In this sermon, the preacher discusses the issue of empty religiosity and the lack of true spiritual fulfillment. He uses the analogy of birdwatching to illustrate how some people are constantly seeking new experiences and not fully appreciating what they already have in their faith. The preacher emphasizes the importance of enjoying and appreciating one's current spiritual journey while also continuing to grow in faith. He also highlights the need for genuine encounters with God and warns against engaging in empty religious activities that lack true spiritual substance.

In John, the seventh chapter, there's three verses, beginning with the thirty-seventh. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, Can a man thirst and come into me and drink? He that believeth on me, as the scriptures said, from within shall flow rivers of living water. He spake here of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because the Jesus was not yet glorified. Our Lord was at the Feast of Tabernacles. They were commemorating their deliverance many years past in the wilderness with the water from the rock. The priest would go to the pool of Siloam and fill a pitcher with water and carry it down the street, followed by a throng of people. And at the temple, he would pour out the water by the altar while all the sang Isaiah 12.3. Therefore, joy, shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation. It was such a hilarious occasion that it was said, whoever has not witnessed it has never seen rejoicing at all. But as Jesus watched this celebration, he must have been somewhat struck with the futility of the whole business. For although this jubilant multitude went into raptures, as it was all over, they went home with the same old heartaches and headaches and worries and fears. And it was a perfect example of how the law represented by the priest, religiousness and ceremony, never has satisfied the thirst of the human heart. And it symbolized the failure of the waters of this world, and all its plagues, the futility of the processions and the philosophies and the pleasures of this age to satisfy a weary soul. And while men may sometimes make great ado over such a ceremony, it doesn't matter to anything because they have forsaken the fountain of living waters and hewn out broken cisterns that can hold no water. On this great day, Jesus did something most unusual. He stood and cried out loud, if any man thirsts. He rarely spoke that way, because he shall not strive nor cry, neither shall any man hear his voice on the streets. But he stands today in a lost and tired world, thirsty and hungry, and with all his scientific advances and his experience and his know-how, dying of soul starvation, and in the midst of it all he says, if you really want satisfaction, come to me. And it's a picture of what today we have, a lot of empty pictures from Siloam in the name of religion. We've worked up ecstasies and psychic heroes, and in the midst of it all stands the Son of God saying, O everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. But I'm not thinking so much right now of Christ's cold, well, lost world. Thinking of a Laodicean church whose daily experience these days is more like empty pictures from Siloam than congregations of living fountain from whom flow rivers of living water. Now, reminds you, beloved, this feast was a religious observance. It was a commemoration of a time past when Almighty God intervened in human affairs. The professing Church of Jesus Christ today, for the most part, commemorates, but does not duplicate, the better days that have gone by when water flowed in the rivers. The experience now has become a performance, and what was fundamental has become incidental. And we put on gigantic celebrations, but like Ephesus we have left her first love, and like Pergamos we have put up with Balaam and Jezebel, and like Sardis we have an aim to be alive when God says we're dead. A mortician can make a dead man look better than he ever looked while he was living, and so can church experts sometimes. They can make churches appear to be alive when God knows better about it. And Laodicea neither cold nor hot, nauseating to our nose. Now, this crowd and John Seddon was not at home watching television, let's put it this way. This was a religious meeting, and to all appearances it was a great success. And it probably came out in the papers what a wonderful time they'd had, quite a celebration. But God knew better, and in the eye of the Lord it was a host having an appearance of godliness without the powers at all. God sees this play acting today, and this make-believe. He sees us carrying empty pitchers from Ceylon, and Jesus is standing in the midst of church energy today that passes for Christianity, crying above the chemo, if any man thirsts, if, and that's a big if, let him come into me and drink. I got hold of an article, a sermon, that came out and was put in print two years ago when the Methodists celebrated the order he gave. They made quite a thing of that, and they might well have done it because it was a great occasion. When Wesley felt his heart strangely warm, it's been discussed through the years since whether he was actually saved then or came into an awareness of sonship and passed from being just a servant to realization that he was a son. But however that was, this preacher spoke at the big get-together about order he gave, and preached the sermon. That was really terrific. I practically wore it out, carrying it around with me, kept meaning to have it typed, and never did. I've got what, if I can make it out, I'm going to have that done yet because it was a masterpiece. And he said the trouble is we commemorated, but we did not deprecate, because you can't have an imitation of what happened at orders gave. The same thing doesn't happen if you hadn't had it. So it was quite a statement. Now I'm not thinking about churches that have departed from the faith, and over whose door Ichabod's been written. I've been in a number of them, the Ichabod Memorial Church down the street. They don't call it that. That's what it is. And I'm often reminded of something that happened not long ago. A fine man who for many years had been an education man in a great church. Church that was great in many ways, magnificent buildings, lots of activity, a lot of good people in it. And he had done a noteworthy job. A man who wouldn't be critical for anything in the world. He loved that church. But in the midst of it all, after he had talked at length about it, and he'd written a little book, he wanted me to look over it. Not about that, but he wanted me to check it. After he had spoken quite at length about this church and how much it meant to him, he dropped his head, said, but we lack something. And he said, I suppose it's the Holy Spirit. Honest confession, good for the soul, mighty hard on the reputation, but good for the soul. And they have a whirlwind of activity, and a lot of it's good. Organized, standardized, wheels within wheels. When the power runs low, they put on another wheel. Drives, campaigns, pageants, dramatics, expos, expos, picnics, galore. But like the big celebration at this Feast of the Tabernacle, an empty religiosity all too open, and you hear above the noise and the tumult, the Lord shouting out, which he wasn't accustomed to doing, throw away your empty pictures from Ceylon and come to me, and I'll make you a fountain of blessing. Now, what did they lack, and what do we lack in a lot of our religiosity today? And we have a lot of it. Well, I think my friend was right. We sing, O brethren, we admit to worship and adore the Lord our God. Won't you pray with all your power while we try to preach the word. All is vain unless the Holy One comes down. There are three kinds of worship. There's I-D-O-L idol worship. There's I-D-L-E idol worship, and then there's I-D-O worship. God says that must be in spirit and in truth. Sometimes we're a long way from it. A Christian's a new person born of the Holy Spirit, and he cannot know Jesus well or serve him acceptably in that old nature. I'd hate to think how much of our religious activity today is being carried on by the old Adam. The flesh. Now, the flesh is not the same thing as the body. You have to have a body to run around in. But the flesh is that old Adamic nature. You've still got it. I know there's some of the brethren saying theirs has disappeared, that I hadn't been convinced. And we try to serve God with it. We can't do it acceptably because those that are in the flesh cannot please God, the book says. And that's why not many wise, mighty, and noble have been told that no flesh should grow in his presence. That's one reason God picked out just the ordinary folk, not many wise, not many intellects, because they're trying to get to heaven head first, and you get their heart first. The only thing I know who ever got his head and heart in the same place is cabbage, and you don't go to heaven that way. Wise and mighty? How many presidents in the United States do you think of who you believe were genuine, real New Testament Christians? We're not judges, but you worry a little about that sometimes. Now, I think we had some, and I'm no judge, but I think that William McKinley, for instance, was a genuine Christian. And after his assassination, as he lay dying, the doctor was much impressed with the fact that here was a man who was ready to die, and he'd been ready to live. And there are others, too. We've had some wonderful people in Washington. William James Brown was a great Christian. They never did get to be president. But by and large, not many mighty, not many noble, not many of the blue blood ancestors came over on the Mayflower or something, and they're still proud of it, you know. The trouble with this ancestry business is a good deal like sweet potatoes, the best part's usually under the ground, and so I don't brag much about that. But God has not picked many out of any of those outfits in order that no flesh should grow in his presence. The alarming thing about all this today, beloved, is we can put on our gospel pageantry. We can do it now with all modern TV show business and Hollywood and the new music and theatrical cleverness and looks like the real thing, and even the elect sometimes are deceived. And to say a word of caution about it sounds like blasphemy to those who are deceived thereby. But Jesus wasn't deceived, and as great as this looked, my, the big day in Jerusalem, and a religious big day. And yet, he not only spoke in a way that didn't show out no approval then, but you have almost the same thing, Matthew 11, where he began to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done because they repented not. Warned of thee, Chorazin, warned of thee, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented. Long ago in Sacrosanctus, and then he turned on Capernaum. He said, concerning these others, it would be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon the day of judgment than for you. Jesus' hometown was Capernaum. He was born in Bethlehem, lived in Nassau, but he settled in Capernaum in order to fulfill the prophecy about the life had come. It came to be the life, and the trouble there was, thou which art exalted to heaven shall be brought down to hell, for if the mighty works which had been done in thee had been done in Sodom of all places, Sodom would have remained into this day, but it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee. Now, that's a terrific thought. Sodomites are homosexuals. That's where the thing stands out in the record. And our Lord said to these nice Capernaumites, some of them probably churchgoers, nice, decent folks, but Jesus came and went, and they didn't do anything about it. They didn't crucify him. They did that in Jerusalem. They didn't push him off some ledge. They didn't try to kill him. They were nice. And he said, Sodom and Gomorrah were far better in the day of judgment than you Capernaumites. That's a terrific statement to make. Why? Because Sodom and Gomorrah never had the light, and Capernaum had it. This is the condemnation. This is the judgment that light has come into the world, and men lived in darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. We are not judged by how many sins we have committed, but by how much light we have rejected. That puts the shoe on the other foot, puts a lot of nice people out in the dark on this subject. It's a terrifying thing when you come to think of it, how people are going to be deceived. Why? I'm not against Jesus. I'm in favor of him. But you did nothing, and the light came, and you didn't walk in the light, and you didn't receive the light. And Sodom and Gomorrah, of all places, he picked them out. Far better in the day of judgment. And he said, The reason you're like a bunch of kids playing in the market and crying to their fellows and saying, We fight to you, and you've not danced. We've mourned to you, and you've not lamented. You didn't like John the Baptist because he was sort of in the senate. You didn't like me because I'd go out to dinner with folks. Can't please anybody. Preachers have found that out, too, in churches. You can't please them. If you're social, they say you're too much of a mixer. And if you're solitary, they say that you're a loner. And so they have a wonderful time, as Pastor said. We're some people. But we've got them today. This generation's just like these children playing. They play funeral. They play wedding. And we call it playing church. There's an awful lot of that going on today, just playing church. And that is what Jesus said. About playing church. And here he stands at this big day, the big day, and wasn't impressed at all, except for the fact that this crowd running around following this priest with a jug full of water from Shalom. And yet, they're just as hungry as can be, and just as thirsty and don't know it for the real water. We need to awaken, my friends, to all that's gathered up in this. Jesus was speaking on this occasion about the average church that knows practically nothing about the Holy Spirit. And most of our church work today is done without the assistance of the Holy Spirit. It's old Adam, all too often. I heard of a boy's school, that every morning they were supposed to recite the Apostles' Creed. And each one was given a portion, I believe, in God the Father Almighty, and so on down the line. One morning they were saying it, and all at once there came a halt right in the middle of all of it. And they were looking around. A boy spoke up and said, the boy who believes in the Holy Ghost is not here this morning. But I've been in some churches where the folks who believed in the Holy Ghost were not there, as far as I can make out. I am a Southern Baptist, and Dr. E.Y. Mullins was one of our great readers in the past, and he wrote a book on Baptist beliefs. He says this strange thing. It is a strange and very significant fact that for nearly 2,000 years, Christians have so generally neglected the New Testament teaching because of the Holy Spirit, the Baptist's Confession of the Faith and New Hampshire Confession are without separate articles on the Holy Spirit. He said it is one of the strangest oversights that Christians should have neglected it for so long. That's a good, honest confession from a Southern Baptist. Once in a while they do things like that, and that's a good confession, and from a great man who read them. And it's something to think about. We are so afraid of extremism about the Holy Spirit today, because we think some folks go too far, that we're running the other way as fast as we can. We just about fell off the reservation sometime, trying to get away from extremism. Well, we don't want extremism, to be sure, but we need the Holy Spirit, and all is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down. Well, how does he, how does he, how he feels? And they say, well, did Torrey believe in the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or the filling of the Holy Spirit? He said, baptism, well, I don't worry about the terminology. Whatever these, some of these old fellows had, I'm in favor of it. Think of old Bud Robertson, the holiness preacher. He was a second blessing man. Somebody said, well, Uncle Bud, I've had the third blessing, and the hundredth blessing, and the thousandth blessing. He said, well, if you've had that many, you oughtn't to mind me having just two. So, he's had two. I tell you, I'm in favor of whatever some of those old boys had, and I'm not criticizing too many of these fellows that are out preaching today, and I wouldn't do it. There's some things like they do it, but I like the way they're doing it better than I like the way most folks are not doing it in this day and time. How, how does it happen? He told you, let him come, and if any man thirsts, that is where you start. And that's why we don't get any further. We don't start at the right place. Thirsting is not just wanting a drink of water casually. That's not thirsting. When you get to the place, and sometimes people do, where the only thing you can think of is water in your desperation. Nothing else will satisfy you. You're dying for water. That's thirst. Abject thirst. If any man means business and he's deeply concerned about it, thirst. Have you ever thirsted for the fullness of this day? Have you ever hungered, really felt soul starvation in your innermost being about all of this? If any man thirsts, let him come unto me. What do you have to do next? Drink, receive, take. It's that simple. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. Give us liberally, not break us not, and it shall be given unto him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. And the next word he uses here, believe, he that believeth, ask and then believe you have received. Mark 11 24, whatsoever things you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them, you shall have them. Some folks ask God for wisdom, then they get up in their knees, well, I don't feel any different. Well, you didn't ask for feeling, you asked for wisdom. Why don't you take God up on it if you meant business? If you mean business with God, God means business with you. He wants to give you as wisdom as you need for the occasion. We ought to shepherd with him for him, that's what Mark 11 24 and other kindred verses mean. Thirsting, coming, drinking, believing, overflowing. Five steps of the overflowing will take care of itself, that's the result. But it begins with thirst, and it's not just casually, well, it must be lovely to be filled with the Spirit. Yes, I'd love to be filled with the Spirit, and that's all you ever hear about it, nothing ever happens. Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. We must watch these earthly intoxicants and excitement and stimulants by which we try to simulate the work of God. But we must drink and believe we've received and enjoy what we do have of it. I think some people go to the other extreme, and they don't enjoy what they do have of God's grace, and we ought to, and that's tasting the powers of the age to come that you read about in Hebrews. Are you enjoying as much as you've got of the grace of God? I like to study birds, and the other day I heard over TV about some fellow who's just an ardent and avid bird watcher, and he's got a lot of money, and that's a sort of a hobby. And somebody will call him up from the other side of the United States and say, well, I saw a one-legged woodpecker or something out here, or a tree somewhere. He jumps in his plane, he's got a private plane, takes off across the country to see that odd bird, because last year he was trying to see, I forget how many more new birds, and he wasn't enjoying the birds he had seen, trying to find that other five or six or whatever. I don't want to get that kind of religion. I want to enjoy what I have got of it, and there's enough of it, I hope, that you have to enjoy what you do have, and at the same time keep on drinking. And when you come to the Lord, remember that if it's according to the four accordings, why you can expect results, his word, his will, your need, and your faith. If what you pray for is according to his word, according to his will, according to your need, it'll be according to your faith. You can't miss on that. And we thank God for these men who have set a worthy example through the years. Time fails me to tell about George Fox, and about Wesley, and about Whitfield, and about Christmas Evans, and about Finian, and about F.B. Meyer. He had worked himself almost down longing for the fullness of God, and he was just almost sick. He was at Kershick in England, and he climbed a little hill and said, Lord, I'm too tired to even pray, but I realize the need of the fullness of the Spirit. And with the same simple faith with which he took Jesus long before, he took and accepted. He came down the mountain, and he hadn't gone up there for feeling, he'd gone up there for filling, which is something that's what the old Lyngey brought, and it used to be a Baptist tabernacle in Atlanta. He went down to a church that wasn't the same denomination. They had folks up there praying to be good, and he went down, criticism or no criticism, and he didn't shout, and he didn't holler, but he settled with God about it. Anybody here tonight doesn't have assurance, a lot of dear folks. Criswell of Dallas, after he started preaching, didn't have assurance. And I wrote with him one day, and I'd read about it, and I said, tell me about that. Is that right? Yep, he said, I would preach in the morning, be on my knees at night trying to feel saved. He said he couldn't. I finally got to the place, and I said, Lord, it says over there in the book, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. If I knew any better how to do it, I would. I do believe on the Son, and I'm going to stand at the judgment day and say, Lord, I don't feel like I want to feel all the time. That's where I stand. You hear him preach now, well, he's satisfied about it. He's settled on it. You can tell him the way he preaches, positive. I call him Donald Gray Barnhouse, A.W. Tozer, among you right where I used to say. I wish I could be as certain of one thing as Barnhouse is about everything. Well, it's good to have that kind of assurance. But some folks never have it, and they worry and worry and worry about it. Well, your background, your temperament, maybe what you were brought up in has a lot to do. Sometimes your nerves have a lot to do with it. But don't let the devil worry out of that thing. You come to Jesus and say, How did you get saved? You ask him to save you. You trust in him with the faith of a child. The simpler the better. A dear lady wrote to old Alexander White, that giant among preachers. Just can't be sure I'm saved. He wrote her back, my dear sister. And then I am not quoting verbatim, but he went on to say, out there in the wilderness there were several hundred thousand Israelites watching that serpent on the pole. But the fellow on the back row couldn't even make out the outline of the thing way out there. But he said, God didn't say, See. He said, Look. You know that's done me a lot of good. There have been times when I couldn't see. I told you these truths. But God didn't say that. Look unto me and be you saved. Holy into the earth. What are you looking these days? Looking unto Jesus, the altar and finisher of our faith. That did me a lot of good one time in my life when I was bothered along that line. Your feelings, your nervous condition, your health, circumstances can get you down. And the devil, of course, knows where the weak spot is. And if he can get saints to think they're lost and they're saved, and sinners to think they're saved and they're lost, he's having a picnic. You can be sure that he works on both sides and has a lot of results with both of them. But it's a simple thing. Come and believe. Let me ask you tonight. Do you know what it is? Did you ever know in your life what it was to have a desperate thirst for the fullness of God? Do you know anything about that? I left to think about that precious verse. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away. I told you that in Luke 1 in the Magnificat of Mary. And I watch people go out of church sometimes. I say, there goes old Sister Smith. I know her. Bless her heart. She loves God. She came this morning hungry. Always does for more. And she got it. So she came for that. That's what she came for. And then there goes Deacon so-and-so. He's a businessman in good shape. He doesn't need anything. The rich and the increased is good. He'll go to the Lord's table and have his cocktail the next day and everything's okay. Oh, I don't mind belonging to church and helping out some. If they're getting a pinch, he gives them a big shake and so on. But he goes out empty just as empty as he can be because he came in that way and wasn't hungry. Wasn't anything he wanted to begin with. They blame the preacher sometimes, but generally it's because you didn't thirst. You didn't have hunger when you went to the Lord's house. What did you come for here tonight? Did you come with a hunger? Is there a thirst in your heart for a blessing from God? You get what you go at. Some folks don't go to church with a basket to get a blessing. They go with a spyglass so they can find something to grumble about, hunting for something the preacher said that they can argue about. What did you bring to church tonight? Oh, if you bring an empty heart that needs filling and a hunger after righteousness, God will meet you. The trouble today is, they didn't need a thing. God can't do much for folks who don't need anything much. And Jesus said here that the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Of course, that means death and resurrection. And the Holy Spirit hadn't come at Pentecost yet. But you're not going to be filled unless the purpose in your heart is to glorify Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is never the central figure, and he doesn't lead the procession in the Bible. His business is to testify for Jesus Christ. And any religious movement that makes the Holy Spirit the figurehead is off the track because it's the business of the Holy Spirit to magnify Jesus Christ. And it's Christocentric all the way through, and he enables us to do that. Well, I watched them go out many times, and I wonder what did they come in for? What did they want from the king? Well, you could talk about many others along this line. Old Alexander McLaren was a dignified English preacher, but before his congregation he said, some of you have become so habituated to hearing the truth that it rolls off you like water. We'd say like water off a duck's back. Said that from the pulpit to his own best folks. Said it's like military horses that have heard cannon go off right around them so much that they don't even tremble anymore if one's fired right by their very ears, because you've heard the truth so long. Nothing startled you very much. Well, I wonder what it'll take sometimes. You're filleth to hungry is a good thing, but the rich. How are you going out of here tonight? I will remember when I was pastor in Charleston, 34 to 39, I was much exercised about this very matter myself. I wasn't satisfied, and I wanted to be usable to the glory of God, and I'd heard so many things, read so many things about what the Holy Spirit did, and I didn't want to talk to any other preachers about it or my folks about it. But old Granny Russell lived there, and she knew God, and she sent me a book, The Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians. I took it in my room and read it, and I couldn't go to sleep until I read it, and then I couldn't go to sleep because I had read it. And I'd get out there and walk up and down the ocean beach on the Isle of Palms. That was a good place to pray, you know, and sing. That's the only place I sang in a place like that where nobody could hear me. And God gave me a thirst. Oh, I sat up all hours and all that sort of thing, but that isn't the way to be blessed. And I said, however, and if you're dead in earnest enough to do that, there's virtue in waiting on the Lord. And the Lord blessed my soul. I didn't see any visions, dream any dreams. There wasn't any Russell or Angel or Wayne. Oh, that blessed song, this and oh, holy ghost upon my heart, that's one of the greatest things in the book. And I don't hear it sung much, but that old song says, I don't ask for Russell or Angel or Wayne or a rending of the veil of clay, but do something about this dead heart of mine. And so I settled with the Lord, and I do know that it makes a difference. So let me ask you tonight, I somehow couldn't escape from it all afternoon. And when you can't escape from a certain thing, you better preach about it. I found out a long time ago a good rule for deciding what to preach about. Talk about the thing that lies warmest on your heart at that time. You can't miss. God won't mix you up on things like that. He'll lay something on you. I look over this crowd, and I wonder, have you ever known this thirst? And when you have holy desperation, you're getting in good shape for a blessing, the Lord. And that poor sick woman that had spent all her money on the doctors and was worse instead of better, nearly dead. And one morning she got up and said, well, maybe I'll die today. I don't care if I do. And then she heard a big noise outside and looked out the window. People are going from every direction. What's up? Well, Jesus and Nazareth are going through town. She'd heard of him. Now, let's get it straight. She didn't know much about him, but she said, I've heard about him. He heals folks. Maybe if I could push my way through, maybe he'll heal me, and I'm going to try. I don't know if she got some old rag of a dress she'd spent all her money. She must have been a sight to see, nearly dead. I don't know how she got through the crowd, but she did. And ladies, ladies don't go airborne through the crowd unless there's a sale on at the department store. And she went right through and touched him. Two little words keep bouncing up in that fifth chapter of Mark, crowd and touch, throng and touch. Everybody thronged him, but only one poor sick soul, nearly dead, touched him. And when she did touch him, he stopped and said, who touched me? Poor old Simon Peter, you know, nearly everything he said in the New Testament was a mistake, except in his epistle. The Bible says, and Peter said, not knowing what he said. That's generally true. Said, Lord, why would you ask that? Who touched me this crowd, shoving and pushing? Then you wonder who touched you. Well, that's typical of the man, but thank God he loved Jesus anyhow. And I'm glad he's in there. It cheers me up sometimes to know there's a character like Simon Peter in the book. But there she was, and she was a sight to see, I'm sure, but when you've been healed, you don't care much about what style dress you're wearing on that occasion. And so it is because she had a holy desperation. I never worry about anybody in the congregation that's got holy desperation, and the thirst, and that long for what God's got for you.