Broken Cisterns

Jeremiah 2:9-13 NET
"So, once more I will state my case against you," says the LORD. "I will also state it against your children and grandchildren.
[10] Go west across the sea to the coasts of Cyprus and see. Send someone east to Kedar and have them look carefully. See if such a thing as this has ever happened:
[11] Has a nation ever changed its gods (even though they are not really gods at all)? But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, for a god that cannot help them at all!
[12] Be amazed at this, O heavens! Be shocked and utterly dumbfounded," says the LORD.
[13] "Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water."
 

Jeremiah 2:5 NLT
This is what the LORD says: "What did your ancestors find wrong with me that led them to stray so far from me? They worshiped worthless idols, only to become worthless themselves.  

Now he pleads with those who persisted in that vain conversation received by tradition from their fathers, and with their children's children, that is, with all that in every age tread in their steps.
Jeremiah 2:9 KJVS
Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord , and with your children's children will I plead. He pleads with us that we may plead with ourselves.   

EXAMPLE OF GOD PLEADING WITH US:
Isaiah 43:21-24 NLT
I have made Israel for myself, and they will someday honor me before the whole world.
[22] "But, dear family of Jacob, you refuse to ask for my help. You have grown tired of me, O Israel!
[23] You have not brought me sheep or goats for burnt offerings. You have not honored me with sacrifices, though I have not burdened and wearied you with requests for grain offerings and frankincense.
[24] You have not brought me fragrant calamus or pleased me with the fat from sacrifices. Instead, you have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with  your faults.

The King James Version with Strong's Concordance calls "faults" in verse 24 "iniquities."

THE ACCUSATIONS
Verses 10-11
1. SHE ACTED AGAINST COMMON PRACTICE BY FORSAKING THE TRUE FOUNTAIN. 
It was unprecedented in the history of the nations for a people ever to forsake the Gods of their inheritance.  Their neighbours were more firm and faithful to their false gods than they were to the true God. They were ambitious of being like the nations, and yet in this they were unlike them.
He challenges them to produce an instance of any nation that had changed their gods  or were apt to change them. Let them survey either the old records or the present state of 
a) the isles of Chittim, Greece, and the European islands, the countries that were more polite and learned, and
b) Kedar, that lay south-east (as the other north-west from them), which were more rude and barbarous. 

THEY would not find an instance of a nation that had changed their gods, though they had never done them any kindness, nor could do, for they were no gods.

The children of Israel are being invited to examine other cultures to discover that there is no sociological precedent for their massive defection. Even the people whose gods are impotent, who are no gods at all, still remain loyal to them. Yet here is Jerusalem, in possession of the one, true God, forsaking Him and going after emptiness.  
While we cannot praise the pagan nations for this we need to point out, to the reproach of Israel, and Christians, that they, who were the only people that had no cause to change their God, were yet the only people that had changed him.
The zeal and constancy of idolaters should shame Christians out of their coldness and inconstancy.  

2. SHE ACTED AGAINST THE DICTATES OF COMMON SENSE BY HEWING OUT HER OWN CISTERNS.
They not only changed, but that they changed for the worse, and made a bad bargain for themselves.

a). They parted from a God who was their glory, who made them truly glorious and every way put honour upon them, one whom they might with a humble confidence glory in as theirs, who is himself a glorious God and the glory of those whose God he is; he was particularly the glory of his people Israel, for his glory had often appeared on their tabernacle.
b). They closed with gods that could do them no good, gods that do not profit their worshippers. Idolaters change God's glory into shame (Rom. 1:23); in dishonouring him, they disgrace and disparage themselves, and are enemies to their own interest.  

PLEASE NOTE
Whatever those turn to who forsake God, it will never do them any good; it will flatter them and please them, but it cannot profit them. Heaven itself is here called upon to stand amazed at the sin and folly of these apostates from God (v. 12, 13):
Hence He called out: "Be astonished, O you heavens! at this."

Why would anyone take something of great value and deliberately exchange it for something worthless? It defies every law of common sense, so much so that the astonishment can only be felt in heaven because the earth has lost its mind (v. 12).
Jerusalem’s capacity to comprehend the loss was gone Those that forsook God worshipped the host of heaven, the sun, moon, and stars; but these, instead of being pleased with the adorations that were paid to them, were astonished and horribly afraid.  

NOTE ALSO:
Hewing cisterns of their own is, of course, an aggravation of the original offence; it means the setting up of a rival to God in the allegiance of our heart and life, and for that reason constitutes nothing less than an insult to the majesty of Heaven.  
The meaning is that the conduct of this people towards God was such we should
1)  be astonished and wonder that supposedly reasonable men, should do a thing so very absurd.
2) have a holy indignation at such impiety and affrontry to our Maker, whose honour we should guard jealously.
3) tremble to think of the consequences to follow. What will be in the end of this action?    

FIRST, they had forsaken God, the fountain of living waters.
Spoken to a people in a semi-arid land, these words would have had a particular intensity. A water source was a matter of survival. An underground fountain was a rare treasure, gurgling bountifully from secret springs that refreshed the weary.
It makes no sense to forsake such satisfaction, such a link to life itself. No one parched by the desert sun would have given a moment’s consideration to such insanity.
Yet this was exactly what Jerusalem had done. Furthermore she had compounded that insanity with another.  

In relevance to us today,  God is our sufficiency and to deny this is to forsake Him. He has been our bountiful benefactor, being an overflowing, everflowing fountain of living waters. When we deny Him, we withhold the gratitude and love and praise due Him.  

Types of Cisterns: Pleasure,  wealth,  fame and human love. All these can never satisfy the soul that rests in them alone-- all these, made at infinite cost of time and pains, deceive and disappoint. In the expressive words of Jeremiah, they are “broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” And in the time of trouble they will not be able to save those that have constructed and trusted them.  

SECOND, they have hewn cisterns of their own making. Tanks out of hard rock and earth, without feeding springs, were unable even to retain what little water might flow into them because they were broken or have false bottoms. When they went there to quench their thirst or for refreshing, they found only mud mire because the earth drank up all the water they thought they gathered.

BEWARE broken cisterns can also be false teachers as spoken of by the Apostles, Peter and Jude.
2 Peter 2:17 CEV
These people are like dried up water holes and clouds blown by a windstorm.

The darkest part of hell is waiting for them. A broken cistern cracks and cleaves in hot weather, so that the water is lost when we have most need of it. Judah had given up everything and had gone after nothing. She cheated herself. The loss was poignant and all pervasive. There was nothing now to quench her thirst but mire and filthy sediment. How totally without logic has been her course of action!  

NOTE FURTHER: DIFFERENCES B/W FOUNTAIN AND CISTERNS
Apart from this root iniquity, however, there are fundamental differences between the cisterns and the Fountain which may serve to illustrate the evil of substituting the one for the other.

1.  To begin with, the Fountain is one, while the cisterns are many. There is one living and true God, but there are many false gods. There is no need for more than a single Fountain, because its living waters are sufficient to meet all the needs of humanity.   But the cisterns need to be multiplied, because none of them is deep enough to answer the call which rises from that other deep of a human personality. The unity of the Godhead is an evidence of its absolute perfection. The variety of the world’s idols is an equally convincing proof of their inadequacy. The devotees of mammon worship at many shrines, and the lovers of pleasure serve innumerable masters. Not all the cisterns in the world can take the place of the living Fountain; not all the rivals of God in the allegiance of  

2.   For another thing, the Fountain is always open, but the cisterns must be hewed out. The everlasting God is “not far off from every one of us.” The bounties of His Providence are lavished upon men with impartial kindness, and the blessings of His salvation are equally free to all who are willing to become debtors to His grace.
But the efforts of men to find a substitute for God involve ceaseless toil and an endless quest.   All this means sweat of brow and weariness of brain; but, alas, it is labour in vain, for even when the gods of men’s creation stand upright as the palm tree, they “speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go!” And this is but a figure of the toil and the weariness of a godless life. The world is a hard taskmaster, and pleasure is an insatiable exactor.
The pursuit of earthly success, the scramble for position, the race for wealth, with all the competition and rivalry, “the weariness, the fever, and the fret”which these involve, are in truth a particularly debasing form of slavery.
The builder of the cisterns is doomed to a life of ceaseless hewing; his hammer and chisel can never be long out of his hand. It would not be difficult to prove that an upright life takes less toll of mind and body than the efforts required of a man who has a distaste for honest work and seeks to live by his wits.  

3.   Once more, the Fountain is always full, while the cisterns can hold no water. The workmanship of the God-forsaking hewer is defective. His efforts at the best can produce only a broken cistern, a cracked and leaking tank, which cannot serve its intended purpose, and therefore renders all his labour of no avail. He may pour water continually into it, but as continually it runs out again, and the cistern is left empty. This is an element in the prophet’s figure which points to the folly of the irreligious life.
The guilt involved in hewing out the cisterns is accentuated by the futility of the procedure. It is not only an evil but a bitter thing to forsake the living God. This is a fact which is amply verified in human experience. A man hews out some kind of cistern for himself with much toil and care. He expects it to provide him with a constant supply of water, and for that reason to be a source of unfailing satisfaction to his heart. But he is doomed to disappointment, for sooner or later he finds that he has been putting his trust in a broken cistern.
“Thou fool”was the description applied by Christ to the man who thought that he could supply the needs of his soul from the contents of his barn. Material possessions are a sorry provision for heart hunger. Earthly success cannot secure real happiness: “the dream of the reality” is often better than “the reality of the dream.” Pleasure affords no balm for a wounded spirit. “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.”  

EPITOME OF SUCH A LIFE: THE PRODIGAL SON
THE young man who forsook the living Fountain by turning his back on the love and happiness and ordered freedom of his Father’s house, and “went into a far country.” His attempt to find satisfaction in the broken cisterns of this new land turns out a tragic failure. Before long his resources are exhausted, and the last cistern to which he turns is a swine-trough.
There we find him –and through the grace of God he finds himself –a broken, lonely figure, sunk low in degradation and shame, and dying of hunger.
Well was it for him that in that hour of bitter disillusionment he thought of the home he had so arrogantly forsaken, and said, “I will arise and go to my Father.”  

And although even the cisterns of legitimate human satisfaction often become empty, the Fountain of Divine comfort never fails.
Earthly joys are proverbially transient; friends sometimes disappoint us when we need them most; loved ones are removed from our side when we least expect it; and, as the years go by, we are increasingly conscious that the roots of our life in this world are being pulled up.
But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever, and His consolations are not as waters that fail. In the hour of trouble He draws near us in loving-kindness and He whispers “Fear not.”  

4.   Finally, the water of the Fountain is pure and life-giving: the water of the cisterns is foul and poisonous. A drink from the one means life everlasting: a drink from the other is a “mortal taste”which brings death into the soul and many a woe. Let us hear Thomson’s vigorous description, in The Land and the Book, of the broken cisterns which he actually saw in Palestine:
“The best cisterns, even those in solid rock, are strangely liable to crack, and are a most unreliable source of supply of that absolutely indispensable article, water; and if, by constant care, they are made to hold, yet the water, collected from clay roofs or from marly soil, has the colour of weak soap-suds, the taste of the earth or the stable, is full of worms, and in the hour of greatest need it utterly fails. Who but a fool positive, or one gone mad in love of filth, would exchange the sweet, wholesome stream of a living fountain for such an uncertain mixture of nastiness and vermin?”
But in the spiritual domain there are multitudes who are so “mad in love of filth” that they prefer the draughts of  “nastiness” to the wholesome waters of the Fountain. Familiarity with the taste of the earth and the stable soon creates a depraved appetite, so that pure water seems insipid in comparison with those more strongly flavoured mixtures.  

REMEDIES:
1.   Let us cleave to the Lord only and join with the apostles in John 6:68-69 NKJV But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. [69] Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
2.   Let us recall the ringing proclamation of Christ “on the last day of the Feast” in Jerusalem, when He stood and cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.”
In these arresting words He declares that He Himself is the Fountain of Life.
In Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead.
To Him belong all the resources of power, all the riches of grace, and all  the depths of compassion which belong to God, for the Father hath given all things into His hand. In Him the thirsty soul finds satisfaction for all its needs –pardon for guilt, cleansing for defilement, power for impotence, and comfort for loneliness and dejection.  
When we come unto Him in faith we are not only forgiven for our past iniquities, but are so healed and renewed in our whole being that we ourselves become a spring of blessing to others. Out of the believer’s heart “shall flow rivers of living water.”  
The man who drinks at the Fountain of Life not only attains to personal satisfaction of soul, but becomes himself a living spring, from which others derive quickening and refreshment.
3. Revelation 2:5 KJVS
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.  
Forsake the alliances and idolatries which have alienated you from your best Friend.   Open your heart, that he may create in you the fountain of living water, leaping up to eternal life. .·. . .
4. Revelation 22:17 KJVS
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

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