From the May-August 2010 Issue
DIGGING THE WELLS
Vito and Erminia Tangorra
Children’s groupI was brought up in the Roman Catholic Church and then later received my doctrinal teaching within a Pentecostal denomination. In the ten years since then I have reformed my Christian understanding by sifting through God’s Word, discarding the dross and retaining what is biblical.
How has the church in Santa Elisabetta developed in the ten years of its existence? To illustrate what has happened I’d like to use as an analogy the biblical account of Abraham and Isaac and their wells (Genesis 26:12-33). It’s the story of a generation which sank wells and the need of the following generation to sink its own wells. This is the story of our church.
Firstly we notice how Abraham dug many wells so that he and his tribe could survive and enjoy fresh drinking water. Every time a well was sunk it was given a name. Later Isaac had to dig them again, after they had been filled in by the Philistines, but he made sure they were given the same names (verse 18). It has done us good as a church to remember the wells dug by our fathers, to think of the work of the Holy Spirit in past generations, the glories of the Protestant Reformation and the great evangelical revivals of bygone days. Isaac remembered and…
He reopened his father’s wells
We read in verse 15 that the Philistines filled in all the wells that the servants of Abraham had dug. Thus the wells that Abraham’s generation had drunk from could not be enjoyed by Isaac’s generation. Similarly, the sad truth is that many in our own day have never drunk from the wells of our fathers: to a large extent we are a generation without ‘wells’. The wells our forefathers drank from need to be opened up again so that we may experience the same blessed work of the Holy Spirit. Their wells have been filled up with traditionalism, formalism, scepticism, indifference and sin. This rubbish needs to be cleared away and the wells reopened. We can be sure that they are not exhausted; they are just obstructed with the rubbish of our sins and with the work of the enemies of the faith, the modern Philistines who rule our society and sometimes even our churches!
Isaac also needed to open new wells
While we should drink from the wells our fathers drank from, we cannot live in the past. Each generation has to sink its own wells. This is what we find Isaac doing (Genesis 26:19, 22, 25). Isaac laid claim to the same territory that his father had claimed, but he also made his own claim by digging new wells. The same is true for our generation. We thank God for the spiritual territory claimed by our ancestors, but we also have to claim our own “territory”. I love the past and visit it frequently – I find the exploits of saints from the past very interesting and stimulating – but I’m also concerned to sink new wells, to drink where the Holy Spirit is at work. We need to experience God in the here and now, but digging new wells is not easy.
There is opposition
The devil does not like new wells being sunk on his territory. He will oppose every effort and contest every claim. The first well sunk by Isaac was called Esek, which means “quarrel”. Read Genesis 26:20 to find out why! The second well he dug was named Sitnah, which means “hate”. Only after digging the third well (Rehoboth) did Isaac get some respite (Genesis 26:22). Rehoboth means “space”. Now Isaac could enjoy his gain, but he had had to fight inch by inch.
The devil tries to keep us from praying, studying the Bible and attending worship. He tries in a thousand ways to hinder the work of those who want to be faithful to God. Why? Because he doesn’t want us to enjoy new wells and experience God’s power in our generation. The work can be frustrating, but it is not in vain, because by God’s grace we are enabled to persevere and experience success.
Creating wells for the next generation
The wells Abraham sank were to serve Isaac’s generation, while Isaac’s wells would be used by the generation after him. In Genesis 26:32,33 we read that one well was named Shibah, and the village located there was called Beer-Sheba, which means “Well of the Oath”. That well would stand as a memorial testifying to future generations of what God had said and done for Isaac.
The wells dug by Isaac would serve the descendants of Isaac for many generations. In the same way, the wells we sink will provide refreshment for the generations that follow us, but we should remember too that if we don’t dig wells today, they will have nothing to drink. This is a terrible indictment of those who preceded us, but what heritage will we leave to our children? A spiritual desert?