Living Water for a Dying World
Transcript
takes a lot of courage to lead that song. The imagery of that song about being on final judgment day and looking around and seeing a bunch of people that you knew and you had some kind of interaction with that you never said a thing to them about about the kingdom about the meaning that life meaning in life that God gives to us about the peace and restoration that he can bring into our life. We're we're sitting on the world's greatest treasure and it's our responsibility to get that out. The things that Berry talked about tonight is going to dovetail again very well with the things that we're going to talk about tonight. I'd invite you to open your Bibles to Ezekiel 47 and this is going to be the text that we're going to be in. And did you know that the Bible teaches that the Dead Sea is going to become alive again?
I I don't I'm not saying that the Bible's saying that that's literally going to happen, but that's exactly the imagery of this vision in Ezekiel 47. The Bible begins with a river that splits into four rivers in the Garden of Eden. That's I think going to empower Adam and Eve to tend the garden across the whole world. The Bible ends with another river that flows from the presence of God and gives healing to the nations. And in the middle of the Bible, there's another vision with a river, Ezekiel 47, that I think ties all of this together. And this is one of my favorite passages in the Old Testament to describe the mission of Jesus Christ and our mission. How many of us here have really been struck before with Ezekiel 47 1-12 and just had a deeper realization of who Jesus is and who we are? You guys are studying Ezekiel right now. Let me let me just say something about this text before we read this. Let me say something about Ezekiel.
The book of Ezekiel has four visions in it. And if you tie the visions together, there's only four times where it says Ezekiel was in the spirit and then he has this vision. He has a lot of very vivid preaching that he does, but there's only four times he's in the spirit. And if you put these visions together, these visions tell the story of the Bible. They the first one in Ezekiel 1, when Ezekiel sees the greatness of the the likeness of the glory of God and he's able to move wherever he wants to go. The Bible begins with God, the glorious creator making everything. But then Ezekiel 8 through11, Ezekiel's brought into the temple. We'll say a little bit more about this in a second where he sees all kinds of idolatry and abominations taking place in the house of the Lord. God is glorious. Man has defected from him. We're now dead. And so God is going to breathe life into that which is dead with the valley of dry bones.
And then the final vision, Ezekiel 40 through 48. And we're just going to look at a climactic moment. This is a huge long ninechapter vision, but this is the restored temple as it was always supposed to be. And what is it that this temple is accomplishing? Let's read Ezekiel 47 1-12. Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple faced east. The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east. And behold, water was trickling out on the south side, going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand. The man measured 1,000 cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle deep. Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, and it was knee deep.
Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, and it was waist deep. Again he measured a thousand and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. And he said to me, "This is a good question, son of man, have you seen this?" Then he led me back to the bank of the river. As I went back, I saw in the bank of the river very many trees on one side and on the other. And he said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arab and enters the sea. When the water flows into the Dead Sea, the water will become fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live. And there will be very many fish for the water goes there that the water of the sea may become fresh. So everything will live where the water river goes.
Fishermen will stand beside the sea from En-gedi to En-eglaim. It will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds like the fish of the great sea. But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh. They are left there for the salt. And on the banks on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fruit fresh fruit every month because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing. We we sort of just kind of plucked this text out of the book of Ezekiel, but the book of Ezekiel opens up in the first verse where he says, "As I was among the exiles by the Kebar Canal, the heavens were opened and I saw visions from God." Ezekiel is a prophet that's been taken into captivity. And while he's in captivity, he's by the Kebar Canal.
And if you were to look at a map, this would be sort of the region that the Babylonians would be leaving from to go and attack Jerusalem. So what Ezekiel is doing is he's sort of acting like a prophetic news anchor. Imagine him being with his fellow Jewish captives and he's getting these visions from the Lord and then he's going and communicating to these people. This is what the Lord wants me to tell you. So what is the message of the book of Ezekiel? For the first 32 chapters, it's judgment. It's we've been cheating on the Lord. It's we've not been what we ought to be. It's that the temple is filled with idolatry and we deserve everything that's coming towards us. Have you ever known those kind of preachers that are really imbalanced? It's like it's always hellfire brimstone or it's always love and grace and there's really no balance. It's one or the other. Have you ever noticed that the prophets in the Old Testament are very balanced?
It's judgment for the first section of the book and then the rest of it 33 to 48 is restoration. The valley of dry bones. This text that we're just looking at now. This is this is what's going on throughout the book. And threaded through these two main sections, you have a tale of two temples. The first temple in Ezekiel 8 through11 is filled with abominations. It's filled with ungodliness. And because of that, do you remember what God's doing in that text in Ezekiel 8-11? He's packing his bags and he's leaving. One of those, this happens in progressions in these chapters, but Ezekiel 10:18 is one of those verses. And it says, "Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stood over the cherubam." And then it continues to vacate. Just kind of quick side point here. The New Testament teaches that we are temples of the Lord. What does the Lord do with temples that are filled with idolatry?
Does he just kind of hang around them and stay with them all the time? Or is there coming a point where he will vacate that kind of temple? That's the first temple in the book of Ezekiel. But the final one, the final nine chapters of the book, the final words of the book say the Lord is there. That if this first temple is everything a temple should not be, the book of Ezekiel ends with what a temple ought to be. And we're asking the question, what is a temple supposed to be doing? a temple that's operating the right way. What does it do? And I have this I'm going to keep this up here for a little bit and I want you to imagine what's going on in this scene. Uh the Ezekiel is in the the temple courts and he's noticing that there's water trickling out from somewhere over here and uh he has to exit by this north gate. Is that coming on both sides? Cool. Uh so he has to exit by this this north gate.
The east gate. The Lord had gone through the east gate earlier and in chapter 44 verse1 that gate was shut. That's the Lord's gate. Ezekiel is going through the north gate and you imagine him walking around coming over here and going, "Well, what's going on with that trickle? I saw it leaving from the sanctuary where the Lord dwells and it look it it's continuing." And Ezekiel is with this, I guess, angelic figure. And he says, "Well, I want you to go 1,000 cubits, 1500 feet roughly." And so you can imagine Ezekiel walking and he he this little stream, this trickle of water. He he's walking and it goes ankle deep and he's like, "Can you imagine this looking around like th this is a pretty dry and aid place and uh I don't know how this got bigger." And then this angel says, "Another thousand cubits. Go another 1500 feet." And he goes a little bit further and now it's knee deep and you can imagine the sloshing around and maybe he's looking around going there.
I haven't seen any tributary streams. I'm looking up and there's no rain. I don't know how any of this is happening. Go again. Thousand cubits. He's he keeps going and it's getting harder and harder to move because now it's waste deep. If go again. Well, I can't even I can't can't even cross now. It's enough to be able to swim in. Ezekiel is asked this question. Son of man, have you seen this? Ask yourself that question. Have you seen this? Have you seen what this means? Have you seen what the intention of this is? You imagine Ezekiel he, you know, one and a third mile, he looks back and he sees the temple and he's looking out and what is it that he sees as he keeps looking?
He I can imagine him squinting his eyes and he sees that okay there's I as this river keeps going and it's so deep no tributaries and there's there's trees on either side of the bank that this little trickle has started and maybe he looks out even further and he sees in verse 8 that it's entering into the sea. What sea is so famous to the east of Jerusalem that you don't have to specify which one it is? The Dead Sea. Looking down over there, the Dead Sea is made up of 35% salt and minerals. The normal ocean is like three and a half%. People can float in this thing. And he he's look, everybody knows that the Dead Sea is dead. That's why it's given that creative name. And he's looking out at this and he can see somehow that it's bursting and teeming with life. There's there's turtles everywhere and there's fish everywhere and there's all kinds of beautiful trees all over the place.
And he even sees that there's fishermen spreading nets on different places, drying the nets out, get cleaning the nets. They're bringing fish in. When I lived in San Diego, there was a part of San of California that so much of California is like the promised land geographically. So when Alamians say that Alabama's God's country, it's probably Southern California, at least geographically, like the way that it is. I'm sorry if that offends you, but there's there's a sea in California called the Sultan Sea, and it the same kind of thing filled with salt and minerals. All kind nothing can live there. There's still like uh fishbones all over the place. That place used to be in the 60s and 70s a vacation place. And if anybody said that the Sultan Sea is going to be made into a great place for vacation again, nobody would have ever believed it. Do you notice in verse 11 that there are still going to be swamps and marshes and they're going to be left there for the salt?
Maybe one reason for that could be that this is a vision with the temple and salt accompanied the sacrifices at the temple. Maybe, you know, they still need their salt. I'll say something about this at the end of the lesson. But what do we do with a vision like this? What is this passage all about? And I would suggest first of all, this is a vision that is foreshadowing Jesus. And if we ask a couple different questions to this text, I think we can start to understand why that's the case. Start out first of all with the question, where is this flow of water coming from? And you notice that in verse one and in verse 12, it's coming from the temple. In verse 12, it's coming from the sanctuary. It's coming from the dwelling place of God. You remember how Ezekiel ends? The Lord is there where? In the sanctuary. And this trickle of water that looks pathetic and would never accomplish anything is now transforming the whole area. In the New Testament, who is the temple?
Remember in John 2:es 19- 21, Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "It has taken 46 years to build this temple and you will raise it up in 3 days." But he was speaking about the temple of his body. From Jesus flows everything you need for life. From Jesus flows your meaning in life. From Jesus flows your hope in life. From Jesus flows the reason that you can rejoice in suffering. Everything you need is in him. All right. So I think we can establish that. But notice another question that we could ask about this. What's the direction of the flow of water? In verse 8, it's flowing to that which is dead. In the Old Testament, the question about the temple would be, well, who can enter it? Who can come into this place? And now this vision is saying that the the contents of this place are no go now going out to the world to that which is dead.
If the first temple in the book of Ezekiel took the dead ideas from the world and brought it into the house of God, now this vision is taking the life that God has and going out to that which is dead. Does this describe the earthly ministry of Jesus? Remember in John chapter 4 when he's talking to that icky woman at the well and he brings up the idea of living water and having water all the time so you don't have to be thirsty ever again. She needs this direction to flow towards her from him. But if you go back one chapter and you look at Jesus talking with Nicodemus who by cultural standards is the opposite of the woman at the well. This guy's a respected the teacher of Israel. this guy's he's got it together in this other way. And Jesus there with that guy says, "You have to be born of water and spirit." What kind of people did Jesus befriend? He was known as the friend of tax collectors and sinners.
What kind of people did he go to? Do you think in this room that there's people here that have different kinds of backgrounds? like morally speaking that there's some people here that before you were ever a Christian you were the kind of person that the world would look at and say you were really bad and then there was other people here that would the world would say you were pretty respectable but yet we're all here together because we needed Jesus to flow towards us and we were the ones that understood that but like the Dead Sea that keeps does the Dead Sea keep receiving fresh water all the time from the Jordan River just all the time. Does it ever change it? Do Do you think that this describes our life sometimes where we're sort of like the Dead Sea and we keep trying to get different streams to come into our life to finally give us life and they never they never work? Education, money, glory, politics, athletics, finding a spouse, whatever it might be.
And we're hoping that these different things might finally transform me until one day Romans 5:5 happens. God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Have you experienced that? Bar Berry talked about that in his lesson that of all the things that could be poured into your heart, this is what you need and Jesus came and went to people who needed it. But let notice another question. What's the manner of the flow? It starts out small and it becomes something that nobody ever could have predicted. Can you imagine if you were Ezekiel standing at the threshold of the temple and somebody and the angel just said, "Hey, where do you think that's going and what do you think it's going to become?" Nothing. But then that's why he has to go on a field trip and keep walking and go and see for yourself. Jesus doesn't come from any important place.
He's connected to some important people, but those people he's connected to, uh, Mary and Joseph, they're not the kind of people that by earthly standards matter too much. Born in a place that Romans wouldn't even really be very familiar with. He picks 12 uncommon uh, people, 12 common people that are uneducated. And imagine for a moment that Jesus is walking around with his apostles and they walk by a Roman military outpost and then somebody asks you the question, what's going to last longer? The Roman Empire or those 13 guys right there and what they're doing? Everybody would say the Roman Empire. But yet 2,000 years later, here we are having a gospel meeting about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the things that he's established. It's like the parable of the mustard seed. begins small. Nobody could have predicted that this is what it was going to be. But yet here we are. Do you see how this predicts Jesus? This doesn't only predict Jesus though.
I would submit to you that this also is a prediction of Christians as well. Let if we ask the same questions to this, the source of the flow. Does the New Testament say anything about Jesus being a temple? Yeah, we already established that. Does it say anything about Christians now being the temple of the Lord? Yes. If we were going to go back to the Gospel of John when Jesus is at the temple during the feast of boos, he says this, and just try to imagine a human being saying this. John 7:37-38. If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. the last day of the feast of boos when the Jews would go down to the Kiddran Valley and they would get water and they would pour it in the temple grounds in anticipation that the blessings of the spirit would come.
The kind of stuff that Berry was talking about on Sunday in anticipation that the new covenant would eventually come. And Jesus on that day, can you just imagine somebody getting up and says, "Any of you guys thirsty? If you believe in me, out of your hearts will flow what? rivers of living water because you're each going to become a temple saying it in the temple complex. Now I have do do you know what the Bible means by living water? Do you know what it means? This is a land that is arid. It's a land that is not like the n that like Egypt that has the Nile. It's a land of mountains and it's a land of of all kinds of ruggedness. Here's an image that would help you understand what living water is. There's mountains all over the place in Israel. And what living water is is you get water that rains on top of a mountain and it finds cracks in the mountain to go deep underground and then it finds areas to shoot out.
That's what this is. Living water. It's moving through the cracks of the mountains until it hits a like a a thick layer of of rock that it can't penetrate now. And then it it gushes out in springs. And you could go to the promised land today and if you were to find a spring, you could open up your water bottle and fill it up with that water. And it's already filtered because of the rocks. That's what living water is. It would look like something like this. You got places like this in En-gedi. And God put these kinds of places all over the promised land. And what is Jesus saying? Out of your heart will flow rivers of living water. Now, in order for these springs to gush out, what what has to happen first? That water's got to get deep into those rocks and then eventually it starts to come out. Do you know if you want to be a river of living water, what has to happen to you? This has got to get deep in you.
We're not trying to just slosh it out. It's going to gush out of us when we believe. We've become the same thing. Ask the question then, what's the direction of this flow? Just like Jesus goes to that which is dead, what is it that the Christians in the book of Acts did? That when there was a great persecution that arose, they they went everywhere and they were preaching the word even when the apostles were not there with them. This is a picture of what we're supposed to be. Um, Isaiah 32 talks about the princes of the king that are going to belong to King Jesus. And it says this about these princes in Isaiah 32:2. They're going to be like streams of water in a dry place. When I lived in San Diego, there was a man at the church who was just diagnosed with Alzheimer's, actually. Uh but when I lived there, he had his own private plane. And in in Southern California, there's a city called Calexico, Klexico, because it's on the border of Mexico.
And then if you go across the border, there's another town called Mexalei, cuz it's in Mexico, but close to California. He had a bunch of property in Kexico. So one day he says, "Hey, Erik, do you want to fly in my little plane, my little bonanza, and uh go to these properties that I manage?" And I'm like, "Well, why not? That sounds like fun. And so we're in his airplane, like a 45minute flight, and I can look down and we're in Southern California leaving San Diego to Klexico. And I look down and it's it's desert, desert, desert, desert. Suddenly a bunch of farmland. And I asked Allan when we were on the airplane, I said, "Why is there suddenly a bunch of farmland here?" And he said, "Well, in the early 1900s, the Colorado River was diverted to this area, and that's why there's life here." Now, that's you in your workplace where there's non-Christians, in your school where there's non-Christians, in your family where there's non-Christians.
God sets up his people that deeply have the the living waters in their hearts and then it gushes out of them. Not in a violent way, but in a refreshing way. It gushes out of us and we have the words of eternal life to share with other people. He's done the same thing with us.
You need to look at yourself like you're a stream of water in a dry place. And there's people all around you that are like the Dead Sea that have been trying to pull from this stream. They've been trying to pull from that stream and they're thirsting and they're lacking for meaning and identity and hope. And they don't have a kingdom and they don't have a loving king and you have the information. You have the reality. Let's ask the last question though. What's the manner of the flow? starts out small and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. This principle is all over the Bible. Don't they call that the butterfly effect? That there's a butterfly somewhere that flapped its wings and then that somehow creates a chain reaction to create a hurricane or something like that.
Um small How does somebody get to a point where they ever become qualified to be an elder? is because they consistently pray and they consistently read their Bibles and when there's something that they need to work through in their life, they go to people that know more than they do about that and they just humbly gently have little conversations about these things until it piles up and they become somebody that can be a blessing to other people. We could ask it this way. What's the most powerful thing happening in Sarahand right now? Do you suppose there could be somebody or let's just say Mobile? We went to the ship yesterday and there I get there there's a really big ship being made right now. Is that pretty powerful? Big equipment and everything like that. Let me submit this to you. What we're doing right now is the most powerful thing happening in Sarland right now. Every day slowly getting the word of God in our heart singing hymns to our creator having productive conversations with one another.
God works in ways that we would never predict that this meeting right now would contribute to us being a blessing to other people. Small small disciplines. What about small invitations? Berry talked about invitations, inviting somebody to lunch, things like that. Um, do you know anybody that you could just say, "Hey, do you want to read the Bible with me?" I mean, you go ask people their conversion stories. Even if they grew up in the pews, you ask them their conversion stories and ask them, "What were the things that helped you get to where you were?" And it's going to be the accumulation of a lot of things that by themselves we would look at and say, "That's that's nothing. That's a small thing. Why would that matter?" Um, Mark chapter 5, do you remember Mr. demon-possessed man? Jesus casts the demon demons out of him and they go into the pigs and then the pigs go into the uh to the sea to the sea. And then Jesus leaves this guy with a mission.
And he he gives him like like 20,000 words to keep telling everybody. Except that's not what it was. He says, "I want you to go everywhere and I want you to tell the your people what the Lord has done for you." That's not a lot of words. This is what the Lord I was a demonpossessed. Now I'm not. I was demonpossessed. Now I'm not. The pig. Yeah, the pig thing was true. I was demonp possessed, now I'm not. He He doesn't have much. What about the woman at the well in John chapter 4? What does she go into her city and tell people? Uh, there's a man who knows everything that I've ever done. There's a man who knows everything that I've ever done. And that city gets changed. It's not because either of these people had an abundance of sermons to preach to people. They had a small set of words to say, and it does way more than we ever would have anticipated.
When before I ever started preaching, I remember what I was I already had my plan made up. One way or another, I was leaving Minnesota and I was going to get my degree in marketing and then I was going to go down to New Mexico where there was a Christian there who owned a marketing firm and that's what I wanted to do. And then one day when I was meeting with Andy Cantrell at a coffee shop, he said, "Hey, Erik, have you ever thought about preaching?" And I said, "No, that sounds like not something I'd want to do." He's like, "Well, you should think about it." And I said, "Okay." And so then I started thinking about it. And the night that I told my mom and dad at dinner, that was World War II. Uh, but all of that began 16 years of preaching now began with a small conversation.
And there's there's been a few times that I've thought about quitting preaching, but during the years, there's been some brethren who's written me nice cards, and I have all three of them in my office now. And whenever I've gotten discouraged, I've gone back and looked at those and thought,"Well, maybe the Lord can use a vessel like me." You don't know what one text can do to somebody. You don't know what one small invitation can do for somebody. When we talk about doing work for the kingdom, it doesn't start with me having to imagine some big thing. We serve a God that serve that fed over 5,000 people with two fish sandwiches. But you start small. You don't despise small things. If Ezekiel would have despised this little trickle, he never would have seen what God was doing with it. If you despise little things, little conversations, little invitations, you may not be able to go and see what's happening to the Dead Sea.
I had mentioned earlier that there was the swamps and marshes and maybe they're there because of the sacrifices, but maybe part of what's going on here is that even with all of these great things happening in this region, there will still be sticks in the mud. There's still going to be people that don't want to be transformed even all even though all of this is passing them right by. Is there anybody here that's a swamp or a marsh when you could be having the living waters that come from Jesus? We're seeing from this text that God's lifegiving blessings flow from his presence transforming things that are dead. And we as believers have become part of that flow. Is that what your life is all about? We're about to sing a song. I am resolved. No longer to linger. no longer charmed by the world's delights. Are any of us looking at the things that sparkle in the world when God could be using you for the most powerful things that could have ever happened in human history?
If there's anything that we can do for you, if there's any way that you need prayer or encouragement, don't leave here without talking to somebody.