And chapter 7.
I will read again the verses we read last night. John’s Gospel, chapter 7, from verse 37:
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying,
If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.
He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.— John 7:37-39
The same Gospel, chapter 4, verses 13 and 14. Jesus answered and said unto her, the Samaritan woman:
Every one that 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 become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life.— John 4:13-14
And then, in the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Colossians—the Colossian letter, chapter 1. Or maybe we will read from verse 12:
Giving thanks unto the Father, Who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light;
Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love;
in Whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.— Colossians 1:12-14
We will just have a further word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we are thankful that we are gathered here in Your presence. We are so thankful, Lord, that whenever we gather to You, anything could happen. And we praise You, Lord, for this evening. We thank You for Your purpose and design in it. We thank You for the way You have already helped us this morning, and through this day and last night.
And, Lord, we want to tell You: there are many things we can do, but only when that anointing, grace, and power is upon us will something be done that is eternal.
Oh, Lord, we do not just want to hear truths, or sound doctrine, important as that may be. We want, Lord, to see the Lord Jesus afresh. We want the eyes of our hearts to be touched—opened. We want some illumination to come to us concerning Your Word that will transform our attitudes and concepts, transform our lives.
Lord, we praise You: You have already won for us this anointing through the finished work of our Lord Jesus. And into that anointing, grace, and power, we stand by faith this evening.
Let a double portion be upon the speaking and upon the hearing. Let the outcome be to the praise of Your glory in lives that begin to know something of rivers flowing out—rivers of living water. We know what You want for every one of us. Lord, bring us right into it by Your grace, we pray, through the ministry of Your Holy Spirit.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
The little phrase that has been with me, I think you will know, is in John’s Gospel, chapter 7 and verse 38:
He that believeth on Me, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
— John 7:38
These were the words of our Lord Jesus. He stood on the last and great day of the festival of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. This particular day is called Hoshana Rabbah, and to this day it is still kept.
Of course, there is no temple, and therefore no pouring out of the water. The water festival is no longer held because there are neither Levites nor priests, nor temple, in which to do it. But the fact still remains that it was on this day that the Lord Jesus stood up and made this great declaration:
If any man thirst, let him keep on coming to Me—and let him keep on drinking.
He that believeth on Me, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
It is one thing to come to the Lord and to have one’s thirst quenched—to come again and again and again. At least we know where our thirst can be quenched, and we know to Whom we must come. We are not going to cults. We are not going to demonized religionists. We are coming to the Lord Jesus. We know exactly Who to come to.
But that is not what the Lord really wants. He wants you to have within you the source of this water of life. He said it to the woman at the well of Samaria:
If any one drinks of the water that I shall give him, it shall become in him a spring of water, springing up to eternal life.
— John 4:14
In other words, you do not have to travel to the well. You do not have to go; it is in you. Something has happened within you.
Of course, it is the Lord Jesus. He is the source and origin of these rivers of living water. But it is the Holy Spirit’s work to make it a reality.
Now, I will not go over what I have already said. I can only point out that if any of you live in New Mexico, or parts of Arizona, or anywhere else that you can fly over for a couple of hours and see nothing but desert, you know what water can do in the desert.
It is incredible what water can do. In the Middle East it is so visible. There is the evidence for the power of the water of life. It turns everything green; it brings fruit, fertility, and so much else.
Our Lord Jesus did not just speak about a little stream of water. He did not say, “He that believeth on Me, from within him shall be a stream of water.” He did not say that from within him there should be a pool of water, or just a kind of monsoon downpour.
He said:
He that believeth on Me, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
These rivers bring life everywhere, influence everything, and make an impact upon everything.
I have no doubt about it at all in my own heart: the greatest form of evangelism is when a believer is a source of these rivers of living water.
You can talk till you are blue in the face. You can give out a thousand tracts—I am not against tracts, by the way. Or you can give the Bible, or the New Testament—I am not against that either.
But in the end, when a person is full of the Lord, overflowing with the Lord, when there is something about that life—some power that is not normal to mankind, some grace that comes from heaven—that is the thing that wins others to the Lord.
Especially if they are working with you. Especially if they are relatives. They know you. They watch you. They see you.
It is one thing when you have never seen a person and they hand you something in the street. You can take it, and maybe the Lord will use it to bring you to Himself. But so often, what do people see?
They see only religious people. We go to meetings, we read the Bible, we say prayers, and we have certain ceremonies. Then they say, “Well, what is the difference between that and Buddhists? What is the difference between that and Hindus? They have their scriptures, they go to meetings, and they have their ceremonies. You happen to be Christians, but there is no great difference.”
But that is not what it means to be a child of God. To be born of the Spirit of God means that the Lord dwells in you. And if the Lord dwells in you, what a strange thing if nobody can see it—if nobody can see the Lord in you, trapped within you, somehow buried within you, so that they cannot see His beauty, His grace, or His power.
It is so clear that the Lord Jesus, on this day, when the Levites came and poured out the water on the fifteen steps that ascended from the women’s court to the court of Israel and the sanctuary itself—when they finished—Jesus stood up and said:
If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.
He that believeth on Me, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
I feel almost a cheat to speak to you like this, because in one sense it is so simple. Once you come to a conference, you expect to have deeper things—well, at least deeper is giving you something a little deeper. But here am I, giving you the simplest thing that a Sunday school could have, and the youngest in Sunday school could understand.
But what I am saying, which I believe the Lord has put on my heart, is revolutionary. It is as simple as that: it is revolutionary.
If every person here was a source of rivers of living water, the whole country would begin to know it. If every child of God resident here within the United States was a watershed of such rivers of living water, can you imagine the impact? Can you imagine the influence?
The sad thing is, there are no rivers of living water with so many. Now and again there is a blessed shower that refreshes. Now and again the dew comes to keep us alive in the dry season.
It is not enough. The Lord did not say, “He that believeth on Me, the dew shall come upon him.” The Lord did not say, “He that believeth on Me, there shall be every now and again a downpour.”
The Lord said:
He that believeth on Me, from within him shall flow—not a river, but rivers—of living water.
Transforming deserts. Transforming wilderness. Bringing fertility wherever it comes. Having impact upon the world. Changing situations within the church. Transforming the work of God.
Rivers of living water. I say, I feel a bit of a cheat bringing something so simple to the conference. But the fact still remains: I take courage to be a cheat, because I feel that somehow or other not too many of us are watersheds for rivers.
What is wrong? What is it that means that we live within that cycle of going round and round the wilderness, seeing the rock open every time we are thirsty, and water coming out? It is not what the Lord wants.
He wants you to be a source of rivers, beginning very humbly, in some small way, but becoming Amazon-like—like the Amazon, like the Nile, like the Mississippi.
Would it not be wonderful if it were so that he that believeth on the Lord Jesus, from within him, would flow out a Mississippi? We would say, “Thank God for that.” Or, from within him, would flow out a Yangtze, or a Mekong, or a Ganges, or the Nile.
But the Lord did not say that. He said, “Rivers.”
And the history of the church is filled with men and women who somehow broke through and became watersheds for rivers of living water. Every time it has happened in the history of the church, you will notice tremendous things have happened in nations.
What I have to say this evening is utter simplicity. But, as I have often said, all the greatest truths are simplest.
We are always looking for some complex solution—something intricate, difficult to understand—and then we feel satisfied that somehow, when it is mysterious and beyond us, almost fathomless, we sort of say, “This must be it.”
But all the greatest truths are utter simplicity. That is what I want to talk about this evening. I want to talk about the little phrase:
He that believeth on Me.
The King James Version—I call it the Authorized Version; you call it the King James Version—has, “He that believeth on Me, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.” So has the English Revised Version of 1881, and the American Standard Version, which I use, of 1901.
Unfortunately, nearly all the modern versions have translated it like this: “He that believes in Me.” That is not what the Lord said.
The King James translators had a problem with the original. This little Greek preposition is a preposition of motion. It is eis in Greek. It means “into,” “on,” or “toward.” They really did not know how to translate it, because it is not merely, “He that believes in Me.”
He is here, the Lord is there, and you are here believing in Him there. In other words, there is still a distance between you. It means that your faith carries you to Him. Your faith moves you to Him. Your faith unites you to Him.
Let me put it in a very simple way that you will understand, even in American English: you are committed—lock, stock, and barrel. You are committed. Your faith has committed you to the Lord Jesus one hundred percent.
That is living faith. That is the faith that God gives.
Otherwise, faith is religion—Christian religion. You remain what you are, you remain where you are, but you believe in Him. Well, what do you believe? You believe that He is the Son of God. Well, that is great. So does the devil.
What do you believe? It does not do anything to you.
He that believeth on Me.
So they had a great discussion: how could they translate this? They felt that if they said, “He that believes into Me,” it would be awkward in English. So they created a new phrase, found in the old English translation that you call the King James Version:
He that believeth on Me.
Listen:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
— John 3:16
You will find it everywhere, all the way through your Bible. It is very sad to me that the modern versions have now obscured this.
It is a faith that carries you into the Lord, that commits you to the Lord. Let me go further. I do hope I am getting it over to you.
Really, what I feel this evening is that God needs to touch the eyes of our hearts. A person like myself can talk and talk and talk and talk, and of course you could easily go to sleep.
People actually listen to my tapes to help them go to sleep. I get letters from all over the world telling me that they find them better than any sleeping pill. That is true. It is actually the truth.
And I could go on talking and talking, but only the Holy Spirit can touch the eyes of your heart. Suddenly, as we say in English English, the penny drops. When the penny drops, you wake up and say, “Ah, I see it.” And your life is changed.
Every time the Lord gives illumination, every time the Lord gives revelation, the life of a child of God is redirected and changed.
There is a vast difference between believing in and believing on. For believing in simply leaves you where you are, as you are; but believing on—or into—means you have joined the Lord.
You begin to understand a whole lot of things: why, for instance, the Holy Spirit uses these amazing phrases about being limbs of Christ and limbs one of another. The old word is members, but the trouble is that we have membership rolls. Once again, we have devalued the word.
Instead of understanding what it really means—that you are joined to the Lord, that you have become part of Him and part of one another—we reduce it to membership. We belong to Him, and we belong to one another.
You see, this thing about believing on Him is vast in its significance. It is no small matter. It has tremendous consequence, for he that believes into Him, the Lord Jesus—from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
The rivers of living water are not coming out of you as you; they are coming out of Him in you.
Very simple to me. It is utterly simple.
Genuine faith is not static, stationary, inactive, passive, or academic, as if you are saved by faith up here. You are saved by a faith that moves you. You cannot remain where you are or what you are.
That faith, which is the gift of God, moves you from who you are, what you are, and where you are, into Him. Is that too much for you to take in?
Such faith moves you to a new position. It is not just that you are a sinner in your sin and you have been forgiven, and you thank the Lord for it. You are now positioned by God the Father, through the Holy Spirit, in Christ.
You are positioned by God the Father, through the Holy Spirit, in Christ.
And in Christ is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In Christ there are unsearchable riches. In Christ is eternal life. He is the life. He is the Christian life.
We have all these books upon the Christian life, all these sermons and messages preached on the Christian life, and conferences on the Christian life. This is one of them. We have all these things on the Christian life, and the phrase never comes once in the Bible.
You never find “the Christian life” once mentioned in the whole Bible. Does that mean there is no Christian life? Of course not. But what you call and I call the Christian life is eternal life—the life of Christ. That is truly the Christian life. It is His life.
Now, you are positioned in Him. God the Father has positioned you in Him through the Holy Spirit. And now, in Him, you have life. You have power. You have union with God. You have union with all others who are redeemed.
Let me take you one step further in this. We read it in Colossians, chapter 1, verse 13:
Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
— Colossians 1:13
I think “transferred us into the kingdom of His dear Son” is a little simpler, and just as correct. Transferred—now you have got it. It was in your Bible all along; you never thought about it.
Delivered. Where were you? You were fettered by the authority and power of darkness. Many Christians still have a lot of darkness about them. I am not being funny. There is an awful lot of darkness in believers because they have never moved.
Your position is this: you have been delivered from the power of darkness—the authority of darkness—and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.
What a difference of position. Once you were in the grip of Satan. You may not have known it. You might have been a very sweet person, one of those people who never thinks evil things, never reads pornography, and never watches certain things on television. But you were still darkened.
If you did not know the Lord, your mind was darkened. You believed that the only way you would ever get to heaven was by being good. What you did not know was that, if you had been exposed to the wrong circumstances and wrong relationships, a depravity would have been found in you.
Satan binds more people by goodness than sometimes he does by depravity, but the depravity is there.
The wonderful thing is that He has transferred you. The word delivered is a wonderful little word, and it is a strong word. It means that you were dragged out—but much better, there is an idea of violence and force in this word.
You were delivered by a mighty power of God, superior to the power of darkness. He tore you out of the authority of darkness and transferred you into the kingdom of His dear Son.
Wonderful. Wonderful.
If you are a believer, there has been a fundamental change of position. You are no longer—or you are not meant to be any longer—fettered by the power of darkness.
But many believers have no idea about this, and therefore Satan works a deception. He makes you believe that there are still fetters holding you. Actually, the truth shall make you free.
When it dawns on you that there is a fundamental, foundational change of position, you understand that you are no longer part of this world.
Let me put it now in words some of you will understand well: you are no longer in the old creation; you are in the new creation. You are no longer in the old man; you are in the new man. You are no longer in darkness; you are in light. You are no longer in hate; you are in love. You are no longer in the power of darkness, but in the kingdom of God’s dear Son.
The dictates of Satan and a million demons have no right over you. You are under the rule, as Stephen said this morning, under the reign, the kingship, of the Lord Jesus.
To be in Christ is the divine key to everything. But the trouble is, there is a veil. It is supposed to be being torn away, but there is a veil over many Christians’ minds—not just Jews.
People always say to me, “All those poor Jews—the veil over their minds. Do they really read Isaiah 53 and do not see the Messiah?” Yes, they do. “Do they read Psalm 22 and do not see?” Yes, it is read in the synagogue.
But many Christians read Scripture:
He that believeth on Me, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
And somehow or other they make it all different. They sort of read it like this: “He that believes in Him, a stream, at times, will flow out. A little bit of dew, a little shower now and again.”
It does not say that. It says:
He that believeth on Him, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
What a thing. To be in Christ, as I have said, is the divine key to everything that God does—everything that He does.
Let me put it another way. Listen to the Lord Jesus in John’s Gospel, chapter 15:
I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.
Abide in Me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine;
so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me.— John 15:1, 4
Have you ever realized what He is saying? You are in Him. He is saying, “Do not fight to get in Me. Do not strive to get in Me. That is your position. Abide. Remain where the Father has placed you.”
You are in the true vine. You are in Christ.
I first used to think, when I read that wonderful fifteenth chapter of John, that He was the trunk and root and we were the branches. But when I first saw the kind of vines we had—not the Italian ones, which grow up on things above you, where you pick the grapes from above or from the side—our vines were a great heap on the ground. When you go and look at them, they are all branches.
When the Lord said, “I am the true vine,” what did He say? He did not say, “I am the trunk.” The trunk is the tiniest bit of it. He did not say, “You are the branches.” That was not what He meant.
He did not say, “I am the trunk,” or, “I am the root.” He said, “I am the vine.” That means root, trunk, branches, leaves, tendrils, blossom, and fruit—the whole lot. Here is the beginning and the end. Here is the everything.
And somehow you are in Him. You are a branch, actually, in one sense; but you are in the vine. It is amazing. You see what I am trying to say? It is a foundational change of position. You are in Christ.
You do not have to fight to be there. Do not strive to be there. That is where the Father has placed you. Stay where the Father has placed you, and He will remain in you. In other words, here is a glorious union.
Now, life—the whole life of the vine. You are in Christ: there is life. Fruit—if you are in Christ, there is fruit. If you are in Christ, there is power and ability to produce fruit.
It is wonderful. Well, at least I get excited about it.
I will give you another Scripture. This is another wonderful Scripture you all know very well, all you dear believers. I know I am giving you a hard time this evening, but I think I have to. We are talking about Sunday school—this is pure Sunday school. You should be ashamed if you do not know this. I am not joking. You should be ashamed. Pure Sunday school. So simple. No wonder the church is in such a mess.
Listen: 1 Corinthians 1:30.
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, Who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.— 1 Corinthians 1:30-31
You have nothing to glory in yourself. Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. Why? Because of God the Father, you are in Christ Jesus, Who is made unto us wisdom from God.
Righteousness, sanctification, and redemption—everything. Who is our righteousness? Jesus. Who is our sanctification? Jesus. And Who will be the redemption of our body in the end? Jesus.
It begins with Him; it ends with Him. Now do you begin to understand why He said, “Abide in Me, and I in you”? That is where you have been placed.
I remember years ago listening to dear Brother Sparks. He used to say it in his own inimitable way, “That is the key to the whole Bible: in Christ.”
That is how he used to say it. The key to the whole Bible is in Christ. Then he used to say, “If you do not believe me, take a pencil, a blue pencil, and underline every time you read ‘in.’”
I will just read to you a few verses from Ephesians. Listen very carefully, and I am going to underline it. Ephesians, chapter 1, from verse 3:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ:
even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love:
having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved:
in Whom we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace,
which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
making known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him
unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say,
in Whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.— Ephesians 1:3-11
Do I get something over to you? The simplicity of it. Jesus said:
He that believeth on Me, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
This is the God-given position of the child of God. Are you a child of God? Maybe we had not even realized it. This is your position. Have you believed? Maybe you did not even realize what living faith would do, but it has changed your position.
The Father has positioned you in Christ, and everything the Father does is in His Son.
I could take you one step further, but I must watch myself on time. One step further: the church.
I am not talking about that thing with towers or steeples or all the other things. I am talking about the real church, which is the body of Christ.
Listen: it is the ekklesia—called out. Did you know that the church was called out? Called out for what? From the world. Called out from what? From the old man. Called out from what? From the old creation.
Called out and called into. Called into Christ. The ekklesia—that is the church. We have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light.
It is marvelous, when you think about it. Everything is given in Christ: life, power, ability, equipment, gifts, everything, grace, love, patience—and so on. I could go on and on.
We must come to an end of this very simple address. I say it again: the simplicity of this is mind-blowing.
And because it is so simple, most Christians miss it.
The dividing line between a defeated, bound, powerless, academic form of godliness and the real life—the Christian life—is the little word, “believeth.” That is the dividing line.
From within him shall flow rivers of living water.
Not if you believe in Him there and you are here. Only when it has moved you. Your faith has moved you by the grace of God.
These rivers of living water are overflowing, overcoming, invincible, life-giving.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon once made an extraordinary statement. He said, “All true evangelism is in the overflow.”
When your cup runs over, people see it. It was a comment he made on Psalm 23:
My cup runneth over.
— Psalm 23:5
He said, “When a believer’s cup runs over, people get saved, because the old vessel is not seen anymore. They only see what is covering it. That is the Lord.”
Now let me say something, lest anyone misunderstand what I have said. It is not faith that works this miracle, so that from within you shall flow rivers of living water, but the Lord Jesus.
I do not know why, but Christians have got the idea that we need great faith. All the time you hear people say, “Oh, my faith is so poor. I need more faith.” You do not. If you would only use the little faith you have got, you would be there.
But we do not. So all the time we say, “Lord, I need more faith.” And the devil is such a psychologist. He comes alongside—many psychologists also belong to the same area, but that is another matter. There are good psychologists too.
But let me say straight away: the devil is a psychologist par excellence. He comes alongside and says, “Oh yes, of course. You have hit the nail on the head. You need more faith. Do not think that anything is going to happen in your life with that little faith you have got. You have got to have more faith, have you not?”
“Oh, how right, how right.”
Now the enemy says to you, “You must seek the Lord, and you must get more faith. When you have got more faith, you will be able to change situations.”
And so we get the idea that if we are going to move a mountain, we need a mountain of faith. If you have a mountain like Mount Everest of trouble, you must have a Mount Everest of faith. Then, with your Mount Everest of faith, you will bulldoze the Mount Everest of trouble into the sea.
So now the enemy has completely got you. You will never get anywhere in the whole of your life. You will remain static, caught on this thing.
Listen: no mountain has ever been moved by faith.
“Oh,” you say, “that is a terrible thing. That is heresy, to say such a thing. We all know that faith moves mountains. We have even got books that say Faith Moving Mountains.”
Faith has never moved a mountain, small or large. It is God Who moves mountains. But faith, however small, joins you to the infinity of God. When living faith joins you to the infinity of God, anything can happen.
That is why the Lord said:
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
— Matthew 17:20
Why? Because nothing is impossible with God. That is why.
A little grain of faith—so small that if I had a mustard seed in the palm of my hand, not even the front row could see it. The Lord never said, “If you have faith as a few grains of mustard seed.” He said, “A grain of mustard seed.” It is a little tiny thing.
When we ask the Lord for that kind of more faith, you are paralyzing yourself. If I may so put it, you are paralyzing the Lord. He cannot do anything. He says, “I am not going to do anything. Do they honestly think that their faith moves things, changes things, overcomes circumstances? I am not going to play ball with them.”
If they really think it is their faith, that is Christian Science faith. You say, when you have an ache, “I do not have an ache. I do not have an ache. I do not have an ache.” If you have a strong enough mind, sometimes the ache actually begins to disappear. Then you have all these testimonies. It is psychological.
I always remember the story of Winston Churchill. He knew there was a Christian Scientist in the War Cabinet, an admiral. He came in and said, “My rheumatism is very bad tonight, and I am sitting in a draught. Is there anyone here who is a Christian Scientist?”
Of course, the admiral said immediately, “Yes, me.”
Churchill said, “Well, change with me, because for you there is no draught.”
Well, I should not make fun of that. But the fact of the matter is that this idea of faith—that we have to have lots of faith—has now come into a lot of Christian things.
You do not need a lot of faith. If you are saying you are seeking the Lord for more faith, you are paralyzing yourself and the Lord. The Lord is not going to touch this thing. He is not going to play ball with you at all.
He says, “Do they really think that is what changes things—their faith? It is not their faith at all. I am the One Who changes everything. But their faith unites them to Me.”
Got it?
He that believeth into Me.
He that believeth on Me.
It is that kind of faith. It unites you to Him. And when you are united to Him, anything can happen.
Finally, please note three matters.
There is no living faith without revelation. How can you get that little grain-of-mustard-seed faith to function? Not by inspecting it. It will disappear before your eyes.
Faith is an incredibly self-conscious thing. The more you look at it, the more it colours, blushes, and disappears before your eyes.
How does faith spring into action? By revelation. When Abraham saw the God of glory, something happened. That aristocrat, with a big business in Ur of the Chaldees—the whole thing was nothing.
All his relationships, everything he had, his wealth and everything else—he walked out of the whole thing with his family. He went to a place he did not even know where it was. He did not know where he was going to begin with.
Anyone who said, “Where are you going, Abraham?” would hear, “I do not know. All I know is I have to go.”
I could give you example after example of revelation from the Bible. When you see the Lord, something happens.
Dear child of God, if you need the kind of faith that will commit you to the Lord Jesus in a new way, you need to see Him with the eyes of the heart.
That is why the Apostle Paul, writing that tremendous letter to the Ephesian church, said, “I want you to know what I am praying for you. I am praying that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus would give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling.”
Not merely about it. You can study the Word and get a knowledge about it, but to know what is the hope of His calling comes from vision—revelation.
Some people are very afraid of the word revelation because they think that it means something extra to the Bible. We are not talking about things that are extra to the Bible. We are talking about illumination, revelation of what is in the Bible.
Faith springs into action that way.
And the third thing is experience. When you have seen something with the eye of your heart and faith springs into action, it always results in fulfillment—the Lord’s way.
Well, I do pray that this will have something for you all.
He that believeth on Me, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
You have no excuse. Sorry—I have to say it. I do not mean it in a mean way, but you have no excuse if those rivers of living water do not start flowing.
You do not have to be knowledgeable or zealous. All you need is to see that this is the normal condition of a child of God.
And once you see that and respond to it, then the Lord can start to do something. From within you shall flow out rivers of living water.
Let us pray.
Beloved Lord, we have a number of times said how simple this truth is, and it really is. But sometimes the very simplicity of it baffles us.
Beloved Lord, cut through all that, and touch the eyes of our hearts. Open them, Lord, in a new way. Help us to see. Help us to spiritually see the truth.
We are committing ourselves to You, Lord. Work in marvelous ways to bring every one of us to that place where, from within us, there shall flow rivers of living water.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.