us to worship in spirit and in
truth. We feel how inadequate we are,
both speaker and hearer. I'm inadequate to say anything
apart from the enablement of the Spirit of God, and each of
these are incapable of receiving anything except it be given from
above. Lord, we wait upon you. We ask you for your mercy today. Let us focus upon our great God
and Savior. Let us render glory to his name. bring each of us to adore the
Savior, to believe Him. Oh, that in that last day, the
final day, the everlasting day, we would be with Him in everlasting
paradise. Oh, Spirit of God, take the things
of the Lord Jesus and reveal them unto us. These things we
ask as needy sinners in the name of our great mediator, the Lord
Jesus Christ, and for his sake. Amen. This morning, once again, I want
to direct your attention to the first two verses of Revelation
chapter 22, John now takes us into eternity. In the previous
chapter, he has set forth all the Church of Christ as being
glorified, one with the Savior, joined with Him in everlasting
heaven in marvelous glory. This is a church that is without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing. We've been washed in the blood
of the Lamb of God, and John sees us in our resurrection beauty. that is in the glories of our
marvelous Redeemer. And all of this that's going
to be in eternity future is due to that which God did in eternity
past. That is, this is but the fulfillment
of what God ordained to do. We must understand that God makes
no new decisions. He makes no new purposes. All
that he does, he does according to his eternal purpose, that
which he himself purposed in himself. And in old eternity,
if I may put it that way, God chose a people unto salvation. He ordained that they would be
redeemed and reconciled by the Son of His bosom, that is Christ
Jesus the Savior. He ordained their redemption. He ordained they'd be reconciled
to Him, though they would fall in Adam's transgression, yet
God ordained that they would be restored by the Savior. and brought to believe Him and
to love Him, as we would say, to be saved. And that which God
ordained to do back before He ever made the world will be fulfilled
when this, which we know is time, shall be no more. Now understand
this, that which God did purpose was the salvation of His people
to His own glory. God has set out from old eternity
He has, certainly everything is under the hand of God. Everything
is under the purpose of God. Everything is according to that
which God has decreed. But that which is main, that
which is the significant thing about the purpose of God is the
salvation of a multitude of people in the Lord Jesus Christ and
this savior to be, exalted and then God to be glorified in all
things. And so then as we go from that
purpose of God which he purposed in himself back before he made
everything, then we go into eternity future and we see the fulfillment
of everything God determined to do. Listen, God will not be
disappointed. His purpose is going to come
to pass. That which he has ordained, that
which he has predestinated is absolutely certain to be fulfilled. John, as he's in his seventh
vision now, and as he looks with the eye of faith and within this
vision that God has been pleased to give him, he sees all the
saints of God in everlasting glory. That is, he sees the everlasting
paradise of God. You see, the reason God made
this world, and we know, we've talked about the fact that God
made paradise, and he made Eden, and he made the rest of the earth,
and then God put Adam and then gave him a wife. He put them
in the paradise of God to enjoy that. And that's a picture of
what it's going to be like for all of the Adams and Eves of
God. That is, we're going to be in
everlasting paradise. And this is the picture that
is set before us here in Revelation chapter 22. And just allow me
to read these two verses to you again, and I've read them to
you several times already. Perhaps you may be able to quote
them as it were, but they bear reading again, and there's still
much to be gained and milked from these two glorious verses. Chapter 22 verse one, and he
showed me, he manifested to me, he revealed to me in this vision,
he sees a pure river. That's what catches his mind.
Now, he says it's a river, a pure river of water of life. He said, clear as crystal. And
he said, is proceeding out of the throne of God and of the
Lamb. We've studied through the book
of the Revelation and we know that this word throne is a magnificent
word and it's a key word to understanding the book of the Revelation. In
fact, it is a key word if you want to understand the person
of God. In the book of Revelation, this word, the throne of God
is mentioned Thirty nine. 39 times. That's the number of books
in the Old Testament. There are only 22 chapters in
the book of Revelation. So when we get to this book,
that which is first and foremost in the mind of God and in the
visions that God gives to John is that God rules and God reigns. Here's the throne of God. And
it's always set before the visions of God, the visions that God
gave to John. So he sees this pure river of
water of life, clear as crystal, there is no hypocrisy in it,
there's nothing hidden. God has no hidden agenda. His agenda is always His own
glory. His agenda is always the salvation
of His people. That has never, never changed. So it's a clear river, clear
as crystal. It comes out of the throne of
God and of the Lamb. because he reigns, he reigns
with the Father. This is the one who earned the
right to reign as the God-man, as the Lamb of God by his obedience
unto death, even the death of the cross of Calvary. As God,
he always reigned as the Son of God, he had the right to reign
and he did reign. He's always reigned, he's always
been with the Father from old eternity. But then in the purpose
of God, he stepped out of eternity and he stepped into time. And
he veiled his glory, his deity with our flesh. He was made in the likeness,
the scripture says, of sinful flesh. He looked just like you
and just like me, just an ordinary person. He was an ordinary person
in every way except, a big except, he had no sin and he's God at
the same time. That's a big exception. And as
this man, he did everything God instructed him to do, everything
demanded of you and me, and then he died under the penalty of
the broken law, because that's a law we had broken. I'm going
to deal with that this evening from Galatians chapter three. Therefore, he was under the curse
of the law, and he died in our stead. as our substitute. And He put away all the sins
of all those in whose stead He died. And He was buried, and
He rose again, and He went back to glory, and He sat down on
the throne, the Lamb of God on the throne. So don't miss this.
Here is the Lamb and the Father on the throne. And then he says
in the second verse, and in the midst of the street of it, there
is on either side of the river, there was the tree of life, which
bear twelfth manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Now, my message this morning
really is a simple outline because I wanna talk to you about the
river, the water, and the tree. What is the river? The river,
and all of the respected commentators, they say, and I believe they're
right, that this depicts the everlasting love of God for his
people. This is the origin of God's salvation. It all flows from the love of
God. This is where it began, and I
say it's where it began. Really, it is without beginning.
You see, that love that God has for his people, it never had
a beginning, for if it did, if there was a time when God began
to love us, that makes God one who changes. And he can't change,
right? He said, I'm the Lord. I change
not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed. So if God loves us, there never
was any time when he did not love us. There wasn't a time
when he began to love us, and there will never be a time when
he stops loving us. If he loves you, he's always
loved you. His love, just like all of his
attributes now, his love is just like himself, eternal, absolutely
changeless. Look with me in Ephesians chapter
three. Look at Ephesians chapter three.
I remind you this river, it does come forth from the throne. The
throne indicating sovereign authority. We've already, I've told you
the word throne is used in the book of Revelation 39 times. The throne stands for the king,
his dominion, His authority, his reign, his rule, those are
the things that you think of when you think of the word throne.
Here in Ephesians chapter three, it's one of, if not the greatest
of the prayers of the apostle Paul. He begins this chapter
by speaking of himself as being a prisoner of the Lord Jesus.
And indeed he was. He was held captive because he
preached the gospel of the grace of God. But he would not have
these Ephesian believers to focus on his captivity. He would not
have them direct their attention to the fact that he was in prison.
And remember that the apostle is the one who established this
church. And he preached there for a very
long time. And they got word that the preacher
is in prison. And this was disturbing to them. This was upsetting to them. And
he just states it as a fact, I'm a prisoner of the Lord Jesus. Yes, that is a fact. But then
he diverts their attention to a subject that's much more important,
and that is the love of God. And then he begins to pray for
them. He says this in verse 14 of chapter
three. He says, for this cause, Ephesians
3.14, for this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, I pray for you. Of whom the whole family in heaven
and earth is named. He has a family. The Lord Jesus
has a family. And some of them are in heaven
and some of them are on earth. But those who've gone on to heaven
are no more family than we are. Right? They're no more family
than we are. They're no more loved than we're
loved. They're no more cared for than
we're cared for. And they're no more protected
than we're protected. We're family. We're the family
of God. So this is what he's saying here. There's this family of whom the
whole family in heaven and earth is named that he would grant
you. He said, this is my prayer. that
he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to
be, number one, strengthened with might by his spirit in the
inner man. And we all need that. We all
need to be strengthened with God's might within. We do ask God for physical strength. We ask God for physical healing
for those of His people who are sick. But listen, this body,
sooner or later, is going to get weak and is going to die.
That's just a fact. So that which weighs heavily
on the mind of the apostle Paul is that God would grant them
to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. Though the outer man grows weak,
he says, I pray the inner man will grow strong, strong in grace,
strong in faith, strong in reliance upon God, strong in confidence. strong in believing all of the
promises of God. And then he says in verse 17,
that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. I pray that
all of you, he says, all of you in the church of Ephesus, that
the Lord Jesus will dwell in your hearts by faith. I want
you all to believe while they had as every church has, I think,
people who know the Lord and people who don't know the Lord.
He said, I want you, I want the Savior to dwell in your hearts
by faith. And I want you to be rooted and
grounded, watch it, in love. This is the love of God that
flows forth from the very throne of God. He said, I want you to
be rooted in that love now. I want you to be grounded in
that love. I want you to bask in the warmth
of that love. I want you to sink your roots
deep down into the everlasting love of God for you. He loved
you. Dwell upon that. Think upon that. Meditate upon that. Just let
the roots of your heart sink down deep into the fact that
God loved you from old eternity. That's what he's saying. What
a marvelous thing that God would love you, that God would love
me. I want you to be rooted and grounded
in love. Think of it, you're an object.
of divine love, the God who made the world, the God who created
all things, the God who governs all things, the God in whose
hands is the breadth of all men and women and animals, the God
who made everything, he with all of his heart loves you. He said, now be rooted and grounded
in that love. And if you're rooted and grounded
in the love of God to you, then when the troubles of life come,
as they are sure to come, you won't be shaken by them. Because
you'll be remembering, this is rooted within you and you're
grounded in this, the love of God for you. And God who loves
you can never do anything to hurt you or harm you. or bruise you or punish you. Everything that God does for
you is with a father's love. Isn't that wonderful? A father's
love. Today is Father's Day. Oh, the greatness of our heavenly
father and his infinite love. for all of His people. Let me
be rooted and grounded in that love. This is a love that cannot
be affected by anything within me, and it cannot be affected
by anything without of me, outside of me, because it's a love that
flows from His throne. He loved us when we had no spiritual
strength. He loved us when we had no spiritual
life. He loved us when we were ungodly. He loved us when we were His
enemies. Now that He has brought us to
Christ, Now that he has saved us by his grace, will anything
ever cause God to alter that love to you or to me or change
that love to you and to me? And the answer is no. The love
is absolutely changeless. You see, the love of God is eternal. The Lord said to Jeremiah, I've
loved thee with an everlasting love. Well, you go to bed tonight
and you put your head on the pillow. You meditate on that
a while. Everlasting love from me. If that isn't sweet. Long before
you had any being, long before you ever existed,
in fact, before God ever made the world, He had thoughts of
love toward you. And He always has. He always
has. In fact, He made this world. He made this world because of
His everlasting love for you. Because it was in this world
that this issue of sin would arise. And it's to this world
that His Son would come. not to gain God's love for us. Our Lord Jesus didn't come down
here and die so that God could love us, so that God could be
gracious to us, so that God could be merciful to us. He came down
here because God did love us, God was gracious to us, and God
was merciful to us. Love's behind it all. And you
think of that, the incomprehensible love of the Father for you, that
love that is everlasting. And this love is free. It is
unconditional. You didn't do anything to merit
this love, and you can't do anything that will cause God to cease
loving you. Be rooted and grounded in this
love. This is not the love that most
of the religious world talks about, which is nothing more
than sentimental feelings in the heart of God, as they say
for everybody. No, that's not the love of God.
It's not good feelings toward everybody. The love of God is
not God wants to do good for all people if they just let Him.
The love of God is not, well, He loves everybody, but if you
die without Christ, then all of a sudden He starts hating
you. That's not the love of God either. Those whom God loves,
He saves. Those whom God loves, He rescues. Those whom God loves, He restores. Those whom God loves, He's already
redeemed. Those whom God loves, He's already
brought them unto the Son of God, or He will bring them to
the Son of God in faith, and He will bring them to everlasting
glory. Be rooted and grounded in this
love. This is Paul's great prayer for
the Ephesian people. And then he says this, he continues
in verse 18, he says, and that you may be able to comprehend
with all saints everywhere in every age, what is the breadth
and the length and the depth and the height and to know the
love of Christ, which passeth knowledge that you might be filled
with all the fullness of God. Oh, how broad is the love of
God. And how long is the love of God. The breadth of the love of God,
he loves all of his people just alike. The length of his love
from everlasting to everlasting. The depths of his love. You can't
ever plumb the depths of the love of God. It is bottomless. and the height of the love of
God. There is no measurement to the love of God. There's no
way you can begin to fully comprehend or measure the love of God, except
you can begin to get some idea of the greatness of it when you
consider that in love, He sent His Son into this world. Now
that's how you judge the greatness of love. You see, love gives
the best it can give to the object that it loves. That's what love
does. Love always gives the best. God had no better gift that He
could give than the gift of His darling Son. For God so loved
the world that He gave. Who did He give? His only begotten
Son. that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. This love of God is immutable,
it is irrevocable, and it is indestructible. You see, God's
love is not like man's love at all, because God's love doesn't
change under any circumstances or conditions. There's nothing
we can do to destroy that love. Take a husband and wife. One
or the other can so do damage to that love within the marriage
union until finally one or the other just kills that love. That
happens. It's a sad thing. It just kills
that love. but nothing can ever kill the
love of God for you. Say, preacher, that just gives
people a license to sin, not God's people. God's people, they
react by saying, oh my, what love is this that loves me without
change? It's the love of redemption. It's the love like Hosea had
for Gomer. God told him to marry Gomer and
she was of a people who were prostitutes. The women were. He married her and had children
together. And then she went off to fulfill
the desires of her heart and go into the livelihood, into
the prostitution realm. And when all of her virtue and
her beauty was all used up by the men of the city, then she
had run up indebtedness and she had no way to pay, and the law
arrested her and held her for ransom and said, you're going
to be sold at the auction block. Well, who wants to buy her? She's
not beautiful anymore. She's not glamorous anymore. She has no appeal to men anymore. Who wants her now? And they stripped
her and they put her on the auction block. Who will bid for this?
How much is it going to cost to pay what she owes? And then
the price was stated, the price of redemption. And people looked
at one another and said, I'm not going to buy her. But one
man edged his way through the crowd. How much does she owe? How much is her indebtedness? And they told her. He said, I'll
redeem her, because I still love her. I hadn't stopped loving
her. And you see, that's the love
of Christ Jesus to us. Oh, we've lived lives of filthiness,
either outwardly, but maybe not outwardly, but certainly inwardly,
we're filthy. and we're criminals. But he loved
us. He loved us. The law of God said,
this is a sinner. This is a rebel. This sinner
is in debt to me. Well, what's the ransom price?
Your death. He said, I'll gladly pay. And
he laid down his life for all of his gomers. He paid the price. That's love. No wonder at the
end of the book of Hosea, the Lord says of his people, I will
love them freely, freely. This is the love of God. This is the river. This is the
river that flows from the throne of God. Well then, and I'll skip
over some things here. Then the next thing I want us
to consider is the water. The water. He calls it in Revelation
22 verse 1, the water of life. Now remember, this water of life,
the origin is the river. And the water of life, as well
as the tree of life, both of them present to us our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has come into this world as a result of that river
of the love of God. You see, the love of God resulted
in the entrance of his son into this world as the water of life. On one occasion, our Lord had
arranged a meeting with a woman at Jacob's well. Now, she didn't
know of the arrangement, She came at the time of day when
she didn't think she would see anybody. She was a Samaritan
woman, been married five times, living with a man who wasn't
her husband. She was just the kind of woman
that people avoided and she was embarrassed. She tried to avoid
everybody. But our Lord Jesus had arranged
before this world began to confront her. of her neediness and of
her sinfulness. And to be, to reveal to her his
own identity as the water of life. And you know the story,
he said, I'm thirsty, give me some water. She said, you're
a Jew and you ask water of me, a Samaritan? Y'all don't have
anything to do with us and we don't have anything to do with
you. And then he began to speak about a thirst, not for this
kind of water, but a thirst for spiritual water. He said, if
you knew, if you knew who's talking to you, you'd ask him and he'd
give you the water of life and you wouldn't thirst again. And
he revealed himself in that story in John chapter four as being
the water of life. This is indeed one of our problems
when he said, if thou knewest the gift of God. We just don't know. There are many things that we
don't know in the natural realm and not having a knowledge of
these things won't really affect us, certainly not eternally. But there is a knowledge of the
gift of God we've got to have. to have this knowledge. We've
got to know Him who is life everlasting. We've got to know who He is.
We've got to know what He did. We've got to know why He did
it. We've got to know where He is now. He said, if thou knewest
the gift of God, if you knew, and I'm saying to you, to people
who don't believe Him, if you knew who He is, if you knew of
His kindness and His mercy and His grace, if you knew of the
power of His blood, If you knew of His robe of righteousness,
if you knew He's the Son of God, if you knew He's the only Savior,
if you knew He's the only one who can make you to be beautiful
and acceptable in the eyes of God, if you knew, you'd ask for
this water. And Christ said, I'd give it
to you. If you knew. Oh God, forgive
our ignorance and teach us. Teach me. Teach me. Yes, He's the water of life,
and we drink of Him. Faith is to drink the water of
life. Our Lord Jesus in John chapter
7, He stood at the Feast, the Feast of the Tabernacles. The
last day, the great day of the Feast, He stood and He cried
saying, If any man thirst, Let him come unto me and drink. Pretty clear. Let him come unto
me and drink. I'm the water of life. Is there
anybody in here? Anybody out there thirsty? Thirsty for God. I wanna know
God. Thirsty for life. Thirsty for
grace. Thirsty for forgiveness. thirsty
for righteousness. Here's what the Savior said,
and you hear what he says. He says, let him come. Get out
of his way. Let him come unto me and do what?
Drink. Drink. And the only condition I know
about is not, well, as soon as I clean my life up, I'll come.
No, I'm gonna start coming to church. Well, you need to come
and hear the gospel, but that's coming here is not salvation.
The only condition I know to drinking is this, a thirst. I'm kind of thirsty now. I think
I'll have a drink of water. That's the only way I quench
my thirst. And I'm telling you, the only
way your thirst for God will ever be quenched is if you drink
of the water of life. Drink of Christ Jesus. You can't live without him. It's
just like we can't live without this kind of water very long.
We can't live forever without Christ's water of life. And then here's the third thing,
there's a tree. You see, the river leads to the
water of life, and then to the tree of life, who is Christ Jesus. And I wanna emphasize this again,
even though I have spent some time speaking about the tree
of life, because this is the one who died on the tree of death,
so that he would be to us the tree of life. there would have
been no life for you and me were it not for his substitutionary
death upon the cross of Calvary. Now I've got three or four verses
of scripture I want to take you to in the book of Proverbs. And
so we'll begin Proverbs chapter three. Now, I'm certain that you're
aware of the fact The writer of the book of Proverbs is Solomon,
who was the man to whom God gave the greatest amount of understanding
and wisdom of any man that he ever gave it to. But in the book
of Proverbs, the Proverbs of Solomon, we find he presents
wisdom quite frequently. and he presents wisdom in the
feminine gender. But as he sets forth wisdom,
most of the time, when he says wisdom, read it, Christ Jesus,
because he is the wisdom of God and he is the power of God. So number one, and we give you
three or four things here as time allows. Number one, Christ
is the tree of life to all who lay a hold of him, Proverbs chapter
three. And I'm going to begin reading
at verse 13. Now remember, wisdom speaks of
Christ. So verse 13, Proverbs three,
happy is the man that findeth Christ or wisdom. And the man
that get it, understanding or Christ. For the merchandise of
Christ, to have him is better than the merchandise of silver
and the gain thereof of fine gold. If you have Christ, you
have everything a holy God demands. You are immensely wealthy. You're wealthy beyond your imagination
because you have the riches of God's grace. Look at verse 15,
Christ is more precious than rubies and all the things that
thou canst desire not to be compared unto Christ. Length of days is
in his right hand and in his left hand riches and honor. His
ways are ways of pleasantness and all of our paths of peace. I love that. Ways of pleasantness. You say, oh man, my way is trouble,
my way is hard. No, the way of the transgressor
is hard. It's what the scripture says.
But your ways, because wisdom ordained your way, it's pleasantness. You're just looking at the glass
half empty. You need to look at it half full.
who's designed your life and who's governing your life. We're
such negative minded people. Shame on us. And all her paths are peace.
Hey, he's at peace with you. All your paths are peace. He
is a tree of life. Here we go. He is a tree of life
to them that lay hold upon him. God helped me to do that. To
lay hold upon him and happy is everyone who retaineth Christ.
Have you laid hold of him? You say, you sure this talking
about Christ? Look at verse 19. The Lord by wisdom, the Lord
by Christ, he founded the earth. And by understanding, by Christ
Jesus, he established the heavens. Lay hold to, that's faith, isn't
it? That's faith. Lay hold to the
tree of life. Faith lays hold to the person
of Christ as Savior. Faith will have no other one
in competition with him. And then here's another reference,
Proverbs chapter 11. Give you another reference. So
number one, Christ is the tree of life to all who lay hold of
him. Have you laid hold of him? We
say it's a beautiful tree. Well, he is, he's beautiful. It's a glorious tree. Yes, he
is. But have you laid hold of him?
That's faith. Secondly, Proverbs chapter 11,
here is Christ is the tree and the fruit of the tree. Chapter
11, look at verse 28. Proverbs 11, 28. He that trusteth
in his riches shall fall. You're trusting in your riches
and your possessions and materialism, you're gonna fall. But the righteous
shall flourish like a branch. He's the vine, what are we? The branches, right? He that
troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind and the fool
shall be servant to the wise of the heart. The fruit of the
righteous is a tree of life. The fruit of the right, who is
the righteous one? Christ is the Lord our righteousness. And we eat of his fruit. What
is the fruit of this tree? Well, let's see, redemption,
righteousness, forgiveness, we eat of the fruit of this tree.
And he that winneth, he that winneth souls is wise. He who winneth souls, that's
Christ who's the wisdom of God and the power of God. He's the
one who's wise. He's the one who tracks us down. He's the one who gets the gospel
of His grace to us, the message of good news. He's the one who
works in the heart, and He's the one who wins us. He wins
us to Himself. Oh, blessed winner of souls. Christ Jesus, our Lord, the Lord,
our righteousness. And then thirdly, He's the fulfillment
of our hope. Proverbs chapter 13. Once again,
we read of the tree of life. This tree of life, we lay hold
of it. This tree of life is the Lord,
our righteousness. We eat of the fruit of the tree
of life. And here Christ is the fulfillment
of our hope. Chapter 13 and verse 12, hope
deferred maketh the heart sick. But the desire cometh. You notice the word when is italicized. Really it's better to read it
without that word which was inserted by the translators. But the desire
cometh. Who is the desire? Who is the
desire of the nations? Well, that's Christ Jesus our
Lord. And it says, hope deferred maketh the heart sick. The Old
Testament saints, and I mentioned this verse of Scripture, and
I'd already intend to mention it, and one of our viewers, and
she's probably watching this morning, she and her husband,
I appreciate them so much, and she had written and mentioned
this verse of Scripture to me, and I said, I'm going to deal
with it this Lord's Day morning. The Old Testament saints lived
in hope of the coming Messiah. They had a confident expectation
that he would come, but they didn't see the fulfillment
of that promise of God in their lifetime, which left them somewhat
sick at heart. It kind of reminds me, if I could
use another biblical illustration, and I was trying to think of
something in the scriptures that would kind of set forth this,
the fact that if your hope isn't realized, then it kind of makes
you sick at heart. There's passage in John 5, and
you'll know it because I frequently refer to it, and of course I
preach through the book of John, John chapter 5, the Pool of Bethesda. when all these sick people were
brought beside the pool and they were waiting for the troubling
of the water. Because every so often, we don't
know how often because the scripture doesn't say, but every so often
an angel would come and trouble the water and the first one in,
guess what, was healed. And here these people would go
every day in anticipation of, or in expectation of, or hoping,
hoping the angel will come again today and maybe I can get in
and I'll be healed. And every day they live with
that expectation. And for most of them, every day
ended with a feeling of sickness. disappointing again. And to a degree, that's the way
it was with the Old Testament saints. They were waiting for,
they were looking for, they were living in expectation of, they
had a hope for the coming of Messiah and surely He'll come
during our lifetime. Oh God send your Son, the seed
of the woman to redeem us. And the Old Testament saints
lived and died without the fulfillment of that expectation that they
had. They were saved, but they hoped
he would come, they anticipated that he would come during their
lifetime. And if I could just kind of insert
this, it's the way every generation since our Lord Jesus, every generation
of God's people, it's the way we should be living in anticipation
and expectation of His second coming, right? We should be,
we should stand as it were upon the tiptoes of faith saying,
will He come? Will He come today? Oh Lord Jesus,
even so come Lord Jesus. I hope you'll come today. We
live in expectation. But those Old Testament saints,
they lived with this hope that was deferred. Hope deferred. No, wasn't going to come to pass. But then it happened. And there were two people, especially
in the temple, who were waiting for the fulfillment of that promise. Just like all the Old Testament
saints. One was Simeon, the other was
Anna. And the scripture says they were
waiting for the consolation of Israel. And guess what? They weren't disappointed. He
came, he came. and Mary and Joseph brought him
to the temple and Simeon said, there is the one I want to see. There he is, there's the salvation
of God. And he took him in his hands
and Anna saw him and she just, she said, this is such a glorious
day. And she told everybody who looked
for redemption that the Messiah had come. Hope, hope had been
satisfied. Well, as it says here, Hope deferred
makes the heart sick, but when the desire cometh. He's the tree
of life. And that's what those New Testament
saints said. That's what Simeon said in essence. The tree of life has come. And
I say to all of you, he's come. He's come to this earth. He's
done the work God gave him to do. He is the tree of life. And then one other reference,
Proverbs chapter 15 and verse four. So he's the tree
of life. We hang on to him. We hug up
to him as it were. He's the tree of righteousness
and we eat of the fruit of it. He is the one who's the desire
of our hearts who has come. And now Proverbs chapter 15,
his words, his words, their life, because it's the words of the
tree of life. Proverbs 15 verse four, a wholesome tongue, that
is, here's what he's talking about, healthy words, wholesome
words, is a tree of life. You see, our Savior said, the words that
I speak to you, their spirit and their life. That's what he
said, wasn't it? John chapter six. The words that I speak to
you. You see, he is the tree of life
and his words are wholesome words. But guess what? Most of those
people in John chapter six, they didn't wanna hear those words.
But he said, my words are spirit. My words are life. His words
are wholesome. His words are healthy. You must
hear his word and you must believe on him who is the word. In the
same context in John chapter six, when Our Lord had said,
my words are spirit in their life. Most of the people left
offended by his words. And so he looked at his 12 apostles
and he said, will you also go away? And Simon Peter spoke up And
he said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast, what did he
say? The words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure,
thou art that Christ, the son of the living God. The words of the tree of life
are wholesome words. They're life-giving words. and
come forth from Christ himself, who is the living word. Oh, hang on to the tree of life. Look to him who is our righteousness
and eat of the fruit of the tree. And be thankful that he who is
the desire of the nations has come and satisfied God and his
words, his gospel, wholesome words, words of health, spiritual health
and spiritual soundness. Look to Christ. Let's bow our
heads together. Now, Lord, take the things that
have been spoken and do us poor sinners good. We have nothing
to boast of. We have nothing to claim. We
have no merits. But Lord, You have created within
us a thirst for Christ Jesus. And once again this morning,
we drink of the water of life freely, without condition, freely. Thank You, O God, for this river
of Your love. We thank you for the water of
life, Christ Jesus, and we thank you that he who is the water
of life is also the tree of life. May we come to him for everything,
and then we'll be soon to see him face to face in everlasting
glory. For Jesus' sake I pray,