The Truth About Every God-Alternative (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

Children's Lesson (click here)

I. What is a Cistern?

A cistern is a large, man-made receptacle designed for storing water, typically rainwater. Most ancient cisterns were located underground, often hewn from the bedrock below a village or a palace. The key to making a cistern like this work was applying clay or plaster to the floor (and to the walls if they were not stone), so that water would not simply... seep into the ground. The largest cistern in the world is the Basilica Cistern, located in Istanbul. It dates from the 6^th century AD, and can hold 100,000 tons of water. At Tel Hazor in Israel, a large cistern was found that dates from the time of King Ahab in the 9^th century BC. As you can imagine, for places without reliable water sources, a cistern could mean the difference between life and death.

II. The Passage: “Broken Cisterns That Can Hold No Water” (2:12-13)

Turn, if you would, to the book of Jeremiah in the OT. After making your way over to Jeremiah 2, look with me at how, through the prophet, God uses that very same object, a cistern, to paint for those first listeners (and for us) an incredibly sobering picture; an image meant to communicate both the danger of sin and the goodness of God. This is what we read in 2:12-13..

Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, [13] for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Okay. Notice that verse 13 presents two things for our consideration: it presents God, as well as a God-alternative. Do you see that? God is represented here as a “fountain”, and the God-alternative is represented as a cistern. What exactly is a God-alternative? It's anything other than God to which we look for what only God can provide. In the case of the imagery used here in verse 13, water represents what we desperately need. Why water? Because water is life-giving and live-sustaining. You can plow a desert field, and even throw down seed. But without water, life will not appear, and life will not flourish.

As God's people today, listening to these words (words to his people then), our desire should be to fully appreciate what is being communicated in this passage, that we might hear God's message word for us; for as we know,

...whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)

So in order to fully appreciate these verses, I'd like us to consider together three questions that I believe are inspired by this passage. Here's the first of those questions...

How is God like a “fountain of living waters”? Well, the short answer is simple: God is life-giving and life-sustaining. The language here can help us unpack that a bit. In Hebrew this phrase “living waters” is found in ten or eleven others OT verses. But in many of these verses, the word “living” is translated as “fresh” or “spring” or “flowing”. The water from a spring was considered to be far better, far purer, than well water or water collected in a cistern. We still believe this, don't we? Just consider how many water bottle labels use this same imagery.

In addition to the language used, consider the context as well. The significance of that imagery is clear from God's indictment in verses 6 and 7. Look back at the prophet's words:

“[In their time of need, God's people] ...did not say, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through, where no man dwells?’ [7] And I [declares Yahweh] brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.”

How is God like a “fountain of living waters”? He always, always, always desires life for us. He wants us to receive the life only he can give. He wants us to be sustained by the life only he can give. He guides his people in order to protect and preserve that life, and he lavishes his people in order to feed and fill them with that life. He's not simply the desert spring that refreshes or saves the lost traveler who was dying of thirst. He's also the ever-flowing spring that enables that man or woman to farm and bathe and swim. What a beautiful picture of God's goodness!

A second question: Why are God-alternatives compared to a cistern? As we see from verse 13, the comparison here is not simply fresh, flowing, living water versus rainwater collected in a cistern. God-alternatives are compared here to a broken cistern; a cistern in which the clay or plaster sealant on the floor has not been maintained; a floor now full of cracks. And of course, if you have a broken cistern, then you won't have any water (since all of it simply runs though those cracks and seeps into the ground). In such cases the only thing you're often left with is mud. This is exactly what we find in Jeremiah 38, when the prophet's enemies turn an empty cistern into a holding cell. Using ropes, they lowered Jeremiah into this cistern. And as it says in 38:6, “there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.”

So what exactly were these God-alternatives... to which the people of Judah were turning? Jeremiah 1:16 answers that question for us. These are God's words through the prophet...

And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.

This is why in 2:11, God asks this shocking question: “Has a nation [i.e., any other nation; any foreign nation] changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.” Or as He expresses that last point in verse 5, this people “went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless”.

Brothers and sisters, please don't miss the simple but sobering truth contained in verse 13. Are you ready for it. Here it is: every God-alternative is a broken cistern. And broken cisterns are always empty. (2x) “...that which does not profit”; that which is “worthless”.

Friends, a third and final question: Are you appalled by what God reveals here? We should be, right? That's exactly what God communicates in verse 12. Listen to that verse again, as I read it from several different translations: “Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the LORD.” (NIV) “Be horrified, O heavens, at this! Let your hair bristle! Be absolutely amazed!” (Word Biblical Commentary) “The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay,” says the LORD. (NLT) God speaks here to the heavens, since creation itself is a witness to the appalling, to the shocking, to the horrifying actions of God's own people; of those who belong to Him through creation, redemption, and covenant. Obviously, this is poetic language. The heavens are not listening. But we should be, right?

I find it interesting and significant that God gets specific in verse 13 about the number of evils under discussion. There are two evils, not simply one. Do you see that? It isn't that these people, with hard and ungrateful hearts, simply abandoned or rejected God. That certainly is one of the shocking evils God has in mind. But there's another. They also actively, deliberately, created God-alternatives, thinking to themselves, “Who needs the fountain?! Who needs the flowing spring?! I will collect the rain instead.” Jeremiah's listeners didn't simply stumble upon one of these 'cisterns' in a desperate time of thirst. No. Verse 13 tells us they “hewed out cisterns for themselves”. Can you imagine the time and effort it would take to hew a cistern out of solid rock? Now consider the spiritual parallel. What evil! What an indictment of the human heart! But God rightly—and lovingly—exposes the truth here... about their God-alternatives. The cistern is “broken”. Therefore, it “can hold no water”. Therefore, it can never, ever, ever give you life.

III. God-Alternative, Sinner-Alternative

So brothers and sisters, how should we as God's people today understand the significance of these words for us? How about this? When we rightly look to God to establish that which is most important in life, when we rightly look to God to tell us what is right and wrong, when we rightly look to God to feel safe and secure, when we rightly look to God for meaning, for significance, for our happiness, as the basis for our identity, as we rightly look to God as the ground for our ultimate hopes and the object of our ultimate affections, as that to which we ultimately give all that we are, then we are drinking from, and sustained by, “the fountain of living waters”. Amen?

But when we look to a God-alternative for any of those things, we will never find anything that is truly life-giving or life-sustaining. Why? Because every God-alternative is a broken cistern. And broken cisterns are always empty. Now we could spend time talking about the most common of these God-alternatives, but I think it would be more helpful to simply ask, “How can I know if I am depending on a broken cistern?” Well... are you thirsty this morning? Are you spiritually thirsty... that is, thirsty deep inside, right at the center of who you are? If you are, then there's a good chance you've been trusting in a broken cistern, and are really feeling that emptiness.

Jeremiah spoke often about God's judgment in light of the two evils of rejecting and replacing God. But we rejoice this morning in this glorious fact: that the One who said “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" (John 7:38), that He also became for us a sinner-alternative. Just as a God-alternative is not God, He, Jesus was not a sinner, but he became sin for you and me. And He died on the cross in order to kill sin's power over us. We wrongly pursue God-alternatives, but in response, God lovingly provided a sinner-alternative. Shocking, right? But wonderfully shocking! You see, the grace of God in Jesus doesn't make these evils less appalling. It makes them even more appalling. Why? Because in Jesus we see even more clearly how pure and life-giving those living waters really are. To think we could reject and try to replace that kind of God... it really should horrify us.

Here's a prayer to pray this week: “God help me to truly be horrified by the the existence of the lie, and at times, my acceptance of the lie, that anything can replace you.” And of course, you could add to that, “Father, give me eyes to see that my 'cistern' really is broken and empty,” and “Help me to once again “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). And let all of us pray and rejoice in light of what Jesus revealed long ago to that woman by the well, and what He still offers: “Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this [well] water will be thirsty again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:13-14)