THE RIVER OF LIFE by G. E. Fifield

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 22, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 34.

THE RIVER OF LIFE

By G. E. Fifield

GOD'S MATERIALS FOR BUILDING.

"Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house." 1 Peter 2:5.

"In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Eph. 2:22.

SINCE the Christian is a temple out of which issues the Living Water to heal and save others, and since the building of that sanctuary back there was to reveal how God will build us into a sanctuary for His indwelling, we shall not be surprised that the materials used in building the tabernacle are such as to be symbolical of character building.

When the nomadic tribes of Israel became a permanent nation, Solomon built a glorious temple to take the place of the tabernacle or sanctuary built in the wilderness. In the references given, the church, as a sanctuary for the divine indwelling, is compared to this temple. Each individual Christian is a "lively stone," built upon Christ, the "Living Stone," and "growing unto a holy temple in the Lord." If we will but yield ourselves to Him, it is God's covenant to take us, rough stones from earth's quarry, and build us into this glorious temple of praise that shall stand forever. Travelers tell us of a stone in the quarry at Baalbeck cut out, and moved a little, but now moss-o'ergrown and crumbling to dust. In some way it did not yield itself properly to the workman's touch, and so it missed being builded into that splendid temple that has stood so many centuries. What a picture of the fate of the man who refuses to yield himself to God! Dust to dust, instead of a polished stone in God's everlasting temple.

But we wish to speak more particularly of the materials in the tabernacle as symbolical of God's methods of individual character building. These materials are chiefly silver, wood, gold, and fine linen. The sockets of silver, which formed the very foundation of the sanctuary, were made of the atonement money of the children of Israel. So the foundation of our hope of being made one with God, is that God through Christ has in all ages been giving His life to make an atonement. "Ye are bought with a price," purchased with Christ's own blood. This is the foundation, and we, the human sanctuaries of God, are built on this foundation, even on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone.

Consider the wood. God says of those with whom He has sealed His covenant, They shall be "called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified." The tree grows into its forms of strength and beauty, not by any struggling or striving of its own, but by the silent working of a life power implanted in the seed. If the life is there, "all things work together for good" to that tree. The sun warms it, the rain waters it; even drought and storms cause it to take deeper, wider root, to better resist the force of the wind, and to find more permanent moisture, making also the grain of the wood more firm and beautiful. If the life is wanting, everything works together for the destruction of that tree. The sun withers it, the rain rots it, and the storms break it down and destroy it.

How hopeless the task of attempting to live a Christian life in this world of trial and temptation, without first having the life to cause us to live, without having had the divine life implanted by the divine Seed in the new birth! All things work together for good to him who has this. The fiercer the temptation, the greater the power of resistance it develops. Sorrows but make him more tender and sympathetic, and so more Christlike. Even failures and mistakes but teach him utter dependence upon Christ, and make him more ready to own brotherhood of love to all the suffering, erring human race. That spiritual life will, under all these circumstances, manifest itself by bearing the Spirit's fruit of love, joy, and peace. But if the divine life be not there implanted in the soul, all these things work together for evil. Temptations then mean only failure and loss, and sorrows and trials breed bitterness and hatred toward all who seem to be more favored. Truly the growth of the tree, and its utter dependence upon the living water, is a great lesson in the growth of character.

The wood of the sanctuary was covered with pure beaten gold. This gold was tried and purified in the fire until all its dross was consumed, and until it reflected the perfect image of the master workman. Then it was beaten into these forms of beauty. So God wants to cover us all with Christ's righteousness, which perfectly reflects the divine image. This can only be brought about through the cross,—through the furnace of affliction. Says the Scripture, "The trial of your faith is more precious than that of gold which perisheth." Even the purified gold must be beaten by the mallet of the Master Workman into forms of beauty after the heavenly pattern. Dear heart, are you willing to know the fellowship of Christ's suffering? If so, God can realize in you the glorious heights of His spiritual beauty.

More wonderful still, if possible, is the lesson of the fine linen,—the fine linen "which is the righteousness of the saints." The inner curtain of the sanctuary was of fine linen, blue and purple and scarlet, with hovering angel forms wrought upon it with cunning needlework. Here is brought to view the same process of character building. The flax stands up for a little time straight and beautiful in its own strength, but before it can become the "fine linen," it must be cut down, rotted, and dried, and then hatcheled till all of its native stiffness is gone, and only the yielding fiber is left. Then only will it yield itself to the hand of the master workman so as to be woven into the fine linen, and then wrought by the artist into cunning needlework. We, too, have so much inherent stiffness of our own,—so much self-will, so much self-righteousness, so many of our own ideals which we so much want to realize! How difficult it is for us to learn that God's ideals for us are better than our own ideals for ourselves! God has to mow us down with the scythe of humiliating failure, and let us lie till as it were our own purposes are decayed and our own plans become obnoxious to us. He has to strip us, and hatchel us, till only the yielding fiber is left. Then, when our only prayer is, "Thy will, not mine, be done," the Divine Workman can spin and weave us into the fine linen of righteousness.

The writer once saw in operation a machine for weaving brocaded silk handkerchiefs. Over the machine was a strange-looking apparatus consisting of a long piece of cardboard, with many holes in it, which he was told was the pattern. It had no beauty or comeliness, and was apparently without order or arrangement. This pattern was fed through the top of the machine, various pins that controlled the shuttles, catching in the holes. Below, many shuttles were playing, each with a thread of a different color from all the others. Dire confusion it seemed, and a hopeless, inextricable tangle it was, surely, that the threads were making. There were so many dark threads, too, where the writer thought there ought to be light ones. But stop! See the handkerchief itself coming forth from the loom, the marvelous product of all this apparent confusion. Fair and beautiful it is, perfect, indeed, in its blending of color and tint, inwrought most marvelously with delicate forms of leaves and vines and flowers.

What a lesson! Look at the righteousness of Christ. The complete product is fair and beautiful, without a flaw. How often we wish we were like Christ! Do we really? Are we willing to submit to the process? Are we able to drink of the cup of which He drank, and be baptized with His baptism? Place yourselves in imagination with Him when He was in the wilderness fasting for forty days, so tempted that He knew not of His hunger. Place yourself with Him when He was compelled to know the baseness and ingratitude of the human heart, saying, "Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?" Go with Him when He was wayworn, footsore, weary, and hungry, and without where to lay His head. Go with Him when He was betrayed with the Judas kiss, when all His loved disciples forsook Him and fled. Yes, go with Him to Gethsemane and to Calvary. Does it not seem a hopeless tangle, dark threads many and light ones few? Does there seem any beauty, order, or arrangement in the pattern? Can we believe that the Master Workman, with His infinite wisdom and His limitless love, is brooding over all this?—Ah, yes, this is the material, and these are the means by which God produces His marvelous results in us, as in Jesus! Let us learn to trust and hope, and let Him have His way. He will build us, and weave us, into a sanctuary, curtained and lighted and glorified by and for His indwelling presence.

Even the colors of this linen were most significant. They were blue, and purple, and scarlet. Blue was understood by the spiritual Jews to represent the heavenly source of their righteousness. This we know by tradition. Not only is Christ the heavenly gift, the source of all righteousness, but all the motives for true right-doing must come from the eternal world. He whose only motive for honesty is that it is the best policy, will find even this motive to fail when he needs most that it shall stand firm. Purple was the royal color. Everything connected with true righteousness is connected also with the only true royalty; for Christ is Prince of Peace and King of Righteousness, yea, King of kings and Lord of lords, and His kingdom only is eternal. We have seen that the sanctuary represents the throne which God, through Christ, is building in the submissive soul. How appropriate, then, the royal purple of the sanctuary! for righteousness in the human heart is the one

and only infallible evidence that Christ has there established His throne. Righteousness is the true royal purple of the soul. If the righteousness is there, the kingdom which is everlasting is there.

Scarlet is the color of the blood. It means sacrifice,—the giving of the life. This is the very foundation of all righteousness. In short, the rightness or wrongness,—the righteousness or unrighteousness,—of each heart lies in simply this, that it either gives or keeps the life. The life of the sinner centers in self. The life of the true Christian, like the life of God, centers in every one else in the universe but self. So here, in the materials and colors of the ancient sanctuary, is revealed the knowledge of God, which “the world by wisdom knew not.”

All this was understood by the spiritual Israelite, and was to him a revelation of the same everlasting Gospel which to-day brings to us the living water direct from the throne.