Broken cisterns.
I. ALL MEN NEED SPIRITUAL REFRESHMENT. The soul has its thirst (Psalms 63:1).
1. This is natural. We are born with instincts which reach out to the unseen, and the worldly habits which deaden these instincts cannot utterly eradicate them. If they could, we should cease to be men and become merely rational brutes, for "man is a religious animal."
2. This is intensified by the presence of life. Thirst is increased by a heated atmosphere, hard work, disease, and special agents, e.g. salt water; so spiritual thirst is deepened by the heat and burden of life, by its toil and battle, by the fever of passion and the weariness of sorrow, by the poison of sin and the disappointment of delusive promises of satisfaction. How pathetic is this picture! If the living water is forsaken, cisterns—even poor, broken cisterns, with scant supply of foul water, are resorted to, for in some way the burning thirst of the soul must be quenched.
II. THEY WHO FORSAKE GOD INJURE THEIR OWN SOULS. Hitherto the prophet has spoken of the guilt of unfaithfulness. He now speaks of the loss this entails. It is right that we should first think of the simple sinfulness of our sin, for this is its most important feature. But it is profitable to consider also the folly of it, and the misery that it must bring upon us. This is not to be all relegated to the world of future punishments. It is to be felt now, and would be felt keenly if men were not blind to their own condition. As godliness has the promise of the life which now is as well as of that which is to come, so ungodliness brings present loss. This must not be looked for in the direction of material profit and loss, of bodily pain and pleasure, towards which the Jew was too much inclined to turn his attention. It is inward and spiritual, yet it is not the less real. For the spirit is the self. When the noise of the world is stilled, in silent watches of the night, in lonely hours of reflection, does not the poor homeless soul feel some sense of unrest, some vague thirst which no pleasure or possession has yet satisfied?
III. THE INJURY ARISING FROM FORSAKING GOD IS FOUND FIRST IN THE VERY LOSS OF GOD. God is more to us than all his gifts. The greatest loss of the prodigal son is not the food which he craves for in the land of famine, but the father whom he has forsaken. God is the chief source of the soul's refreshment. Men talk of the duty of religion. They should consider its blessings, and learn to sock God as they seek their bread and water—the first necessaries of life. God is a Fountain of living water.
1. His refreshing grace is ever flowing, and in great abundance, not limited in quantity as that of the largest cistern may be so that there is enough for all, and it may be had at all times.
2. It is fresh, like the mountain stream bubbling forth cool from the rock, not like the stale waters of the cistern. "He giveth more grace" (James 4:6), and "grace for grace" (John 1:16). The Christian does not have to go back to the grace of God in past ages. There is a fresh stream now flowing, and prayer opens to us fresh supplies of the love and help of God.
3. It is wholesome and invigorating, unlike the earthy waters of the cistern. How foolish, then, to turn aside from such a supply for anything! We need no better.
IV. THE INJURY ARISING FROM FORSAKING GOD IS INTENSIFIED BY THE UNSATISFACTORY NATURE OF THE SUBSTITUTES MEN TURN TO.
1. These are stir-made. God makes the fresh spring, man makes the cistern. Can our work equal God's?
2. They are limited in supply—reservoirs, not flowing streams.
3. They are often impure; the cistern soon gets impregnated with unwholesome matter.
4. They are imperfect of their kind. The cisterns are broken; what little unwholesome water they have leaks away. All these characteristics apply to the waters men turn to in preference to God—e.g. human religion, philosophy, public occupation, social distraction, pleasure; these all fail to slake the soul's thirst. "Cor nostrum inquistum est donec requiescat in te."