God Remembers Your First Love — Erlo Stegen

God's Call to Backsliding Israel

Our text is Jeremiah 3, verse 12 to 14. 14a. We'll start with verse 11. Then the Lord said to me, Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord. I will not cause my anger to fall on you. For I am merciful, says the Lord. I will not remain angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Lord your God and have scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree.

And you have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord. Return, backsliding children, says the Lord. For I am married to you. Let's share something about this. But let's pray once again. We pray, Lord, that you will send your Holy Spirit, that he will speak to us through your word to us.

Touch every heart that not one will leave without having heard your voice. Amen. There is no life in this earth without God. Without Jesus you have nothing. You are lost for all eternity, forever. You can have everything in this world.

Yet you are poor, miserable, wretched and on your way to hell. Fulfillment and faith. To believe in Zulu is the same word as saying I am satisfied. When you've had a meal, you've had enough and they offer you more, then you say I am fulfilled, I am a believer in other words.

I've had enough, I'm satisfied. It's a wonderful way of saying it. Saying I'm a Christian, I have everything I need, I need nothing else. I'm completely satisfied. If we have Jesus, we don't need wealth, we don't need position, or worldly pleasures.

Jesus as the Source of Life

Because Jesus becomes your life and if you have him, you have everything. If you speak of life. Throughout the Bible, Jesus is portrayed as being the life. He's not the God of the dead, but the God of those that are living.

Those that are alive, for he has risen from the dead. He's also not like the spirits of the dead, because he sits at the right hand of God. He's also not an idol that's been fashioned out of wood. He is alive, he's not just an idol that's been made out of dead wood.

Or even stone, like an idol. No, he is alive, sitting at the right hand of God. And he loves you with eternal love. Psalm 22 verse 17. Revelation 22 verse 17. Revelation 22 verse 17. Whoever desires, let him take of the water of life freely.

So he offers life for free to everyone who comes to him. You don't have to pay anything, you just need to come to him. And God accepts everyone who draws close to him, who comes to him. John says Jesus came to bring us eternal life.

He says the thief comes to destroy and to kill. But he says I've come to bring you life in abundance. Abundant life, overflowing life. Jesus doesn't just give us a little bit of life, but life in abundance, overflowing life.

Without Jesus you don't have that, you don't have that life. But through God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He is three and yet one, the Trinity is one. So the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah instructing him to go and speak to Israel.

Remembering the First Love

And tell them that I the Lord think of them and remember them and remember their youth. And reminding them also of their first love. When you followed me, he said, in the wilderness. There where the food was not even sown.

Because Israel was holy unto the Lord. Being holy, meaning being separate, being set apart for him alone. What does it mean when God says I remember you? He remembers that time when that first love was still burning in your heart.

That first love. When that first love was burning in your heart that you were interested in nothing else. He was your sole interest. When you were still young at heart, in your spirit. That you were like his bride and he your husband.

Every day he was top of mind for you, you thought of him, you sought ways to please him. He, Jesus himself was your joy. And when you followed the Lord Jesus, even there in the wilderness. There where there is no food.

Before we get to know the Lord Jesus, we are in a spiritual wilderness where there is nothing. And he said, there where you found me, where I found you, you trusted me. You trusted me, you followed me and you were my people and I protected you from all evil.

Why? Because you were set apart for me. You were a holy people. I chose you. Among many nations I chose you. I destroyed your enemies before you. And you chose me. You chose me. And you followed me. He said, Oh, how I remembered you, I longed for you.

And there you can take out the name Israel. Now put your name in there where the Lord says to you, Oh, how I longed for you, that you will once again have that first love. He said, My people have sinned in two ways.

Forsaking the Fountain of Living Water

They've forgotten me. They've forsaken me, the fountain of true life. And then they made for themselves cisterns that cannot even hold water. They are like a leaking container. You put water in them and the water just runs out at the bottom.

But a fountain is different because there the water never stops. It just keeps coming. And this is no ordinary fountain. Because this fountain has very special water. It's the water of life, the most precious, wonderful, fresh water, clear as anything, pure.

An amazing thing about this fountain is it never runs dry. But Israel forsook this fountain of pure, precious water. They forsook this fountain of pure, precious, clean water and forsook it. And he said, You have sinned in two ways.

You forsook me, turned your back on me. I gave them life, this fountain of life. And the second sin is they created for themselves their own idols. They committed harlotry. Instead of going to this fountain of true life daily, they created themselves their own thing for themselves.

But the cisterns which they created for themselves were leaking and their idols were worthless. They were broken cisterns which were worthless, useless. They were ineffective, pathetic, a waste of time and left them in a very sad and sinful state.

So you wasted your time on worthless idols. But God is not pleased when you do that for he sees us as his bride and he is a jealous God. He doesn't want you to run after other idols and gods. He doesn't want you to run after idols and gods and he doesn't want you to run after idols and gods.

Spiritual Adultery and Idolatry

Paul said I want to present you to Christ as a pure bride and you can imagine how one feels, that husband feels when that bride is not faithful to him, when he is married to her and she has other men in her life.

God is not pleased when you do that for he sees us as his bride and he is a jealous God. God is not pleased when you do that for he sees us as his bride and he is a jealous God. Jeremiah 2 verse 4 onwards, hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, families of the house of Israel.

He reprimands them for having forsaken him, the true God, and following idols so you can have the first love and then forsake it over time. Slowly but surely you drift away from God and then you create your own idols which you serve and worship.

God says I saved you, I brought you to land where there is bountiful food that you may eat the best fruits. But when you entered the land you defiled it and my inheritance you turned into a cursed place.

So preachers, ministers, they said where is the God that we served in the beginning? The preachers and the congregation members, they forsook me and they prophesied in the Bible and they sought after other things which profit nothing.

And God says what injustice have I done to deserve you forsaking me? Where did I harm you? Why did I harm you that you forsook me? Why did you forsake me so soon? How could you do such evil, sinning against me?

Have you forgotten what I have done for you and your fathers that you forsake me? That you now follow other gods? I want us to understand this point. People, they experience God's judgment coming upon them.

But when people repented, God turned from his wrath. If we forsake God, we start serving other gods. Maybe you say, well, I don't serve foreign gods or idols, however, your money could be your idol. Your idol could be sports, TV, internet, houses, cars, and sexual sins.

An unfaithfulness in marriage. You've got a husband and you've got other men in your lives. Whatever it is in your life that you worship, that's become your idol and God should be the first in your life.

God wants you. He wants the whole of you, everything, not half. Jesus wants all or he wants nothing. You're all. That we say, not a mite will I withhold. Nothing. Absolute, perfect surrender. Total surrender.

Repentance and Faithful Allegiance to Christ

Jesus even said, if you love father, mother, wife, brother, sister, or children more than you love me, is not worthy of me. You see, even they can become your idols. God sent Jeremiah to those who had forsaken their first love.

And to warn them that his wrath would not come upon them. Saying to them they should repent so that he would not cause his anger to fall upon them. Says, because I am married to you. Just think of that.

God says he has married you. He's married to you. Are you aware of that every day, every hour, every minute, that you're aware that you're married to him? It's a thing we can't understand. We can't fathom that he has been, that he has married us.

Whether you like it or not. You're married to him and you ought to be faithful to him. If you're not, you're living in harlotry. God says, I am married to you. Are you fully conscious of that? Day by day, moment by moment, you are married.

You didn't marry him, he's married you. You didn't marry him, he's married you, you didn't marry him, he's married you, you didn't marry him, he's married you, you didn't marry him, he's married you, you didn't marry him, Hebrews 13 verse 4, marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers, God will judge.

God says, I am married to you. You are his bride. What kind of a bride are you? What would you say of a wife who's married to a husband and has other men in her life? She's unfaithful to her husband. What would you think of her?

And the word here says, marriage is to be honored by everyone and you need to honor your marriage to Christ. Let your conduct be without covetousness, or in other words, the love of money, yet be content with such things.

Be content with such things as you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you forsake you. So, we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. How wonderful, he being our helper, and we can just accept his help, that we don't need to worry about many things, we can be content with what we have.

I will not fear. What can man do to me? That's when Jesus... So, we can say, if God is our husband, for whoever touches me, touches the apple of his eye. And so, we read in James 4 verse 4, adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

If you fall in love with the world, or with money, or other things, it could even... It could even be your own children. Then God classifies you among adulterers and adulteresses. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Warnings from Lives Destroyed by Worldliness

If you forsake God and forsake that first love, woe to you if you do not repent. There was a young man here at Sissamartin, he suffered from epileptic fits, he really had it seriously. He repented. He was prayed for and he was healed.

He was perfectly healthy. But then one day we went out to another place to have a service there, when we came back they said, this young man has fallen and he has these fits again. We went there and we were praying in tongues.

We were praying in tongues. We stood there and we were praying in tongues. And then they said, if you ever want to be a friend of the world, do you not know that friendship is enmity with God? After we had left, he went here to the neighbours and he got some alcohol and he drank there and after he had drunk it, he got such a fit, he fell over, unconscious, but he never woke up again.

He died like that. And then another young man came here from Germany, from a very wealthy family. He fell into drugs. Now, the father said, my son, because of the way you're living, you're losing your inheritance and that was worth millions in Euros.

He came here, met the Lord, and the Lord delivered him, set him free totally. After a few months, he went back and lived for the Lord. Life had changed so much, his father said, my son, I withdraw what I said about my inheritance.

Every Sunday morning, he was off to the service, but one day, he wasn't in the service. They contacted his parents and the parents said, but he left this morning dressed to go to church. They said, well, he never got to church, so they started searching for him and they found him in the park lying on a bench.

Instead of going to church, on his way to church, he got sidetracked. He went to the park and he got hold of the drugs again and heroin and he, after taking it, he passed out and that's how he died. When they found him on the bench, he was dead.

It's a frightening thing to forsake God because you forsake life and you become an adulterer. He became an adulterer, he forsook his heavenly husband and got married to the devil. Amazingly, God says, in spite of that, I still love you.

The Cost of Resisting God's Calling

I remember when I was then where the Lord called me, I went to my minister and I said, yes, God has called me to preach the gospel. When I was out there, I suddenly started thinking about the consequences of this decision and I thought, if I become a preacher, I'll have nothing, I won't have money and I'll just be there to baptize babies and to marry the young people.

I said, no, rather I'll just get myself a good job and earn enough money and then I will support preachers or missionaries. I just made this decision that I would not become a minister myself, I'm just going to support them.

But then I prayed, I said, Lord, but I don't want to make this decision without you. I want you to give me your stamp of approval. I want you to be with me in it. I said, Lord, I don't want to do it without you, I want you to be with me.

I said, Lord, I ask you, please, now I've made this decision, but I want you to give me your blessing for the decision I've made. I took my Bible and I said, Lord, I want you to speak to me through your word just to give me your stamp of approval on my decision.

I said, Lord, I ask you, please, now I've made this decision, but I want you to give me your stamp of approval. So I prayed and asked God for a stamp of approval. I opened my Bible and read from Matthew 4, verse 18, Jesus walking.

I read where Simon and Peter, Peter and Andrew were fishing and the Lord said to them, follow me, I will make you fishers of men. I got so angry, I almost threw my Bible down. I said, no, Lord, I'm glad I didn't do it, but I still said, I'm not prepared to do it.

I went home, I lived in rebellion, but that next year was like hell for me. I knew I was living in disobedience to God. I knew if I died, I'd go to hell. For one and a half years, I experienced what it's like to live a life without God.

And I wish that on no one. I had no peace. I had just lived in fear. When I just heard a noise, I thought, oh, that's the Lord returning. And I knew I was lost. I'm living in a rebellion against you, showing you my fist, and yet you still love me.

And that love melted my heart. After a few days, I went also now beside the bed where I was sleeping at the time, took the Bible, opened it. And then I read where Jesus said—challenged Peter about his love.

Jesus' Question: Do You Love Me?

He said, Peter, do you love me? The second and even the third time he asked him. When I read it, it wasn't just like reading in the Bible. It was as if the Lord Jesus himself was standing there speaking to me personally, asking me these questions.

I didn't know Greek at that time. Even though I didn't know the Greek meaning of the word salove that Jesus used in that instance. Yet just that—by the third time the Lord asked me, my heart just broke.

In the Greek, if you look at it, the Lord Jesus asked Peter, do you love me with agape love, the love of God? Do you love me with God's love? That's God's love that transcends everything and overcomes everything.

Peter had responded and said, I phileo you, which is the love for a friend. And that's why the third time the Lord Jesus asked him, he said, Peter, do you just love me as a friend? And Jesus—Peter loved him as a friend.

He couldn't have loved him with God's love. Otherwise he wouldn't have denied him those three times. Peter couldn't truthfully—Peter couldn't truthfully say, I love you with God's love, for he had just denied him.

And that's why he responded and said, I just love you as a friend. But even though I—even though I didn't understand the Greek meaning—even though I didn't understand the deeper meaning—even though I didn't understand the deeper meaning—even though I didn't understand the deeper meaning—even though I didn't understand the deeper meaning—even though I didn't understand the deeper meaning—even though I didn't understand the deeper meaning.

Surrendering to Christ's Marriage and Calling

From there I went to my father outside and I thought it would be difficult for him to accept it, but I had to tell him, I said, Father, God's calling me, I need to follow his calling. But my father said, my child, I'm happy if you go, then I'll always have someone to pray for me.

That I am what I am today is because I said, Lord, I'm prepared to forsake everything and serve you and follow your love, to do your will, be a fisher of men. And I could do it for he said, I am married to you.

And I just said, Lord, I agree I am married to you. I want to be your bride. Not because I loved him first, but because he loved me first. And that's why I said, Lord, I am prepared and I want to do this above all other things that are past or present or to come.

And today I can say I am a witness to the fact that it's wonderful to be married to God. Have you put on that ring, that marriage ring with God? Never take it off. And fall in love with the devil, with the world, the things of the world.

And that that marriage to Christ, to God, will mean more to you than anything, even to family and relatives. Just like I forsook my family and relatives and I was married to Christ. Now, what do you, what do you say about this?

God says, I am married to you. What's your response? Do you say, no, no, I don't want to be married to you. I'm married to the world. I'm married to the devil. And I'm married to my. And if you don't want to be married to God, to Christ, then your lot is in hell.

And hell is the worst thing you can imagine. Worse than any cancer or AIDS or anything else you can think of. Recently, when I was on my way back from Durban, I got a phone call that someone who was a young man, he worked here in the dairy when the cows were still here and we were still making our own silage.

This boy had worked there and his hand went into the silage cutter and it was chopped off here at the wrist. God says, I am married to you. What's your response? Do you say, no, no, I don't want to be married to you.

What's your response? Do you say, no, no, I don't want to be married to God. And hell is the worst thing you can imagine. Worse than any cancer or AIDS or anything else you can. At that time, I asked him, I said, what did you feel like when you had lost your hand?

Was it painful? He said, it was so painful, if I would have had a knife, I would have committed suicide. That's how painful it was. But any pain you can imagine is nothing compared to spending eternity in hell.

And it's forever. It doesn't end. So take off the devil's ring, put on God's ring. Are you prepared? Let us stand and pray together. Lord Jesus, we hear that you are married to us. Forgive us Lord for not having been faithful.

But that we flirted with other men, forgetting what you've done for us in our lives. Work Lord, in an amazing way. In your grace. And by your grace, may we be faithful in that heavenly marriage for all eternity.

Amen.