Sermon Tone Analysis

Jesus the Rock

I am going to continue preaching about the these pictures in the Old Testament, and how the New Testament reveals the old testament and Visa Versa.

I want to skim past the first part about Jesus the Rock, but I do want to take you back quickly to Jewish nation during the Exodus to when they came out the desert and the nation wanted water for they were thirsty.

Be ready because we are going to read a lot of passages from the Bible, so please have one handy.

If not follow along on the screen.

This is all to set the scene for what I would like to preach to you this morning.

The New Testament tells us that the Jesus is that rock.

The rock of our salvation.

Now turn with me to 1 Cor 10:1-4 as we hear the Apostle Paul tell us who this Rock is.

Jesus the Living Water

When Moses struck that rock, out of it flowed water to quench the thirst of Israel, and saved the nation.

Now fast forward to John 4:7-14

Jesus was telling this Samaritan woman two things:

He was calling Himself the living water.

Physical water requires constant consumption for physical life.

Jesus is spiritual water that if consumed once offers eternal life.

Jesus refers to this living water as the Gift of God.

He is talking about the Gospel, the birth, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is the well-spring of our salvation from which we draw from.

Jesus was alluding to what the Prophet Jeremiah who spoke for God over 600 years ago where said:

By alluding to the words of Jeremiah, not only was Jesus equating Himself with God, the living water, but He was teaching that his offer off spiritual life is a free gift.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “When the wells are dry, we know the worth of water.”

The sinner who has come to a knowledge of His sin, who realises his well is dry, seeking forgiveness draws from the only well that has water good enough for life.

For you cannot drink from any water source, you need clean water.

Did you know that according the WHO statistics that at least 2 billion people on earth drink water that is contaminated by feces?

That contaminated water can bring diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid fever and polio?

Water sanitation is a major problem in our world, and just because you found water, or something that appears clean, doesn’t mean that it is.

You need to be sure.

Our world is filled with contaminated water sources with false doctrines, lies and hypocrisies, and many voluntarily drink from it without testing it.

Is this not what the Bible asks us to do? Test all things against the Bible?

For we know the water we consume from it is from the wellspring of Christ Jesus.

Broken Cisterns

A cistern was a man made reservoir to catch and store rain water.

Cisterns are deficient for 3 reasons:

They leak

The water that is captured and stored is often dirty and luke warm

They contain a limited amount of water.

Men try to replace God with cisterns, broken cisterns.

In these cisterns the pour their own ideas, twist the scriptures and make doctrines that suite themselves rather than reading, praying and meditating on the Word of God, which is not a cistern but an underground well that draws living water from an underground spring that provides cool, limitless fresh water.

Jesus was saying, “Stop trying to quench your spiritual thirst with your broken man-made efforts that cannot satisfy.

Instead come to Me for free, living water, and you will never die.

The broken and leaky cisterns of men and what this world can offer will be dry and empty.”

The Symbolism

The Festival of Booths or sometimes known as the Feast of Tabernacles was a major celebration on the Jewish calendar.

All Jew were required to attend and give thanks to God for 7 days and remember God’s deliverance in the desert.

I just want to take a moment to go through this feast - some of its aspects so can go through this journey with me.

It is truely amazing.

It was unique in that the Gentiles were actually invited to this.

Pause to think about this.

This feast was instituted by Moses when the Jews wondered the desert.

John alludes to this feast in his the first part in his Gospel.

The feast is an illustration of Christ.

Christ actually “tabernacles” with us in Christ.

In that God has come down from heaven and is Tabernacle, or dwelling in Christ and dwelling with His creation.

You might ask, “what is a tabernacle”?

It was a portable and temporary shrine used for worship before the temple, a more permanent structure, was built and housed the ark in the “Holy of Holies”.

It also denotes the temporary dwelling of God among His people.

Listen to Hebrews 9

The feast is to commemorate God’s provision.

Solomon’s Temple was commemorated with this feast

There were 3 main rites:

Water drawing and drinking ceremony

THe illumination of the Temple to commemorate the pillar of fire that led the Israelites through the desert.

Note that now in the New Testament era under grace, that the Temple of the Holy Ghost is the believer.

It is an amazing parallel, and now the way has been made clear, the veil to the Holy of Holies was torn in two, through our mediator, Christ Jesus who bled, died and rose again to sit on the right hand of God the Father and makes intercession for us.

No longer do the priests do this, but we have a better new High Priest.

When Jesus stood in the Temple claining to be the Light of the World, He was making a radical statement.

Those who say that Jesus never claimed to be God have not dealt with this statement.

TO stand in the middle of the Temple in conjunction with the Feat of Tabernacles and say, “I am the Light” was like saying, “I am the Shekiniah, I am the Pillar of Fire.

It is har to claim a more graphic claim deity.

The built booths to remind them of the desert.

Booths were temporary structures they lived in the desert.

It reminds us of our frailty and our utter dependency upon the Lord, and by His grace, the Jews had survived.

That was a bit of background so we are all on the same page.

On the 7th day of the feast, the temple priest would march to pool of Siloam and walk around the temple 7 times and quote the Prophet Isaiah,

Jesus then in John 7 does something remarkable, and declares

What is even more staggering is the 3 verses after Isaiah 12:3 where we read earlier

There Jesus was God Incarnate, declaring who He was.

The people were shouting for joy, celebrating God, but didn’t recognise Him, that He was in their midst.

Do we do church Sunday after Sunday as if it were a habit such as was this feast, but do we too not recognise God?

Are we missing the truth by making our own cistern, our broken cisterns and fill it with earthly things, earthly wisdom and our own doctrines of men that marr the face of the Son of God, so we do not recognise Him?

As the Jews shout for joy, and miss the joygiver, are we doing the same?

Do we sing our songs of joy, but ignore the truth of the Word?

Then look at Isaiah 55:1

How often do I see in Christendom how we labour under tradition, our books, do things in a vain hope that it might make us holy, somehow point us to Christ, somehow gain wealth as with a health wealth and prosperity gospel that focuses all of its attention to comfort and a life without want, and miss the mark so entirely so as not not grasp the truth that Jesus Christ is the only well where we can drink from, and it is free, a gift of God?

Yes, serve God, serve your brothers and sisters in Christ, read a good book by a good Christian authour, but do so in the light of daily Bible reading that we might continually draw water to refresh ourselves to stay vital and healthy, so that we might not get sick and have blurry vision that we do not recognise His face.

What will you do with His offer?

Are you still trying to please God with your works?

Isaiah made it clear, your efforts cannot purchase what you need.

All alternative water wells are contaminated, there is only one well in which to drink from.

You need living water.

You need Jesus.