Episode Transcript
If you take God's Word tonight and turn to the book of Proverbs, please, and I thank God that our religion is not centered on fear.
The Bible says, "Perfect love casts out fear.
" It's not centered on violence, it's centered on peace.
Jesus says, "My peace, I leave with you.
" And it's not centered on uncertainty, it's centered on this, "Have we written that you may know the happy turn of life?
" My, what a terrible, terrible thing to have a religion based on that.
In Proverbs chapter 10 tonight, God willing will be expounding verse 11, and the title of tonight's message is, "Water Wells.
" Do you know you all are water wells?
You are, you're all water wells.
Every person God made is a water well.
Last Wednesday night, Brother Shepherd expounded verse 10, "While I was out of town and in that verse he enlarged more upon the praying fool, and he who winks with his eye," I'm getting my water here, "he who winks with his eye in the sense of committing fraud.
" So verse 10, "Spoke of the sorrows of winking with the eyes and praying with the mouth, the eye and the mouth both looking and speaking out of their God-given place, and winking and praying had already been mentioned in previous verses.
But in verse 10 they were reintroduced to us.
And in the same way tonight as we move to verse 11, we're reintroduced to the topic of covering.
In verse 11 Solomon says, "The mouth of a righteous man is a well.
" The mouth of a righteous man is a well.
To discover the foundation of this sentence, what we want to do is reduce it down to its core words.
And a lot of times if you'll notice when I'm expounding a sentence, I'll say, "Well, underline this word, underline that word.
" And what we're doing is bring it down to a concentration.
What are the core fundamental words here?
And by doing that, doing basically a reduction of the sentence, we're able to build the, or rather discover the textual foundation of that sentence.
And then as you examine the rest of the words and the rest of the sentence structure, you're able to build upon that textual foundation.
That's what we're going to do again tonight.
If you would take your pens and underscore the mouth, underscore is a well, is a well.
That's fun, isn't it?
See what we just discovered?
By taking out all the extra words, we just reduced it down to its foundation, to its fundamentals.
The mouth is a well.
The Bible is teaching us tonight, among other things, that our mouth, your mouth is a well.
Have you ever thought about your mouth being a well before?
Well, comparing your mouth to a well in the Bible really isn't a hard stretch for our imagination.
How many of you all grew up with parents or grandparents or maybe at your house and you had a well in your backyard at your home?
That's several of us here.
Y'all don't have a well at your house?
I thought this was a homestead.
Oh my goodness.
Y'all need a well.
Y'all get to digging.
Well, what do you call it when you have a big well like this?
What do you call it?
Anybody?
Above ground?
Huh?
No.
That'd be up.
I'm talking about a well down in the ground and you've got a big opening right here and you run that bucket down that opening.
What do you call that?
That's it.
The well's mouth.
See, it's not a hard stretch of our imagination because the mouth is a well and a literal water well also has a mouth and Brother Shepherd mentioned last week or reminded you all last week about the mouth and the lips and all that of the parading, like with the parading fool, that talks about that border or that crest.
That's talking about, as he said, like the gates of those lips where the words come up to the brink of them.
And so as the well has a mouth, we used to call that a large mouth well.
That's what we called it.
But as the well has a mouth, so do we.
And wells are very significant in Scripture when you're reading in the Old Testament, especially in the book of Genesis.
You'll see that wells are very significant.
The Bible speaks of the patriarchs digging wells.
It documents them digging wells on several occasions and it mentions them as an honorable and significant accomplishment.
Genesis, Chapter 26, verse 25, speaking of Isaac, it says, "And he builded an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there and their Isaac servants digged a well.
" There are a lot of occasions where they dug a well, but this is one of them.
The digging of the well was a great accomplishment because whoever dug that well, they helped provide water to sustain physical life for them and their family and for their community.
Isaac was a well digger.
He made sure that his family and his servants were provided for.
Isaac's son Jacob was also a well digger.
These are the patriarchs of the Israelites.
In fact, Jacob's offspring were still drinking from the well that Jacob dug in the New Testament times.
When Jesus spoke to the proverbial woman at the well, it was the well that Jacob dug.
The woman asked Jesus in the Gospel of John, Chapter 4, verse 12, she said, "Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well and drank thereof himself and his children and his cattle?
" Jacob provided water from the well that he dug to many generations of his descendants.
Isaac was a good well digger.
Jacob was a great well digger.
Pardon me.
But Jesus was a greater well digger.
Jesus told the woman of the well that he had better water to give her than Jacob did.
And here she was drinking from Jacob's well.
Jesus said, "I've got better water than that.
" Look back again at John 4, 12, that's where she'll still be here on the screen.
In listening to this woman's response, after Jesus offered her water, he said, "I've got water to give you.
You can drink and you'll never thirst again, not like Jacob's well.
" Listen to her response.
Her response is not only asking a question, it's teaching a lesson.
She said, "Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well?
" Listen to the emphasis.
Jesus, are you greater than Jacob who gave us this well?
He's obviously offering greater water.
If she can drink from this well and still get thirsty the next day, and he can give her water, that she can drink and never thirst again.
The reasonable conclusion that she comes to is, this man must have a greater well than Jacob.
He's got a better well than our father Jacob.
So she said, "Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well?
" John 14, I'm sorry, John 4, verse 13 and 14.
"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.
Listen to that now.
So whoever drinks of the water that Jesus has to give, that water then becomes what inside that person?
Let's read it again.
"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.
" Isn't that neat?
So when you drink the gospel of Jesus Christ, and what that means is when you take in, when you consume the truth of Jesus Christ being the Savior God sent into the world, you believe the record of Jesus Christ and his salvation he accomplished.
That is the water of life.
When you drink that water, so to speak, the water came from the well.
The water you drank came from a greater well than what Jacob had to give.
But when you drink that water, that water then becomes a well in you.
That's how come the mouth of the righteous is a what?
A well.
How do I become righteous?
Through faith in Jesus Christ.
What is faith in Jesus Christ?
It's drinking the water that he has to give.
And then when I drink that water, that water then in turn becomes a well in me.
Now what does a well do?
Does a well simply consume water?
Or does a well supply water?
A well supplies water.
So when you drink the water that Jesus has to give, that water is consumed by you, but the consumption of that truth then becomes a well in the believer thereof.
And now the believer who has been justified by faith, who now has the righteousness which is of God by faith without the works of the law, that believer now has a well inside him.
And there's the mouth of that well.
It's amazing how these scriptures go together.
Jesus didn't say, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, that water shall be in him forever.
" He said, "No, it's going to be in him a well of water.
" And that well does what?
It has action.
It's a well that is provided for by a spring.
That's the best kind of well you can get right there.
One that's provided for by a spring.
This constant flow, this constant pressure coming in from that spring, springing up into everlasting life.
Jesus is a well digger.
He dug a well that springs up with water that gives everlasting life to those who drink it.
Now that's a well right there.
I've drank from that well.
I drink from that well every day.
I'm not thirsty, but I sure like the taste of it every day.
With all that in mind now, think back on Proverbs chapter 10-11, which we're expounding tonight.
Proverbs 10-11 is telling us that the mouth of a righteous man is a well.
Now what kind of water is in Jesus' well?
Is it still up there?
Nope, not yet.
That's okay.
You don't have to go back.
What kind of water is in Jesus' well?
It's everlasting, but it's living water.
It's living water that lasts forever.
It shall be in him a well of living water springing up into everlasting life.
Or a well of water springing up into everlasting life, but it's living water.
So the Bible says the mouth of a righteous man is a well.
Look back in your text of life.
You see how that fits perfectly together with what Jesus said to the woman at the well?
It's a well of life.
Praise God.
Life is life is life.
All life comes from God.
So if you are a well of life, or if you have a well of life in you, then your well has the same water in it that Jesus' well does.
Isn't that good?
A well of life, there is no life apart from Jesus Christ.
He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.
" The Bible says, "In him was light, and the light was the life of man.
" There is no life apart from Jesus Christ for the Son of Man.
So if I have life in me, if the mouth of the righteous is a well of life, that life came from Jesus Christ.
It came from the same well, the same water that he offered that woman at Jacob's well.
Every one of us are like that woman at Jacob's well.
We're born going satisfying the flesh.
That's all we know.
Satisfying the flesh.
And suddenly here comes Jesus.
He comes talking to us about something that extends beyond the flesh.
He comes talking to us about something that meets our needs forever.
Everlasting life.
Lady, Jacob drank from this well.
He's dead.
His descendants drank from this well.
They're dead.
You're drinking from this well.
You're going to die as well.
But if you drink of the water that you have to give, you won't ever thirst again.
It's going to be a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
That's the life that the righteous man has in him.
In that life, having drunk that water, it now becomes a well in that man, a well of life.
And that means your mouth is Jesus well.
Put it together now.
Whoever drinks of the water that I'll give him, that water will be in him, shall be in him a well of water.
And now the mouth of the righteous is a well of life, a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Now the mouth of the righteous is a well of life.
Your mouth is Jesus well.
You are the well that God has dug and filled with the living water that Jesus gives.
That's what the gospel does.
Here's a kingdom of truth for you tonight.
God designed your mouth to be a well of life.
When a person comes to a well to get a drink of water, how many of you have ever drank out of a well, an open well?
That's several of us.
I had it too in my grandparents' house.
So when you come, I'm not talking about from the tap, I'm talking about from the actual hole in the ground.
So when you go to get that water, where did you go to get that water from that well?
Did you go to the bottom of the well?
Did you come over here to the near area of the well?
No, you went to the mouth of the well, didn't you?
You had to go to the well's mouth.
The mouth of the righteous is a well of life.
You got to go to the mouth to get a drink.
The mouth of the well is the point of contact between the thirsty soul and the satisfying water that that soul is looking for.
The mouth of that well is the point of contact between the thirsty person here and the water down here.
They get it from the mouth.
That means God has made you and me to be that point of contact between people who are spiritually thirsty and that life-giving water that they're thirsting for.
Wear the mouth.
Wear the well because when you drank that water of life, when you believed on Jesus as your savior, that was not only the water that gave you life, it is the water that now is springing up in you and you now have become a well and your mouth has become the point of contact between you and those who need to hear Jesus Christ, His message.
People came to Jesus.
They heard the words of eternal life, just like that woman at the well did.
Jesus has gone on into heaven.
He sent His Holy Spirit down to us.
Now when people come to us, they need to hear the words of eternal life from us, from our mouths.
We're now the wells of life.
Jesus said, "As the Father has sent me, even so send I you.
" Well, the Father sent Him to be a well.
He said, "If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink.
" When we come to church and we've learned the life giving, encouraging and edifying words of God, the Holy Spirit, you know what the Holy Spirit is doing?
He just filling our hearts with God's life giving truth so that our mouths may speak that truth that God has placed in our hearts so we can be an encouragement and so we can give that life giving words of truth to those people we meet.
Not just the words of Jesus died on the cross for your sins, but the words of comfort.
When the Apostle Paul said, when he spoke of Jesus and Him coming again, the dead in Christ rising first and us going to meet the Lord together in the clouds, he said, "Confront one another with these words.
" Those are words of life, words that accompany the original life of Christ and His death, and burial and resurrection, these are life giving words.
Jesus didn't say, "I'm going to give you life.
" He didn't say, "I came to give you life.
" He said, "But you may have it more abundantly.
" So it's not only to be a well of life to those who are lost and are dead in their trespasses and sins, but we're to be a well of life to those who are saved so they may have the more abundant life in Jesus Christ through our edifying words as we share the words of God.
A well is not a well unless it's open.
Can't drink from a closed well, can you?
That means we need to open our mouths and we need to share God's word with others who come to us.
Now let's look at the opposing truth in this verse tonight, because remember we're looking at verses with opposing statements.
A righteous man is a well of life, look back in your text now, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
Violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
The righteous person has a mouth and the wicked person also has a mouth.
The difference is, is what's in the well.
I have everlasting life giving water springing up in my well.
Every person was designed to have that, but not every person will drink the water that Jesus offers.
So they have tainted water in their well, poison water in their well, not springing up into everlasting life, but water that brings nothing but eternal death.
The words that come from a wicked man, they don't bring encouragement, they bring discouragement, they don't bring righteousness, they bring sin, they don't spring up into everlasting life, they bring nothing but death because that's the only thing in the unrighteous man's heart.
It's interesting that Solomon says violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
That word cover has the idea of concealment.
In fact, sometimes in the Old Testament it's translated conceal, conceals the mouth of the wicked.
If you would think of it like that.
I don't see where it's barring someone from drinking out of the unrighteous man's well.
I see it different than that.
In fact, it would be better if it did bar someone from drinking out of the unrighteous man's well.
But it conceals the mouth of the wicked.
If you want someone to drink from your poison well, you can't go around advertising, you've got a poison well.
You watch those old cowboy shows and they have thirsty people going through the desert and they come to a watering hole and they're about to go drink.
Suddenly there's a skeleton next to it or a dead cow skeleton or a human skeleton and there's a sign there and it says danger, poison, bitter water or whatever it says.
It warns people, they don't want anything to do with that.
They stay away from that water.
So you got to come up with some way to conceal or cover the matter of what's in your poison well.
So violence or a violent intent, some intent to do harm to another person, it deceitfully covers the wicked person's mouth.
Less their wickedness be discovered their patrons refuse to drink the water they have to offer.
If I'm teaching a lie that leads people to hell, then I'm going to have to cover my well.
I want to have to conceal that lie.
I want to have to advertise my well to be full of the words of life, to be full of the words of God when it's actually full of death.
In Matthew chapter 12, the Pharisees were advertising themselves to be teachers of the truth.
They were advertising themselves to be more righteous than Jesus, more holy than Jesus.
In fact, they were teaching that Jesus was unholy.
So they were people who had nothing but lies to share, nothing but death to offer, yet they promoted Jesus as the one who was from the devil and they were from God.
They were claiming that Jesus was speaking a lie and in response to them, Jesus told them in Matthew 12, 34, he said, "O generation of vipers, how can ye being evil speak good things?
" They were making out as if they were speaking good things.
And Jesus is saying, "You're evil, so how can you speak good things?
" Well, they couldn't.
He said, "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
" In other words, your heart's a well and your mouth is the mouth of that well.
And the only thing you can put out of your mouth is watching your well.
And he said, "I've got your number.
I know better than you.
I know what's in your well.
I know the heart of man.
You have nothing good to give.
You're evil.
So how can you being evil speak good things?
You can't.
A well can only offer the water that's in it.
The Pharisees rejected the truth of Christ, so all they had to offer was the bitter water that leads to death.
But that didn't stop them from covering their bitter wells with the deceit that they had making themselves out to be righteous.
It was a deceitful cover that claimed sweet water where there was no sweet water to give.
Here's the kingdom truth.
You don't judge a well by the beauty of its mouth, by the sweetness of its water.
You don't judge a well by the beauty of its mouth, by the sweetness of its water.
The Pharisees, they had the long and broad borders and the religious clothing.
They were the ones that looked so posh, so professional with the education that they had and the well spoken words that they had and the pompous tone in their voice that they had.
They were the polished mouths of bitter wells.
And you don't judge a well by the beauty of its mouth, by the sweetness of its water.
It's or evil intent.
It covers the mouth of the wicked.
So don't drink bitter water just because the mouth of the well is accepted by your peers.
Brother Shepherd and I frequently exchange news articles on pastors.
We had two or three pastor or church news articles this week we've shared.
And constantly, one of the ones that I share with Brother Shepherd this week was a senior pastor who is over two campuses.
It's a large church.
You know how some churches are so large they have different campuses?
He's over two campuses and he just got arrested for identity theft.
He stole one of the church members' identity, took out a credit card in his name and racked up thousands of debt in his church members' name.
And it's not the first time he's been handled for it.
But they hire this guy and they put him over people's, the welfare of people's souls.
See here, we entrust you with this.
Now how can that man do that?
Unless he covers his well.
Because the only way he can do it is to conceal his bitter well.
To put trappings around the mouth of that well.
Instead of putting a sign out that says "Danger, don't drink.
" He puts a sign out that says "Come and enjoy all.
" Sweet water here.
So don't drink bitter water just because the mouth of the well is accepted by your peers.
Because the mouth of the well is accepted by the majority.
Don't drink bitter water just because your family built the well.
That's another disguise is the family heirloom well.
Well I was born Catholic.
I was born Baptist.
I was born, we have Baptist church articles we share all the time, don't we Brother Shepherd?
Don't say "Well my parents raised me in this church, my parents raised me in this religion.
" That's one of the things that a man told me one time.
In a Genesis to Jesus class here, he came for just a little bit.
He came with Brother Jesse.
Brother Jesse invited him.
He was a co-worker Brother Jesse years back.
He came in, he was listening to me teach about salvation being the work of God.
The grace of God and it's his work alone in not ours and how we by faith accept that work.
He was looking at me, he was doing his eyes and he says something to the effect of that goes against everything I've ever been taught.
He refused to believe what I was teaching.
He just put his guard up just like that.
He just shut it shut shut me down.
What was that?
He was drinking from the well that his family built.
That's not the well.
The only person who can give you the well that has water and that springs up into everlasting life is the man who dug that well and that's Jesus Christ.
He said the water that I have to give you, I can't give you the water.
I can share it with you because that water has been putting me but it's not my water, it's his water.
He's the owner of it.
He's the one that dug the well and that well was dug from eternity past and man it started gushing up when he came out of that grave.
It's living water based on his death and resurrection but he's the only one that can give it.
Not your family, not the pope, not any slick shyster preacher.
Don't drink bitter water just because it has the latest, finest water gathering utensils either.
You can have a church with a nice neon sign outside of it.
You can have the latest trends.
Brother St.
Robert and I were talking again this week.
I tell you what, I get so tired of gimmicks, preacher gimmicks.
There's this one preacher who passes a large church, I think it seats 1,200 people.
They have two services, used to have a whole lot more until they got a bigger auditorium.
Here he's advertising a revival at his church on Facebook.
He gets up there and he's got on a sweatshirt with a hoodie like he just came out of the gym, a gray sweatshirt and a hoodie up there talking about how you can come to the revival.
He looks so tacky.
Do you know why he's doing that?
Don't say, "Well because he's comfortable, brother.
" No, I don't believe that at all.
I believe it's one of the latest gimmicks of just pushing down pastors to make them look like they're hip.
They're cool, they're the guy at the gym you work out with.
Maybe that will attract people to come to our church if I wear a hoodie sweatshirt.
We got shyster lawyers that go to my courthouse that dress better than that and have more respect for the law than what pastors do right now for the Word of God in representing His kingdom.
I'm not saying you have to have some kind of dress code.
What I'm saying is this, beware of the modern day gimmicks.
I say, "Well, I want to listen to that pastor.
Look he's wearing us a hoodie.
I want to listen to that pastor there.
Look he's got shorts on while he's preaching.
That's cool.
I wear shorts.
I want a pastor like that.
I don't want to get too serious with church.
I want someone that's down where I live.
" Just because the church makes you feel comfortable, just because they put padding around the mouth of that well, don't mean the water's safe to drink.
That's what I'm getting at.
Drink only from the well that's jugged by Jesus Christ, from the water that He has to give because that water, if you drink it, you'll never thirst again and that water is centered on Him.
He said, "It'll be a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.
" He said, He told that woman, "You'll never thirst again.
The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life, but violence covers the wicked.
It conceals that bitter water in that well.
If your brand of Christianity does not cause you to never thirst again and completely satisfy your longing for eternal life, completely satisfy your needs as a child of God, if it doesn't do that and it doesn't offer you eternal life, it is not the water that Jesus dug.
It's not the water that He has to offer.
Your brand of Christianity leaves you thirsting for salvation.
You're drinking from the wrong well.
" People say, "Well, I'm saved today.
Well, what are you going to be saved a year from now?
" "Well, I don't know.
I'm not sure how I'm going to be living then if I'm going to be living from the Lord.
" "I hope I am.
I've heard that so many times.
" That person's basically saying, "Well, I feel that I'm not thirsty now, but I may be thirsty later on.
I feel I have life now, but I don't think or I'm not sure the life is going to last because I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up with my good works.
" That's not the water Jesus has to give.
You're drinking from the wrong well.
The gospel of Jesus Christ fully satisfies and forever satisfies.
His well is always open.
Thank God those of us who preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, we don't cover what we have to say about Jesus and His gospel.
We don't have any concealment.
We don't have any hidden agenda.
All we do is preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Today Brother Eglum, and I'll close with this.
I gave Brother Eglum the news that his Muslim banner had arrived at my house and I told him we'd try to mail it off Friday.
I told him that the next step, I want to get him a generator and all that.
He says, "I've been praying for you and your people that God will continue to provide for you so you can continue to provide for us to reach these people.
" He said, "I pray that God will bless you because only He can repay you.
" I told Brother Eglum, I said, "My reward is to see souls come to faith in Jesus Christ in your area.
That's my payment.
That's my reward.
That's y'all's reward.
That will be our joy.
We have no hidden agenda.
We just preach Jesus.
We don't need any padding at the well.
We don't need to dress up the well.
We just preach the bare naked cross of Jesus Christ and pray that all men will come to Him and be saved.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious Word.
We thank you for making us righteous in Christ.
We thank you, Father, for taking that water and turning it into a well in us.
We thank you for making our mouth an extension of that well, part of that well, a well of life in us.
We have truth to give.
We have encouragement in Christ to share.
Oh, Lord, let us not be, as James warned, let us not be, Father, someone who spews out bitter and sweet water.
Our flesh so bad, wants to speak out of our mouth.
Our tongue so bad, wants to yield to the old Adam inside of us.
Lord, the mouth of a righteous man is a well of life.
And I pray, Father, that we'll, in Jesus Christ, crucify, Father, that old, bitter well, and live and walk in the well of life that Jesus has given us.
Father, I pray we'll let no corrupt communication proceed out of our mouth, but that which is good for the use of edifying, that we may minister grace unto the hairs.
In Jesus' precious name we pray.
Amen.
