“Out of the ground the Lord God
caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for
food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden…now a river flowed
out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers.
The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land
of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the
bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon;
it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris;
it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates” (Genesis 2:9-14;
the four place names give us the same sense as our phrase, “the four corners of
the earth”).
“By the river on its bank, on one side and
on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves
will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month
because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food
and their leaves for healing” (Ezekiel 47:12).
“Then he showed me a river of
the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God
and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the
river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding
its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the
nations [τῶν ἐθνῶν]” (Revelation 22:1,2).
There’s
a River Flood Warning for a town about ten miles north of where I live. I don’t know
whether it’s that or the fact that I’ve been thinking about the Holy Spirit a
lot lately, but I woke up with this biblical river on my mind.
I
have lived in the desert; I know that sometimes fruit-bearing takes time, and
that you celebrate the harvest no matter what.
Still,
I long for the harvest from the shores of this biblical river. I desire “they will bear every month” and “yielding its fruit every month.” I pray
for “the healing of the nations” – and
not the counterfeit that comes through the intentions, devices, and efforts of
humanity.
I earnestly
hope to see “the healing of the nations.”
I wish our English translations would render τῶν ἐθνῶν as “peoples.”
The
lower levels of the auditorium in my congregation’s building are below ground
level. When it rains like this we are concerned with flooding. I’ve been told
that the creek which runs by the front of the building used to run through the auditorium.
The man who built it moved the creek to its present location, but it used to
run right through where the stage is now. God put it where it was originally,
and it ran there for millennia. I guess it still hasn’t fully accepted the new
arrangement.
I
have a vision for a river, not in our auditorium (please, Lord!), but for this
biblical river that heals the souls of all sorts of peoples from all sorts of
backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures.
Ezekiel
said the fruit of those trees was continual and healing “because their water flows from the sanctuary” (it comes after the sacrifice
of the Prince in Ezekiel 46, but that’s a different post!). The “sanctuary” that provides this river isn’t
an earthly building. I know this because Jesus gives us the understanding of
Ezekiel’s “visions of God” (40:2).
Jesus,
at that well in Samaria so long ago, told the outcast woman, “whoever drinks of the water that I will
give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will
become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John
4:14). It wasn’t about an earthly sanctuary (“Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this
mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father,” 4:21). It was about
a gift from Jesus that turns the recipient into a sanctuary.
Jesus
says the same later in Jerusalem: “Now
on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
cried out, saying, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He
who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being will
flow rivers of living water.”’ But this He spoke of the Spirit, Whom
those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not
yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:37-39).
What we receive from Jesus causes us to be the sanctuary (compare with Isaiah
8:11-14; Ezekiel 11:16) from which flows the river that gives life, that is
instrumental in continual, healing fruit. I want this. Not just for me, but for
Jesus’ disciples. I want us to be the means by which the Spirit brings eternal
healing to all sorts of people.
It
will come when we become a people (by His grace) who are passionate about His
Word more than worldliness (Psalm 1:1-3). It will flow when we, by the power
and authority of that indwelling Spirit, call on the world to “come, and drink” (Revelation 22:17).
Beloved
Church, bear this desire with me. Let us desperately beg the Father to do this,
through His Son, by His Spirit, drowning our self-centeredness, fear, pride,
worldliness, and neglect of His Word in continual, healing, eternal life for
many, many peoples.
