WWUTT 2294 Cisterns With No Water (Jeremiah 2:1-13)

The nation of Israel had turned away from the Lord, and they had begun worshiping false gods. They turned away from the living water that God had given to them, and they drank from wells that did not satisfy.

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Now, here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Jeremiah’s Unfaithfulness and the Opening Rebuke

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we have finished the introduction to the book, which was pretty much all of Chapter 1. And now we're going to get into God's decrees to Israel and to Judah, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, respectively, who have been unfaithful to the Lord, and they have whored themselves out with the false gods of the pagans around them.

We saw this kind of address from Isaiah and from Hosea, and now we read it in Jeremiah as well. The Lord is first going to address the nation of Israel in Chapter 2 and describing the sin that they are guilty of.

They had turned away from the Lord and turned themselves to false idols. Then in Chapter 3, it's going to be said of them that they can and should repent. We're not going to get all the way through Chapter 2 today.

It's a pretty lengthy chapter. But when we do get to Chapter 3, there's a call to repentance. In Chapter 4, it will be said, but they won't repent, and so judgment is coming upon them. And then Chapters 5 and 6 are going to be an address to Judah of similar fashion.

So that's what we're seeing over the next several chapters, from Chapters 2 through 6. And the section that we're going to be looking at today will culminate with addressing how Israel had turned away from all the wonderful goodness that God had given to them and had promised them.

And instead, they went after worthless things that do not satisfy. And as we read this, may we be warned that we would not be carried away in our sin to go after worthless things and come into judgment.

I'm going to open here by reading from Jeremiah Chapter 2, the first nine verses. Hear the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord came to me saying, go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, thus says the Lord.

I remember the devotion of your youth. Your love is a bride. How you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord. The first fruits of his harvest, all who ate of it incurred guilt.

Disaster came upon them, declares the Lord. Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob and all the clans of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord. What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me and went after worthlessness and became worthless?

They did not say, where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through where no man dwells.

And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination. The priests did not say, where is the Lord?

Those who handle the law did not know me. The shepherds transgressed against me. The prophets prophesied by bail and went after things that do not profit. Therefore, I still contend with you, declares the Lord.

And with your children's children, I will contend. And then the Lord will go on to describe that rebuke in the verses that follow. Let's come back to the very start of this here. The word of the Lord.

And this is where that phrase is most often spoken in the whole Bible. It is said more in Jeremiah than any other book. The word of the Lord. I have that podcast. Hear the word of the Lord. That is just Bible reading.

And that's where I get the name from. It comes out of the book of Jeremiah. So, we start with that. Now, with this address to the kingdom of Israel, the word of the Lord came to me saying, Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, thus says the Lord.

I remember the devotion of your youth. Your love is a bride. How you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord. The first fruits of his harvest. All who ate of it incurred guilt.

Disaster came upon them, declares the Lord. So, in the beginning, Israel was faithful and followed after God in the wilderness. In a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord. They were set apart. The Lord had singled them out from every other nation on earth.

They were not the biggest. They were not the flashiest. There was nothing about Israel that would have seemed amazing to any other nation in the world. In fact, they were enslaved by the Egyptians. So, they were always seen as inferior to any other people.

And yet, the Lord chose this people through whom he would make his name. He would reside with them. He would call them his people. And they would know him as their God. This was the promise that God had made with Abraham and with his descendants.

And Israel is that people. The fulfillment of that very promise. Even giving them the land that he had shown to Abraham. And saying to him, your descendants will inhabit this land. And centuries later, indeed they did.

And yet, they did not seek the Lord. So, verse 4. Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord, what wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me and went after worthlessness and became worthless?

Like, what fault did they see in God? They looked at God and they thought, well, he can't give us anything. He can't do for us what we want. He can't supply for our every need. So, we're going to go after, what?

The false gods of the pagans? What can they do for you that the Lord your God cannot do or has not done? So, what is it that this people saw when they looked at God and decided that they weren't going to worship him anymore?

I mean, this is an indictment, of course. Because God is holy. He is perfect. He is good. There is no flaw in God. So, it is an indictment against this people. Apparently, they think there's something wrong with God that they have to go after these virtually non-existent gods.

They went far from me and they went after worthlessness. Those gods are worthless. They can't give you anything. They can't provide you with anything. Even if they're overladen with silver and gold, they're still worthless idols.

The gold itself cannot provide you with anything. And it's not like you're going to melt it down into currency and use it to buy things for yourself. Because it's your idol. It's your God. You're not going to do that.

And so, you have wasted the gold on this false god and have bowed down to it as though it could give you anything. You are choosing worthlessness. And so, you yourselves, the end of verse 4, have become worthless.

Now, we have all been made in the image of God. And being made in God's image. There is inherent worth to every single human being. Adam and Eve, when they were created in the garden, God looked at them and he said, they are good.

They are very good. And there was no sin in them when God made them in the very beginning. But it was Adam and Eve who sinned. Eve listening to the serpent by eating of the fruit that God told them not to eat.

Adam listening to the voice of his wife instead of the voice of God. Instead of leading his wife and even protecting his wife. And so, the judgment of God came upon them. And judgment has extended to all of mankind.

All of creation has been subjected to futility because of man's sin, as talked about in Romans chapter 8. And that's why the world, in fact, the entire universe is in the chaos that it is in. Because man, who was made in God's image, sinned against God, rebelled against God.

Took that which was made in his image and blasphemed God by disobeying the Lord and going after our own passions and desires instead. And so, for this, all of creation has been cursed. We all have inherent worth because we are made in the image of God.

But it is sin, it is our propensity for sin, our going after sin, our desiring those things that God does not desire that makes us worthless. So, when we also read in Romans chapter 3, we read of the depth of our sin and how all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

It is in Romans 3 10 where it is said, as it is written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.

So, we all have inherent worth in the sense that we have been made in the image of God, but we've all become worthless because all of us are born into sin. We are conceived in sin, the way that David puts it in the Psalms.

We have been sinful from the very moment of our conception. It is in our nature to rebel against God and go after our own way. So, in this way, no one doing good, no one understands or seeks for God. All of us have become worthless.

It is only by faith in Jesus Christ that we can be made worthy again. And then through faith in Christ, we are adopted into the household of God. We become sons and daughters of God. This address that's being made of the people of Israel.

You went after worthlessness, and so you became worthless. And therefore, not the objects of God's love and affection, but they are at enmity with God. And punishment and judgment will come upon them if they do not repent.

The Lord continues on with his rebuke of Israel in verse 6. They did not say, so this was not the attitude of Israel to say, where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through where no man dwells.

So, basically, what should be said by Israel here is, let's seek after the Lord. Let's go after the one who delivered us. Who delivered us out of slavery, brought us up out of the land of Egypt, and then even delivered us from the wilderness that we had to pass through in order to come into the land that he was giving to us.

There's our God. There's the one who loves us and provides for us. Let us go after him. But that was not the attitude of Israel. That was not the desire of their hearts. And whenever we sin, whenever we go after sin, we commit the same error.

We go after worthlessness, and we become worthless. And instead of saying, let us go to the one who is the giver of all good things, who fully satisfies me, he is my sufficiency, or being able to pray with David in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want all good things I have from the Lord.

That should be the inclination of our hearts is to desire God and go after him. But when we in our flesh want to go after our sin, we act as Israel does here and make ourselves worthless, going after worthlessness.

Verse 7, I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination. Now, of course, that land had already been defiled.

It had been defiled by the pagans that lived there and all the wicked things that they did, whether it was the violence or the sexual immorality, the child sacrifice that was happening among the pagans.

It was a wicked territory, and the Lord drove them out. He used the Israelites to bring punishment and judgment upon those pagans and to drive them out of the land. Now, the Lord had said to Israel in the book of Deuteronomy, do not think that it's because you've done anything great that you're going to inherit this land.

The reason why I'm giving it to you is because the people who are there are so wicked that they are going to now be driven out of it. The land is going to vomit them out. And I am going to use you to drive them out, to bring this judgment upon them.

But it's not because Israel is great. It's because God was showing his greatness through them, and they were going to inherit the land. They were going to receive cities they had not built and vineyards that they had not planted.

Israel was going to inherit all of this, which belonged to the Lord. It was God's to decide who would get it. And so he gave them his land. I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things, but you defiled my land.

You made my heritage an abomination. Now, in the age in which we live, on this side of the cross, in the age of the church, we are the heritage of God. It's not a land, but it's the church. And we belong to Christ.

The Father has given us to Christ and made him the head of the church because of Christ's faithfulness to the Father and him having given his life as a ransom for us. He has paid the price for our sins.

He has redeemed us and reconciled us back to God. And we have become his possession. So we are his heritage. But here it is the land. And through the land, God blesses his people. But they have made his heritage an abomination.

Verse 8, the priests did not say, where is the Lord? So just like Israel didn't say, where is the Lord that we may go after him? The priests did not have this in their hearts either. And it is especially incumbent upon the priests to be those who seek God and charge the people to seek God.

But they themselves were not seeking the Lord. Those who handle the law, the Lord says, did not know me. The shepherds transgressed against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit.

If you'll remember in John 3 where Jesus has a conversation with Nicodemus. One of the things that he says to Nicodemus rebuking him because Nicodemus didn't understand the things that Jesus was talking about.

If you want to enter the kingdom of God, you must be born again. Jesus said to Nicodemus, aren't you the teacher of Israel? And yet you do not understand these things? Even during the time that Christ came to Israel, the people did not know.

Their hearts were hard and they did not know the word. Nor were the priests and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. Nor were they even teaching the people the word. They were teaching them the traditions of men.

Yeah, the word was read in the synagogues, but mostly when it came to exhortation and commandments. It was the stuff that the Pharisees made up that they were telling the people that they had to do. And so same sort of thing going on here.

Those who handled the law did not know me. Incidentally, it is in Jeremiah where a rebuke is going to be given of the shepherds who fed themselves instead of the sheep. And that's relevant. We'll come back to that a little bit later on, too.

We see that going on today, do we not? So then after this rebuke that is made of Israel, the Lord says, therefore, I still contend with you, declares the Lord. So he's described their rebellion, how they're not really looking after the Lord.

And so God contends with them. And with your children's children, I will contend, he says. Verse 10, for cross to the coasts of Cyprus and sea or send to Keter and examine with care. See if there has been such a thing.

Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. That is incredibly profound. Just think about this. How often do you ever see a nation or a kingdom change its gods and begin worshiping other gods?

They'll probably bring other religions in other gods in. But they don't give up the gods that they have. Was the last time you heard of some nation or people decide, I'm just not going to worship these gods anymore.

Of course, if they convert to Christianity, then they don't worship those false gods anymore. But I'm saying giving up these false gods for other false gods. Rarely does that ever happen. And so the Lord is saying, find a nation that does that.

Point them out to me. What have my people done? My people change their glory for that which does not profit. They had God, the God who created the universe, who chose to put his name with this people and dwell with them.

And instead, they decided to go after these false gods of the pagans around them that they knew God did not dwell with them. And yet that's what they went after. They changed their God, the true God for these false gods.

When even these pagan nations don't do that, even the pagans don't trade out their gods for other gods. Verse 12, be appalled. Oh, heavens at this. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate, declares the Lord. I tell you one of the most vexing things in my spirit that I have ever had to endure or go through in all my years, whether it has been in ministry or just as a friend or whatever.

One of the hardest things that I ever have to go through is watching someone walk away from the Lord. I can't even begin to tell you how much that plays on my spirit to watch somebody do that. Especially when I have known their enthusiasm that they once had for Christ and being a Christian and sharing the good news of the gospel with others.

And then a season comes in which they walk away from it all. Because I know what they're walking away from. In their ignorance, they may not. But I do. That they're trading in the glory of God. The relationship that they could have with the creator of the universe.

And they're trading that in for what? A few years of pleasure? Going after their sin? Carnal desires? Things that are fleeting that will never satisfy? Anyway, that will always leave them empty and clamoring for more.

They would trade in the promise of everlasting life and a relationship with the creator of the universe. For these piddly little things that do nothing. So heartbreaking to see. And surely you've encountered that as well.

You've witnessed that before. Here the Lord is saying, be appalled, oh heavens, at this. Be shocked. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate. For my people have committed two evils, he says. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves.

Broken cisterns that can hold no water. And that's what happens with a person that will walk away from the everlasting glory that is promised in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they walk away from that.

And they carve out cisterns for themselves that hold no water. Pray for their repentance that it may be a prodigal child type of story. But also take it as a warning for yourself. The whole book of Hebrews is about this.

How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? Be careful that you do not fall into the same error, the same sins as your fathers before you. Talking specifically about Israel. That though they had been rescued from slavery and they were given a land flowing with milk and honey.

Yet they went after the passions of their flesh. They forgot God and they fell into judgment. Be mindful of this, brethren. And be watchful of yourselves. That the same doesn't happen to you. Seek Christ and hold fast to him.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here. These warnings that are given to Israel are warnings for us as well. And if there is somebody listening who has been in some serious amount of sin.

Has continued playing with it thinking that they can just continue doing it. And coming back to the Lord and asking for forgiveness and God will forgive. How do they know that God will not just turn them over to their desires.

To be consumed by their own depraved minds and carried away from the Lord. We must be aware that our adversary the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Let us not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.

But continually drawing near to God. And drinking from the cistern that you have given to us in Christ. The living water that gives eternal life. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

The Worthlessness of Idols and the Image of God

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