Jordan, made so by those swift waters.
No hillside so fair in their green beauty, nor so wealthy in heavy loads
of fruit as those sloping down to the edge of that stream. Now plainly
Jesus is talking of something that may, through us, exert as decided an
influence upon the lives of those we touch as water has exerted, and
still exerts, on the history of the earth, and as this Jordan did in
that wonderful, historic Palestine. Mark the quantity of
water--"rivers." Not a Jordan merely, that would be wonderful enough,
but Jordans--a Jordan, and a Nile, and a Euphrates, a Yang Tse Kiang,
and an Olga and a Rhine, a Seine and a Thames, and a Hudson and an
Ohio--"_rivers_." Notice, too, the _kind_ of water. Like this racing,
turbulent, muddy Jordan? No, no! "rivers of _living_ water," "water of
_life_, clear as crystal." You remember in Ezekiel's vision which we
read together that the waters constantly increased in depth, and that
everywhere they went there was healing, and abundant life, and
prosperity, and beauty, and food, and a continual harvest the year
round, and all because of the waters of the river. They were veritable
waters of life.

Now mark that little, but very significant, phrase--"_Out of_"--not
_into_, but "out of." All the difference in the lives of men lies in the
difference between these two expressions. "Into" is the world's
preposition. Every stream turns in; and that means _a dead sea_. Many a
man's life is simply the coast line of a dead sea. "Out of" is the
Master's word. His thought is of others. The stream must flow in, and
must flow through, if it is to flow out, but it is judged by its
direction, and Jesus would turn it outward. There must be good
connections upward, and a clear channel inward, but the objective point
is outward toward a parched earth. But before it can flow out it must
_fill up_. An _out_flow in this case means an _over_flow. There must be
a flooding inside before there can be a flowing out. And let the fact be
carefully marked that it is only the overflow from the fullness within
our own lives that brings refreshing to anyone else. A man praying at a
conference in England for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit said: "O,
Lord, we can't hold much, but we can overflow lots." That is exactly the
Master's thought. "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

Do you remember that phrase in the third chapter of Joshua--"For Jordan
overfloweth all its banks all the time of harv