Sometimes, even when a pastor is as true to God’s Word as possible and has preached a number of sermons to the text that have elucidated the Truth, God’s Holy Spirit comes back to that same pastor and causes something new to be eliminated, something passed over in previous readings and study. Often, when I have experienced such revelation, the truth that God italicizes for me is something so obvious that I can’t begin to imagine how I missed it before. And such was my encounter with one of my favorite preaching texts as I grappled with what God was teaching me, this week.
Before we look specifically at the text, I want to share a story. There was a certain college student who attending school in a neighboring county would come home to “visit his parents” every weekend. But there was a certain girl living in that place and the college student would come home, drop his bag of dirty laundry in the kitchen, say his perfunctory greetings to his parents, and disappear to spend time with the certain girl. Certainly, the college student said all the right things to his parents about how he loved them and appreciated them, but he unwisely invested all of his time in a girl who would bring him almost nothing but heartbreak and disappointment. Though outward appearances to classmates might have suggested that the college student was “devoted” to his parents, reality suggests that the college student had almost “abandoned” them in his selfish desire to be with this girl.
Such was the horrible thing I did to my parents, a deed that came vividly home to me as I read the words, “BECAUSE my people have done TWO EVILS: [1] they abandoned ME, a fountain—one of living water [2] to hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns which are not able to hold water.” You see, I very quickly glossed over the fact of abandoning God, mentioning it briefly as rebellion, and advanced on to speak of God as the fountain of fresh water contrasted with the lime or chalk-tinged stagnant water of a cistern. I was right in what I preached, but I completely missed the incredible significance of that phrase, “They abandoned ME.”
Now, I am perfectly aware of how easy it was for a selfish college student driven by hormones and selfishness to be able to leave his human parents at home, but this week I have been hammered by the immensity of what it means to “abandon,” “forsake,” or “leave alone” the omnipresent God, God who is everywhere. How is that possible? It is ONLY possible if God allows us to leave, allows us to turn our back upon God Himself.
Yes, it is much like the parent playing “Hide and Seek” with a young child that hides herself under the blankets in the middle of mommy’s and daddy’s bed. She thinks she is hidden but the tell-tale lump is always present in the middle of that bed. The loving parent sets aside his or her adult ability to see and sift through the evidence of the child’s presence and allows that child to believe that she is hidden from the parent.
On a more serious scale with more serious consequences, God allows His people to play “Hide and Seek” with their actions. He allows us to delude ourselves into thinking that He can’t see us and that He is unaware of our rebellions and self-destructive behaviors.
But He is only able to do so because He is powerful enough to take the hurt, the pain, and the loneliness of being “abandoned.” How ironic! We who were created for the express purpose of having fellowship with God have a tendency to work incredibly hard at abandoning Him.
If we’re honest with ourselves, it’s as ridiculous to try to abandon God as that wonderful story Christian musician John Fischer told about his experience with the Bluetooth device. He noted that his phone, like my phone, is completely driven by the Bluetooth microphone and earphone whenever that device is turned on. So, the phone itself appears to be dead. You can’t speak in it and you can’t hear anything (except the initial ring tone) unless you use the Bluetooth. Fischer also, like me, said he keeps forgetting where he’s leaving that Bluetooth device and noted that it’s really caused some problems. A phone call would come in while the Bluetooth was activated and, since he couldn’t remember where he had put the Bluetooth, the only way to make the phone work was to get outside the range of the Bluetooth.
One day, he was anticipating an important phone call and his phone rang. He picked it up and couldn’t hear anything because the Bluetooth wasn’t handy. He decided to run down the street to get out of range and be able to use the standard features of the phone, but even a couple of blocks away, he still couldn’t get the phone to work. The Bluetooth was in his pocket and even though he tried to get out of range, it was still with him. Practically, we cannot abandon God. No matter how much we rebel or how far we run, He is with us.
BUT, there is a reality here to which I’ve failed to pay adequate attention. The Bible uses a separate pronoun for “me.” “They have abandoned ME.” The Hebrew usually attaches the pronoun to the verb as an ending, but when a Hebrew writer wants to emphasize the person behind the pronoun, there are separated pronouns that are used. What I had failed to consider was the emphasis on ME in that first phrase. Even though it is technically impossible to abandon an omnipresent God and even though it is practically impossible to forsake an omnipotent God unless God allows it, the verse stresses the fact that God’s people HAVE managed to abandon HIM.
So, when I rethink this verse in the light of what God’s people have done to HIM (and in particular, what WE as God’s people still keep doing to HIM), I keep coming back to those days of dumping my laundry in my mother’s kitchen. She had suffered for me to be born; she had put up with my bad habits combined with my irresponsibility and arrogance; she had struggled to keep the peace as I bristled at my father’s authority (and presumed that his formal education being more limited than mine meant that he knew less than I did); she had given up her car to accommodate my schedule and subsequent trip to college; and she had interceded for me in periods of need with both my father and secular employers. There was no way to avoid her love, but I left her at home while I went my merry and destructive way.
I have come to the conclusion that God allows Himself to be hurt. The One who is all-powerful chooses to let down His guard and let us “get to Him.” The One who could avoid all pain chooses to let us inflict it. We confess our sins like a sack of dirty laundry and still have a tendency to try to run off and leave Him so we can do what we want to do instead of what is best for us to do.
In that sense, the verse continues with the description of God as a fountain—a source of fresh water rather than a place of storing water. In the ancient world, of course, water is life (almost as severe as the issue was for the “Fremen” in Frank Herbert’s science-fiction novel, Dune, where the nomadic tribes developed special suits to transform their own perspiration and more back into potable drinking water). So, when God claims to be a source of fresh water, it is a powerful metaphor for the power of life. A fountain or spring of living (= fresh) water suggests an unlimited supply of life where the contrasting images of cisterns immediately reveal limitations.
Here then is the irony, God’s people have deserted the One who is always available. They have left a spring, a fountain, an oasis of life for a couple of inadequate substitutes. They have carved out cisterns. Now, before we get to the Lord’s coup de grace in this verse, let’s just take the time to consider the difference between a spring and a cistern. A spring or fountain provides living—that means MOVING—water. Moving water doesn’t have time to sit still and become stagnant. Moving water purifies itself. Moving water doesn’t have time to form a scum on the top.
In Palestine, there were two types of cisterns. One is dug in chalky soil and takes on some of the chalk characteristics in the water it retains. Another is hewn out of stone and has a limestone plaster that provides a “liner” for the pool. The bad news is that not only do both the chalk-style cistern and the limestone plaster cisterns provide stagnant water where bacteria can thrive, but they also add the chalky flavor and mineral flavor to the water—probably not good.
So, when God allows us to attempt the impossible and to abandon Him, it means that we substitute that which provides refreshment, satisfaction, and life for that which may offer a bit of necessary moisture, but mostly offers an unsavory taste and potential for disease. In short, sin doesn’t satisfy and, of course, the eventual outcome of sin is death. We substitute the death of insignificance, infidelity, irresponsibility, and more for the life of God’s fountain of fresh, safe, and healthy purpose, faithfulness, promise, and more.
Yet, the verse continues to a powerful finale. Eventually, these cisterns don’t even hold the green brackish water. The limestone plaster cracks in the desert sun, the water seeps out through the cracks, and all one has is an empty hole. Even when we’re willing to settle for the things in life that don’t quite taste right and aren’t safe for us, we lose those as well. God allows us to reach that point where we don’t even have the substitutes we’ve created for ourselves. We are left with merely our empty efforts, their inadequacy serving as a memorial to our inability to accomplish anything truly significant without God.
We who have had everything given to us as a free gift find ourselves working extra hard to create our own life while God waits nearby with a fresh spring of water/LIFE at our disposal. It is much like the scene described in that wonderful little Intervarsity Press tract, My Heart—Christ’s Home. The allegory has Jesus coming as a guest in the protagonist’s home. At first, everything is great. Eventually, however, the protagonist begins to spend more and more time away from his “heart home” and comes home to find Jesus sitting on the couch, looking sad and dejected. He suddenly realizes that he really hasn’t included Jesus in his whole life and begins to try to include Jesus in the hobby room, with his friends, and even cleans out the nasty rubbish hidden in the old closet. I didn’t like this part of the story when I first read it because I thought it made Jesus less than “God” to be unhappy because of something we humans would or wouldn’t do.
However, I’m sharing this passage with you today because I firmly believe that God, as Father as well as Son and Spirit, allows Himself to be affected by us. A thorough-going theology of omnipotence seems to have God’s attribute of being All-Powerful confused with the idea of God’s invincibility. We get this idea that God cannot be touched, cannot be hurt. Yet, the Bible tells us of times that God had regrets (Genesis 6:6) and grieved (Genesis 6:6, Psalm 78:40). To me, that says that God allowed Himself to be vulnerable, just as He allows Himself to be abandoned. He COULD stop both, but He WON’T. That’s where omnipotence steps in.
If you’re part of a big family, you probably remember those times when a little nephew would come up and slug his older uncles. The nephew’s mother probably chided him, but I can almost hear the uncle say, “No! That’s all right. The kid’s got to flex his muscles once in a while.” It’s good-natured horseplay, but once in a while, the kid surprises the uncle and actually hurts him. But does the uncle smack the kid back? No way! The uncle sucks it up and takes it. He loves the nephew and knows the nephew wasn’t hurting him on purpose. The nephew has no concept of how much he may or may not have hurt the uncle and might even break into tears himself if he knew what he’d really done.
In a similar way, I believe that God emphasized the phrase “They have abandoned me” to help me understand that my rebellious ways may be rationalized as “I can’t help myself” or “It was just a ‘little’ sin,” but our disobedience hurts him. It’s like some people ask me why an OMNISCIENT (All-Knowing) God needs to have us confess our sins to Him. God DOESN’T need us to confess our sins to Him. WE need to confess (literally means, “to say the same as, agree with“) so that we can see what we have done or failed to do from God’s perspective. I truly believe that if most of us understood how much our sinful rebellion hurts a Holy God, we wouldn’t sin so unconsciously. We would seek God’s help in conquering the sin problem.
We have committed two disgraceful actions. First, we tried to run away from God and all the great gifts of love he extended to us. Second, we substituted our imperfect efforts for His perfect gifts. In fact, they were broken efforts.
