Series: 2 Peter
Title: Cold Water for the
Thirsty
Text: 2 Peter 2: 17
Date: July 15, 2012
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
2 Peter 2: 17: These are wells without water, clouds that are
carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
The Lord gives us metaphors
we can understand. One such metaphor is
water. In a dry, hot, desert land a well
of water means life for the parched and thirsty man. A cloud of rain holds the same meaning
protecting from the scorching heat and providing the needed moisture in the
midst of draught.
Throughout the scriptures,
“water” is used as a metaphor for spiritual life and grace given to the
regenerated child of God by Christ by the Holy Spirit through the gospel. When the LORD God delivered Israel out of
Egypt it is written,
Deuteronomy
8: 7: For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of
water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills.
Later, when the Lord
promised to deliver Israel from the Assyrian he said,
Isaiah
12: 1: And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee: though thou
wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. 2:
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the
LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my
salvation. 3: Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of
salvation.
In our text, the Spirit of
God uses Peter to describe false teachers using this metaphor.
2 Peter 2: 17: These are wells without water, clouds that are
carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
The picture is of a thirsty
sinner coming to a well. You long for a cold drink of water—to be filled with
the gospel. But the false teacher turns out to be a well full of sand—a dry
well. Or they appear as a cloud of rain
which appears on the horizon—you expect the much needed showers of God’s
blessing through the gospel. But when the winds of change blow—or persecution
arises because of the truth, as a cloud drifts away because of a whirlwind so
do they—they are carried away with divers and strange doctrines.
Consider how opposite the
believer is to those described in our text.
First, false teachers and unbelievers—the unregenerate--are “wells
without water”; those born of the Spirit of God are wells filled with water--Proverbs
10: 11: The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life; Proverbs 18: 4: The
words of a man’s mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of
wisdom as a flowing brook.
Secondly, those without Christ are described here as “clouds that are
carried with a tempest”; but when Christ ascended he gave his true ambassadors
“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried
about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;” (Eph 4:14) Thirdly, the false
teachers are described as those “to whom the mist of darkness is reserved
forever”; but the believer has been born of God “To an inheritance
incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for
you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time.” (1Pe 1:4-5)
So instead of focusing our
attention on the false teacher, let’s focus on how a “wells and clouds” full of
water are descriptions of the life and grace of Christ in his true messengers
and, particularly, in the believer.
Proposition: Every believer is an earthen vessel like
a well or a cloud but Christ is our Life, the water within these earthly
vessels.
I. WE HAVE NO WATER IN US BY NATURE
A well gets its water from a
hidden fountain within it. A man who is
showered from above by a cloud receives the rain from above.
Dry Wells By Nature
Every man born into this world
is a “well without water.” What good is
a well without water? The life is in the
water.
Many think they will be
filled with life—with living water—by seeking it in this world. A person gets their education and lands the
big career job. But they find themselves still empty, still thirsty, it has proven
a dry well. Folks get married, a house,
kids but still just dusty and dry—no moisture no life, still thirsty. Some look to their retirement years—thinking
that’s when they’ll find the water. Then
health starts to go, this old body proves to be a dry well—a cloud with no
water. A man may accumulate much and by
all appearance he may appear as a well full of water. A well can have a nice brick
or stone well-house, the best well-pump money can buy, a well-bucket covered
over in gold, but drop down in the well—in the heart—in the depths of the
soul—no water! What good is it? Without the water of life, of the indwelling
Holy Spirit, without Christ formed in you, we are dry wells, dusty, and
dead. Such a well is good for nothing
but to be capped off so some unsuspecting traveler passing-by is not
disappointed by your dryness. Or so no
one falls in and is harmed by you. You are a “parched place in the wilderness,
a salt land, and not inhabited.” Just a
well-without water!
Application: That’s a description of every man born
into this world. It’s a description of
the elect of God until God arrests us by his grace. Even when God sends us the truth, until God
works grace in our hearts, we murmur against those who preach the truth just as
the children in the wilderness.
Exodus
17:3 And the people thirsted there for
water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that
thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our
cattle with thirst?
The natural man does so because
our thirst by nature is only for natural water.
Jeremiah
2: 13: For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain
of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can
hold no water.
II. CHRIST IS THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS—HE IS THE SOURCE OF
LIVING WATER.
The Smitten Rock
Christ is that Rock that was
smitten by Moses for his people (a picture of the justice of the law smiting
Christ our Substitute) from whom the water of life flowed freely.
·
Justice satisfied for his people
·
Free forgiveness
·
Righteousness
·
Accepted in the Beloved
Christ Jesus the GodMan is
that Living Water given freely to all those for whom Christ died. He is that one who covers us from the
scorching heat of wrath and justice and rains down blessings like a cloud full
of rain.
Isaiah
32:2: And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from
the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land.
God the Father, the Fountain
of life, light, and grace, ordained before the world was made that the Lord
Jesus Christ, his own beloved Son, would be the one source from whom all
salvation, all righteousness, all sanctity, all grace and truth should flow.
Colossians
1: 19: For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell
Revelation
7:16: They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun
light on them, nor any heat. 17: For the Lamb which is in the midst of the
throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters:
and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
And every believer rejoices
in Christ our glorious Fountain because:
John
1: 16: And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.
Illustration:
Bob irrigating the fields—plants dry, withering, no water.
The gospel—grace—salvation
accomplished according to the eternal purpose of God, by the work of Christ, by
the Spirit of God—grace, salvation, apart from our dry, dead, flesh and
works—is water. We are dry, we are sand. We need this Water of Life.
III. HOW DO SINNERS COME TO HAVE THIS WATER?
The Gospel Water
As God promised to do, he
makes everyone of his elect’s path to lead to his gospel—a well of water, a
cloud full of rain.
·
Like the Samaritan woman who came to Jacob’s well and met Christ
the Living Water
·
Like the Ethiopian met Philip
·
Like Lydia met Paul
The Holy Spirit makes us to
behold Christ and beholding the true Water and we begin to see our sin and our
soul becomes thirsty. God’s hand becomes
heavy upon us
Psalm
32: 4: For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into
the drought of summer. Selah.
We become so thirsty. And we begin to hear Christ say in our
hearts:
John
7:37: If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. (without money,
without price) 38: He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (Isaiah 55: 1)
John 4: 14: 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.
The Word begins to become
good news to us:
Proverbs
25: 25: As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a
far country.
The thirsty sinner find
himself believing Christ, we find ourselves crying out from the depths of our
heart as the Psalmist did:
Psalm
42:2: My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and
appear before God?
Psalm
63:1 «A Psalm of David, when he was in
the wilderness of Judah.» O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my
soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land,
where no water is;
Psalm
143:6: I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a
thirsty land. Selah.
Water From Above
God always makes good on his
promise. Our Redeemer pours out in
abundance when the Spirit brings us to cry for him—Christ enters in and fills
us with living waters.
Isaiah
35:7: And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs
of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with
reeds and rushes.
Isaiah
41:18: I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the
valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs
of water.
Through his gift of faith…he
shows us
Revelation
22: 1:…a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the
throne of God and of the Lamb.
For the first time, we stop
boasting in ourselves and we begin to honor God for his free, unmerited,
unsought grace to us—and this just as he said we would:
Isaiah
43:20: The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls:
because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to
give drink to my people, my chosen.
Showers of Blessing
God plants us in HIS
hill—where HE HAS PROVIDED HIS WELL OF WATER—HIS CLOUD THAT CANNOT BE CARRIED
AWAY BY A TEMPEST---WHERE THE gospel flows like water in a well and from clouds
above. He promises to keep us, saying,
Ezekiel
34: 22 Therefore will I save my flock,
and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle. 23
And I will set up one shepherd over
them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them,
and he shall be their shepherd. 24 And I
the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the
LORD have spoken it. 25 And I
will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to
cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep
in the woods. 26 And I will make them
and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to
come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing. 27 And the tree of the field shall yield her
fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their
land, and shall know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bands of
their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves
of them. 28 And they shall no more be a
prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they
shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.
When we become
troubled—wondering if the Lord will call out any more of his sheep in this
place—he calms our fears…
Isaiah
44: 2: Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which
will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have
chosen. 3 For I will pour water upon him
that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy
seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: 4
And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the
water courses.
He instructs us to simply
ask him:
Zechariah
10:1: Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall
make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the
field.
He instructs us to patiently
wait on him.
James
5: 7 Be patient therefore, brethren,
unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious
fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early
and latter rain. 8 Be ye also patient;
stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
IV.THE PURPOSE OF A WELL FULL OF WATER
A Well Provides Water for Others
A well is made to provide
water to others. This grace is given us
to know our Redeemer and his accomplished redemption so that we can give this
good news to others.
Believer, it is not only to
fill us but to provide for other thirsty pilgrims. The soul born again of the Holy Spirit is a
well of water in a dry and thirsty land for others to drink from. Only a believer who is daily taught the dry
death our earthen vessels are without Christ is capable of teaching others that
the flesh profits nothing.
Only you who see God’s
holiness and justice and righteousness which demanded he provide his own Son,
his own Lamb, to honor his own law and purge the sin of his children are able
to dispense this water. Only you who
have been made to know the conflicts of the flesh and the spirit, the warfare
between this world and the believer--can dispense this water. Only the thirsty sinner who has been given
Christ our Water can teach others that “Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Mt 5:6)
A life which adorns our
doctrine, a walk consistent with the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, steadfastness
in spreading his gospel through this dry desert world, these are ways God uses
his wells as he calls out his lost sheep.
Well Replenished by its Source
Remember, the more water a
well gives the more water it is given. You can draw water out of a well and the
hidden spring of water continually fills it again. Our great Fountain of grace
says, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” He promises to replenish us
so that our water is never dried up.
Proverbs
11:24: There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth;
Is it our substance? The
cattle on a thousand hills are his. Is
it our time? My times are in his hands (Ps 31: 15) Is it our talents? He gave
them. He replaces more than we ever
dispense—of his fullness have we all received grace for grace. The Lord promises, "When the poor and
needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the
Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open
rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make
the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." We can
truly say, “my cup runneth over.”
V. HERE IS THE LAST WORD
Dry Sinners
Let me ask you, poor child of
sin and dust and instability, why do you doubt the sincerity of the Lord Jesus
Christ? Sinner, why will you go on seeking water where this none? Why will you
die the second death?
The mist of darkness—hell
that is reserved—will be flamed by passions unsatisfied, desires unanswered, a
consciousness of all that could have been yours freely but which you refused
for a momentary 70-80 years of dry dust.
What you thought an oasis will prove to have been a mirage. You will cry, send someone “that he may dip
the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this
flame.” (Lu 16:24)
What’s the price for this
water? Free. What’s the catch? None—you can offer God
nothing nor add anything to him—but he can give you everything—Life Eternal. What
must I possess? Only thirst
Why will you go on in all
your dust and parched rebellion and inherit the mist of darkness and separation
from Christ forever? If you die, it is
not because God withheld anything from you, it will be because you withheld all
from yourself.
Living Wells
Brethren, give all glory to
God. All God’s children, by the grace of
God, by perfect redemption accomplished by Christ Jesus, by the full work of
salvation wrought on their behalf, through the Living Word, by the Holy Spirit
of Life making us eternally new are:
·
Wells full of living water
·
Showers of blessings are rained down upon us from our Father above
·
Be no more children carried about like clouds in a tempest--but
rooted and grounded in Christ
·
He has promised that to us: “is reserved an inheritance ready to
be revealed in the last time.”
If you came here thirsty, I
hope you have enjoyed a cold drink of good water this morning. Is it raining in your heart?
If so, to God be the glory!
Amen!