Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2685
“And let him who thirsts come. And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Revelation 22:17.
Our morning’s discourse [Sermon #1608, Volume 27—THE DOUBLE “COME”] was upon the first part of this verse—“The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears, say, Come.” I tried to show that everyone who has truly heard the Gospel call is bound to go forth and, in his turn, cry to others, “Come to Jesus.” But if every hearer of the Gospel is to say, “Come,” certainly every preacher of it is especially called to repeat the invitation again and again. I seemed, this morning, to have it laid upon my own heart that the very next time I entered the pulpit, I must take care to make this call the burden of my discourse, as I ask you, dear Friends, also to make it the burden of yours. “Let him that hears say, Come.” But let him that preaches say it with a more distinct emphasis than anyone else! So, tonight, I daresay that my message will appear to some of you to be monotonous, for I shall strike the same note again and again, and again, and bring out from it only this one sound, “Come, Come, Come!” Yet let me tell you that if God shall bless that invitation, and sinners do come to Christ, there will be more music evoked from this note than if my sermon had been as brilliant as the highest human eloquence could make it, for angels in Heaven and God, Himself, will rejoice if sinners are brought to the Savior!
People used to say of George Whitefield—who commonly finished up his discourse by crying, “Come to Jesus,” with his hands uplifted and his eyes streaming with tears—that when he was hard up for an idea, he always cried, “O Sinners, come to Jesus!” God be praised if all preachers imitate him in that respect when they are hard up for an idea, for I know of no idea that could possibly equal in value an earnest, simple, loving Gospel invitation! How that man of God would stand on Kennington Common or Moorfields and cry, in trumpet tones, “Come, O come! Why will you not come? Come now to Jesus”! The best of it is that his cries were not in vain, for the people did come—they came by hundreds and thousands unto Him who said, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast
out.”
I. In handling my text, I am going to make a few remarks, and this shall be the first of them. I call upon every unconverted person here present who hears the message of my text, to notice THE GREAT SOLEMNITY OF THE INVITATION. “Let him who thirsts come. And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”
To my mind, the solemnity of this invitation lies partly in the fact that it is placed at the very end of the Bible and placed there because it is the sum and substance—the aim and objective of the whole Bible. It is like the point of the arrow and all the rest of the Bible is like the shaft and the feathers on either side of it. We may say of the Scriptures what John said of his Gospel, “These are written”—all these books that are gathered together into one grand library called the Bible—“these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And that believing you might have life through His name.” So far as you are concerned, this blessed Book has missed its purpose unless you have been led by it to come to Christ!
It is all in vain that you have a Bible, or read your Bible, unless you really “take the water of life” of which it speaks. It is worse than vain, for if it is not a savor of life unto life to you, it shall be a savor of death unto death! Therefore it seems to me that this is a very solemn invitation because all the books of the Bible do, in effect, cry to sinners, “Come to
Jesus.” All the Prophets of the Bible, all the Apostles of the Bible, all the threats of the Bible, all the promises of the Bible gather themselves up and focus themselves into this one burning ray, “Come to Jesus! Come, and take the water of life freely.” Oh, that it might burn its way right into your heart! It is the very end of the Bible, then—the end of the Bible in two senses—its end and its objective that you should believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The solemnity of my text lies also in another thing, for it might have been something very different I t says, “You thirsty ones, come and drink the water of life.” But shall I tell you what it might have said? Let me read to you the 11th verse of this chapter. “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still.” I am devoutly thankful that I have not to come to this railing and to say to you, “My unconverted Hearers, you may listen to me if you like, but it will be of no use. You are unconverted and so you always must be! You are unjust and you always must be unjust. You are filthy and you always must be filthy!” God might have sent me with that heavy message of woe, but it is a sweetly solemn thought to my heart that, instead of doing so, He has bid me say, “You unjust, come to the Just One and be made just by Him. You filthy, come to the Water of Life and wash and be clean.”