Forgotten
Notes
Transcript
Jeremiah 2:9-19
Jeremiah 2:9-19
How many times have you forgotten something? If you're like me, then too many times to count. If I don't put it in my phone as a reminder, I will forget, and that’s not a guarantee. We live in a fast-paced society that easily causes us to forget things. Between work, family, and friends, where can we find time for anything else? For us married men, we truly understand why God made us a helpmate. My wife helps me find everything I lose and reminds me of things I will forget. Yesterday, we went to Home Depot, and I was searching my pockets for my phone. I thought I left it at another store we visited. She pulled up the Life 360 app to see where I was (or my phone) and told me it was at home. I forget where I place my keys, but she knows. I lost my glasses, and I asked her. She told me they were on my head. Where would men be without women? In the Garden of Eden.
In our fast-paced lives, where can we find time for God? Some might think we work more than any other country. That is incorrect. The United States’ work average is 36.4 hours a week. Bhutan is 54.4 hours, the UAE is 50.9 hours, Mexico is 43 hours, and the Netherlands is around 29.5 hours. So we can’t use that excuse as forgetting about God. Perhaps it’s sports that we spend so much time on? Yes, we spend 5.15 hours a day on sports. Men spend more time than women do on sports. And yes, sports consume us more than social media (2.27 hours a day).
My point is that we often overlook what is not essential to us and make time for what is truly important to us. Judah had forgotten YHWH and allowed things that were worthless to consume their lives instead of making time for the One Essential. YHWH said they had committed two evils: forsaken Him and made cisterns for themselves. There is a lot to unpack in these eleven verses. There are three burdens that Yahweh discusses. First, they forsook Him. Second, they worked independently. Lastly, they became slaves.
Forsake YHWH:
Forsake YHWH:
The first act of forgetting is forsaking YHWH. Jesus told the Samaritan woman that “He was the living water.” John 4:10. Without YHWH, they would not be able to survive.
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
Forsaking is also a rebellious act; Samuel wrote that it is a form of divination (witchcraft), as seen in 1 Samuel 15:23. When we forsake YHWH, we abandon Him. We abandon everything that is Him. In verse eleven, it clearly states that they had changed their glory; another way to translate it would be, “they abandoned His Shekinah Glory!”
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”
What is Shekinah Glory? It comes from the Hebrew word meaning to “dwell.” Shekinah glory refers to the visible manifestation of God’s presence dwelling among His people. In the Old Testament, the Shekinah glory was often described as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Only YHWH is seen on a cloud, Revelation 1:7, and YHWH, who is described as having fire proceeding from His eyes, Revelation 17:12. Understand this is Shekinah Glory, and you and I have that inside us. Israel and Judah had Shekinah glory, but they exchanged it for worthlessness. Family, we need to be careful because we sometimes act and do the same—we cave down to the world instead of remembering the Shekinah Glory that dwells inside us.
Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.
It is the splendor of YHWH and the reputation that YHWH is greater than anything man can concoct. I'm going to the playground, and not only saying that God is greater, but then showing it!
But they instead burdened themselves with trying to do it their way.
Independently:
Independently:
It says they hewed out their cisterns. Instead of drinking the Living Water that gave life, they tried to make their cisterns. The problem is that these cisterns were broken and could not hold anything from God. So, they abandoned God for their own cisterns.
Judah had to make a plaster to put on the limestone to hold water. The plaster would crack, and the water would seep out. The plaster they were making for themselves involved worshipping false gods.
This happens to us when we try to do it our way and act independently of God. Would anyone today be so foolish as to trade an artesian well for a broken cistern? Unfortunately, many do. Some of today’s broken cisterns are the pursuit of wealth, power, fame, and pleasure. The enemy’s job has become easier since we are becoming a society that is increasingly unchurched and allowing the winds of the day to sway our beliefs. This burdens us with slavery.
Slavery:
Slavery:
In Jeremiah’s world, a person could become a slave by birth to slave parents, by nonpayment of debts, by purchase, or by capture in wartime. Although the Lord had made Israel free Exodus 6:6-8, Jeremiah reminded the people that they had exchanged their freedom under God for bondage to idols.
Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.
I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’ ”
Thank goodness we are not responsible for our parents’ debt. But we still can become slaves. Now I know someone is thinking the pastor has lost his mind, we cannot become slaves in this country. You are a slave now. You are either a slave to Christ or to sin (PRIDE)!
But those who are in Christ have been set free from the slavery of sin and have been adopted into the Kingdom through His blood. John 8:34-38; Galatians 5:1; Ephesians 6:6; Romans 8:15
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.
I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”
It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, stand firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
Application:
Application:
Israel, Judah, and even we today have a bad habit of falling back into slavery to sin and then forgetting who we are in Christ. We are free with Him living inside us. No longer are we slaves to this world, but overcomers of this world. We can stop chasing worthlessness and return to the Father, who is waiting for us. Thank you, Jesus!
Yesterday I was mowing the front yard and was looking down instead of up. I hit my head hard on a low-lying branch. It clocked my world, and I had to stop. I heard the Holy Spirit so clearly, “This is what you do in the world. You are so afraid of your past that you walk around with your head down. If you are in Me and I in you, the world has no hold of you. But if you keep chasing after worthless pursuits, the world is controlling you. You are so used to walking with your head down that you are not seeing where you are headed. Start looking up at me so that you can see me.”
We can change the way we look because of YHWH. Remember our Shekinah Glory is Him that dwells in us.
