Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2003 : August 3, 2003
Draw Water from the Wells of Salvation
Pentecost 8
If I offered you $10,000 with no strings attached, would you take the $10,000? I think that's a safe bet. If I offered you a glass of water with no strings attached, would you take it? You certainly wouldn't have the same enthusiasm in taking the glass of water as you would taking the $10,000, but if you were thirsty you'd probably take it, too. But what if I told you that you could only take one or the other but not both? You would choose the $10,000, right? Why is that? Obviously the $10,000 is more valuable. The choice between the two is simple in this situation. But what if the situation were changed? What if we were standing in the middle of a desert with no water around for miles, and you had been there for three days with the scorching sun beating on your back, your lips cracked and bleeding because they're so dry? You are actually dying of thirst. If you don't get water very soon, you would die. Suddenly the glass of water becomes much more valuable; in fact, more valuable than all the money in the world. It really depends on the circumstances.
From the Word of God today we see that our sin puts us in a desert. But we were not left to die in the desert of our sin. Isaiah encourages you: Draw Water from the Wells of Salvation. That water is Jesus Christ. That living water is your source of comfort, and it is your reason for praise.
When Isaiah was writing these words of Scripture, God's people were being threatened by the Assyrian empire and later on they would be threatened by the Babylonian empire. They would be living in constant fear of these nations overrunning their homes by their enemies. And you can imagine what would go along with that -- rape, killing, things that you and I have never had to worry about were the constant unwelcome companions of God's people. But there would be a day of peace. Peace would come when God would save his people from these enemy nations. God had done it before -- he had saved his people from slavery in Egypt, so God's people could trust him now. Isaiah tells the people why they could trust in their God, even when there wasn't much hope: "Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid." Just as God would save them from their earthly enemies, he would also save them from their spiritual enemies -- sin, death, the devil. Because God was their salvation, they had no reason to fear.
But they did fear. They often forgot what God had done for them. They relied in their own strength to get them through. How easy it is for us to say, "Those idiotic Israelites! How could they not trust God? God had saved them from slavery in Egypt, made them his own people, drove out their enemies in the land of Canaan, and everything else. What a lack of faith! If I were there, I certainly would have trusted God to carry me through." But how many times don't we grumble when things don't go just how we want them to in our lives? How many times don't we look at what we are faced with in life and try to find our own way out of our dilemmas? Do we trust God when our bank accounts are running very low? How many times don't we simply reject what God's will is and go our own way? How many times does that happen? We can't count that high! That shows our lack of trust in God. All our sins really show our true colors, what we are by nature -- sinners, through and through. And when we put our black, sinful lives up against the demands of a holy and righteous God who demands holiness and righteousness from us and nothing less, what a contrast! The Bible tells us that because of our sins, our turning our own way, we were by nature objects of God's wrath. Those sins place us in a desert -- the desert of our own sins. Those sins make us very thirsty -- thirsty for the water of life.
Have you ever been really thirsty? So thirsty that you thought you would die if you didn't have a drink of water right away? A famous poem talks about the one great fear of sailors on the open sea -- running out of drinking water. It goes, "Water, water everywhere, and how the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink." You see, when you're on the ocean, you can't drink the water in the ocean because it's salt water. If you did, you would end up being more thirsty than you were before, and also very sick on top of it. Just think of the despair that those sailors must experience when they run out of water to drink. Even though they can see water for miles on every horizon, they can't drink it, and eventually they will die of thirst if someone doesn't save them by bringing them life-giving water that is drinkable.
That is a good picture of man trying to save himself. On the ocean you can get to all the saltwater you want -- but it won't satisfy your thirst -- it will make it worse. That salt water represents all the good things people do to try to earn heaven. You can be good to others, sending your money to Africa to help a poor child from starving; you can be courteous by opening all the doors for every woman you might come across, even for your wife! You can be a great husband or wife, always looking to your spouse's needs and desires first before yours. You might do volunteer work in the community to help the poor and homeless -- those who don't have it as nice as you. Those things are great. They're very noble. But many people think that's what they need to do to get to heaven some day. But they won't! They'll go to hell. Why? Because they're not drinking the right water. They're drinking saltwater. And it will kill. To get to heaven, you don't need to be good; you need to be perfect, without any sin of any kind. We aren't perfect -- not even close. Isaiah says God was angry with us because of our sins. The picture that the word angry brings out is someone flaring their nostrils in anger. That's a picture of God flaring his nostrils against every sinner, against you and me, because of our complaining and lack of compassion and lack of trust in him, and every other sin. The holy and righteous God can't abide sin. He hates sin. And because he is holy, he must punish sin with its just consequence -- death, eternal death. The next time you sin, think of this picture of God, with his nostrils flared at you. We need something better than the saltwater of this world to save us. We need to get water from some other source. We need to draw water from the wells of salvation: Jesus Christ.
Jesus, the sinless Son of God, suffered our hell for us when he hung on the tree of Calvary. Jesus, the sinless Son of God, actually became the object of God's holy wrath against sin. Jesus, the sinless Son of God, became sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Isaiah says it this way: "Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me." God's anger was turned away, but it was not forgotten. No, that anger was aimed in its full horror against his own Son. And on the cross is where the sinless Son of God paid for the world's sins. The price of offering us a drink from the wells of salvation was Jesus' life of perfection lived under the holy law of God and his suffering the torments of hell in our place. Jesus lived that life for us. Jesus died that death for us.
We did nothing for our salvation -- God has done it all for us and for all people. That is the comfort we receive as we draw water from the wells of salvation: the assurance of our salvation. Isaiah uses the plural 'wells of salvation' not to say that there are many different ways to have your sins forgiven, many different ways to get to heaven. The plural indicates that source of salvation -- forgiveness in Jesus -- is without limit. "The blood of Jesus, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin," the Bible says in First John. We have forgiveness through Jesus Christ, the Water of life. What comfort that gives us!
That comfort results in thanks to God. Isaiah says: "In that day you will say: 'Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.' " The day that Isaiah is talking about is the day of our salvation. The day that Jesus said, "It is finished!" on the cross after paying the debt we owed for sin. That day is the day Jesus rose from the dead to assure us of our salvation. That day was when the Holy Spirit called out to you and brought you to faith in Christ. It was when you first drank deeply from the wells of salvation. Isaiah tells us also the result of our drinking deeply from that blessed well of Christ. He says, "Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world." Jesus has given us plenty of life-giving water to share. How can we keep that water to ourselves when people we know are still adrift in the ocean of sin or in the desert of despair over their sins? How can we only live for ourselves now that we know that God is our salvation? Now we'll want to help the poor, give service in our community, worship and praise God with our lives, and tell others the marvelous news about Jesus.
I'd like to share one last thought in verse 3: "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." Today we have indoor plumbing -- we can just turn on a faucet and we have water. Before that people had to work for their water. They would have to go out to the nearest well or stream with buckets and haul water to their house everyday. It was backbreaking, tedious, never-ending work. It was drudgery, like washing the dishes or cleaning the house. Only God could have changed something so hated into something so joyful -- "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." What joy we have because of Jesus! What comfort! What hope! What better reason can we ever have to live our lives for his glory!
What would you rather have -- $10,000, or even all the money this world can offer, or would you rather have Jesus and a drink from the wells of salvation? Not too hard a choice, is it? You know Jesus and the salvation he has given you. Now choose to live for him. You used to be thirsty. Now you are filled with water drawn from the wells of salvation. Find comfort in it. Praise God with your life because of it. Amen.
