Christ is the Fountain of Living Water
A question that all believers who seek a closer walk with The Lord Jesus Christ need to ask themselves: Is Jesus Christ my fountain of living water, in other words does Jesus Christ truly satisfy me? I have come to discover over the years that not all of God's people are satisfied with him alone. It is not Him or His plan for their lives that rises to the top of their priority list, for some they feel that is for those who are missionaries or those in full time ministry but Jesus certainly does not require that of me. I want to consider with you something Jeremiah said to the “church” of his day and ask if this does not apply to our day also: Jeremiah 2:12 -13 “Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. 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.”
Forsaken the Fountain of Living Waters for Broken Cisterns
The prophet Jeremiah points out to his generation that there are 2 evils committed by Gods people: First, they had forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water. This very much has application to us today because in order for us to be truly satisfied Christians we must be convinced that in spite of all the voices in this world Jesus Christ is the only one who truly satisfies; He is the true fountain of living water whereby if one drink of Him they shall never thirst again. This truth is exemplified for us in John 7:37-38 “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Secondly, Gods people, those not finding their satisfaction in the Lord, had hewn out for themselves broken cisterns. The cistern of Jeremiahs day would have been a reservoir made out of earth, like a pond, or carved out of rock. In type these cisterns are other pleasures that men pursue for their happiness and satisfaction. They had before them the Lord Himself, the fountain of living water, and yet they turned to a manmade cistern which was broken; a device that is faulty and can fail in its duty to hold water. This typifies the pleasures of this world; they promise fulfillment but they leak and before one knows it they go to the reservoir and it is dry. When one leaves the path they prosper for a while but then they are left bitter and dry in the end.
Therefore the prophet continues his indictment: Jeremiah 2:18 “And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt (World), to drink the waters of Sihor? or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?” The people of God were finding their satisfaction from the rivers of Egypt and Assyria. Here's the problem in a nutshell, Gods people are drinking from the waters of Egypt! Egypt has long been recognized as speaking of the world; to put it into today’s setting we would say these cisterns represent the music of the world, dress of the world, talk of the world, entertainment of the world etc. When one drinks from the waters of Egypt, their desire for the Lord begins to die and they no longer find that he satisfies. They become disconnected from Him and become bored with the church and Gods people.
Here is the inevitable end of those who turn to the things of this world Jeremiah 2:19 “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.” It is indeed a tragic thing, when the people of God make the wrong choices in what they choose to satisfy themselves, the consequences of those choices more times than not is that these things end up hindering their walk and hold them back from the things of God. Let us make the Lord our fountain, the only fountain in our lives. Let us realize that whatever the world has to offer will not last but will eventually leave us high and dry…
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