Jesus, The Source of the Spirit
John 7:37-39
Jesus has been preaching at the Feast of Booths.
However, the end of the feast was approaching.
Verse 37, “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out…”
I want you to understand the setting.
This feast took place during the seventh month. (October)
On the first of the month, they celebrated The Feast of Trumpets.
Throughout the Old Testament trumpets were symbolic of God’s presence, or the fact that God was about to do something big.
(i.e. trumpets at Sinai before the Lord, trumpets before Jericho)
Numbers 10:9-10 “When you go to war in your land against the adversary who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the LORD your God, and be saved from your enemies. “Also in the day of your gladness and in your appointed feasts, and on the first days of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am the LORD your God.”
Then on the 10th day of the month came The Day of Atonement.
Of course we know the purpose of this sacrifice.
It was done for the sins committed in ignorance and was a day of extreme humility. In fact, if you would not humble yourself on this day, you were to be cut off from your people.
Then on the 15th day of the month came The Feast of Booths.
Leviticus 23:39-44 “On exactly the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the crops of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the LORD for seven days, with a rest on the first day and a rest on the eighth day. ‘Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. ‘You shall thus celebrate it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. ‘You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.'” So Moses declared to the sons of Israel the appointed times of the LORD.”
The harvest was in, the day of atonement recently completed, And a time to celebrate.
But I want you to know this feast
Came with great Messianic promises as well.
Zechariah 8:20-23 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘It will yet be that peoples will come, even the inhabitants of many cities. ‘The inhabitants of one will go to another, saying, “Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the LORD, and to seek the LORD of hosts; I will also go.” ‘So many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the LORD.’ “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”‘”
Zechariah 14:16-19 “Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths. And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. If the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on them; it will be the plague with which the LORD smites the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths. This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.”
He saw it as a day when Israel’s king would rule the world
And the world would be drawn to Him.
Ezekiel also prophesied about this feast.
Not only this one, but all three feasts in this month.
Ezekiel 36:24-28 “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. “You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.”
1) A future feast of trumpets
“For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land.”
2) A future Day of Atonement
“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and a put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
3) A future Feast of Booths
“You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.”
These feasts had a past celebration, a present celebration,
But also a future celebration.
PAST REMEMBERANCE
Trumpets – God’s deliverance
Atonement – God’s mercy
Booths – God’s provision
PRESENT CELEBRATION
Trumpets – God’s deliverance
Atonement – God’s forgiveness
Booths – God’s provision (harvest in)
FUTURE HOPE
Trumpets – God’s deliverance (in gathering)
Atonement – God’s complete forgiveness
Booths – God’s king on the earth
During this feast you had all three reasons to celebrate.
It is during this backdrop,
And on the last and greatest day
That Jesus delivers His main sermon.
It is also beneficial to see the point of the sermon.
After Jesus finished preaching.
John adds in verse 39, “But this He spoke of the Spirit”
I want you to know what the Old Testament says about God’s Spirit
FIRST – There would be One who would provide the Spirit.
Isaiah 42:1-4 “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. “He will not cry out or raise His voice, Nor make His voice heard in the street. “A bruised reed He will not break And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. “He will not be disheartened or crushed Until He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.”
Of course Matthew 12:17-21 showed where Jesus fulfilled this prophecy.
God promised He would send One who HAD the Spirit.
“I have put My Spirit upon Him”
SECOND – There would be those who would receive the Spirit
Ezekiel 36:27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
TURN TO EZEKIEL 37:1-14
Now in that, you see the future promise of The Feast of Booths.
The day when God’s Spirit would fill His people,
And He would place them on their own land.
Isaiah also prophesied about this wonderful day.
Isaiah 44:1-3 “But now listen, O Jacob, My servant, And Israel, whom I have chosen: Thus says the LORD who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you, ‘Do not fear, O Jacob My servant; And you Jeshurun whom I have chosen. ‘For I will pour out water on the thirsty land And streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring And My blessing on your descendants;”
Joel saw this day.
Joel 2:28-29 “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. “Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”
All these prophets saw a day when God’s Spirit would be poured out and Israel would be delivered and all the earth would be gathered to them during this future Feast of Booths.
THE FEAST OF BOOTHS CERTAINLY REMINDED OF THOSE PROMISES
As the people celebrate a feast that looks to the outpouring of God’s Spirit, Jesus stands to deliver a sermon on the Spirit.
3 POINTS
#1 THE SOURCE OF THE SPIRIT
John 7:37
You and I know why Jesus waited until the last and greatest day.
It was the climax, it was the main point,
It was literally the invitation to the feast.
And Jesus “stood and cried out”
Ordinarily a Rabbi sat down to teach, but you can see here the passion in Jesus as He stands to His feet to make sure everyone hears what He has to say.
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink”
Now there is a statement of great depth.
And it is not the first time Jesus has used such an analogy.
To the woman at the well, that desperately wanted a drink of water, Jesus said,
John 4:13-14 “Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
To the selfish crowd who just wanted their stomachs full in John 6, Jesus said,
John 6:35 “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”
And to this crowd who also had a definite thirst.
A thirst for the fulfillment of this feast.
A thirst for the day when God’s Spirit truly would be poured out on the dry ground.
A day when God’s deliverance was experienced.
A day when Israel could truly celebrate this feast.
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink”
He is the source of the Spirit of God,
And three things were required if they wanted Him.
1) “If anyone is thirsty”
There had to be a thirst for something better.
A complacent attitude is not one that is ready to come to Jesus.
Remember the man at the Bethesda pool?
John 5:5-6 “A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?”
Many people remain in a parched land
Because they choose to remain in a parched land.
James 4:2b “…You do not have because you do not ask.”
It is the same invitation that John would later use in the book of the Revelation.
Revelation 22:17 “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.”
Isaiah 55:1-3 “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight yourself in abundance. “Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, According to the faithful mercies shown to David.”
1/3 of the problem with lost people
Is that they do not even thirst for something better.
They are so content in their sin that they do not even thirst.
Many in Israel didn’t even want freedom
John 19:15 “So they cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”
How many today willfully remain slaves to this world.
They are slaves of the enemy, and are completely content there.
Paul told us to pray for people like that.
2 Timothy 2:24-26 “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”
They are people who literally need to come to their senses.
They need to discover their thirst for freedom.
You must first thirst for it.
Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
But of course that is only an inner motivation, and there is more that must be done.
2) “let him come to Me”
You can be like the explorer and search for the fountain of youth, but there is only One who has the fountain, because there is only One who already has the Spirit.
That is why Jesus could make such claims.
Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
Those are bold claims, but He had the authority to make them. You must thirst, and you must come to Jesus.
But there is more than that.
3) “and drink”
Now this seemed to be the tough one.
We remember the crowd in John 6 who finally turned away from Jesus at the thought of eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
They came to Him, but they wouldn’t identify with Him. They wouldn’t believe. They wouldn’t allow Jesus to get inside of them.
We remember the Rich Young Ruler who indeed thirsted for eternal life, and even came to Jesus to find it, but who missed out because He would not drink.
You see, you must come to Jesus and fully surrender to Jesus.
He is the source of the Spirit of God that you have been looking for.
Jesus moves on to show us why we should come to Him.
#2 THE SATISFACTION OF THE SPIRIT
John 7:38
Jesus shows us the wonderful satisfaction of the Spirit which you get from Him.
“From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”
So shouldn’t it say, “From My innermost being will flow rivers of living water to you”?
You see, Jesus is offering something much bigger than just provision. He is offering the presence. Instead of just receiving the benefits of the Spirit, He is offering to us to be vendors of Him.
Is that not what we see taking place in Acts 1:8?
Acts 1:8 “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
It is being filled with the Spirit so that we can carry it to others.
That is a huge concept.
John 14:16-17 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”
Colossians 1:26-27 “that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
That is amazing in itself, but look at what else Jesus says.
“will flow rivers of living water”
Now think about that.
A river was called living water because it flowed. To say “rivers of living water” is redundant
But not only that, He should have only said, “river of living water”
But you can see that Jesus is talking about a filling that will flat out consume you and flow from you in enormous fashion.
“rivers of living water”
We are talking about the headwaters,
We’re talking about getting the source in us.
That goes far beyond not being thirsty anymore.
If someone were to ask me the main difference between my religious life from 8 to 19 and from my new life from 19 til now. There is no doubt I would say the Spirit of God.
He made all the difference in my life.
His fruit, His changing power, His passions, His glory, His power…
Not only was I satisfied, but it was far greater than that.
I didn’t just get a river from God.
God put “rivers of living water” in me.
But you do need to see the first part of that verse.
“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said”
Not believes in Me like you want to.
There is a way in which God tells us to have faith in Jesus. We do it His way.
Matthew 16:24 “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”
But if we do, we get the greatest satisfaction our soul could ever know.
So we see the source of the Spirit
The satisfaction of the Spirit
#3 THE SENDER OF THE SPIRIT
John 7:39
Now notice what John said.
John said that those who believe in Jesus where to receive the Spirit.
“for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified”
Now, please don’t misunderstand.
The Spirit of God was on the earth.
David spoke of the Spirit.
Jeremiah had Him.
John the Baptist Had Him.
John’s dad was spoke in the Spirit.
Indeed all the prophets of the Old Testament spoke by Him.
But none had Him in the way Jesus was talking about.
They couldn’t.
“because Jesus was not yet glorified”
They could not fully experience the satisfying power of the Holy Spirit because their sin debt had never been paid.
But once Jesus died upon that cross, and rose from the dead, And then ascended to the Father,
Now we experience the fullness of God’s Spirit.
That is why Jesus said:
John 14:25-26 “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
John 16:7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”
IF YOU WANT THE SPIRIT OF GOD
There is only One way to get Him.
And so Jesus invitation to them also becomes Jesus invitation to you.
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me, and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”
That means tonight, if you have no satisfaction in your soul, the answer is clear. Come to Jesus and drink, and believe in Him as the Scripture says.
Tonight if you have received God’s Spirit,
THEN REMEMBER He was meant to flow from you, not just to you. Go be a fountain to the world.
John 16:7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”
