If you will take your Bibles
and turn me to Revelation chapter 22. Revelation chapter 22. And this morning we'll be looking
at one verse, verse 17. Revelation chapter 22 and verse
17. The title of my message this
morning is a call to come. A call. To come. The Holy Scripture says, And
the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say,
Come. And let him that is athirst,
Come. And whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely. Freely. Come freely. Come freely. I know this, every one of us
has been at one time or another duped by the saying, come, it's
free. It's free. We learn real fast
that there's nothing in this world free. We know that. We know it by experience. Somewhere,
somebody paid for it. Somewhere. But the gospel is the only thing
in all the world that bids a man to come and take it freely. Freely. It's the only thing.
It's the only thing that comes without merit or without deserving,
it comes freely. Freely. It bids a man to come and take
of the water of life freely. Who says that? Who says for me
to come? Who's calling you to come Every
one of you understand this word come. It's something that you
understand as a child. Hey, come here. Hey, come to
me. He understands that. It's not complicated. Don't make
it complicated. You come here. I say that a lot. I say it almost
every day. Andrew, Audrey, come here. And they understand. They understand. So I know that every one of you
understand the word come. Who says to come? Look at your
verse. And the Spirit says come. The Spirit of God says come. Come from where? I mean, if you've
got to come from something to someone, then you've got to come
from someplace you're not. You've got to come from someplace
you're not. So then, where does the Spirit
call you from? He calls you from the dead. That's where He calls men from.
The dead. This is where all men begin by
nature, and God says that even His chosen elect people, even
His saints, loves with all of his heart from eternity. Even
they must come from the dead. They must come from the dead.
Ephesians chapter 2, you know it well. And you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. Dead. The Spirit calls men from death
which all of us are partakers by nature. Death. Death. The lie of false religion always
begins here. Yea, hath God said, you shall
not surely die. You're not dead. Surely you're
not dead. Surely you've got something that
God wants from you. You're just a good person and
you do a lot of good things. Surely you're not dead. That has always been the lie. Man is dead because of original
sin. Adam, when he sinned, you and
I all sinned in him. We did. When he sinned, you sinned. I sinned. When He died in His
soul, you and I died that very day that He died. We died. Man is not injured by the fall. Man is not bruised by sin. Man is not wounded and left half
dead and half alive. Man is not left with some goodness
or some power to believe on Christ. All men are born spiritually
dead. Dead. What does that mean? What is
it to be dead? To be dead means to be without
ability and without will. You put a dead man on this table and you ask him to do anything. He cannot do anything you ask. He cannot understand you. He cannot respond to you. He
cannot and will not get up off that table. Why? He's dead. He's dead. And the only way for
that man to respond to anything is that he be brought from the
dead. From the dead. Jesus said, you will not come
to me that you might have life. Listen to me. You will not come
to Christ that you might have life. Not because you're stubborn
and your will is so strong. It's because you're dead and
you have no life. And you don't love Christ. And
you don't love His Gospel. Because you're dead in your souls. You're dead to the things of
God. You're a hater of God. A despiser
of God. You're not subject to His law
and you won't be. I don't have to listen to this.
I don't have to listen to God. No, you cannot listen and you
will not listen because you're dead. You're dead. Jesus later tells us in John
6, verse 44, that no man can... Again, we're talking elementary
words, aren't we? No man can come to Me. He didn't say no man may. He
said no man can. That speaks of ability. May speaks of desire or will. But no man can speaks of ability. No man can come to me except
what? Except the Father which has sent me resurrect his dead
rotting corpse of a soul. That's how. Unless he come from
the dead to life, he cannot believe on Christ. and he will not believe
on Christ. And being dead, you have no goodness. Sometimes I tell my son, hey,
that's a good boy. You did a good job. Well, in
my eyes, he did. He did a great job. He's a good
boy. I'm not God. You know what God says about
you that are lost? He said, you have no goodness at all. Everything you do is so full
of sin, you make God sick. That's what we are. By nature, that's what we are.
dead. This is where we are by nature.
Religious, self-righteous, yes. Full of good works and deeds
and all those other things. Full of faith in a God that we
make of our own minds. Yes. Full of that. But full of
sin. Full. If I were to fill this glass
up and it overflowed, you would say, that glass is completely
full. That's exactly how we are with
sin. We are completely full of sin and no goodness at all resides
in this old man, this nature you're born with. It's dead.
The only hope for you is that the Spirit says, come. Come from where? From the death
of your soul. from dead spiritual works and
religion. Well, if we're called to come
from someplace, where are we called to? If you've got to come
from someplace, you've got to go to someplace. Where do we
come to? And the Spirit says to the dead,
come to life. And immediately those that hear
it come to life. Mark this down. If a man has
never known his spiritual death, he cannot be resurrected from
the dead. Let me ask you this. Our brother
Bob went home to do with the Lord this month. If the Lord
God would come down and raise my brother Bob from the dead
and him come in here and visit with us, I know that he'll know
one thing. He was dead. He'll know that. And so it is
with everyone who is called to life. You know this. You were
dead. But now we are alive. Alive. There is no power in us to quicken
ourselves. There is no power in you to make
yourself alive. There is nothing you can do to
make this enjoyable if you hate God. Nothing. I've tried for
years when I was a kid to make this enjoyable. To make coming
to church somehow enjoyable. Man, I tried to entertain myself
or do something. You know what? I never succeeded.
Why? I was dead. And I had no life. But now, I have life. And these things are pleasant.
Pleasant to me. You know, when Jesus said, that no man can come unto me
except the Father which hath sent me draw him. You know that
offended some folks? That even offended His disciples
or the people who said they were His disciples. It offended them.
Made them offended. What do you mean I can't come
to you? What do you mean I don't have the power to do what I want
to when I want to? How many times have you said,
well, I'll just come to Christ when I'm older, or when I'm this,
or when I'm that, or when I have this much education, or this
much money, and when I get a family, and when I've done all I want
to do, when I get it all done, then I'll come. Oh yeah? Yeah, really? You have that power? You sure don't. You can only come if he calls
you. If he don't call you, you'll die in your sins and hell will
be your portion. That's how serious this thing
is. Salvation only comes by the eternal
sovereign will of God Almighty. And friends, when he says come. He's not asking. He's not asking. He's telling
you to come. Do you suppose when Jesus Christ
raised Lazarus from the dead, that Lazarus had some choice
in this matter? That he could have said, well,
Jesus, you know, I'm just happy being in heaven here, and I really
don't want to come back down. And, you know, I'm sure you're
just inviting me to come down. He said, Lazarus, get up and
come here! And Lazarus said, yes, sir. And
he got up and he came out of that tomb. And that's exactly
how it is when a sinner is saved. He hears the voice of the Spirit
and the Spirit says, live! And he lives! And he can do nothing
else but live. It's not his choice. It's a sovereign choice. It's of the sovereign will of
God that I am alive. This spiritual life is not something
natural. It's not something we are born
with and it's not something we can do by our will and it's not
can be done on us by the will of another. I want my son and
daughter to be saved, but I have no power. Praise God, I don't. Because if I did it, it'd all
be screwed up. And everyone who comes, hears
the Spirit's call to come. Do you know it's a surprise to
everyone? It's a surprise. Grace is always
a surprise. You see, a sinner never expects
Him to come to them or call them. You see, the Pharisee, he expected
when he prayed thus with himself, he said, Lord, I thank You I'm
not like this other man. I'm thankful that I'm so great
and so wonderful. And I know You're just happy
to have me. I know that when I die, heaven will be a better
place because I'm there. Dead. He's dead. Who's the living one? That man
over in the corner crying and begging for mercy. He said, Father,
be merciful to me. The sinner! I don't know if there's any other
sinner, but there's one right here! Be merciful to this sinner! Alive. He's heard something. He's heard the Spirit of God
say, You come. And He did. He became alive. And it was by surprise. Remember
Paul on the road to Damascus? Do you suppose he was expecting
to be a Christian? There he was with all of his
men and his swords and ready to kill Christians, destroy the
gospel, and all of a sudden, Christ came. Saul! Saul! Why persecutest thou me? Who
are you, Lord? Your Lord, and I don't know you. I don't know you. He said, I'm
Jesus, whom thou persecutest. And next thing you know, you
see Him over here praying. Did He intend to do that? Or was
that a surprise? Did you intend to believe on
Christ? Were you seeking Christ when
you came into the service this morning? If you're lost, you
weren't seeking Him. The Scripture says, none seeketh
Him. I wasn't seeking Him when He found me. I wasn't seeking
Him. Surprise! Come, sinner! Come from death
to life. And you know who else was surprised?
Pharisees. They were surprised, weren't
they? They sent Paul their best. He was their brightest star.
He said, surely if anybody can stamp out this heresy of Christianity,
it should be Paul. Let's send our best, our strongest
man, and see if he can't do it. Do you not think that they were
surprised when he came back preaching the gospel instead of killing
it? You bet they were. Were the people around you not
surprised when God saved you? All of a sudden, those things
of the world, they didn't matter anymore. They weren't concerning
you. Your friends and the people you
ran with, the people that you hung around, they no longer spoke
things that were pleasant to you, and you had to get away
from them. They were surprised when you left them. They said,
man, that was the worst person in the group. How in the world
could he leave us for that? Surely he's a hypocrite. You know who else is surprised?
Christians. We're surprised when we see somebody
come to grace. You know what? I know this. I
preached this this morning. If you weren't here, I'm sorry
for you. Because this morning we were preaching about the success
of the gospel when it's preached. It's successful every time it's
preached. It's successful. It's successful. I know this. I believe this. But when people are saved, I'm
still surprised. I'm still surprised. It amazes
me. Ananias was surprised by Paul,
wasn't he? He said, Ananias, you go and heal my servant of
his blindness and you preach to him the gospel. And Ananias
said, Lord, who did you say? Saul? Well, you know, Lord. Like he was informing the Lord.
Lord, maybe you missed this, but he was the one that killed
your church. You know, maybe it's a different Saul you're
talking about. I want to make sure. He said, no, he's a chosen
vessel unto me. And Ananias was surprised. So when the call to life comes,
it's immediate. It's an immediate call. And you
know what? We immediately come. When the
spirit says come. We. Go. Come to life, come to life. It is an irresistible call. Not
an invitation. Not an invitation. See, God's not asking you to
come. He demands you come. And if you will not come, you're guilty of treason. God says, come. It's a command. And we who have believed, we've
come. We've come. We've counted all things but
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. I'm so glad that He said to my
soul, come. Otherwise, I never would have
come. I was dead. Number two, the bride says come.
Look at this in our text again. Isn't it amazing what you can
get out of the Word of God? If you just read and study, you
can get this. It's there. It's been there all
the time. Look at what the next one is. The Spirit and the bride
say what? Come! This bride, she says the
same thing as the Spirit says. Notice they're together, the
spirit and the bride. It's not the spirit says come
and the bride says come, but they both say come together.
They both say it together. Who is this bride? It is the
church of the living God. It is those who have come from
death to life. You and I who have believed on
Christ, we are the bride of Christ. We are clothed with His righteousness. We are bathed in His glory. And His blood has washed us freely
from all of our sins. So that we are His bride. I tell you, there is nothing
more visually beautiful to me in this world than when I saw
my bride come to me. She was beautiful. She is beautiful,
but that moment, she was beautiful. And friends, in the eyes of Christ,
His bride wears the linen clean and white. And He loves her. And His bride echoes the call
of God. The church of Christ has made
herself ready by faith in Christ. And now, we have the robe of
righteousness. Do you realize when you believe
in Christ, when you come from death to life, you also come
to faith in Christ at the exact same time? The exact same time. And at that exact moment, the
righteousness which Christ merited has now been given to us experimentally,
given to us in the inner man, so that we right now are as He
is in heaven. We who believe, if you're alive
in Christ, you are exactly as righteous as Christ Himself in
the inner man, that new nature. And that happened when? From
death. to life. That's when it happened. It happened. And we are his church. We are his bride. Look at Revelation, Chapter 12,
flip over there, just one couple of pages. Look at this. Revelation chapter 12 and look
at verse one. This is describing his bride.
This describes you and me who have come from death to life.
Look at this. And there appeared a great wonder
in heaven, a woman. Clothed. With the sun. Clothed with the sun. Have you
ever seen the sun in its brightness and just try to stare at it?
Have you done that? I did it as a kid. I don't try
it anymore. I thought I'd do a staring contest. I lost. You
look at that sun and man, you are blinded by it. It's so glorious. It's so bright. We are clothed
with the sun. We are the brightness of His
glory. Isn't that wonderful? He has given us His glory. And
we share in His glory. This travailing in pain. In chapter
12, verse 2, it says, She being with
child cried travailing in birth. This travailing of the church
is preaching the gospel. That's what it is. It's preaching
the gospel of Jesus Christ that says to sinners, come. That's what we labor in. That's
what I labor to do every week for you. Is to prepare this gospel
that says to sinners, come. Come. This is the purpose of the church
on the earth is to preach the gospel alone. And this is the
express purpose of our being here this morning is to preach
the gospel of Christ. Have you heard the call of the
spirit? Listen to me personally, and I don't you don't need to
answer this for anybody but you. Because it doesn't really matter.
You can't help anybody else, you can't help yourself. Unless
you've heard the call of the Spirit of God. And if you've heard that, how
did you hear it? How does this call come? When the Spirit says
come, how then does the Spirit, how do you hear that? The bride says come. You see, when I say come, it
is the Spirit of God saying come. When I witness to you, I am testifying
to you exactly what God says in His Word. These are not my
words. These are His words. And I speak
as His ambassador to you. And what are His words? Hey you,
sinner, come. That's His words. That's the
words of the church. He has committed this gospel
unto His pastors and to His preachers. Titus chapter 1 and verse 3,
we read this this morning, that Paul says that the Word of God
was committed to him. He was given a sacred trust. And that sacred trust is the
gospel. God's given us, His church, a
sacred trust. And that sacred trust is to preach
His gospel. That's it. That's our sacred
trust. My message to you is to come
to Christ. I'm not asking because He's not. God says you come. You come. And you that have come, do you
not still come? Do you not still come? Yes. I still come to Christ every
moment of every day for all my hope and all my comfort. For all the forgiveness of my
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us all our sins."
When? When we confess it, I come to
Him confessing my sins all the time. And He's faithful all the
time to forgive me. This is a message of good news,
isn't it? If you've received this kind of forgiveness, is
that not something that everybody in this world should desire?
Is that not something everyone should want? To be pardoned from
sin? To be quickened and risen from
the dead? Is that not what you want? That's
what I want. I'm not going to turn here, but
I want to illustrate it by Scripture. In Ezekiel 37, The hand of the
Lord was upon the prophet Ezekiel and he came over to this valley
and he looked out and there were nothing but dead bones, dry bones
all over the valley. Been a great battle there. And
this battle was not just happened, it had happened long ago. Long
ago. And these bones were not newly
dead. They were not partially dead.
They were dry. They were very, very dry, the
Scripture said. No moisture. No life. And the Lord said to His prophet,
He said, Can these bones live? Now is that something that you
would think would be an absurd question? Can these bones live? And Ezekiel, understanding who
he was talking to, he said, Lord, you know, because I you're God,
I don't know. And God said to Ezekiel, he said,
I want you to preach to these bones. Doesn't make any sense either,
does it? Dead bones lying all over the valley said, preach
to him, preach to dead bones. Whatever you want. You're God.
And so he began to preach. And he preached exactly what
God said. He didn't vary it. He didn't
change it. He preached exactly what God
says. God said, preach to these bones
and say unto them, ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus
saith the Lord unto the dry bones, Behold, I will cause breath to
enter into you, and you shall live, and I will lay sinew upon
you, and bring up your flesh upon you, and cover you with
skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall
know that I am the Lord." You know what? That's exactly what
he preached. He didn't change one word that God said. God said, sinners, I will give
you life. And what happened? The bones began to rattle. And they came together. The muscle and the tissue came
up from the dirt And they were covered with skin. And the prophet looked out and
he saw an exceeding great army. But there was one problem. They
didn't have any breath. And God said to him, preach again
to them. Okay, Lord, what do you want
me to preach this time? You preach to the wind. And you tell the wind to fill
them. What does the wind liken to in the Scriptures? Is it not
the Spirit of God? The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and you hear the sound of it, but you can't tell where it's
coming and where it's going? So is every sinner that is saved
and resurrected by the Holy Spirit. I don't know who He'll save.
I just know He will save. It's not for me to know who He
will save. If I were to guess, I would be
wrong most all of the time to guess who God will save and who
God won't. That's not my business. I know
this. I am to say exactly what the
Spirit says. And what does the Spirit say?
Come. What do I say? Come. And when God the Holy Spirit
does, blow in the hearts of men. He gives them life, gives them
life and they worship God. This gospel is not only committed
to me. You believers listen to me very carefully. This gospel
is also committed to you. I know that some of you may think
that this is the pastor's job only, that, hey, you're called
to preach, you're called to stand up and tell and witness. Yes,
I'm called to tell you. I'm called to tell you. But friends,
every one of God's people is also called to tell others. What was our Lord's command when
He left us? He said, go ye. Very important word. It's singular,
it's personal, it's not plural. Not go you in general, not go
you somebody else, go ye personally, singularly into all the world
and do what? Say come. Come. Pastor, I'm not equipped. I just
can't. I don't know how to do this.
I don't have the skill. You don't have the skill to say,
come? You don't have that skill. Isn't
that what Philip did to Nathanael? Philip comes and says, hey, we
found the Christ. Jesus is here. He's the Christ,
the One, the Messiah. And Nathanael being the smart
man that he was, he says, can anything good come out of Nazareth?
Philip was stumped. He had no idea what to say to
that. He said, I don't know. Come and see. Come and see what
I've seen. Come and hear what I've heard.
And he did and he lived. The bride says come. The bride
says come. It's our responsibility to witness. Have you heard? Listen to what
the command of the Scripture is in your text. Look at that.
Come. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. Well, you know
what? I don't know if I'm really part
of that bride. Well, look at the second part.
And let him that heareth say, Come. That's the same as a bride.
Have you heard? Have you heard? You're not excluded. If you've heard, let him say,
Come. What a privilege. What a privilege it is to be
rejected by this world. What a privilege. What a privilege
to be hated for the gospel. What a privilege. What a privilege
to suffer the loss of friends and family for the gospel's sake.
What a privilege. What a privilege to be put under
such trials and fire The trial of our faith being much more
precious than gold that perishes. What a privilege. Do you know
right now you're preaching to everyone out there? By being here. You are testifying that this
is the place where God has his word and this is the place where
the Spirit of God comes and dwells. with us. That's what you testify
every time. And every time you don't come.
You're not. This. It breaks my heart. To see you. Unfaithful. Because you are preaching. You're
just preaching that something else is more important than Christ. You're giving your testimony
to something else. But if we are His bride and we
have heard Him, we should say with every action, with every
word, Come. Come. Let him that heareth say, Come. Well, who is to come? Let him that is a thirst come. I'm thirsty. Boy, that was good. Well, pastor, I'm not thirsty.
Don't come. Stay where you are. This calls
to thirsty people. Here's some water. Come. Here
it is. Free. You can have some. I won't charge anything for it.
The only requirement is you're thirsty. Thirsty for what? Thirsty for righteousness. If you're lost, you're thirsty
for something, but it's sin. You want sin. You love Sin. But we who come, come because
we are thirsty for righteousness. I don't want sin. I don't love
sin. I want Christ. I want to feel the warmth of
His embrace. I want to feel the warmth of
His forgiveness of my sins. And so I come and drink. Come
with the biggest cup you can find. Don't come to church with
a little old cup. Come with a pail! Come with a
bucket! Come with a tub and fill to your
heart's content. If you're thirsty, you know a
lot of times it's not necessarily the amount that I preach that
matters as much as it is your appetite. I got a lot to preach,
don't I? I got a lot to preach. How much
you can take is up to you. How big is your bucket? Drink and drink as much as you
can as often as you can. This will never run dry. Never. Are you thirsty? And how
are they to come? Freely. Don't try to buy this water.
You can't have it. Don't try to bargain with God
for this water. You can't have it. God's already paid the cost for
this water. He paid the cost with the blood
of his son. And if you try to add one thing to that cost, friends,
you have insulted God and said Christ is not good enough. I
need to add my two cents. God don't want your two cents.
come as you are. Is that not great? Sinner come as you are now. Well, I'm not really thirsty. It doesn't matter. Are you thirsty?
Come and welcome! It's free! Eternal life is free! It's free. Take it freely. Or don't take it at all. I am so glad that He has made
me willing in the day of His power. Spirit said to my soul, come
and I lived. The bride, his church said to
my soul, come and I believed on Christ. And I'm thirsty for him. I long for his presence and love
to you. If you are, because your life.
I pray that God blesses to you, let's stand and we'll be dismissed
in prayer.