The apostle Paul begins 2 Corinthians with the usual greeting, followed by a section on the comfort God provides us when we suffer or are afflicted for Christ’s sake. 2 Corinthians 1:5 makes this statement: “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
On that verse, Charles Spurgeon wrote this analogy: “The Ruler of Providence bears a pair of scales—in this side He puts His people’s trials, and in that He puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy.”[1]
Therefore, when living for Christ brings trouble and opposition, remember also that our Father is ruler of all and fully intends to share His comfort with us through Christ eternally.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” – Romans 8:18
[1] From “February 12” of Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning commentary
A recent post was about Jeremiah’s comparison of false religion to a broken cistern, with God alternatively being “the fountain of living waters.”[1] Jeremiah lived when most of God’s people – including most of the priests and prophets – had turned from Him to follow other gods. As Jeremiah remained faithful, correctly predicting that Jerusalem would fall to Babylon, he was persecuted, including this instance in Jeremiah 38:6, where King Zedekiah’s officials “took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.”
Since God is “the fountain of living waters,” the only path to eternal blessing, it’s incredibly ironic that Jeremiah, one of the few remaining faithful prophets and therefore a rare source of God’s “living waters,” should be cast into a cistern with no water. Perhaps it was broken. King Zedekiah thought he could silence the “living waters” Jeremiah represented by casting them into a cistern, trading truth for falsehood.
Later, Jeremiah seems to recall the cistern experience in Lamentations 3:52-57, where he said:
“I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’ ‘I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’ You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’”
Returning to the book of Jeremiah, we read that Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch, heard of Jeremiah’s situation and pleaded his case: “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”[2] This unlikely source – a foreigner – was Jeremiah’s deliverance from God to rescue Jeremiah from the well. Ebed-melech gathered 30 men, “Then they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.”
Jeremiah was not the only Old Testament figure to suffer for his faithfulness. Many years earlier, King David also referred to “sinking in the mire” in the Messianic Psalm 69, verses 14-15:
“Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me.”
David knew this feeling of sinking came not because of his sin, but when he was faithfully serving his Lord. David’s “sinking in the mire” happened under these circumstances from verse 9 of the same Psalm:
“For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.”
In Jeremiah’s case, as well as David’s and that of Jesus, whom Psalm 69 foreshadowed[3], we know we that cannot judge our faithfulness based on whether it improves our circumstances. When we do, we might stop being faithful because it seems we are “sinking in the mire.” Being reproached by the world and feeling down aren’t the circumstances we prefer, but “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”[4] Through these and all other circumstances, God develops in us deeper trust in Him.
Therefore, with David may we pray:
“But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.” – Psalm 69:13
And in His time, He will deliver us, perhaps in ways we don’t expect.
Coda
In 1995, Christian rock group Jars of Clay released their self-titled album, and the track “Flood” has similar themes to this post. The song was also a mainstream hit, charting as high as No. 12 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart,[5] amazing for a song that is essentially a prayer like David’s in Psalm 69.
Long before there was a Temple in Jerusalem, the Israelites built a tabernacle according to instructions given by God to Moses. This tabernacle from a material perspective was just a big tent, but to the Israelites it was the place where God had chosen to dwell among them, the place where they would learn how He was to be honored and worshipped. The tabernacle was designed so that it could be torn down and moved with the people to each new location they travelled to during their wilderness wanderings between the exodus from Egypt and their entry into the Promised Land. To make moving it easier, it was constructed of many pieces, but still the size of the tabernacle was impressive. For example:
“And all the craftsmen among the workmen made the tabernacle with ten curtains. They were made of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns, with cherubim skillfully worked. The length of each curtain was twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits. All the curtains were the same size.” – Exodus 36:8-9
I’ve read these verses many times without really thinking about them, but eventually I asked: how much cloth is that exactly? Consider how hard and time-consuming it would be to make cloth while wandering in the wilderness, particularly cloth with detailed images of cherubim worked into them. They didn’t have anything close to a modern loom or sewing machine, yet they made 10 curtains that were each 28 cubits by 4 cubits. But how big is that?
A cubit would be approximately 18 inches today. So, 28 cubits would be 28 times 18 to get the number of inches, then divided by 12 to get the number of feet. Do the same math for the 4 cubits of breadth. The result is that each of these 10 curtains were 42 feet long and 6 feet wide!
Think about how much clothing could be made with that much cloth, and about how people with more than 2 or 3 changes of clothes in those days would be considered rich. Later when we read in Judges about Samson posing a riddle to his 30 companions, where if they couldn’t solve the riddle they’d have to give Samson “thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.”[1] These companions pleaded with Samson’s wife to help them solve the riddle, saying: “Have you invited us here to impoverish us?”[2] What would impoverish these 30 men? Having to give Samson one garment and one change of clothes each! And this was not in the wilderness, but long after Israel had settled in the Promised Land.
I write all of this to say that, looking at only one part of the tabernacle, among many that were made of gold and other precious materials, the sacrifice made by Israel to have a tabernacle was impressive. They didn’t provide their God with a small tent that didn’t cost them much to build, but they gave their God a tabernacle that cost them much in terms of both materials and labor. After all, this was the place where God was going to dwell among them. He deserves it, and more.
What does this mean for us today? Some say the modern equivalent of the tabernacle is the physical churches that we build to gather in, and so the tabernacle example justifies huge, expensive, elaborate churches. But I don’t think that’s the right equivalent. It is the body of Christ Himself – His people – including you and me. Since the time of Christ, He has chosen to dwell within each of us directly. The cost of the tabernacle can be compared to the cost of discipleship, or of following Christ.
If that’s so, what do we sacrifice and invest in ourselves as the dwelling place of God? Do we value other Christians as God’s temples, investing in them? Do we give enough to God that it takes away from other things we might want to do with our time and resources? Do we provide God with a basic tent to stay in, or do we put into His dwelling so much that it might “impoverish” us in other areas?
Sometimes word pictures in the Bible weren’t written for people like me. In my life I haven’t thought much of cisterns, but the Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah refer to them a few times in their prophecies, and Jeremiah ends up thrown into one. To Jeremiah’s original audience, and others living now, the meaning behind these pictures might be obvious. But for me, it took a little research.
A cistern-centered comparison in Jeremiah 3:12-13 particularly drew my attention, where broken cisterns are used as a picture of false religion and idolatry:
“Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, 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.”
God is the “fountain of living waters,” but how is false religion like “broken cisterns”?
Looking up “cistern” in the American Heritage Dictionary I find it is: “A receptacle for holding water or other liquid, especially a tank for catching and storing rainwater.” So, a cistern is not a fountain, a source of water, but instead is dependent on another source (usually rain) for its water. So, Jeremiah’s accusation is that false religion can’t create its own water, which brings us to the second point…
The false religions of Judah in Jeremiah’s day weren’t even good cisterns – they were broken. While a cistern is a vessel for storing water in reserve when there is no rain, when broken it’s not even that. Even with another source of water, putting it into a broken cistern was no better than pouring it out into the sand. Jeremiah’s second accusation is that false religion can’t even store good things from other sources. The picture here is that if they took parts of true worship and mixed them with other religions, not only were the other religions wasted, but whatever they would have gained from God is also wasted.
Without God, many things are like broken cisterns. Things that make us happy in this world are temporary and require our Creator God to provide us with more. A food you like might satisfy you for a while, but eventually you need to find more food. Rain may satisfy your garden plants, but eventually they will need more water. Money may seem alluring for its own sake, but it only buys things that are temporary like everything else.
In Jeremiah 2:18, he tells the people not to look anywhere other than the true God of Israel for the source of living water and eternal satisfaction:
“And now what do you gain by going to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? Or what do you gain by going to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?”
Like a cistern, even the Nile and Euphrates only get their water from some other source. They can’t make their own, and God can even determine if the rivers are empty or full. Later, in Jeremiah 14:2-3, he says that because Judah had forsaken God, He had caused a drought, and therefore:
“Judah mourns, and her gates languish; her people lament on the ground, and the cry of Jerusalem goes up. Her nobles send their servants for water; they come to the cisterns; they find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are ashamed and confounded and cover their heads.”
The people mourned their earthly problem but did not care about their spiritual problem which is infinitely more important. No provision – any science, philosophy, or religion – can defend against a drought caused by forsaking God, because false gods – anything we put in His place – cannot deliver rain. They are but broken cisterns.
Consider that if there is no Creator behind the workings of nature, or if that Creator doesn’t care about us, why should we expect the world to act in ways that predictably bless us, instead of just being completely unpredictable and random? Why do things seem to work most of the time? Rain, friction, food, gravity, math, and on and on. Fortunately, our God “sends rain on the just and on the unjust,”[1] and to His own He gives “a spring of water welling up to eternal life”[2]
He calls all people to know Him as “the fountain of living waters.” No cistern needed.
Here is the list of readings for this week: 2 chapters to read per day as the main reading plan, and extra chapters for anyone who wants to read the whole Bible in 2025. I hope this encourages others to read and study their Bible more, whatever parts they decide to read.
Follow along (or not) any way you choose! Also, let me know if you’re interested in me doing this again next year with a different order of books.
2 chapter a day plan:
Monday, November 17: 1 Timothy 3-4 Tuesday, November 18: 1 Timothy 5-6 Wednesday, November 19: 2 Timothy 1-2 Thursday, November 20: 2 Timothy 3-4 Friday, November 21: Titus 1-2 Saturday, November 22: Titus 3, Hebrews 1 Sunday, November 23: Hebrews 2-3
Extra chapters for those reading the whole Bible this year: Amos 3-9, Obadiah
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 