JEREMIAH 2
13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
GOING DOWN THE TOILET
This is what is happening to the nation of Judah.
The nation of Judah had seen what happened to Israel, its larger neighbour. It saw that God had pronounced judgement on Israel and they were carried into exile. Although Judah had several godly kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah, they still fell into idolatry and sin.
This verse speaks of Judah’s rejection of the glory of God’s presence and power, to chase after worthless idols.
Look at the verses before this, the Living Bible puts it very well in verses 8 & 10-12:
8 Even their priests cared nothing for the Lord, and their judges ignored me; their rulers turned against me, and their prophets worshipped Baal and wasted their time on nonsense.
Let me ask you.
Are you wasting your time on nonsense?
10-11 Look around you and see if you can find another nation anywhere that has traded in its old gods for new ones—even though their gods are nothing. Send to the west to the island of Cyprus; send to the east to the deserts of Kedar. See if anyone there has ever heard so strange a thing as this. And yet my people have given up their glorious God for silly idols!
Have you given up the glorious God for silly idols?
The prophet Jeremiah is amazed at what THE NATION OF Judah had done. I can hear the prophet saying, “You have pure water – you can see its pure water – but you deliberately choose to drink stinking rotten water!” Judah chose to reject pure water (God’s presence) that is available for free, and work hard to obtain filthy water that will make them sick.
Christians in this present age have the pure holy water of Jesus, but they hew out the cisterns that hold no water by living in carnality and sin. We often struggle to place Jesus first in our lives because we are consumed with chasing money, wealth, sports, and TV. Consider this: How many Christians watch over 25 hours of TV every week, but can’t spend an hour in prayer?
When will we stop making cisterns or idols for ourselves that can’t hold water, which means that they have no value to our lives? It’s almost like Jesus isn’t enough for some believers.
Isn’t He lovely enough?
Isn’t He glorious enough?
Isn’t His sacrifice at Calvary enough?
It’s time to tear down our idols. Let me leave the final words to Charles Haddon Spurgeon on how beautiful Jesus is:
The incomparable sweetness of Christ!
At our very best we are strangers to much of the incomparable sweetness of Christ.
We shall never exhaust His goodness by our praise, for He is ever so fresh and has so much of the dew of His youth, that every day He has a new song to sing.
We shall find Him a new Christ every day of our lives, and yet He is ever the same; His surpassing excellence and unexhausted fullness thus constantly renew our love.
O Jesus! none can guess how great is the least of Your attributes, or how rich the poorest of Your gifts.
A big Amen!
It is time to stop drinking dirty water out of man-made cisterns and drink the pure water of Christ and his Word
God bless you
KEITH
JUDGES 16
16 And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death;
17 That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.
18 And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, come up this once, for he hath shewed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand.
19 And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.
20 And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him.
21 But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.
LUST, LIES AND LOSS
The story of Samson is probably one of the saddest in the whole Bible。 Samson had awesome strength, but he also had a fatal flaw and that was his lust for women.
Throughout his 40 years of judging Israel, Samson was a living, breathing scandal when it came to women. Despite his great strength he had a weakness for women. And it was this weakness that would be his undoing. One day he met a woman named Delilah. She was not a woman of the house of Israel. She was a Philistine, a people who were the sworn enemy of Israel, the people who Samson was appointed by God to judge and protect. But Delilah had one thing going for her: She was beautiful, and as far as Samson was concerned, that was all that mattered. The above passage tells us what happens next: Delilah presses Samson for the secret to his strength, Samson deceives Delilah, Samson eventually gives in to Delilah, Samson loses his two eyes, and Israel loses one of its greatest military heroes.
Samson is a warning to every believer about the power of lust to distract and destroy your fellowship, your family, your reputation. The path of lust and sin leads to death. Romans 6:23 reminds us that, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
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Look at the end of verse 19. Delilah started to laugh at Samson. The world and the devil lures the believer and when we fall to temptation, we become the object of his ridicule and scorn.
Verse 20 is one of the saddest verses in the whole Bible. Samson not only lost his strength, he lost his dignity, and eventually he lost his two eyes. This is a picture of the Christian who falls out of fellowship with God. When we lose our connection with God, defeat follows. We think we can live on past glories. And while the Lord never leaves us, we can leave Him. This makes us an easy prey for the enemy. If we lose God’s power, then we lose our spiritual sight and we end up in the prison house of sin and regret.
Do we go out into our day, without spending time in prayer and scripture reading?
Then we wonder, why we fail.. amen
Lust leads to a life of lies and to the loss of our spiritual power. Samson, who had never lost a fight, lost everything to his lust for a woman.
What have you lost because of sin? Think about it.
Fortunately, the story of Samson does not end with him losing his two eyes and grinding away in the prison house. Eventually, his hair grows back and so does his strength. One day the Philistines decide to bring Samson into the temple of Dagon, their god to make sport of him…big mistake. The great Samson, is now a laughingstock to his enemies. He calls out to a young boy to place his hands on the two pillars of the temple. He then does something that he should have done when he was with Delilah…he prayed. He says to God: “O Lord God, remember me, I pray! Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God…”. The Lord heard his prayer, and gave Samson the strength to bring down the temple of Dagon on the entire hosts of the Philistines! Here is the lesson: If you have fallen into sin, it is not the end of your story. God still has a plan and a purpose for your life. God is waiting to restore you, and give you the power to overcome the enemy. And through Him, you can do more for His glory now, than at any other time in your life. Seek Him today. You will be glad you did.
God bless you
Keith