Okay, Revelation chapter 22 verse
17, whosoever will. One of the reasons that I wanted
to just focus in on this verse is because of that phrase, whosoever
will. Let's just read it. It says in
verse 17, the spirit and the bride say come. Now the spirit
there is the Holy Spirit. The bride is the church. And
what he's talking about here is the witness of the gospel
to God's elect. Going out through the world,
the church, what are we here for? Now, this is really important. The church is here on earth as
a witness for the gospel. We're not here for social programs
and things like that. Now, listen, and I'm not saying
that we should never feed the poor and all of that, but that's
not our mission on this earth. Our mission on this earth is
to preach Christ, preach the gospel, the pillar and ground
of truth, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, that's what
brings sinners to faith in Christ. It takes the power of the Spirit,
and that's what he's saying. The Spirit and the bride say
come. And then it says, and let him
that heareth say come. Do you hear? Now you understand
that that's not talking about just mere physical hearing. That's
not speaking of just the ability to hear the voice, hear the words. The hearing here is the hearing
that brings belief. I hear what you're saying. I
used to tell my mother when I was lost, unconverted, I heard what
the man said, but I didn't want it. I didn't believe it. In fact, I hated it. So this
one here is talking about those who have a desire. How do you
know? He says, and let him that is a thirst come. Are you thirsty? for God's way of salvation? Are
you thirsty for righteousness? Blessed are they who hunger and
thirst after righteousness. Man is by nature thirsty for
religion. He's thirsty for answers, philosophy,
materialism, all kinds of, but are you thirsty for what God
has for his people in Christ? That's the water of life. All
right? And then he says, and whosoever
will. Are you willing to believe in
Christ? Now, understand now, what I'm
saying is, are you willing to believe in Christ as He is identified
and distinguished in this book? God's way of salvation, God's
sovereign grace, God's way of righteousness. You know, there's
a lot of people who, you know, they talk about the resurrection,
okay? There's a lot of people who are
willing to come to a person who arose from the dead, but do they
know who he is and what he did and why he did it? Why did he
arise from the dead? I'm going to talk about that in just a
minute. Why was he risen from the dead? Okay. He says, let
him take of the water of life freely, unconditionally, without
a cause. Are you willing to come to Christ
and submit to God's way of salvation in him, in his righteousness,
and leave behind everything else? That's what the freely indicates
there. You say, well, I'll come if grandma will come, or grandpa
will come, or if my children, no, no. This is salvation of
sinners by the grace of God. Well, that's what the verse says.
Now, a lot of people use the whosoever will. You know, the
Bible's full of whosoever wills. Different passages. And a lot
of people use those whosoever wills as an objection to God's
electing grace. But they're not objections to
God's election of grace. They are proof of, evidence of
God's election of grace. Do you realize if you're willing,
if I'm willing, to bow to God's way of salvation in Christ, to
bow to God's Word? That willingness didn't come
from me naturally. It didn't come from you naturally.
Because man by nature is not willing. Well, let's look at
that. Now, first of all, again, the
Spirit and the Bride say, Come. The Spirit's the Holy Spirit.
The Bride is the Church. The message is, Come. What is
that talking about? This is the witness of the Gospel.
how God saves sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there
are two things that is required, that are required for the salvation
of a sinner. The first one is the ground of
salvation. What you might say the cause
of salvation. And that's what the Bible calls
justification. We got to be justified. It's
like a person in prison and he's in the prison because of the
guilt. He's been judged guilty. Well,
how can he be set free and justice be done? That kind of thing. To be justified means to be declared
by the judge not guilty. Not guilty. To be justified means
to be declared by the judge righteous. That's what it means to be justified.
That's the legal aspect of salvation. That's what Christ accomplished
on the cross as the surety and substitute of God's elect. It
was on the basis of what Christ did, what he accomplished, what
he finished on the cross to establish righteousness, to pay the debt
of sin for God's people to be justified. Old Testament and
new. That's the ground of salvation,
right there. That's the merit of salvation.
Now, how do you know that Christ accomplished and finished what
He set out to do? He rose from the dead. That's
what it's all about. The resurrection is not just
resurrection from physical death to physical life. I mean, that's
nothing for God. who stood on, as the old preacher
said, stood on nothing, spoke to nothing, and created something. It's not, you know, Lazarus come
forth, Lazarus come out of the grave. God is the author and
the originator of all physical life. This world would not exist
without God. You would not even take the next
breath if it weren't for God. And I often remind us that the
next breath you take, understand it's a gift from God. You didn't
earn it and you didn't deserve it. But the miracle of the resurrection
is that Christ accomplished, finished, He didn't try to save
anybody, He saved His people. That's our justification before
God. And it's His righteousness imputed.
Romans 4.25 says He was raised again for our justification. So that's the first thing that
has to take place. The second thing that has to
take place in the life of God's chosen people is the fruit of
what Christ did on the cross. It's the result, the effect.
It's not the cause. It's not the ground. It's the
fruit. It's the result, and that's regeneration,
the new birth. The Bible says in Romans chapter
8 and verse 10, this body is dead because of sin, but the
Spirit, that's the Holy Spirit, gives life because of righteousness. Christ established it, that's
the ground. What's the result? Spiritual life given in the new
birth. And you know what that is? It's
the impartation, it's the application of the resurrection life of Christ
in the life of God's chosen people. That's what it is. In other words,
and the Bible speaks of it as a resurrection from the dead.
Why? Because we're born dead in trespasses and sin. What is
it to be dead in trespasses and sin? It means we don't have spiritual
life. Now go back to Revelation 22, 17. He says, let him that
heareth. If you truly hear with the ear
of faith, you remember Christ told the disciples in Matthew
13, blessed are your eyes for they see, blessed are your ears
for they hear. He's talking about spiritual
life. They've been resurrected from the dead in the new birth.
The fruit of what Christ did on the cross. So they had ears,
they could hear what he says and they believed it, they loved
it. They wanted it, they desired it. That was evidence that life,
that was evidence first of all that Christ died for them. That
he was buried and rose from the dead for them. They were justified
based on his righteousness imputed. And secondly, it was evidence
that the Holy Spirit had given them a new heart, a new mind,
new affections, new will. That's regeneration. That's the
new birth. You accept you're born again,
Christ said. You cannot see the kingdom of
God. You may have physical eyes and you may see a lot. You may
have 20-20 vision. You ever heard that old country
song, 20-20 vision and walking around blind? That's kind of
the way it is with an unregenerate person. They may have 20-20 vision,
may not need these things or the contacts and all that. But
there's things they don't see about the glory of God in Christ. Now, that's what he's talking
about. So when he says, the Spirit and
the bride say come, what does that mean? That means come to
Christ. That means to believe in Him. Faith is the gift of
God. Doesn't mean believe in your
idea of him, or your opinions of him, or your thoughts of him,
or your traditions of him. Believe in him. 1 John chapter
5 is a very, very, very important way of describing this. 1 John
5, 11. Well, look at verse 10. Well,
let's go up to verse 9. 1 John 5, 9. If we receive the witness of
men. the witness of God is greater. Now, over here in Revelation
22, 17, when he says, the Spirit and the bride say come, he's
talking about the witness of God that comes to people through
the church, empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring them to
faith. You remember when Stephen preached
in, what is that, Acts chapter 7? Stephen stood up and preached. And I've often used this as an
illustration of the very thing I'm talking about. Peter stood
at Pentecost and preached the gospel, Acts chapter two. And 3,000 souls were saved. They
were pricked in their heart, it said. Who do you think did
that? Well, that was Peter, he was
such an eloquent speaker, you know, he could get them down
the aisle. No, you know better than that. That was the Holy
Spirit who did that. And they said, men and brethren,
what shall we do? They realized their sinfulness,
their depravity, their need of righteousness they couldn't produce.
And Peter pointed them to Christ. Well, Stephen stood and preached
in Jerusalem. And they resisted. It says they
resisted the Holy Ghost. And what did Stephen say? He
said, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. The Holy Spirit
hadn't done his work there of conviction. So they picked up
stones and they killed Stephen. What's the difference between
Peter and Stephen? Was Peter such a better preacher
than Stephen? No. Were the people that Peter
preached to, were they better people than the ones Stephen
preached to? No. The difference was God. His grace,
His glory, His power in Christ. And that's what it's about. Well,
look here. He says, come to Christ. It means to believe in Christ. 1 John 5, 9, if we receive the
witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the
witness of God, which he had testified of his son. Now that's
what we, when we talk about believing in Christ, what we need to be
concerned with is the witness of God in his word. Verse 10, he that believeth on
the Son of God hath the witness in himself. All right? He that believeth not, God hath
made him a liar. To disbelieve God is to call
God a liar. You do realize that if you tell
somebody something and they look at you and say, I don't believe
you, that's what they're doing. They're calling you a liar. Well,
that's the way God sees it. Because he believeth not the
record, the recording. Well, where is it recorded? in
God's Word. The record that God gave of His
Son, verse 11, this is the record that God has given us eternal
life and this life is in His Son. If I have eternal life,
that life did not come from me. It wasn't a product of my will
or my decision. You understand that? It's in
Christ, who was dead, who was crucified, died, was buried,
and arose again the third day, and is seated at the right hand
of the Father. That's where the life is. He is my life. And verse
12 says, he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not
the Son hath not life. Verse 13, these things have I
written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God,
that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may
believe on the name of the Son of God. How do I know I have
eternal life? How do I know I have the resurrection
life of Christ? How do I know that I've been
raised from the dead? How do I know I've been justified
before the foundation of the world based on the righteousness
of Christ imputed? How do I know I'm one of God's
chosen? Let the spirit and the bride
say come, and let him that heareth say come. Do I believe in him? Do I rest in him for all salvation?
Do I reject every other way? Every, what is that song? I dare not trust the sweetest
frame. What does that mean? Well, that's
that old language. It means anything that would
rival or deny or stand alongside of Christ as recommending me
to God, I reject it. The sweetest frame. You say,
well, I had a dream when I was, you know, such a big deal. We all have dreams. Well, I believe
God was speaking to me. Well, I can tell you how you
know if it's God speaking to you. If it drove you to Christ
according to the record. If it didn't drive you to Christ
according to the record, it wasn't God speaking to you. It was probably
a piece of overdone roast beef or something. We all have dreams. I had a fellow
write me talking about a dream he had. And I wrote him back. I wasn't trying to be smart,
but I said, my name is not Daniel or Joseph. I don't have that
gift. But I know what the word of God says. And that's where
we have to go. I'm not an interpreter of dreams.
Thank God my name's not Freud. But here's the witness. It's
to believe on him. To come to Christ means to believe
on Him. To come to Christ means to submit
to Him as the only way of righteousness. Look at Romans chapter 10. Now Paul the Apostle, we're going
to be talking about this on our Wednesday night sermons, messages,
because I'm going through Romans 9, 10, and 11. Now Paul the Apostle
is making a blanket statement about his own kinsmen according
to the flesh, the nation Israel. Now understand this does not
apply to every individual Jew or Israelite because Paul himself
was a Jew. Peter was a Jew. James was a
Jew. You understand that. But the
nation as a whole in their reaction to the ministry and the message
of Jesus of Nazareth. And what did they do? Well, they
stumbled over him. They rejected him. And so Paul
says in Romans 10, one, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer
to God for Israel is that they might be saved. They're lost.
That's what he's saying. He's talking about as a conglomerate
nation, as a whole. He said, I bear them record.
They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They're
religious. But they're in ignorance. You know, I thought about this
when I read this. You know, people talk about free will. And I've
always said, and there are a lot of theologians that argue about
terms, and I don't want to get into that. What most of the old reformers
would say is, man doesn't have a free will, but he is a free
moral agent. And I'm not going to get into
all that. In other words, we make decisions all the time,
don't we? Every day. Decisions that affect us, all
right? I often use the example of driving,
because that's, you know, I often wonder if anybody ever uses a
turn signal anymore. I don't think they do. I don't
think, do they make them? My car's 10 years old, so do
they make them on the new ones? Do they put turn signals on them?
I begin to wonder. But either way, you know, a person
who's driving and they make the decision not to use the turn
signal, somebody rear ends them, you know, that's what's going
to happen. But we make decisions. But you know what? We are so
unaware each day of things that will affect our decisions, many
of which we're ignorant of. And I used to wonder about this
when I was in college. You know, I think about, you
know, What I saw as Christianity back then was false Christianity.
That's what I'd been raised in. And I made a profession of faith
without knowing the gospel. I thought I did. I thought I
knew the gospel, but it was a false gospel. But it just dawned on
me this, that had I been born in China and raised in a Chinese
family, what religion would I have then? You see, that would have
affected my decision. All right, so what affects people's
decisions? Well, a lot of times it's ignorance. You ever gone out and bought
something, let's say like a new car, and you find out later that
you could have gotten the same car for a different price, a
better price at another location? You made a decision, but you
were ignorant of all the facts. And that's the way people are
today in religion. They're ignorant. Look at this
Romans 10. He says, for I bear them record,
verse 2, that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
not. They're ignorant. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness. What God requires. What does
God require? He says, and going about to establish
their own righteousness. They're trying to make themselves
righteous enough to be accepted with God. Now if that's what
you're doing, I'm telling you, you're ignorant. Because God
won't accept that. Listen, if God could accept and
receive our attempts to make ourselves righteous, he would
not have had to have sent his son into the world to die, to
be buried, to be raised again the third day. And so he says,
they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God,
for Christ is the end, the fulfillment of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. We'll look back at Revelation
22. To come to Christ means to submit
to Him as the only righteousness you have before God. And if you think you have any
other, you haven't come to Him. And if you reject this message,
you're not willing. Brother Mahan used to say this,
my old pastor, he used to say, I'm not worried about the whosoever
wills, it's the whosoever won'ts. The Bible doesn't just say, whosoever
will, dot, dot, dot. It says, whosoever will, let
him take of the water of life freely. Are you willing to do
this? Because if you're willing to
do this, here's what the Bible says, God has made you willing
in the day of his power. And how did he do it? I had a
preacher one time. argue, he says, well you're saying
God drags people to Christ against their will. Oh no, I'm not saying
that at all. He says whosoever is willing. What does God do? He makes us
willing. He changes our will. How does
he do it? Turn to John chapter 16. Here's how he does it. The Spirit
and the Bride say, come, remember. Look at John 16, look at verse
seven this is how he does it he's telling his disciples he
says in john sixteen seven nevertheless i tell you the truth it is expedient
or necessary that uh... that i go away i've got to go
away that's what he did think about that what's he saying where's
he going to he's going to the cross and eventually he's going
to the grave And he's gonna come out of the grave, and he's gonna
ascend unto the Father. And he says, that's necessary
for you. It's expedient that I do that. For, now look here,
for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you. Who's
the Comforter here? He's talking about the Holy Spirit.
That's the context from way over in John chapter 14. He's talking
about the ministry of the Spirit to bring God's chosen people
into the kingdom by new birth. the resurrection life of Christ.
And he says, if I don't do my work, the Holy Spirit will not
come and do his work. Now, why is that? Because Christ's
work is the ground of salvation, the ground of life. Without Christ
dying on the cross as the surety and substitute of his people,
paying the sin debt, satisfying justice, and bringing forth righteousness,
there is no life to give. If Christ didn't do His work,
all there is is death. Remember, Paul wrote that in
1 Corinthians 15 when people were denying the last resurrection
of believers, and he says, well, the proof of that is Christ rose
from the grave. And if Christ be not risen, You're
of all men most miserable and you're still in your sins. In
other words, death. If Christ did not do his work,
there'd be no life. So you understand what I mean
when I say the death of Christ on the cross is the ground of
salvation for the justification of God's people. The work of
the Holy Spirit in the new birth is the fruit. That's what he's
teaching here in verse seven. If I go not away, for if I go
not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart,
I will send him unto you. And look at verse eight of John
16. And when he has come, he will reprove. Now that word reprove
means to convince, convict the world of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment. Now the world there is not talking
about every individual without exception. He's talking about
God's people all over the world. How do you know? Because he's
talking about the ones who are convinced of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment and no unbeliever is convinced of that. Of sin because they believe not
on me. Without Christ I have no righteousness. Without Christ,
I'm nothing but sin. Without Christ, I have nothing
to expect from God but death and judgment and eternal damnation. Verse 10, of righteousness, because
I go to my Father and you see me no more. Christ is all my
righteousness. Verse 11, of judgment, because
the prince of this world is judged. That's Satan as the accuser of
the brethren. In other words, if I know Christ,
if I believe in him, if I'm submitted to him, I've already been judged. in him as he died for my sins
on that cross. He drank damnation dry so that
there is therefore now no condemnation in him. Go back to Revelation
22 now. So he that heareth, come on,
God has never and will never turn any willing sinner away
because he's the one who makes them willing. This is not an
objection to election, it's proof of. And let him that is a thirst
come. As I've quoted from Matthew 5,
blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty after right, who
hunger and thirst after righteousness. This is a thirst that is worked
in us by the Holy Spirit and the only thing that can quench
this thirst is Christ and his righteousness alone. Nothing
else will quench it. Joining a church will not quench
this thirst. Getting baptized will not do
it, not this thirst. Now, if you're a believer, you
ought to join a church where the gospel is preached. You ought
to confess Christ in believer's baptism. That's all right. But
that's not what quenches your thirst for righteousness, only
Christ. Grace reigns through righteousness,
and then whosoever will. Are you willing? If you're willing,
you've been made willing by God. And take of the water of life
freely, unconditionally. Don't bring any of your religion,
any of your works, any of your money or anything like that,
because it won't do you any good. It's given freely out of God's
grace, which is unearned and undeserved. Okay.