Due to my dad’s influence, I like to fish. Doesn’t matter where it is either. We’ve done tuna fishing in the deep sea. We’ve gone lake fishing for largemouth bass in Mammoth. The Colorado River is a great place to catch some stripers (if you like fish tacos, they will give you some good fillets), and we’ve had some great fishing there. But of all the places we would fish, my dad’s favorite was brook fishing (you might call it a stream, or small river, but it was brook fishing). It was quiet. It was serene. There was just something about it that drew you to it.
One thing I remember while brook fishing there with my pole in the water, was watching leaves or debris or twigs float toward my line from upstream, and then be carried downstream until it was out of sight. When I read my personal devotions today, I thought back to the brook, and this correlation.
2 Chronicles30:13-14 And there assembled at Jerusalem much people to keep thefeast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great congregation. Andthey arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and all the altars for incense took they away, and cast them into the brook Kidron.
The brook Kidron is mentioned nine times in Scripture. In six of these nine times, when God’s people went down to the brook, it was to rid themselves of something longstanding that the Lord revealed that needed to be removed. Sometimes it was idols. Sometimes it was a grove. Sometimes it was a high place. Sometimes it was ashes, or gods, or something symbolic that had gained a foothold in their hearts, or their families, or their country. The brook was a place where they would take this stronghold, and burn or stamp or destroy it, and get rid of it once and for all. It had hindered them long enough. And once they threw it in the brook, the water carried it away for good, as a symbol of how that sin was rid of for good.
The question for today is this: what do we need to take to the brook? I’ve been saved for 27 years. I wish I could say that at salvation, I took every weight and sin to the brook, and have never had to visit it again. But you and I know that on this side of eternity, things creep in. At times, the Lord will reveal things in our lives that have hindered us for too long and need to be taken to the brook, burned, sent down the river, and given up. It may be bitterness. It may be lust. It may be pride.It may be covetousness. It may be a worldly influence in my life or my children’s. It may be a plethora of things. But whatever it is, let it stay no longer. Let’s pull it down. Let’s stamp it out. Let’s burn it. Let’s rid ourselves of it. Let’s take it to the brook and find the peace, freedom, and power once again that’s found in the blood of Christ that cleanses and carries it away.
