THE RIVER OF GOD
John A Brown
John 7: 37-39
Acts 2: 32-33, 36-39
Psalm 46: 4
2 Timothy 1: 14-18; 2: 2; 4: 9-11
Revelation 22: 1-2; 17 (from “And let him”)
We have been going through the Psalms in Linlithgow, and we read recently about the river of God; the psalmist says, “the river of God is full of water”, Ps 65: 9. I would like to speak about that river, which is not like any other river.
In the land of Israel even today, and it was so in history, there are rivers which sometimes do not have any water in them. In the summer they are dry, and then in the winter when the rain comes, they fill up with water and there is a torrent; then after a month or two they dry up again. The river of God is not like that; the river of God is always full of water; it is never ever dry. I want, dear brethren, to speak about what characterises that river and how we can experience it. I am conscious that I may be speaking about the things which we have already spoken about in the reading, but that is one of the glories of Christianity. You can take the truth and look at it from different angles, as it were, and it is all the same truth because it is all about the same blessed Man, our Lord Jesus.
The first thing about this river is that it has its source in heaven; it comes from that blessed Man who is above, from the very presence of God. When it was poured out - as Peter said in Acts where we read, “he has poured out this” - it was poured out from that position on high after Jesus was glorified. Another thing which characterises this river is that it does not have any tributaries. Those of you who study geography know that all rivers start as a stream and then other streams flow into them and thus they get deeper and deeper. But the river of God does not have any tributaries. In the language of Revelation 22 it is “bright as crystal”; it flows in all its purity from its source and it flows into the hearts of believers in the Lord Jesus who have the Holy Spirit.
In John's gospel where we read, the Lord Jesus spoke about this river; “He that believes on me … out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. You might say that it flows into and out of believers. It is interesting to look at the Old Testament and see what the river speaks of, because it came in early in Genesis 2. The river there watered the garden of Eden, v 10. That teaches us that the river of God has in mind fruitfulness. It is to bring life and fruit for God, and there is a very great blessing in that; there is fruitfulness. The trees that were in the garden of Eden were good for food, and the river watered them. A river sustains life. The Nile is the only reason that Egypt as a country is there. If it was not for the Nile, Egypt would not exist because all the water that the Egyptians need, even today, comes from that river.
There are several rivers described in the Old Testament, references to the river of God, the river of God's pleasure that we sang of. One of them is in Ezekiel, in a vision which Ezekiel saw. What characterised that river was that it flowed out of the house and it came south of the altar, Ezek 47: 1. What is flowing in the power of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers is flowing because of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. It is not a theory; it is not an idea that men have. The river that we read about in Ezekiel 47 had its source in the house of God and it flowed past the altar. It has its source, you might say, in the sufferings of our Lord Jesus, and I trust that, for you, ‘the sufferings of our Lord Jesus' is not just a phrase that you hear brethren use. I trust that everyone here is a believer in the Lord Jesus, and knows that what He bore in His atoning sufferings were for you, dear friend. I trust that something of the life which this river brings to wherever it flows, has flowed into you. What we were speaking about in the reading is a living reality. That does not mean to say that everyone experiences it as a living reality, but my exercise is that these conditions of life and fruitfulness that were there in the garden of Eden might be found in my heart and in my life and in yours, and in our gatherings too, because otherwise there will be nothing for God. Otherwise we will be like these rivers in Israel that dry up in the summer, and the plants that depend on them wither; there is no life.
The river in Ezekiel was not like that. It had no tributaries and it got deeper and deeper. The man with the measuring line who guided Ezekiel in his vision measured a thousand cubits at a time. Ezekiel started with his ankles in the water. It is good to get into this river. You do not start swimming the first time you experience it, but you experience it by getting into it in the power of the Holy Spirit. Then Ezekiel goes on in that vision to his knees, then to his loins, and yet there were no tributaries. There was nothing else flowing into that river, but it became deeper than he could stand in, waters to swim in. Dear brethren, may we have some sense of the greatness of the things of God that He has in mind for us in life and in movement, because that is what a river is. There is no such thing as a stationary river. The river of God is not only full of water but it is flowing, and the question for myself and for you is this: Is it flowing in your affections and in your life?
The Lord Jesus said here, “as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. I trust that every one of us has some sense of what that is, the life of Christianity. Have you ever knelt down and spoken to the Spirit? Have you ever had the experience of asking the Spirit to give you an impression of Christ? I wish I had more experience of it, but when you speak to the Spirit, you will get an answer; you will never be disappointed. An impression will come into your mind, maybe an answer to a question you have been wondering about, and it will be something that draws your heart to Christ, the blessed One who said these words. Mr Coates spoke about how the river of God flows through the garden of the soul of the believer and it causes it to be fruitful, C A Coates vol 30 p17. In his vision, Ezekiel was in the river and it speaks later of how the river caused the trees to grow. Mr James Taylor spoke about being in this river, and thus being ‘in the very midst of its fructifying power’, JT vol 90 p158. It is really the operation in us of the Holy Spirit. Oh, that I knew more of that fructifying power which causes us to bear fruit to God. May something of the attractiveness of this river appeal to every one of us.
The Holy Spirit has come down from heaven, as Peter says in Acts 2: “having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit”, the Lord Jesus “has poured out this which ye behold and hear”. These persons in Jerusalem who heard the apostles and the other disciples speaking with tongues wondered at that, and so Peter can refer to it in that way, “which ye behold and hear”. That is what Peter was doing here, drawing attention to the glorified Man. “Let the whole house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him, this Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”. We here do not speak in tongues now; but we do trust in the living power of the flow of the Holy Spirit drawing attention to the glorified Man. The Spirit always draws attention to the Lord Jesus; He makes Him, you might say, live in our hearts. The Scriptures speak of the life that we as believers have in Christ, and it is the Holy Spirit that makes that real to us. So in answer to the question, “What shall we do, brethren?”, Peter says, “Repent, and be baptised … for remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”, and then they did that and they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Thus did the river of God flow in Jerusalem just seven or eight weeks after Jesus had been crucified, and it flowed out from there. It flowed out through Antioch, it flowed out to Corinth, it flowed throughout the ministry and epistles of Paul: it even flowed to Rome. At the end of Philippians, Paul wrote salutations to the saints, “specially those of the household of Caesar”, Phil 4: 22. This river had flowed into the very household of the emperor and had touched the hearts of some there. That was an amazing triumph!
This river has flowed on, and it does not need any augmentation. Mr Taylor remarked that when the Spirit came down at Pentecost, He brought with Him everything that He needed, and He did not need to draw on anything that was in this world, JT vol 36 p328. That is the purity, “bright as crystal”, which we read about in Revelation 22. The river of God is of heaven, it has a divine source, and it is flowing in hearts that love the Lord Jesus and make way for the Holy Spirit.
But it was not long before the enemy tried to corrupt it. In Acts 5 there was a man, Ananias, and his wife Sapphira, who told a lie to the apostles in Jerusalem. There were other disciples who had sold estates and brought the money, laying it at the feet of the apostles for distribution to others in need. Ananias and Sapphira sold their estate, but they only brought some of the money and laid it at the feet of the apostles, although they pretended it was all they had received. You might think that they had a right to keep some of the money. Yes, they did, but I think their sin was that they must have pretended that they had brought all the money. Peter said that they had lied against the Holy Spirit, Acts 5: 3. So the river of God was flowing and the enemy would try to corrupt it; he would try to bring in other influences. In that case, it might have been a desire for status that was not deserved. But the river of God flowed on.
You might look back where history is obscure, the so-called Dark Ages and ask what was there for the Lord Jesus then. Well, there is a hymn that we so often sing, translated from one written nearly a thousand years ago:
Jesus! The very thought of thee
With sweetness fills the breast;
(Hymn 279).
I think that the river of God flowed into the soul of the man who wrote this hymn. Anyone writing such words must have had something of the life that we are speaking about, for the Spirit as resident in believers draws attention to the Lord Jesus. The writer poured out his soul about the Lord Jesus in that hymn which we still sing. Thus the river flowed down through the centuries in the hearts of persons who were faithful to the Lord Jesus. You think of Luther studying in his monk's cell. We heard recently in a preaching about Luther's agony of soul when he tried to confess every sin that he had ever done, and he was in bondage, but then he got the light. Something flowed into his soul and it changed him, and as a result the basic truth of the gospel began to be recovered despite the darkness that there had been.
Oh, dear brethren, may we value what has been flowing since Pentecost. It is flowing now in the lives and in the affections of millions of believers; in every member of the assembly who makes room for the Holy Spirit, in every believer in Christ that has the Spirit and makes full way for Him, there is something living. We read about these streams in Psalm 46: “There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the sanctuary of the habitations of the Most High”. You might ask where this river is. When everything seems to be in breakdown, everything is difficult, circumstances are not easy. Well, circumstances have never been easy for faithful souls. The Lord spoke about how the Jews would deliver up the disciples, Matt 10: 16-22. Paul and Silas on one of their missionary journeys ended up in a jail in Philippi, and one of these streams flowed right into that jail. They were in chains in the inner prison, and they had been scourged. They would have been sore, and yet they were praising God with singing, Acts 16: 25. That is because Paul and Silas had in them that source of life that we were speaking about in the reading, and which I am speaking about now as a river, something that is flowing, and it flowed there in the jail. The prisoners listened to them. I wonder if any of the other prisoners were affected by listening to these two men singing. The jailor was certainly affected. We know the narrative well; that stream of the river of God flowed into the jail and then flowed into the jailor's heart; he became a channel too. I think that would perhaps be an example of what the Lord said in John 7, “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. The jailor affected his household. I do not think that he just told all his household to get baptised, that they did it just because he said so. I am sure that they must have seen the change in that man. He had a new life; there was something different about him. It says here that “the streams … make glad the city of God”. The jailor rejoiced; there was rejoicing in his house as he set the table and washed the wounds of his erstwhile prisoners. Oh, dear brethren, dear young people, this is real. What happened at Philippi is not just a story in the Bible. It actually happened to two servants of God who were there, and that jailor was converted. Paul wrote later to that assembly; his epistle to Philippi was to these persons. It had started in the household of Lydia (v 14); the river was there in her heart too. It flowed into the household of the jailer and then in those who were added.
What a wonderful thing it is to have this life, for the Spirit is pointing us to the glorified Man in heaven. Have you had the experience of the Holy Spirit actually working in you? It is not just a doctrine, although it is - it is a truth, but it is more than that. We speak about what is subjective. The Lord Jesus is in heaven in glory, and the Spirit opens up His glories to those who are interested. There is something in our affections that responds to the touch of the Spirit, and we can know that in our experience. We can know it, especially in praise and worship in the service of God. We often have a touch of it in our meetings for ministry; the brethren are uplifted by something that is given in spiritual life, because Christ has been magnified. But you can have it in your lunch hour at the office. In a quiet moment, you can turn to the Spirit. This is for everyday life because the Spirit is in us all the time, not just when we come to the meetings.
We spoke earlier about the good deposit, and here Paul was committing things to Timothy. How sad Paul must have been; even Ephesus, that city in the province of Asia, had turned away from him. Think of his three years of labour there, and how he had been able to write to the Ephesians about “the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”, Eph 3: 18. Yet they had turned away from Paul. He writes, “Thou knowest this” - Timothy knew about this - “that all who are in Asia … have turned away from me”. How much service Paul had rendered in Ephesus, Timothy knew best. Was everything finished? No. “The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he has often refreshed me”. I thought of that as this river of living water flowing, you might say, out of Onesiphorus and into Paul. You might think that someone like the apostle would be refreshing others, but Onesiphorus had been refreshing Paul, even in his prison in Rome. He “has not been ashamed of my chain, but … sought me out very diligently and found me”. How much Paul appreciated Onesiphorus.
Well, Paul writes to Timothy to “be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus”, and Timothy was to hand it on “to faithful men”. So this river, dear brethren, is flowing today. The question for all of us is: Am I, are we, in the gain of it, in the experience of it? You might have choices to make about how you use your time, and the Spirit might prompt you, ‘Read that scripture again which was read last night in the ministry meeting, and think about it'. But something else is available and you pick it up, whatever it is, the newspaper or the iPad or the phone, and you do something else. The Spirit would occupy you with the heavenly Man. That is what He does, and He works in us that there might be a living answer to that blessed One. And so these things that Paul had taught were to be entrusted “to faithful men, such as shall be competent to instruct others also”.
Two of these faithful men were Luke and Mark. But Demas had forsaken Paul, having loved the present age. There is another river. I was interested to look at it in Ezekiel; it is the river of Egypt. Ezekiel was told to “set thy face against Pharaoh ... and prophesy against him, and against the whole of Egypt … Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which saith, My river is mine own, and I made it for myself”, Ezek 29: 1-3. There is another river in this world, which is flowing to destruction, and it has its source in Satan; it corresponds to “the rivers of Babylon”, Ps 137: 1. Oh dear young friend, do not paddle in that river; do not try to swim in that river. Pharaoh says in this prophesy, “I made it for myself”. There is a current flowing in that river which would take you further and further away from Christ in your affections. It might superficially seem more interesting. It is flowing now through the availability of technology that was not available when I was young, or even more recently than that. It is flowing all the time. Every time you watch a movie or whatever it may be - I do not want to go into detail - you are paddling in the river of the world, the river of Babylon. But it will never satisfy you. You might think that it does; it has an enormous variety that caters to every taste, and it is only one click away nowadays, but it will never satisfy you. I am speaking from experience. What you will find is that, if you get a taste for the river of Babylon, you will lose your taste for the things of God, you will lose your appreciation of Christ as the heavenly Man.
But this river that we have been speaking about is pure; it does not have any adulteration. Oh, may we all be attracted to the Lord Jesus and may we make room for the Holy Spirit. He would draw our hearts to the Lord Jesus so that there might be a greater and fuller response to the blessed Father who said, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”, Mark 1: 11. May we all, young and old, find our enjoyment and our refreshment in that river, the river of God, “a river of water of life, bright as crystal”. You will not find water like that anywhere else.
Luke would have known something of that water; he had been with Paul on some of his missionary journeys, and Mark was serviceable to Paul for ministry. What an encouragement it must have been to Paul that these men - who no doubt were in the good of the river of God being full of water - were available to Paul for his comfort and encouragement, even in these dark days of imprisonment.
In Revelation 22, we see this river as it will be in the day to come, although we can apply it now. It is going out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and it is bright as crystal. And there is the tree of life, which speaks of the Lord Jesus, this blessed One who is the Source of life. We can feed on Him, on the glories of the heavenly Man. You can ask other believers, other people in this room, about their impressions of Christ. You will never exhaust them, and the reason is that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, the Holy Spirit is a divine Person in us, and His service is to magnify to us the glories of our Lord Jesus. I feel the test of it; “let him take the water of life freely”. Have you done that? Do you know what it is to take of the water of life freely? This river, this water of life, is available to be taken freely and it will for your blessing.
If there is anyone here who desires to have this water of life, get before God and ask for it. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you know who He is, you know that He has saved you, and you are aware that the Holy Spirit has been given to those who obey the Father; He gives the Spirit to those who ask Him. But this river of life means more than just the knowledge that these things are true. It is the experience of them, the experience of your heart being softened and enlivened and being fruitful to God. If you have not had that experience before, if you have never felt your soul welling up in responsiveness to God, whether in prayer in your bedroom, or at a meeting, then God is missing something that He desires from you, and which the Holy Spirit is in you to stimulate. This invitation is to all of us, “And let him that is athirst come; he that will, let him take the water of life freely”.
Dear brethren, may we all be in the good of having this water of life. The Spirit draws attention to Christ glorified; it has heaven as its source and nothing can adulterate it. May we all be in the life of it so that, as Mr Coates said, the river of God flows in living power in us, watering the garden of our souls. May it be so for God’s pleasure.
Grangemouth
1st September 2018