Jeremiah (1-31) 2:12 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Jeremiah (1-31) 2:12

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‘Be astonished, oh ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate, saith the Lord.’ Dramatically, the prophet appeals to the skies, not only personifying the skies, but you can think of the angels. This is so astonishing and so offensive. The angels who see first-hand the glory of God are amazed at the brazenness with which Israel turns its back on the Almighty. They who worship God night and day, and have so much more appreciation of God’s glory, are astounded at such lack of allegiance. What are you doing, and do you think that God will fail to respond to such great insults? The reasoning is this: be astonished! What believers do in those days and today, can be so unreasonable, so extraordinarily unreasonable, and so lacking in reverence. We don't seem to mind that we are insulting the Lord. ‘No Lord’ – we don't say it out loud, but it is how we behave. ‘No Lord, this evening, instead of going to Bible Study or the Prayer Meeting, I'm going to do something completely secular, materialistic, earthly.’ We don't realise how much we insult him. It's almost like screaming out at the heavens, ‘Your things are boring and useless, and no good, and no support to me. I will feed on worldly things.’ And so the exclamation of the preacher in Jeremiah, ‘Be astonished, O ye heavens, and be ye horribly afraid. ‘For my people have committed two evils.’ This thought repeats the argument of verse 5, but with more added. ‘They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters.’ They have cut themselves off from the only supply that can quench the thirst of the everlasting soul of man. We are made to need the Lord, and we can find satisfaction in nothing else. Man turns from the Creator and tries to find satisfaction in the creation, as if the creation is sufficient on its own; as if it can be detached from the one who made it. Where does he turn instead? Does he have another supply that is better than the Lord? No, he makes such a foolish choice. He turns to what is infinitely inferior. He almost seems to deliberately provoke the Lord when he does this, and to challenge him. ‘And hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.’ They have turned instead to making for themselves useless water storage vessels, the opposite of a fountain, that can hold no water. This twofold offence is raised again and again.

Application

What an illustration that is. The Lord is like a great fountain which never ceases to flow, and produces a fresh and abundant supply, but, instead of relishing that, we wander off, and in the illustration we did a pit in the limestone rock. Of course, it is full of fissures and cracks, so we plaster over it with lime mortar or plaster, and it works for a while. The pit, the reservoir, fills with water. But it will never work for long. The cracks reopen; the plaster breaks down; the water leaks out. That is what happens. You turn to the world, either for worship, or for soul winning methods, or personal satisfaction. Oh, it might give you a lift for a time, but like a leaking reservoir it soon no longer satisfies, and in the meantime you have offended the Lord, who had a flowing fountain for you, and spiritual blessing and strengthening and usefulness all along. You have made a comparison between him and these other supplies, and you have insulted him. Man needs that fountain of living waters, which is the Lord. Hold onto him, esteem him above everything else.

We have to find ways of getting this across the people. Finding ultimate satisfaction in anything other than the Lord is sin. This is why God is indignant against sin, and will punish sin. It is so offensive. Not even pagans desert their gods, but the true God is being constantly and militantly and aggressively put away and rejected, as though he is a monster, as though he is horrible. What an insult to Almighty God! And that is what Jeremiah seeks to bring out.

People have been going to the theory of evolution for generations now. But it turns out to be futile, because now they have to admit to us that the origin of life is not on earth after all; the remote probabilities make that impossible. So the new wild theory is that life is seeded from outer space, as if that solves the problem. It is ultimate futility; it has led nowhere.

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Jeremiah (1-31) 2:12 Commentary and Bible Study