A minister preached a sermon recently from Jeremiah 2:1-13. Some
have called Jeremiah the
“weeping prophet” because God’s message
that he preached to the people of Judah
was utterly rejected. As a result, of their rebellion and disobedience,
the 70-year
Babylonian captivity was inevitable.
Jeremiah reminded them of their once covenant relationship
with God. God told Jeremiah, “Go and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem,
saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: I remember
you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you
went
after Me
in the wilderness, in a
land not sown. Israel
was holiness to the LORD, the first fruits of His
increase’” (Jeremiah 2:2-3a).
Moses had told the children of Israel of their coveted
status with God when he said, “For you are a holy people to
the LORD your God;
the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special
treasure
above all the peoples on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy
7:6).
Israel’s
relationship with God in the beginning was one of kindness and
unfailing
devotion. Israel
was God’s love. From this relationship, God was getting them
as His prized
possession! The Israelites loved God dearly and God loved them in the
same way!
Then, the unthinkable begin to happen; they begin to
fall into idolatry and apostasy! God told Jeremiah to ask them,
“What injustice
have your fathers found in Me,
that
they have gone far from Me,
have
followed idols, and have become idolaters?” (Jeremiah 2:5).
Then, God pronounced
this condemnation: “For My people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken Me,
the fountain of living waters, and hewn
themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no
water” (Jeremiah 2:13). They
had broken the first and second commandments from Mount Sinai: “You
shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image any likeness of anything
that is
in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath…you shall
not bow down to them
nor serve them” (Exodus 20:3-5a).
When
we become children of God, our position before Him
is changed forever. Paul describes this exclusive relationship and how
we enter
it in Romans 1:16-17.
“For I am
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to
salvation
for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
For in it
the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is
written,
‘The just shall live by faith.’”
Do you remember when you first obeyed the Gospel? How
did you feel? Do you remember the joy you had, the promise you made to
serve God?
That special relationship and interaction with our God is so often
replaced
with forgetting, falling short and no longer being diligent. Initially,
this
breakdown in our relationship with God is barely visible. Over time,
some of
the manifestations are:
- We
start shutting out the voice of God; we quit reading our Bibles.
- We
begin to lose our convictions, and compromises become the norm.
- We
begin to cultivate a mindset that disconnects from God.
- We
start changing companions for social activities.
- We
start to blame God when our lives begin to fall apart!
When we allow these things or any other, worldly
intrusions to take over, our relationship with God is gone. When we
begin to
ignore or suppress our knowledge of God, the last thing we want to do
is spend
time reading the Bible! It becomes a textbook! We start standing back
and
rationalizing our spiritual infidelity. Questions of a carnal nature
begin to
crowd our minds. Can you give me a summary of God’s
expectations? Does God grade
on a curve? Will this issue even be on the judgment test? How little
time can I
spend with God and still go to heaven? Is it really my fault that I am
in
disobedience?
Whatever answers we give to these questions or any
others in this channel of thought, we must understand it is not
God’s fault! God
has no conception of fault in His
character since He is infallible! God has promised us everything we
need to
live for Him physically and spiritually. Whatever is wrong in our lives
is our
fault, not God’s! Paul states in Galatians 5:16-17,
“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill
the lust of the
flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against
the
flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the
things
that you wish.”
Whatever the problem is, it is with us; it has never
been with God! We make the choice
to
move away from Him. James 4:8
says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse
your hands,
sinners and purify your hearts, double-minded.”
According to V.E.
Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New
Testament Words, the word “fault”
means causative of, responsible for. God cannot be blamed! We must look
to the
two originals and their listening to the lying voice of Satan to
accurately
point the finger of fault and blame!
We have so much we need to do in our relationship with
God, and we must start doing it now! God will hold us accountable for
time we
have wasted living for ourselves rather than in thankful obedience to
Him. All
of our questions regarding our relationship with God and His ultimate
desire
for us can be answered by looking in the mirror!
- Who is it
that God loves beyond our mental comprehension? Look in the mirror!
“For I
am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities
nor
powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth,
nor any
other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God
which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
- What is God’s
greatest and most prized possession? Look in the mirror!
“But you are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special
people,
that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness
into
His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people
of God,
who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy” (1
Peter 2:9-10).
- When was
God’s plan for mankind’s redemption initiated? Look
in the mirror! “And I
will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and
her Seed;
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel”
(Genesis 3:15).
- Where was
the saving Gospel message to be preached? Look in the mirror!
“Now to Him
who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching
of Jesus
Christ…and by the prophetic Scriptures has been made known
to all nations,
according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to
the
faith—to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ
forever. Amen” (Romans
16:25-27).
- Why did
Christ die that horrible death? Look in the mirror!
“For when we were still
without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly”
(Romans 5:6).
-
How was
that saving Gospel message obeyed? Look in the mirror!
“Therefore we were
buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was
raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of
life” (Romans 6:4).
There is a song that states, “Soon we’ll be done
with
the troubles of this world; I’m going home to live with
God!” When we look back
over our lives, all that God has done, is doing and will continue to do
is
because He wants us to belong to Him and live with Him eternally. When
we look
in the mirror, we are literally
looking at God’s reason
for all that
exists!
