Redig The Well

The sermon examines Genesis 26:12 and the repeated theme of wells in Isaac’s life, using the story of his digging, re‑digging, and naming of wells to illustrate the necessity of staying connected to the source of spiritual life. The speaker emphasizes that water was a priceless resource in the ancient desert, essential for people, flocks, and herds, and draws a parallel to Jesus as the "water of life" that believers must continually draw from through prayer, Scripture, and worship. He points out how the Philistines repeatedly tried to block Isaac’s wells, likening them to Satan’s attempts to halt the flow of God’s blessings in a Christian’s life. Applying the biblical narrative to contemporary faith, the preacher warns that sin, materialism, false teachings, and even well‑intentioned but shallow religiosity can act as plugs that turn a vibrant spring into a stagnant cistern. He calls listeners to re‑dig their spiritual wells—repent, fulfill vows, and return to the foundational truths of the gospel—to experience the living, abundant water promised by Christ. The message concludes with a prayer for those who have never known this water and for believers whose spiritual wells have become clogged, asking God to restore fresh, life‑giving flow into their hearts.

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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!

In Genesis chapter 26, verse number 12, please. Genesis chapter 26, verse number 12. The title of this brief message today, which did not make the press in time this week, is Redig the Wells. Then Isaac sowed in that land and received in that same year a hundredfold. And the Lord blessed him. And the man waxed great and went forward and grew until he became very great. For he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and great store of servants. And the Philistines envied him. For all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them and filled them with earth. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us, for thou art much mightier than we. And Isaac departed thence and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there. And Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father. For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. And he called their names after the names by which his father had called them. And Isaac's servants digged in the valley and found there a well of springing water or living, running water. And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdmen saying, The water is ours. And he called the name of the well Essek because they strove with him and they digged another well and strove for that also. And he called the name of it Sitna. And he removed from thence and digged another well. And for that they strove not. And he called the name of it Rehoboth. And he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land. Having a well of fresh water was as important then as it is today. As a source of life for the servants, the sheep, the cattle, and everything that lived was not easy to come by. It was a desert, an arid land. There were hot and long, parched days and difficult, trying summers. Water was a priceless possession. And to keep in continual touch with the source of the water was of utmost importance in the mind of every thinking man of that day. If Abraham was a man of the altar and Jacob a man of the tent, then Isaac was a man of the well. He seemed to be preoccupied with wells. He seemed to be continually concerned with staying in touch with the source of the water. After his sacrifice on the altar from which God miraculously spared and raised him and saved him, the very next time we hear of him, it is in connection with a well as he stands by the well Lahiroi in the 424th and 25th and 26th chapters. Repeatedly, Isaac is seen to be by the well. Isaac knew where it was at. He knew what he had to do. He knew that at all costs, he must stay in touch with the water. Jesus called himself the water of life. And the wise, intelligent Christian will do everything to stay in touch with him who is the water of life. Seven times, Isaac is associated with a well. Ninety -nine, 90 % of our body, they tell us, is made up of water. Jesus called himself the water of life because in that form he is the most easily assimilated into the personality of the Christian. He takes our form. He comes into us. He lives himself through us. He fights our battles. He carries our burdens. He solves our problems. He is the water is easily assimilated into the vase that is our very being and existence. And so the well man, Isaac the well digger, continually would set the example for us to let nothing block the source of water in his life. He was not at all unmindful of his heritage for men had paid a great deal of difficulty and had gone to great circumstance to provide with him and to him a great heritage of those wells. They didn't cost nothing. They didn't just happen. His forefathers had laid claim to that land, had bought it with their blood, had dug those wells and passed them on to him. And he did not take lightly the value of the heritage that others had spent to give him free access to the wells. It was in the family. It meant much to him. Just so in the family of God someone first got us in touch with the water of life. Someone preached the gospel. Some Sunday school teacher taught to us of the water of life. A faithful mother or dad there at their knee told us that Jesus was the well of living water. Now there were cisterns in those days but they were stagnant. They were dormant and dure and impotent and powerless to give reviving health and freshness. These were waters that ran. It was to tap an underground buried source of water. It was to get in touch with the living water with the springs of fresh water that could sustain that this man was concerned about. Now he found in attempting to find water that the enemy was continually attempting to stop up the waters of life. For a man to have no access to water was to die. One could not be a shepherd. He could not be a cattleman. He could not raise crops. Indeed he could not prosper or even live himself if he did not stay in touch with the water. It was of a prime importance. There had to be a continual flow into their being or to that extent they would die. What a lesson for the Christian today. When the wells of water, when those sources in the church, in your home, in the word of God, or however the Lord brings the water of life into your life, are stopped up to that degree, you will die. I told the young people this morning that it is of utmost importance that they learn to pray and learn to read the word of God which continues to flow the water into them. It's one thing to have a big splash but you've got to keep the water pumping in all the time or you're going to dry up and that beautiful experience that you've had will become a mirage and there will be only desert place where there was once beauty and bloom and blossom and productivity. Again, to the degree that you fail to stay in touch with the source of life, the water of life, to that degree you will spiritually dry up and cease to exist. Now we find that it was the Philistines that continually gave them problems of stopping up their wells. Josephus, the Jewish historian, says it was one of the most consistent battle schemes of the day. In fact, every time there was a predatory war, they would send out special men to seek out the land, find the wells and stop them up and filling them with rock and earth and sand and salt to make them impure to cover them up. When the enemy army came that way, the time that it took them to re -dig those wells was precious time in which men's lives were lost and so cutting off the source of supply of the water is always one of the supreme tricks of the enemy. Now who was doing it? The Philistines. The Philistines are habitually the enemies of God in the Old Testament. You will recall that Samson went to war with the Philistines. Indeed, when he was bound and the secret of his power gone, Goliath said, Samson, the Philistines be upon thee. He drove hundreds of foxes, their firebrands between their tails as they scattered them across the enemy's camp to burn down their grain and destroy their fields across the enemy lands of the Philistines. When David came out to fight Goliath, who was Goliath? Listen again. As he says, I know not who you are, but I come to you, you uncircumcised Philistine in the name of Jehovah God. The Philistines always oppressed Israel. They were always the enemies of the people of God. The Philistines are symbolic of Satan in the Old Testament. Remember that. It was they who blocked up the wells. It was they that took the initiative. It was they who realized that had they no access to the water, they would be cut off. Young men and women, ladies and gentlemen, Satan as a prowler, as a fowl, as a beast, the Bible says walks, talks, stalks, seeking whom he may devour. And when he finds a way to stop up the wells of water in your life, to that degree, he will have victory and power over you. Now they had no little problem. Every time they would attempt to dig out a well, the enemy filled it back in. The Christian life is referred to again and again as a warfare. I submit to you, as I have said before, that it is not difficult to live the Christian life. It is impossible. You cannot defeat Satan. He has powers you do not have. But the Bible adds the victorious, hopeful note of glory. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. And when you allow Christ in you to keep the lines open, when you allow him to defeat the devil for you, he gives access to the eternal water and keeps you victorious. There were always contentions, always strivings, always problems every time they attempted to get a new into the source of the water. The very word essek means contention. The word sitna means hatred. These were words which he named these wells because every time they tried to dig them, the enemy was right there filling them up again. Does that sound to you anything like the Christian life? If it's not glossed over in a code of pseudo -intellectualism, then it is openly and blatantly opposed by the world. The thing you know that I, the thing I've liked about Spirino the most is that after all the bright lights and the excitement, after all the thrill and all the music has been stripped away, what is happening is that one man is still preaching, not some new turned on gimmick, not some new faget, new gadget, fandangled idea with fancy terms, but a boy preaching the simple old time gospel. That men are lost going to hell. Jesus is the way to be saved. Get him in your life and you'll really fly. Now that's all that he's preached. That's what God has honored. But Satan, if he does not keep stopping those wells up with pettiness and criticism and envy and with love for the world and immoral sex and dope and preoccupation with materialism and making monies and amusement and having a big time, if he can't stop them up with that, he'll try to stop kids up and young men and women up with a lot of new intellectualism, pseudo -intellectualism, a lot of newfangled ideas. Now listen very closely to me. The Jesus movement, which is sweeping this country, is wonderful. But I want you to know that out of the Jesus movement, unless people are grounded in the word of God or in Sunday school or taught the scriptures or taught to pray, that you will see more screwball cults and sects and heretics and heresies born than you can shake a stick at today. You go out there to California sometime. Pick up a newspaper. Look at a Saturday morning religious section in the Los Angeles Times. It looks like a circus. The Church of the Green Mystic. The Church of the Houdini. The Church of the Purple Woman. The Church of the Cross -Eyed Billy Goat. They've got more screwball religions than you can shake a stick at. Now zeal is wonderful, but zeal without knowledge is catastrophic. And if the devil cannot stop up the wells of your life with sin and immorality, with sex and materialism and dope and a thousand other things, then he will stop them up with newfangled religions, with crazy ideas and liberalism and disbelief in the word of God. It is important that you keep those wells open, that you stay on your knees, stay in the word of God, stay in a church that is true, that believes and is true to the scriptures. Your very soul is at stake. Your very degree of success of life is at stake. Satan, the Philistines, the enemies of God never once gave up trying to keep plugging up the holes, the source of the water of life as fast as they would dig them out. Now I notice another thing. Nobody had to tell him to re -dig those wells. His father had left him a great heritage. Our forefathers have done that for us. This is still one nation under God. And I'm glad that a lot of young lives and a lot of churches and a lot of places in this country are re -digging those wells, are digging out the sin and the filth and the indifference. And I hope every cult and sect that is untrue to this fundamental word of God will be dug out too. Hear me. They did not have to tell him to do it. His parents had raised him right. There was a tradition. There was a love for country. There was a little sense of patriotism all wrapped up in it. There was his own good sense. There was his conscience. There was his God. Nobody had to tell him. He knew what was right. He was motivated from within to keep digging out the wells, to keep those things open. And what of your lives? Who has witnessed to you? What promises have you made to your parents? What has happened in your life? Who has brought the gospel to you? And what things have stopped up the well? What sins are there? You say, well, I don't take spot, take pot, and I don't do this, and I don't do that. Ah, but what of prejudice, and what of pettiness, and what of procrastination, and what of littleness, and what of gossip, and what of jealousy, and what of envy, and what of a thousand of the more respectable sins. Those things, too, stop up the well in the life of a Christian. If you're going to take seriously this morning, mothers and dads, and young people, the business of re -digging some of the wells of broken promises, of tithes pledged but not given, of vows made but not carried out, of decisions committed but never fulfilled, if you're going to go back to the family altar, back to the Word of God, back to real revival in your life, then I suggest to you you're going to have to go back to that same well, not a different one. Go right there where you left God, that very thing that has stood between you and Him, that very thing that has come into your life, not ten thousand other things, that thing you have to dig out that well that God keeps reminding you of every day that's been plugged up in your life. I don't know what it is, but your life will dry up, you'll be filled with poison water, it'll become a cistern rather than a wall of springing life. The happiest, the most wonderful thing about this revival has been the joy. You know, I've just been tickled pink to see kids clap and yell and cheer when you mention Jesus Christ. That has been the most wholesome thing I've seen in my two thousand years. Well, would you believe thirty -six? I think it's the most wholesome thing that ever happened. Oh, hear me. There are things in our lives, there are things that we've left off, that have blocked the wall, the well, that have made in the lives of many of us a cistern, a sarcastic, petty, negative, critical, little outlook. Some of you have got pickle juice in your veins. You ought to have water. You ought to have the water of life welling up inside of you, a well abundantly. I've seen these kids baptized. Do you know 90 % of them have come out with a grin on their face? They've come up saying, and praise the Lord, they're happy. They're really happy. Jesus said, In your innermost beings shall flow rivers of living water. Friend, that's what the Christian life's all about. It's joy eternal. It's living water. It springs abundantly. Oh, some of you pickle juice Christians, some of you cistern saints, need to get a well inside of you. Need to unplug the well. Need to get the dirt and the rot and the littleness and the sins out of your life and re -dig those wells and get back through to your first love to Jesus Christ for many years. The most productive well in the world was out there by the Truett Memorial Baptist Church in Long Beach, California, not many miles away. They dug down. It was very productive many years ago, about 30, and then someone closed it up. And somebody bought it out very cheaply and came back in and re -dug that same thing and went deeper and hit another great well. And it made millions of dollars and went dry. And they debated over selling it and they locked it up for 11 years. And finally, about 1950, somebody bought the thing again. Purchased the lease, re -dug through both of them and went still deeper. And it has been for over 15 years the one singularly most productive well in all the world. There was still more down there. There's a lot more in Christ than a lot of us have. There's a lot more than some of us have experienced. If you're going to get through to the real water of life, sometimes we have to pause and re -dedicate ourselves. Repent of our sins and re -dig those wells. That's what he did and he found fresh water. And there's still fresh water there for you. Do you need to re -dig some wells today? The last thought is this. I am reminded of the fact that there was an initial price, a severe price that was completely paid for that well. Well, kids, that's what amazing grace means. Amazing, amazing it is that I can do nothing for my salvation, that I can do nothing to contribute to that life flowing within me. It's all of grace. That means he did it for us. He paid the price. It's all of him. His father dug the well. His father paid the price. He gave it to him as a gift. There is a price in the amazing grace of God that has been paid for you, a well of living water springing up inside of you because of the found open on Calvary. Do you know him today? Oh, you can live, but you won't do it from drinking the broken cisterns of this world. You will have to get in touch with the fresh water of life, Jesus Christ. Go back where you left him. Pick up those broken vows. Confess that sin. Dig out that sand that stops it up and let again and anew the joy of your first love, the fresh, sweet water, the water of life, Jesus, flow in you and be in you, a well springing up to life everlasting. Let's pray together. Dear Jesus, we thank you that you came in the world. You took the form of man without reluctance, flesh and blood became thy substance. You lived and died and were in such a way that we could understand, we could assimilate, we could appropriate. And oh God, we can certainly appreciate what Jesus has done for us. And so we pray today for those who have never experienced the thrill of living for thee, of knowing thee, that they might come freely. For thou hast said, whosoever will may come and drink of the water of life freely. Thou did say to the woman at the well, drink of this water and you'll get thirsty again. Whosoever drinketh of this living water that I am shall never thirst again. Thank thee for that. And oh God, for the Christian who has experienced thee, but whose life has been a dam that has filled and blocked off and stopped there. And it becomes stagnant and not a living, running, fresh water of life. We pray, oh God, help them to re -dig those wells, to remake those vows, to start again for thee. Dear Lord, bless them in Jesus' name. Amen.