We turn to 2nd Kings chapter 2. 2nd Kings chapter 2, we'll read the verses 9 through 22 of the chapter, our text. is taken from those last few verses, the verses 19 through 22 of the chapter. 2 Kings chapter 2, reading from verse 9. And it came to pass when they were gone over that Elijah said unto Elisha, ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, thou hast asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee. But if not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven, and Elisha saw it. And he cried, my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and went back and stood by the bank of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and smote the waters and said, where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither and Elisha went over. And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, the spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him. And they said unto him, behold, now there be with thy servants 50 strong men. Let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master, lest peradventure the spirit of the Lord hath taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley. And he said, ye shall not send. And when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, send. They sent their 450 men and they sought three days, but found him not. And when they came again to him, for he tarried at Jericho, he said unto them, did I not say unto you, go not. and now our text for this evening. And the men of the city said unto Elisha, behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant as my Lord seeth, but the water is nought and the ground barren. And he said, bring me a new cruise and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters and cast the salt in there and said, thus said the Lord God, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha, which he spake. Amen. Thus far we read in God's holy and inspired word. Beloved covenant people of God, as we have been going through and looking at the life of Elisha, we've seen that Elisha has been, first of all, called and he has been equipped to be the prophet of God. And not only that, but he's already begun the task of teaching the men who had been set apart to be trained up, ready to speak the word of God in Israel, the sons of the prophets. But now, in our text this evening, he begins his public ministry of the gospel in Israel. As we've already noted a couple of times before, this ministry of both Elijah and Elisha consisted many times in a lot of pictures and actions that were performed a lot more than the latter prophets who spoke a lot more in words that are recorded for us. In our text this evening, once again, there is very much an action which is on the foreground, isn't it? Elisha performs the first miracle of his public ministry. And that is significant, being the first miracle of his public ministry. In actual fact, it's a significant miracle for the whole of his work. What he is about as the prophet of the Lord and what he will be about in the whole of his ministry. But it's also a very significant miracle for the picture of salvation that it brings, not only for the people of that day in Israel, but for the church in all ages. The message that God is still bringing to his church even tonight. So, what's the background? What's going on here? As Elisha tarries for a time in Jericho with the sons of the prophets, someone from the city comes and speaks to him. He tells him of a great problem that they have in Jericho at that time. They have a problem with their water supply. And as a consequence of that, Elisha calls for and uses salt thrown into the spring from a new container and the waters are cleaned. They are made beneficial. They are healed. So, let's take up and consider the truth and the significance of this event under the theme, Waters Healed by the Word. Consider under the three headings, first of all, we'll consider the evil waters, because that's literally the word that's used here, the evil waters. Secondly, the divine healing. And thirdly, the sure promise. Waters Healed by the Word. When we say Jericho, it ought to remind us of exactly what Jericho was. You might remember that Jericho was the very first city that the Israelites came to when they came into the Promised Land, that they were on the other side of Jordan and Moses was taken from them and Joshua then became the leader of the people. And what Joshua did then was he came to the Jordan River while it was in flood. Once again, the opening of the Jordan by a mighty miracle of God and the people of Israel all came across the Jordan onto the west side. And the very first city they came to in the conquest of Canaan was Jericho. You might also remember in that history that Jericho was defeated by a mighty miracle of God. that Jericho was a very well defended city, having the double wall battlements and the king was absolutely sure that he was fully protected. And yet God caused the Israelites to march around seven times, you remember, and all of the walls fell down and the people of Israel wrought a mighty victory. But at that time, God had said everything in Jericho was to be destroyed. The only ones that weren't, of course, were Rahab and her family, which were brought out, but everything else was destroyed. The city was utterly ruined and everything in it, people and animals and all the property was to be destroyed. And God, through Joshua, pronounced a curse upon the city, that it was not to be rebuilt. And the man that did would lose his sons in the rebuilding of it. Well, despite that curse that had been given, during the days, early days of King Ahab, who remember is the king of Israel at this time, a man by the name of Hill, despite the curse, rebuilt the city. And just as God had said, he lost his eldest son when he laid the foundations of the city. And when he set up the gates, he lost his youngest son. He lost his sons. They died through him rebuilding the city. But nevertheless, the city is rebuilt. Jericho then now exists again and it's inhabited as a city. This place was actually a very pleasant place to have a city. And that's what the person who comes says. He says, I pray thee, behold, the situation of the city is very pleasant. Indeed it was. Jericho was on the West side of the Jordan and it was on a bit of a raised part of ground just before the foothills rose up to the escarpment behind in the West that went on and over the top to Jerusalem. And so Jericho had these lovely, sort of hills that went behind it. And looking out then to the east, you could look up and down the Jordan Valley and lovely views up and down the valley with the Jordan River running down through it. And down to the south, you could see out over the Dead Sea. So views out over the sea as well. A very pleasant place as it were to have a city. But there's a problem with Jericho. The waters were noughts. And the idea of the word nauts, it actually means bad, literally in the Hebrew, or evil. So that means the waters were evil. Now, the city of Jericho from archeology has been demonstrated, in fact, to have been there for hundreds of years, even prior to the defeat of it when the Israelites came. It's inconceivable that you would have a city that would be a prosperous city and being there for a long time, and it had almost no water supply. So what's going on here? Well, almost certainly this is part of the curse that God had pronounced upon the whole of this place. So that not only was the city itself, but probably the waters itself were cursed. Remember when we sang in Psalm 107, that part of what God can do is he can take water springs and turn them into barrenness. And that's probably what God had done here as well. This word evil means the waters that were there, there was plenty of water coming out of the spring and flowing down via a stream. There's plenty of water there, but it couldn't be used directly. It was evil. Not only would it probably taste absolutely terrible, but the waters themselves were toxic. We don't know what it was. It may have been that there was way too much sulfur or something in it, or some other kind of chemical, but it couldn't be used directly. It seems that these waters, as they went into the escarpment and then they flowed through and came out of the spring and formed a stream that went down, that these waters were no good at all. So how would they survive? Well, they would have to gather this water and they would have to put it through some sort of process. Perhaps they could stand it for a time, or they could put it through some sort of filtering process, or maybe they needed to evaporate and condense it in order to get the water, but they would be spending lots of time just to get sufficient water for their families to drink. And there's even more of a problem. Not only would the city be greatly limited in that way, but notice that the water arising from this spring next to the city, verse 21, was the source of a stream. And that would have normally been really good because a stream would mean water getting into the ground and groundwater and grass next to the stream and palms growing and all the rest of it. Not this stream. In this stream, it was barren. Nothing would grow. because of the toxicity of the water. You couldn't have lots of sort of animals or anything. You couldn't get this water out and use it for irrigation of crops. It would just kill whatever you planted. And so the ground was barren. Literally this word barren, it means childless. The earth had no offspring, as it were, in this place. The land could bring no good thing out of it. Notice the difference here to what God had said about the promised land. This is part of the promised land. God had said, I will bring you into the land that flows with milk and honey, that will have a huge amount of crops. There will be vineyards and olive yards and fig trees and so on. And you sort of think, well, wow, okay. That's not this place. This place doesn't sound too good at all. Something has occurred here. It was a place. with a beautiful outlook, and it was a place that flowed with milk and honey, but now evil water's flowing in it, and it's barren, and it's fruitless. Difficulty in living here. This is what we are to see, and particularly on the background of all that God has said in his promises and curses in his covenant that he established with his people. Why is this given to us? This here is a picture, in fact, not just of Jericho, but it's a picture of the whole of this northern nation of Israel. Remember, there's two nations, northern nation of Israel, southern nation of Judah. This is a picture of the whole of that Old Testament church at that present time. You see, Israel, along with Judah, had wonderful prospects. She was situated, not just in terms of geographically, but she was situated in God's providence and all that God had given to her in a wonderful place. She had arisen up out of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs to whom God had given his promises. She had been rescued out of Egypt by God's mighty hand and given God's covenant law at Sinai and brought through the wilderness and brought into the land with so many blessings given to her. What a wonderful situation. Israel had received the truth of God and God was continuing to be good to her. by sending such as Elijah and Elisha with the Word of God and the truth that was given to these people. Israel was set in a very pleasant place, as it were. Do you know, we can broaden that out, can't we? Let's bring it forward to now. When you think of, for example, this country that we live in, the country of Australia, What a pleasant situation. What a pleasant place Australia is put in. We have a country here that is one of the most affluent countries in the world. We have been given so much. We have come out of a Judeo-Christian heritage. with all of the laws that make a difference and the principles that have arisen out of that and the whole way in which we, in fact, approach things very, very differently to many other countries in the world. We have set up in our country a whole education system from young right through. And the potential to take that education system and to actually teach the people all about God and the wonder of Jesus Christ and salvation that is to be found in Him and the application of the gospel to every part of life in a land that is so affluent. Can you think? Look at the potential. Bring it in a little closer perhaps into the church situation in Australia, the broader church. much of the broader church that we have in Australia here has come out of a Protestant heritage, out of the Reformation 500 years ago and all of that truth and we have in our day and age access to such wondrous godly literature and if it wasn't for COVID at the moment you could take your ministers and train them in the best seminaries in the world and travel and so forth there is so much available to the church potentially you say wow what a pleasant situation But let's bring it a closer again. What about us, personally? What about you and me? We are placed in a sound reformed church. God has done that. He's put you in that place. And he's given the scriptures into your hands. You have the ability to pick up this book and to read it at any time whatsoever. In fact, you've probably got several Bibles at home. And you have access to so much good and sound and godly literature to lead you. You have pastors and elders to teach and lead. You have worship services and teaching by that church. Wonderful prospects for an amazing, fruitful, abundant Christian life. You are set in a pleasant place indeed. But what was the problem in Jericho? What was happening? In Israel, and with these other things that we've spoken about, about the situation with Australia and the church more broadly, there's no good water of life flowing. There's no good water of life flowing. In Jericho, there was a stream of evil water. That's what was flowing for that city. And no matter what they did every day, they could gather that water and they try and filter it and turn it into that which is able to be used. The next day, it's all exactly the same. There's still the big stream of evil water continues to flow. It doesn't matter what you do superficially to try and change things on the surface, it doesn't change the real problem. Things never got any better. And the same in Israel. You see, flowing right through the midst of the nation of Israel at that time, through the hearts and minds of the people, was a stream of rejecting God and His truth, following after the idols of their own hearts and minds, rejecting the truth of God and following self. That's the stream, the evil stream that poisoned everything. And so it is in Australia, and so it is sadly right now today in much of the church world more broadly. And sadly, we need to bring it right down personally. It happens to us too, even though we may be one of God's people, And what we sometimes try to do about it is that we try and just alter the behavior. We say, oh, I'm not doing this so well, and I'm not doing that so well, and we try and do a bit better. You know, we try and filter the water without dealing with the spring, with the fountainhead. And there's a problem that arose in Jericho too, wasn't it? It wasn't just the stream of the evil water, it resulted in what? Barrenness. No fruit being produced. Remember that just a short time before this, that Israel had been through that horrible famine and drought for three and a half years under Elijah? and God had been actually showing to the whole of Israel, this is what happens when you turn away from me, that there is no water, and there is no life, and there is no fruitfulness, and God had shown that. The land was barren of a true love for and worship of God and living for Him, and therefore those good works that flow from that. Brethren, it's... It does no good if in the broader church, if in God's church, what is being taught is you need to live a good life and that God loves you and you need to be someone who loves everybody. Love wins, as it were, which is one of these slogans that's being found in one of these churches. Love wins. And it's all about being a good person. That's trying to filter the toxic stream. And it may look okay once you've managed to filter it a bit and you can sort of drink it a bit for a bit, but the underlying problem is still there and it leads to a barrenness. And in our own personal lives, there is no point. There is no point. If we are living in the church and all that we're trying to do is get ourselves and our children to live good moral lives, and that's what it consists of, if we don't take ourselves back to the fountainhead of what we were looking at this morning, of the wonderful riches of Christ, the truth of salvation, the gospel that says, I need to be radically changed and transformed and rescued, and brought into a life with God in Jesus Christ. The forgiveness and grace of God in Christ, that's what's needed. Anything else will be barren. And so we see here the divine healing. When Elisha, he hears of this problem, he immediately gives instruction, doesn't he? He says, I want you to obtain a cruise, a brand new one. A cruise was usually a pottery vessel, It could be like a kind of a bowl, or sometimes it can even be like a jug kind of thing. A cruz just simply means a particular container. But it was usually earthen, pottery type of a vessel. And he said, put some salt in it. So I want it to be filled with salt. A cruz was never a big vessel. It's just a small vessel with salt then in it. That's what he wants. You listen to that and just outwardly speaking, you'd say, well, that doesn't sound like a great plan. All right, if you've got some water here and it tastes terrible, pouring a pile of salt in it, you think, well, I'm not sure that's gonna help a great deal. And the same for even looking at this great stream of water. Okay, here's a cruise, but it's a small and you're sort of gonna, all right. Anyone could have done that anytime, really, couldn't they? But what we need to do is we need to take up and look at the significance of all of this that Elisha calls for. Salt, in particular. In biblical times, especially, salt was exceedingly important. It certainly is the same as today that salt was used for seasoning of food and that sort of thing. And salt was very important in those hot climates. In the hot time of the year in particular, they lost a lot of fluid through sweat, but they needed to replace not only water, but salt as well. And they had salt mines and so on from the Dead Sea and so forth. So there was salt that was sold and it was a precious commodity, but it was precious also because it was used in other ways. It was used medicinally. It was used for healing. It was used for purifying, so that the salt was used to purify things. And it was used also for preservation, so that meat, when they slaughtered an animal, that the meat, rather than going off, they would pickle it, if you like, with the salt and so preserve it. and they would have dried and pickled types of meats that would be able to be kept for quite a long period of time. All of these things with salt. So we see salt is a picture of that which purifies and that which preserves. And that is the main idea of salt. And that's the reason why, for example, salt was always to be offered with the sacrifices. You read of that in Leviticus 2 verse 13. With every sacrifice, salt was always to be offered. And God calls His covenant the salt of the covenant of thy God. That addition of salt tied this outward activity to the purifying and preserving nature of God's relationship to them in their salvation. Our salvation is that of being purified and then being preserved in Jesus Christ. That's why Jesus says in Matthew 5 13 that we are to be the salts of the earth. That's what Christians are to be, the salt of the earth. So that what we are about when we have been saved and made alive in the Lord Jesus Christ is that we live in the midst of this world in order to bring the beauty of God's truth to bear on others that are round about us, to be a purifying influence, and to be a preserving influence, preserving in the good truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is salt. This is the importance of it. Elisha takes this salt and he wants it, not just in his hand, but he wants it in a pottery vessel and a new pottery vessel. And both of those things are significant as well. This is a picture to us of exactly what Elisha was. He was the means used to bring the salt. He was a vessel, a vessel prepared of God. He was an earthen vessel. Remember, that's what Paul calls himself in the New Testament as well. He says, we have this treasure of the preaching of the gospel in earthen vessels. And that's what Elisha is here too. He's just like this earthen cruise. But it's a new vessel. Notice he doesn't want just any old one, he wants a new one. One that's just come from the hand of the potter. And that's what Elisha is. Elisha is a prophet who's just been called and equipped and made ready, come from the hand of the potter, ready to be used by God to bring the salt, the purifying and the healing work of God to bear upon his people. So Elisha now goes to apply this salt. Notice where he goes. Where does Elisha go? Does he go off around knocking on the doors of Jericho and saying, hey, I just want to come and tip a little bit of salt in all of your containers? Nope. Does he go off down to where the stream is and he goes to one of the branches of the stream and sort of pours it in there? No, he doesn't do that either. He goes to the spring. He goes right to the the heart of where the waters come from. The spring is a place, as I mentioned before, often the water comes up and out of the ground, having passed through alluvial places and it springs forth and passes into a stream. So this is where it all begins. And that is where Elisha goes to tip the salt into the very source of this stream of water. Do you see the significance of that? Where is it that the truth of the gospel needs to be applied? That truth That important truth, that we are wretched and condemned sinners, and that we need to hear of the forgiveness that is found in Jesus Christ. The fact that God calls us to come unto him and be completely and utterly transformed by the power of the Spirit, acting by his grace in our life, bringing us to repentance and to believe in the Lord, by humbling us that we cry out unto him. Where is it that the truth needs to be brought that our entire life and thinking and attitude will be radically changed by this grace of Christ acting upon us so that this transformation, salvation, sanctification will go on happening at the deepest level of our being for the whole of our life? Well, you know the answer to that, don't you? That truth needs to be applied to the heart. It needs to be applied to the soul, to the very core of who we are. Do you see the difference as compared to the Pharisees and what we read in Mark 7? They were so interested in, make sure you hold to the traditions of men and, you know, wash your hands and, you know, do all these sorts of things. Jesus says, what about the heart? What about the heart? That's why God brings that out in many places in the scripture, where he says, for example, I want you to rend your heart, not your garments. Rend your heart, not your garments. He says to you, I call you to heart service, not lip service. He says, you need to be not obeying a new set of rules, You need to be raised from the dead, transformed from having a dead being to having a live being in Christ Jesus by faith. That we need to have that heart within us, which is stony hard, taken away and be given a heart of flesh. Do you see the way in which God speaks in this way? That's what the gospel and Christianity is about, the very spring, the very heart, the very soul needs dealing with now and always. Christianity is not about do's and don'ts. It's not about living a nice life. It's about being restored to a right relationship and communion with the living God through Jesus Christ. So Elisha goes right to the heart, to the source of the waters and casts in the salt, and note what he says. Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. First of all, note that Elisha says, this is all the work of God. Elisha doesn't say, I have healed these waters. And he doesn't say, the salt has healed these waters. He says, thus saith the Lord, I have healed the waters. This was a picture for them, and so it was that we understand only God can truly change our hearts as we come to Him personally and plead on the basis of Christ, oh Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner. And forgive me for my sins in and through the blood of Him. And it's God who comes and applies that wonderful truth and that balm to our heart and transforms us. Notice also when Jehovah heals, then it's a perfect and unchanging work. What we're told here is, never will there be any more evil water that will flow from that spring. Now, what it will bring forth is good and refreshing and life-giving water. So that from that point in time, good water flows from that spring and enters into the ground and it will bring forth life indeed. And from then on, Nothing but good water will come from that spring. This is what Jericho needed. Jericho needed that good water to drink, water that would soak into the ground and bring life, water that would enable production of food and animals for the blessing of that city. But this is spiritually what Israel needed. It needed flowing in the hearts of all of those people. It needed the life-giving truth of God. It needed for the Word of God to come and convict them of their sin and turn them unto the Lord. in conviction of their sin, crying out for God's forgiveness, which God would abundantly pardon. They needed the truth of the word of God spoken through the earthen crews of Elisha and for God to transform. They needed to have that foul stream of self-centered idolatry that was pouring out from all of them from the king and queen down to be utterly healed. by the truth and grace of God. Brethren, that's true for every one of us, isn't it? Jesus said in Mark 7 verse 15 that we read a little earlier on, there is nothing from outside a man that entering into him can defile him. But the things which come out of him, that stream which comes out of him, those are the things that defile the man. Do you know, one of the marks of an unregenerate person is that they blame everything outside of themselves. Someone who has not had the grace of God work in their heart, they say, well, yeah, I'm not the kind of person that I should do, but you should have seen my parents. And you should see the upbringing that I had. And you should see the circumstances that I've been put through. And you should know what I have to deal with. And it's because of my boss at work. And it's everything else out here. And that's the whole point and thrust of today's society, isn't it? The problem is we're being oppressed by patriarchy. The problem is that we've got all these forces that are against us. And that's what causes us to rise up Jesus says, nothing out there entering in defiles you. Your problem is you. That's what he says to you and to me. Your problem in life always has been and always will be you, your heart. It's what rises up out of your heart that causes, as Jesus said there in Mark 7, fornication, adulteries, and murders, and strife, and rebellion, and everything else. That's the problem. And that's where the Word of God has to come home to. And you see, that is the mark of someone who's had the grace of God work in their heart. That they say, oh Lord, be merciful to me. Lord, here is my problem. My heart, my sin, the filthiness of my nature, the wretchedness of who I am. Oh Lord, forgive me, cleanse me. There's the child of God. That is what is being set before us here. We need the salts of God's covenant, we need the salts of the gospel to expose our sin, to bring us to repentance, to cast ourselves on God and Saviour. And even when we've been saved and even when we are the Lords, we continue to need that wondrous salt of the gospel to come to us, don't we? Because this is our ongoing need. How often do we find that we go on in the Christian life and then suddenly we find Things are a bit lifeless. Things are a bit barren. What's going on? Well, we've turned our attention away from the life-giving stream that God has given to us, of Christ that he's placed in our heart, and we're off seeking after all sorts of other things, and the foul stream that comes out of that corrupt old man is starting to flow again. And it brings a barrenness in our life. And we need once again to come back to the Lord and say, Oh Lord, teach me again. May I turn back to that which you have given me by that faith that you have placed within me like we were looking at this morning and to know of the beauty of Christ and to lay hold upon those things. This is what's important to see too. Remember it was the Lord who healed. And notice how He healed. The crews of the salt, remember, being cast into the spring of the waters was all the picture to set before our face. But what was it that healed? It's this, thus saith the Lord, I have healed the waters. How did He heal? By the word. It was Elisha, by the word of God, proclaiming the word of God, thus said the Lord, I have healed. And it's not the salt, it's not the cruise. All of those things are pictures to help us understand the reality of God by the word healing. And therefore we need to understand that. The ongoing healing and the medicine and the savior and the preservation of our souls will always be the word. It's the Word, the Word that has as its center, as its theme, as every part of it, Jesus Christ, the Savior. It's the Word read and preached, which will bring us continuously back to our Savior, Jesus Christ, and His truth for faith and life. Return unto me, said the Lord, for here is the sure promise. There is a sure promise that's given here. The Lord declares, there shall not be, notice that, there shall not be from thence any more death or barren lone. That's a sure promise, isn't it? No more death, no more barrens. This is not a maybe, this is absolute certainty. God's salvation is most certain. He will give life and he will give it abundantly. That doesn't mean at times, as we've already mentioned, we can be foolish. we can start turning away from the stream of life that that is there for us but the Lord then chastises us and says to us don't be foolish come back unto me and he will chastise us to to bring about further healing further life as a as a father does when he faithfully speaks and chastises us he draws us into further fellowship and life with him Brethren, the importance is the centrality of the Word. You see, this is the promise. This is the promise of Christ Jesus. This is the promise of God's salvation. That promise is the Word. Love that Word. Love the Word of God. Read that Word. Hear that Word in the preaching. Study and meditate upon the Word. Can I ask you, you don't need to answer me, but can I ask you, are you doing that? Honestly, ask in your own heart. Do you love that Word? Do you read that Word? Do you study and meditate upon that Word? Do you hear the Word in the preaching and take it home and savor that Word? Because that's the salt of the gospel. for the healing of your soul. And our Savior will bring life and he will bring a fruitfulness. It's sure. And Jesus promises that to us. I'd like you to Think about this, in John 7 verse 38, Jesus said, he that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. What a contrast. What a contrast. Remember that Jesus had said in Mark 7, It's the things that come up out of the man's heart that defile him. This what flows up out of him. Just like we were reading of this river next to Jericho, the spring, that evil water that comes up and defiles the man. What does Jesus promise to us as we believe on him? Out of his belly, from himself will flow what God has done in him. He brings in and brings Jesus himself to dwell within us by the Holy Spirit. And as we believe on him, as we trust in him by faith, then out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And we will be a refreshing to others. We will be a blessing to others. We will have that joy that flows out of us, out of the thankfulness that we have. None of our own work, but it is by us, by faith, laying a hold upon that truth. And there will be a fruitfulness. We will bring forth fruit to the glory of God's name and the blessing of others. God casts in the solid truth of his word and the reality of Jesus himself is the life of Christ then springing up in us. And this is for all eternity. Revelation 7 verse 17, for the lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Brethren, Let me remind you, we live in a fair place. We do. God has put you in a pleasant place, like Jericho. Seek the salts of Jesus Christ that you may know life indeed. Amen. Let's stand to pray. Now, dear Heavenly Father, we do praise You that You have sent forth the salts of the Gospel, the wonderful truth that heals and that is able to bring the water of life flowing freely. We thank You for the wonder of the Gospel and the truth that We have given to us. You have placed us in a pleasant place indeed, O Lord, may it not be that any of us, that any who hear They may yet have evil waters flowing, but that they may know the wonder of the grace and truth of Christ applied to them. We pray, hear our prayers, accept of our thanks and our praise. Continue with us by your word. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.