Jeremiah 2
The Absurdity of Apostasy!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, March 15.
Judah was unfaithful to God, seeking after the gods of powerful neighbors. Their false worship through idolatry was considered apostasy, which is the forsaking of the prescribed way of worshipping God. It was for this reason that God called Jeremiah to be a prophet to Judah – to call His people out of rebellion and back into the way of covenant faithfulness. Through him, in Jeremiah 2:13, God confronted the people of their crime, “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” This is imagery built upon his predecessor’s prophetic ministry, as Isaiah stated, over a century prior, in Isaiah 55:1-3, “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; … Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David.”
Covenant faithfulness is how Judah can drink from God’s “fountain of living waters.” Unfortunately, they refused to worship Him, choosing the corrupted cisterns of apostasy, directly referenced in Jeremiah 2:17-18 as the Babylonian and Egyptian empires, “Have you not done this to yourself by your forsaking the Lord your God when He led you in the way? But now what are you doing on the road to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Nile? Or what are you doing on the road to Assyria, to drink the waters of the Euphrates?” Which would prove themselves to be corrupted cisterns of counterfeit promises. This is the absurdity of apostasy – to forsake the ancient paths of eternal peace for the contemporary means of transitory power.
Seize the moment and walk in the prescribed way of Jesus Christ, the One who can rescue you from the absurdity of apostasy – “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37-38; cf. John 4:10-14; Revelation 22:17).
God bless you!
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YOUTUBE:
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