THE OPEN FOUNTAIN – Charles Spurgeon
The Open Fountain
Introduction to the Open Fountain
“In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.” – Zechariah 13:1
We do not begrudge the seed of Israel after the flesh the first application of this very precious promise of God. There will be a day when those who have so long refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah shall discern the marks of His mission and shall mourn that they have pierced Him. When the tribes of Israel shall lament their sin with holy earnestness, there shall be no mourning to exceed it; they shall weep even as in the mourning of Hadad Rimmon in the valley of Megiddo when the well-beloved Josiah was slain. Discovering that their nation rejected the Son of God when they crucified Jesus of Nazareth, their deeply religious spirit shall be filled with the utmost bitterness of repentance, and each man and each woman shall cry for pardon to the Lord of Mercy. Then, close upon the heels of the weeping shall come the full and complete forgiveness; the transgression of the tribes shall be put away in one day; they shall perceive that the very side which they pierced has yielded a fountain to cleanse them from their sin. Joyfully shall they behold on Calvary the bronze serpent lifted up for their healing, the Paschal Lamb slain for their redemption, the Sin-Offering sacrificed in their place. What a blessed day will that be when “all Israel shall be saved,” as it is written, “There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” O that you and I might live to see that happy era when the entire Jewish race shall behold their Messiah; for then shall the fullness of the Gentiles be gathered in. Our history is wrapped up with theirs. “Through their fall, salvation is come unto the Gentiles.”
The Promise for All People
Now, however, we will take our text as belonging to ourselves in common with Israel, for in the Gospel no promise is now set about with a hedge, reserved for any peculiar race. There is now, “Neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” This promise is our joy at this hour; O that I might be able so to speak of it that many anxious hearts might now see its meaning and appropriate its blessings! In order to explain the text, we shall dwell upon three notes; if these three are clearly sounded, we shall understand the passage—a fountain—opened—still open.
I. A Fountain
What is this fountain which is said to be opened, and when and how was it opened? It is a fountain opened to the house of David, and its inhabitants, for sin and for uncleanness. We observe, therefore, that the blessing here spoken of deals with the greatest evils to which mankind is subject—sin and uncleanness. We have all fallen; we have all proved our fall by our sinful practice; sin has separated us from God, and brought upon us His divine wrath. Uncleanness, which is a tendency still to sin, a defilement of our nature, prevents our returning to our heavenly Father and entering into renewed fellowship with Him.
This great evil in its double form is according to the text distinctly recognized by God. It is not winked at; it is not treated as a trifle that may remain. And yet man may be beloved of God and be happy; but, the evil being there, preparation is made for its removal. The text does not say that the filthiness is concealed, that the transgression is excused, but that there is a fountain opened for the effectual removal of sin and uncleanness. In the Gospel, God never trifles with human sin; we proclaim full, free, immediate forgiveness to the very chief of sinners, but it is not in a way which makes men think that sin is trivial in God’s esteem, for there is coupled with the declaration of pardon, a description of the way in which God, by the sacrifice of His Son, renders it possible for Him to be merciful without being unjust.
The Fountain for Sin and Uncleanness
In the substitution of Christ Jesus, we see Justice and Mercy peacefully embracing and conferring double honor upon each other! I repeat the word—the uncleanness is not concealed, the sin is not winked at, but there is a fountain prepared for the purging away of the defilement—and it is opened to the house of David, for the great and mighty, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the poor, common people of every class. Hear this, you who feel yourselves sinners! God has provided means for delivering you from your sins!
The text recalls to your notice the double nature of the evil of sin, and the character of the provision which meets the double evil: the fountain is opened for sin! That refers, no doubt, to the guilt of sin, to sin as offending God and deserving punishment; there is a fountain opened in the Atonement, by which the offense rendered to God’s Honor and Dignity is put away. What if we have sinned? The Lord has punished that sin in the Person of His own Son; He has thus fulfilled His threat, and proven the Truth of His Word.
In Jesus Christ, therefore, the guilt of those for whom He was a substitute is put away consistently with the righteousness of the great Lawgiver. God is Just and yet the Justifier of him that believes in Jesus! But this would not be enough, for there is a second mischief, namely, that our nature has become unclean and consequently estranged from God. Through our natural corruption, and the effect of our past sins, we are morally and spiritually diseased; our mind is in itself biased towards evil, and hostile to good.
The Double Cure: Pardon and Purification
God does not pardon sin and leave the sinner as he was in other respects; wherever forgiveness of the guilt is bestowed, a renewal of the nature is worked. The fountain opened for pardon is also opened for purification; the washing which takes away the offense before Heaven, also removes the love of offending. Herein is double joy, for does not every true penitent feel that mere pardon would be a poor benefit to him if it allowed him to continue in sin? My God, deliver me from sin itself, for this is the great burden of my soul! Oh, could I have the past forgiven, and yet live an enemy to my God, enslaved by evil and a stranger to holiness—then I would still be accursed!
What if God ceases to punish wickedness? Sin in itself is a curse; to love the wrong is the beginning of Hell! Blessed be the Lord, when He opened the fountain to cleanse His sinful people, He made it, “of sin the double cure”; that it might at the same time cleanse us from its guilt and power!
The Fountain Is Open for All
For our double need there is according to the text, only one supply; no mention is made of two fountains, neither are there two methods for the putting away of sin. But the one method is Divine; God Himself has devised, ordained, and prepared it! Would you have sin forgiven you? Wash! There is a Fountain opened! Would you have sin eradicated from your nature, and your heart made pure? Wash! Heaven declares that the Fountain is opened for this also. Imagine not that God has proposed an ineffectual means of cleansing; His arrangements are never failures.
Man may, through his poverty, provide a feast which is so bare as to mock the hunger of those invited; his meager hospitality may be an insult to the greatness of human necessity, but it is never so with God! At His banquet of mercy, oxen and fatlings are killed; milk and wine run in rivers; fat things full of marrow are heaped up! No stint is found at Jehovah’s board! When God appoints a supply for any need, we may be assured that it is a real and sufficient provision.
An Inexhaustible Fountain
O penitent souls, rest assured that in Jesus’ sacrifice there is an effectual provision for the forgiveness of sin, and an infallible means for the purging of your nature from its tendency to sin! God, in the covenant of grace, provides no seeming, superficial semblance, but in very deed He satisfies the longing soul! O men and women, there is provided for your sin and your uncleanness that which exactly meets your need!
According to the verse before us, this provision is inexhaustible; there is a fountain opened. Not a cistern nor a reservoir, but a fountain; a fountain continues still to bubble up, and is as full after 50 years as at the first, and even so the provision and the mercy of God for the forgiveness and the justification of our souls continually flows and overflows; there is a supply so large that when thousands of the sons of Adam come, they find that there is enough for their demands; and as new generations continue to come all along the centuries, they shall find that the supply has not in any degree been diminished!
II. The Fountain Is Open
When was this fountain opened? When was this divine and inexhaustible supply revealed to men? The answer may be given thus—the fountain was opened for sin and for uncleanness when the Lord Jesus died. God, the everlasting Word, was made flesh and dwelt among us, and in fullness of time the weight of human sin was laid on Him; in order to put that sin away He must die, for death was the penalty for guilt; so up to the Cross He went through unspeakable agonies, and at the last He yielded up His soul; and when He did so sin was put away, and the fountain for the cleansing of sin was effectually opened.
The Fountain Opened at the Cross
When the soldier with the spear pierced His side, and there came forth blood and water, then was it proven that this was He who came not with water only, but by water and by blood—a Savior who takes away the offense of sin as touching God, and the defilement of sin in human nature.
Furthermore, the fountain may be said to be opened to each one of us when the Gospel is preached to us. “In that day there shall be a fountain opened,” means secondarily that whenever the Gospel of Jesus Christ is fully and faithfully preached, then the cleansing efficacy of the Atonement of Jesus, which before was as a sealed fountain, is opened to those who hear.
III. The Fountain Is Opened to the Repentant
The sinner does not find a Savior until he bewails his sin; when he sees his own filthiness, then it is that the way to have that filthiness removed is made clear to him! God is always willing to forgive, but we are not always willing to be forgiven; the fountain is experimentally opened to each one of us when we spiritually discern it, believe in it, and are made partners of its cleansing power.
A Personal Experience of the Fountain
Years ago, a German prince who was entertained by the French Government was taken to the galleys of Toulon, where a number of men were held as convicts on account of their crimes. The Commandant decreed that in honor of the prince’s visit, some prisoner whom he might choose should be set at liberty. The prince went round among the prisoners, and talked with them; they all knew that he had the power to liberate one of them, and he found that according to their talk they were nearly all innocent, and had been condemned by mistake or by flagrant injustice! He passed them all by, and spoke with one who talked in another style; he was guilty upon his own confession.
“I, certainly,” said he, “have no reason to complain of my hard work in the galleys, for if I had my due, I should have been put to death for my crimes.” He went on to acknowledge with much humility the former evils of his life, and the justice of his sentence. The prince set him free, and said, “This is the only man in this place who is fit to be pardoned; he has a sense of his transgressions; he may be trusted in society.”
Conclusion: The Fountain Is Open for You
Just what that father was to his poor lost girl, in tenderness and readiness to forgive, God is to sinners! If there is any unwillingness, it is not on His part; it is all in their hearts, for the answer to every prayer for His mercy is, “God is ready! He waits to be gracious! His heart yearns over His erring ones.”
Our guilt, therefore, is no legitimate reason why we should not avail ourselves of the provisions of Divine Grace! Neither is there any effectual barrier in the consideration of our inward sinfulness. You say, “I could not be a Christian; I have such a bad disposition; I could not become holy; it is impossible.” This is true as far as you are concerned, but things impossible with men are possible with God! There is a fountain open for this very reason, that this uncleanness of yours might be put away. Christ’s blood will prove more than a match for the evil of your heart; His Spirit can renew you, make you a new creature, and from this day forward the things you hated you shall love, and the evil things you have delighted in shall become detestable to you.
The Fountain Is Open for You—Come and Be Cleansed
This He gives you—it is His own work in you! You must also repent and hate the sin which you have committed—this, also, He works in you—causing you, by His Spirit, to loathe the sin which before you delighted in! Had there been a sort of purgatorial preparation; had there been a kind of quarantine through which the sinner had to pass before he could be renewed and forgiven, then the Fountain were not completely open; but between you, a sinner, and acceptance before God, there need not be even a step of delay; believe now—and by believing you shall obtain the perfect pardon, and the renewal of your soul.
Nor is there any other real barrier to shut up the Fountain from the sinner. Some will say, “Perhaps I am not one of the Elect.” My friend, read the text! The Fountain is open—open for all ranks. “The house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” The doctrine of election, true as it is, does not make my text a lie, or close the Fountain of grace upon any seeking soul. Can you think of any other doctrine? Does any other truth discourage you? Whatever it is, I need only quote the text in order to answer your suspicion—“The Fountain is open for sin and for uncleanness.” Who dares say it is shut? There cannot be anything in theology, nor in nature, nor in Heaven, nor Earth, nor Hell, which can shut what God declares to be open!
The Fountain Is Open to All
If you want to be saved; if you come to Christ believing in Him, there is nothing to shut up the Fountain of Life or prevent you from being cleansed and healed! If there is any shutting and forbidding, it is your heart that is closed, and your pride which forbids. No difficulties remain, save only difficulties of your own creating; there are none with God. There is a Fountain opened by Him for sin and for uncleanness—and you have enough of both, therefore come with them even as you are.
“I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” Do you? It is an old doctrine of the Christian Church—do you believe it? I think I hear you say, “I believe in the forgiveness of everybody’s sin but my own.” Brothers and Sisters, I believe in the forgiveness of your sins! There was a time when it would not have troubled me to believe for you, but it troubled me to believe for myself. Now I can believe for myself and for you, also. If you desire forgiveness, take it; if you desire a new heart and a right spirit, Jesus will give them to you! The Fountain is open, and none shall dare to deny access to the anxious heart. Jesus says, “He who comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out.” Would God that some were drawn by the Holy Spirit to come today and partake of the Mercy which is so richly provided and so freely presented!
The Fountain Is Open Still
We have a rich consolation in the last point. The Fountain is OPEN STILL. The text says the Fountain is opened, and I do not, upon close inspection, discover that it declares that it was afterwards shut. I find no intimation that the opening was only for a certain occasion; on the contrary, the opening is left as a fact accomplished. What a blessing is this to every child of God here! The Fountain is still open for sin and uncleanness!
What a comfort it is to that young man who but lately believed; some little time after conversion, there usually comes a period of surprising discoveries; the heart has believed in Jesus and found rest, and it has deluded itself into the idea that it is now so cleanly delivered from sin that it will never fall into it again! But on a sudden it is tempted, it is overtaken in a fault, and then the devil cries, “You! Why, you are not saved! You are not a believer! Look at you!” Many remind me of a little girl who I trust was converted to God; she, in her simplicity, quoted that sweet little hymn to her teacher, and said, “Teacher, ‘I laid my sins on Jesus,’ and now I love Him so much that I never mean to do any more sins to lay on Him.” That is just what we thought when we were first pardoned; we did not quite say so, but we thought so. “All the past too? Yes, that is all on Him; now for the love we bear His name, we will never sin again.” So we thought! But, alas, we soon found that we were in the body still!
Returning to the Fountain
When sin is seen to be still within us, how sweetly does the text ring out like a silver bell, glad tidings of great joy—there is a Fountain opened! You went at first to Jesus, young believer—go again! The Fountain is not shut; you have washed in it once; it is not closed nor dried up—wash again! The same Christ you needed when you first believed is there now as ready and willing as ever; His blood is equally efficacious! Go, you surprised one, and wash again—
“This Fountain from guilt not only makes pure,
And gives, soon as felt,
Infallible cure.
But if guilt removed returns, and remains,
Its Power may be proved again and again.”
It will happen as we grow older and make progress in the Christian life, that every day we shall discover some fresh degree of defilement acquired by our pilgrimage through a sinful world. Do you ever go to rest a single night without feeling that you have been in many places during the day, and that there is fresh dust upon the garment, new soil upon the feet? Ah, do you think every night there is a Fountain opened? Today’s sins can be as easily put away as yesterday’s sins; and today’s sinfulness, which I feel unconquerable for the moment, can still be conquered; I can go to Christ again and say, “Let Your blood kill this sin of mine, and soften my heart into tenderness and holiness once more.” The Fountain is still open, and no man can shut it.
Overcoming Daily Struggles with the Fountain
I know that you in business, coming into contact with the world, must sometimes encounter some very trying circumstances. When perhaps you thought all would be plain sailing, you meet with terrible storms; though minded to live in peace, you fall into a sort of wrestling match with ungodly men; you are obliged to stand up for your own, and you try to do so with moderation of temper—yet your spirit becomes ruffled, and you have to say afterwards, when undergoing self-examination, “I do not know that I did exactly what I ought to have done; my quiet walk with Christ has been broken by this strife with the sons of men. Woe is me that I dwell in Mesech, and tabernacle in the tents of Kedar.”
Beloved, there is a Fountain open—go again by simple faith and look to Jesus once again, and you will find fresh pardon, and the grace which restores the heart to its repose in Jesus! Your inner life will be again refreshed as you wash in the life-restoring Fountain prepared for you.
When Spiritual Life Declines
If you are at all like I am, you will at times feel your inner life to be sadly declining. I am ashamed to confess it, but even when I seek to live nearest to God, I feel an evil heart of unbelief struggling within me. There may come times when you will anxiously inquire, “Can I be a child of God at all? I cannot awaken my feelings towards God; my passions will not stir; even in holy duties I lack the living power. There is the wood, but where is the fire for the burnt offering? I would gladly be zealous, earnest, intense, fervent; but I am sluggish, a very dolt in the Master’s cause.”
At such times we are apt to say, “I must try to make myself somewhat better than this by some means before I dare again to hope in God.” And then we go off to our own selves, and our own works, and we sink in the deep mire where there is no standing. It is a happy thing if at such moments we turn again to Christ, and say, “O my Master, unworthy as I am to be Your follower; though vilest of all those whose names are written on Your roll, yet I do believe in You still; to Your Cross I will cling; I will never let go my hope, for You have come to save sinners even such as I am, and on You I will continue to trust.”
Renewed Strength and Holiness in Christ
My dear brothers and sisters, you will find that while this restores your peace, it at the same time excites you to seek after higher degrees of holiness. It is the idea of the worldling, that if sin is pardoned so easily, men will live in it, but it is not so; to the spiritual mind, the great love of God displayed in the pardon of sin is the very highest motive for overcoming every unhallowed propensity! A sense of blood-bought pardon seals the death warrant of the most favored sin; we shall always find our safest mode of battling with sin to be a new resort to the Cross.
Happy is it for us that the blood cleanses from all sin; that is, it continues to do so every day! I would die in despair if it were not for this truth of God—that there is a Fountain open still. Some of us may have a long time to live, but we shall never outlive that open Fountain; others may die soon, but, dear brothers and sisters, in the last moment your eyes may glance at the open Fountain, and if the sins of all your life should rise before you; if in grim procession your transgressions should pass before your eyes, each one accusing you, you may fly to the open Fountain, and they will disappear!
The Eternal Fountain for Every Believer
And if the old Adam should rise even at the last, and some strong corruption should seek to prevail, there is the Fountain open which will purge away the corruption of the flesh, and work in you the new nature yet more mightily, and preserve you to the Lord’s eternal kingdom and glory!
A Church’s Responsibility
I desire to close this sermon, all too poverty-stricken, with this thought. See here what our work is as a church; we have not to provide atonement for the sinners round about us, but we have to point them to the Fountain which is already opened! I want every one of you church members to be always telling others of the way of salvation. “It is so simple,” you say. Well, then, you have no excuse if you do not tell it! Make your neighbors know the way of salvation; blare it into their ears, compel them to know it, so that if they die it shall not be for lack of knowing the way of life.
I want to remind you as a church of one most important fact; here is our preparation for the season of revival which I hope God is about to give us. The Fountain open for the sinner is also open for the child of God. Let us all wash again! Have you grown cold? Come and get your spiritual life revived! Do any of you fear that you are becoming worldly and carnal? Come to Jesus, for where you first found life, there you shall find it more abundantly! Come and wash again!
A Call to Fresh Cleansing
I desire as your pastor to receive another baptism in the sacred atoning flood, and then to come and preach to you in its heavenly power. I pray God, that my dear brothers, the deacons and elders, may each one individually, confess his sins, and receive the washing; and then I want every member, every Sunday school teacher, and every worker to prepare to serve God by receiving another of these blessed cleansings!
In the old tabernacle, there was a laver, and the priests washed their feet and their hands in it. It had to be filled up every now and then, because it was exhausted or foul. Now we have not a bronze laver, but we have a Fountain which never can be dried, and never becomes defiled! If you wash your feet in a little pool, the water is muddy directly, but if you wash in a running stream, as I have often done when climbing the Alps, or in a living fountain, you may wash, hundreds of you, and the water bears all defilement away and is just as bright as if it had never been touched by your feet.
Invitation to the Open Fountain
So there is here for all the church members a blessed flowing Fountain—come and wash, I beseech you, even now! I pray God backsliders may come here, that those who have gone farther astray than in heart, and have wandered into outward actions of rebellion, may come to the Fountain which is still open, and be cleansed anew. What sin it will be on our part if we neglect what God has provided!
Though we have often come before, let us come again! I should like to suggest that this afternoon we each of us should spend a season alone, and pray for a renewed application of that blood which speaks better things than that of Abel. The Master, after the Last Supper, took a towel and girded Himself, and went round with a basin and washed all His disciples’ feet. And when He had done it, said, “And you are clean every whit.” That is what I want Him to do to all the members of this, my Beloved Church. You cannot serve God while you are defiled; you need fresh cleansing for successful service. O may He take the towel now in His Infinite Condescension, and visit each one and wash you one by one! Pastors, deacons, elders, members—may we all avail ourselves of the open Fountain at this hour! O that the Holy Spirit might give to each one of us that cleansing which shall make us fit for service! O that we shall be useful during the coming months in the ingathering of His poor lost ones, to His Praise and Glory. May God grant it, for His name’s sake. Amen.
Portion of Scripture Read Before Sermon: Zechariah 12; 13:1