The River is Here

Two years ago, you gave Barbie and me the trip of a lifetime for a sabbatical. As part of that trip, we got to go to Dead Sea Desert

Israel, where we learned a lot about the geography of the land. We learned that some parts of Israel, most notably in the north and along the Mediterranean coast, get adequate rainfall, but the rest is pretty arid. The Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea are all below sea level, and consequently are very hot, dry, desert, in spite of the water in them. The Israelites spent 40 years wandering in the Sinai desert, where there is virtually no rain, and that formed a cultural memory that stuck with them through the centuries. The minerals in the Dead Sea have killed all vegetation along its banks, so that there is nothing green for miles. En Gedi

It looks a lot like this slide, which is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered—except in the few places where streams of fresh water run out of the higher ground on either side of the Sea, and there you see abundant greenery. En Gedi is a place where David spent a lot of time, and it is a beautiful waterfall surrounded by bushes and trees in the midst of the hot, barren, desert. As a result of all this, many Scriptures speak of water, and rain, and rivers as life-giving, which they literally were.

It strikes me that our culture is a lot like the dry parts of Israel, spiritually speaking. In many ways, our country is a spiritual wasteland. For example, we have National Geographic pitching the Gospel of Judas as a recent discovery that will reinterpret Judas’ role in the life and death of Christ. We have Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code re-writing the history not only of the church, but of Leonardo DaVinci’s art. We have popular media that regularly make fun of Christians and Christianity. We have courts that discriminate against Christians. We have a secular culture that has no place for Jesus Christ. It’s a spiritual desert out there. Sinai

Water is absolutely essential to our physical life. Without water, a person will die in 3-4 days[1], less in the desert. In my survival training in the Air Force, they told us that if we were stranded in the desert, we absolutely had to find a source of water, no matter how dirty, within 24 hours. That’s a good picture of how necessary the water of God is to our souls.

Our time in Israel and Jordan sensitized me to the scarcity of water in that part of the world, and I began to notice that there is a lot Biblical imagery about water and rivers. This morning I want to look with you at some of that imagery, and see what it has to say to us about our spiritual life.

Genesis 2:10, “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden…” Right from the very beginning, in the Garden of Eden, we see that God provided a river to water the garden. The real significance of this verse is to remind us that when God makes something, He does it right, so He provided water for His garden. We know all about the importance of that here in eastern Colorado. Unless you are planting xeriscape, you better find a way to get water to your plants, or you’ll have dead stubs before long. But God provides the physical water for His garden, and that’s a picture of the spiritual water that He provides for His people.

When the Israelites left Egypt, headed for the promised land, they had to travel through the Sinai Desert, a particularly inhospitable place. Here is a picture of the Sinai today.

Numbers 20 tells the story of the time when the people of Israel had escaped Egypt only to find themselves desperate for water in this desert. They grumbled against Moses, and said it would have been better if they had died at the Lord’s hand rather than to die of thirst in the desert. Moses and Aaron prayed to God, and He told Moses to speak to the rock and water would come out for the whole community. Moses, no doubt agitated by the stress of the whole situation, struck the rock with his staff rather than just speaking to it (which had some negative consequences for him later) but water did come out of the rock, and saved the whole nation. So here again, God provides water for His people. Without that, they would have all died in the desert. And without the spiritual water that God provides for us, we will all die spiritually.

A number of psalms speak of being spiritually thirsty, playing off the dry environment there in Israel.

Psalm 63:1 A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Here’s a picture of that desert again. You can see why David was thirsty out there, but he is most conscious of his spiritual thirst. He wants God so much it’s almost a physical sensation, like his body must have felt out in the desert. He expressed the same desire in Psalm 42:1-2, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. [2] My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” He’s desperate for God. Do you ever feel like that? You feel far from God and you just have to be closer to Him. Or better yet, you don’t feel far from Him; you just want to be closer than you are. Sometimes I do feel a certain dryness in my soul; I feel parched, shriveled, weak, and I know I need to soak in the presence of God. This is a large reason why I take days away with the Lord, as I will do tomorrow, and I want to encourage you to try it. You know, I’ve been talking about this practice of extended times away from the craziness of life just to spend time in silence and solitude with God—I’ve been talking about that for many years now, but I don’t know that I’ve heard from many of you that you have tried it. Try it! You’ll like it! It’s like walking out of the desert and into a pool of cool, clear water, where you just float and soak for hours. The amazing thing about this is that God wants it as much as you need it. He loves you, and really wants to spend more time with you.

Learning to soak in God and drink from His spiritual water is really a delightful experience.

Psalm 36 speaks of how good it is to do this: Psalm 36:8, “They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. 9 For with you is the fountain of life…” This is a spiritual feast. We can drink from God’s river of delights. What a great image! It’s not just a little trickle—there’s an entire river of delights to be had in God’s presence. Let me ask you: what comes to your mind when you think of a really mature, godly Christian? Is it something like this?

I think that’s pretty close to the culture’s impression of Christians. Or do you think of mature Christians more like this?

It seems to me that Christians ought to be the happiest people in the world, because we get to drink from a river of delights any time we want.

Psalm 46:4, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. 5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.” Again, if you think about the dry climate in much of Israel, the concept of a river making a whole city glad makes more sense. Jerusalem was the city of God, the place where God dwelt in the Temple. It had no river, but it had God who, like a river, sustained the people’s lives. The river speaks of the grace and mercy and comfort and strength that God provides for us. The presence of God brings joy to our hearts –makes us glad, and makes us strong to face whatever opposition may come our way. God is there to help us. As Nehemiah said, the joy of the Lord is our strength. (Neh 8:10).

Unfortunately, many Christians today have sought their pleasure in places other than God. It’s not that they tried God and found Him not very satisfying; they never tried Him at all, or they tried only half-heartedly. So they turn to the multitude of options in the culture. While this is innocent at one level, there is danger here at another.

God said in Jeremiah 2:13, "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

What a graphic image, and what a great description of our culture. We have forsaken God, the spring of living water, and have tried to find satisfaction and fulfillment and refreshment in our own resources. We have turned to man-made things like entertainment and recreation and nice possessions, and God-given gifts like sex and food, in a vain attempt to fill up the emptiness in our souls. These things are like broken cisterns that cannot hold water, and therefore cannot satisfy us deeply. Our culture is obsessed with pleasure, and none of it is centered on God, the spring of living water, the source of ultimate pleasure.

Jeremiah continued a little later, Jeremiah 17:13, “O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.” The day will come when all who turn away from God as their source of joy and pleasure will be ashamed of their foolish choice, and will wish that they had been wise enough to choose God as the ultimate source of their joy and fulfillment in life.

1 Tim 6:17 says God has provided everything for our enjoyment, as we acknowledge where it came from. The danger comes when we trade God for these other things, rather than bringing Him into our enjoyment of the things He has provided and thanking Him for them, and enjoying Him in the midst of them. Focusing on God, and being grateful for the things He has provided is one thing, but when we ignore God and turn to other things for our pleasures, that’s when it gets dangerous.

In Ezekiel 47, there is a long passage that speaks of a coming time when God is going to provide living water for His people. Ezekiel 47:1-12, “The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. [2] He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the south side.

[3] As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits[2] and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. [4] He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. [5] He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in--a river that no one could cross. [6] He asked me, ‘Son of man, do you see this?’

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. [7] When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. [8] He said to me, ‘This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the [Dead] Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. [9] Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. [10] Fishermen will stand along the shore; ... The fish will be of many kinds--like the fish of the Great Sea… [12] Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.’”

This is a very poetic picture of what God does for us. The geography of the middle east is important to understand this picture. Jerusalem is west of the Dead Sea, so the water in this description flows south and east out of the temple, toward the Arabah. This is the desert area south of the Dead Sea. It is several hundred feet below sea level. The ground is highest in the middle of the Arabah, so that water flows north from that point into the Dead Sea, and south from there into the Gulf of Aqaba. Here are some observations about this prophecy by Ezekiel:

· The water comes from God. The water flows from the temple, the place where God dwelt. It comes from the presence of God, and is a picture of the presence of God and the power and influence He has.

· The water is supernatural, in that it gets deeper the farther you go from the source. God’s spiritual resources do not diminish with time or distance; they only get richer and deeper.

· The water of God brings life where there is death. Nothing currently lives in the Dead Sea; its mineral content is so high, it kills everything. It is a picture of spiritual death. Since the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea from the north, the north end of the Sea is the freshest, and the south end is the saltiest and the deadest. In the picture that Ezekiel is painting, the water from the presence of God flows into the Arabah, the desert south of the Dead Sea, and then it flows north into the saltiest part of the Sea. But the power of this water from God is such that it turns the Dead Sea into fresh water in which a multitude of fish live, and fruit trees of all kinds flourish along its banks. Currently, nothing grows along the banks of the Dead Sea for several miles around, except where there is a fresh water spring. But in this picture, the trees bear fruit not just once a year, but every month, because this water is so good, and so powerful. And the fruit of the trees is good for food, and their leaves are good for healing—even, it says in Revelation (22:1,2), for the healing of the nations. I think this refers not just to physical healing from illness, but for the spiritual healing the nations of the world so desperately need. So all kinds of good things come from this river that flows from the presence of God. It is the source of life, and health, and wholeness—what the Hebrews called “shalom”.
The river is a picture of God Himself. He is the source of life, of abundant life, of life as it was meant to be lived. We are never healthier, spiritually, than when we are being nourished and refreshed by Him.

In John 4, Jesus has an encounter with a woman from Samaria at a well. When the woman comes to the well, Jesus is sitting there by Himself, without a bucket, and He asks her to draw some water for him. She is surprised that He, a Jew, would even speak to her, a Samaritan, because there was a lot of racial and religious prejudice from the Jews toward the Samaritans. John 4:10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." 11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? …13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, [14] but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." [15] The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

She still doesn’t get it; she’s thinking of physical water. But Jesus is patient with her, and finally convinces her that He has something greater than plain water to offer her. This “living water” Jesus offers satisfies us spiritually at the deepest level, so that we will never be thirsty again. It fills that God-shaped hole in the heart of every person. It has life in itself, so that we will live forever.

Jesus spoke about this water one other time, when He was in Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. This feast was celebrated for eight days, and for at least the first seven days, priests marched in procession from the Pool of Siloam to the temple and poured out water at the base of the altar. The public reading of Scripture at this feast included the one passage in the Prophets that emphasized the Feast of Tabernacles, Zechariah 14, which was interpreted in conjunction with Ezekiel 47 (which we just looked at). Both of these texts taught that rivers of living water would flow from the temple bringing life to all the earth. The water-drawing ceremony pointed toward this hope in these prophecies. It’s almost as though they were trying to prime the pump by pouring water out at the base of the altar.

That’s the setting. John 7:37-39, “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. [38] Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ [39] By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive...”

Jesus picked the perfect time to describe Himself as the source of living water, at a time when the Jews were focused on these prophecies. Is anyone thirsty? Come to Christ and drink. Do you want what those ancient prophecies promised? Come to Christ and drink. And the way we drink is to believe in Him, to put our faith and trust in Him. When we do that, we will receive the Holy Spirit, who is like a stream of life, of living water, flowing within us. We don’t have to go somewhere or do something to get this living water; He is inside us, immediately available all the time. He is not just a little dribble of spiritual refreshment; He is a constantly flowing stream, more than sufficient to quench our spiritual thirst.

There are several places in the Scripture where Jesus asks people the question, “What do you want?” I’ve been reflecting on that for the past week or so, and I find that it is a very penetrating question. What do you want? What do you really want? If Jesus were to ask you that question, knowing that He has the power to grant any request you could possibly make, what would you say? My first reaction was to say that I wanted to see God’s glory revealed in powerful ways. I want to see miracles today like we read about in Scripture. I want to see the church revived, and thousands of people in Loveland coming to a saving knowledge of Christ.

But as I thought about that some more, and shared it with my pastor friends, I came to realize that what I really want is Jesus. I want more of Him in my life. I want Him more than I want the gifts that He can give.

And really, I think that is the heart of what this image of the river and the water is all about. It speaks to us of the fulfillment and satisfaction, and the life-giving and life-sustaining power that comes through a relationship with Jesus Himself. Is there anything you want more than Jesus? Anything at all? Whatever it is, it falls short of the best God has to give you.

I want more of Him for myself, and more of Him for you. I long, and I pray, for Jesus to fill us all with the living water that only He can give. Our souls are parched and shriveled from living in a spiritual wasteland. We run into the church each week because this is where the river flows most strongly, but all week we live in the desert of the world, and it sucks the life out of us. Jesus said He came to give us an abundant life, a life that is rich toward God, and this promise of the Holy Spirit flowing within us like a river is the key to that.

This river of the Spirit is not just for our benefit. We are blessed to be a blessing. Friends, we are surrounded by spiritually thirsty people. We see that in the tremendous interest in spirituality today. Everyone from Tom Cruise to Oprah is into spirituality. The spirituality section at Barnes and Noble is huge. But people don’t really know what will satisfy that thirst. They imagine that anything remotely associated with spiritual things will do it, and it really doesn’t matter what you drink. They think it’s a lot like choosing between Coke, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper –whatever you prefer. But in fact, there is only one spiritual drink that can fully satisfy the God-shaped thirst in the soul of every person, and that is a relationship with the living God, Jesus Christ. We have what they need. Let it flow. Let it flow from your life into the lives of the people you know who are parched. Share the wealth, share the life, share the love of God with them.

[1]Jill Irvin, at http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/sep99/937540022.Gb.r.html quoting Patricia Kreutler, Nutrition in Perspective, 1980.

[2] 1,000 cubits is about a third of a mile.