Stale Pond Bad, Savior Good

Silence hangs over the Feast of Tabernacles as the priest carries water from the Pool of Siloam—then Jesus steps forward and breaks the quiet: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. We dive into that electric moment and trace how a centuries-old ritual suddenly points straight to a present-tense promise. The story sweeps from Moses striking the rock to Zechariah’s cleansing fountain to Isaiah’s free invitation to the thirsty, revealing how Scripture’s streams converge in the person of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We walk the crowded temple courts, feel the tension as leaders argue, and hear officers sent to arrest Jesus return amazed—no man ever spoke like this man. Nicodemus raises a brave question about justice and due process, pushing back against snap judgments that confuse knowledge about God with submission to God. Along the way we untangle debates about Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Galilee, showing how the Gospels and the prophets align rather than compete. The goal isn’t to win an argument; it’s to meet the One who turns ritual into river and belief into overflow.

This conversation is for anyone weary of stagnant religion and hungry for a faith that moves. We contrast ponds that stink with streams that cleanse, then ask what it means to receive living water and become a channel, not a reservoir. In a world rattled by conflict and fear, Jesus’ invitation is not a metaphor to admire; it’s a lifeline to grasp. Come and drink. Let grace run through your life, bringing clarity, courage, and fruit that lasts.

If this episode stirred your heart, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s thirsty for hope, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

Welcome And Theme Of Living Water

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

He's starting to prepare for that sacrifice, and and he's declared himself. He is the one that brings living water. Come to me, and I will give you streams of living water. And today we need that Holy Spirit in our midst. And it only comes through Jesus. It only comes through believing the finished work that He did for us on the cross.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Have you spent much time looking at a pond of still water before? They're usually pretty muddy. They have algae growing in them, and they tend to have an unpleasant odor to them. Whereas fresh water in a stream or a river that's constantly flowing is clean, clear, and refreshing. In today's message, Pastor Carl wants you to taste the living water that only comes from Jesus Christ. Are you tired of the same old stagnancy and muck of this world? Come to Jesus and taste the water of life. And now here's Pastor Carl.

Feast Of Tabernacles Water Ritual

Jesus Declares The Fulfillment

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Moses was instructed to hit the rock once, and water would flow from that rock. That rock represented our Lord Jesus Christ and how he was struck once on the cross, that from him living waters would flow because of the work that he did for us on the cross, paying our sin debt. He has also given us the Holy Spirit that we might live and live to him. And so that's a picture of that. And on the last day of the, well, every day of the festival, the priests would go down to what was called the pool of Siloam, which was in the southern part of the town, and they would take a golden picture and they would dip it into the water and get water out, and then take that water up to the altar and pour it out. Now, this water that they got out of the pool of Siloam they described as living water, because the water was fueled or supplied by a natural spring. And so it came into the pool, natural flowing water, and it went out of the pool to provide water for the whole city of Jerusalem. The Dead Sea, for an example of an opposite, the water would flow into the Dead Sea but never flow out, because I think that's the lowest elevation on earth, so there's nowhere else to flow, and just everything dies, so it's called the Dead Sea. This was living water, and so they took that living water to represent how the Lord provided for them in the wilderness, how they also provided for them in this year. It's a celebration of the harvest that the Lord had provided for them this year. You provided this water for us, and it also points to a coming harvest, the grand harvest that the Messiah would reap when he comes. And so they would come and they would get this water. They would walk around the altar area once, and then the high priest would go up and pour it out on the top of the altar as just a celebration of God's goodness. They would do that for six days. On the seventh day, they would not pour out any water, but they would go around the altar seven times. Does that remind you of anything? How the Lord took the Israelites out of the wilderness and brought them into the promised land was by conquering Jericho. And they did the same sort of thing. Every day they'd go around the city once, they would be praising and worshiping, and then they'd leave. And on the seventh day they'd go around seven times and the walls would collapse. Well, similar to that, on the seventh day, they'd go around with the water seven times, but they would not pour it out because this was looking forward to when the Messiah would come and pour out his spirit and bring about a great harvest in the future. And it was at that point, I could just imagine the great crowds are, you know, very respectfully and just worshipful and quietly watching the proceedings that happen. So you have tons of people, and you have the priest going around the altar, and then all of a sudden Jesus finds an opening and stands in front of the crowd and declares, in the midst of all the silence, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Can you just imagine that scene? Wow. He is declaring he's the fulfillment of what we're doing right now. And there will be people in the audience that their eyes are open and they recognize that.

unknown 5:16

Wow.

Prophecies Of Zechariah And Isaiah

Now And Not Yet Of The Spirit

Crowd Reactions And Debates

Birthplace Prophecies Explained

Nicodemus Challenges Unjust Judgment

Galilee Prophets And Jonah

Jesus Prepares For The Cross

Prayer And Call For Renewal

About John And Program Info

Service Times And Website

SPEAKER_02 5:16

He is the Messiah. He has come. Look at this. But at the same time, this is really angering the leaders. Angering those who have gone beyond trying to seek the Lord's will in the word, but are holding on to their power and holding on to what they know is right and how things need to be. And so this is just shaking things up. But Jesus is proclaiming that he is the one that's coming, and he's fulfilling a few prophecies from the Old Testament. Let me just show you a few. One is from Zechariah 13 and 14. In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. He is that fountain that came, and his blood would wash us clean from sin and death, right? And in that day it shall be that living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea, and both summer and winter it shall occur. And the book of Revelation kind of plays off of this. It talks about when Jesus returns, he will come, and he his first place he will put his feet is on the Mount of Olives, and it would split in half. And a river would flow from the east to the west through that split mountain from the throne of God. And there would be trees and vegetation along that that would be in harvest. Every month there would be something coming up. It would be a time of fruitfulness, it would be a time of power, it would be a time of peace and prosperity that we've never seen. And Jesus is declaring it is here, it is now. I am He who you're looking for. There's a couple others from the book of Isaiah in chapter 44 or chapter 55. I will pour my water on him who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring. It is my desire to fill you with my spirit, to bring you life, to bring you abundance and flourishing. And I know we meshed his first and second comings. In some ways it's a great mystery, but in other ways it kind of flows through because this is going to happen in the future, but it is happening among believers right now. When you receive the Lord, you receive the Holy Spirit. And it's his desire that the Holy Spirit would be used in and through us to bless the lives of others, and that our offspring would come to know the Lord and to be used by the Holy Spirit in mighty ways to be influences in our culture. And he goes on to say, Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come and buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. The living waters that I have for you, I have paid for. I have paid the price for your sin, and I have paid the price for you to have everything that you need. Come to me. It doesn't cost you anything. No penance, no fines. I have paid it all. You come, you receive, you be changed. And so in this scene, a lot of these things are playing out, and some of the crowd is beginning to see it, and some of the crowd isn't, and the and the leadership isn't seeing it. Some of them are seeing it, but most of them aren't. They're just getting upset. Back at verse 40, then, therefore, many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, This truly is the prophet. Again, the prophet is the one that the Lord gave words to Moses to share with the people. He said, I'm going to send one like me. The Lord is going to send one like me, a man who will speak for God. That is the prophet that was to come. So this is the man that Moses spoke of that the people were to listen and to follow. Others said, This is the Christ. And well, he's not the prophet, he's the Christ. He can't be the prophet because he's got to be the Christ because the things that he's doing, the things that he's saying, sure, sure point to him being the Messiah. And people started arguing about these things. No, he's the prophet. No, he's the He is. He is both. There are so many things that Jesus is that the Old Testament describes who he will be and what he will do. He fulfills them all. And let's not get stuck on any one issue. And that that happens a lot in the church. It can't be this or this. It's got to be one or the other, you know. But the truth is, a lot of times it's together. I mean, the great debate between predestination and free will. It's not one or the other, folks. The Bible talks about them both. And even though we may not understand it, that's what it says. And somehow it comes together, and in eternity we'll completely understand it. But we absolutely cannot work our way to heaven. We absolutely can't seek after God without the Holy Spirit's intervention and drawing us. But we absolutely can't be right with God if we refuse him, if we reject him. And the Bible says, do not resist the work of the Holy Spirit. So both are true and both work. And he was the prophet and he was the Christ. But then they start arguing about him being the Christ. Will the Christ come out of Galilee? He's not supposed to come out of Galilee. Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David, from the town of Bethlehem, where did where David was? Well, yeah. But he could still come out of Galilee as well. He came from Bethlehem, he came from Galilee. So there was a great division among the people because of him. Now some of them wanted to take him, but no one laid hands on him. John just, he doesn't say why they didn't lay hands on him, he just says the hands weren't laid on him with an implication, it wasn't his time. He said that earlier. It was not the time that Jesus was to be arrested, so they could not arrest him. Now, the apostle Matthew in his gospel, in the story of Christmas, he spells out a lot of these things from prophecies of where the Messiah would come from, that indeed he did come from Bethlehem, and he did come from Galilee. In fact, he came from Egypt, too. He came specifically from Nazareth, but also from the overall area of Galilee. And let's look at some of those prophecies. Matthew quotes from Micah 5, 2, but you, Bethlehem Ephratha, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings are from old, from everlasting. This one that would be born in Jerusalem would not have a beginning. He existed from eternity past. That's the great mystery of the incarnation, God becoming man. He goes on and he quotes another verse from Hosea, pointing out that he would come out of Egypt. When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. One reason why many scholars in that time would miss that point was that this is talking about Israel. And a lot of times Israel was called the Son of God, the child of God. And Israel was taken out of Egypt, and the nation was established at that time when he was taken out. And so a lot of times they miss the idea of Jesus being the Son of God because they have the idea that Israel is the Son of God. But Matthew, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, recognized that this was also a prophecy of Jesus. That Israel would come out of Egypt, but as a matter of fact, that Jesus would come out of Egypt. And of course, after he was born in Bethlehem, they were told by an angel to go down to Egypt to escape the killing of all the young men to and under by Herod. This is where he was talking about coming from Nazareth. Isaiah 11:1. There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jenny, and a branch shall grow out of its roots. And it's kind of a play on words because branch is the word Nesser and sounds a lot like Nazarite, which sounds a lot like Nazareth, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Matthew realizes that this is a prophecy of the coming Messiah coming out of Nazareth. That's in Isaiah 11:1. And then out of Galilee, he quotes from Isaiah chapter 9, beginning at verse 1, the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards more heavily oppressed her. By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, and upon them a light has shined. Because Jesus did most of his ministry work in that area. An area that was it as bad a stigma as Samaria was, as far as these aren't real Jews. But these are Jews that weren't quite as religious as the Jews in Judea. And they mixed a lot with Gentiles in the area. And this is the area that Jesus did most of his ministry. And it was foretold in the book of Isaiah. And so we have people that are making these arguments about this and that. It begs the question: are we making arguments among ourselves or among other brothers and sisters in the Lord about specific aspects when we haven't considered all the other aspects that come involved with it? No, he came from Bethlehem. No, he came from Galilee. Yes, both are true. Why are we arguing about these things? And so in verse 45, the officers came back to the chief priests and the Pharisees who said to them, Why have you not brought him? These are the special forces. We sent you out to get Jesus, and you're coming back, and you have no one with you. What happened? And the officers answered, No man ever spoke like this man. What kind of answer is that? Well, the answer is they didn't know what to do with him. Because he spoke with authority, he spoke with power, he spoke words that you knew were important, even though you didn't understand what he was saying. And the Pharisees answered them and said, Are you also deceived? Obviously you're deceived if you believe what this man is saying. Can you explain what this man is saying, Mr. Pharisee? Of course they can't, but they just know that we've they're wrong. They're wrong. They've got to be wrong. How many times in our lives do we just write somebody off because they're deceived and they're wrong when they might be seeing something that the Lord has shown them that we're not seeing? I believe that's what the body of Christ is about. We come together to encourage one another and share with one another different aspects that the Lord has brought the word alive that, you know, you have seen, but the other person hasn't seen, and that other person needs that edification, and vice versa. So let's not get stuck and start saying that everybody's wrong. I mean, there are things that are cut and dry that we know, but there are other things that there's plenty of room to grow in and to learn about in the word. Have any of the of the rulers of the Pharisees believed in him? Well, now they're now they're starting to get a little upset. The rulers are saying, okay, you guys, you are a special team, you're being deceived. Is anybody else in our group getting deceived as well? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed. Boy, they're making a judgment real quick. These people don't know the law like we know the law. We've been studying the law all our lives, and because we know the law, we know that they're wrong. In fact, they're accursed. They're all going to hell. That's a real encouraging thing to hear from your religious leaders, isn't it? You don't know what you're talking about. You're all going to hell. But there were some Pharisees that were considering the merits of what Jesus was saying and doing. One of those? Nicodemus, who had come to Jesus by night, being one of them. Of course, he was the one in chapter 3 that Jesus told him, for God so loved the world that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Nicodemus comes forward and appeals to them with a righteous question. Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing? You're already passing judgment on this man, and yet you haven't put him on trial yet. Isn't that going against our law? And instead of saying, you know, you're right, we need to go on, we need to go and uh bring him here and and and talk to him a little bit. They answered him and said to him, Are you also from Galilee? Attacking him. You're one of them. Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee. They're so sure of their knowledge of the law that they found a way to explain away what Jesus was doing. And everyone went to his own house. It was the end of the feast, and now it was time to rest. But everybody went to their house with a lot of angst, a lot of questions. Well, just on the side, there was a prophet that came out of Galilee that was spoken of in the Old Testament besides Jesus, and his name was Jonah. And you see that in 2 Kings chapter 14, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he had spoken through his servant Jonah, the son of Amithae, the prophet who was born, who was from Gath Heffer. Now you everybody knows where Gath Hether is, don't they? Gath Hether is just south of Nazareth in Galilee. So Jonah comes there. Some people believe that Elijah came from that area. Some people believe a couple other prophets came from that area, but this is the clearest presentation that there was, in fact, a prophet that came from Galilee, besides Jesus, so that even when their boldness, in their pride, in their they think they had it all figured out, they were wrong in their declaration. That Jesus can't be who you say he is, because no prophet has come out of Galilee. And that brings us to the end of chapter 7. And this would be the last feast that Jesus would attend before he would come and lay down his life for his friends. This was in September, October. And the next year in the spring, he would come for Passover. And he would become our Passover lamb. And so the next things that we see are more ministry in the Galilee region, but he's starting to wind down his ministry. He's starting to prepare for that sacrifice. And he's declared himself. The one that brings living water. Come to me, and I will give you streams of living water. And today we need that Holy Spirit in our midst. And it only comes through Jesus. It only comes through believing the finished work that He did for us on the cross. Father, thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you, Jesus, for being bold enough to declare the truth. And even in the things that you did, even in approaching Jerusalem the way you did in chapter 7, you were fulfilling prophecy. And many of the prophecies were clear, and some of the prophecies were more secret, and yet they all point to you. And we look forward to the time where we sit down with you in eternity and you open the books and you teach us how you fulfilled all these things. But until that point, we ask that you would continually fill us with your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, would you come and teach us and show us things in your word that point to the Lord? That you would equip us and give us a heart for the lost while we still have time. Father, our our our nation is in trouble. The enemy is excited about the potential of wreaking havoc right now. Throughout the world, he's stirring up conflicts. Father, we pray for your will to be done. We pray that your light would shine, and we pray that you would use us to declare that truth of the gospel to the world. We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

That's Pastor Carl on Come On Up. You know, the Gospel of John was written by one of Jesus' original disciples. He's referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved. What a sweet and intimate way to refer to the closeness and friendship that was had between John and Jesus. After all, so many of the events mentioned were witnessed firsthand by John. He was there for the transfiguration, and he was the only disciple of the twelve mentioned to be at the cross as Jesus died. He was also one of the first people to see that the grave was empty. John had an opportunity and a privilege to write about all the things that he saw and witnessed with his own eyes. He saw miracles. He was the recipient of Jesus' love and care, and he was eager for others to see and experience knowing Jesus too. That's why he wrote it all down in this wonderful book of John. Like the author, we hope that you'll take note of the ways that God has intersected your life and brought about amazing stories to tell. Write them down, share them with others, and don't be afraid to tell people about the greatest love of all, so that they can also claim that they are disciples whom Jesus loves. An easy way to share Jesus with people is by letting them know about this radio program. The Mountain Cross is a group of believers in Jesus who seek to grow in faith by simply teaching through the Bible. We meet on Sundays beginning at 10 a.m. To learn more, go to themountaincross.com. That's all for today. Come on Up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.