W W W W World Wide Web Witness Inc. Home Page Contents Page for Volume What is New
CHAPTER 3
FOUNTAINS and STREAMS
CURRENTS, THIRST and SALVATION
John 4:14, 7:37-38, 6:35, Ezekiel 47
There is the fountain springing up, as in John 4; there are the streams of water flowing out of the new-found Christian, and for both of these, there is the requirement of meeting thirst, whether within, for oneself, or outside, for those to whom the streams go, that they might find their source as in John 7.
When we come to Ezekiel 47, there is a positive river, a splendour of many waters, scouring out debris, but leaving swamps, rushing to the sea, providing sites for many who fish, finding what is swimming about, for the fisherman's use.
Water, water everywhere!
I FREEDOM
Note first the freedom in it all. Freely do the waters come to the Samaritan woman, the imagery showing her that whereas things such as water carrying were a daily burden, the gift of eternal life from the Saviour is not a daily chore, but an eternal gift by nature; that its source then lies within; and that it is not a tiring thing. It is in sheer abundance a joy, a contrast to diurnal pressures, it is lively, it springs up from its source, it is not gained but given, and it not only supports life here, but for all eternity; for it is the very Spirit of God, habitué of holiness, gift by grace, seal of salvation (Ephesians 1), strengthener of the inner person (Ephesians 3:16), the Spirit of truth itself (John 14:17), of power and generative of a sound mind, worker in prayer, to lift up from the depths of the heart to the ear of God (Romans 8:26) who minds our minds and knows our hearts.
What liberty is here! You do not have to WORK FOR the Spirit (cf. Galatians 3); you do not have to generate it as a source or resource (Ezekiel 47:1), nor to strengthen in case it deteriorates, for the Lord our God does not weary, indeed even those who WAIT UPON Him will RENEW their strength, and rise up with wings as eagles (Isaiah 40:31), run and not be weary, walk and not faint.
Here you are furnished without price, energised without development of the basis, which has been laid once and for all (I Corinthians 3:10-11), in the name of this world's greatest Donor, the Deity, in and through Jesus the Christ, sent from His eternal home to make a home-place for each believer. Here though your mind may fail in itself to grasp, the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him flows freely to you (Ephesians 1:17), and He even seals you, stamping upon you the guarantee of safe-conduct in the name of your Redeemer, to the promised end (Ephesians 1:11-13).
Is your work impossible ? With God nothing shall be possible (Luke 1:37), for who can withstand Him (Isaiah 43:13)!: sin of course being excluded, as undesired! Does your spirit lag ? From God, through His Spirit send from above come "seasons of refreshing", Acts 3:19-21.
Christ by the finger of God, the Holy Spirit, cast out demons, and in John 14:12 we see the works to be made available to man, as rollicking methods and expanding milieux were provided. Though man, indeed be a sinner, yet the sanctifying power of the Spirit and His direction from the very heart, and under the very eye of Christ can break the bounds of custom, convention, leave behind the dreary smoke of culture, so setting man at liberty (II Corinthians 5:17). Uncluttered by closures and customs, unpolluted by pulverising power of rampant passions, though they teem and lust, man has now a freedom which is equipped with vitality, delights in virtue and seeks for godliness.
II MULTIPLICITY OF MARVELS
Indeed, consider the features shown in the force and purity of the fountain springing up to eternal life of which Christ spoke to the Samaritan woman (John 4), the streams of living water thrusting out from the very heart of the person living in the Lord, with their sheer abundance, and the mighty currents in the rivers coming from the altar area. So it is presented in Ezekiel 47, the spread and torrent of the waters so vast as to encompass much land where many fishers seek to find souls for the Lord. The whole surges to the final sea, collecting as it comes. How that river moves, for Ezekiel found himself first washed over, as to feet, then urged as to body, then surged over like an insignificant item, and born along with a power drawfing his own, as if he were a medium indeed, for action, but one wholly supported and thrust on past all the limits of his own self.
What then do we find in a collection or list, of such things, such gifts, such contributions, such thrust from the glory of God for the Christian believer, not in some dead christ, but in the resurrected reality of the Lord ?
There we see what then ? We find
force, fervour, fulness,
leaving only the
persistent mud, which glooms itself into mucky mess
and resists all finding.
For ease of memory, note three beginning with 'f', 4 with 'in' and 2 with 'c'.
III THE STREAM FROM THE ALTAR
One remembers a tale was told of a kind and settled man who when old was harassed by gleefully offensive members of a wild youth gang, who nonetheless. sought to do good to them. Moreover, he continued right on with his dedicated work of maintaining the beauty of his garden, whatever they did. This reached the heart of one of them over the months, and he brought back a stolen wallet and thanked the man for turning his life around. Later, when the man died, the former tormentor kept up his garden, and when he married, having finished his studies well, he named his son after him. To be sure, he was offered this work through a Church; but that is merely an incident. This, it was claimed, is the whole Gospel!
Far from it! The altar has not ceased to be crucial in Christianity as in Galatians 6:14, and Hebrews 9. On that, Christ died once. But it is that ONCE used by Christ for ALL time to cover the sin of ALL who should, repenting, find in Him their redeemer, heart and soul, mind and spirit, which leads to the irrepressible centre and core of Christianity. A sense of reconciliation, after kindness and a good example, does not save. It is with GOD that the sin is registered; and salvation has no place or part in its foundation, for our poor works; for it is built and buttressed by Jesus the Saviour ONLY (Titus 2-3, Romans 3:23ff., Ephesians 2).
As in Ezekiel 47, it is from by the altar that the waters come; it is by the death and bodily resurrection of the complete Saviour that the enlivening and enduring power of God comes to inhabit the heart and stir and stimulate the life of the saint. This is the more precious a truth, for all believers are saints, these being the body Paul addressed letter after letter to the Churches he knew.
It is this stream from this sacrificial source which fulfils what Jesus declared when He showed His disciples how good it was that He should go away (when His work of redemption and resurrection was done, as in John 16:7,13 cf. Mark 14:65). Otherwise that direct and close communion with Himself could not simply spread to all; for now neither animal sacrifice nor temple were further required, so that He the culmination, fulfilment and the consummate thrust to cover sin through the Spirit, make life freely available, with direct and abundant access (cf. Hebrews 4:15-16).
Again, in Ezekiel, how spacious the waters, how apt their coverage, how enlivening their currents, awakenings of freshness, enduements of power for performance. Indeed, how superabundant the flow; for not only is the head of waters rising so that Ezekiel has to swim in it, as the increasing depth surges, but the angel himself has to bring the prophet back to the bank, this suggesting that the waters were carrying him along, just as in II Peter 1:21, the apostle speaks of the Spirit of God carrying along the scripture-writers, beyond themselves in His own power, the words likewise coming as in I Corinthians 2:9-13). Now as the depth of the waters increased on the body of Ezekiel in his vision, so they spread, became irresistible, irrepressible, uncontainable, surging into many a site, and bringing many fish to those who sought them, fishing from the shore, verdure on the banks, before the vast accumulation rushed to the sea of life, increasing its depths and freshness.
So does doubly distilled doctrine from the word of God become abundantly available to His people, and passing in the power of His mercy, moving into His workers, it provides substance for the thrust of the Spirit, and for evangelism while bringing freshness all around. However the miry places, where the waters did not come, remained as they were, or worse, "given to salt" (Hebrews 2:1-3, cf. Hebrews 10). Here is the imagery for the way of error, where truth does not rest, deep in the murky restlessness, separate from the Spirit (Jude 19).
Finally, let us turn to the beginning again, of these watery triumphs. If there is no thirst, then drink quenches nothing (though for those who come in need, believing, these will not thirst, being satiated (John 6:35). If, however, there is no drinking, then the water is not to be found within, springing up in startling freshness. If there is no desire, there is no delight. If there is no pouring out of the Spirit through the hearts of those thus not converted, then is the multitude of testimony so far reduced; though the Lord Himself is not reduced.
Those among our race, who already know everything, can never learn. Those brought by the insufferable turmoil of endless deceits - such as education provides liberally in this land, as does politics, and society and indeed the human heart itself - to sourcing their lives in nature or in humanity, the one cursed, despite its initial beauty and lingering wonder, the other degraded with it: they remain amongst their own wisdoms ...Indeed, these know no such fountain, stream or river. The river of spiritual life for man is one based in redemption, itself based in both the love of God (to pay for it), and the power of God (to make the payment effective as in Hebrews 2); and not strangely at all, its waters are lacking for the unbeliever, not in some formula for 'religion' but in Jesus the Christ: what He did and what He has said, with power of God to provide. This power, and the word of God, the Sadducees did not believe, did not grasp, Christ indicated, declaring this: "You know neither the scriptures nor the power of God," (Mark 12:24). In this they erred, astray, uncomprehending, unmet, unreceptive.
Powerless planes do not fly, except in mild flights without much significance, as from the hand of school-children. The heart can die while yet the body lives, and pain and pleasure may become the playthings of the spiritual foundling, cut off from the very life of God.
How grateful one is to work through the power of the Lord, with massive waters of refreshing, nurture and liveliness available, springing up, uncontained, proceeding straight from the heart of the Creator who, having done all and given all, now supplies His citizens with an inner vitality, joy and peace, like fresh air in the smog, and mountains of coolness in the hot summers of the plains. This He does until His return (Acts 2, 3:19ff., Isaiah 40), our resurrection (I Cor. 15:57ff.), and the onset of the climacteric wonder of His kingdom (Daniel 7, Revelation 20-22).