
a desperate need. I think people only live for
a few days if they don't drink. You can live for weeks without
eating, but you can't live for very long without food. And you
who know more about these things will be able to talk about this
at morning tea time. But water is absolutely essential for life.
We are made up of so much water in our bodies. It's to be in
a desperate need. It's a desperate need that unless
it's satisfied, you'll die without it being satisfied. You'll die
without it. It's not about an option. It's
not about an opinion to be discussed or debated. It is absolutely
essential. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
is speaking spiritual truths to his people, isn't he? He's
speaking a spiritual truth about the lack that we have. We lack
righteousness, we lack holiness, we lack the ability to bring
anything to the table of God for the forgiveness of our sins.
there is a desperate need in the midst of a confused and confusing
world and particularly a confused religious world to know what
the truth is. In some sense we are here today
because when I went to India I had a desperate need to know
the truth. My bubble was burst, my religious bubble that I'd
studied and worked so hard for to sort of build up around me
when I went to India was burst and I was leading little ones
in the scriptures and the The book I was preaching and teaching
from was Mark and in Mark chapter 10 it says, you're better, you're
better to be a rotting corpse on the bottom of the sea of Galilee
than to leave one of these little ones astray. And I spent, I was
thirsty, I was lacking. And I said to the Lord, I don't
care what it cost me. I don't care what it cost me. I just want to know what's true.
All of what I had thought, all of what I had learned in the
Bible colleges here was unraveled and undone. And in some sense,
I felt like Isaiah in the temple. I was an undone man. And the
Lord had to put it all back together again. I pleaded with him. I
was thirsty. If you search and are thirsty
for the truth of who God is and the truth of how a lost sinner
can come into his presence, how someone who has sinned openly,
willfully, willingly and repeatedly can come and live in the presence
of a righteous and holy God who must punish sin. I need to know
the truth about God. I'm thirsty to know the truth
about God. I'm thirsty to know the truth of how He saves sinners.
I'm thirsty for mercy. I'm thirsty for God not to give
me what I deserve. I'm thirsty for grace, for God
to give me what I do not deserve. I'm thirsty. There's a void that
must be filled. If any man thirst, They're here,
the Lord gives the solution to the problem, and I love the fact
when the Lord tells the thirsty one what he's to do, it's actually
a command from God. Let him come to me and drink. There are so many reasons for
us to run from the true and living God. Let him come, it's a command
from God. It's not an invitation that you're
allowed to turn down. It's not an offer that is up
to you to accept or reject. This is a command. God's word
comes and God's gospel comes as a command from God. If you're thirsty, come. I love
the fact that our warrant for coming is his command for us
to come. And the cause of our coming is
our need that we must come. Let him come. Let him come. There's no point asking questions
about whether I'm one of the elect, or did Jesus die for me,
or does God love me. Those questions aren't the issue.
If you're thirsty, he says, come. He says, come. Come to me. Come
to me and drink. See, there's only one place to
go, and it's a person. He says, come to me, and he commands
you to come to him, not to doctrine, not to a system of theology,
not to a religious performance, but come to him in the midst
of this extraordinary religious performance. He's saying, you
come to me, come to him, come to him now, and come to him and
don't move a muscle. It's a spiritual activity of
coming. He is the one to whom coming. The last time the Lord Jesus
spoke of this coming and this drinking was to that Samaritan
woman. Do you remember what he said
in John chapter four? It's glorious, isn't it? I love
what he said. It's one of my favorite verses
in the Bible. He says to this woman in John
14, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto
you, Give me to drink, you would have asked of him, and he would
have given you living water. And the living water, this spiritual
living water, is a water that causes you never to thirst again.
So fulfilling and satisfying is the Lord Jesus Christ. So
what is it to come to him? He says, come. What is it to
come? We've looked at it in many places.
It's so prominent in John's gospel. I'll just go through some of
them briefly with you. In John chapter 5 verse 40, It is, coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ is a picture of what people who have spiritual life from
above have, isn't it? He says, you will not come to
me that you might have life. So why do people come? Because
they do have life. And those, as I love that verse
in 1 Peter 2, is to whom coming? Those that come, they keep on
coming. Coming, if we turn to John 6, Coming to the Lord Jesus Christ
is the activity of God the Father. It's a picture and a reflection
of God's electing grace, isn't it? Verse 37 of John 6, all that
the Father giveth me shall come. Is there any doubt about that?
Shall they come? They all will come, won't they? They shall come. And him that
cometh To me, I will in no wise cast out. It's the evidence,
isn't it? It's the evidence, and it's a
sign of spiritual life. It's the evidence of an eternal
work of God the Father. Coming to Christ is God's teaching
of his people. I've quoted this verse so many
times, and I keep loving it more and more. It is verse 45 of John
6. It's written of the prophets,
and they shall all be taught of God. So those that are taught
of God, every man therefore that has heard and has learned of
the Father, to hear and to learn of God the Father is to come
to the Lord Jesus Christ. To come to the Lord Jesus Christ
is to be drawn by God the Father. He alone does the drawing, and
when he draws, people come. John 6.44 No man can come to
me except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will
raise him up at the last day. Coming to Christ is the message
of the Church. Come, come and drink. Come and welcome Jesus Christ. Coming to Him, coming necessitates
some things, doesn't it? Coming necessitates a thirst. A thirst coming necessitates
a lack of something you don't have, something you desperately
need. But coming to the Lord Jesus Christ also necessitates
leaving a place and going to a new place, isn't it? If you've
really come to Him, You've left everything else behind. In the
words of Paul in Philippians chapter three, what is it that
you've left behind? All of this religious activity
that the Lord Jesus is talking about on that day, Paul in Philippians
three says is dung. It's just dung. So the issue is not what you've
left behind, but who are you going to? And where are you going? And who's your company on that
journey? He says to this religious crowd,
says to his elect in this religious crowd, come to me. Come, come. And what were they
celebrating that week? We'll have an understanding of
what they had to leave when we have an understanding of what
that festival was all about. It was a commemoration of their
wilderness wanderings, wasn't it? They were commemorating and
celebrating that week. How were they delivered from
Egypt? by their activities or by the hand of God? It was blood
redemption that brought them out of Egypt and the sovereign
hand of God brought them out of Egypt. How did they drink
in the wilderness? Did they drink in the wilderness
by digging wells for themselves and finding? They drank in the
wilderness out of that rock, the split rock, the smitten rock
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who made the waters of Mara when
they crossed the Red Sea? Who made those waters bitter?
How did they manage to cross the Red Sea? This is what they
were all celebrating that time, weren't they? Who dried up the
floor of that sea and made it dry land and not a muddy bog?
They walked across there as if it was a road. They left Egyptian
bondage to travel to the promised land flowing with milk and honey. Who provided the harvests that
they just gathered in that day? See, ultimately coming to Christ
involves leaving every notion aid, works, religion, man's righteousness,
man's religion, man's law-keeping, all of that bondage, it's his
leaving all and every notion of you bringing something which
you think will make you more acceptable to God. That's what
Egyptian bondage and legalism was all about, isn't it? It's
leaving any and every notion that my salvation is dependent
upon me doing something. They were delivered, weren't
they? They were celebrating a deliverance by the sovereign hand of God.
There is no quenching of thirst in man-made religion. There is
no quenching of thirst in religion which takes the very name and
the character and the words of God and turns it into a religion
of do this and live. How do you know you've come to
him? Because you've left all that
behind, brothers and sisters. You've left all that behind.
As Saul of Tarsus left it all behind. That's why the Lord says, Don't go back to Egypt. Don't
go back to those leeks and the garlic and all of those things
in Egypt. That's exactly what the flesh
of those Israelites did, wasn't it? They were always wanting
to go back. You leave it all behind. Faith is what you come to. Faith is whom you come to. The Lord Jesus says in John 6,
35, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Coming to the Lord Jesus Christ
and believing on him and receiving him are all exactly the same. He says it at the beginning of
John's gospel, doesn't he? But as many as received him, To them
gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed
on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Coming to
Christ and believing on his name are the same. It's believing
who he says he is. It's believing the very character
of God, the character of God that they were singing about
in Isaiah chapter 12. that one who is the Lord our
righteousness, the one who is the absolute sovereign of this
world and sits on this throne, the one who came to seek and
to save the lost, the one who is the surety. I love thinking
about him being the surety of that covenant in his blood. When
he and God the Father struck hands before the foundation of
the world, And the Lord Jesus Christ stood as surety, and all
of his people stood in him. From that moment on, God the
Father looks to his Son for everything from me. He looks to his Son
for all of my righteousness. He looks to his Son for all of
my sin bearing. He looks to his Son for everything. And the Lord Jesus Christ now
stands in heaven, and all he does representing us. To come to Christ
is to believe on his name, isn't it? That's what the thief on
the cross said. He said, Lord, remember me when you come into
your kingdom. If the Lord Jesus Christ remembers
our name before the Father, brothers and sisters, everything is fine.
Everything is fine here. Everything is fine for the rest
of our days here. And coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ is not a long journey. don't you? Throughout John's
Gospel we see these remarkable pictures of people coming and
in an instant they start believing and in an instant they are at
rest. I love that picture of the nobleman. He came up and
he pleaded and pleaded and pleaded with the Lord to come down and
eventually the Lord just says, and all of his thirst for his
son's well-being was quenched. We come to Christ, just to reiterate,
we come to Christ because we need him. We come to Christ because
we need him. I need him to represent me before
the Father. I need him to be my righteousness
because I have none of my own. I need his precious blood because
I can't do anything to pay for my sins in any way. I need him
ultimately to show me my need and to continually show me my
need because in this flesh I will continually be wanting to be
weaving a robe of righteousness of my own. But we come to Christ. We come to Christ because we you've left it all behind and
you come to him you come to him because you need and he says
finally we come to him because he's beautiful but we come to
him because he says drink he says drink if you're thirsty
he just says to drink A simple picture of what we do
all the time, isn't it? You come to drink. What's drink?
We drink from the fountain. We drink and we bathe in the
fountain. We swim in the fountain. What does drinking, what does
drinking imply? I've just drunk because I was
thirsty and my throat was dry. It's satisfaction is what drinking
implies, isn't it? I'm satisfied. I am satisfied
with him. I am satisfied with his finished
work. I am satisfied and my conscience
is satisfied. When he cried out, it is finished,
everything was finished. I am satisfied in knowing that
his righteousness is mine. And that robe, that woven robe,
that seamless robe, is a robe that every one of his children
wear. I'm satisfied with the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ because who he is and what he's done
is good news for me and it's continually good news for me.
And I look around this world and I need somewhere else to
look again and again. And I'm satisfied. I'm drunk and I'm satisfied. It's one of Norm's favourite
verses, used to be, and I hope it still is, is, as he is, so
are we in this world. Is he holy? I'm satisfied with
his holiness. Is he accepted before the Father? I'm accepted before the Father. Is he righteous? I'm righteous. Is God pleased with him? Is God satisfied? That's the
glory of the resurrection and the glory of the gospel. It is
done. It is paid in full. I'm always thirsty because I
can never find anything in myself to give me any satisfaction whatsoever.
I can't look inside. Looking inside is a wasted exercise. You're only looking in an empty
box. There's nothing there. But I can look away to Him. I
can look away to Him who is the water of life, and I can be satisfied. I find rest and peace. To whom coming? If you've come,
you're coming now. If you've come, if you've come,
you're coming continually. If you've come, you've come and
been satisfied. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray you might bless these words to the hearts of your people.
You might cause us, Heavenly Father, no matter what our state
in this world, to come now as we are to the Lord Jesus Christ,
to come and find rest and peace in the glory of who he is and
what he's done. Bless your words, Heavenly Father,
to the hearts of your people before we pray in Jesus' name.