Jesus! The Fountain of Living Water

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John 7:37-39

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I'd like for you to turn with me to the Gospel of John, as we return back to this wonderful study, the
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Gospel of John. And for the past month, we took a break from our study to commemorate our 7th anniversary.
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But today we return here to our wonderful text in this chapter. And in chapter 7,
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I just want to read three verses. And I believe this is, I may break this up into two parts, because there's so much here.
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What our Lord says is always, the eternity, the eternal weight is in the
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Word of God. God's Word has such eternal weight to it. We could look at the smallest verse, the shortest verse in Scripture, Jesus wept, and never squeeze everything out of that.
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Because it has such eternal weight to it. And there's no way that this little preacher can do justice to this.
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Keep in mind this, the power is not in the messenger. I don't care who the messenger is.
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The power is in the Word of God. George Whitefield said, many could preach better Gospel messages than I could preach.
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But he said, no one could preach a better Gospel. And I said, that's a humble man there, because he realized, and that's why
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God used him. He prayed and trusted in the Lord, and he stood and fell before God before he talked to men.
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He talked with God frequently, speaking with God, and he knew that that's where the power of his ministry was.
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That is the ministry. As a matter of fact, I don't care what preacher it is, and who it is, and how great he can articulate.
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If he doesn't go to God in prayer, there is no ministry. I agree with Ravenhill, no man is greater than his prayer life.
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Owen says, what we are before God is who we are, who you are before God, and nothing else.
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So we need to keep that in mind, that the power and the weight is in the Word of the living God. God's Word goes forth, and it does not return void.
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I don't know about you, this is where the well, the living water flows from.
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And Jesus is the fountainhead. Now this message today should be very real to us, because number one, it's hot in here today, and I want to remind everybody, with a gentle reminder, in a reality, there's a much hotter place.
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And we all deserve that place, don't we? And keep that in mind, you could be in boiling heat, until 110 degrees out there and be boiling, and be burned.
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And that's still much cooler than hellfire. I want you to think of this, during this time to beat the heat, how do you beat the heat?
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I don't think there's a better way to beat the heat than to have a nice tall glass of cold water.
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Now I love Gatorade, and I love those other wonderful drinks, I'm a sweet tea lover, but I don't think there's anything more refreshing than ice cold water on a hot summer day.
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And you know what I'm talking about, because now, the heat's kicked up pretty hard.
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Especially you guys that work in it, right? We were talking yesterday, as we were moving
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Sister Fee and Brother Keith, how a lot of the Hispanics, and many others, just not them, but many others get on top of the roofs, and I mean, just don't tell them what the temperature could be, would you at least guess, over 110, isn't it
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Brother Keith? Maybe more. With the asphalt roofs, the tree workers, the people that work out in the sun, asphalt workers, how do they do it?
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Well I work out in the weather as well, and I get pretty heated up, and right now my air conditioner is broken in my milk truck, and I'm not talking about the back of it,
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I'm talking about the cab, and I'm pouring sweat, and boy it's a relief to get back in that cool, cool part of that compartment where that milk is.
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But you know what I'm talking about, it's very real, this message should come across very realistic to us, because here we are, it's quite warm in here, and the summer days are very hot, but God has a refreshment for all of us, spiritually speaking.
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And that refreshment is found in living waters. The living waters that comes, and the symbolism here is the
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Holy Spirit. And keep in mind that Jesus said He would go to the Father when
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He was raised from the dead, He told His disciples, He gave the promise of the
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Father, He says, I will pray to the Father and He will send you another comforter. And that comforter is the
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Spirit of God that comes to reside within us, can you imagine that?
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That's one of the greatest miracles to those who believe and are regenerate, that the Spirit of the living
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God comes to abide within us. You are the habitation of God, the Spirit of God comes and does not leave you as an orphan.
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He comes as the other paraclete, Jesus is another comforter, Jesus is the original paraclete, and another paraclete will come, another comforter will come, and He will not leave you without aid.
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He is your helper. So God has not, in this journey that's very difficult, has not left us as orphans.
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He comes alongside us, and alongside He gives refreshments, refreshing of living water.
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And I'm going to tell you, the Word of God is full of scriptures that speak about living water.
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Well, hear the Word of the living God from chapter 7, verse 37 -39, and hear what the
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Lord Jesus Christ says about the promise of the Holy Spirit. On the last day, the great day of the feast,
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Jesus stood and cried out. Listen to that, He cried out, if anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink.
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He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart, or his innermost being, as another translation says, will flow rivers of living water.
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But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing Him would receive, for the
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Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. May God bless the reading of His Word from our ears to our hearts this morning.
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Please bow with me in prayer, as we seek our Lord's blessing and face. Our Father and our great
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God, we thank You for this hour, for this time that we have, that You have blessed us so much with, and Lord, I pray that Your Word, which
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You have promised, will go forth, will not return void. Lord, change our lives this morning.
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You, oh Jesus, our great Savior and Lord, Father in heaven,
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You have blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heaven and the heavenly places in Christ Your Son.
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Lord, we praise You, we adore You, we thank You for this great salvation that has come through us, to us, through Your beloved
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Son, through His virgin birth, through His perfect life of righteousness, through His all -sufficient death that atoned for our sin by His precious blood that washes away every stain, every guilt,
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Father, for His blessed burial that took our sin far away, as far as the east from the west, and blew it apart in His glorious, glorious resurrection that gives us a living hope of eternal life, that we do not have to fear death, and knowing because Jesus lives, we can live also.
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All these great blessings and benefits comes to us, oh Father, through that sacrificial
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Lamb of God that paid the sin debt for us, took our places to substitute
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Lamb of God in His loving kindness, oh
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Father, all because You loved us and gave us this gift, this unspeakable gift, so now,
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Father, I pray, thank You again for Your mercy, Your goodness, and now, Father, we need
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Thy blessed Holy Spirit, as we're speaking about this morning through Your Word, we need, it's not sufficient enough for us to just know this in our head,
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Father, we must have it in our hearts, open our eyes, anoint our eyes with eye salve, that we may see
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Christ, open our deaf ears, oh Father, that we may hear Your words of life, and most important,
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Lord, give us a heart to receive of all that You have blessed us with in Jesus, Your Son, and Lord, we will be careful to give
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You all the praise, as we sung earlier, all the honor, all the glory, in Jesus' name, amen.
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Well, according to verse 2 of John chapter 7, the
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Jews at the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand, the
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Jews were merely celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, it's called also the Feast of the
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Booths, this was a feast that occurred during the first part of the month of October, if you were to put it in our time frame, in our month, but during this seven day feast, the
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Jews lived in booths made of tree branches to commemorate their forefathers' pilgrimage through the wilderness, and you will read that in Exodus, and you can also, it's repeated in the book of Numbers.
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On each of these seven days, the high priest would go to the pool of Siloam and draw out water in a golden vessel.
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This water would be poured out on the altar where the parts of the sacrifice was arranged.
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The last day of the feast would be the seventh day, on which the priest would march seven times around the altar, singing the
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Hallel from Psalm 118, especially verse 25, Saved now,
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I pray, O Yahweh, O Yahweh, I pray, send now prosperity.
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And as the procession continued by the high priest back to the temple, he would go to the water gate on the south side of the inner temple court, three trumpets blast were made to make the joy,
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I'm sorry, the bark of joy of the occasion of the people, and they would also recite
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Isaiah chapter 12, verse 3, which says, With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
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This they did, and the timing that the Lord has when He stands up to cry out what
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He cries out is perfect timing, and thousands of people are there hearing this.
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Now, during this time of the temple, while all lurkers watched, which were thousands, this is when the priest would march around the altar, as I said, with the water containers, and while the temple choir would sing the
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Hallel, which is basically from Psalm 113 to Psalm 118.
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The water, which is very significant here, folks, is huge, because it was offered in the sacrifice as sacrifice to God at the morning sacrifice.
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The use of the water, again, symbolized the blessing, not only of the
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Holy Spirit, but also adequate rainfall for the crops, how critical it is for farmers to have the food that we have, that they depend upon the rain that comes from God, that God supplies.
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And every time we have rain coming on a hot day, it's so refreshing, and doesn't it give us cause to praise
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God, thank you, Lord, for the rain that you're giving. But we also are living, spiritually speaking, during the time of the church age of the dispensation of grace here, that we're living in a dry time, that there is a famine in the land for the
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Word of God, and we need that refreshing from the Spirit of God. And the only way it could come is through this preached
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Word. That's how the Reformation came about. It wasn't, as one historian says, it wasn't
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Martin Luther that reformed the church, Luther basically said it was the Word of God. And if we're going to see revival or a new reformation within the church today, it must be through the
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Word of God. God's Word and God's Word alone. And it must come through messengers that have been humbled and broken, and depended upon God, because if anybody is dependent on their eloquency and their brains, it's not going to happen.
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It would just be dead orthodoxy. And God help us, I say that to remind myself,
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I said, I don't want to depend on just my articulation or my brains, even though God does work through our minds by means, but we must depend on the
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Spirit of the living God to work through His Word. We were talking about also yesterday how it's scary, the days we're living in, and you have these iPhones and the knowledge filling the whole earth, and now you have this
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AI, artificial intelligence. You know what I'm talking about. People are leaning on that and not
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God. They're even incorporating it in church worship services. You might as well just throw out the
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Holy Spirit. You might as well throw out God in prayer. If people are going to lean on their own understanding, that's what it is.
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Depending on an artificial intelligence that's by a computer, that's sad.
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But here, they depend upon the rainfall for the crops. And since Israel, by the way, keep this in mind, in the
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Middle East, was a very dry and desolate, hot land. It's very hot, much hotter than here.
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As you well know, it's desolate, it's dry, I've never been there, but I've spoke to people that's been there and they said it's very hot.
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And that's why you see them wrapped up in turbans and tourniquets and all this, because they're trying to protect themselves from the heat.
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And it was this very significant time that our Lord and Master and Savior Jesus used this event at the last day of the feast as an object lesson, an opportunity by the providence of God to make a very public invitation on the last day of the feast for His people to receive
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Him as the fountain of living water. Folks, this is the heart of God, that God desires people to come unto
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His Son. That's the invitation. And now this isn't the first invitation. Jesus gave the invitation several times, come unto me in Matthew 11, all you labor and heavy laden and I will give you rest, soul rest.
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Take my yoke upon you, my yoke is easy, my burden is light.
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He doesn't say there's not going to be a burden, He doesn't say, but He does say it's light in comparison to the burden of sin, because the way of the transgressor is hard.
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And like I mentioned last Lord's Day, you've got to choose your heart, folks. It's the way of the cross or it's the way of the transgressor.
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And like I said, I take the way of the cross any day in comparison to a sinner's transgression that will lead right into hell fire for eternity.
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But the invitation stands, Jesus stands up and here He is. He is the fountain of living water.
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Jesus gave His invitation, thousands would hear and be present to hear Him cry out and everyone who heard
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Him would have understood what He meant. Yet we see in verses 40 and 44 we're coming up on, the reception is not too well because it says in verse 40, therefore many from the crowd, the crowd, when they heard this saying after He cried out, truly this is a prophet, others said this is the
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Christ, but some said will the Christ come out of Galilee, sounds like people today.
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Has not the scripture said that Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem where David was?
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That's correct. Verse 43, so there was a division among the people because of Him.
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Now some of them wanted to take Him but no one laid hands on Him and you know why? Because the Father had providentially surrounded
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Christ, led Christ because His time was not yet. Well that's the response and we're going to be looking at that very shortly in the near future
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Lord willing. But in these verses, in verse 37 to 38 we observe several things and this is my outline.
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The first thing we will observe, recognize the fountain of living water.
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We will recognize the fountain of living water. We must recognize who the fountain of living water truly is.
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The second great truth that we will observe is in verse 38, the rewards of the fountain of living water and third with application given to it in verse 37, once again receiving the fountain of living water with a personal application.
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So we're looking at recognizing rewards and receiving of the fountain of living water.
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The first is to recognize the fountain of living water. Recognize the fountain of living water.
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Verse 37, once again on the last day of the great feast, Jesus stood and notice what the text says.
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He cried out. He cried out saying if anyone thirsts, anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
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Come to me and drink. Jesus proclaims Himself to be the place where the living water is to be found.
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He is the source. He is the fountain. Jesus isn't the living water.
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That's the spirit of the living God, but He is the fountain in which the
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Holy Spirit flows where the living water can be found. Throughout the New Testament, let me give you an opening here on this to help us understand how important the third person of the
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Trinity is. In the New Testament, water for drinking is a symbol of the
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Holy Spirit. The washing of regeneration of the word, which Brother Seth talked about this morning in Sunday School about regeneration.
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Water is symbolized. We're having a baptism today. Brother Jordan, praise God. There's symbolism in water.
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Now H2O doesn't say, but the spirit of the living God does the work within and gives the application to bring us to God.
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We could not, none of us could come to God unless the spirit of God brings us to God.
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All the Trinity works together in creation, in regeneration, salvation, and everything.
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They're never apart. They are one together. One together. So here we see throughout the
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New Testament, water is for drinking a symbol of the Holy Spirit. According to the Bible, the word of God, it is the spirit of God that comes to wicked sinners like us and shows us, shows any wicked sinner their great need of salvation.
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First there must be the need of recognizing our condition. We must recognize that we are thirsty souls, hungry souls as well.
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John 16 verse 8, Jesus says this, and when He, speaks of the spirit of God, has come,
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He will convince or convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
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Verse 9, of sin because they do not believe in me. Verse 10, of righteousness because I go to my
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Father and you see me no more. Verse 11, of judgment because of the ruler of this world is judged.
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That's the words of Jesus. Now we could preach a full series on this, but let me kind of pack this together.
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It is the work and the ministry of the Holy Spirit that applies the word of God in conviction of our sin.
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And notice what He says, S -I -N, sin, singular. Not sins, plural.
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Singular, which indicates a specific sin which is in view that Jesus has in mind here.
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And what is that? That of not believing in Jesus, rejecting
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Christ, is the worst of all sins. Like I mentioned earlier, previously, a few
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Lord's Day, I talked to a man that he was going on and on about smoking and drinking and all these vices and I said, you know, you could do all that.
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And they're vices. But that's not really what sends people to hell. Rejecting Jesus Christ is what sends people to hell.
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That's the most awful of all sins, outside of blasphemy of the
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Holy Spirit, but rejecting Jesus Christ, this is the only sin that ultimately will damn people to eternal hell to suffer under the wrath of a holy
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God. People's rejection of Jesus. So Jesus has this in mind, they do not believe in me.
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Of righteousness, of righteousness. What's that mean? Well basically the
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Holy Spirit's purpose here is to expose our dark hearts. What does
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He do? The light. The Spirit of God, He's the
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Spirit of holiness, light. God is light.
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There's no darkness in Him at all. So He exposes our hypocrisy.
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He exposes us for who we are, our dark hearts of a hypocrisy in pretense, pretending to be something that we're not, of judgment.
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The judgment here in context is speaking of the world under Satan's control.
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We live in a world that is under Satan's control. He is the ruler of this age. He is the prince and the power of the air.
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Now he has power, but we know that God is all powerful. God permits him, but God is even over him.
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I like what Luther said, he said, even Satan is on a leash from God, but God is the one that's all powerful.
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But here it's speaking about that Satan's control, his judgments from the world are blind because their father is of the devil.
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That's what Jesus said. And He said, and you do the works of your father.
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That's why people do the things they do. God is their father or Satan is their father.
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People don't like to hear that, folks, but that's the truth. There's a line of demarcation that's straight and narrow in the
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Word of God. The cause of darkness, they are children of darkness.
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Once we become regenerated by the
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Spirit of God, we are children of light. Children of light, children of darkness, there's nothing in the middle.
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There's no gray area there. Faulty, evil, evidence, and their verdict of Christ.
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Now, this world cannot make righteous judgments, can it?
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Because they don't know God. The Spirit of God gives us the righteous judgments to make, and those righteous judgments that we know is always with the
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Word of God. And it's not the Spirit of God if it's outside of this Word.
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Because there's a lot of people going around saying, God told me this and God told me that. If it's not, thus sayeth the
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Lord in this book, and it is written, as Brother Zack mentioned in the opening, that when the
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Lord Jesus Christ was tempted from the devil, He said, it is written, it is written, and then again it is written. That's the
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Word of God. That is the living Word quoting the written Word. And if the
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Spirit of God abides within us, and if it's a Word from the Lord, it will always be, and thus sayeth the Lord.
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So don't listen to these false teachers that's going out there and say, God told me this, like they've got a special hotline with God.
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Especially this crazy lunatic heretic, and I'll say it, Kenneth Copeland that goes around and says he's made a deal with God, like he's got this special hotline with God that he's going to live 120 years old.
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He doesn't know when he's going to live to 120, and by the way, I can guarantee you, according to the
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Word of God, the authority of God's Word, he will not live to 120. But he's a blasphemer, he's a charlatan, he's a heretic, who would dare believe his
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Word? And by the way, there's people influenced by this. I talked to an elderly man, he's in his 70s, and he's almost crippled now, and he still works in the grocery store, and he says,
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David, I've made a covenant with God that I'm going to live 120. I said,
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I'm not going to be argumentative with you, friend, but I'm going to quote to you a scripture that,
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I'm not going to give you my opinion, I'm going to give you the Word of God. And I said, I go to Psalm 90, and I said, let me read you something.
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He said, well, I don't really base on, he said, after I told him this, his response was,
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I don't believe there, what it says in Psalm 90, I'm going to believe in Psalm 91. I said, no, no,
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I said, listen to what God says in Psalm 90. Listen to very carefully what the
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Lord says. This is the Lord, this is thus saith the Lord. Verse 10, Psalm 90, the days of our lives are 70 years.
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This is Moses, by the Spirit of God. And if by reason of strength, they are 80 years, as our sister
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Lillian here, praise his name, 80 years and still blessed, amen.
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Eighty years, this is the Word of God. Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away.
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And by the way, if God gives you a little bit more than 80, then you're very, very blessed with longevity of life, but it's
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God that decides that. This 120 years making a covenant with God is ridiculous.
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That's a false teacher, of course. They got to have something eccentric and ridiculous to talk about. Well, let me carry on here before I get sidetracked, catch that rabbit, pull it in.
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The Spirit of God can because He is the Spirit of truth.
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The Spirit of God that also baptizes believers into the body of Christ.
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Not only is the washing of the Word symbolic of the
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Spirit of God, that the Spirit of God also convicts us of righteousness, sin, righteousness and judgment, but He also, it is the body of Christ that we are baptized in.
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And baptized means put within, in that sense, immersed within the body of Christ.
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1 Corinthians 12, 13, Paul says this, for by one Spirit, one
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Spirit, we are all baptized into one body. What did he say in Ephesians?
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One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one, not two. Whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and notice what he says, and have all been made to drink, drink into one
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Spirit. It's interesting he said that word drink there. What's he talking about? Drink from the fountainhead, living water.
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We all partake, as it says, and Paul says, he talked about this as Israel was our example to learn from of the rock that was in the wilderness in Kadesh Barnea, and they were thirsty.
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And you remember when Moses smoked the rock and what came out of it? Water came out of it.
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And Paul says that rock is Christ. And when Moses struck that rock twice, that's why
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God disciplined him, did not allow him to go into the promised land. God shows no favoritism, shows no partiality.
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Moses disobeyed the Lord because he became angry. He smoked the rock twice. It's symbolic of Christ.
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In other words, Christ was only stricken smoke once in crucifixion, not twice.
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So he was not given the privilege to go into the promised land, only he could see it afar off.
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And that's a prophet of God, folks. That's one of the meekest men that ever walked the earth at that time period. God shows no partiality.
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It is the Holy Spirit that also seals the believers. Ephesians 4, and do not grieve the
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Holy Spirit of God. That's so convicting, isn't it? Do not grieve. How the
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Spirit of God must be grieved today with His church by whom you were, what, sealed for the day of redemption.
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You are sealed. It's almost like a two -edged sword.
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There is a two -edged sword. There's a conviction there, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
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Then He says, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. There's an exhortation. The day of redemption.
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The Spirit of God is a person, by the way, He's not a force. He's a person. Therefore, He can be grieved.
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Never forget that. So, in that sense, the Spirit of God knows,
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He feels, He knows He is a person. What grieves
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Him? What do you think grieves Him? Refusing to obey, refusing to submit, submitting to our sinful ways rather than righteous living.
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I think that grieves Him. The greatest sermon that you and I can preach is not necessarily me standing up before you right now preaching, it is your life.
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It's the way you and I live before this sinful world. It is the way you and I live before our family.
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It's the way we treat our wives. It's the way we treat our children. It's the way we live and conduct ourselves.
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That's important. We need to hear more of that. I need to preach that more to myself.
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It's the way I treat my wife because she's my very first ministry. In that sense, because Christ says,
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Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loves the church. I am to treat her as Christ treats the church.
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That convicts me, folks. And I want to serve her and love her more and more and sanctify her as Christ is sanctifying you and me into this body because He loves us with a holy and dying love.
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May God help us to be submissive to His lordship in this. And He seals the believer.
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In other words, what He's saying, the Holy Spirit is our guarantee. He's the down payment for our eternal redemption.
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How important it is to have the Spirit of God. It's also the Spirit of God that fills the believer and uses the believers for the glory of God.
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As we sung today, for God's glory, not for ourselves. The water is for drinking and for others to take a drink, to give.
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Not live for ourselves, but live for others and live for Christ. And as Paul says, for me to live is
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Christ, but to die is gain. Ephesians 5 .18,
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And do not be drunk with wine, which is in dispensation, but be filled with the
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Spirit. Listen to that, be filled with the Spirit. Now, he's not talking about another baptism in the
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Holy Spirit. He's talking about being baptized into the body of Christ. But there is a daily filling through studying the richness of His word and being in prayer.
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To be filled with the presence of God, that God would overflow in us. And he does it by the word of God to dwell richly in us.
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But he does it also in prayer, speaking to the Lord. That's Christianity 101.
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It's not this extraordinary experience, speaking in with other tongues. As people say, it's jibber jabber.
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And by the way, what happened there on the day of Pentecost cannot be duplicated. It was a supernatural act that they spoke the word of God in other languages.
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I could go in more detail about that. But the filling of the Spirit here, you know, when people are drunk with wine, they have no reason.
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And their reason goes out, which is dispensation.
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And then he says, be filled with the Spirit. The original actually means be being filled.
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Constantly being filled with God through the word. It means being controlled by the
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Spirit, living holy lives, surrendering our will to God's will, depending on God through trials and depending on His grace.
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And most of our living in our lives, consciously in the presence of the Lord, being possessed of God, let's put it that way, being filled with the
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Spirit is the same as walking in the Spirit. So all this is through the fountainhead, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And by the way, none of this could happen unless He paid that great sin debt for us on the cross.
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That's why Paul says, I preach Christ Jesus the Lord, not ourselves.
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Jesus Christ and Him crucified because everything that we have, all the benefits comes through the cross.
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The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the fountainhead. We're going to sing it at the closing.
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There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. Sinners can plunge beneath that blood, lose all their guilty stains.
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So if you're guilty, weighed under the horrors of sin, the transgressions of sin can be cleansed.
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It's the opening up of water. We see this in John 4, as Jesus spoke to the woman at the well.
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Here's a woman, her life is in a mess. In chapter 4, the
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Samaritan woman, she meets the Messiah. Verse 6, and by the way, verse 4 says, and He needed to go through Samaria.
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He knew by the providence of His Father, He needed to be there. Jacob's well was there.
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What an illustration Jesus gave to her. Jesus therefore being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well.
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Here He was, tired and weary as a man. And He's sitting on the well, and it was about the sixth hour, the heat of the day.
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The woman of Samaria came to draw water. She was thirsty because it was hot.
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She come to draw from the well. And Jesus said to her, give me a drink.
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Give me a drink. Listen to what is about to be said. And His disciples had gone into the city to buy food.
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And the woman of Samaria said to Him, how is it, speaking to Jesus, how is it that You being a
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Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? That's not right.
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The Samaritan women, they were rejected because they were mixed breeds. You see this?
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There was prejudice. There was hate. This woman lived with several men.
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Jesus pointed it out to her. He didn't withhold pointing out her sin. But He lovingly does this.
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And then she says, for Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. And Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God, who it is that says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked
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Him and He would have given you living water. Here she is. She feels like filth.
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She's rejected. And here He is. He comes to offer living water to a thirsty woman that's seeking satisfaction.
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And she can't find the satisfaction in all things of the world and sex and having one man after another and all the things of the world.
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But Jesus says, I can give you satisfaction. Isn't it wonderful? If you've got
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Jesus, folks, you've got it all. We tell people if you don't have
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Jesus, you've got nothing. Jesus said this. The woman said to Him, sir, you have nothing to draw with.
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The well's deep. Where then do you get that living water? See, now she's saying,
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I want that living water. Are you greater than our father Jacob?
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Oh my, yes. Who gave us this well, Jacob's well, and drank from it himself, as well as sons and his livestock.
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Jesus answered. Oh, Jesus didn't say, oh, I'm greater. No, He didn't. You know what He says to her?
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He goes to the heart of the matter. He doesn't compete with Jacob. He goes,
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He's the son of the living God. He's the one that made Jacob. He's the one that wrestled with Jacob before He came into this world.
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And He said, whosoever drinks of this water will thirst again. He's looking at Jacob's well. Whosoever drinks of this water of the world, everything in the world is dry.
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It will not satisfy. And Jesus said, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.
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But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of living water springing up into everlasting life.
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Hallelujah. I could keep on going on that chapter. But to move right along, you see,
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Jesus speaks. Jesus speaks recognizing.
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We must recognize that we have a thirst. And that woman recognized it. The Samaritan woman recognized it. The second thing is the reward of the fountain of living water.
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The reward. So you see this in the next verse in chapter 7.
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Wonderful text, isn't it? He says this, He who believes in Me, as the
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Scripture has said. Isn't it amazing? The living word goes to the written word.
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Out of His innermost being, out of His heart, or out of His belly, the old King James says, will flow rivers, rivers, rivers of living water.
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Salvation, satisfaction, strength and service.
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That's all God provides. I hope I can get through these for you. Salvation primarily is the grand benefit to make us whole in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Christ comes to make us whole. That's salvation. But also, it not only means wholeness, it also means deliverance.
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That God is a God of deliverance. He comes to deliver us.
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Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. Jehovah saves.
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Joshua saves, basically. So here, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith is eternally saved by His amazing grace.
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John 3 verse 36, He who believes or obeys the Son has everlasting life.
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He who does not believe in the Son shall not see life. But the wrath of God abides on him.
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Abides on him. Still abiding on him. I love the Psalms.
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You see all these benefits of salvation through the Psalms. Psalm 103 is one of my favorites.
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I don't know about you, many of them. I love 119, it's the Mount Everest. But Psalm 103 is so powerful.
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Notice how it starts. I'm not going to read all of it, but he says this. David is blessing the Lord. He said,
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Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. All that is within me, bless His holy name.
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Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. And then he starts naming them.
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Who? Notice the who. Who forgives all your iniquities?
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Who heals all your diseases? That doesn't mean all the time physically, it could be spiritually speaking too.
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Who redeems your life from destruction? Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies?
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Who satisfies your mouth with good things? That your youth is renewed like the eagles.
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That's just the first five verses. Who forgives? Who heals? Who redeems? Who crowns?
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Who satisfies? Only God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Hallelujah.
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So there's salvation. That's a benefit. Satisfaction is another one. John 7, 38.
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Out of His heart, innermost being, rivers of living water, they come forth from the fountainhead,
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Jesus Christ. I love what that old hymn says. Let the water and let the blood from thy wounded side, some says, ribbon side, which flowed.
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Be of sin the double cure. Save from wrath, make me pure.
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The water and the blood, that's what came out of His side, isn't it? When the soldier drove the spear through His side, water and blood came out.
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Hallelujah. The cleansing fountain, the Lord Jesus Christ. The innermost being is that part of man that is actually never satisfied.
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We feed it. Soon thereafter, it cries out for more and more and more in this world. Dissatisfaction, discontentment.
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It's like we're always discontent. But Jesus satisfies, folks. You think of Solomon.
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He said this in Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. This was the richest man that ever lived.
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He had it all. He had wives, concubines. He had all the riches, and he said it's all vanity.
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Again, if you don't have God and Christ, you have nothing. Only Jesus Christ can satisfy.
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Jesus said in Matthew 5, 6, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
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That's the promise, folks. Jesus gives that promise, and that means if you thirst for righteousness and hunger for righteousness, you will be filled.
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God will fill you. Very opposite of self -righteousness, isn't it?
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Opposite. Self -righteousness speaks of those who seek
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God's righteousness their own way, their own self -righteousness. See, we are not to have a righteousness of our own.
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Our own righteousness is filthy rags. And by the way, Romans 10, 3 says we are not to establish a righteousness of our own.
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Only Christ's righteousness pleases the Father. Psalm 34, 8.
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Oh, taste and see. Taste it. You've got to taste it. You must appropriate it by faith.
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You must see. Taste and see that the Lord is good. He's good.
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His goodness, as Brother Keith mentioned about the attributes of God. Meditate on God's goodness. Contemplate on who
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God is. He's always good. The days are evil, as the
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Puritan Brooks says. But God is good. Taste and see that the
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Lord is good. How about this one? Psalm 107, 9. For He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness.
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With God's goodness. He fills your soul. Only Jesus can satisfy.
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Amen. Salvation. Satisfaction. What about strength? How about strength?
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The water, the living water never abates. God's strength has an unending supply from everlasting to everlasting.
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He's God. That means all that He is in His love, His attributes, His grace,
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His goodness, and all that He is will never run out of supply. The living water that is so powerful.
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Even in our weakness. And that's when it's the most powerful. It is in our weakness that God comes and shows
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Himself strong. The joy of the Lord is our strength, beloved. Gives us hope in a dark, dying world.
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All this through Jesus Christ. Through Christ.
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In Christ. Christ. Christ in you. The hope of glory. The abiding presence of God dwelling within you.
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The spirit of the living God. Well, we have satisfaction. We have salvation, satisfaction, strength.
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What about service? God makes us for service. That's why we're here among each other.
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One another. To serve one another. To honor one another. To love one another. To pray for one another.
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To encourage one another. It's not about us. It's about Christ. And we must look at the judgment because one day, our goal is to hear the
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Lord Jesus Christ say, Well done, good and faithful servant. To love the brethren.
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As Jesus commanded us to love one another as He has loved us. So the
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Bible makes it very clear that this water of life is that within our innermost being forms of mighty river water flows out from us.
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What the Lord is saying is that there will be sufficient satisfaction in Him. That's what He's saying.
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Sufficient satisfaction in Him and that He will use us to reach and touch others for His glory.
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Because the water isn't just for us. Yes, it's for us. But it's also for others. Just read
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Romans chapter 12. There's Paul from Romans 1 to Romans 11.
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There's theology just pouring on. And then at the end of chapter 11, he gets caught up in doxology.
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Sound theology always goes to strong praise and doxology.
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And then in chapter 12 to the end of the chapter of Romans, there's practical
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Christian living. Then he says, Therefore I beseech you before the mercies of God.
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God's mercies. Present your body as a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice before God. Holy and acceptable unto
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Him. Do not be conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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And then he goes on to say not to think of ourselves as we ought to think, not to think more highly as we think.
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And basically he says, it's by the grace of God you are who you are. We're nothing.
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We're dirt. And the breath that we have in us is
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God's breath. And He even loans that to us. And we have tongues not to speak against each other and to strike fire and hurt each other.
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Our tongues is to give praise to God like over a thousand tongues to sing to our great
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Redeemer's praise. Well the rock in that day in Exodus 17 as I've already mentioned, that rock was
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Christ and a type of Christ, was opened up. And the water flowed from that rock into the desert to refresh all those.
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Recognizing the fountain, the rewards of the fountain, then we come to the receiving of the fountain with an application.
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Notice in verse 37 back to John chapter 7, the last, well verse 37, again
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I'm not going to be able to get all this in, but he says, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
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There's the key. There's three key words I'd like to focus on and for all of us to focus on here in our personal application.
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The key words to summarize Jesus' gospel invitation first is thirsty. You must be thirsty.
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Thirsty ones are those who recognize their spiritual thirst. Isaiah 55 1,
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Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy, come, buy and eat.
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Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. And why do you spend, why do you spend money on what is not bread?
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And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully, the
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Lord says. Listen carefully to me. Eat what is good and let your soul delight itself in abundance.
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Then he says, incline your ear and come to me. We must incline our ear and hear what
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God is saying. Jesus said it. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the church.
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Incline your ear, come to me. Hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
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The sure mercies of David. Indeed, I have given him as a witness to the people and a leader and a commander for the people.
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Surely, you shall call a nation you do not know and nations who do not know shall, you shall run to, shall run to you because of the
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Lord your God and the Holy One of Israel for He has glorified you. You see?
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Then it goes in verse 6. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.
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We're not promised the next day. Today is the day of salvation. Seek Him while He may be found.
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While He call upon Him while He is near. Keep this in mind.
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Not everyone that comes to Christ as the rich young ruler, though very eagerly, ran up to Him, fervently, eagerly knelt before Christ and asked
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Him, Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He seemed to be impressive, didn't
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He? Mark 10 17. And in the end, He went away grieving. Verse 22.
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And with this thirst, He still was unquenched.
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Having approached Christ, He was unwilling to take the critical step, the third step.
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And what was that? The drink. You see the difference? He had all the right questions.
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Of course, I think He really slipped up when He said, Good Master. Jesus called onto His hypocrisy right away.
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He said, Why call Me good? There's only one good, and that's God. But He didn't drink from the water.
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You must appropriate it by faith. Only the thirsty.
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You see, you must realize you've got to thirst, and then you've got to drink that water. You must appropriate it.
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You've got to put it to your lips, drink it. Only those who do receive the living water in Christ and all others prove themselves to be false disciples if we're not careful, whose repentance is insincere, incomplete, and unfortunately false.
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The Bible says even Esau sought repentance with many tears and did not find it.
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The way is straight, folks. According to Acts 11 -18, the repentance that leads to life results in forgiveness of sin and must be godly sorrow, not worldly sorrow.
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It involves far more than just mere tears and remorse, as I mentioned about Esau. Pastor John McArthur says this,
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Those who manifest genuine repentance acknowledge the deep thirst of their personal guilt before a holy
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God, realizing that they can do nothing of their own to avert His judgment that they deserve.
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Thus they rely on the sacrifice of Jesus as payment for their sins, affirming Him to be the only
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Savior, John 14 -6, Acts 4 -12, and the Lord of their lives,
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Romans 10 -9 -10, and this way they drink the living water that He provides, which becomes in them a well of water springing up into eternal life."
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Hallelujah. Let me close with an illustration and a part of a hymn by Horatio Barner.
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Illustration is very simple, very, very simple, but this is profound. We must appropriate it, folks.
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We must appropriate it by faith. Beloved, if you and I are very thirsty and can find satisfaction in that thirst within a cold cup of water, it's not going to happen by me looking at that water like this.
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Boy, that water looks good. I must do this. Put it to my lips and drink it.
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That's what we must do, folks, when we come to Jesus. The water only works for my thirst, to quench my thirst, only when
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I put it to my lips and drink it. I can fix a good nice cup of water, but it's not going to do me any good if I just leave it there.
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I mean, looking at it, yes, it's important to look and live in faith, but I must take a hold of it, fix it to my mouth and drink it to my dry mouth and allow that water to enter into my body that's parched by faith.
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That's what we must do. Appropriating, appropriating by faith, by faith, by faith.
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The just shall live by faith. As the scripture says, come to the waters and drink.
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Let me close with this. Horatious Barner's hymn says, I heard the voice of Jesus say,
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I'm not going to quote the whole thing, but just the first part of it. I heard the voice of Jesus say, behold,
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I freely give the living water thirsty one, stoop down and drink and live.
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I came to Jesus and I drank of that life given stream.
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My thirst was quenched. My soul was revived and I live.
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And now I live in him. Hallelujah. Do you have this living water that comes from the fountain of life?
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The Lord Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. What a Savior. Let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, how wonderful is your word to a parched, thirsty soul.
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Thank you Father for your great love that you have given your best.
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Your one and only Son. Oh God, our
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Heavenly Father, like that wonderful song that originated from South Africa years ago, let your living waters flow over my soul.
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Let your Holy Spirit come and take control all my situations.
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All that troubles my mind. All my cares and burdens unto you
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I roll. Father may we all cast our care upon you for you care for us.
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How willing you are to give such a endless supply of living water all because of Christ dying in our place, the
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Lamb of God. Thank you oh Lamb of God. Thank you Jesus for that great sacrifice.
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It will take all eternity, all eternity to praise and worship you for the great cost that humbles us before the cross of the precious blood that was shed.
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Thank you Father for the fountain that washes our sin whiter than snow.
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Lord help these children, help each and every one of us see this. Nothing else matters in this life.
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So all to you Lord we give. Thank you oh Lord for all that you have given for our sacrifices, nothing in comparison.
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All we can do is just lay before your feet and worship like Mary did and choose the best, the best.
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Help us Lord we pray to do this for your glory. In Jesus name