Episode Transcript
Natalie: So thanks for being here, Christie. We're excited to introduce this new book called *Rivers of Living Water*. So do you just want to give a little bit of background about kind of what was the burden behind the book? This isn't really a series of messages that he gave at a conference—how we decided to put this together.
Christie: Yeah, that's not the normal thing we do. And actually, I kind of wanted to keep that standard—to always grab a collection of his messages, because there's something very cohesive about it. He's sharing one thing one day and then the next, and there's a progression. And a lot of times, I think, when people have tried to take messages from various years, it tends to be a little clunky and it doesn't flow very well. And so a lot of times we haven't thought about doing collections because a lot of times he's going over one thing and then there's some overlap and such.
But this came up in such a unique way. And when we looked at these different—these eight messages—it seemed like each one highlighted something so specific and so helpful that even if you were to read it consecutively, go from start to finish, you're still going to be helped by the new facet that you're bringing in. This other chapter has a completely different area that we're looking at of the Holy Spirit, and not just the same thing in every chapter.
I mean, you will have a little bit of a flavor of something, a little bit of something you've heard before, but it's highlighted in its own way. Like, sometimes he's talking about the church and the Holy Spirit as the leader. You know, Jesus is head of the church, but it's through the Spirit that he flows out through the church. And so it's by this guidance that we have through this counselor. And sometimes it's how he is in our individual lives, and so that overlaps, but yet it shows different aspects of what he's doing, what his purpose is, and who he is.
And so this came about in such a unique way, which is the only reason why this came to our thought to do it in this way.
So there was one day I was home, and I get a phone call from a brother who asked if I had listened—he mentioned three of Lance's messages, and they were all having to do with the Holy Spirit. And so he mentioned these messages, and I was remembering that I had put them somewhere because I had seen them and I was wanting to go through them more thoroughly and look at them. And I hadn't had a chance to get to them yet. And I was like, "That's really interesting, because I feel like I have those in queue somewhere, but I'm not sure what's cuing me to get back to them."
And so he told me about this whole story about how he's a schoolteacher. And so he was at school one day, and he had listened on his break to one of these messages—I think it was the baptism of the Holy Spirit—because he was wanting to know more about the baptism, how he would explain to someone what he sees as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And he was asking the Lord about it, and he's like, "I wonder what Lance has to say about this?" And so he went to look it up, and he saw this message exactly about it. And so he was listening at school, and he says he was on his face with the Lord considering this. And then he said that he felt on his heart to share that with his daughter and a few other of her teenage friends. And soon after—I don't know if it was the same day, but soon after he shared—the Lord really met these girls in some very specific ways.
So I was really encouraged to hear the way the Lord used Lance in these sharings to express something of his heart and help prepare a way for some young ones to be able to meet him in a fresh way for themselves.
And the crazy thing was, you know, I thought I'd had these in a queue somewhere, so I was writing something down to come back to it. Same day, just as the Lord would do, I get this email from a sister in Memphis who is helping us to review some of our archive messages to decide what to feature for the podcast. And we had given her a list, and apparently that cue was in her list of messages to review.
Natalie: It's like on everybody's heart at the same time.
Christie: Exactly. Yeah. And you remember when we passed that on to her, it was like a long list, but she happened to pick these three messages—and I think they were the exact same three messages. Not—it was two of the three, but I think it was the same three messages that she told us we should feature these in some upcoming podcasts. And I was like, "That's crazy."
But the brother who had reached out to me, he wasn't just talking about a podcast. He was thinking it would be helpful to the church in a book format. And so being that we don't normally do a collection of messages, I was like, "Well, let me consider it and look over them." But then when she sent that the same day, I was like, "This really might be the Lord."
Natalie: Yeah, seems like it.
Christie: Right. So I was really encouraged to press on with that. And as a result, it kind of bumped up on my list. I was, you know, not able to move forward in another area. I think the Lord was kind of giving me a pause in some other task I was on at the moment. And then he gave me a space to go ahead and to get to this quickly. And so the Lord's been really giving a whole lot of grace in preparing this to be available, and it's been a blessing to go through.
Natalie: That's so cool. What would you say is something new that you learned from reading it or from listening through some of the messages? I guess reading it.
Christie: Yeah. I think that when—you know, something encouraging to me was how—I know a lot of times people are very afraid. You know, they think about the Holy Spirit and they have seen a lot of ideas of things about what the Holy Spirit looks like sometimes. And so it intimidates people and it makes people become afraid that they won't have control.
And the super encouraging thing about it is just how gentle and how comforting the Spirit is. Like, that's how he's referred to in the Word. And I think the enemy really would try to give us this false idea of what the Spirit does and what his desire is. And instead of that, that this is something so trustworthy and so good. I think that even in recent—the last month or two, hearing people's experiences in recent times—it's good. And I think that we've been painted such a poor picture, you know, and you think about grieving the Holy Spirit. I think it really grieves the Holy Spirit when we take him in this wrong context, this wrong light, and we're expecting him to be a way that he's not. But really his care for us and for the church is so perfect that we can be willing to lay everything at his feet and trust him to do what he pleases. But if we don't trust him, it's grieving to him. But like, if we can rest in him, then he can have a free way to do what he knows is best—yeah, he knows is good—instead of us hindering him from having a way in our lives.
Natalie: So what would you say to somebody who's like, feels like, "I know Jesus, I pray, like, why do I need to read a book about the Holy Spirit? Why do I need to know anything more about the Holy Spirit? I've been born again," for example. You know, it's like, "I have the Holy Spirit inside of me already. So why do I need to read this book?"
Christie: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that sometimes we read the Bible, but we read it through our lens and what we've seen. And sometimes I think that because I've seen a certain aspect of something, this is my box that the word of God is in and I can't see beyond it. And so when you see someone else's experience, he gives examples, practical examples of like Billy Graham, the way he would preach the gospel one day and then he met the Lord in a fresh way and then the way he preached the gospel afterwards. And the effect of that before and after was like a whole lot of work before, but then the Holy Spirit was doing the work after.
Lance Lambert: I am old enough to remember Billy Graham before his experience and afterwards. Oh, and I tell you the difference—like the difference between chalk and cheese.
I remember Billy Graham preaching up in Westminster Chapel when I was near to backsliding, and I was—and dear Arthur Matthew, Senior Minister, he said, "Lance, would you come with me and my wife if we took you up to hear Billy Graham?" And I sort of said, "Oh, well, all right."
I thought it was rather sweet of them to ask me to go. And I did. And we sat there and I remember watching Billy Graham, this young man, very good looking, blonde, sort of going into the most incredible antics I have ever seen. He jumped over that rail in Westminster Chapel and rolled on the floor wrestling with lions.
He was illustrating the Christians dying in the arena at Nîmes. And honestly, you could hear the crunch of the bones and the roar of the lions and the saliva. And I was all eyes and ears and I thought, "What nonsense." And when it came to the end, when the appeal was given, there was all this soft blues in the background, you know, while the appeal was given.
And do you know, it helped me in this way that I—of course, I'm a rather odd character, but the way it saved me was this: that I thought to myself, there must be something in this if a man goes to such extraordinary lengths to try and get someone saved. I thought to myself, there must be something. And now I was already saved. But I was very disillusioned. I was cynical, I was disillusioned, I was disappointed. My whole spiritual life had dried up. I was looked upon merely virtually as a backslider.
And I thought, well, Billy Graham himself said he had an experience. After, when he came back, that next time, all of you will know there was a different man.
There was none of all that sort of emotion and thing. Of course it was there. You can't preach without emotion. You can't preach without a certain amount of acting. But the amazing thing was that now he stood and it was the word, word, word, word, coming forth. And when the appeal was given, thousands of people went forward instead of just one or two people trickling forward and, you know, sort of urging them, and they sang "Just As I Am." I don't know how many times.
I mean, it was amazing. The man had an experience. This was the same with Reuben Torrey. It was the same with D.L. Moody. It was the same with the Wesleys. If you go back into history, you will find it's the same with all. There is an experience of the Holy Spirit.
Christie: It's these things that we don't know are available to us. We think that we read something and we put it in our own context. But when we hear a testimony of what the Lord did through this truth that's in the Word, the same thing we've read, it helps us to like, read it with fresh eyes. It's like we can read the Word with the Holy Spirit, but if we read the Word with my mind and my understanding, it's like, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding." But the thing is, if we give it to him and read it with him and let him shine light on it, then he's able to open our eyes to things. And it's not that the book is different than that. It's that it just helps us to remember that when we read the Word, he wants to reveal himself to us. He doesn't want us to take everything in our own understanding, in our own light, because we miss so many aspects. But then I hear a testimony of what the Lord's done, and it's like, "Oh, he's real."
This is our God. This is what he has done. This is what he's always done, and this is what he wants to do today.
Natalie: Do you want to share a little bit just about the cover of the book as well? It's kind of just neat. Show it to the camera maybe, too.
Christie: Yes. This is a design that we had—a painting that we had Angelina Guhl paint for us at request, because the title of the book is *Rivers of Living Water: Talks on the Holy Spirit*.
Natalie: Explain why we—
Christie: Exactly. That's the cover, yeah. So this is the reason why we have the river flowing.
The concept of it is really helpful to me to think about because there's this verse: "He that believeth on me, as the scripture says, from within him shall flow out rivers of living water." And Lance says, "Not a stream. Rivers of living water, able to turn desert areas into a garden, able to transform whole gray areas around us. Rivers of living water." And it's that this is the fullness.
This is like—it's not a lack, there's a fullness of this river, and it flows and gives life. Like I always think of like the Nile with the delta. It's like this area is so dry and desert land. But the thing is, this brings fertility to the whole everything surrounding it. So this life that we have within us, out from this life of the Lord outflows these rivers of living water. And that is the source of the fruitfulness of our lives is all from Him. And if that river isn't flowing, then it's dried up, and we could be nothing but yet with him, with that openness for that river to flow forth, then it brings forth much fruit.
Natalie: That's cool. Yeah. Can you—I know that one of the chapters in the book is "The Christ the Baptizer."
Christie: Oh, yeah. So that's another cool story, and I think we're going to talk about that more in a few weeks. And we have with that message, there was some struggle with the audio version that we had, and so we were needing to find the audio for it. And so in searching for that, we found something that was a real gem, really exciting, and I'm looking forward to being able to share it with everybody because it's really precious to us. But, yes, that message we were able to find in its entirety, and it was a blessing that I think everyone's really gonna enjoy.
Natalie: All right, and where can people find this book?
Christie: You can go to lancelambert.org and it's available on Amazon, and the ebook should be available anywhere where ebooks are sold.
Natalie: Cool. All right, thank you so much, Christie, for coming to share this awesome book with us.
Christie: Thanks. I'm excited for it to be available.
Natalie: Yes, me too. All right, goodbye.
Christie: Goodbye.
