Ezekiel 47

Ezekiel 47:1-12

THE VISION OF A LIFE-GIVING RIVER Ezekiel 47:1-12OUR last study in this Book compassed chapters 38 and 39. With chapter 40, according to the Scofield Reference Bible, we enter upon Part 7 of the Volume, the general theme,—“Israel in the Land during the Kingdom Age.” The vision with which this section opens was from the top of a high mountain that looked upon the frame of a city to the south, and “Behold, there was a Man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in His hand, and a measuring reed”, and from that point “measuring” seems to be the chief element in the vision.Walls are measured, buildings are measured, gates are measured, chambers are measured, porches are measured, gate entrances are measured, posts are measured, windows are measured, pavements are measured, inner courts are measured. Measure, measure, measure is the constant refrain, and “the cubit” is the basis thereof.We may not have been accustomed so to think of God, and even yet we may imagine that measuring would be small business for God, who is not the county-scales man, and certainly not a calico or even silk yard-stick salesman, but let it be remembered that He is the author and arbiter of all measure.Man can recognize measure but he cannot determine it or even change it, except by cheat. Short men are quite often dissatisfied with their measure, but that does not affect it. “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature”? (Matthew 6:27).Avaricious men may not want to give 60 lbs. to the bushel, or 36 inches to the yard, but that does not change it. A bushel is uncompromising and the yard is unyielding. It is God who determines measure and His measure is laid upon everything.The astronomers are now debating whether the heavens are finite or infinite. They will never be able to decide that question by any knowledge at their command, for the very simple reason that they have no “reed” in hand with which to determine it.There is but One, and He the One of this Book, who hath either an adequate reed or a competent knowledge for such a task; the One “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance”? (Isaiah 40:12).Between the opening sentence of chapter 40 of Ezekiel and Ezekiel 47:18 there are thirty-five Divine measurements recorded.

God does nothing haphazard; God leaves nothing to chance.It may seem to us a needless painstaking that every hair on every man’s head is numbered, but would you not like to have your business on a basis of such intelligence? and would not I be happy if my library in its last word, involving as it does, millions upon millions of words, was thus well-known to me?The critic who laughs at God for descending to the infinitesimal forgets that the Infinite does not need to descend to the least thing, nor ascend to the highest and greatest. They all are within the instant compass of His infinity. He knows! “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made”. But, the lines of measurement in this 47th chapter are falling where human interest is greatest, and are giving us information about that which is our chief concern, namely, “the River of Life”, for is it not written, “Everything shall live whither the river cometh”?Leaving the measuring line aside for the moment, I invite you to the study of the life-giving stream being measured, and I have elected to arrange that study around the three phrases,—The Temple Stream, The Soul of Civilization, and the Eternal Sustenance.THE TEMPLE STREAM“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. “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” (Ezekiel 47:1-2). We have here, then, the origin of this river. It comes out of the Temple! How suggestive! God’s Temple has long been the seat and source of a life-giving stream. That justifies its existence; that approves the conduct of those men who invest their means in God’s Temple.If I had not been fully persuaded that this temple would stand here as a fountain, or head-source, of the life-giving stream—the Gospel, flowing out from it continuously for years; yea, possibly for centuries, and, if the Lord should delay, for a Millennium even, I would never have pled with you to make the sacrifices required in its construction; and I would never have invested my life and a considerable proportion of my earnings, for years, in the same.Solomon, till this hour uniformly accepted as the wisest of men, brought the comparatively poor people of his day to make such sacrifices as the world has never known beside to build the Temple in Jerusalem. That his judgment in this matter was neither the product of a selfish ambition, nor yet of a misguided enthusiasm, was proven when it came to pass, Solomon having finished the building, the Lord appeared and said, “1 have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before Me: I have hallowed this House, which thou hast built, to put My Name there for ever; and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be there perpetually” (1 Kings 9:3).Where God is, there is the Fountain of Life!

There may be temples that were not erected under His direction; there may be temples into which He has not been both officially and sincerely invited; there may be temples out of which the sins of patrons have driven the Most High. If so, that fact will be evidenced in the circumstances that from them will flow no life-giving streams.That is what we mean by “dead churches” that is what we mean when we speak of “impotent pulpits.” There may be as wide a difference between temples and temples as there is between the prayer room of the Christian’s house and the Blind Pig in the black cellar-room of a degraded tenement. For, in both instances, it is a question of the presence of God in one and the absence of God from the other.Returning to the text we discover another suggestive truth.The measuring reed reveals the rapid increase of this river in both width and depth.“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. “Again He measured a thousand, and brought me through the waters; the waters were to the knees. Again He measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins. “Afterward He measured a thousand; and 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” (Ezekiel 47:3-5). This our city is cut through its center by the Mississippi River, a beautiful stream whose crystal clear waters are such that even the muddy Missouri cannot fully befoul its color. Yonder in Northern Minnesota, nestling between the hills and fringed about with the tall, straight and graceful pines, lies Lake Itasca. It is a fountain head. Out from it flows continuously a comparatively small stream, but a stream which grows as it goes, until, far yonder, it flings its mighty volume of fresh waters into the great Gulf.I bring you this parable from my own beautiful and beloved state to illustrate your pastor’s conception of what this particular temple, in which we worship today, ought to be and in fact is, to the world!That small stream of the Gospel which it has been my privilege for thirty-five consecutive years to give forth from this pulpit is being constantly increased, until the rivulet originating in the pulpit is swelled into a river of life by reason of the contributing streams.It would be an interesting procedure to take a row-boat, leave lake Itasca some Spring morning and paddle slowly to New Orleans, charting, as one went down, the creeks and rivers that join their waters with those of the great Mississippi.But, when you had finished it, it would still remain only the Mississippi valley, and that belongs to the river; a valley that the scientists tell us was created by the river.It has come to me recently that one of the obligations to this church, that I have but partially and poorly fulfilled, is to make it familiar with its own life-giving streams, and to call attention to the rivulets and even the rivers that have their rise in this temple of God.A certain proportion of this membership (perhaps something like one-half of it), is fairly familiar with those features of our work which have their rise in this building.Our Sunday School, splendidly organized, efficiently officered, marvelously equipped, is to this pulpit in volume what the Missouri is to the Mississippi,—a tremendous contribution.Our Sunday School missions, now half a dozen or so in numbers, are rivulets of ever-growing proportions. They also add to the stream.Our varied Young People organizations, our clubs, our forum, our guild, our mission circles, lend, each of them, its swelling aid.The Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School, a natural child of the church, is proving itself a fountain of life whose parting streams flow into and refresh every continent of the earth.In addition to the multiplied services of witness, song and sermon, that the resident student body contributes to this great metropolis and adjacent cities, our graduates hold hundreds of pastorates in America at this moment, and from the lips of the last man and by the living testimony of every woman of them, flow fountains of life.Last summer, for four months, 152 of these under graduate students, through the 600 and 700 Daily Vacation Bible Schools they conducted, and the multiplied evangelistic appeals they made, reached something like 30,000 people and witnessed above 1,000 conversions.Such work as the prominent Italian work in Buffalo, N. Y., a mission of wide influence, reaching hundreds of that nation; such work as the Chinese work in San Francisco where they are winning the Chinaman to Christ by equipping him to be an effective servant for Christ; other kindred Gospel Missions, such as Kelly carried on for years in Detroit; such as Francis Peterson is just now going to in Seattle; such as Hilda Blissly Gerig and her husband have made famous in Portland, Ore.; these and other mighty movements, too numerous to .mention, are all under the leadership and efficient direction of our graduates.In Canada we have Mr. and Mrs.

Jalmar Erickson; Alrick Olson, and Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Erickson;In Africa we have—Maynard Caneday; Signe Johnson; Mr. and Mrs.

Frank Shortridge; Mrs. Buyse; Mrs. Margaret Camp; Caroline Campbell; Theresa Gustafson; Martha Hiebert; Eva Jantz; Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Jantz; Mr. and Mrs. Victor Nelson; Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Rosenau; Dr. Glenn Tuttle; and Mr. and Mrs.

Charles Whitaker;In far-off China we have (Mrs. Anna Salquist supported by the Church), Susanna Anderson, Ruth Campbell, Irma Day, Gladys Lindholm, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Lindholm, Clara Nelson, and Jennie Wedicson:In India we have Mrs. Jonas Alquist, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Cook, Olga Johnson, Mary Laughlin, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Smith, Mary C. Wall:In Japan—Ann Kludt:In the Philippine Islands—Bernice Hahn:In South America—Ralph Blackhall, Mr. and Mrs.

Cornelius Klaassen, Mrs. Helen Brown Carder, Esther Carlson, Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Lange, William Shillingsburg, and Lydia Jacobson:In France we are represented by Jacques Blocher. Their number is great and increasing annually.Again we stop to exclaim “What hath God wrought!”The river widens and deepens in its flow!There is about the same comparison between this First Baptist Church of Minneapolis and the average church that there is between the Mississippi River and the pipe line of water that supplies the average Minneapolis home. The latter is an exclusive service, and the former a fountain of life, the streams from which reach and refresh many Continents.But, there is in this Scripture another suggestion—The farthest reach of the river was a vivifying influence.“Every thing shall live whither the river cometh”.There is but a solitary agency known to the mind of man to which this symbol can clearly refer, and that is the Gospel of the Son of God. For what is the Gospel, save Christ?Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).“In Him was life”; in Him is life, and consequently from Him we draw our lives, since “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12).The new theology of the day, of which Spurgeon long since said, “it is not a theology,” would have us believe that we can cultivate men into life and educate them into more abundant life; but the life of which they are speaking is that which is born of the flesh and the life to which this text refers is that “born of the Spirit”. The first life is “even as a vapour” that soon passeth away; the second is an endless way—life eternal. “To be spiritually minded is life” (Romans 8:6).“Ho! ye that pant for living streams, And pine away and die, Here you may quench your raging thirst With springs that never dry. “The happy gates of Gospel grace Stand open night and day; Lord, we are come to seek supplies, And drive our wants away.” THE SOUL OF “Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. “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. “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” (Ezekiel 47:7-9). There is here a very strange statement, and, on first mention, one might imagine that it was false to fact; but, just as other Scriptures, when carefully studied, illustrate scientific accuracy, so here!We are told this stream goes down into the sea and “being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed”.At first blush the exact opposite would seem to be scientifically true, and that is that fresh waters running into the sea become salt and bitter; but, as a matter of fact, it is as they rise from the sea that they are sweetened.The law of evaporation with which men are now familiar tells us plainly the sweetening process; the waters are lifted by this law into this atmosphere leaving all salt and bitterness behind and there, in the first heaven, are gathered into cloud-forms and when they fall back upon the earth, they are sweet, fresh and refreshing.It is exactly so with the effects of the Gospel. As the sun in the heavens can lift the moisture out of salt seas, miasmic marshes, and stagnant, poisoned pools, and by the lifting purify it, so that it comes in rain-drops fresh and sweet from heaven to water and bless the earth, so the Son of Righteousness, rising with healing in His wings, lifts men out of the salt sea of sin, the miasmic marshes of immorality, the filthy and poisoned pools of gambling holes, blind pigs, and rooms of infamy, and so purifies them that they become desirable and refreshing members of society; changed themselves into new creatures indeed, and consequently capable of blessing those they formerly contaminated, and of elevating the society they once polluted.You may take the individual who has thus been purified by the indwelling Spirit of God and send him back into the circles of sin and shame and he will keep his character when putridity presses against him on every side.Have you ever heard of the Island Oahu of the Hawaiian Group? This island has, off its edges and down in the bottom of the sea, fresh water springs as has Maui, another of the group. Near to this last, in Hana, was a fortress occupied by soldiers in ancient times. Communication with the mainland was not feasible in times of siege, and it was expected by the enemy that they could surround these islands and soon compel the people to capitulate from lack of water. But the enemy was mistaken!

Natives knew of these under-sea springs and they would dive down, fill their calabashes full of the fresh water, and bring it to the surface.What those fresh water springs were to the besieged inhabitants of Oahu and Maui, the gospelized and witnessing Christian is to civilization. He is its life-sustaining element: he saves it.Who can forget what God said to Abraham concerning Sodom?

If there be ten men I will save it. Who can miss the meaning of Christ’s words to true disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth”!We do not belong to the company of those who believe that civilization marks daily progress and eventually will, by its own inherent forces, bring to the world a millennium of righteousness, peace and happiness.Even those world students—Froude, Taine, Bryce, Carlysle, Sir Henry Maine, J. E. Thorold Rogers, Professor Seeley, John Morley, and their modernistic successors,—Spencer, Wellhausen, Wells, Van Loon, Coblentz, and their confreres, did not discover even in their multiplied philosophies, a definite upward march!But, while we anticipate a radical change for the better,—by the coming of the King of Glory,—we are fully persuaded that that which keeps the semblance of civilization is civilization itself, that which holds back from civilization the Sodomic fires, is nothing other than the sweetened water— the saint!Still further,—the increasing depth of this river symbolizes the advanced experiences of spiritual men and women. They walk in the River of Life shoe-deep at first; they walk in it knee-deep later, and eventually they swim in the same. In other words, they become immersed, and, with this deeper experience, are themselves enriched as the deeper river enriched the soil on either side.It may not have occurred to us that there are other suggestive figures that relate to spiritual facts in this sounding of the depths of the River of Life!There are men that never go more than shoe-deep; there are people that never think of wading deeper than the knees.

Like the smaller fish they hug the shallows. The great leviathan, however, delights in the deeper depths, and the great ships plow the waves of the deeper sea with the safety and quietness that belongs to the deeps alone.

When storms strike, it is the shore vessels that drive on the rocks and go down.This also is a parable of life! There are plenty of people who never attain to safety because they never get beyond the shallows, and the same number never know spiritual satiety on that very account.Do you remember the morning when Christ came down to the edge of Gennesaret and saw His disciples dragging their boat ashore, weary and exhausted after a fruitless night of fishing? And now washing their nets they were ready to give over the endeavor. In addressing Simon He said,“Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. “And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net. “And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. “And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink” (Luke 5:4-7). Oh, beloved, the trouble with most of us is that we are wading around the shallows; we have never launched out into the deep! We have never immersed ourselves in the sacred river of God’s will.Let me briefly sketch what I mean:—A few years ago two young women, sisters, studied in the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School,—Ruth and Caroline Campbell. Ruth came to Northwestern without means. She worked her way by taking the position of a servant in a home. It was a home of wealth and before she had finished her course with us, they prized her so highly that they were paying her $15.00 per week for the comparatively small part of each day she could snatch from her studies.Saving her money carefully, after she left us, she went to Washington, D. C.

She secured a kindred position as servant, used her off-hours to study the capitol and its varied interests, and hoarded her money with a view to further education. At the end of the year she went to New York and took a medical course, still working her way.All the while there was in her soul a deep conviction that God had commissioned her to China.

About the time of her finishing the New York work, Mrs. Peabody back of the Baptist work in the Philippines, wrote to Miss Acomb, Dean of Women in the Northwestern, asking if she had a girl to recommend to the Philippines. The letter was answered, recommending Ruth Campbell.A conference ensued. Mrs. Peabody was delighted with her and offered her the appointment. Ruth answered, “If God closes every avenue to China and makes it clear that such is not His will for me, I will then accept the commission to the Philippines.”In a few days after this decision, the China Inland Mission Board accepted and commissioned her, and today she is on the field, in far western China, with Winifred Kopp, whose parents were formerly in this church.She has launched out into the deep!I do not mean by that that China or any other far-away country is necessarily the deep.

Many a man and woman is in that country today as a missionary who is in the shallows, or at best, paddling in the shoals. But I mean that by faith Ruth immersed herself in the will of God.

She swims in His will!Caroline, her sister, was just as clear about a call to Africa, and so ardent was her desire to do what she believed to be the will of the Lord, that she taught school after graduating here, hoarded her money, to the last penny, bought her own outfit and went to Africa at her own expense.These girls are not in the shallows. They are in the deep waters of God’s will!Who doubts that the civilization of China is being sweetened by Ruth’s Christian life and teaching? Who doubts that the civilization of dark Africa is being brightened by Caroline’s contribution of a consistent life and efficient teaching?But the end is not yet! There is still more in this chapter that demands thought, excites hope and inspires endeavor. I find here a suggestion ofTHE ETERNAL “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” (Ezekiel 47:12). Those are marvelous trees! Only such trees can grow on the banks of “the River of Life”. Fruit trees, indeed, whose fruit is for meat and whose leaves are for medicine!What is the suggestion? Three or four things, to say the least. First of allThe Tree of Life grows on the banks of the River of Life. How that harks back to the First Psalm,—“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. “But his delight is in the Law of the Lord; and in His Law doth he meditate day and night. “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season: his leaf also shall not wither: and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper” (Psalms 1:1-3). The rivers of this vicinity have a remarkable tendency to give life to willows. Their banks are lined by them; their courses are to be traced by them.But, there is a stream that has an equally natural tendency to give growth to saint-hood, to godliness. Its course can be traced by the saved! You can go into Africa or India or the Isles of the Sea and when you see men who were cannibals a generation or two ago, now clothed, calmed, consistent in walk and conversation, you know that the River of the Water of Life has reached that place, and these are but prolific products of the same. Its existence accounts for them, and their presence locates the course of the stream itself.A missionary party was traveling in the wilds of Soto Bulaland in So. Africa.

Night was coming on; the supply of water had failed. The native servants insisted upon traveling further in the hope of finding water, but the missionary stubbornly insisted on striking his camp, and then bowing before God he asked, “Lord, we thirst; show us where water is.”At that moment the natives ran in, reporting that the asses had run away.

The missionary joined them and went in hot pursuit. Lo; they were as delighted as surprised to find that the asses had scented the water in the distance, and led them to a beautiful and abundant fountain of the same.What a striking figure this River is! No life without water.Life can long be sustained without food. Men have fasted 40 days again and again in recent times and claimed themselves cured of certain diseases by such a cleansing of the body as the fast produced; but they literally flooded themselves with water.What opportunities of strength and health we miss by not drinking more deeply at that fountain of Life, “the Water of the Word”!I have been thinking a lot of an effective illustration employed some years ago, by a friend, a man who had his up-bringing in Minneapolis.The days upon which we have fallen are evil. The pulpit has descended to uncertain sounds; Modernism has so muddied up the stream of life that thousands of Christians are quitting the sanctuary, saying of the muddy stream flowing there, “It is not fit to drink!”And that fact reminds me of Dr. Wm.

Abernathy’s illustration.He said, “A stock man in the Blue Grass region of Kentucky, sold out his Kentucky ranch and purchased a larger one in Montana. On his new ranch was another spring and pool, but the soil under the same was mud rather than sand, and the cattle, getting hot, would go and stand in this pool knee-deep and stir up the mud to such an extent that it was unfit for drinking, and they were losing weight in consequence.“Something had to be done.

So this ingenious ranch man threw a wire fence around the pool, leaving only a narrow opening to the water. Out over this water he built a platform large enough to hold a single animal. On the bottom of the platform he bored holes and when the animal would step on it it would sink down into the water just far enough for the water to gush up through the holes and fill the shallow trough that constituted the platform itself. Consequently, the animal would drink all he wanted and walk off, leaving it for the next to take his place and be filled and refreshed.” That also is a parable!There are churches, and we should thank God for them, where the fences are so constructed as to keep the cloven foot from coming in, and where the Waters of Life are not permitted to be befouled. Such churches insist that the clear stream of salvation shall remain open to every thirsty soul, so that he who will may come in and drink and live.But this tree not only graced the banks of the River of Life; it bore saints’ food.“The fruit thereof shall he for meat”; “Neither shall the fruit thereof he consumed”. One might imagine inharmony between these two statements. On the contrary they are in perfect accord when correctly interpreted. “The fruit thereof shall be for meat”, and the further suggestion is that it is so abundant that the whole of it shall never be consumed.That is only another way of saying that God never runs short of supplies, and the saint need not suffer hunger.“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall he filled” (Matthew 5:6).There are sections of the country where rains seldom reach. There are plains and deserts where springs are seldom or never found. On that account the early American settlers lined the banks of the rivers, hugged the shores of creeks, built their log or mud houses near the springs.Their descendants are not showing equal intelligence. Thousands of them on the drouth-cursed plains of Montana, Wyoming, and even the Dakota’s have suffered untold hardships from lack of water; and ten thousand thousand others have dwelt in cities, and some of them in mansions, and though they were near enough to have walked to the House of God they have never tasted of the Water of Life, nor even seemed to wake up to the necessity of the same, and while they flourished in purse and person they perished in soul.There are enough churches in Minneapolis and St. Paul, if the stream of Life flowed freely and clear from their altars, to provide refreshing drink for every soul within the limits of the same.

But, alas, two things are taking place! In some of these sanctuaries the Stream is dried up, the fountain is closed; and in others of them it has been befouled and muddied by Modernism and made unfit to drink; and still far more serious tens of thousands of those who are dying in spirit from the lack of a draft from the God-given Stream, are ignorantly perishing without endeavor to reach the same.It is a strange situation, and it justifies the modern prophet in playing the role of another Isaiah, namely lifting his voice in an eager cry to the groups that pass,“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1). “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness” (Isaiah 55:2). This brings us to the last point.—The leaves are for the medicine of the soul. Health of the soul is essential to happiness! I often wonder if those souls, on this earth, who are unhappy are in any instance perfectly healthy. I often question if suicides are all sick men,—either sick in body or sick in mind? Oh, it is wonderful to be in health!!We never appreciate physical health at its full, till we lose it for a while. Mine has been a favored portion.

Ninety-one hundredths of my life time have known health, and yet those times, when for a day, a week, a month, (or a year, as in the instance of seven years ago,) when health was not my portion, how keenly, then, did I esteem what I had had, and how I pled to recover!Here is the promise of health for the soul; and, in the promise itself, the anticipation, the prophecy, yea even the very pledge of eternal happiness!“The leaf thereof for medicine”.Go over to the Book of Revelation and learn what this means. Read of the Heavenly host. “God Himself shall be with them”; “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21:3-4).Oh, what a prospect!I do not know the meaning of the Scripture that follows in description of that city which shall be our blessed and eternal residence. I do not fully comprehend the relation that this passage in Revelation 22:2 sustains to the one in Revelation 21:4. But whether I understand it or not, I believe it means that God has made adequate provision for eternal health; not alone for eternal life, but for eternal health; for John saw“a pure River of Water of Life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. “In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the Tree of Life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded Her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:1-2). “And there shall be no more curse” (Revelation 22:3). Oh, glorious day; oh, ravishing prospect!! When one thinks upon it he is tempted to join with Samuel Rutherford who once shouted, “Oh, time; run fast, run fast! bring to us our long-promised Lord; for love is tormented with delays!”