I didn’t know how much of a Christian Platonist I was until a decade ago. And a few weeks ago. I grew up in the church, I professed faith in Christ when I was five and got baptized when I was seven, but the focus was on Jesus and not doing anything really bad. When God began to expose me to theology during my college years, I believed that truth ruled and being right was priority number one. Error was an enemy, and so were feelings. Charismatics and women cared about feelings, so I thought, and often at the expense of truth. Happiness was about being accurate not affectionate.

Ironically, I was further from the Bible and closer to Plato. Plato didn’t pursue exegetical truth but philosophical truth. In his ideas about ideal personal and communal well-being, desires were to be defeated by reason. In a passage about poetry, Plato argued that stirring up desires for pleasure or desire to avoid distress work toward the opposite of happy lives.

desires and feelings of pleasure and distress…accompany everything we do: poetic representation has the same effect in all these cases too. It irrigates and tends to these things when they should be left to wither, and it makes them our rulers when they should be our subjects, because otherwise we won’t live better and happier lives, but quite the opposite. (Plato, Republic (Oxford World’s Classics) (360).

Irrigating desires is to be avoided; desires ought to be starved and subdued. I couldn’t have explained my position like that or quoted Plato speaking for Socrates, but this is how I believed truth-loving Christians should live. Not only was I wrong, my heart was thirsty.

During the last half of 2005 I began to read a book called The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards, and on January 30, 2016 in the first session at the 2006 Snow Retreat I preached from Jeremiah 2. My second Brown Paper Passage represents a season of repentance and paradigm change for me. Recent reading and a recent discussion and recent soul review led me to talk about it tonight.

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.
(Jeremiah 2:12-13)

Just as our tongues thirst for water so our hearts thirst for fulfillment. Every day each one of us searches out and drinks from whatever we believe will satisfy our hearts and slake the thirst of our souls for happiness and meaning and usefulness. And here’s the thing, if we don’t get this drink in the right place it is cause for astonishment.

Look at the intensity of the vocabulary in verse 12. These are words that we don’t use in day to day conversation. Be appalled…be shocked, be utterly desolate. In other words, be awestruck, be horrified! This is the terminology of something unexpected or unsuitable. These are words we reserve for things that are unbelievable, even unthinkable. Who can imagine that such things could be done?

And look who/or what is shocked, “be appalled O heavens.” In this dramatic address, “O heavens,” God calls the universe as His witness of these great atrocities. All of creation is summoned to shock and awe, or as the NIV translates it, “to shudder with great terror.”

Imagine a cosmic courtroom scene with all the planets and stars on the witness stand, with the Lord as both Prosecutor and Judge, but who are the defendants? What crimes could possibly be so horrific?

The defendants and the charges against them are found in verse 13. First, the defendants: My people. All of chapter 2 has been addressed to the Jews—to those in Jerusalem (verse 2), of the house of Jacob, of the house of Israel (verse 4). The ones on trial are not pagan idolators. These are the good people, the good citizens; they are God’s people.

So what have they done? What could possibly be that bad? Were God’s people slaughtering women and children? Were they committing fornication, adultery, homosexuality? Worse? No. They were charged with drinking from the wrong place. Two evils: (1) they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and (2) hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Some of the evidence of this cistern-hewing was already presented earlier in chapter 2. They stopped thinking about the Lord (verse 6). The Lord was no longer a concern to them, no part of their decisions or their priorities or their pursuits. Even the priests stopped thinking about the Lord and disregarded His Word (verse 8). Apparently some of the spiritual “leaders” even turned to serve other gods (verse 11).

They had forsaken God and turned to other, empty things. They “went after worthlessness” (verse 4). They went after “things that do not profit” (verse 8) and again after “things that do not profit” (verse 11).

It doesn’t even make sense that they would do this. Look back at verse 13. If you really want to have your thirst quenched, if you want to be satisfied, where do you go to get a drink? In Israel there were probably three or four options for getting water and two of them are compared here: a flowing fountain and a broken, empty cistern.

What is a cistern? A cistern is a reservoir or tank of sort, typically hewn—that is carved—out of stone. Cisterns were dugout pits of various sizes in places that could catch the maximum amount of rain water. Cisterns were necessary for life because water was necessary for survival. In a predominately desert region, if there wasn’t a nearby well or a stream, let a alone a fountain, cisterns were the source of life.

But imagine the scene in Jeremiah 2:13. Let’s say it’s Tuesday and you began work at sunrise out in the fields. A few hours later the mid-day sun is beating down and you’ve worked up quite a thirst. So you put down your shovel or your hoe or whatever tool you have and take a break to get a drink. You’ve got two options: on one hand you look down into a cracked, dry and dusty hole in the rock, and on the other hand is a flowing, fresh, cool, bubbling fountain of water. After considering both options, you choose the dry cistern.

Of course, all you get is a mouthful of dirt. You barely have enough saliva left to lick the dust off of your lips. There is no relief, even temporarily. You find no refreshment. You walk away dissatisfied. Of course you would! It was a forgone conclusion. A satisfying drink was never even possible.

Yet hour by hour you come back to try again. Day after day you choose the cistern. You carve the hole bigger and patch every leak you can find, but every time you bow your head to drink all you get is dirt. The whole time the fresh, flowing, abundant, living fountain is right there. It is so close that you can probably hear drops splashing and gathering into little pools. Maybe you even feel the mist from the fountain, blown by a light breeze onto the back of your neck while you’re bent over at the cistern.

Most of us would see that scenario and think, “Hey, if you want to be stupid, that’s your choice.” No doubt we’d call it foolish; but God calls it evil! This is the most shocking and appalling atrocity in the universe! It is a cosmic crime to seek satisfaction for your heart from the wrong place.

Why? Why is this so outrageous? What makes this so offensive, especially compared to many other sins? Why is drinking from a cistern so wicked? Because it is an immeasurable disregard for God. For you to see Him there and know Him to be the living fountain and then shrug Him off as no real importance and ignore Him is the most scandalous, revolting, nauseating thing in the universe. Then attempting to find a satisfying drink in other places is just the other side of the same scandal. Creation is shocked. We should be too.

We don’t usually consider neglect such a serious sin. So why is this disregard so disgusting and dreadful? Disregard dishonors God and turns our souls into deserts.

1. It is a disregard of God’s infinite position.

In a book titled, The End for Which God Created the World, Jonathan Edwards suggests this fictional, yet thought provoking scenario. Imagine if there were an infinitely wise, third party observer between God and men. What if this third party observer were to make judgments between God and creation as to their worth. The one task of this impartial judge would be to weigh things in the balance to see who was greater and who was lesser and by what degree one was greater and the other lesser.

It wouldn’t even stretch the judge’s wisdom or take any calculations to determine what proportion of regard should be allotted to the Creator and what portion to His creatures. As Edwards concludes, in our case the whole system of created beings would be regarded as “light dust on the balance or even as the air itself” compared to God in His eternal existence and infinite excellence.

As He is every way the first and supreme, and as His excellency is in all respects the supreme beauty and glory, the original good, and fountain of all good, so He must have in all respects the supreme glory. (143)

(So)…every wheel, in all its rotations, should move with a constant invariable regard to Him. (144)

To Him belongs the whole of the respect that any intelligent being is capable of. To Him belongs ALL the heart. (emphasis Edwards, 141).

He is the supreme source and so deserves the supreme respect. Every time a wheel goes around it should not do anything but give regard to God, without fail, without taking a break. When we value something of lesser value instead of Him, when we drink from the broken cistern rather than the living fountain, we have substituted something of utter inferiority for the infinitely superior God. The universe is shocked and our souls are parched.

2. It is a disregard for God’s eternal purpose.

Not only does disregarding God fail to give proper attention to His greatness, but attempting to drink from the wrong source dismisses God’s primary and eternal plan.

What is His ultimate, eternal purpose? Soli Deo Gloria—for the glory of God alone! “All things are from Him and through Him and to Him. To Him be all the glory forever” (see Romans 11:33-36). God is passionate for His own glory. He has to be.

All things else, with regard to worthiness, importance, and excellence, are perfectly as nothing in comparison of Him. And therefore, if God has respect to things according to their nature and proportions, He must necessarily have the greatest respect to Himself. (The End for Which God Created the World, 140)

This is brilliant logic. In other words, if He is omniscient (and He is), then He knows all thing perfectly. Therefore He knows infallibly what has the greatest value, the most importance, and the supreme excellence. In every case, He must recognize Himself to be the best.

God could not esteem His creation greater than Himself as it would be inappropriate to honor the universe higher than its Creator. God could not favor any other being more than Himself since He Himself is source of all life. He would ultimately be an idolator to recognize or regard anything else higher than Himself. He is the only being in the universe for whom getting glory for self is not only okay, it is righteous.

I should think that these things might incline us to suppose that God has not forgot Himself in the ends for which He proposed the creation of the world. (145)

And as God values His glory, and does everything He does for His glory, so He expects—and here is His eternal purpose—that His creatures are passionate for His glory, and do everything they do for His sake. It is His eternal purpose to get glory for Himself from us.

So we come to one of the key questions: if glorifying God is His eternal purpose, and if God expects us to be passionate about glorifying Him to the degree of honor He deserves, how do we give God glory?

Edwards indicates two ways. First, God is glorified by us knowing Him. When we know and see and understand, both from creation and from Scripture, who He is and what He is like and what He has done, God is glorified. If we don’t study God and know the truth about God we will be unable to honor Him appropriately. We won’t appreciate Him properly without learning about His supremacy. That is why doctrine and theology must not be overlooked or forgotten. Truth expands and shapes our understanding of God’s greatness.

However, knowledge of God is not the only way to give God glory, nor is it the highest way. Right knowledge of Him is necessary, but knowledge alone is not enough. If knowledge about God was the only requirement then we could give God no more glory than Satan and the demons can. For that matter, even those currently suffering in hell know far more of the reality of God’s greatness than we do. The truth is that many people know a lot of things about God but do not give Him glory.

So what is the answer? How does God fulfill His eternal purpose to get glory for Himself in us?

He that testifies his idea of God’s glory doesn’t glorify God so much as he that testifies also of his approbation of it and his delight in it. (Miscellanies)

Here is the second way to glorify Him: God is glorified by us loving Him. From eternity past His purpose has been to get glory, and so the Father planned to communicate to us in a way that we would love Him. He sent His Son to die on the cross to pay our penalty for not loving Him, and then sent His Spirit to take away our hearts of stone so that we could love Him. All three Persons of the Trinity are a part of this plan to stir our affections for Him. Our abounding love for Him was His plan in eternity past and is His everlasting purpose towards the getting of His greatest glory.

There are may reasons to think that what God has in view, in an increasing communication of Himself through eternity, is an increasing knowledge of God, love to Him, and joy in Him. (The End, 159)

So if we are drinking from other fountains then we are delighting in and loving something more than God. If God is not the satisfaction of our hearts, then we are guilty of disregarding the entire point of existence. Knowledge of God, and love for God, are the center of God’s eternal plan to bring Himself praise. The ultimate end of creation hangs on us not just knowing about the fountain, but drinking from it.

For a creature to disregard the Creator’s eternal purpose is shockingly sinful.

3. It is a disregard for God’s gracious promise.

Even though it isn’t explicit in verse 13, there is an implicit promise in the verse. The promise is of satisfaction. Though we don’t deserve it, though all of us have hewn our own cisterns and tried to suck life out of dirt, God beckons us to come and drink deeply from the fountain of His pleasures. The implication in verse 13 is that if we would only drink we would obtain delight and satisfaction. Water from the fountain of living waters is available to quench our thirst!

It is astonishing that we can have it! The fountain is not days off in the distance. God has not hidden or obscured it. It doesn’t require epic journeys or heroic feats or impossible fortunes to have this water. He has generously promised it to us if we will but turn to Him—the fountain of living waters. So, “Drink!” “Be satisfied!”

This call to drink is in other passages as well. For example,

When the poor and needy seek water,and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. (Isaiah 41:17-18)

Note that God is personally interested and involved in providing for the thirsty who seek Him.

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live. (Isaiah 55:1-3)

This is a gracious promise indeed, and what a mockery it is to seek life by sucking from the dust and disregarding His promise.

Conclusion

Where we drink from is of universal interest. When we drink from other sources than God Himself, that is a disregard for His infinite position, His eternal purpose, and His gracious promise.

Some of us know the right place to get the water. We can describe the fountain of living water with great accuracy. Maybe we even understand a little bit about how the fountain works. But we don’t drink! We’ve got a view, but we have not tasted. We’ve got truth, but we don’t have affections. The problem with that is, as Edwards pointed out, God is not glorified by being known as much as He is glorified by being known and loved!

On the other hand, some of us know that we’re supposed to drink, we feel the need to drink, but we assume that drinking from any water near the fountain is good enough. This is the group that has experience, but it is experience minus theology. Zeal without knowledge is not enough. Imagining that just because there is “love” everything is okay is a false hope. If it isn’t the right love, it is worthless emotion. In fact, we may love our good feelings more than we love God.

But for most of us, in our clinical, cold age of information, we need more affections not less. Plato be damned, per Jeremiah, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul, Edwards, and C.S. Lewis.

For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head. (The Abolition of Man)

It is our obligation then, to pursue knowledge of and love for God, and also to help our children and students and church body desire and drink from the fountain of life. When we realize what is at stake, we cannot do this halfheartedly.