Rev. David Holwick ZH
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
October 7, 2012
Ezekiel 47:1-12
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I. The Great Mississippi flood of 1993.
A. It was much deeper and wider than normal.
In the summer of 1993, parts of the Midwest received 48 inches
of rain.
All that water had to go somewhere, and after the reservoirs
filled up it poured into the rivers.
The Missouri River reached flood stage.
The Missouri then poured into the Mississippi, which also
reached flood stage.
And the water kept coming.
The rivers got so high, 30,000 square miles was flooded.
The 52-foot-high St. Louis floodwall had two feet to spare.
700 levees in rural areas were breached.
Some of the breaches had sinister motives.
James Scott was partying with some friends in Quincy,
Illinois, while his wife Suzie was waitressing at a truck stop
across the river in Missouri.
Some say he wanted to party all night without interference.
Others say he was having an affair.
At any rate, he sliced some sand bags in a local levee and
flooded 14,000 acres in Missouri.
Bridges were knocked out for 200 miles.
His wife never made it home that night.
The brief freedom was rather costly for James - he was caught
and sentenced to 20 years to life in an Illinois prison.
He won't get out until 2023. [1]
B. Rivers are a focus of civilization.
1) We don't appreciate them until they go wild.
a) In their normal states, they carry cargo, irrigate
fields, and provide convenient boundaries.
b) Almost all major cities are situated near rivers.
2) There is one river that surpasses them all.
a) It is the river of God.
b) It is a river that all of us should want to flood in
our lives.
II. Ezekiel sees a river.
A. The prophet is continuing his tour of God's future temple.
1) An amazing aspect is it has a stream flowing out from it.
a) The historical temple never had this.
b) It is something new.
2) This stream becomes deeper and wider as it flows. 47:3
a) First it is ankle-deep.
b) Then it is knee-deep.
c) Then it is waist-deep.
d) Finally it is deep enough to swim in, and too wide to
cross.
B. What should we think of this river?
1) Many commentators have taken it at face value.
a) An ancient writer even suggested that huge springs
existed under the Temple Mount and would gush out
when God needed it.
b) The modern Israelis would love this, because water is
a huge issue of contention in their parched land.
2) The details of the river seem deliberately symbolic.
a) Many rivers get deeper and wider as they flow, like the
Mississippi, but they have tributaries feeding them.
b) This river gets deeper and wider supernaturally, with
no external input.
1> Hydrologically it makes no sense.
2> Symbolically it makes awesome sense.
C. The river probably represents the wonderful grace of God.
1) It gets deeper and richer without any human input.
a) God is the one who makes it grow.
2) Many preachers make applications about where we are in the
river.
a) Baby Christians are ankle-deep.
1> Some older Christians are too, but they shouldn't be.
b) Others are half-way committed, to the knee or waist.
c) Only some immerse themselves in God's grace and let it
control their lives.
3) This may be over-selling the image.
a) Ezekiel doesn't make the shallow, narrow part sound
inferior.
1> It just starts small and gets huge.
b) Jesus gives a lot of parables about God's kingdom that
make the same point.
1> The parable of the Mustard Seed - a tiny start but
a huge bush results.
c) The important thing is not what part of the river you
are in, but that you have access to it at all.
III. God's river does some amazing things.
A. The river revives everything it touches.
1) Ezekiel traces the river from the temple to the Dead Sea.
Dead Sea is called that because little can live in it.
The famous Madaba map in Jordan is a mosaic depiction
of the Middle East, done in the 500s.
The Jordan River is shown with fish swimming in it,
but a fish at the bottom turns around and swims back.
He doesn't want to go into the Dead Sea because it
is so salty.
A modern map has to make the Dead Sea much smaller because
little water reaches it anymore and it is drying up
fast.
2) God's river will change this.
a) The Dead Sea will become fresh and fish will live
in it. 47:8-9
1> Where the river flows, EVERYTHING will live. 47:9
b) But God is practical as well - the beneficial salt
will still be found on the fringes. 47:11
B. The river will bring fruitfulness and healing. 47:12
1) It will be bordered by ever-bearing fruit trees, unlike
the ones outside the parsonage that barely produce at all.
2) The fruit will be medicine as well as food.
a) The leaves will be good for healing.
b) The Book of Revelation develops this further. Rev 22:2
1> There, the leaves don't just heal, they heal the
nations.
2> There is an obvious parallel to the Garden of Eden
which is well-watered by special rivers, and
contains the Tree of Life.
3> Ezekiel's vision shows we will have access to it
once again, and enjoy all the fruit of salvation.
IV. The source of the river is what makes the difference.
A. The river flows from the temple of God.
1) The book of Revelation is more explicit - the water begins
from God's throne within the city of God.
a) The city itself is one big temple.
b) The river will flow right through it.
2) The emphasis is on God being the source.
a) To a woman who was trying to draw water from a well,
Jesus said that he knew of better water.
It couldn't be drawn up with a bucket, but would gush
from within a person's soul.
He called it living water, and said anyone could have it.
b) The requirement is to believe in Jesus as your savior.
B. The river also passes by the altar. 47:1
1) This reminds us of the need for our sins to be covered
by sacrifice before we can approach God.
2) The only effective sacrifice is the cross of Jesus.
V. How deep is your river?
A. Many people feel their lives are parched.
1) There is little excitement or joy.
2) Problems and pressures make them feel hemmed in.
3) Their relationships with people drain them rather than
fulfill them.
4) Life doesn't seem very worthwhile.
B. Ezekiel's river is about the life-giving power of God.
1) With God in your life, you can be refreshed.
2) With God in your life, you can be healed.
3) With God in your life, you can live forever.
a) How deep does that grace seem to be to you?
b) Is your faith something you can feel, or does it seem
pretty thin most of the time?
C. You have to know the source.
1) The key is knowing Jesus.
2) He can give you a joy that gets deeper all the way.
During the conquest of Palestine by the allies in World War I,
a combined force of British, Australian, and New Zealand
soldiers was closely pursuing the Turks as they retreated
through the desert.
As the allied troops moved northward past Beersheba they began
to outdistance their water-carrying camel train.
When the water ran out, their mouths got dry, their heads
ached, and they became dizzy and faint.
Eyes became bloodshot, lips swelled and turned purple, and
mirages became common.
They knew that if they did not make the wells of Sheriah by
nightfall, thousands of them would die.
Hundreds of them already had.
Literally fighting for their lives, they managed to drive the
Turks from Sheriah.
As water was distributed from the great stone cisterns, the
more able-bodied soldiers were required to stand at
attention and wait.
The wounded and those who would take guard duty got to drink
first.
It was four hours before the last man had his drink.
During that time the men stood no more than twenty feet from
thousands of gallons of water.
Getting a drink of it had been their consuming passion for
many agonizing days.
It is said that one of the officers who reported,
"I believe that we all learned our first real Bible lesson
on the march from Beersheba to Sheriah Wells.
If such were our thirst for God, for righteousness and for His
will in our lives, a consuming, all-embracing, preoccupying
desire, how rich in the fruit of the Spirit would we be?"
#31251
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] Adapted from “James Scott (Criminal)” in Wikipedia.org, and other
internet sources.
#31251 “Spiritual Dehydration,” by David Yarbrough, www.sermoncentral.com
newsletter, May 29, 2006, adapting the article “Water” by
E. M. Blaiklock, Eternity (August 1966), p. 27.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
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