Alright, if you take your Bibles
and turn with me to Revelation chapter 22. Revelation chapter
22. The text will be found in verse 1.
And then we'll look at verse 17. Verse 1, Revelation 22, And He showed me a pure river
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb. The title of this message, The
River of Water. The River of Water. Now, in order for us to understand
the words of the prophecy of this book, we must not use these
words literally. We must not see them in a literal
sense. Surely this gives us a vivid
picture. You can, in the imagination of
your mind, you can see a river flowing. You can see it flowing.
There it is from the throne of God. As you can see it, it flows
a river. And this river is described for
us, the water of life, pure, clear as crystal. And we must
not see that there is a literal river flowing from the throne
of God. This is meant to be sought out
in figurative, spiritual, prophetic language. And if you were to
read this book, you're going to read about a beast coming
out of the ocean. You suppose we're waiting for
a literal beast to fly out of the ocean. No, that's not what
it was. It's a figurative picture of
anti-Christian governments. The Scripture tells of a great
whore riding upon the back of the beast. Would you suppose
that there would be a great whore coming out of the ocean along
with this beast? that we're all going to see.
No, it's a picture of false religion. It's a prophetic language. In this book you read of a thousand
years, where Lord Jesus Christ said He's going to come, it'll
be a thousand year reign. And this is, no, this is not
a thousand, literal thousand years. The Lord's going to come
back, reign for a thousand years, go back, and then some other
time come back. Now there's only one second coming, we know that.
When He comes, it's going to be over. It'll be the end. So we know that that thousand
years is not literal, but is a picture of the dispensation
of grace. And so too here we see this river
of water of life that proceeds from the throne of God. It is
intended, not literally, but as a prophetic language. Now,
our Lord Jesus Christ uses this same language. Go to John chapter
4. Go to John chapter 4. And look at verse 7. It says,
There cometh a woman to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give
me to drink. Now what is He asking for? He
is asking for literal water, isn't He? There was water in
that well, and she was coming to draw carnal water out of that
well, and he was thirsty, and he said, Give me to drink. For his disciples had gone to
the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria
unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of
me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans. And Jesus answered and said unto
her, Listen, if thou knewest the gift of God. Now what is
he going to talk about here? The gift of God is salvation. If you knew what God sent me
to give you. If you knew the gift of God and
who it is. Who it is, is said to give me
the drink. Who is He? The Son of God. The
Son of God who became a man to save His people. He said, if
you knew that, listen what you're going to ask Me. I ask you for
some carnal water, but you're going to ask Me for something
greater, if you knew it. Thou wouldest ask of Him and
He would have given thee living water. Now is this a physical water
that you can drink? Well, she thought so. In this
next verse, she said, the woman says, Sir, that's nothing to
draw with. And the well is deep, has this
living water. Look, you don't got a bucket.
You can't get down there. You can't get none of that water.
That's not what he was talking about, was it? He was talking
about a different water. But she didn't understand. She
thought he was talking about something carnal. Our great and
our father Jacob, which gave us this well, What a question. If she knew who he was, she knew
he'd be greater than Jacob who gave that whale. And she knew,
she would know this, that the water he offers is much better
than the water that whale offered. Thou art greater than our father
Jacob which gave us this whale and drank thereof himself and
his children and his cattle. Jesus answered her, he said,
whosoever drinketh of this water, now what is he talking about?
The carnal water of Jacob, Jacob's well, they shall thirst again.
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall
never thirst. But the water that I shall give
him shall be a well of water, springing up into everlasting
life. A natural man like this woman
cannot understand spiritual things. Listen, I talk spiritual things
and natural men only receive carnal things. They can't receive
spiritual things. They don't understand what I'm
talking about. They don't know anything about this water that
Christ gives. We like this by nature, like
this woman can only suppose salvation to come by some carnal means.
She thought living water came by carnal water. This is how men think, is that
salvation comes by some outward carnal thing. We're going to
take the Lord's Supper in a minute. And there are many people who
believe if they eat that bread, if some man puts a blessing on
that bread, some man puts a blessing on that wine, that somehow that
wine and that bread become spiritual. Never in the history of Scripture
has that happened. It's not what it's for. You can't take a carnal thing
and make it effectual to the salvation of your spiritual soul. Yet this is what men think. Jesus
said, I will give you spiritual water, not coming from the outside
in, but springing from the inside out. This well is going to be
a well of water springing up into the soul. This is the water
that Christ gives. Those who drink this water of
life, They shall never thirst. As a matter of fact, I'm thirsty.
I must put my water over here somewhere. Speaking of water, it makes me
thirsty. I just drank of this a minute
ago and I'm thirsty again. You know why? It's not spiritual.
It's not what Christ was talking about. He was talking about spiritual
water. But whosoever shall drink of
this water shall never thirst of righteousness. This is what
Christ is saying. When you thirst, it's because
you lack nourishment. You lack it. You're missing something. And you need it. And you have
to do it over and over again. But the righteousness of Christ
that is given to us is something that is not lacking. It's perfect
in every way. So when we drink of this water,
He gives us the righteousness of God. Those who drink of this
water shall never die. And this is spiritual, friends.
This body is going to die. We know this. Except the Lord
come back in our time, we are all going to die physically. Our Lord said that to Martha,
didn't He? He said, I am the resurrection
and life. Whosoever believeth in Me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in Me shall never die. Do you believe that? That's what
he asked her. He said, do you believe that?
See, she didn't understand very much. She says, I'll tell you
what, I don't know. I just believe you are the Christ,
the Son of the living God. And sinner, listen. If you drink
of the waters of religion, they will never quench your thirst
for righteousness. False religion always requires
more. Always requires more. It's never
enough. When is enough enough? It won't
be. Because that water doesn't satisfy. The water of salvation in Christ
is complete, it's perfect, and it satisfies. I'll tell you this,
I'm satisfied with Him. I know this, I'm never satisfied
with me. But I am completely satisfied
with Him. Completely satisfied. Those who
drink this water, they know this. But look now at this fountain
of living water. This fountain of living water.
For all the righteousness that God requires, Christ fulfilled. All the payment for sin, Christ
has paid. All the grace and strength you
need is found in Him. Therefore, if you knew the gift
of God, if you knew the perfect, complete, and absolute perfect
work of Christ, if you knew who He was, you would ask of Him, and He would give you living You would ask of Him, then He
would give you living water. If you would cease to drink from
the broken cisterns of your self-righteousness, if you would cast aside your
religion, your thoughts of God, put them away and drink of Christ,
you shall live. Behold thou this water of life,
this salvation of God, Are you thirsty for salvation? Are you thirsty for righteousness? The natural man only wants what
God can give him carnally. He only wants health, wealth,
and prosperity in this world. That's all he wants. I tell you this, I need salvation. that only He can give. I'm thirsty. We drink from that
water which is Christ. And all who drink this shall
never lack, but rather have a well of this water springing up in
our souls. You know, I need Christ more right now
than I did yesterday. I need Him more now. What is
this? It's this well that springs up
inside of our souls, constantly refreshing us, constantly nourishing
us. Now, go back to your text and
look at this. I want you to see three things concerning this
water. This spiritual water of salvation. First of all, I want
you to see what is the source of this water. And these questions, I mean,
I've always wanted to be simple. And the answers are plainly written
for us here. Look at this. He showed me a
river of water of life. What is that? That's salvation.
Right? Clear as crystal proceeding.
Where? From the throne of God and the
Lamb. There's the source. The source of salvation is God
and the Lamb. Second of all, I want you to
see the character of this water. The nature of this water is what?
First of all, it is a water of life. Second of all, it is pure. Thirdly, it is clear. And then
you see the calling, and for that we will go to verse 17.
The calling to this water. The Spirit and the Bride say,
Come, let him that heareth say, Come, let him that is a thirst,
what? Come. And whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life How? Freely. So let's see these three
things now. First, the source of this water. This water, this salvation flows
from the throne of God and of the Lamb. The Holy Spirit surely
could have just said the throne of God, couldn't He? And He would
have been totally accurate. But more specifically, He tells
us to God the Father. The source of our salvation is
God the Father. Second of all, the source of
our salvation is the Lamb. And we're going to see lastly,
of course, our salvation comes from the Spirit. The Spirit and
the Bride say, come. You see the Trinity here. You
see all three of the Godhead engaged in the salvation of His
people. Now, as we see this, the first, we
see this flows from the throne of God. shows us, the Spirit intends
to show us first that the source of our salvation is the Father's
sovereign decree in eternal election. This source, this water flowed
from eternity from God. And second, we're going to see
how the source of this water is by the work and the offering
of the Lamb. Now, I want you to turn over
here. We're going to turn here for
just a minute, and then we're going to turn back a little bit later.
But go to Ezekiel 47. Ezekiel 47. A lot of these prophecies
in Revelation, you can actually link them back to Ezekiel's prophecy
here, and they'll be almost identical. But you consider this water of
life here. This is what Ezekiel saw in a
vision given to him in verse 1. He said, afterward he brought
me again to the door of the house. He's at the tabernacle, the house
where the Ark of the Covenant was. And behold, waters issued
out from under the threshold of the house eastward. For the
forefront of the house was toward the east and the waters came
down from under the right side of the house. at the south side
of the altar. Now what is he saying? He's saying
this, the source of this water came from where God dwelt. Remember, God came down at that
time and dwelt in that tabernacle. That tabernacle. So he's saying
the source of this water was what? God! That's where the source
of this water came. This water came out from where
God dwelt. So this water here, again, is
the same as in our text, the same as the Lord Jesus talked
about. It's a spiritual river. It's a spiritual water. It stemmed
from the throne of God. Therefore, the salvation of God
flows from the immutable, sovereign, eternal throne of God. Now, in 1 Corinthians, Paul calls
the gospel the mystery of the wisdom of God. The mystery of
the wisdom of God. He says in 1 Corinthians 2 and
verse 1, it said, Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that
are perfect. In other words, when I preach the gospel to you,
it's like wisdom. Not my wisdom. It's the wisdom
of God. And you understand the wisdom
of God. He said, yet not of the wisdom of this world, nor of
the princes of the world that come to nothing. But we speak
the wisdom of God in the mystery, even the hidden wisdom of God,
which God ordained before the world unto our glory. See then, believer, our salvation
flows. Your salvation, you that have
drank of this water, the source of it, the source of it is the
Almighty eternal, immutable throne of God. It is the immutable will
of God. It is the sovereign counsel of
God which has ordained our salvation to all who love Him, those who
were chosen in sovereign election. Let me ask you this morning,
do you believe on Him? Do you love Him? What then is
the source of your faith and love? Religion would tell you
the source of your faith and love is you. Religion would tell
you the source of your faith and love is your will, your works. But we who have drank of this
water understand that our love and our faith come from the sovereign
will and power of God. That's where our faith comes
from. That's where our will, our desire of love comes from. We know this because the Scriptures
are plain. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who have blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According to
this, according as He has chosen us in Him, before the foundation
of the world. What did He choose you to be? Holy. Holy and without blame. That's what He chose you to be.
Holy. In love. Here's His motivation. In love. Why do you love Him?
He first loved you. In love. having predestinated
us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. See, the source then of salvation
is God. It is eternal, and not according
to the merits of the elect. But this river of holiness, this
river of redemption, this river of salvation and wisdom, was
ordained of God. It was by the will of God, by
the love of God toward us. Now you know this is clearly
seen in Romans 9. Everyone that has been under
the sound of this ministry for any time understands Romans chapter
9 shows clearly this source of salvation. In the matter of Jacob
and Esau, twins in the womb of the same mother, being the seed
of the same father Isaac. Yet God, before they had done
good or evil, God hath made choice. God said the elder shall serve
the younger. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. Therefore, what? Why did you
do that? That the purpose of God according
to election might stand. Not of works. You got that? This is why He does it this way.
Not of works, but of Him that called it. God made choice. The purpose
of God according to the election of my sin. One man wrote this,
that the decree of God which is entirely free, depends upon
His own will and choice, stands firm and immutable, and not to
be disannulled by earth or hell, for it stands not in the precarious
foot of works." The fallible foot of works. It doesn't stand
on that. Isn't this wonderful for you
who are saved? That your salvation never depended upon you. It was
always ordained of God so that it should not fail. Which of you have ordained anything
that has not failed? We purpose to do things all the
time and never are capable of any carnal thing. We want to
do something and if God wills, we will do something. But it's
really not on us, is it? How much more our salvation?
Our salvation is totally dependent upon the will of God. So salvation
and mercy of God is not of Him that willeth. This is the conclusion
Paul comes to in Romans 9. So then, this is it. It's not
of Him that willeth. The source of my salvation is
not my will. Nor of Him that runneth. It's
not of my running. It's not of my working. It's
not of my merit. Not of him that willeth or him
that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. The moment merit enters in, it's
no longer mercy. You got that? If there is one
thing you did, it's not mercy. This is why the Spirit says this
water of life rose from the throne of God. It was in the covenant,
eternal covenant and purpose of God to save us. So then the
question is, where is the source of your salvation? Where does
the water of life you claim to drink from come from? Mine flows
from the eternal will and purpose of God. Therefore, don't come It doesn't come from works. It
doesn't come from will or self. If it does, then it is not the
water of life. But we who drink of Christ, we
know that our life and salvation is of the sovereign will of God.
Now then, the second source here is not only God, the throne of
God, but the throne of the Lamb. The throne of the Lamb. The Father
ordained and purposed and planned our salvation, that it should
not come by merit, but how? As I just read to you, by Jesus
Christ. That you should behold Him without
blame before Him, in love, predestinating us in the adoption of children,
by something. By Jesus Christ. Look at this in a couple of places.
Go to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, look at
verse 30. You that drink this water, I
know that you confess that you are in Christ. Alright? You by
faith are in Christ. Now how did you get in Christ?
Who put you in Christ? Look what the Scripture says.
But of God Are you in Christ? Who put you there? God put you
there. When did He put you there? He
put you there in eternity. That's when He put you there.
Now you experienced it later. But you are already in Him. But the point of this is that
you are in Him for a reason. Because only by Him are you saved. You are in Christ Jesus, who
of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption for this purpose according as it is written. For
this purpose, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. That's
the purpose of this. In Ephesians chapter 1 and verse
7 where we just read of our election, we also read of our redemption
in verse 7, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of His grace. So then all salvation
of the Father was ordained by and in Jesus Christ. Now, I just told you in Ezekiel
47, when that water flowed out from the tabernacle, when it
flowed out from the presence of God, what else was in that
room? The Ark of the Covenant. Wasn't
it? So it not only proceeded from
God, but it also proceeded from the picture, which is the Ark
of the Covenant, which is a picture of Christ. It's a picture of
Christ. The only way salvation flows
from God to us is through Him. You got it? If it bypassed the
Ark of the Covenant, it would not be salvation. It would be
wrath. It would be justice. But because
the Ark of the Covenant stood between God and man is the only
reason this is salvation flowing out. And so this salvation comes
by Jesus Christ. Now if we look in the beginning
when Adam sinned, and ruined his race. We see how all men
died in Adam. All were made sinners by him. Therefore, we would have never
come to Christ. We could never by our own works
please God. We could never free ourselves
from the enslavement of sin. Nor could we ever come to Christ
by faith. We could never do this because
we were ruined. This morning, if you're outside
of Christ and you will not come to Him, that you might have life. You know why? You cannot come
to Him. This is how ruined man is. But
see that the water began to flow as God preached the Gospel to
Adam, didn't He? After Adam had sinned and ruined
his race, what did God do? See how He didn't wait for Adam. God didn't sit up there and say,
well, you know what? He's sinned. Let Him come to me. You know
why He didn't? Because He would never come.
Adam would have never come to God. God, therefore, because
of His determined will, came after Adam. He pursued Adam. And what did He preach to Adam?
He preached Christ to Adam. He said this, the seed of the
woman, who is that but Christ. None of us are the seed of the
woman. Only He was the virgin born Son of God. The seed of
the woman shall crush the head of the serpent. How? By the bruising of His heel.
And then you remember He gave that beautiful picture. A picture. He took that innocent animal
and He slew it. And He ripped the skin off of
that animal. And He put it on the nakedness of Adam and Eve.
That was a picture of what He would do for us. He would kill
His Son so that we might be covered. And then, from that time forward,
this river, now if you go through Ezekiel in 47, you see this river,
it starts out as a little trickle from underneath the place of
God, and as He flows, He follows it. He's following it, gets a
little wider, gets a little bigger, gets a little deeper. A little
wider, a little bigger, a little deeper. A little wider, a little
bigger. Pretty soon it's up on his ankles, his knees, his waist,
his chest, and then it's overflowing his head. And then he's got to
get to the shore. The angel pulls him to the shore.
That's what happened with the Gospel in the Old Testament.
It starts out as a little trickle, a little prophecy. And as you
go through the Old Testament Scriptures, this river becomes
wider and bigger. You see the Passover lamb. You
see Israel being delivered from Egypt through the Red Sea. You
see the great day of atonement. You see the picture becoming
more vivid. You see the prophecies becoming
more clearer. But when Christ came, it was
as the noonday sun appeared and all the shadows and types fled
away. Why don't we have a tabernacle
today? It was only a picture of you.
What do I need that for? Why is it not only Israel hearing,
that nation of Israel hearing the word of God? And why are
we not kept out? Because that was just a picture.
has done away with. The noonday sun has arisen. Christ
has come. Peter says this, Of what salvation
the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who have
prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, searching
but in what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in
them did signify, when I testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ and the glory that should follow, unto whom it was revealed. that not unto themselves, but
unto us. See, they searched it out, but
they couldn't figure it out. Is this not a joy to you that
you know more now than Moses did? Now Moses knows it all now. He's in glory. He knew something
of it. But how much more blessed are
we When this river is not a trickle, it's an ocean. It's a floodgate
that's been let loose. Christ has come. See, the Savior
who was promised and pictured has now come, rising with healing
in His wings. Therefore, now for thirsty sinners,
now for thirsty sinners, come and drink of this water. What
is this water? It is Christ. See that He is
the only source of salvation. You remember in Isaiah, we've
gone over this many times. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given. The child
born, He was born of the virgin's womb. The Son given was the eternal
Son of God. God and man. The God-Man Redeemer
has come. What was His purpose? And the
government shall be upon His shoulders. The responsibility
of the salvation of His people rested on the shoulders of Christ
alone as He walked in this world. When He was performing righteousness,
He was performing righteousness for the elect of God. When He
came to Calvary's tree and He died, He was dying for the sins
of His people. Behold the glory and strength
of Christ who represented us. See how He in His glory made
our righteousness. Scripture says He shall magnify
the law. You know what men try to do with
the law? Try to push it away. They don't want to magnify it.
They want to excuse themselves. What he did, he magnified it. He showed you every jot and tittle
of the law simply by his own obedience. I like this. When Satan came
to tip him, you know what the Lord said to him? He said, the
prince of this world have found nothing in me. That's good. That's good. I like that. Because
that's my salvation. Pilate said, I find no fault
in this man. The scribes and Pharisees, they
said, never a man spake like this man. And Jesus even demanded them
one time, He said, which of you convinces me of sin? What can you point out in me
that's sin? And they couldn't do it. Because
there was no sin in Him. God said of him, this is my beloved
Son in whom I am well pleased. Therefore, when the perfect Son
of God, our representative, was to be crucified, when He was
to be crucified as the spotless Lamb of God, He was the perfect
offering for sin. The perfect offering. And behold
the strength of His perfection upon the cross in this. He had
to be made sin for us. because he himself had no sin.
God must have taken our sin and imputed it to Him. And when He did, justice fell
on the Son of God. What we deserved, our surety
endured. He endured the wrath of God In Prophecy, he says in Lamentation
1, he says, is it nothing to you that pass by? This morning
as we pass by the cross, is it nothing to you? Is it meaningless
to you that pass by? Is there any sorrow like unto
my sorrow, which the Lord hath afflicted on me? And when He suffered as the Lamb
of God for our sins. When God's justice was punished,
has punished our sins. When it could find no more sin. When no more iniquity could be
punished. Our Lord said and declared this
to us all. It is finished. The work of God that God purposed
the Son had accomplished. And we know even because Jesus
now is risen from the dead. Remember back in your text it
says, from the throne of God and of the Lamb. What does this
mean? The throne of God and the throne
of the Lamb. This speaks to us of a victorious
Savior. My salvation stemmed from the
will of God and the perfect work of Christ. The perfect work. If you read later on, it says
you add anything to this book, you know what he's talking about?
Adding anything to Him. You take anything away from Him. You have
no part in this. You have no life. See, our salvation
comes from a successful Savior. Therefore, He said this, all
power is given to Me in heaven and earth. All power is given
to Him in heaven and earth over all flesh that He should give
eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. So what's the
source of your salvation this morning? What's the source of
the water that you've drank from? Mine is simply this. It is the
will and purpose of God and it is the successful work of Jesus
Christ. That is the water I drink from.
That is the water of God's people. Look at the character of this
water now. Look now. And behold this. It is a water
of life. It is pure and it's clear. And from the throne of
God and the Lamb, behold, this river flowed from the election,
the redemption of Christ. This is the same river that still
flows from God to His elect through the Holy Spirit to every one
of His people. Now go back to Ezekiel 47. I
want you to see this about this river. Look at verse 8. This is after He had pulled back
up on the bank of that mighty river. And He said unto me, These
waters issue out toward the east country and go down to the desert
and to the sea. Now very specifically, I want
you to know that's a dead sea. A dead sea. You're going to see
that in a minute. which being brought forth into the sea, the
waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass that
everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the waters
shall come, shall live. You see, wherever this water
flows, life comes. Life comes. And so then the Spirit
of God right now is directing this water of salvation and wherever
it goes, there's life. There's life. I was reading those articles.
Look at those beautiful pictures of space. Do y'all see those?
They've got the telescope that went way out there and started
taking pictures. Beautiful things! And one thing that catches my
eye always when these scientists get excited about something,
they always talk about water. He said, look, there's water
out there. Now why are they so excited that there might be water
out there? Because wherever there's water,
there's what? Life. That's why they're so excited. But behold this, this river Wherever
it goes, it brings life. It is living water. This salvation
is purpose to the Father accomplished by the Christ. And wherever the
Spirit sends it, it gives it life. And notice this. And there shall be a great multitude
of fishes, because the waters shall come thither, and they
shall be healed. And everything shall live whither
the river cometh, and it shall come to pass that the fishers
shall stand upon from in Gedi. Now, again, that's why I'm telling
you it's a dead sea because this is where the dead sea was in
Gedi. It's kind of strange, you know,
that water doesn't have any life at all in it. And God says when
this river touches that dead sea, there's going to be so much
life that you're going to have a bunch of fishermen sitting
around waiting to catch fish. Again, we know this is not literal
because the dead sea, you don't see a bunch of fishermen standing
around there trying to throw nets is dead. He's talking a spiritual
river. The deadness is our nature. We,
by nature, are the dead sea. We are the desert. We are a barren
wasteland. But when the Spirit of God comes
with this water, He gives life. He gives life. And I'll tell you, when He gives
life, there's fishermen standing on the edge of that bank, always
casting nets. You know what that is. The Lord
gave that picture of His disciples. He says, I will make you fishers
of men. Isn't that what we're doing? He's telling us through
the preaching of the Gospel, He brings in those that are living. He brings in those that have
life. He calls them. And they what?
They believe! I want to ask you, do you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ? You that believe. Oftentimes
our answer is, I believe. But I do believe. I do believe
no matter how small, no matter how weak my faith is, I do believe. You know why? Because you have
life. And as long as you have life, listen to me, you have
faith. As long as you have life, You have faith. You know the
reason why people leave Christ? They leave the Gospel? Simply
this. They never had life. Their river of water of life
was a stagnant pond of works. It was an illusion. You know, there's no real water
there. No life there. That's why they
leave. John said they went out from us because they were not
of it. If they were of us, they would have no doubt continued
with us. But that it might be manifest
that they were not of us. What'd they do? They left. They
left. And so you that have life, you
will always have faith. And this river is pure. It's
without stain and without pollution. In other words, this. It requires
nothing of you. It requires nothing of you. The moment man puts his hand
to this water, he pollutes it. I'm going to give you an illustration
of this. I was in the military. We spent 30 days out in the field. 30 days. 30 days without a bath. 30 days without a shower. We
were ripe. We were ripe. Filthy. It had
rained, we had been crawling in mud, and our lieutenant took
us into this, they had these shower houses where you could
clean up. And so we went in there and they
had this pool of water. And we all just ran and jumped
in, what are you supposed to happen to the water? Polluted. They were really angry at us
for doing that. We weren't supposed to do that, we didn't. And it
was polluted, it was horrible. What happens if you take your
works and put them to His pure works? You pollute it. This water
cannot be polluted by your works. It must be received as it is,
without spot. Perfect. That's the character
of this salvation. And the second thing is this,
it's not only a water of life, it's not only pure, it's clear
as crystal. What I get from this is this,
The Gospel is plain. I've seen some pictures of it. Some of these waters are so clear
that you can just see all the way down the bottom. See, every
little fish that moves in is so clear. That's how the Gospel
should be. It should be clear. It's plain.
Here's the Gospel. Christ is all. He's all my life. He's all my
hope. He's all the forgiveness of my
sins. His blood cleanseth me from all
sin. Perfect. I don't need to change
or add anything. And then the calling of this
Gospel, it says, Behold, the Spirit and the bride say, And him that heareth, what do
you say? You that hear this gospel, what
do you say? You say to everybody else, look what I found. Come here to this river. Let him that is a thirst come. There's a qualification in it.
To have this water, you've got to be what? Thirsty. Are you thirsty? Behold the river
of water of life that proceeds from the throne of God and of
the Lamb, perfect in salvation. Drink of this water, whosoever
will. Hasn't drank of this water? Have.
What's the cost? What does God require of you
to drink this water? The only way you're going to
be rejected is if you bring something. You bring something, there's
no water for you. You take this water freely, and
it's yours. And I like this. I didn't have
this in my notes, but it's a river. What does that tell you about
water when it's a river? Constantly flowing. Constantly
flowing. You know what Christ said would
happen when you drink this water? There would be a well of water
springing up. This morning, we're drinking
this water. How do you drink? By faith. You
believe on Christ. That's how you drink. You drink,
you live. You're refreshed. You're nourished. You're glad. I tell you, when
I'm thirsty, there ain't nothing more I want than water. I tell you, I'm thirsty for forgiveness,
for pardon. There's nothing like this water
that cleanseth us from all our sin. There is a fountain open. A fountain for sin and uncleanliness. I pray God will bless this to
you.