Our lesson this morning gonna
be taken from verse 17, Revelation chapter 22. And the lesson here is about the revelation
of the Spirit and the message of the church
and the desire of the hearer and the longing of a thirsty
sinner. All of this in this one verse. Our lesson is about coming to
Christ. I used to hear men's testimonies,
and I know they were telling as best they could what took
place, but they talked about coming to the doctrines of grace. and i know that this is true
of everyone who believes he must be here and by the gift of god's grace
come to some understanding of these doctrines saying it is
the doctrine of christ that set him for how you don't believe
in him of whom you have not heard how you don't hear without a
preacher these doctrines Must be taught. Go ye into all the
world. Teach all nations. Teach all
nations. Teach them what? Teach them the
doctrines of Christ. The doctrine of Christ. In John's
second epistle, he makes this statement. Whosoever transgresseth
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. And if any man come
unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into
your house, neither bid him God's speed." Now you can't abide in the doctrine
unless you receive the doctrine. So there's a sense in which what
they're saying is true. You have to come to some knowledge
of Christ through the doctrine of Christ. But let me be just a little more
specific here. All true doctrine sets before
its hearers the person and work of Jesus Christ. If a man stands
up to teach you or preach to you out of this book, And he
does not, his focal point is not on the person and work of
Christ. You don't need to be listening
to him. Let me give you just a few examples
of this. What would election mean apart
from Christ? Huh? What would it mean? The Jews were elect, but they
wouldn't receive the Christ. Their election was apart from
Christ. What benefit did it have? None. None. If we don't understand that we
were chosen in Christ, that we should be holy and without blame
before him being loved, then what benefit is election? I remember one time in boot camp.
They came in and asked for volunteers who were good with a rifle. Everybody
in here that has learned the basic fundamentals of drill and
are good with a rifle, we're looking for some volunteers.
And everybody in there thought they were getting volunteers
for the Navy drill team at Visions of Grandeur. And every one of
them that volunteered went down on KP and spent a week down there
working in the kitchen. God did not merely choose to
save a people, but he chose them in Christ, having predestinated
them under the adoption of children. That's what that election was
all about. And he chose them in Christ. So the doctrine of
election is really the doctrine of Christ, and likewise the doctrine
of salvation. There's no salvation outside
Christ. And yet it's being preached every day. Being preached every
day. Catholics believe salvation's
in the church. It's in their traditions, it's
in their customs, and so did the Jews. In Acts chapter 13,
verse 38, Paul said, be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren,
that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.
There's no forgiveness of sins apart from Christ. No salvation
apart from him, he is our salvation. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. Salvation is not just a man or
a woman turning over a new leaf. It's a sinner discovering that
Christ is all. He's all. All his hope and all his righteousness
and all his justification and all his sanctification. Paul
said, in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,
and you are complete in him. And you can't preach any doctrine
or rite unless Christ has the preeminence and is the focal
point of the doctrine. Now I said all that to say this.
It's not our coming to the doctrine of grace that saves us, but our
coming to the Christ of the doctrine. I preach doctrine to you to point
you to Him. It's to point you to Christ. It's not to convince you of a
new doctrine. Anybody that'll sit down and
listen, I can show them the doctrine in the book. And if they are
willing to submit to this book, I can show them the doctrine
and convince them that the doctrine is correct. But that won't save
you. salvation's in him. And so when
I teach these doctrines, I want to be clear on that, that salvation's
in him, the doctrine's just the finger that points. Now having fully stated all these
doctrines, and we looked at them in our previous lessons, And
given to us the understanding of these doctrines, he makes
four wonderful conclusions in this verse. First of all, he
tells us that the spirit and the bride, that is the spirit
and the church, say come. Come on. Now if I've made these
doctrines clear, If I pointed you to Christ as God's testimony
has set him forth, if I point you to him correctly, and you
are given by the gift of God some understanding of your need
of him, then I can say to you, come on. You see what he's saying here?
The spirit. The spirit of revelation, the
reason the spirit reveals things to you is to enable you to come
to Christ. He doesn't reveal things to you
just for argument's sake. He doesn't reveal things to you
so you can buttonhole some sinner back here by the door and trap
him and trick him and do all this nonsense that religion does. The spirit, his intention is
to reveal Christ to you that you may come to him. So the spirit says come. And
the bride says come also. Now there's five great gospel
truths which we emphasize constantly and we've already looked at them
as we went through this chapter. That God has chosen to save a
people by his son for the glory of his great name. We declare
that every time we preach the gospel. We preach also that Christ
has accomplished all that a holy and just God demanded of those
people for them to be saved. Christ has accomplished And then thirdly, that Christ
will effectually call to himself all those for whom he died, all
those that were given to him in the covenant of grace before
the foundation of the world. He will effectually call them. And that all who come to Christ
believing on him shall be saved. You don't have to be a theologian
to come to Christ. You just have to know enough
truth to understand your need of Him and His sufficiency. I'm
asked this by Reformed people all the time. If you have to
know something, then how much do you have to know? You have
to know enough to know your need. That's how much you have to know. And you have to know enough to
understand that the sufficiency for that need is in Him. That's
what you need to know. And all who come to Him, believing
on Him, shall be saved. He said this in John chapter
6, I think it's verse 37. He said, all that the Father
hath given me shall come to me. All gonna come to me. And him
that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. I'm gonna cast
him out. I'm going to give to him everlasting
life. And then fifthly, that every sinner who knows he's a
sinner is urged to come to Christ. Come to Christ. And this is the other thing that
I hear men talk about. They maybe don't say it in word,
but they they assume that you understand what they're saying,
and they start talking about percentages, percentages of knowledge
about your sin, and percentages of knowledge about this and that,
and you have to feel this. Let me tell you something. The
only thing you know about your sin is what God tells you in
this book. That's exactly right. And you
know something? When you believe God, You'll
feel what God said when you believe, if you believe. If you believe. If you believe that you're a
sinner as he testifies that you are, there's no doubt about it,
you're gonna come to Christ. You're gonna come to Christ. So our text says the spirit and
the bride say come. Now I want you to notice this.
There's no discord here. There's no variance here, there's
no lack of compliance. What the spirit says, the bride
says. You know why? Because they're
just one spirit and they're just one bride. Is that right? Now I just, I can't go along
with this idea that the spirit of God will teach me one thing
and teach you something else. I can't go along with that. Hundreds
of churches around here will argue all day long. Well, we're
just folks in a wheel. You know, God's gonna, He's revealed
this to you. Like that man, he said, told
Brother Mayhem one time, he said, salvation's like a large gray
elephant. And he said, you got a hold of
his trunk, and you're blind, we're all blind, and you got
a hold of his trunk, and you're feeling that trunk, and you're
describing what you feel. And I got a hold of his tail,
and I'm describing what I feel. And another's got a hold of his
leg, this big ole elephant's leg, and he's describing what
he feels. Brother Mahan said, well, I got
some problems with that. He says, first of all, salvation
don't have anything in common with a large gray elephant. And
secondly, God, people aren't blind. They're not blind. I cannot understand how anybody who's
ever read this book can say that the Spirit of God will teach
you one thing and teach me something else. That's just not so. It's not so. There's no variance
here. There's no discord here. There's no lack of compliance
on the part of the bride. What the Spirit says, the bride
says. There's a divine harmony between
the two. And what the spirit says shall
always be what the bride says because this is how she was called
herself. Same way. God's church is always
laboring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And they do so, now listen, knowing
that there is but one body, Just one church, one body, one spirit,
one calling and one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God and father of all who is above all and through
all and in you all. A lot of ones, ain't it? Spirit doesn't say one thing
and a bride another, they both say come. Why? Why does the spirit and the bride
say come? They say come because God has
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. And therefore they both
say, and say it in harmony, come, come to Christ. And then secondly, because there's
none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved. Where else are you going to go?
There's no salvation anywhere else. There's no salvation in
the church. There's no salvation in the front. There's no salvation
in the altars that men put at the front. There's no salvation
in the crosses that they hang on their building. No salvation
in the pledge card. No salvation in the preacher
or the priest. Salvation's in Christ. So if
we're going to come, where are we going to come? We're going
to come to Christ. There's nowhere else to go. And then thirdly,
we say come to Him because in Him alone is the full sufficiency
required to save a sinner. You got somewhere else you can
go and get a perfect righteousness? Huh? Can you go to the law and
find A perfect righteousness, one that pleases God? Can you
go to the law and find perfect justification? Where are you going to go? Where
are you going to go? What are you going to do to find
this? Are you going to come to Christ or are you not going to
have it at all? Here is the first thing I know.
The Spirit and the bride say, come. And then secondly, let
him that heareth come. Let him say, come. And I tell
you, he does. When a man truly hears, he tells
everybody he knows, come. That woman at the well, when
she finally understood who he was, she ran back and told everybody
she knew, come and hear a man that told me everything I ever
did. Come listen to him. Come to him. Come to Him. He's got the answers.
He's got the power. He's got the kindness and the
patience to sit down and talk to you. Come to Him. Let him that heareth say, come.
Heareth what? Who hears what the Spirit and
the Bride say. All that hear the Spirit and
the Bride, where else they going to find it out? You don't learn
this in religion. You're not going to learn this
in school. Where are you going to learn this? The spirit and
the bride say, come. They say, come. And everybody
that comes into this auditorium here, they hear. But some are
granted the gift of spiritual ears. And they hear not only
in the mind, but they hear in the heart. Blessed are your ears,
for they hear. Now wait a minute, the Pharisees
heard too, but what they heard had no effect on them whatsoever
because they didn't hear it with spiritual ears. Spiritual ears hear not just
in word only. What Paul said, I know your election
of God, for when my gospel came unto you, it didn't come in word
only, it came in power and in the Holy Ghost. He came convincing
you of sin, convincing you of righteousness, convincing you
of judgment. That is, judgment satisfied. When Paul finished his discourse
on Mars Hill in Athens, it says, when they heard of the resurrection
of the dead. That was just the straw that
broke the camel's back. When they heard about the resurrection
of the dead, some of them mocked. Others said, we'll hear thee
again of this matter. Howbeit, certain men claimed
unto him and believed. And having declared the gospel
of Christ plainly to all and seeing the rebellious countenance
of the Jews, Paul said, beware, lest that come upon you which
is spoken of in the prophets. Behold, ye despisers and wander
and perish. For I work a work in your days,
a work which you shall in no wise believe, though a man declare
it unto you. The man who truly hears comes
to Christ, submits himself to Christ, looks to Christ, and
finds rest for his soul. And what else can he say? to
others except what was said to him, come to Christ. Let him that heareth say, come.
All right? Now, that's the people who are
doing the talking. That's the people who are doing
the teaching. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth.
This is the one. Now we're going to deal with
the sinner. We're going to deal with him who hears what the Spirit
and the bride says. Let him that is a thirst come. Let him come. The Spirit and
the Bride told him to come. Every hearer of the Gospel told
him to come. And now the thirsty sinner begins
to come. What are we to do? Huh? You know it happens on so few
occasions that when it actually does happen,
we don't know what to do. We don't know what to do. And
that's my question. What do we do? Here's a thirsty
sinner. He's made thirsty by the gift
of God. He's made thirsty by the doctrine
of Christ and by the Spirit convincing him of these things, and now
he's thirsty. He needs to drink. What are we
to do? Should we warn him about all
the pitfalls? Come back and say, now wait a
minute, wait a minute. Before you do this, I need to
tell you about all the pitfalls in this thing. Should we tell
him about others who come and then afterward left? Should we pile on his back certain
measures of experience and feelings and levels of repentance and
degrees of dedication? Here's a thirsty sinner and he's
making his way down to Christ. What are we to do? Well, here
it is in as plain a language as words can make possible. Let
him that is a thirst come. Huh? Get out of his way. Get out of his way. The Spirit
and the bride told him to come, and all those who heard what
they said tell him to come. Now get out of his way and let
him come. Don't start in on him about his
clothes. Now you know you shouldn't wear
your work clothes to church, don't you? I notice you got this
earring in your ear. Maybe you oughta, you know that's
not a good thing, so maybe you oughta get that earring out of
your ear. Now I notice that when you sing, you wave your hands
back and forth, so I need to tell you about that. Get out
of his way. The Lord will take care of his
earrings and his clothes and the way he worships. Get out
of his way and let him come to Christ. He's thirsty. He's a
thirsty sinner. He don't know anything else.
You remember that blind man that the Lord healed? That man, they
backed him up in a corner and they said, who is this that did
this to you? He said, I don't know. He said,
here's what I know. I was blind. And now I see. The Lord revealed himself more
perfectly to him down the road a little bit. But you know, even that little
drop of knowledge that he had was enough to convince him of
the foolishness of this world. He said, herein is an amazing
thing. The Lord has taken a man who
blind from birth and given him sight. And you don't know who
he is. I'm not wearing his gowns. You're
wearing the gowns. I don't have any broad phylacteries. I'm not wearing the dress. I
don't claim to be a Pharisee. I'm a blind man. But don't you
find this amazing that you don't know who he is? Get out of his way. Don't start
in on about his clothes and earrings and customs of worship or anything
else. Let him come, get out of his
way. Lord will take care of whatever luggage he's carrying. And I'm
gonna confess this, I personally feel that most of the time, I'm
the biggest obstacle with those that I preach to. I'm the biggest
obstacle. And here's some plain language. Let him come. Huh? Oh, but these Calvinists will
all think I'm Armenian. So what? Let him come. Let him come. Point men to Christ,
tell them to come, and then get out of the way. And then the
Holy Ghost inspires John to pen these words, Revelation 22, verse
17. And whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely. Now I'm not afraid of that word
whosoever will. I know our minions have abused
that word to no end. But there's no need for believers
to fear that word. It's in the scriptures. It's
in the holy scriptures. Let me read to you the first
three verses of Psalm 110. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit
thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
This is David talking. Inspired by the Spirit of God.
And he's talking about Christ. And if you have any doubt that
this is not talking about Christ, you read Hebrews 10, verses 12
through 14. You can read 1 Corinthians 15,
verses 20 through 25. And you can read Peter's sermon
at Pentecost in Acts chapter two, verses 31 through 36. Plainly declares that this psalm
is talking about Christ. All right, listen to verse two.
The Lord shall send a rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. Christ rules his church, even
though we're surrounded by enemies. Enemies without, enemies within. But Christ rules. He rules. Now watch this. Psalm 110, verse
3. Thy people, this people among
whom he rules and protects and preserves, their strength Thy
people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Whosoever will,
they can come. They can come. Because no man
will apart from the power of God's spirit. Willing to rest their souls in
confidence that his reign shall result in their enemies as well
as his becoming his footstool. willing to submit to his rule
in the midst of their enemies, that is, while others around
you are not submitting, willing to rest your faith in the strength
of his rod, and willing to come as you are, a helpless, hopeless
sinner, willing to count all things but done that you might
win Christ and be found in him. And whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely. Let him drink. Drink his fill. Drink his fill. Let him drink
all he can hold. You see, Christ is that water
of life. He's that water of life. And all who hear it, and all
who are persuaded of it, and all who are willing to come,
we are to stand aside and let him take. Let him come and let
him take. of the water of life freely,
no charge. Don't tag on them some of your
luggage. You let them come and drink freely.