J.C. Ryle

On the last day of the feast, the greatest day, Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37)

It has been said that there are some passages in Scripture which deserve to be printed in letters of gold. Of such passages the verses before us form one. They contain one of those wide, full, free invitations to mankind, which make the Gospel of Christ so eminently the “good news of God.” Let us see of what it consists.

We have, first, in these verses, a case supposed. The Lord Jesus says, “If any man thirst.” These words no doubt were meant to have a spiritual meaning. The thirst before us is of a purely spiritual kind. It means anxiety of soul–conviction of sin–desire of pardon–longing after peace of conscience. When a man feels his sins, and wants forgiveness–is deeply sensible of his soul’s need, and earnestly desires help and relief–then he is in that state of mind which our Lord had in view, when he said, “If any man thirst.” The Jews who heard Peter preach on the day of Pentecost, and were “pierced in their hearts,”–the Philippian jailer who cried to Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved?” are both examples of what the expression means. In both cases there was “thirst.”

Such thirst as this, unhappily, is known by few. All ought to feel it, and all would feel it if they were wise. Sinful, mortal, dying creatures as we all are, with souls that will one day be judged and spend eternity in heaven or hell, there lives not the man or woman on earth who ought not to “thirst” after salvation. And yet the many thirst after everything almost except salvation. Money, pleasure, honor, rank, self-indulgence–these are the things which they desire. There is no clearer proof of the fall of man, and the utter corruption of human nature, than the careless indifference of most people about their souls. No wonder the Bible calls the natural man “blind,” and “asleep,” and “dead,” when so few can be found who are awake, alive, and athirst about salvation.

Happy are those who know something by experience of spiritual “thirst.” The beginning of all true Christianity is to discover that we are guilty, empty, needy sinners. Until we know that we are lost, we are not in the way to be saved. The very first step toward heaven is to be thoroughly convinced that we deserve hell. That sense of sin which sometimes alarms a man and makes him think his own case desperate, is a good sign. It is in fact a symptom of spiritual life–“Blessed indeed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” (Matt. 5:6.)