THE WATER OF LIFE by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 11, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 15.

THE WATER OF LIFE.

By T.

IT was at the side of the well-known well of Jacob that the Saviour gave utterance to the words: "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:13, 14.

At another time the Saviour said, "I am the bread of life; he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst." John 6:35. The one who believes the words of Christ receives into his being the life and power of divinity. For the "words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." John 6:63. "For the Word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." Heb. 4:12, R.V.

Do not fail to note in the foregoing paragraph that the text says that the Word of God is both "living and active." God's Word lives, and therefore it acts, it is pervaded with power. The natural eye does not detect life in the Word of the Lord, and therefore many do not recognize the fact that it possesses such an attribute. But you can not see life in anything; then why should you ask to see it in the Word of God before you will believe that the life is there? Can you see the life in the grain of wheat, or of corn, or of any other seed?

Yet if the seed is planted in good soil and properly watered and given the right amount of heat, it will soon show what remarkable life powers it possesses.

God's words are seeds of truth and spiritual power, and if they are given the proper conditions, they will grow just as wonderfully and just as surely as the seeds of grain that we plant in the soil. The soil in which these words of the Lord are to be planted is the human mind and heart. And that which serves as heat and moisture to make them grow is faith. "He that believeth on Me shall never thirst." John 6:35. The words of the Lord can be received into any mind just as mere words. But they do not grow when received that way any more than seeds of grain grow without the proper heat and moisture. The soil may be ever so good, and the seeds may be planted ever so carefully, but with the heat and moisture lacking they will simply lie there, showing no signs of life. The fault is not with the seed.

Thus a great many men will receive the Word of God into their minds merely to make sport of it or to try to pick it to pieces. They make light of those who say that they are experiencing the realities of the life and power that the Word contains. They refuse to have faith in the Word, and yet think it strange that it does not act with power for them as well as it will for those who have confidence in it. What a strange inconsistency! O, that men would have faith in the living words of the Lord, so that they might experience its life-giving power!

The growth of the Word of God in the mind, and its consequent manifestations of

power, is the development of one of the purest principles of scientific truth. It represents the positive action of spiritual life. The law that causes the Word to grow in the mind where it is received by faith, is as certain to act as the law of gravity. If you throw a stone into the air, it will always return to the earth again. We say that the stone does this by the law of gravity. And any one knows that this law has never failed except where its Author has temporarily overruled it; and that only proves more fully the power and security of the law. Nobody expects anything else when he throws something into the air but that it will surely come down again. We say that it can not possibly fail. This is a truth that is grandly fixed.

But of all the sublime truths that it is possible for us mortals to know, aye, or for even the angels to know, there is none so great and so gloriously helpful as the positive truth that God's Word lives and is clothed with power. Receive that Word reverently into your mind, and it will grow into all the fulness of its every promise, and it will do it in every particular and in every case. What more could we ask? What more could be given? Meditate upon the Word all the time. Think carefully of these sublime truths. Let the Word have a chance, and it will never fail to do its wonderful work.

"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him." Col. 3:16, 17. T.