Chipping Out A Cistern

A blogger named Deb who self-identifies as a lesbian Christian, discusses those whom she perceives as "twisting Scripture" in this post called "Bound By The Law". (Note: Previous link was incorrect. My apologies.)

Excerpt:

Too many people are twisting the scriptures to fit their needs of teaching. But, it’s up to “you” to determine if the message is right for you. Just because I write, “Well this is right for me”, doesn’t mean that it may be right for you. Only GOD can tell you that. That’s why I feel it’s so important to have a personal relationship with God and forget about what other Christians or Catholics want to bog you down with. God’s word is true, not people’s.

This, from a person who recently said to me:

~Deb said...
Awe, do I detect a little anger from Christine?

Keep puking up scripture that means absolutely nothing to you, due to your unloving nature.

Now that's a shame.

Puking up Scripture?

I don't think I've ever heard a Christian speak about God's Word in such a derogatory manner as that.

Have you?

Nasty!

When I read that yesterday, I just didn't even know what to say...

Let's dissect Deb's views above.

"Too many people are twisting the scriptures to fit their needs of teaching. But, it’s up to “you” to determine if the message is right for you."

She's got that first sentence right! Trouble is, it is she who is twisting Scripture to fit her needs. Notice the added point of "it's up to 'you' to determine if the message is right for you."

Is that what God's Word says?

No!!

Of course not!

She is, in fact, questioning the timeless and unchanging Word of God to fit her own desires and needs. Left to her own devices, she has "chipped out a cistern" for herself that does not hold water.

She desires to have the God of the universe sanction her same-sex impulses and behavior; when Scripture is crystal clear on this issue. What better way than to twist God's unchanging Word to fit her compromising position?

As my friend Rocky wrote in his prose piece (located in the comment section of previous post):

I saw crumbs falling from the table of God

Many were like hungry dogs ravenously devouring these crumbs

Then I saw that each dog was a man I knew

And that each crumb was something that had fallen into this world

Each crumb was a desire of this world

These desires where endless appetites, a hunger and thirst that could never be quenched

Sexual sin certainly qualifies as a "desire of endless appetite; a hunger and thirst that could never be quenched." It is a "desire of this world" that often keeps people captive in a stronghold so fierce, that the heart hardens and cannot hear what the Lord is actually saying:

Rocky's prose:

I looked and I saw some crumbs in my own hands

The Lord then said to me, ‘put those down son and come eat at my table’

I answered, ‘what about these, will they not come too’?

The Lord answered, ‘these are those of whom it is written,
‘you have forsaken me the spring of living waters

You have dug your own cistern which can not hold water’ (bold mine)

That portion of Rocky's prose comes out of the book of Jeremiah:

Jer 2:13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Pastor Chuck Smith's commentary explains it precisely in two commentaries:

I. "THEY HAVE FORSAKEN ME, THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATER."
A. Living water was running water.
1. A stream or river.
2. The fountain was the source of the stream.
a. The spring.
b. The place where it came out of the ground.
c. There the water was in its purest state.
B. Jesus often referred to Himself as the water of life.
1. On the great day of the feast, He stood and cried, "If any man thirst..."
a. His reference was to the spiritual thirst in every man.
b. His method was to start with the physical which all understood and lead to the spiritual which so few understood.
2. To the woman at the well in Samaria, He started talking about being thirsty.
a. She could relate to that.
b. He led her to the water that would end her thirst.
3. The last invitation in the Bible is, "Let him that is athirst come, and drink of the water of life freely."
a. That is the gospel the Bible proclaims - "God has provided for thirsty man through His Son Jesus Christ."
C. God's complaint against Israel - "They have forsaken Me."
1. Incredible! In vs. 10, God challenges them to search the world to find people who have changed gods.
2. People are devoted and faithful to their gods.
a. But the irony is, they are not true gods.
II. "THEY HAVE HEWN OUT CISTERNS."
A. Man is instinctively religious.
1. He must live by some creed, philosophy or ideal.
2. He begins to carve out his own system.
a. Evolution, communism, humanism.
1. These all have their creeds.
2. They all demand faith - blind faith.
3. They require devotion.
b. Philosophy - system of thought on God.
1. His god is the creation of his own mind.
a. Hence it is limited to his own stupidity.
b. Man, poor man, so ignorant in that...
2. The supreme good is pleasure (Epicureous).
3. The supreme good is power.
4. The supreme good is knowledge (Socrates).
3. What is the common factor in each of these systems? They can't hold water.
a. The evolutionist must manufacture, or distort evidence. In many cases, conceal or destroy.
b. They cannot satisfy man's deepest needs.
c. They will all of them leave you still thirsty. (bold mine)

Smith, Chuck. "Jeremiah 2:13," Sermon Notes. Blue Letter Bible. 28 Jul 2005. 14 Jun 2007.
.

I. THE DEADLY MALADY, "THEY HAVE FORSAKEN ME, THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATER."
A. The nation was brought to birth by God.
1. He brought them out of Egypt.
2. He established the basis for their relationship giving them the law.
B. God was at the center of their national life.
1. They were in love with God and followed Him. - vs. 2.
2. He was the center of their national life.
3. Because of this they were dynamic and strong.
C. They in their prosperity turned from their trust in God.
1. Easier to trust in God when you are weak than when you are strong.
2. When you are poor than when you are rich.
D. "Fountain of living water."
1. Water essential for life.
2. Early cities always built around water supply.
a. Where the highway crossed a river.
b. Where there was an adequate spring.
3. Living water was running water.
II. "HEWED-OUT CISTERNS."
A. As Jerusalem grew, it eventually became too large for its water supply - the Gihon spring.
1. Large cisterns carved out of rock all over the city.
a. These were reservoirs to hold the run-off water from the rain.
b. The water in them would become stale.
1. Moss and algae would build up.
2. Used for irrigation mainly.
B. "Broken cisterns that could hold no water."
1. Sometimes after months or years of labor hewing out of solid stone these huge caverns, when the rains came - a great disappointment.
a. A fracture in the rock.
b. It won't hold water.
2. At this point, it usually became a tomb.
III. WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN A MAN FORSAKES GOD AND BEGINS TO CHIP OUT A CISTERN?
A. Every man has to worship something.
1. If he refuses to worship God, he will worship his car, job, home.
B. Every man has a God, even the avowed atheist.
1. Your God is that master passion of your life.
2. That motivating drive.
3. That principle, ideal or philosophy that controls your life.
C. Sad to see men forsake God, because his philosophies can't hold water.
1. Today the philosophy of existentialism that has become the God of our secular educational system is proving to be a broken cistern.
a. Brought man to despair.
b. Destroyed any true universal base.
c. Made each man a little deserted island all to himself. (bold mine)

Smith, Chuck. "Jeremiah 2:13," Sermon Notes. Blue Letter Bible. 28 Jul 2005. 14 Jun 2007.

*******
Also, watch the video over at GCMW called Candy Shop Religion

The author asks:

Judge for yourself. The lesbian minister talks as if religion and relationships are like picking what type of candy you like at the supermarket check out line. Snickers, anyone?