Broken Cisterns, Powerless Lives

Jeremiah 2:13         For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

 

God is full of love for humanity. He is not in love with their faults, but He is in love with their souls.

Time has progressed solely for the purpose of the kingdom of God being expanded to include more and more of the souls of men.

At the end of time, an angel will announce that time is no more. At that moment, God will have saved all that will be saved.

Until then, God is reaching for all that He can gather unto Himself. You and I can be thankful tonight that God has included us in the number of the redeemed.

However, God is not going to sit idly by and allow us to waste away and do nothing with the salvation He has bestowed upon us. He insists that we respond with faithful service to Him at all times.

He records our activities. Our idle, meaningless words are even recorded by Him.  Those things that we deem insignificant, God counts as worthy of His attention.

If He is paying attention to them, shouldn’t we?

Why?

God knows that if we fail to temper our idle times with His spirit, then we will soon find ourselves turning our back on Him in day to day living.

This is the quickest way to become a casualty in the kingdom of God.

I am sure that most of us do not plan on failing God. Most of us do not scheme ways to sin, but some times we turn our backs on God and wander away from Him without a moment’s hesitation.

That is exactly what the children of Israel were guilty of. They turned their back on God.

It doesn’t seem right that that would even be an option for them. Countless times God had told them to follow Him faithfully and He would take care of the rest.

If they would just live their lives as followers of Him, then He would make sure that they triumphed over their enemies, overcame adversities, and that all of their needs would be supplied.

Yet even with those promises, they failed to follow Him.

Listen to how God talked about their betrayal of Him to them.

You have committed two sins

1.     You have forsaken me the fountain of living water. . (Did you know that to turn your back on God is a sin?)

2.     You have hewn out cisterns with holes in them.

What was this about? Israel had started worshiping idols. They were carving idols and worshiping them.

Can you imagine going out into the wilderness and cutting down a tree, peeling the bark off, and carving into that wood an image to set up in your home to worship? Preposterous!

But that is exactly what they were doing!

God of the tabernacle was rejected for a wooden figure!

Don’t turn your back on God. He is the source of all living water! Listen to the Bible.

Ps 46:4-5

4There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

5God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.

John 7:38

38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

KJV

The most reliable and refreshing sources of water in Israel were her natural springs. This water was dependable; and its clear, cool consistency was satisfying.

This is language that Israel understands. They knew what it was like to go to a well and draw up a cool drink. They knew that it was spring fed and that the waters were always cold.

David remembered it. Remember him desiring the water from the well in Jerusalem?

In contrast, the most unreliable source of water was cisterns. Cisterns were large pits dug into the rock and covered with plaster. These pits were used to gather rainwater. This water was brackish; and if the rains were below normal, it could run out. Worse yet, if a cistern developed a crack it would not hold the water. To turn from a dependable, pure stream of running water to a broken, brackish cistern was idiotic. Yet that is what Judah did when she turned from God to idols.

Folks, I am not going to be too long tonight. I just have had this thought in my heart all day.

We cannot trade this river of living water in for a broken cistern.

Some people are content to live from experience to experience. Never attempting to get anything fresh. Never trying to grow in God.

They just live from service to service and when things get tough, they complain that they can’t live for God. These are people that have replaced living water with cisterns that have cracks in them!

You can’t make it with God Sunday to Wednesday to  Sunday. You are going to have to allow him to flow through you every day.

The word living in Hebrew means that it is issuing from the source of its life. God’s spirit is issuing from God himself! He is giving us himself to live by.

We try to gather up blessings and store them until the next time we want one, but we don’t make it long that way.

You remember the manna that fell. Only one day were they allowed to get double and that was on the day before the Sabbath. Why? The rest of the week extras spoiled by the next morning.

Jesus said pray like this. …Give us this day our daily bread! We need him every day! You can’t get enough tonight to make it until Friday!

God is the source of life!

A good cistern had to have water brought to it, either by rainfall or buckets.

A cracked one won’t hold any!

What ever it is in your life that you are turning your back on God for will never satisfy you! It will only leave you empty of the source of life!

Empty cisterns were often used as prisons.

Joseph was thrown into a pit. That was an empty cistern.

Whatever it is that you will give up God for will eventually end up controlling you. It will bind you. It will cause you to cease living in Him, and even yourself. You will start living in and how that thing wants you to live.

People say, “I can do what I want.” That is not true. Here is why.

Paul says that all things are lawful to me, but not all of them are expedient (or good for me), and I will not be brought under the power of any.

You know what he is implying? If you start digging cisterns, they will end up controlling you.

Then look at what Peter says about those kinds of people.

2 Peter 2:15 They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; 16but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet. 17These are wells without water; clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

18For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. 19While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. 20For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.

Let’s come back to the source of life giving water tonight!