The Fountain of Truth

by Mike Ratliff

13 “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.

In John Bunyan’s classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, we learn of the vast difference between worldly wisdom and the truth through a character named Mr. Worldly Wisdom. Pilgrim is on his way to the little wicket gate as instructed by Evangelist when he meets up with this character. He tells Pilgrim that the truth that the Evangelist told him would only bring sorrow and grief to his life. If he would follow his advice instead then he would find that his life would go much easier. In our time, the Church has believed this lie and focused on the temporal more than the eternal. This has come from drinking from broken cisterns instead of the fountain of living waters.

In an address to the International Convention of Young Men’s Christian Associations at Cleveland, Ohio on May 25, 1881, John A. Broadus spoke on the great value of reading the Bible book by book rather than in small bits. He said:

The main support of all individual Christian life, the main-spring of all Christian work, must be the truth of God. Truth is the life-blood of piety. Truth is always more potent and more precious when we draw it ourselves out of the Bible. I rode out yesterday afternoon with a kind friend among the glories of the famous avenue of Cleveland, and then away into the beautiful country region which they hope is to be Cleveland Park some day, until we passed presently a little fountain where the water, coming fresh, and sweet and bright, was bursting from the hillside. The water we drink in the houses from the lake is delightful, but there it was a fountain. There is nothing like drinking water out of the fountain. And I remembered what my Lord Bacon has said: “Truth from any other source is like water from a cistern; but truth drawn out of the Bible is like drinking water from a fountain, immediately where it springeth.” Ah, this Christian work we have to-day in the world will be wise and strong and mighty just in proportion, other things being equal, as it is directed and controlled and inspired by what we draw ourselves out of the Word of God!

Spiritual shallowness and temporal focus come in proportion to a lack of drinking from the fountain of living waters. Studying the Bible is work, but if we do so directed by the Holy Spirit, we will find sustenance to live this life now, eternally focused and for God’s glory alone. Therefore, I pray that all reading this will dedicate themselves anew to drinking directly from the fountain while rejecting in full, broken cisterns which hold worldly wisdom, but no living water.

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