"The Trouble with Cracked Cisterns"

  

"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."

 

            Our theme of "Reconnecting with God" implies that there was a time of disconnecting. We began with the call of Jeremiah in chapter 1. The words that described his call as a prophet can also be used to describe God's relationship with his people. Here is the description of a connected people: "I formed you, I knew you, I set you apart, and I appointed you."

            Now listen to the language of a disconnected people found in chapter 2: "find fault with me, strayed far from me, followed worthless idols, became worthless, defiled my land, rebelled against me, prophesied by Baal, exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols, and forsaken me." Finally the Lord says, "They have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

            The cistern image comes from the practice of landowners who did not have a flowing spring of water on their land, and would then dig a cistern in the limestone hills to collect water. They would plaster the inside to keep the container sealed. But the limestone cisterns would inevitably develop cracks and the water would seep out.

            So, what is the problem with cracked cisterns? That is easy to answer: they don't hold water. If we look at other words from the "disconnect" list, we also see obvious problems. The problem with straying from God is that you get lost. The problem with following worthless idols is that you become worthless. The problem with forsaking God is that you forget where to find living water.

            We have a sin problem in our lives in that we disconnect from God, we lose faith, we wander, and we rebel. It is a common problem. We all go through disconnected times. Dallas Willard in his book "The Divine Conspiracy" says that in our current church culture we are experiencing a loss of discipleship and obedience to Christ. We say "I have been forgiven by Christ so I am going to heaven and so I can live any way I want." We follow the ways of the world and become disconnected from Christ. We adapt ourselves to what is around us.

            Jeremiah speaks to the people of Judah, people who had become disconnected from God, and yet they were not aware of their condition. Their movement to becoming disconnected from God began with their concern for personal safety. J.A. Thompson writes, "Judah, in grave political peril from Assyria, broke covenant with God and entered into forbidden alliances with neighboring nations and with pagan deities." Rather than trusting God, they looked for ways to ensure their safety and trusted in armies and idols to protect them. They were acting out of fear. How different it was when Israel left the slavery of Egypt and ventured into the wilderness, fully trusting God to lead them. Thompson calls the wilderness "an open area that had never been tilled. This was in contrast to Egypt with all its abundant crops."

            Last week, Kathy and I were in a village in Alaska that has for generations lived a subsistence lifestyle in the wilderness. As a hunting, fishing and gathering culture, they have learned how the wilderness can provide all they need. This is in contrast to our roots which are in agricultural society. We like to be on the farm where we can look at the crops while they are growing. We can see the provision of God long before the harvest. But in the wilderness you really don't see what is there. You must hunt for it, look intently for it.

            In our spiritual lives we go through wilderness times, when we cannot see the provision of God. But it is there. We are called to live by faith, like Israel in the wilderness, traveling over an open, untilled landscape. This is where we can give way to fear. We want answers, concrete assurances. We want to see the crops growing before the harvest. We want to see the answers to our prayers before we actually receive them. We want to know how our missions ventures will turn out before we begin. We so highly value personal safety that we pull back on the risk of faith.

How do we move beyond our fear and our desire for safety to truly trust the Lord? For Israel the answer was for them to remember the faithfulness of the Lord. They should have told the story of his deliverance and sung the songs they sang when crossing the Red Sea or entering the Promised Land. When our fear threatens our faith, we need to remember. We need to give testimony to the faithfulness of God. We need to read the Word of God daily. We need to sing of God's love and power.

In the village of Noatak, we went to a song service where for about an hour one person or group after the next got up and gave testimony to what the Lord had done in their lives and then sang a song of the Lord's faithfulness. It was good to hear the hunters and fishers singing of God who provides, of living a life of faith in the wilderness.

What happened in Israel is that their reliance on God gradually shifted to a reliance on the temple and its ritual. They began to think that the temple and its sacrifices would always be there for them, and so they thought, it does not really matter how we live. They lived by the values of the nations and yet kept the outward forms and language of faith. But they had forgotten the true meaning of sacrifice. They forgot how to give an offering that truly cost them something. Such offering of life was replaced by religious observance that was convenient, more a matter of habit than heart, and presumed on God to forgive and even accept their immoralities and unbelief. They were living at a distance from God. They believed in God and yet did not really trust God with their lives. So they lived dual lives. They lacked an internal honesty about where their heart really was.

The answer to such disconnecting behavior is to wait on God, to seek the Lord. Verse 6: "They did not ask, 'Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of Egypt?' " The sense here is not, "Where is God? Why doesn't it feel like he is near me?" Rather, seeking the Lord means asking, "Where is God so I can go to be near Him?" It means finding God's will, God's heart and then making changes in your life to actually follow the Lord, obey him, and be where he is. What is it that breaks God's heart? That will be my concern. Who does God love? That is who I will love. What does God's word say about his will and mission on the earth? That is what I will do.

So remaining connected to God is a matter of constantly making adjustments to our living, changing course to stay in God's will. In Alaska we flew a few times in a very small plane, and that is fun on a clear day. But on our return we were in the rain and low clouds and you can't see where you are, and neither can the pilot. So I watched him and he was continually making slight adjustments as he followed the instruments. Then, when we came down out of the clouds, we were right in line with the runway and able to make a perfect landing. We were in the right place because he had been making adjustments all along.

In contrast to that was the talkative young bear hunter we met on the plane to Anchorage. He had been with some friends on the river close to where we were, and he admitted the provisions they brought were mostly a case of beer. After a day of searching in the woods for bear they tried to return to their boat, but missed where it was on the river by about half a mile. Then they made things worse by searching in the wrong direction for several miles, until they had to stop because of darkness. They spent a cold night up in the trees, feeling much more like the hunted rather than the hunters.

We should be continually making adjustments in our attitudes, our behaviors, and our service to God throughout our lives; so that when we come to the end we will be found to be at the right spot. Jeremiah warns that disconnected people can end up following the wrong God and live their lives for an empty cause. Thompson writes, "Israel, who had available the full resources of their God, the spring of living water, turned aside to worthless substitutes, to trust themselves to powerless deities which, in the end, could not meet their deep spiritual needs."

Guard your life from disconnected living. Seek the Lord. Respond to his invitation. See life from his perspective. Do his will. Trust the Lord with your life. The other week we ended our service by singing, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace."

Amen.