2 Peter 2 and verse 17. These are wells without water,
clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of
darkness is reserved forever. Now this is Peter's description
given through the Spirit of God of false teachers. The Lord is
using metaphors throughout the Scriptures that we can understand,
and one of those metaphors is water. Water. And that's what's
being used right here. In a dry, hot, desert land, where
there is no water. Water means life. Water means
life to a thirsty, weary man. And a cloud, a cloud is the same
metaphor. When you need your crops rained
on and you need a shower and you see a cloud coming, you know,
you depend upon that rain coming. And this word, this water is
used throughout the Scriptures to be a metaphor, a picture of
spiritual life, of grace given to a regenerated child of God
by Christ through the Holy Spirit. And when the Lord delivered Israel
out of Egypt, He said this, The Lord thy God bringeth thee into
a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths
that spring out of valleys and hills. Now, if you're thirsty
and you're in a desert, that sounds good, doesn't it? And
that's to show us something about how the gospel appeals and the
gospel is good news to a believer. Later on, when he delivered them
out of the hand of Assyria, he said he would deliver them out
of the hand of the Assyrians, out of the hand of their enemies
that had them captive. He said in that day, Thou shalt
say, O Lord, I'll praise Thee. Though Thou was angry with me,
Thine angers turned away, and Thou comfortest me. Behold, God
is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid,
for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song. He's also become
my salvation. Therefore, with joy, He said,
shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation. You get the
picture here? So in our text, you have here
Peter describing false teachers and he's saying these are wells
without water. Clouds that are carried with
a tempest to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever.
So you get the picture here now of a thirsty sinner coming to
a well. He comes to one of these false
teachers and he's longing to have a good, cold drink of water. He's wanting to hear the gospel.
He's wanting to hear the gospel of the free and sovereign grace
of God in Christ. And he comes to this well, but
instead of the false teacher being a well of water, it turns
out to be just dry sand, just an empty well. Or he's like a
cloud. You see a cloud on the horizon
and you think, oh, that's fixing to come and just water these
fields and just be a blessing to me. And that false teacher
is carried away with a tempest when the winds of change come
along. And they do. Just give it a little
time. And when the winds of change come along and a new doctrine
becomes popular, they're carried away with a whirlwind. Or persecution
arises because of the word. They're carried away by a tempest,
by a whirlwind, by a wind, just like a cloud carried away. Now,
just think about how opposite the believer is to those that
are described here. False teachers and unbelievers,
the unregenerate, are wells without water. But those born of the
Spirit of God are wells filled with water. Filled with water.
Proverbs 10.11 says, the mouth of a righteous man is a well
of life. He says, the words of a man's
mouth are as deep waters in the wellspring of wisdom as a flowing
brook. Then look again at it. Those
without Christ are described here as clouds that are carried
with a tempest. But you know, when Christ ascended
and he gave his messengers, he said he gave them that we henceforth
be no children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every
wind of doctrine, carried about with that whirlwind of doctrine.
That's the believer. And then The false teachers here
described as those to whom the mist of darkness is reserved
forever. You know how believers are described?
The elect of God are described? Those that have been called to
an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away,
reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God
through faith and ready to be revealed in the last time. That's
a big contrast between unregenerate lost man and a believer. So what
I want to do this morning is instead of focusing our attention
on the false teacher, let's focus on how these wells and these
clouds full of water are a picture of God's messengers and a picture
of the believer. Let's look at that. Every believer,
and this is what I want you to get, every believer is an earthen
vessel. It's like a well or just like
a cloud, an earthen vessel. like and filled with Christ who
is our life. He's the water, filled with Christ
our life, his spirit. And that's the water within these
wells. That's what we're gonna talk
about. We don't have in us any water by nature. We don't have
this water by nature. You know, a well, you got a well
that's dug. Picture a well that's dug down.
That well's not producing any water, really. That water's coming
from a hidden source, from a spring, a fountain spring that's filling
it with water. Well, that man that showered
by cloud, he's getting that rain from above. It's coming down
from another source to it. Well, every man is born into
this world. As we're born into it, we're whales without water.
We're just as like the description of a false teacher or a false
somebody that doesn't believe. We're whales without water and
clouds without rain as we're born in this world. Now, there's
many who think, well, I'm going to go out and I'm going to get
my get my education or go out and get my job, my career, whatever,
and that's where I'm gonna get this one. I'm gonna get satisfied.
I'll have my thirst quenched then when I've accomplished that.
And you do it. It's good to do. You go through,
you get it, but you find then my thirst is not quenched. It
didn't give me life like I thought it would. Well, you go along
and you say, well, I'll get married and have kids and get a house
and get all the stuff that goes along with that. You get that
and you think, well, I'll be satisfied now. My thirst is going
to be quenched. And no life. Still no life. Got
life all around you. but still no life in here. There's
no water, there's no light. And some think, well, I'll make
it, when I finally retire, I'm gonna fish, I'm gonna move to
a sunny place, I'm gonna just enjoy my golden years. and your health goes down and
you have to spend all your savings to provide for you physically
and all that stuff, and you still find out, I don't have any water. It's not life. There's no life
in it. No life at all. Just a dry well.
A man might have a lot. You might acquire a lot of stuff
in this life. You know, we had an old well
at my house where my parents lived. And I can remember years
ago, it was an ugly old thing. It was just an old cement thing
sticking up out of the ground. I can remember my mom trying
to adorn that thing. I remember her trying to you
know, put flowers around it, make it look nice, you know,
and all that. Well, you could have a nice well house around
a well. You could have the best well
pump money can buy. And you can have the best golden
bucket to drop down in and get water out of it. If there ain't
no water in it, it don't do any good. It's a dry well. So you
can have a lot of stuff outwardly and look like you've got a lot.
And that well just be dry as it can be on the inside. So this
water of life we need, that's the Holy Spirit. We need Christ
formed in us. We need his gospel. And without
water, what good is wealth? What good is it? It needs to
be capped off and sealed off so that it doesn't disappoint
somebody that's trying to come to and expect water from it or
keep some stranger from passing by from falling into that. It's
no good for anything, a dry well. Well, that's what we are by nature.
You're a parched place in the wilderness, a salt land not inhabited. That's what we are. That's the
description of everybody born in this world. And even if the
gospel comes to us, even if God sends the gospel, like He did
with Moses. He sent the gospel to those children of Israel and
brought them out of Israel. And they walked along a little
while and it says, and the people thirsted for water. And they
began to murmur against Moses and said, wherefore has this
man brought us out of Egypt, out here into this wilderness
to kill our children and our cattle with thirst? You know
why? You know why they weren't satisfied
with having the gospel and after everything they had seen? They
were wanting natural water. Wanting natural water. The Lord
said, My people have committed two evils. And this is true of
all God's elect children before He calls us and gives us grace
and the water of life. They've committed two evils.
They've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and they've
hewed out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold
no water. That's us by nature, every one
of us by nature. But secondly, Christ is that
water. Christ is that fountain of living
water. He's the source of all God's
blessings to his people. He's that rock that was smitten
by Moses in the wilderness. You know what that pictured?
That pictured the law. That pictured justice. When Christ
was made sin for his people, that picture justice, the law,
Moses there was a picture of the law. And him striking that
rock is a picture of Christ bearing everything his children deserve
as their sin bearer before God as their substitute. So that
now his children are justified, justice is satisfied for his
people. He's the righteousness of His
people. And free forgiveness is there
for His people. And we're accepted in the Beloved
through faith in Him. Look over at Isaiah 32. Isaiah
32. I wrote your place in Isaiah
because we'll be back here in just a moment. He's that God-man
that's the living water that's given freely to all those for
whom Christ died. He's that one who covers us from
the scorching heat of wrath and justice like a cloud that comes
over and shades you in the middle of a dry, hot desert. Look at
Isaiah 32 and look at verse 2. This is speaking of Christ. Well,
let's begin in verse 1. Behold, a king shall reign in
righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man,
this is that God-man, this is Christ the Lord, a man shall
be as a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest,
as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. God the Father, He's the fountain
of life. He's the fountain of all blessings. Whatever God the
Father chooses and purposes to come to pass, that's what's coming
to pass. And He chose Christ and He purposed it. All blessings,
all fullness, fullness of salvation, fullness of righteousness, fullness
of sanctity, fullness of grace, fullness of truth, all should
flow from this source. And that source is Christ His
Son. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness
dwell. You ever drink from a creek,
a spring, a natural spring? It's just clear and crystal and
cold and good and it just keeps coming out of the ground. It
just keeps on coming. Well, this is what the description
of the Lord Jesus is. They shall hunger no more, neither
thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any
heat. For the Lamb which is in the
midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto
living fountains of waters. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. That's the description of it.
Now, some of us sitting here, we probably came here with our
thirst well quenched this morning. We're not thirsty. But if you
were really thirsty, if you're really thirsty, this is good
news. Very good news. In all fullness, we have received
grace for grace from Him. That's whatever a believer can
say. When I was down in Tennessee this last time, my brother Bob,
Burrell down there, he had a big garden. And those plants were
just dry as they could be. His corn was drying away, his
tomatoes were drying up, all his beans and his peas. It hadn't
rained there in a month. And they were having 100 degree
plus temperatures for a month. And some of the weather we're
just now getting, they were having then. And he had formed him,
made him a little irrigation system and set him up a generator
and was pumping water from a creek up and watering all his, you
know, his field. Because those plants gotta have
water. That's us, brethren. That's a
picture of us. Just like those plants out there under that scorching
heat and that dry land and that dusty, dry earth. We gotta have
water. And that water's Christ. That
gospel, that Spirit of God coming in and watering us. Well, So
we see what we are by nature. We're just dry wells and empty
clouds. And we see Christ as a fountain
of living water. He's the living water. How then
do we get that water? How does a sinner, a dry well,
come to have that water? How do we get it? Well, just
like God promises He would do. He said He's going to lead them
to fountains of living water. And He causes His child According
to his having predestinated us unto the adoption of children,
he promises he's gonna make his child cross one of these wells
of water. He's going to bring his child
to where we can hear that gospel preached. Just like the Lord
came to that woman at the well, she was there at Jacob's well,
the Samaritan woman, and she was trying to get water out of
that well. And she sat there and was telling him everything
she knew about religion and everything about her and lying through her
teeth. And he sat there and told her everything about her. He
told her, you don't know who you worship. You've been married
five times. The one you're with now is not
your husband. And he just sat there and just
revealed her sin in her. And he said, if you would have
known who it is that's speaking with you, you'd have asked him
and I'd have given you living water. But he's going to make
that, he's going to cross the path of his elect child. Just
like he sent Philip down to that Ethiopian eunuch. Just like he
sent Paul to Lydia. He's going to cross the path.
He's going to make us come to a well of living water where
we're going to hear that gospel set forth. Because he said he
would. He said I'm going to lead them to fountains of living water.
I'm going to do that, he said. And He's got the power to do
it. And the Holy Spirit, when you begin to hear that gospel,
He begins to make us to see Christ. It makes us to start hearing
Him. You don't know what's happening at first, but you begin to have
an interest. And you begin to say, I have an interest." And
you find yourself become thirsty. And you know why? Because God
won't let you go. The scripture says, the psalmist
said, Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture
is turned into the drought of summer. For before God fills
us with water, He's going to dry up any any moisture we thought
we had. He's going to put His hand heavy
on us, and He's going to not take it off of us until He's
hedged us in and made us become a dry well to ourselves, made
us see ourselves that way. And He makes us so thirsty when
He does that. And then we begin to hear in
this Gospel what Christ is saying. And what Christ is saying through
His Word is this, if any man thirsts, if any man thirsts,
Any man, if any man thirsts, let him come unto me, he said,
and drink what I have to bring." No money. Well, I feel like I'm
going to have to pay something. He said, not for price. He won't
take a price. He won't take anything. And he
says, come to me, and he that believeth on me, he said, as
the scripture hath said, It's always as Scripture has said,
it's exactly as God said in His Word, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water. How's that so? How does that
happen? This word begins to become good
news. We stop fighting against the
preacher, and fighting against the brethren, and fighting against
everybody, and butting, butting, butting like a goat. And we start
listening, and we start hearing. And you know what the scripture
says about this good news of the gospel? Proverbs 25, 25 says,
as cold waters to a thirsty man, so is good news from a far country. And that's what we get in the
Gospel. We get good news from a far country. And it's like
a cold water to a thirsty man. We start drinking it. The thirsty
sinner finds himself believing Christ. We find ourselves crying
out from the depths of our heart. Let's go to Psalms. I want you
to see this. This is what happens. This is
what happens. We start crying out. Look at
Psalm 63. Alright, let's go to Psalm 42.
Psalm 42. This is what you find happening. Psalm 42, 1, As the heart, as
the deer panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after
thee, O God. You ever seen a dog panting? His old tongue just lulled out
there and he's just thirsty. And he said, well, like a deer
does that. He said, verse 2, My soul thirsteth for God, for
the living God. When shall I come and appear
before God? Look at Psalm 63, verse 1. There's so many scriptures that
describe this give us this metaphor here of the gospel, of the Spirit
of God, of Christ and His righteousness being like water. David was in
a wilderness in Judah, and in Psalm 63, verse 1, he cried out,
O God, Thou art my God. Oh, that's when it's good news.
When you find out, until God works His work of grace in the
heart, God's not our God. But when He works His grace in
our hearts, God becomes my God. Oh God, Thou art my God. Early
will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee. My
flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water
is. That's when you start thirsting
after Him. You stretch, as He said over
in another place, I stretch forth my hands unto Thee. My soul thirsteth
after Thee as a thirsty land. And God always makes good on
His promise. He always makes good on His word. Look at Isaiah
35, back there in Isaiah. He always makes good on His Word.
This is what He says. He's working His Word. That's
why He makes good on it. It's just not that He gives His
Word and then you, by chance, happen to decide you get thirsty.
It's because God gives His Word and tells you what He's going
to do. And then He does it. And this is what He does. Isaiah
35 verse 6. He talks about the eyes of the
blind being open, and the ears of the deaf unstopped, and the
lame man leaps as a heart, and the tongue of the dumb begins
to sing, for in the wilderness, that's what we are, in the wilderness
shall waters break out, and streams in the desert, and the parched
ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water,
in the habitation of dragons where each lay shall be grass
with reeds and rushes. That's what he does. He gives
us faith, and you know what we see? Revelation 22 says, I saw
a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding
out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. We start seeing
Christ as that water of life, that clear, pure, holy water
of life. And for the first time, you know
what happens? We stop boasting in ourselves. We stop bragging
on ourselves. We stop commending ourselves.
and we start bragging on God. We believe God and we trust Him
and we start bragging on what He's done. And this too God said
we would do. Look at Isaiah 43 verse 20. He said He would do this for
those that He's chosen. Look at Isaiah 43 and look at
verse 20. He says, the beast of the field. He said, I'm going to make a
way in the wilderness, rivers and the desert, and the beast
of the field shall honor me. That's what he brings you and
I to do, who are just old dumb beasts. That's what Peter called
them in 2 Peter 2. He said, just natural beasts
made to be taken and destroyed. He said, now here the Lord said,
when I've done this work, the beast of the field shall honor
me, the dragons and the owls. Just those old worthless creatures. That's what we were. Because
I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give
drink to my people, my chosen. This people I formed for myself.
They shall show forth my praise. And that's what he brings us
to do. And he plants us in his hill. He says, I'm going to lead
them to fountains of living waters. Ezekiel 34. Ezekiel 34. He plants
us in his hill. where He's provided His well
of water, where His cloud is steady, it can't be carried away
by a tempest, where that gospel flows like a water in a well
and like from clouds above, and He keeps us this way. He keeps
us watered. And He said He would. Look at
Ezekiel 34 and look at verse 25. Let's look at verse 24. And I,
the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David a prince
among them. That prince is Christ. And he says, And I, the Lord,
have spoken it, and I will make with them a covenant of peace,
and will cause the evil beast to cease out of the land. He
subdues this old evil nature within us. Ezekiel 34. Verse
25, He says, And they shall dwell safely in the wilderness and
sleep in the woods. He takes the fear of this land
out of us and He gives us the fear of God so we trust Him and
we can sleep, we got rest. And He says, And I will make
them and the places round about my hill a blessing. And I will
cause the shower to come down in the season and there shall
be showers of blessing. showers of blessing and the tree
of the field shall yield her fruit and the earth shall yield
her increase and they shall be safe in their land and shall
know that I am the Lord when I've broken the bands of their
yoke and delivered them out of the hand of those that serve
themselves of them." That's what God does through this living
water. That's what He does. And when we become troubled in
this hill and we start wondering, well, is the Lord going to pour
this water out on anybody? Is He going to do for anybody
else, any of His lost sheep, what He's done for us? The Lord
says in Isaiah 44, Thus saith the Lord that made thee, and
formed thee from the womb. I'll help thee, fear not, O Jacob,
my servant, thou jest from whom I've chosen. For I'll pour water
upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. And
I'll pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine
offspring, and they'll spring up as among the grass, as willows
by the watercourses. You see what this beautiful picture
of the water? And you know what all he tells
us to do? Wait on him. Wait early in the latter rain
and ask Him. Let me read this to you out of
Zechariah 10.1. Ask ye of the Lord rain in the
time of the latter rain, so the Lord shall make bright clouds
and give them showers of rain to every one grass in the field.
That's what He says He'll do. As you who know Him, everything
He said He's done, has He done it? He's done it, hasn't He,
for us? So everything He says He shall
do, we can expect He's going to do it, don't we? He's going
to do it. But what's the purpose of a well full of water? The
purpose of a well full of water, when the Lord gives you and I
this understanding, this knowledge of our Redeemer, and this faith
to believe Him, to see His accomplished redemption for us, this grace
that He's given to us, it's not just to fill us only. It's not
just for us only. A well is given to dispense water. A well is given so thirsty strangers
coming along can drink of that well and drink of that water.
A believer, that's what we're in this earth for. And the only
ones really that can tell somebody how the flesh profits nothing
is somebody that's been given the water of life so that we
know how truly in our flesh we're just dry, dust, death. That person can tell somebody
about the necessity of needing Christ. Somebody that knows something
about God's holiness and His justice and His righteousness
that required Him to send His own Son in the likeness of our
sinful flesh and to condemn sin in that flesh by laying down
His life that the righteousness of God might be fulfilled. Somebody
that's seen something of that, they can dispense this water
to somebody. But a dry whale can't do it. A dry whale can
talk about theories and he can tell you the letter of total
depravity, but he don't know what it's like to be a dry whale.
He can tell you something about the necessity of irresistible
grace, but he can't tell you about, he goes around boasting
of his dryness and how he turned himself and how he gave himself
water and how he kept himself watered, rather than being able
to tell you about how I am just nothing but sand, except God
turned me and gave me this water. That message of particular redemption
whereby Christ has justified his people and is calling them
out one by one out of this earth, that's not good news to a dry,
dusty vessel. He doesn't think it's fair. of
life that adorns our doctrine, a walk that's consistent with
the love of God, steadfastness in spreading His gospel throughout
this dry desert world. These are ways that God uses
His whales as He calls out His lost sheep. That's how He uses
us. And remember this, too. We had
a well. The more you got water out of
that well, the more water was in that well. You go back to
it, take all the water out of it you want to. We got a well
now. And so far, I haven't run out of water. It just keeps on,
when I take water out of it, more is in it. Well, there is
heat that scatters and yet increases. The scripture says, the Lord
said, freely you have received, freely give. And you might think
about it, is it our substance? The Lord said, the cattle on
a thousand hills are His. Is it our time? He said, your
times are in my hand. Is it our talents? He said, I gave them. What is it? I gave them. He replaces
more than we ever dispense of His fullness have we all received
grace for grace. He promises when the poor needy
seek water and there is none, I'll give them water. I'll keep
giving them water. So here's the last word. There's some of you here and
you're a poor, child of sin and dust and instability. You got no anchor, you're like
a cloud carried about with a wind. Why do you doubt the sincerity
of our God? Why doubt the sincerity of God
who's spoken his word? We're here as witnesses telling
you what we know, what we have seen, what we have experienced
by His grace. And we know this. Everything
that God has said He shall do, He has done for us sitting here.
And we're telling you, you're standing here looking at a dry
well in myself. You're standing here looking
at somebody that has no more strength and stability in me
than a cloud carried with the wind. But by that water that
He's given and by that anchoring me and making me no more tossed
to and fro, He's done this work. He has done it and He continues
to do it. Now, our text back there talked
about the mist of darkness reserved for those that go out of this
world without ever bowing to the Lord Jesus and submitting
to Him. Hell is reserved, and it'll be
this. It'll be flamed by passions that
will never be satisfied, desires that will never be answered,
a consciousness of everything that you could have had freely,
but you refused it for about 70 or 80 years of just dry dust. Everything we thought was an
oasis turned out to be a mirage. And the scripture describes a
man in hell as crying and asking, say, send someone that he may
dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for
I'm tormented in this flame. That's reserved for those who
perish in unbelief, reserved for false teachers and particularly. But what's the price of this
water? It's free. It's absolutely free. You can't
get water free anymore unless it's bad water. And some of the
water you got to pay for now is not good water. Water's not
free anymore. This water's free. What is the
catch in it? There is no catch. No catch at
all. You can offer God nothing, and
you can't add anything to him. But he can give you everything.
It can give you everything. Life eternal. What do I have
to possess to come to get this water? There's one thing you
gotta have to have this water. Just one thing. You gotta be
thirsty. That's it. You gotta be thirsty. And God gives it to you. Absolutely
free. Well, if you die, it won't be
because God withheld anything from you. It'll be because you
withheld everything from yourself. But brethren, we give all glory
to God, and here's why. All of His children, by His grace,
by the perfect redemption accomplished by Christ, by the full work of
salvation wrought on our behalf, by the Holy Spirit entering in
and making us alive through this glorious cool water called the
gospel of his free and sovereign grace. God has come to us and
he's made us wells of living water. He's made us fertile lands
showered with blessings from above. Showers of blessings rain
down upon us from our father above. So let's not be children
cared about, but rooted and grounded in Christ. Drink this water.
Drink it daily. Drink it up. They say water's
the best thing for you. We need this water. It's the
best thing for us. Best thing for us. He's promised to us that
He has an inheritance that's reserved in heaven, ready to
be revealed in the last time. If you came here thirsty, I hope
You've enjoyed a cool, cold drink of water from this fountain this
morning. From Christ, our fountain. It's hard talking about this.
I've been sitting here talking about this this morning, and my mouth's
watering. It is. Just naturally, it makes you
thirst to talk about water. Does it make you thirst spiritually?
I hope so. And I hope if you did come Thursday,
I hope your thirst has been quenched somewhat. Is it raining? in your heart. That's what God
does. He pours out showers of blessing
on his people.