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. Jeremiah 2:13 (Jeremiah 2-4)
Jeremiah was called to take on the moral leadership of a depraved people. Who wants that job? One on going crisis was the tendency to listen to the most optimistic prediction. The spiritual revival of Josiah had brought some semblance of peace, but not thoroughly enough to change the hearts of all. False prophets assured the people that this was a lasting peace disparaging the words of Jeremiah, who had been given a vision of the nation’s collapse at the hands of Babylon.
Judah had forgotten why destruction came to their brothers to the north, as they repeat their sins of idolatry and refuse to repent. God asks over and over why they forsake Him, it makes NO sense. A well of Life has sprung before them, but they go and dig their own cisterns that fill with polluted, unhealthy and dangerous water. Even as they thirst, a Life spring is available, but they will not drink from it! Crazy!
We subconsciously focus on the words of gloom and doom, but they are not this. God’s call, over and over, is for repentance. God’s desire is to save, redeem and rescue, restore and protect. That sounds like the deal of a life time! Why will people not turn from their wicked ways? I do not know, but God has not given up loving each of us. He created us to love and He sent His Son to prove and seal that indestructible love.
Love,
Gretchen