Jesus Christ must be reckoned with, as he is the central figure who divides people and demands a response. True knowledge of God comes not from intellectual pursuit but from doing God's will, which is to believe in Jesus. Like a bee that gathers sustenance from flowers, believers should actively engage with God's word to receive spiritual nourishment, unlike those who merely observe or argue. The sermon emphasizes that salvation and spiritual sustenance are found solely in Christ, who offers an inexhaustible supply of living water to all who thirst and believe, leading to a profound relationship with God based on His shed blood.
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John chapter seven. Instead of reading all the chapter, I'm just going to touch on these two or four verses, and then you can read the chapter when you go home and get all that's in between. First of all, John chapter six, that will be our first text. John chapter six and verse four. And the Passover, a feast of the Jews was nine. Remember that's the feast of the Passover. Now chapter seven. And verse two.
Now the feast of tabernacles was at hand. There you have the feast of tabernacles. The Passover was the first of seven feasts. the tabernacle, the first or the last of those seven feasts. Notice verse fourteen. Now about the midst of the feast, the feast went seven days. Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and talked. Notice verse seventeen. We mentioned it last week. We'll mention it again today. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.
Now we come to the end of that seven days, verse thirty-seven. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirsts, Let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, Out of his inward part shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him, should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.
We may get into these feasts next week. I'm not sure whether we'll take them up, but if we do, it'll be a very interesting study because if you want to see how today's events, and they're very significant in the Holy Land, how these events fit into the framework and fulfillment of the seven feasts. It's remarkable, and you'll need to read in Leviticus chapter twenty-three. and it mentions all seven feet. Now that was a prophetic chapter, just like Revelation two and three give us a prophetic picture of the whole church age from Pentecost until the Lord comes.
Not only so, but those seven churches were seven literal churches that existed in that day, but there was a condition in each of those churches that represented the condition of the church down the church age. So those seven churches are prophetic, relative to the whole church age, which is now nearly two thousand years long. So these seven feasts, God gives them as prophetic, giving us an outline of events in the history of Israel right from the beginning until the millennium. Only God could do a thing like that.
And it's a possibility we'll take that all up next Sunday, Lord Willing. Now, last week we were noticing about the Lord Jesus that he was the talk of the town. Everything that said about him wasn't complimentary, but he did get a lot of attention. This means this. You cannot push the Lord Jesus Christ aside. He must be reckoned with, not only in this world, but in the next, in the world to come. And He will be waiting for you there and decide on what to do with you for eternity, what you did with Him here in this life.
What a joke when you meet them unprepared. And so Christ has got to be reckoned with. And that's the whole question of these studies in John's Gospel. He must be reckoned with. Now, God gives us, the Lord Jesus tells us here, how to acquire a true knowledge of God, known as verse seventeen, and that's why I read it to you. If any man will do his will, He shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.
There were those who were questioning his doctrine, the veracity of it, the truthfulness of it. Well, he said, I'll just put you through a text. Believe what I tell you, and you'll see whether it comes from God or not. A man could tell you something, you might believe it, and nothing happens. But you believe what God says with all your heart, and something will happen in Christ. And there are those two words. Do and know. If any man shall do his will, he shall know.
What is his will? In verse forty, I think it is, of chapter five. This is the will of him that sent me that ye believe. It may be chapter six, verse forty. That ye believe on the Son that ye may have everlasting life. God wants you to put him to the test. Do simply means, and that's a very strong word, if any man shall do his will, it means to desire with all your heart. It means to be resolved. It means to seize with the mind what God is telling you.
It means to be sincere. There's so much playing around today. That's why people are not being saved. That's why people are not being blessed. They're just not grasping the things of God, laying hold of what God says. It's not just black type on white paper. This is the living Word of God. Now the Lord Jesus gives us the opposite to reality in this text. He says over in Mark seven, six, these people draw nigh to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. There was no reality there.
And another rendering puts it a little different. These people speak very prettily. about me, but they have no love for me. There's a shallow, superfluous attitude of so many. But the Lord said, I have no time with that. If you believe what I tell you, if you do it, trust me, you shall know that what I'm telling you is the truth. Maybe an illustration might have. Oftentimes, possibly, you've seen a lovely garden. You were looking at some last night, some lovely gardens, and our pictures from Canada.
And if you observe a garden long enough, you'll find that a butterfly comes dancing into the garden, a light seeing just a few seconds on a lovely flower, and then over to another, and over to another, and over to another. And so he dances around, and he derives no blessing from those flowers, and he leaves. He saw a lot, and he lived upon quite a few, but he left. Along comes a botanist with a microscope and a notebook. And he spends some time, some time looking into this flower and that flower with his microscope and jotting down some notes.
After a while, he's got a lot of notes, copious notes, and he leaves the garden, not taking a thing. as to substance. Oh, he's got it up here. But here's something else that comes into the garden. A bee. A bee comes into the garden and he settles on a nice flower and you'll find them almost buried in it. He'll come up out of that and he'll go to another one. He stays there for a while and he'll go to another one. And finally, he's so loaded down with pollen that he can hardly fly. He derived something from those flowers.
He came into the garden and freely left the garden full. That's what is wrong with people today. They just dance around with the things of God. You read the Bible a verse here, the verse there, and the verse there, and it doesn't mean a thing. Someone else from the standpoint of a professional or someone who wants to argue. an intelligent person, one living in philosophy sometimes. They'll try and pry into these things with a microscope with their so-called intelligence to try and find something as contradictory. They don't get a thing.
But along comes a sinner, he's empty. He's lost, and he wants to be saved. And he hears a text. And this is the good one, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. These lovely texts and the one I've just been mentioning, if any man will do, you see. God's will is that you accept Christ, you trust Christ, you come to Christ, you believe what he did on the cross was for you. He says you shall know. You may have come into this meeting like a bee into a flower garden empty.
You can leave loaded with blessings. The blessing of sins forgiven, peace with God, everlasting life and the assurance you'll never, never perish. You know, it's strange how people try to think their faith. No, I'm not going out of my own family. I have a sister-in-law. She married my brother, and she's a Catholic, and he isn't. I gave them a Bible for their wedding present, thirty-some years ago, and I haven't seen it since. And I've been in their home many, many times. I've never seen her reading it.
Well, I witness to her every time I go home. Some years I seem to have made headway, and some I haven't. But I got a letter from her not so long ago. And this is what she says. I know you feel you are doing the work of the Lord, but as I see it, saving souls is done among the people who do not know God and the Bible. In other words, you should be trying to win the heathens of Christ and go down to the slums or into the dens of iniquity or into the prisons and try and preach to them. The sad thing is that the people who think they know God, and they think they know the Bible.
She said, as I see it, the poor girl, if I ask her to turn to the book of Daniel, she'd be summoned to it for a week. She couldn't find it. She can't quote a verse out of the Bible. And she says, as I see it, if not what I see or you see, if what God says, And she doesn't know Christ at all. If I bring up Christ, she gets mad. The only one she talks to is the Mary, and I can't find a version of the Bible that we're going to talk to Mary. The Bible distinctly says, and Mary is the one that says it in John chapter two, whatsoever he, Christ, says unto you, you do that.
But this is true. What about Nicodemus? If ever a man knew the Bible, if ever a man had an intellectual knowledge of God, Nicodemus did, he was one of the leading expositors of the day. Christ said to that religious man, you must be born again. So one could quote many things, scriptures, in contradiction to her statement, that the only ones that should be spoken to are the non-religious. the heathen, the out-and-out wicked, that our more religious people get saved in my meetings, in my nearly fifty-some years' preaching, than the out-and-out ungodliness.
Church members, officials in the church, people doing the best they can, living a good life, for they're not born again. They haven't done what this verse says. If any man will do, His will, he shall know of the doctor. You say, well, I hope I'm serious. I want to be. I said this to a man the other day in the hospital. I said, are you the same? He said, I hope I am. Are you married? Yes, I'm married. How many kids you got? He told me I said, do you hope you're married? No, he said, I know I'm married.
Well, I said, I know I'm saved. And if you don't know you're saved with the same assurance that you know you're a man, there's something wrong with you. When you really know Christ, when you've been born again, you know it. The Bible gives you that authority. What about that solemn text? Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. The Lord is talking. For many shall say unto me in that day, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence. We have taken the communion.
Thou hast talked in our streets. And we have done many wonderful works, miracles. And we have prophesied in your name their preacher. And he shall say unto them, Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity. I never knew. How wrong was my sister-in-law's question for what she wrote, that the ones I should be trying to read, that the ones who don't know about God and the Bible. Friend, I want to say this, as many women today, and the sad thing is, Some of them are so clean, have good characters, would do the best they could to help you, and yet they've never been born again by the Spirit of God.
Well, getting back to our text, I mentioned those two texts over in John, six and four, and seven and two, the seventh peace of Jehovah. You know, it's strange how the Jews only keep four of these today. And this was given to the Jews. The Jews today, they keep the one, the Passover, a peace act, they call it, and also the Shabbos, the Pentecost, feast, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and Zakat, the Feast of Tabernac. What about the other three? Why don't they keep those? I don't know.
But they eliminate those three. When God saves, you're going to keep seven. You may say something next week, why they don't. Here you have these feasts, conceived by God, ordered by God, arranged by God, and appointed by God. And these seven feasts punctuated the Jewish calendar from April the fourteenth to October the fiftieth, and that's where our two-section was. And these feasts were arranged by God for his people in that order. God is setting forth his great scheme of redemption for the coming centuries in these feasts.
Man did not originate these feasts. Man did not arrange them. God selected these feasts, these special occasions, and he called them by certain names. God called them feast. He called them festivals, celebrations, convocations, memorials, and holidays. We have Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and other days. And God selected. He chose these various feasts. And the children of Israel had the keep. They were under the law to do so. And the remarkable thing we may mention next week.
in that chapter, twenty-three of Leviticus, ten times over, God says, relating to these three, ye shall do no servile work in, I see. Lay down all your work. You're to do no work. All you're to do is to celebrate and rejoice over what I have done and will do for you. That's the whole kernel of the whole business. What could you celebrate and rejoice over in your life and what you've done for God? I'm not going to rejoice or celebrate what I've done for the Lord.
I'm happy over being able to first. But as to my getting to heaven, what I've done doesn't amount to a raw pity. I've been preaching now for near fifty years. and I don't know how many hundreds of people have been saved, but that hasn't saved me. All my labor will not take me one step toward heaven or put away one of my sins. I don't rejoice or depend upon my work or my labor or my life. I'm rejoicing in the fact But Jesus Christ died for me upon the cross.
He shed his blood to put my sins away, and as a pool lost in it, I received them, and I was saved. They rejoiced in what God had planned and what God had performed. For them they were his children, not slaves. Here God looks upon his people, and he arranged these feasts. For them to come together on these certain occasions, these appointed times, these convocations, and he said, I want you to rejoice every minute of every day of rejoicing. In other words, blood was shed at all these feet without blood that had been no rejoicing.
Blood was shed at these feet, lambs, bullets, Rams, kids of goats and goats. They were slain of blood for share. There'd be no celebration, no rest without blood. That's very plain. Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is a relationship that rests upon blood, the blood of Christ. I have a blood relationship to my folks in Canada. I have many friends outside my family.
I think a lot of them, I love them. But there's a peculiar love, a different love, a blood relationship with my kinfolk. My brothers and sisters, friends, the relationship with God is a blood relationship, the blood of Christ. Only through the blood of Christ can we ever be saved. Without it, there's no rejoicing, none whatsoever. If you were to turn over to the twelve chapters of Exodus, remarkable passage, you'll find there how the blood was shed. The blood of the Lamb was taken, kept up from the tenth of the fourteenth day of the month of April.
This is the first feast. And the head of that house used to take the basin and catch the blood of the lamb and dip hissup into that blood and sprinkle on the two side posts in the upper little. And God said at the midnight hour, my destroying angel is going to pass through the land. And every firstborn of every family where the blood is not applied, that firstborn will die. The security... and salvation of the firstborn depended upon the application of that blood. And that's true today. The blood of Christ has been shed, but that blood has got to be applied.
No need the man saying, well, I don't want to mess up my front portal. I'll just get that blood set in a vase and sit down the doorstep. The angel comes by. He can see it in the vase. The angel comes by at the midnight hour and he looks for the blood where God said it was to be applied. He doesn't see it. He sees in the vase. And the angel goes in and the firstborn dies at the strike of twelve. God says, I want that blood to fly. Jesus shed his blood upon the cross. percentage you've got to apply. In other words, appropriate it to yourself.
His blood was shed for me. That's the only way you're going to be saved. That's the only way the firstborn was saved. God provided the lamb in our case. God told them, you said, are you going to get a lamb? and you keep it from the tenth day to the fourteenth day, it should be without blemish, and you're the ones that kill it. Not in our salvation today we don't have to provide the Lamb. God has already provided us. Behold, the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. And the Lord Jesus was God's Lamb. I slain it terribly.
God wants you and He wants me to apply that blood to our own soul that our sins might be washed away. So the lamb's blood was shed and it was applied. And what follows? God says, you take the body of that lamb and roast it and then feed on it. That's what he told them to do. You read that over in Genesis, if you want to find it, or Exodus twelve, eaten out of it raw, nor shodden at all with water, but roached with fire his heads, with his legs, and with the inward filth. The blood of the land saved them and secured them.
The word of God assured them, for God says, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. I didn't see the blood trickling down the body of Christ. No, God did. I believe it was shed for me, for God said so. And the children of Israel were inside. After the blood was applied, they went inside. Some of them may have been trembling inside. Even the firstborn, you might say, Dad, you assume you applied that blood. Yes, son, I applied it. Well, Dad, if you didn't, I'm going to be the one that will die. Son, I applied it, and you can rest. Because God says when He sees the blood He'll pass over you the firstborn.
And God saw the blood of His Son shed at Calvary, and I believe He shed that blood for me. And God says, I will pass over your sins. Your sins are put away, and His word is what assures you. Yes, but what sustains me after I'm saved? That man and those in that family, Jewish families, who applied the blood, they were to roast that lamb. That's good food, roast lamb. And you're to eat it. You feed upon the animal who was slain for you and shed his blood to put to the sins away.
How do we apply it to the New Testament? We feed on the sufferings of Christ. And what a feast! After I toss the blood of Christ and say my sins are put away, I feast upon the one who shed his blood for my sins. I've been feasting on it ever since I was saved. And I'm not tired of it yet. You know this one, he says, his head, his feet, legs and the inwards thereof. Why does God single out these three parts of the lamp? The Lord never says a thing without meaning.
He says, Feast upon the head. The head is the place of wisdom and intelligence. Can I feast upon the head of Christ? I certainly can. I think of his wisdom. his wisdom in creation, when he called this world into existence, his wisdom. Look at the harmony, the symmetry of the constellation. No man could do that. The marvels of God's handiwork, God's mighty wisdom in the planetary system.
Yes, you can feed on that if you want to, but you won't go spiritually feeding on that. But I rejoice in the wisdom of God in the plan of redemption. God bought this plan. Christ is the wisdom of God, though by myself. What wisdom is seen in God's wonderful plan of redemption? God planned it. Man is lost. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Because no sinner can die for another sinner. The one who's to die for sin must be one who without sin is without sin.
And that only can be brought about by a sinless man. There was only one sinless baby born to this world. One sinless man lived upon this world. And a sinless man died upon the cross. He's the only one God would accept as a sacrifice for my sin. There's the wisdom of God. God has vindicated his own character and that all his righteous claims and he satisfies even the devil can find fault with God's wisdom and the plan of redemption. Well, God says, I've punished sin. I said in the beginning the soul that says it shall die.
God says, I've punished man's sin. And the devil can't deny that. And God says, therefore, I'm free to take to heaven everyone who trusts my son. And the devil can't find fault with that. the wisdom of God in redemption. Thou shalt feast upon his head, the head of Christ. Then he speaks of his leg. And I can take that point further. You can feast not only upon God's plan of redemption, you can feast upon his plan for your life, life full of problems, but God and his wisdom has a plan.
He has a way of escape. He is the answer, as in salvation, so in your life. Then the legs of the Lamb. Remarkable, God says, you are defeated from the legs. The legs speak of the walk, the work, the way of the Lamb. The Lord Jesus Christ, how God feasted upon the walk of His Son. the work of his son, the ways of his son. Twice he opened the heavens and said, this is my beloved son, in whom I am wealthy. This is an amazing verse over in the Psalm.
God taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man, except one man, Jesus Christ, because he is the only man who ever lived on earth, who walked a sinful, sinless path, Why, on the cross, when the two thieves were there crucified on Christ in the midst, the soldiers came and they broke the legs of the first thief. They went over and they broke the legs of the third and the other side. But they didn't break his leg. It tells you definitely when the soldiers came to the Lord Jesus, they saw he was dead already.
They break not his leg. Why? God said back in the Old Testament, a leg bone of him shall not be broken. How God protected his son, the only man that he took pleasure in his walk. Yes, Jesus Christ is the only one that never had his leg broken because he was the only sinless perfect man that ever lived. But as for all others, God can find thoughts even in the legs and walk of Christians. Now and again they stumble.
All those saved, they can get out of fellowship with God and God can bring them back into those right paths. Feed upon the pathway of Jesus Christ and you'll get some light on your own pathway. Feed upon his head his wisdom. feed upon his ways, feed upon his mind, feed upon his motions here on earth, but feed upon his motives the inwards thereof. The motives of Jesus Christ, how wonderful were his motives?
Uncensored. Nothing selfish about him. Think of his love, his grace, his mercy. unchanging, unabating love. His very thoughts, his very deeds, his very acts of you, think of his heart. You could spend all your life because we're going to spend all eternity thinking about and meditating on and remembering his thoughts. His inwards. Jesus Christ was perfect without and within. The children of Israel after saved by blood they feasted on the land of heads, legs, and in them.
This is the food for the Christians. This is the diet that helps the Christian live a right life after you're saved. If you don't get into that book, you won't be able to live a victorious life, a Christ-like life. Here's the book. And this tells all about it. And if you read this book, you'll learn some wisdom about how to deal with us. If you read this book, you'll see how to walk as he walks. As you read this book, you'll see how to manifest those traits that come from the heart. A whole land, a roast land.
This is the diet of the Christian. A wonderful... All this is, it's in your Bible. And so God has given a provision for your salvation. And a provision for you has been sustained on your journey home to heaven. But I want to get into the three points hurriedly, the triumph or the timing of this feast. It took place just exactly as God said it would on the fourteenth day of October. And the Lord Jesus didn't go up to that feast at its beginning. His brother went up, they kind of needle him about going up.
But in the midst of the feast, verse fourteen tells you that, in chapter seven, now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and saw it. He went up right in the middle and people were waiting, the Jews were waiting to apprehend them and put them to death. but he stockled them. What happened when they heard him speak? They were stockled when they heard the Son of God speak on that occasion. The wonderful words that proceeded out of his mouth. Why, they thought this man. He wasn't taught in our schools or seminaries and listened to him talk.
He's a walking Bible. He stockled. Many women at that feast, because of his knowledge, in the middle of the feast. But then he waits to the end of the feast, right at the end, after all the pageantry, on all the rituals the Lord Jesus is looking on, from the middle of the feast when he preached, and he's watching everything for the next three and a half days. And then the moment comes. And in come the people of Israel with their palms in their hands and with their willow branches, which God said they were to do, and the feast of tabernacles.
The palms speaking of victory and the willows are weeping, the sad side of Christian life. And they were to march around that great brazen altar in the temple cross. A priest came in bearing a golden pitcher with water from the pool of silos, and he comes up and he empties it upon that altar. When he does that, there are those there, the Levi choir, and they sing that beautiful choir. They sing the halal, and they also sing this. You have it in Isaiah twelve and three. Therefore, with joy shall we draw water out of the wells of salvation.
When all this was done, it was a dramatic explanation of what happened when they went through the wilderness, when the rock was smitten, and the water gushed out, and that water from the smitten rock followed the children of Israel all the way through the wilderness. God supplied their needs. And this ritual brought all that back, how God in His grace provided for them through the wilderness, giving them water to drink and manna to eat. Right at this point, the one and a moment of excitement is lost.
The Lord Jesus is watching everything going on. He sees the excitement of the people. And all the dramatic withdrew, then the resonant voice of the Son of God is heard ringing through the choir. Everyone stops and hears his voice. In that last day, that last hour of that great feast of Seventh-day, Jesus said, If any man works, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture has said, out of his inward heart shall flow rivers of living water.
He timed it well. You people have had all your rituals for a whole week, your celebrations and everything, and all the pageantry, and you're going away just as empty as you can. That water that was poured on that altar is just little water. You need a spiritual water. And he said, it's me. This fake deed of the Spirit just living water. How wonderful on that last that great day of the week when Jesus stood and he cried what emotion in that voice.
He saw the empty hearth, like empty pitchers, that were going to go back in their calivans and groups away from that seven days of celebration. He said, if any man's first, Israel at first he saw, if any man's first, let him come unto me and pray. He that believeth on me, out of his inward path, shall the slow rivers of living water. What an abundant supply. Not a little trickle, not a little river left, but a river, a fast-flowing, deep river.
Rivers of living water. You can't exhaust the person of Christ, and you stop to think of him. He's inexhaustible. Rivers, all the spiritual Mississippians, Amazons, and the Danube and the Niles and the Niagara-Greece, rolled into one mighty river. Christ, he's offering himself and has been to this thirsty thousands down nineteen hundred years, and they haven't drained that river and never will. I care not how thirsty you are, how needy. You may have a little teacup, or you may have a barrel, he'll kill you.
whatever you need. That's what he's offering to you. Rivers of living water. That's the truth of this week. He wants you to come and receive him. Two remarkable things happened that day, and I'm going to just point them out in verse forty-three. What does he say? So there was a division among the people. because of him. Now they're looking on, they've seen what happened. They changed some of them to kill them. Minds have been changed. Some have said this is a good man, others said no, he has the devil.
Now there's a division. Some have believed, and some have not believed. It doesn't say there was a division among them because of the difference of their religion. No, because of him. He's the one that divides the world. He's the one that divides this meeting, him. It's not a division of religion. You can put all religions on one side and Christ on the other. That's the division. Between man's ritual and religion and the person of Christ, there was a division among the people because of him.
And he's the one that God is going to face you with in eternity. It's not your life. It's not your church membership. It's what have you done with Jesus? What is your answer? And what will be your answer in that coming day? He that hath the sun, hath light, He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. You can join every church in all but you can study up and trying to believe every segment of every religion in the world, and there are thousands, and go to hell.
But you can't receive Jesus Christ as living water into your heart and be quickened by the Spirit. You can't go to hell then. you'll go straight to heaven. It's Christ, or nothing. This was the message. What a triumph it was that day for some who saw the truth as it is in Christ, but not all their fanfare, rejoicing, pangering, gifts you. Their religion was an empty thing. Christ said, in me is foolishness. In me is abundance. be saved, be satisfied.
We really touch Christ this morning, and after all we preach of this chapter, Christ crucified, risen, glorified, coming again.