Come to the Waters - 66

Well, it was June of 2000 that Dr. Richard Phillips, who pastors First Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina, made a trip to the bedside of Dr. James Montgomery Boyce, who was losing his battle with cancer. Dr. Phillips took some elders with him from the church. Dr. Boyce pastored First and Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Richard Phillips served with Dr. Boyce and was mentored by Dr. Boyce. They went to his bedside to sing some hymns that he had authored and penned, but had not yet been sung in the congregation. And one of those hymns was a hymn that comes from our text tonight, Revelation 22, verse 17. Come to the waters. I won't read all five stanzas, just the first. Come to the waters, whoever is thirsty.

Drink from the fountain that never runs dry. Jesus, the living one, offers you mercy, life more abundant in boundless supply. They sang that hymn to him and some others, and in a voice that gave evidence to being ravaged by cancer, he said to Dr. Phillips, do you see what I'm doing in that hymn? Keep Jesus at the center of your ministry. Call sinners to Jesus.

He's the only one who can save. Well, tonight, let's take a look at this verse that was drawn upon for the words of this hymn. And it's verse 17. And the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him who hears say, come. And let him who thirsts, come.

Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. And that verse seems pretty straightforward until you begin to think about it. And there are some complicating issues that arise out of that verse. And at the heart of the complication is the question, who is saying what to whom? Who is saying what to whom? Look at it with me. And the spirit and the bride say, come.

Let's stop there. There are some commentators and very renowned and reliable commentators who say that the opening words of verse 17 is a response to Jesus's promise to come quickly in verse 7 and in verse 12. Again, we're in chapter 22, verse 7. Behold, I am coming quickly. Verse 12.

And behold, I am coming quickly. And there are those, again, who say that the opening part of verse 17 is a response to Jesus's promise to come quickly. And the spirit and the bride say, come. That it is, notice capital S, it is the Holy Spirit and it is the bride, the church that is saying to Jesus to come.

And if that's all we're looking at, at that first part and thinking about the context here, we may say, OK, I think I see that. And then the latter verses, here's the appeal being made to Jesus, verse 17. The spirit, the Holy Spirit and the bride are appealing to Jesus to come based on his promise he's coming quickly. And then they say that Jesus responds to the appeal that's made in verse 17, in verse 20, where he says, surely I am coming quickly.

I think there's some merit to thinking along those lines. It seems plausible, except that there is more to verse 17 than the opening line. And the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him who hears say, come. And let him who thirsts, come.

Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. Notice that there are three references there, or three references to coming. Two are an appeal to come.

Notice the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him who hears say, come. So here, the first two references are an appeal to come.

But then there is a third reference to come. And it's not something that is an appeal. It's not a request. It just says, and let him who thirsts, come. So now it's directed, we're not being told of the messenger saying this, but the one who's receiving the message. Let him who thirsts, come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. I've wrestled with this.

There are other suggestions here. I won't further muddy the waters. You know, you get to the end of the book and you think, well, this is, we're going to cruise on into the finish line.

And then you come across this verse and you're like, really? You say, well, why are you making such a big deal of it? Well, let me ask you a question. Do you like being misrepresented? Do you like someone saying, well, so-and-so said this when you didn't say this? You say, wait a minute. I didn't say that. Or to say something that is credited to somebody else.

And you say, no, wait a minute. I said that. So I think it's, I'm feeling the weight of accurately representing what's being communicated here.

If indeed Jesus is making appeal through the Spirit and through the church to come, then I want to be able to say that with conviction. But as I've studied, I do not think that's what's being said here. I do not think that's an accurate interpretation.

And when you disagree with somebody who's writing a commentary, who's renowned and who's respected and who's a scholar, it really causes you to go, no, wait a minute. What don't I understand? What is not front and before me that's helping me that I'm missing what he's seeing? But as I've prayed and thought and studied and consulted others, I've come to a different conclusion. Because that second phrase again, and the Spirit and the bride say, come.

It's obvious. Again, we're struggling with the question, who is saying what to whom? Well, we know it's pretty clear at the very first part of verse 17, who is saying this? The Spirit, capital S, the Holy Spirit and the bride, which is the church. They collectively are saying this word, come, this of making this appeal come.

So that seems pretty easy to understand. But notice the second phrase, and let him who hears say, come. Well, you see, if the correct interpretation is that the Spirit and the bride are saying this to Jesus in response to his promise to come quickly, well, what do we do with the next word? And let him, it's not a capital H, let him who hears say, come. Jesus isn't going to make an appeal to himself to come. He's already said he's coming quickly, so that doesn't make sense.

So who is being referred to here? And let him who hears say, come. Well, I think for me, it's best to think about Isaiah chapter 55, verse one. So turn there, if you would with me, Isaiah 55, verse one. Isaiah 55, verse one, and notice the similarity here, this verse, verse one, three times the word come is there. Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat.

Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. This interpretation that this is not the Spirit and the bride appealing to Christ to come, but it is the Spirit and the bride making an evangelistic appeal to sinners to come to Christ and or for professing believers to continue to draw near and come to Christ that they might persevere to the end. I am of the mind that that is what is being communicated here in verse 17. That interpretation forces us to view all three references there in verse 17 of Revelation 22 to come as the prophetic ministry of the church and calling sinners and believers alike to come to Christ. You say, well, why would the church be calling believers to come to Christ? Would you just come to Christ once? If you're so thirsty and you come to Christ to have your thirst assuaged, are you never thirsty again?

Well, obviously, that wouldn't be accurate. We're to hunger and thirst for righteousness, hunger and thirst. So it ought to characterize believers as well, so that appeals to them. The church in our study here in the Book of the Revelation is presented in two different ways. We see the church set before us at times as the church triumphant, the church gathered in glory, fully perfected. And there's a reference there in chapter 21 where we're seeing that very thing.

Look with me, at least it's across the page in my Bible, Revelation 21, verse 9 and 10. This is a picture of the church, but the glorified church, the triumphant church. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, Come, I will show you the bride, the lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. So here's a picture of the church triumphant. But John isn't just given to showing us the church in heaven and its glorified state. He's writing this to the militant church that is under persecution, is proclaiming the gospel and engaged in gospel activity. So there's two aspects of the church here. So when I read and the spirit and the bride say, Come, the way I read that, that is the church energized by, motivated by, enabled by the Holy Spirit of God to appeal to sinners and to believers alike to come. Come to Christ, come to him. And then when I read and let him who hears say, let him who hears say, come.

There's a second generation here of people. There are those who have responded to the appeal to come to Christ, and now they are engaged in the same activity. Let him who hears say, come. I've told you about a friend of mine in northwestern Pennsylvania that God used instrumentally in bringing me to Christ. He persevered, inviting me to a Bible study. On a Thursday night, he called me half a dozen times until I finally went. A few weeks ago, maybe a month or so ago, we were in northwestern Pennsylvania to give Carly's sister and her husband, who look after her mother, a break.

And we were there, and while we were there, I made a phone call to my friend Don, and we went by to see him and his wife because they're just dear friends. And here's a man who's telling me about a young man that he has a burden for, who he's appealing to, who he's talking to, who he's challenging with the claims of Christ upon his life. And I think, Lord, not much has changed with this man. He was doing that to me over 40 years ago, and here I see him with the same heart, the same passion. And he's telling me this, and he's emotionally troubled by it because this person is rejecting Christ, rejecting the appeals of the gospel.

And it was just good for me to see that about my friend. But I think our passage is making reference not just to the church triumphant but the church militant, that the church is engaged in this world against foes and enemies of the gospel and of Christ. And it is the church militant that is continuing to make appeals to sinners that they might come to Christ. Now, it says, let him who hears, let him who hears. If you're a man or a woman who has heard the call of the Spirit of God to come to Christ and you have obeyed that, the question is, why then are you not engaged in this process of calling sinners to Christ? How do we excuse our irresponsibility to this?

It's easy to be complacent. None of us like, well, I shouldn't say none of us. I've met a few people that like confrontation, but the majority of us avoid confrontation.

We don't like confrontation. We like people to like us. But we are messengers of reconciliation. We are ambassadors of Christ. We have a responsibility to carry this message and appeal to sinners that they may come to Christ. As I said, this appeal is broader than an evangelistic appeal for, again, the major purpose of this book is to call back to Christ those members of the church who have strayed such that exist in the church in Sardis and Laodicea and those who are shrinking back in the face of persecution.

So, again, I think the appeal is broader than that. So, as I've helped you to see some of the complicating issues here in understanding this text correctly, let me just give you some diagnostic questions that I've raised, that I felt like I needed to raise an answer in order to come to an accurate understanding. So, question number one, who is making this appeal? Who is making this appeal?

And, again, remember how we started. Who is saying what to whom? Who is saying what to whom? Who is making this appeal? The Holy Spirit of God and the bride, the church.

They are one and the same in this. The Spirit energizes the church. The Spirit helps the church, the bride, to be making this appeal. Question number two, what is the nature of this appeal? What is the nature of this appeal?

And it is to come. And three times that word come is in our Bible and it is an imperative. It is a command. It's not an invitation. It's a command.

And to disobey a command brings liability. And, again, what is the nature of the appeal? It is to come to Christ. Do you remember Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well? John chapter 4.

You don't need to turn there. I'll just read a few verses here. It says, A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?

For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him that he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where, then, do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. What is the nature of this appeal? The nature of this appeal is to come to Christ, come to the source of life, come to Christ who is represented here as the living water.

Back to our responsibility to be carrying this message. This woman was transformed by this encounter with Jesus. She came to draw water out of the well, brought a container, and when Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, who was called Christ. And when he comes, he will tell us all things. And if you're trying to find and pinpoint a point in this conversation that Jesus has with this woman when she is regenerated, born again, it's verse 26. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Verse 27 says, And at this point his disciples came, and they marveled that he talked with a woman, yet no one said, What do you seek, or why are you talking with her? The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, Come see a man who told me all things that I ever did.

Could this be the Christ? Now the narrative tells us that the disciples had gone into the city to buy food. This woman had come out of the city to get water and had an encounter with Jesus. Her initial interest was temporal, physical water, but her life was changed. She left her water pot. Her life had been changed.

She wasn't interested in temporal water. She went back into town to be a witness for Jesus. We say, well, how effective was she? Men from the city. She said, Come see a man who told me everything about me. Could this be the Christ? She brought men from the city with her. And it says, And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans had come to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed with them two days. You say, well, were these disciples asleep at the switch? They'd been with Jesus for, I don't know how long at this point, a good while. What was their focus? Their focus was temporal.

They went into town to get food. This woman had come out of the city to get water, went back, and she's more interested in spiritual things. And you have to understand the context. I've heard people preach about this verse and totally, absolutely miss the whole context.

You ready for this? Jesus says in verse 35 to the disciples, Do not say there are still four months, and then comes the harvest. Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest. Lift up your eyes and see. In other words, where are you looking?

What were you doing? Is you rub shoulders with lost men and women. That's a rebuke to them, but it's certainly a rebuke to us because we can get so busy living life that we forget the more important thing.

The temporal can certainly take precedent over the spiritual canon. So who is making this appeal? The spirit and the church combined. Who were the recipients of this appeal? Well, sinners. Sinners.

Question number four. How is this appeal made? How is this appeal made? Well, it's made through gospel proclamation, right? How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?

And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? The message requires messengers. And we've been entrusted with a message, a life-giving message. And there is a stewardship related to that message.

Again, we're asking the question. Again, verse 17, Revelation. The spirit and the bride say, come. What is the role of the Holy Spirit?

What has He given Himself to? What do we learn about the Holy Spirit? Again, it's the spirit and the church that are making this appeal. When you read the gospels, you discover that the spirit's role and goal is to draw attention to and magnify and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ.

He does not draw attention to Himself. And I'm convinced that this is a primary way that you can know that the spirit is at work in you. Because He's in the business of pointing you to the person and work of Christ. He is wanting you to grow in your knowledge of Christ. He's wanting you to grow in the grace of Christ. And if what you believe is the Holy Spirit, and He's not doing that in your heart and life, perhaps a counterfeit spirit is at work.

Jesus said this in John chapter 16 in verse 14. The Spirit will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. So, the mark of a spirit-led, spirit-indwelt church will have this predominant characteristic. It will permeate, it will color everything that the church is doing.

What is it? The magnification, the exaltation, the setting forth of Jesus Christ and His work. That is a good litmus test for a church. How much focus do they draw upon Christ? What do they say about Him? How much emphasis is there upon Him? So, again, how is this appeal made? It's a made-through-gospel proclamation. Spirit-led, spirit-directed proclamation.

When is this appeal to be made? Well, we're coming to the end of the book. And Jesus is at the center of the book. He's been the center of the book. This is the revelation of Jesus Christ. And John has not left that theme. Here he is coming to the concluding verses. And what's he doing?

He's drawing attention to Jesus Christ, calling sinners to Christ. Let's ask this question. What is the appeal predicated upon? What is the appeal predicated upon? Well, it's predicated, number one, upon hearing. Let him who hears. Let him who hears. So there must be a messenger.

There must be someone willing to carry the message. It's predicated upon being thirsty. Again, let him who thirsts come. Let him who thirsts come. And you say, well, what if I'm not thirsty? That's a good question.

Because when the Spirit of God is at work, that's one of the things he is creating in the hearts of sinners. Thirst. You know how long you can live without physical water? There's some debate about that, but primarily about three days.

Three days. You go without water for three days, you will die. You say, well, what's that have to do with this? Think about how merciful God is. That a man can go without living water to the benefit of his soul for weeks and months and years. And God still is reaching out to sinners and appealing to them to come to him, to come to Christ.

That's amazing to me. Because you would think we've come through the book. God has judged all of his enemies. He's cast the devil into the pit.

You'd say, well, he's done. He's done with sinners. He has nothing to do with sinners. Sinners have exhausted his patience. He's no longer long-suffering toward them.

And yet here he is at the very end of the book. An appeal to come to Christ. It's predicated upon thirst. It's predicated upon desire. Notice it says, and let him who thirsts come, whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. Desire. Morris, I loved your testimony because it was Christ exalting.

It was nothing about you. It was all about him. And it's God the Spirit who works in the hearts of men and creates soul thirst and creates desire for Christ. And if he didn't do that, there'd be no hope for anyone.

And what else do we told about this life-giving salvation? Predicated upon thirst, predicated upon desire. Let him take. Let him take.

What does that mean? How do you take this living water? Well, you reach out and you take it by faith. And again, we discover, what? For by grace are you saved through faith and this not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.

Not of works lest any man should boast. God has created a way to save sinners, hell-deserving sinners that are under his wrath. He's created to save them in such a way that when he saves them, there is absolutely no room for any merit, any credit. Salvation is of him from A to Z.

And we give praise to him for that. It's freely given. Freely given.

You can't buy it. And we certainly like to pay our own way, don't we? And if you doubt that, go out with some friends and you're prepared to pay for your own meal. But a friend says, I got this.

Let me say, no, no, no, no, no. We want to pay our own way, right? We get agitated with people that say, no, no, it's on me. Well, no disrespect.

I don't mean anything bad about this. But Jesus is saying, it's on me. You can't pay. Keep your nickels in your pocket. Keep your pennies to yourself.

They're not worth anything. Come to the fountain without any money. Buy what is given without any cost. Jesus, the gracious one, welcomes the weary. Jesus, the selfless one, died for the lost.

But again, it says take. One thing God will not do for you, Jesus will not do for you. He will not exercise faith for you. He gives you faith.

You must exercise it. You must take him. And if you refuse on that day of judgment, you'll have no one to blame but yourself. This idea, well, God didn't elect me.

God didn't choose me. It's not on me. It's on him. It's his fault.

No, no, no. Are you thirsty? Do you desire salvation? Do you want him? Well, then take him.

Reach out. But if you sit and refuse and rebel against his command to come, then why would you blame God for that? It'd be your fault.

It's all on you. Come to the Savior, the God of salvation. God has provided an end to sin's strife. Why will you suffer the law's condemnation?

Take the free gift of the water of life. It's been a long time since we've sung that hymn this evening that we sung. Come ye needy, come ye sinners poor and needy.

There's a stanza that has troubled me in the past, but I was helped tonight because I wasn't fully hearing what the hymn writer was saying. He says in verse three, Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him. You must feel your need of him.

You must be thirsty. You must desire him. You must be under the compulsion, I must have Christ. I must take him.

You say, well, that sounds like something I've got to do. Notice what the next stanza says. This he gives you. This he gives you. This he gives you. The hymn writer says it three times, so you realize, oh, even feeling my need of him comes from him.

Yep, absolutely. And God saves people through the preaching of the gospel. It means foolishness to the world, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God. So if you're here this evening and you do not know Christ, may God give you ears to hear this message. May God create thirst for you. May he give you desire. May he trouble you. May he disturb you and cause you to say, nothing matters to me anymore. The temporal things of this life, my job, this, that, like the woman at the well, forget the water.

I'm not interested in temporal water anymore. I got to get to town and tell people about a man, which she did. I was encouraged to spend some time with some pastor friends. The last few days we drove the church bus.

I drove it most of the way, and Bobby Smith drove the rest of the way to Louisville, Kentucky, to a pastor's, well, it wasn't a pastor's conference, it was a theological conference. But Andy Rice was one of the men that we picked up in Beckley, West Virginia, and he went with us, and I got to renew a fellowship and acquaintance with him. And his sister Susan was here many, many years ago, taught our fourth grade girls Sunday school class, and she's married now.

So it was good reminiscing with him, but we got talking with Andy about his children. He has two boys, and he has a boy named AJ. And he told me about AJ, and that he began to date this girl, and just in a few months announced to his mother, I'm marrying her tomorrow. Andy didn't know anything about it, and Andy said, well, I wouldn't have married him because I didn't even know about it, I hadn't counseled him or anything. So he married this girl, and then he went off to, he was deployed to Iraq. To make a long story short, they had a child. They ended up separating, and neither of them remarried.

They didn't divorce, but they were separated for ten years. And AJ was in a church sitting under the preaching of the gospel, and God transformed him, changed him. And in a matter of some time, his wife started going to a church, and I won't mention the church because I think very, very little of the church. I wouldn't recommend any of you to go to this church, but she went to this church, didn't ask Andy or anything, but went to this church, and God saved her. And Andy said, and when I say he saved her, she believed in the homosexual agenda, she believed in abortion, and he said in the matter of that moment, all of that changed completely. And they began to talk, began to date, and Andy said, AJ, have you given some thought to reconciling with her?

Well, I've been thinking about it. Well, God brought them back together, and he said, they're married today and doing well. That's a great story, isn't it?

That's the gospel. Two lost people. Well, speaking of lost people, God brought my wife and I together in northwestern Pennsylvania. We lived 15 minutes apart.

Our parents grew up there. They knew each other, and she showed up at the garage one day to get her car inspected, and I laid eyes on her. But we were married. Neither one of us were saved.

Both lost. Preacher that married us, I don't recall, don't remember him ever speaking to us about, or speaking to me about my need for Christ. He was under the impression that Carly was a Christian because she'd attended the church all her life up to that point, but neither one of us were saved. And here I am, a minister of the gospel. The gospel is amazing, isn't it? I love the fact that we have this verse at the end of this book. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, let him who hears say, Come, and let him who thirsts, Come.

Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the powerful, life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for the Spirit of God who works in the hearts of sinners to convict and to regenerate and birth them into the kingdom of God and making them sons of God. Father, cause your word to bear fruit in our lives. Father, some of us need motivated about our sense of responsibility for the sake of the gospel. We're too passive. We're too quiet.

We're too contented. Father, give us boldness. Give us a sense of urgency for those around us. Give us a burden for the lost.

Renew our confidence in the life-giving message that we've been entrusted with. Father, thank you for salvation, full and free in Jesus Christ. Father, thank you for the work of the Spirit of God that continues to cause us to hunger and thirst for righteousness. You who create that hunger and thirst are the same who satisfy that hunger and thirst with yourself. All praise and honor and glory to you for this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.