“HAVE YOU FORSAKEN GOD, THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS?”

SERIES: JEREMIAH-REPENTANCE LEADS TO HOLINESS

MESSAGE:  “HAVE YOU FORSAKEN GOD, THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS?”

TEXT:   JEREMIAH 2:1-24

INTRODUCTION

There is no lasting security and satisfaction apart from the eternal God. We may be tempted to seek security and satisfaction from possessions, people, wealth, education, power, fame and sexual pleasure, but those will fail us. Israel a servant, a bride chosen and married to God had forsaken God, she became a prey to alien powers. Israel was spoiled. Sin spoils all that it touches. It is very sad to think of lives full of glorious possibilities being deliberately spoiled. Brothers and sisters who once had a great testimony of the power of God in their lives have overtime forsaken God-the fountain of living waters. In my small farm in Machakos, I have witnessed four fruit trees taken over by parasitic plants over several years-spoiled! Humanism, prosperity, evil spirits and demons can take over lives. When this happens we forsake the eternal God and hew out cisterns, broken cistern that can hold no water.

Let us see:-

1. WHAT SHE WAS (Jeremiah 2:1-12)

Her past condition is characterized as one of great privilege and opportunity.

1. There was fellowship v.2

• “I remember the devotion of your youth”
• “As a bride you loved me”
• “You followed me through the desert and land not sown”. There was a delightful walking with God because there was an agreement. The holy bliss of new and first love (Amos 3:3)

2. There was obedience- You followed me through the desert (V.2)

• Even though it was through the waste and howling desert.

3. There was separation. “Israel was holiness unto the Lord” V.3

• Separated from Egypt unto God and a witness for Him.
• This was a high and holy position.
• How the mighty have fallen?
• Such were some of you, but where are you now?

1. WHAT SHE DID(Israel has gone astray “My people have committed two evils”(V.13)

Two evils of backsliding:-

1. They have forsaken me; the fountain of living waters”

• In forsaking God they turned their back on the source of all good.
• To forsake anyone is just to treat that one as if you knew him not.
• She (Israel) began to act as if the Lord had no claim on her.
• To forsake is to treat someone as if she had no more need of Him.

2. “They have dug their own cistern, broken cistern that can hold no water.”

• In turning away from the “Fountain of living waters”, Israel invented for herself “Broken cistern, that can hold no water”
• She exchanged the eternal and everlasting with temporal, broken imitation.
• “The living waters” represent soul-satisfying grace and truth of God.
• To forsake these for the man-made cistern of this world’s honour, wealth, pleasure, philosophy, music, dance, is to let go of the substance and hunt the shadow.
• These man-made cisterns cannot hold Spirit-refreshing water (Isaiah 55:1-2)
• WHAT SHE BECAME “SPOILED” (V.14)
• Because she forsake Him who is the fountain of living waters and made her own cisterns which cannot hold any water.
• She became a delusion, her life was a sin-blinded soul.
• Anything is spoiled when it becomes unfit for the purpose for which it was intended.
• Israel was now spoiled for God because she has become a prey to others.
• Other lords have taken control over her, self-will and love of the world have so possessed her that she has become their spoil.

1. She’s spoiled like a degenerate plant (v.21)

• Damage is not in appearance but in character (v.21)
• Have you forsaken God? Look at your character now

2. She is spoiled like a stained garment- “Though you wash yourself with nitre (soda ash) a mineral and soap (vegetable) of man’s invention- like the broken cistern that cannot hold any water. (v.22)

• Nothing can wash away sin, but the blood of Jesus Christ.

3. She is spoiled like a wild ass (v.24)

• An ass (donkey) is a very useful animal.
• But wild ass (Zebra) has wasted energy, uncontrolled and fruitless efforts.
• The backslider is useless in the sight of God.

CONCLUSION

• Are you a prey to the enemies of God?
• Are you building cisterns, broken cisterns which hold no water? Running after the world, pleasure, fame, power and wealth?
• Only Jesus Christ, the fountain of living waters can eternally satisfy your life now and forever.
• Repent of your backsliding, now.