Lord, I do pray that You will put a thirst in our hearts for Your Word. I do pray that, Lord, as we come this morning, something of the parchedness that may be in our hearts can be satisfied as we come to You and to Your Word.
Lord, Your Word is like living waters to our souls. We ask that we would be nourished deeply as we come into Your Word this morning. And Lord, I do plead Your blood this morning. Who can share the Word of the Lord? Who can speak on Your behalf?
But Lord, we come under the anointing this morning—the anointing of Your Holy Spirit, both that is in us and that is upon us—that we might perceive, receive, and respond to what You are saying to us.
Lord, we thank You for Your blessing this morning, and we ask that You bless our time together. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, last time we talked about Isaac, he was living by the well of Beer-lahai-roi—the well of the living God Who reveals Himself. What a place. What a place to be: to know the freshness, daily and moment by moment, of the joy of the Lord and the freshness of the Lord’s life.
And yet this morning, we find that our brother’s situation has changed a little bit. We want to begin by reading Genesis 26:1-4.
And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham.
And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar.
And the Lord appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of:
Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father;
And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
Here in these first four verses, we find that conditions had changed for our brother Isaac. A famine had come upon the land. As he was considering what to do, no doubt he was considering the need to go to Egypt.
But the Lord appeared to him and said, “No. You stay here. You dwell in this land where you are. Sojourn in this land and stay here. Here will be your blessing. Here My promise will be fulfilled to you. Do not go down to Egypt, but dwell here.”
The place of blessing and the place of promise.
Brothers and sisters, the first thing that leaped out at me as I read this chapter was dwelling in the land—the importance of dwelling in the land. This famine was upon our brother, and as he was considering ways to deal with it, the Lord appeared to him and said, “No, you need to dwell here. This is where you will be blessed. This is where My promises, not only to you but to the nations and the whole world, will be fulfilled.”
Dwelling in the land. Now, I have mentioned this before, but I am going to say it again: Christ is your promised land. Christ is your dwelling place. We need to learn to stay there. We need to learn to dwell in the land.
When things and crises come in our lives, we need to learn that we need to stay there. We need to dwell there, because that is where the promises and blessings of God are fulfilled in our lives.
Often, we think of blessings and promises as things. You get your list of promises from the Bible, and you pray about them. You may feel a need to be blessed financially, so you pray about that. Or you pray about spiritual things: “Lord, I would love to be more spiritual. I need more faith. Lord, I need more grace. I need Your sanctification.”
The problem with that line of thinking is that it is basically man-centred. It is kind of self-centred. It is not wrong to ask for grace and faith and these kinds of things. We know that.
But have you yet discovered—and this is a real discovery of the Christian life—that He is your blessing? He is your dwelling place. He is your place of promise. All the promises and blessings are in Christ Jesus.
When you accept the Lord Jesus, you have a Person. Because you have that Person, you will be blessed. You will receive of the promises. We say that the Lord has saved us, and He has; but you now have salvation, and you now have eternal life—this precious eternal life—because you have Christ. You have the Person.
We should never get away from the Person.
You know, we are always about things. But when it comes to the spiritual life, we have to learn that a real key is the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, because it is all in Him. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him—a Person.
So it is that personal relationship that is so critical. We need to learn to dwell in Him.
It is not an object or things that we are after. We finally discover that it is a Person. He is your Saviour. He is your Shepherd. He is your Shield. He is your Buckler. He is your exceeding great reward.
Remember, these are all the things that Abraham discovered about Him. He is your blessing. He is your promise. The Lord Jesus is your everything. God said, “I AM.” That was His name. He is everything. The Lord Jesus Christ is your everything. He is your land to dwell in.
He is your life. If you leave the land, you have basically left the Person, if you know what I am saying here. Leaving the land means you are leaving your connection to the Person.
You are drifting towards Egypt after things, instead of remembering the Person and dwelling in the land. The Lord was absolutely clear about this.
Young Christians, dwell in the land. There are many things that lie ahead of you in life: maybe college that you are going to, jobs that you are considering, or a mate that you are considering. All of these things lie ahead of you.
One thing I must exhort you to do this morning: never leave the land.
Always stand in our Lord Jesus Christ. He is your blessing. He is your promise. He is your life. He is everything. That is a lesson that we as Christians do have to learn, sometimes through very difficult circumstances.
Something else is extremely important. Your dwelling place is Christ, but you need to remember Who Christ is.
You are in Christ, but what does the Word say about our Lord Jesus? He is the fullness of the Godhead. All the fullness dwells in Him. Then it goes on to say that He is the Head of the church, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
Do you see the connection between the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and His body, which is the church—which we are? You need to dwell in Christ. You need to dwell in the land. And that land, frankly, brothers and sisters, includes your brothers and sisters.
You are no longer an individual. The body of Christ is reality. The church is not a building you go to. It is not even merely a gathering of a group of Christians. It is brothers and sisters who are built together through the power of the Holy Spirit unto a testimony to the Lord Jesus on this earth.
That is a part of Christ. It is Christ. So dwell in the land.
Particularly younger ones, you get married and go out, and we have seen so many drift away. It is sad, because they have left the land. Yes, they still love the Lord. They still have the Lord. But they sure have moved to the outskirts of the land.
Another interesting thing about these four verses: they are in the promised land, but there is a famine there. Now think about that. You are the Lord’s. He has promised to keep you, take care of you, and exhorted you to stay in the land. You are there, and yet there is a famine in your life.
A famine. Imagine that—in the promised land—but there is a famine there.
Strange. But there is a reason for the famine.
In order to live in the land, in order to dwell in the land, in order to maintain that fellowship in Christ and to function in the body of Christ, faith is required. It takes faith.
Without faith, you cannot really abide in Christ. You may be in Him, but abiding is distant to you. It takes faith to live in the land, and our brother is being tested.
Remember, Abraham’s faith was tested. Abraham actually went into Egypt, and he faltered. But we also know that the Lord did not give up on Abraham. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith. Finally, we see Abraham able even to offer up his only son on the mountain—a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Father offering up His only Son, the Lord Jesus, on Mount Calvary.
Faith is extremely important to the Lord. Faith is required, and faith has to grow. Faith has to increase. Faith has to be tested. The purpose of testing is not to destroy us, but to strengthen our faith.
Obviously, Isaac was planning on going into Egypt. That is why the Lord said, “No, you need to stay in the land. You need to stay in the land.”
Famine in your life. Have you experienced those famines in your life? Many things can bring about these times of testing. It can be some unexpected difficulty that arises in your life, in your family life, in your work situation, or in the church.
Some circumstance comes, and it kind of throws you spiritually. You are not quite sure what is going on. It may be some tragedy that has occurred in your life, and you just cannot understand why that could happen with such a loving God.
Difficulties. You pray and struggle, but there seems to be no relief. Heaven is silent. Instead of getting better in this promised land, you seem to be getting worse.
Maybe you have really touched some depths in your life.
We opened this morning with, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” David touched something—just a touch of what our Lord Jesus went through on Calvary’s cross. Just a touch.
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
My fathers cried out unto Thee, Lord, and Thou deliveredst them, and they were not confounded.
But I am. Lord, where art Thou?
Lord, why dost Thou not hear the crying of my heart?
What do you do in response to your disappointment and discouragement?
I will tell you what you do. I will tell you what Jerry Amon does, and what the tendency is for every Christian: to go back to Egypt, to go back to the world.
What does that mean? That means, “Well, I have got to figure this out. I need to lean to my own understanding. I cannot really wait patiently before God under His mighty hand until He lifts it. I need to get relief.”
We are no longer thinking about trying to get to the Lord. What we are thinking about is getting relief from the pressure, from the tears. That is our tendency: to go back to Egypt.
You remember Peter? He got frustrated after the Lord’s death, and he said, “Let us go fishing.” Well, that was a natural thing for Peter. He was a fisherman. He said, “I do not understand what is going on. Let us just go back. Let us go fishing.”
Not only did he go back; he took the others with him.
Going to Egypt—that is the natural tendency. I think that is why the Lord stepped in particularly with Isaac. He would not let him go back. He said, “No, you need to dwell in the land.”
Your faith will only be further diminished if you go to Egypt. It will be much harder to restore faith and to strengthen faith.
So the Lord allows these testings in our lives, brothers and sisters—these dry times, these dry times of fellowship. We can have these times because of sins and other things, but there are times in our lives when the Lord just allows these dry times. It is a test of faith, to strengthen your faith. The Lord is wanting to strengthen your faith.
Droughts and famines drive the roots deeper. They strengthen the tree in order that it might withstand the storms of life.
Droughts are not all bad. They cause our roots to go deeper into the Lord. That is the place we should maintain: “Lord, I do not understand, but I cast myself on Thee. I trust Thee, Lord.” And the roots go deeper.
Do you all remember last summer? It has kind of drifted away from your minds, I guess. But last summer we had a large drought in Virginia and along the East Coast—a major drought.
Not only did we have a drought, but we had an unusually hot summer, with many days of temperatures over one hundred degrees. That was last summer.
You know what happened this March, when the March winds came? Toward the end of March, we had some pretty heavy winds, getting up to forty and fifty miles an hour. It was not a storm like we have been having recently; the winds just came.
I woke up one morning to find three of my pine trees down. These were forty-year-old pine trees, because I planted them when they were that tall forty years ago. They were quite large white pines.
I was stunned. We had had winds before, but they just toppled over. It had not been preceded by a lot of rain.
So I went over and began to look at the root system. Here is what I found out: out of those large white pines, there may have been only one or two roots left that still had life in them.
The rest of the roots had dried up in the drought. They had not made it back to the water, and they dried up. The tree was left without a sufficient root system to weather the storm, to weather the contrary winds that came. And they toppled.
They had had enough life that they were still green from the few roots that remained, but it was not strong enough for the storm.
Droughts can have two effects. They can strengthen your faith. But if you turn back from the Lord, if you decide to go into Egypt, away from the Lord’s promise and blessing, brothers and sisters, your faith can be greatly affected and very difficult to recover. You can topple.
Now thank the Lord, in the Lord Jesus Christ, even when we topple, we can be restored. My trees could not be restored. All I could do was call in the man and turn them into mulch. I guess that is part of the allegory too. At least they did not go totally to waste.
But I just want you to know: do not crumble. Do not leave the land. Dwell in the land, even in times of famine in your life. The Lord is faithful. Trust Him.
Well, praise the Lord, Isaac did listen. He did dwell in the land. He did not go totally outside of the Lord’s will, so we are thankful for that.
Now let us read Genesis 26:6-15.
And Isaac dwelt in Gerar:
And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon.
And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.
And Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, of a surety she is thy wife: and how saidst thou, She is my sister?
And Isaac said unto him, Because I said, Lest I die for her.
And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us.
And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.
Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and the Lord blessed him.
And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great:
For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him.
For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth.
Isaac was in the land. Isaac was God’s man in the land. Isaac was the one who stood for the Lord’s testimony in that land. The Lord had appeared to him and made these promises to him. There is no doubt that he was a testimony among the Philistines of God.
But in the time of testing, his faith had faltered. The testimony suffered because of it, and Abimelech even had to rebuke Isaac for this failure. Something of the testimony of the Lord had been lost in this test of faith.
But what I saw here, brothers and sisters, was the faithfulness of God—not only to Isaac, but to His testimony. Isaac sowed in the land and received a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him greatly, and he became very great. Even the Philistines envied him.
Later, Isaac asked them, “Why have you come to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you?” And they said:
We saw certainly that the Lord was with thee.
Certainly, the Lord was with him. In other words, the Lord maintained His testimony, even in the weakness we see in Isaac’s faith, by blessing Isaac.
Amazingly enough, the Lord’s ways are marvellous and merciful. Instead of causing Isaac to go into poverty, He actually blessed him. Why was that needed, brothers and sisters?
The Lord knows that we are like reeds, easily broken—smoking flax. He understands our frame. Instead of punishing our brother, He wanted to bring him back to strength. He wanted his faith to be restored, so He blessed him.
So much so that the Philistines said, “God is with you. It is obvious. He has blessed you.”
Amazing. I want to say, brothers and sisters, we do falter. But I am so thankful that the Lord restores us. He is willing to restore us, and He will maintain His testimony.
Look at your life right now. Do you know that one day, according to the book of Revelation, you will be in that city? You will be part of that glorious city that testifies only to the glory of Christ and God. You will be without spot or wrinkle, because He is faithful to His testimony.
We are now in the process of those spots and wrinkles being removed—not only individually, but corporately in the church—because He is after that bride. We need to know that God is faithful and that He will do what He wants.
But brothers and sisters, we should not take lightly the fact that we can affect the testimony of Christ on this earth today. Isaac faltered, and the testimony was affected. The testimony of God remained only because of the hand of God in his life.
It is a great privilege to carry the testimony of Jesus in your life individually and in the church corporately. We know, as we look in the book of Revelation, how greatly the church has failed and how much we may have failed. But God will not fail.
For us, we need to have our faith restored and strengthened, back in the land, so that we no longer bring shame to the testimony of Jesus. This was a great lesson that our brother had to learn.
Let us read again in Genesis 26:15-26.
For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth.
And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we.
And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.
And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.
And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.
And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen, saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek; because they strove with him.
And they digged another well, and strove for that also: and he called the name of it Sitnah.
And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.
And he went up from thence to Beersheba.
And the Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for My servant Abraham’s sake.
And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac’s servants digged a well.
Then in Genesis 26:32:
And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac’s servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water.
Beersheba means the well of the oath. He had finally gotten back to that place where he was standing on God’s promises: the well of the oath. He had gotten back to Beersheba.
In these Scriptures, we see a couple of things. Number one: the wells were stopped up. The Philistines had filled them with dirt. Number two: the Lord does not speak to Isaac until he gets back to Beersheba, the well of the oath. There is no altar until he gets back to Beersheba.
The wells are stopped up, the Lord is not speaking to him, and there is no altar in his life until he gets back to Beersheba.
Three things are critical to the life of faith: the tent, the altar, and the well. Remember that. Three things are so critical to the life of faith: the tent, the altar, and the well.
The tent means you are a sojourner. You are not connected to this earth. You are in the world, but not of it. You are not attached to the world; you are attached to the Lord.
Because of that, you do not put your roots down in this world. Your desires, your plans, and your hopes—you put them in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what it means to be a tent-dweller. That is what we are, and so we should have the tent.
Secondly, the altar always speaks of communion and worship.
How dry our lives become without communion. How empty they become without fellowship with the Lord, without that altar where, when we touch the Lord, we have no choice but to worship Him.
That is the altar. The altar is critical to the life of faith.
Thirdly, the well. The Lord says, “You drink the water that I will give you, and it will be a well springing up within you.” The Holy Spirit—the life of the Lord—comes up from inside.
The well of life is the life of the Lord Jesus Himself. We need these things for that walk of faith: the tent, the altar, and the well.
The wells were stopped up. That is kind of the emphasis I came to this morning: the wells were stopped up.
How can you have faith when the well is stopped up? The well holds the life-giving water. Here we find that the Philistines had filled it up with dirt.
How does that apply to us today? The dirt. The Philistines were actually in the land too, but they did not have any relationship with the Lord. They recognized that the Lord had blessed Abraham, but they were not like Abraham or Isaac. They had no altar.
Instead of digging wells, when they saw all these herds coming out from Isaac, and saw that he needed those wells, they filled them up. They did not want him to have the wells.
Brothers and sisters, that is what the world does to us. It fills our wells with dirt.
There are many things. I will mention a few, just so we can relate to it.
Sin. Habits that we know the Lord is not pleased with. They cling to us. They will not let us go. They fill our wells with dirt.
Worldly pleasures. It is not that we are not in the world, and that we do not experience pleasures. But we cannot cling to those pleasures. They cannot become the primary thing in our lives. They cannot become the thing that we live for.
We are in the world, but not of it. The cares of life, the business of life—dirt filling the wells.
Then there is the big one: the self-life itself. How can you fill up something that is already full? Our self-life is probably the biggest hindrance, and the reason we falter in these other areas.
What does self-life mean? My desires—what are the Lord’s desires? My concerns—what about the Lord’s concerns? My opinions, my thoughts—what are the Lord’s opinions and thoughts? My rights—what about the Lord’s rights?
Me, mine, mine: my trinity, instead of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So often it is the self-life that has filled up the well.
Brothers and sisters, when we get in this state, when we get in this relationship that is so distant, the vibrancy of the spiritual life is gone.
It is dull. Our life is dull. We are just going through the routines. Our relationship with the Lord is distant at best. We become religious instead of spiritual.
Yes, we come on Sundays and we do these things, but there is no life there. We are drifting. We become spiritually unaware and passive.
These are symptoms of a stopped-up well. Reading the Word becomes wearisome. Prayer is like talking to the ceiling, as if you are getting nowhere. Why do it?
Fellowship—something you used to love—you now avoid. These are symptoms that the well is filling up.
What is the answer? We need to be awakened.
Isaac was awakened when Abimelech came to him and said, “You need to move. We do not want you around here anymore.” Isaac was awakened. He realised that he needed to get back where he should be.
How do we redig this well? Looking off unto Jesus. You have got to get your eyes back on the Lord, instead of things and all the stuff that you are dealing with.
Allow Him to search your heart. Sometimes we may ask, “Well, Lord, what is wrong? What is going on? What is this? What is that?” You simply lay yourself before the Lord and say, “Lord, I am just waiting for Your light.” That is sufficient.
But we need to ask Him to show us what is filling our well. Ask Him for a repentant heart.
You know, repentance is not something you can just work up. Esau sought repentance with tears and could not find it. The self-life cannot repent. You need to know that. That old man will never repent.
He may be sorry for the consequences he is going through, but he will never repent. Repentance comes from the Lord. Only He can touch those hearts of ours. We need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit.
When He touches our hearts and our lives, we need to respond. We need to respond to the life of the Lord in us.
It says the law of the Spirit of life overcomes the law of sin and death. Both laws are in you, but we need to get back to the law of life in our hearts.
I have been reading Augustine’s Confessions recently. There is something in there I read that I thought might be helpful in this matter of redigging wells, getting rid of the dirt, and really pursuing the Lord. I am just going to read it this morning.
My soul was struggling to go after the Lord, yet it drew back. It resisted, fearing the cutting off of that habit by which it was being wasted to death.
It was I who willed, and it was I who was unwilling. In either case, I neither willed with my whole will, nor was I wholly unwilling.
I hesitated to die to death and to live to life.
Then the tempter came to me: “Are you going to part with us? Are we never to be with you anymore? Do you think you can live without us?”
Then a voice spoke: “Why do you stand in your own strength, and so stand not? Cast yourself on Him. Fear not. He will not flinch, and you will not fall. Cast yourself on Him without reserve or fear, for He will receive you and heal you.”
Augustine finally cries out, “Why not now, Lord? Why not now? Why can I not break through?” Then he hears a voice from the window next door, a child’s voice that kept saying, “Open the book, open the book.”
So he goes to his Bible and opens it, and his eyes fall on Romans 13:14:
Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
This is the secret: put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh. So often, we are trying to deal with the flesh with the flesh, and we have not put on Christ.
That is the secret. It is not you; it is Christ. It was not Augustine, and it was not by the resolve of his will that he overcame.
I summarise it this way: self trying to deliver itself from self is impossible. The only answer is to put on Christ.
He is the power in your life. It is His life in you.
It is time to redig the wells. But there is a little warning that comes out of this chapter as we read it.
As Isaac began redigging wells, the first one he had to name Esek—contention. The second one was named Sitnah—enmity or hatred. In other words, there was contention as he began to redig wells.
So be prepared. Do not be thrown by the enemy’s assaults as you prepare to get back to the Lord and dig out those wells in your life.
There was contention. But praise the Lord, the Lord was faithful in our brother’s life, and he finally gets to Rehoboth. The enemy finally backs off.
He is at peace with the Lord, and yet he knows he has not quite gone far enough. He goes on to Beersheba, the place of the oath. So important.
What is the place of the oath? It is Christ and His work at Calvary’s cross. That is the thing we stand on. That is what we have to get back to.
“Lord, I failed You, and I have sinned.” But at the well of the oath, we can go back to the blood of Christ.
“Lord, Thy blood has taken away my sin.”
The work of Calvary means that not only have our sins been dealt with, but the sinner himself has been dealt with. That is the work of the cross.
Brothers and sisters, the blood is for our sins committed. The cross is to deal with the sinner himself. Praise the Lord.
The well of the oath means that he got back to ground that was firm, which hell could not touch. That is Christ and His work on Calvary.
That was where he was: back at the well of the oath, the place of strength, where faith can lay hold of something real, something eternal, and not passing with the whims of life and our emotional responses.
The well of the oath. Thank the Lord.
There is a corporate side to this: redigging wells in the church itself. Not only is redigging wells necessary individually, but it is necessary in the church.
By the end of the first century, brothers and sisters, the well was beginning to be filled up. You remember how the church started out: so pure, so fervent for the Lord. They met every day and broke bread. They were before the Lord in prayer, song, and worship. They loved fellowship. It was pure and holy. It was young, fresh, living, and real.
Yet by the end of the first century, even before John died, much tragedy had come into the church. False teachings and the Judaizers had taken a foothold. We have many warnings in the epistles about false teachers. The well was filling up.
By the end of the fourth century, you have to say—at least, this is my judgment—that the well had been filled almost to the top. There was no reality there now. The church had become ecclesiastical: positions, places, power. It had become a political machine, exercising tremendous power in the political realm.
So much so that men were told, “If you sin, what you need to do is bring some money to the priest. They will pray for you.” Money-driven. Greed. Pomp and circumstance—it was all that was left.
The reality of the church was almost obliterated by the end of the fourth century.
God waited patiently until, I think, around the seventeenth century. That is a long time. Then the process of redigging the well began.
The one we remember so well is Martin Luther. Struggling to figure out how to be just before God, he realised that money was not the answer, but he did not know how to be just before God.
God spoke out of the clouds to him and said:
The just shall live by faith.
Oh, what a turnaround that was. How the well was redug, and that great truth of justification by faith was recovered.
The vessel He used was Martin Luther, Tyndale, and others—dear, precious brothers, many of whom were martyred because they were redigging the well.
I think of Jessie Penn-Lewis. In Ephesians, it talks about standing together against principalities and powers—something the church had no idea what to do with or how to stand against. Much was recovered through that sister’s life concerning spiritual warfare.
I think of Brother Sparks and the heavenly position of the church, the heavenliness of it. The Lord used that brother, I think, mightily to help us rediscover what the church really is.
I think of Brother Nee. We saw that the church was not only a heavenly thing, but it needed to be a testimony on this earth. He gave his life standing for the fact that the Lord would have His bride, His church.
He was also a brother, I think—and there were others—whom the Lord used to restore corporate prayer: what it means for the church to pray and to become a prayer vessel.
The Lord is still redigging the well, brothers and sisters.
In Revelation, we see a full recovery, but He is still recovering now.
I wanted to end by saying this. Our fellowship that we have been having on Sunday night with the brothers—we have been sharing on fellowship, on the Lord’s table, and on corporate prayer. Why?
Is it just to learn how to do these things and learn the principles behind them? We will do that.
But you know what we are doing? We are redigging that well. It has been filled up, even as we have been gathering together all these years. We are trying to get the dirt out.
May the Lord be merciful to us, both in our individual and corporate lives. It is by His grace and mercy that the wells get dug.
Lord, we just come back to You today. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for this little chapter that You have given to us. Lord, how important it is to redig the wells.
Lord, we come back to You today. We look upon Your grace, Your mercies, and the power of Your life to bring us back to that place where the well is open, free, and able to flow.
Lord Jesus, we stand with You together today. Lord, we do want to offer ourselves back to You for Your service. We know that You will have to deal with each one of us personally first.
But Lord, we look that Thy will might be done on this earth, as it has been determined in heaven. In Jesus’ name. Amen.