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Ezekiel Chapter
Forty-seven
Ezekiel 47
Chapter Summary
These waters signify the gospel of Christ
which went forth from Jerusalem
and spread into the countries about; also the
gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost which accompanied it
by virtue of which is
spread far
and produced blessed effects. Christ is the Temple; and he is the
Door; from him the living waters flow
out of his pierced side. They are
increasing waters. Observe the progress of the gospel in the world
and the
process of the work of grace in the heart; attend the motions of the blessed
Spirit under Divine guidance. If we search into the things of God
we find some
things plain and easy to be understood
as the waters that were but to the
ankles; others more difficult
which require a deeper search
as the waters to
the knees
or the loins; and some quite beyond our reach
which we cannot
penetrate; but must
as St. Paul did
adore the depth
Romans 11. It is wisdom to begin with that which is most
easy
before we proceed to that which is dark and hard to be understood. The
promises of the sacred word
and the privileges of believers
as shed abroad in
their souls by the quickening Spirit
abound where the gospel is preached; they
nourish and delight the souls of men; they never fade nor wither
nor are
exhausted. Even the leaves serve as medicines to the soul: the warnings and
reproofs of the word
though less pleasant than Divine consolations
tend to
heal the diseases of the soul. All who believe in Christ
and are united to him
by his sanctifying Spirit
will share the privileges of Israelites. There is
room in the church
and in heaven
for all who seek the blessings of that new
covenant of which Christ is Mediator.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Ezekiel》
Ezekiel 47
Verse 1
[1] Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the
house; and
behold
waters issued out from under the threshold of the house
eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east
and the waters
came down from under from the right side of the house
at the south side of the
altar.
Eastward — The fountain lay to the west
the conduit pipes were
laid to bring the water to the temple
and so must run eastward
and perhaps
one main pipe might be laid under the east-gate of the temple.
The right side — On the south-side of the temple.
Verse 2
[2] Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward
and led me about the way without unto the utter gate by the way that looketh eastward;
and
behold
there ran out waters on the right side.
Out — Of the inmost court.
The outer gate — The outmost north-gate in the
wall that compassed the whole mountain of the Lord's house.
Verse 3
[3] And when the man that had the line in his hand went
forth eastward
he measured a thousand cubits
and he brought me through the
waters; the waters were to the ankles.
He measured — By the line in his hand.
He brought me — Went before
and the prophet
followed; all this was in vision.
Verse 8
[8] Then said he unto me
These waters issue out toward the
east country
and go down into the desert
and go into the sea: which being
brought forth into the sea
the waters shall be healed.
The sea — The Dead-sea
or lake of Sodom.
Shall be healed — The waters of the sea shall be
healed
made wholesome. So where the grace of God from his temple and altar
flows
it heals the corrupt nature of man
and renders barren terrible deserts
as a land of waters and gardens.
Verse 9
[9] And 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.
Shall live — Be preserved alive
and thrive
whereas no fish can live in the Dead-sea.
For they — The poisonous waters of the Dead-sea shall be made
wholesome for fish.
Shall live — Thrive
and multiply in the
virtue of the healing streams. Thus is the fruitfulness of the grace of God in
the church set forth.
Verse 10
[10] And it shall come to pass
that the fishers shall stand
upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth
nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds
as the fish of the great
sea
exceeding many.
En-gedi — Which lay on the south-west of the lake of Sodom.
En-eglaim — A city on the north-east of the
Dead-sea.
To spread forth nets — All along on the
west-side of this sea to dry them.
Verse 12
[12] And by the river upon the bank thereof
on this side and
on that side
shall grow all trees for meat
whose leaf shall not fade
neither
shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according
to his months
because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the
fruit thereof shall be for meat
and the leaf thereof for medicine.
Consumed — Never be consumed
never decay
there shall always be
fruit
and enough.
Their waters — Those that watered them.
Issued out — And so carried a blessing with
them.
Verse 13
[13] Thus saith the Lord GOD; This shall be the border
whereby ye shall inherit the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel:
Joseph shall have two portions.
The border — The utmost bounds of the whole
land.
Shall inherit — That is
shall divide for
inheritance to the tribes of Israel.
Joseph — That is
the two sons of Joseph
Ephraim
and
Manasseh.
Verse 15
[15] And this shall be the border of the land toward the
north side
from the great sea
the way of Hethlon
as men go to Zedad;
The great sea — The Mediterranean
which was the
greatest sea the Jews knew.
Verse 18
[18] And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran
and from
Damascus
and from Gilead
and from the land of Israel by Jordan
from the
border unto the east sea. And this is the east side.
The east sea — The Dead-sea
which lay on the
east of Jerusalem. Thus a line drawn from Damascus through Auranitis
Gilead
the land of Israel beyond Jordan to the east-sea
made the eastern frontier.
Verse 19
[19] And the south side southward
from Tamar even to the
waters of strife in Kadesh
the river to the great sea. And this is the south
side southward.
The river — Called the river of Egypt
lay
directly in the way to Egypt from Jerusalem.
The great sea — To the south-west part of the
Mediterranean sea near Gaza.
Verse 22
[22] And it shall come to pass
that ye shall divide it by
lot for an inheritance unto you
and to the strangers that sojourn among you
which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the
country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you
among the tribes of Israel.
Children — Who from their birth should be invested with this
right of inheriting.
Verse 23
[23] And it shall come to pass
that in what tribe the
stranger sojourneth
there shall ye give him his inheritance
saith the Lord
GOD.
His inheritance — This certainly looks at gospel
times
when the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile was taken down
and both
put on a level before God
both made one in Christ Jesus.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Ezekiel》
47 Chapter 47
Verses 1-23
He measured a thousand cubits.
Curious things in life
This chapter is a chapter of measurement. Everything is meted out
as it were
by so many cubits and inches. The voice is very dogmatic:--“This is
the north side” (Ezekiel 47:17); “This is the east side” (Ezekiel 47:18); “This is the south side”
(Ezekiel 47:19); “This is the west side” (Ezekiel 47:20). “So shall ye divide.”
Everything is done for us in grand totals. What
then
is the suggestion of
wisdom? Surely it is
Lord
teach me where I am bounded
and how I am limited
and help me with patience and eager expectancy to do my little day’s work with
all industriousness and heart-loyalty
knowing that that servant shall be
blessed who shall be found working steadily at his humble lot whenever his Lord
cometh. By following out this doctrine of measurement
we shall get rid of a
great deal of fret and worry and excitement
and we shall be able to welcome
weird-looking guests into the house
and say
For God’s sake you are welcome
though we do not know you
and we do not like you at first; the Lord sent you
this way; and presently
that weird face will become beauteous as the face of a
child angel. How curious is life
and from certain points how utterly
unmanageable! From other points of view
how beauteous is life
how well-proportioned
and how easily handled if we would only keep our own hands off it
and let God
do what He will! Look at your own industry and endeavour in the market place
and in all the pursuits of business. What a curious law it is that in order to
do a few things we must do many. The things you do without any positive or
profitable result are really profitable to you in another way. Your
disappointments are your educators
as well as your satisfactions. You are
taught patience
your ambition is limited if not rebuked; you say again and
again
We must do a thousand things by way of endeavour in order to accomplish
half a dozen things by way of positive and literal success. What a curious
thing it is that though we know that only one can find the prize
yet we all go
out to seek for it! We are accustomed to the illustration of a treasure being
lost in the darkness
and on the broad thoroughfare. A thousand men get to know
that a purse has been lost. It was only a purse
only one individual could find
it and take it
and yet all the thousand are looking round and groping about
for it. Do you not know that only one person can get that? You know it
but
something says to you
Perhaps you are the one person. Could we just have that
amount of faith in the Christian Church
we should have a revival of godliness.
Here is salvation; let us suppose that only one man can get it: who knows who
that one man is? “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” A still more
extraordinary thing is this
and curious in its way
that although we know we
may at any moment die
our plans are laid as if we were going to live forever.
Ask any man how long he will live
and he will tell you he does not know. Ask
him if he may this very day die
and he will say
Certainly
this very day I may
cease to live upon the earth. Now examine his plans--his plans of business
his
plans of home
his plans of education--and you will not find one of them
limited to the day. And the most curious part of it is that the man cannot help
it. He could not be bound by the sunrising and the sunsetting. He will tell you
plaintively that he may never live to see the sunset
yet his whole life is set
in plans that shall endure for years and ages. He never says
Tonight at six
o’clock
I may be a dead man
therefore I will draw my lines accordingly. He
says
Tonight at six o’clock I may be a dead man
but the world will not be
dead; the individual may go
but the race will remain; man dies
but humanity
abides; and my last act
if it be my last act
upon earth
shall be an act of
generous contribution to the progress of the total world. Do not stifle these
voices. In all labour there is profit. Even in the things you have done without
result you have found some advantage to the soul if you have laboured
faithfully. And as for that larger life
we know not what it is
it is enough
to know meantime that it is larger. God is always enlarging and ennobling the
outlook of man. We might also notice as a curious thing in all this
measurement
that when we have done our best there comes a point when we must
simply leave results. We cannot follow our own labour beyond a certain point.
The agriculturist has done what he can in the field; now
he says
I must wait.
I cannot hasten the sun or the processes of nature. So with the training of
your children: all you can do is to show them a noble example. You can be
chivalrous in the midst of your family
you can give them the best education in
your power
you can encourage all that is good and beautiful in their nature
and then you must wait. And so with business. You can apparently be driving
your business with tremendous energy which ends in nothing. Really
a quiet
industry may often do more than a vehement importance. You can be industrious
faithful
honourable
generous
and having done all you can
not as an atheist
but as a believer in God
you must say
Now
Lord
the harvest is in Thine
hands: I have done what I can in my poor little field; Thou knowest that I have
spared no energy and no thought: now let the harvest be as Thou wilt; if I come
back in the autumn and find this field sterile
the day of harvest a day of
sorrow
help me to say
Thy will be done: I will leave it all now; I have tried
to be a faithful and honest servant; and then if the harvest be golden
abundant
and far beyond the resources of our accommodation
to God’s name be the praise;
He always surprises us by the infinity
the boundlessness of His gifts. (J.
Parker
D. D.)
Sounding the depth of Divine things
It is good to be often searching into the things of God
and
trying the depth of them
not only to look on the surface of these waters
but
to go to the bottom of them as far as we can
to be often digging
often
diving
into the mysteries of the kingdom of God
as those who covet to be
intimately acquainted with those things. (M. Henry.)
Verse 5
Waters to swim in.
Waters to swim in
I. The first
thought of the text concerning the Gospel is this
the idea of abundance.
1. The abundant provision for the removal of sin and for making us
accepted in the Beloved. Here is blood most precious
removing every spot
and
a righteousness most glorious
conferring a matchless beauty
a beauty such as
Adam in his perfection never had
for his was but human righteousness
but this
day the children of God wear the righteousness of the Lord Himself
and this is
the name wherewith Jesus is called--“The Lord our Righteousness.”
2. God’s stores for our sustenance and for our protection.
3. The provision made for our training and our perfecting. In
addition to affliction He has provided all the truth of God in the Bible to
sanctify us; He has given us the blood of Christ to purify us; He has sent
forth the blessed and eternal Spirit to refine us
and
as subordinate
agencies
he has provided all our comforts
and at the same time all our
trials
all our companionships with holy men
and all the beacons of unholy
lives
that we may be educated for the skies.
4. What “waters to swim in” have we by way of consolations and
strengthenings. The Comforter puts into the inspired word a singular sweetness
which the most able ministers cannot arrive at
even though they should be
like Barnabas
sons of consolation.
5. Think of what God has done for us by way of making us happy and
noble. He has not only pardoned us
but He has received us into His family
and
He has taken us there
not to be His hired servants
as we once thought He
might do
but He has made us His own sons; and what is more than that
He has
made us heirs
and not secondary heirs either
but “joint heirs with Christ
Jesus”; so that we have come right up from the place of the slave into the
position of the heir of all things.
6. And then
beyond! Think of that which remaineth in Immanuel’s
land
beyond Jordan.
II. Our text gives
us the idea of space
amplitude
room. “Waters to swim in.” Room enough.
1. First
as to thought. Think of God as He is revealed in Holy
Scripture. The Father ordaining all things
according to the council of His
will; take the whole line of truth which connects itself with the Father. Then
consider the Son as man and as God
the surety of the covenant
the substitute
for His people
the intercessor
prophet
priest
and king
the Lord who is yet
to come you have a wide range of thought there. Then consider the Holy Spirit.
2. There are “waters to swim in
” next
not only as regards subjects
of thought but matters of faith. Oh
how sweet to have something to believe
where you get right out of reason’s depths!
3. Then
blessed be His name
there are “waters to swim in” not only
for thought and faith
but also for love. Some make the doctrines of the Gospel
a cold stream
like the waters of the Arctic pole
and love would be frozen if
she were to venture into them; but the Scriptures are like the Gulf Stream
warm as well as deep; and love delights to plunge into them
and swim in them.
In the agonies of Christ there is
to the contemplative mind
a fulness of love
unspeakable
which makes the heart feel
“now I can love here without stint.” I
can love the dear companion of my life; I can love my children; but there comes
the thought
“I may make them idols
and I may thus injure both them and
myself.” That is not “waters to swim in.” But if we loved the Lord ten thousand
times more than we do
we should transgress no command in so doing: nay rather
the only transgression lies in falling short. Oh that we could love Him more!
4. There is room for the exercise and expansion of every faculty
within the range of the Gospel. There are “waters to swim in
” in the
Scriptures. You need not think there is no room for your imagination there.
Give the coursers their reins: you shall find enough within that book to
exhaust them at their highest speed. You need not think that your memory shall
have nothing to remember; if you had learnt the book through and through
and
knew all its texts
you would have much to remember above that
to remember its
inner meaning
and its conversations with your soul
and the mysterious power
it has had over your spirit
when it has touched the strings of your nature as
a master harper touches his harp strings
and has brought forth music which you
knew not to be sleeping there.
III. The text has
the idea of trust
at least to my mind. The text speaks of “waters to swim in
”
and swimming is a very excellent picture of faith. In the act of swimming it is
needful that a man should float in the water. So far he is passive
and the
water buoys him up. You must keep your head above water if you are to swim. We
are told that the body is naturally buoyant
and that if a person would lie
quite still upon the water he would not sink
but if he kicks and struggles he
will sink himself. The first sign of faith is when a man learns to lie back
upon Christ--to give himself up entirely to Him--when he ceases to be active
and becomes passive
brings no good works
no efforts
no merits
to Jesus by
way of recommendation
but casts his soul upon the eternal merit and the
finished work of the great Substitute. That is faith in its passive form
floating faith. In the heavenly river you must float before you can swim. But
the text does not speak of waters to float in
though this is essential. Many
people never get beyond that floating period
and they conclude that they are
safe and all is well because they fancy their heads are above water; whereas
the man who is really taught of God goes on from the floating to the swimming.
Now
swimming is an active exercise. The man progresses as he strikes out. He
makes headway. He dives and rises: he turns to the right
he swims to the left
he pursues his course
he goes withersoever he wills
Now
the holy Word of God
and the Gospel are “waters to swim in.” Let us learn to trust God in active
exertions for the promotion of His kingdom
to trust Him in endeavours to do
good. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The progress and expansion of Gospel influences
It began at Jerusalem as a tiny rivulet. By our Saviour’s
preaching a few disciples were converted. These were the means of the
conversion of a still larger number. But at the first
the stream was very
shallow
for the whole church could meet in one upper room. Even after the
Pentecostal increase it was but as a brooklet. Herod thought that he could leap
across it
or could dam it up
but his persecutions swelled the stream. Very
shortly after
the watercourse grew broader and deeper
till it attracted the
attention of the Roman Emperors
and excited their alarm. They thought that it
was time to drain the rivulet
lest it should become a torrent so great as to
sweep them away. Their attempts to stay its course only added to its floods.
Its current became more strong and wide than before
and on it went from age to
age
till at last it had become a mighty river
watering the whole earth
and
greatly blessing the nations. It is destined yet to grow until it shall be like
the main ocean itself
for “the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as
the waters cover the sea.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 8
These waters . . . go down into the desert.
Christ as a river in the desert
Though manhood seems to be a dry place
a salt and barren land
yet in the case of this Man it yields rivers of water
--numberless streams
abounding with refreshment.
I. Nature’s
drought does not hinder Christ’s coming to men.
1. He came into the dry place of a fallen
ruined
rebellious world.
2. He comes to men personally
notwithstanding their being without
strength
without righteousness
without desire
without life.
3. He flows within us in rivers of grace
though the old nature
continues to be a dry and parched land.
4. He continues the inflowing of His grace till He perfects us
and
this He does though decay of nature
failure
and fickleness prove us to be as
a dry place.
III. Nature’s
drought enhances the preciousness of Christ.
1. He is the more quickly discovered; as rivers would be in a desert.
2. He is the more highly valued; as water in a torrid climate.
3. He is the more largely used; as streams in a burning wilderness.
4. He is the more surely known to be the gift of God’s grace. How
else came He to be in so dry a place? Those who are most devoid of merit are
the more clear as to God’s grace.
5. He is the more gratefully extolled. Men sing of rivers which flow
through dreary wastes.
III. Nature’s
drought is most effectually removed by Christ. Rivers change the appearance and
character of a dry place. By our Lord Jesus appearing in our manhood as
Emmanuel
God with us
--
1. Our despair is cheered away.
2. Our sinfulness is purged.
3. Our nature is renewed.
4. Our barrenness is removed.
5. Our trials are overcome.
6. Our fallen condition is changed to glory.
IV. Our own sense
of drought should lead us the more hopefully to apply to Christ. He is rivers
of water in a dry place. The dry place is His sphere of action. Nature’s want
is the platform for the display of grace.
1. This is implied in our Lord’s offices. A Saviour for sinners. A
Priest who can have compassion on the ignorant
etc.
2. This is remembered in His great qualifications. Rivers
because
the place is so dry. Full of grace and truth
because we are so sinful and
false. Mighty to save
because we are so lost
etc.
3. This is manifested by the persons to whom He comes. Not many great
or mighty are chosen. “I came not to call the righteous
but sinners to
repentance.” He calls “the chief of sinners.” In every case the rivers of love
flow into a dry place.
4. This is clear from the object which He aimed at
namely
the glory
of God
and the making known of the riches of His grace. This can be best
accomplished by working salvation where there is no apparent likelihood of it
or
in other words
causing rivers to water dry places. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The purifying and transforming power of the Gospel
What a mercy it is that the Gospel does go into the desert. Think
of what this island used to be
when our sires wandered about in their
nakedness among its oak groves. Think of the times when the great wicker image
was set up
and the Druids surrounded it
and that image was crammed full of
hundreds of men and women
who were all to be consumed in one dread fire
while
the people stood by to see their fellow creatures offered to their national
Meloch. That is all over now. No longer is the mistletoe cut with the golden
sickle
or the fierce deity appeased with blood of men. The missionary came and
preached the Gospel; and the Druids ceased out of the land. They were both the
legislature and the hierarchy
but they could not stand before the Divine
truth. They were everybody then
but they are nobody now. I do not know what
may happen here yet
. But I do know this
that when the Gospel comes
the
images
the idols
the filthy things
the cruel and horrible things must go.
The river of life purified Britain once
and it will cleanse it yet again. “The
waters shall be healed.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The waters shall be
healed.
The modern Dead Sea
and the living waters
The remarkable vision
which lies open before us
is exceedingly
reassuring to those who are troubled by reason of the dreadful condition of the
times--and which of us is not? The prophet bids us think of those waters
drear
and dreadful
known by the suggestive name of the Dead Sea! This was the
“Chamber of Horrors” of the land of Canaan. The world is a veritable Dead Sea
upon a gigantic scale. Such also is the city in which we live: must I call it
“modern Sodom”? Every wave that breaks upon the shore of this human lake now
seems to wash up remains of monstrous things
unearthly
inhuman
beastly
devilish. London is a simmering cauldron of vice and crime. O God! how long
shall it be? In certain respects such is every man’s natural heart until he is
renewed by grace. The heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately
wicked
and may be well typified by the Sea of Death. If we could but look into
it with such eyes as God hath
what should we not set? Thus the world
the
city
the heart are each symbolised by the Dead Sea. Can they ever be purged?
Can these waters be healed? According to our text
the Lord saith expressly
“the waters shall be healed.” Let us believe His promise
and take heart of
hope from this good hour. Here is room
my brethren
for the faith which
like
charity
“believeth all things
hopeth all things.”
I. And
first
to
encourage your faith
I bid you to consider the promise.
1. We feel sure that this word of prophecy shall be accomplished to
the letter in due time
because He that made the promise is able to fulfil it.
What can resist the thunder of His word? Who shall stay His hand
or frustrate
His design?
2. The Lord will fulfil this word thoroughly. This promise shall not
be kept to the ear only
but it shall be fulfilled in the largest conceivable
sense. What hosts have washed their robes
and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb!
3. He will fulfil this word in connection with the present
dispensation. To my mind this is clear enough
from the fact that these waters
flowed forth from Mount Zion. From this I gather that our God means to use His
church for His purposes of grace. “Out of Zion
the perfection of beauty
God
hath shined.” We believe that He means to win His ultimate triumphs by the
preaching of the Gospel.
4. Note
carefully
that this Divine promise
“the waters shall be
healed
” will not put aside instrumentality
but when it is fulfilled it will
call forth more abundant agencies. The waters run into the Dead Sea
and purify
its waters; then fish begin to multiply
and then man’s part comes in: “The
fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even into En-eglaim.” You
slothful
Christian men and women
who have never gone to sea in this fishery
will then
be moved to the work
and will say
like Peter
I go a-fishing.
II. I invite you
next
to consider the wonder of the healing waters
that we may be helped
thereby to believe that healing will come even to the Dead Sea of this present
evil world
this present sinful Babylon
this present deceitful heart.
1. The wonders of the waters which Ezekiel saw lay in many things.
First
consider whence they came. The healing waters flow from the throne of
God and of the Lamb. As God is God
He hath decreed and purposed to redeem His
people; and in that decree and purpose is the fountain of good to men. These
waters flowed in the vision hard by the altar of burnt offering. Learn hence
that the one channel of mercy to the sons of men is by the sacrifice of Christ.
These waters
though they flowed unseen across the temple area
presently
bubbled up from under the threshold of the door of the house. You know who is
the Door of the temple of God: by Him we enter in unto God
and by Him God
cometh forth in blessing unto us.
2. Note next
as a wonder in connection with these waters
how they
increased. You and I have waded into these waters
have we not? If so
we know
how they have increased upon us. Do you not see that the God who has done all
this for you can do as much for others? Can He not heal the waters of the Dead
Sea of our day?
3. Notice what these waters produced. They began to flow
and very
soon vegetation came into the wilderness. They flowed into the desert
and into
the Acacia Vale
as Joel calls it; and soon
on both sides of the river
there
were trees
and
on a sudden
the trees were bearing fruit. Wherever the Gospel
goes it carries life
and growth
and fruit with it.
4. As a further wonder
note whither the stream flowed. “These waters
issue out toward the east country
and go down into the desert
and go into the
sea: which
being brought forth into the sea
the waters shall be healed.” What
a mercy it is that the Gospel does go into the desert! Think of what this
island used to be
when our sires wandered about in their nakedness among its
oak groves.
III. Consider the
efficacy of the waters. I will quit the figure in some measure in order to explain
how the Gospel is adapted to heal the wickedness of men. “What does the Gospel
do?” saith one. I answer
In the Gospel we set before men the horrible nature
of sin
and thus we lead them to turn from it. The Gospel gives man a hope; and
that is a grand thing for the degraded and self-condemned. To have a hope that
you can be a better man is a great help in escaping from sin. The Gospel
purifies men because it gives them Christ Himself to be their Saviour. It
brings them the Son of God to be their salvation. Moreover
the Gospel does not
merely tell men certain truths
but it gives life
and power
and grace to
them. There comes with the Gospel a power almighty
which changes the nature of
the man; touches his understanding
and enlightens it; touches his will
and
changes it; touches his affections
and purifies them. This power is the Holy
Ghost
equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son--nothing less than very
God of very God. The power of the Gospel to cleanse this horrible Lake of
Gomorrah lies in this: that it touches the heart
it moves the affections
it
changes the nature
it renews the entire man. Moreover
it binds men in a holy
brotherhood
and leads them back to their Father
and their God.
IV. The lesson of
the waters. God works in very unexpected ways. The Lord knows how to do His own
work
and He does it by apparently slender means.
2. As the Dead Sea has to be cleansed by that stream of water
all
that we can do is
first of all
to pray
“Spring up
O Well!”
3. When we have done that
what next have we to do? Why
begin
fishing. Go and fish in the streets
fish in the street corners
fish in any
little room you can open
fish in the great crowds if they will come to you.
The stream is breeding swarms of life; be ye fishers of men. (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
Verse 9
Every thing shall live whither the river cometh.
The life-giving flyer
I. Its spring (Ezekiel 47:1). The river had its spring
out of sight; the fountain head was invisible; but it proceeded out of the
sanctuary of God. How pointedly this tells of the Holy Spirit
the river of the
water of eternal life
proceeding out of the throne of God! It is God’s own
essence
communicated to us men over the Cross of Jesus
and for His name’s
sake. Hence
St. John says that it proceeded out of the “throne of God
and of
the Lamb.” When Christ was here on earth as God-man
no one could see where the
healing virtue in Him came from; but there it was
issuing forth from the very
hem of His garment
so that you had but to touch it
and be healed. He was the
house or temple of God
--God’s sanctuary; God dwelt in Him
the Spirit rested
upon Him
for His redeemed
“without measure.” He was its spring for His
people; therefore He said
“If any man thirst
let him come unto Me
” etc.
II. Its size
(verses 2-5). Here was symbolised the gift of the Holy Spirit to the
patriarchs. It was but partial
--here and there
--now to Enoch
now to Noah
now to Abraham. But presently
after an interval
that “man that had the line
in his hand went forth eastward
and measured a thousand cubits” (a thousand
cubits distant from their spring in the sanctuary
but they were still
shallow)
“and he brought me through the waters; and the waters were to the
ankles.” The Holy Spirit had a wider and somewhat deeper flow amongst the pious
Israelites
represented by such men as Joshua
and Caleb
and the seven
thousand who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal
and especially by the
prophets. Again
another interval
and he measured a thousand cubits (two
thousand cubits from their spring in the sanctuary)
“and brought me through
the waters” (and still they were comparatively shoal)
“and the waters were to
the knees.” The Holy Spirit was evidently increasing His influences just before
Christ’s incarnation. Nathanael
Simeon
Anna
and others
were “waiting for
the consolation of Israel.” Again
an interval
and “he measured a thousand
cubits” (three thousand cubits from their spring in the sanctuary)
“and
brought me through
and the waters were to the loins.” The holy tide was rising
rapidly during Christ’s personal ministry. The four Gospels testify plainly and
unanimously to the great preparation work through Christ’s teaching and
miracles amongst the masses. But yet one more interval
and he measured a
thousand cubits (four thousand cubits from their spring in the sanctuary)
and
now there was no going through the waters
--now “it was a river that I could
not pass over: for the waters were risen
waters to swim in
a river that could
not be passed over.” What have we here
but that glorious crisis in the history
of the Holy Spirit
that first
sudden
grand outpouring of the Holy Spirit
which is described in the first chapters of the Acts? Depend upon it
the river
is flowing as deeply now as on the Day of Pentecost. It is simply that we do
not see it by reason of our blindness or feeble faith
and do not avail ourselves
of its present and precious blessings. There are rivers in South America
rolling down water enough for all the inhabitants of the globe
and yet only
here and there a roving tribe knows of them; for miles and miles they are
merely sipped by birds and lapped by solitary animals. But are they not there?
We should say to the sceptic
Go and see; go and satisfy yourself. Why
when
Christ was upon earth
a very river of fragrancy
and healing
and blessing in
Himself
men did not recognise Him as such: they passed Him by as “a root out
of a dry ground.” Now
suppose
because the myriads then alive did not flock to
Him
some should deny that He really was in Palestine
what should we say to
them? We should say
He was there
but they knew Him not. And so now we say
Here is the majestic river of the Holy Spirit’s influence amongst us; but we
are blind about it
or we voluntarily keep aloof from it
and so it is no river
to us. It is here
everywhere
and in all its efficacy; but what is it to the
worldly
the carnal
the trifling
the formal?
III. Its service.
What did this river do? (verses 6-9). Such is the beneficent
salutary service
of this river. It shall only except from its benefits the wilfully obdurate and
hypocritical
--those who
having known the truth and felt it
and been urged by
it
yet resist its power
and refuse to be fruitful. All others
however barren
by nature
shall be visited and blessed
and transformed by it. It shall come
unto hearts hard as the nether millstone
and soften them; unto families poor
as beggars
and enrich them; unto neighbourhoods which have been desert
and
cause them to rejoice and blossom as the rose; unto natures which have been
unprofitable
and make them plenteously to bring forth the fruit of good works.
In conclusion--
1. Get to know and to remember more thoroughly that this river
these
holy waters issuing from the sanctuary
are what you and every fellow creature
most needs.
2. Get to realise more and more vividly that this blessed river is
about you everywhere
about your path and your lying down. It is the river “the
streams whereof make glad the city of God.”
3. Get to open your heart to it more and more. You must go into it up
to your ankles
knees
loins; nay
its waters must go over your head and wash
you every whir; you must put yourself in connection with it by drinking of it
by walking in it
by floating upon it
by conducting streams of it into your
own soul.
4. Go and spread the news of it and the use of it far and wide. Tell
others round you what it has done for you. Let them see what life it imparts to
you
what satisfaction you gather from those fruits which grow by it
what
healing from the leaves
how holy it makes you
how calm
how strong. (J.
Bolton
B. A.)
The healing and life-giving river
This beautiful representation of the healing stream rests on some
natural and some spiritual conceptions common in Ezekiel’s day. One natural
fact was this
that there was a fountain connected with the temple hill
the
waters of which fell into the valley east of the city
and made their way
towards the sea
and long ere this time the gentle waters of this brook that
flowed fast by the oracles of God
had furnished symbols to the prophets (Isaiah 8:6). Such waters in the East are
the source of every blessing to men. The religious conceptions are such as
these: that Jehovah Himself is the giver of all blessings to men
and from His
presence all blessings flow. He was now present in His fulness
and forever in
His temple. Hence the prophet sees the life-giving stream issue from the
sanctuary. Another current idea was that in the regeneration of men
when the
tabernacle of God was with them
external nature should also be transfigured.
Then every good would be enjoyed
and there would be no more evil nor curse. (A.
B. Davidson
D. D.)
The master-force in character and civilisation
The prophet beholds in vision a stream of water issuing from the
temple buildings
and flowing eastwards until it falls into the Dead Sea
making even those bitter
fatal waters rich with life. In the first instance
this mystic stream was a symbol of the miraculous transformation which the
pious Jew expected the land of Canaan to undergo in order to fit it for the
habitation of Jehovah’s ransomed people. In Palestine nature was often stern
and unpropitious
and large tracts of country were utterly inhospitable. The
prophets cherished the expectation that one day
when Israel was wholly
obedient
God would renew the face of nature
and all Palestine would blossom
as the rose. But these mystic waters demand a still larger interpretation. The
thought and aspiration of Israel looked forward to a time when the Messiah
would send forth a tide of living influence through the nations
cleansing the
corruptions
and making everything in human society and life to realise its
ideal. Under the magic influence of the Gospel of Christ the most hopeless
lands and classes revive
and the bitter
burning regions of sin and misery
become as the garden of the Lord. “Everything shall live whither the river
cometh.”
I. Spirituality in
relation to personal character. That momentous issues depend upon personal
character
upon the cultivation and exercise of the moral virtues
most men
acknowledge. A few thinkers give intellectual perfections a place above moral
qualities
but the vast mass of thoughtful men perceive that character is
essential and supreme. Now
morality
true morality
requires peculiar
inspiration and force to sustain it; it must be rooted in the spirit
and draw
its life from eternity. Of course
the secularist scouts this fundamental
conviction Of ours. He smilingly protests
What a wonderful being your poor
mortal is; nothing will satisfy him but divinities
eternities
infinities
heavens
hells
boundless hopes and boundless fears: surely we can keep
ourselves in order and behave decently without all these vast motives and
pressures. Well
to the carnal eye we may seem poor creatures
but we need
these great and solemn beliefs
and we cannot get on without them. One of these
days we go into the fields
and there on the sod grows a daisy--wee
simple
modest flower. But when you come to think
what a costly flower it is! The
daisy owes its shape to the action of the vast terrible law of gravitation
working through all the realms of space
to refresh it the ocean must yield its
virtue
to vivify it the electric forces must sweep through the planet
to
colour it millions of vibrations must shoot through the light ether
to build
it up
unfold it
perfect it
requires an orb ninety-five millions of miles
away
an orb five hundred times bigger than all the planets put together
a
million and a half times bigger than the earth itself. “Vain little daisy
will
not less than this do for you?” says the critic. No; less will not do
it will
have the great sun
the sea
the imperial forces of gravitation
electricity
and light
or it will not grow
or it grows a misshapen
discoloured thing. So
in infidel eyes
we mortals may seem poor creatures
but nevertheless we
require immense stimulations and restraints for our perfection and safety
and
any attempt to narrow our sky means moral impoverishment and destruction. Many
men discuss morality as if it were altogether a matter of knowledge
good judgment
and common sense; morality means utility; show men that their interest and
happiness will be best secured by virtue
and they will follow the right
pathway. But these philosophers ignore some of the most patent and most potent
facts of human nature; the blinding processes of desire
the sophistry of
selfishness
the madness of lust
the defiance of self-will
the irrationality
of temper and impatience
the illusions of a wanton fancy
all these must be
withstood and mastered before we can do the just
the noble
and the pure
and
it is only in high
spiritual considerations and influences that we find the
availing force; and
let me add
these spiritual considerations and influences
are found at their highest in the Christian faith. The world had given great
attention to morality before Christ came. Outside Palestine there was the
boasted ethical system of the Stoic
and within Palestine the righteousness of
the Scribes and Pharisees. Great and earnest thinkers in Greece
Rome
and
India elaborated moral codes
defined the various virtues
and set forth strong
and eloquent reasons why men should
be virtuous rather than licentious. What
did those various and admirable systems of conduct lack? They lacked life; they
lacked the force to assert themselves. A recent traveller through the wild
wastes of the country beyond Tripoli reports that in the deserts he found great
patches of brilliantly-coloured flowers
apparently in vivid and mysterious
bloom
in the dried-up torrent beds of a land from which the scorching sky had
licked up every atom of moisture far and wide. Upon nearer approach the unique
phenomenon was explained. It was found that the flowers had been actually
mummified in the drought and heat
and
with their natural tints preserved
were as permanent as if cut in paper. It was thus with the morality of Greece
and Rome
and that of the Scribes and Pharisees; and they surprise us with
patches of brilliantly-coloured virtues in apparently vivid and mysterious
bloom
but closer examination shows that the virtues were only like the
mummified flowers on the Sahara--all was speculative
academic
formal
traditional
the natural tints being preserved
but the virtues were dry and
dead
only cut in paper. What a mighty change followed the coming of our Lord!
“Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” Christ revealing the holy
God
the spiritual universe
the spirituality of human nature
the pouring
forth on humanity the Holy Spirit
put a soul into morality; He gave it a sound
root in a vital soil
and henceforth the righteousness of God eclipsed the
righteousness of man. We are often accused of not being sufficiently teachers
of morality
the Evangelical movement is accused of being defective on the
ethical side
but we have a great deal to say for ourselves. Our business is
first of all
to insist on those spiritual
Evangelical doctrines
without
which virtue has no root
no force
no permanence. Right in the front of John’s
Gospel is our Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus
and everywhere our Lord is
more full of the spiritual doctrine which underlies all morality than He is in
the description
or analysis
or application of the several virtues. If we
preach conversion we find morality its only vitalising and sustaining root. And
it is only as we persist to preach the great spiritual doctrines that we kindle
the enthusiasm essential to virtuous life. “No heart is pure that is not
passionate; no virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic
” wrote Professor
Seeley; and it is certain that no theory of utilitarian morality can kindle any
such enthusiasm. We want the sun here
not the aurora borealis. We want the
thought of the just and gracious God
the glow of the love of God
the sense of
Christ’s pure presence and fellowship
the purifying
uplifting hope of
immortality. Let us then be anxious that spiritual doctrine shall have its full
place in our personal life
let us cherish a vivid faith in the unseen and
eternal
and a rare strength and beauty shall steal into our character and
conduct. “Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” Oh! if we could but
persuade men to taste the powers of the higher world
how decorum
etiquette
propriety
civility
chivalry
policy
prudence
and all the rest of those
pretty words would disappear in the transfigured shapes of consummated virtue!
And let us not despair even of the most sunken and desolate victims and areas
of immortality. We have critics who argue
Some physically are born cripples
some intellectually are born idiots
and some morally are born vicious and
incurable
and there is nothing for them but exclusion or extinction. But this
will not do. It is a wonderful feature of our day
of its glorious humanity
that if a man is a cripple
we do not give him up; mechanical ingenuity
supplies him with legs and arms
and other marvellous substitutions and
repairs; if he is blind he is taken in hand
and by most skilful discipline
educated into seeing; if he is dumb he is put to school and taught to talk; and
even if he is an idiot we do not abandon him
--we build asylums where love and
science combine to repair the ruin of the brain
and woo reason back to her
throne. I know these struggles of mercy are sometimes unavailing
and at other
times the cures wrought are pathetically incomplete
but they are nevertheless
the glory of our age
we refuse to abandon the most hopeless
we seek and save
that which is lost. And if we act thus in the physical and mental worlds
shall
we be less devoted and enthusiastic in the moral world? Surely this is the
special sphere of our power and glory. There is a fine picture in Manchester
representing the river of Lethe. On the one side of the river
miserable
distorted
ghastly
withered old men and women are dropping into the flood
but
on the other bank they emerge in sunshine and summer
young
beautiful
strong
with music and song
walking in glory. We have got the very river that the poet
dreamed about; all who are morally sick
diseased
loathsome
helpless
hopeless
stepping into the crystal tide
suffer a glorious change and walk in
newness of life. “Everything lives whither the river cometh.”
II. Spirituality in
relation to national life and progress. The condition of all national growth is
not material
military
or mental
but spiritual
and when you have gauged the
spiritual elements of a nation you know what its potentialities and prospects
of growth are. When the crystal river first gushed forth at Pentecost
into
what a wild
waste desert it ran
into what a vast Dead Sea it fell! But the
spiritual
evangelical doctrines vindicated themselves
and green bits began to
relieve the awful desert
and the sea of death began to sweeten. Wherever men
preached the pure Gospel
the virtue of it was manifest in raising and
beautifying whatever it was allowed to touch. The river of the water of life
flowing from the throne of God cleansed the earth of the foulness of the old
paganism. You see its efficacy once again in the glorious reformation of the
sixteenth century. There were two great streams of influence sent forth in that
memorable period. One was intellectual
artistic
literary
and philosophical
and finds its representative in Erasmus; the other was purely spiritual
and
finds its representative in Luther. Which of these movements
which of these
men
brought about in the world that better state of things which all but blind
men see? Now
where there are two possible causes for any phenomenon
it is
easy to make a mistake and impute the effect to the wrong cause. For fifty
years we have been told that England owes her mild climate and rich landscapes
to the influence of the Gulf Stream
but now scientists assure us that the Gulf
Stream is a pure myth
and that we owe everything not to marine currents
but
to aerial currents. We have hitherto imputed our national power and progress to
Luther
and to the doctrines of grace he preached. Are we wrong in this? Was it
Erasmus and culture that saved us? No
we are not wrong. Writers of a certain
school say that “Erasmus would have impregnated the Church with culture
while
Luther concentrated attention on individual mystical doctrines.” The fact is
that the culture represented by Erasmus was identified with Roman Catholicism
it did impregnate the Church
and Italy
Spain
Austria
and to a large extent
France
are the result of the intellectual
political
and ecclesiastical
movement represented by Erasmus. Holland
Scandinavia
England
Germany
and
America are the creations of the pure
Evangelical doctrines of Martin Luther.
Mr. Lilly
a Roman Catholic
has just published a book in which he writes
scornfully of Martin Luther because he was a peasant. His Master was; and it
was because the peasant of the sixteenth century took us back to the peasant of
the first century
because he took us back to the pure river of the water of
life
clear as crystal
that flowed from the throne of God
that the Protestant
world today is the fairest portion of the earth
whilst all beyond is desert
or choked with thorns and briars. Again
two other movements
and two other
names
challenge our attention. Two memorable streams of influence were sent
forth in the eighteenth century--Voltaire represented one great movement and
John Wesley the other. Now
do we owe the immense improvement of modern
civilisation to the philosopher or to the evangelist? Are we to find the origin
of what is truly human and progressive in modern life in spiritual doctrine
or
in philosophic and sceptical criticism? What have the principles of Voltaire
done for France? Voltaire
whatever might be his intentions
led his followers
to what proved a river of blood
of tears
of death
to a volcanic stream
to a
current of burning
blasting lava--he did not drain the Dead Sea
he set it on
fire
and hosts perished in the awful cataclysm. John Wesley led the mobs of our
great cities to God in Christ
he turned the river of life down our streets and
highways
he caused it to flow like a crystal Niagara into the Dead Sea of our
national corruption
and the wilderness became a fruitful field
and the
fruitful field was counted for a forest. We must never forget that everything
touching the strength and progress of our nation
and of mankind at large
depends upon our faithfulness to spiritual doctrine and fellowship. Let nothing
political or social tempt us away from our strictly spiritual faith and
programme. There are many wonderful methods suggested for improving society.
The purification of the world
the perfection of civilisation
the bringing in
of the golden age! all is delightfully plain
simple
and
certain--good fathers
pure mothers
happy homes
and the New Jerusalem. Let us make men and women and
children godly as our fathers did
and everything good will slowly and silently
grow into nobler forms
and everything evil will slowly and silently drop away.
“Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” In that Gospel we have a
river of God full of water which we know can clothe barrenest spots with
velvet
and turn Dead Seas into crystal theatres of rejoicing life. And the
spiritual power does not lessen with time. At the distance of a thousand cubits
the waters were to the ankles; at the distance of a thousand cubits more the
waters were to the knees; a thousand more and they were to the loins; a
thousand more and they were waters to swim in. Oh! for this deepening tide of
spiritual grace and power. May it come and spiritualise our churches
may it
vitalise our conventional morality
may it wash away our national sins
may it
transfigure our slums with the white lilies of purity and the roses of joy
may
it cause righteousness and peace to spring forth before all the nations! (W.
L. Watkinson.)
The vision of the holy waters
Whether we view the temple as the symbol of the Church or of
heaven
or of the Divine humanity
it will amount to the same thing. And it is
a sublime idea which is attained when we view these as one within or above the
other
and all affording a grand channel of descent by which the Divine truth
represented by the sacred water
flows down into the world. First
from the
inmost essence of the Lord
its infinite source
thence through His Divine
humanity
which the apostle calls “the new and living way
” into heaven; from
heaven again into the minds of the good on earth. It is the same stream of
which John had a spiritual view (Revelation 22:1). The prophet describes
himself as being in the way of the gate northward
and being led out of this to
an utter gate by the way that looketh eastward. The leader of the prophet
represents the Divine providence acting through the ministry of guardian
angels. He has given His angels charge over us
to keep us in all our ways. “He
brought me out of the way of the gate northward.” The quarters
East
West
South
and North
indicate earthly positions
and how we stand in relation to
the Sun. They who are nearest to the Sun of heaven
by the purest love to Him
are in the spiritual east
to such the “Sun of Righteousness ariseth with
healing in His wings.” In the west are they who are in little or no love to
Him. The south
where the sun is at mid-day
when he gives his greatest light
represents the state of such as are fully enlightened in spiritual
intelligence; while the north
the region of cold and fog
represents the
condition of the ignorant. The prophet was in the way of the gate northward
to
represent the ignorant state from which we all commence our heavenward journey.
Gates represent introductory truths. By these we are admitted to the higher
things of the Church
as by means of gates we enter a city. Of the spiritual
city
the Church
it is said
“They shall call thy walls salvation
and thy
gates praise” (Isaiah 60:18). The Lord Himself says
“I
am the door: by Me if any man shall enter in
he shall be saved” (John 10:9). The utter gate by the river
which looketh eastward
means the most general knowledge which leads us towards
the Lord
the rising Sun of the soul. This is the knowledge of the Lord as the
Saviour. It is said
“He led me about
the way without
unto the utter gate.”
These words conduct us to most interesting and important considerations. The
circumstances of our outward life constitute “the way without.” These are all
the objects of Divine care
and are made subservient to our spiritual good. Our
business pursuits require us often to change from town to town
from kingdom
it may be
to kingdom. Our friends and associates are thus changed. We come
into contact with new scenes
new books
new trains of thought. Our position in
life is sometimes changed. We suffer afflictions in the loss of property
or in
separations from those dear to us. All these changing scenes and circumstances
sometimes chequered with deep and lengthened suffering
are overruled by a
merciful Providence to our highest good. Whatever the Lord permits
or whatever
He ordains
is from the counsels of His love; and when the end proposed has
been effected
we may look back
and see that; all has been for the best. The
truths which were before only in the memory
become now lessons on which we
ponder
and which give a colour to our lives. Henceforward our lives have a
deeper aim
a holier aspect. We have been led about
by the way without
and
have come to the utter gate
by the way that looketh eastward. “And
behold
there ran our waters on the right side.” The right side or the south side
for
the south side would be the right when the front of the temple looked to the
east
represents truth flowing from love. The right side is the strongest side
and truth from earnest heartfelt love is always stronger than truth from a mind
chiefly actuated by faith. All the truths of heaven flow from love in the Lord.
They are waters that come out on the right side. And
when the human soul is
awakened to its highest interest and their true saving character
it sees as
the prophet saw
“Behold
there ran out waters on the right side.” The next
stage in the progress marked in our text is
“That when the man that had the
line in his hand went forth eastward
he measured a thousand cubits
and he
brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles.” Our guardian
angels have the power of measuring our spiritual progress. They perceive our
states most correctly. When a person has not only learned and reflected upon
the Divine commandments
but loved them and reduced them to practice
he has
advanced a thousand. He has performed an act of spiritual multiplication to the
third power; and he will find the waters of Divine truth “up to the ankles.” It
is reported of the renowned Philip Neri
that he said he was saved by the right
use of his eyes: in looking above
to God
before
to heaven
and below
to the
few feet of earth he should one day occupy
he kept his mind ever directed to
things eternal. But the right use of the feet is quite as important as that of
the eyes; however steadily a person may look to the golden city in the
distance
he will never get there unless he also walks. When
then
the prophet
had completed the first stage
his thousand cubits
and was led across the
waters
he found them up to his ankles
to intimate that now he could fully
understand the letter of the Word
all that related to moral outward life.
There are three grand stages in our religious life. In the first
we are
governed by obedience
and inquire little further about any religious duty than
“Has the Lord said it must be done?” In the second
we begin to see the beauty
of truth as a glorious thing in itself
and worthy of all acceptation: it is to
us a “pearl of great price.” Faith
and the things of faith
are objects of
supreme importance
and we follow truth for truth’s sake. We do the Lord’s
commandments in this opening of a second degree of the mind
but we do them not
so much from command as from a rational admiration of their rectitude. The
third stage of Christian progression is that which we enter upon by being
introduced into such a state of supreme love to the Lord
that everything which
comes from Him is our delight. We love His law
we love His truth
we love
Himself. We have already described the state of obedience which is arrived at
when the waters cover the feet. But he with the measuring line went on
measured a thousand
and brought the prophet forward
and then led him across
and the waters were up to the knees. It is a most important advance which is
indicated by the rise of waters to the knees. To obey from command is good
but
to open the mind to see the propriety and beauty of the command is much better.
The Christian now becomes a merchantman seeking for goodly pearls. Each text
when opened
gives him a new delight. For it should ever be remembered
that it
is not the knowing of the Word alone which gives light
but the understanding
of it. When the mind is opened thus in its second degree by the presence of an
interior love of truth
its deeper perceptions are a constant source of
delightful and consolatory views when reading the Word. The pages of the Divine
book become to him a garden of ever-varying richness and beauty. Here are beds
of varied hues of flowers
there are trees of silver leaves and golden fruits.
He comes to the Word as to the paradise of his heavenly Father below
and he
finds he can meander in its sacred walks
or sit in its blessed bowers
with
ever-increasing delight. Sir Isaac Newton compared himself
as a man of
science
to a child picking up pebbles on the margin of the ocean of truth. And
this was both a mark of the humility of the great philosopher
and of his
reverence and value for the truth he found in science. But the true spiritual
child of his heavenly Father has the privilege not only of finding pebbles on
the margin of the holy waters
but of going through and enjoying the
still-deepening stream of the river
which makes glad the city of God
the holy
place of the tabernacles of the Nest High. But we are told
“Again he measured
a thousand
and the waters were up to the loins” (verse 4). The loins are the
portion of the body where the previously-separated limbs are joined. They
correspond spiritually to love united with faith. And
when the mind has been
so advanced in the regenerate life
that every truth we come to comprehend is
seen also to be full of love
“the water is up to the loins.” When this blessed
state is reached
fear and doubt are left far away. “Perfect love casteth out
fear.” That secret union of goodness and truth in the inner man has been
attained
which realises in each soul the Divine words (Isaiah 62:4). Thrice happy is he who has
attained this heaven within the soul
in which righteousness and peace have
kissed each other! Along with this entire union of love and faith within
another discovery is made. The Word is seen to be infinite wisdom
and
therefore
progression in its hallowed truths to be everlasting. Hence the
prophet continues (verse 5). The delight which the blessed have in the fresh
and ever brighter unfoldings of Divine truth
is meant by the blessed promise (Revelation 7:17). Fountains! what an idea
of its inexhaustible abundance is conveyed by the term. Living water--how the
term conveys the idea of a sparkling
glittering
sunny
pearly
living
brilliancy--it can never be exhausted
never be passed over. The soul may swim
in it forever
but can never get beyond. And what a glorious thought is that to
the lover of heavenly wisdom! Its grandeurs will be forever disclosing
themselves to him in increasing beauty. From glory to glory
from brightness to
brightness
from blessing to blessing: such is the career of the just made
perfect. They find the wisdom which they appreciated in some slight degree
here
and the truths which they found deepening with their advancing states
have become with the larger powers of their exalted condition
“waters which
have risen
a river which no man can pass over.” (J. Bailey
Ph. D.)
The Gospel river
Those who have read the travels of Bruce in Abyssinia
in search
of the source of the Nile
may recollect the ecstasy he felt when he thought
his adventurous undertaking was crowned with success. He stood in transport
beside those welling fountains--so long sought for in vain--which poured forth
the river that had washed the cities of the Pharaohs
and wandered among the
Pyramids
diffusing fertility and beauty along its extensive course; and we
must be destitute indeed of all imagination and enthusiasm if we do not
in
some measure
enter into his feelings. Taking advantage of such a scene as
this
and with an allusion
perhaps
to the river of paradise
the sacred
writers often compare the Gospel
in its progress and blessings
to a river
increasing as it flows
and diffusing beauty and fertility along its banks.
I. The river
itself.
1. Observe its source. The prophet had gone round the temple summoned
up before him in vision
without observing any stream of water. His
supernatural conductor
however
brought him once more to the front of the
edifice which looked to the east
and now he saw a fountain issuing from under
the threshold
flowing eastward
and running in a stream past the south side of
the altar of burnt offerings which stood in the outer court. The spiritual
meaning of this part of the emblematic vision it is not difficult to discern.
Jerusalem and its temple were
so to speak
the original seat of the Gospel
and the scene of those events by which man was redeemed. It was there that the
fountain was opened to the house of David
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
for sin and for uncleanness. It was there that the spiritual rock was smitten
and those waters flowed forth which are for the refreshment
the healing
and
the regeneration of our race. There
too
it was
that the salvation wrought
out in it was first applied to the souls of the guilty. “Beginning at
Jerusalem.”
2. The river of which the prophet speaks
progressively increased.
The symbol was realised when the knowledge of salvation
no longer confined to
the Hebrews
was communicated to the Gentiles with marked success
and
provision made for its extension to men of every kindred and tongue.
3. The direction in which this river flowed. “These waters
” said the
prophet’s guide
“issue out towards the east country”--that is
to the region
eastward of Jerusalem. This part of the prophetic symbol evidently points to
the eminent and early success of the Gospel by the ministry of the apostles in
Judea itself
in Samaria
and the neighbouring countries. At the same time
a
more enlarged and important signification must be attached to it. Samaria was
the seat
for a time
of an idolatrous worship. When
therefore
this river is
represented as flowing eastward to Samaria
may we not regard it as an
intimation that by the Gospel idolatry shall be overthrown? that the Gospel
shall be purified from those inventions of men by which it has often been
debased
and shine forth in the dominions of the man of sin in its native
purity
simplicity
and beauty?
II. The qualities
of the waters of the river.
1. They have a quickening and life-giving power. The sea into which
this river falls is what is called the Dead Sea
which covers those cities of
the plain which God destroyed with fire and brimstone
and a horrible tempest.
But mark the change that was to be effected when the waters of the sanctuary
mingled with the briny wave! Instantly was it to teem with innumerable fishes;
every species found in the Great Sea or Mediterranean would increase and
multiply; and the strand on which the fisherman’s bark never rested
was to be
covered with fishers from En-gedi even to En-eglaim. Here we have an
illustration of the power of the Gospel to quicken those who are dead in
trespasses and sins. It gives life where formerly there was desolation. It fills
the world with animated and active Christians
where formerly all was
stagnation and insensibility. It communicates a power to love and serve and
enjoy God
to those who were destitute of these exalted capacities.
2. The waters of this river have a healing virtue. “Being brought
forth into the sea the waters shall be healed.” Its pestiferous qualities shall
be neutralised; its taste and smell shall be rectified; and it shall become a
fit abode for those creatures that exist in other wholesome waters. As every
individual who embraces the Gospel is blessed with light and purity
so in the
state of society
and in the general tone of morals
it has produced great
amelioration in all parts of the world into which it has penetrated. Even where
Christianity has not saved
it has reformed. It has drawn into solitude and
darkness the crimes that used to flaunt in the face of day. It has put an end
to that systematic impurity which was practised under pretence of religion;
softened the horrors of war; it has lightened the bonds of captivity; shaken
the pillars of tyranny; overturned the altars of idolatry; given origin to
benevolent institutions for the relief of every malady to which the mind and
body of man are subject; advanced the cause of secular education; given rise to
the noblest efforts
spiritually to enlighten and convert the world.
3. The waters of this river are fertilising and fructifying in their
influence.
4. This river is not universal in its quickening
healing
and
fertilising influence. “The miry places thereof
and the marishes thereof
shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.” How aptly does this
representation typify those to whom the Gospel comes in vain
who are so sunk
in the mire of sin
so saturated with the love and pollution of iniquity
that
they will not yield themselves to the sanctifying influence of the Gospel. To
such it is not the savour of life unto life
but of death unto death. (J.
Kirkwood.)
The Gospel river
This vision refers to the Gospel under the figure of a river.
I. The Gospel as a
singularly appropriate blessing. A river in the desert. Implying--
1. Its suitability. The desert needs water
the world needs the
Gospel.
2. The abundant measure of its blessing. A river.
3. The sweet nature of these blessings.
II. The Gospel as a
purifier of the world’s supplies. The sea represents the world’s material
plenty which have been corrupted
and the Gospel is necessary to purify them.
1. This implies the superior power of holiness over evil; the river
purifying the sea. The larger quantity purified by the smaller.
2. This bespeaks the ultimate triumph of holiness over sin. The
constant flow shall gradually change the character of the sea. “And the waters
shall be healed.”
III. The Gospel as a
life-giving power in our world.
1. Life of a pronounced character. There is a difference in the
meaning of the words “live” in this verse. The first means “to live and
move”--nacre motion; the second means “to live and produce.”
2. Life in an abundant measure. “And there shall be a great multitude
of fishes
” etc. The element congenial to life.
3. Life everywhere. “And it shall come to pass that every living
creature which swarmeth in every place whither the rivers come shall live”
(R.V.)
4. Abiding life (verse 12). The Gospel brings satisfaction
holiness
fruitfulness
and permanence. (E. Aubrey.)
Living Christianity
I. Its origin. The
“waters issued from near the threshold of the house.” The fountain
then
is in
the holy place
the holy of holies. By this we are reminded that Christianity
as a system of truth
is not a human invention
but a Divine revelation. In it
God has “bowed the heavens and come down.” But we are also reminded that
Christianity
as a life in separate human lives
as a saving power for the
individual and for the race
is also divinely given.
II. Its increase.
Beginning in a rill
and widening and deepening to a river
beginning as a
mustard-seed and growing to a great tree
beginning as a little leaven that
ferments the whole lump
Christianity
at first seen in the Babe in a manger
shall govern thrones and mould empires and redeem humanity.
III. Its effects.
There are two closely connected and yet not identical attributes in this
visional river that symbolise the influence of a living Christianity.
1. There is vivifying power. “Everything shall live whither the river
cometh.” There is prolific
exuberant life suggested here.
2. There is restorative power. The world lying in wickedness is a
Dead Sea
a Marah. Its corruption
its bitterness
shall yield
have yielded
to
the pure
loving
hopeful
prayerful influence of Christly lives.
IV. Its absence. As
we read “the miry places and the marishes thereof that shall not be healed
they shall be given to salt
” we are reminded of the natural fact that the
height of water of a sea is different at different times
and that if the water
subsides
salt morasses and marishes rise here and there that are cut off from
connection with the main sea
and become first pestilential and loathsome
then
dry and barren. And by this natural fact we are warned of the spiritual fact
that where the waters of a living Christianity do not come there will be no
life
no healing; and that sooner or later there will be the loathsome mire
the pestilential marsh
the salt and deadly morass. “He that believeth not the
Son of God shall not see life.” (U. R. Thomas.)
The power of the Holy Ghost
God is constantly measuring the rise of the waters of the Holy
Ghost within the soul and upon the world
and may God help us never to forget
that He is always measuring
and that as life passes forward year after year
God is measuring with eager scrutiny to see if the waters which were once up to
the ankles had risen to the knees
etc.
I. The source of
the Holy Ghost. And when I speak of the Holy Ghost
I do not mean the Holy
Ghost who brooded over creation
or the Holy Ghost which waited upon Elijah and
Isaiah merely; but the Holy Ghost of Pentecost
that mighty power of God’s own
life which through Jesus is brought to every single person
and that awaits and
throbs and pulses outside the doors of our hearts this morning. The Holy Ghost
of Pentecost! Will you please notice that of old the waters came from under the
altar through the temple? and the temple
in the imagery of Scripture
stands
for the natural man
and
above all
for the nature of the One Man
Jesus
Christ. Hence He said
“Destroy this temple”--speaking of His body--“and I will
raise it up in three days.” So that the temple
in its deepest significance
sets forth the nature of our blessed Saviour
the Man Christ Jesus. And you
will remember
of course
that was a holy separate manhood; He was holy
separate from sin. And it is because He sitteth today beside the throne of God
filled with the plenitude of power
that from Him the temple the stream of
Pentecostal power proceeds. And in Ezekiel’s vision
the mention of the altar
the place of sacrifice
as being the source and origin of the stream
reminds
us that it is only through the sacrificial nature of our Saviour that the power
of the Holy Ghost is vouchsafed to men. If He had gone home as He might have
gone from the Mount of Transfiguration
He never could have communicated the
Holy Ghost to us. It was only because His nature became the altar on which He
offered a sacrifice to God for the sins of the world
that sacrifice being
Himself. God was able to pour through Him His own tide of life and power; just
as with you and me
we never can know the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost
until we have come to our Calvary
until we have too laid upon our altar
everything
until we too have denied our own method and programme and ideal in
order to be absolutely yielded and surrendered to God; only so can we receive
the Pentecost or communicate the power that is in us
or in Him. And there the
glorified Saviour
the Infinite One
lives and reigns today
waiting to bestow
upon every one of us the fulness of the Holy Ghost. Hear the music of waters as
they gush from the throne of God to man
as they lave the desert where you
stand
as they come murmuring around your dusty feet
as they long to creep up
your body
past the heart and face
until your whole being is submerged beneath
that mighty
that beneficent baptism.
II. The gradual
rise of the power of the Holy Ghost in the man’s life. He measured
and it came
to the ankles. And I suppose in the beginning of our Christian life
our ways
our walks
our daily track of obedience becomes cleansed and purified. Is not
that one of the great needs of your young life? do not your paths often take
you into the midst of men and things
into contact with sins and environment
which would soil and sully your pure young nature? I think it is well for you
to know the evil of the world. I think you are stronger to know evil that you
may know good. I don’t want to shield you as a number of hothouse plants. I
think it is better to bed you out that you may know something of the taint and
corruption around. We know that the whole world lieth with the wicked one. We
must know it by personal observation as well as by report. But in the midst of
it all it is possible for you to walk with clean feet
because the blessed Holy
Spirit is always washing away and cleansing the moral impurity that otherwise
might attack you. But great and good though that be
you must not stop there;
there must be the rising of the waters; and I pray that even now you may feel
them rising and gathering around you
for they must creep up to the knee. The
work of the blessed Spirit is teaching us to make intercession. He teaches us
how to pray
and He pours through the heart an incessant stream of desire for
others. Be thankful that is increasingly your experience. That is not enough;
there must be the rising power of the Holy. Ghost in the loins. The loins may
stand for the girding up of our loins for service. In the case of our blessed
Saviour the water rose to the loins
when He girded Himself at His baptism to
undertake His ministry. And I think every one of us
as we stand now in our
young life
on the threshold of existence
must we not be wondering how best to
serve mankind? It may be just in the place we were born in
or it may be going
forth upon some further expedition of the ministry. Then the measurer comes
forward
until the waters are swimming; the idea being that the mighty current
of the Holy Ghost has come into a man’s life
so as to take him off his feet;
and as he lies back
his head
his face towards the blue sky above him
he is
just borne in the mighty current onward
with ever intenser force
onward to
the highest and fullest life. Do you know that? Don’t be afraid of it
let
yourself go; let God have His way with your young life. My mistake has been
that I have anchored to the bank
that I have anchored to circumstances
to my
own ideals and plans! And let the Holy Ghost rise within you until your soul is
filled with its activity; your love and affection
your imagination and power
of imagery
and your spirits shall all feel the rising waters and the
Pentecostal baptism that comes from the loving Christ.
III. The cause of
this. Why is our England what she is today? Judging by her latitude she ought
to be wild and bare. For eight months of the year her ports ought to be closed
and the ice floes banked up all round her shores; whilst within
her shaggy
woods and ice-bound rivers should be haunted by furry animals
and the only
value of our country be a hunting-ground for those who come to steal from the
animals their fur. Why is it England is what she is today
so sunny and fair?
Why is it that we have a temperate summer and comparatively hospitable winter?
Why is it that our hills are covered with grass
and our valleys with corn
that there is a rich pasture land throughout our territory
upon which the
shepherds may lead their flocks
or the herds may graze? Why is it? We should
be in Arctic misery were it not for the river that threads the waters of the
Atlantic. You know how
within the Caribbean Sea
the water of the ocean is
being kept at boiling point
so to speak
and how presently some mighty force
appears
of which we know comparatively little
probably by evaporation
and by
currents above and below the water is forced out
strikes presently a
promontory
is deflected across the Atlantic
and within a few weeks it touches
our shores
and this warm river of water
surrounding England as it does
makes
her the beautiful land of ocean she is. Oh! that beneficent current of the Gulf
Stream. Wherever it comes there is life--spring flowers
woods
pasture land
cornfields
harvests. So is it in the inner life
for the more of the Holy
Ghost; you have
the more harvest you yield. So is it in the world around us.
Let the Holy Ghost come into your own soul
and the aridity will blossom into
flower and fruit; let Him come irate this neighbourhood
and those public
houses and houses of ill-fame
and those wretched stifling courts will be swept
away; and the whole of this neighbourhood will become fair and beautiful. Let
Him come into the world
and see if it be not healed. (F. B. Meyer
B. A.)
The river of salvation
Unlike most other great cities
Jerusalem did not stand on a
river. The waters of Siloam
“that go softly
” being but an inconsiderable
brook
did indeed issue from the temple rock
and the bed of the Kidron
which
was for most of the year a dry watercourse
bleaching in the sun
did run with
a foaming torrent in the rainy seasons
but these were all. But a Psalmist’s
faith had reversed the defect
and sung of the river which made glad the city
of God (Psalms 46:1-11); and a Prophet had seen
the vision of a time when Jehovah would be to Zion “a place of broad rivers and
streams” (Isaiah 33:21). In like manner
Ezekiel
casts his prophecy of the future blessings
which should flow from God’s
presence among His people
into His grand image of the mysterious river
rising
in the temple and pouring out eastwards
with fertility and life in its waters.
1. The first point to be noted is the source of the river. Ezekiel’s
reconstruction of the temple set it on the top of a mountain much higher than
the real temple hill
and levelled the land around it to a wide plain. That a
river should rise
not only on a mountaintop
but in the temple itself
was
obviously unnatural. But the idea to be conveyed is the same as that which the
New Testament seer expressed by a slight modification of the image
when he
represented the “river of water of life” as “proceeding out of the throne of
God and of the Lamb.” The stream which is to heal and vitalise humanity must
rise on a height above humanity. The water power which generates electricity
must fall from a height above. Moral and social reforms
which rise from lower
levels
will be like rivers in the great deserts of Northern Asia
which
trickle feebly for a few miles
and then are lost in the sand. From the deep
heart of God His pitying love wells up
unmotived
unsought
impelled only by
its own energy. Ezekiel expresses
also
by making the river rise in the
temple
that God’s presence with men is the source of all blessing. He dwells
among us by the abiding with us of His Son
who
through His Spirit
is with us
always. Therefore
the parched land becomes a pool
and we need thirst no more.
2. The sudden increase of the stream. A “thousand cubits” would be
according to the usual measurement
about a quarter of a mile
so that
in
successive spaces of that extent
the river was ankle-deep
knee-deep
waist-deep
and unfordable. Whence came the swift increase? Not from tributaries
of which there were none
but from the evermore abundant outpouring from the
fountain in the holy place. God’s ideal is that the blessings of His presence
should continually and rapidly increase
and that Christ’s kingdom should
swiftly grow. So far as His Divine communications are concerned
these become
more and more abundant in the measure of men’s desires and faithful use. But
die Divine ideal may be hampered in realisation by men’s fault
and has been
so
not only in regard to individual growth in grace
but in regard to the
diffusion of the sparkling waters of the river of God through the waste places
of the world. Does anyone believe that the rate at which Christianity has
spread is in accordance with its possibilities of growth
or with Christ’s
desire to see of the travail of His soul? Does anyone believe that the rate of
growth
characteristic of most professing Christians
is the utmost that they
could attain if they tried?
3. In the east
the one condition of fertility is water. Irrigate a
desert
and it becomes a fruitful field; break down the aqueducts
and the
granary of the world becomes barren waste. The traveller knows where there is a
brook by seeing the line of green which ties on either side. There may not be a
blade of pass on the level of the plain
but as soon as one’s path dips into a
wady
trees line the banks
and birds sing in the branches. So Ezekiel’s river
had many trees on its banks. Note the almost verbal correspondence of verse 12
with the lovely picture drawn of the good man in Psalms 1:1-6
“whose leaf also does not
wither.” The continual productiveness resulting from the perennial stream is
the ideal for the individual life of the Christian
as well as for the whole
Church; and wherever hearts are kept open for the inflow of God’s grace
all
the year will be the season of fruit bearing
and
as on some trees in favoured
lands
blossom and fruit will hang together on the laden boughs. Another view
of the effects of the river is given in that great saying that its waters bring
healing to the bitter waters of the Dead Sea
into which they pour. Sin
pervades humanity
and only by the coming down from above of a purer source of
life can it be cast out. (A. Maclaren
D. D.)
The rise and progress of the Gospel
Water is a Biblical emblem of salvation (Psalms 46:4; Isaiah 12:3; Zechariah 14:8). Only the salvation
brought by Christ fulfils Ezekiel’s idea of the healing waters from the
sanctuary; and in what the Gospel has done and is doing for the world we
see the realisation of the prophet’s vision.
I. The source of
the Gospel. Christianity
viewed on the human side
was an outcome of Judaism.
To Jesus the temple was His “Father’s house.” He taught there
and spoke of the
“living water” which He would impart. His chosen apostles and first disciples
were Jews. One of His last injunctions was that the Gospel should be preached
to all nations
“beginning at Jerusalem.”
II. The progress of
the Gospel. The beginnings of Christianity had a small and feeble look
as of a
tiny streamlet which might soon be dried up by the heats of persecution. But
the stream kept deepening as it flowed
until it has now become as a great
highway among the nations
carrying on its broad bosom ideas that revolutionise
human thought and life
and furnishing a medium of sympathetic communion
between men of far distant countries and climes.
III. The beneficial
effects of the Gospel.
1. Are not the great salt seas of Hinduism and Buddhism already
beginning to be influenced by the quickening and healing power of the water of
life?
2. But the prophet saw (verse 11) how the salt marishes
which were
left by the subsidence of the sea
remained unhealed; the inflowing river did
not reach them. Take care
then
Chat you do not cut yourself off from the
healing and life-giving influences of the Gospel. (T. C. Finlayson.)
The influence of the Church of God
I. The striking
characteristics of this influence.
1. The smallness of its beginnings. One man from Chaldea
or a dozen
common Galileans
do not seem much to turn the world upside down with. That
little stream
issuing out of the infant Church of Jerusalem
looked as if
there would not be needed more than one hot day’s sun of opposition to dry it
up. Read the prophet’s story
and see how the waters became a river that could
not be passed over. So the Gospel stream
easily stepped over at the first
has
gone on widening and deepening
until now it covers the world’s best places and
belts the whole earth.
2. These waters of the vision were fed by no tributaries--and herein
is a marvellous thing. Those waters had but one source--just those drops at the
gate of the temple
and that was all. They issued out of the sanctuary; they
grew and they grew. They were inherently developed. This is true of the Gospel
stream coming out of the sanctuary. No other religions have swelled its waters
with their inflowing tide. Nor wealth
nor learning
nor art
nor government
has contributed one drop to its volume. The Christ stands and breaks His five
loaves
and the five thousand and the five millions are fed by the same loaves.
3. Mark again this characteristic of the waters--they transform
whatever they touch. Everywhere they spread in their onward flow
they make a
place of beauty. This is the picture. What are the actual scenes marking the
course of the Gospel stream down through the world? Where do you find the
world’s moral garden today? Where are the high places of the earth? Places high
in cleanliness and conscience
in charity and forgiveness? They are here
by
the banks of the River of Life
flowing from the sanctuary. What savages have
been changed to saints! What hells of opposition have become homes filled with
all sweet charity! How love as a lust has been transformed into love as an
inspiration!
II. Is there one
thing that can be named as the sole condition of the influence of the Church?
Beyond the shadow of a doubt
for the Church was to be the Church of the living
God
the dwelling place of Jehovah. What distinguished this sanctuary whence flowed
these marvellous waters was this--that God was there. No imposing ritual
no
pomp of ceremonial
no crowd of worshippers
no countless repetitions of
breathed prayer
no blood of sacrifices can account for that magic stream that
trickled down from the sanctuary
and swept on and out to deserts and dead
seas
leaving only beauty and fertility along its track. The illimitable God
was there This picture of prophecy is the reality of history. From the time of
the descent of the Holy Spirit at the day of Pentecost
whenever God has been
in the Church
her influence has been immediate and beneficent. The one sole
condition of power on the part of the Church is that she be filled with the
Spirit of God. If the Lord God come down and dwell in His sanctuary
out of His
sanctuary will issue the waters of salvation.
III. What all this
determines concerning the Church.
1. Her Divine origin. See what the Church has done. See her beginning
at Jerusalem. See how she has since breasted the deep currents of the world
how
she has made everything live. Demanding such sacrifices
wielding such weapons
as she has
she could never have gone on one step of her brilliant way if she
were not of God.
2. Her worldwide triumph. What was there these waters touched that
they did not heal? The Church is here in order that the Gospel may be preached
unto all nations
not alone as a testimony but as a transforming power.
3. The Spirit of God in the Church is the sole condition of her
influence
and He is almighty. (H. Johnson
D. D.)
The healing waters
I have somewhere seen a picture
which I will endeavour to
describe. The scene is in the far East; the hour
when the earth is just
lighted up with that rare oriental sunlight
which we Westerns long to see; the
time
the sultry August
when the fierce sun has it all his own way
and the
country has a sickly cast upon it
as if it fainted with the intenseness of the
glare. The plain is scorched and arid
and the river running between its sedgy
banks seems to have hardly strength enough to propel its own sluggish stream
from the mountain beyond. Beneath a group of ancestral palms stands a knot of
Egyptian peasants
swarthy and muscular
talking wildly to each other
and with
eyes strained wistfully in the direction of the south
in which quarter there
seems to hang an indescribable haze
the forecasting shadow of some atmospheric
or other change. Why look they there so eagerly? Why do they gaze so intently
just where the river faintly glitters on the horizon’s dusky verge? Oh
because
they know
from the experience of years
that the time has come for the
inundation of the Nile. They do not know the processes
perhaps
by which the
waters are gathered--how in the far Abyssinia the sources of wealth are
distilled; but
as certainly as if their knowledge was profound and scientific
do they calculate upon the coming of the flood. And they know
too
that when
the flood does come
that scorched plain shall wave with ripening grain
that
there shall be corn in Egypt
and that those blackened pastures shall then be
gay with such fertile plenty
that all the land shall cat
and shall be
satisfied; for “everything shall live whither the river cometh.” This picture
has struck me as being a very vivid and forcible representation of Ezekiel’s
vision
embodied in the experience of Eastern life. Nothing
surely
can better
represent the moral barrenness of the world--a wilderness of sin--than that
plain
on which the consuming heat has blighted and withered the green earth
and induced the dread of famine. Nothing can better set forth the grace and the
healing of the Gospel
than the flow of that life-giving river; nothing can
better image to us the attitude befitting all earnest Christian men
than the
wistful gaze of those peasants to the place whence the deliverance shall come
that they may catch the first murmur of the quickened waters
and feel and
spread the joy.
I. The source of
these healing waters. There was a copious fountain on the west side of the city
of Jerusalem. At this fountain
which was called Gihon
Zadok and Abiathar
stood beside the youthful Solomon
and with many holy solemnities proclaimed
him king. The prudent Hezekiah
foreseeing that in a siege the supply from this
fountain might be cut off by the enemy
conducted it by a secret aqueduct to
the very heart of the city; and David
deriving from this same fountain one of
his choicest emblems of spiritual blessing
struck his harp and sang--“There is
a river
” etc. The prestige and the sanctity of the ancient Jerusalem
have passed away forever. But yet God is still present in the sanctuaries of
His Son in peculiar manifestation
and there are special promises of favour for
those that wait upon Him
and that call in His house upon His name. Here
as in
a spiritual laver
the soul of the polluted receives the cleansing of the water
and of the Word. Here the poor children of sorrow smile through their tears
as
they are satisfied with the goodness of His house
and the lame halts no longer
as he emerges from this Bethesda of the paralysed
whose waters have been
stirred from on high. It is from between the cherubim that God especially
shines; it is among
the golden candlesticks that He still walks to bless His
people; and here
as in a gorgeous and well-furnished hall of banquet
believers eat of the fatness of His house
and drink of the river of His
pleasure; and in the temple are at once the highest teaching and the most
satisfying comfort
the closest fellowship with God and the most effectual
preparation for heaven. While
however
these healing waters came through the
temple
the blessing did not originate there. The springs of them were in the
everlasting hills. In other words
God is the one source of life; and means
unless He vitalise them
are but the letter which killeth--the shadow of good
things to come.
II. The progress of
the healing waters. The narrative tells us that the progress of the waters was
gradual
and that it was constant. There was no ceasing of the flow--there was
no ebbing of the water. And this is a very graphic description of the progress
of the Gospel of Christ. Simple and feeble in its beginnings
those trembling
but earnest fishermen its earliest preachers--wealth
and rank
and patronage
and power
all arrayed against it--Caesars conspiring to strangle it
and armies
marched out against its fugitive sons--how marvellous was its triumph! Only
think of the rapidity of its spread. Jerusalem was filled with its doctrines;
Antioch
Corinth
Thessalonica
Ephesus
Athens
Rome
all trembled beneath its
denunciations of their vices
and admitted its transforming energy within a
century of its Founder’s death. Tertullian
one of the early apologists for the
faith
says
“We are but of yesterday
and we have filled your halls
villages
boroughs
towns
cities
the camp
the senate
and the forum.” A writer at the
commencement of the second century speaks of the whole world of the Roman
Empire being filled with the Gospel of Christ. It is well known that
Constantine the Great blazoned the cross upon his banners
and throned Christianity
as the established religion of the state. And at the close of the third
century
when Julian gasped out his celebrated dying cry
it was not the
apostate
but the world
which the Galilean had overcome. And though
after the
establishment of Christianity
there came upon the world a seeming eclipse of
faith--though corruptions blemished somewhat the comeliness of the bride of
Christ
its progress among the nations has been gradual and unceasing still.
One after another they have received its teachings and submitted to its sway.
Insensibly
here and there the institutions of society have been moulded by its
impress
and it has stamped upon them its own beauteous image. Sanguinary codes
have been relaxed; unholy traffic has terminated; cruelty has had its arm
paralysed
and its sword blunted; fraud
and lust
and drunkenness have become
things not of glorying
but of shame. There has been a gradual uplifting in the
moral world
as if there flowed upon it the airwaves of a purer atmosphere
and
men have wondered whence the healing came. Oh! it is the river that has done it
all
ever flowing on--now through the darkening brake
now in the open plain
now fertilising the swards upon its banks
now rejoicing in the depths of its
own channel
imperceptible almost in the increasing volume of its waters to
those who constantly behold it
and yet
gazed upon at intervals
seen to widen
and to deepen every day.
1. If we believe that this Gospel shall progress
then our faith
should be strong. Christ has sent it into the world
knowing that it can do
what He has sent it to accomplish
and it is never to be amended--it is never
to be superseded. He has not lost faith in it
and from the moment of His first
commission until now
He sits expecting until the work is done.
2. Surely there is great responsibility in being connected with a
Gospel like this! What the waters do not melt
they sometimes petrify
and
there are some spirits that have got so thoroughly hardened
that they are not
to be broken
even by the hammer of the Word.
III. The efficacy of
the Gospel of Christ. “Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” This is
true of the Gospel of Christ. There is no desert of worldliness which the
Gospel cannot change into a garden; there is no dead sea of error which the
Gospel cannot purge from its pollution
and change into a receptacle of life.
The completeness of the salvation is a remarkable characteristic of the Gospel
and we may rejoice in it the more
because it works thoroughly. In the Gospel
there is life for all! Its voice can reach the farthest wynds of the dark
sepulchre; no catacomb of the moral death is too remote
or too crowded
or too
loathsome to be visited
and to be emptied
by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
However long the death may have continued
the Gospel can chase it from the
heart again; ay
although time may have resolved the dust into dust again
and
though the soul
like a mummy of the Pharaohs
has been dead
and swathed
and
embalmed for many wintered centuries of years. “Everything shall live whither
the river cometh.” And not merely shall each man be reached
but each part of
each man shall be reached also. Life for all; life for the understanding
that
it may no longer be preyed upon by a brood of pestilent errors; life for the imagination
that it may quench its strange fires in the blood of the Lamb
and gather from
His Cross a purer flame instead; life for the memory
that it may no longer be
haunted by the wrecks of ghostly sins or spectral visions of evil; life for the
affections
that they may have something on which they may pour out the full
wealth of their souls
without danger of idolatry; life for the whole nature
that it may be sublimed from ruin to royalty
and from sin to God; life for the
destiny
that it may not be darkened
even by the shadow of death
but that
there may brighten upon it
in ever-increasing lustre
the light of the
everlasting day. I stood some years ago near the fair city of Geneva
where two
great rivers meet
but do not mingle. Here the Rhone
the arrowy Rhone
rapid
and beautiful
pours out its waters of that heavenly blue
which it is almost
worth a pilgrimage to see
and there the Arve
frantic and muddy
partly from
the glaciers from which it is so largely fed
and partly from the clayey soil
that it upheaves in its impetuous path
meet and run on side by side for miles
with no barriers
save their own innate repulsions
each encroaching now and
then into the province of the other
but beaten back again instantly into its
own domain. Like mighty rival forces of good and evil do they seem
and for
long--just as it is in the world around us--for long the issue is doubtful; but
if you took far down the stream
you find the frantic Arve is mastered
and the
Rhone has coloured the whole surface of the stream with its own emblematic and
beautiful blue. I thought
as I gazed upon it
that it was a remarkable
illustration of the conflict between truth and error; and in meditating upon
this subject--in thinking of the flow of the healing waters
and reading that
they should flow into the sea and heal it
the whole thing rose up before me
fresh and vivid as a thing that happened yesterday
and as my own view of the
passage has been cleared
and my own faith strengthened by the recollection
I
would fain
by this simple picture
impart the same blessedness to you. Oh!
with a glad heart and free
do I believe and preach
that there is no ailment
no leprosy
no death
that is beyond the power of the healing of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. Is it yours? (W. M. Punshon
D. D.)
The river of life
I. The success of
the gospel. Rivers are often used as metaphors in the sacred writings to denote
plenty
purity
refreshment
and happiness; and especially to illustrate the
blessings of the Gospel.
1. Its character. Divine truth in the mind
and Divine grace in the
heart
are sometimes compared to beams of light
and at other times to waters
of a river.
2. Its progress. The river is represented as flowing. We may regard
the vision as applicable--
3. Its effects. “Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” Man
in his civil capacity lives; his liberty is alive
and he claims it as his
birthright. Man in his domestic capacity lives. His wife and his children are
his own; no holder of slaves can claim them. Man in his moral capacity lives;
pardon lives in his conscience; gratitude lives in his memory; obedience lives
in his will; affection lives in his heart; joy lives in his faith; humility
lives in his prayers; holiness lives in his character
and heaven lives in his hope.
Be it ours either directly or indirectly to cut sluices and channels all around
us at home and abroad
that the waters of this river may be conveyed
everywhere
so that universal life and purity
prosperity and happiness
might
prevail. Let us all seek spiritual life on earth
for the life must be
commenced here; this must be the cradle of our spiritual being
the seed must
be sown on earth that produces fruit in heaven
the bud must appear here which
is to blossom there; let us then seek grace on earth that we may enjoy life and
glory in heaven.
II. We are
constrained to acknowledge the failure as well as the success of the Gospel.
“But the miry places thereof
” etc.
1. In miry places the water hath not free passage. The apostle prays
that “the Gospel may run and be glorified.” The Word runs when it meets with
nothing to stop it--when it runs through the whole soul.
2. In miry places the earth and the water are mixed together. This
mixture makes mire; so when the truths of the Gospel mix with the corruptions
of men
or when men make use of the truths of God to plead for their sins.
3. In miry places the longer the water stands in it the worse it
grows; so the longer a soul remains unchanged under the ordinances of religion
the more polluted it becomes.
Reflections:--
1. The duty of gratitude for Gospel privileges.
2. The necessity of embracing Gospel blessings.
3. The success attending the Gospel is to be very extensive.
All nations
and kindreds
and people shall be called by the
Gospel; it shall not be an excluding system
like that of Judaism
for its
Author tasted death for every man. Can each one of us say--I feel He died for
me? (J. Wonnacott.)
The healing waters: their source and stream
I. The origin of
the Gospel. As the tracing of the Nile to its source was a work of deepest
interest to the sages of Egypt
so is it of interest to us to trace to its
source that nobler river of which the Nile was but a picture--the river of the
love of God--the Gospel. This Gospel has made our country what it is
and made
us what we are. Its saving power and hallowed influence we have often seen
giving strength to the weak
power to the faint
comfort amid crosses and
cares
peace of mind amid the war of elements
triumph over death
and victory
over the grave.
1. The Gospel originated with God
as the river originated in the
temple.
2. The Gospel comes to man in harmony with the principles of the
Divine government
as the river flowed from the temple without doing damage to
its walls. The idea of the text
when divested of its figure
is that the
outward flow of God’s love to sinners in the Gospel did not require the
breaking up of the Divine character--did no violation to the principles of
Divine government
but was in perfect harmony with them.
3. Eternal life is brought within the reach of man through the death
of Jesus
for the water came out at the side of the altar. His wounds
His
tears and cries and Cross
were channels through which His love
unfathomed
flowed and flows to man
and gave and gives him healing.
II. The progress of
the Gospel.
1. The Gospel
like the river
had a small beginning.
2. The progress of the Gospel
like that of the river
has been
and
ever will be
gradual.
III. The condition
of the world without the Gospel. Man is as void of piety as the sea of life.
Man’s soul is as desolate
in reference to goodness
as those barren banks are
to vegetation. Is this picture overdrawn? Someone might say--Surely that is not
a picture of England today
or of any part of the civilised world? Perhaps not--probably
not. But it is impossible for us to tell how far the inhabitants of England and
of civilised Europe may be affected by the Gospel. Millions are benefited who
are not saved. As embalming may
to some extent
prevent the decay of the dead
though it gives life to none
so may Christian influence arrest the progress of
depravity
without producing holiness in its place.
IV. The influence
of the Gospel. Like the river
the Gospel refreshes
vivifies
and beautifies
all it touches. It purifies the heart
and thereby illuminates the intellect
elevates the affections
and fits men’s souls for a higher state of being. As
the sun chases darkness from the world and fills that world with light
and
shows the glory of creation
so does the Gospel show all the good which it
finds in human nature
increases that good a thousandfold
and makes its
possessor blessed himself and a blessing to all others. (E. Lewis
B. A.)
The fertilising river
The vision was designed to represent the nature
origin
progress
and results of the Gospel; and thus regarded
it suggests many important
matters for consideration.
1. It is a vision of waters
and that symbolises the fertilising as
well as purifying influence which the religion of Christ has everywhere
exerted.
2. It is a vision of waters issuing from the temple of God; and that
reminds us that the Gospel is no mere human expedient
but is indeed the
revelation of God’s mercy to mankind.
3. It is a vision of waters flowing out from under the altar of the
house of God; and we have thereby recalled to our remembrance the truth that
men are redeemed and regenerated only through their acceptance of that
deliverance which Christ wrought out for them by the sacrifice of Himself on
their behalf. Ancient fable tells of a great hero
that when he died the spot
on which he fell was marked by the out-gushing from it of a perennial fountain;
but that old story was only a kind of poetic parable of the true.
4. It is a vision of waters gradually rising. They grew deeper the
longer they flowed. That illustrates the progress of the Gospel over the world.
It was not to take sudden and immediate possession of the earth
but rather to
flow over it as the tide flows over the shore.
I. Take it in the
first place in its bearing on men’s social condition. And here I go at once to
the household. The family is the centre of human society. “Home is the head of
the river
” and an influence
whether blessed or pernicious
exerted there
will affect all its after course. Now
it is capable of the clearest proof that
Christianity is the only thing that has given purity and loveliness to the
household. The Lord Jesus has revolutionised
if not created family life. He
gave sanctity to the marriage he by re-enacting the primal law
that one man
should be the husband of one wife. He restored woman to her true position as
the help meet and companion of her husband. He took the little children in His
arms and blessed them--for that touching scene in the Gospel narrative is only
a type of the work in which He is still engaged wheresoever His message of love
is proclaimed. By His tender care for His venerable mother in the very climax
and crisis of His own agony
He gave a sacredness to old age which has gathered
to it ever since the reverence
the affection
and the benevolence of men. On
the banks of the river of Christianity domestic happiness and practical
benevolence do flourish in vigorous and attractive life; and if we wish to make
other nations sharers with us in these priceless blessings
we must send them that
Gospel out of which among us they have sprung.
II. Look at the
influence of the Gospel upon civil liberty. The Bible indeed contains no
treatise on civil government
but its principles lay the axe to the root of
every form of despotism. Jesus has taught us not only to assert freedom of
conscience for ourselves
but to respect and defend its exercise by others. He
has commanded us to “honour all men
” because they wear that nature which He
consecrated by His incarnation; and wherever the mystery of His Cross is even
dimly understood
men are disposed
while receiving its salvation
to sacrifice
themselves for others’ good. Hence the whole spirit of Christianity stimulates
men to look not only on their own things
but also on the things of others; and
that is the disposition out of which true liberty is born.
III. Look at the
department of literature
and you will see how
when the river of the Gospel
has flowed into a nation
it has quickened that also into richer growth. Take
here the stories which have been garnered up in our own mother tongue
and when
you come to look into the subject you will be surprised to discover how much
the Word of God has had to do with the character and quality of English
literature. Up till the time when John Wycliffe sent “his poor priests” up and
down England with his version of portions of the Scriptures in the vulgar
tongue
there could not be said to be any English literature
and there was
hardly any English language. Just at the very time Wycliffe was engaged in his
great work
now precisely five hundred years ago
Geoffrey Chaucer was writing
those “Canterbury Tales” which have charmed so many generations of readers
and
which bear on them certain indications that their author had come under the
widening and ennobling influence of the truths which the parson of Lutterworth
proclaimed. Nor was this in itself unlikely
for both of these men were proteges
of him whom we know in another connection as “Old John of Gaunt of
time-honoured Lancaster.” In any case these two between them laid the
foundation of our language and literature; but as from the nature of the case
the Bible went into more homes and hearts than Chaucer reached
we must
attribute to Wycliffe the principal share in that literary revival which the
succeeding centuries witnessed in the mother country. Nay
it is somewhat
remarkable that just as Chaucer’s poems were contemporaneous with Wycliffe’s
Bible
so the age of the Reformation under Henry
Edward
and Elizabeth
the
day that is of Tindale’s
Matthew’s
Coverdale’s
and the Genevan Bibles
has
always been regarded as the palmiest time of English literature; while again
the age which saw Wordsworth
Coleridge
Scott
Southey
and that whole band
which made the early part of this century so renowned
was the successor and
inheritor of that in which Wesley
Whitefield
and their fellow evangelists had
carried religious revival over England and America.
IV. Look at the
influence of Christianity upon science. Its watchword is: “Prove all things;
hold fast that which is good”; and so
wherever the New Testament goes
it
provokes inquiry
strengthens intellect
encourages independence
while
at the
same time
it imparts to the universe a sacred interest
as the work of Him who
is “our Father.” Christianity has reared the platform on which all scientific
associations stand today
and the very liberty which men of science have to
utter unpopular opinions--shall I say even heretical opinions?--has been won
for them by Christian men. Had all the martyrs of Christianity
and especially
of Protestantism
been as weak-spirited as Galileo
we might all have still
been groaning under the intolerance of the Inquisition. But in standing up for
liberty of conscience and of opinion for themselves
the witnesses for
religious truth have won also for science the right to hold and teach its own
deductions and beliefs. Now
that is indispensable to its advancement
if not
even to its existence; and so
when you examine it thoroughly
you will be
constrained to admit that this mystic river has fertilised the roots of science
also
and though for the moment there may seem to be a misunderstanding between
some Christians and some men of science
for which
as it seems to me
both
parties are to be blamed
yet the two departments never can really inspire each
other
and the advancement of the one will invariably be accompanied by the
progress of the other. Nor could we have a finer illustration of that fact than
in the services which our foreign missionaries have rendered to the science of our
times. Their labours in ethnology
geography
philology
botany
zoology
and
even astronomy
have called forth the thanks of men of the highest eminence in
all these departments. (W. H. Taylor.)
The life-giving river
Who knows what water is? Yet how we reject it! The universe could
not live a day without water. It could live a little whilst the water was
sinking down
but when the water really went out of it the universe itself
would collapse. Christ is water; Christ is commonplace; Christ flows and trickles;
Christ is not a measured wine
He is an unmeasured and immeasurable river
now
a torrent
now a stream of silver
now a river that a lamb might gambol in
so
shallow; and now a river so deep that navies might rock themselves in its
abundance of water. What a marvellous river was this! The man “measures a
thousand cubits
” and “the waters were to the ankles”--hardly more than a pool:
yonder a little bird was sitting at the brink
farther on a lamb was lapping
its daily portion
a little farther on and green grass was waving above the
little stream. It was a beauteous lake
hardly more than a mirror
laughing at
the blue heavens
and doubling them. And then there was a second measure:
another thousand cubits
and “the waters were to the knees”; another thousand
and “the waters were to the loins”; another thousand
and there “was a river
”
a river “to swim in.” The waters never broke
they increased; at last they
demanded a sea. The river must find the sea
or make one. All this motion means
a grand finale. This increase means ultimate benediction. This is the way of
the Gospel in the world: first very little
then more
then still more
and
then the mightiest and grandest of all objects. The year has its springtime;
life has its infancy; the river reaches to the ankles at first
but at the last
it cannot be passed over. Here is the law of progress
beneficent
continuous
and consummating increase. Beautiful is this imagery
but not so beautiful as
the reality. Sometimes history has to lag after symbolism. In the case of
Christian missions or the propagation of the truths of the Cross
history
shakes off the brightest symbolism as being inadequate to express the glorious
realities. We are to judge of the river
fairly
clearly
by the life which it
brings. The Lord is always willing to submit Himself to practical tests
Christianity says
Judge me by my fruit
see what I do
and if I do not make
the dead live
then I am going forth on false pretences. Is it true that
wherever Christianity has gone--the spiritual idea
the true conception of God
the right view of the Cross of Christ--is it true that wherever this has gone
life has gone? We hold it to be true upon every ground
and we undertake to
prove its truth
not by tropes but by figures statistical and by facts human
palpable
and accessible. He would not enter upon any very perilous experiment
who undertook to prove that the Christian idea--by that involving the whole
work and function of Christ--has done more for the commerce of the world than
any other force. Christianity has turned over more money than any other thought
of man. Christianity has kept more workpeople
paid more wages
patronised more
art
than any other religion
or any other conception of the human mind. The
highest artists could not have lived without the religious genius and the
religious fact. This is true in sculpture
in oil
in music
in architecture
in literature
in poetry. “Every thing shall live whither the river cometh”:
plenty of business
plenty of work
--clearing forests
building cities
exchanging merchandise; the seas alive with vessels
and the desert encroached
upon for more city room. This religion of Christ is a great business thought.
It is the principal factor in civilisation of an active kind
Or
leaving the commercial
thought altogether and looking at moral progress
only those who have not
studied the history of missions can be wanting in sensitiveness on this point.
If men would read the Acts of the Apostles published yesterday
they would see
that the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament is being continued in many a
glowing supplement. How many people have heard
from a missionary point of
view
of New Guinea? It was a heathen country
given over to all manner of
debasement and corruption and foulness and cruelty. Today it blossoms as the
rose. Why? Because the Gospel has been instituted there
preached there
received there; and men who once would have devoured you are now inquiring
about the very highest possibilities of thought and destiny. In the name of
justice
find the cause of this transformation
and acknowledge it. Has the
river brought life to your house? Wherever it has come it has brought life
has
turned ferocious nature
has made the feeble strong
has made the sick at heart
hopeful and glad. Has the river come into your soul? If so
you are a new man.
(J. Parker
D. D.)
The living waters
I. The
characteristics of this river.
1. How precious is water as a beverage! Go to the burning East and
see the desert strewn with the bones of human skeletons
and think how one
draught of water would have been valued more than gold by those who perished
there for lack of it. The water of life
the Gospel of Jesus
is what the dying
sinner needs.
2. Water is precious as a means of cleansing. So truth purifies the
soul.
3. Water vivifies. In time of drought the earth is not a living
stirring womb
but a sealed grave. Let the rain come in copious showers
and
all things are renewed. So with the Gospel.
4. The affluence of Gospel grace is pictured in this abundant flowing
stream
as in the rain or in the ocean’s vastness. Today these gifts are at
your feet. All thirst
weariness
and pain are relieved. Whosoever will may
take.
II. The source of
this mystic river is the sanctuary. The grace of God has its appointed
channels
the Church
with its worship and service. The Gospel is the true
Brook Kedron flowing from Christ’s Gethsemane
tinged with His blood. The
shadow of the Cross falls on its waters.
III. The expansion
of these living waters. An oozing first
and then ankle deep
then to the knees
and loins
and then a stream to swim in. This is true in personal experience.
At conversion all things become new--the mind and heart
the sensibilities
conscience
and understanding
are all renewed. There are new hopes and
aspirations. “Everything lives” whither the river runs. Forgotten vows are
resumed
and decaying love becomes ardent; the proud Pharisee is humbled
and
the thief made an honest man
the miser generous and the sceptic a believer;
the poor
the troubled
and afflicted are comforted
and even the dying live
for the heavenly waters bear the soul away into everlasting rest.
IV. The direction
of this stream. It runs to the east; that is
up hill. The Gospel runs against
the bent of human depravity
but it carries all opposition before it. It makes
for the sea
the Dead Sea
which rolls its sullen waves over buried cities
the
grave of a God-cursed people. This place is shunned by man and bird and beast;
it is a grim wilderness and a fit picture of the desolation of the depraved
soul and of the world without God and without hope. The Gospel comes to purify
the bitter waters.
V. Its wondrous
fruit. Beauty and fertility are spread everywhere in its course. The sea to
which it flows is no more bitter. Its incrustation of salt along the banks
gives way to flowers
to the olive and palm
till the once repulsive expanse of
waters becomes a sparkling amethyst set in a bright emerald
till the
wilderness becomes as the garden of the Lord. (J. J. Wray.)
The healing power of Christianity
What this figure suggests is
that everything may be
is to be
made holy by the touch of the Divine Word. Business is to be freed from the
tendency which ever causes it to degenerate into mere money grubbing;
recreation is to be purified from influences which would turn to purposes of
dissipation and vice; the demon of ambition is to be expelled from the world of
politics; in general
the selfishness which corrupts all that is most pure and
debases all that is most noble
is to be brought under such restraint
that it
shall become a power for good and not for evil. Under this gracious and
quickening influence
everything that has in it any element of real endurance
shall be made yet stronger. Things that are worthy to live are to be endued
with new life. Here
then
is the ideal of Christianity--an ideal toward which
all the power that the Gospel exercises in the world is certainly working. Its
promise is
that there shall be a new heaven and a new earth
in which shall
dwell righteousness
and
so far as its power has been felt
the promise has
been fulfilled. Not yet do we see all things put under Christ
or already earth
would have been exchanged for heaven. But we do see advances made toward this
end. The process is so advancing that we may
if we will
carefully trace its
growth. We see it in individuals
in the conversion and the sanctification of
those who are led to submit themselves
and who
in their turn
become
instruments for the extension of His gracious rule. But we see it also in the
extension of what may be called the indirect power of the Gospel--a power less
noticed but still real and full of significance. All men
even those who scoff
and blaspheme
share in the grace which God has manifested to man; or
to
narrow the range of observation and put it in a more concrete form--England is
a wiser
better
happier England because Jesus Christ came into the world
and
because to us
as a people
has the Word of His salvation come. The presence of
Christians--that is
of men honestly seeking to do the will of Christ--must
itself be a blessing to any nation. So far as they can succeed in their holy
endeavour
they are as the salt by which society is preserved from the
corrupting influences which are ever active in the world. They are a power for
truth
righteousness
and goodness. They not only have power on earth
but have
power in heaven. Unbelief
indeed
will laugh to scorn the suggestion
that for
the wisdom which inspires and guides the hearts of her statesmen
and the strength
which nerves the hands of her workers; for the patriotism which
in times of
great emergency and peril
stirs the heart of the nation so that it beats as
the heart of one man; for extraordinary deliverances from peril; for equally
remarkable manifestations of public virtue or worldwide sympathy
the nation is
indebted to God and His grace
and that God Himself has been moved by the
prayers of His servants. There seems to be no point of the Church’s faith and
hope on which a scoffing scepticism has made more impression than this.
Science
misunderstanding the nature of the doctrine as to the efficacy of
prayer
laughs it to scorn as a piece of worn-out superstition. To the
Christian it is of the very essence of religion. Its primary truth is
that God
is
and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him
and it is a
primary duty
that as the Master has Himself taught us
men ought always to
pray and not to faint. The effectual
fervent prayer of one righteous man
availeth much. What must be the power of the prayers of all the saints who
plead with God for the redemption of humanity? But prayers are the
consecration
the stay
the support of holy lives. Christians not only offer
prayers of faith
but live in the nation as witnesses of God and workers for
His truth. So far as they carry out the principles of the Gospel
they are
setting before men a higher ideal of character and of life: an ideal in which
to a degree
the will of God is represented. Lives in which the spirit of
selfish ambition is crushed out
or
at least
subordinated to purer and nobler
aims; which draw their inspiration from the Cross
and their support from the
words that come from the mouth of God; in which the law of the Divine
righteousness is supreme
and whose motive force is that love to God which
expresses itself in sympathetic and active love to man; lives of those who
in
a sense
are the world’s redeemers
since they are spent in carrying on that
loving search after sinners
for which the Saviour lived and died
must influence
the lives with which they are brought into contact. They may be often subjects
of ridicule and scorn
their motives may be misrepresented
and their conduct
misconstrued; but they impress men. Yet even this does not exhaust the
influence of Christianity upon a nation. Both by its own teaching
and by the
examples of its subjects
it purifies and elevates the tone of thought and
feeling in a community. It creates an atmosphere of its own
in which it is
difficult for selfishness to flourish
and in which
if it flourishes
it is
restrained in the indulgence of its desires. It lays down great truths
which
give men a new conception of their relations to each other--a conception which
was never more needed than in such days as ours
when men are congregated in
great societies
and the competition of life becomes keener and more intense.
Mark
for example
the difference between one of the favourite ideas of
science--the survival of the fittest--and the root-conception of Christianity
the value of every man
and the brotherhood of all. Christ has taught us that
lesson which
when rightly learned
must change the atmosphere of all
society--that man in his lowest degradation
in his deepest misery
in his most
extreme alienation from the Heavenly Father
is still infinitely precious in
His sight. A very little one he may be
but it is not the will of the Father
that one of these little ones should perish. We are led up thus to another
thought
which stands out conspicuous as distinctive of the Gospel--the blessedness
of self-sacrifice. By the death of the one are the many to be made righteous.
That is the keynote of the Revelation everywhere. Selfishness is to be expelled
by the power of love; the sinner redeemed by the death of the Saviour; the
highest joy which the universe knows
reached by the endurance of sorrow for
the good of others. (J. G. Rogers.)
The river which Ezekiel saw
I have seen nothing more grandly expressive of a small beginning
which has infinite possibilities in it than the bubbling spring. It is so small
that a child’s thumb would cover the opening; but yet so mighty that you would
find the greatest difficulty to suppress its upward pressure Like many living
things
it is well-nigh omnipotent in its expansion. We have seen castles rent
asunder and rocks split by the expanding energy of a seed. Perhaps next to that
comes the bubbling spring. Only God knows the power that is behind it. Only He
can measure the hidden and the almost immeasurable depths in many instances
from whence it comes. The figure is very expressive as representing the history
of a small but very mighty beginning. The stream that is only up to a man’s
ankles does not generally arouse great interest
or awaken great expectations;
and yet we never know the possibilities of any stream. It would ill befit a man
to sneer at the Thames
though a child may leap over it in one part. Almost
every river of the world begins with such small beginnings as this; but men
know better than to laugh at a bubbling spring. They can little realise the
forces that are behind
and the replenishing power that is ready at hand
yet
out of sight. Then we see that
like every true river
this stream progressed.
“The waters were to the knees.” It was deepening; but this was only the
beginning. Yet “again he measured a thousand
and brought me through; the
waters were to the loins.” Still it gathers volume and force. “The waters were
risen
waters to swim in
a river that could not be passed over.” Again
the
word that is translated “river” here is very significant. It is not the word
that is expressive so much of a large constant flow as of a rushing torrent. It
is applied both to the torrent itself and to the wady
or ravine through which
the torrent runs. It is expressive
therefore
of a stream that has energy in
it. That is the point emphasised here. In addition to its adding to its
resources and volume
it adds to its force. It is a torrential stream
that
digs its own channel and makes its way. It is not the sluggish river that will
flow along any old traditional rut that is provided for it: it is a river that
will drive itself through the heart of a mountain rather than fail to reach its
destination. The river is beautifying
beneficent
and life giving. All these
points might be enlarged upon. Everything shall live whither the river cometh
Rivers are always a source of beauty
if they are of this kind. Oh
how
beautiful the river is to the eye! and how charming with its liquid sounds to
the ear! How beneficent
too
as it gives new energy and life to every drooping
plant
and quenches the thirst of man and beast. I like to see a bird wash
itself in the shallows of a clear crystal stream; and a child quench his thirst
at the same source; and men fill their reservoirs from the same stream. What
would a country be without a river? How poor Sussex is in many parts without a
river to adorn its surface! Thank God
there are rivers down under the
limestone
and you know how to pump up the water; but the surface of the
country is for the most part robbed of the beauty and fertility which a river
brings with it. We have to go far to see a river that now meanders along the
plain
and then rushes down the precipices. We thus miss largely that which
charms the eye
delights the ear
and is a source of unfailing life to
creatures and to vegetation on every hand. In the picture before us we find
that everything lives whither the river cometh. As the Dead Sea is reached
what do we find? That awful thing--the contradiction of all nature--a dead sea;
dead in itself
with barely a ripple on its surface
with no fish in its
waters
and no life on its shores--became a living sea. “But the miry places
thereof and the marishes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to
salt.” Only so far as the river goes does it heal. If it flows into the Dead
Sea itself it will heal its waters; but the marishes beyond shall not be
healed
simply because the river does not reach them. That is the only
limitation. Everything shall live whither the river cometh; but there is no
life where the river does not flow. Look at the history of the world from the
day Christ came and tabernacled among men
and died upon His Cross
and rose
and ascended. What do we find? Whithersoever the story of the Cross has gone
there has been healing and life. The old Roman empire
rotten as it was to the
core
derived some blessing from it. When an old Asiatic monk rushed into the
arena to separate the gladiators one from the other
and fell under the shower
of stones that were hurled upon him by the spectators
who were impatient to
quench their thirst for blood with the sight of that deadly conflict
he
ushered in a new era by his death. It is true that before that Asiatic monk
fell
one Roman Emperor
who had been touched with Christian truth
proclaimed
that human life was sacred
but
like the Local Option and other measures in
our House of Parliament proclaimed to be right in principle
it remained
largely inoperative. But the blood of that monk
amid the dust of the arena
sealed the death warrant of those ancient gladiatorial combats. The
self-forgetful spirit of Christ and His holy religion had come into contact
with this selfish and brutal spirit of the world and conquered it. And
throughout the ages
wherever the truth as it is in Jesus has been proclaimed
and lived
there the ills and wrongs of humanity have been gradually but
certainly healed. But as in the case of the river which Ezekiel saw
while
everything lives that it touches
there are regions beyond its reach which are
still sterile and desolate. Oh that it may advance in its glorious mission
fertilising the desolate places of the earth wherever it goes
until the desert
shall blossom as the rose
and the wilderness like Eden
the garden of the
Lord! (D. Davies.)
Verse 11
But the miry places and the marishes thereof shall not be healed;
they shall be given to salt.
The danger of a fruitless possession of religious advantages
This vision of Ezekiel unrolled the map of the progress of the
Gospel. The scene on which he looked down--so dark
so sterile
so lifeless--is
but a picture of the world at large
separated from the knowledge and
influences of Christianity. The natural features of the one correspond to the
moral features of the other; for man
untaught by revelation
or unmoved by
revelation
is like the desert
uncultivated and unfruitful; or like the dead
lake
devoid of spiritual activity and buoyancy
and fitted but to spread
around him the poisonous exhalation of his native depravity. It is the Gospel
which reclaims man from this state
which pours fertilisation on the
wilderness
and healing into the distempered waters. The Gospel of our Redeemer
is represented by the river
which poured itself over the panoramic world
on
which the prophet’s eye was fixed. And we shall perceive the propriety of this
emblem
if we turn our thoughts to the mystery of its origin. The prophet
beheld the stream stealing forth from the threshold
but he saw not the source--the
fountain from which it flowed; his eye could trace it rolling slowly from the
eastern door
but he knew nothing of it till it thus opened upon his notice.
All
previous to its appearance was wrapped in mystery and concealment. It is
so with that wondrous development of our God’s compassion and wisdom
which we
designate the Gospel of Christ. Dwelling upon this lower world
living
as it
were
outside the walls of the sanctuary
we see but the revelation
the
unfolding of a mighty plan which is destined to be the cause of incalculable
blessedness to countless millions. We can trace its progress
and mark its
footsteps
and see its marvellous results. We can cast our eye backward upon
the line of bygone ages
and trace the growth and the increasing firmness of
the tree from the time that it was cast a seed into the ground
till it spread
its branches over many climes and many nations. And as it carried its blessings
and its comforts farther and farther still
displacing barbarism and
introducing civilisation
dispelling the thick darkness
and pouring out its
stream of pure and golden light
we can discover the proofs and indications of
its power
but we can see nothing of the fountain out of which all this issues;
for that lies concealed in the sanctuary of God’s wisdom
in the dark and
veiled recesses of the council halls of eternity. It lies in the depths both
“of the wisdom and the knowledge of God
” unfathomable to the plummet
of
mortal investigation. But we shall perceive the propriety of this emblem no
less clearly if we consider the effects which the Gospel is calculated to
produce. When the prophet’s eye traced the course of the sanctuary river
he
saw that it carried fertility and health with its waters. He beheld
wildernesses converted into gardens--a wild and cheerless waste into a second
Eden. The Gospel of the Son of God is calculated to effect the same result.
Already has it reclaimed a large portion of our globe from the sway of
ignorance
of barbarism
of unbroken darkness
and carried along with its
saving announcements the blessings of civilisation
and knowledge
and social
happiness. It has proved itself powerful
not simply to confer moral
renovation
but to implant the seeds and the elements of spiritual life. It is
clear
from the text
that there may be spots and individuals visited by the
truth
and yet unreclaimed by the truth. These are “the miry places and the
marishes” of the vision--spots which the river has touched
but which it has
not changed--which lie in their original wasteness and sterility
although the
stream of improvement has flowed over them. And these may designate either
nations
or communities
or individuals. It becomes
therefore
a point of
importance for us to ascertain distinctly what constitutes that miry and marshy
state which is so fearfully indicative of total disconnection with the saving
blessings of the Gospel. The state of man by nature is one of spiritual
deadness
for spiritual life forsook him when he became a rebel against God. If
man would be saved
he must have this spiritual insensibility removed
and
spiritual life implanted
There must come a quickening from the Holy Ghost
the
author and giver of life
into the soul. The man must be made alive unto God.
There must be life in the soul. The river of the sanctuary must not merely
cleanse the wilderness
and wash away impurities from the surface
it must
besides pour such a flood of quickening power into its bosom
as that
“everything where it cometh shall live.” It must give you life in your spiritual
desires
life in your spiritual affections
life in your spiritual duties
life
in your prayers. The second effect produced by the river of life is the healing
of the distempered waters. Man is not only a being dead in trespasses
and so
insensible
but he is also impregnated by corruption
and so unholy. There must
enter a stream of sanctifying influences into the very fountain of his innate
depravity
to expel its poisons
and to heal its corruptions. And when this is
done
there will be a continual aim and effort after holiness in the life and
conversation. The alteration of the mind and temper and dispositions will be
there
and an energy in religion will be there
and a zeal for God will be
there
and the fruits of the Spirit will be there; in other words
the man or
the community touched by the Gospel’s magic power will be Christian. But when
these marks exist not
when there are no indications of a spiritual life being
infused
or of a healing process having been carried forward
then
we say
the
Gospel has effected nothing--it has passed over men without changing them; it
has been preached to men without converting them; it has visited men without
sanctifying them. And let it not for one moment be imagined that God will show
Himself an unmoved spectator of all this insult offered to His mercy
of all
this despite done to the Spirit of His grace. No; for such as will sit beneath
the sound of a proclaimed Gospel
without being touched by its power
or healed
by its virtues
the Lord has His sentence of doom. It rests not concealed in
His treasury of wrath and indignation. It is already announced--it is already
on record--it is at this moment entered upon the dark registries of
condemnation. His own lips have spoken it--“they shall be given to salt.” It is
a doom of deep and appalling import
for it tells of the curse of present
barrenness and future destruction being poured out upon the hardened and
impenitent. There are many methods by which the Lord effects this. One is by
withdrawing from a heedless and obdurate people the Gospel--the ordinances of
His grace--altogether. When He has made the stream to roll in its richness
through it
and it will neither be healed nor quickened
shall it seem a
marvellous thing if He bend the direction of the river and make it flow into
other lands; if He leave spots that will not be changed
without a privilege
without one single water drop of Christian advantages? Another method by which
the Lord accomplishes this decree
is by continuing to an apathetic and gainsaying
people the outward ministrations of His grace
but stripping them of their
faithfulness and purity. We shall allude but to one method more by which the
Lord executes His doom of “giving to salt” a Gospel-resisting people. He
continues to such a people the ministrations of His truth in all its purity and
faithfulness
but He refuses to bless them to the salvation and improvement of
the people’s souls. The river will flow
but it will not fructify. In such an
instance of judicial retribution
there will be a flintiness
a hardihood
an
insensibility
a paralysis over the hearers’ hearts which will resist all
approaches of the truth
and fling it back
as the breakwater rolls back the
tide which would irrigate the soil. (A. Boyd
M. A.)
Spiritual barrenness
I. The Gospel has
not the same healing effect on all where it comes. Has the Gospel come unto me
not in word only
but in power
and in the Holy Ghost
and in much assurance
and effectually wrought to the turning me from vain idols to the living and true
God (1 Thessalonians 1:5)? Thus it does
in all that are saved. But oh
to how many does it prove an empty sound
and
who remain the same persons that they were before they heard it? They were dark
and defiled
ignorant and unholy
lifeless and fruitless
and they are so
still.
II. The great sin
of continuing unfruitful under the Gospel
of our remaining in the same corrupt
state in which it found us
and so receiving the grace of God in vain.
1. This is a reproach to the Gospel
as if it were spiritless thing
without power or efficacy to produce what it was sent for.
2. As it is a reproach to the Gospel
so also a grief to those that
labour in it.
III. The greatness
of the judgment for God to say of any
they shall not be healed
but be left to
perpetual barrenness.
1. A soul not healed
or totally barren
is yet out of Christ: and to
be doomed to perpetual barrenness
never to be healed
is forever to be
excluded from Him.
2. A soul not healed
but given to perpetual barrenness
has no
promise of the protection of Providence
but may be exposed to all the evils of
the present life. Thus God threatens His barren vineyard with it (Isaiah 5:5-6).
3. They that are finally forsaken as incurable
and given up to
perpetual barrenness
have not a moment’s security from eternal wrath.
IV. the steps by
which such a judgment is brought on and how God usually proceeds to it.
1. God leaves them to a careless
indifferent spirit about what
momentous things the Gospel reveals
and the concern of their souls in them.
2. Such a carelessness and indifferency is usually attended with
blindness and insensibility
so as not to apprehend their disease
and mind a
cure
and perceive their need of it.
3. Sometimes the waters of the sanctuary are staid
or diverted; or
else
they that would not be healed by them are removed to places where they
have none of the external means of knowledge and fruitfulness they once
enjoyed.
4. The healing grace and influence of the Spirit may be withheld;
without the help of which
the disease of the soul cannot be removed
nor its
barrenness cured.
5. The Spirit being withdrawn
they may be left of God to entertain
errors and to believe lies; whereby they may think themselves whole
when ready
to perish
and cry Peace
peace
to themselves when sudden destruction is near
(2 Thessalonians 2:11).
6. Upon this
the resolution may be taken up to let them alone
that
His Spirit shall not strive with them.
Application.
1. Avoid those things which lead to this
which are such as these:--
2. Take the course necessary to prevent it.
The sin and judgment of spiritual barrenness
I. God is pleased
oftentimes in His infinite wisdom to send the preaching of the Word unto some
places wherein it shall not put forth its quickening and sanctifying power and
virtue upon the souls of them that hear it.
1. He doth it principally because in those places where the Word is
rejected by the generality of the people
yet there may be some secret poor
souls belonging to the election of grace
whom God will have gathered
and
called home to Himself.
2. God doth it for a testimony against them that receive it not
and
to leave them inexcusable at the last day (Mark 6:11). Let not men boast themselves
in the outward enjoyment of the Word
nor rest themselves in it.
II. The souls of
all men are spiritually dead
and full of woeful distempers
until they are
quickened and healed by the dispensation of the Gospel. I shall not stay to
mention all the particular distempers that rage in some
and that rule and
reign in all
before the coming of the Gospel--as darkness
blindness
ignorance
worldly-mindedness
sensuality
hatred of God
envy and
malice--which are fixed in the souls of men by presumption and
self-righteousness. There is nothing in them of spiritual life or holiness
of
purity or zeal
nothing that is acceptable or pleasing unto God.
III. The word of the
Gospel is
in its own nature
a quickening
healing
sanctifying
saving word
to them who receive it. They bring Christ along with them
the Great Physician
of souls
who alone is able to cure a sin-sick soul. They bring mercy with them
to pardon sinners. They bring grace with them to cure all the distempers of
lusts (Isaiah 11:5-7; Titus 2:11-12).
IV. Where the
waters of the sanctuary come
and the land is not healed
that land is given up
of the Lord
to salt and barrenness forever.
1. By the coming of the healing waters of the sanctuary
I intend not
the occasional preaching of a sermon
although this be sufficient to justify
God in the rejection of any person or people. In the first preaching of the
Gospel
the refusal of one sermon lost many their souls unto all eternity (Matthew 10:12-15; Luke 10:8). But oh
the unspeakable
patience of Christ to many in the world
where the Word is continued ofttimes
for a very long season
and the salvation tendered therein despised! But this
is that which I intend
as the rule of the dispensation mentioned: namely
when
God by His providence doth cause the Word to be preached for some continuance
and to the revelation of His whole counsel--as (Acts 20:27). Nor do I mean any waters
but the waters of the sanctuary; not any preaching but the preaching of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ
which Paul affirms to be his work (Ephesians 3:8).
2. What is meant by their sinful distempers not being healed?
3. What is the lot and portion of such persons? Why
“they shall be
given to salt”; that is
to barrenness
fruitlessness
unprofitableness
and
eternal ruin.
4. God doth this sometimes
though He causeth the Word to be
continued unto them
by restraining the efficacy of it
that it shall not
profit them. The second thing that God doth
in giving up an unhealed land unto
barrenness
is His judicial hardening of them
or leaving them to hardness and
impenitency
that so they may fill up the measure of their sins (Hebrews 6:8).
Use.
1. Of exhortation. Make use of your season
that you fall not under
this sore and inexpressible judgment.
2. To discover the miserable condition of poor creatures
that having
not in their season been healed by the waters of the sanctuary
are given up of
the Lord to salt and barrenness.
Marshes
I. There are some
men whom the Gospel does not bless.
1. It stagnates in them: they hear in vain; learn
but do not
practise; feel
but do not decide; resolve
but do not perform.
2. It mingles with their corruptions
as clear water with the mire of
the marshes.
3. It becomes food for their sins
even as rank
sour grass is
produced by the stagnant waters of “miry places.”
4. It makes them worse and worse. The more rain
the more mire.
II. Some of these
we have known.
1. The talkative man
who lives in sin
flooded with knowledge
but
destitute of love.
2. Those critics who note only the faults of Christians
and are
quick to dwell on them; but are false themselves.
3. Those who receive orthodox truth
and yet love the world.
4. Those who feel impressed and moved
but never obey the Word.
5. Those who are mere officials
and attend to religion in a
mechanical manner.
III. Such persons
are in a terrible plight.
1. Because they are not aware of it: they think it is well with them.
2. Because the ordinary means of blessing men have failed in their
case.
3. In some instances the very best means have failed. A special river
of gracious opportunity has flowed down to them
but its streams have visited
them in vain.
4. No known means now remain.
5. Their ruin appears certain.
6. Their ruin is as terrible as it is sure.
IV. From these we
may learn--
1. A lesson of warning
lest we ourselves be visibly visited by grace
streams
and yet never profit thereby.
2. A lesson of arousing
lest we rest in ordinances.
3. A lesson of gratitude
if we are indeed healed by the life river
let us bless the effectual grace of God.
4. A lesson of quickening to ministers and other workers
that they
may look well to the results of their labour
and not be making marshes where
they wish to create fields rich with harvest. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 12
It shall bring forth new fruit according to his months.
Old truths and new forms
It is one proof of the divinity of the Gospel that
while
maintaining its own character
unaffected by the changing currents of human
speculation
it still adapts itself to the new conditions with which it has to
deal. It brings forth new fruit according to the seasons. I propose to consider
what the new fruit is
which we find in our own age
to inquire which of it is
good
and which so evil that wisdom at once rejects it; and as introductory to
it
to consider the influences which are at work among us tending to change
and the kind of change which has already been accomplished. Great changes
which have the most enduring effect are not
in general
those which most impress
the imagination by their rapidity and suddenness
but those which are the
result of slow processes
that go on silently
which are hardly noticed until
they are revealed in the extraordinary effects which they have produced. There
are two figures by which our Lord describes the action of His truth. The one is
that of the seed
the other is that of leaven
and they alike illustrate the
general principle that the “kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” Both
teach us to expect a subtle and inward spiritual influence gradually affecting
society
not in miraculous force producing an immediate revolution. The
figures
in truth
are descriptive of the history of all thought. Whether true
or false
for good or evil
its power is
for the most part
of this diffusive
nature
percolating class after class
spreading by seeds borne we know not
how
finding lodgment in spots the most unexpected
and so springing up and
bearing a harvest where we had not known there had been a scattering at all.
The intellectual and moral history of individuals and of communities presents
in this respect
precisely similar features. In both sudden and startling
revolutions are rare; in both a process of change is continually going on
of
which there is a strange ignorance. Most men who are accustomed to look into
themselves
must at times be surprised to find to how large an extent their
views have been modified in the course of years
even on doctrines to which
they would still give their hearty assent. They have not renounced the same
creed and accepted another
but the old creed has become a new thing to them
because of the different light in which they have been brought to regard it.
How could it be otherwise
in the case of minds which are not stagnant? All men
who are alive to what is passing around them
who are willing to learn from all
who have anything to teach
who are in the current of modern life
and yielding
themselves up to it with more or less reluctance
who are ever taking at new
ideas--find it impossible to retain their old position unaltered. A youth has
grown up under the strong bias of education and association
He has looked at
the world and men through the dimly-lighted windows of his own little cell
the
glass of which may probably have been so coloured as to give him impressions
very far removed from the fact. His opinions and sympathies alike have been
confined within a very narrow circle
and it is difficult for him at first to
understand that right and goodness may be found outside its lines. But as he comes
into association with other men
and especially if he mingles with those of
contrary opinions
he soon finds reason to suspect some of the conclusions he
has too hastily adopted. If he is fortunate
he early learns that nothing is
more to be distrusted than the arbitrary standard by which he has been too
prone to judge character
and that there are those whose pure and noble
qualities he is constrained to respect; whose doctrines he holds in abhorrence.
He soon begins to see that truth has many sides
and that on some of them he
has not looked at all
and
consequently
that some of his judgments need
careful revision. The central verities may have become (if he has been living
near to God
have become) more clear and distinct to him
but even his views of
them have been modified by the diminished importance which he attaches to
others
now seen to be subordinate
but which he once regarded as of supreme
moment. The personal living Christ
his Saviour
Friend
and Lord
has come
to
fill more of his vision
and he is drawn to men
or repelled from them
according to their relation to Him. The process by which he has been brought to
regard as more trifles
dogmas and theories
about which his thought was once
deeply interested
and in whose defence much of his energy was employed
has
brought him to prize more highly those truths which he feels to be the core of
all creeds. The change has thus been very great. Nevertheless
he is not less
loyal to his Lord--in truth
more loyal and devoted to Him
not less simple in
his trust in the great sacrifice
though less confident in his own ability to
explain all its significance
or to vindicate all the ways of God to man in
connection with it
not less wisely and earnestly attached to the particular
Christian community of which he is a member
because he has learned to take a
much wider view of the extent of the true Catholic Church. (J. G. Rogers.)
The imperishable beauty of the spiritual spring
The text is the promise and the picture of a never-fading spring.
On which side of death is that imperishable beauty and fruitfulness--this or
that? I think that
although the river comes down from the throne of God and
the Lamb
and is
therefore
heavenly in its origin
the whole picture is an
earthly scene
the springtide of human goodness
created and perpetually
nourished by influences from above; the river being the love and grace of God
flowing freely among us; the trees being the men who are planted by its side;
the leaf and fruit being the moral and spiritual beauty and graces which they
bear through their continual reception of the power and love of God into their
nature. There is in this utterance a firm belief in the eternal power of
goodness
a belief which also runs through the whole of Scripture
glorifying
it to the last page. Is all this poetry
or is it fact? If goodness in the
human spirit is to endure forever
if its beauty is not to fade
if its
fruitfulness is not to fail
then there must be some sign
even on earth
of
this strength and vitality. And as a matter of fact
it is my observation of
the character of goodness upon earth
as a living thing
that can be taken
account of
that can be watched and measured in its progress or decline
that I
have seen outlasting and outliving all manner of hostile influences
that I
have beheld
as fair
as tender
as generously fruitful in old age and in
youth
aye
even more so; it is this surprising
moral phenomenon which has led
me to this theme. No one
I think
not even the most misanthropical
would deny
that in youth
or in the early days of the soul’s espousals to the Saviour
there is the charm of a perfect sincerity
of a guileless simplicity
of a warm
affectionateness
of a noble enthusiasm
of a devoted self-forgetfulness.
“Yes
” rejoins the cynic
“and it all vanishes when he comes into contact with
the realities Of life: his ingeniousness becomes cautious prudence
his zeal
measured calculation
his brotherliness a mere show of warmth
his devoutness a
proper formalism; he is corrupted from his simplicity
if he ever had any.”
Now
that is what I deny. Observe
I do not deny that it happens to some
men--alas! to too many--to all whose spiritual life is nourished by inadequate
influences
and is therefore a name not a reality; but the marvel is thereby
only increased
that others should be able
by some means at their command
to
withstand all blighting and perverting spiritual influences
and in their old
age should he more like little children than ever they were before. You know
good men and women
who
for a lifetime
have gone in and out of the cottages
of the poor
unnoticed and unpraised; who have spoken words of truth to ears
that seemed deaf
and to hearts that were like stone; who have sympathised
with
and counselled and aided
the most hopeless of all classes; and who
now
that their hair is grey and their strength failing
are abundant in labours.
And they would do it all over again
if they were called of God. No regrets
have they for undertaking such a task
but only that they have not done it better.
No sorrow have they for having been too zealous
too prayerful
too laborious
but only that they were not more so. And through what various scenes they have
passed
and what various fruits of the Spirit they have borne! In days of
strength they were active
“ready to every good work.” In days of prosperity
they were humble
not boasting as if they could do anything as of themselves
but gladly confessing that from Christ was “their fruit found.” In days of
adversity they were hopeful
believing that “all things were possible with
God.” In days of sickness they were submissive
quieting their souls with the
assurances of the Father’s love. In days of disappointment they were silent
knowing that “though Israel be not gathered
” yet God would be glorified. In
all days they were brotherly
kindly affectioned
gentle
upright
true
striving to behave as became the children of the perfect Father. “The trees
shall bring forth ‘new’ fruit
according to their months. Hereto is My Father
glorified
that ye bear much fruit
so shall ye be My disciples.” But do not
let us even yet pass away from the fact that while the “outward man
” the body
waxes feebler
and the brightness of the intellect is dimmed
the Divine beauty
of the Spirit can shine forth with purer radiance
for “the inward man is
renewed day by day.” There is the case of Moses: was he
at the end of a forty
years’ struggle with the stubbornness
ingratitude
fickleness
and unbelief of
the Israelites
a less ardent lover of his people
a feebler believer in God
a
colder-hearted man
with less courage and less self-abandonment than when he
went out frown Pharaoh’s palace a lonely wanderer
“esteeming the reproach of
Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt
because he had respect unto
the recompense of the reward”? There is the case of Daniel: his youth in the
court of a heathen conqueror was most attractive for its sweet simplicity
its
angelic regard for spiritual rather than carnal things; well
was he at all
corrupted or degraded by that court
when
next to the king
he became its most
conspicuous figure? Was he less temperate
less prayerful
less God-fearing
less spiritual in tone and temper? There is the case of St. Paul: you know with
what heroic courage he threw himself into the battle for Christ against both
Judaism and heathenism; you know
too
how much he had to endure for the
Gospel’s sake
but remark
chiefly
how much of this came from false brethren
and cold brethren
and unloving brethren
and brethren who slighted his love
and caricatured his appearance
and you will be better able to estimate the
greatness of the triumph which Christ won over him
and through him. For he
never slackened his labours the least
nor avoided one of his dangers
but
fresh
with more than first enthusiasm
he spent every pulse of his life in his
work. What is the explanation of this phenomenon? It is what the prophet gives
“Because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary.” Yes
there is a sacred
place
a pure
holy fountain where the spirit of a man may cleanse itself from
the dust and stains of the world
where also it may refresh itself with living
water
so that it shall live forever. There is “a river of God” on whose banks
we may grow as trees of life
bearing fruit for meat and leaves for medicine.
We may have an eternal springtime out of this perennial stream. All depends
upon the relation of the tree to the river whose waters issue out of the
sanctuary
Only let the tree’s roots be within reach of the river
and then the
greater the summer heat
and the fewer the showers that fall
and the more
freely will it draw its supplies from thence. So the soul of man when it finds
no encouragement in human approval
or fashions
or hope of present reward
or
even of present success
but is rather tried by all the influences around it
clings the more earnestly and more simply to God
receiving directly from Him
its impulses
and finding in Him its satisfaction. (J. P. Gledstone.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》