Drinking From Mud Puddles

ARE WE DRINKING FROM MUD PUDDLES?

By Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. Kyfingers@aol.com (YouTube: Wade Hughes)

*MUD: a slimy, sticky mixture of earth and water. Mixture of clay and water.

*PUDDLE: a small pool, amount of water on the ground, usually dirty.

MANY SEEM TO BE DRINKING FROM MUDDY SPRINGS.

Proverbs 25:26 A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring. Proverbs 25:26 (MSG) A good person who gives in to a bad person is a muddied spring, a polluted well. Proverbs 25:26 (NLT2) If the godly give in to the wicked, it’s like polluting a fountain or muddying a spring.

I really understand this verse from personal experience. When I was in the 7th and 8th grades my dad pastored in OLIVER SPRINGS, TENNESSEE. My brother was a year older than I was. Dad would allow us to “go exploring” in the hills behind our house. It would be hot spring and summer time. We would climb the hills. We would get very thirsty. There were springs all over the hill sides. I would run ahead of Charles and get a drink of the cool, pure water. It was so good. Before my brother got there, I would drink what I wanted and I would take my hand and stir of the water. The mud and sediments in the bottom of the spring would make a muddy mess. Charles could not drink the muddy water and he would get so mad at me….

I ALSO UNDERSTAND JEREMIAH’S WRITING FROM EXPERIENCE. Drinking from mud puddles.

My Dad pastored in Clermont County, Ohio. We lived in a parsonage behind the church. The church was out in the country. There was no water lines. The church had built a cistern behind the church. Twice a year I was “chosen” (Because of my size) to go go down in the cistern and wash the sides and bottom of the cistern. I hated every minute of it. Then I hated drinking the water. We liked fresh cool waters that came from deep wells.

Jeremiah 2:13 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.

Jeremiah 2:13 (MSG) "My people have committed a compound sin: they've walked out on me, the fountain Of fresh flowing waters, and then dug cisterns— cisterns that leak, cisterns that are no better than sieves.

Jeremiah 2:13 (NLT2) “For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me— the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!

My Dad pastored in Clermont County, Ohio. We lived in a parsonage behind the church. The church was out in the country. There was no water lines. The church had built a cistern behind the church. Twice a year I was “chosen” (Because of my size) to go down in the cistern and wash the sides and bottom of the cistern. I hated every minute of it. Then I hated drinking the water. We liked fresh cool waters that came from deep wells.

I never realized someday my experience would help me illustrate a sermon?

WE HAVE A CHOICE: 1. LIVING WATERS VS. CISTERNS… BROKEN CISTERNS… broken cisterns will leak and go dry.

THE JORDAN RIVER IS OFTEN A MUDDY RIVER… I THOUGHT CAN KILL YOUR MIRACLE… MUDDY RIVER: HOW DARE THAT DUMB PREACHER TELL ME GO TO THE MUD? MUD PUDDLES? MUD IN THE BIBLE IS VERY SYMBOLIC… DUST? MUD? SYMBOL OF THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. SACRED.

Mud is something amazing… GOD BRINGS LIFE FROM NATURE… MUD IS THE SACRED FOUND IN THE ORDINARY DAILY LIFE. Mud speaks of the obedience to the creation/re-creation.

2 Kings 5:10 And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. 11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.

NAAMAN IN A RAGE, TEMPER FITS ARE OFTEN AN ATTEMPT TO MANIPULATE THE CIRCUMSTANCE. The act was not the mud, but the obedience to the MAN OF GOD! NAAMAN YOU MUST HUMBLE YOURSELF TO THE MUD.

WHY ARGUE:WHO SINNED? WHY MUD? WHY THE POOL OF SILOAM? SILOAM MEANS SENT! ARE WE LOOKING FOR MAGIC WATER? A MAGIC PORTION?

John 9:4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.