The Dancing Hand of God, Part 2 — The Hidden River That Now Flows From Within

The dancing hand of God is how this message describes the Holy Spirit at work: the word manifestation, the pastor explains, joins a Latin word for hand with a word meaning to dance, so the Spirit’s manifestation is God’s hand choreographing your life. In this second message of the series, the speaker traces that hands-on God from Eden’s hidden rivers of gold to the living water Jesus offered a Samaritan woman, and shows why your words set the temperature of your life. It builds on The Dancing Hand of God, Part 1 — The Holy Spirit From Creation to Today.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for letting that river flow from your life this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message from NTC Ministries was posted on September 13, 2022, and runs about 65 minutes. It continues a series that began the week before and, as the speaker says, links to the teaching the church has followed for more than a year. From a review of creation he moves through Eden, Psalm 46, Jacob’s well and the thermostat on the church wall.

The Dancing Hand of God and the Manifestation of the Spirit

God said, “Let Us make man in Our image” (Genesis 1:26), and then, the speaker pictures, the master artist of all that exists knelt in the dirt, fashioned the clay and breathed the breath of life into it (Genesis 2:7). The first thing Adam saw was God. Being born again, he says, is the same experience: we receive eternal life and find ourselves face to face with God.

But the beauty we admire in sunsets and flowers is, in his words, the corrupted part. Romans 8:19–22 says creation groans as it waits for the revealing of the sons of God. He teaches that the Greek word for sons here means armed, battle ready and matured: believers who want more than the milk of the Word and want to grow up and accomplish what God needs.

Everything with man is hands-on. 1 Corinthians 12:7 says the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. The speaker breaks the word down as a hand that dances, an epiphany that lifts us up and over corruption. When some bring a word, some a song and some a prayer, the dancing hand of God is choreographing the church, and the same hand leads us after we leave the building.

That is why we trust in the Lord, lean not on our own understanding and let Him direct our paths (Proverbs 3:5–6). Unity, the speaker says, is not everyone doing the same thing; it is everyone doing what God wants. As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God (Romans 8:14).

He plants one more seed. To anoint means to rub with oil, the way a massage therapist works the knots out of a muscle. When you spend the morning in prayer, you let God rub the anointing into you. Then, as Deuteronomy 33:25 promises, your strength will match your days, and the day will not get bigger than you.

Eden: Fellowship Without a Wish List

Before God made man, He planted a garden eastward in Eden and put the man there (Genesis 2:8). Adam did not plant it. There were no weeds and nothing was corrupted. His only assignment was to tend and keep it (Genesis 2:15), taking what God had given and enjoying it.

The speaker asks the church to notice something. Until he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam never once brought God a request. There was no prayer for more clothes, more money or someone’s healing. There was only being with God as He walked in the cool of the day, telling Adam how and why He made things. God has already supplied all our need according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19).

So when our only prayer is “I need this, I need this,” he says, that is not a right relationship. It is a product of corruption. Needs multiplied only after the fall. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves, so God killed an animal and clothed them in tunics of skin (Genesis 3:21).

That covering required the shedding of blood. In the old covenant, the speaker explains, blood only covered sin. In the new covenant, the blood of Jesus takes sin away, so we can have perfect fellowship with God again.

The Four Rivers and the Hidden Gold

Reviewing Genesis 2:10–14, the speaker points out that a river went out of Eden and parted into four. When God showed Adam the garden, He did not start with the kitchen or the bedroom. He pointed to the land of Havilah, where there is gold, “and the gold of that land is good.”

He draws a clear line. The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it (Proverbs 10:22). It is the love of money that is a root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10), not gold itself, so never be ashamed of growing in success.

He reminds the church that giving is one of the gifts listed in Romans 12:6–8. God does not say, “I want you poor; now give.” He gives abundance so that we can have plenty for every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8). The table below follows his reading of the four rivers.

Nobody knows where the first two rivers are, or where Eden was. The speaker connects their disappearance to the dividing of the earth in the days of Peleg (Genesis 10:25). People have searched for that underground river for thousands of years. The point, he says, is that corruption hid the treasure. Yet everything in the Old Testament is a shadow of good things to come (Hebrews 10:1), and in Jesus that hidden river is opened again.

There Is a River That Makes Glad the City of God

After praying that the anointing would destroy every yoke of bondage (Isaiah 10:27), the speaker reads Psalm 46:1–7. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, so we will not fear even though the earth is removed and the mountains are carried into the sea.

He links this to Jesus’ warning of distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring (Luke 21:25–26). Perplexity, he explains, means there is no way out, and he expects famine and trouble beyond anything the world has seen.

But the psalm turns: “There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God.” He notices the plural. In Eden there was one river and four streams. Here there is one river with many streams, and the city of God is the church, the believers in Jesus Christ. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved, and God shall help her just at the break of dawn.

In the natural, the rivers are hidden. In Christ they are brought to pass for every believer, which is why Jesus is called Redeemer. In the middle of famine, the speaker asks, would you not want God to show you where the food is?

That provision now comes from within, not from without. A relationship with Jesus is more than attending church. It is fellowship: saying yes when He says go and no when He says stop. Jesus asked why people call Him “Lord, Lord” and do not do what He says (Luke 6:46). It is not by might nor by power but by His Spirit (Zechariah 4:6), and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Living Water at Jacob’s Well

The heart of the message is John 4:7–14. A Samaritan woman came to draw water at noon because her reputation kept her away from the other women in the morning. Jesus, tired from His journey, asked her for a drink.

She was surprised that a Jew would ask a Samaritan. The speaker explains the history: when Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls, Sanballat, a Samaritan leader, tried to intimidate the builders (Nehemiah 4:1–3), and as the speaker tells it, later raised a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, the mountain of blessing (Deuteronomy 11:29).

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” God so loved the world that He gave His Son (John 3:16), yet the speaker says Jesus was pointing to another gift here: flowing water, like an artesian well.

She objected that the well, about 105 feet deep by the speaker’s description, was deep. Jesus replied that whoever drinks this water will thirst again, but the water He gives becomes a fountain springing up into everlasting life. That, the speaker says, is the river corruption concealed. It is not only eternal life after death but a constant flow from within, as Jesus said, “out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).

It has to be personal. He gets hospital calls about strangers who say his church prays for them. He gladly prays, but better is a hands-on relationship with God yourself. What does it profit to gain the whole world and lose your soul (Mark 8:36)? Jesus offers a gift that keeps goodness and mercy following you all your days (Psalm 23:6), and it asks us to be doers of the Word, not hearers only (James 1:22).

Being a doer is not copying someone else. Asked once by a Christian magazine about division in the body of Christ, the speaker said he does not see division: your foot does not do what your hand does (1 Corinthians 12:14–21). Each member simply has a different role.

Thermometer or Thermostat? The Power of Your Mouth

How does the river start to flow? The same way creation started: with the mouth. God said, “Let Us make man,” and then rolled up His sleeves. Proverbs 18:20–21 says a man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth, and death and life are in the power of the tongue. Even in famine, the speaker says, what you speak matters.

Zephaniah 3:14–17 tells the daughter of Zion to sing, because the Lord has taken away her judgments, and promises that you will see evil no more. The speaker explains that this means you will not fear evil or let it capture you. The problems of the world become like a movie: you watch, but you are not in it. Those who receive the gift of righteousness reign in life (Romans 5:17).

Verse 16 adds, “Do not let your hands be weak.” Our hands are involved too. Verse 17 says the Lord will rejoice over you with gladness and with singing. The speaker gives the Hebrew sense of the first word as rejoicing so excited it cannot be contained, and the second as spinning around in dancing with great exclamations of joy. Right now, he says, the Lord is dancing over you and inviting you into that dance.

Then he points to the thermostats on the church wall. A thermometer can only report the temperature; the regulator changes it. Come home to a 50-degree house and you would not set the regulator to 50 and complain. Yet many Christians set the thermostat to what the thermometer says and wonder why life never changes. God’s invisible attributes are seen in what He made (Romans 1:20), even a thermostat.

Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). In Mark 11:22–24, whoever says to the mountain, “Be removed,” and does not doubt, will have whatever he says. Most people, the speaker observes, say what they have instead of declaring what they want to have. There is a power source behind the thermostat, and there is a power source behind your tongue: the Holy Spirit, hovering as He did over creation (Genesis 1:2), ready to bring life to what you declare.

The Hidden Plan Now Revealed

The speaker closes with 1 Corinthians 2:7–12. The wisdom of God was a mystery, hidden before the world began for our glory. The rulers of this age did not understand it, or they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Eye has not seen and ear has not heard what God has prepared for those who love Him, but God has revealed it to us through His Spirit.

That mystery was hidden from ages and generations and is now revealed: Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:26–27). The river of life was hidden, but in Christ it can flow from you continually, and what He shows us, we keep declaring.

He illustrates the alternative with a story from Africa. Taken miles down a mountain for a water baptism, he ran out of water and could not climb out of the ravine. He prayed, and a small motorcycle came up a goat trail and carried him to the top, where there was water. Many Christians live like that, he says: in the wrong place, always thirsty.

Instead, read your Bible and spend the morning with Him, because His grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9). With a stream flowing from every person, the dancing hand of God would make the church a choreographed dance.

Letting the River Flow This Week

The speaker ends by praying for health, goodness and abundance and leading the church to ask the Holy Spirit to flow from within like rivers of living water. Here are practical steps drawn from the message:

• Start the day with the anointing. Spend time in prayer each morning so God can work the knots out before the day begins.
• Pray beyond the wish list. Like Adam before the fall, spend time simply listening and thanking God for what He has already given.
• Follow the choreography. Do what He leads you to do, even when it differs from what others are doing.
• Set your thermostat. Stop reporting the temperature. Speak God’s Word over your situation and expect it to change.
• Be a stream. Bring goodness into your church family, and build your own hands-on relationship with God instead of only asking others to pray.
• Give without shame. Receive God’s blessing as good and use it for every good work.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 God spoke creation, but shaped man by hand
• 2:15 Face to face with God
• 3:18 Romans 8: creation waits for mature sons
• 4:18 Manifestation: the hand that dances
• 6:26 The anointing rubs out the knots
• 8:34 God planted the garden first
• 10:41 Tunics of skin and the blood
• 11:50 Genesis 2: the gold is good
• 14:44 The gift of giving and four rivers
• 16:52 Corruption hid the treasure
• 20:18 Psalm 46: there is a river
• 24:46 Provision from within, not without
• 28:01 Jesus at Jacob’s well
• 29:03 Sanballat and Mount Gerizim
• 32:00 If you knew the gift of God
• 34:09 A hands-on relationship of your own
• 37:36 No division in the body
• 39:49 Proverbs 18 and Zephaniah 3
• 45:37 The Lord dances over you
• 46:44 Thermometer or thermostat
• 52:40 Mark 11: speak to the mountain
• 57:27 1 Corinthians 2: the hidden wisdom
• 1:00:54 Thirsty in an African ravine
• 1:03:59 Prayer for rivers of living water

Dancing Hand of God Series

This message is part of an eight-part series at NTC Ministries. Go back to the previous teaching or continue with the next one:

• Previous: The Dancing Hand of God, Part 1 — The Holy Spirit From Creation to Today
• You are here: The Dancing Hand of God, Part 2 — The Hidden River That Now Flows From Within
• Next: The Dancing Hand of God, Part 3 — The Spirit Upon and Within

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this teaching mean believers will never face hard times?

No. The speaker expects difficult days, saying that from Psalm 46 God helps His people just at the break of dawn, at the end of the darkness, so we will go through some things. The promise is that God is a very present help in that trouble and that the river still makes His city glad. His point is how believers face those days: without fear, without emotional attachment to the world’s problems, and with provision flowing from within.

Is it wrong to ask God for things in prayer?

The speaker does not forbid requests; he later teaches from Mark 11 that whatever you ask when you pray, believe that you receive it. His warning is about a relationship made only of requests. Adam’s fellowship in Eden had no wish list, because God had already provided everything, so let God speak and answer with thanks.

What does it mean to be a stream in the church?

Psalm 46 speaks of one river with many streams that make glad the city of God. The speaker tells the church he is not the Redeemer of the world, only a stream allowing the river to reach them, and every believer can be one. He urges people to come to fellowship events, get to know one another and become a support system of goodness.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• 1 Corinthians 12:7 — the manifestation of the Spirit
• Romans 8:19–22 — creation waits for the sons of God
• Genesis 2:10–14 — the four rivers of Eden
• Psalm 46:1–7 — there is a river
• John 4:7–14 — living water at Jacob’s well
• Proverbs 18:20–21 — death and life in the tongue
• Zephaniah 3:14–17 — the Lord rejoices over you
• Mark 11:22–24 — speak to the mountain
• 1 Corinthians 2:7–12 — the hidden wisdom revealed

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

If this message stirred you to let the river flow, there are hundreds more teachings from NTC Ministries waiting for you. Browse the full sermon archive and keep following the dancing hand of God.