THE RIVER OF GOD

Enter The River of God as we Worship

I am very thankful to be part of a church where the worship is anointed, dynamic, where the Spirit of the Lord flows as we worship. 

Before getting into this message, think back to times and places you’ve been where the worship was different, in a good way. Have you been at a church that was “In Revival”, places like the Ramp, or Brownsville, or Toronto or other places where there was a great outpouring of the Holy Ghost? We’ve heard some stories of a move of God here years ago, when the church was packed and worship was exuberant. Share what it was like.

The Lord wants to provoke us to enter into a higher realm of His Spirit when we come together to worship. My wife and I were spiritually birthed in the Fire; we thrive on extremely anointed and exuberant worship. We didn’t need to go to a gym for a workout, we rejoiced in the Lord with dancing and whirling, shouting and making music, with all our might as King David taught us to. For awhile there was so much Spirit prompted laughter. Such an experience is the greatest stress release you could ever imagine. The following verses became so real as we were all “drunk in the Spirit.”

 

Psalm 126:2   Then our mouth was filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

Proverbs 17:22   A merry heart does good, like medicine…(There’s healing in this kind of laughter)

Job 8:21   He will yet fill your mouth with laughing, And your lips with rejoicing.

Eph. 1:3   Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ

Psalm 2:4   He who sits in the heavens shall laugh…

Now that we’re much older we’re still eager to use whatever strength we have to worship the King.

Entering into this place requires some heart level understanding of the River of God, where’s its head waters are, where it flows, what it means to get in and get wet.

Psalm 46:4   There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, The holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High.

5   God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, just at the break of dawn.

John 7:37   On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

38   He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

1 Corinthians 3:16   Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

Let that connection between these verses churn around in your brain for a minute.

With that in mind, let’s look at Ezekiel’s vision that shows us some of what happens in worship and when we are walking in the Spirit. Turn to Ezek. 9. I’m intentionally leaving out portions of the verses for the sake of time and to stay to the point.

Ezek. 47:1   In my vision, the man brought me back to the entrance of the Temple. There I saw a stream flowing east from beneath the door of the Temple and passing to the right of the altar on its south side.

2   The man brought me outside the …and led me …to the eastern entrance. There I could see the water flowing out through the … gateway.

3   Measuring as he went, he took me along the stream for 583 yards…The water was up to my ankles.

4   He measured off another 583 yards and led me across again. This time the water was up to my knees. After another 583 yards, it was up to my waist.

5 Then he measured another 583 yards and the river was too deep to walk across. It was deep enough to swim in, but too deep to walk through.

6   He asked me, “Have you been watching, son of man?” Then he led me back along the riverbank.

7   When I returned, I was surprised by the sight of many trees growing on both sides of the river.

8   Then he said to me, “This river flows east through the desert into the valley of the Dead Sea. The waters of this stream will make the salty… Dead Sea fresh and pure.

9 There will be swarms of living things wherever the water of this river flows. Fish will abound in the Dead Sea, for its waters will become fresh. Life will flourish wherever this water flows. (NLT)

This river and the trees are referred to again in Revelation,

Rev. 22:1   And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

2   In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

So we see that these trees with roots in the riverbank. There’s life, there’s healing wherever the river goes. Do you see that the Lord is the source of the water of life? We are the conduit that brings those waters from heaven to earth. Miracles and healing are the norm wherever the River is flowing. This is more evident as you look again at Ezek. 47:1 where we see the water flowing out from under the door of the temple. Where to you ever see water flowing out from under a doorway? From a flooded room. There is a flood in the temple as the rivers of living water flowing out of believers hearts, come together forming this mighty river. Here is the headwaters of the River of God.

I grew up on the beach at the western end of Coney Island, Brooklyn NY and swimming in the ocean. As a teen I would swim out about 50 yards from shore into the deep water, out into the current. There I was passed the crowds, passed the rocks and could swim the ¼ mile or so from one end of the beaches to the other. Reading this passage in Ezekiel I see myself swimming out, getting to where the river reaches the sea and just keep on going effortlessly. In a similar way, look at what Jesus told the disciples to do:

John 5:3   Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

4   When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

5   But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless, at Your word, I will let down the net.”

6   And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking.

There is an application of this concept of launching out into the deep. I love praying for people at alter calls because it is where I have to launch out into the deep and experience a very special anointing. This stepping out is not exclusive to when we come together to worship the Lord in the congregational setting, nor is it exclusive to “the 5 Fold Ministry,” but that’s where tonight’s focus is. Do you have an experiential understanding of “entering into worship?” Launching out into the deep is to enter the Presence of God with “Reckless Abandon” When you do, anything can happen. Allow God to touch your spirit, just yield yourself, body soul & spirit, to the flow of the river, to the winds of the Spirit, to the Manifest Presence of God. When you do, there will be some outward expression. We may laugh, or weep, or shout praises, or manifest some gift of the Spirit, or run around the sanctuary shouting praises to the Lord, or get on the floor with face down and linger there for an extended period of time. There’s no limit to what such expressions may be. Remember there is healing in that river. There is a reason we Pentecostals were called “Holy Rollers”, and from our perspective, there is nothing negative in that. The manner of the expression is not what we seek, but experiencing the Manifest Presence of God is what is critical.

King David set the example for worship when bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem:

2 Sam. 6:12   Now it was told King David, saying, “The Lord has blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with gladness.

13   And so it was, when those bearing the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, that he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep.

14   Then David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was wearing a linen ephod.

15   So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet.

16   Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.

David worshipped the Lord with Reckless Abandon. He took off his outer Kingly attire, danced and shouted praises to God, leaping and whirling as they publically paraded down the main drag into the city. Those who entered in this worship were greatly blessed. We were in a church of about 1,000 in Long Island for about 2 years. Men on the platform where required to dress in ties and jackets, but during worship the jackets came off. The large alter area was stuffed full with people doing the Pentecostal Jig and all our shoes were in a big pile. The River of God was flowing at Love Church. Miracles and healing was the norm. People living in the deepest pits of sin came and were saved very often.

Before I met Johanna, I was living in an apartment towards the north end of Main Street in Cortland, a small college city in the geographic center of NY state. Main St. had its share of shops, bars and restaurants, many catering to the students. I don’t remember if it was a vision or a dream, but I saw, in the Spirit, the river flowing. There was a spontaneous Christian parade down the middle of Main Street. We went down the stairs, into the street and, with reckless abandon, began to praise the Lord while walking south. The further we walked the bigger the crowd of excited believers grew. There where hundreds of us, walking and leaping and praising God. You could see the progression in the depth of the river. Maybe someday it’ll happen there but we need to experience such excitement when we come together to meet with King Jesus with healed, purified hearts.

POSTSCRIPT: Additional Biblical References to the River of God

Source of God’s Provision:

Gen 2:8   Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made.

9   The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground—trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10   A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches.

11   The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed around the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found.

12   The gold of that land is exceptionally pure; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there.

Looking at several maps that attempt to locate Eden and Havilah, it appears that Havilah is was near Kuwait and Eden west of there. Someone got the gold many centuries ago, perhaps Solomon, but now they have found black gold, Texas tea; Oil; another source of great wealth. Just like the wise men brought the wealth for this area to Mary and Joseph that financed their life in Egypt, the God’s river should flow through the garden of our hearts.

Psalm 65:9:  You take care of the earth and water it, making it rich and fertile. The river of God has plenty of water; it provides a bountiful harvest of grain, for you have ordered it so.

There is life wherever the River flows. The rest of Psalm 65 expounds of verse 9, read it at your next opportunity.