If you want to turn to the very
last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 22, that is what we will
look at this morning for a few minutes. In Revelation chapter
22, I am thinking this morning about verse 17 for a few minutes,
but I want to read the entire chapter to you. Revelation chapter
22. If you have a few Bibles you
are using, you will find it on page 1355. Revelation 22 and verse 1. And
He showed me, He showed me, if we see anything, He is going
to have to show us. He showed me a pure river of water of life,
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and
of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of
it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life,
which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month,
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
There shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of
the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him.
And they shall see His face, and His name shall be in their
foreheads. And there shall be no night there,
and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord
God giveth them and they shall reign forever and ever. And he
said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true. And the Lord
God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants
the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the
sayings of the prophecy of this book. And I, John, saw these
things and heard them. When I heard and seen, I fell
down to worship before the feet of the angel, which showed me
these things. Then said he unto me, See thou
do it not? For I am thy fellow servant,
and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings
of this book. Worship God. And he said unto
me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the
time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be
unjust still. He that is filthy, let him be
filthy still. And he that is righteous, let
him be righteous still. And he that is holy, let him
be holy still. And behold, I come quickly, and
my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his
work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they which
do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of
life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. But
without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers,
and idolaters, and whosoever worketh and maketh a lie. I,
Jesus, sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the
churches. I am the root and the offspring
of David, and the bride and morning star. And the Spirit and the
bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say,
Come. And let him that is athirst come. and whosoever will let
him take the water of life freely. For I testify unto every man
that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any
man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues
that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away
from the words of this book of prophecy, God shall take away
his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and
from the things which are written in this book. He which testifieth
these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so come,
Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all. Amen. In verse 17 he makes this
statement. The Spirit says, Come. And the
Bride says, Come. And let him that sureth say,
Come. And let him that's thirsty, Come. And whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely. That seems to be the theme of
the Bible, doesn't it? Come. Come. And here, everybody's
saying it. The Holy Spirit, the Church,
others have drank, others who are now thirsty, others who have
heard. Everybody is saying, Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come one and
come all to the Savior. Come to Him. If you go back to
the very beginning of the Bible, as far back as Genesis chapter
6, we have this concept beginning there in the early portion of
the Scriptures. You remember when God saw the
corruption that was in the earth and He said, I'm going to destroy
man? Everything that has the breath of life in it, I'm going
to destroy it because earth became so corrupt before the eye of
God. And Noah built an ark. at God's instructions. And here's
what the Lord said, Come thou, come thou. The first time we
ever heard this word used is from God Himself. Come thou into
the ark. What was the ark? That was a
place of refuge, wasn't it? A place of safety from the coming
deluge, the awful flood to destroy man. Come thou and thy family
into the ark. And then as you search the Old
Testament, we find places throughout that says this very thing. Come
now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be
red like crimson. That's pretty bad sins, isn't
it? That's blood red sins. That's awful sins, murderous
sins. Come, come unto me, and your
sins shall be whiter than snow. Hold every one that thirsteth,
come ye to the water. Ye that have no money, come and
buy without money and without price. Incline your ear and come
unto me, here and your soul shall live. You know, there are some
things in the Scriptures that are synonymous. Hearing is synonymous
with coming. Come unto me. Here and your soul
shall live. It's synonymous with believing.
He that cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on
me shall never thirst. So here in Him is coming to Him. Coming to Him is believing in
Him. Here and your soul shall live. And then we come to the New Testament.
And immediately we see this same thing taken up in the New Testament.
The birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and our wise men come from the
East. And what did they say? Where
is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have come to worship
Him. We have come to worship Him. How many, when our Lord was here
upon this earth, came to Him, and this is what was said, they
came and worshipped Him. The blind came and worshipped
Him, saying, Lord, if You will, You can give me sight. The lepers
came to Him and said, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean.
They came to Him to worship Him. And then the Lord Jesus Himself
takes up this theme and He begins to say it in the New Testament
Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. And then He says it again, If
any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. Come unto
Me. Now that's His words saying that. And then in His parables, even
in His parables, He adds this theme to His parables. Listen
at these two places. The kingdom of heaven, he says,
is likened to a certain king which made a marriage for his
son, and sent his servant to call them that were bidding to
the wedding, and said, Go and tell them, Behold, I have prepared
my dinner, my oxen and my fatlings are killed, all things are ready,
come to the marriage. And then almost like that in
another parable, he says, A certain man made a great supper, and
begged many, and sent his servants at suppertime to say to them
which were bidding, Come, for all things are ready. And it
seems to me that the invitation or command, however you want
to look at it, is on these grounds. Everything
is ready. Everything's ready. When you
and I get together, we have potluck, don't we? We have pitch-ins.
What can I bring? If somebody asks you to come
to dinner, you always want to know, what do I bring? I feel
bad for not bringing anything. I feel like I'm imposing. But
you know, when you come to the Lord Jesus, here's what He says. You just bring yourself. I've
prepared everything. Charles Spurgeon told a humorous
little story one time. He had a large congregation.
He was younger then, but he had a large congregation. There was
this poor widow lady in his congregation, and she kept inviting him to
come for tea. Well, there in London, when you
go for tea, you not only had something to drink, but you had
some kind of little snack. And he said he kept putting her
off because he knew she was a woman who lived in poverty. But finally
he accepted and went, and he put a little bag of cookies in
his pocket. He said, I wanted to take something
with me. So she brought him out something to drink, and as she
went back to get some dessert, he took his little bag of cookies
out and set them on the table. And here this poor lady came
out with this huge, beautiful cake. And she set it down by
his cookies, and he said, she took her arm and raked his cookies
off in the floor. And said, Mr. Spurgeon, when
I invite you to tea, I will supply what we eat." Isn't that the
Lord? What more needs to be done, brothers
and sisters? Has sin not been atoned for?
Everything is ready. I have killed my fat limbs. The
table is set, isn't it? And because the table is set,
here's the message. Come! Come to Jesus Christ and
come to God by Him. Come! All things are ready. And we come here to this last
chapter of this great book of God, and it seems like that the
Son of God is so desirous that needy sinners come to Him that
He cannot close this book without announcing it again. Come! Come! Come! And everybody is
saying it. It's not just enough for Him
to say one last time, It's come, come, come, come. Come one and
come all. Ain't nobody here stronger Calvinist
than I am. But nobody here believes the
free grace of God to poor sinners to come to Him. Come to Him. We extend that, don't we? We
announce that to everybody. Come. Come. And everyone who
loves the Lord Jesus Christ, you know what they say? They
say come. And everybody that has come to love their souls,
they say, ìCome.î And everybody who loves the souls of others,
they say, ìCome.î Because you know something, there is no other
hope, there is no other salvation, there is no other life but in
Him, but in Him. And you know something else,
everybody is coming. A lot of people are coming now.
Thank God a lot of people are coming now. And they are finding
in Him everything they need and everything God requires. But
you know, everybody else is coming too. Everybody else is going
to come. All shall come to Him, even those
who are incensed against Him. His enemies are going to come
and they are going to bow before His throne in His presence. Everybody
is eventually coming, aren't they? Come now! Come now! Now is the time to come, isn't
it? Everybody who loves the Lord
Jesus says come. The Father loves Him, doesn't
He? The Bible says the Father loves the Son and has given everything
into His hands. And what does the Father teach
us? Don't the Father Himself teach us to come to Christ? He does, doesn't He? It's written
in the prophets, they shall all be taught of God. Every man who
has heard and learned of the Father, what does He do? He comes
to me, Christ said. Why does He come to Christ? Because
the Father is bidding Him, the Father is drawing Him to come
to the Son. So the Father loves the Son,
so He says, Come to My Son. And the Holy Spirit loves the
Son. And He says here, the Spirit says, come. And the Lord Jesus
told us about the Holy Spirit. He said, when He's come, He's
not going to speak of Himself. He's not going to glorify Himself.
But when He's come, He will glorify me. He's going to take of what's
mine and He's going to show it to you. What's Christ? Everything
is His. Everything is His. And He's going
to show that to you. And when the Spirit of God is
wooing a man, when He's teaching a man, what does He do? He says,
Come, come. And I tell you, in the Godhead,
in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in the Trinity of
this sacred person, the Holy Spirit is the most tender of
them all, is He not? We sometimes read of the wrath
of God. We sometimes read of the wrath
of the Lamb. But do you ever read the Scriptures
about the wrath of the Holy Spirit? He's depicted to us as a tender
dove, isn't He? And that's why we're told not
to grieve Him. And He sends out this announcement,
Come! Come! Come to the Son of God! Come to Him! The Spirit says,
Come! And think of this, all of those
who have come to Jesus Christ to be saved by Him, and those
who are still coming to Him, are coming because the tender
Spirit has encouraged them, has prompted them to come. If a man knows to come, if a
man has a will to come, if he feels a need to come, there is
one reason why. The Holy Spirit has spoken to
his heart and says, Come. He says, Come. Come. I love it. I love it when we talk about
the Father and the Spirit teaching us. Because what happens when
the Father teaches us and the Spirit teaches us? They take
attention away from everything and everybody else. There's a
thousand things we think we have to do before we come to Christ.
When we talk about coming to Christ, well, I've got to do
this, and I've got to get my life straightened up, and I've got
to do that. But the Spirit, when He bids us come, He so focuses
us on the Lord Jesus and salvation by Him, He does away with everything
else. Everything else. When they had the famine down
in Egypt, and people were dying, and they were starving, they
come to Pharaoh. And they said, Pharaoh, if you
don't feed us, we're going to die. And what did Pharaoh tell
them to do? He said, You go to Joseph. Did
he? You go to Joseph. I've given
everything into his hand. You go to Joseph. He'll give
you corn. He'll sustain you. And that's
what the Spirit does. He takes away all these issues
that we make issues out of. And He says, Come to the Son.
Come to the Son. John and Jenny's not leaving
because they're mad. They've got to go busy. Something else. Look back in our text again in
verse 17. Something else that He said.
Come. And hear the bride. The Spirit
and the bride. This is the church. This is the
Lamb's wife. And what does the wife say? What
does the church say? Just exactly what I'm saying
this morning. Come. Come. As the pastor of
this church, This is the theme of my message. Come to Christ.
Come to God by Him. Come. Believe on Him. Trust Him. Hear Him. When each
of us, when each of us, listen to this, when each of us this
morning got up and got ready to come to this worship service
this morning, you know what we were saying to our neighbors.
We're going to worship the Lord. Come with us! I remember that. I remember when I was lost and
I had neighbors that got up and I saw them going to worship.
I thought, boy, I need to go. I need to go to the Lord. I need
to go worship. That's what I thought. That's what you taught your neighbor
this morning. Come! Every time we come to the Lord's
table and partake of the bread and the cup, you know what we're
saying? Come! Come and eat of this bread
and drink of this wine, this bread of life and this wine,
this blood of atonement. How many sermons has the church
preached on this very subject? Come. John Bunyan has a book,
almost 300 pages. That's a pretty thick book, isn't
it? Almost 300 pages. And this is the title of his
book, Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ. There's been volumes
of books that the church has written common to Jesus Christ. How many songs do we sing that
have been written down through the ages on this very subject
of coming to the Lord Jesus Christ? I remember when I was just a
little kid just starting to school. The bus ran at 7 o'clock every
morning. I caught the bus to go to school.
Lived way out in the country. All the media we had was an old
radio. It had so much static on it,
you couldn't hardly find anything. But a quarter after six, every
morning, five days a week, my mom turned that old radio on
to the Chuckwagon game. And we listened to them every
morning for 15 minutes. And one of the songs they often
sang was this, Come unto me, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, hear me
and be blessed. I memorized that song from this
year in the chuckwagon game. Come, my yoke is easy. Come,
my burden's light. Take it upon you. Take my burden
upon you and find rest for your soul. That's what they sang in
that song. We sang a song by Mr. Sleeper
that he wrote long, long ago. Out of my bondage, sorrow and
night, Jesus, I come. Jesus, I come. Into Thy freedom,
gladness, and light, Jesus, I come to Thee. Another dear man said,
Come every soul by sin oppressed. There's mercy with the Lord.
Come. There's mercy. Come, you sinners,
poor and wretched, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands
to save you, full of pity, joined with power. Come ye comfortless
wherever you languish. Come to the mercy seat. Firmly
kneel. Here bring your wounded hearts.
Here tell out your anguish. Earth has no sorrow that heaven
can't heal. Come. Come. We sing that all
the time, don't we? Why do we sing that? Because
we're the church. That's the message of the church.
Come. Come. Oh, come to the Savior,
He patiently waits to save by His power divine. Come, anchor
your soul in the haven of rest and say, My beloved is mine. Brothers and sisters, if we don't
have that desire this morning, if that's not our prayer as a
church, if that's not our hope that poor sinners come to Christ,
that's our hope, isn't it? And that's our prayer. And he
says thirdly this, everybody say unto him, Come. Let him that
heareth say, Come. I remember the lessons that Brother
Baker taught us a few weeks ago about those apostles. And it
seemed like when one of them came to Christ, he went and got
somebody else. Andrew came to the Lord Jesus because John said,
Behold the Lamb of God. And he went and said, Lord, where
do you dwell in that? And he said, Come, didn't he?
Come and see. Come with me. And what did he do? He went and
found Andrew, his brother, and said, Come to the Lord. And another
one of them went, and he came to Christ, and he went back to
his friend and said, we found him. This Galilean. And he said, can any good thing
come out of Nazareth? Come and see, he said. Come.
Everybody said it. If you've heard the message yourself,
what do you do? You tell others, don't you? You
tell others. That's what happens when you
come to Christ. You start telling everybody else. That Samaritan
woman, as soon as the Lord Jesus was revealed to her, she went
back in town and told all those men, come and see a man who told
me all that ever I did. You don't have to be a preacher,
brothers and sisters. Every one of us are not preachers,
are we? But if you've heard, if you've
heard, come, then you go tell others, come, come. And then
fourthly, let him that is a thirst come. What a blessing it is to
be thirsty! Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness! Do you ever thirst? Does your spirit ever thirst
after God? Does your soul get thirsty for
God? For the knowledge of God? For
communion with Him? To see His smiling face? Well,
I remember for a long, long time in my young life, I just dreaded
I dreaded to think about God. It troubled my soul because all
I saw was friends. But then the Holy Spirit began
to teach me that God has a smiling face. He has a smiling face. He's good. He's gracious. And
you know something? I got to want to see that. I
got to want to see the smiling face of God. If He has a kind
face, I've never seen it, but I want to. Dear soul, even today,
dear child of God, do you ever long, do you ever get thirsty
for communion with God? Oh, to know Him, to know that
you're accepted, to see His love and His goodness. Blessed are
they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. Thirsty. Let the thirsty come. Let the
thirsty come. David was in the wilderness of
Judea, and he probably had no water, and he wrote Psalms chapter
63 while he was in that dry wilderness. Here is just a portion of what
he says. Oh God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee in
a dry and thirsty land where no water is. I want to see Your
power. I want to see your glory because
of your loving kindness. It is better than life. My lips
shall praise thee. You have been my help. Under
the shadow of your wings will I rejoice. My soul follows hard
after thee. Your right hand upholds me."
And he just goes on talking about his soul thirsting for God. When a soul thirsts for God,
to see His smiling face Fill His love in your heart to know
that you're accepted of Him. Where do we go to? Well, here
the Lord Jesus says, Come unto Me. If any man thirst, let him
come unto Me. You can't go directly to God,
can you? We go to God through Christ.
And the Son knows the Father perfectly. And we know the Father
in the Son. He reveals Him. to us. Are you
thirsty? He said. Let everybody that is
a thirst come unto me and drink. He is our access to the Father.
He reveals the Father to us. Whosoever will in verse 5. Whosoever
will. The Armenians have tried to take
this verse from us. I can say this, they are not
getting this verse from me. They're not taking any verses from me,
especially this verse. Oh, don't the Bible say, whosoever
will, let him come? Yes, whosoever will. Here's the
problem, isn't it? Nobody will. Ain't that the problem? Nobody will. Ain't no sense fussing
about it when nobody will. You will not come to me. But here the Lord says, do you
have a will to come? Do you find yourself wanting
to come, needing to come, having a will to come? Where did you
get that will? Where did that come from? You
never felt that way before, did you? I didn't want to come. I was afraid to come. But if
you're here this morning, saved or lost, and you have a will
to come to Jesus Christ, I'll tell you where you got that will.
God is working in you to will. and do of His good pleasure.
That's where you got it. And here's the encouragement.
Boy, if you can find this will within you to come, then come
on! Come on! Come! Come! In the seventh chapter, look
here right quickly in the seventh chapter of Revelation. Look in chapter 7 and I think it is verse 17. This is the encouraging thing.
If you have a will to come to Christ, Christ is working in you. Look
at this. He is directing you. For the
Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them,
and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." Who's leading
you to drink? Christ Himself, the Shepherd
of the sheep. And you know something? If you
have a will to come to Christ this morning, you can know you're
one of His sheep. He only leads His sheep to drink. He leads them. Whosoever will,
let him come and take the water of life freely. What is this
fountain of waters that we read about so much in the book of
Revelation and other places? In chapter 21 and verse 6 he
calls it the fountain of the water of life. And in chapter
22 and verse 1 I read to you he calls it a pure river of water
of life proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. What
is this water? What is this fountain that is
gushing up? What is this vast river of the
water of life? The Lord Jesus explains it in
John chapter 7 verse 37. Listen to this. If any man thirst,
let him come to Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the
Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water." There's that waters again. Sometimes it's fountain, sometimes
it's a river, sometimes it's rivers. But what is this water? Listen to the very next verse.
This He spake of the Holy Spirit, which those that believe on Him
should receive. What is this fountain? What is
this water? It's the Holy Spirit. It's the
Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit proceeds and
comes forth from the Father through the Son. And He brings to redeemed
sinners all the pure blessings promised in the Gospel. You just find any promise in
the Gospel, the promise of forgiveness of all sins, the promise of the
Spirit of adoption, the promise of a new heart and a new spirit,
justifying righteousness, communion with Christ, hope of heaven. When the Spirit comes to the
heart to abide there, He brings all the blessings of the Gospel
with Him. That's life. That's joy. That's peace. You know if you
don't have the Spirit of Christ this morning, you're none of
His. But if you have the Spirit of Christ, you've got Christ.
You've got God. And you've got all the blessings
of the Gospel in you, the fountain of living water. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that wonderful? And this
water is not only the water of life, endless everlasting life,
but it's said to be a fountain gushing up, gushing up. A river flowing. The source of
this water can never be diminished or dried up because it proceeds
out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. He is in an unending
supply, isn't He? Can you diminish God? Can God
dry up? Can the Spirit die? The Lord
Jesus said, I have given to them eternal life. I give them life,
and they shall never perish. Why? This is a river, a river
coming from the throne of God. Let God dry up and die. And when
He does, the believer will dry up and die. But until He dries
up and dies, until that river flowing from His throne becomes
a trickle and then dries up, until that happens, every saint
has life, the water of life. And it's called a pure river.
Isn't that wonderful? I remember one time I was in
Yellowstone National Park, and I've never seen anything in my
life like this. I was driving, kept driving up.
It was hot down in the valley, and we drove up, and the higher
we got up in that mountain, the deeper the snow got. And we got
almost to the top of that place, and there was this river. I mean,
river gushing out of the mountain up there somewhere, coming from
up in the mountain, flowing. It was cold and clear as it can
be. But it wasn't as clear as this
river. And that river out there may dry up, but this river won't
dry up. It's a pure river of the water
of life. What does that mean? It's not
only everlasting, but it's pure life, isn't it? It's a holy life. It's a spotless life. Sin and
death cannot defile it, and time cannot diminish it or wear it
out. It's pure. It's pure. And everybody
it touches, it not only gives them life, but it gives them
this pure life, the life of God in the heart. Ezekiel, I think
it may be in Ezekiel 47, he saw this vision. He saw this same
river. It was coming out of the sanctuary.
John says it is coming out of the throne. Ezekiel says it is
coming out of the sanctuary. And it was flowing down through
this earth. And everything it touched, it
healed. And every place it came, it brought
life. Oh, that is the gospel, isn't
it? It brings life. What a fitting place for this
verse in the very last chapter of this great book. What is this
book? Well, it is a book of prophecy,
isn't it? What was going to begin and what was going to come to
pass. As you read this book, we find John being foretold of
this battle. Man, this battle. There is going
to be hundreds and hundreds of years of battle between the Lamb
and Satan. Between Christ's angels and Satan's
angels. And Christ was going to get the
victory. The Lamb is going to win the
battle. He is going to get the victory. And all that is with
Him is going to live forever. And then the end comes when Satan
and all of those on his side will be cast into the lake of
fire and be tormented forever and ever. The books would be
opened. The dead would give up the people
that were in it, the sea, and they'd all be judged and the
righteous would be received into heaven and the wicked would be
turned into hell. And it's almost like the Lord
Jesus backs up and He puts this verse right here. And He says,
I've given you a book. You know the end. You know the
end. We know the end, don't we? We
always don't know what's happening now. even though the Lamb's on
His throne. We're so confused sometimes,
but we know the end of this war. It's already won. And these fellows
with their New Age knowledge and all their scientific discoveries
so-called will not change the end, will they? The end is coming. And it's almost like the Lord
backs up and He says, Are you aware? Are you aware of what
I've told you in this book? Are you aware that I've already
predicted the end and it shall come? Are you concerned about
these things? Are you concerned about the judgment?
Are you concerned about death? Are you concerned about salvation
and damnation? Are you concerned about these
things? Are you aware of these things? Are you taking these
things to your heart? Then listen! Come! Come unto
Me! There's no place else to settle
the issue. Come. Come. You hear this morning and you
know the Lord, come to Him. Just keep on coming to Him. You
hear you've never come to Christ, let this be the morning that
you come to Him. You don't have to move your body.
You come to Him with your heart. Come to Him in faith. Look to
Him with the eye of faith. Hear Him. Believe in Him. Trust
Him. I pray that every soul in you
this morning will come to Jesus Christ. May God help us all to
do it. Let's pray.