Feast: River of Life

#FT22-03B
Bill Onisick
Given 12-Oct-22; 30 minutes

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You can start turning to I Samuel. We will get there in just a bit. But in Genesis 1 we often read that we have been created in God's perfect image, His holy and pure image. But our time here in this world has corrupted that image. God made it clear all the way back in Deuteronomy that we are to love Him with all our heart, that we are to keep His words in our heart, He tells us. But the purity of our heart has been contaminated. It has been contaminated by Satan's self-focused spirit—his way of get. So we are called to a lifelong cleansing, a lifelong sanctification and purification to remove those selfish contaminants and transform our hearts into God's pure image of give.

Now when we describe something as pure, what do we mean? We mean that it is free from anything else. It is free from anything that is different, anything that is inferior, anything that is contaminating. And we know nothing is holy and pure like God. We see that in I Samuel 2:2, "No one is holy like the Lord," we are told. So we know He stands alone in His purity.

In reality there is very little in this world that is 100% pure. We might label things like gold or water as pure, but they are far from it. Many of us have gold jewelry and inside we often have a stamp on there. Mine says made in China. (laughter) No, mine says 18k and that "k" stands for karats, a unit of fineness for gold equal to 1/24th parts gold. So 18 carat gold, you might call it pure gold, is pretty far from pure. It is 18/24ths pure, only 75% but we call it pure. Even 24 carat gold, which technically would be pure gold, 24/24ths, is not really pure. Our technology can only achieve 999.9000ths, which leaves some minute impurities. Still really far from God's level of purity.

Now in I Samuel 16, God makes it clear what He is most interested in, what He has always been interested in.

I Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

John Reiss read earlier today in Deuteronomy that the Lord led the Israelites through the wilderness to humble and test them. Why? So that He could know what was in their heart. Brethren, it has always been about our heart. We do not have a visible stamp of heart-purity and that is too bad because it would help us monitor our growth—our growth to become more pure like our pure God. It would help us overcome our evil heart that is always deceiving us. Brethren, our heart will always overstate to us a level of purity that is far from the truth. Austin [del Castillo] reminded us yesterday, we are indeed part God and that is exciting.

As we make this personal, as God evaluates our heart, as He assesses our heart right this moment, what stamp of purity is He putting on us today, brethren? Are we 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% pure? If we look back over the last ten years of our lives, maybe over the last ten feasts, what would we see in terms of our purity of heart? Has it steadily grown getting closer and closer to resembling our great God? Or is it more like the stock market? Up and down. Up and down. More down than up as of late.

We were there yesterday in Romans 8 so we will not turn there, but we have been predestined, we know, to be conformed into the very image of God's Son. On opening day, we read II Corinthians 3, we are being transformed into the same image of God's glory by and through His Spirit.

Now I see several bottles of water here. I am not sure which one is supposed to be mine, but I am going to skip it anyway. It has become, by the way, and this is interesting, America's favorite beverage by volume, but water, much like gold, is often mislabeled as pure when it is far, far from it. These bottles of water, likely at least some of them, are probably no more pure than the spigot water we could get out of the bathroom.

Let us go to John 4 now, as we pick up a couple of scriptures and I am going to set some context here as you are turning. When the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians, many Israelites remained back in that land and they intermarried with foreigners. They were considered impure based both on their half-Gentile ancestry and their somewhat corrupted beliefs. The Samaritans they were called. They made it difficult on the Jews who finally did return to build the wall and they became absolutely hated by the Jews. They would have nothing to do with that unclean, impure people.

Now, Jesus had clearly planned His entire day. He was waiting there at the well when the Samaritan woman came during the heat of the day to fetch that water. She came in the heat of the day to avoid contact with anyone. She was embarrassed by her sins. She was embarrassed by her impure heart and she did not want to be confronted. But Jesus knew this and He waits for her and He asked her for a drink. And she looks shocked, shocked that a Jew would even speak to her, let alone ask them to help get some water. Let us read Jesus' response here.

John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."

Jesus says plainly, if you knew the gift of God, if you know the gift of God, and you know who it is that speaks the words, you would ask Him to give you living water.

John 4:13-14 Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will be in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

Jesus tells us whoever drinks His water, his water will be filled up, and thereby overflow into everlasting life.

John 4:26 [we can tie into Mark's [Schindler] message here] Jesus says to her, "I who speak to you am He."

But what is the gift of God that He is talking about here? What is the gift that Jesus mentions to the Samaritan woman? Let us go back one chapter and read a very famous scripture.

John 3:16 For God so the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

So, Jesus Christ is indeed a source of God's living water, His living water—agape, spirit—that leads to everlasting life.

Let us turn to I John 3 as we tie back into brother Clyde's message and I have got to say that Bill suffered very long on Monday as Clyde read all his scriptures.

Our calling is again a daily purification process to purify our hearts and grow in Christ's pure image. Paul reaffirms this in Ephesians 4, Romans 12, and Colossians 3: Be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new, self-created after the likeness of God. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Put on the new self, renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.

I John 3:1-3 Behold what manner of [agape] the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God. Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him. Beloved, we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we will know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

John is restating that great gift of God. Behold what manner of agape the Father has given to His called-out sons, he says. He tells us we are sons of God, but we are not yet pure like Him. When He returns, we will be pure like Him—100% pure agape. Since we have this great hope, we must do our part. We must walk in His Spirit and become purified through God's living water. We can tie this right into Ephesians 5. We are to become imitators of God and walk in His agape as Christ agapeod us and gave Himself for us.

We know our God is a lot of things, brethren. He is omnipotent, all-powerful, He is omniscient, He is all-knowing, He is omnipresent. He is everywhere! But His greatest attribute, by far, His greatest attribute is His 100 PA. One hundred percent pure agape. He is omni-agape. This I believe is the most important teaching in the entire Book. Stay with me. I will hopefully explain why and maybe you will get there too.

The entire plan of God is built on His foundation of agape. The river of life is His spiritual river of agape flowing through His Family. The BLOT (the bottom line on top): We are called to purify our heart, brethren, by and through His living water of agape as we work to become, through His Spirit, like Him. 100% PA, pure agape.

Now Satan has deceived many translators into carelessly replacing the word with love. Calling agape "love" is downright degrading. This is God's very essence. We cannot carelessly throw around a single English word that we might say, "I love ice cream." Right? I mean think about how degrading that is. And so as I read the Scriptures I am purposely using the Greek word, but what matters the most is what it really means. It does not matter the actual word, it matters what is the very essence of God.

We are going to explore that here today, because Paul uses an entire chapter to describe God's omni-agape. The entire chapter of I Corinthians 13. And have we ever noticed that is always described with actions? Not just actions though, actions of a pure heart. It transcends our emotions. It is bigger than what we want. Agape seeks not its own. We are commanded to agapeo God and our brethren. The two greatest commandments that brother Clyde read. (Again, Bill is not easily provoked.) Remember, Jesus takes it a step further though. He takes it a big step further at the end of Matthew 5 when He commands us to not just agapeo our brethren but agapeo our enemies. And in doing so, He says we truly become children of God. God's Spirit of agape is an all-powerful and never-bending will to always do what is best for the God Family. God's agape is unconditional.

Now before you think I fell off a deep end here of the Protestant side of things, listen closely. In the end, God may have to demonstrate His agape to some through an instant painless death because that merciful action is indeed an expression of His agape. It is what is best for that person or being. They would be miserable if they cannot be like God in an everlasting life. So He in mercy uses His agape to end it.

Agape's other-centered mindset is not natural to our impure minds, our impure carnal hearts. It requires us to know the source, the I AM. It requires us to go to the Source each day and cry out, "I am thirsty! Fill me with Your living water, God. Please give me that powerful spirit of agape." that he mentioned in II Timothy. When we do purify our hearts with God's living water of agape, His living springs fill us up and we become literally fueled. We cannot hold it back. We flow out with His actions of agape, always doing what is best for everyone in God's Family.

Remember, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, Jesus tells us. And we are getting to the heart of the matter. The heart of everything we do is our heart.

(Now, I had written that "Bill is patient" in my notes. But I really need to be careful. There is some thunder and lightning perhaps in sight. This is definitely one that Bill knows he needs to work on.)

Let us turn to I Timothy where we have a bit of a bombshell scripture here that I want to read. As you are turning there, I will read what Clyde read to us the other day.

I John 4:7-8 Beloved, let us [agapeo] one another for [agape] is of God; and everyone who [agapeo] is born of God and knows God. He who does not [agapeo] does not know God.

It is that simple.

I Timothy 1:5 Now the end of the commandment is [agape] from a pure heart.

The word translated "end" here is Strong's 5056, telos, meaning a definite point or goal, the conclusion, the result, the ultimate purpose. What is the ultimate purpose of God's law? It tells us: To create in us a pure agape image in our heart. That is amazing, brethren. The ultimate point and purpose of the law is to create agape out of our pure heart. The entire book of law is created so that we can become like God. Just like God, 100% pure agape. The law is still going to be upheld, by the way. Obedience to God's law is always going to be there. It is just how. Right? It is going to become natural to our very essence in our being. I John 5:3 and II John 1:6 makes this clear. God's Spirit of agape is always in alignment with His law, which is His way of life.

But what is important is, we can keep God's law without agape, but we cannot have agape without keeping His law. We can do the right thing, but if we do not have the right underlying attitude, we are missing the mark.

Now I have a bit of a confession to make today. Back before Trumpets I bought a genuine shofar from Israel and as I anxiously waited for its arrival, I had this vision of bringing it here to the Feast and blowing it as the Feast began. And the sound would just be awesome, I thought. (makes trumpet sounds) It finally arrived. I anxiously unwrapped it and I found out that the inside of a live animal's horn does not smell really good. But I put it up to my lips and I took a deep breath as I just waited for that majestic sound. At first, nothing. But there was: The sound of a dying cow. And I share that with you because I believe that is what Paul had in mind.

Let us go to I Corinthians 13, the first three verses. Paul sets the stage here as he gets into telling us what is and what is not. It is a whole new level, brethren. It supersedes everything else he tells us. We can have all knowledge, we could have all faith, we can understand all prophecy. We could have the most strict obedience to God's law, we could be right here, right now at God's Feast of Tabernacles, and yet we would still be missing the mark. We would be nothing more to Him than that annoying sound of the dying cow.

He goes on. We could be the most gifted speaker. We could literally give everything we have to the poor, he says. We could be persecuted for our beliefs. Literally, we could be burned as a martyr and he says, and yet if you are not growing into God's pure image of agape you are nothing more to God than that annoying sound of the dying cow.

If that does not set the context for how important this is, I do not know what could.

I really appreciated Clyde's message and it spawned a thought on how we should end each day as we pray and meditate with our great God. We evaluate our heart's purity that day based on Paul's descriptions of agape in I Corinthians 13:4-7. All of the descriptors of our actions of a pure heart or the contrary actions of an impure heart. And as we read through each one, we could put our name there, just like Clyde suggested, and it would help us see where we fall short. As I did this myself, and I read "Bill suffers long," I stopped and repented. I am not patient enough. This is a problem. I know it and I need to work on it more. I have to stop ignoring it.

And we all have to do this, brethren. We go through, we do like Clyde said, we put our name there, we look at every attribute of agape every single day, and we think back and reflect on the day. What was the purity of my heart today, God? How pure was my heart and my actions and my thoughts? That is something we do not often think about. We sin in our mind more than we sin with our mouth or our actions. We are called to be pure, 100% pure. That is a high calling. We are called to agape our enemy. That is an unbelievable, almost insurmountable, we might say, objective for us to learn how to do this. But we know that through God, we can do it because He tells us so.

We are going to look at two at attributes here today, the first ones.

I Corinthians 13:8 [Agape] never fails.

Paul goes on to tell us prophecies fail, tongues will cease, knowledge will vanish away, but agape never fails. And Paul is illustrating the everlasting value of agape from its permanency compared to all the gifts.

The Greek word here rendered "fails" is Strong's 1601, ekpipto, to mean to fall out of, to fall from or off. We see the same word used for the stars of heaven falling in Mark 13; for the flowers that fall in James 1; and the chains that fall off of Paul's hands in Acts 12. It means to fall away, to fail to be of effect, to cease to be in existence.

Agape never falls, it never fails. It has dual meaning. Agape is everlasting. It always has been and it always will exist. It is the very essence of our great God. And when we apply agape to anything, it never fails to produce the best outcome. By the very definition agape is unmerited action that is always seeking what is best for every member of God's Family. So it always leads to the best outcome. It has an enduring value that will always abide.

Let us go to verse 13. This is the other one we will look at quickly. This scripture is an interesting one. It is one that I struggled with for a while.

I Corinthians 13:13 And now abide faith, hope, [agape], these three; but the greatest of these is [agape].

Now, the word translated "greatest" here is Strong's 3187, meizon, meaning the larger, the older, the elder, the greater. We see the same word used in Romans 9:12. It was said to Rebecca, "The elder will serve the younger." And in Matthew 18:4, Jesus tells us, "Whoever humbles themselves as a little child will be the greatest in the kingdom." The same word there and it ties in nicely here.

Again, we have a dual meaning. Agape is the oldest. It has always existed. It always will exist, because it is indeed everlasting. And is the greatest. It has more value than faith or hope or any other spiritual gift.

Let us quickly unpack this. We know God beings are always going to be faithful. They can always be trusted because they never change, they always do what they say, and they are 100% pure agape, which is always actively working out what is best for God's Family. But as God beings, do you need faith and hope anymore? Faith is defined as the evidence of things not seen. Why would you need faith in something not seen when you clearly see it? God beings are beyond time, they are ever-present and all-knowing. God beings do not need faith or hope. They are all-powerful. They are all-knowing and they know the end from the beginning.

As a human, we desperately need faith and hope. Desperately! Right? It is impossible to please God if we do not know Him. It is impossible to become like Him if we are not living in faith. We need hope in order to drive us forward with the right action. But once we are transformed into a God being, our need for faith and hope is gone. It is really interesting and fascinating. Our need for God's living water, however, our need for agape never, ever ends. It becomes our very essence. We become 100% pure agape.

Let us start to go down the home stretch here. Turn to John 7, where we will pick up a quick scripture. We know we are called to a lifelong sanctification, a purification process to remove the contaminants and transform our heart into God's pure image, His 100% pure agape. In John 4, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, and His people in the end time that have an impure heart, just like that Samaritan woman, that if we know the gift of God and we know who it is that gives it, we should ask Him for His spiritual living water of agape that will spring up and overflow us into everlasting life.

John 7:37-38 On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water."

Jesus Christ uses an extreme physical thirst here, figuratively. We must painfully want, we must eagerly long for the things by which we are spiritually refreshed and renewed and purified. Just as He miraculously provided water out of that rock in the desert to physically quench their thirst, He, Jesus Christ our Shepherd, is leading us to His pure spiritual water of life—His agape Spirit. This is why we are here. He is literally calling each of us.

If we are struggling with distractions, if we are struggling with afflictions in this world, if we are suffering from an unquenchable thirst of an impure heart, "Come to Me and drink," He says. Drink is the action that we must take to open up those impure hearts to God's Spirit of agape in our lives. And when we drink his water, He comes and abides in us and He fills up those empty and dry places. And the more we do it, the more we drink His pure water of life, the more our hearts become purified, the more we become like Him, 100% PA, pure agape.

Over now to I Peter 1 for our final scripture. We can remember Ephesians 5 where we are told to drink of His living water so it might cleanse us with the washing of water by the word to become holy and pure without blemish. And as Paul admonishes in Colossians 3:14, we are to put on agape, which is the bond of perfection.

I Peter 1:22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere [agape] of the brethren, love [agapeo] one another fervently with a pure heart.

When we drink His living water of agape it will roar with intensity and flow throughout our innermost being. It will transform us as it purifies us, and it creates action in us. Action that reciprocates outward that same agape spirit—outward back to God and out to His Family.

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