Would you join me in your Bibles
tonight to the last chapter of the book of Revelation, Revelation
chapter 22. It is my prayer as we begin this
last chapter and as we prayed with all the chapters that we
might see Christ and the blessings of his redemption. The key verse
of this book continues to be Revelation 1.1, the revelation of Jesus Christ. And then it goes on. Just turn
over there. Keep your finger in chapter 22 and look at Revelation
1.1, the revelation of Jesus Christ. This is not the revelation
of John. This is not the revelation of
Saint John the Divine, it is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
John was the secretary that God put on an island, the Isle of
Patmos. And I feel that John wondered
for a moment why in the world he would be arrested for preaching
the gospel and placed on an island, exiled. got away from all his
friends, taken away from all his friends. And yet, while he
is there, he is given one of the great and blessed statements
about the Lord Jesus Christ, as it's found in this book. The
revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto
his servants things which must shortly come to pass. And he
sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John. Now, we've mentioned a number
of times in the past that that word revelation is the word apocalypse. And we hear that in our conversation
a lot today. We hear people using that term.
And most people that use it, use it so very incorrectly. The word apocalypse today has
been made to assume it means wars and all kinds of end times
tragedies happening, but the word itself never meant that
and shouldn't be used that way today. If you'll look with me
in the book of Luke chapter 2, Verse 32, we find that same word
revelation or apocalypse is found over here in the book of Luke
chapter 2. And in this verse of scripture,
it shares with us some of the ideas that the Lord intended
to be used with that word found in the book of Revelation chapter
1 and verse 1. The revelation or the apocalypse
of Jesus Christ. And here in Luke chapter 2, and
here, Luke chapter 2 and verse 32,
we read these words. Luke 2 verse 32, it says, excuse
me, Luke 2, is it 32? Luke 2, 32. Yes, I'm in chapter
1. Luke 2, 32, it says, a light
to lighten the Gentiles. That word lighten, is the same
word revelation over in the book of Revelation chapter 1 and verse
1. This word lighten means to be
revealed, to be opened up. And the Lord Jesus would be a
light to lighten the Gentiles. That's our only hope is we get
light to lighten us. God sends the light, opens up
our heart. We're lightened by that. We're
lightened by the glory of the Lord. And here, as in all the
other places this word is used, never was intended to be used
as an end times scare tactic. Sometimes when we are the word,
Greek words, Russian words, German words, French words, that we
don't know the meaning of, They have an intimidating quality
about them. Well, this word apocalypse has
been used to be intimidating, but it always means something
about revelation, opening up. My mother was great on cooking
pinto beans and ham hock. She always had a platter of cornbread
to go with it. And I never knew that that was
poor man's food. That was just great food, great
eating. And once in a while, going through
the kitchen, she would let us take the lid off the pot. We got the apocalypse. The beans were revealed. The
ham was revealed. That's what that word means.
Take the lid off. And when we're going through
the book of Revelation, that's what it is. It's the opening
up of Christ and his redemptive work. And many times in this
book, It speaks in metaphors. It is like the Song of Solomon
in many ways, speaking in metaphors, in pictures. And Jesus did this
on purpose. Remember during his own reign,
the disciples came to him and says, why do you speak in parables? He said, it's for you to know,
and it's not to be let known to these. And then he explained
what this parable was about. This parable, if you want to
look at it that way, this book, is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
It's the opening up. Never in this book do we find
Christ belittled, brought down, made little, taken off the throne,
and all of those other things. We have here, and we have made
an effort to see him unveiled throughout all these pages. It was not our desire to speculate,
but to declare. We're not into speculation. We
find, in fact, the gospel is the declaration. I declare unto
you the gospel. The Apostle Paul, when he shared
that, he said, I'm never, ever going to put Christ on a block. And have you accept him or reject
him? I'm declaring him. Now God must
work a work. By nature, we're going to reject
Him. That is just our part. It takes the grace of God for
us to look at Him as the King, as the Lord of glory. So the
Lord is to be declared. It's declared here. It's not
to be speculated. And it's our desire as we look
at this book to be consistent with all of the other books of
the Bible. That's one thing to keep in view
when we study this glorious book. Keep it consistent with all the
rest of scriptures. Now, some may say, well, you
didn't spend any time on the millennial reign. And the answer
is, neither did Jesus. Jesus did not say one word about
a millennial reign. You know what he said? All power
is given unto me in heaven and in earth. I have it all. I'm not going to assume any.
Paul did not say a word in all his writings about a millennial
reign. He declared that Christ is reigning now. We find that
Peter did not say, what did he say? We look for a new heaven
and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Not looking for
a millennium reign, a thousand years. Now that limits God when
we say that he is going to have a thousand years, because he's
already reigned at least six thousand. Maybe 10, I don't know
how old the earth is, but he has reigned before the world
was created, and he's reigned ever since the world was created,
and he'll reign after the world is wrapped up. So we don't need
that, and we find Matthew and Mark and Luke, they said nothing
about it, and James and Jude and all the other writers said
nothing about Christ having just this amount of reign, and we're
gonna have animal sacrifices and all those things. Most modern
study of end times is based upon two faults. In fact, it's God dishonoring
these two things that modern end times is based upon. And
we want to avoid that when we're looking at this glorious book.
Number one, God did not give all the land to the Jews. And
Joshua said twice, Solomon said at least twice, and other writers
in the Psalms says, he did not withhold one promise that he
promised Israel. And the second thing that it's
based on is Christ could not set up his earthly kingdom, and
therefore he must now go to the cross. They wanted to take him
by force one time and make him king. He avoided being made an
earthly king. He was not trying to set up a
kingdom. He was already had a kingdom. It's a spiritual kingdom. It's
in people's hearts. But he is also sovereign over
all the world and rules and reigns over it with one intent in mind,
his glory and the salvation of his lost sheep. So there's the
Christ ringing. Now this book declares all of
this. This book shares with us the great and good blessings
about the Lord Jesus Christ as being king. He rules, he's on
his throne, he has never given it up, except for a very short
season on the cross. He became sin for us who knew
no sin. that by his death he could redeem
those he intended to redeem with a redemption that is actually
a redemption and not a, I hope they're redeemed. He went into the pawn shop with
the intent of redeeming his people. They lost and were lost and gave
over and sold out under Adam. And the Lord Jesus was required
to go into the place of sin and redeem them, buy them back and
bring them out. And that's exactly what he did.
He is a redeemer that actually redeemed. And he is a savior
that actually saves. He is a king that actually is
on a kingdom, on his throne. And we're gonna see that in this
chapter and throughout all of our studies in the books of the
Bible. All right, in this chapter, chapter
22, in this chapter, the Holy Spirit finishes the subject of
all prophecies. Beware. Beware of someone comes
to you and says, I've got a new prophecy. Because this book finishes
all biblical, scriptural, godly prophecies. There's nothing left
to prophesy about. No one is going to come up with
a new prophecy after this. This is the end. The book of
Revelation is the final book of our canon. God gave it to
us as the finality. Now, I remember, I knew a guy
one time He said that seven is the perfect number. And there's
66 books in the Bible, so there has to be four missing somewhere. And they have to be in the Apocrypha,
so he was gonna read those. Now, this is a... He read the Apocrypha books and
said, I'm gonna pick out the four that should be in the Canon.
Well, greater people than he have studied that. V66, my son
asked me the other day, he says, how do you know that this is
all there is? I said, because that is all that
was put together. God protected his word. My word
shall not return to me void. And it shall endure to the end.
And what we have is all that was ever given. Now there were
other letters, but they were not inspired. And they're not,
they're mentioned in here, but they're not in here. Now this
last book is the last book of the prophecies. And with that,
the whole canon of scripture is complete. When we come to
the last verse, verse 21 of this 22nd chapter, the canon was complete. Took a while for it to be put
together. but the canon was complete. Now, Revelation chapter 22, and
I'm not gonna take the time to read this entire chapter tonight,
but I am going to take time to read verse one and spend some
time on it. And he showed me, John has showed
something, how often it is for us that we
will miss a sight unless someone points it out to us. Not long
ago, I was traveling up the freeway with Nathan, and he just loves
spotting wild game. And he got up there where the
sheep are, and he says, Dad, look at the sheep. And I'm looking,
and I'm looking, and I'm in the passenger seat. I have the right
to look. He's in the drivers, and he's supposed to keep his
eyes on the road. But he said, look at those sheep. And I'm looking
all over that hill, and I'm looking all over. He says, no, right
there. They're 20 or 30 feet from the
edge of the freeway. I was looking too high. He pointed
them out, or I'd have missed them altogether. Here they are,
about 18 or 20 rams just sitting there, laying there right by
the freeway. And if he had not shown them
to me, I would have missed them. And still been gazing up there
on the mountain. 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 that word throne, and we're
going to get there, that word throne is very important. We
find this word throughout the book of Revelation, but we also
find it in so many other books. the throne. This is significant
when we're looking at the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're looking
at God, and we're looking at the Holy Spirit. They are on
a throne, which gives us the impression, and we are feeble,
and we need to be impressed, but it gives us the understanding
that this one, these three, if you please, are ruling. They're on a throne. All right,
let's look at this verse of scripture. He showed me. Now this word that
is used here for showed, and I was listening to this on tape
the other day, and it's shooed. I just can't quite get around
shooed, but I can get around showed. He showed me. pure river of water. This word
showed is mentioned a number of places in the New Testament.
It's a Greek word, and I'm not going to try to pronounce it,
but I want to read four other verses that this word is used,
and these four other verses give us some insight of what this
means. It's not just a casual glance. It is pointed out. It's not just looking around. Like I was with that hillside
up there above the Dalles Dam, between there and the John Day
and beyond, looking for those sheep. I know they're there.
I've seen them before. But if I hadn't had them pointed
out to me, and that's what we find this word has. It is being
pointed out to us. And without that, we will miss
it. That is one thing about salvation. It must be pointed out to us
or we'll miss it. We'll look at it as something
totally different than it is. It is and must be pointed out
to us. We're blind and can't see. We're
bent over and can't raise up. There's so many ways that God
speaks to us about the incapacity that we have in looking at things
that are spiritual. And here we find this word. Turn
with me, if you would, to the book of Acts. Acts chapter 7
and verse 3. In Acts chapter 7 and verse 3,
we find that this word is used with regard to Abraham. Abraham
is, it says, the God of glory appeared unto him, and that is
a wonderful way of describing the Lord, the God of glory, appeared
unto Abram down in Ur. Now, we've had a lot of young
men and women find out where Ur is, Iraq. They've been over there now.
I don't know if it was as dusty then as it is now and had as
much sand as it does now, but it's Now it's pretty pretty sandy
but that's over the old world and there was a man down there
by the name of Abram and The God of glory appeared unto him
now. He wasn't going to a prayer meeting
He knew nothing whatsoever about the holy God. God appeared unto
him. That's what we mean about this
word showed. All right, Acts chapter seven, verse three. The
scriptures share this. Acts chapter seven, verse three.
And he said unto him, The God of glory appeared unto our father
Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, that's verse two, when he dwelt
in Sharon. And he said unto him, get thee
out of thy country and from thy kindred and come into the land
which I shall show thee. Now it's just not some, well,
just wander around over there and pick out what you want. He
showed him where he intended for him to be. We know it as
Palestine. He brought him out of Ur of the
Chaldees, and it took a while to get him there, but he gave
him a land. He showed it to him. He saw it. Abram, Abraham, walked in that
parcel of ground. God showed him. All right. Chapter
10, verse 28. Chapter 10, verse 28. The same
word is used, and it is significant in the sense that it is something
that is pointed out. Gene and I were talking today,
and he talked about a spider gear. Now, I've never seen a
spider gear before. And he brought it over in a rag.
Now, it was in lots of pieces. Here it is. Now, he could have
talked all day without me knowing what that was. I could have said,
yeah, I know what you're talking about. Sure I do. But when he put it
in my hand, now, that showed. He showed me. Clear river of
water. I'd have missed it if it hadn't
been pointed out. I Wouldn't have seen it Now he's
so glad when he sees it But he would have missed it. All right
Acts chapter 10 verse 28 We read these words Acts chapter 10 verse
28. I And he said unto them, you know how that it is unlawful
thing for a man that is a Jew. Now Peter's talking about his
experience with a sheet full of pork and turtles and snails
and all those things he's not supposed to eat. God says, rise
up, kill and eat. Now you can imagine what was
in there, because everything that was unlawful for a Jew to
eat was in there. And you go back over to the Old
Testament, storks, hawks, osprey, pigeon, or no, not pigeons, owls,
snails, all of the prawns, all that stuff we think, bacon, it's
all in there. And he said, I cannot eat this. And he tells the Lord that. But
notice here, he's talking about this experience. He said, you
know what, how it is unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew
to keep company or to come into one of another nation. But the
God, but God hath showed me that I should not call any man common
or unclean." That word is showed is the same word we find over
here in the book of Revelation. God showed me. What would have
happened if he had not showed him that? He would have continued
to view the Gentiles as common and unclean, and he could not
have seen himself going to Cornelius's house. God revealed to him through
this picture that don't you call anybody common or unclean. What
God hath made clean, So he showed him, he pointed out to him that
everything in that sheep was good to eat. And don't you call
anybody common or unclean because Cornelius is one of God's lost
sheep. And Peter is requested, required
to go and preach the gospel to him. Hebrews chapter eight. Hebrews chapter eight, there's
a discussion here about the tabernacle. Now, we mentioned this some time
ago. I couldn't even build a model
tabernacle. Now, I might put some boards
up, and I've seen a model tabernacle, and I've heard preached from,
but they had to fill in a lot of stuff. Because no one in our
age has ever had this happen to them with regard to the tabernacle. Now it has been with regard to
Christ, but never with regard to the tabernacle in the Old
Testament. Notice here in Hebrews chapter
8 and verse 5. We've had this happen to us with
regard to Christ, but we've never had it happen with regard to
the tabernacle, to the temple, or to any of the other services
that we find among the Jews. We just don't know. We have the
words, but we can't put it into proper order because, what does
it say here? Acts chapter 8 verse 5, who serve
unto the example of shadow of heavenly things as Moses was
admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle.
For see, saith he, that thou make all things according to
the pattern showed to thee in the mount. When God took him
up on that mount, he showed him what he wanted this tabernacle
to look like. Now, there was no one else who
got to see that sight, and Moses alone was able to explain what
it looked like. That's why we can't figure it
all out. That's why we can read and say,
boy, I can see part of that. And the same was true with the
temple. There's some things about the temple I just cannot put
together because I don't have all the instructions and I've
not been taken up into the mount shown this pattern. The tabernacle
has some things. Now some is easy. The same is
true with our relationship with Jesus Christ unless we have been
showed him We're going to miss a lot about him. We can say,
oh yeah, he's Mary's son. He's the Virgin Mary's son. He's
God. But he is the Redeemer. He's the Savior. He is the King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the Sovereign. He rules
and reigns. And all of these other things
that only God can reveal to a people. He is the one that shows us. We'd miss it without it. He shows
us just like Moses was shown the pattern of the tabernacle
in the mount and came off that mount and talked to those great
wise people. This is what it has to look like.
And they took that and made it. Now, the same thing. He showed
him in the mount. If God had told Moses, I want
you to build a tabernacle, and I'm going to meet with you. Guess
what it would have looked like? Any other human religion. If he'd have been allowed to
build it after his own manner, it would have looked like any
other human religion. It was built after the pattern
of Christ. It declares Christ. It is a picture
of Christ. Everything about the tabernacle
and every sacrifice and every offering is a statement about
Jesus Christ and his redemptive work. And he showed it to him.
Now, one other, Revelation chapter 21. We've just spent a little
bit of time in Revelation 21 to get to 22, but notice here,
to John again, this word showed is mentioned. Revelation chapter
21, verse nine. And there came unto me one of
the seven angels, which had seven vials full of the seven last
plagues, and talked with me, saying, come hither. I will show
thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. Now, if he had not taken him
and showed him, he'd not seen it. And that's the way it is
with Christ. We will not see him unless he
is shown us. He is the very parable. He is hidden to most and revealed
to a few. Many are called, but few are
chosen. Now, in that same chapter, verse
10, it says this. The same word is used again.
And it says, he carried me away in the spirit to a great and
high mountain. Now, that's how we must look
at these words with regard to the church, to the Lamb's wife,
to the bride. We must look at it in the spirit. John was carried away in the
spirit. We must look at it spiritual. We'll have a real debacle if
we look at this with a physical eye. We must look at it with
a spiritual eye. And that's how the Lord described
it. What did he say about the parable of the sower? The seed
is the word. Well, that makes, you know, after
he said that, we said, wow, that's pretty, that's a neat illustration.
And the field is the world. Oh my goodness, he explained
it to us. And that seed that fell here,
well, he said, you know people and I know people. The word came,
looked like there was something happened and before it knew it,
they fell away. Never had any root to them though.
And then he goes to the other one and finally comes to the
good ground and says, that good ground, someone has prepared
it. And he said, God must prepare the soil, must prepare the heart
for reception of the word if there is ever going to be germination. Well, he took things that we
use every day. as farmers, applied spiritual
things to it. And that's what he does in the
book of Revelation. Just look at it that way. And that's the
spiritual things about the church. We've looked at that. Well, look
at verse nine. He carried me away in the spirit to a great
high mountain and showed me, same word, that great city, the
holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. And from
this point on, we find how God looks at the church. This is
a description of the church from God's beautiful picture words. He used earthly words to explain
a spiritual truth. And that used metaphors, types,
shadows. And he says, don't depend on
the flesh, depend on the spirit to see these things. And when
the spirit shows us, and that's what he did for John, he said,
he showed me a pure river of water. Whether there's actually
water in heaven, I don't know. We're not gonna be thirsty like
we are here. One place it says there's a great
sea, and then the next verse it says the sea is a whole bunch
of people. There's a sea of people. It's
not talking about water. The most difficult thing I have
to do as I study the book of Revelation is to look at this
from a spiritual standpoint, get away from the way I was raised,
and look at it as God intends for us to look at it, spiritual. And he often explains it in the
next verse or two, and there he did. Well, here we find, he
showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal. It
is the water of life. Now, there's only one person
that this could be. There's only one person that
has life. Only one person that gives the
water of life. Only one person that is called
the water of life. But we'd never walk up to Jesus
and say, give me a cup of water. The woman at the well did that.
He says, that's wrong water. Give me this water that I never
have to come back down here and face the objections of people
because I realize I'm not living like I should. She essentially
said that. He says, wrong kind of water. He's speaking of spiritual water,
and she's looking at physical water, and he revealed, he showed
her spiritual water in Christ. There's only one that this could
be about, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ, cites Our views
missed unless we're shown. Now, we need our eyes open. And
this is a principle that's found throughout the scriptures. One
of my favorite Old Testament verses of scripture for today
is, there's lots of Old Testament verses that are favorites, but
look with me to the book of 2 Kings 6. This man of God shows us a
real truth. If God doesn't open the eyes
and show us, we'll never see. And it is plain with this Here
is a physical example. And if we look at it from a spiritual
standpoint, we see this is a principle that is followed throughout all
the scriptures. If we don't see it, it doesn't mean that it's
not there. It just means we don't see it. And when he is pleased
to show us, then we can see it. Second Kings, Second Kings chapter
six. Second Kings chapter six. Verse
15, 2 Kings chapter 6 and verse 15. And when the servant of the man
of God was risen early and gone forth. Now there's been three
groups of 50 that have come up for this prophet to take him. And three groups of 50 have been
destroyed by fire from heaven. God's on his throne. When the servant of the man of
God was risen early and gone forth, behold, a host come past
the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said
unto him, Alas, my master, what shall we do? Now there's no question
in my mind. That's what has happened. Around
this city is a large contingency of the enemy forces. And here
is a young man, a servant of the prophet that is scared to
death and crying, what shall we do? Well, the prophet is not
too upset. And that's one thing God really
blesses his people with. If you get just one inkling of
God's sovereignty, it is going to help us be settled. We can be settled. Now, it doesn't
mean that we're not going to have tests sometimes. But it
does mean that we can come back to this rock. God does what he
pleases. And it is a blessing to have
that foundation. All right. Here it's in 2 Kings
6, verse 15. Verse 16, he answered, fear not. This is the prophet speaking.
Fear not, for they that be for us are more than they that be
for them. Now, the Lord Jesus said in his
personal ministry, greater is he that's in you than he that's
in the world. He's saying the same thing. More
are for us than there are for them. They're physical. We have
spiritual protection from God. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord,
I pray thee, open his eyes. He's not going to see unless
you open his eyes. I can explain. I can teach. I
can go through the process. I can say I'm not worried about
it. I can sit down and drink my water and eat my bread without
fear knowing God. But for this man, it's not going
to make any difference. He's still going to be afraid
unless you open his eyes. Now God was pleased this time
to do that, and he is pleased. God is pleased to do his gracious
work. Elisha prayed and said, Lord,
I pray thee open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened
the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain
was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Greater is he that's in you than
he that's in the world. All the enemy can do. Submit
to this king. So this young man, now, Elisha
prayed that his eyes were open. Turn with me if you would to
the book of Psalms 119. Here we get to pray for ourself. Lord,
open my eyes. When we're going through the
book of Revelation, the book of the Psalms, the book of Ezra,
the book of Matthew, the book of Mark or Acts, or Hebrews,
or any of the other books of the Bible, We pray, God open
my eyes. I can't put two sentences together
unless you open my eyes to see. And sometimes he is pleased to
do that and sometimes he is pleased not to do that. But it doesn't
mean that he, it's not his word, it just means he is pleased to
do what he is pleased to do when he is pleased to do it. And he
will reveal Christ in his time. All right, Psalm 119, verse 18.
Psalm 119. Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law, out of thy word. The law of Christ is there's
no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved. That's one of the laws of Christ.
All right, open my eyes. And then turn with me, if you
would, to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 42. And this is the ministry
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He showed me a pure river of
water of life. He opened my eyes. He opened
the young servant's eyes. What a blessing it is for God's
people to pray, open my eyes that I not see vanity, not see
foolish things, but see you. I remember Brother Mahan saying,
someone was telling him, boy, there's submarines in the Bible,
and there's airplanes in the Bible, and there's cars in the
Bible, and there's this and that. And Brother Mahan stops and says,
there's one other thing in the Bible. He says, what's that?
He says, there's Christ in the Bible. You know, a lot of stuff
is just pure foolishness. But Christ in the Bible, that's
life. That's food, that's water. All
right, Isaiah 42, verse five. We read here, Isaiah 42, and
this is the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. He brings us out
during his own ministry, and here it is spoken of. It says
Isaiah 42 verse 5, thus saith God, the Lord, he that created
the heavens and stretched them out, he that spread forth the
earth and which cometh out of it, he that giveth breath unto
the people upon it and spirit unto them which walketh therein. Now, if you want to know what
this is, this is his resume. This is God's resume. I've done
all of this. If I've done all this and since
I've done all this, listen to me on the rest of it. I have
created. I have lifted up. I have made. What a resume. This I the Lord
have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and
will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people
for a light of the Gentiles. Notice verse seven, to open the
blind eyes. That's the ministry of Christ.
That's the purpose of His coming is to open blind eyes. He is
making a statement about the tragedy of the fall by Adam in
the Garden of Eden. They're blind! But I have come
to to take backwards, go backwards with that process, to open blind
eyes, to bring out the prisoners from prison and them that sit
in darkness out of the prison house. Every one of those statements
as you read through here is what happened in the fall and Jesus
Christ as the Savior has promised to go against every one of those
acts and to straighten it out more perfect than it was. Grace,
is going to be known by all he saves, and that's one thing Adam
never knew a word about after his creation. He didn't know
grace, but God's people know grace. Unmerited favor. He didn't have to, but he has. What glorious and he's open eyes. And so the sites that are missed,
he showed me a pure river of water. Now what was shown to
John? My time is running out and I
just want to go back to revelation 22 in verse one. What was shown
to John? A pure river of water of life. Much is included in this river
of life. God's salvation and His redemption,
God's purpose, God's grace, God's mercy, God's love is a pure river
of water of life. And in this, it is not mixed. It is not mixed with anything
that man has to offer. Man will unpurify this river. We can clean up Let me back up. I had a teacher in high school
that spent hours and hours and hours and hours boiling water
so he could have some of that, what is it called? It's water
that's gone through the process so it's only water and not having
minerals in it for cleaning beakers and chemistry tubes and all of
this stuff. What is it? Distilled water. There we go. Spent hours and
hours. And this nimrod came by and dropped
in a dirty beaker. Now it looked clean, but it wasn't
what he wanted. It was not distilled water. It
had been contaminated. and any of man's work will contaminate
this pure river of water. God will not have it. Now, it's
not going to be contaminated. God's not going to have his river
contaminated. But if we, by our efforts, try to improve on God's
pure river of water, we're going to contaminate it. We're not looking at it straight.
We haven't seen it yet. God will not allow us to contaminate
that beautiful river of water. Now, in the Psalms, and our time
is up, it says, there is a river that makes glad the city of God. This is the river of life. This
river of all God's purposes in salvation is redemptive work.
And where was this river coming from? It proceeds. That river
meets us. We don't go to the river. The
river meets us. It proceeds out of the throne
of God. It comes to us. This pure river
of water of life comes to his people. We're stuck, but this
river proceeds to us, and it comes from the throne of God,
and right there in the middle of all his good blessings to
his people, he says, I am God. I am sovereign. I am king. This
comes from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It's not of
man's creation. We'll stop there.