Are You Thirsty?
Notes
Transcript
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 4950 If Holy Spirit Pulls Off …
“If God called his Holy Spirit out of the world, about 95 percent of what we are doing would go on and we would brag about it.”
This blunt statement about church programs by Dr. Carl Bates of Amarillo, Texas, was coupled with an equally blunt question to ministers at the annual Baptist Statewide Conference on Evangelism in Columbia, S. C.: “What are you doing that you can’t get done unless the power of God falls on your ministry?”
Lord God, bless Your Word wherever it is proclaimed. Make it a Word of power and peace to convert those not yet Your own and to confirm those who have come to saving faith. May Your Word pass from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip, and from the lip to the life that, as You have promised, Your Word may achieve the purpose for which You send it, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. John 7:37-39
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
The feast to which John refers is the Feast of Tabernacles, or Booths. The Feast of Tabernacles was a fall harvest festival and one of three pilgrimage feasts required of Jewish men, commemorating Israel’s wilderness experience and God’s supernatural provision during that time. The seven-day celebration began on the fifteenth day of Tishri (September–October), with people constructing temporary huts of leafy branches on rooftops and along roads. An eighth day concluded the festivities, dedicated to Israel’s petition for abundant rain as a sign of God’s continuing care.
Shepherds after My Own Heart: Pastoral Traditions and Leadership in the Bible The Shepherd-Lamb and the Eternal Feast of Tabernacles
Tabernacles was a holiday whose meaning was informed in part by
The events recorded in the Gospel reading today take place after Jesus had declared, in John 6:55-57
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.
This statement led many of Jesus’ followers to abandon Him, but Peter and the other chosen apostles stayed.. Even here, the comfort that Jesus might have taken from Peter’s declaration of faith was leavened with the knowledge that one of the 12, Judas Iscariot, would betray Him. At the beginning of John 7, Jesus returns to Galilee to avoid the reach of His enemies among the Jews, who “were seeking to kill Him.” Jesus’ brothers suggested that he should go to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, which was required under the Law of Moses in Deut 16:13-15
“You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
John says that their arguments were not based upon faith in Jesus or His mission: John 7:5 sadly says, “For not even his brothers believed in him.” After initially declining, Jesus goes to Jerusalem, but privately. About the 3rd or 4th day of the feast, Jesus reveals Himself by going up into the temple and teaching. This heightens the controversy surrounding Him, and the Chief Priests (Sadducees), join with the Pharisees, their theological adversaries to seek Christ’s arrest.
Jesus’ final words in this chapter, on the last day of the feast, take everything that had been involved in the celebration, and place it upon Himself as the fulfillment of the Feast. Still, when it all comes to a head, It is not yet Jesus’ time; the officers who had been sent to arrest Jesus reported back that they could not do so, because “No one ever spoke like this man!”
One reality that we can see here, if we have ears to hear, is that, in the words of Ecc 3:1-2
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
Just as Christ came into the world in the fullness of time, and entered into His ministry when the time had come, so He would not enter into His passion until the proper season had arrived, until the time for that purpose was at hand. All of life is in the hands of the Father. We cannot manipulate things, we cannot force God’s hand. We are not called to bring the Kingdom down from Heaven, or bring about the Times of Refreshing that will take place when the Lord returns from Heaven to make all things new.
In like manner, we are charged to “occupy until He comes,” to ‘make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that [Christ] has commanded.” We cannot insulate anyone or any place from what God has declared concerning the last days. Only God can rescue anyone from His approaching wrath, and He has chosen the Gospel as the only means by which to bring that to pass. There is only one Way, only one Truth.
If you are among those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Jesus has promised that you will be filled, but He is the only food who will satisfy your hunger. God has no Plan B, because God never fails. His word never falls to the ground void. It always accomplishes the purposes for which He sends it, as it is written in Psalm 107:20, “He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.”
John the Baptist bore witness, recorded in Matt 3:11
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
John called people to repentance, but John could not bring about the true repentance that comes with the Holy Spirit. The baptism of John was not enough, for it only was a preparation for the Coming One. John was not the Light, but He came to bear witness . We, too, are hear to bear witness to the Light. We are greater than John, Jesus said, but John was able to fulfill HIs purpose because He was filled with the Holy Spirit from HIs mother’s womb in order to accomplish it. The waters of Holy Baptism are joined to Christ’s Word of Promise to transfer us from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son. That sacramental Word of Promise gives what the faith that it declares because it is the utterance of Christ, and as it is written, Romans 10:17 “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
The day of Pentecost was the Feast of the Firstfruits of the Eschatological Harvest that will come to pass when Christ returns as it is written in 1 Thess 4:16-17
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
For this present time, the Lord has given us what we need in order to do business until He comes. He has given to us our share, whether it be large or small, and He only asks us to do what He has equipped us to do: preach the Gospel, and love our neighbor as ourselves. We don’t need to work great signs and wonders, we don’t need the praises of men. We only need to be faithful, even if it’s in a little thing, unto He comes. Our Lord was faithful unto death, even the death of a cross, in order to save us from sin. Remember that our Lord has the Crown of Life reserved for those who trust in Him.
In the meantime, when the crowds were surrounding the Lord, singing His praises, Jesus stayed on message. When the Pharisees were taking counsel together to kill Him, Jesus stayed on message. Jesus knew His calling then, and He knows it now. 2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Don’t you get discouraged, if things don’t seem to be the way that you think they should be, just trust in the Lord and occupy until He comes. Don’t question the purity of the Gospel if it seems like others can’t grasp it, just trust in the Lord and occupy until He comes. His grace is still sufficient; His flesh is still true food and His blood is still true drink. The Lord still knows how to save souls, and how to prepare the good works in which we shall walk, if we faint not.
And the peace of God, that passes understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
