Beavers, Fallen Trees, Limbs, Twigs, and Dammed - Up Lives

 

On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him……) (John 7:37-39).

 

A man owned a large section of land with a beautiful river running through it. The soil along the river is rich and fertile because of the flow of the water. One day he began to notice that the river did not flow as it had before and that the plant life was beginning to dry up and die out. As he walked back upstream, he noticed some beavers had dammed up the river and restricted the flow of the life-giv­ing waters. It was apparent the beavers had been working for some time, gathering fallen trees, limbs, and twigs to use in constructing their dam.

 

As we look situation, it will become obvious to us that in this world we have beavers, fallen trees, limbs, twigs, and dammed-up lives. The flow of living water has been stopped. The riverbeds of our lives no longer have the swift running stream of God's Spirit. This story graphically illustrates the steps in our lives which eventually progress until we experi­ence dryness in our spiritual life.

Step One: Beavers

We have beavers in our world today that can dam up our lives. What are these beavers? The adversary and his demons. Satan and his army of fallen angels not only want to dam up your life so that it becomes unproductive, but they desire to damn you eternally. His beavers work tireless­ly, gathering the fallen trees, limbs and twigs. The Scripture admonishes us: "Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8).

Here are three observations about Satan from this passage:

1. He is aggressive. He is not just a lion; he is a roaring lion which indicates he is on the prowl. Satan is always roaring because he stays hungry and is never satisfied. He has destroyed millions of lives but still wants more.

2. He is active. We all need to realize that Satan is an eager beaver. He is walking about "looking for someone to devour." Satan is always analyzing the areas where a Christian might be vulnerable. He not only looks for the big trees to use but he utilizes the smallest twigs.  Satan is evil, a liar and a murderer; but lazy he is not.

3. He annihilates. He is a devourer who is playing for keeps. He is pictured in the parable of the sower (Luke 8:5, 12) as the one who devours the good seed of the Word of God that falls upon our hearts. Satan, as a lion, consumes his prey. We need to realize he is in the business of destroying lives. However, God runs a construction business; He is building lives. The devil is in the destruction business; he is wrecking lives.

 

Step Two: Fallen Trees, limbs and twigs

Even as beavers use fallen trees, limbs and even twigs to dam up a river, satanic beavers use the debris and litter in our lives to obstruct the flow of living water. Four types of this type material in our lives are most useful to these evil beavers:

 

1. Areas of weakness. Satan knows about you and me. He knows those areas in our lives which are most vulnerable. It may be in the area of sex, money, power, alcohol, drugs, etc.; but rest assured, Satan will find that area and exploit it.

 

2. Aimless intentions. Beavers have an advantage over us in that they work intentionally and purposefully. Conversely, most of us live with no real direction in life; we wander through our days aimlessly. A lot of people's lives consist of going to work, paying bills and living it up on the weekends - only to do it allover again the next week. Is life not more than this? Did God place us here only with that purpose in mind? Granted, we all need to work and pay our bills - that is Biblical. We also need some times of recreation and relaxation. But do we ever stop to ask: "For what purpose did God create me?"

Like the beavers, we need to live intentionally and purpose­fully. We should set our goals to be good parents, live in sub­jection to the law, be honest, love our neighbors as ourselves, love the Lord with all our hearts, go to church, influence people's lives for good and allow Christ to live and love through us.

3. Alignment with the world. There seem to be more and more of this “dam” material. Corruption has not been intro­duced to today's modern society by revolution but by dilu­tion. Our morals and values have slowly been diluted by worldliness. Christians have become so aligned with the world that we have lost the ability to determine good and evil. Right and wrong are no longer what they used to be.

 

4. Acceptance of evil. We have been so infiltrated with world­liness that we have actually accepted evil. Christians today hear things, read things and watch things that a few years ago would have produced an outcry! But today we bring it into our living rooms, give it to our kids and even boast of it to our friends. We have become a nation that tolerates sin. The prophet Isaiah warned of this: "What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. (Isaiah 5:20).

 

Our unguarded lives are so often dammed up by a bunch of beavers on the demonic destruction crew. Foreman Satan knows he cannot damn the Christian's soul, but he can restrict the Christian's flow. His workers toil until the riverbed that once overflowed the banks is now dry and parched. Over a period of time, they steal our energy for God. No longer is a fresh word of testimony found on our lips; no longer are we stirred with a passion for the Word of God; no longer are we interested in lost people who are dying without Jesus; no longer are we consumed with the moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Statistics reveal that most churches have less than fifty percent of their member­ship present on any given Sunday, a mere twenty percent tithe and only one out of fifty win anyone to faith in Christ in a year's time. What's gone wrong? Beavers, fallen trees, limbs, twigs, and dammed-up lives!

 

We need to learn this principle: The more accessible we are to sin, the more acceptable we are to sin. Our society is a living testimony to this principle. This is why the Scriptures admonish us to “.. humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7). We are in gross error when we think we can flirt with sin; by so doing we expose ourselves to the devil.

Step Three: Dammed-Up Lives

In step two the river's flow begins to be restricted. At this third stage, it is almost non-existent. The river is now a trick­le of water!

 

When asked how he removed the dam to allow the river to flow once again, the landowner replied: "Dynamite!" "I took four sticks of dynamite, wedged them into different sec­tions of the dam, stepped back into the woods and blasted the dam away."

 

What kind of dynamite or power do we as Christians have?

 

The answer is the power of Jesus!

This same power is available for each born-again, blood­bought Christian. Not only can Jesus destroy the work of Satan by His mighty power, but also He can restore the work of God by the same power.

 

How do we go about getting this power? There are four simple, clear steps to relieve dammed up lives:

1. The Confession of Sin. First John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." To confess our sins means to agree with God about our sin. He says that we have all sinned. Romans 3:10 reads, "There is none righteous, no, not one." First John 1:10 pro­vides strong support for this verse by saying, "If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts." So for us to agree with God simply means we adhere to His truth about us. To agree with God means we must change our way of think­ing and adopt His way of thinking. Adrian Rogers once said, "The devil had rather get you to think wrong than to do wrong." You see, if you do wrong, you can confess it and God will forgive you. But if you think wrong about what you did wrong, you don't think anything is wrong! At this point you have become more accessible to sin and, therefore, more acceptable of sin.

2. The Cleansing of Sin. God desires to remove our sin "as far as the east is from the west..." (Psalm 103:12). David cried out to God, "Create in me a clean heart, O God..." (Psalm 53:10). This is the very thing that God wants to do in our lives. Only as we receive the cleansing of God can we live fruitful, productive lives. Any sin we cover, God uncovers.  We cannot continue to have flowing rivers of living water with fallen trees, limbs and twigs in our lives.

 

4. The Control over Sin. Jesus said in John 7:37, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." What will happen then? "... ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’" (John 7:38). If you want to be filled with the Spirit so that you possess this outpouring of living water, then thirst for Jesus and drink of Him continually!  Without Jesus one cannot possess the river of flowing water because he is all dammed up.

The landowner in the story was asked "What took place when the dynamite exploded?" His answer: "The waters began flowing once again and they carried all the fallen trees and debris downstream." So it is with our lives. When we partake of Jesus and the power of God explodes within our hearts, everything moves with the flow.

 

How is your river flowing? Got any fallen trees? Any limbs that need cleaned up? Maybe some twigs that should he raked up and disposed of?  Remember, fallen trees, limbs and twigs attract beavers, and beavers dam up lives. And dammed-up lives have no testimony.