By J. Wilbur Chapman
"And he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs" (Joshua 15:19).
Half-way between Hebron and Beersheba there once stood the ancient city of Debir. It was the city of brains and books, and the center of intellectual culture of the olden days. At the same point now may be seen a rude assemblage of stone hovels, many of which are half standing, but the others are entirely broken down.
One of the names given to this city, being translated, means the City of Books, or of learning -- what Athens was to Greece, the city of Debir was to Southern Palestine. It was supposed that all the records of antiquity of the nation were stored there. It was, indeed, a famous place.
Caleb, the son of Hezron, of the tribe of Judah, was very anxious to secure possession of the city. It is this fact which gives rise to the text. His name is very familiar to us. He was one of the twelve spies sent by Moses over into Canaan, and he and Joshua were the only two born in Egypt who were given the privilege of entering Canaan, with the possible exception of the Levites, and that, not only because they had brought a truthful report of the land they had explored, but were also willing to take God at His word; and put all their trust in Him.
Forty-five years after, when the wanderings were over, Caleb applied to Joshua for the share of the land which had been promised him, and among other portions there was granted to him Debir the city of learning. It was still, however, the stronghold of the giants of Canaan, and must be captured to be possessed.
Caleb then made the proposition that he would give his daughter Achsah in marriage to any one who was able to take the city, and one Othniel, who had been much of a warrior, for he had delivered the children of Israel from the King of Mesopotamia, marched against Debir. After a great struggle the gates were broken down, the giants were captured or driven away, and the City of Books lay at the feet of the conqueror. When the victory was won, Caleb was as good as his word, and his daughter was given in marriage to the soldier. With her he also gave as art inheritance, a peculiar piece of property, known as "The South Land," valuable for some reasons, but it was mountainous and sloped southward toward the deserts of Arabia, the hot winds of which again and again swept across it. Before Achsah left her father's house, she besought him for his blessing. The south land was not enough, she would also have springs of water; and Caleb responded at once, and gave her more than she had asked: for we read in the text: "He gave her the upper springs and the nether springs." From an exceedingly fertile territory the land was chosen. It contained no less than fourteen springs. The valley was beautiful, for look which way you would, you could see them gushing forth. Their presence in the field meant not only a blessing for the field in which they were found, but for all the country around them.
I find in this beautiful story a good illustration of all that we receive from our Father.
All that has been bestowed upon us is associated with victory, and that was won by Him whose name was called in the prophets the Conqueror. It was for Him a fierce struggle, but He came off more than conqueror. Then, after that, He was called the bridegroom of the church, which is to be His bride, and with Him we have received not only the gift of salvation, but in Him we are also blessed with all spiritual blessings. Paul gives us this when he writes to the Ephesians, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
I. God starts His children in this world as Caleb started his daughter, with an inheritance. No one is so poor but God has given him something.
Some have taken the inheritance and treated it as the man with the five talents, they have gained other five also; others like the man with the one talent, have wrapped it in a napkin, and so they leave the world as poor as when they entered it. God has been very good to us. He has given us this world with all its beauty, its green pastures, its still waters, its rivers and its seas, its starry canopy stretching out above. The world is filled with forces of all kinds, but man has seemed to gain control over them, until today he stands himself like a conqueror in the midst of them all.
But the inheritance is better than that. He has given us all the faculties of mind and all the powers of body. The mind, the heart, the hands, the feet -- no one is sent into the world a pauper. God has thus placed a fortune in the grasp of every child of His. It is such a great thing to have a mind, for with it man is able to search the deep things of God and really take hold of the thought of the Eternal. The science of geometry was worked out from a few simple principles by Euclid and Archimedes, by pure reasoning out of their minds; and on the sands of the floor of the room where they were studying Archimedes traced the curves in which, according to science, the heavenly bodies must move. And long after, when the telescope was invented, the Galileos and the Newtons beheld with reverent wonder that the heavenly bodies were sweeping along in the same curves described so long ago by the great Mathematician. It is indeed a wonderful thing to have a mind.
But if these things which I have mentioned as our natural inheritance are all what we possess, then, with the success that may be gained by means of them, we may still be of all men the most miserable. For they are like the south land of Achsah, they stretch off toward the deserts of sorrow and care and darkness, and the hot winds of despair come sweeping past us again and again. The most miserable people in the world, sooner or later, are those who have just the world and nothing else. Men are born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward, and this south land of the world is a poor portion. It is beautiful; it is the handiwork of God. But we must have more than that if the soul be satisfied. "The stars are beautiful, but they pour no light into the midnight of a troubled soul. The flowers are sweet, but they pour no balm into the wounded heart." There are times when the hungry, thirsty, fevered soul must have what the natural inheritance can not give, and God has made provision for that.
Man sighs with groanings which can not be uttered, for the Infinite. If you put a seashell to your ear, you will find in it reminiscences of its original home, the roar of the sea, the wail of the wind, the groan of the dying wave, all discernible therein. It has the witness in itself that it belongs to the mighty deep. And if you listen attentively to your own heart, you will find constant proofs of its destined abode. The sighs, the yearnings, the dreams, the tears, the sadness, the music, all testify that we are made for God, and that only God can satisfy our wants. And God knew this, and so, as well as giving us the south land, He has also given us the springs of water from which we may drink and be satisfied. God pity the marl who has failed to accept the proffered gift.
II. The springs of water were given to Achsah because of her marriage with Othniel, and they are a perfect illustration of that which comes to us because of our union with the Son of God. The springs were a free gift, and so is the nether spring of the gospel, which has come to us. "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." And never a spring bursting from the plains of Gerar, or from the mountains of Lebanon, or from the valleys of Canaan, perform such a mission as this nether spring of the gospel which is the gift of our God.
We have seen the fields in the time of a drought looking parched and apparently dead and worthless, and then suddenly, almost in the night, the meadows were clothed with green, and the grain lifted up its head rejoicing, all because the rain had fallen. But in this nether spring of the gospel there is a more marvelous power than that he who comes to drink of its waters goes away with new life, and his whole nature is changed. The ancients believed in the existence of a spring in which, if a person bathed, he would renew his youth and live forever. We have found that spring today in the text, for "The gift of God is eternal life." "The Bible is all a-sparkle with wells and springs, rivers and seas. They toss up their brightness from almost every chapter. And water is many times the type or figure of that which enlivens, beautifies, and gives new life." Solomon, refreshed by the story of heaven, exclaims, "As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." Isaiah, speaking of the blessedness of the children of God, writes, "They shall spring as willows from the watercourses." The prophet, glowing with the thought of the millennium, says, "Streams shall break forth from the desert."
The mission of water in this world is to bless and satisfy, refresh and help. "But all the waters that ever leaped in the torrents, or foamed in the cascade, or fell in the summer shower, or hung in the morning dew, have given no such comfort to the troubled heart, no such rest and refreshment to the sin-sick soul, as that which may be drawn by you and by me from the nether spring of the gospel."
It is a good type or illustration of the gospel because of its brightness. Yet here it fails of giving us perfect description or idea, for where can you find such brightness as gleams in this nether spring?
"David, unable to put it into words, plays it on his harp. Christopher Wren, unable to put it into language, springs it in the arches of St. Paul's. Bunyan, failing to present it in ordinary story, put it in the form of allegory, which lives on today with constantly increasing power. Handel, with ordinary music unable to reach the height and sound the depth of the theme, thrills us with his oratorio." O, the gladness, the brightness, the joy unutterable in that life which is hid with Christ in God! And this I may drink in as I come to the nether springs.
There is no life on earth so happy as the Christian's. Take the humblest child of God you know, and why shouldn't he be happy? According to the Bible, he is all the time under the shadow of God's wings. If he walks, the angels bear him up; if he sleeps they let down ladders from the skies, up and down which the angels go to and fro, bringing down blessings of God, and bearing away his heavy burdens. Why, to get within the door of the kingdom, to have a place, not the nearest, but on the very outer circle, to bear the lowest title of all the redeemed, to be the weakest child of all the family of God, to be the dimmest jewel in His crown of rejoicing, to be the least, yea, less than least of all the saints is a hope which sets the heart a-singing. All this I find and more, a thousand times more, as I stoop and drink at the nether springs.
Water is also like the gospel in its power to refresh. I remember the River Jordan the day when Naaman came to its banks with his leprosy. I see him going down into its waters, once, twice, three times, and then on until he had, according to the instructions of the servant of God, bathed seven times, and then, marvelous change! his flesh became as it were the flesh of a little child.
But here is a greater change for the sinful soul who will come to the nether spring. Here came Newton, and left behind him his sins which were as scarlet. Here came Bunyan, cursing with every step until lewd people rebuked him, and he went away, so changed that he gave to the world the book that stands in the estimation of some, next to the Bible for sweetness and power. Here came Magdalen and the Philippian jailor, Zacchaeus, and the poor trembling thief on the cross, and they drank of the waters and stand today in the company of the redeemed.
I stand by the side of the waters today, and with all the tenderness of a saved sinner, with all the assurance of a pardoned child of God, with all the alarm of a friend who sees his friends and neighbors going down to death, away from the Living Waters, I bid you come, come, come; "Whosoever will, let him come."
It is a marvelous spring of which I speak. I recall the fact that when the Master met the man who was blind from his birth, He anointed his eyes with clay and spittle and then told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam; and when he had washed, he came seeing. I imagine that first of all he saw the face of the Master Himself. This is the power of the nether spring of the gospel. The touch of its waters will cause the scales to drop from our eyes, and we shall be able to see the wondrous things written in the Book of God, and not only so, but we shall have given unto us the vision of the face of the Master Himself. It is not strange that we are unable, in our sinful condition, to see things as they are in the kingdom of God, for we are blind. But if you will only come with your blindness to the nether spring, you shall go away rejoicing. It is like the pool of Bethesda. it has healing power, and we are not only saved from the guilt of sin, but we may likewise be saved from its power.
The only difference is that in the pool the sick people must wait until the waters are troubled before they may step in and be healed, while in this nether spring the waters are always ready. This is no new idea so to represent the gospel of Christ, for I read in the gospel of John these words: "But whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." And in the Apocalypse, these words are found: "I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst, of the fountain, of the Water of Life freely." O thirsty souls, come and drink!
I know what springs of water have done for the world. Found in Gerar by Isaac, they make the field fruitful in abundance. Bursting forth in Lebanon, they send their waters down the mountain side, and as they go through the valley, they make it the very synonym of fruitfulness. Closely akin to that is what the nether spring of the gospel does for us. No one knows the fullness of his own being until he is filled with the influence and power of the gospel. You walk, in the month of January, over the most fertile place in a field or through the forest, and you will see the illustration of what man is in his natural state. The earth is full of roots and the trees are full of buds, all of which are closely bandaged so that they can not expand; but when the springtime comes, the roots in the earth commence to push upward and the buds on the trees begin to unfold, and in a very little time all nature is rejoicing. What a marvelous change, simply because the roots have been warmed by the sun and kissed by the light! and yet it is not worthy to be compared with a change which might be wrought in you, if you will but come to the nether spring and drink of its life-giving waters, for there you will meet Him who has said: "I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly."
III. I wish I might be able to make plain to you all, that there is so much more to the Christian life than simply being saved. That is only the beginning. The whole experience stretches away from that point, and gets brighter and brighter as the days go by. With the hope that we might learn the lesson together today, I have brought before you these two springs. Whether the strict exegesis of the text will allow the interpretation or not, I am very sure that all will agree that it is a perfect illustration. To drink at the nether spring is salvation, but to drink at the upper spring is a high privilege that is offered to every child of God. I could bring so many passages of Scripture to you which would serve as an illustration of what I mean. Take Ephesians 1:3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus." Or, Colossians 11:12: "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead."
Or, take Colossians 3:1-3: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."
Or, take Philippians 3:20: "For our conversation is in Heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ."
I would that we might all drink at the upper spring. What peace would then fill our hearts! When we drink at the lower spring, we come to be at peace with God, but when we learn to drink also at the upper spring, we have the peace of God; and there is a great difference between the two. It is something like the difference between a microscope and a telescope. With the first we can see things near, and in a bulk not larger than a grain of sand, I can find a thousand million animalcule; but with the latter I can see things afar off. I can actually study the Milky Way, which is removed from me thousands and thousands of miles. At the nether spring, first of all, I see myself and all my sinfulness; then I see Christ in all His righteousness; then I hear Him say that though my sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; and there at the nether spring I am made whole: but with the upper spring it is different. Like the telescope, it is all about the things which are above, and as I drink at its waters I find myself being lifted above this world, and my conversation, not only, but my very life, may be in the Heavenlies.
What an influence for good such a power might have over us! On the English seacoast there is a certain fountain which is within the tide mark. Twice each day the tide spreads over it, and the pure sweet waters are defiled and spoiled by the bitter wave. But the tide goes down and the fountain washes itself clear from the defilement. This is the emblem of a life that is in daily contact with the world and its defilement. Again and again it is touched by the evil one, but I bring you the cure today. Live close to the upper spring and in the midst of trials most perplexing, great peace shall fill your soul. What an influence we might have over others if we were thus taking advantage of our privileges! I think one might be a Christian, that is, just simply be saved, and not have much of a positive influence over the world about him; but it would not be possible to live in close communion with Christ (which is only another way of speaking of the upper spring), without having the greatest possible influence for good over all with whom he might come into contact.
Travelers tell us about the rain tree. It grows to be about sixty feet high, with a diameter of about three feet at the root. It has a singular quality. It imbibes and condenses moisture from the atmosphere as no other tree does, and so it is called the rain tree. Generally its bark is dripping wet, and this is not only in the damp season but in the midst of summer, when the rivers run low and the brooks roundabout run nearly dry. Then it imbibes the moisture. This is a picture for us all. I am very sure that if we did but know the lesson of the upper spring, we might live in the very midst of desolation and despair, and say with Paul, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."
And the way to this upper spring is pointed out very plainly to us. I remember the dream of Jacob as he was going from Beersheba to Haran. It was of the ladder which was set upon earth, the top of which reached up to heaven.
This ladder is set for us. It reaches to the very brink of the upper spring. The ladder is Christ; His feet rest upon the earth. His brow is bound with the glory of heaven. The events of His earthly life are the earthward end of the ladder; His divinity, His finished Messiahship, His perpetual priesthood the topmost end. In a distant city a fire was raging. It was thought that all the inmates had been saved, when, to the horror of the bystanders, two children were seen standing at a third-story window. It was before the days of the almost perfect appliances for the saving of lives. Two ladders were hurriedly spliced together and lifted to the side of the building. There was a shout of terror when it was found that the ladder lacked six feet of reaching the children. In a moment a brave fireman was mounting the ladder; he reached the topmost round, and then stood for moment balancing himself, until he had caught the window-sill with his hand, and then over his body, which supplied the gap between the ladder and window, the children came slowly down until outstretched hands reached them in safety. And this is what the Lord Jesus Christ did for you and for me! There was no way for us back to heaven. We were estranged from God. And then He came in His incarnation, and on the platform erected by the patriarchal, legal and prophetic dispensation, He stood, as it were, in His own body, reaching up His hands, He took hold of God, and the way was made complete. And so it has come to pass that not only in Christ we are saved, but it is also true that we mount by Him into the very secret place of the Most High. And this is drinking at the upper spring.
Thus the secret of this great blessing is to be found by abiding in Christ. Dr. Gordon used to tell a little circumstance which came beneath his eyes in New England, which presents to us a figure of it all. Two little saplings grew side by side. Through the action of the wind they crossed each other. By and by the bark of each became wounded and the sap began to mingle, until in some still day they became united to each other. This process went on more and more until they were firmly compacted. Then the stronger began to absorb the life from the weaker; it grew stronger while the other grew weaker and weaker, until finally it dropped away and then disappeared. And now there are two trunks at the bottom and only one at the top. Death has taken away the one, life has triumphed in the other.
There was a time when you and Jesus Christ met. The wounds of your penitent heart began to knit up with the wounds of His broken heart, and you were thus united to Christ. How is it now? Has the old life been growing less and less? Has he been increasing and have you been decreasing? If so, you have learned the lesson of the upper spring, and blessed are you. This is what Paul had learned when he said: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live not of myself, but by faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." And as you stoop to drink at the upper spring, you see in the water a reflection of a face. At first it seems not to be your own; you took again and find it is, but changed, so wondrously changed. Do you know the secret? It is the Christ that is in you shining forth, and so for you to live, has become, not only to act like Christ, and to speak like Christ, but actually to look like Him.
And this is not strange, for nothing is more common than to remark the influence which a person of commanding talent or position exerts upon others. Alexander the Great always had a copy of Homer under his pillow. Caesar, meeting with a statue of Alexander, was fired with an ambition he had never known before. If these things are true, what must be the transforming power of the constant contemplation of the life of the Son of God? The very clod beneath the rosebush imbibes a perfume. You can not walk through an orange grove without carrying away with you some of the fragrance. And so you could not think much of Christ without living above this world and its many trials.
A number of travelers were making their way across the desert. The last drop of water had been exhausted, and they were pushing on with the hope that more might be found. They were growing weaker and weaker. As a last resort they divided their men into companies and sent them on, one in advance of the other, in this way securing a rest they so much needed. If they who were in the advance guard were able to find the springs, they were to shout the good tidings to the men who were the nearest to them, and so they were to send the message along.
The long line reached far across the desert. They were fainting by the way when suddenly, every one was cheered by the good news. The leader of the first company had found the springs of water. He stood at the head of his men shouting until the farthest man had heard his cry: "Water! water!" The word went from mouth to mouth, until the whole company of men heard the sound, quickened their pace, and soon were drinking to their hearts' content. I have found the Water of Life; it is flowing fully, it is flowing freely; and so I stand and cry: "Water! water!" Take up the cry, every one, until every thirsty soul shall drink and live. But I have found another blessing, too. It is that of sweet communion with the Lord. It is that of the closest fellowship with Him. It is at the brink of the upper spring.
Will you not come? The head of the springs, both of them, the upper and the nether, is found at the throne of God. For that reason I call you all to come and take of the waters freely. The Spirit and the bride say "Come": let him that heareth say "'Come": let him that is athirst come!
And on the principle that water always seeks its own level, coming from the throne it will go back again, and it will bear us too into His very presence, whom to know is life everlasting, and whom to see is a joy without end.
