The River and the Tree

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If you would like a digital copy of the handout from the Wednesday Evening study, please click HERE.

EZEKIEL 47:1-12

Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. 2 Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.

3 Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep. 4 Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was waist-deep. 5 Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. 6 And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?”

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other. 8 And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. 9 And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. 10 Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From Engedi to Eneglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. 12 And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”

 
 

We begin Revelation on Monday! Take time this weekend to prepare by reading back over the passages from this past week and making a plan to begin each day next week with the First15—silence, prayer, and scripture.

In his vision, Ezekiel sees the Jerusalem Temple as the source of a river, a river that begins as a trickle but becomes deeper and wider and greater until even the desert itself becomes flooded. The River brings life wherever it goes, and the trees that grow alongside it bring healing.

John sees something similar in his vision (we’ll read it in Revelation 22, the last chapter); both visions relate something remarkable—God’s plan for the world is one of healing and restoration.

It’s not the end yet. If things are difficult today, take heart—one day everything broken will be healed.

 
 

Live No Lies + Bonus Content

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At the bottom of today’s post, I’ve included the intro I wrote for the Revelation Daily Reading Guides we’ve been handing out. It’s important, if I do say so myself, and I strongly recommend you read it before we start with Revelation proper on Monday. (I didn’t include it in the initial email from January 1 so as to make your reading that first day as simple as possible.)

 

Don’t forget about tomorrow’s Bible study: 6:30 PM CST. Livestream available.

 
 

EZEKIEL 2

And he said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.”2 And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. 3 And he said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have trans- gressed against me to this very day. 4 The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ 5 And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them. 6 And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions. Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. 7 And you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house.

8 “But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be not rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.” 9 And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. 10 And he spread it before me. And it had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe.

 
 

Ezekiel was another Old Testament prophet whose life and work influenced John of Revelation. In Revelation 10, John will be given a scroll to eat, and the contents of that scroll will be the message of Rev- elation. Here, Ezekiel is given a spiritual vision that he is supposed to share with Israel, and though there are hard parts to the message, he is supposed to share the entire message, regardless of how it is received.

One of the themes of Revelation is the importance of truth, and how God’s people must be committed to truth no matter what.

What would it look like for you to live no lies today?

 
 

BONUS: I’ve included the intro to my Revelation Daily Reading Guide here below. Good luck.

 
 

Start Here.

Apocalypse is a Greek word that means “uncovering” or “disclosure” or “revealing” (from which we get our English word revelation). 2,000 years ago, near the end of the first century, a man named John was on the Mediterranean island of Patmos on a Sunday when he received an apocalyptic vision that he later wrote down and circulated among the churches of the wealthy Roman province of Asia Minor (the western part of modern-day Turkey).

The book of Revelation is that letter.

Revelation is a notoriously difficult book of the Bible, and its difficulty comes from the fact that John is writing as a Jewish-Christian prophet and sees his vision as the culmination of the entire tradition of biblical prophecy; this means his vision is replete with allusions to and images from the Old Testament, allusions and images with which we are not familiar.

The good news is that once you take the time to understand how John’s vision connects to the Old Testament, and once you pay attention to how the vision is structured, Revelation actually begins to make sense!

Revelation is powerful not just because of the amazing information it provides, but also because of the way it provides that information. Revelation is an invitation to see reality differently; to borrow a phrase from a recent movie, it is a “red pill” that John has given us, and if we take it, nothing will be the same afterward.

So, though the swirling images John gives us can be difficult to understand without studied reflection, be aware that John wants us to experience them just as much as understand them, so that through the experience, we might be changed.

When Dorothy gets back from Oz, Kansas is never the same.
Reading Revelation is like entering Oz. (Except that it’s not make-believe.)

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we say:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.


The question Revelation is concerned with is:

“How will this happen? How will the Kingdom come?”

And, along with it, John’s vision will give us insight into this question:

“What is the church’s role in the bringing in of the Kingdom?”

Revelation is difficult not only because of its obscure imagery, but also because of the form John’s vision takes: sometimes it moves linearly, and sometimes it moves cyclically, circling back to show you the same thing from a different angle or with more information revealed.

In other words, sometimes the vision proceeds like this:

A→B→C, etc.

But other times it moves like this:

A→B1→C→B2→D→B3

Where B1, B2, and B3 are all different ways of expressing the same reality.
(This is the case, for example, with the sequences of 7 judgments: the 7 seals, the 7 trumpets, and the 7 bowls are all about the same thing—God’s judgment—but John’s vision gives us different insight each time it circles back to the topic of judgment.)

I tell you this to encourage you to pay close attention to the details of the vision, because the vision contains clues and markers to help us find our way and understand what we’re being told. Expect switchbacks and turns and recaps along the way!

Like the rest of the Bible (only maybe more so), Revelation reveals through re- peated, attentive reading. Accordingly, I’ve parceled out the readings at a slow pace; each particular day’s passage is short and very manageable and it is my hope therefore that you’ll have time to go back and re-read a previous day or days and see how it all connects. (Aside from January 1, the readings are assigned on weekdays only—all the more reason to take your time and read and re-read on the weekends.)

Each day I’ve written some commentary to go with the reading; the commentary is NOT the point—John’s words are the point—but I offer the commentary to help you get something out of what you’ve read each day. Some days I’ve interspersed the commentary in the midst of the reading, and some days the reading is given in its entirety all at once.

There is much more to say about Revelation than I could fit in this little reading guide; I will be preaching through Revelation from January to Easter 2023, and also teaching a series of Bible studies in that same period on the
following Wednesdays:

January 4
January 18
February 1
February 15
March 1
March 22.

The Bible studies will be held at 6:30 PM in the Sanctuary of Asbury Church and are for all-ages. (They will also be livestreamed at www.asburytulsa.org.)

Revelation is the last book of the Bible, and it is the capstone of the entire biblical story. It’s a beautiful, dazzling, piercing book, and if you’re willing to work through it, I’m going to make two bold promises:

1. You will come to understand and love it;

2. You won’t ever be the same.

Let’s go.

☩ Andrew Forrest
Asbury Church