May God be pleased to bless us
together this morning as we meditate in his word. Let us turn to the
book of Psalms, Psalm 46, and we'll read verse 4. Psalm 46, and we'll read verse
4. There is a river, the streams
whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the
tabernacles of the Most High. Well, I expect you young children
know what a river is. I expect you've all seen a river.
And what we're told here is there is a river The streams whereof
shall make glad the city of God. Now, how is a river formed? Well, a river, of course, has
a beginning. And the beginning of a river
really is when there's a spring, which springs out of the ground. And usually the water from that
spring is very pure. And it springs out of the ground,
and that is the beginning of a river. Now if you think then
of a very small beginning, and then you think of something like
the River Thames, which I guess you've all seen, which of course
as it gets down towards the sea is a very broad river, you may
think, well, how does that become such a big river? Here we have
here the streams, whereof shall make glad the city of God. So
the picture we have here is of a river with streams coming into
it. And of course, all those streams
also have a beginning. They all have a fountain of water
springing up. And of course, a river therefore
takes its fullness from all those streams and then sometimes streams
have little streams coming into them. So there is a vast amount
of streams coming in to form a river. Now I'm sure you can
understand that, can't you? All you young people can understand
what that means and it's an easy picture for us to understand.
But then as we know the Bible describes really the great truths
concerning our souls. And here we have in this chapter,
in this verse, this spiritual picture. And it tells us this,
there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city
of God. And again you may think, well
what is the city of God? Well the city of God is really
the church of God. And therefore These streams,
they make glad the Church of God. It goes on the holy place
of the tabernacles of the Most High, a place of course where
God dwells with his people. So we might say, well therefore,
how is this relevant to a spiritual condition? What does it mean
in spiritual context. What it really, I believe, means
is this. We have here a river, which is really the life of God
in our soul, and we have these streams which make up this river,
make up this life, and these streams each have an individual
situation. And we can think of them like
this. They have stream of God's love, we have a stream of God's
grace, we have a stream of God's mercy, and we have a stream of
God's faith that he gives to us. Now of course there are more
than that, but there are just some simple and important illustrations
for us to consider, that in our life our spiritual life, have
we the evidence of these streams of God's love and mercy and grace
and faith coming into our hearts and producing that which makes
us glad and makes the Church of God glad? Well, it is therefore
a very important consideration for us. to have the evidence
of spiritual life in our souls like a river. The river flows. A river is never stationary,
not a river that is fed from springs and streams. It's never
stationary, it's always flowing. And it always flows, of course,
out into the ocean. may we know what it is to have
a flowing river as we see it, as our soul is. A flowing river,
that means it's ever moving, that means there's ever a sign
of life within, it's never stagnant, it's not like sometimes ponds
we see, don't we see a pond and it has perhaps no fresh water
coming into it, and it becomes stagnant. But a flowing river
does not. And we read together that last
book in the Bible, the 22nd chapter in the Revelation, because it
starts off in a very beautiful way. This is what it says. John was being shown many things
and God showed to John the Apostle, and he showed me a pure river
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb. Now, what a blessing if you and
I have a spiritual life, and if we have that spiritual life,
that which God has given to us is pure. It's wonderful to think
that All the gifts of God are pure. There's nothing wrong with
them. There's nothing corrupt. There's
nothing muddy. We perhaps make things corrupt,
and we perhaps make things muddy. But God's river, as it flows
into our soul, through those living streams, is pure. And it's so pure, it's clear
as crystal. And perhaps we know what Crystal
means it's a very pure thing and therefore God's goodness,
God's mercy, God's love is pure. And what a favour therefore if
God has showed to us, like he showed to John on this occasion,
this pure river of water of life. You see, it was living. It wasn't
stagnant. It wasn't dead. And all of us
today, we need to know and we need to realise and have the
evidence that we are possessors of this river, this water of
life, which is clear as crystal, and it proceeds from God himself. That's what we're told here.
It proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. It's not of any provision of
man. It is the provision of Almighty
God. And it's a wonderful thing, isn't
it, to try and visualise this as we can think of it in a natural
way, a beautiful, clear river, fed from a pure source, flowing
on, and that is really The picture we have of God's grace toward
us, God's love to us, his mercy and faith, the streams are pure. And to think that God brings
those into our life, into our heart, and they spring up. A natural spring springs up from
the ground. We don't know how it happens.
We don't know what's under the ground. All we see is this spring
of water springing up. We call it a source. When a stream begins, there's
a source. And you and I can go sometimes
to a source of these streams and see there is this coming
up, springing up out of the ground, this water, this pure water. Now, the blessing is we have
this wonderful picture But we need to have the picture applied
very strongly to our own spiritual life, to see whether there is
a source of our spiritual life. It is which God has brought about,
and that God has kept flowing. You see, if springs didn't keep flowing,
and if therefore the streams didn't keep flowing and therefore
the river would never keep flowing. There is a dependency upon that
spring continuing to produce water and so it is in our spiritual
life. You and I are dependent upon
this water of life springing up in our souls. You may remember that the Lord
Jesus, when he was on the earth, there was an occasion when he
had a need. And we're told he had a need
to go through Samaria. He had to go through Samaria. And what do you think occurred
on that journey through Samaria? Well, first of all, he became
tired. we should never forget that the
Lord Jesus in his human form was the same as we are. And he
became tired like you and I get tired on a journey. And Jesus
became tired and he sat on a well. Now we know of course it was
very wonderful that in God's eternal purpose it was to be
and who should come along but a woman. And very amazingly The
Lord Jesus had a conversation with this woman. His disciples
had left him, they'd gone into the village to buy some food,
and here was this woman come to this well to draw water. Jesus
was sitting on it, and he therefore spoke to her. And she was surprised,
surprised that he should speak to her. And she told him, look,
You don't have any dealings with the Samaritans. The Jews don't
have any dealings. And yet you see the Lord was
speaking to her. Perhaps sometimes we might think,
well, the Lord's not going to have any dealings with me. Perhaps
I feel I'm too bad. The glory of the Gospel is this.
No one is too bad. No one is too bad. No one is
too sinful. And this woman, of Samaria came
then to the well. And there was Jesus at the well. And what a wonderful thing it
was because she came to draw water and Jesus answered a very
simple question, give me to drink, give me to drink. And the woman of Samaria said,
how is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me which am a
woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans. And there is an important lesson
here for us, isn't there? You see, the Lord Jesus asked
a question that invited an answer. And you and I should always be
concerned, should be on the lookout for an opportunity to put questions
to people that evoke an answer. An answer, in her case, was a
request, really, it came to. An opportunity to speak about
the things of God. You see, we live today in a pretty
dark age, and the one thing we have to face is the devil always
wants us to not say anything. He wants us to shut our mouth.
And you and I should pray, if we are true believers, pray for
opportunities to be able to speak to people about the things of
God. And we need wisdom and we need
grace to do that, not to jump in and say harsh and wrong things. The Lord here, you see, just
asked this woman that he might receive a drink from her. And
that was a very wonderful way in which the Lord introduced
the subject of living water. And you know, it's a question
of the day sometimes, isn't it, that people want water to drink. Well, here's a little opportunity
to speak about the things of God to people. Again, let us
not lose sight of the fact that the Word of God tells us that
we are God's witnesses as the people of God. And it's something
perhaps which we tend to forget today, we tend to turn away from. But it's very important that
you and I live our life as Christians should live our life, and not
as though we were a heathen. Well, the Lord came. And he spoke
to this woman, and Jesus said unto her, if thou knewest the
gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink,
thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee
living water. Well, there's a statement, isn't
it? That's a surprise, isn't it? And this woman then couldn't
understand it. She said, thou hast nothing to
draw with. And the well is deep. From whence
then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father
Jacob, which gave us the world to drink thereof himself, and
his children, and his cattle? And then Jesus gave her a tremendous
statement. Whosoever drinketh of this water
shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I
shall give him shall never thirst, But the water that I shall give
him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting
life." My friends, all of us today need the blessing of everlasting
life. And that everlasting life comes
to us through the gift of God as he gives us this water of
life. Now this water of life, come
back to the illustration we have of these streams. The water of
life, the living water of life, directs us by the Spirit of God
to His amazing grace toward us. His wonderful favour which came
to this woman, The woman now saw the attraction in this, and
she said, Sir, give me this water. Do you desire God to give you
the water of life? The everlasting water of life? And that water of life, centred
in the grace of God, and the love of God, and the mercy of
God, and the faith of God, do you pray for it? Do you cry for
it? Do you thirst for it? The water
of life, everlasting, God gives you it. You'll never thirst again. It's everlasting, how vital it
is. And you see Jesus, he answered
her again in a different way to what she expected. God does
this sometimes. We may ask for things and God
doesn't give us a direct answer. We have many occasions in the
Word of God when this occurred. We expect perhaps a direct answer.
There wasn't a direct answer given here. Jesus said, go tell
thy husband and come hither. Why do you think the Lord spoke
in this way? Why do you think he spoke in
this way? He spoke in this way to reveal her sin. And it revealed her sin, you
see. She had to come and she had to
say, which was true, I have no husband. But then you see the
Lord God, he then fired the arrow of conviction. Yes, and what
was that? Thou hast well said, I have no
husband, for thou hast had five husbands. And he whom thou now
hast is not thy husband, in that says thou truly. Well, the woman
was convicted, wasn't she? She was convicted to realise
that what the Lord had said to her was true. Oh yes, it had
come home, hadn't she? She realised the Lord then knew
all about her. And so she said, I perceive that
thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is a place where men
ought to worship. And Jesus said unto a woman,
believe me. This is the great truth, isn't
it? Woman, believe me. Man, believe me. Boy and girl,
believe me. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved. Oh, how vital it is. that you
and I possess, this wonderful grace, this stream, this living
stream, and it comes up from this fountain of living water.
There is a beginning. There was a beginning in the
life of this woman, in the spiritual life of this woman. There was
a beginning. And the beginning was that she
desired this living water. She's able to come now when the
Spirit of God has, by the words of the Saviour, convinced her
that this is no ordinary man. This is no ordinary man. Our
fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship Jesus. And unto her,
woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship,
ye know not what. We worship, we know what we worship,
for salvation is of the Jews. And the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. important it is that you and
I realise that today. We've gathered here in this building. It's just a building of bricks
and mortar. We've assembled here. What to do? Well, it would be
a great blessing if we were assembled to worship the Lord God. That God who dispenses the water
of life. That God who has given us a thirst
after spiritual things. What a wonderful thing it is
if today we have the evidence of this stream, this stream of
God's grace. Let's not forget His grace is
nothing that you and I can merit, nothing that you and I deserve.
It's free, the Gospel is free. The water of life is free. What
a mercy it is then, if we are given grace to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and to receive this water of life. We all need
it. We all need it. Without it, we
shall perish in our sins. With it, we should go to glory. What an important consideration
it is then, isn't it? to be blessed with this water
of life. And so this woman came and she
said, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ. When
he has come, he will tell us all things. And what was her
response? Jesus said unto her, I that speak
unto thee am he. What a wonderful blessing this
morning. The Lord Jesus speaks to our
heart with power from on high. The Word of God enters in to
our heart. It penetrates and it has an effect. You know this had an effect upon
this woman to such an extent she forgot what she'd come for.
She left her water pots. She went back into the city.
Do you know what she said? Come see a man that told me all
things ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Revelation by the Spirit of God
to this woman. So today, what a blessing if
you and I possess this revelation. that there is that water of life
springing up, that stream, the stream of God's grace, the stream
of God's love, the stream of God's mercy, and the stream of
faith. Well, if God gives us, and he
does to his people, these streams, and then flow into the river,
the river of life. And there it flows. It flows
down as it were to the ocean. And it flows down until we are
at last received in the glory. And it flows and there is this
city of God. And it makes glad because the
church of God rejoice as they see these streams flowing. They see God's goodness. What
they seek is mercy and make glad the city of God. There's many
things to make the church of God sad today. But one thing
that makes them glad is to observe God's work, God's light, God's
work, the life that he gives to dead sinners, to dead souls. There is the evidence of that
work of grace The evidence of his love and his mercy. Oh, it makes glad the city of
God. The church of God rejoice. They
praise God as they see these things occurring. There is a
river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God. Well, today, do we see these
streams? Do we see the grace of God in
our own life? Do we see in the lives of others?
Do we see His work appearing? It's a wonderful thing to see
the work of God appearing. It's a glorious scene, and it's
something that you and I can't do. It's His work, the work of
Almighty God, to bring life, to bring this living water, to
flow. You see, it does flow, this movement. There's movement, and there is
in the living soul. There's movement. There's life. There's the evidence of the work
of God. It's a glorious thing to observe,
isn't it? How lovely it is to see God's grace in one and another. You know the Church of God are
looking for it. They look for it in the souls
of those who perhaps have no evidence any life. There's been
no streams of love and mercy. But the Church of God, the living
Church of God, they're looking for these things. And they rejoice
when they see them. And so may there be the evidence
of it in our lives today. Well, let's just think of these,
the four points I mentioned. First of all then, the grace
of God. That which produces a change. A change. God's grace does provide
a change. And it turns us. It turns us. It turns us around. And from
following our own sinful way, from following the desires of
our own sinful heart, God's grace turns us around. And it turns
us in an opposite direction And that direction is this, whereas
we were pleasing ourselves, now the opposite direction is a concern
to please God. That is an evidence of His grace. And so this morning, have we
that evidence in our lives, the wonderful evidence of this stream
This stream of God's grace, it sprung up, it wasn't there, and
it sprung up in our hearts. And what does it produce? I'll
tell you what it produces. God's grace produces pure desires,
heavenly desires. desires that are Christ-ward. That's the spring of God's grace
coming up. It's His goodness to us. There's
nothing that you and I can produce. You see, you can't stand over
the ground and suddenly expect the water to spring up where
you're standing. You and I, my friends, can't produce the grace
of God ourselves, but we can pray for it. and we can desire it and we can
seek for it. If God therefore gives us his
grace, any beginning, any spiritual beginning emanates from God. It doesn't emanate from ourselves.
Because God does that for us, which we could not do for ourselves. You can't make water suddenly
spring out of the ground. You can't suddenly produce the
grace of God in your hearts. But God does it. And God gives
you a prayer, a spiritual prayer, a desire. As it were, you suddenly,
you come to your senses. And God shows you. You're going
in the wrong way. You're going headlong to hell. It turns you around. You suddenly
see you have a need. You never realised before. You
were happy doing the things you wanted to. You may have had an
out with former religion, but there's no life. There's no life. This is living water. This is
what God gives, and it's His grace, and it's so unmerited. And what does it do? It humbles you. It humbles you
under the mighty hand of God. To think that that great God
has looked upon you and has caused you to consider your ways, caused
you to seek unto Him, It's because there is this spring, this stream,
which is flowing now, never did before. What a blessing, what a favor,
if you and I can trace it out, can see the evidence of it, his
work, and to praise him for it, the work of his grace, and that
really goes hand in hand with another stream, doesn't it? The
stream of his love. It is because of His love that
He causes us to consider our ways. And that's an amazing thought,
isn't it? The love of God is rich and free. We never deserved it, we never
will. Why should God love such an unworthy
sinner? It's because of his grace. He sets his love upon us. And
what is it? It's as a stream springing up
of pure water of life, the love of Christ. Oh sinner, rejoice
in it. If the Holy Spirit has given
you to realize a touch of the love of Christ. It is an eternal
blessing. It is so valuable that it will
bring your safe home to glory. But it is so necessary that we
have that stream. We know the love of Christ. Indeed, the three go together,
the love of God, the love of Christ, and the love of the Holy
Spirit, because they all work together in our salvation. It's
a united work, and it's a glorious work, and how humbling it is
for us to recognise that wonderful work. And the work was so great,
the love was so great, that the Father sent his only begotten
Son into this sinful world. But whosoever believeth on him,
another whosoever believeth on him shall not perish, but have
eternal life. And what do we believe in? We believe in the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe in what the
Lord Jesus Christ did to bring about salvation. He died to pay
the price of our sins. You see, the work of grace brings
us to realise where we are, like that woman of Samaria, the Spirit
of God entered in, She realised that God knew all about her,
and the Spirit of God enters into our heart, so that we realise
God knows all about us, everything, nothing is hidden, and it's His
love that reveals such a truth as that to your and my soul.
You may think, well that's very obvious. Well, let me tell you
this, it's only obvious when the Holy Spirit comes and gives
us the water of life, because until then, we don't realise,
we don't know. But when that occurs, there's
a great reason to bless God for his love toward us, because it
is of his love that he condescended to come into this world, to die,
that we might receive the gift of eternal life. Oh, what a blessing
that is. What a mercy. this stream of
God's love. So, ponder these things, go home
and think about them. The stream of God's grace, the
stream of God's love, and then the stream of God's mercy. Why? Why should you and I have
received any mercy? What have we done to deserve
God's mercy? What have we done? We've done
everything to cause God to not show us any mercy. Any mercy. We've turned our back upon God.
Every one of us, without any doubt, have turned our back upon
God in our life and we've said, I'm not going to do that. I'm
not going to follow that way. No, I'm not going to go to chapel
anymore. I'm fed up with it. I don't believe
these things. They're all just figments of
your imagination. But you see, when the Holy Spirit
comes and shows us His mercy, you know what happens then? We
are ashamed of our arrogance. We're ashamed of the hardness
of our heart. We're ashamed of the opposition
we've had to God. And we realise how great is His
mercy. Him right has it right. Mercy
is welcome news to those who guilty stand. And what mercy
it is, and what good news it is, and what a wonderful stream
it is. And it sprung up streams of His mercy. There is a river. It's all formed
out of these streams. Without these streams, there's
no river. But with these streams, there is a river. There is a
river. The streams whereof shall make
glad the city of God. And then you think of the stream
of faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. Yes, that's a mercy, isn't it?
God gives us faith to believe. And we didn't possess it ourselves.
It wasn't something that we suddenly managed to work ourselves up
into some religious kind of frenzy. No, the Holy Spirit of God comes
and gives us faith, simple God-glorifying faith to believe the truth of
God's word. to believe that the Father did
send his only begotten Son to redeem us from our sins, to direct
us to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, as God gives us faith
to view the Saviour, we view Him as our Saviour, not in a
general way. We may in a general way, but
real religion is personal, my friends. Let us not move away
from that. You and I need a personal relationship,
unbelievable as it is, with Almighty God. A personal relationship. And that personal relationship
is formed through these streams. And the stream that God gives
us faith to believe. You read through the Word of
God and you will find that every single child of God was given
faith. Faith to believe, faith to change. We heard on Friday Gerald spoke
about Manasseh, Manasseh who was a most wicked man. God gave
him faith to seek the Lord, to pray to God. There was no hope
for him outside of the mercy of God. There's no hope for you
and me today outside of the mercy of God. We need it. We need this
blessed and glorious stream. And so we have here this text. There is a river. There is a
river. The streams whereof shall make
glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the
Most High. And this is holy ground. You may say, why is it holy ground?
Because it's the work of God. And my friends, the work of God
is a holy work. It's a pure work. There's no
sin in God's work. There's sin with us, but not
with God. It's pure and it's holy. Shall make glad the city of God,
the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. Well, to realize
the blessing of this, well, this morning, my friends, I hope that
all of us may have the evidence that we know these streams in
our spiritual life. And if we don't, be honest to
God and don't pretend that you do if you don't, but come pleading
to God that he will look upon you in mercy and in love and
through his great grace give you faith to come casting all
your care upon him, believing he cares for you and then to
rejoice therefore in the good news of salvation and to rejoice
in the greatness of God and to rejoice that this great God has
condescended to take notice of such an unworthy sinner. That
will bring joy into your heart, the good news of the gospel,
and you will go on your way thankful to know and to believe that this
God has looked upon you and has not passed you by. But what has
he done? He said these words, live, live,
the water of life. has flowed into your soul, and
that water of life therefore will never cease. It will ever flow throughout
time and bring you safe home into glory. There is a river,
the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy
place of the tabernacles of the Most High. Amen.