The Well-Spring of Life
Understanding is a well-spring of life unto him that hath if — xvi. 22.
well is deeper now than Solomon in his day was able to penetrate, and sends forth accordingly, a fuller, fresher, more perennial stream. Then, in ancient Israel it was much to learn from the lips of the king all that the Spirit taught him about understanding as a well-spring of life; but a greater than Solomon is here teaching us, and the youngest scholar who sits at Jesus’ feet may in these high matters be wiser than the ancients. “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John iv. 14). Behold the lessons of David’s son, expanded and completed by David’s Lord!
Understanding is a well-spring to him that hath it: but in me dwelleth no good thing. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. A rainless sky makes a barren land: as long as the heavens are brass, the earth will be iron. There are many living well-springs on the earth, but the fountain-head is on high. The earth gets all the good of the refreshing streams as much as if they were originally its own; and yet it is indebted to the sky for every drop that rises in its springs and flows in its rivers. The springs are in the earth for possession and benefit, though not of the earth as their independent source. It is thus with the understanding which becomes a well-spring of life to men. It is in them; they possess it, and enjoy all its preciousness: but it is not their own; it is the gift of God. They have nothing which they did not receive.
Two things are necessary to the opening and the flow of welleprings — deep rendings beneath the earth’s surface, and lofty risings above it. There must be deep veins and high mountains The mountains draw the drops from heaven; the rents receive, retain, and give forth the supply. There must be corresponding heights and depths in the life of a man ere he be charged as a weU-spring with wisdom from above. Upward to God and downward into himself the exercises of his soul must alternately penetrate. You must lift up your soul in the prayer of faith, and rend your heart in the work of repentance; you must ascend into heaven to bring the blessing down, and descend into the depths to draw it up. Extremes meet in a lively Christian: he is at once very high and very lowly. God puts all his treasures in the power of a soul that rises to reach the upper springs, as the Andes intercept water in the sky sufficient to fertilize a continent; and when the Spirit has so descended like floods of water, the secret places of a broken heart afford room for his indwelling, so that the grace which came at first from God rises within the man like a springing well, satisfying himself and refreshing his neighbours.
Enlarging the germ of thought which Solomon infolded within the Old Testament Scriptures, the Lord intimated that this well, when charged and set a flowing, springeth up into everlasting life. There are many joys springing from the earth, and limited to time, — joys which God provides, and his children thankfully receive; but the characteristic defect of all these is, that those who drink of them shall thirst again. It is recorded of Israel in the wilderness, that they came one day to a place where were twelve wells, and seventy palm-trees. Here, then, were two of the pilgrims’ chief wants amply supplied — shade and water; but we learn from the history that at another station in their journey, a few days afterwards, the people were reduced to extremities again by thirst. Such are all the temporary refreshments provided for pilgrims by the way. He who has solaced himself at these wells to-day will thirst again to-morrow. But the well-spring of life, the water that flowed from the Rock, will follow the weary all their way, and refresh them most when their thirst is greatest — in the final conflict with the latest foe. “That Rock was Christ.”
“To him that hath it” said Solomon, will understanding be a well-spring. “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him,” said Jesus, “shall never thirst.” Both the Old Testament and the New distinctly teach that grace offered by God may only increase the condemnation: it is grace accepted by man that saves. There is plenty in the fountain, for “God is love;” and yet you may thirst again, and thirst for ever. There is plenty falling, for in Christ our Brother, and for us, all the fulness of the Godhead bodily dwells; and yet you may thirst again, and thirst for ever. The Son of God came the Life of men, and yet many men live not. The Son of God came the Light of the world, and yet whole nations are sitting in darkness. “He that hath the Son hath life.” He is the wisdom of God. This wisdom is life “to him that hath it;” but the greatness of this salvation, and the freeness of its offer, only aggravate the guilt of those who neglect or despise it. Thirst and water, the appetite and its supply, are fitted into each other like a lock and key in human art, or the seeing eye and the shining light among the works of God. In these pairs, either member is useless if it be alone. However exquisite in itself one side of the double whole may be, it is barren if it want its counterpart. Water can no more nourish fruit alone than dust; dust can no more nourish fruit alone than water. Let the dust be refreshed by water, — let water saturate the dust. The two apart were both barren: their union will be prolific. Thirst without water is merely pain: water without thirst is merely waste. It is when thirst receives water, water quenches thirst, that a substantial benefit accrues. We should carefully observe this inexorable law of nature, and learn that it reigns with all its rigour in the spiritual sphere. Men who personally reject the gospel seem to expect that the gospel will save them notwithstanding. Understanding cannot be a well-spring of life to him that hath it not. The terms are, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Even the love of God cannot offer more favourable terms than these, and it remains true, that those who will not take the water of life perish for want of it. At Jerusalem, in the course of his ministry, on the last day of the feast, Jesus uttered a great cry. It was a cry of fear and grief: it came from the breaking heart of the Man of Sorrows. He feared, as the feast days were passing, lest the time of mercy should run out, and those lingerers be lost. He who knew what is in man and before him, was anxious: they who knew neither themselves nor their Judge, were confident. He cried out: they kept silence. His cry was, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink” (John vii. 37)
He saw the water of life poured out and running waste: lie saw, too, a multitude of lifeless, withered, perishing souls. What he desired to see in them was a thirst that should induce them to take the offered mercy. Alas! now when the Giver cries, the needy sit silent: a time will come when the needy will cry, and the great Giver will refuse to answer! The loss of a soul is an exceeding bitter thing at every stage of the process, from the beginning to the close. Now there is water, but no thirst: then there will be thirst, but no water. If these two be not joined in the day of mercy, they will remain separate through the night of doom. If God’s cry, “Take, take!” be left echoing unanswered in heaven, man’s cry, “Give, give!” will echo unanswered through the pit. If God’s offer be barren in time for want of man’s desire, man’s desire in eternity will be barren for want of an offer to meet it from God. To him that hath it, this wisdom from above will be a well-spring of life; — to those who refuse it, life will never spring at all xcrv.