The Everlasting Covenant

Getting Accustomed to Miracles

. No doubt the Israelites in the desert soon ceased to look upon the flow of water from the rock as miraculous. No doubt many of them never, even at first, gave a single thought to it, save that it afforded a supply for their thirst. But as it flowed on year after year, and became a familiar thing, the wonder of it diminished, and at last ceased altogether. Children were born, to whom it was as though it always had been; to them it seemed but a product of “natural causes,” as do the springs which we may now see coming from the earth; and so the great Source was forgotten, even as He is now. EVCO 274.1

Be assured that those who credit everything to “nature,” and who do not acknowledge and glorify God as the immediate source of all earthly gifts, would do the same in heaven, if they were admitted to that place. To them the river of life eternally flowing from the throne of God, would be but “one of the phenomena of nature.” They did not see it begin to flow, and they would look upon it as a matter of course, and would not glorify God for it. The man who does not recognize and acknowledge God in His works in this world would be as unmindful of Him in the world to come. The praise to God, that will come from the lips of the redeemed in eternity, will be but the full chorus of the song whose first strains they practised on earth. EVCO 274.2

“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them; for they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual discerneth all things.” ¹ In the world to come we shall have spiritual bodies (1 Corinthians 15:44, 45), so that we shall be able to see spiritual things, even the Spirit of God, as plainly as we now see men and trees and brooks on this earth. God’s Spirit, God’s life, will be visible, flowing forth from the throne in a never-ending stream. Wherever on the new earth a man finds even the tiniest trickling rill, he will know that it is one of the ramifications of the river of life, and that if he follows it up, it will bring him face to face with God on His throne. EVCO 274.3

Even so should it be now. In every stream of water, and every falling shower, we should recognize the gift of the Holy Spirit,—the One who is the life and reality of all good things,—and all the water that blesses the earth should lead our souls straight to God. Thus we should drink in righteousness. For us truth would spring out of the earth, and righteousness look down from heaven. ¹ Even the skies would “pour down righteousness.” ² EVCO 275.1

This acknowledgment of God in all our ways would keep us from selfish pride, and from boastful trust in our own “natural abilities.” We should continually heed the words, “Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” ³ This would keep us in the right way, for the promise is, “The meek will He guide in judgment; and the meek will He teach His way.” ⁴ Instead of our own weak, foolish wisdom, we should have the wisdom of God. EVCO 275.2

He who does not see God’s own life, and the gift of the Spirit, in the water that God gives us now, would fail to see anything wonderful in the river of life flowing from the throne of God, if he should get into heaven. “Let favour be shown to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.” ¹ He could not even see that river, if he were there; for it is a spiritual flood; and he who does not develop a spiritual nature now, to see the Spirit of God, will never have a spiritual body with which to enter the kingdom. He who has not a spiritual nature, could not use a spiritual body. EVCO 275.3

God gives the Holy Spirit of truth; “whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth Him;” ² but believing ones know Him, for “that which was from the beginning,” the Life, “was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness.” ³ “The Word was made flesh” in Jesus Christ, in order to demonstrate in a living Person the fact that the spiritual is real and tangible. EVCO 276.1