Chapter 12
The kiss is a token of enmity removed, of strife ended, and of peace established. You will remember that when Jacob met Esau, although the hearts of the brothers had been long estranged – fear had dwelt in the heart of one, and revenge had kindled its fires in the heart of the other – when they met, they were at peace with each other. They fell upon each other’s neck and they kissed. It was the kiss of reconciliation.
The very first work of grace in the heart is for Christ to give the sinner the kiss of His affection and to prove His reconciliation to the sinner. In this same way, the father kissed his prodigal son when he returned (Luke 15:20). Before the feast was spread, before the music and the dance began, the father fell upon his son’s neck and kissed him. Our part is to return that kiss. Just as Jesus gives the reconciling kiss on God’s behalf, it is our part to kiss Jesus and to prove by that deed that we are reconciled with God by the death of his Son (Romans 5:10).
Sinner, until now you have been an enemy of Christ’s gospel. You have hated His Sabbaths and neglected His Word. You have despised His commandments and cast His laws behind your back. You have, as much as was in your power, opposed His kingdom. You have loved the wages of sin and the ways of iniquity better than the ways of Christ.
What do you have to say for yourself? Does the Spirit now strive in your heart? Then I urge you to yield to His gracious influence and let your quarrel be at an end. Throw down the weapons of your rebellion, pull out the feathers of pride from your helmet, and cast away the sword of your rebellion. Be His enemy no longer, for rest assured that He desires to be your friend. With arms outstretched and ready to receive you, with eyes full of tears weeping over your stubbornness, and with a heart moved with compassion for you, He speaks through me and says, Kiss the Son (Psalm 2:12); be reconciled.
The very message of the gospel is the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18). We speak as God has commanded us. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did exhort you by us; we beseech you in Christ’s name, be ye reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20). Is this a difficult thing we ask of you, that you should be friends with Him who is your best friend? Is this a harsh law, like the commands of Pharaoh to the children of Israel in Egypt, when God asks you to simply shake hands with Him who shed His blood for sinners?
We do not ask you to be the friends of death or hell, but we beg you to dissolve your association with them. We pray that grace may lead you to reject their company forever and be at peace with Him who is incarnate love and infinite mercy. Sinners, why will you resist Him who only desires to save you? Why treat with contempt Him who loves you? Why trample on the blood that bought you and reject the cross, which is the only hope of your salvation?
Mankind is utterly ruined and destroyed. He is lost in a wild waste wilderness. The goatskin bottle of his righteousness is all dried up, and there is not so much as a drop of water in it. The heavens refuse him rain, and the earth can yield him no moisture. Must he perish? He looks above, beneath, around, and he discovers no means of escape. Must he die? Must thirst devour him? Must he fall upon the desert and leave his bones to bleach under the hot sun?
No, for the Scriptures declare that there is a fountain of life. For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see light (Psalm 36:9). Ordained in eternity past by God in solemn covenant, this fountain, this divine well, takes its spring from the deep foundations of God’s decrees. It gushes up from the depth which lies beneath, it comes from that place that the eagle’s eye has not seen and the lion’s cub has not passed over. The deep foundations of God’s government, the depths of His own essential goodness and of His divine nature – these are the mysterious springs from which the water of life gushes forth which will do good to us.
The Son dug this well and bored through massive rocks which prevented this living water from springing upward. Using His cross as the grand instrument, He has pierced through rocks. He has descended to the lowest depth and has broken open a passage by which the love and grace of God, the living water that can save the soul, may well up and overflow to quench the thirst of dying men and women.
The Son has commanded this fountain to flow freely. He has removed the stone that covered the mouth of the fountain, and now having ascended on high, He stands there to see that the fountain will never stop its life-giving course, that its floods will never be dry and its depths will never be exhausted. This sacred fountain, established according to God’s good will and pleasure in the covenant, opened by Christ when He died upon the cross, flows this day to give life, health, joy, and peace to poor sinners who are dead in sin and ruined by the fall. There is a water of life.
Pause awhile and look at its floods as they come gushing upward, overflowing on every side and satisfying people’s thirst. Let us look with joy. It is called the water of life, and it richly deserves its name. God’s favor is life, and in His presence there is pleasure forevermore. In thy presence is fullness of joy; in thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Psalm 16:11). This water is God’s favor, and consequently, it is life. This water of life is intended to bring God’s free grace and God’s love for you, so if you come and drink, you will indeed find this to be life to your soul; for in drinking of God’s grace, you inherit God’s love, and you are reconciled to God. God stands in a fatherly relation to you. He loves you, and His great infinite heart is filled with compassion toward you.
It is not living water simply because it is love and life, but it also saves from impending death. The sinner knows that he must die because he is unworthy. He has committed sins so tremendous that God must punish him. God would cease to be just if He didn’t punish the sins of mankind. When conscious that he has been very guilty, man stands shivering in the presence of his Maker, feeling in his soul that his doom is signed and sealed and that he must certainly be cast away from all hope, life, and joy.
Come, you who are doomed because of your sin. This water can wash away your sins, and when your sins are washed away, then you will live, for the innocent must not be punished. Here is water that can make you whiter than driven snow. Even though your heart is as black as Kedar’s smoky tents, here is water that can cleanse you and wash you to the whiteness of perfection and make you as beautiful as the curtains of King Solomon. These waters fully deserve the name of life, since pardon is a condition of life. Unpardoned we die, we perish, we sink into the depths of hell. If pardoned, though, we live, we rise, we ascend to the very heights of heaven. This ever-gushing fountain will give life from the dead to all who take of it, by the pardon of their sins.
“But,” one might say, “I have a longing within me that I cannot satisfy. I feel sure that if I am pardoned there will still be something that I need – that nothing I have ever heard of or have ever seen or handled can satisfy. I have within me an aching void that the world can never fill.”
“There was a time,” says another, “when I was satisfied with the theater, when the amusements and the pleasures of people of the world were very satisfying to me. I have pressed that olive until it no longer yields its generous oil, but it is only the contaminated, thick dregs that I can now obtain. My joys have faded. The beauty of my lush valley has become as a faded flower. I can no longer rejoice in the music of this world.”
O soul, I am glad that your cistern has become dry, because until people are dissatisfied with this world, they never look out for the next. Until the god of this world has utterly deceived them, they will not look to Him who is the only living and true God. Listen, you who are wretched and miserable. Here is living water that can quench your thirst! Come and drink, and you will be satisfied, for he who believes in Christ finds enough for him in Christ now, and enough forever.
The believer is not someone who has to pace his room saying, “I find no amusements and no delight.” He is not someone whose days are weary and whose nights are long, for he finds in Christ such a spring of joy, such a fountain of consolation, that he is content and happy. Put him in a dungeon and he will find good company. Place him in a barren wilderness, and he would still eat the bread of heaven. Drive him away from friendship, and he will find the friend that sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). Take away all his shade and shelter, and he will find shadow beneath the Rock of Ages. Destroy the foundation of his earthly hopes, but since the foundation of his God stands sure, his heart will still be firm, trusting in the Lord (Psalm 112:7).
There is such a fulness in Christianity that I can honestly testify that I never knew what happiness was until I knew Christ. I thought I did. I warmed my hands by the fire of sin, but it was a painted fire. When I tasted the Savior’s love just once and was washed in Jesus’s blood, that was heaven begun below. Oh, if you knew the joys of true Christianity, if you only knew the sweetness of love to Christ, surely you could not stand at a distance. If you could catch just a glimpse of the believer when he is full of joy, you would renounce your wildest fun and your greatest joy to become the lowest child in the family of God. You see that it is the living water. It is the water of life, because it satisfies our thirst and gives us the reality of life that we can never find in anything beneath the sky.
In the name of Almighty God, stay away from everything that keeps the willing sinner from Christ. Away with you, away with you! Christ sprinkles His blood upon the way, and He cries to you, “Vanish, be gone, leave the road clear. Let him come. Do not stand in his path. Make his way straight before him. Level the mountains and fill up the valleys. Make a highway straight through the wilderness for him to come, to drink of this Water of Life freely. Let him come! Oh, that is a precious word of command, because it has all the might of Omnipotence in it! God said, Let there be light, and there was light (Genesis 1:3). He says, Let him that is thirsty come, and come he will and must. He must be willing to come. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is thirsty come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17). Sinner, remember – God says, Come. Is there anything in your way? Remember, He adds Let him come. He commands everything to move out of your way. Will you come?