Living Water vs Cisterns

When I was around 11 or 12 years old, my parents decided it was time to move from the Northeastern part of the state back to the area where my dad had grown up in the southeastern part. We had been living next to my grandmother and grandfather, on my mother’s side.  In fact, we were close enough that we used their well for household water.

We didn’t move directly into the area that my dad was raised in, at first; but in a little town about 10 miles away.  I hated living there. What I remember is the kids at school were rough around the edges and mean, which reinforced my grandmother’s take on the whole moving thing.  But that’s a whole different story for another day.  Today I want to talk about water and water sources.

The house we rented outside of this little town had a covered lean-to on the side of it and a cistern.  Never having been around a cistern  nor even knowing what a one was, it made quite an impression on me.  It was to catch and store rainwater for our household use.  The only problem was that it was a dry cistern, no water, and there was no other water source on the property so we had to haul municipal treated water from somewhere else for our use. That was a lot different from having water readily available from my grandparents’ well.

My dad acquired several large metal milk cans in which we hauled our water.  I’m fairly certain that the cistern was cracked, but it might just have been during a dry time of no rainfall.  I can’t remember the gutter system that led the rainwater from the house rooftop to the cistern but I was fascinated by that big concrete cistern and the whole idea behind it. Even though it was  fascinating to a child, the cistern did not provide any much needed water.

It was also strange to me that the house didn’t have a well. My grandfather  was supposedly good at using a  forked willow branch to tell people where to drill their well and he would even tell them how deep the water was. As a child, it seemed that everyone should have a well if they needed one. Why would you build a house without a water source? Folks from around the countryside  would come to my grandfather to have him tell them where to drill a well. The family never considered that it was something bad but  I’ve since read that is called “dowsing” and is a form of divination, consequently not approved of by GOD. I haven’t done my research on that, so I’ll hold off on it until I dig around in GOD’s Word on the matter.

waterWe only lived in that house for a couple of months and then we moved into the area where dad had grown up.  The house we moved into was a simple small home built by my Uncle.  It was not completely finished.  One of the most important things it lacked was again a water source!  So here we were once again hauling water.  It was totally different this time though.  We lived near a wonderful creek with a swimming hole,  and on the bank of that creek was a flowing artesian well. The story was that a company had been drilling for oil but instead of hitting oil, they hit a large deep underground water stream.

Someone had cut the ends out of a barrel and inserted into the mouth of the artesian well to prevent dirt or rocks from falling into it.  The water was cold, sweet, pure, and so satisfying to a thirsty soul.  The water came gushing out of that well 24 hours a day.  It was a forceful fountain bringing up water from deep beneath the earth’s surface. It was free and very close to the house that we had moved into.   Needless to say, we got our water from that artesian well. In fact, it was so good that it took Dad a few years to decide to drill a well at home. I’m sure that others got their water from this well, especially since it had been reinforced with the barrel.

I was recently studying the use of the words “Living Water” in the Bible.  The Bible talks about cisterns, living water, and The Fountain of Living Water. The scripture that mentioned cisterns is what got me to thinking about that cistern that was part of the house we had rented when I was a child.

 Jeremiah 2:13 NASB says:

“For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, The fountain of living waters, To carve out for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That do not hold water.”

Jeremiah_17:13  NASB

“LORD, the hope of Israel, All who abandon You will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, that is the LORD.”

And then when YESHUA came bringing the Gospel of The Kingdom and the words of The Father, His encounter and conversation  with the woman by the Jacob’s well at the Samaritan town of Sychar, Samaria is the most often quoted scripture about Living Water, from John 4.

A woman of Samaria *came to draw water. Jesus *said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away to the city to buy food. So the Samaritan woman *said to Him, “How is it that You, though You are a Jew, are asking me for a drink, though I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus replied to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 She *said to Him, “[c]Sir, You have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do You get this living water? 12 You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well and drank of it himself, and his sons and his cattle?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”

Yeshua ended up staying in Sychar for two days and many of the people believed in him.  The above scripture indicates that the living water reference indicates something that the people of Sychar could receive during that visit but in the gospel of  John, chapter 7, verses 38 and 39 it references The Holy Spirit that those who believe would be given.  It was not given at that time because Yeshua/Jesus had not been glorified yet.

In John 7, his brothers were going into Jerusalem for the seven day Sukkot celebration. The celebration is also referred to as The Feast of Booths or Feast of Tabernacles. His brothers wanted Jesus to go also and He did, but a little later than they did.  He went to the feast “as though in secret” and during the middle of the feast went to the temple to teach.

Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near. So His brothers said to Him, “Move on from here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. For no one does anything in secret [a]when he himself is striving to be known publicly. If You are doing these things, show Yourself to the world.” For not even His brothers believed in Him. So Jesus *said to them, “My time is not yet here, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify about it, that its deeds are evil. Go up to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to this feast, because My time has not yet fully arrived.” Now having said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee.10 But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He Himself also went up, not publicly, but as though in secret. ….

37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, [h]let him come to Me and drink. 38 The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘[i]From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 But this He said in reference to the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

There’s quite a contrast between cisterns as a source of water and living water!  Whether you’re looking at the physical world uses and descriptions or the Kingdom of God analogies!  Not only were cisterns used as a place to store water in the Old Testament but ended up being used even as a place to throw and bury dead bodies in Jeremiah 41.

In the scriptures above cisterns can be analogous to worshiping idols; looking to idols for our source of life as compared to looking to GOD The Father and His Son Yeshua as THE true source of real life! Whether you are talking about living water as salvation, the words of Yeshua, or The Holy Spirit, GOD is The Fountain of Living Water!

Without water, we die whether we’re talking physical life or eternal life. We need the Living Water that Yeshua talked about and promised. Note the “living” part of Living Water.  We also need to be careful that we’re not substituting water that brings death for Living Water. Remember that in Jeremiah 2, the people had committed 2 evils. One is that they abandoned GOD who is the fountain of living water and two, they carved out cisterns that wouldn’t even hold water to replace the fountain of living water.  That even speaks to carving out a life that we think we can fit GOD into instead of fitting our life into Him! It won’t hold water!

When you combine the difference references to Living Water in The Bible, it is described as a river or springs coming from the fountain. That fountain being GOD.  We need that water from the fountain every minute, no other water will do!

Till next time,

It’s a heart matter.

 

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