So then, with regard even to the present, ‘they shall be filled.’  Should not that be a gospel to the seeking spirit of man, who knows so well what it is to be crucified with the pangs of a vain desire, and to set his heart upon that which never comes into his hands?  There is one region in which nothing is so impossible as that any desire should be in vain, or any wish should be unfulfilled, and it is the region into which Christ points us in these great words of my text.  Turn away from earth, where fulfilled desires and unfulfilled are often equally disappointed ones.  Turn away from the questionable satisfactions which come to those whose hearts go out in longing for love, wisdom, wealth, transitory felicity; and be sure of this, that the one longing which never will be disappointed, nor, when answered, will prove to have given us but ashes instead of bread, is the longing to be like God and like Christ.  That desire alone is sure to be fulfilled, and, being fulfilled, is sure to be blessed.

It is not true that all desires after righteousness are fulfilled.  Those which spring up, as I have said, in men’s hearts sporadically, and apart from the background of the experiences of my text, are not always, not often, even partially accomplished.  There are in every land, no doubt, souls that thirst after righteousness, as they are able to discern it.  And we are sure of this, that no such effort and longing passes unnoticed by Him ‘who hears the young ravens when they cry,’ and is not deaf to the prayer of men who long to be good.  But the experience of the bulk of us, apart from Jesus Christ, is ’the things that I would not, these I do, and the things that I would, these I do not.’  The hunger and thirst after righteousness, imperfect as they are, which are felt at intervals by all men, do not avail to break the awful continuity of their conduct as evil in the sight of God and of their own consciences.  And so, just because every man knows something of the sting of this desire after righteousness, which yet remains for the most part unfulfilled, the world is full of sadness.  ’Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ comes to be the expression of the noblest amongst us.  Then this great Gospel comes to us, and the Nazarene confidently fronts a world dimly conscious of its need, and sometimes miserable because it is bad, and says:  ’Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters....  Come to Me, and drink.’

What right had He to stand thus and promise that every desire after goodness should be fulfilled in Him?  He had the right, because He Himself had the power and the purpose to fulfil it.  For this is the very heart of His Gospel:  that He will give to every one who asks it that spirit of life which was His own, and which ’shall make us free from the law of sin and death.’