THE CROWNING PROMISE

"And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." -- Revelation 22:17

Someone has told us that there are thirty-two thousand promises in the Word of God. So many encouragements to poor, sin-cursed mortals to come to God and seek mercy and find pardon and life. It seems that God was not satisfied with thirty-two thousand such encouragements, and in this last book in the Bible, and in the last chapter and in almost the last verse, He has seemed to compress all His love and gentleness and tenderness and longings into one verse, and tried to outdo Himself in giving a gracious, wooing invitation to man.

I want to call your attention to two truths assumed by the text, and three taught in the text. One of the strongest ways of asserting a thing is to assume it. For instance, if man had been writing the Bible he would have used a book larger than the Book of Genesis to prove that there is a God; but God made the Bible, and He did not stop a minute to prove His own existence. He simply said: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." There is not a line in the Bible to prove that God exists, any more than you would sit down to write to your child, and would say, "Dear Child, Your mother is alive." Now, this is a strong way of asserting a truth, by assuming it.

The first thing that is assumed in the text is, that man, by nature, is away from God, and is in perishing need of God and salvation. This great, urgent need of the soul is likened in the text to thirst. Most of us do not know anything about what thirst means. You live here by the side of this beautiful Ohio River, with its abundant waters, and you do not know what thirst is; but there are some people that do know what thirst means. The Bible was written in the neighborhood of great deserts, and men sometimes were in these deserts, and they knew what thirst meant. Sometimes there were great droughts, and the water failed. The cisterns were exhausted, and thirst meant something. Becalmed mariners on the deep know what thirst means. They say it is one of the most unutterable, agonizing sensations that the physical being can know. The tongue swells and becomes speechless; the limbs turn black; and men have been known in their agony to open their own veins and suck their own feverish blood in the vain attempt to quench their raging, maddening thirst.

That is the figure that God has used to represent the condition of man without God and salvation. Is that overdrawn language, or is it the accuracy of calm statement used by God Almighty? Beloved, I believe that is a plain, simple statement of the condition of the soul without God. I will tell you why I think so. Did you ever stop a single moment to reflect upon the strange, sad features of humanity? Its restlessness, its dissatisfaction, its manifest craving for something that the world can not give? Do you stand or sit, as I have done hundreds of times, and look into the faces of the people in the audience, and notice the stamp of care and restlessness on so many countenances? What is the trouble with humanity? Why is it that people are not satisfied? Why is it that the most adventurous voyager that ever sailed in unknown seas never found one lone little island, whose inhabitants were not vainly trying, somehow, to get right with God? No Grant or Stanley threading the black heart of benighted Africa ever came on one tribe or family who were not trying to propitiate offended deities, or, in their ignorant way, trying to get right with God. What is the trouble with humanity? It is the curse of sin upon it; and it can not be satisfied in a life of sin. All the blandishments of your luxurious civilization do not change the facts any. Men, with all their wealth, all their learning, all their power, all their ambitious achievements, are still discontented and dissatisfied without God.

O, but some one says, "I think if I just had money I would be satisfied." The average youth in Cincinnati to-night thinks that. I wish I had this room packed with young men who had that foolish dream that money could satisfy them. One day news went abroad in Wall Street, New York, that Jay Gould was in financial difficulties. One of his business friends went into his office to commiserate with him over his financial straits. The strange financier called the Wizard of Wall Street smiled, and said, "You think I am in trouble, do you?" and stepped back into his vault, and brought out an armful of securities and said, "Count them." The man counted and counted and counted securities until they footed up fifty-four million dollars worth of securities that Jay Gould could put his hand on in a moment's notice. And yet after that he had a great contest with his employees to lessen their wages, and he was as eager for money as when he was a surveyor working for eighteen dollars per month, and a good deal more so.

Two or three years ago Mr. Armour was reported to have sold ninety-three millions of dollars worth of meat in that year. Is he satisfied? He is still enlarging his great packing business, and reaching out and ever reaching out for more; like death itself, never satisfied. Take John D. Rockefeller. Is he satisfied? I sat at the table two or three years ago with a gentleman who said: "Twenty-three years ago Mr. Rockefeller and I were working at the same desk. Mr. Rockefeller got less than I did, and my wages at that time were seven hundred dollars per year." Two or three years ago I heard Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, say that Mr. Rockefeller was brought before a committee of the United States Senate, and put under oath and asked how much his income was. He said: "So far as I can judge, my income is ten or twelve million dollars a year, and how much more I do not know and do not care." I should not think it would be a matter for him to worry much about. About that time I was riding with a gentleman on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, and he said: "Mr. Rockefeller lives right there. He has two homes on Euclid Avenue." A banker in the city told me recently that, so far as he could estimate, Mr. Rockefeller's income was not less than twenty million dollars per year; fifty thousand dollars a day; two thousand dollars and more every hour that he wakes or sleeps! and yet, is he satisfied? You can not tap an oil territory on the globe that he does not want to gobble it up. He is even going outside of the oil business into the iron business, and reaching out and grasping to pull in more. What does that mean? Why, friends, it means this, that money, mere money, apart from sacred uses to which a consecrated man can put it, never did and never can satisfy a living soul.

O, but some young man says, "If I just had money, and power, and fame, I could be satisfied, I think!" Do you think so? Let me give you another illustration. We will take a very famous one, General Grant. You know the Nation took Grant from obscurity, and made him all that he was. Put him at the head of the greatest army that was ever marshaled on this planet since Christ came into the world, and he was the commander of more powerful armies than were ever marshaled under the command of any other leader. That was honor enough. After the war was over the Nation enriched him. Men gave him residences in this city, and property in that. One man gave him one hundred thousand dollars in a single gift. Then he was made President of the United States, a position for which he was never fitted, and then he was given a second term as President of the United States, a position he had not earned. Was he satisfied? You remember that after he had got all that, and probably as much as any American can ever get, and I hope more than any other American will ever get again, he reached out for that little third term bauble, and so tarnished the glory of his life, and showed to the world that Grant was not satisfied. By and by the shadows of his life were lengthening on the plains of Mount McGregor, and he was about to die; and what does this man do? He has been enriched a second time. But with all his honor and all his wealth he sends for a Methodist minister, and asks him to baptize him and give him the communion, for he wants to get Christ before he dies. And after the funeral Mrs. Grant made the most wonderful comment upon it all. She said: "With all our fame and with all our wealth and with all our power, we were never happier than when we were out West, and Colonel Grant was working for forty dollars per month." 0, young man, you who think forty dollars a month is nothing, and that if you could only have wealth and fame and power you would be satisfied, look at that picture, and learn this, that all this world's power and wealth and fame laid at the feet of any man would never satisfy him, Why not? The reason is that God never intended that the soul made in his image should be satisfied with any bauble of time.

Second. My text assumes that Jesus can satisfy. Jesus meets every want of the soul. God made us for Himself, and in Him we find the needs of the soul met, and in Him alone. Why is this? I will show you by an illustration. Suppose that you were starving and thirsty, actually starving to death, and you were down at Biltmore, N. C., where Cornelius Vanderbilt has twelve thousand acres of land made into a paradise on earth, and a seven-million-dollar palace, and suppose he should take you into that castle and say to you, "Here is a deed to this whole estate; I give it to you." You would say to him, "It is all very nice, sir; but I am starving to death. Please give me some food." Suppose, instead of giving you food, he should say: "Look at this art here on these walls. Look at this statuary. Look at these masterpieces of human skill. Do you not enjoy art? I give all these to you." You would look at it, and say: "Yes, sir; Mr. Vanderbilt, I enjoy art; but, please, sir, give me some food; I am starving to death." Suppose that, instead of giving you food, he should bring in Theodore Thomas's orchestra, and it should discourse to you the sweetest strains that ever ravished human ear, and he should say: "Listen to those strains. Have you a musical soul?" "0 yes," you might say, "I enjoy music; but, sir, give me some food. I am starving." And just as the twelve-thousand-acre paradise, and the palace, and the art, and the statuary, and the music could not feed your hungry stomach, because your stomach craved for its natural food; so all this world can not satisfy your soul, because it is not the natural food of one made in the image of God. You were made for God, and you must have God, or die of hunger and thirst. A Christian singer has put this into song:

"I tried the broken cisterns, Lord;
But ah! their waters failed;
Even as I stooped to drink they fled,
And mocked me as I wailed.
Now, none but Christ can satisfy,
None other name for me;
There is light and love and peace and joy,
Lord Jesus, found in thee."

That is the reason why the soul thirsts and dies without God, and God can bring it supreme and eternal satisfaction.

Now, secondly, I come to what the text teaches. First, it teaches that there is a universal supply for this universal need. I know that men deny this truth. They try to hedge off salvation, and limit it by their creeds and their little petty interpretations of Scripture. They even dare to hammer to pieces God's sovereignty, and build little sectarian walls around the fountain of life. And they have dared to stand over it, and say this fountain of life is only for the elect; and if you are elect, come in; but the non-elect must stand back and perish. This is a private affair only for the elect, they say. But O, I plant my feet on this text, and say that one of God's eternal decrees is, "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." Jesus Christ "tasted death for every man." He has made atonement for all the world, and he invites every fallen son and daughter of Adam to come to the fountain and drink and live. O, I praise God for these sweeping universal "whosoevers" of God's Word! That takes in me. That takes in everybody that will have it so. Wherever there is a soul burdened and a conscience troubled and a life blighted by conscious sin, there flows the fountain of life and there stands a herald of mercy, saying, "Whosoever will, let him drink and live."

The second truth that the text teaches is this: This salvation is FREE Glory to God! it is free in three senses. In the first place, it is free because it has already been bought and paid for. When you go down to a store and buy a parcel of goods, and then send your boy or your servant after it, if they take out their pocket-book to pay for the goods again, the honest merchant will say: "Take it right along, the goods have been paid for. You do not need to pay for them. Take them right along." So, my dear friends, when you go to get your salvation, remember that you were redeemed, not with silver or gold, not with corruptible things, but you were redeemed with the white coin of Jesus' tears and the red coin of His blood. He paid the dear price of your redemption, and you do not need to pay that price over again.

Second, this salvation is free again, in the sense that God does not ask anything for it. He asked a big price of His dear Son. It cost Him humiliation and shame, the bloody sweat of Gethsemane, and the agony and death of Calvary's cross; but it does not cost you anything. You do not need to pay penance; you do not need to perform works; you do not need to try to earn this great salvation by your poor, little, human doings. But O, that is one of the truths Satan hates; and he has tried to keep it away from the mind of man. That is the error of the whole Catholic Church. They have forgotten that salvation is free; and every poor Catholic is put on continual doings, doings, doings, to earn peace with God.

Look at Martin Luther. He has swooned away on the stone floor of his monastery cell. For days he has been starving himself to death to earn peace with God. He recovers from that, and is sent down to Rome; and there he is told that if he will just climb on his knees the staircase of Pilate, and say a prayer on each step, he will have an indulgence. And he is doing it, trying to earn salvation. He gets half way up, and God flashes some truth into his soul, "The just shall live by faith;" and he rises right up and walks down a free man, saved by faith, and the Reformation is begun.

Do you think that truth was remembered? No, it was not. Two hundred years more pass away. The truth is almost lost again. There is a holiness club over there in Oxford, England, composed of some beautiful young men, Whitefield and John Wesley and Charles Wesley; and they are doing over again the same thing that Luther did. That beautiful youth, Whitefield, is lying on the ground for hours, his arms spread out in the form of a cross, until his poor body grows weak and black with suffering, to earn salvation. He is eating coarse food, and wearing mean clothes, and in various ways torturing himself. He is growing sick, and for nine weeks he is sick unto death. One day a book is given him by Charles Wesley, and he reads in this book that a person can say his prayers, and can be baptized and go to communion, and still not be saved. In great agony of soul he holds the book up to God, and says, "If this is not salvation, show me what Christianity is, that my poor soul may not be damned at last." He reads a little further, that Christianity is a vital union of the soul by living faith with Jesus; and his soul reaches right out and grasps the great truth, and he is saved to become the seraphic preacher of the ages.

Three years pass away before Charles Wesley gets this blessing. Charles Wesley is at this time a graduate of Oxford, a scholar and a poet; and vet he has been trying to earn salvation. He is taught by a humble servant in his own household to see that salvation is obtained by faith in Jesus. As a lily opens to the sunlight on a June morning, his soul opens up to God by faith, and he steps into the kingdom. John Wesley gets saved four days later. Remember now that John Wesley has been a graduate of Oxford and a preacher for ten years, and he went as a missionary to America to convert the Georgia Indians. One time in agony of soul he wrote in his diary, "I came here to convert the Indians; but, alas! who will convert me?" He is visiting the poorhouses and jails to save his soul. He is denying himself to save his soul. Poor man, he has got a soul on his hands: and for the life of him he does not know what to do with it. Four days after his brother Charles got into the kingdom -- I think it was the 23d of April, 1738, when John Wesley was thirty-five years of age -- this brilliant scholar was taught by a humble Moravian to take Christ by faith, and he at once steps over the line into the kingdom of God, and the second reformation is born.

Do you think the blessed doctrine of salvation by faith has been remembered? Beloved, plenty of Protestant people today are doing the same thing over again -- trying to get salvation by works. I will give you proof of it. I was laboring in the inquiry-room in Pittsburgh during a meeting of Moody's some ten or fifteen years ago, and he asked me to go and talk to a certain man in the inquiry-room. I sat down before him with my Bible in my hand, and said, "Well, brother, what is your trouble?" "O," he said, "I would like to be converted, but I can not be saved because I have no feeling." I said, "You do not need to have any feeling; you can get saved without feeling." He said: "I know better than that. Last winter I had a great deal of feeling, and I went to the altar every night for a week, and I was full of feeling; but I did not get saved; and how can I get saved now without any feeling?" I said: "Brother, you can. Feeling has nothing whatever to do with the subject. You ought to have feeling, and you can get down here on your knees and tell God that you have no feeling, and that you are ashamed of it; but that, feeling or no feeling, you want salvation." I talked with that man an hour, and taught him that we were not saved by feeling; and he suddenly dropped on his knees and gave himself to God without any feeling, and in five minutes he was a saved man. Then he had plenty of feeling. Now, what was he trying to do? He was trying to buy salvation by feeling bad. He was utterly discouraged because he could not feel. That is nothing but trying to buy salvation by feeling -- by groans and tears. But Jesus has bought it by his anguish, and you do not need to buy.

Third. This salvation is free in the sense that God will not take anything for it. You have got to take it as a free gift, or go without it. I can show you this by a very simple illustration, that is beautiful. There was in Europe a poor man who had a little dying girl in his home, who very much loved flowers. It was in the winter time; and he walked by the king's garden, and looked in and saw the beautiful flowers in the conservatory. He took out his little pocketbook, and told the gardener that his dying little girl was very fond of flowers, and he would like to buy her a little bouquet before she died. The gardener answered him harshly. The king's son heard it, and said: "Do not grieve the poor man that way. Cut a bunch of flowers, and give it to him." He did so, and the man, still thinking he had to pay for them, took out his little pocketbook and offered the money. The king's son stood back and looked at him in amazement, and said: "My dear sir, my father is a king. He does not sell flowers, he gives them away." I want to tell you all this evening that my Father in heaven is a KING, and he does not sell salvation to sinners. He GIVES it away, and if we are not willing to be humble enough to come as poor beggars, and ask for it and receive it as a gift, we will not get salvation. The only claim is your need and your helplessness, and God's willingness and God's love and God's provisions of grace. Go and ask and receive, that your joy may be full.

There is a third truth taught in the text, and that is that this salvation, so abundant in provision, so free that it is within reach of the humblest son and daughter of Adam, can only be received on some well-appointed conditions. What are they? The text says you must be willing. "WHOSOEVER WILL." It is never crowded upon anybody; it is never forced upon anybody. It is simply given to the man who is willing to take it on God's appointed conditions. What are they? Why, repentance of sin -- forsaking sin, faith in Jesus, and dedication to His service. Three simple conditions; but you must meet them, or you can not be saved! This salvation is so free and so abundant; and yet these conditions are unvarying and inexorable, and you must meet them, or lose the salvation of your soul.

Charles the Seventh of France starved to death. What did he starve to death for? Was there no bread in all France for the king? O yes, there was plenty of bread; but he starved to death because he was insane, and was not willing to eat. And, beloved, if you are so insanely in love with this world, that you refuse to eat the bread of life, then you have to die. That is all.

Some years ago the Duke of Clarence, the oldest son of Prince Albert of England, died. Why did that young man die, with only his father between him and Queen Victoria's crown, and the sovereignty of the greatest empire in the world? Why did that young man die? Not because there was no life for him, but because he would not comply with life's conditions. He loved cigarettes, and the royal physician said to him, "Your Royal Highness must stop smoking cigarettes, or you will die." He did not stop, and die he did. He refused to pay the price of self-denial for life and the crown of England. And I say to you that God holds up before you the priceless crown of eternal righteousness, and you must pay the price. And if you are not willing to meet God's conditions, then, with all this abundant salvation, provided for you and easily accessible, your soul must perish.

But some one says, "Why do you say, you must dedicate yourself to God's service? Why do you put that in as a condition of salvation? Very few preachers do it; why do you?" I will tell you why I do it. Because there are any quantity of people today who are dreaming that they can get saved and not enter God's service. I say to you that that is one of the devil's snares and delusions; and there is no salvation for the man who does not intend to immediately enter into the service of God. Joshua understood it when he said, "Choose you this day whom you will serve ;" and that man who says he can get saved and go on in the service of the devil as he did before, is a deluded soul.

Some years ago, over here in Kentucky, there was a man by the name of Sam Holmes, who friend of the famous Governor Blackburn, of Kentucky. One time Lucien Young went to the governor, and said, "We have always been friends since boyhood, have we not?" "Yes, Lucien, we have always been friends; we have never fallen out." "Well," said Lucien, "I would like to have you do a favor just for my sake." "What is it? If I can do it I will, for your sake." He said, "I want you to pardon out of the State prison my friend, Sam Holmes, for my sake." He said, "For your sake I will give you that pardon ;" and he wrote out the pardon, and Lucien Young took it and thanked him for it, and went to the State's prison. He got admitted to Sam Holmes' cell, and had a talk with him. In the course of the conversation he said, "What would you do if Governor Blackburn should pardon you?" He answered, "I would go straight to Lancaster and kill Judge Owsley for sentencing me." Lucien Young turned pale, said a few words, bade him good-bye, then passed out of the cell. After the cell-door was locked behind him, he turned and said, "Sam, here is a pardon that Governor Blackburn gave me to give you: but, sir, you can not have it." He tore it to pieces, and left the prison. Why did he not give it to him? Can you not see why he did not give it to him? He was a friend of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and a friend of the governor and of the judge, and if Sam Holmes could not come out of that prison and become a decent, law-abiding citizen, he should stay there.

Can you not see the application? The Lord Jesus Christ proposes to save you from your sins; but he does not propose to save you in your sins; and if you are not willing to leave sin, and enter at once with all your heart and soul into the service of Jesus Christ, you will have to remain in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. You will have to remain a child of the devil. God is not giving his priceless salvation to the devil's children. May God help you understand this! We have got plenty of people in the city who think they are saved, because they have been baptized and they have joined the Church; but they are living the same old devilish life that they always lived. You can not be saved until you enlist under the banner of the cross, and start out to serve Jesus with all your soul. If you are willing to do that, you can, any of you, be saved tonight.

In closing, I want to turn your attention to this wondrous invitation. "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come." The Spirit is the Holy Spirit of God that inclined your heart to come to this meeting, and moves upon you to accept the offers of life. The Bride is the Church -- the Church militant here below, and the Church triumphant over there. Over there, it may be, is father or mother, or brother or sister, or possibly a child -- loved ones over there, and they are all saying to you, "Come, come, come. "Let him that heareth say, Come." Every convert living on the globe is invited to turn right around, and repeat the invitation, and say, "Come, come."

"And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." I once saw Mr. Moody give a most wonderful illustration of that truth. During the Moody meetings in Pittsburgh we held our services in the Great Central Rink, and then had to go several squares to get an inquiry room. There were several hundred in the inquiry-room one night; and there sat near Mr. Moody, so close that he could reach out his hand and touch him, a young man who had sat there two nights before, and had not got hold of the idea of faith. Suddenly Mr. Moody picked up a new, flexible, expensive Bible, and startled the young man by saying, "Young man, if you will take that Bible, I will give it to you." He looked up in blank amazement, and did not offer to take it. Mr. Moody repeated what he said, "Young man, I mean what I say; if you will take that Bible, I will give it to you." He put up his hand a little way to take it, but drew it back. He still could not believe that Mr. Moody meant what he said; but Mr. Moody insisted that he wanted to give it to him if he would only take it, and he reached out his hand and took it. "There," says Moody, "you have not understood the meaning of faith. I thought you would be here tonight, and I bought that Bible today and wrote my name in it, intending to give it to you; and just as I bought that Bible and offered it to you, so has God bought salvation by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and he holds it out to you, and says, Whosoever will, let him TAKE it."

O, what a truth! But, beloved, remember what is back of that truth. If this wondrous salvation has been bought at such a price, and offered to us, and then we are not willing to take it as a free gift, we die, we OUGHT to die, WE MUST DIE, WE WILL DIE; and God, and angels, and men, and our own souls must say, "Amen, my damnation is just. I deserve to be lost. I would not take the blood-bought salvation that was offered by Jesus as a gift."

Do not look up in my face tonight, and say you are not thirsty, if you are out of Christ. Without him you are thirsty. If you should be taken sick on your way home, and you should summon a physician, and the doctor should come and tell you that you would die at midnight, you would be filled with a mortal fear. That fear is a token of thirst. That fear to meet your God shows that your heart is restless, and craving, and dissatisfied, and thirsty for spiritual experiences that you know you do not possess. There was a woman in New York City who came home to her palace after a night of worldly pleasure, and threw herself down upon her velvet carpet and moaned out, "O God, let me die, let me die!" There she was, blazing with diamonds and jewels, and robed like a queen, yet crying out for death. But it was not death that she was longing for, it was life; it was the Lord of life that she really wanted. And she reached out and took Jesus; and then she wanted to live for the glory of the Savior who had bought her.

O, you need this salvation! God longs to give it to you. No one is ruled out but the one who rules himself out, and refuses to accept the offer of eternal life. Only the man who pushes away the pierced hand laden with heavenly gifts, and pressing to thirsty lips the full cup of the water of life, will perish. He who does that, must hunger and thirst, and starve and die. Do not do it. "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."