Scripture Reading: Jer. 2:13; Psa. 36:8-9; John 4:14; 7:37; Rev. 22:17
Ⅰ
"My people have committed two evils: / They have forsaken Me, / The fountain of living waters, / To hew out for themselves cisterns, / Broken cisterns, / Which hold no water"—Jer. 2:13:
A
God's intention in His economy is to be the fountain, the source, of living waters to satisfy His chosen people for their enjoyment:
１
The goal of this enjoyment is to produce the church as God's increase, God's enlargement, to be God's fullness for His expression—Eph. 1:22-23.
２
God needs to be the fountain of living waters to His elect because He has an economy, and His economy is to produce a counterpart, a bride, for Himself—John 3:29a; Rev. 19:7-8.
３
God's economy is to dispense Himself as the living water to produce His increase, His enlargement, for His expression—Col. 2:19.
４
Nothing apart from God as the fountain of living waters can quench our thirst and satisfy us; nothing apart from God dispensed into our being can make us His increase for His expression—John 4:13-14; 7:37; Rev. 22:17.
５
God's intention is to be everything to His chosen people that they may trust in Him and rely on Him for everything; if they do this, they will receive God's dispensing—Jer. 17:7-8.
B
God's intention is to dispense Himself into man as man's satisfaction that God might be enlarged, but man became unfaithful and unchaste and forsook God for idols—2:13:
１
Adam fell by forsaking the tree of life and turning to another tree—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—Gen. 2:9, 16-17; 3:1-13.
２
Israel fell by forsaking God as the fountain of living waters and turning to a source other than God; this source is signified by the cisterns—Jer. 2:13.
３
Any teaching or practice among Christians that is not according to the Bible is an idol—1 John 5:21.
４
Many worship some kind of golden-calf idol for their amusement and entertainment—Exo. 32:7-29.
C
Sin is to forsake God and to do something by ourselves and for ourselves; this is exactly what the children of Israel did—Jer. 2:13:
１
They forsook God as the fountain of living waters for their supply.
２
According to their opinion, they did whatever they could to work out something by themselves for their enjoyment.
D
Israel practiced apostasy rather than keeping her faithfulness—Jer. 2:19:
１
Apostasy is a matter of leaving the way of God and taking another way to follow things other than God—Acts 9:2; 18:26; 2 Pet. 2:2, 15, 21; Jude 11:
ａ
Apostasy means to be distracted from the right way in following God.
ｂ
Apostasy is doing something for the self under the cloak of worshipping God.
２
Dan's apostasy was setting up a divisive center of worship—Judg. 18:30-31; 17:9-10; 1 Kings 12:26-31; 2 Kings 10:29:
ａ
Nothing throughout the history in the Old Testament was more sinful or more damaging to God's people than Dan's act of setting up a divisive center of worship.
ｂ
The source of Dan's apostasy was in not caring for the other tribes; not caring for the other parts of the Body is the source of apostasy.
Ⅱ
"With You is the fountain of life"—Psa. 36:9a:
A
The Lord's recovery is first to recover the matter of life—1 John 1:1-2.
B
The divine life may be considered the first and the basic attribute of God— Eph. 4:18; John 5:26; 1 John 5:11-12; Rom. 8:2:
１
According to the divine and eternal nature of the life of God, God's life is the unique life; only the life of God can be counted as life—John 1:4; 10:10b; 11:25; 14:6.
２
Life is the content of God and the flowing out of God; God's content is God's being, and God's flowing out is the impartation of Himself as life to us— Eph. 4:18; Rev. 22:1.
３
Life is Christ, and life is Christ living in us and lived out from us—John 14:6; Col. 3:4; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21a.
４
Life is the Holy Spirit—John 14:16-17; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2; 2 Cor. 3:6.
５
Life is the Triune God dispensed into us and living in us—Rom. 8:10, 6, 11.
C
God wants us to take Him as the fountain, the source, of our life and our being—Jer. 2:13; Psa. 36:9a:
１
God's intention in His economy is to be the fountain, the source, of living waters to His chosen people for their enjoyment.
２
The Bible shows us that God is the source in every way; the principle in the Bible is that God does not want His chosen people to take anything other than Himself as the source—Rom. 11:36; 1 Cor. 8:6; Matt. 15:13.
D
The Triune God has been processed and consummated in order to dispense Himself into our being—John 7:37-39; Rom. 8:11:
１
God's economy is to dispense Himself into our being that our being can be constituted with His being; this can be accomplished only by God putting Himself into us as the divine life.
２
By dispensing Himself into us as life, God is accomplishing His economy, that He may have a corporate expression of Himself for eternity—Rev. 21:9-10; 22:1.
E
We need to drink of God as the fountain of living waters so that He may increase for the fulfillment of His economy to have His expression through His counterpart—Jer. 2:13; 1 Cor. 12:13:
１
When we drink of God as the fountain of living waters, He becomes one with us, and we become one with Him—Psa. 36:8-9.
２
The more we drink of God, the more He is one with us and the more we are one with Him and constituted with Him in His life and nature.
附
附：关于生命的十四句话：
１
生命是神首要和基本的属性。
２
生命就是神自己。
３
生命是神完成祂定旨的凭藉，也是神完成祂恢复的路。
４
我们需要基督作我们的生命和生命的供应。
５
我们需要凭生命的原则而活。
６
我们需要在生命里长大以致于成熟。
７
我们需要在生命里蒙拯救。
８
我们需要在生命中作王。
９
我们需要供应生命。
10
我们应当注意生命过于工作。
11
生命乃是经过过程、终极完成的三一神分赐到我们三部分的人里。
12
生命是简单的。
13
我们里面神圣的生命乃是身体的生命─是身体的生命，不是肢体的生命。
14
我们需要一个基本的、内在的转向生命。