Rivers of God

Russell Walden
Copyright © 2018 Russell Walden
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781726667937
 DEDICATION

To my wife, Kitty. Without you, none of this would be

possible.
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments i

1 Chapter One 1

2 Chapter Two 13

3 Chapter Three 21

4 Chapter Four 29

5 Chapter Five 41

6 Chapter Six 47
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgement to Apostle Ricardo Watson, a faithful son

in the Lord. The 2018 Camp Meeting was the seed bed for this
message and for that I thank you.

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1 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION:

In this series of teachings, I am going to show you the

significance of the many times and places where Jesus chose
bodies of water to make certain things about Himself and His
plan for man known to those around Him at the time and to us
through their testimony. You will see Jesus intends for you to
see that you have a well on the inside of you and also a river.
In fact, you have more than one river inside of you, and those
rivers have specific names that communicate understandings
to you of God’s blessing and benefit in your life. You will see
that there is an atmosphere of God’s presence described as His
cloud of glory, out of which precipitation from heaven is
poured out upon your person and your life. There is, in fact,
the rain of God distilling and falling from heaven on the inside
of you at all times and in all places to refresh and strengthen
you and make you fruitful. You will also find there is a pool of
God’s Spirit on the inside of you that the angel of His
presence will come to stir the waters of your soul from time to
time to bring healing and deliverance to your life. You will
find again that there are rivers plural flowing out of you, out of
your inner man, into your life for specific reasons to cause
your life to look like “as in heaven so on earth.” We will

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identify these rivers, and we will name them to help you

understand how to release them by your faith and see them
produce in your life a level of grace and breakthrough you
may not have experienced heretofore.

JESUS ON THE GREAT DAY OF THE FEAST:

In John 7:37-38 we find Jesus in the temple crying out with a

loud voice, making a divine and sovereign overture to all those
that would come to Him as Lord and Savior:

John 7:37-38
37 -- In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and
drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

The timing that Jesus chose for this announcement was the
Feast of Tabernacles. This is the feast that came AFTER
Pentecost. In other words “after Pentecost - what next?” Do
we just all speak in tongues till Jesus comes? Jesus is saying
when the FIRE FALLS on your personal Pentecost there will
be and you should expect following that, a flowing out of the
inside of you what constitutes currents of His purpose and His
glory to reframe and reshape your life according to His
purpose. Now notice that Jesus says out of your belly will
flow rivers of living water. That phrase is pregnant with
meaning for us that we will explore. What is your belly? Why
didn’t He say “out of your heart?” What are the rivers? What
is the living water and what does its presence in your life
promise you or produce in you? Notice again, that He doesn’t
just speak of a river (singular) but of RIVERS (plural). I will
show you that these rivers and the reference to multiple rivers
is not just something said by poetic license but something very
specific, of the Spirit of God on the inside of you that once
understood will have a radical impact upon your life, and how
you pray, how you live and to what degree you see on a daily
basis the manifest glory of God in its fullness.

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God speaks often of Himself, and His son and His Spirit in
terms of water and bodies of water in their particular
manifestations. In introducing this body of teachings we want
to go back through several chapters in the gospel of John to
consider this. We will see how Jesus for a period of days
travels from one body of water to the next body of water to
show us something of Himself, and having laid that
groundwork of understanding we will go on in the subsequent
chapters and teachings to go deeper into these waters to gain
knowledge and revelation beyond what you may have ever
considered when reading these passages previously.

JESUS WITH THE WOMAN AT THE WELL:

In John chapter 4 Jesus interacts with a Samaritan woman at a

well in her village. His disciples are gone at the end of a long
day’s walk with the assignment to return with food to
strengthen them while Jesus remained behind, resting at the
well’s mouth. The woman approaches and Jesus asks for
water. She is surprised that Jesus, being a Jew would even
speak to her but Jesus then offers her something beyond her
ability to comprehend:

John 4:10
10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift
of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee
living water.

Notice that anytime God asks you for something it is to give

you something in return. Jesus asks the woman for something
she is not inclined to give, but what happened next made all
the difference for her. I ask you what will be your response
when the man of God asks you for something that you are not
inclined to give? This woman’s life is weighed in the balance
by what she does next as will your life be when you are in the
same situation with the man or woman of God that He puts in
your life.

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Jesus offers the woman LIVING WATER. Now, what could

this woman conceivably know concerning what Jesus is
speaking to her of? She is merely performing a mundane task
that she has carried out every day of her life, coming to the
well to secure water for the day’s needs. In this repetitive,
every day task this woman’s ability to pay attention to what is
really going on will change her life and give her a testimony
that stands for 2000 years. Are you personally ready for such
an encounter? We often think we have to climb some high
mountain or go to a wilderness retreat or a long journey away
to hear from God. What we see happening here defies that
reasoning. Are you willing to hear from God while you are
doing the laundry? I will never forget the day that my wife
Kitty was doing the laundry, and the entire property where we
were staying was hit by three sharp tremors that only Kitty and
I felt. We thought someone had driven a truck or a car into the
building, but it was God talking, confirming things that a
prophet had warned us would happen just the day before. Are
you listening to your prophet? Are you listening to the man or
woman of God that He has placed in your life?

Are you willing to hear what the Father would say to you
while you are cooking the evening meal, or doing something
so basic but at the same time God says that this is your
moment? God is always speaking, the question is are we
always listening? The woman was alone, and no doubt her
thoughts were on matters important to her. Her life was
complicated. She had been in six relationships, 5 involving
marriage and divorce, and now after being a 5 time loser in
love she has lowered the bar and out of convenience and
simply not wanting to be alone in life she has willingly placed
herself in a common law relationship with a man who didn’t
love her enough to marry her but was willing to live with her
for whatever domestic and conjugal privileges he could
illegitimately extract from her in her diminished state. Hers
was a joyless existence, to say the least. She no doubt was not
held in very high esteem in her community - but God chose to
speak to her anyway. God doesn’t choose those who think if
God is going to say something He is going to tell it to them.
He is going to speak to that man or woman or that couple that

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everyone else has marginalized and written off. Is that you?

Then get ready - God is talking to you!

So the woman finds herself coming to this well that was so

familiar to her, and she sees Jesus. By his dress and
comportment, she recognizes him as a Jew and steels herself
against the dispersions that all Samaritan’s were familiar with
enduring in the presence of those from Judea in the south cast
upon those of her village as they traveled through on their way
to the Galilee. Contrary to what she expected to happen, Jesus
actually engages her as a human being, without insult or
pretense. She recoils at first, but Jesus breaks through her
hardened exterior and offers her something that constitutes
right down to our day the greatest gift that heaven ever
proffered to the sons of men. He offered her the gift of
Himself as the means by which she might partake of and have
activated on the inside of her a resource of life, refreshing and
joy that didn’t have anything to do with any outward condition
or situation. He offered her LIVING WATER predicated on
her knowing and recognizing the gift of God.

John 4:10
10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift
of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee
living water.

WHAT IS THE GIFT OF GOD?

What is the gift of God? As she needed to be able to answer

that question, so we need to be able likewise to answer the
same. Remember this - knowledge brings release. Knowing
the gift of God brings the release of the streams of God on the
inside of you. It isn’t about learning some convoluted spiritual
protocols in prayer to cause heaven’s streams to flow in your
life. It isn’t about being someone you are not or being better
than anyone else. It is simply KNOWING the gift of God in
the person of Jesus standing before this woman as He stands
before us every time the gospel is proclaimed to us. Jesus tells
her this insight regarding who He was at that moment made

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her eligible for what He called LIVING WATER. The word

know there implies the act of putting your attention or turning
the attentiveness of your mind upon the object in question.
What does this mean? You are where your attention takes you.
If your focus is on your problems, you are heading into more
problems. If your attention is upon Him - upon God, His truth,
His glory, His presence you are heading into the gale force
release of the streams of heaven in your life that will sweep
away all the works of darkness ranged against you.

ACKNOWLEDGING THE GIFT BRINGS THE RELEASE

OF GOD’S POWER:

The acknowledgment of the gift of God who is Christ is the

predicating revelation that literally opens the whole of the
kingdom of God up to you in all its glory and all its power.
What is the gift of God? In the previous chapter Jesus met
with a leader of the Jews, Nicodemus by name and answered
this question with clear clarity:

John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life.

This verse is so familiar to us that it’s revelatory value is

diminished by the commonality of the phraseology. Let us by
God’s grace look at this verse with virginal eyes, as though we
are seeing it for the first time:

For God so loved the world that He gave. This is the most
important thing Jesus wants us to know about His Father. He
wants us to see Him as a loving God and a giving God. That
word love is as you might guess “agapao.” It means to love
dearly; to be fond of; to be content with. Did you know that
God doesn’t just love you, He loves you DEARLY. That
implies passion and urgency. I love my wife dearly and
passionately. From the moment I fell in love with her, I was in
hot pursuit and pressing into her life, into a relationship with
her no matter what the cost. My whole life became

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reconstituted and reframed around her life with absolute

abandonment. While I hoped that she would return my love
and I longed that she would return my love, I was nonetheless
enthralled and captivated with her whether she ever returned
the same love back to me. That example is just a faint
indicator of the kind of love wherewith God loves you.
Whether you EVER love Him back this is the love by which
He loves you.

Because God loves you, He gives to you. God SO LOVED

THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE. Let me tell you something -
there are florists across this country whose bank accounts are
richer because I so love my wife that I want to give to her.
What you love you will give to. When I give to my wife, I
don’t go out in the backyard and pick a dandelion. I am
looking for roses, the sweeter and more numerous the better.
When I buy her a piece of jewelry, it is going to cost me
something let me tell you. Why? Because I love her. When
God loves you, He gives you His best. He scoured heaven’s
vaults from top to bottom and the only gift that He could
provide that would adequately reflect the dimension of His
love was the gift of HEAVEN’S DARLING because He loves
you, He loves you dearly, He is fond of you, He is contented
with you.

What does agapao mean? He is CONTENTED with you. Isn’t

God always displeased? Doesn't He always have a frown on
His ineffable face? I can’t find the displeasure of God in John
3:16. Isn’t God angry every day? I can’t find His anger in John
3:16. Doesn’t God thunder His wrath down upon humanity in
great outrage? Remember that God’s love for you was
determined before you ever loved Him and in fact He loved
you when you were by nature an enemy of God, shaking your
fist in His face. How can we reconcile God’s love to man’s
sinful condition? The answer is that God sees past your sin
and loves who He created you to be. The only barrier is, are
you going to abandon all obstinacy and self-directed living
and pour yourself out like a drink offering to His purposes?

Paul spoke of this love in Ephesians 1:4:

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Ephesians 1:4
4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love:

This means that God looked down through time, past the fact
that you were born in sin. The sin condition, your sin
condition did not give Him pause because of the depth of love
wherewith He loves us. He looks past every transgression and
all darkness in your life and sees you as something, as
someone who was accepted in the beloved, holy and without
blame before Him in love before you were ever created -
because He was IN LOVE with you. He knew that His ability
to love you, with your cooperation would completely
obliterate every stain of sin and rebellion in your heart against
His lordship. Your faults and failures don’t intimidate Him.
He loves you because He loves you because He loves you and
the only thing that is determinate is whether you by yielding
yourself to Him will allow yourself to be the recipient of that
love and all that it entails.

This is unconditional love. We’ve all seen this kind of love.

We see a woman or a man love someone and overlook entirely
glaring faults, failures and character issues that are absolutely
plain to everyone else. Percy Sledge sang a song “When a man
loves a woman...” She can do no wrong in his eyes, and even
if his best friend speaks against her, His love refuses to see her
through any other eyes than that of total approval. This is the
love that God loves you with, and because He loves you, He
has given to you. Whether you have ever experienced the gift
of God or capitalized in life on the gift of God in the past - you
must know according to God’s word that there is a gift that
God has given you of Himself that Jesus describes not only as
living water but according to verse 14 it is a spring of water
springing up to everlasting life:

John 4:14

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14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him

shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in
him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Because you accept the gift of God you have something

EVERLASTING (or irreducible) on the inside of you from
God for the intent of blessing you now and always. In other
words, this isn’t a reservoir of limited capacity but an
EVERLASTING (or irreducible) resource on the inside of you
as the gift of God’s love. It cannot be tapped. It is always
available. It is easily accessible. It is at your disposal. It not
only quenches thirst, but it also eliminates thirst. What does
that mean? It means that the things you need and have need of
or desire are spontaneously available on the occasion of your
longing as a benefit of the curious nature of the repository of
God’s Spirit on the inside of you that comes available as you
draw upon who He is by faith and who He has made Himself
to be on in the depths of your being.

THE SPRINGS, RIVERS, AND POOLS OF GOD’S SPIRIT

WITHIN YOU:

If God is something on the inside of us, we ought to know and

have a more in-depth understanding of what that is, don’t you
agree? What is God on the inside of you? He is as water. That
word in verse 14 for water describes in the original language:

Water as in springs, rivers, pools or rain. We will come back

to rivers in a moment. God is a pool of water on the inside of
you. Everybody into the pool! When you have a pool, you
want to get in it. A pool by its existence is a standing
invitation to dive in. Think about the pool of Bethesda in John
5. The angel came and stirred the waters and the first one in
got healed. Why would God do that? He is speaking about
something on the inside of you. We cry out for God to heal but
we don’t understand that healing doesn’t come from some
OTHERLY elsewhere. Healing occurs when He sends the
angel of His presence to stir the waters of your soul and
release the healing that has lay resident there on the inside of

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you - the kingdom of God IN YOU from the creation of the

world.

That word water also is the Greek word for rain. Do you
realize that the rain of God is not just something outward, but
it is something inward that He has placed there by His Spirit?
On the inside of you, there is an entire spiritual ecosystem that
Jesus called in Luke 17:20, 21 the KINGDOM OF GOD that
is WITHIN YOU. We tend to look outwardly for what Jesus is
telling this woman would be on the inside of her predicated on
putting her attention not on her own troubled life but on the
gift of God that He was to her and is to us. What you are
looking outwardly in vain for if you will look by the eyes of
the Spirit to the inward chambers of your heart where Christ
dwells in faith, you will find every resource, every miracle,
every answer, every deliverance, every stream of God’s
goodness bubbling up to life everlasting inviting you to take
the plunge and know with fullness and finality the totality of
who God is in you and what God is in you and just how
deeply He loves you and wants to make Himself known to
you.

Turn to John 5:4-8. After talking to the woman at the well

about pools, and springs and rain, Jesus makes His way to the
pool of Bethesda. Do you think that was by design or by
happenstance? There at this pool are a multitude of impotent
folk, blind, halt, whithered and waiting for the troubling of the
water. The first one in got healed, the others were left in their
suffering. The man Jesus speaks to has been there 38 years,
doing two things: He was waiting on the troubling of the
water, and He was looking for a man. Why was he looking for
a man? Because every single person there was looking for a
man. They couldn’t get in the water, they knew they needed a
man to help them. Jesus is standing before this individual and
declaring to Him “I am the man that can get you into the
waters that will heal you - take up your bed and walk ...” Let
me tell you something, you may be waiting for a revival, or
waiting for someone with a specific anointing or
understanding to finally get you free from your captivity but I
am here to declare to you that JESUS in His person on the

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inside of you is the man you have been looking for all your
life. If you will put your attention on HIM and not on some
outward person you will experience those dry places on the
inside of you to bubble up, flow forth and be your deliverance!

The answer to your need is not in the next book that someone
publishes about how to follow some obscure religious
principle or protocol in prayer to get your answer. Your
deliverance is not in going halfway across the country to get in
a meeting where an anointing will be flowing that will set you
free. All of those things might be involved, but the reality is
that you have a pool of Bethesda on the inside of you right
now and right now the angel of God’s presence is stirring the
waters to activate your faith to provoke you to receive this
instant what you have waited for all your life.

Now go to John 6:16-21. Again we see Jesus interacting with

His people in the context of water, springs, wells, pools and
here on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus sent the disciples into a boat
to cross the Galilee. What does that mean to you? Your life is
like the Galilee that night, dark, troubled and turbulent. As
Jesus put those men on the boat and sent them across, so He
has set you in your life and sent you on your way. He told
them to cross to the other side, and as a believer in Jesus, you
are likewise on a journey across the winds and waves of life at
the command of Jesus to get to the other side with your
testimony intact. What happened next? A storm blew up. Have
you encountered such storms in your day to day existence?

[Jhn 6:21 KJV] 21 Then they willingly received him into the
ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they
went.

Have you ever had a storm blow up in your life? Did you
know they name storms? Most of the storms in your life have
a name. It could be your husband or your wife’s name. It
could be your child’s name. The phone rings in the middle of
the night, and you wake up to answer and find yourself rowing
in a gale force wind of emergency room visits, bail bondsmen
and court arraignments trying to get your child out of a storm

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of their own making that you are in the midst of rowing with
all your might. We have all faced trials and tribulations of this
nature under the command of God to go to the other side. How
do we get there? By opening our eyes and seeing Jesus
walking on the waters of our soul. When we look at Jesus
walking on the waters of our soul and GLADLY RECEIVE
HIM into our situation, there will be two things: a great calm
and an immediate arrival into your safe harbor.

CONCLUSION:

Jesus is the spring of living water bubbling on the inside of

you. Jesus is the pool of Bethesda whose waters the angel of
His presence is stirring right now to receive your miracle.
Jesus is the one walking toward you on the troubled waves of
your inner man to calm you and deliver you and set you free
from all captivity. It’s all about who He is on the inside of you
and not any other thing. God so loved that He gave Jesus. He
didn’t love us so much He gave us the Christian religion (I
don't think that would be very loving). He didn’t love us so
much He gave us a body of theology (we don't have much
appetite for such things). He didn’t love us so much He gave
us ANY OUTWARD DEPENDENCY - He loved us so much
that He gave us Jesus and the only question is, will you
receive Him, gladly accept Him into the boat of your life?

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2 CHAPTER TWO

INTRODUCTION:

In chapter one we introduced the unique pattern in John

chapters 4-7 of Jesus going from one body of water to the next
to reveal something of Himself to His disciples and to us by
their testimony. We saw when Jesus met the woman at the
well that He spoke to her of the gift of God that He is in His
person and the promise of SPRINGS OF WATER springing
up within you as the outworking of knowing Him as the gift of
God. Understand what Jesus means when He says “if you
knew the gift of God” is of paramount importance because it
contains the predicating promise of springs of water coming
forth on the inside of you to everlasting life. Now when we
refer to everlasting life, it is more than eternity in heaven, or
playing a harp on a fleecy white cloud. It speaks as well to
temporal blessing, favor and the dividends of the kingdom in
the here and now.

In Jesus’ speaking of the gift of God, we are given to

understand that it is not something that flows through religious
principle or even spiritual principle. Not everything spiritual is
godly, as you may know already. Jesus is in His person the
walking manifestation of God’s gift to man. We access this
gift, and its benefits of living water on the inside of us not by

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learning principles or gaining “gnosis” or knowledge, but

rather through yieldedness and ongoing intimacy with Jesus.
The Gift of God is JESUS HIMSELF, made manifest in your
life through KNOWING HIM and the Greek word used in
John 4:10 means to turn the mind or the attention of your
focus upon Him. This is putting your attention on HIM when
everything around you is distracting and dismaying you. When
you put your attention on Him there promised to us an
instantaneous manifestation of divine intervention in your life
and your present distress. The perfect example of this is in
Numbers 21:8

Numbers 21:8
8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent,
and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one
that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

The people had been attacked by fiery serpents. There are two
kinds of snakes in the Bible, constrictors, and vipers.
Constrictors slowly squeeze the life from their victims, but
vipers come at you with a blitz attack to put you in a panic and
destroy your life and your testimony. Jesus spoke of this in
John 3:14:

John 3:14
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even
so must the Son of man be lifted up:

The turning of your attention upon Jesus described in John

3:14 is the same thought conveyed in John 4:10 when Jesus
spoke of knowing or turning your attention upon Him. When
you do this something will start bubbling up on the inside of
you that will marginalize and remove every work of darkness
against you at that moment. This is not just to be an occasional
intervention of heaven but a resident resource on the inside of
you flowing out of your riveted focus in every event of your
life upon the gift of God who is Jesus, Christ in you the hope
of Glory (Col. 1:27). Don't look at the problem so intently that
it breaks your focus on who Jesus is and what He is doing in
the midst of your challenge.

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Colossians 1:27
27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory:

The gift of God Jesus spoke of to the woman at the well is

none other than the gift of His indwelling person on the inside
of you by virtue of your new birth. Christ in you is the gift of
God. Christ in you is the hope of Glory and Phil. 4:9 says that
God will meet all your need out of His riches in glory - glory,
not in some ephemeral future dimension but here and now on
the inside of you - like streams of living water flowing out to
arrest your life and transform it according to the parameters
set by Jesus “as in heaven, so on earth.”

Notice how Jesus describes what happens on the inside of a

person who KNOWS (sets his attention on) the gift of God
that He is in Himself:

John 4:14
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him
shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in
him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

When you LOOK upon Him or put your attention on Him in

the midst of whatever is taking place in your life - it causes
something to flow up out of you called “springs of living
water.” Now that would be enough. There are probably few
believers in the 2000 year history of the church that have
entirely taken advantage of what Jesus spoke of concerning
Himself in John 4 to the Samaritan woman. But Jesus doesn’t
stop there. Go to John 5 where we find Jesus visiting another
water feature called the pool of Bethesda. He goes to Bethesda
and reveals Himself as the one who stirs the water of our soul
and heals us by the angel of His presence. There was a man
there for 38 years who was looking for an outward stirring, but
when Jesus came, he didn't give him something outward but
something immediate and inward based on His presence
before the man at that moment. He gave Him not an outward

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stirring but an INWARD STIRRING that would

spontaneously produce on the inside of Him what everyone
else was waiting for someone or something outwardly to
deliver. Ask yourself how many tanks of gas, how many
airline tickets, how many conferences, how many countless
hours are you going to have to spend before you open your
eyes and see Jesus standing before you being in Himself on
the inside of you what you have been longing and erroneously
seeking to find outwardly that has been inwardly resident in
you all along as Christ in you the Hope of Glory?

Let’s stop waiting for God to send the angel to stir the church
and let Him come and stir our souls and see ourselves
spontaneously receive what others don’t even realize is
available because they are looking outwardly for what God
automatically releases to you inwardly when you look upon
Him as the impotent man when you know Him like the woman
at the well, and what happens? You are in a moment of time
forever changed.

Having springs within us as promised in John 4 is lovely.

Having the stirring of the angel in our hearts as the man at
Bethesda in John 5 is excellent and wonderful - in fact, it will
bring your miracle. We don’t stop there. Go on to John 6, and
we see Jesus engaging His disciples at another water feature
called the sea of Galilee. They are rowing in vain against a
deadly storm, and Jesus comes walking on the waters of their
problem and stepping into their boat. In the moment He gets
their attention by walking on the water they experience an
instant calm and find themselves in fact suddenly at land!
Having Jesus walking on the waters of our adversity to step
into our boat and give us a suddenly-at-land experience as in
John 6:16-20 is beyond a blessing. But He doesn’t leave us
there. There is something more. God wants to give us more
than the experience of deliverance and blessing. He wants us
to have more than crisis intervention or occasional visitation;
He wants us to move from VISITATION to HABITATION,
from mere springs to ABSOLUTE RIVERS OF HIS POWER
not just flowing TO US but ORIGINATING IN US.

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OUT OF YOUR BELLY SHALL FLOW RIVERS:

Turn now to John chapter 7. In John 7, we find Jesus in the

temple during the Feast of Tabernacles declaring not just a
well as in John 4 or a stirring at the pool of Bethesda, or the
sudden calming of the storm in the Galilee, but now He turns
our attention again to what He is on the inside of us -
promising the RIVERS OF GOD to all that believe on Him as
the gift of God that He spoke to the Samaritan woman about in
John 4:

John 7:37-38
37 -- In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and
drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Notice that He says RIVERS plural out of your BELLY. Why

didn’t He say out of your heart? The heart speaks of your
human spirit, but the belly speaks of something more
encompassing:

The Greek word belly here, among other things, describes not
just the human spirit but the innermost part of a man, the soul,
heart as the seat of thought, feeling choice, or will. In other
words, we are talking about God in possession of not just your
born again spirit but also your mind, your emotions and your
faculty of will just as He is in possession of your human spirit
as His habitation through the new birth. In the New Birth, He
is in you as springs of LIVING WATER, but as He gains
ground in your mind, will and emotions those springs become
not just ONE river but many rivers - four in fact. How do we
know there are four? Because there are four inner dimensions
of man that can be the conduit of His glory and power. They
are:

HUMAN SPIRIT
THE EMOTIONS
THE WILL
THE MIND

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Now, remember that we are speaking of FOUR dimensions of

the ONE river of God on the inside of you (Just as Isaiah 11:1-
3 speaks of 7 spirits of God, but we know they are that one
and self-same Holy Ghost referred to throughout the New
Testament. Jesus promises us RIVERS plural - RIVERS OF
GOD FLOWING UP OUT OF US into our lives and the lives
of those around us. What was Jesus speaking about? In verse
39 it is made plain, He is talking about your personal
Pentecost.

John 7:39
39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on
him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given;
because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

Here Jesus is, standing in the temple, talking about Pentecost

on the day of the Feast of Tabernacles. He is trying to tell us
what comes next. After Pentecost - what next? After infilling -
FULL POSSESSION. After springs and stirrings, rivers of
massive power originating in us and through us. After what
Ephesians 1 calls the earnest of your inheritance, full
manifestation. This is God getting everything that He paid for
in the release of Himself through the gift of the cross. This is
the total dividend of the cross being paid into your life in
complete manifestation in every area of your need.

Now when Jesus said this - speaking of RIVERS of WATER,

it is interesting that the Jews start thinking about another body
of water:

John 7:40-41
40 Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying,
said, Of a truth this is the Prophet. 41 Others said, This is the
Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?

If you aren’t paying attention to the settings where these

things take place you are going to miss the more profound
truths. We have to look beyond the bonded leather and rice
paper and see the living tableau of what is happening here.

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The Galilee was then and is now the principal source of water
for the entire nation of Israel. Without the Galilee, the land of
Israel would be as dry as the Levant beyond Mount Nebo. Yet
from Jesus’ time and before then, the very people whose
survival depended on the Galilee, despised its waters just as
they despised Jesus. Can any good thing come out of Galilee,
was the saying so prevalent at that time and right down to
today. Yet if it weren’t for the Galilee they would die of thirst,
their crops would be blighted and their cities filled with dying
children. They despised the very instrument of their salvation.
It is interesting to note that June of 2018 the Knesset voted to
act in preservation of the Galilee during what is now
recognized as a 100-year drought. They have as a legislative
body acknowledged that only what comes out of Galilee can
save them. First the natural recognition then the spiritual
recognition. There are rabbinic scholars who believe that the
current drought is a harbinger of the coming of the Messiah -
but they still haven’t recognized (but soon will) that it was
Jesus whom they pierced.

Now when we talk about waters is this just poetic phraseology

or are these WATERS or RIVERS PLURAL specifically? We
need to answer this question because what we don’t
understand we ascribe to poetic language when in fact there is
a more profound revelation to be found if we care enough to
divine it from God’s word. What does the word of God say
about RIVERS?

THE LAW OF FIRST MENTION:

There is a law of theological inquiry called the “law of the

first mention.” It is understood to be that principle by which
the first mention of a subject in the Bible becomes a weighted
interpretive guide by which that subject can be understood
throughout scripture. The first seven mentions of the word
river in the scripture are found in the book of Genesis, chapter
2. They refer to the river of God in the midst of the garden of
Eden and the four rivers that follow out of that ONE river out
of Eden and throughout the surrounding area:

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[Gen 2:10-15 KJV] 10 And a river went out of Eden to water

the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into
four heads. 11 The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it
which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is]
gold; 12 And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is]
bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second
river [is] Gihon: the same [is] it that compasseth the whole
land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river [is]
Hiddekel: that [is] it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.
And the fourth river [is] Euphrates. 15 And the LORD God
took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it
and to keep it.

In Genesis 2 we see God putting man in the garden. There was

a river, in fact rivers in that natural location called the Garden
of Eden. Through the work of the Cross, God puts the Garden
IN YOU, He puts the river of His Spirit in you. When we read
the Genesis 2 account, you have to know that God is speaking
to you of something that He has put within you by virtue of
the New Birth and your subsequent infilling of the Holy Ghost
with evidence of speaking in other tongues. There is the one
river parting into four rivers constituting five streams. What
does the number 5 connote? Five is the number of grace. What
is grace? Grace is defined as "the divine influence upon the
heart and its reflection in the life." Grace is GOD on the inside
of you, changing you and changing the circumstances of your
life according to His purpose just as these rivers originated in
Eden and flowed out into the earth, some of them even today
still giving life and hope to all who come to their banks. This
is what God has put on the inside of you. Not just a poetic
metaphor, but a living reality. It isn’t a metaphor for a river it
IS a river as mighty as the Mississippi that dominates this
entire nation (the USA), in fact it is FOUR rivers coming out
of the ONE river of God that is the SPIRIT OF GOD on the
inside of you, flowing out to four specific aspects of your life
encompassing a torrent of grace and power affecting every
conceivable area of your need. Let us continue on to study
exactly how this four fold river originating from the one river
in the midst of the Garden of God works to transform our
lives!

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3 CHAPTER THREE

INTRODUCTION:

We are studying the rivers of God spoken of in John 7:37-39.

In this passage we see Jesus standing up in the temple at the
beginning of what scholars call the year of opposition in His
ministry. He stands boldly in the temple during the Feast of
Tabernacles and announces Himself as the living fountain, the
gift of God in His very own person that IF we partake of, we
will never thirst again. What does this mean? We will never
thirst again because as a consequence of believing on Him
(leaning with our whole heart and personality upon Him with
all of our person) there would be then manifest within us not
just a river but RIVERS (plural) of living, life-giving, life-
altering grace by the infilling of the Holy Spirit to completely
change our lives and the lives likewise of those around us as
well. Jesus declared it this way:

[Jhn 7:37-39 KJV] 37 In the last day, that great [day] of the
feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him
come unto me, and drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the
scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that
believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet
[given]; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

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These rivers, Jesus says will flow out of your belly. Your belly
is not just your human spirit. The belly in ancient times
denoted not only of the spirit of man but the four-fold nature
of the inner man including:

1. The Spirit
2. The Emotions
3. The Mind
4. The Will

We all feel the river of God flowing in our Spirit. That is an

act of sovereign grace originating in God as He takes up
residence within us. However, you need to know that God
wants to claim territory and control not only in your Spirit but
in your emotions, your will, and your mind. In fact, if this isn’t
happening in you then you are what Paul describes as a
CARNAL CHRISTIAN. You have God in your heart but you
haven’t given Him access to the rest of your being. Let us be
clear: God wants to take territory in your inner man. The inner
territory must change before the outer territory reflects the
character of "as in heaven so on earth." Because we are carnal
and sold under sin, even as professing believers, this causes us
to experience unnecessary contradiction to His promise in our
lives. His promise is when He has you - ALL OF YOU -
inhabiting not only your human spirit but your mind, will and
emotional man as well THEN what is a SAMARITAN
SPRING (John 4) becomes a mighty FOUR-FOLD river
dominating every aspect of your life with God’s blessing!

When we read of RIVERS of God we must go to the first

mention of RIVERS in the scripture and interestingly enough
there is a seven-fold mention of the rivers of God found in the
very beginning, in Genesis chapter 2, in the garden of Eden.
What is the connotation of the number seven? When God says
something seven times what is He getting at? Seven times in
three verses God speaks of 5 rivers. One originating river with
four tributaries flowing out of the midst of Eden. If that isn’t
God saying something to you then what is? You have to get
this by revelation. You have to look deeper than a precursory,

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dry consideration of ancient writ. God wants you to see that

you have ON THE INSIDE OF YOU an Edenic environment,
created by God, guarded by angels, originating something so
powerful and fourfold that it can only be described by Jesus
not just as a river but RIVERS of everlasting life flowing out
of you because you believe in HIM. Why would we want this?
Because the rivers maintained the Edenic state in the distant
past, likewise the rivers of God's Spirit Jesus speaks of in John
4:37-38 will create and maintain your life in Edenic
entitlement (heaven come to earth) as we allow them to
dominate us inwardly and flow out through us profusely
through the character of our spiritual lives.

The number 5 is the number of grace and in Hebrew, it is

spoken of as a pronounced breath “hey”. The Spirit of God in
both the Old and New Testament language is “ruach” and
“pneuma” respectively both meaning as well a “blast or
current of air”. The five rivers in Eden speak of the RIVER of
God’s Spirit - the blast of His presence IN YOU flowing OUT
OF YOU to impact your life. The Number 7 in Hebrew is
“Zayin” and the pictograph of its symbol is a sword. It is the
SWORD of the Spirit, the perfection of God on the inside of
you by His indwelling Spirit. The number 7 is also called a
"crowned vav" because it is drawn by making a number 6 in
Hebrew and putting a crown on it - speaking of the authority
of the believer in Christ. There are 7 mentions of the word
river in Gen. 2:10-14 that is God speaking of what constitutes
a WEAPONIZED FLOW of His Spirit on the inside of you to
defeat all the works of the enemy. The deliverance you are
waiting and praying for is on the inside of you waiting to be
unleashed when you open up not just your SPIRIT but the
entire BELLY (spirit, mind, will and emotions) in a
determinate discipleship to no longer be a carnal being
(animated by the flesh) but a spiritual being (animated by the
spirit) dominated and disciplined by the Spirit of God on the
inside of you to whom you have opened the whole of your
inner man in total yieldedness to His mind, will and purpose
for you moment by moment and day by day.

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HOW DOES THE GARDEN OF EDEN REPRESENT

YOUR INNER MAN?

What Adam destroyed by transgression in the garden of Eden

(Gen. 3:6), Jesus restored by obedience in the garden of
Gethsemane (Luke 22:39-43). It is interesting that the Rabbis
in antiquity believed that the Tree of Life was a grapevine.
Jesus declares in John 15:1 that He is the vine. He was
declaring to the Pharisees and the Scribes that the Tree of Life
in the Garden spoken of in their scriptures was none other than
Jesus Himself. That which gives life to us is not doctrinal,
theological, ecclesiastical, or some spiritual protocol, principle
or gnosis. The TREE OF LIFE is a person, and His name is
Jesus. When He is in the CENTER of your being then the
inner precincts of your being become INWARDLY what the
garden of Eden was outwardly in the beginning.

[Gen 2:10-15 KJV] 10 And a river went out of Eden to water

the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into
four heads. 11 The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it
which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is]
gold; 12 And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is]
bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second
river [is] Gihon: the same [is] it that compasseth the whole
land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river [is]
Hiddekel: that [is] it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.
And the fourth river [is] Euphrates. 15 And the LORD God
took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it
and to keep it.

Now, God placed a RIVER in the midst of the garden and

Jesus said when you believe THAT RIVER will be IN YOU
springing up to life everlasting. Now, in Christian culture, we
have an innate understanding that there is something called the
river of God. We have River Church, River Revival, River this
and river that - why is that so compelling to us? Because it is
something that is on the inside of us of the Spirit of God that
wants to make itself known! Why do you think we call our
churches after the RIVER OF GOD? We are *RIVER
REVIVAL CHURCH because God is REVIVING THE

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RIVER! (*This series of messages originally were shared at

River Revival church in Sterling, VA). Let us consider the
theme of RIVERS in the Scripture:

Turn to the book of Revelation:

[Rev 22:1 KJV] 1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of

life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and
of the Lamb.

Humanity commenced in the RIVER of God and concludes

moving into eternity future on the banks of the RIVER of
God. Natural Eden no longer survives but the River of God in
the midst of her still exists today and for you and I and every
other believer, it is available according to Jesus in John 7:37-
39 as the streams of His Spirit - a mighty torrent capable and
available to dominate every aspect of your life to bless and
benefit you beyond your expectations.

The Psalmist David put it this way:

[Psa 46:4-6 KJV] 4 [There is] a river, the streams whereof

shall make glad the city of God, the holy [place] of the
tabernacles of the most High. 5 God [is] in the midst of her;
she shall not be moved: God shall help her, [and that] right
early. 6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he
uttered his voice, the earth melted.

David says by the Spirit of Prophecy - there is a river. Where

is this river? It is on the inside of you. Not because it is a
convenient Christian metaphor, but because Jesus said it was
on the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7:37-39. What is the
purpose of this river? There is a river, the streams whereof
make glad the city of God! This is not the Jordan.
Prophetically there will come a time when the Galilee will dry
up and the Jordan will be no more but when Jesus comes and
His foot touches the Mt. of Olives the mountain will be rent
and out of if in fulfillment of scripture will come a river that
will transform the land in preparation for the millennial reign
of Christ. David was in his palace writing this, on the lower

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slopes of the Moriah, sensing this in his spirit that though he

couldn’t see it, all he had was the Gihon spring … he knew
that there was a river coming not just a natural river but a
SPIRITUAL river that Jesus stands in our temple today to
declare just as He stood in that temple in that day declaring to
us that if we partake of its waters its streams will make us glad
and make glad the city of God. What is the city of God? The
writer of Hebrews says it is none other than the church of the
living God. What is it that makes us glad as Christians? Ice
cream socials? Sunday services? Liturgy, theology or Sunday
school lessons? These are all dry husks of dead religion
without the RIVER OF GOD flowing on the inside of us.

David says in Psalm 46:5 that the river is special and powerful
because GOD is in the MIDST OF HER. This is more than a
natural river. It is the Spiritual river Jesus declares to us. Why
are we teaching on the river? Because GOD IS IN THE
RIVER. He isn’t in some far off, inaccessible place. He is IN
YOU in the RIVER and (v. 5) the RIVER SHALL NOT BE
MOVED because God shall not be moved therefore YOU
WILL NOT BE MOVED by the enemy because the river is in
you, God is in you and though the heathen rage (v. 6) they will
be moved and their kingdoms will be moved but those in
whom the river flows will be found to be part of that kingdom
that will NEVER BE MOVED because of who He is in the
river of His Spirit on the inside of us. Read v. 10:

[Psa 46:10 KJV] 10 Be still, and know that I [am] God: I will
be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

Because of this RIVER of TRUTH regarding who God is on

the inside of us we are counseled to BE STILL! If you will
still your mind and quiet the outside interference you cannot
fail to discern, sense and experience the river of God. Not just
THE river but a river that Eden tells us flows out to FOUR
HEADS or rivers influencing as we will later see EVERY
AREA OF YOUR LIFE.

Be Still for I AM THE RIVER God says.

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Be Still and know that I AM THE RIVER in the Midst of

You, God says.

Be Still and Know that I AM the River that will be exalted

among the heathen and exalted AS THE RIVER THAT IS IN
YOU in the earth flows out to dominate and shape your life
into the image of as in heaven so on earth. This is what is in
you. This is who is in you. The Spirit of God, as a river,
dominates the landscape of your life and as a part of God’s
church dominates the nations of the earth by the power of
what flows on the inside of you, that originates in God and
brings the nations to heel at the foot of the cross!

WHAT IS TO BE YOUR RESPONSE?

In the book of Ezekiel God revealed the same river that David
spoke of. In Ezekiel, we see that it originates under the doors
of the temple in heaven that you are. You are the temple and
the river is not just in you - it is flowing out from you:

[Eze 47:1, 3-9 KJV] 1 Afterward he brought me again unto the

door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under
the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the
house [stood toward] the east, and the waters came down from
under from the right side of the house, at the south [side] of
the altar. ... 3 And when the man that had the line in his hand
went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he
brought me through the waters; the waters [were] to the
ankles. 4 Again he measured a thousand, and brought me
through the waters; the waters [were] to the knees. Again he
measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters
[were] to the loins. 5 Afterward he measured a thousand; [and
it was] a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were
risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over.
6 And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen [this]?
Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of
the river. 7 Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of
the river [were] very many trees on the one side and on the
other. 8 Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward
the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the

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sea: [which being] brought forth into the sea, the waters shall
be healed. 9 And it shall come to pass, [that] every thing that
liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come,
shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish,
because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be
healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.

What are we to do with the river of God in us? We are to

plunge in. Not just a nodding commitment of accepting Jesus
into our heart. We are to diligently in an applicational way
find out with all our capacity to learn and implement how to
abandon ourselves not just in our human spirit in the new birth
but in every aspect of our being MIND, WILL, AND
EMOTIONS how to open the dry chambers of our soul to the
rushing currents of that mighty river of God that is on the
inside of you. Not just a spring. Not just a well. But a river -
cleansing you, changing you and coming out of you where
there are waters to swim in where the fish (lost souls) are
abundant and the fruits of God are made utterly made
manifest.

When the waters come out from the temple that YOU ARE,
they flow out into your life, relationships, supply, etc., and
everywhere they flow there will be FISH (we are fishers of
men, souls of men) and there will be life where the RIVER(S)
plural flow. What are the RIVER(S) plural? This is more than
poetry this is a revelational truth. We will discover the four
rivers, what their names are and what their purposes are in the
remainder of this series of teachings.

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4 CHAPTER FOUR

INTRODUCTION:

In John 7:37-39 Jesus declares that believing In Him will

cause RIVERS of living water to flow out of our belly:

[Jhn 7:37-39 KJV] 37 In the last day, that great [day] of

the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let
him come unto me, and drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as
the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water. 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they
that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not
yet [given]; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

We have implied that this statement by Jesus is more than

poetic expression but is, in fact, exact language descriptive of
the reality of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the life of
one who BELIEVES in Jesus. Now the word believe means
many things to us and even in scripture, there are different
words used to define “belief” in Jesus. The specific word in
John 7:38 carries the meaning “to put your attention on…” It
could not be simpler. Do not be distracted from taking your
eyes off of Jesus, whatever is going on in your situation. The
word picture would include the image of Moses lifting up the
serpent in the wilderness and saying “look and live” as

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recorded in Numbers 21:8-9. The people were facing attack

and certain death from fiery serpents, but those that tore their
eyes away from the hissing snakes at their feet about to strike
were those who lived and all others perished in torment and
agony. Likewise, when we are in agony and facing terror-
filled circumstances we are to put our attention upon Him.
Why? Because you are where your attention takes you. If you
can’t take your eyes off the problem, you are headed into more
problems. If you look to Him - then you will experience being
seated with Him in heavenly places and suddenly out of your
middle - out of your belly will flow RIVERS OF LIVING
WATER.

What are these RIVERS? Again, they are more than a

poetic metaphor. God spoke to me once saying “it isn’t a
metaphor for a river - it is a river…” I have lived my whole
life near the mighty Mississippi and it is one of the great
untamed waterways of the earth. The Core of Engineers has
worked and our government has spent billions of dollars over
the course of decades but the river continually breaks out,
establishing its dominance over the land. That is the
magnitude of what God has placed on the inside of you. How
can the enemy withstand what is coming out of you when it is
the RIVER OF GOD? This is what Isaiah spoke of:

[Isa 59:19 KJV] 19 So shall they fear the name of the

LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun.
When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the
LORD shall lift up a standard against him.

What is the flood? The flood is not the enemy, the flood
comes from the river and the river(s) is in you! These are the
RIVERS OF GOD flowing out of you raising a standard - a
tsunami of God’s power to overwhelm every frontal assault of
the enemy against you. It doesn’t come from above, it comes
from within. It is more than a singularity, it is RIVERS plural.
What are those RIVERS? We can read John 7:37-39 and
inquire about the RIVERS by looking for the first mention of
RIVERS in the scripture. We don’t have to look far. In
Genesis 2 we find the first mention of rivers actually repeated

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7 times. When God says something 7 times we need to pay

attention. 7 is God’s number of perfection. The 5-fold ministry
in Eph. 4:11-12 is here to perfect the saints. If 7 is the number
of perfection then it is in our best interest to pay attention to
the 7’s we find in scripture. At the beginning before the fall
we find two mentions of 7’s, seven days and seven mentions
of rivers. The seven days speak of God’s process AROUND
US. The seven mentions of rivers speak of God’s power
flowing through us:

[Gen 2:10-15 KJV] 10 And a river went out of Eden to

water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became
into four heads. 11 The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it
which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is]
gold; 12 And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is]
bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second
river [is] Gihon: the same [is] it that compasseth the whole
land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river [is]
Hiddekel: that [is] it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.
And the fourth river [is] Euphrates. 15 And the LORD God
took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it
and to keep it.

Now we see a river flowing out of Eden and dividing into

four heads or tributaries. What is Eden? Does it mean anything
more to us other than what is now a bleak landscape in central
Iraq with a few straggly goats and shacks on it? The indicator
is in reference to the tree of Life in the midst of the garden. In
antiquity, Rabbinical sources believed that the Tree of Life
was a grapevine. What does that remind you of? In John 15:1
Jesus declared that He is the vine. What is He saying? His
listeners, particularly the scribes and Pharisees knew exactly
what He was saying. He was saying “I am the tree of life in
the midst of your garden…” The Jews believed they were
God’s garden as a nation. They read Isaiah and believed that
they were the only garden that God was interested in. We
know however that God wants more than to dwell in the midst
of a nation He wants to dwell in your midst in your very
person as His temple, planting the Tree of Life in your heart as
He put the same tree of Life in the garden before the fall. The

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garden of God, the Eden of God speaks then of where the Tree
of Life that is Jesus is found and He is found in YOU. The
Tree of Life is in You and Jesus says that there are RIVERS
plural found in you, flowing out of the ONE RIVER and
encompassing all of your life as the four tributaries of that one
river that came out of Eden encompassed all the land about it
and even as some of those rivers still do in the Levant on the
Arabian peninsula today.

GETTING THE RIVERS ACTIVATED IN YOU:

Gen. 2:10 tells us that out of Eden came a river dividing

itself into four tributaries or secondary rivers. Likewise
according to Jesus in John 7:37-39 out of YOU is intended to
come a river, in fact, rivers. How do you know the rivers are
coming out of you? When the enemy can’t stand before you. If
the enemy can successfully resist you then the rivers haven’t
been activated yet. How do we activate them? Jesus said in
John 7 the rivers are activated by BELIEVING in Him.
Believing on Him by putting your attention on Him in the
midst of your pressure. You are where your attention takes
you. Paul put it this way in Col. 3:

[Col 3:1-2 KJV] 1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek

those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on
things on the earth.

Notice verse 2 of Col. 3. We are to “SET OUR

AFFECTION” that word affection is interesting and we don’t
exactly have an English word that rightly expresses it. It
means we are to set our emotional attenuation upon Christ.
That means you choose by an act of your will not to be
affected or moved emotionally by what is going on around us
because our emotional attenuation in the midst of our pressure
is not on the source of our pressure producing stress but upon
CHRIST WHO SITS ON THE THRONE OF OUR LIFE.
How does that look? It’s like this - pressure comes, and the
storm comes in life and your response is “Jesus! You’ve got
mail!” Then you look to Him as Moses lifted up the serpent

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and the people looked and lived. You commanded to LOOK

(put your attention on Jesus and not the problem) AND LIVE.
How does that work? You LOOK to Him and as you look
something begins to stir on the inside of you that produces the
enemy’s downfall and your deliverance. You look and as the
angel troubled the water at Bethesda you are the FIRST one in
because the waters aren’t OUT THERE SOMEWHERE they
are IN YOU, in fact, ORIGINATING IN YOU to deliver you
and destroy all the works of the devil against you.

Your inner man is the garden of God. Your inner man is

your Eden. Because you have accepted the blood of Christ as
your salvation, the angels are no longer barring your access to
the tree of Life that Jesus is. Eden means “pleasure” or
“delightsome”. That is the banner over your life that God
intends. Is that the banner over your life? When others look at
you what is the banner that they see? Or do they see
something else? Is the banner over you:

STRESSED OUT!
I'M TIRED!
FED UP!
BURNED OUT!
WORRIED!
FEARFUL!
SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED!
DISTRACTED!
POLLUTED!
SIN-SICK!

What is the banner over your life? God says that the
banner He wants to apply to your life is DELIGHTSOME!
PLEASURABLE! Jesus put it this way:

[Luk 12:32 KJV] 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your

Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

What is the kingdom? It is IN YOU. It is the RIVERS

(plural rivers) of GOD FLOWING OUT OF YOU to dominate
the landscape of your life in every area of your life. Your

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human spirit is the garden of God and Jesus is the tree of Life
in the midst of your garden. He is the tree of Life and in
because He is in you then originating in you according to v. 10
is a river SINGULAR that flows out in four aspects out into
the landscape of your life beyond the precincts of your human
spirit. What is the river? It is the one that David spoke of:

[Psa 46:4 KJV] 4 [There is] a river, the streams whereof

shall make glad the city of God, the holy [place] of the
tabernacles of the highest.

It is the one Ezekiel spoke of as flowing out of the house

of the Lord - the restoration Temple that you are in Your
Person:

[Eze 47:1 KJV] 1 Afterward he brought me again unto the

door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under
the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the
house [stood toward] the east, and the waters came down from
under from the right side of the house, at the south [side] of
the altar.

It is the river John the Revelator spoke of in Rev. 22:

[Rev 22:1-2 KJV] 1 And he shewed me a pure river of

water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of
God and of the Lamb. 2 In the midst of the street of it, and on
either side of the river, [was there] the tree of life, which bare
twelve [manner of] fruits, [and] yielded her fruit every month:
and the leaves of the tree [were] for the healing of the nations.

Is this just in heaven? Does not the throne of God exist in

us? Wherever the throne of God is present the river is present,
the tree of life is present and the glory is present. What will be
evident to every eye and confessed by every tongue (one day
eventually) is a reality IN YOU - in the GLORY NOW at the
present time. You have in you now an “as in heaven so on
earth” reality in your called the river of God needing and
wanting to be released. You know this is true. You may not be
able to articulate it but you know there is something flowing in

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you that originates in God. It may just be a well but it is

intended to be a river. It may be a river but it is intended to be
a four-fold something not just in you but flowing out of you to
dominate the landscape of your life in every aspect.

How do we get the living waters in us to become a river?

By letting it flow as John 7:37-39 state - not just out of our
heart as a well of living water springing up to refresh us, but to
dominate your whole man referred to as the BELLY. The river
of God will NEVER DOMINATE THE CIRCUMSTANCES
OF YOUR LIFE until it inundates and dominates the INNER
GEOGRAPHY of your entire SOUL, MIND, WILL, AND
EMOTIONS. How does that happen? By believing - looking
to Jesus, focusing our emotional attenuation upon Him in the
midst of the rigors of life even when the fiery serpents of the
sudden assault of the enemy come against us. When we take
that stand then suddenly that water cooler of spiritual
refreshment begins to shake and quake and erupt into a mighty
fourfold river that will not be denied but will obliterate all the
works of the enemy against us FROM WITHIN US from
within CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY.

It isn’t just a singular river we see in Gen. 2:10-14, it is a

four-fold river dividing from four heads. There is HEADSHIP
in the river. We don’t like headship in our culture. We want to
submit to no one. Jesus said in Matt 4:19 “follow Me and I
will make you…” and there is something in us that rebels
against that. Let me tell you something - when a river flows it
takes charge everywhere it goes. You are the landscape that
the river of God must dominate you inwardly before your
circumstances will ever yield outwardly. If your circumstance
isn’t changing - check your heart. Four is the number “daleth”
meaning the door. We say we have opened the door of our
heart but that door is a four-fold something including your
SPIRIT, MIND, WILL, AND EMOTIONS. He said He will
come in and sup but we wonder why we aren’t supping? Why
are we filling our famished soul with worldly things? Because
we have opened our spirits up to receive the New birth but our
soul, our mind, will, and emotions are still dabbling and
satiating themselves with the pleasures of the world.

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THE RIVER PISON through the land of HAVILAH

(Have-a-Lot) WHERE THERE IS GOLD:

There is among the four rivers of God a river dedicated

just to the acquisition of supply and the transfer of the wealth.
In Gen. 2:10-14 these rivers are all spoken of as
ENCOMPASSING the lands they flow through. That means
that the river cuts off everything else. The rivers of God in you
will cause you to walk in separation. They will separate you
from sin but they will also separate you from lack, sickness,
death itself. You may see bad things happening or threatening
beyond the flow of God in your life but you refuse to leave the
place of abiding in Him to go and partake of THAT that the
world has to offer because you know if you cross that line you
are walking into a waste howling wilderness where the river
will not refresh you!

The Rivers are RIVER(S) plural. Verse 11 tells us that the

name of the first river is PISON and it compasses the land of
HAVILAH where there is GOLD. Interesting that this is the
first river. John said:

[3Jo 1:2 KJV] 2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou
mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

In the gospels before Jesus ever preached or taught, He

would address health issues and creature comforts. Healing it
has been said is the dinner bell to salvation. The first river that
gets activated in your life is the one that goes out into the
landscape of life around you and gets the gold and brings it
back into your Eden. It compasses the land of Havilah. I like
to call it the land of Have-a-lot. God is not a God of poverty.
There is something flowing out of you that goes out and gets
the gold of God to produce what John 10:10 calls life and life
more abundantly. 2 Cor. 8:9 says that Jesus became poor so
that we could be rich. If you aren’t rich then you haven’t
received everything that God has for you. Some say this is
spiritual riches but the context of 2 Cor. 8:9 for 3 chapters is

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natural provision. There is a river of God in you that once

released will produce supply - abundant supply in your life.

How about a confirmation? Pison means “increase”. The

increase of God is a river on the inside of you. How does it get
released? By putting your attention or your emotional
attenuation not upon the financial challenge in our life but
upon who God is in your life. It is about making Him Lord
over what little increase you have and He takes it and turns it
from a trickle into a mighty torrent of supply and provision.
There is an INCREASE in you. It is a part of the RIVER of
God coming out of the temple of your human spirit. You see
the river is ONE river in your spirit but when it flows out of
your spirit it becomes a four-fold force or river of the Spirit of
God and one whole aspect of it is focused upon supply, the
gold of God in your life.

The river of God’s increase flows out of you into

something very familiar to you whether you realize it or not. It
flows in your life already and is connotated by where this river
of the increase of God flows. The Pison flows through the land
of Havilah. Now what does Havilah mean and what does it
infer in your life? The word Havilah means “circle” or
“cyclical”. Is there anything cyclical in your life? If you live
on planet earth regardless of how your finances accrue to you
they are CYCLICAL IN NATURE. Paychecks are paid on a
cyclical schedule - TGIF! Dividends of investments are paid
on a cyclical schedule. Even if you are on a fixed income you
receive your support check or annuity check on a cyclical
schedule. Likewise, all your bills and expenditures, for the
most part, are cyclical in the demand they make upon you
every week, every month and every year at tax time. The
cyclical nature of supply and demand has given birth to
sayings like:

What goes around comes around.

Payday doesn’t come every Friday but it does come.

What you reap - so shall you sow.

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What is this in terms of the geography of your life? It is the

land of Havilah or the cyclical topography of life that controls
supply and demand in your day to day existence. God has a
river called the river of increase that is ordained to come out
of the TEMPLE that you are and encompass or take dominion
over these cycles of supply and demand, increase and
expenditure in your life and in this land whether you know it
or not there is GOLD which is the universal symbol for
increase and supply and provision and has been since the
dawn of time. Do you get this? There is a RIVER of God, one
of the FOUR rivers originating from the ONE RIVER OF
GOD’S SPIRIT (a total of 5), arising in your human spirit that
is specifically designed to bring INCREASE - to go out into
that cyclical circumstance and situation of the day to day grind
and bring back the GOLD OF GOD - what some have called
the TRANSFER OF THE WEALTH originating in you and
being brought inexorably to you because you are BELIEVING
on Him as Jesus said in John 7:37-38 - not looking at the
supply or the lack of supply but turning your face toward Him
- seeking His face FINANCIALLY and seeing His hand
providentially in your life.

Now, if this is so, why isn’t it working in your life?

Remember that it says OUT OF YOUR BELLY. You have it
in your heart to be blessed financially. You know in your heart
- your human spirit you have MOUNTAIN MOVING FAITH.
You know that you have MILLION DOLLAR FAITH on the
inside of you. You have it in your heart to give. But that isn’t
enough. We have to get what is in your heart out into your life.
If that is going to happen what is in your heart has to get past
your MIND, your WILL, and your EMOTIONS. Otherwise,
you have mountain moving faith yet you are being held back
by a mere molehill of unbelief and failure to act the enemy
inspires against you by provoking to look at circumstances
rather than Christ (look at live!). The BELLY Jesus speaks of
is not just your HEART or HUMAN SPIRIT, in ancient times
the BELLY was an all-encompassing term defining yes, yes
your human spirit but also your mind, will and emotions. How

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does that work regarding the river of increase that Jesus says
will come out of you? Consider the following:

Your Emotions:

[2Co 9:7 KJV] 7 Every man according as he purposeth in

his heart, [so let him give]; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for
God loveth a cheerful giver.

You have to get your emotions aligned with what is in

your Spirit man.

Your Will:

[Exo 35:5 KJV] 5 Take ye from among you an offering

unto the LORD: whosoever [is] of a willing heart, let him
bring it, an offering of the LORD; gold, and silver, and brass,

You have to get your WILL aligned with what is in your

heart regarding finances.

Your Mind:

The Dictionary describes mindfulness in a couple of ways,

with the first being, "The state or quality of being mindful or
aware of something.”

[1Jo 3:17 KJV] 17 But whoso hath this world's good, and
seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels [of
compassion] from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

Faith works by love. John 3:16 - for God so loved that He

gave. God’s love in your first and foremost will make you a
giver and an investor in the kingdom by giving into the
anointing and giving into the needs of those around you.

[Act 4:34-35 KJV] 34 Neither was there any among them

that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses
sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,

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35 And laid [them] down at the apostles' feet: and distribution

was made unto every man according as he had need.

Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is the substance of things

hoped for and James 2:17 says faith without works is dead.
How does that work in the area of finances? What you have
faith to GIVE is a measurement of what you have faith to
receive. Matt. 19:29 and Matt. 10:30 teach us to believe for
the 100 fold return. What is a hundredfold return on what you
give? If you calculate that formula based on your actual
giving, you have located yourself. What you have faith to give
- what you actually have to give and are following through in
actually giving is an exact metric of what you have faith to
receive. If you have faith to give $10,000 you have faith to
receive a million dollars. You know you have a million dollars
in you but you have to get your mind, will and emotions
aligned with that for that dimension of faith to cause that
money to be made manifest in your life. How does that
happen? By filling your MIND with thoughts of giving
$10,000. By getting your emotions engaged and getting giddy
and cheerful about giving $10,000. By getting your will
involved and giving what you can toward that goal until the
day you find yourself in reality GIVING $10K and THEN and
ONLY THEN does the river of increase BURST out of your
inner man, out of the temple that you are and encompass that
cyclical landscape of supply and demand in your life to
CREATE the 100 fold return of exactly what you have
activated by your engagement and cooperation with God’s
promise. You won’t do it if you don’t believe it. If you do
believe it your pressing in doing what you can, giving what
you can toward that goal. If you aren’t doing it it is because
you aren’t believing it. You may believe it in your human
spirit but your mind will and emotions have to get engaged
and brought into cooperation and THEN the transfer of the
wealth of God with your name on it will find you and fund
you and transform your life in the financial arena. Is that the
end of the matter? No, there are THREE OTHER
IMPORTANT RIVERS TO CONSIDER in our ongoing
messages in the remainder of this series.

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5 CHAPTER FIVE

INTRODUCTION:

In John 7:37-39 Jesus declares that the well of living water

that He declared to the woman at the well in John 4:14 can and
will become a river, in face RIVER(S) plural out of our belly.
The belly refers to more than just your heart or human spirit.
When Jesus dwells in your heart by faith, there comes into
your human spirit a residency of the presence of God that
functions like a well of refreshing you can draw on that will
bless your life and hold you fast in Christ. This well is not just
a blessing for you it is also a responsibility you bear. When we
say you are responsible that implies you are accountable and
have authority in God to carry out that duty of ruling and
reigning in Him. In fact, you are scripture declares a KING
and a PRIEST as well in God.

Rev. 1:6 and Rev. 5:10 declare that you are a king and a
priest unto God. In ancient times every place where a well was
found, a priest was appointed. Remember, that Moses’ father-
in-law Jethro was a priest of the wells at Midian (Ex. 18:1).
You likewise are a priest over the well that God has placed on
the inside of you. Your priesthood in Christ is not just a
general sense of ministry but a specific responsibility to
superintend AND dispense of the waters of God’s Spirit

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placed in you by the New Birth. This doesn’t stop just with the
New Birth and making sure you are on your way to heaven
after you die. The well in you is intended to become a river
resourcing you as well in the here and now. Isn’t it interesting
that in Ezekiel 47 that the entire temple of God is sitting on a
river that then flows out from the altar into the whole earth?
You then are a priest of the well and a priest of the river of
God intended to flow freely in your life. It is astounding that
for 2000 years men have taught on the priesthood of God and
the priesthood of the believer but no one has made this
connection what this teaching is referring to from the plain
testimony of God’s word. You are the priest of the well of
God IN YOU and you are a priest of a river of God IN YOU
and flowing out of you, in fact, you are the temple of God
because of that well and because of that river.

The river that God has placed in you is not a singular

something but Jesus says that they are RIVER(S) plural. That
is more than poetic expression. When Jesus said things the
disciples didn’t understand they didn’t conclude that they
lacked understanding, they simply concluded that Jesus was
being spiritual, or speaking a parable. That is the pride of man
not wanting to admit there is something in God that has eluded
their comprehension. The reference to rivers is Jesus speaking
with specificity toward that which is plainly referred to in
Gen. 2:10-14.

In Eden, (which represents your person as the dwelling

place of God), there is the Tree of Life that the Rabbis
believed was a grapevine. Jesus knew this and declared in
John 15:1 that He was the vine and we are the branches. He is
the river and we are the tributaries. He is the river and the
river is in us AS us! He is the river in you and out of the river
in Eden came four tributaries or rivers. We elaborated on the
first one in the last teaching. These four rivers are:

The Pison
The Gihon
The Hiddekel
The Euphrates

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Now Pison means “river of increase”. It flows into the land

of Havilah where there is gold, bdellium, and the onyx stone.
Havilah means “circular”. Have you done time in Havilah,
going around in circles like you aren’t going anywhere? You
will notice in Gen. 2:11 that the Pison (God’s river bringing
the increase in your life) is described as ENCOMPASSING or
taking authority over the land of Havilah (circular experiences
in life). Do you see the picture that God is giving you? This
circular nature of the nature of supply has a spiritual, not just a
natural origination. This is what Ezekiel saw on the plain in
Chebar. This is God’s WHEEL within a WHEEL. The wheel
of God’s river of increase encompassing and taking authority
over the circular nature of life that has bearing specifically on
the gold of God being accrued into your situation as supply,
provision, and increase.

It is important to know that there is not just gold but also

according to v. 12 of Gen. 2 “bdellium and onyx stone”. These
speak of something God wants you to be infused with when
you are feeling like you are going in circles not getting
anywhere. Bdellium is a resin that is secreted by a tree and is
of great value. In the scriptures, believers are referred to as
trees. You are a tree of God and when you are feeling as
though you are going in circles in life - something will be
excreted from you? Is it fragrant and valuable or is it
something else? Another thing about bdellium is when the
sunlight shines on it - it liquifies. This speaks of the influence
of the Spirit of God on your life when you feel like you are
going in circles. When God tries to reach you in that place do
you harden your heart or do you simply melt in compliance to
what He is telling you? Your pastor knows. When you are in
the circular place and your pastor is trying to point the way are
you cooperative or do you shine him on, marginalizing his
wisdom? When it comes to giving or a giving opportunity
does your heart melt or harden when the ushers come to the
front with the offering envelopes?

The other valuable thing you will find in this wheel within
the wheel of the Pison encompassing the land of Havilah on

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the inside of you is onyx. Onyx in ancient times represented

courage. When soldiers would go into battle knowing they
would spend the entire day hacking away at the bodies of their
enemies in desperate hand to hand combat, they would carry
onyx stones with them because they believed it gave them
courage. The river of increase will bring you then pliability to
the light of God in your life and courage to obey in all things.
Then the gold will be made manifest and not until. You must
be yielded and courageous within to see the abundance and
supply without that God has for you in Havilah, the cyclical
nature of supply and demand, increase and expenditure in your
life.

We often ask the question “where is all the money… why

am I not experiencing increase as God promised…” but we
aren’t cooperating with the wheel-within-the-wheel process
that comes as God’s river of the increase comes out of us to
dominate the landscape of our life. We must be pliable. We
must have courage. Then the gold of God, the transfer of the
wealth of God into your life will be capitalized into your
experience.

There are three more rivers to consider. They all flow from
that one river of God flowing out from under the temple of
God that you are. Do you know the River of God is in you?
You know that it is. You know that it is by the witness of the
Spirit that tells you that you are born again and Christ dwells
in your heart by faith. What you need to understand is that
river in you is for the purpose of doing more than registering
the warmth of God’s presence in your heart. There must come
a release. The river in your human spirit of God’s glory on the
inside of you must be allowed to flow to all your belly
(MIND, WILL, AND EMOTIONS) before it will ever flow
into your life and change things that seem like they will never
change. The inner territory must become the floodplain of
God’s Spirit before the outer geography of your life,
relationships, health, and finances benefit from what comes
out of that river of God. Until you yield in your mind, will and
emotions all you have is a well to get you by till Jesus comes.
God wants you to have MORE than that. When your inner

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territory is conquered by the ONE river of God on your spirit

then it will become FOUR RIVERS flowing out to dominate
your life with His goodness. The first is the Pison affecting
your natural supply and blessing. When the first river
dominates you inwardly and flows into your life outwardly the
blessings of Abraham will manifest. It will be said of you
what was said of Abraham that he was rich - very rich in all
the things necessary for your life.

THE SECOND RIVER OF GOD - THE GIHON

Then we come to the Gihon. The Gihon speaks of

something that comes out of you to encompass (take authority
over and master) the darkness in your life. The Gihon
encompassed (took authority over) the land of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia in Hebrew means “land of darkness”. Are you
dealing with darkness, the darkness of the enemy in your life?
Is there darkness in your children that you can’t pray off of
them? Are you experiencing dark times in your marriage or
other areas of your life? God put a resource inside of you that
is prefigured by what He describes in Genesis 2 in a seven-
fold reference to His rivers IN YOU that Jesus promises us
concerning in John 7:37-39. There is something God intends
to flow in you that will come out of you and address the
darkness in your life! You don't have to just put up with it. It
is not correct to wallow in darkness, cringing and waiting for
God to do something. He put His river in you as He put the
staff in Moses' hand asking him "what is that in thy hand
Moses?" You have in God on the inside of you what is
necessary to defeat the darkness if you just know and will be
obedient to release that river to dominate all areas of darkness
coming against you.

What overcomes darkness? Do you lay siege to it in

prayer? Do you war against it with your faith? If you
understand what the name “Gihon” means you will get a clear
strategy for dealing with the darkness of the enemy coming
against you. Gihon means “bursting forth”. We could say this
is the BREAKTHROUGH RIVER. It carries the same
meaning as the word “prosper” found in 2 Chron. 20:20 that

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says “believe the prophets so shall you prosper…” Do you

believe the prophets? Who is the prophet in your life? The
word believe the prophets so shall you PROSPER means “so
shall you COME TO BREAKTHROUGH …” or as Gen. 2:13
suggests to us - so shall you burst through all the darkness that
is trying to range itself against your life. The prophet isn’t the
breakthrough but the words of the prophet and the leadership
of the prophetic in your life will bring you to breakthrough
and cause you to burst forth out of the darkness coming
against you if you act on it and follow the counsel of the
prophets God has placed in your life.

What a testimony of God. The one river of God bringing

forth a fourfold blessing in your life. And the first two are all
about INCREASE (Pison) and BREAKTHROUGH (bursting-
forth Gihon) out of the going in circles experience and out of
the darkness that the enemy is trying, always trying to
encroach upon your life and your family with. This is the
Spirit of Counsel that Isa. 11:1-2 speaks of that will put you
over in your situation if you receive it and act upon it in faith
with consistent commitment, stepping out with resolute
determination that you are going to have all that God has
promised you in His word and by the prophets.

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6 CHAPTER SIX

INTRODUCTION:

The previous chapters delineate for us that the well of

living water (John 4:14) that is in us at salvation is intended by
God to become a river, in fact, RIVER(S) plural on the inside
of us (John 7:37-39). This increase of the Spirit of God on the
inside of us takes place as the dominion of the Spirit of God in
the dwelling place of our human spirit breaks out and takes
possession of our mind, will and emotions in a causative way
that reflects in our character the attributes that make God -
God. Paul called this (Eph. 1:13-14) the redemption of the
purchased possession. This is God getting what He paid for in
your life and your life consequently taking on His character,
power, and glory. This is what the apostle Paul referred to in
Phil. 3:13 as “being apprehended” by God, and in Rom. 8:19
as the manifestation of the sons of God. God wants and desires
to see your mind, will and emotions to manifest outwardly
what His inward possession of your human spirit constitutes as
His residence, His temple, and place on indwelling in you in
the earth on this side of heaven.

When the temple that you are begins to enlarge itself in

your life then Ez. 47:1-5 says that there will be a river of God
flowing out of you throughout the geography of your life

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creating a floodplain of God’s power and grace that will give

you what Ezekiel saw to be waters to swim in. Now make no
mistake - in your life, there are waters to swim in whether they
are the waters of God or not. Leviathan, who in Job 41 is
identified as the king of all the children of pride, he swims in
the waters of your unsanctified humanity in every place and in
every point that the influence of God has not overwhelmed
and taken possession of your mind, will, and emotions. What
are the characteristics of Leviathan? Job 41 describes this
spirit of pride as:

[Job 41:15-16 KJV] 15 [His] scales [are his] pride, shut up

together [as with] a close seal. 16 One is so near to another,
that no air can come between them.

What does this mean? Being so opinionated, so full of our

own thoughts that like the scales of a sea serpent, no air (or
pneuma - spirit) can get past them into your inner man. How
many times do we take the posture with God “God I just don’t
understand what you are doing and saying…” and then we just
get stuck there for years of our life because we have allowed
pridefulness of mind to be the gatekeeper of our yieldedness to
God? We might even weep and cry “if I only understood what
God’s plan was I would move forward…” This too is pride. It
is Leviathan swimming in the waters of sinful human nature.
What is the answer? Solomon called it “praying toward the
Holy Temple” not in Jerusalem, but on the inside of you -
looking to the waters of God that are seeking to come forth out
of your temple, not as just a trickle or a spring but a mighty
river going out to dominate the entire landscape of your life.

That river of God that comes out of you according to John

7:37-39 becomes a fourfold tributary that is revealed in
Genesis 2:10-14:

[Gen 2:10-14 KJV] 10 And a river went out of Eden to

water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became
into four heads. 11 The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it
which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is]
gold; 12 And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is]

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bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second
river [is] Gihon: the same [is] it that compasseth the whole
land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river [is]
Hiddekel: that [is] it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.
And the fourth river [is] Euphrates.

Your inner man is the garden of God. We know this

because Jesus is the Tree of Life. The Rabbi’s believed in
antiquity that this tree was a grapevine and Jesus says in John
15 that we are to abide in the vine that He is. Out of this Eden,
out of your human spirit comes a river that manifests in four
variations:

The Pison (river of increase):

That encompasses Havilah (the cycles of life) to bring

forth the gold of God, provision, and supply in your life.

The Gihon (river of breakthrough, or bursting forth):

That dispels the encroachment of the enemy and the

darkness of the enemy against you. Breakthrough is not some
random intervention of God in your life. Breakthrough, or
bursting forth out of darkness is a resource, a flow a current, a
mighty river that God has put on the inside of you that is
deployable and can be activated IN YOU in the glory to
overcome every obstacle in your life. Say this to yourself: “the
breakthrough is IN ME…” If you can receive it, in Christ you
ARE the breakthrough. That is why when Moses was saying
“stand still and see the salvation of God, that the Father
rebuked him, asking “what is that in your hand…” The
breakthrough you are waiting for from on high is IN YOU in
the glory and will spontaneously manifest in your life for
victory and deliverance as you allow it to deal with the
Ethiopia - the darkness on the inside of you - then the darkness
around you will be utterly dispelled. There is no outward
victory without successful, inward conquest.

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So we see that the river of God on the inside of you is a

river of increase, a river of breaking forth and the third river,
the Hiddekel is now to be addressed:

Gen. 2:14 says that Hiddekel is the river that encompasses

or conquers the land of Assyria. In the scripture, Assyria
always represents the anti-Christ, the spirit of the anti-Christ
and the agenda of the anti-Christ. This is not just talking about
something to be manifest at the end of the age. Anti-Christ is
all around us. You have been contending with the spirit of
anti-Christ all your life whether you realize it or not. John says
this in 1 John 4:3:

[1Jo 4:3 KJV] 3 And every spirit that confesseth not that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that
[spirit] of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should
come; and even now already is it in the world.

Do you have circumstances, people or situations in your

life that are resisting the Lordship of Christ? Do you have the
transparency of heart to acknowledge character flaws and
attitudes in your own person from time to time that manifest
when you yourself are under pressure that militate against the
Spirit of Christ and what obedience to God should look like at
the time? That is the spirit of anti-Christ even in your own
character rearing its rebellion against God. What is God’s
solution to this? His solution springs from the river of God
that He has placed on the inside of you, in your human spirit
that is designed to give you the strength to conquer everything
on the inside of you and in your outward life that opposes the
heart of God. You see you must conquer the inward territory
of your heart before you will ever consistently see blessing
and victory in your outward circumstances. Solomon made
this statement:

[Pro 16:32 KJV] 32 He that ruleth his spirit than he that

taketh a city.

Inward conquest brings outward victory. When the walls

on the inside of you resisting the work of God in your inner

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man fall, then the outward opposition of the enemy in your

life, your marriage, your job, your ministry will crumble. You
can mount this assault and take bridgehead after bridgehead of
carnality and worldliness in your character, but until you
topple the anti-Christ strongholds in the depths of your being
it will be an unending war. Paul put it this way:

[2Co 10:5 KJV] 5 Casting down imaginations, and every

high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,
and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of
Christ;

Please realize that this verse in 2 Corinthians speaks in its

totality of things that are on the inside of you in your
character, your personality, and your make up. Spiritual
warfare "OUT THERE" somewhere is a religious figmant and
fantasy until you conquer the strongholds of Satan in your
own flawed character. There are imaginations in you that
consistently exalt themselves against the knowledge of God.
There are high things in you - like the high places and the
groves of ancient Israel where the pagan idols were
worshiped, inward idolatries that resist the supremacy and the
lordship of Christ in your life. How do you defeat them? By
opening up the floodgates of God on the inside of your human
spirit until your belly (John 7:37-39) releases the rivers of God
to inundate your will, your mind and your emotions bringing
them into captivity to Christ.

The anti-Christ spirit is not just something that is to come,

it is on the earth already. It will not only profane the temple
that will be in the end time, it profanes and seeks to profane
the temple that you are today. How does he do this? Paul
describes the enemy’s activity in the temple that you are in 2
Thessalonians:

[2Th 2:4 KJV] 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above

all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God
sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

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The anti-Christ spirit is that influence that puts our

thoughts before God’s thoughts, our plans before God’s plans
and our wants before God’s purposes. How do we defeat him?
In Gen. 2:14 the name of the Hiddekel river means “the
rushing river…” What does that speak to us as a weapon of
warfare against the anti-Christ? The word “Assyria” that
typifies the anti-Christ spirit means to be “level” or “right”.
Solomon tells us twice in the book of Proverbs:

[Pro 14:12 KJV] 12 There is a way which seemeth right

unto a man, but the end thereof [are] the ways of death.

You have to make a choice between being right or being

obedient to God. You cannot deliberate slowly you must
RUSH (Hiddekel) to obedience our you won't make it.
Example: Are you going to follow common sense, level-
minded thinking (Assyria/Anti-Christ) and what you think is
right or you are going to obey God? Obeying God is about
making the 7-second decision. Don't think - just DO. God’s
thoughts are not our thoughts. He thinks faster than we do. If
we are going to keep up with God we are going to have to
jettison our rationale, what we think is right, what we think is
a level-headed decision and simply obey God. The Hiddekel -
the RUSHING RIVER defeats the spirit of Anti-Christ. The
enemy cannot trip up or misdirect the believer who hears from
God and obeys without hesitation.

There was nothing level headed about Noah building an

ark of salvation for over 100 years against a threat that had
never existed before.

There was nothing level headed about Abraham leaving

his homeland and moving into enemy territory because of an
ancient promise to his bloodline.

There was neither anything level headed about Abraham

taking a knife and wood to sacrifice Isaac at the behest of an
inward voice that spoke to him to do so.

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There was nothing level headed about Jacob thinking he

was going to outwrestle the angel of God but it produced a
breakthrough in his life that saved him and his family from the
murderous rage of Esau.

There was nothing level headed about Gideon going up

against 100,000 Midianites with 300 men.

There was nothing level headed about Shadrach, Meshach

and Abednego taunting the king and getting thrown into a
fiery furnace but they came out without even the smell of
smoke on their clothes.

I assure you that Shadrach Meshach and Abednego did not

launch a feasibility study to determine whether or not being
thrown into the fiery furnace was going to work out for them.
They rushed headlong into obedience to God and then they
received their miracle.

Stop thinking and just let the river of God, the rushing
river of the mind of God and the thoughts of God take you to
the breakthrough in life you have cried out for. God is not
going to bring a breakthrough in your life or ministry on your
terms or on your timetable or according to your idea of how
you think it is going to happen. However, if you will obey
without hesitation the leading of the Spirit you will propel
yourself into your NOW and see God do things in a
MOMENT of TIME that you thought would take years to
accomplish.

We aren’t talking about being brash or foolish. We are

talking about something flowing up out of your spirit and
communicating itself to your waking mind of the river of God
that militates against the spirit of anti-Christ trying to destroy
your future. You cannot eat from the tree of the knowledge of
Good and Evil. You cannot take time to weigh things out - you
MUST obey promptly and then you will see the outcomes that
God promised you in life, in your marriage, in your finances,
your job, and your ministry. It’s all about:

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Do what you see the Father do (John 5:19)

Have no opinion about the consequences (Matt. 7:1)

Relinquish the outcome (John 12:24)

This is the definitive expression of denying yourself and

following Jesus. This is the path to the 100 fold return in your
life of the things of God. Prompt obedience without hesitation
like Peter getting out of the boat against the advice of 11 of the
most spiritual people in his life. There are waters of adversity
that God is inviting you to walk on. Jesus is bidding you
come. Don’t think - just do and you as well will have your
own personal water walking testimony. The rushing river, or
the spiritual meaning of Hiddekel points to the fact that when
you simply say "yes" to God you are moving at the pace of an
uncreated being. Satan is a created being and he cannot keep
up, catch up or out think you when you are saying yes to God
promptly without deliberation, as Jesus "your doctrine" or
"thoughts" are not your own, but His and suddenly everything
you say and do becomes as effective as if the Father said it or
did it!

THE FOURTH AND FINAL RIVER - THE EUPHRATES:

The final river mentioned in Genesis 2 is the Euphrates.

The other three rivers all mention what land they "encompass"
or take authority over. The Euphrates doesn't make a reference
to the land where it flows because it represents the whole of
the definition of God's character and blessing not just in one
area but in every area of your life. "Euphrates" means
"fruitful". Have you ever wondered just what it means to be
fruitful in God? It means to walk in INCREASE (Pison);
BREAKTHROUGH (Gihon); and PROMPT OBEDIENCE
(Hiddekel) in such a way that you dominate the cyclical spiral
of lack and downturn (Havilah), and breakthrough the
darkness that seeks to encroach your life (Ethiopia); walking
in total and prompt obedience, manifesting God's glory and
truth in your life through a testimony of full blessing, absolute
dividend in God as His character and personality shine

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through the pure, clear waters of your soul in total submission

to His thought and will from this day to the last day of your
earthly sojourn. Even so - LORD JESUS!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Russ Walden is a prophet and marketplace minister with over

30 years of service in the Kingdom of God. Russ and Kitty
founded Father’s Heart Ministry in 2007 and since then have
prophesied to tens of thousands in 78 countries and all seven
continents.

Russ was born again in 1967 and called to the ministry in

1972 through an open vision of the cross and the throne of
God. He served as a full time pastor to several congregations
congregations in his early years before launching into a global
prophetic ministry.

In the early 90’s Russ participated in the oversight of a group

of 400 churches before founding an IT business in the Mid-
west. Russ and his wife Kitty converted the business to a
marketplace ministry model and out of that Father’s Heart
Ministry was born.

In the prophetic ministry Russell’s life has given witness to

many creative miracles, healings and two resurrections from
the dead. Russ has seen cancers and terminal diseases reversed
through the power of prayer and the gifts of the Spirit. The
ministry that Russ moves in is not just talking “about” Jesus
but manifesting and activating the demonstration of Spirit and
the demonstration of God's power.

Each day Prophet Russ releases a powerful prophetic word

that encourages thousands. Russ brings a new dimension of
personal empowerment to the prophetic through his dynamic
and positive anointing. Russ flows in prophetic wisdom drawn
from a lifetime of revelatory inquiry into the deep things of
God.

Russ and his wife Kitty have a passion to raise up a relevant

prophet generation through mentoring, prophetic schools, and
personal ministry as they travel throughout the world. (For
more information visit www.propheticnow.com)

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