Word of Salvation – Vol. 32 No. 22 – June 1987
Love’s Longing And Bounty
Sermon by Rev. A. I. De Graaf on Revelation 22:17
Readings: Romans 8:1-23, Revelation 21:1-5, 22:8-17
Singing: Bow.2, BoW.703, 372, BoW.701, 361
This morning (previous sermon) we heard the Storm of the Spirit roaring over the world: sometimes behaving like a twister too, ripping out our cherished idols and fortresses of our rebellion against God...! We saw the Spirit burning as a flame and heard the Lord God announce the inevitable sequel to Cross and Resurrection: I must now make all things new!
Whoever expects to be lulled to sleep in church must get a poke in the ribs from the Unrestful Spirit of God: Wake up! Rise and shine! The Time is short: it is the Last Days! And yet tonight we hear of another side to the Spirit's work: Not only does he teach God's people the bugle calls and marching songs of battle and victory, He also teaches us the Wedding Song because the Bridegroom is coming! And He sings it along Himself! "COME!" says that song and you can hear what that has in common with what we saw this morning: There, too, the expectation of the future: a homesickness-ahead, we do not stay where we were! He who loves wants to be with the loved one! Every hour of separation is too long! This text too tells what we heard this morning: the Spirit belongs to the last Days!
The Book Revelation, like the prophecies of Joel, tell of terrible judgements going over the world. If your heart is not with God, if your heart is with your money or what IT can buy, if your greatest delight is in houses or land, health or earthly darlings, you are in for a terribly rough time! More will fall than the stock market and more than gold will lose its lustre altogether! And yet there sounds out of all that turmoil the voice of the Spirit and the voice of the Bride. It is the love song: "COME!" Yes, first of all the Spirit says that! "Come Jesus!" He says! He wants the Son back here Who sent Him as a comforter. So He, too, knows that homesickness! He is truly the Friend of the Bridegroom! He is glad when we see Jesus, and it is Him He wants to keep before our eyes! You see, it is really not true that the church has now moved from the "Era of the Son" into some "Era of the Spirit".
It is never the intention of the Spirit to draw all that attention to Himself. Jesus is the Lord, He is the Loved One, the Bridegroom. The Spirit is – like John – happy to be the Friend of the Bridegroom. The Comforter tells us: "He is coming, take heart!" The Comforter whispers in our ear: "Jesus is coming, and I long for that just as you do. I too am praying: "Come". And it won't be long, either! He who is the Giver of Life, is mighty glad when we – with that new life inside us – sing: "Jesus life of all my living, Jesus, death of death my foe!" That's exactly the kind of thing the Spirit is after.
On Pentecost Day He made Peter preach a sermon of the cross and resurrection of Jesus and it is to Him that the sinners fled for forgiveness and cleansing! Paul says that the result of the work of the Spirit in us is not in the first place that we speak in tongues or swing our hands up in the air – even though that too can glorify Jesus – but that we call Jesus Lord and follow Him, away from the ways of sin and onto the paths where we carry a cross after Him and deny ourselves because we have found a better life than the one we lived before. Repentance and renewal is found only in one place says the Spirit; at the foot of the cross of Calvary where we see the blood that had to flow to take that abominable sin of mine away for ever. And then, taught by that Spirit, it is the Bride which also says to Jesus: "Come! Where are you, my loved One? Why are you so long my darling?" The Spirit teaches her to say that through the Word that we hear: "Whoever HEARS says: "Come". That is the result of hearing the Word, if all things are right. Not that you say: "Why is he preaching so long..." but: "Jesus, why are You tarrying so long?" But that "Come" you will then not only say with your heart and your mouth. No, you also say it with your deeds. "Whoever has this hope in him purifies himself as Jesus is pure." You keep your lamps burning, you want to be ready when He appears. You know that when He comes He expects to find you busy: busy building a church maybe... or a school – busy proclaiming His Lordship and announcing defeat to Satan.
Busy... especially GIVING THIRSTY ONES TO DRINK. Yes, then in that waiting time the Bride – that is you and me the church, also the Reformed Church at (-place-) says what Jesus said: when you are thirsty, come here and I will quench your thirst! Whoever is thirsty – and there are thousands in the world like that woman at the Samaritan well who are thirsty – who have thought they could be satisfied in unbridled sex life – divorce after divorce... and yet it did not satisfy – there they are, seeking quenching in drugs or in power or in having things... or maybe in giving things! The world is so full of them, who drink, drink and are thirstier all the time like an alcoholic! Now – we say – you come, for Jesus has living water for you...! But then you don't have to go all the way to heaven where He now is at the Father's right hand...! No, that living water is available here! That's what Jesus said already in John 7: "If a man is thirsty let him come to Me and drink.., Whoever believes in Me... streams of living water will flow from right inside him...!" That too the Spirit does. People who were so thirsty that it killed them, He so filled with living water that they overflow so they can fill others! The Pentecost church is mission church. She is a channel of living water. She says: COME, not only to the Bridegroom but also to those around who are wandering through the desert of sand... or the desert of concrete... or the desert of sin. She has so much to give that the waiting is not long for her. She is busy and thus the bridegroom will one Day surprise her.
That is what it means to be church, that's what it means to have a place on (-place-) Road/Street where anybody is welcome – people with real thirst, people bogged down in divorces and de facto relationships, people stuck on drugs and on murderous lifestyles people thirsty and don't we have the drink for them? The drink is forgiveness and restoration. What we received so freely, we may freely give. Even to the stranger and the one who hurt us, even to the one who hated and who killed, who betrayed me and who denied me, I am to give – we who received so much are to give.
Streams of living water from the church; that is the beginning of the new mankind. Because the church is the bride, happy in her love, secure in the everlasting faithfulness of her heavenly lover – Her Lord may put her on lonely roads and make her give when those who are to receive do not at first understand. The Bridegroom wants her to give from what He gave, not just once, but time and time again, until hard hearts are broken and love will win the way of peace. We need not give mere human wisdom or mere human goodness. That would wear you out, that would make you tense and tight with strain. But the living waters flow from the Spirit. We need to pass it on.
The message of the gospel of free grace for sinners is the only power that will keep her going. It flows into us and it may flow out of us, and the Spirit who says "COME" also to these people, will take care of the rest. He or she who knows that can keep going. After a hard day I can then lie down and rest, for the Kingdom of heaven is then like a man who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, that seed sprouts and grows though he does not know how. By that power of the Spirit the soil produces grain first the stalk, then the head then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe he may put the sickle to it because then the harvest is come” (Mark 4:26-29).
In God's good time the thirsty ones will take the water and the angels in heaven will rejoice. That may be the story of things happening also in our church. What keeps us going on is the love OF Christ, the love of the Bridegroom, says Paul. Not ambition, not the ambitious ego pressing for achievement upon achievement, but that love we received freely and give freely. That keeps us going even when the enemy whispers: "Don't you reckon you've done enough?" Then a shaky marriage gets new life and a bleak sick bed becomes a path of praise. Then a bothersome child sees what the Lord means as he sees you come again, and enemies put down their swords. The Bride church fills her waiting time with giving living water to thirsty ones. She is busy with that still, when the Great Day will surprise her and the cry goes up: "Look! The Bridegroom! There He is!" Maranatha!
We are never alone. The Spirit will be here till we see Him. It is only a matter of time:
Vertical intrusion
storm from upper-land,
descend on our confusion
soft as a mother's hand...
stilling the commotion
of our bewildered days
turning to devotion
our drifting ways.
Bird of inspiration
flying on God's wing
disturb our isolation
impel our voice to sing!
Deprived of sight -- now seeing!
and searching -- we are found!
Obstructed ears -- now hearing
receive the purest sound.
Beacon Light to guide us
through this boisterous sea
till the harbour hides us
from her treachery.
Signals will be throwing
flames into the night
and in number growing
those who trace this light!
Erase our foul transgression.
now that our souls repent.
Flame of love and passion
delight us... to the end!
So be our one intention
to manifest God's fame
until all tongues shall mention
the splendour of His Name!
Amen