Jeremiah 2 - Covenant Prosecution

You've been indicted for abandoning the Living Water, but Christ restores it to you.

Faithlife.com

SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF, After calling and commissioning Jeremiah, the LORD informed him that He would pour out disaster from the north upon against all the towns of Judah because of their wickedness in forsaking Him.

Jeremiah 2:9–13 (NASB 2020)

⁹ “Therefore I will still contend with you,” declares the LORD,

“And I will contend with your sons’ sons.

¹⁰ “For cross to the coastlands of Kittim and see,

And send to Kedar and observe closely,

And see if there has been anything like this!

¹¹ “Has a nation changed gods,

When they were not gods?

But My people have exchanged their glory

For that which is of no benefit.

¹² “Be appalled at this, you heavens,

And shudder, be very desolate,” declares the LORD.

¹³ “For My people have committed two evils:

They have abandoned Me,

The fountain of living waters,

To carve out for themselves cisterns,

Broken cisterns

That do not hold water.

Belgic Confession

Article 14: The Creation and Fall of Man

We believe

that God created man from the dust of the earth

and made and formed him in his image and likeness—

good, just, and holy;

able by his own will to conform

in all things

to the will of God.

But when he was in honor

he did not understand it

and did not recognize his excellence.

But he subjected himself willingly to sin

and consequently to death and the curse,

lending his ear to the word of the devil.

For he transgressed the commandment of life,

which he had received,

and by his sin he separated himself from God,

who was his true life,

having corrupted his entire nature.

Summary

Yesterday we learned that the prophet Jeremiah was just a young man - likely even a teenager - when the LORD called him to be a prophet. As a reminder, a prophet is a man who represents God to the people. In other words, the prophet speaks on the LORD's behalf.

Prophets have also been described as covenant prosecutors. A covenant is, after all, at its core a legal agreement between two parties that stipulates that the LORD will be our God, and we will be His people. Covenants are similar to contracts in many ways. When a breach of contract occurs, the one who did the breaching will quickly be introduced to lawyers representing the aggrieved party.

So the LORD here is briefing His new, young prophet / prosecutor on the case. He's going to contend with His people who've broken the covenant they had with Him, or as the other translations put it, He's bringing charges against them. And these charges will have a lasting impact - they're not just against the current generation, but will also apply to their sons' sons.

Imagine how overwhelming this must have been for young Jeremiah - to be 'volun-told' by the LORD to prosecute his own people! And not just for some little misdemeanor; the Israelites' breach of contract was so severe that the LORD commands the heavens to be appalled at it... to shudder and be very desolate [dried up / ruined]. All because the LORD's people exchanged their glory for that which is of no benefit.

  Dig Deeper  

The LORD's indictment that He's given Jeremiah to prosecute includes two counts. The first, and most foundational, is that they have abandoned Him. As other translations put it, they've forsaken or even rejected the LORD. The word Jeremiah used here literally means that they've just left the LORD behind... they had moved on.

The LORD makes clear that it's not just an abstract theological concept that they've given up on. He refers to Himself as the fountain of living waters - the very same living water that Jesus offered to the Samaritan woman at the well that He told her would spring up to eternal life (John 4:14).

The LORD's second count flows from the first: having abandoned the fountain of living water, His people chose to instead carve out for themselves cisterns - broken cisterns that cannot hold water. The Belgic Confession describes God as being the overflowing fountain of all good. The people that the LORD had legally bound Himself to gave up on that goodness and futilely fabricated their own fountain of goodness which could not hold water.

You stand indicted under the charges that Jeremiah came to prosecute so many centuries ago, which is why you so desperately need a Savior. And we have exactly that in Christ, who is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant (Hebrews 9:15).

It's not at all that the charges have been dismissed for those who trust in Christ, but that He's both paid the penalty we incurred for abandoning the Fountain of Living Water AND He's perfectly fulfilled all of our covenantal requirements on our behalf. Whoever drinks of the water that He gives shall never be thirsty again (John 4:14).

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, the fountain of living water;

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God that your covenant relationship to Him is restored in Christ, and pray that you'll resist the ongoing temptation to abandon Him by turning to other sources of 'goodness';

• ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

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