Holy Spirit No.3 Rivers of Living Water

Pick up from where we left off last week, and those who weren't present, let me tell you that we were looking at the phrase, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We're still majoring on this theme, and we're doing so for reasons perhaps well expressed by A. W. Toza, who says this in a book he wrote in the 1950s, Satan has opposed the doctrine of the spirit-filled life about as bitterly as any doctrine there is. He has confused it, opposed it, surrounded it with false notions and fears.

He has blocked every effort of the Church of Christ to receive from the Father her divine and blood-bought patrimony. The Church has tragically neglected this great, liberating truth that there is now for the child of God a full and wonderful and completely satisfying anointing with the Holy Spirit. The spirit-filled life is not a special deluxe edition of Christianity.

It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people. I like that sentence so much that you're getting it again. The spirit-filled life is not a special deluxe edition of Christianity.

It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people. Well, last week I started to explain, as my understanding at this point will allow me to do, what is meant in Acts chapter 2 and verse 33 by the outpouring of the Spirit. Jesus, we're told, has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

And you will recall that that same expression dealing with the granting of the Holy Spirit on an occasion that is a replica of Pentecost is employed in the tenth chapter of the Acts. References made to the dealings of God with Cornelius and his associates, his family, and we read in verse 45 that Peter and those who came with him were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. I gave you another scripture in Romans to which I won't refer now, but I'll take you to the last one that I gave you as I set up the context last week, which was in the book of Titus, Paul's letter to Titus, and a very interesting verse not so often preached on in connection with the Spirit, I don't know why, in the third chapter where you get a glorious summary of our salvation experience and the fullness of all that that entails.

Titus chapter three, picking up the reading from just before the sixth verse, he saved us, that is the Lord God, He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Well, that's the context, and I'm not going back on those verses. If you weren't here last week, then please get the tape and listen to what I tried to share.

But I think that you'll appreciate the reason why I've gone back to those verses when I now direct you to the passage that I want to try to explain specifically this evening, and that's in the Gospel of John and the seventh chapter. So would you turn to that, the Gospel of John chapter seven, our Lord is speaking, and the context is a feast at Jerusalem, John 7 37. If you've got the NIV version of the Bible, then join me in reading through to the 39th verse, John 7 37 to 39.

On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, if a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

Up to that time, the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. Now on just a casual reading of that, you'll understand the reason why I put up those three verses from the Acts and from the Epistle to Titus. They refer to pouring, outpouring, and you've got the similar sort of metaphor sustained here, haven't you? Streams of living water will flow, will pour out from within a follower of our Lord Jesus.

Well, what is he referring to? Let's try and take it gently for a moment and gradually approach the nub of the subject matter for this evening. Our Lord is in Jerusalem, that I've conceded. There were three great feasts that the Jews were very concerned to attend in their holy city.

One was the Feast of Passover, the other was the Feast of Pentecost, and the third was the Feast of Tabernacles, which took place about October the 15th. It was a feast which really took the Jews back in their mind historically to the time that was spent in the wilderness. You remember when they had been released from the bondage of Egypt, they made that perilous journey back to the Promised Land, and of course they had no permanent dwelling there.

And so, when they were commemorating this event at the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jews who resided in Jerusalem would move out onto the streets, and they would have procured from outside the city, branches, and they would have made little booths. The branches would not have been closely intertwined, because when they were asleep at night in the booth, they were to have sufficient gap between the branches to see the sky and the stars, and it brought back memories of the experiences of their forefathers centuries ago. Now, it was a very wonderful occasion.

Here were many Jews, not just in Jerusalem, but, that is, not just residing in Jerusalem, but many from the diaspora who'd come to Jerusalem for this feast. And the feast itself became extended. It used to last for seven days, but another day was added to it, an eight-day feast.

And during the day, when they went into the temple area, the ordinary pilgrims, they would watch out for one quite significant thing. The priest would go down to the pool of Siloam, and he would fill his pitcher with water, and he'd bring the water back through the water gate, and eventually to the temple, and he'd pour the water out on the altar, and the people would cry out from the prophecy of Isaiah, with joy shall ye draw waters out of the wells of salvation. And they would start to sing, and here's my reference, 10 minutes or 15 minutes or so ago, they would start to sing the Hallel Psalms, from Psalm 113 to Psalm 118.

And because Jewish worship was so demonstrative, they would wave the palm leaves as the priest went by, and they would participate in a very exuberant fashion in bringing their adoration to the living God. Now, the problem with us, my friend, when we look at the Old and the New Testament, is that we see it through Western spectacles. And those of us within a non-conformist and pretty staid tradition, we superimpose our method, almost our non-conformist liturgy of worship, and assume that that is representative of the ways that the Jews used to worship.

And in one sense, that's an understandable thing, but it's also a misnomer. The Jews were very demonstrative, and as the priest went by, and they waved their palm branches, and they cried to the Lord, so they would be caught up in great praise, as they honored their God. Now, things really came to excitement point in the eighth day, the additional day of the feast, when the priest, having got the pitcher, would not immediately pour the contents over the altar, but he would walk round the altar, walk round that area of the temple on seven occasions, bearing in mind, of course, bringing back to the thoughts of the Jews the destruction of Jericho, and the first major conquest as the Hebrews entered back into the promised land.

Now, it's at that point, and I've spelt this out at some length, so that you can get the drama behind it. It's at that particular point, on the last and greatest day of the feast, when the pilgrims are thanking God for His great victory in times gone by, and for the supply of water, which was essential for the Hebrews to come back safely into the promised land. It was at that moment that Jesus stands up, and amidst the tumultuous crowds, He cries out with a loud voice, if a man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.

Here is our Lord, exploiting the peak of the Feast of Tabernacles, to make a point which is of such great significance, that if you fail to comprehend it thus far, then possibly that is some reason for a defective experience, as far as you're concerned, in all that the Lord is prepared to do for you. Jesus is speaking, not of course of physical thirst, but of spiritual thirst. If a man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.

Here is soul thirst. The Lord is suggesting that people might be so thirsty for water, as they may have been hungry for food, that they would do anything to slake their thirst, to satisfy their hunger. If spiritually you're in need, says Jesus, to His immediate congregation, and because the word is a prophetic word to us, then He speaks to the 20th century, if you're thirsty, come to Me.

Come. Approach. Do with your heart and will, what you would have done with your feet, had you been literally present, when Jesus stood up and gave this invitation.

And drink. Appropriate the very blessings that He is offering. Standing by the river is no good.

It will be no more beneficial to you than the blood that was brought before the Hebrew community in Goshen, that needed to be daubed on the lintels of the posts of their house, so that the angel of death would pass over, and they ultimately might go free. To have the blood was not sufficient. There had to be, if you like, as far as daubing is concerned, an appropriation of the value of the blood.

And here is our Lord, and He's using these great evangelistic words, as He's crying out to thousands of people, and prophetically speaking to millions down the years. If a man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. If you're thirsty, if you recognize what I can do for you, then come to Me and ask Me.

Now I say that this very metaphor that He uses, is so closely aligned to that phraseology in the Acts of the Apostles, and the quotation that I brought to you from Titus, that you cannot but interpret it within that context. Here is our Lord telling thirsty men and women what to do. But not only what to do if they are hungry for more of Him, but also what to expect.

Look at verse 38. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. Now the New International Version of the Bible is always somewhat coy in using Victorian expression.

The Authorized Version, of course, isn't, because, well, it was translated before the Victorian era. And so you've got the expression in older versions of the Bible, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. And the term translated belly, or within him here, refers to the cavity in which, metaphorically at any rate, that the soul is presented as existing.

The depths of personality, actually it's the medical term for the womb, the heart of the being. From there, says our Lord, if you come to Me, I will cause, because I will pour into you, streams of living water to flow out from you. You remember last week my punning on the words inflow and outflow? Well you get it here again, exactly the same phraseology.

From your innermost being, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. There's all the difference in the world between still water and moving water. Still water ultimately gets sour.

It goes stagnant and has a green film on it. Living water is, as the word indicates, lively, quenching, drinkable, health-giving. And this is our Lord predicting what will happen to people who come to Him.

With soul thirst from within their inmost being, says our Lord, will flow rivers of living water. Now just for those who perhaps have still entertained the notion that in some ways I'm presenting a new and a novel approach to the doctrine of the Spirit, although I've argued against that accusation on two or three occasions, let me ask you something. Who have you come to appreciate during my years at the Tabernacle is my favourite preacher of yesteryear? Well somebody is risking mentioning the name Charles Spurgeon.

All right, now Charles Spurgeon isn't exactly contemporaneous with me. He died actually in the late 1800s, a premature death, because of the tremendous burdens that were upon him at that time. But this isn't the occasion to go into that.

Now here is Mr Spurgeon preaching an address on this particular verse. I literally only read this three quarts of an hour ago, so I haven't set this all up. Beloved brethren, he's commenting on this specific phrase within that verse, the rivers of living water.

Beloved brethren, notwithstanding all that the Spirit of God has already done in us, it is very possible that we have missed a large part of the blessing which He is willing to give, for He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. We have already come to Jesus and we have drunk of the life-giving stream. Our thirst is quenched and we are made to live in Him.

Is this all us, Mr Spurgeon? Now that we are living in Him and rejoicing to do so, have we come to the end of the matter? Assuredly not. We have reached as far as that first exhortation of the Master, if any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. But do you think that the generality of the church of God has ever advanced to the next? He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

I think I am not going beyond the grievous truth if I say that only here and there you will find men and women who have believed up to that point. Their thirst is quenched, as I have said, and they live and because Jesus lives, they shall live also. But health and vigour they have not.

They have life, but they have not life more abundantly. They have little life with which to act upon others. They have no energy welling up and overflowing to go streaming out of them like rivers.

They have not thought it possible, perhaps, or thinking it possible, they have imagined it possible to themselves. They have not imagined it possible to themselves, or believing it possible to themselves. They have not aspired to it, but they have stopped short of the fullest blessing.

Their wading into the sacred river has contented them, and they know nothing of waters to swim in. Like the Israelites of old, they are slow to possess all the land of promise, but sit down when the war has hardly begun. Brothers, let us go in to get of God all that God will give us.

Let us set our heart upon this that we may, that we mean to have by God's help, all that the infinite goodness of God is ready to bestow. Let us not be satisfied with the sip that saves, but let us go on to the baptism which buries the flesh and raises us in the likeness of the risen Lord, even that baptism into the Holy Ghost and into fire which makes us spiritual and sets us all on flame with zeal for the glory of God and eagerness for usefulness by which that glory may be increased among the sons of men. Well, you see, there's Mr. Spurgeon preaching in the year 1882, a sermon which I haven't read through in part myself, I just happen to alight upon those verses.

So I come back with the challenge that Mr. Spurgeon, in a far more eloquent fashion than I'll ever be able, and I give it to you, and I ask you, and I'm not expecting necessarily a negative answer, do you know this experience yourself? Whoever believes in me as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. You see, I liken that statement to that interesting one in 1 Peter where the reference is to joy unspeakable and full of glory. Now these texts of scripture, pardon the pun, but don't dilute them.

Even this business of living water flowing from the innermost being, from your belly, in no way neutralise what it is suggesting. As you ask yourself, have I entered into, am I searching after, have I a thirst for what is contained within that very, very pregnant scripture? And remember my friend, it's the Lord speaking, it's the Lord predicting. I am now quoting His words, whoever believes in me, streams of living water will flow from within him.

Let's go back to the belly, if you don't mind, just for a moment or two. I do so for this reason. You see, the authorised version translators had a thing about the belly, that's why they use the translation time and time again, and in those days it wasn't such a vulgar word as it is today.

Some of the modern translations have inserted the word stomach, just to make it a little bit more acceptable. But what in the authorised version does that term stand for? Do you remember some of you who were brought up on the authorised as I was, that verse in Philippians 3.19 where reference is made to the unregenerate whose God is their belly. And the idea is this, that the belly is that part of man which constantly craves.

It's perpetually dissatisfied. It goes from one experience to another. It may take on itself the form of lust in terms of sex, craving in the terms of acquisition.

It may be from one drunken bout to another drunken bout. But the word belly refers to that in man which is difficult to tame and to satisfy. In other words, it's the most wretched part of your Adamic unregenerate nature.

Now here is our blessed Lord and He's speaking to men and women who have come to Him and confessed Him. They've done this because He's used the very word if. If a man desires, let him come.

They're seeking after Him. What is He promising? Well not just a sip. He's promising that they will know from their innermost being the rivers of living water flowing out from that very craven part of them which just was saturated with sin.

The seat of wrong desires will be so transformed by Him that in their innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. Now I feel that that is one of the greatest statements and promises that our Lord ever made. You see, we speak about our Lord Jesus, don't we, as the one who is the Redeemer.

He's the Saviour and He not only saves us from sin, but He has the ability through His Spirit to completely transform our nature and to make our desires accord to His own desires. This is what He's saying and this is the reason why this word is deliberately used. From the innermost being of a man, Jesus will so change that He will create a spring there.

So rivers of living water shall flow. Now Jesus doesn't promise you a sponge. There are some evangelical Christians who perhaps have had a sponge but they've never known a spring and the difference is that a sponge soaks up and it's selfish if you like, if you can talk in those terms.

A spring however bubbles up and up and up and in the very up flow there is an overflow and in the overflow others are taken up in the stream that pours out from the Christian. Now this is what our Lord is promising. Well then we put up our last question.

Of what is He speaking? And although we've already got the answer even if we were dull, we couldn't but understand because of the information that's supplied in the to receive. Every word there I think is important. By this He meant the Spirit whom those later who believed in Him were to receive.

And then we've got a very interesting explanatory note. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given since Jesus had not yet been glorified. The actual words in the Greek are these.

Up to that time the Spirit was not. And the authorised version and following their example the NIV translators have filled in the words given and rightly so. The comment is not that the Holy Spirit had no existence until a future time but rather the Holy Spirit had not been given to men and women to receive in the way that Jesus was predicting.

Now of course the Spirit couldn't have been given in that way because as we learned last Jesus Christ is the dispenser of the Holy Spirit. That was one of His achievements if you like, one of the prizes for Calvary and the resurrection. He like His cousin being the Baptist in water, so the Lord is the baptiser in the Holy Ghost.

I'd like to insert my own word. I can do that because as I say there isn't a word given in the original. So I've got as much right as the AV translators and the NIV translators to supply a word.

So here is mine, not because it's better but because for my purposes it will help to clarify the point I'm endeavouring to make. Up to that time the Spirit had not been tapped. Now here's my illustration.

What has caused tremendous economic change in the in the last ten years? Oil, precisely. Ten years ago, fifteen years ago the Arabs were very backward countries. All those sheikdoms in the Middle East, they did not have the fabulous wealth that they now have.

Now it's not that somebody has got some big shringe and filled the ground under where these sheikdoms are with oil. The oil has always been there, but in increasing measure in the last fifteen years the oil has been tapped. It was tapped before by the states and by western countries, but now the flow is controlled by the Arabs.

Not only the flow of oil out, but the flow of dollars and sterling in. You see the oil has always been there, but in these last few years the Arabs have been tapping it themselves. The Holy Spirit, the blessed third person of the Trinity was always there.

He's God, the eternal God. And in some senses with exceptional people there was an anointing and there was a dwelling upon by the Holy Spirit of individuals in the Old Testament era. But it was not until our Lord was resurrected from the dead that the Holy Spirit, so to speak, was tapped on the part of the disciples and the 120 on the day of Pentecost and so forth.

Now isn't it interesting, and I'm just about to conclude my address this evening, isn't it interesting that verse 37 tells us that it was on the last and greatest day of the feast that Jesus stood up. I find that very significant for this reason. You see it was the eighth day when Jesus made this declaration and in one sense, as A.W. Pink would argue, a more modern commentator, the eighth day is a resurrection day.

It was the first day of the week after the Passion Week was through, after the Sabbath was through, it was the following Sunday, after the events of those previous seven days, the eighth day that Jesus was raised from the dead. And when he met his disciples on that eighth day, that greatest of all days that the world has ever known, as he spoke to these disciples, what did he do? He breathed on them the Holy Ghost, and later on in a fuller way, having returned to the Father, he pours the Spirit upon them. And the whole story of the church in the revival period in the Acts of the Apostles, for so I describe it as a revival period, is the story of men who've known a pouring in and a pouring out, and as a result they have been able to do great and wonderful things for the Lord.

Listen to this, will you? Once again, I'm using these illustrations deliberately from people who've lived centuries ago, or in Spurgeon's case, decades ago. Here is a man by the name of John Flavell, or Flavell. He was a very educated man.

He went to, I believe it was Oxford University, and eventually into the Church of England ministry. In the 1680s he was ejected from the Church of England ministry as a lot of evangelicals, hundreds of them, were evicted. He became a Congregationalist, a very great preacher, and he had an experience of God many years after he started preaching.

He actually was on a journey when this happened to him. Going on his way, his thoughts began to swell and rise higher and higher like the waters of Ezekiel's vision, till at last they became an overwhelming flood. Such was the intention of his mind, such the ravishing tastes of heavenly joys, and such the full assurance of his interest therein, that he utterly lost all sight and sense of the world, and all the concerns thereof, and for some hours he knew no more where he was than it had been in a deep sleep upon his bed.

Arriving in great exhaustion, at a certain spring, he sat down and washed, earnestly desiring that if it was God's pleasure that this might be his parting place from the world. Death had the most amiable face in his eyes that ever he beheld, except the face of Jesus Christ which made it so. And he does not remember, though he believed himself dying, that he ever thought of his dear wife and children or any other earthly concernment.

On reaching his inn, the influence still continued, vanishing sleep. Still the joy of the Lord overflowed him, and he seemed to be an inhabitant of the other world. He many years after called that day one of the days of heaven, and professed that he understood more of the life of heaven by it than by all the books he ever read.

Well there you are, you see, a man by the name of John Flavell, who knows what it is to have those waters pouring out from his innermost being, as God in great grace met him. Ah, but you say, you've quoted Spurgeon, you've quoted a man who lived 300 years ago, this sort of thing isn't for today. Well, listen to a modern, a journalist from South Africa.

He's referring to a conference that he was in, and he retired to his bed having been challenged about the infilling of the Holy Spirit in his life. He's a Christian, a great preacher. He's already been one of the most influential Christians in South Africa.

He used to write for the Cape Argus, the leading rag down there in Cape Province, and he has this to say, sleep would not come to me. Instead quite out of the blue, the spirit of praise came upon my soul. All seemed to be release, all seemed to be freedom.

Hour after hour I praised my God in unrestrained and unrestrainable doxology and song. In words of men and angels I rejoiced. No fatigue visited me that night.

All my senses were vibrantly alive to God. The Holy Spirit was blessing me, wave upon wave it seemed, flow upon flow. He seemed to be bubbling up from within, surrounding from without, ascending from below, and descending from above.

Somewhere in the early hours of the morning I said to myself, I don't know the correct biblical name for this, but this is the experience I've heard others talk of. I wasn't quite sure of its exact name or nature. I would have to think about that later.

In the meantime I kept praising until my alarm clock went off at dawn. Then I told, and he refers to his colleague who was a bishop, then I told the bishop of my night, and we kept praising some more till finally the insistent calls of bacon and eggs were allowed to intrude upon the delights of the soul. It had been a monumental night.

I have never had one like it, nor have I had a comparable one since. Well I rest my case. Out of your belly, out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.

Not for deluxe Christians, not for a special breed, but for those who fit under the category of the first word that Jesus used as he stands up at the Feast of Tabernacles, If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Can you have it any more clear my friend? Here are the words of the Son of God, and I'm almost bold enough to say I defy anyone to expound these verses of scripture in any different way from the one I brought it to you this evening. For here is simplicity itself enshrined within these verses.

Then let's not pardon again the pun, dilute the promise, but plead with our Saviour that we might enter into its fullness, if such thus far has eluded us. Let's sing that song David that you wrote out on the overhead projector. I'm living, I'm feeding, I'll get it soon, I can't get the words.

I'm feeding on the living bread, I'm drinking at the fountainhead, and whoso drinketh Jesus then shall never never thirst again. Let's sing this, it's a fast tune, but let's sing it with thought, with meaning. The ladies.

Let's stand and sing. Oh You You You You You You You You You You You