The Two “Comes”

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 31, 1876,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who hears say,
Come! And let him who thirsts come. And whoever will, let him take the
water of life freely." Revelation 22:17.

[This sermon is the first sermon in Volume 23 in the original
manuscripts.]

OUR text stands at the end of the Bible even as this day stands at the
end of the year–and it is full of Gospel even as we would make our
closing Sabbath discourse. It would seem as if the Holy Spirit were
loath to put down the pen while so many remained unbelieving,
notwithstanding the testimony of the Inspired Word and, therefore,,
before He closes the canon of Holy Scripture and guards it against all
addition or mutilation, with most solemn words He gives one more full,
free, earnest, gracious invitation to thirsty souls to come to Christ
and drink! So on this last page of the year I would gladly write
another Gospel invitation that those who have not, up to now, believed
our report, may, even on this last day of the feast, incline their ears
and accept the message of salvation!

Before yet the midnight bell proclaims the birth of a new year, may you
be born to God! At any rate, once more shall the Truth of God, by which
men are regenerated, be lovingly brought under your attention. I ask
those of you who have the Master's ear to put up this request to Him
just now, that if the arrows have missed the mark on the previous 52
Sabbaths, they may strike the target this time, being directed by the
Divine Spirit. Pray, also, that if some have kept the door of their
hearts fast closed against the Lord Jesus till now, He may, Himself,
come in the preaching of the Word, this morning, and put in His hand by
the hole of the door, that their hearts may be moved for Him.

In answer to that prayer we shall be sure to get a blessing! Let us
expect it and act upon the expectation and we shall see men flying to
Jesus as a cloud, and as doves to their windows! Are not the Words of
our text the Words of the Lord Jesus? Can they be regarded as the words
of John? I think not, for they follow so closely upon the undoubted
language of Jesus in the former verse. Thus runs the passage–"I,
Jesus, have sent My angel to testify unto you these things in the
churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the Bright and
Morning Star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come!"

We can hardly, I think, divide the paragraph, and we must, it seems to
me, regard our text as the Words of the risen Jesus, that Morning Star
whose cheering beams foretell the glorious day! The lover of men's
souls was not quite done speaking to sinners–there was a little more
to say and here He says it. The Divine Redeemer, leaning from His
Throne where He sits as the reward of His accomplished work, and
bending over sinners with the same love which led Him to die for them,
says, "Let him who hears say, Come! And let him who thirsts come. And
whoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

Looking at the words, therefore, in that golden light as coming from
the dear lips of the Well-Beloved, let us notice first, the heavenward
cry of prayer–"The Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who
hears say, Come!" These voices go upward to Christ. Then, secondly, let
us hear the earthward cry of invitation–"Let him who thirsts come. And
whoever will, let him take the water of life freely." That cry goes
outward and downward towards needy and sorrowing spirits. Then,
thirdly, we shall pause awhile to notice the relation between these two
cries, for the coming of Christ is connected with the coming of
sinners. And then, as best we can, we shall observe and expect the
response to the two cries–both from Him who sits in the heavens and
from souls thirsting here below.

O Divine Spirit, bless the Word!

I. First, then, our text begins with THE HEAVENWARD CRY OF PRAYER, 'The
Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him that hears say, Come!" I
think it will be evident, if you read carefully, that this cannot be
interpreted as being

only the voice of the Spirit and the bride to the sinner. Surely the
sense requires us to regard this cry of, "Come!" as addressed to our
Lord Jesus, who in a previous verse had been saying, "Behold I come
quickly, and My reward is with Me." We may see the second included in
it, but it will never do to exclude the first. We shall not have dealt
honestly with the words before us unless we regard them, first, as
spoken upwards towards our Lord whose coming is our great hope.

The matter of this cry is first to be noticed–it is the coming of
Christ. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come!" This is, and always has
been, the universal cry of the Church of Jesus Christ! There is no one
common theory about the exact meaning of that coming, but there is one
common desire for it, in some form or other. Some of us are expecting
the bodily coming because the angel said, when the cloud concealed the
rising Christ, "This same Jesus who is taken up from you into Heaven
shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into Heaven." We
therefore look for His descent upon the earth in Person, to be here,
literally, among us.

Some expect that when He comes it will be to reign upon the earth,
making all things new and bringing to His people a glorious period of a
thousand years in which there shall be perpetual Sabbath rest. Others
think that when He comes He will come to judge the world and that the
day of His appearing is rather to be regarded as the end of all things
and the conclusion of this dispensation than as the commencement of the
age of gold. There are some who think the millennium a dream and the
coming of Christ in Person to be a mere fancy–they believe that He
will come spiritually– and they are looking for a time when the Gospel
shall spread very wonderfully and there will be an extraordinary power
about the ministrations of the Word. They believe that nations shall
run to Him and be converted to His Truth.

Now it would be very interesting to take up these various statements
and speculations, but we do not want to do so, because, after all, in
whatever way men look at it, all the true people of God still desire
the coming of Christ, and so long as He draws near they are content!
They may have, more or less light about the manner of it, but still the
coming of Christ has been always, since the time when He departed, the
great wish and desire, yes, and the agonizing prayer of the Church of
God. "Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus," is the cry of the whole host
of the Lord's elect!

It is true that some have not always desired this coming from motives
of the most commendable kind. Many become more than ever earnest in
this prayer when they have been in a state of disappointment and
sorrow, but still, that which they desire is a right thing and a
promised blessing to be given in its time. I suppose the trial of
sorrow will always give a keener edge to the desire of Christ's coming.
Luther, on one occasion, when much discouraged, said, "May the Lord
come at once! Let Him cut the whole matter short with the Day of
Judgment, for there is no amendment to be expected." When we get into
this state of mind, the desire, though right in appearance, may not be
quite as pure as we think.

Desires and prayers which grow out of unbelief and insolence can hardly
be of the very best order! Perhaps when we more patiently wait and
quietly hope, we may not be quite so feverishly anxious for the speedy
coming. And yet our state of mind may be more sober and more truly
watchful and acceptable than when we showed more apparent eagerness.
Waiting must sit side by side with desiring–patience must blend with
hope. The Lord's, "quickly," may not be my, "quickly," and if so, let
Him do what seems good to Him!

It may be a better thing, after all, for our Lord to tarry a little
longer, so that by a more lengthened conflict He may the better
manifest the patience of the saints and the power of the eternal
Spirit! It may be the Lord may linger yet a while, and if so, while the
Church desires His speedy advent, she will not quarrel with her Master,
nor dictate to Him, nor even wish to know the times and the seasons.
"Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," is her heart's inmost wish, but as
for the details of His coming, she leaves them in His hands.

Having noted the matter of the cry, let us next observe the persons
crying. The Spirit is first mentioned–"The Spirit and the bride say,
Come!" And why does the Holy Spirit desire the coming of the Lord
Jesus? At present the Spirit is, so to speak, the vicegerent of this
dispensation upon earth. Our Lord Jesus is gone into the heavens, for
it was expedient for Him to go, but the Comforter, whom the Father has
sent in His name, has taken His place as our Teacher and abides on
earth continually as the Witness to the Truth of God and the Worker for
it in the minds of men. But the Spirit of God is daily grieved during
this season of long-suffering and conflict. How much He is provoked all
the world over is not possible for us to know.

The 40 years in the wilderness must have become as nothing compared
with 19 centuries of rebellious generations! The ungodly vex Him, they
reject His Testimony and resist His operations. And, alas, the saints
grieve Him, too. You and I have, I fear, grieved Him often during the
past year and so He desires the end of this evil estate and says to our
Lord

Jesus, "Come!" Beside, the Spirit's great objective and desire is to
glorify Christ, even as our Lord says, "He shall glorify Me, for He
shall take of Mine and show them unto you."

Now, as the coming of Christ will be the full manifestation of the
Redeemer's Glory, the Spirit, therefore, desires that He may come and
take to Himself His great power and reign. The Holy Spirit seals us
"unto the day of redemption," having ever an eye to that great event.
His work tends towards its completion in the day of the appearing of
the sons of God. He "is the Earnest of our inheritance till the
redemption of the purchased possession." Therefore does the Spirit have
sympathy in the groans of His saints for the glorious appearing–and it
is especially in this connection that He is described as helping our
infirmities and making intercession for us with groans which cannot be
uttered. In this sense the Spirit says, "Come!" Indeed, all such cries
of, "Come!" in this world are of His prompting!

Our text, next, tells us that "the bride says, Come!" We all know that
the bride is the Church, but perhaps we have not noticed the
peculiarity of her name. It is not, "the Spirit and the Church say,
Come!" But, "the Spirit and the bride," for she says, "Come!" always
more fervently when she realizes her near and dear relationship to her
Lord and all that it involves. Now, a bride is one whose marriage is
near, either as having just happened or as close at hand. She is far
more than merely engaged–either she is married or about to
be–although the actual marriage feast may not have been celebrated
yet. So is the Church very nearly arrived at the grand hour when it
shall be said, "The marriage of the Lamb is come and His bride has made
herself ready." And because of that, she is full of joy at the prospect
of hearing the cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom comes!"

Who marvels that it is so? It would be unnatural if there were no
desire on the part of the Church to see her Beloved Lord and Head. Is
it not as it should be, when the bride says, "Come!"? I wish to call
your attention to the fact that while I have made two of the persons
mentioned in the text for the purpose of discoursing upon them in due
order, yet they are not divided in the passage before us. It does not
say the Spirit says, "Come!" and the bride says, "Come!" but, "the
Spirit and the bride say, Come!" That is to say, the Spirit of God
speaks by the Church when He cries, "Come!" And the Church cries unto
Christ for His coming because she is moved of the Holy Spirit!

True prayer is always a joint work–the Holy Spirit within us writes
acceptable desires upon our hearts and then we present them! The Holy
Spirit does not plead apart from our desiring and believing–we must,
ourselves, desire and will and plead and agonize because the Spirit of
God works in us so to will and to do. We plead with God because we are
prompted and guided by His Holy Spirit! Our pleadings, which go up to
Heaven for the advent of Jesus, are the Holy Spirit crying in the
hearts of the blood-bought! The Church, herself, prays in the Holy
Spirit, instantly crying day and night for the fulfillment of the
greatest of all the Covenant promises–

Come, Lord, and tarry not! Bring the long looked-for day! Oh, why these
years of waiting here, These ages of delay? Come, for Your saints still
wait! Daily ascends their sigh. The Spirit and the bride say, Come! Do
You not hear the cry?"

The next clause of the text indicates that each separate Believer
should breathe the same desire, "Let Him that hears say, Come!"
Brethren, this will be the index of your belonging to the bride! This
is the token of your sharing in the one Spirit and being joined unto
the one body–if you unite with the Spirit and the bride in saying,
"Come!" No ungodly man truly desires Christ's coming. On the contrary,
he desires to get away from Him and forget His very existence! To
delight in drawing near unto the Lord Jesus Christ is an evidence of
our election and calling. To wish more and more fully to know Him and
to dwell more near to Him is the token of our having been reconciled
unto God by His death and of our having a new nature implanted in us!

To long to see Jesus Christ manifested in fullness of His Glory is the
ensign of a true soldier of the Cross. Do you feel this? Do you desire
to be better acquainted with the Lord Jesus? You have heard the
Gospel–do you say, as the Church does, "Come, Lord Jesus"? Alas, to
many, the Day of the Lord will be darkness and not light! They cannot
desire it, for it will be a day of terror and confusion to them! But
unto such as have heard and believed in the precious name of the Son

of God, it will be joy and peace and, therefore,, the cry of their
heart is, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" This utterance of "Come!" by him
that hears it, is the mark of his joyful consent to the fact that
Christ shall come!

It is well, my Friend, if when you hear that Christ will come, you say,
"Let Him come." If He comes to reign, let Him, for, blessed be His
name, who should reign but He? If He descends to judge the earth, let
Him come, for we shall be justified at His bar! His ends and objectives
in coming cannot but be loaded with infinite benefit to us and Glory to
our God and, therefore,, we would not delay His chariot wheels by so
much as an hour–

"Hasten Lord, the promised hour! Come in Glory and in power! Still Your
foes are not subdued– Nature sighs to be renewed. Time has nearly
reached its sum, All things with Your bride, say, 'Come!' Jesus, whom
all worlds adore, Come and reign forevermore!"

The saying of, "Come!" by each true hearer is the sign that his heart
responds to the doctrine which he has been taught. We have received it
by Revelation that Christ is to come and our souls say, "Even so, Come
Lord Jesus! It is our happiness that it should be so."

Thus have we mentioned the persons by whom this cry is uttered and now
let us add a word upon the tense in which the cry is put. It is in the
present tense. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who
hears say, Come!" The Spirit and the bride are anxious that Christ
should come at once. And he that knows Christ and loves Him desires,
also, that He should not tarry. Look, my Brothers and Sisters, is it
not time, as far as our poor judgments go, that Jesus should come? See
how iniquity abounds! Behold our very streets, how foul they are with
sin! See how errors are multiplied–do they not swarm in the Church of
God, itself? Have not heresies come down like birds of prey upon the
sacrifice, to pollute even the altars of the Most High?

See at this present time how skeptics defy the living God! They hiss
out from between their teeth the question, "Where is the promise of His
coming, for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they
were?" Behold how Antichrist stalks boldly through the land!
Superstitions which your fathers could not bear are, again, set up
among you! The graven images, crosses, crucifixes and sacraments–many
gods and many lords of old Rome have come back to England–and they are
worshipped in her national Church! In England, stained with the blood
of martyrs, once again the mark of the Beast is to be seen on the
foreheads of those whom she feeds to teach her people! Is it not time
that the Lord should come?

O hoary systems of superstition, what else can shake you from your
thrones! O gods that have long ruled over superstitious minds, who else
can hurl you to the moles and to the bats? You know Him who made you
quiver on your thrones on that night when He was born in Bethlehem's
manger and you may well tremble, for when He comes it will be with an
iron rod to dash you into shivers! "Even so," we cry, "Come, Lord
Jesus! Come quickly! Amen."

II. Now, secondly, let us listen to THE EARTHWARD CRY OF INVITATION TO
MEN. I must confess I cannot

quite tell you how it is that the sense in my text glides away from the
coming of Christ to the earth into the coming of sinners to Christ, but
it does! Like colors which blend, or strains of music which melt into
each other, so the first sense slides into the second. This almost
insensible transition seems, to me, to have been occasioned by the
memory of the fact that the coming of Christ is not desirable to all
mankind.

There are the unbelievers who have not obeyed Him and when they hear
the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" straightway they begin to tremble
and they say within themselves, "What if He should come! Alas, we
rejected Him and His coming will be our destruction." I think I hear
some such sinners weeping and wailing at the very thought of the Lord's
coming, for they know that they, also, who have pierced Him must behold
Him and weep because of Him! It seems almost cruel on the part of the
bride and the Spirit to be saying, "Come!" when that coming must be for
the overthrow of all the adversaries of the Lord!

And so Jesus, Himself, seems gently to turn aside the prayer of His
people while He pleads with the needy ones. He lets the prayer flow
towards Himself, but yet directs its flow towards you sinners, also.
He, Himself, seems to say, "You bid Me come, but I, as the Savior of
men, look at your brothers and your sisters who are yet in the far
country, the other

sheep which are not yet of the fold, whom I, also, must bring in. And
in answer to your cry to Me to come I speak to those wandering ones,
and say, 'Let him who thirsts come. And whoever will, let him take the
water of life freely.'" Is not that the way in which the sense glides
from its first direction?

Now, from whom does this cry arise? It first comes from Jesus. It is He
who says, "Let him who thirsts come." The passage so stands, as I have
already said, that we cannot but believe this verse to have been the
utterance of Him who is the Root and Offspring of David, and the Bright
and Morning Star. He, out of Heaven, cries to the unconverted, "Let him
who thirsts come." Will they refuse Him that speaks? Shall Jesus,
Himself, invite them and will they turn a deaf ear? But next, it is the
call of the Spirit of God. The Spirit says, "Come!" This Book which He
has written, on every page says to men, "Come! Come to Jesus!" This is
the cry of the Spirit in the preaching of the Word.

What do sermons and discourses mean but, "Come Sinner, come!"? And
those secret motions of power upon the conscience. Those times when the
heart grows calm, even amid dissipation, and thought is forced upon the
mind–those are the movements of the Spirit of God by which He is
showing man his danger and revealing to him his Refuge–and so is
saying, "Come!" All over the world, wherever there is a Bible and a
preacher, the Spirit is saying, "Come!" And this is the speech of the
Church, too, in conjunction with the Spirit, for the Spirit speaks with
the bride and the bride speaks by the Spirit.

The Church is always saying, "Come!" This is, indeed, the meaning of
her Sabbath gatherings, of her testimony in the pulpit, of her teaching
in the schools, of her prayers and her exhortations. Everywhere, poor
wandering Hearts, the Church of God is saying to you, "Come!" Or if she
does not do so, she is not acting in her true character as the bride of
Christ. For this purpose is there a Church in the world! If it were not
for this, our Lord might take His people Home as soon as they have
believed, but they are kept here to be a seed to keep the Truth of God
alive in the world. And their daily earnest cry to you is, "Come, come
to Jesus!" "The Spirit and the bride say, Come!"

The next giver of the invitation is spoken of as, "Him that hears." If
you have had an ear to hear and have heard the Gospel to your own
salvation, the very next thing you have to do is to say to those around
you, "Come!" Go and speak to anybody that you meet! Speak to everybody
that you meet according as opportunity and occasion shall be given you!
And say what all the Church says and what the Spirit is saying–namely,
"Come!" Give your Master's invitation! Distribute the testimony of His
loving will and bid poor sinners come to Jesus! Your children and your
servants–bid them come! Your neighbors and your Friends–bid them
come! The strangers and the far-off ones–bid them come! The harlot and
the thief–bid such come! Those that are in the highways and the
hedges! Those who are far off from God by abominable works–say unto
all these–"Come!"

Because you have heard the message and proved its truth, go and call in
others to the feast of love! Oh, if there were more of these individual
proclaimers, what blessings would descend upon London! I do not know
how many Believers in Christ there are present here, but I do know that
there are 5,000 of us associated in Church fellowship at this
Tabernacle. And if the whole of these 5,000 would but begin to bear
witness for Christ with all their might, there would be salt enough
even within this one Tabernacle to season all London, with God's
blessing upon our efforts! My Brothers and Sisters, let us not be slow
to address ourselves to those to whom the Spirit of God within us, the
voice of Jesus from above and the cry of the whole Church is addressed!
Let each individual member take up the note of invitation till all
around, the trembling Sinner hears the encouraging cry of, "Come!"

Now, notice the remarkably encouraging character of this, "Come!" which
is given by the Spirit of the bride. One part of it is directed to the
thirsty–"Let him who thirsts come." By thirst is meant necessity and
an appetite for its supply. Do you feel yourself guilty, and do you
desire pardon?–you are a thirsty one! Are you disquieted and filled
with unrest, and do you long to be pacified in heart?–you are a
thirsty one! Is there a something, you know not, perhaps, what it is,
for which you are sighing, and crying and pining? You are a thirsty one
and to you is the invitation most positively and distinctly given, "Let
him who thirsts come."

But how much I rejoice that the second half of the invitation does not
contain even an apparent limit, as this first sentence has been thought
to do! I regard the thirst here mentioned as by no means requiring of
any man that he should have gone through a process of horror on account
of guilt, or should have been overwhelmed with conviction and driven to
despair of salvation. I believe that any desire and any longing will
come under the description of, "thirst." But since

some have stumbled at it and have said again and again, "I feel I do
not thirst enough," see how sweetly the second clause of our text puts
it–"Whoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

Whether you are thirsty or not, yet have you a will to drink? Have you
a will to be saved? Have you a will to be cleansed from sin? A will to
be made a new creature in Christ Jesus? Do you will to have eternal
life? Then thus says the Spirit to you, "Whoever will, let him take the
water of life freely." Now, notice three vast doors through which the
biggest and most elephantine sinner that ever made the earth shake
beneath the weight of his guilt may go. Here are the

three doors. "Whoever"–"Will"–"Freely."

"Whoever" is the first door. "Whoever"–then what man dares have the
impudence to say that he is shut out? If you say that you cannot come
in under, "whoever," I ask you how you dare narrow a word which is, in
itself, so broad, so infinite? "Whoever"–that must mean every man that
ever lived or ever shall live while yet he is here and wills to come!
Well, then, the word, "will." There is nothing about past character,
nor present character. There is nothing about knowledge, or feeling,
nor anything else but the will–"Whoever will." Speak of the gate
standing ajar! This looks to me like taking the door right off the
hinges and carrying it away!

"Whoever will." There is no hindrance whatever in your way. And then,
"freely." God's gifts are given without any expectation or recompense,
or any requirements and conditions–"Let him take the water of life
freely." You have not to bring your good feelings, or good desires, or
good works–just come and take freely what God gives you for nothing!
You are not even to bring repentance and faith in order to obtain
Divine Grace–you are to come and accept repentance and faith as the
gifts of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. What broad gates of mercy
these are! How wide the entrance which Love has prepared for coming
souls! "Whoever!" "Will!" "Freely!"

Observe how the invitation sums up the work the sinner is called upon
to do. First, he is bid to come. "Whoever will, let him come." Now, to
come to Christ means simply for the soul to draw near to Him by
trusting Him. You are not asked to bring a load with you, nor to work
for Christ in order to earn salvation, but just to come to Him. Nothing
is said about the style of coming–come running or creeping, come
boldly or timidly–for if you do but come to Jesus, He will in no wise
cast you out. A simple reliance upon the Lord Jesus is the one
essential for eternal life!

Then the next direction is, "take." "Whoever will, let him take." That
is all. That word, "take," is a grand word to express the Gospel. The
world's gospel is, "bring." Christ's Gospel is, "take." Nature's gospel
is, "make." Just change the letter and you have the Gospel of Divine
Grace which is, "take." There is the water, dear Friends! You have not
to dig a well to find it–you have only to take it. There is the bread
of Heaven, you have not to grind the flour or bake the loaf, you have
only to take it. There is a garment woven from the top throughout and
without a seam–you have not to add a fringe to it–you have only to
take it!

The way of salvation may be summed up in the four letters of the word,
"take." Do you desire Christ? Take Him. Do you need pardon? Take it. Do
you need a new heart? Take it. Do you want peace on earth? Take it. Do
you want Heaven hereafter? Take it–that is all. "Whoever will, let him
take the water of life freely." And there is one other word which I
love to dwell on, and it comes twice over, "Let him who thirsts come,
and whoever will let him take." It is graciously said, let him. It
seems to me as if the Lord Jesus Christ saw a poor soul standing
thirsty at the flowing crystal fountain of His Love and the devil,
standing there, whispered to him, "You see the sacred stream, but it
flows for others. It is what you need, but you must not have it, it is
not for you."

Listen! There is a voice from beyond the clouds which cries aloud, "Let
him take it!" Stand back, Satan, let the willing one come! He is
putting down his lips to drink–he understands, now–but there comes
rushing upon him hosts of his old sins, like so many winged bats, and
they scream out to him, "Go back! You must not draw near! This fountain
is not for you–this pure crystal stream must not be defiled by such
leprous lips as yours!" Again there comes from the Throne of Love this
blessed password, "Let him come and let him take."

It is as when a man is in court and is called to go into the witness
box. He is standing in the crowd and his name is called. What happens?
As soon as he hears his name he begins to push through the throng to
reach his place. "What are you doing?" asks one. "I am called," he
says. "Stand back! Why do you push so?" asks another. "I am called by
the Judge," he says. A big policeman demands, "Why are you making such
confusion in court?" "But," says the man, "I am called. My name was
called out and I must come."

If he cannot come. If it is not possible for him to get through the
throng, one of the authorities calls out, "Make way for that man–he is
summoned by the court. Officers, clear a passage and let him come." Now
the Lord Jesus calls the thirsty one and He says, "Whoever will, let
him come!" Make way, doubts! Make way, sins! Make way, fears! Make way,
devils! Make way, all of you, for Jesus Christ, the great King and
Judge of all has said, "Let him come!" Who shall hinder when Jesus
permits? He who is divinely called shall surely come to Jesus! Come he
shall, regardless of whomever may stand in his way!

This morning I feel as if I could come to Jesus all over again and I
will do so! Do you not feel the same, my Beloved Brothers and Sisters?
Well then, dear Brothers and Sisters, after you have done so, turn
round and proclaim this precious Gospel invitation to all around you!
Say to them, "Come and take the water of life freely!"

III. The third point is THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE TWO COMINGS. Is
there any relation between the coming of Christ from Heaven to earth,
and the coming of poor sinful creatures to Christ and trusting Him?
There is this relation, first, that they are both suggested in this
passage by the closing of the Scriptural Canon. John is about to write,
by the voice of the Lord, that none are to add to or take from the
completed Book of God. The Church says, "If there are no more Prophets
to proclaim the mind of God, no more Apostles to write with infallible
authority and no more instructors to give forth new revelations, or
bring new promises, then it only remains that the Lord should come.

"Then," she says, "Come, Lord Jesus!" And here are the sinners standing
round and they hear that no other Gospel is to be expected, no more
revelations are to be added to those which are in this Bible. They hear
there will be no other Atonement, no other way of salvation. Therefore
it is their wisdom to come at once to Jesus! It is because the Book was
about to receive its finis that the Spirit and the bride unitedly cried
to the sinners to come at once! No fresh Gospel is to be expected,
therefore let them come at once! Why should they tarry any longer? The
oxen and fatlings are killed, come to the supper! All things are ready,
there is nothing more to be done or to be revealed! Upon us the ends of
the earth have come. "It is finished" has rung through earth and
Heaven, therefore–

"Come and welcome, Sinner, come!"

I think I perceive another connection, namely, that those people who,
in very truth love Christ enough to cry to Him continually to come, are
sure to love sinners, also, and to say to them, "Come!" Not that there
are not some who talk a great deal about Christ's coming and yet
manifest but small care for other men's souls. Well, it is talk–the
profession of looking for the Second Advent is nothing but talk when it
does not lead people to cry to perishing men, "Come to Christ!" He who
loves Christ so very much that he is quite wrapped up in himself and
forgets the dying millions around him. He who stands star-gazing into
Heaven, expecting to see a sudden Glory to take himself away does not
understand what he says! For if he really loved his Lord, he would set
to work for Him and would show that he expected the King to come by
endeavoring to extend His kingdom!

There is this connection, also, that before Christ comes a certain
number of His elect must be gathered in. He shall not come until an
appointed company shall have been brought to eternal life by the
preaching of the Word. Oh then, Brothers and Sisters, it is ours to
labor that the wanderers may come home, for so we are, as far as lies
in us, hastening the time when our Beloved, Himself, shall come! Once
more, there is a sort of coming of Christ which, though it is not the
first meaning here, may be included in it, for it touches the center of
the sinner's coming to Christ. Because, Brethren, when we cry, "Come,
Lord Jesus!" if He shall answer us by giving us of His Spirit more
fully, so that He comes to us spiritually, then penitent souls will
assuredly be brought to His feet.

We know this, that wherever the Lord, Himself, is in a meeting, hearts
are sure to be broken and repentance is certain to be manifested!
Wherever Jesus Christ is in power, there must be a revival, for dead
souls must come to life in Him. The great thing we need above all
others is a grip of that glorious promise, "Lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the world," and as we, in this sense, obtain the
coming of the Lord, we shall see sinners come and take of the water of
life freely!

IV. Well then, lastly, WHAT ARE THE RESPONSES? We sent up a cry to
Heaven and said, "Come!" The response is, "Behold, I come quickly."
That is eminently satisfactory. You may have to wait awhile, but the
cry is heard and if the Lord should not come in your lifetime, the same
preparation of heart which made you look for His coming will be
blessedly useful to you if He sends His messenger to take you Home by
death. The same waiting and watching will answer in either case, so you
need not be under any distress about which of the two shall happen!

Christ will descend to earth as surely as He ascended to Heaven! And
when He comes there will be victory to the right and to the true–and
His saints shall reign with Him! And now concerning this other cry of,
"Come!"–we ask sinners to come. We have asked them in a fourfold
voice–Jesus, the Spirit, the bride, and him that hears–they have all
said, "Come!" Will they come? Brothers and Sisters, it is a question
which I cannot answer. You must not ask me, for I do not know! You had
better ask the persons, themselves! They are of age, ask them. Take
care that you ask them before they get out of the Tabernacle this
morning! They know and, therefore,, they can tell you whether they mean
to come or not.

This I will say to them–my dear Friends, I trust that this last day of
the year may be, to you, a day of mercy! The Jews had a Feast of
Ingatherings at the end of the year and I earnestly pray that we may
have a gathering in of precious souls to Christ before the year quite
runs out–that would be a grand finish to this year of Grace and a
sweet encouragement for the future! But suppose you do not come. Well,
you have been invited. If a Christmas feast is provided for the poor
and a number of beggars are standing shivering outside in the sleet and
snow, but will not come in, though earnestly bid, we say, "Well, you
have been invited. What more do you need?"

Remember, also, that you have been invited very earnestly. The Spirit,
the bride and him that hears–and Jesus, Himself–they have all said to
you, "Come!" I am as the man that hears and I have said, "Come!" I do
not know how to say it more earnestly than I have said it. Oh, how
would my soul delight if everyone here came to Christ at this moment! I
would ask no greater joy out of Heaven to crown this year with! You are
invited and you are earnestly invited–what more do you need? If you
never come, you will have this thought to haunt you forever–"I was
invited and pressed again and again, but I would not come."

I want you to remember, too, that you are called to come now, at once!
You may not be bid to come tomorrow for several reasons. You may not be
alive, or there may be no earnest person near to invite you. Can there
be a better day than today? You have always said, "Tomorrow," yet where
are you now? Not a bit closer, some of you, than you were 10 years ago!
Do you remember that sermon when you were made to tremble so and you
said, "Please God, if I get out of this, I will seek Your face"? But
you postponed it and are you any closer now?

You remember the story of the country man who would not cross the river
just yet, but sat down and said he would wait until all the water had
gone by? He waited a long time in vain and he might have waited
forever, for rivers are always flowing. You, too, are waiting till a
more convenient season shall come and all the difficulties shall have
gone by. Forget about such supreme folly! There will always be
difficulty! The river will always flow! O man, be wise! Plunge into it
and swim across! Now is the accepted time and now is the day of
salvation!

Oh that you would believe in Jesus Christ! May His Spirit lead you to
do so now!–

Only trust Him! Only trust Him! Only trust Him now! He will save you!
He will save you! He will save you now!" Cast yourselves upon the blood
and merits of the Lord Jesus and the great work is done! The Lord help
you to do so. Amen.

Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon–Revelation 22 HYMNS FROM "OUR
OWN HYMN BOOK"–917, 345, 509.
__________________________________________________________________

Indexes
__________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

Genesis

[8]3:16 [9]5:21-24

Deuteronomy

[10]4:29-31

1 Kings

[11]20:28 [12]20:40

1 Chronicles

[13]16:4

Nehemiah

[14]9:17

Job

[15]34:31-32

Psalms

[16]16:8 [17]22:26 [18]22:29 [19]45:7 [20]89:13 [21]91:2
[22]105:19 [23]136:17-22 [24]147:2

Proverbs

[25]11:30 [26]14:26

Isaiah

[27]1:18 [28]42:16 [29]54:7-10 [30]57:18

Jeremiah

[31]29:13

Lamentations

[32]3:27

Ezekiel

[33]16:62-63 [34]36:37-38

Daniel

[35]10:18

Matthew

[36]11:28-30 [37]12:6 [38]15:26-27

Mark

[39]1:45

Luke

[40]2:10 [41]10:20 [42]17:5 [43]17:22 [44]19:7 [45]23:27-31

John

[46]5:40 [47]6:53-56 [48]13:7 [49]16:33 [50]21:16

Acts

[51]5:31 [52]9:32-35 [53]11:21

Romans

[54]10:4 [55]12:21

1 Corinthians

[56]4:7 [57]15:26

2 Corinthians

[58]5:5-10 [59]12:9

Galatians

[60]5:6

Ephesians

[61]1:13-14

Hebrews

[62]6:17-20

James

[63]4:7

1 John

[64]4:19

Jude

[65]1:21

Revelation

[66]7:14 [67]22:17
__________________________________________________________________

This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
generated on demand from ThML source.

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