If you will, let us open our
Bibles together tonight to John chapter 7. John chapter 7. I plan to comment on several
things that we see in this chapter while making our way down to
verses 37 and 38. In the last day, that great day
of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst,
let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the
scripture has said, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. I have five things for us to
notice in this chapter before we come to that passage. First of all, the time. The time when this took place.
We see that in verse two. Now the Jews' feast of the tabernacles
was at hand. The Feast of the Tabernacles
was one of the annual feasts that God gave unto the nation
of Israel in his law, and it was the last of those annual
feasts. You know, there was three feasts,
and this was one of them, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the
Feast of Firstfruits, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and every
Jew, every male Jew that is, under the law of Moses was required
to go to the place when God gave the law to the place where he
would put his name. And of course, at that time,
he had not chosen Jerusalem. But once they came into the land
and David became king, Jerusalem was chosen as the place for the
temple and the place where they were required three times a year,
every male to go up to Jerusalem. This feast lasted for eight days
and the last of the days was a Sabbath unto the Lord. If we think about this feast,
I believe it was given, it was a memorial. It was a memorial. They lived in tabernacles. In
other words, they would pull off limbs of the tree and they
would build some kind of a lean-to or some kind of a shelter and
they would live there during this feast, these eight days.
And it was a memorial of how God had supplied their needs
for 40 years in the wilderness. For 40 years, think about this.
These people never plowed an inch of ground, they never sowed
any seed, and yet they lived. Their needs were all supplied,
their food was given unto them, and their clothes did not wear
out, their shoes did not wear out. It was a great memorial
to how God is able, the power of God. And what a testimony
to you and I. When the Lord said, seek ye first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things, things
that are necessary, yes, like food and raiment, but God has
promised his children, all these things shall be given unto thee. And remember David in one of
the Psalms said, I once was young and now I'm old, but I've never
seen the seed of the righteous begging bread. God's provision
for his people. Now like most things that have
to do in worshiping God, men, Always imagine they can improve. And somehow then we've got a
little more wisdom and we can improve on God's ways. And yet
God clearly tells us that his ways are not our ways and his
thoughts are not our thoughts. And I say this because in the
day when the Lord Jesus Christ lived and he observed this feast,
they had added to tradition. You know, man loves ceremony.
Religious people, we just love ceremony. And that's the reason
you see today in so many false churches, no doubt, but places
where they add ceremony, they have the candles burning. They
have the vestments, the preacher or the priest dresses up in,
you know, and they have a march or a procession in. All of these
things to impress the flesh. They have incense burning. Well,
when our Lord was here upon the earth, this feast, which was
a very simple feast when you stop and think about it, just
like our worship, just like our worship is to be, we come together,
we read the scripture, we sing hymns, we have prayer, and we
study the word of God. Very simple. No ceremony, no
pomp and circumstance or anything like that. when we come to worship
God. When our Lord was here upon the
earth, they had added to what God had given to them in His
word concerning this feast. They had a golden vessel of some
kind, some kind of a goblet or pitcher or something like that,
and the priest would go to the pool of Siloam And he would fill
that pitcher up, and then, this is on the eighth day, and then
with the trumpet sounding and much ceremony, the priest would
come back through the temple gates and enter the temple and
pour that water out on the sacrifice on the altar. Man, by nature,
is religious. And the more religion, the better.
Have you ever heard someone say, I'm not anything, but if I wanted
to be religious, this is what I'd be because it's just so pretty. What they see is just so pretty.
Well, it may be pretty to the flesh, but you know when men,
and I believe this is so, when men start off trusting in sense
and feeling and things like that, they will never come to real
assurance of salvation. Why? Because it's all based on
feelings. And all of us here tonight, well,
most of us, I should say, we've been around long enough to know
that feelings change. Feelings come and feelings go.
And sometimes you feel saved, don't you? And sometimes you
don't feel saved. You just go, what do we go by?
We go by the word of God. by the truth, believe God, believe
what he says. And we know that when we believe
what he has told us and he has revealed unto us that Jesus is
the Christ, the son of the living God, whosoever believeth that
Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Not because we have a certain
feeling, Not because the hair stands up on the back of our
neck and feelings run up and down the spine, you know, and
we jump up and down. Oh, we've got so many different
feelings, you know, and feelings, as Martin Luther said, feelings
come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving. No, the worship
of God is very simple. And by the grace of God, we want
to just continue doing what we're told to do. We read that the
early churches did when they came together to worship. The second thing I want us to
notice in verse seven is the hatred, the world's hatred of
Christ. Have you ever just stopped and
thought about that a minute? Here was a man, he was a man,
a God man, who went about doing good, and yet the world hated
him. Let's read that, verse seven. The Lord Jesus said, the world
cannot hate you, but me it hateth. It hateth. Why was it that the world hated
him? Because he said, I testify of it, that the works thereof
are evil. The world's hatred of Christ. Have you ever been hated? Have
you ever hated someone? Think about being in your world. You created it. And everyone here is one of your
creatures, and yet the world hates you. The world hated me, the Lord
Jesus Christ said. Now, who did he say this to?
Well, the scripture here says to some who were called Let's
read beginning with verse 3. His brethren therefore said unto
him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also
may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth
anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If
thou do these things, show thyself to the world. For neither did
his brethren believe on him. Then Jesus said unto them, my
time is not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world
cannot hate you. Now, why did the world not hate
these who were called his brethren? Because they were of the world.
They were of the world. These brethren here, whoever
they were, they were not his brethren that are mentioned in
the passage which, where they said, we know his brethren. And they named several of them.
And several, two of them at least were disciples of the Lord at
this time. These brethren, they may have
been cousins, second cousins or something like that. There
was some kinship, no doubt about that, but they were not believers
and they were of the world and the world doesn't hate its own.
The world hated Christ because he was not of this world and
because he testified of its works, that its works are evil. We see
the hatred of this world for Christ when he was born. We see
Herod, one of the most wicked man who had ever had a place
of authority and reigned in any way, when he gave commandment,
hoping to assassinate, I guess is the word, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who he saw as a threat to his kingdom. When those wise men
said, where is he born King of the Jews? And the religious people
there, they searched in the scripture and they told him, well, he used
to be born in Bethlehem. And of course he told the wise
men, and he also told them, when you see him, come back and tell
me that I may worship him too. When he realized that they didn't
come back, then he gave the commandment to kill all the male sons, I
believe three years and younger. What a ruthless man, ruler he
was. And we see the hatred of the
Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious world. They hated
Christ. Turn with me for just a moment.
When we read this, his brethren, look with me in Matthew chapter
13. In Matthew chapter 13 and verse, well, this is the verse that
shows us that these brethren In our text tonight, we're not
these brethren here in verse 55 where it says, is not this
the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary
and his brethren James and Hosus and Simon and Judas? It wasn't
these brethren that our Lord was speaking to in our text.
But now look in chapter 12 of Matthew, Matthew chapter 12 and
verse 46. While he yet talked to the people,
behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak
with him. Then one said unto him, behold,
thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with
thee. But he answered and said unto
him that told him, who is my mother and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand
toward his disciples and said, behold, my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will
of my father which is in heaven, the same as my brother and sister
and mother. And that includes you and I,
those of us who do the will of his father. And what is the will
of his father? That you believe on him whom
he hath sent. A person could be linked to Christ,
kin to Christ physically, and not know him as Lord and Savior. Our Lord told Peter, Blessed
art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed
this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And what
had the Father revealed to Peter? That Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of the living God. He's revealed that unto you tonight,
you're one of his brethren, one of his sisters. Do you know in John, when we
think about this statement our Lord makes here in our text,
when he said, but me it hateth, the world, me it hateth. In John chapter 15, he said this,
they hated me without a cause. And that's a quote from one of
the Psalms. They hated me without a cause. You agree, don't you? There was
never any cause in the Lord Jesus Christ for anyone to hate him. Amen? You know that, you know
that's true. Well, here's my point. That same
word there in John chapter 15, which says, or is translated,
they hated me without a cause. It's the same word that is translated
freely in Romans chapter three. And verse 24, being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. Just as there was never a cause
in Christ for the world to hate Him, so we should never look
for a cause in us for God to justify us. were justified by
the imputed righteousness of Christ. Therefore, being justified
by faith, we have peace with God. That is by trusting in Him,
believing in Him. His righteousness is counted
to be our righteousness. And we're justified freely without
a cause in ourself. The cause is in Christ, just
as the hatred, the cause of the hatred of this world was not
in Christ, but in this world. The third observation or thing
I would have us notice is in verse 10, we read, but when his
brethren were gone up, then when he also up unto the feast, But
notice here how the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the law. I mentioned in the beginning
that the law said that every male Israelite had to attend
this feast in Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world to do exactly that. The Apostle Paul said, but when
the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son,
made of a woman, made under the law, under the law. He was made
under the law by being made of a woman. He came under the law. It was man who had broken God's
law, and it would be man who would repair the breach that
had been made by man. That is the God man. And we know
that by his perfect obedience, his perfect obedience in thought
and word and in deed, what was he doing? He was weaving a robe. Think about it like that. You've
seen these weavers take thread and weave cloth together, make
cloth out of the string and weave it all together. That's what
the Lord Jesus Christ was doing. By His obedience, He was weaving
together a robe of perfect righteousness. A perfect righteousness that
is put upon everyone who believes in Him. In Isaiah 42, that chapter begins,
behold my servant, mine elect whom I uphold. We know that speaking
of Christ, God's first elect. God first chose him and then
chose all of his elect in him. That's what that passage in Ephesians
chapter one and verse three tells us, isn't it? That we were chosen
in Christ. from before the foundation of
the world. But in that chapter there that
speaks about God's servant, behold him. He shall magnify my law. He shall make my law honorable. And that's what he did. That's
what he did by his obedience. Look with me, if you will, in
Revelation chapter seven. We'll come back here to John
7 in just a moment. But in Revelation chapter 7,
John is given a vision we know in this book. And one of the
things that he saw, he tells us in verse 9 here of chapter
7, one of the things that he saw was a multitude. After this
I beheld and lo a great multitude that no man could number. Of all nations and kindreds and
people and tongues stood before the throne and before the lamp.
Now notice, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands. Just visualize in your mind right
now if you will, John seeing a great multitude of people. He couldn't number it. A great
multitude of people. And every one of them was dressed
in white robes, which we know here in the book of Revelation
speaks of the righteousness of Christ. Every one of them was
dressed in white robes and palms in their hands, palms of victory. Stop and think. In that great
multitude, Every last one of them was a person just like you
and just like me at one time. With our doubts, our fears, our
failures, our unbelief, every one of them, they were no different
at one time. They were just like you and I. But now we see they're glorified. And how did they come about these
white robes? Look down into verse 14 at the
very end. And I said unto him, sir, thou
knowest. And he said to me, these are
they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Same way,
there's only one way And anyone has a white robe, a robe of perfect
righteousness, and that is through the person and work of Jesus
Christ. And think about this, just as
that great multitude, all of them, when John saw them, they
were just like we are, and one day, by the grace of God, we're
gonna be just like they are, right? Just like them. Amen. All right, let's go back to the
text. Here's the fourth thing I want
us to notice just briefly. Righteous judgment. Righteous
judgment. You know that scripture in Matthew
7, I believe it is, judge not that you be not judged. I've
heard preachers say that's the devil's favorite text. Probably
is. He loves to use that, doesn't
he? Our Lord was not telling us that we're never to make judgment. We have to, to live in this world.
We judge between things, but we're not to make unrighteous
judgment. Our Lord here tells us in verses
20 through 24 that our judgment should be righteous judgment.
The people answered and said, thou hast a devil. Thou hast the devil. We see how
fickle man is, don't we, in this verse of scripture. If you notice
in verse 15, the Jews marveled, but then in verse 20, yes, verse 20, the people answered
and said, thou hast the devil. How fickle men are. We saw that in the Bible class
this morning, didn't we? Brother Schrader brought this
out, how those men, barbarians, they're called, but when they
saw that viper, that snake attached to Paul's hand, they said, well,
he must be a murderer. Somehow he's escaped from the
sea, but God is giving vengeance upon him. And then when he didn't
die, He must be a god. How fickle. How fickle. That's the fame of this world,
isn't it? People can be on top of the world today and be the
scoundrel tomorrow, as far as the world is concerned. Notice, beginning in verse, Verse
20, people answered and said, thou hast a devil who goeth about
to kill thee. Jesus answered and said unto
them, I've done one work and you all marvel. Now, what was
that one work? Well, we know it was, if you
turn back to John chapter five, this is the one work that he
was speaking of. In John chapter five and verse
eight, when the Lord Jesus Christ came into that place where there
were five porches and there was a multitude of people with all
kind of infirmities. And the Lord Jesus Christ passed
by many of them. He went to this one man, been
there for 38 years by that pool. For tradition said when the water
moved, the first one into the water was healed. And he'd been
there 38 years. And the Lord spoke to him and
said, rise, take up that bed and walk. And he did so. Sure he did. Sure he did. But you know, it was a Sabbath
day. It was a Sabbath day. And because
this work was wrought on a Sabbath day, look down to verse 15 there
in John 5. The man departed and told the
Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole. And therefore
did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him because
he had done these things on the Sabbath day. But Jesus answered
them, my father worketh hitherto and I work, therefore, The Jews
sought the more to kill him. Not only had he violated the
Sabbath, but he made himself equal with God, the Father. And our Lord here in our text,
he tells them the law prescribes that on the eighth day of life
of a male Israelite, he's to be circumcised. Must do that
to keep the law. But sometimes that eighth day
of life will be on a Sabbath. And the law commanded rest on
the Sabbath. Now, what are you going to do? Well, they circumcised the child. That's what they did. So it could
be argued that they worked. They worked. And our Lord is
saying, Judge righteously the spirit. Yes, I healed a man on
the Sabbath day, but remember the Sabbath was not, or man rather
wasn't made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for
man. And it was always right to do
works of mercy on the Sabbath. That law was not so strict that
doing works of kindness and mercy shouldn't be done on that day. In other words, stop and think.
He tells me, stop and think. I did one work on the Sabbath
and for that you want to kill me. You want to slay me. Judge righteous judgment. Consider
the matter. They were so steeped in self-righteousness,
these religious leaders, that they would just as soon, that
man, continued laying, even though he'd been there laying for 38
years, rather than the Lord do a work of mercy on that day. Here's the fifth thing I wanted
to point out in verses 33 and 34. Then said Jesus unto them, yet
a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent
me. You shall seek me and shall not
find me. And where I am, thither you cannot
come. Notice our Lord is telling them
that soon, it was future when he said this, he was going to
his father. And that's when, that's when
it would be they would seek him and not find him. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. We know the Bible presents God
to us as a God ready to pardon. But our Lord is telling these
particular people that there was going to come a time when
he would leave them, and we know he did. He did leave them. And this scripture was fulfilled
during the siege when the Roman general Titus had Jerusalem blocked
in. And remember in Matthew 24, he
said, don't believe it when they say, see here's Christ or see
there's Christ. They would seek him, but they
wouldn't find him. Because God's purpose was those
who rejected Christ, those who turned him away, that the day
was coming, and it did come, when Jerusalem itself and the
nation of Israel would be dispersed among the nations. Well, one
last thing. In verses 37 and 38, the Lord
Jesus invites the thirsty to drink. You know, he uses thirst
and drinking as a picture of trusting in him. What is true
of a person who thirsts? He has a need. He has a need. And everyone who is made to know
their need of Christ is invited to drink, to look to him, to
trust. A person who thirsts has a need,
a need of a savior, a need of a redeemer, a need
of a deliverer. And everyone who senses, has
that sense of need is invited to come. Not invited to come
to the front of a church building. You know, sometime in the 20th
century, this became very popular. It actually went back to the
19th century, I believe. They started having inquiry rooms. And after a service, they'd have
a room where people could go that were anxious about their
soul. And then eventually the invitation
system came into the churches, into the services in the church.
And people, it seemed like, got the idea by moving physically
from the back of the church building to the front of the church building,
shaking the preacher's hand, signing a card or something like
that, that they were converted. We refer to that as decisional
regeneration. No, no, we're not invited to
come to the front of a church building, but we are invited
to come to Christ, to look to him, to trust in him. I like the words of one of the
hymns that we sing sometimes. All the fitness he requireth
is to fill your need of him. It's not sinners, sensible sinners
or seeking sinners. No, it's just sinners. Sinners. If any man thirst, let him come
unto me and drink. Believe on him for full forgiveness
Complete justification, worship, sanctification, it's all in Christ. Come unto me and drink. Find
every need supplied. Let me close with almost the
last words in the scripture. You're familiar with them in
Revelation chapter 22. Let him that is a thirst come. And whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely. Someone said one time, you know,
I believe in whosoever will. I do too. I do too. But knowing this, it is God who
works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. But
if you have a will to come, to come to Christ, whosoever will,
let him take of the water of life freely, freely. May the Lord bless these words
to us here this evening.