Anchors of Truth

And He Showed Me a River

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: C. A. Murray

Series Code: AOT

00:23 Hello and welcome to Anchors Of Truth.
00:25 So glad that you all are here, and welcome to you at home
00:28 that are viewing over the television airwaves,
00:30 or maybe listening by radio, joining us via the internet.
00:33 Could be even the 3ABN app.
00:35 We're so glad you could join us.
00:37 It's hard to believe that we're down to our final in this series
00:41 that Pastor C.A. has brought to us.
00:42 And the title of this series is, A River Runs Through.
00:46 Have you guys noticed the trend here in his sermons?
00:48 It's all about water.
00:50 On Wednesday night, Cry Me By A River.
00:53 Thursday, Abana and Pharpar.
00:56 Friday, You Gotta Get Wet.
00:58 This morning for church, A River Within.
01:01 And today's, what is today's title for this sermon?
01:04 And He Showed Me A River.
01:06 And we're looking forward to that message.
01:07 Absolutely, you know I appreciate Pastor C.A. so much,
01:10 and his wife Irma.
01:11 A tremendous people of God.
01:14 One thing I like about Pastor C.A., there's a whole list,
01:16 but one of them is that he's genuinely interested in people.
01:19 How you see him here behind the pulpit
01:22 is how he is in real life.
01:24 I know that when he first came to 3ABN,
01:27 I was sitting in my office.
01:30 Pastor C.A., he just...
01:31 At that time I was at the call center.
01:32 He just walked into my office, spun the chair around,
01:35 I was sitting in front of my desk, and sat down,
01:38 leaned over my desk and said, "So how you doing?
01:42 How you really doing?"
01:44 And he sat there, talked with me, counseled with me,
01:47 and offered a prayer.
01:48 You know, that's a man that loves people.
01:50 And that I appreciate so very much in him.
01:54 Amen, he's an anointed speaker of the Word of God,
01:56 as we can see by the last four messages.
01:58 And we're going to be blessed, like Greg said, by the final
02:01 message here this afternoon.
02:03 The thing I love is, every time you open the Word of God,
02:06 God's word never returns void.
02:08 And we know that the anointing of the Holy Spirit,
02:10 because we have prayed, and know that he is surrendered.
02:13 And we know that we're going to be blessed this afternoon.
02:15 But before he comes to deliver the message straight from
02:18 the Lord for you at home, and for us here,
02:21 we're going to be blessed by another special music number
02:24 by brother Michael Harris.
02:26 He and his wife Lynn ministered this morning,
02:29 they were in the federal prison ministry,
02:32 and they had a church service.
02:33 He loves to share his testimony of what God
02:36 has done in his life.
02:38 He's going to be ministering a song entitled,
02:41 All Said and Done.
02:43 After brother Michael Harris shall have sung,
02:47 the next voice you will hear is that of our pastor and brother,
02:50 C.A. Murray.
03:19 When it's all been said and done,
03:27 there is just one thing that matters.
03:34 Did I do my best to live for truth?
03:39 Did I live my life for You?
03:44 When it's all been said and done,
03:51 all my treasures will mean nothing.
03:58 Only what I've done for love's reward
04:04 will stand the test of time.
04:19 Lord, Your mercy is so great;
04:27 that He looks beyond our weakness
04:33 and finds purest gold in miry clay,
04:39 making sinners into saints.
04:43 I will always sing Your praise
04:52 here on earth and ever after;
04:58 for He's shown me heaven is my true home.
05:04 When it's all been said and done
05:09 He's my life when life is gone.
05:25 When it's all been said and done
05:33 every knee shall bow before Him.
05:40 Did I do my best to live for truth?
05:46 Did I live my life for You?
05:51 Lord, I give my life to You.
06:16 What a beautiful song.
06:18 Thank you so very much, Michael.
06:22 Well we've come down to our last presentation.
06:25 And I should like you to enter in with me,
06:35 through the musings of my own mind,
06:38 something that I've been playing with for quite some time.
06:45 Some, I guess, 20 years ago I preached a sermon,
06:49 and I knew it was incomplete.
06:51 And so I preached it again and added a second sermon.
06:54 And it got to four sermons, and still hadn't
06:56 gotten what I wanted.
06:58 And so I just put it away.
07:01 And then this week, as we were dealing with
07:03 this particular subject, I had a sermon for this presentation,
07:09 but it wasn't complete.
07:11 And for some reason I couldn't get the consent
07:13 of the Lord to complete it.
07:15 So I went home last night and Irma said,
07:18 "Are you coming to bed?"
07:19 And I said, "Yeah, sooner or later."
07:23 Because this thing was whirling around in my mind.
07:25 And I wanted to connect the dots, as it were,
07:29 in something that I felt was orthodox, but just couldn't
07:34 quite get the hook.
07:37 And so I went back and I found my old notes,
07:40 I guess about midnight.
07:42 And then we started out on a journey.
07:44 And so this morning Irma said, "What time did you come to bed?"
07:49 And I said, "I don't know.
07:53 I remember 1:30, I remember 2:00.
07:57 but I don't remember anything else after that.
08:01 So we're going to take a little journey and try to pull
08:03 some things together in light of what we
08:06 spoke about this morning.
08:08 And that is the woman at the well.
08:11 But we are approaching it from a different angle.
08:15 And the thing that began this for me was the question,
08:24 and it's just the way my mind tends to work,
08:28 in heaven there is a sea of glass.
08:34 That would seem to me to be enough water.
08:39 That's how my mind works.
08:40 You've got a sea of glass.
08:42 That's enough.
08:43 But now you've got a river of life.
08:46 So my mind said, why the river?
08:48 We've got the sea of glass.
08:50 Why do we need a river?
08:53 And so I began that search.
08:57 And so it leads us to where we are today.
08:59 And we'll try to pull a bunch of things together
09:01 in just a little bit.
09:02 Turn with me, if you will, to the book of Revelation.
09:05 Revelation 22:1-2
09:09 You'll recall that on the very first night
09:11 I said there is an ecclesiology of water in the Bible
09:15 and in the Jewish economy.
09:17 But there is also a theology of water.
09:19 And I ran into some things that dealt with
09:23 this theology of water.
09:24 And this hour, much less an hour now, 45 or so minutes,
09:29 will not be enough to exhaust this, but again,
09:32 we're taking a little trip through the musings of my
09:36 sometimes convoluted mind.
09:38 But this is how this occurs to me.
09:42 Dealing with the theology of water
09:44 and why does a river run through it.
09:46 What is, "it"? Well, "it," is the gospel.
09:49 It is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
09:51 Why does a river run through it?
09:53 And why, even when we get to the kingdom,
09:56 there again is this river?
09:57 And what does the river symbolize in its purest form?
10:02 Why is the river so important, and why are rivers so important,
10:05 and why does this river theme occur again, again, again,
10:09 and again through the Word of God?
10:11 I'm in Revelation 22:1-2.
10:15 "And he showed me a pure river of water of life,
10:23 clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God
10:29 and of the Lamb.
10:32 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river,
10:38 was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits,
10:43 each tree yielding its fruit every month.
10:48 The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
10:55 Gracious Father, as we look into Your Word,
11:00 would You please give us of the treasure
11:04 that is hidden in Your Word so that we may understand You,
11:09 and that we may serve You faithfully,
11:12 and be prepared when You come to take us home.
11:16 We thank You in Jesus name, amen.
11:21 Close your eyes for just a moment.
11:23 Just close your eyes.
11:26 What I want you to do now is to think about heaven.
11:33 Just take a moment.
11:34 Your eyes are closed and you are thinking about heaven.
11:42 Now open them back up and look at me.
11:46 Now there's a disappointment;
11:47 thinking about heaven and looking at me.
11:52 But I dare say that everyone in this room,
11:56 and everyone watching and listening,
11:58 had a different thought in their heart.
12:02 Everyone had a different vision in their mind.
12:06 Thinking about heaven, really, is a fairly difficult task.
12:13 Simply because we have nothing to base our thoughts upon.
12:20 So usually our thoughts go to very subjective themes.
12:27 Heaven is what you prize and what you think is best.
12:33 Streets of gold, gates of pearl, a city foursquare;
12:39 as wide as it is high, as it is deep.
12:42 All of these things swirl in our mind, but the truth is,
12:46 our minds cannot really grasp or wrap themselves
12:50 around what heaven is.
12:52 When you say, "Think of heaven," it's very difficult.
12:54 "Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard,
12:58 neither has it entered into your heart."
13:00 So your wildest imaginations have to fall far short
13:06 of what heaven actually is.
13:08 You can muse about maybe the best mansion you ever saw,
13:12 or the best car you've ever seen,
13:14 or the finest city you've ever seen.
13:17 But the finest man-made city or the finest man-built house
13:23 falls far short of anything that God's going to
13:26 build and provide for us.
13:27 Is that not so?
13:29 So it is difficult to think about heaven, because
13:33 our imaginations are not big enough to wrap around
13:38 what God has prepared for us,
13:43 and what God has given to us.
13:46 The text is 1 Corinthians 2:9, "Eye hath not seen,
13:49 ear hath not heard..."
13:50 And we've tried so many times.
13:52 I've listened to the description given by Ellen White and others,
13:55 and they're pretty good.
13:57 Yet the mind simply cannot encompass those realities.
14:04 So we are not really comfortable envisioning
14:07 what will be in heaven.
14:10 We are far more comfortable in envisioning
14:15 what will not be in heaven.
14:18 Amen.
14:19 It's easier to think about what's not going to be there.
14:22 Think of anything bad, it's not going to be there.
14:25 Very simple.
14:26 Got a toothache? Not going to be there.
14:29 You're wearing glasses? Not going to be there.
14:32 Have trouble getting up because you've got bad knees?
14:34 Not going to be there.
14:36 Amen.
14:37 Nurses. Not going to be there.
14:39 Doctors. Not going to be there.
14:42 Car accidents. Not going to be there.
14:45 Mortgage payments. Not going to be there.
14:48 Getting old. Not going to be there.
14:50 You know, when I was a youngster, when I was young,
14:53 my father use to get up and sit on the side of the bed
14:57 for about five minutes.
14:59 And as a youngster, you get up and you pop up.
15:02 And we couldn't understand this sitting on the side of the bed.
15:05 What was all of that about?
15:06 You know, you get up and you sit on the side of the bed
15:08 and kind of make sure everything is where you
15:10 left it the night before.
15:12 And it just seemed so strange.
15:15 And I said as a child, "I'm never going to get up
15:17 and sit on the side of the bed."
15:19 And this morning as I was sitting on the
15:21 side of the bed...
15:23 It happens that way.
15:24 You know, you get old.
15:26 And you don't pop up like you use to.
15:27 And when you fall, you stay down there a lot longer
15:30 than you did before.
15:31 And it takes you a lot longer to recover from those falls.
15:34 Well, that's not going to be there.
15:36 Praise God.
15:38 No more sorrow, no more parting, no more death,
15:40 no more saying goodbye.
15:42 It's much easier to envision what's not going to
15:45 be in heaven than what is.
15:46 Because we simply don't know what will be there.
15:48 But we have a pretty good idea what's not going to be there.
15:52 And we praise God for that.
15:55 Ellen White, in commenting on this chapter,
15:59 Revelation 22, says this, "Christ is the truth
16:06 of all that we find in the Father."
16:09 It's a powerful statement.
16:12 Then she says this, and I love this,
16:15 "The definition of heaven is the presence of Christ."
16:23 Amen.
16:25 Define heaven.
16:27 Jesus.
16:30 Amen?
16:31 Wherever Christ is, that's heaven.
16:34 That's why Christ could say, when He was here,
16:37 the kingdom of God has come to you.
16:39 Because where Jesus is, that's where heaven is.
16:42 Now, the gold and the mansions and the wings and eternal life;
16:47 that's just frosting on the cake.
16:50 Amen?
16:51 The real, dare I say, guts of what heaven is,
16:56 is the presence of Jesus.
16:58 And the rest is just gravy.
17:00 Amen.
17:02 So she says, "The definition of heaven
17:07 is the presence of Christ."
17:08 Where Christ is, heaven is.
17:11 She says, "Christ is the heavenly Teacher
17:15 who will lead His people to the tree of life
17:19 that grows on either side of the river of life,
17:22 and He will explain to them the truths they could not
17:26 in this life understand."
17:28 I don't know about you, but when I get to heaven,
17:30 I've got a million questions.
17:33 I've got a lot to ask.
17:35 So you'll have to line up behind me,
17:38 because that may be the only fight that's going to
17:40 be in heaven; who's going to get to ask their questions first.
17:44 Because I've got a lot of stuff I'd like to know.
17:46 I've got some questions.
17:48 And I don't think they're particularly tough questions.
17:51 I think Christ can handle them.
17:52 I just want to know, that I want to know, that I want to know.
17:56 Amen?
17:57 You've got one or two question for Jesus too?
18:01 I think we're going to spend the first 1000 years
18:03 just, it'll be like a press conference.
18:04 Everybody asking their own questions.
18:08 But she says He will explain to us things we cannot...
18:13 See, there's some things your mind just cannot handle now.
18:16 There are some things I think Christ just keeps from us
18:20 because we're not prepared to deal with them
18:22 on this side of glory.
18:24 So on the other side looking back, He can explain
18:28 those things to us.
18:29 And we will fully understand.
18:32 In the book, Early Writings, Ellen White speaks of
18:36 the river of life and the tree of life.
18:40 And I want to take that reading just now.
18:41 She says, "Here, we saw the tree of life
18:45 and the throne of God.
18:47 Out of the throne came a pure river of water.
18:52 And on either side of the river...
18:55 ...both of pure transparent gold.
19:00 At first I thought I saw two trees.
19:04 But I looked again, and I saw that they were united
19:08 at the top in one tree.
19:10 So it was the tree of life on either side
19:14 of the river of life.
19:16 Its branches bowed to the place where we stood,
19:20 and the fruit was glorious;
19:22 it looked like gold mixed with silver."
19:28 Now how do you wrap your mind around gold and silver fruit?
19:31 But that's there.
19:34 She said, that first night that she was there
19:39 and spent time with God, she never wanted to come back
19:44 to this earth.
19:47 So I want to talk about the theology of water
19:52 for just a moment.
19:53 I'm going to read you something from, Patriarch and Prophets,
19:56 that I re-discovered on last evening.
20:02 "From the smitten rock in Horeb first flowed the living stream
20:07 that refreshed Israel in the desert."
20:09 You see, there were two miracles in the desert.
20:12 We know about and talk about and like to discuss the manna.
20:16 But there was a second equally impressive miracle;
20:19 and that was the miracle of water.
20:23 "During their wanderings, wherever the need existed,
20:28 they were supplied with water by a miracle of God's mercy."
20:33 Now get this.
20:35 "The water did not, however, continue to flow from Horeb."
20:38 That was the first time.
20:39 The rock was smitten, water gushed out.
20:43 "Wherever in their journeys they wanted water,
20:47 there from the clefts of the rock it gushed out
20:50 beside their encampment."
20:53 So wherever they went, water followed them.
20:57 And when they needed water, there was a rock nearby;
21:01 it always gushed out as much as they needed.
21:04 Now you're talking about a group of people
21:05 somewhere between 3 and 5 million.
21:07 So this is a lot of water.
21:09 But the water followed them,
21:12 just like the manna followed them.
21:15 Isn't that fascinating?
21:18 Just a little more.
21:19 "It was Christ, by the power of His word, that caused
21:24 the refreshing stream to flow for Israel."
21:27 Every day when they got up, no matter where they were,
21:30 there was a water supply right there, faucet right there.
21:36 "'They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them:
21:40 and that Rock was Christ.'
21:43 He was the source of all temporal as well as
21:46 spiritual blessings.
21:48 Christ is that true Rock."
21:49 I'm going to drop down.
21:51 "As the life-giving waters flowed from the smitten rock,
21:55 so from Christ, 'smitten of God,'
21:57 'wounded for our transgressions,'
21:59 'bruised for our iniquities,'
22:01 the stream of salvation flows for the lost race.
22:05 As the rock had been once smitten, so Christ was to be
22:10 'once offered to bear the sins of many.'
22:13 Our Saviour was not to be sacrificed a second time;
22:17 and it is only necessary for those who seek the
22:21 blessings of His grace to ask in the name of Jesus,
22:24 pouring forth the heart's desire in penitential prayer."
22:29 That is why the sin of Moses was so great.
22:31 When Moses, in disgust, struck the rock the second time,
22:37 he gave the wrong message about the gospel of Jesus.
22:41 See, you don't have to force a blessing from Jesus.
22:44 You don't have to wrench a blessing from Jesus.
22:47 You don't have to smite your breast or cut your body
22:49 or abuse yourself to get a blessing from Jesus.
22:52 You only have to ask.
22:56 And when Moses struck that rock the second time,
22:59 he was giving the wrong message about how you
23:01 prevail with Jesus.
23:04 And so the punishment was very, very severe.
23:09 "The flowing of the water from the rock in the desert
23:14 was celebrated by the Israelites, after their
23:17 establishment in Canaan, with demonstrations
23:21 of great rejoicing."
23:22 So this idea of the water flowing whenever they
23:26 needed it, when they got into the Canaan land
23:28 they established a yearly celebration to remind them
23:32 of how God gave them water in the desert.
23:35 Now stick with me.
23:37 "In the time of Christ this celebration had become
23:44 a most impressive ceremony.
23:46 It took place on the occasion of the Feast of Tabernacles..."
23:50 So it's a fall feast when everybody comes and
23:52 they kind of live in tents for a while.
23:54 And it's a week long celebration.
23:55 So this water celebration was part of the
23:58 Feast of Tabernacles.
24:01 "...when the people from all the land
24:03 were assembled at Jerusalem.
24:05 So there were, I think, one, two, three, four yearly feasts
24:08 where you had to come up to Jerusalem.
24:09 Feast of Tabernacles was one, Passover was one,
24:12 forty-eight days later the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, was one.
24:16 And this is one.
24:17 And this is when this water celebration took place.
24:20 "On each of the seven days of the feast, the priests
24:23 went out with music and the choir of Levites
24:27 to draw water in a golden vessel from the spring of Siloam."
24:31 This is an impressive ceremony.
24:33 And it takes place every day.
24:36 "They were followed by multitudes of worshipers,
24:39 as many as could get near the stream drinking of it,
24:44 while the jubilant strains arose,
24:46 'With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.'"
24:50 This is a major ceremony.
24:51 It's not a little side thing.
24:53 This is a very important celebration as part of
24:56 the Feast of Tabernacles.
24:59 "Then the water drawn by the priests was borne to the temple
25:04 amid the sounding of trumpets and the solemn chant,
25:07 'Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.'
25:13 The water was poured out on the altar of burnt offering..."
25:18 Now get this, this is important.
25:22 The altar of burnt offerings is a fire altar, is it not?
25:28 Burnt offerings, your sacrifices and mine,
25:31 on the altar of burnt offerings.
25:36 On this last day of the feast, water from this golden chalice
25:43 is poured onto the altar.
25:45 This is the only time you get that kind of adulteration.
25:47 It's a very, very solemn and important service.
25:51 And it highlights the value of water in the eyes of God
25:56 and in the eyes of His people.
25:57 When water is poured out on an altar that is meant
26:01 to symbolize the sacrifice of Christ for you and for me,
26:05 this is big stuff.
26:07 You will forgive my pejorative English.
26:11 So the water is poured out on the altar of sacrifice.
26:15 And of course, it extinguishes any fire that is there.
26:19 "The water was poured out upon the altar of burnt offering..."
26:23 I wish I could take 30 minutes just to tell you what
26:26 this means, but I can't do it now because
26:28 we just don't have time.
26:31 "...while songs of praise rang out, the multitudes
26:35 joining in triumphant chorus with musical instruments
26:38 and deep-toned trumpets.
26:42 The Saviour," this is Jesus, "made use of this
26:45 symbolic service to direct the minds of the people
26:48 to the blessings that He had come to bring them.
26:55 'In the last day, that great day of the feast,'
26:58 His voice was heard in tones that rang through the
27:03 temple courts, 'If any man thirst, let him
27:07 come unto Me, and drink.
27:10 He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture hath said,
27:14 out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'"
27:18 Now when is the last time He made that statement?
27:21 I told you this morning.
27:23 To the woman in Samaria.
27:26 He said to her what He never said to the Jews,
27:29 what He never said even to the disciples.
27:32 He gave her a special message because He knew
27:35 she would take that message and spread it,
27:37 and bring men and woman, boys and girls, to Him.
27:40 So He's repeating it here.
27:42 "If you come to Me, if you're thirsty,
27:44 if you need a blessing, not only will I satisfy your needs,
27:48 I will make you a spring of water so that those who
27:51 associate with you will be fed by that water
27:54 and bring their hearts and bring their lives
27:56 and bring their souls to Me."
28:00 "'This, said John, He spake of the Spirit, which they that
28:05 believe on Him should receive."
28:10 So this idea of the theology of water is very, very important.
28:16 It is not a light thing.
28:18 It is something that was part of a central feast
28:20 and something that Christ brought back again and again
28:24 and again and again.
28:25 And He told that woman there at the well in Sychar in Samaria.
28:30 "The water that I give you, you'll never thirst again.
28:34 But more than that, more than that,
28:37 you will become a spring of living water."
28:40 That's what I have been asking the Lord to do for my life.
28:45 I just don't want to have my soul satisfied.
28:51 I'd like to be a change agent to satisfy other souls.
28:57 I'd like my life to refresh other people.
29:04 You see, it is one thing to have your thirst satisfied.
29:10 It is another thing for God to use you
29:13 to help satisfy the thirsts of other people.
29:17 See, that's ministry.
29:19 That's missionary work.
29:20 That's when you're really living for the Lord.
29:22 There are people here at 3ABN who I find it refreshing
29:28 to be around.
29:30 Amen?
29:32 There's some people...
29:33 I am not by nature a hanger on or around a person.
29:36 Irma will tell you that.
29:38 I'm very at home with myself.
29:40 I will find something to do.
29:41 If I get some free time, my mind is facet enough
29:44 I'll find something to do.
29:46 Irma goes on a trip and she comes home,
29:47 and stuff is moved all over the place.
29:49 And you know, she said to me the other day,
29:51 "Will you ask me before you start throwing out stuff."
29:53 You know, I had a bunch of stuff lined up by the door to
29:55 take to the Goodwill, she said, "Ask me before you start..."
29:57 Because Irma is by nature a packrat,
30:00 and I am by nature a person who likes to toss stuff out.
30:02 So when she goes on trips, she tells me before she goes,
30:05 "Don't start throwing out stuff, because I may want that stuff.
30:09 You know, I may need that stuff in the year 2050, you know.
30:12 So don't throw anything out unless you ask me."
30:16 But I will find stuff to do, because I'm that way.
30:20 So I'm not a hanger on person.
30:22 I don't have to always be at your house
30:25 and always be under your feet.
30:26 But there are certain people who, when I'm in their presence,
30:29 they refresh me.
30:32 They make me stronger in the Lord
30:33 and they make me feel good.
30:36 So I like to have them around, or I like to be at...
30:38 And I don't need to just come and stay all night.
30:40 I don't need to spend the night.
30:41 You know, I just need a couple of hours with you and I'm fine.
30:45 Amen?
30:47 They're refreshing.
30:48 Because they've got the love of Christ in their life.
30:50 That's what I want to be.
30:51 I hope there's somebody here at 3ABN that says,
30:53 "When I'm in the presence of C.A. and Irma Murray,
30:56 I feel refreshed.
30:59 And I feel the love of God."
31:01 And I could begin naming some names, but I'm going to
31:03 leave out somebody's name and somebody is going to feel hurt.
31:06 So I'm not going to name any names.
31:07 But there are some people, you know who you are.
31:10 You refresh me.
31:12 And I praise God for your presence.
31:15 Sometimes you have to tell those people.
31:19 You've got to say, you know, "Will you invite me over?
31:20 Because you refresh me, and I need a little refreshing.
31:22 So cook something and invite me over."
31:31 Don't you want to be that?
31:32 Don't you want to be a person that people want to be around
31:34 because they can feel the love of Christ in you?
31:38 So that people can say, "When I'm with them,
31:40 I feel closer to Jesus.
31:42 When I leave them I always feel a little bit better
31:44 than when I came because they refresh me."
31:47 That's what the living water can do for you.
31:49 Your talk refreshes people, your life refreshes people.
31:52 The way you handle pain and suffering refreshes people.
31:55 When I was sick last year I was in a lot of pain,
31:57 but I said, "Lord, I'm not going to whine,
31:59 I'm not going to moan."
32:02 Well Irma will tell you if I was successful, but I think I was.
32:08 But you want to be one who refreshes people and
32:10 who lifts people up.
32:12 So that people, when they see you, when they leave you,
32:13 they say, "You know, I had a nice time with them today.
32:16 And I saw Jesus in them."
32:22 So there is a theology of water.
32:26 Water was necessary for life.
32:29 And the ancient Jews saw in water much that reminded them
32:33 of the glory and power of God.
32:37 So I want to delve into the theological parallelisms,
32:41 dare I say.
32:42 Why a river?
32:44 Why does a river run through it?
32:47 Let's go to the book of Leviticus.
32:49 And I'll show you where my musings landed me
32:52 about 3 o'clock this morning.
32:58 Leviticus 11:24
33:00 I've asked you to go there, I should probably join you.
33:03 Leviticus 11:24
33:07 You had a group of somewhere between 3 and 5 million people.
33:13 And there had to be strict regulations as far as
33:18 sanitation and cleanliness was concerned.
33:22 But there were also religious connotations, if I can say that,
33:27 or religious aspects to how water was used
33:35 and what was considered clean and unclean.
33:37 So I'm in Leviticus 11:24.
33:41 And I'll read just that one verse.
33:43 "By these you shall become unclean;
33:46 whoever touches the carcass of any of them
33:49 shall be unclean until evening.
33:52 Whosoever carries," I'm in 25, "part of the carcass
33:56 of any of them shall wash his clothes
33:58 and be unclean until evening.
34:00 The carcass of any animal which divides the foot,
34:03 but is not cloven-hoofed or does not chew the cud,
34:07 is unclean to you.
34:09 Everyone who touches it shall be unclean.
34:11 And whatever goes on its paws, among all kinds of animals
34:17 that go on all fours, those are unclean to you."
34:20 Now this chapter 11 of Leviticus has a number of regulations
34:25 that, if broken, would make you ceremonially unclean
34:30 and not worthy to enjoin the temple services
34:35 for a short while.
34:37 So I will go through them quickly, and then again
34:39 we'll try to pull a bunch of things together.
34:42 Leviticus 11:24; if you touch anything unclean,
34:48 you become unclean.
34:50 Plain, simple.
34:51 Not very difficult to understand.
34:53 Leviticus 11:27; if you carry anything unclean,
35:00 say, something unclean gets into your house
35:03 and you carry it outside of the house,
35:06 you become unclean.
35:07 For example, suppose a mouse gets into your house.
35:11 The mouse is unclean.
35:13 You kill that mouse.
35:15 You become unclean.
35:17 If you step on the mouse, you've touched the mouse,
35:21 so you're unclean.
35:22 If you take a piece of wood and smash the mouse;
35:29 the wood has touched the mouse, you have touched the wood;
35:33 you are unclean.
35:37 So if you kill the mouse, put the mouse in a bag,
35:42 never touch the mouse, but take the bag
35:45 and carry the bag outside; the bag has touched the mouse,
35:49 you have touched the bag; you are unclean.
35:54 So if something unclean gets into your house,
35:58 in order to get rid of that, you have to become unclean.
36:04 There is no way to get it out.
36:06 Even if you take a broom and sweep it out;
36:08 when the broom touches the mouse,
36:11 you are touching the broom; so you are unclean.
36:14 If you take a shovel and shovel it out;
36:17 you don't touch the mouse, the shovel touches the mouse,
36:20 you touch the shovel; so you are unclean.
36:23 So if anything gets into your house, to get rid of it,
36:27 you're going to have to become unclean.
36:30 That's what that is saying.
36:31 Got me? Are we together?
36:33 We're tracking. Okay, very good.
36:34 Now Leviticus 11:31; small creeping insects.
36:41 Anything that touches these is unclean.
36:46 And if you touch anything that touches them,
36:49 you can become unclean.
36:51 So suppose... Well you can eat those.
36:54 Suppose a spider gets into your house.
36:59 What would you do if a spider got into your house?
37:02 I know what I would do.
37:08 And I would forget about it.
37:10 But if that spider is unclean and I touch it with my sandal;
37:15 the sandal becomes unclean, my foot is in the sandal;
37:18 so I become...
37:20 Mm-hmm.
37:22 So becoming ceremonially unclean is a fairly easy thing to do.
37:29 There is an antidote. We're coming to that.
37:30 Just stick with me.
37:32 Leviticus 11:33; if something unclean falls into something
37:37 clean, it becomes unclean.
37:40 Suppose you're baking a cake.
37:42 And you've got this bowl and you're mixing flour.
37:47 And a spider drops into your bowl.
37:53 Now you can allow that spider to become part of the cake
37:56 and keep on stirring, or you can take a spoon
38:00 and pick that little tiny spider out.
38:03 But guess what?
38:05 Your cake batter is unclean.
38:09 The bowl is unclean.
38:11 The spoon is unclean.
38:14 And you are... Mm-hmm.
38:18 You're unclean.
38:19 So if anything unclean falls into or comes into contact
38:24 with anything clean, it becomes unclean by touch.
38:30 Alright? Now stay with me.
38:32 I'm going to show you something in just a little bit.
38:36 Someone buys a pizza.
38:39 And the pizza has pepperoni on it.
38:43 Now if you're a frugal person and you're really trying to
38:46 get by, you can do as I did once as a teenager,
38:51 you pick the pepperoni off.
38:57 But in Bible times, you can't do that.
39:01 Because the pepperoni is...
39:05 So the pizza is...
39:07 And when you pick off the pepperoni, you are...
39:10 Mm-hmm.
39:11 So you've got to toss out that whole pizza.
39:14 But when you toss out that pizza, the pizza is...
39:19 So when you toss it out, you become...
39:21 Mm-hmm.
39:33 If someone drops a pork chop on your veggie meat,
39:40 you've got to toss it all out...
39:43 ...because it's all unclean.
39:48 Leviticus 11:35; even a clean animal...
39:53 Suppose you raise sheep.
39:56 And one day you wake up and one of your sheep is dead.
40:02 You don't know why it died, you don't know how it died.
40:06 It just died during the night.
40:09 Died on its own.
40:11 That clean animal is unclean.
40:15 Cannot eat it.
40:17 You can't say, "Well it's dead. We don't want to waste anything.
40:19 Let's just eat it." No.
40:20 If it dies on its own, it is unclean.
40:23 You can't eat it and you can't touch it.
40:28 It's unclean.
40:30 And if you take it up to bury it, guess what.
40:35 You're unclean.
40:37 Now chapter 12 of Leviticus deals with what we call,
40:42 atonement for childbirth.
40:45 Why do you need atonement?
40:48 That is because anytime there is an emission from the body,
40:54 there is ceremonial uncleanliness.
40:59 Can I say that, can I invent that word, uncleanliness?
41:04 So when a child is born there is an issuance of blood involved.
41:11 So the mother and child are unclean
41:15 for a certain period of time.
41:17 As I recall, for boys it is seven days.
41:21 Let me check my notes.
41:22 And I think for girls it's fourteen days.
41:24 Why it's longer for girls than boys, I do not know.
41:27 Well I do know, but we don't have time to go into that.
41:31 So anytime there is an issuance of blood,
41:34 there is an unclean condition.
41:36 And men don't get away.
41:38 Whenever there is an issuance of any body fluid,
41:41 there is ceremonial uncleanliness.
41:43 Which is why the woman with the issue of blood
41:47 couldn't go to church, couldn't enjoy fellowship,
41:50 couldn't get a priest to pray for her,
41:52 couldn't get a doctor to visit her.
41:54 Because as long as that blood flow was there,
41:57 she was unclean.
41:58 And the Bible says, for twelve years she had that issue.
42:03 You've got to think about that.
42:04 She can't go to church for twelve years.
42:06 Can't get a priest to pray for her for twelve years.
42:08 Can't get anybody to come and administer for twelve years.
42:10 Now Luke says that she wasted all her money on doctors.
42:14 Now I don't know what kind of medical care she was getting,
42:16 because no doctor would want to touch her
42:18 while she was actively bleeding, because they would be unclean
42:22 and unable to go to the service.
42:24 So you can't minister to a person at the end of a
42:26 ten foot pole, so I don't know what kind of
42:28 medical care she was getting.
42:29 But I do know this, her condition was bad.
42:32 Her condition was sad.
42:33 It left her broke and alone.
42:37 But she reasoned in her heart,
42:40 "If a touch can make you unclean,
42:47 then why couldn't a touch make you clean?"
42:52 Doesn't that make sense?
42:54 She knew the law.
42:55 She knew that if she was unclean, any bed she sat on
43:01 was unclean.
43:03 If she opened the door, the doorknob was unclean.
43:07 If she sat in a chair, the chair was unclean.
43:10 So no one would come to minister to her because you
43:11 can't sit on her bed, you can't sit in her chair,
43:14 you can't eat at her table,
43:15 because you're going to be ceremonially unclean.
43:19 So if a touch can make you dirty,
43:21 surely a touch can make you clean.
43:26 And so she knew she didn't have to talk to Jesus,
43:28 she didn't have to get a prayer from Jesus.
43:30 All she had to do was touch Him.
43:32 And she knew she didn't have to touch His body,
43:35 she only needed to touch the garment.
43:37 You see how it fits together?
43:39 Because if He's clean, and the garment is touching Him,
43:45 then the garment is clean.
43:47 "So all I've got to do is contact the garment
43:51 and I'll be clean."
43:53 And so she reached out and made that touch.
43:55 Jesus said, "Virtue has gone out of Me."
43:57 You know the story.
43:59 And the disciples said, "Lord, how... Come on.
44:03 People are bouncing You around like a ping pong ball
44:05 in this crowd.
44:06 And You're saying, 'Who touched Me.'"
44:08 He said, "But this is a special touch.
44:11 This is a heavenly touch.
44:13 And I feel that something has gone out of Me."
44:16 And it had.
44:18 And from that moment her issue of blood,
44:21 her twelve year malady, dried up and she was clean.
44:29 In Leviticus 11:36, the Bible slips in something here
44:34 that is truly magnificent, but very subtle.
44:38 Later on in Leviticus it is repeated.
44:41 And in the book of Numbers it is repeated again.
44:47 As I said before, you can't eat dead things
44:49 that die of themselves.
44:51 You also can't eat animals killed by other animals.
44:54 So if a coyote gets into the sheep pen and kills your sheep;
45:00 the coyote is unclean, the sheep is unclean.
45:03 You can't eat it.
45:06 Leviticus 17:15, you can't eat that.
45:15 And the ground that it falls on is unclean.
45:18 Now this is where it gets important.
45:23 If something is ceremonially unclean,
45:27 everything that comes in contact with that is unclean.
45:33 Even the ground it falls on.
45:37 Are you following me?
45:39 So if you come out and find your calf dead on the ground,
45:50 blood spilled; the calf is unclean, the ground in unclean.
45:57 You're standing on that ground.
46:00 It seems almost like a dead-end street.
46:07 If a clean animal dies and falls into your cistern,
46:16 it becomes unclean.
46:18 Everything touched by an unclean thing
46:23 becomes unclean, except for one thing.
46:31 Anybody know what it is?
46:33 There's only one thing that can never ever be unclean.
46:38 That's what I discovered 20 years ago.
46:40 Came back to it last night.
46:44 Running water can never be unclean.
46:52 If your dead calf falls into a stream,
46:56 it's still clean.
46:58 Running water can never be unclean.
47:04 Now I knew years ago that Hebrew synagogues,
47:10 particularly principle synagogues,
47:12 were always built near running water.
47:16 And it never really clicked in my mind as to why.
47:20 When the children of God camped, there was always running water.
47:28 When they were wondering through the desert,
47:32 Jesus made sure that there was always a supply
47:37 of running water.
47:41 In fact, the Bible says, gushing water.
47:45 Because running water can never be unclean.
47:52 That's a powerful statement, it's very subtle.
47:54 But it's very, very powerful when you think about
47:56 the theology of water.
48:02 There were ritual baths near running water.
48:06 So the idea of moving water is very, very important.
48:13 So then we don't have to be held hostage
48:16 by an atrophied ecclesiology of fear or an impoverished
48:21 exegesis of the three angels' messages.
48:25 Because when you have running water...
48:31 And running water, water gushing out of you, is nothing more
48:35 than a symbolism of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
48:39 That's what Christ was telling that young lady at the well.
48:42 When you get the Holy Spirit in you, you become
48:46 a fountain of water.
48:49 You can never be unclean.
48:55 I want you to wrap your minds around that and
48:57 think about it for just a minute, because
48:58 I'm not talking about holy flesh.
49:00 I'm not saying that you can go around saying
49:02 just because I'm a Christian, anything I do is clean.
49:05 That's not what I'm saying.
49:07 I am saying, when Christ is in your life,
49:11 when you're walking after Christ, when Christ is
49:14 living out His life in you and through you,
49:18 your life is clean.
49:21 And you can go to the valley of the shadow of death
49:25 and fear no evil, because your life is clean.
49:30 You don't have to be afraid to give a Bible study
49:33 to a person who's a drunkard or a smoker, because
49:38 they're not going to contaminate you.
49:41 You're going to clean them.
49:46 Amen.
49:47 Years ago when I was a child, we had a lady
49:51 who joined our church.
49:53 In fact, she was baptized in the same baptism as me.
49:56 She was a famous gambler and drinker in Buffalo, New York.
50:03 Everybody in every bar knew...
50:05 And I almost called her name. I better not do that.
50:08 ...knew her.
50:10 When it was time for the church to raise money...
50:12 I remember back then we had a problem with our furnace.
50:14 And having a furnace problem in Buffalo, New York
50:17 is a major issue.
50:20 The church had a problem with its furnace.
50:21 We needed to raise somewhere in the neighborhood of
50:23 60 to 70 thousand dollars to replace the whole
50:25 heating system in that church.
50:27 And everybody was pledging money.
50:29 And she pledged $25,000.
50:33 And she had no money.
50:35 Everybody knew she had no money.
50:37 But she came up with $25,000 in about three months.
50:41 Know how she got it?
50:43 She went back to those same bars where her drinking buddies
50:47 use to be and she got that money from those drunks.
50:51 And the ecclesio-ratti of the church said,
50:55 "You can't go to those bars.
50:57 Christians shouldn't be found in bars."
51:00 And she said, "Why not?"
51:03 Now she didn't know the theology of water.
51:05 All she knew was that when Christ is in your life,
51:08 you can go to a bar and you can get money from those people.
51:12 And you don't have to worry about them soiling you.
51:14 You can clean them up.
51:17 She found her second husband in a bar.
51:21 Brought him in, cleaned him up, got him baptized.
51:25 See, he didn't defile here.
51:27 She cleaned him.
51:30 Because she was a river of running water.
51:36 He didn't dirty her.
51:38 So anytime there was any call for money,
51:40 she would pledge.
51:42 And she'd trot right down to those same ole drinking buddies
51:45 and get money from them.
51:46 She'd say, "You know me.
51:48 Give it up."
51:50 And they would.
51:52 She would get ingathering goals.
51:54 She would get any kind of goal you want.
51:57 She was back in the bars cleaning those guys out
52:00 and getting money for Jesus.
52:03 You know, and the Lord never asked, that I know of,
52:04 "Where did that money come from?"
52:06 First of all, He knew where the money came from.
52:09 And she would bring those guys to church.
52:10 Some of them would sleep through the service.
52:13 Some of them were so drunk, I don't know if they heard
52:14 what was being said.
52:16 But they were in the building.
52:19 And they didn't defile her.
52:21 She cleansed them.
52:23 Why?
52:26 Because she had the running water.
52:29 She had the Holy Spirit in her life.
52:31 Years ago when I was a young pastor,
52:34 in my 20's, I had an older woman in my church
52:39 who brought her family up from Trinidad.
52:41 They were east Indians living Trinidad;
52:43 brought them to the States.
52:44 Four boys and a girl, and she wanted me to
52:46 give them all Bible studies.
52:48 And so this was the grandmother.
52:51 And I would come over on Friday evenings
52:53 and give them Bible studies, because that was the only day
52:54 I could get to them.
52:56 Their mother was not in the church.
52:58 And she did everything she could to distract me.
53:04 I'd be giving the Bible studies, got the kids lined up,
53:06 and she'd be standing in my line of sight.
53:09 And the grandmother sitting there, we're at the table.
53:12 She's over their shoulder in my line of sight...
53:19 I knew what she was trying to do.
53:22 But I wasn't there for that.
53:25 I was there to study the Bible with those kids.
53:28 And I baptized all four of them.
53:30 And I baptized that mother.
53:34 And she said to me, "Pastor, you know what I was trying to do?"
53:41 I said, "I'm a Christian, I'm not stupid.
53:45 I knew what you were trying to do.
53:47 But I was there on a mission for God."
53:49 And you know, that woman apologized to me.
53:52 Now this was before Irma.
53:54 Just out of school.
53:59 My point is, when you've got the living water,
54:02 they don't defile you.
54:05 You clean them.
54:07 Amen?
54:09 That's what living water was, and that's what Christ was
54:11 telling that lady at the well.
54:13 "Out of you shall flow rivers of water."
54:19 Because running water cannot be defiled.
54:26 Cannot.
54:27 Cannot be defiled.
54:33 So why does a river flow through it?
54:36 I think that river is symbolic of the power
54:41 of the God from which it flows.
54:44 It is a constant reminder that when you're in God,
54:50 when you're in Christ, you cannot be defiled.
54:54 And I think it will be there throughout all eternity
54:57 as a constant reminder of the eternal purity
55:01 and beauty of the heavenly experience.
55:04 Because there are many, many, many, many things
55:07 in this earth that can defile you.
55:10 You can turn on your television set and be defiled.
55:14 You can turn on your computer and be defiled.
55:18 You can turn on your radio and be defiled.
55:22 You can walk down the street and be defiled.
55:26 Years ago we took Mollie and a bunch of people
55:31 to New York City, and I took them to Times Square.
55:34 Two bad things happened; one, the van that I had rented...
55:37 I got it from Rent-a-Wreck. I should have known.
55:39 It broke down, so we were stuck in Time Square.
55:42 So I'm walking them along Time Square,
55:44 and people are handing out little pictures of nude women.
55:49 You know, and it's 11:30 at night,
55:51 and Time Square is just like 12 o'clock in the afternoon.
55:53 You can't move for the people on the street.
55:55 And everybody is trying to hustle you something,
55:57 everybody is trying to sell you something.
55:58 Everybody has got some filth or some trash
56:00 that they're trying to push under your nose.
56:02 And we just walked through.
56:03 And nobody picked up anything, and nobody took anything,
56:07 and nobody was tempted by anything.
56:08 Why?
56:11 Because you've got rivers of living water.
56:14 And they don't defile you.
56:17 You clean them.
56:20 Amen?
56:22 And that's what Christ told that woman at the well
56:24 that the Jews just couldn't understand.
56:28 Because they were so hung up on the temple,
56:30 and so hung up on Jerusalem,
56:31 and so hung up on their own way.
56:33 They couldn't understand that Christ was giving them the gift
56:36 that would keep them through all eternity.
56:38 He was giving them a gift that would allow them to do
56:41 precisely what the Lord called them to do.
56:44 And that is, let His light shine through their lives
56:50 to the whole world.
56:53 Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters,
56:54 that's what I want for me.
56:57 I want to have the streams of living water.
57:00 So that when people talk to me and walk with me,
57:04 they can say, "I see Jesus in him."
57:10 But more than that, "I want Jesus in my life."
57:16 Now we've got 14 seconds, I'm looking outside,
57:18 and it is pouring down outside.
57:21 It's raining so hard you can hardly see.
57:25 Let's think of that as living water.
57:27 Let's think of that as a confirmation of this message.
57:31 Amen? You can't see outside for the rain.
57:33 This is great timing. This is like television.
57:37 Shall we pray.
57:38 Father God, Lord we love You.
57:41 Give us the living water.

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Revised 2016-02-18