Quenching Your Spiritual Thirst
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. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. 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. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.
– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
John 7:37-52
THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT
37 On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out,“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” 39 He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
THE PEOPLE ARE DIVIDED OVER JESUS
40 When some from the crowd heard these words, they said, “This truly is the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But some said, “Surely the Messiah doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? 42 Doesn’t the Scripture say that the Messiah comes from David’s offspring and from the town of Bethlehem, where David lived? ” 43 So the crowd was divided because of him. 44 Some of them wanted to seize him, but no one laid hands on him.
DEBATE OVER JESUS’S CLAIMS
45 Then the servants came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him? ”
46 The servants answered, “No man ever spoke like this! ”
47 Then the Pharisees responded to them, “Are you fooled too? 48 Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd, which doesn’t know the law, is accursed.”
50 Nicodemus — the one who came to him previously and who was one of them — said to them, 51 “Our law doesn’t judge a man before it hears from him and knows what he’s doing, does it? ”
52 “You aren’t from Galilee too, are you? ” they replied. “Investigate and you will see that no prophet arises from Galilee.” (CSB)
The Practices (John 7:37a)
On the last and most important day of the festival…
Exodus 17:1–7
All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
Ezekiel 47:1
Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.
Ezekiel 47:9
…For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.
The Promise & The Proclamation (John 7:37-39)
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me — and if he believes, let him drink. As the Scripture has said, ‘Streams of living water will flow from his belly.’”
Jesus is the Messiah
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!
We bless you from the house of the LORD.
– Psalm 118:26
Jesus is the new Temple
On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem…
– Zechariah 14:8
Jesus is God
For my people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves — cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.
– Jeremiah 2:13
The Problem (John 7:40-52)
Do you admit your thirst?
The Provision (John 7:39)
Exodus 17:5-7
And the LORD said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”
1 Corinthians 10:1-4
Now I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.
John 19:34
But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.
A Prayer for Salvation
“Heavenly Father, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but through your Son Jesus I can be more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you that he lived the life I should have lived and paid the debt and punishment I owed. Receive me now for his sake. I turn from my sins and receive him as Savior. Amen.”