Two Evils

Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, and he was able to boil it down to the very essence of what we should be doing in our lives and how we should live and follow God. He boiled it down in an easy-to-remember manner, and it was just all-encompassing. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind. When I think about the history of Israel, there's a lot to examine.

When you think about what led them astray, and we go through the Bible and we sort of read the history of what they went through, decisions they made, it's easy to say, man, there's so much that was ultimately their undoing. And I don't know how it is for you, but when I'm reading my Bible, I'm going through reading the Bible, and I'm like ADHD a little bit when I'm reading my Bible where I'm going through, like, oh, what does that word mean?

And then, boom, I'm off on another tangent. And sometimes I have to tell myself, I'll read a section that's like, what is going on? What is the whole of the story? What's happening here? And I have to step back and I'll try to read it for just sort of the overarching, the wide view of what's happening. I was reading recently in the book of Jeremiah, and there was one of these statements that came across. It was just like what Jesus said.

It was all encompassing. It gave me complete clarity of what happened to Israel. And let's go through that today. Let's go to Jeremiah 2. That's what we'll read today. Jeremiah 2. And as we sort of look at this wide picture verse here, after that, it lets you sort of dive into the details of that. Jeremiah 2 and verse 13. For my people have committed two evils. Two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. This is one of those statements that I read, and I was like, whoa, that just took me out of the details.

And I realized, like, okay, this is a boiling down point. This encompasses what mistakes Israel had made. This kind of statement is so clear, and it will be instructive for us today. And what's interesting is this is pretty much the opposite of the greatest commandment, isn't it? Here at the beginning of Jeremiah, so here we are in chapter 2, you know, that foundation is being laid against Israel. And the language, actually, in this is a little bit like a court case as well. And this is the all-encompassing problem right here, is that they have forsaken God, the fountain of living water, and they've hewn cisterns for themselves.

So now that we sort of have this step-back moment where we say, okay, this is what we need to look into, let's look at what is actually being said here. Now we can boil it down. We can drive in. Forsaken here, when we look up the word forsaken, it's to leave or leave behind, let go, give up, abandon. These are all words that show, like, okay, we've cut God off.

That's what the word forsaken here is. And as we go through the prophets, I don't know how it is for you, but when I read through Jeremiah, it gets heavy. It gets heavy pretty quick. You're reading, you know, God is sending his prophets to speak to Israel after generations and generations of them forsaking him.

And it's heavy. It's heavy to read. Generation after generation, they're committing evil. They forsake God. They see the things in the world around them, and it's enticing to them. It's enticing. And God is just telling them, like, if you don't turn around, this is what's going to happen.

This is what's going to happen. What's interesting is God even told Moses way before, back in Deuteronomy, you know, he said that the people will soon prostitute themselves to foreign gods of the land they are entering, and they will forsake me. He knew. He knew. And what happened? That exact thing. Generations came, generations went, and they forsook God. And he knew it all along. So here we are, and those of you who are here at ABC, you're going to feel it. You're going to go through the prophets, and it's going to feel heavy.

And sometimes I know that I felt very bogged down by the things that I'm reading. Very bogged down by, man, the punishment feels unrelenting. But we can't forget that these people, they made a promise to God. A very deep covenant with God. And the language that he uses, you know, we hear the word, play the harlot. You know, like, oh, yeah, that sounds dirty.

But I mean, you know, more modern language, you know, they went and hoared themselves out to these other gods. I use that word very deliberately. Because that's how God feels. That they just left, and they abandoned him. And for something that is cheap and false and not good for them, they forsook them.

But we have to remember, after reading, as we read through the prophets of Jeremiah, the undoing that they have gone through generation after generation of rejecting God, and committing unimaginable sins, including child sacrifice, it gets heavy.

And we think about that, and we think about the ultimate message of what God is saying to these prophets. It's an invitation back. It's an invitation back to Him, despite the sins that they committed.

It's an invitation back. One of the two evils that they committed was they forsook the living waters, the fountains of living waters. That's what God calls Himself here. That's what they forsook. And He's inviting them back to that. When I first got out of high school, I was an electrician for quite a few years. And in those summers, I remember working out in the hot sun, you know, Midwest, 95 degrees, 98% humidity and not raining. And I remember I quit drinking soda that time in my life. I don't drink soda once or twice a year. And I remember nothing could quench a thirst like water on a hot day like that. It felt depleted after a hard day's work, and nothing would satisfy. Nothing would satisfy. And God here is calling Himself, you know, this is all analogies. This is all metaphor. He's calling Himself the fountain of living waters. Have you ever experienced God as a fountain? Have you experienced Him that way? If not, you will. I remember getting baptized and thinking, like, oh, yeah, it's all smooth sailing from here. And, you know, the hardest trials that I ever faced in my life wasn't after that year first that I got baptized. It was later on, later on when God is working with me. He's going to work with you. If you haven't tasted Him or felt Him as a living water, you will. You will when you turn to Him when it's tough. Because there's a point where there is only one source. Just like that glass of water on a hot summer day, there's only one thing that can really freshen you to bring you peace and comfort. And sometimes He's not the first place that you go to. Sometimes you may even find yourself struggling and mad at God because of whatever you're going through. He can handle that. He can handle that with us. And He can be patient with us. But then when you turn to Him, you will find Him to be this refreshing fountain of living waters. Let's go to Revelation 7.

Revelation 7.

Revelation 7, verse 13. Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, Who are these who arrayed in white robes? And where do they come from?

Sir, you know, so he said to me, These are the ones who came out of the great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God to serve Him day and night in the temple, and He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger nor thirst anymore. The sun shall not strike them nor any heat.

Verse 17. For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and will lead them to living fountains of waters. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Here we have a group of people who have battle-worn through the tribulation. A time of trouble and hardship and difficulty, you know, and they endured. Wash themselves clean, turn to God. They overcame, and I'm sure they were weary. I'm sure they're weary, and it says that the shepherd will lead them. And what does God do? He brings them back to this metaphor. I will be nourishing and refreshing. I will be the living fountains of water for them.

And this is what Israel forsook. That was the first evil.

The second evil that we read about in Jeremiah. What did they trade it for? Jeremiah 2, 13? It says that they hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. This is the second evil. You ever dug a hole? It's pretty much the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. If you've dug a hole, then you know it's funny because it is difficult. Digging a hole is hard. I don't know what it is. Maybe if you're from another part of the country where the soil is easy and the shovel just melts through like butter. It is not like that in the Midwest. It's not like that where I grew up. I'll tell you that. Roots and rocks and fighting through there.

It's hard work. What Israel and Judah decided to do was to do this work for water, for nourishment.

They put in the effort and the time to not go after the living fountains of water. They dug for themselves, cisterns. The NLT study Bible says that the cisterns that Israelites dug after they entered Canaan were holes in the ground and they were lined with plaster. You can't just dig a hole and just pour water in it. That doesn't work. You have to line it with plaster to hold the water. Baker's Illustrated Bible adds a little bit more and says this. Israel is like a man who decides to dig for water despite having a well on his property. Beyond the hard work of digging and lining it with plaster, he faces the problem of leaky cisterns, not to mention stale water. The unsatisfactory cisterns that are described throughout here in verse 18 of Jeremiah talks, are like, why are you drinking this water of these foreign lands? Why are you going there? It's not where you need to be getting water from. It's water that's dangerous. You can store water for a time. I've driven by and I've seen people have these rain barrels down below their gutters and they water their plants. They use it for drinking. It's not what they use it for. They're relying on this, the Israel here, as the sole source. And they put the effort in to sort of get this alternate water, this alternate nourishment. And this water, as we read, can become putrid. It's dangerous to drink. The plaster cracks. You lose what you saved. Let's contaminants in. The issue is that the Israelites were doing this hard work, this second evil that they did. They were looking for something else to fulfill and replenish them. They ended up doing all this hard work for a non-permanent solution. They would appreciate themselves with the opposite of fresh living water. Stagnant water, you say it that way, doesn't satisfy and it's not safe to drink. What do you and I do today during times of stress, trial, when we look for relief or comfort? It looks a little different, doesn't it? We'll spend hours and hours doomscrolling, binge-watching TV. We may eat, overeat, drink. Other ways that we sort of try to find ways to fill the nourishment gap that we have. We have to remember, God wants to be our God, even through the hard, even when he knows that we're struggling. As I said, it's hard to read through these punishments that we read in Jeremiah, the prophecies of the prophets, but ultimately, God was inviting them back. It was an invitation to them. It was an invitation back to him. Let's go to John 4.

John 4, verse 14. Jesus' answer to this woman here is, "'Whoever drinks the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give will become a fountain of water springing up to everlasting life.' Ultimately, Israel, when we step back, we look at the big picture, they committed two evils. They forsook God, the source of all that is good, and nourishing and refreshing the fountain of living waters. Then they put their effort in to find their own source of water. They dug for themselves systrans. We all have a chance to drink this water and to be nourished and quenched by the living waters of God every single day. We all live busy lives, and we all have trials, and we all have times where we feel despair and pain and suffering, and it's easy to look for the quick fix, looking for something else to satisfy. The two evils of Israel, it doesn't have to be our story. We have to ask Him to heal our pain, even if we know we've drifted away. He's given us an invitation, and that invitation is to come back to Him, come back to the fountains of living water.