We’d better find out what God’s choice is, because He’s not coming back for ours. He’s coming back after His. Well, they have it right. It’s the church of their choice. We wouldn’t want to hurt a soul but we just chased one. Again, we don’t want to hurt anybody, but it’s a big one and “we” just want to choose. You take the Methodists, who call themselves Methodist, but they really are not Methodists. A brother and I were in Pennsylvania, holding a tent meeting one Sunday evening, when some people came in and we were preaching on the church (using the chart on the church) and I saw people were getting stirred---I didn’t know who they were---I was just preaching---when it was over I found out. One woman met me before I got out of the pulpit and said, “Listen here, how long has it been since you were down in Babylon?” I said, “Who are you?” “I’m a Methodist”, she replied. What’s a Methodist? “I don’t know, but I am one.” I said, “Sister, it won’t do me any good to talk to you, because you don’t even know what you are.” I went on to show her that the Methodist Church, is not the Methodist Church any more, it’s the people’s church.
The Methodists believed in justification, full consecration, holiness, and the old time revival meeting with shouts in the camp. Today, if you go down and join it, they’ll ask you if you want to be sprinkled, poured or immersed. These things fell into the hands of men---a poor weak ministry; afraid of their bread and butter.
A great star fell from heaven burning as it were a lamp and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and fountains of water and the name of the star was called wormwood. Now, what are these fountains and rivers that fell? Already we’ve taken the symbol about the waters. Revelation 17:5: lets us know that the waters were the people. Now, it gets a little closer than the people. It said it fell on the rivers and fountains and made them bitter. What are the fountains and rivers? (Let Mr. Webster talk, first. He said a fountain is a natural or an artificial spring of water, the head of a river. Now that’s what Webster says. Let’s see what the Bible says. John, the fourth chapter, mentions about Jesus talking with the woman at the well when He said, “If you had asked me I would have given you a drink”; (I might stop here, church) that’s our position now, as the body of Christ. Don’t you know, the world can’t get a drink of this, unless we give it to them? “If you had asked me I would have given you a drink of this.” If we’re not careful, as a church, we’ll be sitting in all our pride and say, there’s plenty here, get it if you want it. No, we have to give it to them. “If you had asked me, I would have given you a drink.” She said, “Are you greater than our father Jacob that gave us the well? This well is deep and you don’t have anything to draw with.” Jesus said, “I’m not talking about Jacob’s well. The well I’m talking about is deeper than Jacob’s and you have nothing to draw with.” Short of the Spirit of God, we have nothing worthwhile to draw out of this well.
SWEET AND BITTER WATER
We must give them to drink and the only thing they are getting now, the only thing the world is getting is our overflow and there are too many people just keeping their cup full---just going to church enough to satisfy them. Well, again, that’s not according to God’s plan. Take a drink of this water and it will be a well of water in you, springing up into everlasting life. This is the fountain. James said, “You fellows have cursing and praise coming out of your mouth and a fountain doesn’t send forth sweet and bitter water from the same fountain head.
Now I like that scripture, it went a little further in John the 4th chapter, and said she left her water pot. I get so sick of the saints yet carrying their water pots. You don’t need them when you have a spring, you don’t need water pots. You can just drink anytime. Oh, I hope you see what the fountains are. When it fell on the people, (false teachings) that sweet fountain that Christ had opened up in their hearts, began to turn into bitterness and bitterness began to get in their hearts. It fell on the fountain and the rivers. What are the rivers? You know what they are, the 7th chapter of John we read the 37th and 38th verses. Let’s turn back and read it. It says, “In the last days, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.” Why did He stand and say that?
When we begin to study Bible History and other historians bring forth the very custom of that day among the Jews, we find the last great day of the feast, the priest stood there with a golden vessel of water, brought from the pool of Siloam and poured it out before the Lord quoting the 12th chapter of Isaiah, the third verse saying, “Therefore with joy shall you draw water from the well of salvation.” Jesus walked up after the priest got through and said, “If any man thirst, come and drink.” I am the well; I will fulfill that scripture.
We go on and read the next verse, and it tells us that when we drink, out of our belly will flow rivers of living water. If you people are saved and sanctified (as you are) why is it so dry around your place? Springs flowing up and rivers flowing out---springs springing up, and rivers flowing out, springs coming up, and rivers flowing out. Now you know why we want to preach every day for two or three hours. Why? The truth and joy are here in our very hand.
God told us a long time ago, “Freely you have received, freely give.” The more we give it away, the more He gives. Those are the rivers and fountains; we need them again. If we go back to Ezekiel, we gain understanding about the river of life. Ezekiel, the 47th chapter, God took him around the temple and there in an old temple, taught him things. Round and round he went, and when he brought him up by the threshold and the door of the temple again, and Ezekiel was just walking by, because he had been by there many times, but he stopped and looked, and there was water running out, and just kept running out. God said, “I want to measure this thing for you---we’ll show you how big this thing is, that we have a hold of.” He measured a thousand, and it got up to his knees, measured another thousand, and it got up to his loins. I can’t preach on this, (you fill in your own thoughts) and measured another one, and he measured again, and it was water to swim in that couldn’t be passed over.
Ezekiel said, “I can’t make it, and he turned around and swam back to the other shore.” When he got back there, there were trees on it already. What are the trees? Isaiah, Jeremiah, Psalmist in the first Psalm, Jesus in the 7th chapter of Matthew and John in the 3rd chapter of Matthew, said the trees are the people. Those quick trees had sprung up, a symbol of children of God, getting new life from that river already. It went down through the desert, and out into the Dead Sea. Now, let’s go back and get it. What was he seeing a picture of? There never was water seen coming out under the threshold of the old temple. That was a vision of something. What was it? Christ, the true door to the Church.
It came out from the right side of the altar, the south side of the altar and the altar, he said, “Faced the east.” They, seeing Christ on Calvary’s cross, they hung him facing the east. When they pierced His right side out flowed blood and water, that’s when the water ran out and down and under the threshold. What is the threshold? The threshold is under the door. Who is the door? Christ is the door. Where did the Gospel go? It went right down through the desert country. John started in the desert and in the wilderness, turning the water loose and on out to the Dead Sea and on out and on out and wherever, as we read it, and wheresoever this water went, and whatever it touched, it gave life.
He turned the water loose. Let’s quit damning it up---turn it loose---take faith in it. Wheresoever the water went, and whatever it touched, had life. Could I show you the Church? There goes the river of life. It had a small beginning, flowing out of the Lamb. Someone said, I don’t think that’s where it began flowing. Go with me to the 22nd chapter of the Revelation, no one understands that, until you try to preach it. It makes your heart swell up---it makes your throat tight. I am here to tell you, there’s no reason for this dryness, if we will get people drinking, just get people drinking, there will be reverence break out. One said, Bro. Wilson, I’m a young preacher and I would like to have a place to preach. Well, I’ll give you a text: the 47th chapter of Ezekiel says the river went out through the desert country and into the Dead Sea, and when it hit the Dead Sea, everything that was in the Dead Sea came to life, when the water hit it. [ The End ]