EXTRACTS
If we refer to John 7: 38 the Lord says, “as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. The Scripture says it, yet no one can point to the actual passage that says it in so many words. The Lord is obviously calling our attention to what Scripture means, what is said in effect, and it has as much force as a direct saying. The subject begins with Genesis 2; but I am thinking particularly of the man in Ezekiel 47 as applying now where there is need of healing amongst us. That chapter speaks of rivers flowing out from beneath the altar of God; and the river was measured and measured, and measured by the man with the measuring line, but every time it is measured its depth is proved by the prophet.
The idea is that Christianity is something to be proved. What is presented to man in testimony is proved to be what is said. Ezekiel is called upon to pass through and he passes through, and so proves the thing. Finally he cannot go through, he proves the infinite depths of the river of grace; but what an impression it would make upon him, and also upon us! It is intended to affect us and make us like God, like heaven. The idea is of grace coming down from the source as an influence for healing to man; and then again of the rivers of grace flowing out through the saints, flowing out of their affections. So that if there be a case calling for discipline and the like, grace comes in; it is a question of grace reigning through righteousness, and the effect of that in the discipline is that there is healing. What good is discipline if there is no healing? For the moment we may have recourse to the exclusion of the person not fit for fellowship, but what about the person involved? How dreadful for a Christian to have the thought of getting rid of another Christian! How dreadful a thing that is!
It is foreign to the principle of grace. Hence you find that in the river there is healing power. But the Spirit of God, speaking of its great healing powers, it is called the “double river”. It flows towards the east, and wherever the double river came there was healing; in dealing with the most difficult cases there should be healing.
J. Taylor (Vol. 42, pp.32, 33)
Then Paul says, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. That is how the level is maintained, and so as speaking with one another under any circumstances, the point is what is the theme?
What do we speak about together? Speaking in psalms and hymns means, as I understand it, that I appeal to the very best feelings you possess, not to the worst. If I bring up some criticism about you, or about something that you care for, it will draw out the worst feelings that you have; anyway it is calculated to do so, but if I speak to you in a psalm, or a hymn, or a spiritual song, I appeal to the best spiritual feeling that you have. I encourage you, I refresh you, and lead you to sing to the Lord, making melody in your heart. It is no longer the literal cymbal, or the harp, as used by David, but the human heart, the renewed heart of the Christian that is the organ of song, of music now. “Making melody in your heart”, it says, “to the Lord, giving thanks ... unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
You can understand how simply the level is maintained, how the temperature, so to speak the spiritual temperature—is kept up under these conditions. The Holy Spirit has room, and each being filled with Him there is no room for anything else.
J. Taylor (Vol. 30, pp.328, 329)
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