Revelation 22 17 and the Spirit
and the bride say come And let him that heareth say come And let him that is a thirst
come And whosoever will let him take the water of life Freely Everybody that knows the Lord
Jesus Christ is says to everyone who does not know the Lord Jesus
Christ, come. The woman at the well said, come,
see a man who told me all things ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Philip found Nathanael and said,
we have found him of whom Moses and the prophets did write. It's
Jesus of Nazareth. He's the one, it's him. And Nathanael
said, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? You remember
what Philip said? Come and see, come and see. When Bartimaeus cried for mercy,
many told him to shut up. But then the Lord Jesus stopped
and called for Bartimaeus to be brought to him and the people
There said to Bartimaeus, be of good comfort, rise, he calleth
for thee. And Bartimaeus rose, casting
away his garment and came to Jesus. Our text says the spirit says
come. Several are saying that in our
text, but first the Spirit. Why is the Spirit of God saying
that particular word, and where is he calling us to? Well, that's
from verse 16. I, Jesus, have sent mine angel
to testify unto you these things in the churches, all the things
concerning himself, where our brother read that Psalm, David
said, I'm going to talk about what he did. I want to declare
how that he's kept every promise in old days that he ever made. And he always will. I've sent my angel, my messenger
to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am. The testimony of everyone
who speaks for God is simply who Christ is. I am the root
and the offspring of David. We talked about that, the root
of David, the origin of David. I'm where David come from, and
David's where I come from. If you understand that, that's
very important to the gospel. Is he a son? Whose son is he? What think ye of Christ? Whose
son is he? Well, he's David's son. Well, how come David called
him Lord? And the bright and morning star. Everything that God's messengers
testify of boils down to that, who Christ is, I am. And the
Spirit of God, when the gospel is preached, We know what he
does, the Lord said when he, in John 16, let's read that,
let me read it to you, John 16, 13, how be it when he, this is
the Lord Jesus talking, when the spirit of truth is come,
he will guide you into all truth. That's necessary, we're not gonna
figure it out. I'm not smart enough to tell
you, and so you'll know because I know. The Lord, by his Holy
Spirit, is gonna have to guide us into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself. A lot of religion does. Holy
Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't do that. Those that glorify and speak
of the Holy Spirit so much, they don't have the Holy Spirit. They
just pretend and they do. Those who have the Holy Spirit
speak of Christ. Because the Holy Spirit himself
speaks of Christ. He won't speak of himself, but
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. And he will show
you things to come. He shall glorify me. For he shall receive of mine
and shall show it unto you. You see how simple that is? The
Holy Spirit of God says, come. He shows you who Christ is and
what he did. And then according to our text,
he says, come. All things that the father hath
are mine. Therefore said I that he shall
take of mine. and shall show it unto you. The
father says, this is my son, hear him. The Holy Spirit takes
the things of Christ and shows them to us. Salvation is by Christ
Jesus the Lord, the Son of God. And of course, all of the fullness
of the Godhead dwells in him. So the two things that we're
told, that the Spirit of God does is take the things of Christ
and reveal them to us. That happens every time we meet,
every time the gospel. Unless this is just a religious
exercise now, I pray it never be so. The Holy Spirit comes
and reveals Christ, all about Christ, who Christ is, what he
did, why he did it, where he is right now. And then he says,
come. It's fitting that the Holy Spirit
is the first one mentioned here as saying to sinners, come to
Christ, because until God says come, I can't say it. I don't
have any warrant. I don't have any authority to
say anything unless God did. God's command to man in his sin,
in the beginning, in the garden, was not come. When man had sinned,
God said, go. Listen to it, in Genesis 3.23,
therefore the Lord God sent him forth, sent Adam forth from the
garden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove
out the man and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden
cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep
the way of the tree of life. Go. God can have no fellowship
with man in his sin. Now God, had covered the sin
of Adam and Eve by slaying an animal or two, and they had the
fellowship that we as believers have with God now. But this banishment
from God's paradise pictures how that access to God is now,
since the fall, by the blood of Christ only. How did Abel
find acceptance with God? By the blood. Adam's son Abel
didn't walk in free communion with God as his father Adam had
before he sinned. Abel was only accepted of God
by the blood of the more excellent sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and by faith in Christ, Abel offered it. We're told that in
the New Testament, that he might have fellowship with God. God
had respect unto Abel in his offering, not unto Abel alone. And this is still the only way
sinners can come to God by grace through faith in Christ. We have
access to God by the Lord Jesus Christ, who, as our forerunner,
went into the presence of God with somewhat to offer, his own
precious blood. God sent his only begotten Son
that whosoever believeth on him might have everlasting life.
And the Son of God himself did what? He told who he was, he spoke of what he came to do,
and he said, come unto me, come unto me, all you that labor and
are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. At that last great
day of the feast, he said what? Whosoever's thirsty, is anybody
thirsty? Come unto me and drink, if any
man thirst, And now that the Lord Jesus Christ is risen and
ascended, as he said he would do, he sent his Holy Spirit to
testify of him and to do what our text says he does. He says,
come. It's so simple, isn't it? So
simple. Come. It can't be too simple. The problem with religion, you
know, they used to talk about easy believism. If God gives
you faith, there isn't anything easier than believing on Christ. It's harder to fall off a stump
than it is to believe on Christ if God gives you faith. But with men, it's impossible. It's so simple, come. Don't do
this and come. Don't become worthy and come.
Come as you are. Come to Him. The problem with
religion is where you're coming to. You're coming to a preacher
or a priest or an altar or something. You're not coming to a person.
You're not coming to this Christ or the Bible, who's sovereign,
who saves whom He will, who commands sinners everywhere to repent.
He doesn't beg. They'll stand there at the front
of the church and beg you through 18 stanzas of just as I am. I've
been there. And I prayed that there wouldn't
be a 19th. It was good for our prayer lives
because we prayed, please don't let them sing that song again.
I love that song now though. So simple, isn't it? I come,
here I come. Lord, without one plea. but that
you shed your blood. My plea is what you did, and
you said come, so here I come. I like it. I have no warrant, no authority
to say come unless God does, and so the Holy Spirit. But notice
that the Spirit and the church are mentioned together, the Spirit
and the bride. because it happens at the same
time, it's simultaneous. It's not some kind of a cooperative
effort, but it is a matter of the means
that the Holy Spirit uses to say come. I'm not gonna talk
to you in a dream. I'm not gonna talk to you when
you're doing the dishes. He does it by the preaching of
the gospel. And that's the business of the bride by Christ himself. The one business of God's church
in this world is to preach the gospel. If nobody is ever entertained
again in this world, we have what we have to do. It doesn't
change it a bit. It has nothing to do with entertaining
anybody, putting on cantatas and shows and plays. It hurts me to see people I grew
up with now in religion and they're putting on plays and they have
these horrible, I don't even know what to call it. They try
to recreate what God has done for sinners on a stage. How can that not strike somebody
as obscene? I know how, don't you? Because
we're that messed up by nature. We're that blind. But we do the same thing, don't
we, the Holy Spirit does. We tell sinners who Christ is.
That's the means that he uses. And what he did, and then we
say, come. You see, to come to Christ is to believe on him.
You don't have to go anywhere to come to Christ. You do that
in your heart. You do that maybe right where you sit when the
gospel is preached. It's to believe or you don't
come down an aisle. That's not what the Holy Spirit's saying
to you. Come down an aisle. He's not saying that. He's not saying come to the preacher. He's saying come to the bright
and morning star. Take heed unto this word until
the daystar arise in your heart. And by God's grace, you see his
glory shining in the face of his son. That's what the Holy Spirit says,
and that's what we say. You come to the sinner's only
righteousness because you must be righteous before God. You
don't have that within yourself. We're gonna talk about being
thirsty here in a minute. Being thirsty is, not having
in you what you need. So you got to go get it. You
got to get it and put it in you. Take it unto yourself. Necessarily. Preacher can't do that for you. He didn't have anything to give
you. Like the disciples said, what we have, we give unto you. And what'd they do? They preached
Christ. They preached Christ. They used the gifts of the spirit
to heal that man and then told why that happened. Don't look
at us as though we did something. This is Jesus of Nazareth. This
is his power. This is his saving grace. This
is his healing. You don't come to the preacher.
You don't come to front of the church. By God's grace, you come by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. You
come to the only sin offering that God will accept. And this is what our Lord has
given us to do. Listen, Mark 16, 15, the Lord
Jesus said to his disciples, go ye into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. Do you hear what the Lord Jesus has given
us to do? Do you hear the vital nature
of that? The gospel we preach is so precious. It's so vital. It's so powerful. It is such
a sacred trust that the Lord said, when you preach this gospel
that I've taught you, Whoever hears you, whoever listens
to you and believes what you say, I'll save them. And whoever
hears you and doesn't believe what you say, I'll damn them. No wonder Paul said, who is sufficient
for these things? Seeing we have such a hope, we're
very clear. Three things about how we preach
the gospel because of this commission we received of the Lord. We use
great plainness of speech. If faith or no faith is the difference
between being with him forever or being in hell forever, I want
to be real clear. Secondly, we're saying come to
Christ, but we're not just saying come. You know, religion does
that. Come to Jesus, come to Jesus.
Who is he? Who are you talking about? The
Lord warned us about you now. He said, lo, they'll be saying
here is Christ and there is Christ. But it's not the Christ of the
Bible. We say come using every word of God concerning his son
in this book. the whole counsel of God. And thirdly, we don't say it
with indifference. It's not just here it is, take
it or leave it. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5.18,
and all things are of God. This whole thing is of God. Look
at us here tonight. We are of God. Of God are we
in Christ Jesus who has made into us everything we need. All things are of God who has
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. You don't go to God the
father strictly understood as the holy God to be reconciled
to God, you go to his son. the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. It's one God. But you don't run up Sinai now
and see what's going on. You got to talk to Moses. Moses,
God said to Moses, you speak to the people. And they said,
you speak to us for God. We don't want to hear directly
from God. That's a picture of Christ. reconciling the world unto himself,
to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world, and he
hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word
of reconciliation. That's what the gospel is, come
to Christ. Now then, We are ambassadors
for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God. You see, it's not just here it
is now, you take it or leave it. I'm going to go home and
you decide what you're going to say. No, we beseech you by
the grace of God. as though God himself did beseech
you by us, be reconciled. There's nothing more important.
We're given that one mission in this world. The ministry of reconciliation.
That's what this is. It's bigger than you. It's bigger
than me. It's bigger than my feelings. If we ever get the idea that
this is about God's glory and God's purpose and God's saving
grace, we won't be such babies. I just
got to say it plainly. Just a bunch of big babies is
all we are, aren't we? God lets us go for five minutes.
We'll be whining and laying on the floor in the fetal position,
talking about how bad everybody is to us and how they've hurt
our feelings. It's bigger than us. I don't
know how else to say that. Come. You remember when Paul
talked to Agrippa, he preached to King Agrippa, do you believe
what I'm telling you? Do you believe the prophets Agrippa?
I know you do. I've felt that. I've felt the
same way. I know what Paul's talking about
here. I know you believe what I'm saying. I know that this
gospel is undeniable. It's undeniable. And then Agrippa said, almost,
almost you persuaded me to be a Christian. And then Paul, he
didn't just walk away and say, well, I hope it works out. I
hope it goes well for you. I hope you decide something or
whatever. He said, I would to God, I would
to God that not only you, but also all that hear me this day,
we're both almost and altogether such as I am, accept these bonds. That's how we preach the gospel.
Come. Oh, come with all of our hearts
and all whatever gifts God is pleased to give. The ministry
of this church is come to Christ. You must have perfect righteousness
before God. Come to Christ. You must have the acceptable
sin offering, the only offering that God will accept for your
sins. Your sins must be paid for, washed away. Come to Christ. You need rest from the burden
and the impossible bondage of the law. Come to Christ. Are
you hungry for the bread of life? Come to Christ. Are you thirsty
for God like the little deer thirsts after the water brooks?
Come to Christ. This message by which we compel
sinners to come, it's not an invitation. If I invite people over to my
house, people that don't come don't go to hell for not coming
to my house. It's not an invitation. He said you go out into the highways
and the hedges and you compel them to come in. We do that by the message of
Christ, that Christ is all, that Christ is necessary, that he
is the savior of sinners, that he is your only hope. And the scripture tells us to
save some with fear as though you're pulling them out of the
fire, as though this building was on fire and you're confused
and you're disoriented. If I can do something about it,
me and you are getting out of here. You know what I can do
about it? I can tell you who Christ is.
Oh, if that won't do it, nothing will. When the Holy Spirit says,
come now, that'll do it. That'll do it. When he reveals
the things of Christ to you, This message by which we compel
sinners to come to Christ is the testimony of everyone who
hears our testimony. The spirit, the bride, and everybody
that hears. The call of the Holy Spirit,
the ministry of God's church, and everyone who hears the message
of Christ says to everyone who hasn't, come to Christ. Remember Numbers 10, 29, remember
what Moses said? Listen to this. Moses said unto
Hobab, the son of Regel, the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law,
we are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will
give it you. You think what that represents
spiritually. Moses said, I guess to his nephew, we're going to
the place. And you know, Canaan represents
glory. promised land. We're going to
the place where the Lord said, I'm gonna give it to you. The place we are by God's grace
is the place where everything we need is given freely by God
to the sinner. That's where we are. Come, come
with us. We're going where God has given
us everything we need. Listen, I will give it you, he
said, I'll give it to you. That's our text. Take the water
of life freely. Come with us, he said, come with
us. Come thou with us and we will
do thee good. For the Lord has spoken good
concerning Israel. Come with us. That's what everybody
who hears says, come, come. Everyone who has come to Christ
wants others to come to Christ. They say it with their priorities.
They say, come, you say it with the fact that you're here tonight.
You think about this. If you went to a certain store,
every time you left your house, you'd be saying to everybody
that knows you, shop here. Shop here. And when you sit in the place of the worship of God, at the
feet of the Savior, you're saying, come to Him. You know, you say
it with your giving. You say it with your priority.
You say it with everything you do. Come to Him. Martha wasn't hearing what Mary
was saying. You remember Martha was cumbered
about much serving and Mary was sitting at the feet of the Lord.
And Martha wasn't listening to Mary. You say, well, Mary didn't
say anything. Oh yeah, she never opened her mouth. You know what
she was saying? One thing is needful. Martha
couldn't hear her, but she was saying it. There's one thing
needful. That's what I'm talking about,
you're saying that. With all that you do, with your
priorities, with your giving, what you support, what your purpose
is, what's important to you, without ever opening your mouth,
you're saying it. When you give, you're saying,
come to Christ. The only way we do this, the only way we preach
the gospel and by all of us together, being committed to this work, We pay the bills and we do what's
necessary so that this gospel goes forth and so that we have
a place to honor God whether anybody ever shows up here again
or not. I want the gospel here to be
a beacon to sinners. I want people to hear something
about us and be curious maybe and come and hear of the only
hope for sinners in this world. To hear of Christ. I don't wanna be preaching on
giving when they come. I don't wanna be preaching on
Satan and how to deal with it. I wanna be preaching Christ and him crucified and what he
did for sinners like us. Are you saying that? Are you
saying come to Christ with everything? that we do here to make this
happen. We say it when we're asked. We
open our mouths too, don't we? And say it whenever we're asked
to give a reason for the hope that lies within us. Come, come
and see, come and hear. Coming to hear the gospel now
is not the same thing exactly as coming to Christ. But this
is where you hear around these parts. the message, come to Christ. This is where the Holy Spirit
is gonna teach you the things of Christ and say, with invincible
grace to you, come. It's not gonna happen while you're
mowing the grass. I wanna tell this story again,
because maybe not everybody's heard it here. Most of you have
heard it, probably more than once, so bear with me, because
I wanna make a couple of observations about it. Vicki used to work
up here at the store, College Grove Grocery used to be. And
a lady asked Vicki one time, I guess she found out I was a
preacher somehow or another. And she asked Vicki if I would
talk to her son. Her son was in some kind of trouble
and she wanted to see if I could say something to him that might
make a difference. And Vicki said, absolutely, I'll
ask him, but I can tell you right now what he's gonna say. And she said, what? And Vicki
said, he's gonna say he needs to hear the gospel. And do you
know what that woman said? Most of you do if you've heard
this. She said, he already knows that. You think about how sad that
is, how tragic that is. And that's what I want to say.
I want to say first, what a sad and terrible thing to say. He
already knows that. If he knew that, if he knew that
the one thing needful was to sit at the feet of Christ and
hear his word, he wouldn't be in trouble. Not
that we don't have troubles. But if you know that, you do
that. And the second thing is this.
You know, life can seem so complicated, can't it? It's so, you think
about what's going on with different people and you think, man, life
is so complicated. No, it's not. Just because we
mess it up doesn't mean it's complicated. It's so simple. Calm. The difference between
life and death is calm. The difference between your life
being a complete disaster and having peace and comfort
and rest and hope and life in Christ, it comes down to the most simple
thing. One thing is necessary. Calm. You remember what the Lord said
to the Jews in John 5.39, listen to this. He said, search the
scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. He was
always humiliating them regarding the scriptures. They would say
something to him and he'd say, haven't you read the Bible? Because
they prided themselves on knowing the scriptures. They could quote
vast portions of the Old Testament. But he said, you need to look
at it again. You need to, because you think
you have eternal life in here. And every word of this book says,
come to me and you will not come to me. It's not complicated. They are they which testify of
me. And you won't just come to me
that you might have life. They searched the scriptures.
He told them, search it again. All of the scriptures say come
to Christ. What kept them from coming to
Christ? Their will. You will not. You look that word
will up, it's not just a throwaway word. It means you have no desire,
no taste for it. You're not thirsty. You're not
thirsty. No man is by nature. Let him
that is thirsty come. Why do sinners come to Christ?
That's a question you could answer several different ways, but you
know what one real good way to answer that is? Because they
have to. They have to. A sinner that comes to Christ
comes because he had to. Why do you come to water? I guarantee you everybody in
this room has come to water today at one time or another. It might
have had a lot of bad stuff in it. It might have had, you know,
Coke syrup, whatever that stuff is in it. But you've come to
water this very day. Why? Why'd you do that? Your body
has got to have a drink. It's got to have a drink. So
does your soul, if God ever reveals to you your need and who Christ
is, the only one that can meet your need. And he does that this
way. That's why I equate coming to
Christ with coming to hear the gospel. It's not the same thing
exactly. If you're gonna come to Christ,
you're gonna have to hear of him. How are you gonna believe
on him of whom you've not heard? How are you gonna hear unless
somebody preaches him? How do you come to Christ? By
faith. You come believing. You come
by necessity, as we've mentioned. But you know, you don't really
need to know that. To come to Christ, you don't need to know
how to come to Christ. That's like, you know, there's a man
drowning and you throw him a lifesaver. And he says, how am I going to
get to that? You know, he's not going to say
that. You know what the answer to that question is, how am I
going to get to that lifesaver? Any way you can. That's how you're
going to do it. Any way you can. But you're not
going to have to ask that, are you? How am I going to get to
that? You see your need, you see the
solution. You're gonna come. If God gives you faith, you're
gonna come. No man can come to Christ except
the Father which hath sent Christ draw that sinner to Christ. You
can't do it because you don't see your need. He said, I didn't
come to save people that are well. I came to save sick people. Sick people. Everybody's sick
by nature, aren't they, Chris? Yeah, but they don't know it.
They don't know it. Ask them. We've never been in
bondage to any man. The father must draw the sinner
to Christ, and when he does that, come you shall. Faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. That's how the father
draws sinners to his son. And no man can come. With men
it's impossible. But wait, Chris, it says freely.
It says whosoever will in this very text. No man can. With men it's impossible. Religion
mistakes this call here as a call to everybody to come to Christ. It's not. It's a call to thirsty
people. Are you thirsty? If any man thirst,
let him come and take the water of life freely, whosoever will.
Who is it that wants to come to drink? Thirsty people. It's a call to willing people.
It's a call to unworthy people. Freely. Where'd you get that,
unworthy? Freely. Freely. Listen to Isaiah
55, one, you know this passage. Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come. Come ye to the waters, and he
that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Come, Buy wine and milk without
money and without price, freely, freely. Wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread? You spend everything, all your
energy, your interest, your support, your energy, your priorities,
everything, all of your resources as a human being, pursuing that
which will not satisfy you. When that which will satisfy
you costs absolutely nothing, and you will not. Wherefore do you spend your labor
for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good. You know, you wouldn't, you'd
think you wouldn't have to think real hard about that. Eat that
which is good. Oh, you know, that's pretty simple,
isn't it? Listen diligently, he said. Listen diligently. Because preachers are saying
it. There's preachers around saying it and nobody much is
hearing it. I'm thankful for those who hear
it. Eat ye that which is good. This world ain't it. This world
has nothing good. I'm telling you right now, you
know that as well as I did. Don't spend your money, don't
spend your labor. And listen carefully, listen
earnestly, listen diligently, listen urgently. "'unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, "'and let your soul delight itself
in fatness.'" You'll never want for anything. You'll never want
for anybody. He said, I'll give you your family.
You'll have family a hundredfold. And you'll never beg. Incline your ear the next verse
says and come unto me Here and your soul shall live So simple
so clear he already knows that Sadly he does not And he's like
just about everybody in this world and I will make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. You know what
David said about those sure mercies? This is all that I need and all
that I want. This covenant that God made with
me in Christ Jesus. You don't get a drink of water
for a decision You don't get what you need from God for a
profession, for walking an aisle or doing anything. You take it freely. You take that which by nature
you'll never take. But by the grace of God, you'll
freely take of the Lord Jesus. We sang a while ago, thou of
life, the fountain part. freely let me take of thee. May God give us grace to know that one thing is needful
and come to him and sit at his feet and hear his word and honor
him if everything else around us doesn't get done. I'm going to honor him. Can we say that? I pray that
the Lord will make it so. Amen.