Ezekiel.47:12 – And by the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.
The River in the scripture is an awesome spiritual picture that has many meanings and applications. Rivers display, explain, and reveal spiritual truth in its many characteristics. Rivers are relentless, they just never stop flowing. They may have obstacles put in front of them but they will not be stopped. They will either overflow, destroy or divert around any blockage that hinders the moving and advancing of God’s kingdom. Jonathan Edwards believed that providence, the sovereign plans of God, was the key to understanding the power of the River. The River is flowing in His church, when you get into the flowing stream for yourself you will begin to experience the flowing power of God. Here is how Edwards compared the spreading of the natural river to the true River of God.
“And so it is with the main river itself. Its course is not directly the shortest way towards the ocean to which its waters are due, but tends thither by degrees, with many windings and turnings, sometimes seeming to run from the ocean and not towards it. If a spectator were to judge by the appearances of things before his eyes, he would think that the river could [not] reach the ocean. There appears such an innumerable multitude of obstacles in the way, many hills and high mountains which a person that views at a distance sees no way between. He don’t discover those ways through the hideous forests, and the openings between the mountains are not to be seen till we come to them. The winding passages through mountainous countries are not to be discovered but by tracing the course of the waters themselves. But yet amidst all these obstacles these rivers find their way, and fail not at last of an arrival at the ocean at last, though they pass through so many vast regions that all seem to be full of obstacles for so long a course together.”
Soooooo, let the River flow. You may think there are too many obstacles in your life blocking you from the River of God. Rivers have a way of reaching their destination. Maybe, just maybe, the Lord is raising up a new generation that is not not willing to settle for symbols alone but are insisting there is a better way.
2 thoughts on “THE RIVER KEEPS FLOWING”
That is beautiful prophecy straight into my inner being. People has forever sought after a direct easy path. Instead of following the twists and turns of the River, they would seek to cut across the dry land to try and shorten their journey ( do things their way) I now only wish to stay in His River, don’t care where it takes me, just want to be in His flow.
Let’s not be swampl dwellers any longer. We here in Louisiana are so proud of our putrid swamps that are stagnant and stinking. And they are that way because there is no outflow! Or just a trickle through the slow moving bayou of tradition. Break open the dam of the Church walls and let the River of God over flow into the streets so that there may be an abundance of life. Then the Fishermen will stand on its banks casting their nets from New Orleans to New Zealand. And their catch will be many kinds of fish line the great sea.