Thought for July 12th. “THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS”

The Bible Channel - Discover the Bible. (By Christadelphianvideo.org)

“Living Waters”? They are the opposite to stagnant water, they are fresh and pure. This phrase symbolizes a mind fed by healthy godly ways of thinking. We have just started reading the prophet Jeremiah and so much which God causes him to write is appropriate for the world of the 21st Century. He was the prophet who had the difficult task of bringing messages of condemnation from God as the kingdom, established in its spiritual greatness under David and Solomon, was in its death throes.

God, speaking through the prophet says that they “defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination” [2 v.7] and, “the shepherds (spiritual leaders) transgressed against me … and went after things that do not profit.” [v.8] Interesting that word ‘profit’! These days we usually think of it in connection with money, but God looks to us to see what ‘spiritual profit’ we have gained; he goes on to say, “Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.” [v.11]

So Israel had given in to temptation and changed their worship to serve the “no gods” of the heathen nations because this was enjoyable in a fleshly way – so God tells Jeremiah “my people have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters” [v.13] The fountain is the source! As a result the nation was soon to experience disaster.

The days of Jesus were parallel, again the nation was facing disaster. So few heeded his words when he said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” [John 4 v.14] Their leaders were interested in the wrong kind of profit and disaster came on the nation.

But the message of the true “living waters” has been in the world ever since – and where would the world have been without the influence of the message of Christ? It has been like “salt” giving a measure of good flavour to life in the world! But now it has “lost its taste” and the warnings of God through Jeremiah are very appropriate today. As best we can, we must do our best to be “the salt of the earth” [Matt 5 v.13] in today’s world and drink from “the fountain of living waters” every day.