By Gipsy Smith
John 7:37 -- "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink."
Jesus knew exactly how to put His finger on human needs. He knew of the need of that great multitude as they had come and gone, and were there on the last day of the feast, when probably the biggest crowd had gathered and the feast had failed to satisfy, and He knew that they were still thirsty. And He said, "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink."
And you know -- you who are present this morning are like the multitudes at the feast, showing evidences of thirst. And the mad rush that has taken hold of the people of today, the everlasting search for something that will satisfy, shows a deep hunger.
There are some of you who want two picture shows a night. You used to be satisfied with one, and if the reel changes you want to go. Isn't that true?
What does that mean? The picture didn't satisfy you. It excited you, made you forget while you were there, but afterwards it only tantalized you -- it only aggravated you.
Earthly things cannot satisfy you. The Bible and the Lord God Almighty have the things that will. Why spend money for that which is not bread?
Earthly waters are brackish. Earthly waters do not slake the thirst of the immortal soul. The Devil is a great artist and he paints beautiful pictures, but they are mirages of the desert. When you think you have them, they turn to the sand of the desert.
And you need more than money. You need more than a beautiful home. You need more than an automobile in which to ride. You need more than jewelry for your fingers and trinkets for your neck. You need more than real estate and a balance in the bank.
You are not a dummy to be dressed up and put in a shop window. You are built of the materials out of which God builds eternity. You are not a doll. You are a soul. You need more than food and raiment and home and a seat in the theater.
Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. I wonder if you are conscious of the power of something not of the world in you. You look forward for weeks to a certain function which, when you get there, disgusts and palls upon you, and you go away saying, "What a fool I am." These things do not satisfy. In the olden times, there was a king who offered a great reward to anybody who would invent a new pleasure. And if a king must invite somebody to invent new pleasures for him, you may despair of finding them always. You can't do it. There is nothing new to offer. Men and women have tried long before you and I were born, and have failed. There is nothing new under the sun.
"Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
Jenny Lind, when she was the idol of England and America, and the pet and idol of millions, was offered an autograph album by some one and requested to write something in it. She wrote:
"In vain I seek for rest in all created good,
It leaves me still unblessed and makes me cry for God;
Ah, sure at rest I cannot be
Until my soul finds rest in Thee."
Ella Wheeler Wilcox came home on the Britannia from England to die and I happened to be a fellow-passenger. She had wasted away and but little remained of that beautiful body which had once been her pride. One day they had carried her up in her chair to the deck. She had literally shriveled up and could be carried in arms. She knew she was going home for the last time and she sent for me and we talked awhile.
"Gipsy Smith," she said, '"I have got to the place where I just want God."
"Oh, if you had only found that out before," I told her.
The trouble is that people are willing to take God into their homes, and hearts, and programs, when life is played out, instead of when the fire of youth and an outlook for service is there.
Why not give him the alabaster box filled with the precious perfume of a full-orbed life instead of the broken fragments of a wasted life? "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink." You talk about your earthly rivers. In the summer time they get very low and sometimes so low that one can cross without getting his feet wet. You can't do that with God's river. His river is always full.
And I will tell you why this is. Earthly rivers flow to an ocean. They are fed by small streams and by springs which decrease or increase their flow as the water comes to them. God's river flows from an ocean and can never lack water.
Every Christian man and woman who is what he or she ought to be is a river of grace. Where is your river? You are more like a little trickle, some of you; and sometimes you can hardly find that. Your soul gets to such a low level sometimes that you are hardly a trickle.
Oh! to get in touch with His ocean, that out of us may flow rivers of His blessing.
Jesus spoke of the rivers; He referred to the Spirit. The Ascension gift of Christ to His people was the Spirit -- the Holy Ghost to come and dwell in His people as a living force, as a presence. The Holy Spirit is the executive of the Godhead.
I wonder if you know the Holy Ghost. I wonder if He is in you. I wonder if you are a temple for the Holy Ghost. I wonder if you know that you are not your own, that you are a temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in. You are a church member. Is the Holy Ghost in you? Wouldn't it make a difference if all the church members in your city were to be filled with the Spirit? I wonder what would happen if Paul came to preach in some of the churches. One of the first things he would do would be to put his finger on the pulse of the church and diagnose what is wrong with it, and one of the first things he would ask would be this: "Did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed?" Avid the church, if it was honest, would have to answer, as did Paul's congregation, "We haven't heard of Him."
We don't honor the Holy Ghost. We don't give Him a chance. He is absolutely crowded out of the church life. Some of us don't want him there. We think we wouldn't get our way as much as we do -- and we wouldn't.
The Spirit-filled person is mighty in the hands of God.
I saw during the Welsh revival a girl in her teens, who went to a certain little town in the Rhonda Valley, and by the power of the Holy Ghost was made the channel of blessing to the people of the neighborhood. That little town was so shaken that the London papers had to take notice of the revival there.
Hundreds of miners were being converted each day. The girl, who was so young that her mother was afraid to tell her age, although she appeared to be older, had no great education and no great power of oratory, but she was a witness of the power of the Holy Ghost in Jesus Christ.
And the people were converted because Christ was honored.
A Great London daily sent a representative down to see that girl. He said to her, "Where do you come from?" "From the City of Destruction," she said. "Where are you going?" she was asked. "I am going to Heaven," she answered. "Where is Heaven?" "Heaven is in my heart," she said. "What is Heaven?"
"Heaven is a conscience void of offense toward God and man." She had got the well of living water within. Have you got it? Do you know it?
"If any man thirsteth, let him come unto me and drink, and he that cometh to me out of him shall flow rivers."
Oh! men and women, listen! It is through God you see it in this Gipsy boy. I have glorified Christ this morning. I have magnified Christ and the Holy Ghost this morning. This is not the product of the schools or the universities or the professors. It is a little Gipsy boy who came to the fountains of Jesus and drank, and the world is finding the stream. That is all. Surely you can drink like that.
Oh! thirsty heart, come and drink! And then open up the flood-gates, draw back the lock-gates, and let God's tide come. And you will have frictionless motion. Frictionless motion -that is a great expression. .And you will have perpetual motion and God will be glorified and you will be enriched.
Come and drink! Listen! Some of you are carrying a tremendous responsibility because God put a bigger deposit in you than in me and he expects a bigger return. Some of you have got bigger social positions than I, and can do more for the social world. Some of you are of greater commercial importance than I, and should stand for the ideals of Christ in the business world. Don't forget to make use of the opportunities God has given you. Make use of that position in society, make use of your education. Make use of everything God has given you to the fullest extent and for the greatest glory of the Son of God.
And out of you shall flow a river, that will enrich somebody. Make some garden bloom again, some waterless desert blossom as the Garden of the Lord.
Oh! Get a drink this morning. Get a drink of this limpid, fresh, refreshing, life-giving stream!
"I came to Jesus and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him."
