Volume 2 - Issue 3 - July 1998
 

RETURN TO THE BANKS OF THE RIVER

By Bishop Gary S. Brooks
 

Ezekiel 47:1-7

"Afterward He brought me again unto the door of the House; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the House eastward: for the forefront of the House stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under, from the right side of the House, at the south side of the altar. Then brought He me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way without unto the outer gate by the way that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side. And when the Man that had the line in His Hand went eastward, He measured a thousand cubits, and He brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles. Again He measured a thousand, and brought me through the waters; the waters were to the knees. Again He measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins. Afterward He measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. And He said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this? Then He brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of the river. Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other."
 

"Hast thou seen this?".  What Ezekiel was being asked was, "Son of man, have you understood this experience?". You see, what we need to understand is that initially we experience the River of Life for ourselves, that we may be planted as a tree of life upon the banks of the River, along side of the other trees, as one corporate Tree of Life, which is for the healing of the nations! For what is in this River is forgiveness, life, and blessing! Hallelujah! For their waters (that which waters the trees of life) issues out of the Sanctuary, which is within the veil, out the Throne of God and of the Lamb, which is the Ark of the Covenant, revealing the eternal life, light, more excellent ministry, and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ!

It is the Man that has the measuring line in His Hand that leads us and brings us experientially through the waters of the River of Life. The Man is Jesus Christ our Lord. His Hand is His 5-fold ministry gift of the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher, by whom we are led and brought through the waters of the Spirit and the Word. The Man, Christ Jesus, is our measure of which we must grow up into as we are brought through the increase and rising of the waters.

Our first experience of the waters of the River is ankle deep, covering our feet, causing us to jump for joy, cleansing our walk, giving us a new purpose and direction, and setting our feet upon the path of righteousness! We are then brought into a deeper experience, knee deep, of prayer, of true worship, of communion with the Holy Ghost! After this we experience waters risen to our loins, where we recognize the Holy Seed of Christ in us is as the hope of glory, and the seed of Adam [mankind] is seen for what it is, the serpent's seed, the beast, that wicked one. Here we are washed of the ability to reproduce the image of man in the flesh and are renewed in the spirit of our mind. Finally, the waters of the river are risen in such glory and majesty that we cannot pass over it. We are swept off of our feet and can only flow with the current of the River, with an understanding that we are dead and the life that we really are has been hid all the time with Christ in God! We see Christ as our life and we as Him in this world. He appears in His saints and His saints appear as Him! In this experience we become one with the life flow of the River, having found our identity in the Source of the River of Life, our Lord Jesus Christ!

We must surely receive to ourselves the experience of the River, but at the same time we must have a mindset that this is what it is...experience! The question then is, “Experience for what purpose?” The answer is in what Jesus has said, "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." and "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water".  We experience and drink in the waters of the River so that rivers of living water may flow out of us as a fountain of water springing up! A pure River of Water of Life, a River of the Spirit and the Word, a River of Anointing and Power being poured out into whosoever is thirsty! A River who's streams thereof shall make glad the City of God! A River that shall flow into the Great Sea of humanity! A River that heals, restores and revives everything to which it comes! But the miry places, where the water is mixed with earth [earthy Adam] shall be a swamp of mud and shall not be healed, neither shall the marshes, being only a reservoir to collect the waters and not a channel for the River to flow through.

Jesus came to the Samaritan woman, as told in the gospel of John chapter 4, and asked her for a drink of water. She replied with "How is it, that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans".

There are three issues here that stop up the flow of the River.

1. Racial Prejudice

2. Gender Prejudice

3. Denomi-national Prejudice.

Jesus answered her saying that if she understood and was aware of Who He is (the Gift of God) that she would be asking Him for a drink and He would have given her living water. "The woman saith unto Him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?"

Here are two places where the River is not permitted flow through.

1. Carnal Reasoning

2. Old Order Religion (an Old Covenant Mentality)

Jesus then told her that if she would drink the water that He would give her, she would never thirst and it would be in her a well of water springing up unto eternal life. She then asked Him for that water. He directed her to go call her husband and return. She said to Him that she has no husband. "Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly."

The woman at the well is representative of the Church. The five husbands represent the message of the 5 books of the Law of Moses. The 6th man (the # assigned to Adam) is not her husband either. This is the picture of the modern church being married to messages of law and condemnation and still believing the lie of being joined to the old man Adam.  Now it is not a message that we are after, but rather the Messenger... Christ! But being married only to a message [doctrine] will hinder the flow of the River. If we'll experientially and intimately know the Messenger then we will know His message and will become a messenger in His message, the Word made flesh!

The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 11, "for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles" .

It was through an Apostle gift, Paul, that the Corinthian Church was corporately joined to their Husband, Christ. If the River of God is to flow out of the Church in this hour, then we will once again be submitted to the gift of the Apostle, true fathers in the Lord! For the Man with the line in His Hand caused Ezekiel to return to the brink of the River and when he had returned he saw the banks! This is where his experience had begun, but in the beginning he didn't even notice the banks! So the Lord must also cause us to return to the brink that we may see the banks as well!

Now every river must flow within it's banks, it doesn't have a will of it's own. It is governed and directed by it's banks! This River is Divinely Governed and Divinely Directed by the ministry of the 12 Apostles of the Lamb and the scriptures of the Old Testament Prophets! For is not the Church built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone? Therefore the Spirit of the Lord is raising up, establishing and connecting Apostolic Ministries in every place. He is assembling together, in unity, a corporate body that is Divinely governed and directed in the order of the Spirit, planted as the Tree of Life and rooted deep upon the banks of the River! The leaves of their trees shall not wither, they will always yield fruit and whatever they do shall prosper! There is no curse with them, they see the face of the Lord, His name is in their foreheads and the Lord God gives them light! And it shall come to pass, that this Pure River of Water of Life shall flow out of His Church and the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea to bring the healing of the nations... the denominations, the imaginations and to the nations of the families of the earth!