 |
| If you prefer, there is an easy to read and print READER version RIGHT HERE! |
|
A
|
nd three of the thirty chief
went down, and came to David in the harvest time unto the cave of Adullam: and
the troop of the Philistines pitched in the valley of Rephaim. 14 And David was then
in an hold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. 15 And David longed, and said,
Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by
the gate! 16 And
the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water
out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it,
and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but
poured it out unto the Lord. 17 And
he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not
this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore
he would not drink it. These things did these three mighty men. (2 Sam 23:13-17)
There
are many wells mentioned in the Holy Bible. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were
prolific well-diggers. These wells have provided life-giving water to many with
parched lips and barren souls. You will recall poor Hagar fleeing into the
wilderness to escape the harsh treatment of Sarah. The Lord found her by a well
of water in the wilderness. (Genesis 16:7) “Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi;
behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.” (Gen 16:14) The well was named, by
Hagar, “Beerlachairoi, " meaning
a ‘well to the Living One who seeth me.’ "
There
is another famous biblical well outside the gates of the Samaritan city of
Sychar (Samaria) known to us as Jacob’s Well. A woman of immoral living came
there in the heat of the day to draw water. It might be supposed that she came
at that noon hour to avoid the sharp tongues of the women of the city and their
gossip. She came seeking the water some fifty feet beneath the earth, but left
with an overflowing abundance of the waters of salvation. “Therefore with
joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” (Isaiah 12:3)
All
wells mentioned in the Bible were important to men and women and often meant
the difference between life and death. But the Wells of Salvation that the Lord
offers us is an overflowing Fountain whose source is Eternal. “Jesus
answered and said unto her, Whosoever
drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But 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 4:13-14)
It
is given as the best counsel under Heaven to drink from that Fountain of Living
Waters which our Lord represents rather than those contaminated and stagnant
wells of man who preach for filthy lucre.. “For my people have committed two
evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed
them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jer 2:13)
I
would like to focus, for the remainder of this devotion, on another well beside
the gate of a small hamlet of Judah called Bethlehem. Bethlehem was the place
of birth of King David, and later the legal (not physical) Son of David – the
Lord Jesus Christ.
King
David has just lost his son, Absalom, while battling elements of Israel in the
wilderness. The kingdom is divided and David is King of Judah. The Philistines
occupy Jerusalem, and David is in a stronghold in the desert regions. His heart
is heavy owing to the treachery of his son, Absalom, and finally the death of
the same. It seems to David that the enemy is on all fronts, and there is no
rear echelon of power. In such times, the mind of a man or woman may wander
back to more innocent and happy memories. David remembers his old home place in
Bethlehem which is under the control of the Philistines. He may have remembered
playing in the narrow streets there, and keeping watch over his flock on the
hills overlooking Bethlehem – the same hills over which the Angel of the Lord
announced to the shepherds the birth of a Savior. He longs for the peace and
joy of those bygone days. Then his mind falls upon the memory of a Well of
Water just beside the gates of Bethlehem. Suddenly, that Well embodies all that
is good in the memory of King David.
Well,
a good King commands the loyalty and love of his people. When David, in a
moment of abandon, comments on his desire to simply drink once more from the
Well at the Gate in Bethlehem, three of his courageous men immediately
undertake to get that water for their king. Risking their lives, they break
through the lines of the Philistines at Bethlehem and retrieve the treasured
water. This is not the water that David really craves, but it is the water of
the Wells of Salvation that haunts his heart’s desire.
In
these modern days of rampant sin and irreverent disregard to God Almighty, we,
too, often hail back to a more innocent age when the cardinal sins of our day
were unheard of among the common people of our nation. If we could just turn
back time to those days, we would be in good stead, we think. But the hands of
time cannot be set in reverse, and neither can the innocence of a fairer age be
restored to a stiff-necked and rebellious people. Only God can turn the hearts
of man back to His Law and Grace.
There
are no cultivated plants in a wilderness desert. There may be plenty of briars,
weeds and undergrowth that cannot satisfy the hungers of men. Weeds, like sin,
grow without cultivation. But the hearty crops of our food chain require the
labor of the plow and bucket. Life-giving plants do not grow without
cultivation.
For
me, the Well by the Gate of Bethlehem is an era of my childhood in which drug
abuse (and even alcohol abuse) were unheard of or very rare. Marital infidelity
was not a common thing. In fact, when we learned that a divorced woman had
moved into a small community near our home, my friends and I wanted to go see
what a divorced woman looked like. Homosexuality was a dirty word, and I knew
no one who practiced that filthy sin. In my young days, a man could go to jail
for using a curse word in public. No one would have even conceived of another
wearing their pants down so low as to bare their undergarments, or something
even more vile.
But
I can never drink from that Well by the Gate of Bethlehem any more than King
David dared to do so. We cannot go back – we can only go forward. Someone in
America, long before my birth, made provision for a Godly and decent society
for children to grow up in during my young age. As we go forward to the future,
should the adult population – the parents, teachers, policemen, and clergy, not
be about cultivating gardens of delight instead of sewers of filth and sin for
our upcoming generations?
I
find that even that old well of my youth cannot provide the sweet and
life-giving waters of the Fountain of Living Waters which our Lord has
provided. Quite often, that Fountain, like the Well of Beerlachairoi that
the Lord set before Hagar, may be found in Wilderness places. David found such
a Fountain and gave us a beautiful prayer that all can repeat who have found
the Lord in the wilderness of the world:
|
O
|
God, thou art my God;
early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee
in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; 2 To see thy power and thy
glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. 3 Because thy lovingkindness is better
than life, my lips shall praise thee. 4 Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will
lift up my hands in thy name. 5 My
soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth
shall praise thee with joyful lips: 6 When I remember thee upon my
bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. 7 Because thou hast been my
help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. 8 My soul followeth hard after
thee: thy right hand upholdeth me. 9 But
those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts
of the earth. 10 They
shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes. 11 But the king shall rejoice in
God; every one that sweareth by him shall glory: but the mouth of them that
speak lies shall be stopped. (Psalms 63:1-11)
David,
a short time later, was returned to Bethlehem to be buried, but did, indeed,
drink of the Wells of Salvation purchased by another Child of Bethlehem – the
Lord Jesus Christ. So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the
city of David (i.e., BETHLEHEM). (1 Kings 2:10)
