His Ocean for Thirsty Souls

Think about a sin so horrible the celebrities shake in horror. Think about a transgression that appalls the planets. Think about evil that astonishes the angels, shocks the solar, and makes the moon shudder. What might be so unhealthy that the Choose of all of the earth calls the cosmos into the courtroom to testify towards it?

Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be completely desolate, declares the Lord, for my individuals have dedicated two evils: they’ve forsaken me, the fountain of dwelling waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, damaged cisterns that may maintain no water. (Jeremiah 2:12–13)

God names two nice evils: first, not ingesting from the fountain of dwelling water and, second, making an attempt to drink from damaged tanks that can’t maintain water. In response to God, evil — that appalls angels and shocks the heavens — is refusing to be glad in God and looking for to be glad anyplace else. The place we search to be glad is a matter that issues the very best heavens.

Parched Hearts

Jesus exposes the identical arid evil in his gracious pursuit of a Samaritan lady. He has set his sovereign sights on making her a worshiper of the Father. He affords her dwelling water, however she is cautious (John 4:10, 13–14). Uninterested, incredulous, imperceptive, and, sure, a contact sarcastic, this lady is not going to give up simply.

He identifies her damaged cistern: “Go, name your husband, and are available right here” (verse 16). After she denies having a husband, Jesus replies, “You might be proper . . . you have got had 5 husbands [literally, you have had five men], and the one you now have shouldn’t be your husband” (verses 17–18). The love of our Lord right here is surgical, exposing this lady’s parade of sexual encounters and her parched soul.

Like each different particular person, like God’s individuals in Jeremiah 2, this lady has an ocean-sized thirst, a pining deep because the soul, a craving yawning extensive because the human coronary heart. And she or he has been making an attempt to fill that abyss with males. She strikes from man to man, cistern to cistern, making an attempt to sate a longing solely God can fulfill.

That’s like making an attempt to fill an ocean with a thimble. You may as properly try to prime off the Grand Canyon with a teaspoon. Don’t everyone knows the futility of this try? In case you are an unbeliever, you reside on this parched place. In case you are a believer, oh, how tragically typically we stray right here.

“Our thirsty hearts are so vulnerable to wander from the fount of each blessing.”

We every have our thimbles and our teaspoons. If trustworthy, don’t what it’s prefer to scurry from mudhole to mudhole, pondering the subsequent soiled mouthful will fulfill? The following drink, the subsequent meal, the subsequent accomplice, the subsequent little one, the subsequent date, the subsequent greenback, the subsequent present, the subsequent scroll, the subsequent click on — on and on. No stability of want. Endlessly digging cisterns that may maintain no water. Good friend, these thimbles can by no means fill an ocean.

However Jesus affords us one thing to fulfill our soul-thirst.

His Ocean

Jesus makes use of three pictures to seize what he affords this lady and anybody else who will come:

If you happen to knew the reward of God, and who it’s that’s saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you’d have requested him, and he would have given you dwelling water. . . . The water that I’ll give him will change into in him a spring of water welling as much as everlasting life. (John 4:10, 13–14)

The reward of God, everlasting life, and dwelling water — three pictures assist us think about what Jesus affords us — particularly, having fun with the Father by means of the Son by the Spirit. Within the instant context, we all know that God’s reward is the reward that’s God, the Father’s reward of the Son. “God so cherished the world, that he gave his solely Son” (John 3:16). Elsewhere within the New Testomony, the reward of God most frequently refers back to the reward of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; 8:20; 10:45; 11:17; Hebrews 6:4; Ephesians 4:7).

Jesus later defines everlasting life as understanding the Father and the Son (John 17:3), and from the remainder of John, we be taught that this data comes by the witness of the Spirit (14:26; 15:26).

After we take a look at the picture of dwelling water, we discover the identical actuality. Just a few chapters later, in John 7:37–38, Jesus says, “If anybody thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, because the Scripture has stated, ‘Out of his coronary heart will movement rivers of dwelling water.’” Instantly, John feedback that the dwelling water right here is the Spirit (7:39). And to come back to the Son is to come back to the Father (John 1:18; 14:7–9). They’re inseparable (1:1; 10:30; 17:11). By inviting us to come back, Jesus beckons us to swim within the ocean of Trinitarian fullness (15:11; 17:26)!

He means to fulfill her soul — and ours — by giving her God. He invitations us into the infinite life and pleasure of the Trinity. However he doesn’t merely beckon us to come back to the fountain. No, he places the fountain inside us. We by no means have to run to empty cisterns once more. By giving us his Spirit, Jesus provides us an inner waterfall of leaping life. He more and more turns our desert coronary heart into Eden with a spring that can by no means go dry.

Come, Come, Come

Why, then, can we nonetheless really feel thirsty? How typically — with dry tongues — can we echo the cry of the poets, “My soul thirsts for God!” (Psalm 42:1–2; 63:1)? Our pleasure shouldn’t be all the time full. The backyard generally wilts. We nonetheless say with this lady, “Give me this water.”

To reply, we should circle again to Jesus’s shocking phrases: “Go, name your husband” (John 4:16). Keep in mind, to woo her to his properly, Jesus exhibits her cisterns cracked and empty. By exposing her ocean-sized thirst, Jesus leaves her solely two paths to take: return to the dry locations or “come to the waters” (Isaiah 55:1). He leaves no different route open. She can’t proceed to wallow within the mud and plunge into the ocean on the similar time.

And neither can we. Our thirsty hearts are so vulnerable to wander from the fount of each blessing. We regularly stray again to the mudholes Christ freed us from. Even after we imagine, the ingesting shouldn’t be automated. We should frequently abandon waterless sins and are available again to the fountain.

In spite of everything, Jesus doesn’t get rid of our thirst. When he says, “Whoever drinks of the water that I’ll give him won’t ever be thirsty once more” (John 4:14), he means, “You’ll need by no means go to a different fountain. No extra empty cisterns. You may have limitless, everlasting entry to the ocean.” After first tasting and seeing that the Lord is nice, nobody says, “That was sufficient for me. I’ve had my fill. Farewell, thirst.” God abhors that sort of stagnant faith. No, the need of the saints is elevated. However we should consistently convey that thirst again to the one one who can fulfill it.

We — just like the Samaritan lady — have uninterrupted admission to the ocean. However we nonetheless should come. Dwelling water is an already–not but actuality. We already have entry to the fountain, however we have now not but drunk almost sufficient. So come. Come every Sunday to savor the heady brew of Christian communion. Come every morning to drink down God’s phrase and make your soul pleased in him. Come every minute in prayer “that your pleasure could also be full” (John 16:24). Come, come, come, and preserve coming!

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who’s thirsty come; let the one who needs take the water of life with out worth. (Revelation 22:17)