The Prophet describes how his companion, the interpreter, measured down
the stream a thousand cubits--about a quarter of a mile--and the waters
were ankle-deep another thousand, making half a mile from the start, and
the water was knee-deep. Another thousand--or three-quarters of a
mile--and the water was waist-deep; another thousand--about a mile in
all--and the water was unfordable, 'waters to swim in, a river that
could not be passed over.' Where did the increase come from? There were
no tributaries. We do not hear of any side-stream flowing into the main
body. Where did the increase come from? It came from the abundant
welling-up in the sanctuary. The fountain was the mother of the
river--that is to say, God's ideal for the world, for the Church, for
the individual Christian, is rapid increase in their experience of the
depth and the force of the stream of blessings which together make up
salvation. So we come to a very sharp testing question. Will anybody
tell me that the rate at which Christianity has grown for these nineteen
centuries corresponds with Ezekiel's vision--which is God's ideal? Will
any Christian man say, 'My own growth in grace, and increase in the
depth and fulness of the flow of the river through my spirit and my life
correspond to that ideal'? A mile from the source the river is
unfordable. How many miles from the source of _our_ first experience do
we stand? How many of us, instead of having 'a river that could not be
passed over, waters to swim in,' have but a poor and all but stagnant
feeble trickle, as shallow as or shallower than it was at first?
I was speaking a minute ago about Mongolian rivers. Australian rivers
are more like some men's lives. A chain of ponds in the dry season--nay!
not even a chain, but a series, with no connecting channel of water
between them. That is like a great many Christian people; they have
isolated times when they feel the voice of Christ's love, and yield
themselves to the powers of the world to come, and then there are long
intervals, when they feel neither the one nor the other. But the picture
that ought to be realised by each of us is God's ideal, which there is
power in the gospel to make real in the case of every one of us, the
rapid and continuous increase in the depth and in the scour of 'the
river of the water of life,' that flows through our lives. Luther used
to say, 'If you want to clean out a dunghill, turn the Elbe into it.' If
you desire to have your hearts cleansed of all their foulness, turn the
river into it. But it needs to be a progressively deepening river, or
there will be no scour in the feeble trickle, and we shall not be a bit
the holier or the purer for our potential and imperfect Christianity.