When your mother and I went to Mountain Lake in 1994, I found the entire trip fascinating. The small-town, Mennonite community was amazing. But one thing I will never forget is the home of Papa’s parents, Art and Linda Stadtlander. They had a cistern in the house! That is like a basement full of water. It was an odd thing to me, but very interesting. Minnesota, the “land of ten thousand lakes,” has no shortage of drinking water. But whether due to freezing temperatures or whatever, the homes in Mountain Lake had cisterns.
The Bible talks about cisterns often. In a desert land, a cistern is a vital way to conserve water. Often a system of gutters, chutes, and spouts will funnel rain water from the roof into a cistern, so that none of it is lost. The result is a source of pure, fresh water for everyone in the home.
Each village had public cisterns as well. These would be located in the town square and every traveler and passerby and all their animals would drink from the public source. Camels, cows, and sheep would step in it. Dirt and dust would blow into it. Bugs would live and die and lay eggs in it. The public cistern was a hive of scum and disease.
So if you were thirsty in town, but had a cistern at home, you would gladly pass on the public water and wait a few minutes for a refreshing drink at your own house. No one with their own private, clean, pure water would drink out of the public fountain. Does that make sense?
Consider this extended metaphor in Proverbs:
Keep your way far from the adulterous woman, And do not go near the door of her house, Lest you give your years to the cruel one, And strangers be filled with your strength… And you groan at your final end, When your flesh and your body are consumed, And you say, “How I hated instruction! And my heart spurned reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, And now I am utterly ruined.” Drink water from your own cistern, Fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets? Let them be yours alone, And not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth. Proverbs 5:8-18.
Solomon argues that adultery is drinking from the public fountain, with all the locals, the foreigners, and the herds and herds of animals. Adultery is exposing yourself to disease after disease, to bacteria, and parasites, and hookworms, and tapeworms, and eColi, and ruin, and decay, and death. Does anyone want that, really? Of course not.
If you read the full chapter, Solomon admits that the adulterous woman is attractive. Sin is always tempting. But you can say NO to her, NO to her “lips that drip honey,” and NO to her speech that is “smoother than oil.” In the end, she is bitter and her path leads only to death (see verses 3-6). If you can turn away from the dirty water in a public square, and wait for a drink at your own home, you can turn away from the intoxicating but deceptive lure of lust. (A similar analogy might be those who avoid public restrooms for fear of germs, choosing to wait till they get home. Treat lust the same way—shun it for its impurity, and choose God’s sacred choice of a lifelong, monogamous marriage.)
Dear God, help us to see how nasty and dirty and wrong lust is. Give us your holy eyes to see sin for what it is. Help us to understand what a horrible choice adultery is—even when it is mere lust, or what Jesus called committing adultery in our hearts. Help us to hate evil and to choose good. Help us to be disgusted by lust and adultery the same way we might be disgusted by the smell of old milk or the thought of eating food beyond its expiration date. Remind us of the horrible pain of nausea and give us a holy fear of the consequences of lust.
Help us to see how evil it is, even in its most benign forms, such as a quick moment on a TV commercial or something equally innocuous and non-threatening. Teach us that even “small lust” always has consequences. Fill us with a Godly, holy hatred of lust and help us to have a distaste for it, to be sickened and grossed out by it. Even while we are tempted, I pray we would be simultaneously disgusted and turned off by the rebellion, the evil, the wrongness, and particularly the horrible consequences. Help us better understand the beauty and the purity of having a clean, pure cistern waiting for us within the pure bounds of a holy marriage. Help us to see sin the way you see it, Lord. Help us remember that it was because of our sins—my sin—that Jesus had to die. Help us to hate evil.
ΑΩ
Household Words: 