LIVING WATERS vs. BROKEN CISTERNS
Posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 10:05 AM by Duncan Bouwer
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Many things about this time away on the Living Waters Training course (Feb 1997), have impacted me profoundly. Before I went I was feeling further away from the Lord than I had ever felt. I had allowed a tide of greyness and mediocrity in my walk with the Lord to overtake me. None of you have probably ever experienced this, I know, *smile* but I had, and I lived for the moments when I led worship, because then I would become part of the blessing that God bestowed , and I would be blessed as well. I was hoping that this training course would reverse the tide, and so I went away, set up for disappointment. But the Lord is faithful. He waits for the least inkling on our parts that we are prepared to meet him, and then he runs to us�but I'm getting ahead of myself.
As I was saying, many things impacted me profoundly, and until I had though what to share, I had little idea that they were all linked. For instance:
� I was struck by the fervour and zealousness of the people who taught us.
� I was struck by the fact that when I was with them, suddenly I was back where I passionately loved the Lord, and I just knew that I never wanted to be in a place again, where I was not right in his presence and BURNING UP for his sake.
� Andy Comiskey spoke of the honour of God, and I was struck by that.
� I was struck by how fat and lumpish I felt, after a few days of sitting and eating and sleeping, and man, did we eat well, but that is another story�
� I was struck by the love that flowed from these people and their readiness to admit their faults. The testimonies walked a fine line between sensationalism (because, boy, were some of the stories sensational) and giving glory to God. But that is what they were�God's glory.
� And maybe I was most struck by the fact that when they prayed for someone, the Lord showed up. By the end of the second day, I felt like I had been there a week. I simply knew that I could not receive another thing, and that the overweight numbness I felt in my posterior was rapidly engulfing my brain and heart. But still, the Lord pushed though because of a combination of his faithfulness, and theirs. I just knew that this is where I wanted to be. This is what being a Christian is all about. Of course I understand that there is a certain dynamic which comes about when a bunch of people are together at a retreat for a week. That's why some people become conference junkies. But this was different. There seemed to be no gap between what they were preaching and what was happening in the evidence of the move of the Spirit. Andy Comiskey teaches that, in order for us to be able to teach this course, which hopes to break the power of deeply ingrained hurt and the resultant sin, we have to be pure ourselves. It is no good that we teach on forgiveness if we harbour unforgiveness ourselves. This not to say that we are perfect, but rather that we be accountable, and I will say more about that later.
It is no accident that the course which we went to learn more about, and which brings new life to so many people, is called Living Waters. It is of course, a term which you have heard before. The most famous instance is where Jesus offers the woman at the well LIVING WATER. But there are some instances in the Old Testament where the Lord speaks of Living Water. One in particular is significant to us today�
In Jeremiah 2:13, the Lord says:
*
"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, THE SPRING OF LIVING WATER, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
It seems to me that the two sins mentioned here are the two fundamental sins of all humanity, from Adam and Eve down. The sins of meeting our needs in our own way, WHEN WE HAVE A BETTER WAY AVAILABLE TO US.
The irony is that we insist on drinking from our own broken cisterns even when they have clearly proven themselves to be UNABLE TO MEET OUR NEEDS; unable to quench our thirst.
People who struggle with sexual brokenness, whether it is the addiction to pornography, the addiction to anonymous sex, the need to have a sexual relationship with another man or woman, or whatever, will always, without exception, at first find themselves trying to meet their own needs in their own way. The emptiness within the workaholic or the chain-smoker, trying to gratify a hunger that rises up from within, is all the same. And when we have realised that we are sinning, we will try to work our way out of our sinfulness in every other way possible, before we come to the one true source of all quenching, of all stilling of hunger: the source of the LIVING WATER, Jesus Christ himself.
We will fragment ourselves, breaking small pieces off and tucking them away where not even we can see them, so that we can avoid contact with the living, the real. We will believe that if enough time passes, our sin will pass away and no longer plague us. But all that happens, is that we become numb, and then we are surprised to find ourselves no longer alive to the move of the spirit of God. We don't even recognise the tide of greyness which has engulfed us, because we have welcomed it as a mistaken and sinful way of dealing with our sin.
The Lord God has deliberately designed us, and the universe, that way. Sin begets sin.
The Lord says in Jeremiah 2:19 "Your WICKEDNESS will punish you; your BACKSLIDING will rebuke you. "Consider then and realise how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me," declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.
And here I come to the heart of what I feel the Lord wants me to tell you. This does not come directly from what I learnt at the Living Waters training course, but it underlies all the values they hold dear, because these values are fundamental to the way that God has designed reality.
In Exodus 34:12-16 the Lord says:
*
Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. DO NOT WORSHIP ANY OTHER GOD, FOR THE LORD, WHOSE NAME IS JEALOUS, IS A JEALOUS GOD. "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.
The Lord calls himself Jealous. The word is not only used an adjective, but he says his NAME is Jealous. The whole Living Waters course, being as it is based on the principles of reality as expressed on the Bible, is based on this fact. In his mercy, God has designed reality in a way that will always compel us to him. The Lord is not only jealous because he wants us for himself. He is also jealous for our well-being. He knows us. He made us to be like that. He is the highest good, and so unless we seek him out, we will perish for lack of sustenance. Our dependence on water, as biological beings that comprise of 75% of water, is a parable of this. We need water to survive. Without the Living Water obtained through coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the fountain of all life, we wither away.
The Word of God teaches that sin is like leaven. If there is any leaven in a piece of dough, it will contaminate the whole loaf. And the Lord often destroyed the sinful among his people, because they would contaminate the good. That is also the way of sin inside of us. The tide of greyness starts by dimming God's Technicolor reality first to pastel, which is slowly watered down until the colour is merely a memory, and then even that fades until we see the world through a grey haze of mediocrity which discolours our view of reality, and we find ourselves asking questions of God which can only lead to the answer that God is selfish and mean . No wonder that Joseph's brothers hated him so much. His whole life was a testimony to being alive to the reality of God, and pushing back the tide of greyness which threatened to engulf him at every moment. His coat was only and external manifestation of an internal state! No wonder the Lord calls us to be ruthless, "Break[ing] down the altars, smash[ing] the sacred stones and cut[ing] down the Asherah poles."
If we do not, we end up like the woman at the well, so blinded by our sinfulness that we cannot see that he is the water of life, the LIVING WATER
Confession is one of the secrets to maintaining our zeal for the Lord. Unconfessed sin slowly but inexorable dulls our spiritual sense to the point where we cannot even remember what it feels like to be so alive to the Lord that sin hurts us almost as much as it hurts him. The glorious abundance of the colour of first love slowly dulls and is replaced by the murky greyness of depression and hopelessness. Confessing sin enlivens us to the to the breath of the Lord. What was previously striving becomes power and light. [And the Lord created a perfect place for this to happen. Accountability to each other and so to him, creates the perfect arena to test our zeal for him, since we are humbled every time we seek out someone to whom we can commit our deepest shame.
James 5:15-17 reads:
*
15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16 THEREFORE CONFESS YOUR SINS TO EACH OTHER and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Confession to another Christian is important. It also allows God to demonstrate his love to us through the loving embrace and forgiveness that the brother or sister extends to us on his behalf, since they also know what it is to sin and be separated from the Father. Unconfessed sin denies the work of Christ on the cross, and so denies the power of redemption that is released through that work. It also denies the grace and forgiveness of God as expressed through Jesus, since our lack of confession robs him of the opportunity to confer upon us the glory of the robes of righteousness which rightfully only belong to his son Jesus. The Lord Expects us to be honest. He hates the pretence of righteousness more than honest unrighteousness. [Jer 3: 10 In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretence," declares the LORD. 11 The LORD said to me, "Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah.]
Only polluted water can flow from a broken cistern. Only the untrammeled resources of Christ can produce rivers of living water.
In John 7:37 Jesus says in a loud voice,
*
"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
In Galations 6:2 it says
*
6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently� And in verse 2 "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ."
As I said, one of the things which struck me most about the people that I met at the Living waters training course, was their zeal for the Lord, and his honour. God's honour is seldom challenged outright in the lives of Christians. Their zeal is leeched from them slowly and thoroughly by little choices, which are made every day, every moment. Do not be mislead, it is not only those of us who come out of the depths of sexual sin, that need to keep our slates clean to prevent us from falling again. If you and I, all of us weak in some area, do not remain accountable, we are slowly engulfed by a tide of greyness, which starts, at first only wetting our feet, and then creeping up to encircle our ankles, until we get used to the stench and are unaware that it begins to climb higher and higher, finally overtaking our heads. And we drown, no longer even remembering what the glorious Technicolor of God's variety and love were like.
It is up to us to push back the tide of mediocrity and sin which engulfs us.
If you feel like a slime ball in the face of all this, you do of course know that there is a place where the Lord has ordained for us to meet him, allowing him to pay for our sins; allowing him to remove the obstacles to our fellowship with him, the causes of his wrath. No longer is it necessary for us to perpetuate the sins of our fathers, to pay for their idolatry and disobedience. And no longer is it necessary for our children to suffer to the tenth generation for our sins. Here is the place of reconciliation. Here Jesus meets us to take over the load. Here we hand over the responsibility to him. Here we halt the engulfing power of the tide of greyness and unleash the power of love and unity with God. Sin begets sin. If we sow to sin we will reap sin. If we cherish it, it will destroy us.
The Lord says in Jeremiah 2:19:
Your WICKEDNESS will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realise how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me," declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.
So today I challenge you to bring to the Lord the sins which he is now raising in your minds; the dirt that is floating to the surface even as I speak If you have even the faintest inkling that there is something that you need to confess to the Lord in the presence of a trusted other, find some trusted Christian brother or sister, and ask them to pray with you now! The Lord has given us the authority to forgive sins. Use oil, and seal the work of forgiveness that has taken place in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
I urge you to embrace the opportunity of offering your sin to the Lord. I entreat you to see the deception behind trying to meet your needs in your own way. [Jer 3: 23 Surely the idolatrous commotion on the hills and mountains is a deception; surely in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.]
He is calling us to offer up to him our pet indulgences. He is calling us to smash the idols we have cherished in our hearts. What has promised to enrich us and fill our needs has stolen from us [Jer 3: 24 From our youth shameful gods have consumed the fruits of our fathers' labour-- their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters.] This is the time to begin the process of pushing the tide of greyness back whence it came.
Grey is not a shade of white. It is a shade of black. There is no shade of white except white. There is however one colour, and only one, that can lead to white. It is the colour red. It is the red of the blood of Christ shed for us on the cross. I urge you to set aside the qualms you have at such emotive language. This is the fabric of truth. This is the substance of the universe. If you believe that God is the ultimate good, you can see it only because he has shown it to you in spite of that which separates you from him. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that is bringing you to a place of new accountability to the Lord. If your life has been overcome by greyness and sameness for a long time now, this is for you. Now is the time!
By the grace of the Lord, unconfessed sin is even now surfacing. Do not heed the voice of the Father of all Greyness who cautions you against such extravagance. Here is the Cross. Here you can offer up that which has become your familiar partner for such a long time.
Nothing is too small. There is an incident from your childhood coming to your mind. It is insignificant, it seems, but it could be a portal through which greyness has seeped into your life, and the Lord is urging you now to close it.
There is a sin from your past, something which you have often confessed to the Lord in the privacy of your quiet time, but it still comes up for no apparent reason. Now is the time to come to Him to put an end to your indecision.
Now is the time.