If you will take your Bibles
and turn with me back to Isaiah chapter 55. Isaiah chapter 55. We'll be looking at the first couple
of verses here in this text. Isaiah chapter 55 and verses
1 and 2. The title of the message this
morning is, Water to the thirsty. Water to the thirsty. The Scripture says, Ho, everyone
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money,
come ye, buy and eat, yea, come buy wine and milk without money
and without price. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto Me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness." Now, this passage of Scripture is nothing more
or nothing less than the gospel message of Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. Before us, we have the call of
the gospel in this passage. And it is spoken not by the prophet,
but it is spoken by the Lord God Himself. God Himself says
to you this morning, Stop. Listen. Cast out every thought,
every word, everything of this life and hear what God has to
say to you today. Oh, wait a minute. Listen. Listen. Everyone, listen to the
Word of God and hear what God says in this message. of grace. This is a message of
hope, a message of life, a message that is directed to every one
of you. Listen, oh, everyone that thirsts
this message of grace. This is the call of the gospel.
And I know this. that when I preach this message
this morning, no matter how feeble your pastor is, no matter how
ineloquent I may be, I know this for a fact, that the Word of
God this morning, as it is preached, will not fall to the ground.
It will accomplish exactly what God has intended for it to accomplish
in your life this morning. Look at verse 11 and see what
God says about His Word. He says, so shall My Word. Just like the water comes down
into the earth and it doesn't go back up, but it waters the
ground, it produces something. It produces fruit. The rain waters the grass and
the grass yields the flower. Trees yield their fruit because
of the rain, and God says, My word is like that. My word will
descend like rain, and it will accomplish, it goes forth out
of His mouth, and it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall
accomplish what? That which I please. You see, God's word will accomplish
something. It will accomplish exactly what
God pleases. It will accomplish what He pleases,
and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I send it." God is
sending His Word this morning. And it will not fall to the ground.
It will accomplish whatever He has purposed it to do. The Word
of God's mercy. The Word of God's grace. The blessed message of His Son,
Jesus Christ. This message will accomplish
the purpose that God sent it to it. I'm going to let you in
on what the purpose is. Because God lets me in on it.
He lets me in. I'm going to let you in on it.
Here it is. It will be one of two things that will happen to
you this morning. Every one of you. Not one person in this building
will escape it. One of two things will happen
to you. Either you will walk out of here
more hardened against God, or you will walk out of here saved
and redeemed. Those are the only things that
God sends His Word to do. He says, I will either harden
your heart or I will save it. One of the two. And whatever
happens, God purposed it to happen. Oh yeah, you hardened your heart.
Don't think you escaped the mind and purpose of God by your will.
God does exactly what He intends to do, what He wills to do in
your life. He will either save you or He
will add to your condemnation in hell. God is doing something. Now,
I don't know what He's doing in your heart. I have no idea.
I can't see. I can't see that. But I know
this, God is doing it. I don't know which God will do,
but I am sure that His Word is true. And I am sure that His
Word will save His people from their sins. And maybe, maybe,
God will be gracious to someone today. I don't know. I'm also sure that His people
will be fed by the same message. The same message that saves sinners
and hardens sinners is the same message that feeds God's sheep. I love the old, old story, and
I don't want to hear anything else. I love Christ and Him crucified,
and I don't want to hear anything else. Now, the gospel. This message
that we have before us this morning, this gospel message. I'm preaching
this to everyone. And know this, this message will
affect everyone in one of those two ways. But I know this, that
this gospel call is not for everyone. I preach it to everyone. I say, ho, everyone, but there's
a qualifier. There's a qualifier. You know,
you go to the music park, you see those rides, they got that
line. My kids have to go up to that line and they have to see
if they're tall enough. There's a requirement. Here's the requirement. Everyone that thirsts Everyone that's thirsty. You
see, this message is for the thirsty. I like this illustration,
a guy walking down and got this road crew and it's hot. They're
working on that asphalt. There's nothing hotter than working
on a road in the middle of the summer in Houston, Texas. Nothing
hotter. And these guys are out there
and you see a man coming on and he had big buckets of water strapped
to him. He said, Water! Water! Would you like some water? And
the guy said, no, I'm not thirsty. He said, I'm not talking to you.
I'm talking to everyone that's thirsty. I've got water for the
thirsty. If you're not thirsty, I've got
nothing for you. I've only got water for thirsty
people. Thirsty people, are you thirsty? This is the qualification. Are you thirsty? God's gospel is for those that
thirsteth. Now, this is not a physical thirst. This is not something physical
that I'm speaking of. In this text, it is speaking
of spiritual water. And so this thirst, it must be
something greater than just the thirst of our lips. It is the thirst of a man's soul. Friends, I know this, that every
single one of you, hear me, every single one of you thirst for
something. You thirst for something. Every
one of you has a craving for something. Has a need. All men by nature are born with
a need, a hunger. in their hearts. When you were
born, a baby is born. He's born with a need, isn't
he? He's born with a need for milk. And that baby, when he
has a need, what does he do? He begins to cry out for milk. And you know what? He won't stop
until he gets what he needs. That's a physical hunger, isn't
it? It's a physical hunger. What
happens when that baby is full? He's satisfied for a little while,
isn't he? He's content, he'll goo and he'll gaw at you a little
bit, and he'll have a nice little playtime, but it won't last long. And sure enough, that hunger
comes back. That thirst, it comes back and
he cries out again. And as we grow older, the thirst
isn't just for milk anymore. It's for more things. It is for
pleasure. It is for flesh. It is for sin
that we long by nature. You long to sin. You long and
have a need. You have a void inside of your
heart by nature. And what we do by nature is we
take anything that is pleasing to us and we try to quench that
thirst with it. Try to quench our needs. All men by nature are born with
an empty void in their hearts and men strive and fight and
kick and work to satisfy that longing of their flesh. But I ask you, with Solomon,
who was the wisest man next to Christ, he asked this question.
Hear the wisdom in this question. What is the profit of all our
labors under the sun? What does it profit us? All of our striving, all of our
kicking to gain pleasure for ourselves, what does it profit? Does it profit us? What has been the result of the
natural man to fill his thirsty soul with the pleasures of this
life? Is it not what Solomon witnessed
too? Vanity of vanities, all is empty. Is that not your experience
with sin and the flesh? Hasn't it always come up empty? If you're honest with yourself,
you know it has. What do we say when we're young? We say this, you know, if I can
just get this, I'll be happy. Oh, if I can just get that person
to like me, I'll be happy. Oh, if I can just get through
high school. Oh, I'm set then. Life is going
to be good then. Oh, if I can just get through college.
Man, if I could just find a job and settle down and have a wife
and kids, then it'll be happy. Then I'll be joyful. Then everything
will be great. Oh, if I could just get these
kids out of the house. Oh, if I could just get them
out. And then we're not satisfied
with that, so we have our kids have kids, so they suffer like
we did. And so now that you've got the
grandkids, you say, oh, I just can't wait to see my grandkids
again. You spend all that time getting your kids out so you
can get your grandkids in? What is that? I mean, think about
it. These are the things that we
do. We say, if I can just get to here. And then we get to the
end of our life and we say, where did it go? What did it profit
me? I got everything I wanted and
what did it do for my soul? Did it satisfy the hunger? Did
it satisfy that need? No. It was grabbing at air. Every time
we thought we had it, it disappeared. And we had to find something
else to replace it. Solomon said, we're like the
sea. Have you ever thought about the rivers running into the sea?
The rivers constantly running into the sea and the sea is never
full. It's exactly how your heart is.
You can run all the rivers of sin into your heart and all the
pleasures of this life you can get and you will still end up
empty and thirsting for more. You'll still end up empty and
thirsting for more. Jesus asked the question, what
doth it profit you to gain the whole world and lose your own
soul? What will you give in exchange
for your soul? Friends, your soul is something
that's immortal. It's going to live on, no matter
what you think or how you feel about it. Your soul will live
on for all eternity. You are an immortal being in
your soul. And it will live on. What on
earth would you give? What temporal possessions would
you give for your soul? So then the gospel asks you,
why do you spend your labors for that which does not satisfy? Can you not see the madness?
Can you not see the madness of sin to run to vanity when it will never satisfy you? This morning I tell you that
there is only one water that will satisfy the soul of men, and that is the person of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. This alone fills the empty void
in a man. When God created Adam, Adam was
at peace, wasn't he? Adam had everything. Talk about
environment. People say, well, if I just had
the right environment, I'd be good. No, you wouldn't. Adam
had the perfect environment. He had everything you don't have. He had holiness. He had righteousness. He could talk with God face to
face. He was perfect in every way that
a man could be by his obedience. He had fellowship with God and
he was not lacking anything. Adam was happy. Adam had everything
because he had communion with God, his Maker. But when Adam sinned, do you
not see that he lost something? He lost something. He lost communion
with God. He lost fellowship with God.
And that's what the hole is. That's what the lacking is. We
were created to have fellowship with God. And when men are born,
they are born without fellowship with God. And therefore, there's
a hole in their hearts. Friends, Adam was naked the whole time before
he sinned. And yet there was nothing wrong. There was nothing lacking. But
when he sinned, what did he say? He said, I'm naked. I need something
to cover my nakedness. I need something. And so He covered
Himself. He felt His need. All men by
nature know their guilt. And they know they need something.
Every one of you know you're guilty. Whether you know Christ
or not, you know guilt. Every one of us do. Why? Because
the law of God is written on your hearts and you can't escape
it. And so what do you do? What do you do when your guilt
is exposed by nature? We, like our Father, try to cover
it up with something. We try to cover it up. He used
fig leaves. He used fig leaves to cover his sin. Adam reasoned within himself
and thought, surely these fig leaves will do. Surely these
things will cover myself so I can stand before God again and He
won't know the difference. Surely He won't know. For the most part, we do the
same. For the most part, we try to
cover our sin and our guilt with something. Some people try to cover it by
distracting themselves. You see, they don't want to talk
about the things of God. You talk to them about death.
I'm not afraid to talk about death. But most people are. And so what do they do? They
try to get away from it. They don't want to talk about
it. They want to distract themselves with the flair and the glitter
of this world. And they want to try to take
in this world so that they can put out of their mind guilt and
shame. They don't want to think about
that, having to stand before God. They don't want to think
about that. So they distract themselves with
the pleasures of this life and the labors of this world. They think that if they can not
think about it, they can find peace. Some men try to delay it by saying,
well, I'll talk about that when I'm older. I'll talk about that
when I'm done getting out there and experiencing sin. Then I'll
start talking about coming to Jesus. Some try to deceive it themselves
by saying there is no God at all. Some try to get away from
guilt by doing away with God. How utterly stupid is that? It's like the ostrich standing
on the railroad track. You've seen that cartoon, he's
standing on the railroad track, train's coming, puts his head in the ground and
says, the train's not there. That's exactly how foolish you are to
think there is no God and there is no judgment. There is judgment,
there is God, and you will face Him. How will you face Him? What will
you do about your sin? No matter how or what method
you use, The truth still stands, we will
die and stand before God. The question is then, what does
God demand? If you're going to stand before
God, don't you think you ought to know what He wants? What does God demand of us? You
know the answer. Every one of you know the answer.
But if you're lost, you just refuse to see it. You hate to
see it. God demands absolute perfection from every single
one of you. He will not accept you based
on the works of someone else in your family or your friends,
because they're all sinners just like you. What will you do when
you stand before God? He demands absolute, perfect,
righteous, holy obedience to His law. That's what God demands. And no one will stand before
God without it. Do you not see why your conscience
is never satisfied? Can you see that? Can you see
why your conscience is always against you? You see why that the things of
this world will never find you peace or satisfaction? Do you understand why false religion
of works and free will religion will never help you to God? It is because we have sinned
and missed the mark. We've missed the standard of
God's holy perfection. And we all know it. You know your guilt in your heart,
whether you want to admit it or not. You know you're guilty. and your conscience won't let
it go. Try to cover it up if you will, you won't find peace.
You won't find peace in any of the water in this world. All
of the things of this life won't bring you any peace at all. What
then is the remedy? We know the problem. We know
the situation. What then is the remedy? Oh,
everyone that thirsteth after righteousness. The remedy is the gospel. It
is here the water of the Word. Today, I present to you the only
living water by which your thirst may be quenched for all eternity. And it is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the water that quenches
the hungry soul. He is the only water. To drink
of this water, Satisfy the conscience and soul
of a man to bring him peace forever. Forever. John chapter 7. John chapter
7 and verse 37. John 7, verse 37, "...in the
last days of the great feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying,
If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth
on Me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water." Jesus Christ is the only water
that satisfies the soul because He is the only one that has ever
satisfied God's demands. You see, He by His works did
what we could not do ourselves. He honored God's law. But that wasn't enough, was it?
It wasn't enough for Him to come and suffer as a man in life and
to abide by His own law for us and work out the righteousness
of God. Why? Because you can't put righteousness
on sin. You can't do it. If righteousness
touches sin, then my friends, what is that but sin? You see,
He had to take care of the justice of God. And He did that by dying
on the cross. God took my sins and He put them
on His own Son and God exacted the justice of His holy law on
His Son. So that I could go free. The justice of God is a glorious
thing. God meted out the justice of
His wrath on His only Son. In Ezekiel 21, verse 9, it says,
Son of man, prophesy and say, thus saith the Lord. Say, a sword,
a sword is sharpened and polished. It is sharpened to make a sore
slaughter. It is polished that it may glitter. Should we then make it mirth,
it contempteth, despiseth every truth." Friends, God has a sword
of justice. And God, having loved the people,
said, I will polish the sword and I will strike the sword on
my own son. so that my people could go free. This is the water. This is the
water that satisfies the payment for sin. The only atonement and
covering is not our fig leaves, but it is the righteousness and
blood of Jesus Christ alone that will fill your soul. That's it. There is nothing else. There
is nothing else. This is the remedy. This is the
remedy. I'm pointing you to a remedy
that will satisfy your thirst to stand before God. Number three, the response of
the remedy. To all who come to this water,
there is a requirement. You must be thirsty. You must
have a thirst. Not as a fire escape out of hell.
That's not what I'm talking about. A lot of people have that. Who wants to go to hell? Raise
your hand. Anybody? Anybody want to go to hell? Well, see how easy it is then
to say, well, just believe in Jesus. You want to go to hell. Okay,
I believe in Jesus. Okay, I guess I'm not going to hell. That's
not what it means. To be thirsty is to thirst to
be righteous. Do you thirst to be righteous?
Do you thirst to be holy? Or are you just thirsting to see
what Jesus can do for you? Are you thirsting for Jesus to
just satisfy your flesh? A lot of people like this, they
like to say they believe in Jesus because of the consequences of
their sin. You see, they live a life of sin and debauchery,
and that brings consequence. There's going to be consequences
for that. You see, you sleep around, you're
going to get some kind of disease eventually. And then people get
the disease and say, oh, I need Jesus to heal me. Oh, Jesus,
heal me of my disease. You see, they don't want to be
healed of sin. They just want to be healed of
the consequence of their sin. There's altogether a difference. To thirst is to thirst for righteousness. And friends, only God can give
you that thirst. Only the Spirit of God can do
that. Number two, you must come empty. Look at our text one more
time. Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come unto the waters, and he that hath no money. There it
is. You've got to have no money.
You've got to have no merit. If you come to God with your
merit, you'll walk away just as empty as you came. You and
your merit and your faith all will go to hell. You see, you must come with nothing.
I love this. Because you know what? I'm going
to let you in on something else. I got nothing. And neither do you. The Spirit
has to reveal that to you though. I got nothing. So I come with
nothing. I come with nothing to offer
God. I come with nothing but my thirst
and a cry for mercy. And God says, anyone who comes
in this way, they will be satisfied. And the Scriptures say, "...satisfieth
our mouth with good things." Here in this text, He says, "...and
let your soul delight itself in fatness." You know, people
have this kick about not eating fat. You know, fat's the best
part? The fat of the meat is the best. That's where you get
the taste from. God says, "...come and delight yourself in the fatness
of the sacrifice." Christ, delight yourself in it. Rejoice in it. There's peace with God in Christ. Drink and be happy. Drink and
rejoice for all eternity. Our brother Malcolm drank many
years ago and today he has seen the fullness of what is started
by the Lord Jesus Christ in his heart. And I will too. And so
will you who believe in Christ. You see, we're not looking for
the best life now. We're looking for the best life
to come. This life is not our best life. This life is riddled
with pain and guilt and suffering. But my friends, this is not all
there is. Praise God. But while we're here,
Listen to the Lord. He said, when you drink this
water, out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water.
You drink a sip of this water and you'll have enough for the
rest of your life to drink from. It'll continue to flow. It'll
continue to come. Why? Because the Spirit of God
resides inside of us. And what does He continually
show us? Christ. He continually shows us when
our conscience comes in and says, you're guilty, look at you're
worthless, you're vile, you're a sinner, and your conscience
is beating you. And what does the Spirit of God
do? There's Christ. Oh, that makes it all better.
My conscience is satisfied. Why? Because God is satisfied. Oh, my friends, the gospel is
so good. It's good to sinners who are
thirsty. It's good to us who have nothing. Some of you will walk out of
here more thirsty than you came in,
all the while refusing the only water that will save your soul Oh, the madness of sin, the madness of depravity that
you would not believe, but rather you would have your sin instead. May God have mercy. May God have mercy on everyone
hearing the sound of my voice, that none of you would face the
justice of God in yourself. But most likely that won't be
the case. Some of you will face the justice of God in your own
righteousness and God will destroy you. But I'll tell you who have tasted.
God says, say you to the righteous, it is well. Say you to the righteous, it
is well. It is well with my soul. It is well. Why? Because I've tasted. I've drank
of the water. And friends, I'm satisfied. Are you? If you are, praise God. If you're not, I tell you, come. Come to Christ. I pray that God would bless this
message to our hearts. Let's stand. We'll be dismissed
in prayer.