COME THIRSTY
Text: John 7:37 -39
It has been said that there are four kinds of thirst. “… Physiologists . . . use Greek-based words to describe stages of human thirst. For example, the Sahara Desert is dipsogenic, meaning thirst provoking … eudipsia, "ordinary thirst, … hyperdipsia, meaning "temporary intense thirst, … to polydipsia, "sustained excessive thirst … which drives one to drink anything.” (David P. Barrett. Ed. More Perfect Illustrations: For every Topic And Occasion. [Citation: William Langewiesche, Sahara Unveiled (Vintage, 1997); submitted by Jeff Ingram]. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 2003, p. 287). We live in a world that is full or spiritual mirages where the thirsty will end up drinking anything to satisfy their thirst.
Have you ever ate food that did not satisfy your hunger or drank a drink that did not satisfy your thirst (John 6:35)? Just as that can happen in our physical bodies it can also happen in our spiritual hunger.
Like every book you have read or movie you have seen, this passage of scripture has a plot, characters--- protagonist (the main character[s]) and antagonists (opponents), a setting, a conflict and a desired outcome. Jesus wants us to have the outcome of eternal salvation. Our antagonists are one thing, but we all have a universal archenemy named Satan. Satan strategically who works indirectly through antagonists and directly through his own schemes for our destruction.
ARCHENEMY’S AGENDA---KILL THEM ALL
Did you notice where Satan tries to take advantage in this story? 1) Though Satan is not mentioned directly in this story, it does not mean that he is not an active participant in trying to deceive others. 2) The timing and the place of Jesus’s urgency to drink of the only water that satisfies is crucial. It was during a festival when Jesus made His urgent cry to come and drink of the water that He offers. 3) Did you ever play hide and seek or kick the can utilizing a “safe place” being on base to escape the one who was “it”? Did the religious festival provide a safe place? 4) Satan could care less about places when he seeks to deceive people in all places. Satan does not have to possess us to lie to us. He lies to us to destroy our understanding of God’s plans for us!
The people who were there, were pilgrims on a pilgrimage. 1) What was the significance of the pilgrimage mentioned in the earlier section of John 7? As someone (Elmer Towns) has pointed out, there was a “twofold purpose” to the pilgrimage. 2) It was a seven day feast known as the Feast of the Booths. It was also an annual event where people would live in booths (tents) made of palm branches for seven days outside Jerusalem to remember and recall God’s providence for their ancestors who wandered through the wilderness for forty years. (Elmer Towns. The Twentieth Century Commentary Series: John. Chattanooga, Tennessee: AMG Publishers, 2002, p. 69, 71). 3) As we know, salvation does not happen by default. It is possible for someone to be lost in a crowd at a religious festival or even in church! Satan would love nothing more than for a person to be deceived by equating church attendance with salvation! Salvation cannot happen without Jesus Christ!
How does the archenemy Satan seek to kill us all? 1) Satan is the thief who comes to kill and destroy (John 10:10) and deception is one of his main weapons of choice because he is the father of lies (John 8:44). 2) Satan uses deception either directly or indirectly to accomplish his purposes. 3) Matthew 24:24 says “For false Messiahs and false prophets will appear; they will perform great miracles and wonders in order to deceive even God's chosen people, if possible”. 4) We cannot even trust our own hearts according to what it says in Jeremiah 17:9. 5) Jesus taught more than once in parables about those who are self-sufficient. Take Lazarus in the Parable about Lazarus and the rich man as an example. The rich man trusted his own self-deceiving heart in the story about Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:14 – 30). What happened to him? Satan had deceived him indirectly through his self-sufficient-well-to-do status. Yet, in the end, he was dying of thirst. He wanted just a drop of water. 6) He was living proof of what can happen to those who drink from the world’s waters of “false hope,” or empty hope. He was going to spend eternity being thirsty and dehydrated. Only in hell did he realize he missed his opportunity! How many will be just like the rich man spending eternity with regret? How many people scoffed or are scoffing now who will end up just like this rich man?
THE SAVIOR’S URGENCY
Why did Jesus keep His travel plans a secret? It seems that Satan had orchestrated three ways to stop Jesus from getting His message out. John 7:6 – 10, and 28 – 34 gives us possible answers. First, there were Jewish authorities who wanted to kill Jesus which was why He did not travel into Judea (John 7:1). Secondly, John 7:2, explains that Jesus’s own brothers wanted Him to publicly be a show-off because they did not believe Him. However, Jesus did show up later in a way that maintained His secrecy (John 7:10). Thirdly, There were others who wanted to arrest Him (John 7:32). Finally, Jesus followed God’s planning, caution and timing to accomplish God’s will.
Why did Jesus shout? It seems that there were two reasons Jesus was shouting. First, The reason He was shouting was because the clock was ticking on the short time He had left. Secondly, His message was urgent. The message just as urgent following the resurrection as it was before the resurrection because one day Jesus will be coming back! He had followed God’s will in both timing and presentation. As Max Lucado put it, “Like water, Jesus won’t come [into our hearts] unless He is swallowed.” (Max Lucado. Come Thirsty. Nashville: W Publishing, 2004, p. 14). Jesus was echoing the words of Isaiah 55:1: “All of you who are thirsty come to the water” (CEB).
John 7 not the only place that Jesus spoke about drinking water that satisfies. 1) Jesus also spoke to the woman at the well in John 4 about the living water. 2) Only “living water” satisfies thirst and that living water comes from Jesus. In John 6:35 Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (CEB). 3) “… Jesus Christ [is] the living water which is symbolic of eternal life mediated by the Holy Spirit from Him. ” (John MacArthur. The MacArthur Bible Commentary. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2005, p. 1363). 4) Jesus is the way the truth and the life (John 14:6) and it is the Holy Spirit who continues to lead us and guide us to the truth of God’s Word in real time (John 14:25 & 16:13).
Only the water that Jesus gives satisfies! As C. S. Lewis once said … “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. . . . If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably, earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing”. (David P. Barrett. Ed. Perfect Illustrations: For every Topic And Occasion. [Citation: C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (HarperCollins, 1952); submitted by Mike Penninga, Kelowna, British Columbia]. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 2002, p. 139). Satan wants to lie to us to keep us from of the good things that God has prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). Then Satan even lies about lying.
Satan will deceive us to lead us through all the stages of thirst to deprive us of our citizenship in God’s kingdom here on earth and our eternal home in heaven. Satan wants to deceive both the religious and the atheistic. In the words of Max Lucado, “Religion pacifies, but never satisfies.” (p. 15). Even the Atheists have a religion even if they do not want to admit it. They cater to their own opinions and worship their own success. The point is clear, Jesus Christ must be Lord of all or He cannot be our Lord at all!
