Digging for Water
O OME of the “out - of the - way “passages in God’s Word contain precious teachings, which will repay us for hunting them out and turning them up. There is a rich ore of truth hidden under them. For example, there is an historical incident narrated in the third chapter of the Second Book of Kings which is very seldom noticed. “We read that the kings of Judah and of Israel were at war with the heathen armies of Moab. The armies of the Lord were suflPering from the want of water. Within the compass of a seven days’ journey they cannot find a drop. In their straits they send for God’s prophet, Elisha. He becomes God’s oracle, and gives them this message from Heaven: “Thus saith the Lord, make the land full of ditches” The word may be better translated trenches. How shall they be filled? That is not their concern. It is the duty of faith not to question, but to obey. “For thus saith the Lord, ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet this valley shall be filled with loater, that ye may drink; both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts.” The trenches were dug, and presently the waters began to steal into them from some mysterious, invisible source. It was not an ordinary process of Nature; but a supernatural process, accomplished by the direct agency of God. All the awakening, converting, and quickening power that operates on human souls is really supernatural. Up to a certain point human agency acts, but not one hair’s breadth further. “Paul may plant,” and there he stops; “Apollos may water,” and there he must stop. Then comes in the divine agency, when “God giveth the increase.” All that the thirsting Israelites could do, or were asked to do, was simply to dig the trenches. And then a supernatural power filled them mysteriously with water. There does not appear to have been any Huxley, or Tyndall, or Darwin in the camp, to teach God’s people that supernatural agencies are never exerted, even for a good object. The simple-hearted Israelites wanted water, and they dug channels for God to pour it in. They prepared for a blessing, and the blessing came.
This is the pithy and practical truth that we find by lifting up this text and looking under it. It is a suggestive one to hundreds of our churches, which have long been languishing in spiritual drought. If we want spiritual blessings, we must dig the trenches to receive them.
The first trench that ought to be opened in some churches is a deep, broad channel of mutual confidence and brotherly love. When Christians grow cold and neglectful of their own duties, they grow censorious toward each other. As love declines, the critical temper increases. AD along the eaves of a cold church hang the sharp, piercing icicles of criticism and censoriousness. Then everybody suffers. The pastor catches his share: his most honest efforts are the most censured. The officers of the church are blamed roundly, and those who happen to be unpopular are made the luckless scapegoats on which to load the failures of the church. Each blames the others; but no one goes down in the dust of contrition and blames himself. Sometimes this censoriousness is born of the very impatience at the want of success. Sometimes good men and women, vexed that things do not go better, fall to hitting right and left their fellow-members, their officers, the pastor getting a blackened eye among the rest. It is as if a rifleman on the battle-field, seeing the fight go badly, quits firing, and takes to battering his comrades with the butt of his rifle. Whereas his own example, in just standing firm and taking sure aim at the foe, would do more to restore the battle than all his disorderly assaults on his fellow-soldiers. The charity that “thinketh no evil,” and is “not easily provoked,” and that “seeketh not her own” (way), is the first grace to be exercised in many a cold, discordant, fault-finding church. How can Christians expect the outside world to put confidence in them when they put so little confidence in each other? The first duty in such a church is to run a deep, broad trench of cordial charity and brotherly love right through the whole congregation. This trench must be dug by every one before his own door. Another trench to be opened speedily is earnest, penitential prayer. This is God’s appointed “channel to convey the blessings he designs to give.” I sometimes think that there are no equal number of utterances by reputable people in which so many falsehoods are told as in public prayers. Loving words are often spoken by people whose hearts rankle with mean spites and malicious grudges. Sins are glibly confessed in prayer which if anybody else should charge upon the speaker he would grow red in the face with wrath. Words of solemn self-consecration are fluently uttered by persons who are living to themselves, and not to Jesus
Christ. Such prayers are a mockery. They cut no channels for God’s blessings. But genuine prayer — boin of contrition and soulthirst, poured out with faith and wrestling importunity — breaks “its way up to the Throne of Infinite Love. Such prayer always brings a revival; nay, it is itself a revival.
A third work of preparation for the divine blessing is equally indispensable. It is personal repentance of sin. Not of other people’s sins, but of our own. The best draining of a farmer’s field is sub-soil drainage. In our churches we need a sub-soil repentance. It must cut deep. It must cut up sin by the root. If the ploughshare run through the flower-beds and melon-patches of our self-indulgence, so much the better. The trench that drains oif our sins will be a channel for the sweet, life-giving waters of salvation.
We might mention other trenches that ai-e needed, — such as hard work and liberality in giving for Christ. The wider we cut these channels, the broader and the fuller will be the stream of God’s blessings. Thus saith the Lord to his people, “Make your valley full of trenches.” We may “see no wind nor rain.” “We may hear no sounds of violent excitement. But silently and steadily the tides of spiritual influence will flow into our souls. As the tides rise from the ocean over bare and slimy ground, and lift up the keels of grounded vessels, so shall these blessings of the Holy Spirit flow into our churches. Not by might, not by human power, but “by my Spirit, saith the Lord.”
Brethren, this plain-spoken article may reach scores of churches who are so dry that there is “no water within a compass of seven days’ journey.” God’s command to you is to prepare for blessings, or they will never come. When your trenches are ready, the currents of spiritual power will flow in. If you want water, dig for it!