THERE is a sea, rightly called “The Dead Sea,” which has no visible outlet for its water, and which, but for its superabundance of salt and bitumen, would be only a huge, loathsome pool, stank, stagnant, and putrescent. Some lesson is to be learned from the inactivity of this most uninteresting sheet of water called “The Dead Sea.”
But we read that “there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God” (Psa. 46:44There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. (Psalm 46:4)). Here we have life, energy, gladdening streams which carry freshness to the very city of God! A river, not a pool of stagnant waters, but a flowing river which, as we read in Psalms 65, is “full of water.” It is not affected by drought, nor influenced by circumstance. It is not diverted from its course, nor turned aside from its channel. It is “the rivet of God,” and therefore always “full of water.” It is the river of His pleasures (Psa. 36:88They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. (Psalm 36:8)) and can know no sorrow. Its streams make His city glad.
What a beautiful river! And this river flows today. We read not that there was a river—one which flowed in the palmy days of David or in the luxuriant years of Solomon—no, but “there is a river” —as grand and gushing today as then; as full of water as ever, quite as gladdening and full of pleasure to God in our strange day of spiritual doubt and famine as when first it burst from its high altitude finding its source in the very “throne of God and the Lamb” (Rev. 22:11And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. (Revelation 22:1)). All glory to God for this perennial river, this “river of the water of life,” and “everything shall live whither the river cometh” (Ezek. 47:99And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. (Ezekiel 47:9)). Death is unknown. It is all life, life, life! All pleasure and gladness right through the very city of God. Flow on thou glorious riven—unseen, nor to be traced on paper, nor measured by the mind of man, but flowing on, full of water, bearing in thy mighty bosom wealth and gladness to that fair city! Fade all ye streams of earth in this comparison. Ye carry corruption; your waves are polluted. This is the “pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal.”
Let us trace briefly its course. Call to remembrance the words of our Lord in John 7:38, 39: “He that believeth in me,” said He, “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive.” The Spirit, given by our ascended Lord, consequent on His atoning death, was to be the wonderful energy of life in those who believe on the Lord Jesus that from them—as channels—these rivers of living water should flow.
Was this promise verified?
Take your stand, in spirit, by the side of the apostles on Pentecost, the birthday of Christianity, hearken to the ministry of Peter on that glad day, witness the effect of it on vast multitudes, and see a glorious ingathering of three thousand souls! a good start indeed!
“There is a river!” Its streams had flowed from the days of Abel onward; but, under the pentecostal power of the Holy Ghost, the river was intensified in fullness, life, power, and breadth.
“There is a river!” Two thousand years have not affected its living tide.
“There is a river!” Volumes of infidelity have not, thank God, diverted its course, nor can they! It is full of water.
“There is a river!” The crooked ways of the saints, their backslidings, their poor appreciation of its blessings, their strife and divisions are, blessed be God, no check to its current.
“There is a river!” Its life-giving water may still quench the thirst of the perishing and sin-sick soul. It is the water of life! “Whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely,” is the last verse but four of the whole Bible.
“I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Behold, I freely give
The living water, thirsty one,
Stoop down and drink and live.”
Do so, dear thirsting soul. Remember that it is only here that this water can be had. Call to your memory the anguish of the “certain rich man,” who, when too late, craved but one drop and could never, never get it. (See Luke 16:2424And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. (Luke 16:24).)
Happy is the soul that can sing—
“I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.”
J. W. S.