Let's read the text again. John
7, 37. In the last day, that great day of the feast,
Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirsts, Let him come unto me and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water." All Scripture, Old and New Testament,
is given by inspiration of God. God breathes. All Scripture is
profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction, and
righteousness in every way. But I believe that the heart
would indeed have to be their cove and their dole that is not
especially moved by certain verses of Scripture that are particularly
and peculiarly rich and meaningful. And I think this is one. This
is one passage of Scripture, and I could say the whole Bible
is God-breathed, holy men of God spake as they were moved
by the Holy Spirit, and all of it's profitable. I do not wish
to set one portion of Scripture against another. There's no Scripture
of any private interpretation. We take the whole Word of God,
but my heart would have to be there cold and dull and indifferent
if there were not certain portions of scripture, Joe, that were
special blessings, particular and peculiarly rich and meaningful
and special to me. And this is one. And when you
realize the place where this statement was made and the time
and the occasion, it becomes even more meaningful, even more
beautiful and forceful. Now, the place, the place was
Jerusalem. When we talk about Jerusalem,
Jerusalem today is a lot different from Jerusalem then. But when
this statement was made in Jerusalem, at that time Jerusalem was the
stronghold of religion. Jerusalem was the capital of
religion. Jerusalem was filled with altars
and temples and shrines and priests and scribes and Pharisees and
Sadducees and ceremonies and rituals and ordinances and sacrifices. It was the place of ceremony.
It was the place of feast. It was called the City of David.
Jerusalem, the very hub of the wheel, the very capital of religion,
the City of Zion. That's where this statement was
spoken. That's the place, Jerusalem. All right, the occasion. It was
a feast. Now, the Jews had several feasts,
and I'm not going to take the time. One reason, I don't know
a whole lot about it. But I'm not going to take the
time to talk about this particular feast, except to say it was the
Feast of the Tabernacle. It was one of the great feasts,
one of the great annual feasts, and it lasted for eight days.
Eight days. And every Jew, every Jew went
to Jerusalem, every Jew that could, went to Jerusalem, went
to the temple according to the law. They had come and they had
pitched their tents. They were from all different
countries. They were from this country and that country and
other countries, and they had pitched their tents. They had
come for this special feast of the tabernacle. They had come
to worship. They had come to pray. They had
come to learn. They had come to seek God. They
had come to offer sacrifices. They had come to fulfill the
law. They had come to fulfill their religious duties. That
was the occasion. the time. It was in Jerusalem. This is where it is. This is
where religion is. This is where it's supposed to
be. This is where all the scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees,
this is the capital of religion like Rome is the capital of Catholicism. And they had come here. And they'd
come for this great feast, this feast that was ordained of God.
This feast that was given to them by Moses in the directions
for keeping the The time was the last day. It was the last
day of the feast. In the last day, it said, that
great day of the feast, the ceremonies were over. The time of teaching
finished. All of the ceremonies had drawn
to a close, and as one writer said, the water had been drawn
from the pool of Siloam and had been poured on the altar, and
the fire had been put out. It was over. The big meeting
was over. The Feast of Tabernacles was
all over. This was the last day. This was
the final day. The people were folding their
tents. They had folded the tents and
they'd packed the tents away in their carts and caravans and
on their camels and their horses and donkeys. They'd all said
goodbye to one another. Everything was over. Nothing
remained but to go home. It was at this critical moment
And this particular time, you see what the text says, in the
last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried.
Jesus stood. Our Lord stood forward in a prominent
place. Our Lord stood forward and spoke
to the multitude. He knew their hearts. Here they
were from everywhere. They had come, many, with good
intentions. They had come, many, just to
fulfill a ceremony. They had come, many, just to
fulfill a ritual. They had come, many of them,
because they were expected to come, or commanded to come, or
responsible to come. But they had come, and they were
there. And he knew their hearts. The Scripture says, He needeth
not that any man should testify what is in man. He knew what
was in man. And he saw them going away. He saw them leaving. He
saw them dispersing. He saw them going away untaught,
unlearned, unacquainted with the redemptive will of God. They
had gone through their ceremonies not even knowing what they meant,
many of them not caring. They had gone through their sacrifices
not even understanding what they meant. They had listened to their
Sadducees and Pharisees and priests talk. They were ignorant, untaught,
unlearned, totally indifferent. because ignorant of the redemptive
will of God. He knew that the Pharisees and
priests, like Jeremiah said, were covetous men. They were
proud men. They were self-righteous men.
They were men who were filled with themselves and empty of
God. They were men who taught nothing. And he knew these people were
going home with blinded hearts, just like they had come. They
were going home with ignorant ignorant souls, just like they'd
come, confused minds, just like they'd come, and he pitted them.
And he felt moved with compassion for them, and he stood out there
in a prominent place, and he said, if anybody's thirsty, let him come to me. And he that
believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. When I read that scripture, I
thought of many things that I'll be bringing out to you in this
message, but one thing in particular. I thought this scene is reenacted
thousands of times right here in this country every Sunday.
Every Sunday and around the world. Because we are very religious.
We are a very religious people. These Jews have nothing on us.
I know that throughout America and throughout the world, people
this morning dressed. They got up, got their breakfast
and dressed, and went jooning around the house doing what had
to be done, and then they picked up their literature or Bibles
or whatever and left home and drove to the Mass. Millions of
them. And there they sat a while and
stood a while and kneeled a while, and bowed a while, and listened
to the ritual, and listened to the Latin, and listened to the
mumbo-jumbo, and saw the priests go about their different sprinklings,
and this, then that, and the other, and all these different
things, and then they went outside to get in the car and go home
just as ignorant, and empty, and unlearned, and confused as
when they came. Just like these Jews in Jerusalem,
they'd gone through the motions, they'd gone through the ceremonies,
And many people got up this morning, went by and picked up grandma
and went by and picked up a friend or drove their church bus around
and picked up a bunch of folks in order to set a new record
in Sunday school. Baptists do this too. Gathered
up everybody because they had so many last Sunday and want
so many this Sunday. And they go and there they sat
and they listened to the choir and then they listened to the
Sunday school superintendent tell how many were in this class
and that class and then they carried on another contest, and
this class was going to have more than that class, and they
made all the announcements, and read the bulletin, talked about
the folks in the hospital, and had a little prayer for them,
went through the motions, and finally the preacher got up and
said a few words, and then the choir sang, and then the band
played, and then the special singers came, one right after
another, and then it was all over, and they said whoop-de-doo,
and shook hands, hallelujah, and went out the door, just as,
with a stare on their face, just as blank as it was when they
came. I've been there. And then others went to their
stiff, formal, regular place of worship, as they have for
years. They've gone, mother went there,
and grandmother went there, and great-grandmother went there,
and they've all gone there. And they went and they gave their
offerings, and gave their tithes, and greeted old friends, and
shook hands, and then the preacher got up and gave them a dry, dead
sermon on theology. Made sure the doctrine was straight
and everybody believed like they believed last week, you know,
and they condemned everybody else and thank God there were
a few of them. And then they went home, just as empty as when
they came. Then others gathered to hear
a famous preacher. It's revival time and they went
outside and got some famous preacher, you know, some television star,
some great evangelist. He and his wife came. And they're
all dressed up and got their diamonds, and they stayed in
the hotel, and he's got twelve messages he's preached everywhere.
He's been preaching them for twelve years. He goes and holds
a two-week meeting, Jay, this is so, and he preaches the same
message on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. His organist
knows right when to sit down and raise her hand because he's
on that point that he's made for the same Monday night for
twenty years. That's so. And they go through
all the motions. They have everything planned.
They have the offering planned, they have the expenses planned,
the advance man planned, the music planned. They say the same
thing, the organist sits over and cleans his fingernails while
the preacher is preaching because he knows when to get up and go
to the bench. This is true. That's true, isn't it? They go
through the same motions all the time, the same jokes, the
same illustrations, the same stories, and the same number
of people get converted every service because most of the time
it's the same people. getting saved all over again, because
they didn't get anything last year. And then they give the
invitation, and some make a first-time decision, some a second-time
decision. They urge everybody to rededicate,
get the church stirred up for missions, and stirred up to witness,
and stirred up to win souls, and stirred up to do this, and
they leave, and the stirring's over, and it goes back to stagnation,
like it was when he came. Services are over, and the people
file out and go to their homes. just as empty as when they came.
That's the way it was. Our Lord stood in Jerusalem,
that great capital of religion, that great noise-making place,
that place of ceremony and ordinances and rituals and money and all
these things, and he watched the people leaving. No joy, no
peace, no satisfaction, no Christ, no forgiveness, no mercy, no
grace, no understanding, no vital union with the living God, no
saving interest in Christ. He stood there before them and
he said, if anybody's thirsty, you come to the building, why
don't you come to me? You come to the ordinance, why
don't you come to me? You come to the front, why don't
you come to me? You come to the table, why don't
you come to me? You come to the water, why don't
you come to me? Because if you come to me, out
of your innermost being shall flow a well, a river, an artesian
well of living water that never shall be stopped, and you'll
never thirst again. Let's look at three things. First
of all, here's a special invitation, a special invitation. If any
man thirsts, Our Lord glances over that religious crowd. There
were thousands and thousands of them. And they were Orthodox. There were among them theologians.
There were among them young and old, rich and poor. There were
among them people who had been in the religious circles for
years and years and years. There were scribes and Pharisees
and Sadducees and all of them. And he stood there and he said, Because most people don't. But
if any man thirsts, what kind of thirst? Well, it's like David
of old. Turn to Psalm 42. Here's the
kind of thirst he was talking about. In Psalm 42, verse 1,
David describes it, O God, O God, as the heart, as the weary deer
As the thirsty deer panteth after the water brooks, so panteth
my soul after thee, O God, O God. My soul thirsteth, my soul thirsteth
for God." My friend, this is an inward thirst. This is not
for clothes, this is not for wealth. This is not even for
physical healing, this is not for fame or popularity, this
is a thirst for God. If any man thirsts for God, for
the peace that passes understanding, for that which Lord read a moment
ago, thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on
thee. Christ said, if any man thirsts,
it's a thirst for God. David went on and said, when,
when shall I come and appear before God? My tears had been
my meat day and night while they continually say to me, where's
your God? Where's your God? When I remember
these things, I pour out my soul in me. I've gone with a multitude.
I went with them to the house of God with a voice of joy and
praise, with a multitude that kept the holy day. Why art thou
cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me?
Hope thou in God. That's what I'm talking about.
It's the thirst that the publican felt who went to the temple,
and he wouldn't venture to the front. The proud Pharisee came
all the way to the altar. He belonged there. He felt perfectly
at ease there. He felt perfectly comfortable.
He felt perfectly at ease dabbling with the holy things of God.
He felt perfectly at ease, Jay, to go right down to the throne.
He belonged there. He didn't feel any qualms whatsoever
in just standing there and opening his eyes and looking into heaven,
right into the throne of God and saying, Lord, I sure thank
you. I'm not like other men. I sure thank you. Lord, I thank
you that I'm not an unjust man, and I'm not an adult, and I'm
not an extortioner like most folks are. Lord, you remember
I paid my tithes, and I fasted twice this week, and I gave alms
to the poor. That old publican, though, this
man had no thirst. This man was full of himself.
He was drinking out of the moldy gummy, wiggle-tail-infested waters
of self-righteousness, and he is totally satisfied. He felt
at ease. But that old publican, he stayed
way back yonder. He would not come down close.
He stood afar off, and he wouldn't lift his hands or his eyes or
anything else to heaven, but he beat upon his breast and cried,
O God, O God, be merciful to me. That's the thirst I'm talking
about, like the people on the day of Pentecost who realized
that their hands were dripping with the blood of God's Son!
They realized their hands were dripping with guilt! They crucified
the Lord of glory! God had sent them a Redeemer
and a nail in their cross, and they said, men and brethren,
what shall we do? That's what I'm talking about. Everybody's thirsty, like the
eunuch who went all the way to Jerusalem and went back just
as empty as when he came, and he was studying the scriptures
and reading the scriptures, and Philip was sent by God to him,
and he said, Who's this man talking about? I've got to know who this
man's talking about. This thirst is an inward thirst. Oh, turn to Psalm 51. Let's listen
to David again. We could sit at his feet all
night. He was a man at God's own height. He knew something
about sin, he knew something about mercy, he knew something
about guilt, and he knew something about grace. Show me a man that
knows something about guilt and grace, and I'll show you a man
that knows something about God. You show me a man that doesn't
know anything about guilt and grace, and I'll show you a lost
religious fantasy. Have mercy, Psalm 51, upon me,
O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according to thy multitude of
thy tender mercies. blood out my transgressions,
wash me thoroughly, completely. from mine iniquity, cleanse me
from my sin, acknowledge my transgression, my sins ever before me, against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight,
that thou mightest be justified when you speak, and clear when
you condemn. I was shapen in iniquity and
sin, my mother conceived me. O God, verse 7, purge me with
hyssop, and I'll be clean. Wash me, and I'll be whiter than
the snow that stirs." And it's a painful thirst. Nobody here
knows what it means to be thirsty for water. I don't. You don't.
I hope we never do. But I'll tell you this. I've
heard folks write about it. Men trapped in mines. Men out
there on lifeboats in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. How painful
it is when your lips crack open and your throat closes together.
parched and dry, and your very insides heave, hoping, wishing
for water. But spiritual thirst is akin
to that, because I tell you, if you ever get a glimpse of
your sin and the depths of your sin and the dangers of your sin
and the curse of the law and the holiness of God and the wrath
of God against sin, it will hurt you from your feet to your head.
You will ache all over. You will cry, against thee have
I sinned. O God, my sins are ever before
me. I need mercy! I need something
to heal the pains of my heart. I need something to quench the
thirst of my soul. I need something to satisfy the
ache of my heart. O God, it's painful. And I'll
tell you this, if any man thirsts, It's an inward thirst, it's a
painful thirst, and I'll guarantee you it's a continuous thirst.
If a man doesn't have water and he's thirsty, he'll never quit
crying for water till one thing happens, till he gets it. I guarantee
that. Now you can bring him a T-bone
steak and he'll say, I want some water. You can bring him a pile
of gold as high as your head, and he'll say, I'll trade it
for a drink of water. You can bring him the acclaim
of the world, you can bring him the popularity of the world,
you can bring him the fame of men falling at his feet, and
he'll say, be gone, just send me somebody with a cup of water. The rich man in hell cried for
one thing, water. Water. And this is a continuous thirst.
You needn't worry about Holy Spirit conviction ever leaving
a man until he gets satisfied with the living water. Oh, Brother
Mahan, if you'd been there that Sunday when my brother came,
he'd have heard the word, he'd have been saved, he's under conviction.
Well, bring him again. He's not interested anymore.
He never was under conviction. Don't you believe it? Law conviction,
maybe, because that'll go like a king. guilt feelings may be,
that will go like it came. But I tell you, when a man gets
a thirst for Christ, he's going to have Christ. And nothing else
is going to satisfy him. Don't you be deceived by these
phony seekers. They're phony as a $3 bill. They
get upset over this and upset over that and are going to get
religion. That's what they want and that's what will satisfy
them. But when a man is thirsty for Christ, nothing will satisfy
him but a knowledge of the living God. Peace in his heart, peace
in his soul, satisfaction of the law and the justice of God
on his behalf, and a refuge in which to hide. Peace. And a false preacher can come
along and give him a false peace, and he'll say, I don't want that,
I want Christ. I want Christ. This is continuous,
and I'll tell you something else about it. It can only be quenched
by one thing, that's water. Who is that water? Christ is
the living water. He said, I am the water of life,
he that drinketh of me shall never thirst, only Christ can
do the helpless sinner good. No decision, no profession, no
doctrine, no ordinance, no ceremony, no one but Christ can do the
sinner any good. Our Lord said, if any man thirsts. if any man thirsts. Here's a
special remedy. Look at the next line. Most people
don't thirst. Most people don't. Give them
a doctrine and they'll be satisfied. Give them a decision give him
a certificate, give him a little word of peace, but brother, if
anybody's got an aching heart and a guilty soul, and he's crying
out to God for mercy, if anybody, Christ said, let him come to
me. Let him come to me. Let's take these words one at
a time. First of all, let him come to me. Preacher, move out
of his way and let him come to me. Don't let him come to you. Let
him come to me. Preacher, get out of the way.
Can't you just tell a man about Christ and leave it there? Can't
you just point to Christ and leave it there? Why do we have
to get close? Come to me. And I'll explain
it to you and shake my hand and take my book and read my book
and it'll tell you when you're saved and how to be saved and
how to live a victorious life. Let him come to me. Mama, let
that boy come to Christ. Daddy, let that wife come to
Christ. Soul winner, let him come to
me. Get out of his way and our zeal
and emotion, they'll soundtrack you if they can. And Satan will
sidetrack you. He'll give you an experience.
He'll give you a feeling. He'll give you a decision. He'll
give you a religion. He'll give you a doctrine. He'll
give you anything. Christ said, let him come to
me. Give him an opportunity to come to me. And let him come. He's got to do it. You don't
say, repeat after me. I watched some fellas drown two
or three times when I was in the Navy in the Pacific. And
some boys got caught in an undertow. I was up on the conning tire
one day and I saw them swimming out there. They weren't supposed
to swim out there. They were told not to, but they went anyway.
And one of them started yelling and they threw him a life preserver.
But he drowned. But on another occasion, we had
five ships in a line. A boy fell off the front ship
and the next two or three weren't supposed to stop and get him.
The last one was to stop because if you turn in a convoy, you'll
get smashed into by the next ship. So he floated right on
by our ship and came to our ship, and a man had thrown him a life
preserver from the other ship. But you know there was a fellow
standing on deck who said, Now, the thing for you to do is when
that thing lands near you, just reach with your left hand and
take hold of it, and then reach with the right hand underneath
it, and then pull it around you. You don't have to explain those
things. If a man is drowning, just throw him a life preserver.
Now repeat after me, I'm drowning, I need a preserver. Now repeat
after me, I'm going to die if you don't pour me one of those
things. No. Help! Here it is. Thank you. That's
all you need to do. Let him come to me. You can't
repent for him. You can't believe for him. You
can't receive Christ for him. Let him come to me, Christ said.
Let him. And he said, let him come, not
work, not serve, not study, just let him come. Just as I am without
one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou
didst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. I believe, I
trust, let him come to me. Not to my word, not to my church,
not to my ordinances, not to my law, but to me. That woman
with issue of blood says, if I can get to him, I'll be healed. And my friend, if you can lay
hold, if you can close with the Great Physician, you'll be made
whole. I solemnly promise, I solemnly assure you by the word of God,
if you can lay hold on Christ, you'll be healed. I can't promise
anybody it comes down here, they'll be saved. I can't promise anybody
that if they believe certain facts, they'll be saved. But
I can promise any son of Adam, if he lays hold by faith on Christ,
he'll be healed. I can promise you if you're washed
in the fountain, you'll be cleansed. I can promise you that if you
come to the Savior, you'll be redeemed. I promise that. Christ said, you come to me.
And when you get to Christ, let me tell you this, when you get
to Christ, it'll not be the sovereignty of God that you'd fight and die
for, it'll be the Lord who's sovereign. Now, there's a difference. There's a difference. You say,
that's the same thing. I know, I beg your pardon, the
devil believes in the sovereignty of God, but he doesn't love the
Lord who is sovereign. There's a difference. When you
get to Christ, it won't be the atonement that you believe and
the atonement you accept, it will be the Christ who atones.
There's a difference. I hear men talking about the
atonement whom I don't believe know anything about, the Christ
who atones. Well, anybody knows about the
sacrifice, anybody knows about the blood, anybody knows about
the application of the blood, anybody knows about the efficacy
of the blood, anybody knows about the sufficiency of the blood.
But not many people know him who shed that blood, and love
him, and love him, and love him for who he is. That's what you
said just in the class, his attributes. And then he won't be obeying
the law. I hear these preachers, everybody's of the opinion that
we need to give God's people a list of rules to live by. Well,
a whole lot of their church members may need rules to live by. It's
a good possibility that they do, because unsaved people need
rules to live by, for the law was made for unrighteous men.
But it will cease to be obeying a rule and a law, but it will
be loving obedience to a living Lord. That's the difference.
That's the difference. It will cease to be going to
heaven. You going to heaven? Yeah, I'm going to heaven. It
will be going to be with Christ. The Apostle Paul, when he talked
about dying, I don't think any time did he talk about going
to heaven. He always said, I have a desire to depart and be with
Christ. Our Lord said to the thief on the cross, I'm going
to take you to heaven. He did not. He said, today thou
shalt be with me. Where Jesus is, it's heaven.
It's heaven. It will cease to be the craving
to lay aside a body, and it will become a desire to put on his
likeness. David didn't say, I'll be glad
when this old body's dead. I'll be glad when I'm done with
this old body. I'll be glad to bury this old
body. He says, I'll be satisfied when I wake with his likeness.
Oh, let him come to me. Oh, let him come to me. Christ
said, you will not come to me. It's oppression. Brethren, I
tell you, doctrine fascinates. Cold, dead, dry doctrine is fascinating. It's challenging. It's good to
see about precision of doctrine. Why this? Why that? Why the other?
It's good to, it's challenging to me and it's invigorating.
It's a scientific study. It sharpens the mind and the
brain. But I need my heart blessed. That's what I need. I don't need
my brain sharpened. My brain's full of inquiries
and My brain is full of things that ought not be full of anyway.
I need to know Christ. I need to study doctrine in the
light of Christ. You don't arrive at Christ through
doctrine. Oh, preacher, if we could get people straight on
this and straight on that and straight on the other, they'd
know the Lord. I beg your pardon, but if they come to know the
Lord, they'll get straight on those things. You've got it backwards. You've got it plumbed backwards.
It's just like when Ezekiel, when those dry bones came together
and they stood up, but they still didn't have life. There was a
rambling and a shaking and a stirring and a commotion, but there wasn't
any life! And that's what's in our churches today. We've got
rambling and shaking and emotions and programs and all these different
things, but no life. Bring a sinner. Oh, let him come
to me. Let him come to me. Let him come
to me, Christ said. Let him come to me and do what?
And drink. That's a simple thing. And drink. Anybody can drink. There's nothing
difficult about drinking. Let him come to me and drink.
I can drink when I can't do anything else. I can be totally paralyzed.
And I can swallow that water. In fact, a little old newborn
baby comes out of the womb, and they clean him up and wash him
up, and take him to his mama's jail where he drinks. His little
old mouth comes into this world knowing how to receive that first
quenching, life-giving meal. And our Lord says, you come to
me and drink. Come to me and drink. Don't do
anything else, just drink. Don't do anything else. Don't
bring anything. Don't bring a bucket, just bring a thirsty. Just come
and drink. Oh, that's easy, isn't it? It's
too easy. It's too simple for the confused,
carnal, vulgar, natural mind. It's too simple for the self-righteous,
proud, pious Pharisee. I'm going to do something else.
Yeah, go right ahead, but I'm just going to drink. He said,
come, let him come to me to drink. And here's a special promise,
a special promise, verse 38, and he said, and he that believeth
on me, and he that believeth on me, not believeth my doctrine,
I believe it from a messenger, but he that believes on me. I
believe on Christ. As the scripture has said, this
is the promise of God. This is a special promise. I
promise you this out of his innermost being. And the only one who can plant
an artesian well in the soul is Almighty God. And we can take
a sinner and we can dress him up on the outside, and we can
We can fix him to look like what he's supposed to look like, and
we can give him a uniform of religion, you know, and we can
give him all these adornments and decorations and all these
different, how to say, I can't even say that word, shibboleth
or something like that, you know. Teach him how to say everything
just right. But only God can put that well in his heart. That
well of living water. That knowledge of Christ. That
river. He calls it a river. It's so plentiful. It's a river! River! These old trickling streams
dry up when it doesn't rain pretty regularly, but that river goes
on and on and on. And that's the way it is with
the grace of God. You know, he said, I love the shalls and the
wills of God's Word. He said, he that believeth on
me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Shall!
Shall. You know, promises and faith
and promises are the backbone of nine-tenths of the dealings
of men with men. I stand here tonight and minister
to you. prepare and preach on TV tomorrow, prepare to take
that car and go to Nashville Tuesday and preach that funeral
and come back and do the different things, because I believe that
this congregation, deacons and elders, is going to take care
of my needs and my expenses. I believe that. I believe you
will. You see, I'm riding on that. You men are going to get
up in the morning, go to work, punch your time clock just as
nonchalantly and just as comfortable, and you're going to work all
day tomorrow. Because you believe next Friday they'll pay you,
don't you? It's based on promise. It's based
on faith. You sell something to a man and
he signs his name, you believe he'll pay you. You believe he
will. All right, let me tell you something. My Lord says here,
and he puts a shell on it, and he says, if you're thirsty, if
you've got an empty soul and an empty heart and a need, you've
got sins, They're so great, there's so many, they're so heavy on
your heart, you've got a thirst for the living God. Our Lord
said, you come to me, you believe on me, out of your innermost
being shall flow rivers of living water. You don't need to have
all the answers, you don't even need to know all the questions,
you just lay hold on me, you're closed with Christ. That preacher
can't help you, can't help himself. That soul winner can't help you.
All he can do is make you two-fold more the child of hell than he
is by making you apostolate to his religion. But if you can
lay hold on Christ by faith, if you let him come to me individually,
not them, him, isn't that what he said? Come to me, if you can
believe on Christ. By God's sovereign grace, out
of your belly shall flow rivers of living water, and that river
will keep getting bigger and bigger, bigger and bigger. As
it journeys towards God's promised Canaan, it will keep getting
bigger and bigger, because the streams of his mercies keep flowing
into it, keep flowing into it. It starts small, but it gets
bigger and bigger by his grace. Our Father, we give thanks for
the promises of thy word, chiefly for that special promise, that
he that believeth on me out of his innermost being shall flow
rivers of living water. Bless this message in a very
special way. Let us not soon lay it aside
or be indifferent to it, or let it be not like seed planted on
fallow ground, laying there for the birds The fowls are there
to be buried away, to be remembered no more, but like the precious
seed that falls upon ground prepared with the Holy Spirit. Grant it,
Lord, for Christ's sake. Amen.