Cisterns

A cistern is "a large hole in the ground lined with rocks to collect rainwater. The bottom would have been dark, damp, and...full of mud."(Life Application Study Bible) I'm going to add that it was probably cool, or even cold since it was dug into the ground. I absolutely cannot stand to be cold. The only thing I hate worse than being cold is being WET and cold. Add to that dirty and dark...well, I'm going to go on record as saying that if you ever desire to torture me a cistern would be a great option. Once again we see Jeremiah tortured by the officials of Judah. I found King Zedekiah's response to their accusations of Jeremiah interesting. "The King can do nothing to oppose you." Really??!! Are you King or are you King? If there was a man in Judah to opposed them, it should have been him. HE was the one who should have been giving them orders, not the other way around.

I'm also going to go on record and pose that King Zedekiah was in a much more miserable prison than even Jeremiah's cistern. When we are slaves to the opinions and approval of others, that is a prison that is terribly hard to break out of. King Zedekiah agreed with EVERYBODY, even Jeremiah at times. Too bad he didn't listen to him. Everything Jeremiah prophesied about him came true. That's the thing about God, he always does what he says he will do.

We have another character enter the picture, and man named Ebed-Melech. He rescued Jeremiah at the risk of his own life. Because of his trust in God and faithfulness to him, Ebed- Melech was spared when Jerusalem fell. (Jeremiah 39:15-18) Again we see that God always looks after his own when we obey him. As Jeremiah told King Zedekiah:

Obey the Lord...Then it will go well with you and your life will be spared.

Jeremiah 30:20

Did you notice what Jeremiah told him would happen if he didn't obey?

"They misled you and overcame you-

these trusted friends of yours.

Your feet are stuck in the mud;

your friends have deserted you."

Jeremiah 30:22

Does that sound a little bit like a cistern to you? Deserted, stuck in the mud, misled.

Unable to rescue yourself.

I have found myself in plenty of "cisterns" of my own making. The absolute worst feeling is that you are completely stuck- with no way out. Ladies, that is exactly how Satan wants us to feel. Stuck in the mud...trapped, deserted and unable to get out. God has already provided the way out...the rope he sent down to rescue us came in the form of his son Jesus. Obey him. Trust him. Then it will go well with you...and your life will be spared. We will all face physical death, but we do not have to walk this life spiritually dead.

In case you haven't noticed, God isn't in the business of always keeping his followers "comfortable." Jeremiah is a prime example. He had to spend time in prison, endure ridicule and spend some time in the cistern. So have countless other martyrs over the years. What are we going to do when God asks us to get uncomfortable? Oh trust me ladies, this isn't an easy one for me to grapple with. I love to be comfortable. We are used to being comfortable here in America. We can thank God for the times we are, and the many many blessings He gives us. But beware of thinking that anything that goes against that isn't from God. As we read earlier in Jeremiah, God knows the plans he has for us. And even the tough times can prosper us, if they are lived in obedience to him.

Of course we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended when He made us. He is the inventor, we are only the machine. He is the painter, we are only the picture.

We may be content to remain what we call "ordinary people": But He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility; it is laziness and cowardice. To submit is not conceit or megalomania; it is obedience.

C. S. Lewis- "Mere Christianity"