The Faith Beyond Trauma Podcast

FBT Daily Devotional: Jeremiah 2

• Pastor Reggie

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A courtroom metaphor frames Jeremiah 2 as God brings charges against a people who traded living water for broken cisterns. We trace the path from first love to spiritual drift, expose the leaks, and call each other back to the fountain that never runs dry.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, gang. Today we are reviewing um Jeremiah 2, and this is awesome. So we have 37 verses. Okay. And I'm going to title this, Are You Trading Living Water for Cracked Sisterns? Okay. Are you trading living water for cracked sisters? Now, the text in the verses 11 through 33, hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid. Be ye desolate, saith the Lord, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and used them out cisterns, broken cisterns that have no water. Okay. When Jeremiah opened his mouth in chapter two, it wasn't just a sermon, it was a courtroom. You understand? And so what happened is God was levying charges against his people. Okay, he wasn't speaking to pagans or strangers, he was addressing his own covenant people. And the question hanging over the text was simple to me, yet thunderous. How did my people, those I delivered, fed, and protected, lose their love for me? So, my siblings, this isn't just history, it's a mirror. Okay, it's a mirror to hold up. Let's be honest, because sometimes we too trade the living water for broken cisterns, right? It reminds me of the great sermon I feel Pastor Andre gave at the end of Imagine's conference on Sunday. He said they got accustomed to God, the thrill was gone, they forgotten all the good things he'd done for them. They become unappreciative. Ungrateful. Are you ungrateful and unappreciative of the simple and little things he does for us? That's one of the reasons why I always say grand rising. I'm so happy in the mornings. I'm appreciative and grateful to be here. Amen. So, Your Honor, courts in session. Okay, the honorable and faithful God versus his ungrateful people. Representing the prosecution, attorney Sharon Bennett, and I'm going to present and lay out the case for God. My first point: the crime, forgetting your first love. God says in verse 2, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine esposals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness. He's saying, I remember when you couldn't get enough of me. Remember that early fire when you first got saved? When prayer wasn't a chore. Huh? You remember that? When you didn't need a praise team to lift your hands up and praise the Lord. When everybody, what God had done for them, you forgot. But sometimes something happened over time, right? Israel's love grew cold. The voice that once thrilled them, their very souls became background noise. Ooh. Did you notice in verse 5? God doesn't just say they forgot his laws first. He didn't say that first. He says they walked after vanity and became vain. So before you backslide with your hands, you backslid in your heart. You became what you chase. It's like a marriage that loses its spark. In the early days, love boy, letters were frequent, or texts for most people, phone calls were long. Oh, I love you so much. Presence was precious, but the years later, the routine replaces romance. The same thing can happen in your walk with God. Devotion can turn to duty, intimacy to indifference. Let's not have that. Okay. Item two, my evidence. Trading glory for gravel. In verse 11, God says, My people have changed their glory, that which doth not profit. What a tragic exchange. They traded the presence of the living God for powerless idols, handmade substitutes that could never satisfy. The word glory in Hebrew is kabbat. And here isn't just about majesty, it refers to the weighty presence of God. They traded the weight and love and compassing of his presence for light, hollow, man-made pleasures. How many today have done the same? Have we traded the weight of glory for the weight of busyness? Have we replaced that holy fire with hype, devotion with distraction, and purpose with performance? How many have traded time with his word for reality TV shows, sports, or hyped music with cursing? Imagine someone exchanging diamonds and cultured pearls for colored pebbles and stones. Just shiny rocks, it doesn't matter. Only one has true value, only one has real true value. Likewise, we cannot swap the eternal presence of God for temporary pleasures and expect to be filled. It doesn't work. Point three in my case, the comparison, living water versus the broken cisterns. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and used them out cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. This is what he's saying. God says, I was your fountain, you endless, your endless source, your supply, but you left me to build your own containers. A cistern isn't a spring, it's a storage system. It doesn't produce water, it only holds what's poured in. So when God says they built broken cisterns, he's saying they tried to store life without the relationship. How many of us are doing that today? We build systems, programs, plans, but no presence. We collect information, but not the importation. We hold rituals, but not the revival. I think this got me going. And when we wonder why we feel spiritually dry sometimes, because our cisterns are cracked. No matter how often we feel them, they leak. Consider John 4.14, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. In part four of my evidence, the exposure, the call, return to the fountain when sin becomes shameless. Now, this is Jeremiah 19 and verses 23 through 26. 19, thy own wickedness shall correct thee. Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God. Here's where it cuts deep, though. Verse 23. God asked, How can you say, I'm not defiled? See thy way in the valley? Do you see that? Israel was claiming innocence while their tracks were all over the valley. Proof, Your Honor, of their idolatry. God compares them to a swift drone dairy, that's a female camel, and a wild donkey in heat. Creatures driven by uncontrollable desire, chasing satisfaction, anywhere it could be found. That's not just ancient idolatry, that's modern day addiction, distraction, and rebellion. That's what that is. It's when the souls run wild without restraint. And then verse 26 As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed. They were caught red-handed, but they didn't change. They were ashamed, but they didn't repent. They weren't repentant. And God doesn't want us to just feel bad. Conviction without repentance is like pain without healing. He alerts you, but he never restores you. It I'm sorry, that alerts you, but it never restores you when you do that. But even in his anger, God's mercy was pleading. Return to me. He doesn't reveal the crack to condemn you, he reveals it to heal and repair you. He's saying, you don't have to live thirsty. You don't have to drink from polluted wells. Come back to the fountain that never runs dry, like in Isaiah 55:1. Everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. So in conclusion, I'm going to leave these points with you before we go to breakout rooms. Jeremiah's cry is God's cry today. Come back to the source of your life. Don't trade the fountain for the filter, filter, the river for the reservoir, the living God for lifeless substitutes. Let's be a people who don't just carry water, we flow with it. Jesus said in John 7 38, He that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. So if you've been dry, God can fill you again. If your cistern is cracked and you're leaking, his grace can repair it. And if you've drifted, his love can draw you back to the fountain that never runs dry. Like in Psalms 36, 9, for with thee is the fountain of life. In thy light shall we see light. Thank you. The case has been laid out, and they are guilty. The defense for God rests, Your Honor. Breakout rooms.