The angel showed me a river that was crystal clear, and its waters gave life. The river came from the throne where God and the Lamb were seated.
Then it flowed down the middle of the city's main street. On each side of the river are trees that grow a different kind of fruit each month of the year. The fruit gives life, and the leaves are used as medicine to heal the nations.
God's curse will no longer be on the people of that city. He and the Lamb will be seated there on their thrones, and its people will worship God and will see him face to face. God's name will be written on the foreheads of the people.
Never again will night appear, and no one who lives there will ever need a lamp or the sun. The Lord God will be their light, and they will rule forever.
Revelation 22:1-5
I saw a river once flowing down the middle of the main street of a city in Southeast Asia. It was polluted beyond anyone's imagination. I suppose it would have been better called an open sewer and not a river.
There was a man sitting on the side of that river reaching down into it's brown water with his toothbrush while brushing his teeth! It has been almost 40 years since I saw him trying to clean his teeth with that filthy water but the image is still vivid in my mind.
The counterproductive futility of brushing your teeth in a sewer is still hard for me to grasp and yet I see that happening everyday. Men and women try to clean themselves up by bathing in the sewer. It is a disgusting image, and rarely do we see it happen in the physical world, but spiritually it happens all the time. When we realize that we have sinned the first reaction is to deny that it happened. Then if we do recognize our sin we try to cover it up so that no one will know about it.
But there is only one way to be clean from the sin in your life and that is to be washed in the Blood of Jesus. Any other way of trying to deal with your sin will only leave you stained and corrupted by the world that promises freedom but delivers slavery.
"Lord Jesus, examine me today and see if there is any place that needs to be washed in Your Blood. Let Your cleansing power flow over me and wash away the corruption of this world. Amen."
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