When we remain silent and refuse to speak, it is rather easy for us to become angry or to lose our temper. However, if we are continually speaking, singing, and giving thanks, it will be difficult for us to lose our temper. This indicates that the flowing of the water of life is a repellent which drives away the negative things, all the “flies,” “scorpions,” and “gophers.” The Christian life is a life of fighting. Day and night, we fight against the negative things which seek to influence us and drag us down. We need a repellent to chase away the “bugs.” Speaking is the best repellent.
Suppose I travel by airplane to visit the church in a particular city. If during the flight I remain silent, not praying, praising, or calling on the Lord Jesus, I shall be troubled by negative or distracting thoughts. The “scorpions” may come not singly, but in hoards. Negative thoughts may swarm in my mind, thoughts concerning certain brothers or perhaps concerning the way my wife treated me a few days earlier, or about the way my children have apparently been ignoring me. If I fail to repel these “scorpions,” these negative thoughts, by speaking, I shall have no heart to minister for the Lord when I reach my destination. I may not even sense any burden within.
Suppose, however, my situation is the very opposite. Instead of remaining silent, I continually speak by praising, praying, thanking, and calling on the name of the Lord. Because I speak, the living water flows within me continually. As I am greeted by the brothers, I shall spontaneously say, “Praise the Lord!” Furthermore, I shall be burdened to minister life to the church there.
When we are spiritually dry, it is easy for us to be irritated or angry. When we are not flowing the water of life, we easily lose our temper with our husband or wife. However, when we are overflowing with the living water, our irritation, anger, and temper are flushed away. What a difference it makes to be flowing the water of life!
Genuine revival is a matter of flowing, of bubbling. Let us read John 4:14 again: “But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life.” A characteristic of a spring of water is that it flows unceasingly. Anything that does not flow cannot be a spring. It may instead be like the Dead Sea, which does not have any outflow. When we drink of the living water, it becomes in us a spring of water welling up into eternal life. The phrase “welling up into eternal life” is difficult to understand. I do not believe that any Christians, even among us, fully understand this. What does it mean to well up into eternal life? Does this refer to the present or to eternity? It refers to both. But what does it mean to say that the living water flows up now into eternal life? This is mysterious. The flowing of living water, the welling up of this water, always brings us into a situation where there is the fullness of life. According to my experience, whenever the water of life flows within me, I am brought into a situation that is filled and flooded with life. This is what it means for the living water to well up into eternal life.
Suppose I visit a brother in his home. However, in every way I am dumb, dry, cold, and dead. If this is my condition, there will be no welling up into eternal life. Instead, this brother and I will be dragged down lower and lower into death. But if as I am on my way to this brother’s house, I flow the living water by speaking, the water will be welling up in me into eternal life. Then as I visit with him, the living water will continue to flow. By the flowing of the water of life, we shall be brought into a condition that is flooded with life. In a practical way this is what it means for water to well up into eternal life.
The more we speak, the more we are brought into a state where we are flooded with eternal life. This should be our experience in our daily life and also in the church meetings. Otherwise, our meetings will be like performances in a theater. We do not come to the meetings to perform; we come to testify, to express, to exhibit, the flowing out of the living water we experience day by day.
Regarding the flowing of the water of life by speaking, today’s Christianity is far off the mark. The fundamentalists insist on certain formalities. These formalities bring people into death, not into eternal life. In Pentecostalism, on the contrary, there is a certain amount of speaking. Even though much of this speaking is ridiculous, it is better than no speaking at all, and it may even afford a little spiritual benefit. Nevertheless, there is no need for us in the Lord’s recovery to speak like those in Pentecostalism. Instead, we have much to say about Christ as our life and about all that has been brought forth through the ministry of the Word. How much we have to speak about to one another! Let us be neither like the fundamentalists nor like the Pentecostalists. Instead, let us come together to flow the living water by speaking.
This flowing, this flushing out, which comes through speaking will bring in life. It will produce the welling up into eternal life. The more speaking, singing, praying, and praising, the more flowing there will be among us. Let us seize every opportunity to flow in the church meetings. Let us not waste time in dumbness, in silence, but use every minute to flow the water of life. Such speaking will not only bring us into a situation where we are flooded with life, but also bring us into the fullness of the Spirit. The more we speak, the more we shall be brought into the fullness of the Spirit.
If we would flow the water of life, we also need to be identified with the smitten Christ (Exo. 17:6; John 7:38). The smitten rock signifies the incarnated Christ in His crucifixion. In a previous message we pointed out that on the cross Christ was smitten by God. We need to be identified with this smitten One. This means that our human life, our natural life, must be smitten so that the living water may flow. There is no need, however, for us to try to smite ourselves. If we simply are one with the smitten Christ, identified with Him, we shall experience the crucifixion of our natural life. Then as Christ’s divine life flowed out as living water through the smiting of His human life, we also shall experience the flow of the water of life through the smiting of our natural life. Only when our natural life has been smitten will the divine life flow out from us.
If we speak without being identified with the smitten Christ, our speaking, even our praise and prayer, will be natural. We need to be one with Christ in a way that is actual and practical. Then we shall experience the smiting of the natural life which took place in Him and with Him at the time of His crucifixion. If we are identified with the smitten Christ in such a way, the water of life will flow not in a natural way, but in a way that is pure, without mixture. Whatever issues from us in prayer, praise, or testimony will be the flow of the divine life in its purity.
When we are identified with Christ in His death, our natural, human life will be put to death. Then whatever flows out of us will be the very life of God, the divine, eternal life. This life is the water of life. If we are identified with the smitten Christ, what flows out from us will be pure. There will not be the mixture of the divine life with the natural life.
Furthermore, this flow will bring us into a situation that is flooded with eternal life. According to Revelation 22:1 and 2, the supply of life is in the water of life, for the tree of life grows in the river of life. When the water of life flows within us, we are richly supplied. Moreover, the whole church will receive the rich supply of life. Oh, how we need such a flowing!
I encourage you to pray about the flowing of the water of life and to put what you have heard in this message into practice. However, we need to leave behind the traditional teachings and practices of Christianity. We all need to forget the influence of our background in Christianity. What we have been speaking in this message is according to the pure Word of God, not according to the tradition of Christianity. What we need is not Christian tradition, but the flow of the water of life. If we practice this flowing by speaking and by being identified with the smitten Christ, we shall have not only one river, but the rivers spoken of by the Lord Jesus in John 7:38. Rivers of living water will flow out from our innermost being.