The Fountain of Youth, Part 1

God has given you many great and wonderful promises.

Here's one that might be the greatest of them all. I, God, who cannot lie, am delivering to you the truth of everlasting life and an everlasting new order for living, just as I, Sovereign Lord, made everything to begin with, I will make all things new. You can count on it. You can depend on it. It's my word, God says.

Write it down! He promised his children an eternal home in heaven. That's a promise that he made to you. He offers you what he calls living water that flows from Christ and sustains us with everlasting life. Each day of your life, you live with the hope of heaven, and today you're going to be encouraged by examining the promise of heaven in this message. This is wisdom for the heart, and Stephen called today's message the fountain of youth. People have searched for everlasting life since the dawn of time.

The water they're looking for is only found in God's word. You travel to Mexico, Asia, China, throughout Europe, the Caribbean, and from modern times all the way back to ancient history, you discover that they, within generations and cultures, have some kind of legend regarding some sort of fountain of youth. You can go all the way back to Herodotus who lived and wrote 500 years before the birth of Jesus Christ and hear him talk about a fountain somewhere on the continent of Africa that was allowing a tribe of people to live a very long time. One particular legend that sort of burrowed its way into our Western thinking revolved around the travels of the first governor of Puerto Rico, a man by the name of Juan Ponce de Leon, and I'm sure you've heard of him.

You remember him? In 1513, he and his men set out to discover the fountain of youth. They had received reports, supposedly eyewitness accounts, and so they began to trek through what we now know is the state of Florida, which they believed was an island at the time.

He had heard reports that natives were delivering that the fountain had such rejuvenating waters that a frail old bachelor, it was said, could be brought back to his youth and strength so much that he could take a wife and raise a family. One historian writing in 1864 said this, Ponce de Leon and his men searched every river, brook, lagoon, and pool and never found it. And never mind, they never found it. The city of St. Augustine, that's how it's pronounced, I was told, not St. Augustine. St. Augustine, emphasis on the ain, St. Augustine, I think is how she said it. Supposedly the place where Ponce de Leon landed with his men, they've kept the tradition alive, mostly I'm sure for tourist revenue. There is a bubbling fountain under the sign that says Fountain of Youth. It is connected to the city water, but never mind that.

You take a sip and people have expressed they felt better. According to popular American magician and my little research on this subject, the waters are not in Florida. They are around the cluster of islands he owns in the Bahamas, which he paid $50 million to develop. In 2006, you can go online and research this for yourself, he claimed to have found restoring life-giving water. He told one particular news service, and I quote him, you can take dead leaves, they come in contact with the water and become full of life again. Bugs or insects that are near death come in contact with the water and they fly away, it's an amazing thing.

Very exciting. Keep in mind this is from a man who lives to trick people, who is known as a famous what? Illusionist.

But he's actually said he's hired scientists to conduct examination of the water. For centuries, the subject remains a fascination with mankind, how to stay young, how to beat death. What are tips to living longer?

I went online, I found one site, Ten Tips, and I wasn't doing any of them at all. That's why I'm getting older. You can read all you want, how to somehow cheat it. People have been interviewed, it's interesting to me, who lived into their hundreds. They're specifically or especially interesting because maybe they've done something, maybe they even believe something, maybe they've eaten something or whatever that helps them live for a very long time. Maybe there's a clue there, one magazine carried excerpts of interviews with some of these individuals who've lived into their 100s. They're fascinating people. One woman interviewed was asked to give some of the benefits of living beyond 100 years of age and after thinking for a moment or two, she said, Well, there's no more peer pressure.

I thought that was particularly interesting. Another woman interviewed at the age of 120 was asked to describe her vision for the future and she answered, Brief. I love the determination of one lady who was more than 100 years old. She informed her pastor that when she died, she wanted no pallbearers from their home church to be involved in any way whatsoever. When he asked her why, she said, Well, they wouldn't take me out when I was alive. They're not going to take me out when I'm dead. I think that's just an old joke that's been around for 100 years. My research on this came across one article by one reporter who traveled to an Asian village in a village of only 3000 people. Many of them had lived into their 100s and so he interviewed them, explored their way of living, their diet, everything, and he found no clue, no secret, no unusual practice, nothing unusual surfaced.

No secret emerged. I'll never forget driving around one day, I don't know where I was going, but my two boys were in the back in elementary school, kindergarten, first grade, somewhere along the way there. They were having a chat in the backseat and one of them finally piped up and said, Hey, Dad, were you obedient to your mother and father when you were growing up? That's a trick question. And so I said, Well, why do you ask? We learn how to stall, don't we? And he said, Well, because we learned this week that verse, Honor your father and mother so that your days may be long on the earth.

And I don't remember what I answered, but I remember thinking, I hope I live a long time or they're going to find out the truth. But obedient children can die too, can't they? Innocent children. That verse isn't a magic formula, it's a general principle. Children who obey their parents steer clear of trouble and danger and bad habits in general.

They survive longer. The truth is the secret to eternal youth is not discovered in some exotic food, some discipline, some better climate that maybe isn't so muggy. It happens to be found in none of that.

And it isn't in the water in Florida or in the Bahamas. Actually, according to the revelation given by John the Apostle, the fountain of youth happens to be real. In fact, it happens to be the inheritance of every believer. The water of life, the fountain of youth, you could call it, is effectively the gospel of Christ. In fact, our future in heaven is going to reveal this rather stunning sight as God personifies these living waters in the form of a river that I believe will literally flow, literally emanating from the very throne of God cascading through the city and out into the new earth.

It is for real and it happens to be your inheritance and mine who've come by faith to Christ. If you have your Bibles, turn to Revelation chapter 21 where John is describing heaven on earth, a new heaven and earth, the universe and the descending city of God, the Father's house descending to rest upon this new earth where we will live forever. And we've already learned in this text in the first few verses that this is going to wipe out the old order of things, the old way of life. It's all going to be different. And several no mores are delivered. No more crying, no more pain, no more mourning, no more death. These things have passed away that is the first way of life on the old planet is now a thing of the past. It's all gone.

We now have a brand new way of life on a brand new earth in this brand new heavenly city where we will live forever and one of the central pieces of this new scene is this fountain of youth, the river of life. Now you think, isn't that too good to be true? You know what they say about something that seems too good to be true? It's probably not what?

Probably not true. Well, that depends entirely on who is doing the talking. And the Spirit of God anticipates this and so John writes further now in verse 5 these wonderful words. And he who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. Who's talking? Who's delivering the promise? Who's saying this is not an illusion, this is fact that will happen in the future? God.

We could call this the grand finale. God says, oh, by the way, write in verse 5, for these words are faithful and true. It strikes me that this one professor used to remind us in class as we prepared for the ministry that Jesus never preached and said, now write this down. He never told anybody to take notes, not that that's a bad thing, but he said don't. He never said write this down. You have a few times where we have God saying write this down. This is one of those times. I know it sounds too good to be true, but I'm the one speaking.

Write it down. These words are faithful and true. They will in fact come to pass. I, God, who cannot lie, am delivering to you the truth of everlasting life and an everlasting new order for living.

Just as I, sovereign Lord, made everything to begin with, I will make all things new. You can count on it. You can depend on it. It's my word, God says.

Write it down. You can check it out later and see if it came true. These words are faithful and true. He says in fact in the middle of verse 6, look there, it is done. You can render that these things are finished. Wonderful phrase, just as the work of creation was finished in Genesis chapter 2, just as the work of redemption Christ cried from the cross is finished in John chapter 19, so now the work of a new creation for the redeemed who will now inherit it all is finished in the mind and by the hand of God in Revelation 21.

This is our future scene. In fact the perfect active tense of this verb, it is done, literally means that it has come to pass and the results will continue into the future and we know the future will last forever. So John in his revelation sees something 2,000 years ago that is already finished.

We just have the enacting of it in the presence of the redeemed who will experience it and more than that receive it as their inheritance from God. Now in case you're wondering if God can pull this off, he reminds the reader not only of his promise but of his power and John is going to move now beyond the grand finale that he introduces to reintroducing us to this glorious sovereign. Notice in verse 6 God says, I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the Alpha and the Omega.

What does he mean? Well the Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet, the Omega is the last letter in the Greek alphabet. If he were writing in our language he'd simply say, I am A to Z.

A to Z. What that means is if you could take human existence, human knowledge, human history and reduce it to an alphabet, God would have been around from the first letter to the last. He is effectively saying nothing was before me and nothing is beyond me. And by the way you have the very same expression, I am the Alpha and Omega, referred by Jesus Christ, God the Son in Revelation chapter 22 and verse 13.

He claims the same thing. You have it in Revelation 21 and this text in verse 6. You've already read it in Revelation chapter 1 verse 8. The same expression, ladies and gentlemen, is used descriptively of both God the Father and God the Son. They both claim to be without origin and without ending.

They are both calling themselves the Alpha and the Omega. By the way, very strong proofs for the full deity of Jesus Christ who shares it equally with the Father. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, John wrote earlier in his Gospel, and the Word was God, right? Verse 14, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ, God the Son is the embodiment of deity is equal to the Father. I had a very, very sweet lady come to my porch about ten days ago and I was able to rehearse these truths with her, telling her that Jesus Christ claimed to be equal to God the Father.

He became flesh and dwelt among us. He, God, equal. And she said to me, Well, why would God the Son then always be talking about obeying God the Father?

Why does Jesus say, I've always come to do the will of my Father? That sounds subordinate, and it is. There is equality in their essence. There is subordination in their function, just as in the home. You have equality of essence between husbands and wives, but subordination in function as the husband operates as the head of the household. Both equally human beings, but subordinate in God's design. So also the Trinity, where you have the Son obeying the will of the Father, and you have the Spirit glorifying the Son. Perfect, equality in essence, and what a mystery. And yet here we have this declaration that would be awfully hard to get around.

In fact, impossible. Where Jesus Christ and God the Father both say, I am the Alpha and Omega. I have no beginning and I have no ending. Now he goes on further in verse six, and John adds the phrase, quoting our Lord, I am the beginning and the end. I am the beginning and the end. The word beginning doesn't mean he was the first to be created. The Greek word arche doesn't mean the first in point of time. It means the first in sense of, in a sense of sourcing. He is the original source of all things.

You can think of it this way. He's saying that from him comes every beginning. He's the beginning and the end.

Tell us. It means that he is the completion. He is the summation of all things. So he is in total control.

He's been around forever and will continue forever. And so that means, my friend, if God controls and is sovereign over the past and he is sovereign over the future and he controls that, he has every reason to believe that he can control everything in between. You see, part of our anxiety is reflected on our lack of understanding of who and how great God is. And then we become a little too great and that causes even more problems. And we live in a world that panders to that and encourages that and so you have somebody tell you, you're great. Well, you did a great job. You're a great person. You're a great man, a great woman, a great dad, a great mom, whatever.

You're great. Sometimes we need to come down a notch or two. And we do as we're reintroduced to our great sovereign Lord to whom belongs that word alone.

Sometimes it gives us a little better perspective when we're notched down a few. Perfectly illustrated by Clifton Fadiman in his wonderful little brown book of anecdotes where he told the story of the then current reigning world heavyweight champion boxer Muhammad Ali. Ali was at the height of his fame.

He was world renowned and of course he often reminded us of the fact that he was world renowned. He was on an airplane one day that was preparing to take off. The flight attendant came by and told him to fasten his seat belt and Ali said to her, Superman don't need a seat belt.

She quickly thought and replied, and Superman don't need an airplane either. So buckle up. And he did. God never has to. He never has to buckle up.

There's no accident in his vocabulary. He's never at risk. And by the way, keep that in mind when you read popular books on the nature of God. God is never in jeopardy. He never does anything dangerous. He never risks anything.

He doesn't take a gamble on anything. How can he when he knows from the Alpha to the Omega? How can he since he is the source of everything and he is the culmination of everything? He knows what could happen and what will happen as if it already did happen. And he knows everything that does happen will ultimately happen according to what he wants to have happen.

A.W. Tozer put it this way, God cannot learn anything. He never at any time or in any manner received into his mind knowledge that he did not possess and had not possessed from eternity.

Is God getting any bigger? He goes on, because God knows all things perfectly. He knows no one thing better than any other thing, but all things equally well. He never discovers anything. He is never surprised.

He is never amazed. Well put. This is our glorious Sovereign. He was before the beginning of human history. He has already seen the end of human history along with every action and every thought and every motive of every living thing throughout all of human history. By the way, this is the reason and this is why God can promise his people then and now a verse that you probably treasure.

I've seen it written on note cards. I've heard people quote it, Jeremiah 29 and 11. I know the plans I have for you, plans that give you a future and a hope. Those are empty words unless God knows the future. In fact, unless God planned the future. God has to be on capable eternally to bring about that future, to bring it to pass.

Or how could he ever say I know the plans I have for you and they're going to come about and give you a future and a hope. See God never says, oops. God never says, uh oh. God never says, oh my. So he says to John the Apostle, standing there on the threshold of the eternal heaven and earth, I am the Alpha and Omega. I am the beginning and the end. This is the grand finale which can be guaranteed because of our glorious Sovereign. Clearly I want you to notice our great inheritance. John writes in the middle part of verse 6, and I, God's still speaking, will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.

There it is. The fountain of youth. And who gets to drink from these waters? Well notice the first part of verse 7. He who overcomes will inherit these things.

These things include these life-giving waters. Now you think, oh I don't know how I feel today. I may not be an overcomer.

I wonder if maybe I'll get a thimble and somebody else will get a big cup. Well we need to understand the use of the word overcomer. You see it appearing and occurring throughout the Old or the New Testament related to the bride of Christ the believer. The reference to overcomers is not here to distinguish between victorious Christians who have it all together and those who aren't so victorious. Warren Wiersbe commented on this text and he said it this way. This inheritance is not for some sort of spiritual elite individual. John clarifies it for us in an earlier letter he wrote.

Listen carefully. He says, for whatever is born of God, literally begotten of God, born again, overcomes the world. Same phrase used here in Revelation 21. And this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our consistency.

Oh excuse me, that's not what it says. Our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world? But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

See the greatness of our inheritance is not based on our ability to earn it, to deserve it, to merit it, to be worth it. It is based upon the object of our faith who is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now earlier in John's gospel he referred to the gospel as being like water. That Jesus would offer that is living, that brings about perpetual life. And this book of Revelation, by the way, even though it is describing the events of the eternal state, still offers this invitation. Here he is describing heaven. And he says, oh by the way, you'll want this. You'll want this water. If you're thirsty, come and drink. In fact he repeats the invitation just across the page. Look at chapter 22 and verse 17.

We'll look more carefully at a later time. But you notice there, the Spirit and the Bride, that's us, say, come. I love that word, come. And let the one who hears say, come. And let the one who is thirsty, come. Let the one who wishes to take the water of life without cost. The very same invitation given.

The same phraseology used. The fountain of life, ladies and gentlemen, is for free. The fountain of perpetual youth and eternal life has been paid for in full. That's why John says, you can come and drink and you can come and drink freely. John adds the word freely at the end of this invitation.

The verb is used by John to mean just what it says in your English translation. Without cost. Without payment due. Freely. You could transliterate the Greek word to say gratis.

I love that word. You can have this. You can drink gratis. It's free. I mean David Copperfield paid 50 million dollars for his beautiful island estate and supposedly his fountain of youth.

By the way, we're still waiting for the scientists now four years later to confirm whether or not it really is true those bugs really weren't nearly dead. But his estate is closed to the public. Just in case you thought you'd get a rowboat, go out there and sneak a little sip. See if you feel better. No, it's closed.

You know what this is saying? You can have a sip of the real thing. It's your inheritance. You are allowed eternal access to the estate of God. The invitation to drink is open to the public. If you've heard and the Spirit of God has opened your ears, then the invitation has been received to come drink.

We have no idea. The slightest of ideas of our inheritance. God's offer of eternal life is an offer he made to you. And I hope you've responded to that offer with a heart of faith. Our Bible teacher, Stephen Davey, is the pastor of the Shepherd's Church in Cary, North Carolina. Learn more about Stephen and our ministry at wisdomonline.org. Today's message is not complete, so tomorrow Stephen will bring you the conclusion to it. Join us then for more wisdom for the heart. .