Genesis 2:8 - 14; Ezekiel 47:1, 12; Revelation 17:1, 15; Revelation 22:1, 2; John 7:37 - 39.

I thought we might consider together the living water and to take account of the environment from whence it flows. We have to remember that God Himself is the source according to Jeremiah 2 where He speaks of the two sins that His people had committed; that they had forsaken Him, the fountain of living water, and had hewn out cisterns, broken cisterns, which hold no water. So that God Himself is the fountain of living water. And one of the final promises in scripture is that to him that thirsts, He will give of the fountain of the water of life freely. But while God Himself is the Fountain, the water becomes available to men from a certain environment and the features of this environment develop in scripture.

In the first passage we read, the environment is Eden; a river went out of Eden to water the garden. In the second scripture the environment is the sanctuary. In Ezekiel 47:12 we are told the waters issued from the sanctuary. In Revelation 22 the river of water of life, clear as crystal, flows out from the throne of God and of the Lamb. John 7 brings it down in a practical way to each one of us; it is out of the belly of a living believer, one who believes all the time and has a living state of faith, that rivers of living water flow. Anyone who is livingly believing in Jesus is continually coming to Him as glorified.

"If any one thirst ..." We soon get thirsty; even in natural things we need continually to drink, and the living believer in Jesus continually comes to Him in faith, coming to Jesus glorified, which in a spiritual sense, includes Eden and the sanctuary and the throne. So the living believer has access to the whole environment in coming in faith to Jesus glorified; and in coming, not only is he refreshed and satisfied, but he becomes a channel. "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water". There is no doubt that in that scripture the Spirit of God has in mind Genesis 2 as well as the other scriptures. But the idea in Genesis 2 is that the river went out first to water the garden. Then it divided into four heads and went out to water the earth in its various sections. Therefore when any one, livingly believing, comes to Jesus glorified as a habit of soul, there is refreshment available to satisfy his heart completely, and moreover the living waters can flow out from that man. The environment from which they come is Jesus glorified, and the source is God Himself as known in Jesus.

I feel this is an urgent matter for my own soul. One desires earnestly to find complete satisfaction of soul in God Himself in the environment in which we are permitted to approach Him. It is a satisfied soul who can be serviceable in a true sense and can become a channel to others.

A.H.R. Did Paul start his career that way by seeing Jesus glorified?

G.R.C. Yes; he did, and he says right at the end: "I have learnt in those circumstances in which I am, to be satisfied in myself". The living water was so known in his own soul; so that even in prison, in

the most untoward circumstances, rivers of living water were flowing out of Paul and have come down to us today. We need to learn this. The psalmist says, "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God". (Psalm 42.) God alone can satisfy the human heart and surely one of the lessons of present exercises is that we should each prove that. Our satisfaction is in God and if everything else fails, our souls will be restful and satisfied in Him. And if we have each learned that, how valuable we would be in the testimony!

R.S. So the waters flow out to water the garden. What had you in mind as to that?

G.R.C. Well, if you take John 4, for instance, the woman had to be watered first. In a way she was the garden just then. She had to be watered first before she could water others, and that is the way true gospel testimony works. The Lord says to her "if thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says Give me to drink". She was in the presence of the Source, and then He says, "whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever". That is the garden watered. "But the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life". Now the reason she would never thirst for ever is because the fountain would spring up into eternal life. That is the environment according to that passage; the environment in which the living water is known as flowing is eternal life and the Spirit is given to bring us into eternal life. This links very much with Genesis 2. The conditions of life were there under God.

R.W. In Zechariah 14, I suppose, that is anticipating

the world to come. It says that living waters flow out of Jerusalem. Can you tell us the direction in which they go? Is it your concern that we might lay hold of this now, so that we might be useable and serviceable and that the evidence that the Spirit has operated in each one of us might be seen by what we are and what we do?

G.R.C. That is just it. It seems to me the living water is what we need to prove first -- the value of the Spirit. You see, a man who is dying of thirst is not much good to anybody until he has revived, and in spiritual matters a man is not much good to anybody unless he is satisfied; not only that his thirst is quenched, but he is satisfied. I wonder whether this is a preliminary thing, an underlying matter, because it says, "We have all been made to drink of one Spirit", and is linked in 1 Corinthians 12 with being baptised into one body and of being active, useful in the power of the Spirit in the body, and also being in the gain of the anointing, because, with reference to the body, it says, "So also is the Christ". That is the saints viewed as anointed, relative to Christ Himself. The precious oil is flowing down. The anointing is in view of activity and service, representing God, but if we have not first appropriated the Spirit as living water, how can we be available to Him relative to the anointing? It is to persons already satisfied that the Holy Spirit can distribute life and enjoyment of life, as resting upon the anointed.

S.W.H.R. So do you think that everything that goes back to God is what has come from Him? In coming from Him in the figure that you are using, it refreshes everything it comes to first. John's gospel

confirms that, does it not? You quoted chapters 4 and 7. and at the end of the gospel you get persons going out "even as the Father has sent me". Would that be the result of receiving from God what He makes so freely available?

G.R.C. I think that. So that the great end in view is the return to God. He is the Source of the living waters, but wherever the living water came, it says in Ezekiel, there was life, and life is with a view to response to God.

S.W.H.R. Are you concerned that we should go habitually to the Source and not to any other false sources for refreshment of this kind? There are many false forms -- things that have come in and intruded. I presume that the idea of the water of life would convey something that was clear and pure.

G.R.C. "Clear as crystal", it says in the last verse. We know the world and its river, the Nile is typical of it. And then Christendom has its waters; the harlot sits upon them. That is what things are heading up to and are there already; there are many waters. It does not say they are as clear as crystal, nor does it say they are pure; it says the waters are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. Now there should only be one people -- "I will be their God and they shall be my people;" but what you have in Christendom is peoples. Instead of there being one, the people of God, though all profess the name of God, are split up -- peoples and multitudes. There should be only one multitude surrounding the Lamb. There should only be one nation, a holy nation. There should only be one tongue in that sense, that we are all speaking the things of heaven in the power of the Spirit. And that will be so if

we get the gain of the river, the water of life. There will be one people, one multitude, one holy nation; we shall all be saying the same thing.

F.G.P. In Ezekiel 47:1 it says, "the waters came down from under, from the right side of the house, south of the altar". Would that suggest that it has all been made good to us through the death of Jesus?

G.R.C. Very affecting! How favourable, south of the altar! There is the north of the altar, the suffering of Christ, and all that enters into that, and our self-judgment; but the north has made way for the south, and this river flows south of the altar.

F.G.P. I wondered if this would impress our hearts that this river of living water flowed to us from the death of Jesus!

G.R.C. It would. The waters come as it were from Jesus glorified, but it is the result of His death, because it is at the altar He glorified God and therefore God has glorified Him.

J.L.W. Do you think that would save us from being so casual about these things? You spoke earlier of the need to be urgent. Why are we so casual? I was thinking of what has just been said, that we are not really touched deeply enough by the cost of the supply, are we?

G.R.C. No, and I wonder whether we are prepared for the environment. We all would desire to see living waters flowing to men, water of life, which will set men in life relative to God, so that God gets His portion from them. Wherever the double river came, there was life. (Ezekiel 47.) That is what is in view and we love to see it, and we would love to be channels of it, each one of us. The first river in Genesis, Pison, means 'freely flowing'. It is the

normal result of the Spirit given, where there is nothing to obstruct. It flows toward the land where the gold is, the bdellium and the onyx stone. The onyx stone suggesting sonship, because it was on the onyx stones of the high priest that the names of the children of Israel were inscribed, according to their birth.

F.G.P. And the gold, would that bring before our hearts that it is flowing to us because of His righteousness?

G.R.C. Yes, quite so. But you see, if we have the river in the full sense of it, we have to remember the environment.

R.S.C. Would the Lord's words to the disciples, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations" be the starting point of this water flowing freely in persons? The continuation of the division of the river in Genesis is seen now in satisfied persons going forth. They had received the living water from the Source. He says to them, "but do ye remain in the city till ye be clothed with power from on high". (Luke 24:49).

G.R.C. Yes, you see it working out, I believe, in Acts. Zechariah 14 has been quoted -- "in that day there will be a fountain of living waters open in Jerusalem", and that happened at Pentecost. To begin with, the fountain of living water was open at Jerusalem and rivers were flowing there, as you say, through the believers. They were vessels of living water for others, all satisfied themselves and filled with the Spirit. But then the river goes on flowing. God would make way governmentally for the river to flow. And so, in His ordering, Saul of Tarsus persecuted the saints to help the river. Those who were

scattered went everywhere evangelising the word. The river was flowing. They were all persons such as you get in John 7, living believers in Jesus glorified. The fact that they were refugees and that they had lost things here did not overburden or overwhelm them. They were living believers in a glorified Jesus and whatever locality they came to, they evangelised the word. That is like the flowing of the river. It was spontaneous. Men try to control rivers with dams and so on, but a river likes its own course and you see in Acts the thing making its own course under God's control -- freely flowing -- surrounding the land where the gold is.

J.L.W. It took the fragrance and sweetness of Eden with it.

G.R.C. It did. It came from that environment -- starting at the upper room.

P.H. There is only one other mention of bdellium in scripture and that is in Numbers 11:7, where it says that the manna was like coriander seed and its appearance as the appearance of bdellium. Does this suggest feeding on Christ daily, do you think?

G.R.C. Yes, that is very interesting. The gold came to light in Jerusalem but then it goes on to bdellium and the onyx stone, which no doubt would suggest more the fullness of Paul's ministry, bringing out the preciousness of Christ as you say in the bdellium and suggesting sonship in the onyx stone.

P.H. The priest had two stones on his shoulders. Each stone bore the names of six tribes and he carried them in this way before God.

G.R.C. Yes. I think you see the river flowing in Acts without any human organisation, which would only damage it. The river flowed under God's ordering

right to Antioch. Barnabas, led by the Spirit, brings Saul into it, and then the Spirit says, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them". The river was flowing into the Gentile world. The gold, the bdellium and the onyx stone came to light all along the line.

Ques. The work at Philippi started at the river. It went on from there and developed, did it not?

G.R.C. It did.

H.E.P. I was looking at 2 Corinthians 3, "We all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord, the Spirit". I was thinking it confirmed the thought of environment and how we enjoy these things as looking on the glory of the Lord.

G.R.C. I think that helps. The Lord would help us on this matter of environment from which this river flows. There are the various waters of Christendom, as we have already said, which will yet become entirely apostate, and such waters are already flowing; so we have in Revelation 17:15, "The waters, which thou sawest, where the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues".

F.G.P. But if we come to Jesus, the Source, for our drink, the waters will be pure.

G.R.C. They will. That is the point.

Ques. I would like to ask why you connect the onyx stone with sonship?

G.R.C. Because of the onyx stones on the shoulders of the high priest. There were six names each side according to birth. I believe that is usually thought to refer to what the saints are in sonship before God. The Lord would support us in the joy

of that relationship on His shoulders. The breastplate is rather sovereignty, not according to birth but according to the setting of the tribes as they were set around the tabernacle. Is that what you had in mind?

Rem. I was thinking of that in the shoulder plates, but I just wanted to get the thing a little bit clearer.

R.J.M. I was thinking again of the source of these rivers. They will never he turned aside if they derive from that source. Whatever comes in in the way of opposition or anything like that, the river will still make its own way.

G.R.C. A river makes its own way. That is good. You have only to look at nature to see the marvellous power of a river to make its own way, however hard the soil.

P.H. It could not be much harder than when Nimrod began his kingdom in Genesis 10, that is Havilah. God is wonderful in His provision! What foresight in providing for the posterity of such a man as Nimrod and for such as ourselves.

G.R.C. That is Havilah, is it?

P.H. That is Havilah, where God had sent the river already to surround it, with a view to the work of God picking up souls in mercy.

G.R.C. That is very good. To think that the river can make way in such soil as that!

P.H. The beginning of his kingdom was there in Havilah and it comes right down to the harlot that you quoted in Revelation 17.

G.R.C. Yes; it says the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.

Ques. Is that what was in mind when you said that the river not only went into the garden

to water the garden, but into all the earth?

G.R.C. Quite so, because it goes on to say that the second river, Gihon, surrounds the whole land of Cush. I think the third one Hiddekel is 'running water' which flows toward the land of Ashur, that is Assyria, not a very hopeful terrain naturally, but it is running water; but the first one is 'freely flowing'. It is where the Spirit is free that you get gold, bdellium and the onyx stone.

R.W. Would you say a little more about this thought of the garden? It seems as though that was the specific thought. The river went out from Eden to water the garden from which it was parted. The next paragraph is that God puts man in the garden; could you open up that a little, so that we might enter into the full light and the glory of divine purposes, to see why God in His grace and sovereignty has taken us up so that we might be useable as flowing in the current of these four rivers?

G.R.C. I wondered if the garden referred to the saints. You see, we think of the living water in gospel activities rightly, but the first purpose of the living waters is to water the garden and keep the garden fresh for God. It is in the garden that life according to God is seen. It is eternal life, really, as applied to us, I think. And the river comes from Eden which means pleasure -- it is the pleasure of God, the good pleasure of His will. The will of Ephesians l is the will of pleasure. It is what God has been pleased to purpose. "according to the good pleasure of his will". It is from the standpoint and environment of the good pleasure of God's will that the living water flows. But the first thing is that the garden might be thoroughly watered and fruitful,

both for God and for man-man enjoying eternal life in the garden and God getting His portion from it. It says that Jehovah walked in the garden in the cool of the day. The whole thing was designed for His pleasure, and all will be secured at the end.

There you have the street "in the midst of its street, and of the river, ... the tree of life". That is the street where God can walk. We may think it is for us to walk there but it is the golden street as transparent glass where God walks with His people. "I will dwell among them and walk among them".

N.H.T. In the Song of Songs it says, "let my beloved come into his garden" and it says previously "a fountain in the gardens, a well of living waters".

G.R.C. That is good. Well, we must have got the gain of the living water for ourselves to be a garden for the Lord, because that is for the Lord. He has a garden where there is living water for Him. He says to the woman in John 4, "Give me to drink". The Lord was seeking refreshment for Himself, and God was seeking refreshment for Himself when He walked in the garden at the cool of the day. That is the great objective. But if there is to be refreshment for Himself from the woman, she must be watered first. She was part of the garden and we are part of the garden. The river is then "parted into four main streams" and is thus going out universally, all with a view to bringing others into the garden. Wherever the river goes, there is life.

F.G.P. So the woman completes the thought.

"Come see a man who told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?" Is not that evangelising?

G.R.C. In principle the rivers were flowing out from her. She had been satisfied -- she had been watered, and her response to the Lord had no doubt given Him refreshment. He even speaks of the Father and she speaks of her father, (Jacob) "our father ... drank of it himself", she said. Then the woman herself becomes a vessel of living water.

D.V.W. She has changed her source. She was relying on tradition before, but now she is in touch with Christ glorified really.

G.R.C. Well, that is my concern. I think we have relied on tradition long enough. Let us get to the source of the living water. Let us really be satisfied persons. How little one has known it! What a lesson to learn to be really satisfied in ourselves, satisfied to have God filling the heart!

R.W. Have you in mind that all those things are progressive? First the garden and then the house in Ezekiel and then the sanctuary. Do you think we need to be building up all the time?

G.R.C. Yes, we do. You see, as soon as sin comes in, the garden idea alone is not sufficient; you must have the sanctuary idea now. The sanctuary means a place set apart for God. Therefore you have the house with its sanctuary, and it is from there that the rivers are flowing once sin has come in. But then the full flow of the water is from "the throne of God, and of the Lamb". What I understand by that is that the full and permanent flow is the result of God being glorified in all the rights of His throne, God's throne therefore being established on an immovable basis in the universe. That awaited the coming of Christ, although it is foretold in Ezekiel chapter 43, "This is the place of my throne, and

the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst for ever". God's house in that sense is the place of His throne, as the city in Revelation has the throne of God and the Lamb in it. But it is wonderful to think the river comes out from the throne, because it means the flow can never be stopped. It flows from the standpoint that all the rights of God's throne have been met in the Lamb. Nothing can stop the flow of divine grace.

S.W.H.R. If you are in touch with the throne, then nothing can shake you. Is not that a very important thing at the present time because there are very many still wanting to lean on something? But what you are saying this afternoon, I believe, is to take us each one to the throne. I thought that in John 7:37 there is a very present indication -- "In the last, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying If anyone thirst ..." We want to examine ourselves about that, do we not?

G.R.C. All the outward forms were there on that great day of the feast, but no satisfaction, no real living touch with God, the Source of the living water. We have to get free from all that. There is nothing we like more than a prop.

D.V.W. We do not get the results we desire in the preaching because we are not really satisfied persons ourselves. If we were really satisfied, men would take account of it and there would be results.

G.R.C. Yes, I am sure, and we need to see that to get the full power of the free flowing, we must be in keeping with the environment. These living waters do not flow from any kind of environment. It is not a question of coming down to man's level and saying, 'Now we shall get the living water, now

we shall get something that will take effect because we are right down on the level of the plain'. But you do not get a fast free-flowing river on the plain!

R.W. Is it striking that all this is linked up with time? It covers the whole period of time. Revelation is the millennium; in eternity the thing will be sealed finally, showing the great possibilities placed within the reach of man -- if only man will just avail himself of it. Glory would result from it.

G.R.C. And for those who wish to know God in their measure and wish to find this full satisfaction for themselves and to be channels of living water to others, it depends on their accepting the environment from which it comes.

S.W.H.R. What do you mean please by accepting the environment?

G.R.C. In Ezekiel, the waters issue out of the sanctuary. God never lowers His standard. For full and free gospel testimony according to God, the waters issue out of the sanctuary. In actuality, that is where they do come from. They come from God Himself in Christ, but if they are to be unobstructed in their flow through us, we need sanctuary conditions down here.

E.H.H. Is it seen in the reference in Acts 3? I was thinking of what has been said as to being satisfied persons. Do you not think it beautifully expressed in Peter and John: "Silver and gold I have not, but what I have, this give I to thee". They were sanctuary men, were they not?

G.R.C. That is very good. "What I have". And it was evident that they had something. They were satisfied persons and, as you say, sanctuary persons. That is a good word, 'sanctuary persons'. Are we

sanctuary persons? The believer in John 7 would really be a sanctuary person. He is continually coming to Jesus glorified.

F.G.P. Does not Paul bring out the glad tidings from that height? It is "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God" in 1 Timothy 1. Although he was in prison, he was bringing the gospel down from the glory.

G.R.C. That is right. That is the only proper place to bring it from, and my main point is that we should understand the environment. We can look into it ourselves, these environments from which the river comes. They are all linked together as a development because of sin coming in, but they come from the place of God's pleasure, where the good pleasure of His will is seen. They come out of the sanctuary; they come out of the throne of God and the Lamb; and they come out of a living believer in Jesus, because he is continually coming to Jesus glorified. He finds in Him present gain, and he sees in the faith of his own soul the realm of God's pleasure, the place of God's sanctuary; and he is in the presence of the throne.

R.W. So would you say that where we are today is the environment? There is everything that speaks of life.

G.R.C. Well, that is what we would like it to be. "He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me". Here is a soul who, as far as it was in his power, would maintain sanctuary conditions. And it is not any company. In this sense, all the saints on earth, all believers who have the Spirit, are sanctified in Christ Jesus. What we need to do is to encourage one another and all Christians,

as far as we are available, to be true to what they are according to God. God has sanctified them in Christ Jesus. Why not be true to Him? Why should we go down to lower levels and think we will be able to help the gospel service by that?

R.W. In Revelation 1 we read. "To Him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father". Are these sanctified persons?

G.R.C. Yes, and we must look at every Christian that way, in our affections and thoughts towards them, however much they are out of accord with it practically. The thing is, that if we are to know the benefit of this river and the way to move in the current of it, it is in the measure in which we are in accord practically with what is true of us from the divine side. It is wonderful to be able to think of all Christians as sanctified. It is true there was in Corinth a wicked person, but in addressing that company where the wicked person was still allowed, Paul says, "ye are washed, ye are justified; ye are sanctified; in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God". So that from that angle it is a question of what God has cleansed. "What God has cleansed, call not thou common or unclean". That is, God would call the saints back to His standard of holiness and sanctification.

F.G.P. Following on what has been said as to Peter, we are told that the lame man held Peter and John. I wondered if he held on to them because he could see they were heavenly?

G.R.C. I think so. They were in the practical gain of sanctification. The practical gain of sanctification is in the Spirit. Peter gives you the practical

side. (Paul does too in Thessalonians.). From the divine side, we are sanctified by the offering of Jesus Christ once for all; but practical sanctification is "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification o f the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ".

P.H. Do you think we need to learn more of this? I was thinking of John in the island of Patmos, It says, "I became in the Spirit on the Lord's day", and how much he unfolds to us as having become in the Spirit from that point, to the end of chapter 3. It goes on to say in the 4th chapter, "And I saw, and there was a door opened in heaven". From that point, he goes right up to the source of the living waters, into the presence of God, and from that level he sees things from the highest altitude. Is that something of the environment?

G.R.C. It is. I feel sure this question of environment is very important. Scripture does not include these things for nothing. Let us take account of what scripture says as to where this living water comes from: not only that God is the Source but what is the environment from which it comes?

J.L.W. I think that is very good to leave with us, because we do not want to go away from this meeting and say that we have had a good time, and that is the end of it; we want to go away with exercised hearts to get the gain of it and follow it up.

G.R.C. And if we get the gain of it, we shall be always satisfied ourselves and always channels of living water for others.

R.J.M. The fountain will be seen. The fountain suggests the springing up. It just cannot help itself, can it?

G.R.C. Quite so.

R.S.C. Would Mary, choosing the good part, be a simple illustration of environment?

G.R.C. It would; sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Rem. So that if we live in this environment, it is not a matter of conscious effort, this water flowing from us, is it? The water would just flow.

G.R.C. That is right, a river flows; it does not have to be pumped, nor does a fountain. It has just been said that the river makes way for itself. Rivers and fountains do so.

P.H. In referring to becoming in the Spirit in Revelation 1, I was thinking that there is no knowing how far the Spirit can go, what He can do with us, how far He can take us, if we are available to Him. We do not need to plan out a certain routine of service.

John was at His disposal and the Spirit took him up presently in chapter 4.

G.R.C. Yes, the same thing is seen in Acts. I mean the way the river moved, there was no human organisation about it. The river moved and the river no doubt has moved many times in great activities that have spread across the earth, but then man comes in and organises the movement and then it is spoilt. When man begins to organise a movement which is initiated by the Spirit the thing is spoilt. And in the end the Spirit is grieved and may leave the movement altogether.