The Well of Bethlehem

“Oh, that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!” 2nd Sam. 23:15.

IN the Old Testament times a well of water was a fortune. When Caleb’s daughter was married and she received her inheritance from her father, he gave to her a South land; then there came a time when she came to her father and said, “Thou hast given me a South land, I pray thee give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs.” If you are familiar with the Old Testament story, you will also recall the story of the wells of Abraham. These wells were most interesting. Cattle stopped to drink at them, the fields were watered by them, and the weary traveler, journeying across the plain, refreshed himself with their waters. Then the enemies of God’s people came and filled in the wells, and the cattle had no place where they could drink, the fields were parched, and the traveller had no place of refreshment. Then, later, Isaac came on the scene. “And Isaac digged again the wells of his father.” It would be a great thing if some of the young men of to-day would dig again the wells of their fathers — wells of prayer and Bible study and holy living.

Turning to the New Testament, we find another, famous well mentioned. It is Jacob’s well. I remember travelling across the plain and just as the sun was at high noon I stopped at Jacob’s well. I let down a little vessel into the well and drew the water up, and was refreshed after a weary journey. Then I remembered that this was the place where Jesus sat, weary with His journey, but where He forgot that He was hungry and thirsty, when there came into His presence a woman who was a sinner. Would that more of us were like him. I have made up my mind in these days that it is the man who preaches with a passion who wins souls. I have come to the conclusion that, when everything else fails, a passionate passion for souls will surely win. I suppose, as a matter of fact, that many of us have done very little in winning souls for Christ. A friend told me recently that he had won for Christ the chauffeur of a very distinguished Christian. The chauffeur had been in this Christian’s employ for some time, and yet it was another man, outside the household, that led him to Christ. I have been told that every great awakening has its distinguishing characteristics, and I believe I know the characteristic of the awakening which may soon be upon the Church of Christ throughout the whole world. It is this — a personal effort on behalf of souls. I learned this lesson as I sat waiting on the edge of Jacoby well, away there in the land that Jesus loved.

But the well of Bethlehem is, I am sure, the most interesting of all the Bible wells. The waters flowed out from it through the valley, and the valley was beautiful. “I know another well of Bethlehem,” Dr.

Talmage, our great American preacher, used to say; “it was digged by the light of a star, and the people who came to this well of Bethlehem drank and were satisfied, and drinking, they never thirsted again.” From this other well of Bethlehem has gone a stream of blessing to make the whole world rich. It is of this well that I speak, as well as of that well that David had in mind. You know the story. It is in this chapter where the text is found that we find the story of David’s mighty men, and three of them have to do with my text. David is in the cave of Adullam, and it is a cave of gloom. The well of Bethlehem has been taken by the enemies of God’s people, and these three mighty men are waiting upon the old servant of God, when, suddenly, I think, I see his face in the gloom. It is first white, then red, his lips are trembling, his tears are falling; then the text is spoken: “Oh, that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate.” And the instant he sobbed it out the three mighty men were away, down the hillside, over the plain, and into the midst of the enemies of God’s people. So astonished were they that they never lifted a hand to stop them, and making their way up to the well of Bethlehem, these three mighty men dipped up the water, and hurried back again through the ranks of the enemy, and up the hillside and into the cave, and placed the water before David. Then he did a splendid thing. He said, “This water is gotten at too great a cost. I will pour it out as a sacrifice unto God” This is the story, and this is the setting of my text.

David is a picture of many a Christian who is in the gloom. Wfiy do so many Christians get into the gloom? First, of all, because they neglect the reading of God’s Book. If, as a Christian, you are not in the habit of studying God’s Word, and absorbing its truths, you are drifting into the gloom. There once came an English clergyman into a conference I was directing, who said to me, “I can give you in five sentences the secret of Bible study for each day. (i) Study it through. Never begin a day without mastering a verse. (2) Pray it in. Never leave your Bible until the verse you have studied is part of your very being. (3) Put it down. The thoughts that God gives you, write on the margin of your Bible. (4) Work it out. Live the truth you get in the morning through all the hours of the day. (5) Pass it on. Seek to tell somebody else what you have learned. Many a man has gotten into the gloom and lost his grip of the Bible, and lost his passion for souls, just because he has forgotten how to pray.

Then there is another reason. Many a Christian gets into the gloom because of an inconsistent life. There are earnest, sincere Christian people who say that those who preach the old-fashioned doctrines of the Church are making a mistake — that what is needed to-day is the sounding of the social note and the preaching of a social Gospel. I have a good deal of sympathy with them, but I also know that this is true, that when a man begins to emphasize the social note beyond its place, he has a tendency to forget the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. And I have a conviction that if we lose sight of Jesus upon the cross, we are in great danger of drifting.

Nevertheless, although I hold these old essential doctrines, I am preaching to-day with all the strength that God will give me, that it will not do for a man to be a Christian on Sunday, and live inconsistently every other day in the week; that the time has come / when it will not do for one to say he is a follower of Jesus Christ and oppress the poor and stop his ears J to the cries of the needy; that the day has come when a consistent life is an absolute necessity, and if you are inconsistent, you will drift into the gloom and be shorn of power..

But I think there is another reason why men arel in the darkness, and it is because of secret sin. We had a man in one of our public schools in a great city who, seeking to illustrate a certain truth before I the children, drew the picture of an eye on the blackboard. It was so perfectly drawn that the child sitting on one side of the room thought the eye was looking at him, and the child sitting on the other side of the room thought it was fixed on him. Into every part of the room the eye seemed to be looking, and the little children became so nervous and excited that the picture of the eye had to be erased. And I should like to say to you who sin, that there is an eye that is upon you, an eye you cannot paint out. “Our secret sins are in the light of His countenance.” Because my ministry has largely been with men, and I have heard their stories, there is not a sin in the life of a man that I do not know. I know its beginning, sometimes small; its progress, usually slow; its awful end. I know it/iot from personal experience, but because of what other men have told me. When the express went thundering across the Tav bridge in the night time the bridge went down, and when investigation was made they found there was a blister in one of the girders of the bridge, which had been passed by, but that blister had weakened the bridge; and caused it to fall. And I know that every mar who has in his heart, or life, a secret sin, is in th gloom.

There are many reasons why we have lost power. I need not speak of them, but I will speak of a Saviour, who is mighty to save. I will tell the story of a Father who is infinite in His love. If you are; shorn of power, if you are feeling that you would give all to get back to the old place of fellowship, I say that my God will forgive you all your transgressions. “When God forgives, He forgets.” I made that statement in my old church in Philadelphia, and at the close of the service a man came up to me and said, “Is it true that when God forgives He forgets?” When I gave him the Scripture, he said, “I am a physician, and I believe I am a Christian, but in my youth I committed a sin. My wife does not dream of it, and I would cut off my right hand before I would tell my boys. No man in this world knows it, but hot, scalding tears have burned their way down my cheeks as I have confessed it to God. Do you think He can forget it?” Yes, indeed he can, and if you have forgotten God, if you have neglected your Bible and prayer, if you have sinned, if you have said, “I am not a Christian,” I want to tell you of One who, when He forgives, always forgets, and I call you out of the gloom to-day — I call you to Jesus.

But what do you think the text really means? “Oh, that one would give me drink of the water of Bethlehem.” Do you think that David was thirsty? I do not think it was water he wanted. It is probable that he might have heard the drip, drip, drip of the water, as it trickled down the sides of the cave, and he might have scooped up the water with his hand to quench his thirst, but I hardly think he was thirsty.

One of the first operations performed in the city of Chicago for appendicitis was performed on a young New Englander who was in Chicago on business. He was taken to one of the largest hospitals. This young fellow came from the State of Vermont, where the springs are abundant, and it is a beautiful thing, as I very well know, when you are thirsty, to get down on your knees and dip your face in the water of the spring. When the operation was over, and this young Vermonter was coming out from the anaesthetic, they saw his lips move, and the nurse, bending over, heard him say, “Water.” She said, “Doctor, may I give him a drink?” But when she brought it he would not take it, and they heard him whisper again, “I want a drink of water.” The doctor bent over him and said, “Is it water you want? There is water right here.” By this time the young fellow was beginning to gain consciousness, and as he looked up into the doctor’s face with a smile, he said, “It is not this water that I want. I want a drink from the spring at my mother’s door, back in Vermont,” It was not water he wanted at all, he wanted his mother. He wanted to feel the touch of her hand upon his face.

I think that David in the gloom, with the sounds of battle about him and enemies pursuing him, thought his way back to the old days when he was by the well of Bethlehem, and the days when he wrote that Psalm: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters”; and he wanted to be back in the old days where there would be no sound of battle, where he could drink and be satisfied, where he could hear God speak. Oh, for the old days! I, I too, would like to go back to the old days when the* Church had power, when the ministers stood in their” jpulpits gnd preached as if they were the very servants of God, when the people sitting in the pews looked up into the face of the minister, and questioned, sometimes, whether he was in the flesh or out of the flesh.

I would like to go back to the old days, such as they had in New England when our great Jonathan Edwards was preaching on sinners in the hands of a mighty God, and when men started to the front of the church, saying, “Have mercy, the Day of Judgment is upon us.”

I want the days to come back when men will love God’s Book, and when they will believe again in prayer — prayer that can take heaven by storm, prayer that can travel like a wireless message to your boy in Australia. A friend of mine took to gambling in the city of New York, and broke his mother’s heart. He hurried across the continent to get away from her, and came to San Francisco. He went from bad to worse, and, finally, realizing that he had gambling debts he could not pay, he said, “I will kill myself.” He made his way upstairs into the little room he occupied, and in despair he threw himself down upon the bed. As he did so he jarred a little shelf on the wall above his bed, and a book fell down and struck him. Being impatient by nature, he hurled it across the room, when suddenly he remembered what Book it was, and he crossed the room and picked it up. God, in His goodness, allowed the Book to open at the proper place, where, written across the margin, was this message: “Dear boy, you will never get away from your mother’s prayers,” and my friend dropped on his knees then and there, and gave himself to Christ. I saw his old mother afterwards, and she said, “I knew he could not get away from my prayers.” I want the old days to come back again, when people will believe in prayer.

I was riding along a street in Washington, when, as I looked out of the window I saw our Capitol building for the first time. I said, “What is that?” And the gentleman who was sitting with me said, “It is the Capitol.” It was a beautiful moonlit night, and I put my face against the glass, that I might see the building better, when this friend said, “That is the home of the nation.” But I do not think that is the home of our nation, and certainly it is not the hope of our nation. I would rather take you into a home in New England, where, until recently, an old, white-haired man used to gather his household together, morning and evening, where he would open the old Book an£ would read out of it, and then would mention the name of every child he had in prayer, and his household would go forth to work, feeling almost as if angels were hovering round them, and would lie down to sleep at night, feeling almost as if ladders were reaching up from their pillows to heaven. I want to go back to the old days of family prayer.

May I close with this question: “Will the old

faith stand?” I know the answer. You must judge, first of all, by the Scriptures. They never have failed, and I know they never will. I was in the room of a blind man in the city of Cincinnati, a very celebrated man, and he told me that he was on his way to New York City, when, in the morning, he found there was a mist about him. He called the porter and said, “Is it dark?” “No,” said he. “It is light, and the light is shining in your eyes.” He said, “Put me out at the next station, for I must be going blind.” He made his way back home and called in a celebrated specialist, and said, “Doctor, what is the matter with my eyes?” The doctor looked, and then called in another specialist, and they looked together. Then the doctor took him by the hand and said, “Shall I tell you the truth?” He said, “Yes,” thinking he would only have to sit in the darkness for a while with bandaged eyes, but the doctor said, “Your optic nerve is dead, and only God Himself could make you see again.” And sitting upon a couch in the room, he sobbed as if his heart would break. All this time the blind man had been walking up and down before me in his drawing-room, then he came near to me and said, “What do you suppose I did?” Do you suppose I cursed God because my eyes were gone?” I “No, sir,” he said, “the moment they told me myi optic nerve was dead I felt the loving touch of Jesus Christ, and I heard Him saying, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,’ and He has been better to me I than His word.” Will the old faith stand? I like, that Scripture which says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word” — never!

I have no contention with the man who does not agree with me in my message. My time is too short to enter into any sort of an argument with the man who may differ from me theologically. The only thing I want in these days is to be given the privilege of saying four things. First, that God loves you. Second, that Jesus Christ died to save you. Third, that His Word standeth fast. Fourth, that whosoever will may come, and I bid you come to Him now.