Wells Without Water
About this sermon
Dean Odle uses Peter’s image of ‘wells without water,’ Israel’s golden calf, and Nadab and Abihu’s strange fire to warn against churches that retain a religious appearance while withholding repentance, truth, holiness, and the fear of God. He argues that seeker-sensitive methods, unconditional security, prosperity teaching, and tolerated immorality can attract crowds yet leave people spiritually dry and exposed to judgment.
Chronological teaching outline
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Odle introduces strange fire as a symptom of the church’s lost fear of God and reads 1 Peter 4 as warning that judgment begins with God’s own people. The apparent flourishing of compromised ministries is not treated as approval; he argues that delayed judgment can precede sudden exposure.
Second Peter 2’s wells without water become a picture of teachers and churches that promise spiritual life but omit repentance, judgment, and obedience. Odle tells hearers to seek congregations that preach Scripture from Genesis to Revelation and plainly call sin what it is.
The sermon rejects defining grace as permission or merely unmerited favor, describing it instead as God’s active influence that changes a life. Odle traces seeker-sensitive church methods through Robert Schuller and Bill Hybels and argues that numerical success can please unconverted people while concealing spiritual emptiness.
Exodus 24 recounts Israel promising to do all the Lord commanded, the covenant blood, and Moses ascending the mountain. Odle uses the scene to establish that nearness to God and covenant privilege carry a responsibility to obey rather than invent worship.
While Moses remains on the mountain, Aaron makes the golden calf and calls the celebration a feast to the Lord. The sermon treats this as a warning that people can attach God’s name to worship He did not authorize and falsely credit an idol with His saving work.
Leviticus 10 records Aaron’s sons offering fire God had not commanded and dying before Him. Odle emphasizes God’s declaration that He will be sanctified among those who approach Him, making sincerity alone an inadequate defense for disobedient ministry.
Examples of tolerated adultery, sexual misconduct, and drunkenness show what happens when churches lose the fear of the Lord. A testimony about conviction over alcohol illustrates the opposite result: warning can move people to repent, reorder their lives, and follow Jesus seriously.
Odle criticizes Calvinism and unconditional eternal security for weakening the urgency of obedience and perseverance. He argues that attempting ministry while refusing to fear and obey God is another form of strange fire, even when immediate judgment does not follow.
Ecclesiastes is used to explain that delayed sentencing emboldens evil, but delay never means sin has escaped God’s notice. The closing prayer asks for a fear of the Lord that produces wisdom, repentance, and readiness as judgment begins in the churches.
After an extended pause, Odle reiterates that this warning is directed first to the church rather than merely to the world. He urges hearers to test worship and ministry by Scripture, return to obedient discipleship, and respond before God’s patience gives way to judgment.
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- 0:00:07
You deserve the glory. You are worthy of it all. You are worthy of it all things. You deserve the glory. We're going to do one more song. I think we need to worship for a few more minutes. I felt we didn't need to be in a hurry this morning, so let's worship. Y'all got that one. Rest on us. Oh, you don't? I thought you did. No, it's okay. How about Breathe? Do y'all know that one? Let's do that. That one was on my mind, too. It's all right. How many remember 1980s wrestling? Down in Georgia, I don't know if y'all had it in Alabama, but they had a Southern championship. I don't know if he had a Southern championship, but they had a guy on there called him Flying Brian. Y'all remember him? He'd fly off the edge of the ring, and so that's kind of how I come in this morning, so I apologize. I kind of come in like Flying Brian and kind of flop my first match. Thank you, Lord. He's worthy. Amen. Amen. The song says he's the air I breathe. You know, he's everything. Everything. We're nothing without him. We can do nothing without him this morning. It takes him. Amen.
- 0:03:27
You're me. This is the end. This is the air I breathe. Your holy presence. This is my daily bread. Thank you, Jesus. This is my daily bread. You're there. The fee. Let's just tell him this morning he's holy. Love him this morning.
- 0:09:04
Thank you for what you do. Thank you for your son. Holy Father of you. We pray that you will lead us and guide us into all truth. Lead us and guide us into your will and truly help us, Lord, to never lose the fear and reverence and respect we should have toward you. Your word. Your holiness. The fact that we will stand before you one day as judge. We want to hear well done. Good and faithful service. Lead us and guide us. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated this morning. Thank you, Johnny and Julie. Good to see everybody here today. Marriage boot camp seemed to go well yesterday, I think. Amen. I'll tell you one thing. You got plenty of scripture yesterday. That's for sure. You ought to be fully loaded and ready to roll. I hope everybody has their Bibles with them today because we may read a good bit. I'll try not to keep you till three o'clock. Do my best. I want us to turn first to First Peter chapter four. Something I think the Lord's been stirring in me now for a few weeks and I guess it's time to share it with you. I remember reading this when I was very young, new in the Lord, and I just have to say it's scared to mess out of me. But it should because we should never lose the fear of God because if we do, we're going to end up offering strange fire before the Lord. And that's what I'm going to talk to you about is about strange fire because right now in the church world, it's like a minefield out there and I don't care what denomination you come from.
- 0:12:04
It's a minefield. And most of the problems that are out there now, not just spirits of deception or spirits of error, but it really all comes from a central point. And that is that they've lost the fear of God. Now, one of the signs you don't hear talked about much of the end times, and I do believe we're in them, no doubt, is that judgment begins at the house of God. So let's go to verse 17, First Peter four, 17. It says for the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God. And if it first began at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing as unto a faithful creator. Now, I want to back up a little bit and go through this because I remember reading this and thinking, man, you can't play around with this thing. Not that I thought you could, but that reinforced it. I think we're living in a time right now where I thought a few years ago, I said, well, Lord, it seems like all the false teachers and the lukewarm pastors and the mega church theology and all that looks like they're just flourishing. It's like there's no judgment. There's no fear. And the Lord reminded me, and I think it is Psalm 92, if I remember correctly, but there are several places in the Psalm where he says when you see the wicked spring forth like the grass, when they're flourishing, it's because they will soon be cut off. And what we're watching right now, I don't know if some of you are realizing it, but minister after minister, big time minister after big time minister now is getting exposed. If they've got sexual sin in their lives, if they are mishandling funds, if they are, you know, grooming young women and men, if they're doing these things. It's starting to all come out. I mean, think about I think about gateway church was one of the biggest mega churches in the country and their pastor going to prison. The truth came out. Took a long time for it to come out, but it came out.
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