Not Committing the Evils of Forsaking God as the Source and having Idols as His replacement

May we not commit the evils of forsaking God as our source and having idols as His replacement!

Israel should have drunk of God as the fountain of living waters to be His increase as His expression, but instead they committed two evils: they forsook God as their fountain and they turned to another source, to idols, to hew out cisterns (broken cisterns which hold no water) for themselves.

Jeremiah 2:13 is a crucial verse in the book of Jeremiah and also in the entire Bible, for here God says that we as His people can commit (and to be honest, we do commit) two evils – we forsake Him as the fountain of living waters and we hew out for ourselves cisterns which hold no water, for they are broken.

On His side, God has done everything necessary for Him to be the fountain of living waters, and He is drinkable; He is a flowing out God, He reaches us wherever we are, and even more, He has come in our spirit!

Right now in the spirit of all the regenerated believers on earth there is a fountain of living waters ready to flow, water us, fill us, saturate us, and flow through us, and this living water cleanses us, washes us, sanctifies us, renews us, transforms us, and fulfills God’s purpose in us.

As long as we have a simple turn to Him, calling on His name and praying over His word, fellowshipping with Him and just praying, or even singing a song…as long as we just turn to Him, the living water flows.

When we turn to the Lord within, He as the Spirit flows to water us, nourish us, satisfy us, saturate us, and transform us.

All we have to do is just turn to Him, and He will do the rest; all we have to do is open to Him and say Amen, giving Him the thoroughfare, and He will do everything necessary.

Our Christian life should be filled with drinking the living water and allowing it to flow out of us as many rivers of living water, for this water flows constantly.

This living water flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb to bring life wherever it goes; it comes into us, flows in all the inner parts of our being, and becomes a fountain of life gushing up into eternal life.

If we would only turn to Him, contact Him, and have a turned heart toward Him, He will flow and flow and flow until we become the New Jerusalem.

But alas, as the book of Jeremiah shows, too many times we are like the people of Israel committing these two evils: forsaking God as the fountain of living waters and hewing out cisterns to replace God as the source.

Oh Lord Jesus!

In this article we want to see what exactly means for us to forsake God as the source and to find replacements for Him; what does this really translate into our daily life with its daily activities, in our being with all its aspects, and in our heart with all its issues.

Not Committing the Evil of Forsaking God as the Source, as our Husband, as the Fountain of Living Waters

When God said, My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters…in Jer. 2:13, He was full of feeling and emotion toward His people.

We may think that forsaking God may not be such a bad thing, that this is not so serious, but this is serious to God.

To forsake God is to renounce Him, to not hold on or cleave to Him, to turn away from Him intentionally and deliberately, to put God aside entirely.

The people of Israel have abandoned God deliberately; they knew He was their God, but they deliberately abandoned Him as the fountain of living waters, their source.

Israel should have drunk of God as the fountain of living waters that they might become His increase as His expression, but instead they committed two evils: they forsook Him as their fountain and they turned to a source other than God.

They didn’t just abandon God but they turned to another source, a source that would replace God; this is idolatry.

In Jeremiah we see the relationship of God with His people being portrayed as being a marital one, a romantic one; God is the Husband, and He regarded His people Israel as His wife.

When Israel forsook God, they didn’t just leave Him – they were unfaithful to Him, committing infidelity in marriage.

In Jer. 2-3 Jehovah was speaking to them as to His wife, in an intimate way, asking them why did they go after other husbands or lovers, committing adultery and fornication by laying with other men.

It is serious for us to have idols in our hearts; we may not have physical idols of gold or silver, but we may have other things that command our worship, love, and service.

Any matter or person or thing outside of God can become an idol to us.

If we read the Ten Commandments we see that the first three have to do with idols; the law was given as an engagement contract between God and His people, and the first thing He deals with is idols, substitutes or replacements for God.

God doesn’t tolerate idols and He wants us to stay away from them, for He is a jealous God.

The Ten Commandments reveal to us God’s attributes; they are the testimony of God, showing what God is to us. By reading them we have a revelation of what God is in His attributes.

We may say that the first of God’s attributes is either love, holiness, righteousness, or light, but actually, the Ten Commandments reveal that God is first of all jealous, for He has an absolute intolerance for His people to go after or worship anything or anyone other than Him.

Our God is a jealous God, and He is a God of jealousy; idolatry provokes Him to anger.

We cannot treat idolatry lightly, for it touches His jealousy; He doesn’t tolerate it or allow it that His people would have any other object of worship beside Him.

God doesn’t want us to worship anything He has created for us or anything we make with our own hands.

In Rom. 1 we see that people know from the creation that there is a Gd, but they deliberately hold that truth down, and they say, There is no God.

We live in an age where people are anti-God; they know there is a God, but they suppress this, and they lie by saying there is no God.

Only God is real; He is reality, and to say anything else is to say a lie. But man with his philosophy and his “progressive thinking” thinks he can “hew out cisterns” for himself to solve his problems.

However, nothing apart from God as the fountain of living waters can quench our thirst or satisfy us.

We need to know that idolatry is always associated with fornication, uncleanness, and things of the dark world, such as the demons, demon-worship, sorcery, and other such things.

In this modern, western world we may not have actual physical images or idols, but there are photos of musicians, artists, persons who excel in a certain field or industry…whatever we are drawn to, there are “idols”, sports personalities, sports icons, or leaders in certain areas.

We may say that these are not bad but rather moral and good, but behind idolatry and related to it there’s uncleanness and demon-worship.

Simply having such idols is adultery before God, and it leads to the anti-God modern philosophy, opening the door to the unclean and licentious world. Oh Lord Jesus!

May we beware of forsaking God as the source, the fountain of living waters, and may we not be drawn to worship any other thing or person beside Him!

May we realize that having idols in our heart makes us like a wife who commits fornication with many lovers, which is the idols.

Lord Jesus, we repent for forsaking God as the fountain of living waters and for hewing out for ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns which hold no water. Oh Lord, may we realize that apart from God as the fountain of living waters, nothing can quench our thirst and nothing can satisfy us. We repent for having idols in our heart Lord; we repent for having replacements for You that command our worship, love, and service. Oh Lord, we return to You as the fountain of living waters. We return to You as our Husband; we forsake all our idols and we come to You as our loving Husband to be Your pure, chaste, loving wife. Dear Lord Jesus, continue to shine on us to expose all things or persons that are replacements for You in our being; have Your way in us, Lord, to draw us to Yourself so that we may take You as the fountain of living waters!

Being Exposed of Hewing out Cisterns that Hold no Water, Empty Replacements for the real and true God

The first evil we commit is forsaking God as the fountain of living waters, and the second, is trying to find replacements for God, that is, hewing out cisterns that would hold water to satisfy us.

This word about hewing out of cisterns is a figure of speech, portraying our toil in making something to replace God as the fountain of living waters.

Hewing out a cistern from rock is hard labour, and then the cistern may be broken, so the water leaks out.

This is a picture of our human labour and enterprise; we may labour and work hard to get something for ourselves, but then our “cistern” that we worked so hard to build develops a crack, and we lose whatever we have gained.

Idols are replacements; we all need to worship, love, and serve someone – we were made that way.

However, we were made to worship God, love God, and serve God, and for us to worship, love, serve, or dedicate ourselves to something or someone else is to have replacements for God, to hew out cisterns which hold no water.

We may have a business, a career, a sport we follow, or a hobby we are so dedicated to, but no matter how smart we are, how much money we make, or how much success we have, any replacement for God will never satisfy us.

The Lord spoke concerning this in John 4:13-14, saying that whoever drinks of this water (the water that this world has to offer) will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that He gives will never thirst again but rather, this water will become a fountain springing up into eternal life.

Whatever we build as a replacement of God is broken and holds no water, for nothing apart from God Himself dispensed into us as the living water can quench our thirst and make us God’s increase for His expression.

Even if we can hew out some cisterns and we can get some water, these cisterns can’t actually hold water, and the water we think is water, will not satisfy us.

So we will come to our cisterns again and again, and we end up disillusioned and dissatisfied; we may chase after these and realize, as Solomon did, that it is all vanity of vanity and chasing after wind, these are not real.

At the end of the day we may count our money, our possessions, and our success, and seemingly there is a temporary happiness and satisfaction, but in the end all these will leave us dry, dissatisfied, and unhappy, and our life will be broken.

We may spend our whole life seeking replacements for God, worshipping idols, and our life will be broken as we are dissatisfied.

But if we receive God dispensed into us as living water, quenching our thirst, He satisfies us with the rivers of His pleasures, for He Himself is the fountain of life; this will make us God’s increase for His expression.

Only this is reality. May we not chase after the wind and labour of vanity; may we hold on to Christ, our reality.

May we forsake the idols and return to the real and living God; then, we will have water in us that satisfies us and springs up to water others, flowing into eternal life, which is the New Jerusalem!

Lord Jesus, save us from our toil in our human labour to make something to replace God; save us from hewing out for ourselves cisterns to hold water – broken cisterns, which can hold no water! Cause us to realise that NOTHING apart from God Himself dispensed into us as living water can quench our thirst and make us God’s increase for His expression. Amen, Lord, we forsake any idols and put aside anything that replaces You in our being, and we return to the real and living God. Only You can satisfy us; only You as living water can quench our thirst, and only the rivers of Your pleasures can bring us real satisfaction. Amen, Lord, we return to You as the fountain of living waters, our real source, our real Husband!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Jeremiah, msgs. 3, 32 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 3, The Two Evils of God’s People and God’s Faithfulness in Fulfilling His Economy.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Captivated by His beauty, / Worthy tribute haste to bring; / Let His peerless worth constrain thee, / Crown Him now unrivaled King. / Idols once they won thee, charmed thee, / Lovely things of time and sense; / Gilded thus does sin disarm thee, / Honeyed lest thou turn thee thence. (Hymns #437)
  – Once I thirsted for a fountain, / Something deep that would satisfy, / But the fountain that I’d drink from, / Left me searching and still so dry. / Then one day I found Him, / He satisfied my thirst, / Became in me a deeper source / Whence living waters burst. (Hymns #1327)
  – Man’s life is full of grief and pain: / Much wisdom bringeth misery! / Increasing knowledge addeth woe! / It’s all vanity! / What good our pleasure and our wealth? / Though joys we have and family, / We’ll have our worries just the same! / It’s all vanity! (Hymns #1080)