Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3299
“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.” Isaiah 55:1.
THERE is a thirst which is peculiar to the Believer. He can say with David, “As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after You, O God.” Delightful thirst! Would God we had more of it! May we be longing and panting after our God in that sense until we shall be filled with His Spirit and shall dwell in His Presence to go no more out forever!
But I wish now to speak of another kind of thirst to another class of thirsting ones, who thirst they scarcely know for what. They have a sense of unrest, of longing, of yearning—yet they have a very indistinct idea of what it is their souls are pining for. It may be that they will find out presently what it is their thirst requires. Better still, if perhaps, by God’s blessing, that thirst shall be quenched by their drinking that Living Water of which they are bidden freely to take.
I shall not detain you with a long preface, nor, indeed, with a long discourse. I will try to make each portion of my address brief, practical and pointed. May the Holy Spirit make it effectual!
Learn from my text that God has made plenteous soul-provision and that to every thirsty soul this provision is perfectly free and gratuitous.
I. In the first place, GOD HAS MADE AN ABUNDANT SOUL-PROVISION.
We read here of “water.” Water has been pronounced the simplest, purest, fittest drink for all persons of all ages and temperaments. Now, there is a thirst in man’s body which makes him require drink. He drinks and that thirst is removed. There is a similar thirst in man’s spiritual’nature. He needs something and he feels uneasy until he gets it. The Grace of God, which is proclaimed to us in Christ Jesus, is that which meets the longing of man. That is the spiritual water for man’s spiritual thirst. In the text, the word is put in the plural, “Come you to the waters,” I suppose to show the abundance thereof, as though there were many rivers of it, so that none might fear that they should require more than was provided—
“Rivers of love and mercy here
In a rich ocean join.
Salvation in abundance flows,
Like floods of milk and wine.
Great God, the treasures of Your love
Are everlasting mines—
Deep as our helpless miseries are,
And boundless as our sins.”
The mercy of God is not a little brook which can be almost drained up by a passing ox, but it is a vast river—it is many rivers, rivers to swim in! “Ho, everyone that thirsts!” Stand not back because you think there is not enough, but come you to the waters!
Or the word may be in the plural to signify variety. The soul needs many things. Viewing eternity, God and judgment from different points of view, it needs manifold and multitudinous mercies. They are all provided and the word, “waters,” indicates that many fresh springs of consolation are ready for those who thirst for all spiritual blessings as soon as the eye sees or the ear hears tell of them! You need not fear if you need the pardon of sin, or the renewal of your nature, or guidance in perplexity, or comfort in distress—you need not fear but what you shall find it. “Come you to the waters.” There is an infinite variety in the Grace of God! He is called “the God of all Grace.” All the Grace that all the
sinners that ever come to Him can need, they shall find stored up in the Gospel provisions of the Covenant of Grace. “Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters,” for God has provided for soul-needs in plentiful abundance and endless variety!
Now, are you thirsting? It surely is not the mere play of imagination, but the sober apprehension of a fact that convinces me there are persons here who are thirsting in a spiritual sense. I think one of them says, “I thirst, I thirst to have my sins forgiven and to be reconciled to God. I know that I have done wrong—for me to plead that I have been innocent would be to add a lie to all my other iniquities. I am sensible in my inmost heart that I have both by omission and commission, transgressed the Divine Law. I deserve punishment, but I would that, by some means, I might be put into the Divine favor. I cannot bear to think that God should be angry with me every day! Once I laughed at this, but now I feel its meaning and it is like an arrow sticking in my loins. Oh, that I could have my Maker to be my Friend! I cannot fight the battle with Him—He could crush me in a moment! I would, therefore, cast down the weapons of my rebellion and be reconciled to Him.” Come, then, you thirsty one, come and have what you need! Come and put your trust in Jesus and your sin is forgiven and you are reconciled—for, far off as you are, you shall be brought near by the blood of Christ! Do you know how? It is thus—God must punish sin. Your sin has incurred penalty, but He exacted your debt from your Surety. He punished Jesus for your sins which you have committed, if you believe in Jesus as your Substitute! He endured, that you might never endure, the whole of the Divine wrath! God can now, therefore, without marring His justice, reconcile to Himself the offending sinner, be agreed with him, receive him into friendship, yes, receive him into sonshipand adopt him as His child! That troubled conscience of yours will soon have peace if you will but trust in the bleeding Sacrifice of the Lamb of God for slain sinners! Put your hands upon His dear head, once crowned with thorns for you, and you shall prove that God is our Friend, and know that your sin is forgiven! Ho, everyone that thirsts for pardon and for reconciliation, come you to the waters, and have there your desire!