Hey, this is John a Bible project. This is our fifth and last stop in our conversation

on ancient cosmology. In the ancient imagination, water brings both destruction like the chaos

waters of the sea flooding the earth, but also bring life like spring waters flowing

out of the earth to water a garden. In Genesis 1, God tames the chaos waters of the sea with

his word and with his spirit. In Genesis 2, we see God use the subdued chaos waters that

are now under the land to water the dry earth. The idea is that once the chaos waters

underneath the land are tamed and subdued, when they pop up through the spring they've

been made fresh, they've been sweetened. With these sweet waters God creates a garden

for humanity to live in and enjoy, this is Eden. In Genesis 2, we get a long description

of a river flowing out of Eden, which turns into four rivers and goes out to bring the

water of life to all the nations. When people come across life giving springs or

wells in stories and Old Testament, we're meant to see this as a new little Eden spring

popping up here. The life of Heaven breaking into the dead wilderness of the earthly realm.

The people of Israel are meant to inhabit a new tidal Eden and they're meant to extend

God's blessing to the nations. But instead, they find themselves exiled in Babylon.

And it finds itself exactly where one of the rivers have even flowed long ago.

And the prophets of Israel tell them not to fight Babylon, but to remain true to their

calling to seek the well-being of the nations. Become the waters of life for Babylon.

It's so cool. So today, we talk about Israel's continued calling to be the waters of life

to the nations. We look at Ezekiel's vision of a river flowing out of the temple bringing

life to the Dead Sea and we look at how God envisions a time when all the nations stream

back to Jerusalem.

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