Part 4: The Deliverance Of Water
If you have ever driven through farm country in the summer, you have seen the same thing.
A field can look completely dead. Cracked ground, brown stalks, no sign of life anywhere. Then the irrigation lines turn on or the rain finally comes and within days that same field is green again.
The dead ground was waiting for water to bring forth life!
That is the pattern of the Gospel. It does not just flow past dead people. It reaches them, covers them and brings them to life.
In Part 1 we saw what the water is. In Part 2 we saw where the water is aimed. In Part 3 we saw how deep the water goes. In this part, we need to see what the water actually does when it arrives.
Water that reaches a dead thing is deliverance.
What Ezekiel Saw
Ezekiel 47:8-9 “Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.”
The river runs east, drops down into the desert and empties into the sea. And the sea it empties into is the Dead Sea. The saltiest, deadest body of water on earth. It’s ground zero of Sodom and Gomorrah that God turned into a salt field.
And when the river hits it, the Dead Sea comes alive.
This is a picture of deliverance!
1. The Water Heals What Was Beyond Healing
The Dead Sea was not just dead. It was famous for being dead. Everyone knew it and nothing lived in it. Nothing grew around it. It was a monument to death sitting in the middle of the promised land.
And God chose it on purpose.
Ezekiel 47:8 “which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed.”
The bitter waters were made clear, sweet and wholesome. What was beyond healing got healed.
If parts of your life feel beyond healing, you are exactly the kind of place God aims His river. The Dead Sea was not a candidate for revival. It was the last place anyone would have picked. And that is why God picked it.
Ephesians 2:1 “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”
Ephesians 2:5 “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;).”
Jesus came to you dead in your sins and healed you.
2. The Water Brings Life Where Life Was Impossible
Ezekiel 47:9 “every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live.”
Where there was no life before, there is life now!
This is regeneration, being born again. The dead sinner made alive.
Jesus is the means of quickening those who are dead in trespasses and sins. A sinner cannot make himself alive any more than the Dead Sea could freshen itself. Life has to come from outside.
John 5:24 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
Passing from death unto life is not an improvement or upgrade. It’s passing from one state to a completely different one. It’s becoming a new creature.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
The Gospel produces something new that wasn’t there before.
3. The Water Produces Fish Where Fish Never Lived
Ezekiel 47:9 “and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither.”
The fish are a picture of the great number of living Christians, true believers, who will appear wherever the Gospel is preached.
The Gospel does not save one Christian and stop there. It saves one, who reaches another, who reaches another. One drop of the Gospel that reaches a dead heart can produce generations of new life.
Matthew 4:19 “And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Jesus does not just save fish, He makes fish into fishers.
Notice Pentecost:
Acts 2:41 “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”
Three thousand souls in a single day! Where nothing had been the day before the river produced 3000 new creatures.
Every Christian you know exists because the river reached someone else first, and that someone became a fisher.
4. The Water Delivers You From The Second Death
Ezekiel 47:9 “and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.”
Those reached by the river will not merely live temporarily. They will continue to live and shall never die. Not physical life only and not spiritual life only, but eternal life.
The river of God does not deliver you from your past sins and stop there. It delivers you from the second death itself.
Revelation 20:14 “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.”
We were bound for the lake of fire, the second death. Not just the grave, but eternal separation from God under His wrath forever.
And the water delivered you from it.
John 11:25-26 “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”
When the river reached you, it saved your soul. It delivered you from hell. It gave you life that outlasts death itself.
What The Water Did When It Reached You
If you are a Christian, notice what happened to you.
* You were beyond healing, and the Gospel healed you.
* You were dead in sin, and the Gospel made you alive.
* You were producing nothing of spiritual value, and now you are producing fruit.
* You were bound for the second death, and now you have eternal life that will never end.
That is not self-improvement, moral reform, or a better version of the old you; that is deliverance.
Everything the Dead Sea was, you were. And everything the healed sea became, you have become in Christ.
Your testimony is that the river reached you when you could not save yourself.
Not Every Place Gets Healed
There is a sober note in the chapter that we will deal with fully in Part 6.
Not every place the river reaches gets healed. Some spots stay salt and some hearts stay marshes. To some people the Gospel is not profitable. To them it is the savour of death unto death, not the savour of life unto life.
The river’s deliverance is not automatic. It has to be received.
Hast Thou Seen This?
The Guide’s question: have you seen what this river can do? Have you seen a life come back from the dead? Have you seen a soul that everyone gave up on delivered by the Gospel? Have you seen it in your own life?
If you have not, come to Christ. He delivers dead things. He heals what is beyond healing. He gives life where life was impossible. He fills empty places with fruit. And He delivers people bound for the second death into life that will never end.
That is what the water does when it arrives.
