Book 3 of Musings The Fountain of Life

To be filled with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with the Fullness of God, is to be a fountain of living water; a tree of life.

How happy is the individual thus endowed, who is able to bring eternal life to others.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39)

We have used the above passage to refer to the Pentecostal experience of being baptized with the Holy Spirit. I don't see any problem with that.

However, the "last and greatest day of the Feast" refers to the last day of the feast of Tabernacles, the "rejoicing over the Law."

The spiritual experience of the feast of Tabernacles comes after the experience of Pentecost and is different from the spiritual experience of the feast of Pentecost. Those of us who have been celebrating the Pentecostal experience need to understand this. It is time to move forward to the greater observance, the feast of Tabernacles.

Pentecost is the rain from Heaven. The Bible speaks of the planting rains and the harvest rains; the fall rains and the spring rains. We love the blessing that comes as the Lord Jesus pours out the Holy Spirit on us. In fact we need more such fire today. Pentecostal fire needs to fall on us. Do you agree with that?

The Tabernacles experience is not that of rain. It is that of the Throne of God being established in the individual

Notice carefully the wording of the passage above:

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. (John 7:38)

Pentecost is the rain from Heaven Its purpose is to bring us to the feast of Tabernacles. In the Tabernacles experience we become the source of the water, because the Throne of God has been created in us. We have become a tree of life, drawing our life from the greatest Tree of Life.

I am contending for a permanent revival. I am thankful for the showers of blessing. But after the revival abates, people fall back into their old patterns of behavior. I am looking for godliness that will not change whether there are showers of blessing or not.

Tabernacles is the permanent revival. The reason for this is, the Throne of God, the source of eternal life, is not formed in us until worldliness, lust, and self-will have been removed from us and Christ has been formed in us.

We can have the Pentecostal blessing while we still are worldly, filled with the lusts and passions of the flesh, and bound with self-will and self-love. This is why the Holy Spirit fell on the waiting disciples as tongues of fire, and not as a Dove, as He did on the Lord Jesus.

Before we can pass into the Tabernacles experience, or, I might say, as we are passing into the Tabernacles experience, we have to experience the preceding Jewish convocation, which is the Day of Atonement. During our experience of the Day of Atonement we are prepared for the coming of the fullness of God's Throne, as the sin, idolatry, and rebellion are destroyed out of our personality.

The twelfth chapter of the Book of Isaiah was sung during the festival the Lord Jesus was describing in the seventh chapter of the Book of John.

In that day you will say: "I will praise you, O LORD. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation." With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. In that day you will say: "Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim his name is exalted. Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world. Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you." (Isaiah 12:1-6)

"With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." It is time now for the Lord to dig the wells of salvation in us. The Pentecostal blessings come and go. It is time now for something permanent. It is time for us to become the Throne of God.

Man was created to be the Throne of God and the source of the River of Life. Each one of us can be the Throne of God, but we have to walk very closely with the Lord Jesus as He leads us into the water a step as a time.

At salvation we are in water to the ankles. At Pentecost we are at water to the knees. At the feast of Tabernacles we are water to the waist, and finally waters to swim in.

Once we go through these measurings, these judgments, we are brought back to the bank of the river, so to speak, so we can receive endless life from the river of God. Then we shall serve as the source of eternal life that will bring life to the dead creation.

When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. (Ezekiel 47:7-9)

The promise for the coming Kingdom Age is that the glory of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. The waters will come from within the saints. The sea is the dead sea of mankind, and the Holy Spirit will bring life. Fishers will gather in a great harvest from the nations.

The Spirit and the Bride invite all people to come and drink freely of the water of life. God's saints will become one with each other and with God through Christ, and then the world will believe it is God who has sent the Lord Jesus into the world. The Glory of God shall cover the saints, and then the nations of the earth will come to their light. This is the vision of the future.

We are in the critical hour now. The Pentecostal blessing will not suffice for what God has in mind. The purpose of the Pentecostal blessing is to build us up to where we can be judged and prepared to become the Throne of God, the source of the River of Life.

The demands on us when we first are saved are significant and challenging.

The demands on us when we move forward into Pentecost are even more significant and more challenging.

But the demands on us as we move from Pentecost into the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles are total. No part of our personality can be withheld from the claims of Christ-not the smallest part.

I wonder how many of us today are willing to go this far with God. It may help us to make the final, total consecration when we realize what a blessing it will be to God and to people for us to qualify as a tree of life.

The trumpet of Christ is sounding now in the churches. He is drawing up the battle lines as He comes against the enemy in His people; not the enemy in the world, that will come later. It is the enemy in God's people, the worldliness, the lusts of the flesh, the self-will and self-love, that are the enemies of God.

The Lord wants us to get out of the way so He can attack His enemies. We do this by confessing our sins and turning away from them as the Holy Spirit enables us. This is how we prepare the way of the Lord.

When the Lord has finished judging His enemies in us, then the Father and the Son can take up Their place of rest in us in fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles.

Though God appears to be angry with us for a season, it is only that He might get at those enemies in us that prevent us from being the Throne of God and a source of the water of life.

If we hold steady while we are being judged and delivered, the time will come when we are brought out into a large place. Then we will with joy draw water from the wells of salvation that the dead of the nations may drink and receive eternal life.

What a day we live in! Beyond all doubt, the twentieth century was the century of Pentecost. We now are in the twenty-first century, and it may prove to be the century of the feast of Tabernacles.

There shall be the greatest of all Pentecostal outpourings as we approach the end of the Church Age. Multitudes will profess Christ, according to my understanding. There shall also be a time of moral horrors as self-centered man governs the world.

But during this time the Lord Jesus will prepare His Throne in each believer who is willing to submit to the Lord's dealings, who will follow the Spirit of God until he or she is filled with the fullness of God.

Such Divine Glory is available for you and me today. Will we take advantage of it?

So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45)