John 7. We begin reading at verse 32. The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Now let me go back to verse 31. It says, Some of the people said this, When the Christ comes, will he do more miraculous signs than this man? So this is what some of the people were saying. And so verse 32 says, the Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priest and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him. Jesus said, I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me. And where I am, you cannot come. The Jews said to one another, where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What did he mean when he said, you will look for me, but you will not find me. And where I am, you cannot come. On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. On hearing his words, some of the people said, Surely this man is the prophet." Others said, he is the Christ. Still others asked, how can the Christ come from Galilee? Does not the scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived? Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him. Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees who asked them, Why didn't you bring him in? No one ever spoke the way this man does, the guards declared. You mean he's deceived you also? The Pharisees retorted. Has any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in him? No. But this mob that knows nothing of the law, there's a curse on them. Nicodemus who had gone to Jesus earlier, and who was one of their own number, asked, Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he's doing? They replied, Are you from Galilee too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee. Let's pray. Gracious God, We ask you to open up your Word to us today, to speak your truth to us, to give us understanding of your Word, to minister your Word in the presence and the ministry of your Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Let's get the context, the situation here in our minds, before we delve into the text here. You remember the last time we looked at John 7, we concluded at verse 31, and we had seen that Jesus had come down from the north, from Nazareth, to the Feast of the Tabernacles that was held in Jerusalem. This is one of the three great feasts of the Jews. in which all the males in particular were obligated to come to Jerusalem to worship three times a year. Well, Jesus knew that the leaders of the Jews wanted to seize him and kill him. But in spite of that, he came into the temple courts and he stood up and he began to teach. Well, we see here from this passage that some people believed in him and some didn't. Some people said, well, when the Christ comes, is he going to do more miraculous signs than this man has been doing? Well, when the Pharisees heard people saying this, they began to get more worried because people were going over to Jesus. And so they sent their temple guards, like their religious police, to arrest him. And then they heard Jesus speaking about he was going to go away to someplace that they could not follow. And they didn't understand what he was talking about. They thought, well, what's he talking about? Maybe he's talking about going out into the Mediterranean countries around here where our people have been scattered and preaching to them. That's all they can figure out. And then they heard Jesus stand up and cry out these great words about the coming of the Holy Spirit. And here again, we see that some believe that he was the Anointed One, the Messiah. and that he was the Christ. But others said, no, he can't be the Christ because he didn't come from the right place. He came from the north, way up there in Galilee. He didn't come from Bethlehem. But they didn't know that he'd been born in Bethlehem, so he really was from Bethlehem. So the guards, after listening to Jesus, they just couldn't bring themselves to arrest him. They were captivated by his teaching and by his presence. And so they went back to the Pharisees and spoke up in Jesus' defense. And so they criticized the guards, and they criticized the crowds, saying they're a bunch of ignorant people, the curse is on them. And Nicodemus came to Jesus' defense, but they began to criticize him too, accusing him of being a Galilean. Well, and so here we have the setting for these great words that Jesus uttered in verses 37 through 39. That's what I want us to focus on tonight. The coming of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling Holy Spirit. Well, Jesus has a lot to say about the Holy Spirit in John's gospel. If you recall, chapters 14 and 15 and 16 have a lot of teaching that Jesus gave about the Holy Spirit. And we see that the Holy Spirit is so crucial to we Christians because He's the one who enlightens us, who gives us understanding. And we see that actually the whole New Testament is a revelation, a teaching not only of Jesus, of his person, of his work, of his messianic ministry, but it's also a full revelation of the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, if we look in the Old Testament, there are some things that are said about the Spirit, but it's a bit sketchy. But in the New Testament, there is full revelation to the people of God of the ministry of the person, of the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, all that the Christian needs to know about God's Spirit is revealed to us in the New Testament. You see, he is the invisible one, right? He's a spirit. So, how are we going to know about him unless Jesus, in particular, teaches us about him, and that's exactly what Jesus did. Well, in John's Gospel, we are introduced to the Holy Spirit's work in John chapter 3. Remember when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus? And he said, in order to enter the kingdom of God, man must be born of the Spirit, born of water and of the Spirit. He must, in other words, have a spiritual birth. So, the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit is introduced to us there in chapter 3. Well, here we are in chapter 7 at the Feast of the Tabernacles. in the fall of the year, September or so. And Jesus, verse 37, says, "...the last and the greatest day of the feast." Well, the Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated in the fall of the year in Jerusalem. And it had a particular liturgy that's been recorded. And it lasted eight days. And its particular focus was to remember, to recall, to give thanks to God for sustaining the people of Israel in the wilderness during that nearly 40 years, giving them food and water. Their clothes did not wear out. Well, one of the things that they gave thanks to was God providing water in the desert. And so as part of this thankful remembrance, on that last day of the feast, the priests took some golden pitchers and they went out to the pool of Siloam and they filled these golden pitchers with water and they marched around the altar seven times and then they poured out water on the altar. And it was a graphic reminder to them of the water that poured forth from the rock, in particular, that God told Moses to speak to. Well, it was probably at this point, when they poured out that water on the altar, that Jesus stood up and cried in a loud voice, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Is anyone thirsty? Have you ever really been thirsty in your life for water? It is really a serious thirst. I remember when I was a teenager one time, I went on what they call a beach trip down on the coast, which we were working on my uncle's ranch, and we worked all morning long with no water out there on that hot beach. And the only water there was, was the windmill there. Every now and then you come across a windmill, and you have to let all the cows drink first, and you have to let your horse drink first, and then you finally get to drink. You drink out of the spout. Well, that was the time when I was really thirsty. I was really thirsty. I was just starved for water. So I understood a little bit about physical thirst. But Jesus is talking about more than physical thirst. Yes, the people were thirsty in the wilderness. It was a serious thirst, because without water we died. But he's talking about another kind of thirst, a spiritual thirst. What kinds of spiritual thirst could a person have? Well, maybe there's hunger for truth, for reality. Maybe a hunger to know God, to know His presence, His fellowship. Maybe there's a thirst for forgiveness of sins. Maybe a thirst for For self-control. When sin oppresses us and we just can't seem to overcome it. Maybe there's a thirst for eternal life. To have assurance of heaven. So there's various kinds of spiritual thirst that we experience. Well, if anyone is thirsty, come to me, Jesus says. Come to me and drink. Now, how do we develop such a thirst? Not everybody has this kind of thirst. In fact, to have this kind of spiritual thirst is a real blessing from God. To know that we're in great need spiritually and to thirst for help from God is something that really is the work of God's Spirit. John Calvin said this regarding the office of the Spirit, as he calls it. It's the office of the Spirit to give us an appetite for His grace. And that is so true. It's the Spirit who does that. So if anyone is thirsty, Jesus says, he's crying out here, let him come to me. Well, you see, we need to be thirsty, but thirsty is not enough. We've got to come to Jesus to have that thirst satisfied. If we're thirsty, but we don't come to Jesus, Our problem is not going to be solved. We've got to come to the Lord Jesus Christ to have him satisfy our thirst. Well, he says, come to me. You see, we've got to be thirsty spiritually. Then we've got to come to Jesus. And then he says, and drink. You've got to drink of me. You've got to take me into yourself. You've got to receive me. Amen. So we need to take him into the inner recesses of our being in the same way that we take a glass of water and drink it down and our body would absorb it. So, come to me, Jesus says, and drink. Whoever believes in me. Well, what does it mean to drink? Jesus tells us right here, to drink means to believe, to believe in him. That's what it means to drink of Jesus, to believe in him. As the scripture has said, anyone who believes in me, streams of living water will flow out from him. Calvin said this, how do we come to Jesus? We come, it's not an approach on foot, but by faith. Okay, so Jesus is talking about coming to him in faith, believing in him, embracing him, receiving him in all of his purity and power and wisdom and righteousness. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, Well, which scripture is Jesus talking about, as the scripture has said? Well, this is very interesting. There are many scriptures in the Old Testament that probably form the background for Jesus' statement here. And Jesus doesn't tell us what particular scripture, if there is one, that he has in mind. In fact, Jesus doesn't always do that. For example, in chapter 20 of John's Gospel, it says after the resurrection, they still did not understand from the scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Well, John, the writer here, doesn't say what scripture, but he's talking about probably a conglomerate of scriptures. those revelations in the Old Testament. Well, what is the background for what Jesus is saying here? There's a number of scriptures which are in the Old Testament that probably form the background for this statement, as the scripture has said. Well, let's consider a few of them. There's Isaiah 58.11. What does the Old Testament say about the Spirit working in the lives of God's people? About streams of living water that will flow from within them? We need to look at a number of scriptures to see what this statement of Jesus is probably built on. There's Isaiah 58, 11. It says, The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sin-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Well, he said you'll be like a well-watered garden. So he's using a picture there. of the way the Lord will help his people in the desert times. And then there's a scripture like Zechariah, the prophet Zechariah, chapter 14, verse 8. On that day, looking at the future, sometime in the future, on that day, living water. This is the term that Jesus says. The scripture says streams of living water will flow from within the believer. Zechariah 14.8, on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it to the east to the Dead Sea and half of it to the west. But the concept here is living water, water that gives life. And then there's Isaiah 12.3, with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. So here's this mixing of pictures of physical water and spiritual water, the wells of salvation. And then there's Isaiah 44.3. The Lord says, For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. Well, there's a great promise there that God will pour out his Spirit on his offspring. And in Zechariah, another passage, 13.1, on that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and impurity. So, a fountain, a fountain to cleanse us. We sing that hymn, there's a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins. Well, we must mention also that great passage in Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 25. It says, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. So he's talking here about not just physical water. Although physical water cleanses us from dirt, it's a symbol of the purity of the Holy Spirit that God uses to cleanse us. He says, I will give you a new heart, put a new spirit within you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. In verse 27, I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Now here's a great promise in the Old Testament. The Old Testament believers did not have, did not possess this indwelling, permanent presence of the Spirit of God as we do after the death and resurrection of Christ. The sending forth of the Spirit upon and in God's people was a result of the work of Christ. And so here's a promise. He says, I will put my Spirit in you. Now the Spirit was active in the lives of Old Testament believers, but evidently He did not reside in such a permanent, vital, dynamic, an unending way as he does now since Jesus has poured forth the Spirit from heaven upon his people. You see, there is this promise in the Old Testament. Again, we read in Joel 2.28, "...afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all people." Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Well, Peter recognized that what was happening on the day of Pentecost was a fulfillment of this passage in Joel, that he would pour out his spirit on all people. And he looked around and saw all these people gathered there in Jerusalem from many different countries, and he said, this is a fulfillment of that prophecy. Well, let's talk in particular about the Feast of Tabernacles here. Now the reason that these people had gathered in Jerusalem in the fall of the year was because it was in the law. The law said, gather in Jerusalem for the festival of tabernacles. Now, it's interesting that after the exile, when the people of Israel had been in Babylon for 70 years, and they came back to the land, and they began to rebuild the temple under Nehemiah, And they began to recover some of the worship that had been lost. And so, actually, it tells us in Nehemiah chapter 8 and 9 that they read in the law that they were supposed to be celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. And so that's what they did. In the fall of the year, Nehemiah, age 16, the people went out and brought back branches and built themselves temporary shelters on their own roofs. You see, they lived in these little lean tombs made out of branches for eight days, like the Israelites did in the wilderness. And so, during the Feast of Tabernacles, it said, day after day, Ezra, the priest, would read them the law of God. And then when the priests began to read the law of God, they began to explain it to the people, they began to see how they had sinned against God. And so, they began to pray. And then, it says here in chapter 9, verse 15. In their hunger, the hunger of the people of Israel, you gave them bread from heaven, and in their thirst you brought water from the rock. So in their prayer, they're acknowledging how God provided for his people in the wilderness by bringing water from the rock. And it says here in verse 20 of Nehemiah 9, you gave your good spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. So God provided for them in the wilderness, manna from heaven, water from the rock, and good spirit to instruct them. So very interesting union there of physical and spiritual provision for God's people. Well, there's other scriptures that we could look at in the Old Testament. I'll just mention this, in Ezekiel 47 there's this picture of this river flowing out from the temple and where the river goes it brings life, life to the fish and life to the trees on the banks. Well, a life-giving stream of water. Well, you remember when Jesus was speaking to the woman at the well of Samaria. And she would come out there on a regular basis, every day, in the middle of the day, and she would get water to take back to her house to do her cleaning and drinking and so forth. And he said, woman, he said, whoever drinks the water that I give will never thirst. And she said to her, indeed the water I give him will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life. She said, Sir give me this water so I don't have to come here again. She didn't quite catch the message. He was not talking about physical water. He was talking about life giving spiritual water that gives eternal life. And then when he fed the 5,000 men along with their families in John chapter 6. He told them, yes, Moses provided you with manna in the wilderness, but I'm the true bread who's come down from heaven to give life to the world. And whoever eats of me will live forever. He said, I am the bread of life. And so Jesus, following in this train of thought, says that If anyone is thirsty, come to me, believe in me, and streams of living water will flow from within him." Well, what does this mean, that living water would flow from within him? Actually, the literal Greek says, from your belly. It will flow from out of your belly. Flow out from our hearts, in other words. Well, some Christians have understood this to be primarily a reference to the fact that Christians are to be used by God to bring blessing to other people. As the Holy Spirit has been received in our hearts, so he should flow out and enable us to minister to other people. And that's true. But I think that there's a more primary meaning, and I think Calvin has it right here. He says here that those who receive this Holy Spirit and he flows out of them, this is telling us that those who believe in Christ have no spiritual lack. There is a perpetuity, an unending abundance of the Spirit and His gifts. It's like a never-ending and ever-flowing stream coming out of the believer. And they continually aspire to new increases of the Spirit. Well, I think that this is true. Certainly, the Lord is to use us by his Spirit, but this living water flows out from within us. This is the living water of God's Holy Spirit that brings glory to him, that connects us with Jesus Christ, that works within us to sanctify us. This living water, in verse 39, "...by this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive." Now, it says, "...up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified." This is not an absolute statement. The Spirit was present, but he had not been given to God's people in that complete and final and culminating way that happened in particular when the Holy Spirit was poured out from heaven upon the church on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit was with God's people. He manifested himself from time to time. But you remember we read this morning that passage in John, and Jesus said, he is with you, the Holy Spirit, he will be in you. So there is a difference there from being with the people of God and being in the people of God. So today we see from this passage some wonderful and precious truths. Let me point out a few of them here. First of all, you notice that Jesus stood up in the midst of some of these people who were his enemies and he boldly began to teach. So one lesson for us there is not to be afraid when our life may be threatened by enemies of the gospel. We have to follow our Lord and seek to have courage. Another thing we see here is that he cried out, he said, whoever, if anyone is thirsty, let him come. He said, anybody is thirsty, come and drink. So there's what we call the free offer of the gospel. We see in Isaiah 58, 55 rather, Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. You have no money, come buy and eat. I remember reading about Adonai Judson, the great missionary to Burma. And he set up, he was out there, in the country of Burma, and he set up a little shelter on the side of the road, and he would take this scripture, Isaiah 55, and he would shout out to the people going by, whoever is thirsty, come! Come! Buy food without money! Come drink of the water of life! And that's how he shared the gospel there, on the side of the road. And so, this is what we should do. We should offer the gospel freely to all people. Now, those who respond, it's something that's up to God. He has to work his regenerating grace in their hearts and lives, but we must offer them the gospel. And then it says Jesus cried out. He lifted up his voice. We've got to do the same thing. You know, living a good life, a good moral Life before people is good, we ought to do that. But we've got to do more than that. We've got to lift up our voices. We've got to share the gospel. Because if they don't hear the truth, they can't believe. How can they hear without a preacher? How can they believe unless someone tells the gospel? So, in order to share the gospel, we've got to tell the gospel. And then, Jesus cries out, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me. A person's got to have spiritual thirst. And this is something the Holy Spirit must give them. But they must not just thirst. They must come to Christ. They must come to Him and confess their sins and cry out to be saved. And then they must drink of Him. They must believe in Him. take him into their hearts and minds. They must throw themselves totally upon Christ. Well, Jesus says, for the one who believes in me, streams of living water will flow from within him. What we see here, is the great promise and reality of the indwelling Holy Spirit. There's nothing more important and more valuable and more precious than the indwelling Holy Spirit. We cannot earn the Holy Spirit. We cannot buy him. We can only receive him by the grace of God. And the Holy Spirit is the one who unites us to Christ. He's the one who renews our hearts, who regenerates us. He brings life where there's death inside of us. He's the one who enables us to understand the gospel, to understand the Word of God. He guides us day by day. He convicts us when we're wrong. He enables us to pray. He guides our prayers. He speaks through us when we have groans that we can't utter. We can't put into words. And so, the Holy Spirit is God with His people. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. He's mighty, but He's gentle. And He's very sensitive. He can be grieved by our sin. So we want to be careful not to offend Him. Not to speak of Him lightly or jokingly, but to reverence and honor Him. For He is God. God with His people. And He lives within our hearts. He comes to abide. Paul says in Romans 8, verse 9, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. So to be a Christian, we must possess the Holy Spirit. He says, if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. Well, this is true. Even though our body may be suffering from the effects of sin, still our spirits are alive because of the presence of God's Holy Spirit. And then it says in the same passage that If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who lives in you. So this Holy Spirit, you see, He works a great spiritual work within our lives, but He also works a great physical work. I mean, He was there at creation, creating the worlds. Jesus is the agent, according to the Father's plan, and he's the one who not only regenerates our hearts, but he is the one, according to this passage, who will raise us from the dead. So we are so indebted and so blessed that God would give us his precious Spirit. When Jesus rose from the dead and ascended back to heaven, he poured forth the Spirit upon his church. And this is what John the Baptist said about him. He said, the Lamb of God, behold the Lamb of God, and he's the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. And so indeed, he's the one who baptizes his people, who immerses them in his Spirit, and who abides with them forever. Now, living in relationship to the Holy Spirit is not a static experience, but it's a dynamic, ongoing experience in which we experience fresh winds of the Spirit blowing across our lives in various ways. So let us give thanks to God today that our Lord Jesus Christ came. not only to die for our sins, to shed His blood, to wash away our sins, but He came to give us His Spirit, to renew our dead and sinful hearts, and give us the living water of His Spirit, that He might be with us always. Christ is with us by His Holy Spirit. every moment of every day. He will never leave us or forsake us. He will help us every step of our pilgrim journey. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for this great Lord Jesus Christ, this carpenter of Nazareth, who stood up in the midst of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem and proclaimed the truth and invited all people, whoever has spiritual thirst, to come to Him and to drink of the river of the water of life. We thank You, our Father, that in our sin and darkness and ignorance, You came to us and You renewed our hearts by Your precious Spirit and You enabled us to drink of that living water. You enabled us to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to receive the life of his Holy Spirit into our hearts, into our lives. Thank you, Father, for your precious Spirit, who is with us always, and who is with us every day, every hour, every step of our journey. We give you thanks. In Jesus' precious name. Our response hymn today will be from our hymnal. We're going to sing number 538, For Your Gift of God the Spirit.