Debrecen Messages #11 – The River of Life Within: Christ as Living Water (Genesis to Revelation)

The name of the second river is Gihon. It flows around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris. And it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden; He actually escorted him from the place where He created him into the Garden, to cultivate and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, and this is a command, if you please, and it’s a command about diet, what you eat. Any tree of the garden, you may eat freely, and not work for it, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die. And that’s as far as we’re going to go because the next part is about the bride.

A girlfriend, a wife, a sweetheart, a love.

Alright, these are very strange words to all of us. There is a river. flowing out. And in fact, I will tell you, if it were not for the book of Revelation, we would not understand what this is all about. There was a river flowing out of the garden. In Revelation, where does that same river flow from? The throne of God.

I can only believe that God’s purpose in the garden was to place His throne there. It is my personal judgment, it’s more than my personal judgment, I’ve base this soundly on scripture, that when the Lord put man out of the garden, he removed the Garden of Eden from the earth, he not only just put a sword there, and a fiery circling sword, but he picked that garden up and took it to other realms.

Anyway, we have a river, and in the New Testament, that river is flowing from the throne of God, and that river is a river of bubbling living water. You’ve probably never heard of C.S. Lewis’ books entitled the Narnia Chronicles. Have you ever read them? If you ever get a chance to read them, the Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis, and one of them is called The Silver Chair. They go under the earth in their adventure, and they find living diamonds. Diamonds that are alive. Try to think of water that is alive.

It’s very hard for us to understand that in a fallen creation. Very difficult. Last year, or the year before last, I was at a large convention in Dallas, Texas, and it was a book convention, and it was big, bigger than anything you can imagine. Half a mile square, one room almost. Well, maybe not half a mile, but well over a quarter of a mile. And nothing but little booths and people selling books to bookstores, and I noticed some people running around in the room dressed like monks, and I thought they were just costumed up for selling some book.

That happens sometimes. So I got to talking to one of them, and it was really what he wears. And he belonged to some little group, and they were selling books of 2nd and 3rd century writers, Tertullian and people like that. And as I discussed, talked with them, I found out that they believed in salvation by water baptism, that if you were not baptized in water, you were not saved. And I thought about that for a moment. And I thought, you know, that would really be true if the water were alive. If it were alive. And I said to him, Sir, we live on a fallen creation. And we are fallen men. And the earth and this whole creation is praying for salvation and redemption. We are completely fallen, and everything around us is fallen.

How could fallen water possibly save us? Fallen water saving fallen man is not possible. It is the shadow of that water that not only saves us but refreshes us every day.

I’m going to ask you a very hard question, brother, but it’s a question we must deal with, maybe someday. I’ve never asked this question. Would you like to have another one of these conferences someday? And don’t be kind to me. Don’t be gracious. If this is enough, it’s enough. Would you like to do this again someday? Tell me the truth. Okay. Silence says no. Daniel?

I haven’t asked it yet. Where is that river today? And where is its origin? And where is it flowing from? Now, locate that river for me right now geographically. Where is it? Don’t anybody help Daniel. Daniel, this is a profound question. If we ever had another conference, we would deal with these matters. Where is that river right now geographically?