<TITLE>04. Par 27-35</TITLE>L-27 Now let us stand in respect to His Word. Jeremiah, the 2nd chapter, the 12th and 13th verses of Jeremiah 2.
Be astonished, O... heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living water, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can not... can hold no water.
Let us bow our heads now.

L-28   Dear God, Thy Word has been read. And we pray that You will honor that Word and give to us tonight the parable or the parallel of It; as we look to days gone by, Israel, as examples, as the Bible teaches us that we can see what You did to them when they obeyed the Word, see what You did to them when they disobeyed the Word, and learn what we must do. So, we pray that You will speak to us tonight in a very special way, that we might know how to conduct ourselves in this day, that we learned this morning that we're living in. For we ask it in Jesus' Name. Amen.
May be seated.

L-29   I want to speak tonight on the subject, for just a--a short time on: Broken Cisterns.

L-30 Israel had done two great evils. God said they had turned from Him, the Fountain of Life, and had hewed themselves cisterns to drink out of. Now, that's something.

L-31 The reason I thought of this text was because that it would run parallel to what I was saying this morning, of the hour that we're living, and the Cause that we are struggling for.

L-32   And we look at Israel as example, that, what God was, He always has to remain the same. And there is only one thing that God ever did honor, that was, His way that He provided for the people. And when they got out of that way, then God was dishonored, and God made the people suffer for getting away from what He had told them to do, no matter what it was.
He even give them a law, "Touch not, handle not, taste not." Just not because of the evil of doing it, but the evil of disobeying what He said do. And there's always cannot be a law without a punishment for law. Because, if there's no punishment, then, law is not much to it unless it has a penalty. The law!

L-33   Now, we find, what they did in that day seems to parallel what we are doing today, what the church people are doing.

L-34 Now we see a strange thing here. It might be strange to some people, when He said, "You have, they have, hewn to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns." Now, maybe some of you don't know what a cistern is. How many knows what a cistern is? Well, most all of you. If you was ever raised on a farm, you know what a cistern is. I remember I've drank enough bugs from one, to--to know what a--a cistern was.
Preached out in the country where, in a brush arbor, where you'd have a big pitcherful of cistern water setting there, out of the--the rain, you know, and it kind of got a little old. And--and then the bugs, at nighttime, would get into it. And so I know what cistern water is.

L-35   A--a cistern is a--a place, a thing that's dug in the ground, to take the place of a well. Where people doesn't have a well, then they get a--a cistern. In other words, a cistern is a man-made tank or a man-made well in the ground, that man dig out, to catch the water, to--to use it. Some of them use it for washwater, and some use it for drinking water, and different way, maybe. All the water sometime, that we used to get, was on a cistern. Used to have an old thing you had to wind, around, around, around, around, to get the water up; had little buckets on it, to pump the water out of the cistern.


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