RE-DIGGING OUR WELLS
INTRO Life is dependent on water. You can’t grow anything without water. When the water goes, the harvest goes. If you drive through Pecos, Texas, you will see old motors rusting on decaying stands next to concrete ditches filled with dirt instead of water. At one time, Pecos melons were famous the world over. Then the water ran out, or more specifically, the money to pump the water ran out. The water was there, but it cost too much money to pump it out. The farms could not make a profit.
Growing up on a farm, I saw first-hand how water wells made things grow. My dad went from dry-land farming, where one harvest every ten years was normal, to irrigated land where harvests annually were 600% greater than land with no water.
Israel is a desert region. Water is at a premium and wells are valuable. They not only give life, but are used as markers of boundaries and tokens of covenants and treaties.
Isaac’s life is marked by wells. He re-dug some; he dug fresh ones; he gave some away. Each stage of his life is marked by a well. So it is with us.
Galatians 4:28 (NKJV) Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. PRAYER
TEXT Genesis 26:17–18 (NKJV) Then Isaac departed from there and pitched his tent in the Valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. 18 And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. He called them by the names which his father had called them
INSTRUCTION Abraham had dug wells all through Canaan. His enemies, the Philistines, had made them unusable by fouling them with sand. Isaac dig out the wells so that the water could flow again.
This story contains a strong spiritual application. Jesus said our lives would be like flowing water wells.
John 4:13–14 (NKJV) Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain (well) of water springing up into everlasting life.”
God has provided us a string of wells to water our lives to produce fruit. What are some of these wells?
First, there is the well of salvation.
Isaiah 12:3 (NKJV) Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
Second, there is the well of satisfaction.
John 6:35 (NKJV) And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
Third, there is the well of the Spirit.
John 7:37–39 (NKJV) On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit...
The problem is that we allow our wells to get full of junk. The water is stopped.
Jeremiah 2:13 (NKJV) For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.
How do the wells get fouled?
First, we forsake the Lord.
We don’t have to get involved in deep sin to stop the flow, we just have to neglect the necessary things.
1. A consistent time with God.
2. Meditating on the Word.
3. Letting sin build up.
4. Quit serving.
5. Stop sharing.
Second, we replace God with broken things.
1. Our own efforts.
Colossians 2:20–23 (NKJV) Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” 22 which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
2. Things of the world.
1 John 2:15–17 (NKJV) Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
3. Temporal pursuits.
2 Corinthians 4:18 (NKJV) while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Notice the Bible says they replaced a fountain with a cistern. Now, I have drank from an artesian well. It was cool and refreshing. I know about cisterns too. My grandma and grandpa had a cistern in the middle of their living room. We never drank out of it because it was full of dirty water and was stinky!
That is what some believers do. We trade the fresh and cool artesian water of the Spirit for the stinky cistern of the world!
How do we get the water well flowing again? We have to dig it out.
ILLUSTRATION Last week, I was visiting with a friend who said that many of the wells in the panhandle had gone dry. The huge underground aquifer that fed 10 inch wells were now so dry they can’t even grow corn anymore.
Yesterday, I spoke with another farmer from that area and I asked him about dry wells. He said it was a problem. I told him I was preaching on wells and he told me a story.
We had an abandoned well on a place. We decided to drop a camera down it to see what shape the hole was in and if the casing was good or not. The 16 inch casing had some damage, but the video showed that there seemed to be about 40 foot of water in the hole. We had a bailer come and bail out the hole, but he was only able to clean out about 10 foot before he hit bottom. So we had the spudders come in and bust out that hole and got another fifteen foot. The bailer then came back and bailed for a day on it and got it cleaned out. Now we’ll go in there and put a new pump in an 8 inch casing. It should produce at least 75 gallons a minute for us.
This was all worth it, if it will help get us just a little bit more water so we can still grow a little bit of corn on that place.
APPLICATION What was the process?
1. Analyze the problem.
2. Remove the dirt.
3. Break up the hard ground.
4. Get down to the bottom.
5. Put in new protections.
The process was hard and costly, but will yield a harvest.
Hebrews 12:11 (NKJV) Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
INSPIRATION Recently, I got a text from my spiritual father. He said…
Are you behaving yourself? Thus saith the Lord: “Come, come back with me and re-dig the old wells of yesterday. Things that you have forgotten that you know.
Remember when it flowed like a river? You miss that, don't you. Only I can reconnect all of that for you. I will give it to you; I will give it to you!
MINISTRY TIME Where are the broken wells in your life? Where do you long to feel the Lord moving as He once did?
Take me back,
Take me back, dear Lord,
To the place where I first received You.
Take me back,
Take me back, dear Lord,
Where I first believed.
(Andrae Crouch: Take Me Back)
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