Parched

Good morning once again. It's such a joy to stand before you and proclaim God's Word. This week I had the opportunity to attend a workshop of the Charles Simeon Trust. This is an organization that focuses on helping pastors improve and grow in their expositional preaching. The way they describe it is like spring training for pastors. So just like pitchers and catchers report in and go back to the basics, that's what we do during a CST workshop. It was great blessing to be among those brothers and to dwell deeply in God's Word. Each workshop covers a specific book of the Bible. This week's workshop was on the Gospel of John. Therefore, today's message will be on one of my assigned passages.

Introduction:

On July 30, 1945, the battle cruiser USS Indianapolis was returning from a mission delivering enriched uranium to allied forces in the Pacific. It did not make it home. A Japanese torpedo hit the cruiser on its way back. It sank in minutes. In only 12 minutes, 300 of the 1,200 men died. Nine hundred went into the water, enduring four days and five nights without food, without water, and under the blazing sun of the Pacific. Of the 900 men that went into the water, only 316 survived the lack of water and the sharks. One of those who survived was the chief medical officer, who recorded his own experience. He wrote:

“ There was nothing I could do, nothing I could do but give advice, bury the dead at sea, save the lifejackets, and try to keep the men from drinking the water. When the hot sun came out, and we were in this crystal clear ocean, we were so thirsty. You couldn't believe it wasn't good enough to drink. I had a hard time convincing the men they shouldn't drink. The real young ones…you take away their hope, you take away their water and food, they would drink the salt water and they would go fast. I can remember striking the ones who were drinking the salt water to try to stop them. They would get dehydrated, then become maniacal. There were mass hallucinations. I was amazed how everyone would see the same thing. One man would see something, and then everyone else would see it. Even I fought the hallucinations off and on. Something always brought me back.”

They were dying and tried to satisfy the thirst with something that would actually kill them faster.

I have three main points this morning. In our text we see Jesus offer an invitation, promise continual satisfaction, and promise living water to those who believe in Him.

Repeat.

Let’s pray and ask God to help us understand and exalt Him.

PRAY

I need to bring you up to speed about what is going on as we come to this particular passage. In chapter 6 of John you find one of the darkest moments up till now in Jesus’s ministry. He shares about eating his flesh and drinking his blood and his being the bread of life. Many of his followers turn away. As we come to chapters 7, His brothers want him to go to the Festival of Booths or Tabernacles. He declines to go up with them and then later on heads up to the festival on his own, privately.

He does some teaching at the temple and the people are questioning if this could be the Christ. The religious leaders send officers to arrest him. And then on the last day of the feast, we have this passage.

John 7:37–39 ESV

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

The festival of Booths or Tabernacles was held each year in Sept or Oct. It was a celebration of God’s provision for Israel when they were wandering in the wilderness. This was a high, holy festival and was one of the central times to the Jewish calendar. This was also a celebration of harvest.

In memory of wandering, the people would go outside or onto their roofs and build shelters and stay in them. This was a giant party. There was singing and dancing. People had come to the city to celebrate.

D. A. Carson writes about the special ceremony from the festival.

“On the seven days of the Feast, a golden flagon was filled with water from the pool of Siloam and was carried in a procession led by the High Priest back to the temple. As the procession approached the watergate on the south side of the inner court three blasts from the šôp̄ār—a trumpet connected with joyful occasions—were sounded. While the pilgrims watched, the priests processed around the altar with the flagon, the temple choir singing the Hallel (Pss. 113–118; cf. Mishnah Sukkah 4:9). When the choir reached Psalm 118, every male pilgrim shook a lûlāḇ (willow and myrtle twigs tied with palm) in his right hand, while his left raised a piece of citrus fruit (a sign of the ingathered harvest), and all cried ‘Give thanks to the Lord!’ three times. The water was offered to God at the time of the morning sacrifice, along with the daily drink-offering (of wine). The wine and the water were poured into their respective silver bowls, and then poured out before the Lord. Moreover, these ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles were related in Jewish thought both to the Lord’s provision of water in the desert and to the Lord’s pouring out of the Spirit in the last days. Pouring at the Feast of Tabernacles refers symbolically to the messianic age in which a stream from the sacred rock would flow over the whole earth (cf. J. Jeremias, TDNT, 4. 277f.).”

I. Jesus offers an invitation.

- a specific invitation - to the thirsty - John's theme - believe 20:31-32

- universal invitation

- come and drink

- Are you thirsty?

- To the unsaved

- Have you tried everything else?

- To the Christian

- Do you find yourself drinking from every other fountain? ETC

- Come and drink - if you realize you're dying... drink...

John 4

Isaiah 55:1 ESV

1 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Revelation 22:1–2 ESV

1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

John 6:35 ESV

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

II. Jesus provides continual satisfaction.

When the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, God had provided water from a rock. But the people would get thirsty again because it was merely quenching their physical thirst.

The world offers fake satisfaction. But the satisfaction that the world offers is temporary. Jesus offers eternal satisfaction.

Spurgeon writes, “Find thy strength to stand, and thine ability to endure, in him alone. If any man thirst for anything that is really desirable, let him come to Jesus, in whom all right desires are provided for. All for sinners and all for saints will be found in Jesus our Lord, who is all in all.”7

Jesus continually satisfies by promising and providing living water.

III. Jesus promises living water.

After his glorification...

John 12:23 ESV

23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Jesus is proclaiming that He is the fulfillment of everything promised by the Festival of Tabernacles.

Concluding thoughts:

When we come to faith in Christ, there is part of it that is receiving but faith is also yielding to Jesus.

Reword Lewis illustration:

But faith is not just receiving; it is yielding to Jesus. This is ably depicted in C. S. Lewis’s children’s novel The Silver Chair. The book’s heroine, Jill, sees a Lion and flees into a deep forest. She is soon worn out and becomes so thirsty that she thinks herself about to die. Just then, she hears the gurgling of a brook in the distance and staggers toward it. But as she draws near to the water, she sees the Lion crouched before it.

“If you are thirsty,” says the Lion, “come and drink.” Jill does not move. “Are you not thirsty?” the Lion asks. “I’m dying of thirst,” says Jill. “Then drink,” says the Lion. “May I—could I—would you mind going away while I do?” Jill stutteringly asks. The Lion answers with a low growl, and Jill realizes that he will not move away.

“Will you promise not to—do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.…

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

Ryken comments, “Lewis makes a vital point. Jesus invites you to come, but only on his terms. You must come yielding yourself to him, taking him not only as Savior but also as Lord. Jesus does not promise not to do anything to you! Jesus is not a tame lion, and the petty priorities of our lives are not safe in his hands. Jesus intends to revolutionize our lives with the priorities of his holy kingdom. But how loving and good he is—and he is the only source of eternal life! When finally Jill knelt down and drank from the Lion’s waters, she found that “it was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted.”6 So it is with Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory and Lion of Judah.”

Where will you find your satisfaction?

Come and drink.

PRAY

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