Jeremiah 2:1 to 3:5

READ: Jer.2:1 to 3:5

REFLECT:

The first message of Jeremiah to the nation of Judah covers several chapters, but here are certain passages which highlight what God has to say to a believer who has begun to drift away from Him. Have you ever had that problem? I have. I find there are times in my life when, without even realising it, I was slowly losing the fervour, joy, and peace which mark the presence of God in my life.

The tragic thing about that condition, as exemplified in the nation of Judah, is that when it happens nobody knows what is wrong. Judah really blamed God for all the problems they were having, just as most of us do. They said it was God's fault; He did not deliver them when He ought to, and did not keep them from their enemies as He promised. They were charging Him with gross misconduct and the inability to keep His promises.

So God has something to say to this nation, and what He says gathers around four words that Jeremiah uses: remember, realise, return, and beware. I hope you will take these four words as an instruction to your own heart about how to get back to God. Use them when you sense somehow that you have begun to drift, or that you have lost some of the flavour and joy of your Christian experience. The first word is found in chapter 2:1-3, 

2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord,“I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his harvest. All who ate of it incurred guilt; disaster came upon them, declares the Lord.” 

The first word is remember. That is a look back, a call to remember what life was like when you first began a love relationship. God says, "I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me." In marital counselling I have often met with couples who were married for a quarter of a century, but who are having difficulties. They are tense, angry, upset, and sometimes they will not even speak to one another. One man was so angry with his wife that he got up, spat in her face, and walked out the door! How do you begin the healing process with couples in such a state?

Long ago I learned the best way is simply to say, "You know, before we start, I need to get acquainted with you a bit. Tell me something about yourselves. How did you meet, and where?" You can feel the atmosphere soften, and their hearts begin to expand a bit, as they think back to the days when they were not angry or upset, and as they remember what it meant to be in love. Half the battle is won when you can get couples thinking back to what it was like when they first knew each other.

Do you remember those days in your relationship with the Lord--the wonder of love, and the joy of it? What the prophet is bringing out here is that at such a time, the loved one is the chief priority in life. No other relationship is more important than yours with him, or hers with you. He is preeminent in your affection. Therefore, the first thing God says to a heart which has begun to drift is, "Remember, remember what it was like when you were secure in my affections, separate to me?"

A young man who was with me on a trip recently told me that he had listened to someone speak on the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2:4. When the speaker got to what the Lord Jesus said to the angel of the church in Ephesus--"I have this against you, that you have left your first love"--this young man said something gripped his heart. It was as though scales dropped from his eyes and he suddenly realised that he had come to love Bible study more than he loved Jesus Himself. He saw that he had to return to that "first love," and that Bible study, engaging and exciting as it is, is not what holds the heart. It is Jesus Himself and that is what God says--"Remember, Judah, those days in the wilderness when you walked as a bride with her husband, how you were safe, and satisfied, and exclusively mine."

Realise - Know and See

The second word which God uses to get the attention of this people is found in chapter 2, verse 19:

"Your evil will chastise you and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts."

"Know and see." That is a word for the present, isn't it? "Look around," God says. "Realise where you are and what has happened to you. What are you like, right now? Remember the past, and realise the present. What has happened to you in your life?" This is his way of capturing Judah's attention, of helping them see how needy they were and how much they needed Him. So He says, "Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God." Several passages are gathered around this word that I wish to point out two vivid illustrations which God holds up to us. God, the master illustrator, uses wonderful visual aids to help us understand truth, and he holds up before Israel two pictures which will help them to see themselves, and will help us to see ourselves as well. The first, which I have mentioned already, is in chapter 2, verse 13:

". . . for my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."

God says that is what Judah has been doing, and He details it for them in vv 4-5:

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?" 

That is the folly of somebody who forsakes the Lord. Remember how many times in the Scriptures believers are depicted as a river of living water, refreshing, rushing, bringing cleansing and healing and fruit. Jesus spoke of the rivers of living water that flow from our life when the Spirit of God is ruling. And you know those times, don't you? You have already experienced that inner sense of gladness, of joy, that God is present. Why would anyone forsake that, and try to be satisfied with a lot of "worthless" things? It would be like forsaking the sunshine and huddling in a cave somewhere, trying to be satisfied with the light of a candle. Or worse, perhaps, it would be like giving up eating and trying to satisfy yourself by drooling over all the food ads in the magazines. That is what God says it is like when you turn from the living God, who alone can satisfy the heart.

The other picture I want to mention is even more graphic in vv.20-21:

"For long ago I broke your yoke 

and burst your bonds; 

and you said, 'I will not serve.' 

Yea, upon every high hill and under every green tree 

you bowed down as a harlot. 

Yet I planted you a choice vine, 

wholly of pure seed. 

How then have you turned degenerate and become a a wild vine.

When you forsake the living God, it is not very long before deterioration and degeneracy set in, and you become susceptible to any and every drive and force around you. God calls that spiritual harlotry. He asks a searching question in vv. 23 and 24 (RSV):

"How can you say, 'I am not defiled, 

I have not gone after the Baals'? 

Look at your way in the valley; 

know what you have done--

a restive young camel interlacing her tracks,

a wild ass used to the wilderness, 

in her heat sniffing the wind! 

Who can restrain her lust? 

None who seek her need weary themselves; 

in her month they will find her".

RELATE:

Do you see the picture? If you have ever worked among horses you know what He is talking about. Here is a mare in heat, lusting. A little later on in chapter 5 he speaks of lusty stallions who keep neighing after their neighbours' wives. God uses these vivid figures to awaken people to where they are. There is a wonderful frankness about the Scriptures which sometimes rebukes the prudishness to which we have fallen to. God intended us to learn from the animal kingdom. He gave animals a different kind of sexuality than He gave us, in order that we might learn from them. In observing them, we have a vivid picture of how we look when we start lusting after everything that comes along, making ourselves vulnerable to any thrill, any drive, other than God Himself.

This picture must have meant a great deal to the people of Judah. They understood how eager an animal is to be satisfied.  God uses this figure to say to us, "That is what you're like. That is you, lusting after everything that comes by, living for kicks, wanting to be satisfied by everything from continuous, nonstop television, or endless golf, to the fleshpots of the city, to drugs, to hate and violence." That is what happens when the heart begins to drift from God into degeneracy. We need to BEWARE.

REST:

Let us RETURN to the Lord. Let us pray that God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, that we will always fix our gaze on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. In Him alone, we trust!

TAN TEE KHOON