Flowing As a Mountain Stream

I live in the south and one of the natural wonders of Tennessee are the great Smoky Mountains, which rise along the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. They got the nickname Smoky because of the natural fog that often hangs over this vast mountain range, but in my opinion, the most beautiful aspect of these mountains are the cascading waterfalls that flow down the mountainsides into many streams, rivers, and lakes. I love to stand beside a mountain stream and a bubbling brook as I listen to that relaxing sound of water traveling over rocks and riverbeds.

The natural beauty of a mountain stream is breathtaking. You see, friends, a mountain stream begins with a warm, moist air mass that moves inland from the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic, and it tends to cool as it rises over the mountains. The higher elevations receive the largest amount of precipitation because the cooling air loses its ability to retain moisture, so this runoff from frequent rains results in streams that flow constantly year-round.

I like to compare a mountain stream with our walk with God for a consistent walk with God is like a unobstructed flowing mountain stream. A mountain stream is at its purest at the top level of the source. The lower the stream travels, the more subject it is to pollution, and the flow is at its fullest when it encounters no obstructions like a dam built by beavers or floating debris.

We have a consistent walk with God as long as there's no obstructions which divert the flow of God's grace and power in our lives, and we can maintain a consistent walk with God as long as there's no polluting elements of sin in our lives. Amos 3.3 declares, can two walk together except they be agreed? Sin will hinder God's activity in our lives, friends, when we are consumed with too many things like Martha, and forget the one thing needful like Mary. We hinder the flow of the Holy Spirit as well in our lives.

Listen, dear friends, God is looking for a clear and clean channel where the rivers of living water can flow with force and power. Our job as believers is to be empty of self and to be a channel of God's grace to others. Whenever we get out of step with God, we grieve the spirit and quench the flow of those living waters.

We must get the debris out of our lives. We must confess and repent of the sin in our lives. This is especially hard for preachers.

Often pride gets in the way, and I want to relate this image of the mountain stream to three areas of the Christian walk for us today. The title of my message, friends, is Flowing as a Mountain Stream, and my text is found in the Gospel of John in chapter 7. You may turn in your Bibles there now. We will be looking at the words of Jesus in relation to living waters.

As believers, our sole objective should be to align ourselves so closely with Christ in an intimate relationship with him that we are clear and clean channels for his living waters to flow through as a means of blessing to our generation. I really believe, friends, that we hinder the activity of God in our lives by our cluttered priorities and our self-indulgent sins, for all sin is self-indulgent as we become the selfish center of all we do and say. Therefore, it is critically important for us to be empty of self so we can be a channel of God's grace to flow through.

We must live a holy life unto God so that the power of the Holy Spirit can flow through us in transforming resurrection power. I really believe, friends, one of the saddest events we will have to face as believers is the judgment seat of Christ where he reveals to us how many blessings we missed on earth by not living more consecrated lives unto him. This message is a call to each one of us to clear out our own riverbed of all distracting debris and to clean out our sins through repentance and to realign ourselves back to God in a close and intimate walk with him.

This is the key to revival, friends, and the three aspects I wish to draw out from my theme today are as follows. Number one, we are to be clear and clean channels of grace personally for Christ Jesus in an intimate walk with him. Number two, we are to be clear and clean channels of grace corporately for the kingdom in the salvation of souls and to the glory of the Father.

And number three, we are to be clear and clean channels of grace as instruments of revival to this generation. Allow me to read us our text from John's gospel in chapter 7 and verses 37 and 38. Here now is the word of God.

May the spirit of God attend the reading of his holy word. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scriptures hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Now let me ask you a question, friend, before we get started here. Is there anything in your personal walk with God that is presently obstructing him from flowing through you with his pure living water? Are you quenching the activity of the Holy Spirit in your life because your priorities are all wrong and out of harmony with God's plan for your life right now? Are you grieving the Holy Spirit through sin? I must remind each of us that we have a higher accountability based on God's mercy and blessings to us. The more light you have, the more accountable you are, the more God has used you, the more accountable you are to him.

Listen friend, a holy God will not tolerate sin in the life of his children and still use you. Now let us look at this first aspect of being clear and clean channels of grace personally for Christ Jesus in an intimate walk with him. In John's gospel, chapter 15, we see how the unique relationship of a believer and Christ Jesus should be lived out.

He is the vine, we are the branches. I'll never forget one evening years ago, I was preaching to a room full of pastors on this very subject of the vine and the branches out of John chapter 15. Halfway through my message, their faces became altered and they became gripped with eternity.

God was at work that night, friends. I was speaking to that group of pastors on the relationship between the vine and the branches and how God will prune any branch he uses to make it more productive as a fruit bearing vessel. That the more God uses a man, the more that man will be pruned.

That the divine husband man will get out his pruning knife on us and begin the peeling away process if he is to use us more fully for him. Let me ask you, friend, have you ever whittled on a piece of wood with a knife? Years ago, when I was a boy scout, I had a pocket knife and one day I took out my whetting stone and sharpened that knife too much for when I took up my chunk of wood to whittle on, my hand slipped and I nearly cut my finger off. I'll never forget that pain as I screamed at the top of my lungs my mother rushed me to the doctor.

They had to stitch up my finger pretty good. I can still see the scar today, but I used to like whittling, making things out of wood with my boy scout knife. I had to peel back the wood to shape it and that's what God does to us, friends.

He gets out his divine pruning knife and begins whittling away on us until he's satisfied with the result. He intends to make us a usable instrument for his glory, but the uneven places in our lives must be cut away. The bumps and the rough edges must be smoothed out, much like that mountain stream which flows fastest at the top of the spring because there's little obstruction there at the top and the water is pure and delicious to drink until some pollution gets in there further down the stream where some hiker or camper threw some garbage in there by littering.

Are you getting my illustration? I hope so. Jesus is looking for the man, looking for the woman to move through with his flow of living waters. When we pray, friends, our prayer life must be uncluttered and unobstructed.

There's a picture of this in the book of Jude, where Jude is describing the person who is praying in the Holy Ghost. That's where the rivers of water flow, friend, through a close intimate walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, brother preacher. That's where our power lies in the pulpit, through an anointing from on high, where we're preaching with unction, for my Bible declares it is not by power nor by might, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

But for the Spirit of God to flow through us like a mountain stream, we must remove all that obstructs, all that pollutes. We must each be entirely stripped of self, so as to be channels of God's grace. And that brings us to our second aspect of how we are to be clear and clean channels of grace corporately in the kingdom for the salvation of souls and the glory to the Father.

Jesus declared in John 7 37, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. Our job as Christians is to make others thirsty for Jesus, to be so Christ-like in our personal lives that others take notice to where the church is what it should be, a body of believers who reflect the image of Jesus Christ through lives of holiness and who draw others to Christ. Let me share a story with you about the evangelist Mordecai Ham.

Ham was preaching in a Texas town when an angry mob attacked him. They had a bucket of tar, a sack of feathers, and a rope to hang him on. And as they dragged Mordecai Ham out of town, the local sheriff called in the calvary for help, and they rescued Ham before he was tarred and feathered and hung.

He was assigned a police escort as the train took him out of town. And the deputy who was in charge of protecting Ham rode with him on the train, and this is what that law officer said to Ham. He said, I just watched you almost get killed.

You were run out of town by an angry mob, and you've been in perfect peace and calmness the entire time. I want what you have, sir. What must I do to be saved? That's what every one of us who named the name of Christ should be to a sin-loving, hell-perishing world.

We should be such clear and clean channels for God to use in the salvation of others that when we wake up in the morning, all we see is eternity. All we hunger for is more of God, and we can't wait to be used of God to bring a soul to Him. Jesus said, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.

Are we making people thirsty for Christ? We should, friends, we should. Now I want us to look at this last aspect of which I have previously mentioned, which is how we are to be clear and channels of grace as instruments of revival. Let me ask you a question.

Does this country need revival? Does the church need revival? Sure we do. We need it bad. I've never seen a time in my life where society is in such a dreadful, sin-gripped state, and the church is so sound asleep on pillows of comfortableness and conformity.

We need to be roused, and we need to be realigned back to the God of the Bible, friends. How desperately we need revival today. I believe God is on the lookout for a person to use as a human instrument of revival.

I really believe He's looking for an Evan Roberts today. Evan Roberts was only a man, but he was God's man. God used him to bring a hundred thousand souls into the kingdom of God through that mighty revival which swept Wales.

Do you long to be a man like that, friend? Do you, young lady, long to be used of God in a mighty way? Listen to this verse from 2 Chronicles 16 9. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Do you know what that means, friend? To be a clear and clean channel for him to move through in a powerful way whereby rivers of living water can course through our prayer lives, our personal lives, our witnessing lives in such a way that we will be like that cool refreshing mountain stream to our generation that God will pour water upon the thirsty ground. Jesus said, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow what? Rivers of living water. Oh, dear friend, to be a means of grace and revival to a dry and thirsty land. I've studied revival for several decades now, and just about every single historical revival that I have studied began with the desperate prayer life of an individual so consumed with eternity and thirsty for Christ and hungry for lost souls that the God of eternity could not sit idly by while this person laid hold of him in desperate, anguished prayer for revival.

God is still a God who can send revival, friend. I believe that. Do you? Do you? Then what are you doing about it? Clear out your life.

Clean up your life. Get back to God in a hot love relationship with him. He is looking for someone to show himself strong in their behalf.

Make this a time in your life right now, friend, where you realign yourself back to your God. Ask him to clear out the clutter in your life. Ask him to grant you the grace of repentance for sin.

Oh, let each of us be a clear and clean channel empty of self so his grace can flow easily through us to others, for that's all that matters, friend, the worth of a soul. I used to sit in front of Stephen Offord's desk as I often spoke with him in his study, and on his desk was a wooden plaque with one word carved upon it. Do you know what that word spelled? O-T-H-E-R-S.

Others. Ask God, friend, to make you a greater blessing to others, all for his great glory. Amen.