King's Business - 1947-07

pumping, they lowered a man in a basket down into the well with a rag carpet in his hand. He found the great orifice where the water was pouring in and shoved the rag carpet in to stop the flow of water. Then they piled in rocks on top of it, and the well was per­ fectly safe. But it was also perfectly useless. One day, standing by that expensive hole, the man said to himself: “I have put a lot of money into that hole and I am going to have that water!” They took out the rocks that had been piled in, then curbed the well up with stone from the bottom to the top; and then he sent for the fire department again. Again they lowered the man into the well. In one hand he held a cord with which to pull a bell to signal them when he got hold of the carpet. He took hold of the carpet with one hand, and with the other rang the bell, and they pulled him up, dragging the carpet with him. And the water poured in again, but now it was perfectly safe. For years we drank of that well, and wonderful water it was. But in the course of time my father and mother died, and the place passed into other hands. Twenty years later, I visited the place. The house had been taken down, brick by brick, stone by stone. Many of the finest trees had been cut down. The lawns and gardens and orchards were laid out in city lots. I thought at first I was to find nothing that belonged to the old home. But, passing by a house, I noticed a well right in front of the front porch. I thought to myself: “What a strange place to have a well!” Then it oc­ curred to me that it was our old well! Leaving the old home place, I went down town. The Presbyterian minister met me on the street. “Oh,” he said, “have you been up to the old place?" I replied: “I have.” He said: “ You didn’t find anything left, did you?” “Yes,” I said, “just one thing—the old well. But what a strange place for a well—right in front of your front porch! I should think they would fill it up.” He replied: ‘They will never fill that well up—it’s the best water in Geneva!” Do you see the point?—the best water in Geneva! And yet it had been plugged up for a long time with an old rag! If you have ever received the Holy Spirit as an indwelling source of joy, you have had in your heart, not “the best water there is in Geneva,” but the best water there is in the universe. And in many of you the well is plugged up by some old rag of sin or worldly conformity. Let’s pull out the old rags today. What is it that stops the fountain in your heart? Do you know? If so, put it away today. But perhaps you do not know what it is. You know you once had that joy, and know you have lost it. Well, you can know. Ask God to show you what it is that stops the fountain and promise Him that if He will show you what it is, you will give it up. He will show you if you are really sincere. But perhaps some of you never knew the joy of the Holy Spirit. You can know that wondrous joy today The Lord Jesus stands here today, all unseen, but nevertheless, Jiere, holding out the golden goblet that contains the living water, and saying: "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 4:14). W ill you drink? Further back in the chapter the Lord Jesus says (v. 10): “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” Just ask the Lord Jesus, but be sure, when you ask, that you really mean it, and that you really long for the Holy Spirit at any price, and that your will is fully surrendered to God, for He gives the Holy Spirit “to them that obey him” (Acts 5:32).

no one on the street, and I cried aloud: “Oh, Elizabeth! Elizabeth!” And just then, this fountain that I had jn my heart broke forth with such power as I think I had never experienced before, and it was the most joyful moment that I had ever known in my life! Oh, how wonderful is the joy of the Holy Ghost! It is an unspeakably glorious thing to have your joy, not in things without you, not even in your most dearly loved friends, but to have within you a fountain ever Springing up, springing up, springing up, always spring­ ing up, three hundred and sixty-five days in every year, springing up under all circumstances into everlasting life. j It is also a great thing that you can have a foun­ tain that you can take with you wherever you go. j When one has this fountain of satisfaction and joy within him, he is entirely independent of the world’s sources of joy. What does he care for the dance, or the card party, or the theater, or any other kind of Earthly satisfaction? Who would go to an old green, ¿limy pool to drink when he had right at hand a clear Crystal spring? Oh, the world with its allurements has ho power over the one who has this fountain within! I often think there is little use in telling young Christians: You must not dance; you must not play cards; you must not go to the theater; you must not #0 this, that and the other thing. There is a far better Way: Get them to receive the Holy Spirit, and let Him Jiave full right o f way within, and they will have no desire for such things. j But someone will say: “Why is it, then, that so E any Christians do run after these things?” The answer very simple: It is either because they never have Jreally received the Holy Spirit as an indwelling foun­ tain of life and joy and satisfaction, which is doubtless true of many professing Christians; or else the fountain pas become choked. You know it is quite possible to choke a fountain. I was born in the city and brought up in the city. Occasionally, in the summer, our family would take a vacation in the country. When I was ten years of age, my two brothers and I, tired of the city, went to our father and said: "Father, buy a home in the country." He was born in the country and was, I suspect, more tired of the city than we were. So he bought a lovely place at Geneva, New York, which is a beautiful city lying at the foot of Seneca Lake, one of the most beau­ tiful sheets of water in the world, forty-two miles long &nd from two to five miles wide. The man who had Originally built the place had spent a great deal of money upon it. It was half a mile from the lake and bart of the city lay between the place and the lake. But the man wished to see the lake. So he had three hundred teams to work for many weeks building an artificial hill, so that they could see over the lake and up the lake twenty miles. Then he laid out his lawns and gardens and sent to different parts of this Country and, I think, also to England, to get large trees to set out. But when the trees were set out and the house and bams and stables built, and the orchards planted, though he could see twenty miles up the lake fhe man was not satisfied, because of the water supply. 7’here was a good well, but it was a. long way from the house, and he wished to have a well near at hand Where he could pump water through the house. He Sent for well diggers and set them to digging a well hot very far from the house. They dug and dug and dug; it seemed as if they never would strike water. But one day they struck water and struck altogether too much. They struck a “ gusher” and the water came pouring in until they were afraid it would undermine the foundations of the house. He sent for the fire de­ partment; they pumped the well out, and while still

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