In the foregoing message we pointed out that the entire Bible, including the book of Jeremiah, was written for God's economy. My burden in this life-study of Jeremiah is that you would see what the Lord has shown me from the Word concerning God's economy. If you see this vision, your life will be affected, and the Lord's recovery will be enriched. In this message I am burdened to give a word on three portions from Jeremiah (2:13; 23:5-6; 31:33-34) and one from Lamentations (3:22-25). The totality of the matters covered in these verses is God's economy.
In Jeremiah 2:13 we have God's word to Israel, the elect of Jehovah, concerning two evils which they have committed.
Jeremiah 2:13 says, "My people have committed two evils: / They have forsaken Me, / The fountain of living waters, / To hew out for themselves cisterns, / Broken cisterns, / Which hold no water." God's intention in His economy is to be the fountain, the source, of living waters to satisfy His chosen people for their enjoyment. The goal of this enjoyment is to produce the church as God's increase, God's enlargement, to be God's fullness for His expression. This is the heart's desire, the good pleasure (Eph. 1:5, 9), of God in His economy. The full development of this thought is in the New Testament, but it is sown as a seed in Jeremiah 2:13.
God's economy is to dispense Himself as the living water to produce His increase, His enlargement, to be His expression. This thought is developed in the writings of John. In John 1:1 and 14 we see that the Word, which was God, became flesh, full of grace and reality. Verse 16 goes on to say, "For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace." In chapter four of John the Lord Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman concerning living water (vv. 10, 14). In John 7:38 He said, "He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water." In Revelation 21 and 22 we have a vision of the New Jerusalem, which is a great sign of God's increase for His expression. Revelation 22:1 and 2 show us that in the New Jerusalem the river of life flows and that in this river grows the tree of life as the life supply to support and sustain the entire city. What we have in the writings of John is surely the growth of the seed sown in Jeremiah 2:13.
This thought is strengthened by Paul's writings. For example, 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, "In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body..and were all given to drink one Spirit." To be baptized in the Spirit is to get into the Spirit and to be lost in Him; to drink the Spirit is to take the Spirit in and to have our being saturated with Him. In 1 Corinthians 10:3 and 4 Paul, using the Old Testament types, speaks not only of drinking but also of eating. "All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ." The spiritual food refers to manna (Exo. 16:14-18), typifying Christ as our daily life supply; the spiritual drink refers to the living water that flowed out of the cleft rock (Exo. 17:6), typifying the Spirit, who flowed out of the crucified and resurrected Christ as our all-inclusive drink. Our drinking of God as the living water is for the church as His increase; our drinking is for the producing of His enlargement, His fullness, for His expression.