The Wonder of Seasons and The Number Four

Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises, but the stars never fall? Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough?

Enough. Which is the Gihon. And just to take an overall look at this idea of four, and you might note that there are four seasons, but there's also four cups of redemption that you drink at a Passover Seder. And when you think of the idea of the number four, there were 40 years that Moses got to do a number of different times, and obviously there's 400 years of silence. In other words, the number four is often connected to the idea of seasons, and the more I studied these rivers, I could see that they are indeed rivers that flow out of our heart that provide for us in seasons.

And they're clearly different seasons. And the more I studied this, the deeper the rabbit hole went, actually, even to the four cups of the dream of the butler that Joseph interpreted, that helped get him eventually to Pharaoh's house and out of prison. And those four cups, again, being like the ones that Jesus would talk about when he said, I will not drink of this cup until I come into the Father's kingdom, meaning the fourth cup, which, again, has to do with the river Euphrates, which speaks very much to the end of time, and you may know that in the book of Revelation, when the river Euphrates dries up, it releases four angels. And so, you can't help but just wonder about the number four, and the fact that it very much makes up our year, which has 12 months, which God ordered all that, and it's broken into four seasons of three months per season, and you can't help but note that in Joseph's dream interpretation that three almost always meant three days.

As you can see, those things have to do with time, and so you've got four seasons that each contain three months. And the idea, of course, of all that is that God provides different things in different seasons, right? And so, when we look at this season of the Gihon River, which interestingly goes and surrounds the area of Cush, and that itself has some significance, no doubt, but before we do that, let's just talk about the word Gihon and the idea of the provision of, right, you know you're going to have this wedding, and the summer has begun, and you begin to build the temple, or you begin to build the tabernacle, and interestingly, you've got to kind of go down to Egypt in order to get the provision. In other words, all the gold and silver and all the precious stuff came from Egypt, right? There was this tremendous provision that had come from the south.

You could kind of see that that's going to happen, and the Gihon is the idea. That letter Gimel has to do with provision, and interestingly, you can hear it ends in nuns, which means of faith. In other words, when we turn to God in faith, it's interesting, if you're going to build something, you're going to need great provision. And certainly, if you're going to build a relationship, you're going to need great provision.

Specifically, the relationship that we're talking about here is our relationship with God. And so, isn't that interesting, and maybe you've noticed this, that people after they come to Christ and they have that initial springtime experience, they often dig deep, deep, deep into God's Word, where all that light, all that water is, right? And so, when you think about that season, April showers bring May flowers, right? This great provision that God provides so that these plants can all get off to a good start. Well, He's doing that in this season, in the season of Gihon, and it's always available to us, because in different parts of your life, you're in different seasons, right?

You might be in some relationships where you've been in them a long time, and they may be in the fall, or they may be even in the winter months of that particular relationship. But in other relationships, they're just starting, and they need great provision. Or maybe you've got a job, and you're in that point where you need provision. The point of it is, all, as you think about it, here comes this idea of the Gihon, and this river that God is providing that comes out of your heart, and very specifically, for the time of the relationship that you're in with God, of the time that you're in with the relationship that you are in people. You know, like me, I just started at a new church.

I've been teaching special needs for years and years at Calvary. Certainly there was a winter season, and coming now into this spring and summer season, I'm looking to God to provide the light, and actually to provide a plan, right? And that's the beauty of the whole idea here, is that God very much had everything planned out. There was going to be 12 months, and there were going to be four seasons, and everything is very, very structured and simple to follow in God's economy. But the point of it all is, is in order to do that, you have to turn to that river that's automatically flowing out of your heart in faith, and realize, wow, I am in this season. I need provision, God. Tell me what provision I should be asking for.

Help me to see what I need in this season. And interestingly, one of the seasons that I'm in at my church is we're doing Wednesday nights. And interestingly, the provision that He's given me is a provision that I have had for years in doing my joke pages. And as I have provided these pages, I just can't believe how much the church has fallen in love with these jokes, and more people are coming, and I begin to see the provision, that the real provision that God is providing in the church is its people, right? And so as we pray that the church would grow and grow, the provision that we need is every single person that walks into that church or walks into your life.

They bring that little God spark with them, right? And so, you know, I can't help but think that, man, this rabbit hole of these four rivers is very, very, very deep. And you can go as deep as you want to, but you can't help but know that that second cup that we're talking about, if you're in the Passover of Seder, and it says in the second cup that He is going to take you out of or rid the bondage that you're in. And I can't help but note that, you know, when the Israelites, their 40 years started, that God had parted the Red Sea, and when it ended, He is going to part the Jordan, right? And in the middle, right, is when He, you know, provided them water and He provided them manna and all those things that seem to happen in this particular season of doing that. But as He did, in His own way, He rid them of being hooked up to how their meals had been ritualized by the Egyptian gods, so to speak, and how that may look in your life or whatever, but He's ridding them, you know, like they say, you know, it only took a few days to get Israel out of Egypt, but it took 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel. And so as we begin that process of coming out from underneath that bondage, we realize that it's a season, and there are four of them, and God's going to make it happen in His order that it will be exactly right based on what, you know, what He's doing in our lives. And so you think about the different seasons and the different ways that God meets those needs as we continue on in the four rivers. Of course, we're loading up for bear as, believe me, these rivers get deeper as we go along. Thanks for listening.