Fountain of Living Water.

William Branham.

Read the full account in...
Broken Cisterns.

I want to speak tonight on the subject for just a short time on “Broken Cisterns.” Israel had done two great evils. God said they had turned from Him, the fountain of life, and had hewed themselves cisterns to drink out of. Now, that's something.... The reason I thought of this text, was because that it would run parallel to what I was saying this morning of the hour that we're living and the cause that we are struggling for.

And we look at Israel as example that what God was, He always has to remain the same. And there's only one thing that God ever did honor; that was his way that He provided for the people. And when they got out of that way, then God was dishonored, and God made the people suffer for getting away from what he had told them to do. No matter what it was. He even give them a law: “Touch not, handle not, taste not,” just- not because of the evil of doing it, but the evil of disobeying what He said do. And there's-always cannot be a law without a punishment for law, because if there's no punishment, then law is not much to it- unless it has a penalty, the law.

Now, we find what they did in that day seems to parallel what we are doing today, what the church people are doing. Now, we see a strange thing here. It might be strange to some people when He said, “You have... they have hewn to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns.” Now, maybe some of you don't know what a cistern is. How many knows what a cistern is? Well, most all of you. If you was ever raised on a farm, you know what a cistern is. I remember I've drank enough bugs from one to know what a cistern was. Preached out in the country where you-in a brush arbor where you'd have a big pitcher full of cistern water setting there, out of the rain, you know, and it kind of got a little old, and then the bugs at nighttime would get into it.... And so, I know what cistern water is.

A cistern is a place, a thing that's dug in the ground to take the place of a well. Where people doesn't have a well, then they get a cistern. In other words, a cistern is a man-made tank or a man-made well in the ground that men dig out to catch the water to use it. Some of them use it for wash water, and some use it for drinking water, and different way maybe. All the water sometime that we used to get was on a cistern. Used to have an old thing you have to wind around, around, around, around to get the water up, had little buckets on it to pump the water out of the cistern. Well, we notice one thing about a cistern that's different from a well. Now, a cistern will get empty. The cistern cannot fill itself. It is not reliable. You can't rely upon a cistern. It has to rely and depend upon the rains that fall in the summer or in the winter, whatever it is, to.... Usually in the wintertime when the snow and rain comes, then it runs the water off into the cistern. And if it doesn't get that water, then you don't have any water. It's all... dries up. And it can't refill itself. The old cistern cannot refill itself; it gets its filling from the rains that falls.

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In a few days, you let that water stand there, and it becomes stagnated. You let the water stand in a cistern, it becomes stagnated, and it gets full of frogs, and lizards, and snakes, and we used to call it “wiggletails,” little bitty... I don't know whether.... They're not a parasite, they're.... I don't know what you call them, but some little thing gets in the water that we call it wiggletails. You know what it is. How many know what I'm talking about? Oh, why sure, all you country folks know. Gets it all full of stagnation, and then these lovers of stagnation comes with it. It just actually comes, because it's stagnated. And because it's stagnated, it draws the animal there that likes stagnated things.

That's a whole lot like our churches today. I think that we have left.... One of the great sins that the church has done today, just like Israel then, it left Him, the fountain of living water, and has hewed themselves out man-made cisterns. And it become a habitation of everything that loves that kind of water. Lizards, frogs, and all kinds of unclean germs live in it, because it's a man-made tank; and in this tank these things stay. A perfect example of our denominationals today. “Now,” you say, “Brother Branham, why do you strike at those people so hard?” It ought to be struck at. It's got to be struck at. Flee it, because it will finally form the mark of the beast. Remember, that is the truth! It will be the mark of the beast; denomination will lead right to it. It's on it's road right there now to force by power.... Look, in the old Roman empire that's exactly what led them to that mark of an apostasy. You found out that no man could buy or sell without the mark of the beast. He had to have it.

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Leaving the artesian well for a man-made system or cistern, could you imagine someone doing that? Could you imagine the mental conditions of a person that could drink at a fresh artesian well, and would leave that for a man-made cistern with frogs, and lizards, and wiggletails, and everything else in it? It don't seem even sensible even to be right, but that's just exactly what the people has done. They've left the Word, the true fountain of God's source and power to drink out of cisterns and make themselves cisterns. Same as they did then, they have done it now. They say.... He said, “They've left me here.” He said here in Jeremiah 2 and 14 -or 13 rather. He said, “They have left me, the fountain of living water.”

Now, we see what a cistern is. We see what it catches. We see how it's made. It's a man-made thing that comes off of a dirty roof. The water that falls down hits on a dirty roof, and it only washes the roof off, puts it down through a man-made trough, through a man-made spout, into a man-made tank. And all the filth gathers in there, and the germs, and the lizards, and frogs, and things of the land like that. And notice, they are the unclean animal, wiggletails, stagnated. A wiggletail can't live in clear water. If it does, it'd kill him. He's got to be in the stagnation.

And that's the way it is with a lot of these parasites today. You can't live in the fresh water of the Holy Spirit. That's the reason they're so firmly against the Word, and say it contradicts itself; there's nothing to it. It's because they have to have some kind of a stagnated pool to wiggle in. Right. That's the same way it is with frogs, and with lizards, and with tadpoles, and such as that. They've got to get around the swamp or the stagnated pool to live, for it's their nature to live there. And you can't change the animal till you change its nature. And you cannot make a man see the Word of God till his nature's been changed. And when his nature is changed from what he is to a son of God and the Holy Spirit comes into him.... The Holy Spirit wrote the Word of God.

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His complaint was, “They have forsaken me, the Word, and have accepted a broken cistern instead. Accept.... They have forsaken me, the fountain of life, the fountain of water of life, and they desire and would rather drink from a stagnated cistern.” Could you imagine that? Could you imagine a person now, that here's an artesian well who's putting out that fine, limestone water right out of the heart of the rocks, down there in the sand beds and so forth, just as cold and good as it could be, and would rather drink out of a cistern over there that had washed off the top of the barn, the sheds, and all of the out-buildings around the place, and put it right into that cistern there where the seepage of the water drains right back into from the barn, the stables, and stalls, and everything draining right back into the cistern, and then we want to- would drink out of that before going to that artesian well? There would be something mentally wrong with the person. That's right.

And when a man or a woman will take a denomination on their stand, that'll permit bobbed hair, wearing shorts, makeup, all this other kind of stuff, and some little kind of a program, and all this carrying on, and can go to the bowling alleys, and all that nonsense out there, and can put up with that, and like that better than they do the oldfashioned Word of God that cuts down and hews out and makes ladies out of women and takes them... makes them dress right and act right, takes cigarettes and tobaccos and swearing and cursing and lying and stealing away from you, and all the world away from you, and give you something that is a perfect satisfaction? Why would a man or a woman go to such a thing as that for comfort? How can you get comfort out of that?

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People of these last days has forsook Him, the true Word, water of life, and has hewed themself out denominational cisterns. And again, hewed, dug.... And now, we find out they have had broken cisterns. And then this cistern is filled with unbelieving germs, unbelieving, boasting, educational programs and so forth, which is contrary to God's promises. They're doubters of the Word.

Now, these cisterns that they've got, the Bible said, were broken. Broken cistern is a leaking cistern, and it's seeping out. What's it doing? It's seeping out into a religious cesspool called the World Council of Churches. And that's where the broken cistern is leading them to. All because they have forsook Him and have-the fountain of living water, and made these cisterns. Digging out big seminary systems of learning, education, and so forth, that's the kind of cisterns they're digging today, that a man has to have a PhD, or a LLD, or Bachelor of Art or something before he can even go preach. Cisterns that has been filled with man-made theology. They take them into these great big schools of learning, and in there they inject into them their own man-made theology, and they send them out with that. What a day that we're living in! Man-made cisterns! No trouble the.... No wonder the thing has become a stink. Oh, my! It's because that the people are drinking from that.

And when the people want joy today, what do they do? The people, instead of accepting the joy of the Lord, they turn to sin for joy. People who go to church and claim to be servants of Christ, when they get real nervous, they'll light up a cigarette. And when they want to have some fun, they stick on their immoral clothes and go out and cut the grass when a man's going by to get him to whistle at them. They do everything to be popular. They want to look like the movie stars. That's their joy, when Jesus said, “I am their sufficiency.” The reason that they go to that, because they don't want to drink from that fountain. They've turned it down. They don't want to drink from it. They join themselves to some kind of a man-made system, some kind of a cistern that's full of all kind of stagnated things that they can go like that.

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Now, in closing I might say this: Anything different from this is broken cisterns and will finally leak out what you put it in. If you're putting all your hopes, all your time, and everything in one of those stagnated cisterns.... Jesus said they were broken cisterns. God said they're broken, and they'll leak out ever what you put in them. You can't go any farther with them, 'cause they'll leak out. For He is the only way to the truth, to the life, and to eternal joy and eternal peace. He is the only one and the only way to that. Oh, my! The inexhaustable fountain of life is Jesus Christ. Why? And who is He? The Word, the same; the Word, the life, the fountain, the same yesterday, today, and forever. The true believer, it's his supreme joy, his supreme life, and his supreme satisfaction is in Christ. No pumping, no pulling, no joining, no bailing, just believing and resting. That's what He is to the believing.

Read the full account in...
Broken Cisterns.

Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living water, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Jeremiah 2:12-13