Living Water

by Toms, A. F. | Category: Gems From Jeremiah | May 1991

Who would choose stagnant water out of a cistern in preference to fresh

water from a spring? That is what Israel did, and God tells us about it in

Jeremiah chapter 2. It is a story of wounded love. God had loved them with an everlasting love and drawn them with lovingkindness, but they had forsaken Him. Recounting it God said:

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 (2:13).

They turned away from God, the fountain of living water, and dug out for themselves cisterns to gather their own water supply. That would have been folly enough had their own cisterns been able to hold water, but they were not, for they were broken cisterns that very' soon ran dry.

The world has many cisterns too, from which the Devil invites us to draw. Cisterns of pleasure, of sport, of wealth and fame, but they are all broken cisterns. They seem to satisfy for a little while, but they soon run dry and the soul is left unsatisfied and sad.

On the last and great day of the feast of tabernacles the Lord Jesus stood and cried:

If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink (John 7:37).

It is a message that runs through the Scriptures. Some seven centuries before the Lord Jesus came to live amongst us, Isaiah cried:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price (Is. 55:1).

And on the very' last page of our Bibles is the invitation:

And he that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take the water of life freely (Rev. 22:17).

God knows our hearts are thirsty. He made us that way. We have been made by Him and for Him, and the thirst of our hearts can only be satisfied in Him. There is no other place where the thirst of human hearts can

be quenched. The psalmist said:

They shall be abundantly satisfied For with Thee is the fountain of life (Ps. 36:8,9).

With that the sons of Korah agreed for they said:

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God (Ps. 42:2).

Let us take a moment to think again of Israel's great mistake. God said that they committed two sins. They had forsaken Him, that was the first sin. The second was that they had dug out their own cisterns. The heart of God was sad. They had refused His love and had turned away from Him. He likened them to an unfaithful bride, for He had been like a husband to them, but they had spurned His love and had gone after other lovers. And is not that the situation when a believer in the Lord Jesus turns to the world to find his satisfaction? That is why James speaks in such plain language when he says:

Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God (Jas. 4:4).

It was the world that crucified our Lord. The world did not know Him: it gave Him the outside place and nailed Him to a Cross. The world is no place for those who have tasted of the Saviour's love. Let us be true to the One who died for us, for He satisfies the longing soul. And one further point, not only will the Lord satisfy our own hearts. He will also use us to bring the

living water to others. He says:

He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly

shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:38).

What a wonderful promise, to have the living water flowing out through us to others in all their need.

There are three strong reasons therefore why we must guard our hearts from the lure of the world. Firstly, because all that is in the world is passing away, and its cisterns are broken cisterns that hold no water to satisfy our hearts. Secondly, and this is surely the chief reason, because we are the Lord's; He has bought us purchased us with His blood and we belong to Him. Shall we not be true to the One who has loved us even unto death? Thirdly, what of the thirsty hearts around us in all their need? How shall they hear of Christ unless we tell them? How shall the living water reach them unless God channels it through us?

Toms, A. F. | May 1991
Gems From Jeremiah