"Rivers of Living Water"

The blessed Holy Spirit has used many striking figures in the Word to illustrate the fullness of His blessings to the human race. In the 12th chapter of Isaiah He likens the grace of God to many wells, but in St. John's Gospel, chapter 7, verse 38, He compares it to rivers of water.

If Satan cannot hinder us from pressing our way through and getting saved, he will make a desperate effort to hinder our faith, beat us back and keep us on half-rations. If we will be Christians, he wants us to be meager, sickly, dwarfy ones. But God's thought for us is to be like "watered gardens," "springs of water" filled with "rivers of living water," etc. The term "rivers" suggests several thoughts to the mind of a careful reader. Note them as follows:

First, it calls our attention to the inexhaustible supply of grace, benefits, and blessings that God has in store for His children. Many of us pray as if we were afraid of asking too much of God, but Jesus says, "If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it" (John 14: 14). Remember, reader, "Giving doth not impoverish God, neither does withholding enrich Him."

The next thought that the "river" suggests is the unrestrained supply that God sends upon every obedient heart. I admit there are many things being done these days by men and money, but thank God! there is one thing they cannot do, and that is, stop the blessing of God from coming down upon his obedient children. Herod tried it in Jerusalem, but the results of damming it up caused it to burst over and flow to the ends of the earth. The men of Philippi tried to dam it up, by putting Paul and Silas in jail, but the thing commenced fermenting and burst open the jail and freed all of the prisoners. The old church tried it in the days of Wesley and White-field, but the thing broke out and washed all the bounds of time, planted the cross in every land, and swept millions of blood washed souls into glory

A third thought suggested by the "river" is, it causes vegetation and fruitage It is said the reason there were so many famines in Egypt was because the river Nile sometimes ran low and did not overflow her banks At this point, no doubt, we can trace the cause of the famine which is now upon us, it is because the church has failed to get the great outpouring of the Spirit, as was taught by Saint Paul, John Wesley, Fletcher and others.

Reader are you sanctified wholly, enjoying the fullness of the Spirit If not it is your indispensable duty to God and man to be so. Will you begin from this hour to cry mightily to God until He sanctifies you wholly, and thus makes you a river of living water to the many perishing souls around you?