If you will, let's be turning
to 2 Peter. I sure do. Thank you for having
me. I've never been here. I've always wanted to come and
never have been able to. 2 Peter 2. Paul is I mean, Peter is dealing here
with false teachers. And he says in verse 17, these
are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest
to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. I love how that the Lord gives
us language so simple that we can understand it. I like the
simplicity of the scriptures. I like how the Lord teaches us
in types and figures and shadows and metaphors, things we can
understand. And I think about it, you know,
when you think about that, like when the Lord picked up a kernel
of corn or looked at something that he used as an illustration
and said, for instance, accept a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone. You know, he didn't just look
around and say, let me find something that will illustrate what I'm
about to do, or that looks like that will illustrate it. He made
it to illustrate it. Everything he's made, he made
to illustrate salvation and what he's accomplished and he himself.
And one of those metaphors is water. It's water. And you know,
you're in a hot dry desert land and one of the most important
things to you is a well of water. That's extremely important in
a dry land. And another one of those examples
is a cloud of rain. It holds the same idea. A cloud
of rain. You want something to shade you
from the heat and you want something that is able to send forth rain
to you. You can imagine being out in
a dry place and you look out on the horizon and you see a
a big cloud coming, how thankful you'll be for that shade and
that rain. So throughout these scriptures,
that symbol of water and of clouds, they're used as symbols of life
and of grace. The symbol of water is even used
for Christ himself and of the salvation that he's accomplished
for his people. I'll give you a few examples.
When the Lord delivered Israel out of Egypt, He said, The Lord
thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks, of water,
of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills.
When He was going to deliver them away from the hand of the
Assyrian, when they were in captivity, the Lord said, In that day thou
shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee. Though thou wast angry
with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me. Behold, God's my salvation. I
will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord Jehovah is my strength
and my song. He's also become our salvation
and therefore with joy shall you draw water out of the wells
of salvation. All of these are pictures of
our deliverance and us being brought into this abundance of
grace that we have in Christ. Now our text here is talking
about these false teachers and here the picture is obviously
of a, you know, you've got a picture of a thirsty sinner. He's been
out, you've been out all day and during the week. You come in here for your midweek
service and it's like coming to an oasis. You're coming out
of that dry land and you're coming in here and you're wanting a
good cold drink of water. That's what you want, to quench
your thirst. And you picture coming to a place and it end
up being just a dry well. Nothing there. Nothing to quench
your thirst. One of the men this morning preached
from a text in a conference, and he preached out of Numbers
5, I believe it was, and it was something to do with the law,
and mentioned adultery, fornication, and things like that, and it
was an excellent message, and so Christ-honoring. And one of
our men said, he said, you know, when I was sitting in Churches
I've been in before he said if the preacher turned to that kind
of text and started reading it He said you just want to just
sink down in the pew Because he's fixed to be a dry well just
a dry dry sandy well Are you picture this picture you picture
you picture? You know same same illustration
a cloud on the horizon, and it's the same picture you picture
It's going to come and just bring you water, but a preacher. Oh,
you know some strong wind of of persecution comes along. And
some new strange wind of doctrine comes along. And just like a
cloud, it's carried away. They're carried away. Away from
the... And there's no water. No water.
Now I want you to look here just a moment at how opposite the
believer is to those that are ascribed here in this text. False
teachers, unbelievers, the un-regenerate are called here wells without
water. Proverbs 10.11 says of the righteous man, the mouth
of a righteous man is a well of life. Those without Christ
are described here as clouds that are carried with a tempest.
Do you remember when Christ ascended? He left captivity captive, gave
gifts unto men. He gave His ambassadors, He sent
them forth into the earth for this purpose, that we henceforth
be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
every wind of doctrine. Not carried about like clouds,
carried about with a tempest. And then false teachers are described
here as those whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. But the brother just read out
of 1 Peter 1, the believers described as someone who's been born unto
an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away,
reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God
through faith." That's the difference between a believer and an unbeliever.
So instead of focusing our attention tonight on false teachers, let's
take this and let's look at it as the Lord's grace working in
His children, through His true preachers in His children. wells
and clouds. Now every believer, this is what
we know, that is what we're going to see throughout this, every
believer is an earthen vessel. That's what we are. We're an
earthen vessel. And our life is Christ Jesus. He's the water of life within
these earthen vessels. That's who he is. Let's, let's
begin here by We know that we don't have any water by nature.
That's the first thing. We know we don't have any water,
any life in us by nature. That's the picture of this life.
A well gets its water from a spring within it. And clouds come from,
they come from above. It comes down from above. Every
man that's born in this world, as we're born naturally in this
world, is a well without any water. Just a well without any
water. What good's a well without any
water? Not good for anything. That's what we are born into
this world. The life's in the water. Life's in the water. You
can't live without water. Many think they're going to be
filled with life. They're going to have their thirst
quenched by going after things in this world. Somebody will
go after an education, get a good education. They go out and they'll
go after a career. And they'll run and run in that
career and exceed and excel in their career, but they never
quite They're happy, never satisfied. There's no life. There's no true
life in those kinds of things. Somebody will say, well, we'll
get married. We'll have some children and
all those things. You bring forth children, but they're coming
forth just as dead as the unbeliever is. Just as dead. No life. Gonna
be no eternal happiness. No quenching of the thirst there. Man thinks he's gonna get older.
Always looking ahead, you know. We're always wanting to Have
that grass on the other side of the fence. Always looking
ahead. And you get older and find out these bodies are just
dry, dusty wells. That's all they are. Starts breaking
down. Or you got somebody that gets
into religion. He tries to find all his, he
tries to find, quench his thirst in religion. And he looks like
he has something, maybe. You know, you can take a well.
My parents had a well when I was growing up. You take a well,
you can put a nice well house around it. You can get the best
well pump for that well house. You can get the nicest well bucket
for the well house. When you drop that bucket down
in that well, if there's no water in there, so what? Good for nothing. You might as
well cap it so nobody falls in it or nobody gets hurt by it
or nobody gets endangered by it. It's not good for anything.
And that's the description of every man as we're born into
this world. That's a description of you.
That's a description of me as we're born into this world. Every
elect child of God, that's a description of us as we come into this world.
And even when God sends us the truth and we hear the gospel
in that natural state, we're like the children of Israel when
they were brought out of Egypt. Look over there at Exodus 17,
3. I tell you what, you turn to Jeremiah 2. Jeremiah 2. I'll
read this to you while you turn to Jeremiah 2. They came out, you remember,
and there wasn't any water. And it says, and the people thirsted
for water. And the people murmured against
Moses. And they said to him, why is it you brought us up out
of Egypt and you brought us out here to kill our cattle and all
our families and everything with thirst? And then they got all
that great blessing they had seen and what the Lord had done
with them in bringing them out of Egypt. It's like somebody
hears the gospel. They hear it with these ears.
They hear it. It goes forward talking about His great deliverance,
what He's accomplished. And they think, I don't get anything
out of that. All they say is the same thing.
All they keep talking about is the same thing over and over.
That's nothing for me. Why is that? Why is that? Because
they're looking for natural water, looking for something natural,
not the eternal water, not the spiritual water. Jeremiah 2.13,
the Lord says, My people have committed two evils. They've
forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters. and hewed them
out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. That's
our problem by nature. How's that going to be cured?
Well, we saw there that Christ is the fountain. He's the fountain.
He's the living water. He's the source of this water. Christ is that rock that was
smitten. Remember that rock in the wilderness?
Moses smote that rock. Moses, a picture of the law,
smiting Christ when He bore the sins of His people in His own
body. Justice being satisfied by Him being smitten. And from
Him, now that His Righteousness is accomplished. Justice is satisfied. He's made propitiation through
His blood. Now the water of life comes forth
to His people freely. Absolutely free. He's that God-man. He's that living water. Look
at Isaiah 32, verse 2. You hold your place in Isaiah
because we're going to come back here here in just a few moments. Isaiah 32, 2. Christ is that,
He's that living water that's freely given to those for whom
Christ died and He's that shadow from a scorching wrath of justice. Look at Isaiah 32, verse 2. A
man shall be as a hiding place from the wind. You know who that
man is? That's the God-man. The God-man. A man shall be as
a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest,
as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. That's Christ, that's who He
is. God the Father, the fountain of life, light, grace. He ordained
before the world was made for Christ to come forth and to accomplish
our salvation. To accomplish our salvation.
To come forth and do for helpless, dead, fallen sinners. everything,
absolutely everything, that we couldn't do for ourselves. And
we never would do. We didn't want anything to do
with God if we could do something. Nothing. And He sent forth His
Son to be all righteousness, all sanctification, all redemption,
all the wisdom, all the liberty, all for His people. He sent Him
forth to be all. It's hard for us sometimes to
understand these kinds of importance of water and things because we
live in a place that's got plenty of water, you know, natural water. But you put yourself in a place
of being in a desert and it's not hard to do when you think
about it in spiritual terms. When you think about it in terms
of the land all around us, it's not real hard to do because we
live in a dry, thirsty land spiritually. But the scripture says, it pleased
the father and in his son should all fullness dwell. All fullness. And this is what Revelation tells
us. Let's look at this too. Revelation 7.16. I hardly ever
preach topical messages, so I'm not real used to doing this. I'm going to have you turn to
quite a few Scriptures. Revelation 7.16. This is that fullness. Revelation 7.16. They shall hunger
no more, neither thirst any more. Neither shall the sun light on
them. He's a cloud. Nor any heat for
the lamb which is in the midst of the throne. When have you
ever seen a lamb sit in a throne? Our king is the lamb in the midst
of the throne. And the lamb in the midst of
the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains
of waters. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. And of this fullness from Him
have we all received grace for grace. Franklin, Tennessee, in June
of this year. And it hadn't rained down there
in, I guess, probably two, at least a month. And he was out
trying to rig him up some kind of irrigation system to bring
some water out of his creek up, because he had this big garden
and had all these thriving plants, corn plants and everything, tomato
plants, and they were all just wilting. They were all just wilting
away. I thought about how this year, you know, they said that
this was going to be the largest corn crop ever produced in the
history of the world this year. And just because we've learned
so well how to grow corn, we've learned so well how to produce
produce, and just when we think we've got some ability, and just
when we think we really can brag about what we know and what we
know, God just orders the sun to shine a little bit longer
and the rain to fall a little bit less. And now they're saying
this is going to be the largest corn loss in the history of the
world. We need water. And that's us,
brethren. We need this water. We need Christ. We need the Lord Jesus Christ. We have got to have Him. We need
the gospel. We need to continually hear of
Him. We need to continually drink from this well. But how are the
sinners? Now we know He's this fountain. We know we don't have this water.
How then are sinners going to be brought to this well and have
this water? He said He'd lead them. He said
He'd bring them to fountains of living water. How are we going
to have this water? God promised to do this. He promised that He would give
His people pastors according to His own heart that would feed
His people with knowledge and understanding. That's what He
promised that He would do. We don't have an interest in
that gospel, we don't have an interest in this water, we don't
have an interest in this salvation whatsoever by nature. How's he
gonna get us to get under the sound of that gospel? So that
we can be fed this water, so that we can be given this water. Wherever he's got an elect child,
he knows where they are. He knows exactly where they are. The Lord Jesus Christ went to
Jacob's well there in Samaria. He sat down there on that well.
And here comes that Samaritan woman there. He wasn't there
by chance. He wasn't there by accident.
And she wasn't there by accident. God saves on purpose. And he
crosses our path with the gospel on purpose, directs everything
large and small from the minutest detail to the largest detail
to bring it to pass, to bring us to cross his path with his
gospel. And he teaches us in our heart.
Remember Paul? Paul wanted to go somewhere else.
He was wanting to go somewhere else and preach the Gospel, and
the Holy Spirit forbid him to go to that place. And he ended
up going where the Holy Spirit sent him to go. And he went down
by a river, and he got down there by the river, and there was Lydia
by that river. And he preached the Gospel to
her, and the Lord opened her heart, and she heard the Gospel.
The Holy Spirit is able to send this Gospel, and He makes us
to behold Christ, by making us behold this true water. And when
he makes us to see Christ, to begin to understand something
of this gospel, the first thing that happens is we begin to really
see the dryness that's in us. We begin to see there's no righteousness
in us. We thought there was. We thought
there was some goodness in us. We thought there was something
about us that was good. We compared ourselves to the
worst scoundrel we could find and said, well, I'm not as bad
as him. But we thought there was something good in us. But
he's going to bring us to see. He's got his hands heavy on us. It says in the Psalm 32, it says,
Day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned
into the drought of summer. We become so thirsty. We become
so thirsty. You began to realize, I've never
done anything. I've never said anything. I've
never thought anything. And everything that I thought
was righteousness, everything I thought was good, is just sinful. It's wretched. It's just dry,
sinful, nothingness, vanity. And you began to realize, I need
this water. I have got to have this water. And you began to hear this word,
you begin to hear this gospel and you stop hearing a man preaching
the gospel and you start hearing this living word from the living
word speaking into your heart and you start hearing him say,
if any man thirst, let him come unto me. Don't bring any money,
don't bring any price. If any man thirst, let him come
unto me and he that believeth on me. As the scripture has said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And you begin
to think. Now is it true when He says,
whosoever drinketh of this water that He's given me will never
thirst again? And whoever drinks of this water
that He gives me, there'll be a well of water springing up
in me into everlasting life? And you hear things like that.
You sit there now. If there's somebody here that
is just hearing this for the first time maybe. You sit there
and you hear something like that and you say, I don't really understand
what that is. What is that? A well of water of life springing
up into me? I don't understand that. And
you won't understand that. All you'll know is you're thirsty. And all you'll know is you've
got no way of quenching that thirst. And all you'll know is
that you're such a sinner, you've got to have somebody to save
you. You've got to have somebody. Now you realize you've got to
have somebody to save you from you. You've got to have somebody
to save you from yourself. And you begin to be thirsty and
hungry and want this shade and this water. And Brother Todd
read that scripture, as cold waters to a thirsty soul, so
is good news from a far country. This news, this gospel starts
becoming good news. And you begin to hear it and
it really goes. At first, you hated it. You didn't like it.
I've watched this happen. I've been preaching the gospel.
I was telling Todd about this on the way over here. I watched
folks go from having no interest at all, could care less, to kind
of picking up like they got just a little bit of interest in what
you're saying, to getting mad about what you're saying. And
then you see them not quite seem like they're quite so mad. And
then the next thing you know, they look like they're glad.
And you just watch them go through all this whole stage. And all it's done is you've just
been declaring the same message, the same message, the same message.
And that message at once, you hate it. That message that you
had no interest in, that message that you thought was absolute,
utter foolishness, starts to become good news. And it's good
news from a far country. Good news from a far country.
And that thirsty sinner, look over now at Psalm 63. Psalm 63. This is when David was in the
wilderness in Judah. He's a believer at this point,
when he's in there in the wilderness. But you find yourself in the
wilderness. And you begin to say this. This is what he said. Oh God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek Thee. My soul
thirsteth for Thee. My flesh longeth for Thee in
a dry and thirsty land where no water is. He said in another place, My
soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come
and appear before Him? I'm thirsty for Him. Look there
at Psalm 143. He says, Psalm 143, I stretch forth my hands unto
thee. Stretch forth those hands with
anything in those hands. Stretch them forth empty. Completely
empty. I stretch forth my hands unto
thee. My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty lamb. O Lord,
hear me speedily. My spirit faileth. Hide not thy
face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down to the
pit. And God said this. God has promised. If any man
comes to me, I won't cast him out. I won't cast him out. That's
the promise of God. What reason? What reason would
God have to lie to me and you? He's not a man that he should
lie. What reason would God have to tell us something that he
would do and then turn around and not do it? He has no reason
to. They wouldn't profit Him anything.
He's the true and living God. He's the true and living God.
He could swear by no greater than Himself. And He's promised. He's made His oath. You come
to Him seeking mercy, you'll find mercy. He makes good on
His Word. Look at Isaiah 35 now. Isaiah
35. This is what He does. This is what He promised. Verse 5. Let's look at verse
5. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears
of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap
as a heart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. For in the wilderness
shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. That's you and
me. That's us and our flesh. That's what we are. And He says,
And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty
land springs of water. In the habitation of dragons,
where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. It'll
be a fertile land. Let's go a few pages to you right
there, Isaiah 41, 18. Verse 17, he says, when the poor
and needy seek water and there is none and their tongue faileth
for thirst, I, the Lord, will hear them. I, the God of Israel,
will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places
and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the
wilderness a pool of water and dry land springs of water. In
Revelation 22.1 it says, And I looked and saw a pure river
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and the Lamb. You began to see for the first
time that the Lord Jesus Christ is exactly who He has said He
is. You began to behold God is who
He said He is. And you began to behold God,
you are who God has said you are and who I am. And we stop,
for the first time in our life, we stop glorying in ourselves. We stop thinking that there's
some goodness in ourselves that can commend us to God. And for
the first time in our lives, we begin to glory in God. We begin to glory in Him. We
begin to look upon Him what He's done. And hear this message of
this free, unmerited, sovereign grace whereby he's done all the
work that needed to be done and chooses to whom he'll give this
water to. And you begin to hear it. And
whereas before you thought, well, that's not fair that he's going
to open up this well to some and he's not going to open up
this well to others. The well's open. The well's open. The well's
open to anybody that wants it. The problem is, till he works
his work with grace in our hearts, we don't want this water. When
He stood up that day and said, if any man thirsts, let him come
unto Me, nobody came to it. Nobody came to it. If you perish in your sins, it
won't be because God withheld something from you, because you
didn't want it. If we perish in our sins, the
only one we'll have to blame is ourselves. We can't blame
God for that. God is a just God. He's not going
to send anybody just arbitrarily choose to withhold this fountain
from them and send them to hell. If somebody goes to hell, it's
because they earned it. Because God's just. Now, if He
saves us, it's all completely, totally, thoroughly of His grace. Of Him giving it to us. That's
right. You say, well, I don't understand
how that can be. Let me try to give you this illustration. You're
responsible to believe on the Lord. And if you don't, if I
don't believe on the Lord, it's my fault that I don't believe
on the Lord. I'm responsible to believe on it. We say, well,
if you can't believe on him, how can God hold you responsible
for believing on it? There's tons of people right
now in this nation because of our economy. There's tons of
people in this nation right now who cannot make their mortgage.
They can't pay their mortgage. They don't have any ability whatsoever
to pay their mortgage. Why then does the bank foreclose
on them? Because they're still responsible to pay it. Even though
they got no ability to do it, they're still responsible to
do it. You see, in Adam, when we sinned in Adam, and we died
in Adam, and fell under the curse of the law, we have every responsibility
as we come into this earth to believe God, to hear Him, to
trust Him, to do it. The problem is we can't do it.
We can't do it, but that doesn't neglect the fact that we're still
responsible to do it. He's going to hold us accountable
if we don't do it, but the fault will be our own because we wouldn't,
we wouldn't come to him. We wouldn't do it. The point
I'm trying to make to you is we need him. If you're in a desert
land and you need water, you need water, bam, you got no water.
You're not going to argue with somebody when they say, here's
some good cold water right here. You want it? You're not going
to argue with them about that. It's no longer going to be, well,
it's not fair. It's going to be, I need the
water. I'll take it. I'll take it. That's what he
does. The beast of the field, he said,
will honor me. That's where we are. We're the
beast of the field. And he said, the dragon's in the house. That's
what we are by nature. Night creatures, just beasts
of the field. Why? Because he said, I give waters
in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to
my people, my chosen. I do that. And then you know
what he does for us? Look, you're going to like this
one. Ezekiel 34, 26. He doesn't turn anybody away. He gives you this grace and He
gives you this life. He's already done it when you
discover how thirsty you are for it. And then He plants you
somewhere. It says that He plants us somewhere. Look at Ezekiel 34, 26. and the places round about my
hill a blessing. And I will cause the shower to
come down in his season, and there shall be showers of blessing."
Where's this hill he's talking about? What's this hill he's
talking about that he's going to make these showers of blessing
come down? It's his church. He's going to
put you in his church. He's going to bring you there
and set you down in that place. And He's going to start showering
you with His showers of blessing. So that thirst that you have
is constantly being quenched. Constantly being quenched. Now, When He does this work for
us, when He brings us to see Him, He brings us to rest in
Him, He brings us to see that we're complete in Him by His
obedience, by what He has done. The faith of Christ that has
accomplished this work for us. Perfect obedience. Perfect obedience. I needed somebody to believe
God perfectly for me. You say, well, He gives you faith
to believe, doesn't He? I need somebody to even, I need
somebody to believe perfectly for me. I really do. I need somebody, this thought
occurred to me the other day, we were baptizing somebody, and
the thought occurred to me, I need somebody to physically go in
that baptism pool of water baptism and be baptized without any sin,
perfectly. He was baptized. The Lord Jesus
Christ went and went into the water. He said, it behooves us
in fulfilling all righteousness. And he went into that water.
He pictured that immersion that he underwent in the judgment
and wrath of God when he died. died for his people. But I mean,
literally, in that physical act of water baptism, he's the only
man that ever did that perfectly. I need somebody to do that perfectly
for me. I need somebody to justify me for my sins of not doing that
perfectly. And he's done that. He's done
everything. We can't even imagine what He's
paid for, what He's done, what He's accomplished. You know,
we don't think of things like that. I don't. I don't think
that I even need Him to... I need Him for everything. And He makes us to see that He
is everything and we're complete in Him. Scripture in the back. I love that. Colossians chapter
2, I believe it was. You know, you're completing him.
Let's go look at that. Colossians 2. I love this. We'll come back here in just
a minute to what I was going to show you. Colossians. Look down here at verse 9, Colossians
2.9. When He says, For in Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And He says, And you
are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality
and power. That word fullness and that word complete are the
same word. Know that? In Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. And you're complete in Him. How
complete am I in Christ? As complete as He is the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. Now that's complete. That's complete. Isn't that good news? Alright, now what is the purpose
that He gives these wells? Why does He fill a well with
water? What's the purpose of a well being filled with water?
Well, a well is filled with water so that it can give water to
other thirsty folks traveling along. That's what he feels so
well for. The Lord saves sinners to save
sinners. And this is amazing that he would
use just us earthen vessels and use a condescending. He don't
have to use us, but he's pleased to use us and he will use us
to set forth his truth. We're just earthen vessels that
the power might be of God, not of us, but he'll use earthen
vessels. to give this water out, to keep giving this water out.
And who else can do it? Nobody else can do it but somebody
that's been so thirsty that they've seen how dead and how dry their
own flesh is. They're the only ones that's
going to be able to tell somebody else that the flesh profits nothing. You're the only one that can
tell somebody that, you who know it. Who else can tell somebody
that there's going to be no way that once they're saved by God's
grace and made new in Christ, that now they're going to somehow
walk above sin and walk without sin and never sin anymore and
be able to fulfill all righteousness now because they're new by themselves. Well, who's going to be able
to tell them that that's just not going to happen? You know
that's not going to happen. You've experienced it, so you
can tell them. Who's going to be able to tell
somebody, a fellow believer, that's just all out in the heat
and thirsting from this warfare between the flesh and the spirit,
and that new nature and that old nature, and between this
world and everything we desire? Who's going to be able to comfort
them? You who've been filled with water, you who have no end. When one of us is a little bit
empty, the other one's a little more full. And when that one's
a little more empty, the other one's a little more full. So
we can constantly be, he's fitly framed us together. And every
joint supplying what every other joint needs so that the whole
skeleton can stand up together. And it's all done by the head
from whom all nourishment is ministered to every joint in
that body. And he's giving it to each one
as it pleases him to help us grow together. I feel so sorry
for folks that don't have a church family. I feel so sorry for folks
that I'm thankful they get to listen online, I'm thankful they
have that, you know, and they can. I'm talking about folks
who really desire to hear the gospel. But I feel sorry for
them not to be in the midst of a family. Because they miss out
on everything. They miss out, you know, when Bob is dry and he's being
offensive and you've got to bear his burden. You know, they miss
out when I think I'm so full that I'm full of myself and I
can walk around and tell somebody what to do and expect them to
do it. They miss all that. We need that though, don't we? They miss having to, you know,
Let's build this extra wing on the church building. They miss
all those things together. And all of that stuff, you know,
the building and the pews and whatever these things are that
the Lord uses to teach us these things, it's furniture. It's
furniture in a room. That stuff really doesn't matter
a lot. It's what he's teaching us using
those things In our hearts, that matters. That's what matters.
But without it, you just miss it. You miss all that. I feel
so sorry for folks that don't have that. Well, you can teach,
period. That's what we're to do. And
remember this now. And the more a well gives out
water, the more water it receives. In other words, a well doesn't
run over with water, but when it gives out water, it keeps
getting water. The spring keeps filling it back
up and it just keeps having water. So it doesn't run out of water.
The Scripture says, there's heat that scatters and yet increases.
That's so against our nature. I was thinking about this. I
almost said something, preached on this, but I was thinking of
this. You know, the Lord gave the sun to give us light. It's never ceased to give us
light. He gave the moon to give us light. It gets its light from
the sun. It's a beautiful picture of the believer getting our light
from Christ, the Son of Righteousness. It's never ceased to give us
light, never. He gave us this earth, the herb-bearing
seed. It's never ceased to give us
food. The earth gives us materials
we need. It gives us everything we need. Plants give us food. Everything we need never ceased
to give us what we need. You know the only ones that have
a problem of giving what God has given to us? is us. Sinners,
that's it. And believers, we have every
reason to just, because this goes against our nature though.
We think giving is the way you make your inventory go down.
But the Lord said it's more blessed to give than to receive. Because
He's blessing the Word. He's blessing the Word. This
is how, this is how you got here. This is how these sheep got into
this fold. You say, is it our substance? The cattle on a thousand
hills is His. Is it our time? Our times are
in His hands. Is it our talents? He gave them.
Is it anything that we can give out?
Anything that we can give out? He's going to give us more than
we ever dispense. He's going to keep us replenished. He's going to keep us... God
is able to make all grace abound. toward you, that you, always
having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good
work." Go back and look at that text sometime in 2 Corinthians,
I think it is, and see how many alls and everys and aboundings
there are in there. And it's just full of them. Well,
I'm going to close here. This is the last word. If you're
sitting here now, listen, and you You're hearing the message,
maybe. I hope you're hearing the message.
Young people especially, don't set your heart on this world.
Don't set your mind on this world and think that you're going to
find happiness in this world. At best, you're going to have
about 70 to 80 years here. At best. And what you're going
to find out, if you go through this life without Christ, and
perish without Christ is you're going to find out that this 78
or 80 years has been nothing but a life of dry dust. That's all it's been. And you're
going to find out that everything that you thought was going to
be an oasis along the way turned out to be a total mirage. And you'll end up in a place
where you'll beg for somebody to just take their finger and
dip it in some cool water and quench my tongue. There's nothing in this world,
there's nothing in this world that I would give in exchange
for the peace of knowing I have everlasting life in my Redeemer. There's nothing, nothing that
I would exchange for that. Nothing. And for you brethren
who sit here who know Him and trust Him, who've been filled
with His water of life, who've been given this life, who've
been robed in His righteousness, who have eternal life in Him,
have eternal life in Him, and have these great and precious
promises from this God who's able to do exceeding, abundantly
above anything that we ask or even think He can do, I hope you've been able to take
a long, cold drink of water tonight. I hope that it's been just showering
blessing upon your heart tonight, comforting you. And if it has,
there's only one to thank. To God be the glory. Amen.