Rivers of Living Water Will Flow

First we read about a vision given to the prophet Ezekiel....it is a vision of a remarkable temple

Ezekiel 47:1–12 NIV

1 The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2 He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was trickling from the south side. 3 As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. 4 He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. 5 He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. 6 He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?” Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. 8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. 9 Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. 10 Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. 11 But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

Now we read about a story that takes place in an actual temple.... this is the great Temple in Jerusalem....the sacred place of worship for God’s people the Jews. Jesus was planning to go to the Temple, but we wanted to delay his coming until just the right time.

John 7:1–9 NIV

1 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. 2 But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, 3 Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him. 6 Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. 8 You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee.

John 7:14–15 NIV

14 Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. 15 The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?”

John 7:37–44 NIV

37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 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. 40 On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “He is the Messiah.” Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? 42 Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” 43 Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 44 Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.

Temple. Water. Rivers.

In the Bible these three realities are inextricably connected. We just saw all of them mentioned in the Scripture passages that we just read, and they appear in many many other places in the Bible as well.

The history of their significance goes back to ancient Egypt. And I want to take us there for the next several minutes.

Many Biblical scholars agree that ancient Egypt was the fertile soil out of which the stories of the OT grew. In Egypt God was cultivating an imagination and understanding of the world that would be the seedbed for a new and utterly unique revelation of Himself as the One True God of Heaven and Earth. Many have said to really understand the OT well, you need to understand ancient Egypt.

And that makes sense; why? Well it is in that great ancient civilization where Abraham traveled (very likely Abraham saw the great pyramids of Egypt in Giza), where Moses was raised and schooled, and where the people of Israel lived in slavery for 400 years.

It is here in Egypt that God was cultivating an imagination and understanding of the world that would be the seedbed for a new and utterly unique revelation of Himself as the One True God of Heaven and Earth.

A year ago when I visited Egypt there was one particular Temple that I visited that really spoke into the themes that we are looking at this morning.

These are the ruins of the Amenhotep III temple near the Valley of the Kings, close to Luxor.

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[Aerial view of Temple]

The whole temple also symbolizes a mound and the "emergence of the world from the primeval waters of creation" every time the Nile river flooded the temple, since the Egyptians believed that the Earth was formed by a mound emerging from the water.[2] Therefore, it is believed that the temple was intentionally built on a flood plain so this ideology could come true.[1] Amenhotep III wanted to be revered as a god on Earth, not just in the afterlife. He built this enormous mortuary temple to leave a legacy that he was a living god who ruled on Earth. (Wikipedia, Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III)

Notice how striking the line is that divides the fertile Nile river valley and the wilderness!!

[up close picture of boundary]

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CHOOSE THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE..... will we follow this man Moses and his God.... or will we stay in the fertile vicinity of Egypt....where there is food, and life, and prosperity?

Our choice. Every day.... money, ethical decisions, pleasures...

BAPTISM.... I’m part of this community of people who has been called by this God, the One True God of heaven and earth....and I’m committing my life to follow Him wherever he may lead me...

We really have no idea when the people of Israel first heard the stories contained in the Books of Moses…the first five books of the Bible.....many believe it was when they were wandering in the wilderness....

But I can’t help wondering how this story must have struck them..... how God hovered over the watery chaos and darkness and spoke dry land into being, and more than just dry land but an abundant, verdant, fertile, garden temple called Eden. Here in this lush majestic garden temple with fruit trees in abundance, and animals of all kinds in the waters below and in the heavens about and across the face of the earth....here is the Temple that God was building for himself....and humankind was created male and female to walk with him and eat from the tree of life..... And then in that very story we read of four rivers that seem to flow from the very centre of the Garden, the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates....flowing out to water the face of the earth.

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And notice something with me.... I can’t help wonder if some of those Israelites would have made this significant connection..... Unlike the Amenhotep temple in Egypt…a temple had to receive it’s water from the Nile.... this Garden Temple is the very SOURCE of water…water that flows to the very ends of the earth to bring life.

Can you imagine how that point might have hit home for them when early in their wilderness (Exodus 17) wandering when they were thirsty....and grumbling..... why did you take us out of Egypt??? We had water and food and essential cared for!!.... When they were thirsty God instructed his servant Moses to strike a ROCK and right their before their eyes, living water flowed!!!

God wanted to teach his people a most important truth..... and I think was a truth that could only be truly understood in the wilderness.... a place where there is no WATER.... Israel needed to know that GOD HIMSELF IS THE SOURCE OF LIVING WATER!

How often haven’t God’s people longed for that living water....which really is a longing for God HIMSELF!

Longing for God? Psalm 42:1-2

Psalm 42:1–2 NIV

1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

God alone satisfies our spiritual thirst…

He brings water to our thirsty soul.

He brings hope to our despair,

he brings peace into our troubles,

he brings joy into our sadness,

he bring confidence into our doubts,

he brings comfort into our sorrow,

he brings encouragement into our worry....

The song writer puts it well... “earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal!”

God is living water for YOU and for me!

God’s people learned in the wilderness, albeit slowly, that God alone is the SOURCE of living water...

Centuries later Israel found themselves in another type of wilderness… now they’d been carried into exile by the Babylonians.... Jerusalem, their beloved city, was sacked, and the Temple, yes the very Temple of the living God destroyed.

While in exile, God sent to his people a prophet, Ezekiel, and his message to them included a vision of temple…notice the focus was not so much on the temple structure itself.... but much more on what was flowing out of it....ELABORATE.... bringing Dead Sea to LIFE!

The temple that was rebuilt after their return from exile in Babylon was most certainly not what it once was.

Centuries later another temple was constructed.... Herod’s temple....

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Jesus said, destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days… John tells us that Jesus was referring to his own body....

Then on one day, at just the right time, Jesus intended to reveal something very significant about himself....

In Jesus’ day this prayer for rain was dramatized in a very solemn ceremony. Each day of the week in the morning a large procession of people went down from the temple to a fountain on the southeast side of the temple in Jerusalem. This fountain was the one that supplies waters to the pool of Siloam. The sick and the lame would often wade in these pools in the hopes of being healed. There at the pool, a priest who was leading the procession would fill up a golden pitcher with water from the fountain. As he filled it up the choirs repeated Is.12:3 “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” Then the priest would lead the procession back into the temple courtyard. And as reminders of the booths that they used to construct, large crowds surrounded the procession with waving palm branches in hand singing Psalms and following the procession into the temple. Just imagine the noise, imagine the shouts, and imagine the excitement. And when they were in the temple the ceremony reached a powerful crescendo. The priest walked up a ramp to the altar while the crowds and the procession circled the altar and surrounded him. And they were all chanting together Ps. 118:25 “O Lord save us, O Lord grant us success.”

A huge crowd, gathered around the altar chanting this refrain over and over. And on the seventh day, the greatest day of the feast, the crowds circled the altar not once, but seven times. Chanting the refrain over and over again. And finally, while the crowds watched in silence, the priest would pour out the water into a silver funnel so that the water flowed out all over the ground. This act symbolized the prayers of the people to send rain from the heavens on the ground.

And then on this the greatest day of the feast, while the crowds stood in silence as they watched the priest pour out the water onto the altar, a young rabbi stands up and he cries out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”

Can you imagine, can you imagine what the crowds must have thought when this man was saying these things right and the greatest day of the feast. Who was this man? Is he the Christ? But how can the Christ come from Galilee?

Others were shouting blasphemer heretic some wanted to seize him writes John.

There is an essential connection between drinking the living water and being a channel of that living water…

As we drink from the Living Water that Christ alone provides, we become channels through which rivers of that same water flows.

Share some observations of a river that I once heard someone share…that help to apply this text…

All rivers have a Source… without the Source there is no River….invite congregation to come to a fresh taking in of Christ’s Presence through his poured out Spirit.

The banks of rivers are always fertile… new life is always sprouting up along the riverbank. [Share examples of how the ministries of New West are bringing forth LIFE.]

Rivers flow down. We must not be like a catch basin… but must tilt our lives down… take on the posture of a servant…so that the water will flow into the lives of others.

With open hands ask the Lord Jesus to fill you with that living water so that you will never thirst again.

Prayer. The prophet Isaiah writes for us, “with the joy we will draw water from the wells of salvation." Lord, God we ask this morning that that too would be our prayer. That we with joy would draw water from the well of salvation that Jesus Christ has come to give. We pray that your Holy Spirit, the one who Jesus himself had said he would send, would fill us with full measure. Forgive us when we seek water, when we seek meaning and purpose and satisfaction from a variety of water taps that our society offers. Help us all God, convict us this day, that you alone are the source living water. Fill us, quench us, so that we might have life, life that only Jesus Christ can give. In Jesus' name we pray. AMEN.