“1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem: I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown. 3 Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest; all who devoured her were held guilty, and disaster overtook them,” declares the Lord.
4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, all you clans of the house of Israel. 5 This is what the Lord says: “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. 6 They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’ 7 I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. 8 The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.
9 “Therefore I bring charges against you again,” declares the Lord. “And I will bring charges against your children’s children. 10 Cross over to the coasts of Kittim and look, send to Kedar and observe closely; see if there has ever been anything like this: 11 Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. 12 Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. 13 “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
14 Is Israel a servant, a slave by birth? Why then has he become plunder? 15 Lions have roared; they have growled at him. They have laid waste his land; his towns are burned and deserted. 16 Also, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head. 17 Have you not brought this on yourselves by forsaking the Lord your God when He led you in the way? 18 Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Shihor? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the River? 19 Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.”
If you give a boy who is little enough a choice between a large, cheap, chalky piece of chocolate and a small, expensive, delicious piece of chocolate, he will choose the large, cheap piece every time; it’s bigger.
Jeremiah would say that if you gave God’s people in his day a choice between worthless nothings and God, they would choose the worthless nothings every time. This evening we see why. Maybe you will see yourself in his words. Consider this an opportunity to repent. Maybe you will see the wider culture in Jeremiah’s words. Consider this an opportunity to pray. We can all be as foolish as that little boy exchanging what’s delicious for what’s disgusting. We all have it within us to give up everything for nothing; exchanging the glory of God for anything gets you a big pile of nothing; that’s the claim of this sermon: exchanging the glory of God for anything gets you a big pile of nothing.
We will study this in three points. First: the romanticized past. Second: the idolatrous present. Third: the disastrous consequences. First, in verses 1-3, we see a purposefully romanticized picture of the past. Second, in verses 4-13, we see the grim reality of Jeremiah’s day. Third, in verses 14-19, we see the consequences that came from their sin.
First: the romanticized past. This chapter takes the form of a covenant confrontation. When the lesser party broke the covenant grievously, the greater party would send a rebuke which followed a particular pattern; this chapter follows that pattern. It’s sort of the equivalent of a boyfriend sitting his girlfriend down on the couch and saying, “we need to talk.” You know what is coming next based on the words, “we need to talk,” and the people knew what was coming based on the form of this chapter.
This rebuke begins with a look back at the beginnings of their relationship; verse 2, “I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown.”
The key word of that sentence, “devotion”, is usually translated as “steadfast love.” This is what’s expected in a covenant relationship. You see it Exodus 20, “showing steadfast love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” That word is used almost exclusively of God’s steadfast love for His people; this is one of the only instances that speaks of the people’s steadfast love for God.
The people showed this steadfast love in the wilderness; “I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown.” This is a celebration of the days of Moses. God was recalling something sweet about the people having Him and Him alone to depend upon. He likened it to a honeymoon.
God was purposefully romanticizing this time. As you read through the Old Testament and come to the wilderness wanderings, you will see the people grumble regularly, quarrel frequently, and disobey early and often. So why remember them with such sweetness? God was exaggerating the glory of the past to underscore the disgrace of the present.
We do that. We exaggerate the civic engagement of the early days of our republic to underscore the fact that only 43% of Americans can locate Ohio on a map. We exaggerate the unity we had as a nation after 9/11 to underscore the current toxicity in politics. We idealize the past to make a point about the shame of the present.
The question of Jeremiah as he spoke these words was, “is there a willingness to see why the present is so very shameful?” “Is there a willingness on the people’s part to connect their current disgrace to their longstanding lack of devotion to God?” The rest of the book of Jeremiah tells you that the answer is, “no.” Do you wish that someone would stand up today, explain what is wrong and exactly what must be done to put it right—wouldn’t that fix everything? The message of the book of Jeremiah is that God sent a man who told the people exactly what had gone wrong and exactly what could be done about and no one listened, no one cared, no one paid attention.
You see that in the gospels too; “the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” The more things change, the more they stay the same apart from the power of the Spirit of God.
Rather than turn back to God, the people turned to other gods; that’s our second point: the idolatrous present. What happened to the honeymoon between God and His people? That was God’s question in verse 5, “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me?” This question is, of course, rhetorical because the people found no fault in God. They didn’t stray because God broke His promises. They didn’t stray because God actually became boring. They didn’t stray because that found anything that was legitimately better than God. Then, as now, people fell away from God for no good reason. That’s ultimately the answer to why people stray; they stray for no good reason. Their reasons might seem good to them. They don’t seem good to God. They won’t seem good to Him on judgment day.
The people simply stopped following God. Now when people stop following God, they don’t stop being followers; they just follow something else. As one wit put it, “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” The people who stopped following God followed lies; verse 5, “They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” Another way of reading that is that they followed nothings and became nothing.
Our day is not unlike Jeremiah’s. Just replace the idols with pretty much any word that ends in -ism. The people stopped following God and started following materialism, hedonism, nationalism, chauvinism, feminism. This is what giving up on following God for what can’t satisfy looks like in our day and age. “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.”
The idea here is that you become like what you worship. If you worship, God you become more like God. If you worship what’s worthless, you become worthless. You become as superficial as fashion. You become as hollow as entertainment. We all become like what we worship.
As the people in Jeremiah’s day become worthless, they, in the words of verse 6, ‘did not ask, “Where is the Lord…?”’ They needed God and yet their sin blinded them to their need for God. Every human is born with a void. Every person tries to fill that void with different objects—reputation, intimacy, power, hobbies; we try to force these into that void and cause damage. It is only by the grace of God that any of us look at that void and suddenly do ask what most people in Jeremiah’s day did not ask—namely, “wait, where is the Lord?”
The people’s failure to ask that question was a sign of failure on the part of their institutions. The priests were supposed to catechize and explain obedience. The kings were supposed to govern according to God’s law so that people could see the difference between right and wrong. The prophets were to call the priests, kings, and people to repentance when they failed to take God into account; they were the failsafe mechanism.
That wasn’t happening in Jeremiah’s day, and it’s worth asking whether it’s happening today; verse 8, ‘The priests did not ask, “Where is the Lord?” Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.’ The people forgot about God because the leaders didn’t remind them. The priests gave comforts other than the ones God prescribed. The kings cared more about political savvy than faithfulness. The prophets found out that speaking the culture’s lies was far more rewarding than speaking the word of God. That’s how God’s people forget about God.
It’s a tragic story and it is even more tragic today because we have seen the perfection of these institutions—that’s how Calvin, and so our Catechism, describe Jesus—prophet, priest, and king. He is the perfect prophet—not God merely speaking through a man but God speaking as a man. He is the perfect priest who offers himself as a sacrifice. He is the perfect king whose law is always right and who refuses to put himself above the law.
If we listen to him, we will not forget God. When we stop listening to him, we do forget God. Falling away from God isn’t simply a sociological trend that is happening in the early twenty-first century; it is a decision church members are making to learn at the feet of the secular prophets, priests, and kings rather than at the feet of Christ. That’s why, this year, we are praying that God would bring one backsliding member of this church back to Christ.
These people are exchanging God for a lie. You see this same exchange from a different angle in verse 10, “Cross over to the coasts of Kittim and look, send to Kedar and observe closely; see if there has ever been anything like this: Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols.”
The idea here is that a Jew of Jeremiah’s day could go as far as he wanted in any direction—Kittim in the west, Kedar in the east—and he would find that the Gentiles were far more faithful to their idols which could do nothing than the Jews were to the God who was their glory.
We tend to be faithful to our glory. Tom Brady takes care of his arm. The Queen of England protects her prestige. We are faithful to what gives us glory. Not so with the people in Jeremiah’s day; they were not faithful to God, but He was what made them special. God is always what makes God’s people special, and if we ever diminish Him and His will to attract the world, we’ve messed up badly.
Jeremiah is hammering this same point over and over; he is making clear that anything we exchange for God can only disappoint; he puts it most famously in verse 12, ‘“Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. “My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”’
Choosing anything over God is an insane exchange. Whenever you put anything in God’s place you ignore the prime rib on your plate to prefer the feces your neighbor’s dog drops. That’s what Paul would have said. I “consider them as dung compared with Christ.” If you put anything—good or bad—in Christ’s place—the center of your life—you’ve made an insane choice. If you put your gambling in Christ’s place, you’ve made an insane choice. If you put your spouse in Christ’s place, you’ve made an insane choice.
Whatever you put in God’s place will not deliver. Jeremiah describes it as a broken cistern. Cisterns were holes dug into the ground to collect water. They were plastered to make them watertight, but, in time, this plaster broke down and the water drained into the surrounding soil. A homeowner would be insane to prefer a broken cistern to a spring of water. Jeremiah is telling us that we are just as insane when we prefer anything else to God; “They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” What are you preferring?
The assumption here is that we all pursue satisfaction. We are all thirsty. That’s the human condition—billions of thirsty souls running around every day looking to satisfy that thirst. That’s the condition of the woman Jesus met at the well. She had, had five husbands because that was where she looked for satisfaction. That’s how she sought to satisfy her thirst. You’ve got your own ways; I’ve got mine. Jesus offered her, and us, something better; “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jesus came to offer satisfaction, which is another way of saying that Jesus came to offer himself. It is God who satisfies. That’s what this whole passage is about. If you want something other than God and if you try to use God to get something other than God, you will never be satisfied. Rather than satisfaction, you will find disaster; that’s our final point: disastrous consequences.
Israel was God’s beloved bride; now she was a slave of foreign countries; verse 14, “Is Israel a servant, a slave by birth? Why then has he become plunder?” The people God led in the wilderness were now a puppet state of Assyria and were again abused by Egypt. “Lions have roared; they have growled at him. They have laid waste his land; his towns are burned and deserted. Also, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head.” What happened? The people exchanged God for a lie. They gave up on the spring of living water and started drinking water that couldn’t satisfy; you see that in verse 18, “Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Shihor? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the River?”
Judah was attempting to make alliances to satisfy their longing for security, and they were seeking these alliances with the parties that were alternatively oppressing them. Some were afraid of the Assyrians and so they ran to the Egyptians; some were afraid of the Assyrians and so they ran to the Egyptians. Rather than following their unique national constitution, obeying God and trusting Him to work out their lives on His terms, the people of God were trusting in politics to deliver them from the decay they saw in their nation.
That’s appliable today. The church today like God’s people is quick to put its trust in political powers to preserve its preferred future, but as John Dearman put it in his comments on this verse, “The question here is: who is using whom? Are not both parties using the other? Is it possible that there will be long-term pain for short-term gain in these alliances?” The powers that be regularly use the church for their own ends.
There always is long-term pain for giving yourself over to anyone other than God. Trying to satisfy yourself in anything other than God will disappoint; that’s verse 19, “your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me.”
Trusting in anything other than God leads to what’s evil and bitter. Trying to find satisfaction in anything other than God—on a nationwide scale or an individual scale—will never satisfy. It will lead to disaster—to punishment and rebuke in the words of verse 19, to being laid waste and having your head shaved in the words of verses 15-16, to being slaves and plunder in the words of verse 14.
That’s what straying from God for no good reason will get you. That’s what following worthless nothings will get you. That’s what failing to ask, “where is the Lord?” will get you. That’s what giving up on a spring of living water in exchange for broken cisterns will get you. That’s what forsaking the Lord your God will get you. That’s what having no awe of God will get you. It all comes down to that—do you live in awe of God? Do you see Him for who He is, or are already exchanging Him for a large, cheap, chalky piece of chocolate? Amen.