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[0:00] Jeremiah chapter 2 starting at verse 1 says, moreover the word of the Lord came to me saying, go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem saying, Thus saith the Lord, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the first fruits of his increase, all that devour him shall offend, evils shall come upon them, saith the Lord. Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain. Neither saith they, where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through and where no man dwell. And I brought you into a plentiful country to eat the fruit thereof, and the goodness thereof.

[1:11] But when ye entered, ye devoured my land, and made my heritage and abomination. The priest said not, where is the Lord? And they that handled the law knew me not. The pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. So God hears rebuking Israel. I said you got about three verses. God commands Israel. Then we've got verses four through eight, where He's telling them what they did, telling them where they went wrong, telling them where they went astray. He says, I brought you into this land, and look what you've done with it. Look what you've done with this, with this gift that I've given. Look what you've done with my mercy. God reached down and chose Israel. He chose Abraham. He chose Isaac. He chose Jacob. He chose the twelve sons of Jacob. God chose all these things, chose to bring them into this land. And He's saying this is what you've done with it. So in verses nine through twelve, He says, wherefore I will yet plead with you, said the Lord, and with your children's children will I plead, for pass over the aisles of Chittim and see, and send unto Kedahar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods, but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate, saith the Lord. So He tells them what they've done, and then He says, God says, I'm going to plead with you. Folks, that's a mercy of God. That's a mercy of God. When He looks down, and it's no different than for a born-again Christian, we goof up, we mess up, we sin, we have impure thoughts, we do impure things, we do all kinds of things that it would cause us to blush if it were painted on this wall over here. If everybody within these walls could see the things that go through a Christian's mind, but God pleads, God breaches down, and God's still pleased. Here He's pleading with His chosen people, the apple of His eye.

[3:33] He says, work where I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord, and with your children's children, will I plead? Not only you, but I'm going to plead with your posterity, those that are passed down from you. When you're long dead and gone, when you're buried in the grave, I'm going to plead with them.

[3:52] And God, here in verse 13, and believe it or not, we read all that to get to verse 13, which is my main thought of the matter. Verse 13 says, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me and the fountain of living, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out sisters, broken sisters that can hold no water. Says, my people, my people that I have called, the people that I sent Moses down into Egypt to bring up out of bondage, to bring up out of slavery, my people have done these things, my people have committed two evils, not just one but two. And folks, this is the words of God. This ain't the thoughts of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was the prophet of God.

[4:41] Jeremiah wrote down what God told him to write, what God had revealed unto him. So this is the words of God written down by a man of God for him to expound Israel, for him to explain to Israel.

[4:56] He says, my people have committed two evils against me. They have forsaken me, me, the living waters, they have forsaken folks. Why in the world would we as Christians choose, once we've tasted, what the living waters are, once we have experienced how refreshing those waters are to ourselves, why would we choose to run back to the world? Why would we choose to go up in another direction? Why would we choose to hue out sisters? Folks, that's one of the evils that God brings up here. He says, my people committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the living waters, and they've hewed out sisters. Why would we put our own efforts into hewing out a sister that would be a well into hewing out something that could hold water when the water fell from the sky, when gods in clouds to rain upon the people that would have these systems that would collect the water, but both, it wasn't fresh, it wasn't living, it's up there in these wells, in these containers, it got stagnant, it's stuck, but that's all that they had to work with. Why would we put our own effort into hewing out our sisters when God says, I'm the living water? I will give you repressment, I will quit your thirst, I will do all these things. Both these Jews knew who God was, they knew what He was capable of, they had been delivered, God had helped them, God had hated them, He had taken care of them, and yet they chose to follow idols. The church is no different, the church is no different,

[6:47] God help us, God forgives, the church is no different, for my people committed two evils, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, they've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, not just the river that's going down, not just the stream that's going down, but the fountain of living waters. What comes from the fountain, that's where the streams come from, that's where the rivers come from, He's saying, I'm the source of the living waters, I am the living waters. Hey, when Moses, when the Israelite, when they were over in the wilderness and Moses had to speak to the rock, when Moses struck the rock, that living water that came out for those Israelites, there was a picture of salvation, it was a picture of Jesus Christ, when that happened, when the manna fell down from the heavens, that was a picture of Jesus Christ, they knew who God was, knew what God could do, knew what He had done, and yet they followed idols. Keep the idols out of your lives, keep the idols out of your lives, hit the TVs and idols, get rid of it, hey, if those bedsheets, her idols get rid of it, if a man or a woman get rid of it, put it to the side, put it on the back burner, get rid of the idols, in our lives, God will punish sin. And He punished sin in a big way, He punished sin in a big way, you read on to the end of chapter two here, we won't go there, we won't read the whole chapter, but one of the Israelites do it, depending on other people, they were depending on other people, not just, not just human out sisters, that would hold no water, and God tells them, He says you're human out of sisters, broken sisters, that will hold no water, but you go on to the end of the chapter, He says you're going to be embarrassed, He says you're going to be embarrassed of the Egypt, just as you was with the Syria, they had made allegiances with pagans, with the, with the healings of the land, they had made conflict contracts with these people, they had butted up to them, and God had strictly forbid his people to mingle with the other people of the surrounding lands, He says this is going to embarrass you, it's going to embarrass you when this happens, oh we have no reason, if you're a born again child of God, you have no reason to seek refuge in anyone besides God, you have no reason to run to another God, to run to another person, to run unto anyone, we have no reason because God is our refuge, God is our strength,

[9:39] God is our fortress, God is our high tower, God is our manna, He is our water, He is our sustainer, God is my God, and He will take care of me, He says they've hewed out sisters, God says I've already made the way, I am the living waters, I'm the fountain of the living waters, I'm the source, I'm where the streams and the rivers come from, I'm the source, I'm the fountain of these living waters, and you're spending your time to go out here and hue broken sisters, you're spending your time to dig into this hard rock, to chisel your way through it, to hue out this cistern, hue out this whale, folks that's exactly what Joseph over in the book of Genesis, that's the same thing that Joseph's brothers threw him into, it was a cistern, it was a whale that was designed to catch rainwater and I can assure you there was nothing clean about that water, but that's what they used, it's all they had, it's all they had, he said you're spending your time, looking for your work, your effort, your tools, your talents, your energy, everything about you, you're putting it all into hue and out of broken cistern that will hold no water, folks, if we have tasted the goodness of

[11:05] God and we've tasted the righteousness of God and we know how good that He is, the Bible says taste and say that the Lord is good, if we know that we have no reason to abandon the fountain, don't abandon the fountain, you stay by it, you keep by it, can't buy it, build by it, but do not go another way, there's no reason for us to, folks you look, you look at our country, you look at your country all around the world, most of us are more familiar with our own country, where's the big cities built, normally right near or right next to a river, you know why that is because that river provided life, that river provided not only transportation for the day, it provided fishing, it provided commerce, it provided people upstream to send things downstream, it provided all kinds of things, the most big cities, most big cities are built very near to or or right next door to a river and that's for a purpose because we depended on those things, what have we done though, what have we done, you look around now, now I'm talking about the beginnings of these cities, you look around now, we'll go out in the middle of the plains somewhere in Build-A-Town, in the middle of, in the middle of nowhere, we can build a big city, you look at Las Vegas, Nevada, it's out in the middle of nothing, out in the middle of nothing, you know why, because we learned, hey we can pump this water, we can do something with it ourselves, we can clean it ourselves, we can use chlorine, we can use this chemical, we can use that chemical, and we can do something about this water, we can get it to us and we don't need the source of it, we don't need that anymore folks and that has bled in the church thoughts, that has bled in the Christian thought, hey if you're here lost you don't know God, it's already in your thoughts, you've been trying this whole time to heal at your own sister, you're like the rich young ruler that went under Jesus, he said what must I do to inherit eternal life, what can I do to have this gift, there is nothing that I can do, nothing that you can do, it is only God that can save souls, you cannot save yourself, I cannot save you, it is

[13:31] God and He alone, that's the shape of the lost world, I'm gonna spend my time, I'm gonna heal this sister, I'm gonna get me some water, yeah I'll be muddy, yeah it'll have worms in it, oh you read over and over in the the region of Galilee right now, there's over a thousand sisters that were dubbed back in the Bible days, that were dubbed back then, they are still there but the water that collects in it is muddy, it's full of worms and it was back then too, there wasn't nothing clean about it, nothing desirable about it but those people settled for that, they settled for that because they didn't want to travel to the river, they said I'll just collect this here, I'll take my chances with it, folks have taken their chances, lost people taking their chances on their own works and on their own merits, on their own sister that they're digging by their own energy in their own time, folks that is a broken sister, it will not hold water, when you get to heaven you will not or when you stand before God you will not stand before God in judgment and say but I did this and but I did that, you and it depends on what you did with the gospel and when Jesus Christ when it was presented, that's the only thing that'll count, God could care less how many homeless people you've helped, God could care less how many hungry people you've fed, folks those are works that you do, those are works that you do, those will not get you into heaven, now if you're born again you should have a desire to do those things, you should have a desire to help those that are needy, James says, James chapter 2, he says now I have faith in the house of works, show me that faith without that works, I'll show you my faith by my works, show you the thy faith without works, I'll show you my faith by my works, go hand in hand, a Christian somebody's born again, somebody is saved by grace through faith, they will have works in their lives, some people's gonna have more works than other people will but folks that work does not include going down into the yard or going down somewhere off of the path that God has set before me, abandoning the fountain of the waters of life, that work does not include me, human, a sister on my own to hold water, God is my refuge, God is my strength, he is my provider and if I had to take a sister, God help me to not do that, God keep that out of my mind, keep that out of my mind, I'm associated, I'm associated with the very fountain at the rivers of life flows from John solid in Revelation, Revelation 22, he said he saw a river, a river is clear as crystal, he said I saw a river, the river and it was the river of life flowing from the throne of God hand of the land, hey folks that river of life and on the east side of it and in the midst of the street there was the tree of life, hey that's where my God's at, that's where the rulers and that's where the fountain of the waters of life sits, that's where he rules, that's where he dwells, that's where he does everything for and that's where I'm going to one day, I'm dependent on those waters, not on what I can collect on my own, not on what I can do on my own, folks that will get us in trouble, you flip over sometime in Yom, in Yom time flip over to Isaiah chapter 30 read just about the first four or five verses of that sometime, God gets ahold of Israel he says how dare you depend on Egypt, Egypt's what I brought you out of, Egypt's what I delivered you from and now you've gone running to make a to make a contract to make an agreement to make a

[17:36] combat with Egypt the very place that I brought you out of, folks God forbid that we get that attitude as Christians as I've already said, hey the lost people they've already got that attitude, they'll run to Egypt, they'll run to Assyria, they'll run to anybody, they'll run everywhere looking for their own way, looking for their own way out of this mess and God has provided the way through Jesus cross for us to get out of the predicament that we are in, hallelujah, hallelujah God saying they forsaken me the fountain of the waters of life, what Jesus tell Lady and John 4 they went through Jericho there's a lady there at the well, he said if you drink in this water you're going to thirst again, you'll thirst again talking about the well, talking about Jacob's well, one of the patriarchs had that well belonged to him, he says if you drink in this water you'll thirst again, that was a cistern that she was at, it was a cistern, it was a place where they get whatever water they could get out of the ground, he said but if you drink in the water of life that or the water that I give you, the water that I have, that will never thirst again, that's the water of life and he was the source, he was the fountain of that water of life, he is the fountain of that water of life, oh don't run around from place to place, don't run from place to place looking for another source, there is only one source, God says that he is the only God beside him, there is no other, he says he will not share his glory with another, he is the only God, Marcus says who are a God like unto the that is merciful, that is ready to forgive, that is ready to cleanse me of my sin, hey that's Jesus

[19:33] Christ that the Bible speaks of, Jesus Christ stands ready to make intercession for you, intercession for me, Jesus Christ gave his life that he might be able to do so, that was the will of God in his life, the water, the water of life gave himself, the bread of life gave himself, the door to heaven gave himself, the shepherd gave himself, the lamb gave himself, folks all these things are descriptions of Jesus Christ throughout the throughout the Bible from Genesis under Revelation, all these things are descriptions of our Savior, descriptions of the Savior and folks he is the only source, he is the only life, he is the only one that can give life into our hair and lost without God, you have no love about you, you are dead in your trespasses and sin, it will take God to give the hold of you and God to bring the Spirit into you that will resurrect a dead, lawless soul, he is the fountain, the water of life, he's the only fountain of the water of life, back to the rich young ruler, he's kind of bouncing around, that's okay, back to the rich young ruler, he went to Jesus, said what can I do to have eternal life, what can I do to inherit this, Jesus, and he called him good master, did he not, Jesus said why call us down be good, there's done good but God, done good but God, that was Jesus recognizing his own deity, that was Jesus saying you called me good and there's done good but God, but he tells that that ruler he says keep the commandments, keep the commandments and he lists them off, he lists off a few of them, he lists off a few out of the latter portion of the Ten Commandments, I shall not commit adultery, I shall not murder,

[21:34] I shall not steal, everything against your neighbor basically is what Jesus was getting at and that ruler said all these things I've kept from my youth, all these things I've kept the commandments, Lord, Jesus says you lacking something, I lackest one thing, sell everything that you've got, give to the poor and follow me, give to the poor and follow me, now folks, that ain't Jesus telling him you go, that we need to go home sell all of our stuff and give it away and give away the proceeds and then go out here and live on the street somewhere, then what Jesus was getting at, Jesus was telling that ruler you've got a God, you've got an idol and that idol's money, that idol is your stuff, that idol is the things that you have acquired through your own merit, through your own energy, through your own work, your idol, your God is those things Jesus was saying you'll have to get rid of those things, hey folks when Jesus Christ saved my soul, when I got saved hey he came in, he booted the idols out of my life, he claimed the San away, he showed me that I would need no other way other than him, Jesus said in John 14, I'm the way, the truth and the life, he is all those things and a ton more, praise God, but this ruler that came to Jesus, he thought he would get in by his own merits, Jesus showed him otherwise, sell everything you've got, sell it all, give it to the poor and follow me, Jesus said, if any man wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me and in that order, in that order, we must deny ourselves, these people that God was addressing here in Jeremiah chapter 2, they had relied on God at some point, God commended them for it and three verses that we read out of chapter 13, God was giving them basically praise for how they had done, how they had depended on him, how they had relied on him, but the remaining verses, God says, you're digging systems, broken systems, you're hewing out broken systems that will hold no water, folks, it don't matter how tough you build it, it don't matter how deep you dig, it don't matter what kind of rock you use, none of these things will matter, it will wind up a broken system and it will hold no water of any kind of value, it will hold nothing when it comes to the day of judgment, we must depend on the fountain of living waters that the Bible speaks of here, we must depend on that one, we must stay away from the Assyrian, stay away from the Egyptian, we cannot go running to them for protection, for provision or anything else, God has promised that he will take care of his own, we cannot run to these other things, God's addressing this, he says you've already done it to these Israelites, you've already done it, you have run another way, you've gone after these other nations, gone after their gods, gone after their ways, the prophets, they're prophesying a bale, a bale of a false god, the prophets of God, we're prophesying about a false god and God says you've done this thing, you are doing this yourself, folks we can't do anything ourselves and there's there's there's picture upon picture throughout the pages of scripture that shows that Abraham,

[25:06] Sarah, God had promised them, I see God had promised them a son and what happened when they didn't get that son when they thought that they should have already had that son, they got the card before the horse, Sarah said take Hagar and the handmaid, Abraham took Hagar the handmaid, we wound up with Ishmael and that is still to this day, cause I'm termal in this world, and Ishmael never asked to be born, it wasn't his fault, God said I'm going to bless Ishmael, he said I'll bless him and his descendants and his posterity and he's blessing them this day, which is all reserves in the world right over in the Middle East, right over there with Ishmael's descendants, but they got in trouble, they were doing what, going another way they tried to hug their own sister, they tried to hug their own sister after knowing what God was capable of, after knowing and experiencing what God, what God could do for them, after realizing these things, they tried to hug their own sister, the folks would get, we could go on and on and on with examples in scripture, of people that huged their own sister, they huged their own wells, and all that is a picture, is a picture of someone using their own effort, trying to do what God's already doing, trying to do what God has either already done, has promised to do, or whatever the case is, here in Jeremiah chapter two, he'd already done, he'd already brought the Israelites up, he'd already delivered them, and folks who didn't take them very long after that deliverance for them to, for them to fall back in, I mean you read, you read all throughout the book of

[26:46] Judges, all throughout Judges, you can read a little bit of it in Joshua, Joshua was the very one that took him into the Promised Land, you can even read about some backsliding going on in Joshua, but you get over to Judges, and my goodness, every man did that which was right in his own eyes, because there was no king in Israel, in those days every man did that which was right in his own eyes, he was right in their own eyes, digging their own sister, healing their own sister, digging their own wells, not letting God do it, and Judges is in my personal opinion, the most violent book in all of scripture, in all of scripture, the book of Judges, it's the most political, and it's the most violent, and because there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes, when we go out and we try and dig our own sisters, when we try and heal these things, when we try and work it out ourselves, it will get us in trouble, and God's sitting up there saying,

[27:46] I've told you, you've got my word that tells you, I've saved you, if you're born again, hey, I've done these things for you, and still, yeah, you're going out here and doing this, it's going to cause you to blush, it's going to embarrass you, just like he told them here, that their allegiance with the outside nations would be an embarrassment, and it would all come to naught, if we go out in the world, we leave these churchhouse doors, and go out here and seek help from another, folks, God is our God, God is our king, God is our friends, God is everything, God is everything we need, He's our provider, He's our shelter, He's our pillow, He's our bed, He's our covers, He is everything that we need, God will provide for His own, there's no reason that God should say this verse to the church, I realize he was saying it to Israel here in Jeremiah chapter two, when he says, for my people have committed two evils, they have forsaken me in the fountain of living waters, and huge enough sisters, broken sisters that can hope and know water, but unfortunately, he's got to remind the church of the same thing, you know what you're doing there, it ain't going to hold water, it will not hold water, there's a whole world of lost people out there right now, they have already gotten their mind, when they stand before God, when they stand before God, they're going to say, God, I was raised in this manner, I was raised in this type of house, God, I didn't have this and I had all kinds of that, and in God, basically it ain't my fault, it ain't my fault, and God's going to say that ain't going to hold water, that does not hold water in the court of judgment of a holy and righteous God that has never committed sin, we have violated His laws, we have offended God, our sin, whether you think you've got it or not, I can show you all kinds of scriptures that says that you do, and I do too, our sin offends God and God takes sin very seriously, and God, even for one of His children, God will chastise His own, He will punish His own, He will correct His own and I praise God for it that He does, in Book of Micah, He says, here is the rod and who has appointed it, those are strong words, here you the rod and who have appointed it, here the rod that's coming down, that rod is not only the rod of God, that rod is God, God will take care of His own, He will chastise His own, He will punish His own and He does it though, He doesn't do it because He hates us, He doesn't do it because of anything along those lands, He does it because He loves us,

[30:36] Amen. He's given us an entire instruction manual here, how we are supposed to live and we don't live in that instruction manual, God will punish and He will chastise and praise God when He gets ahold of you and does that, that means you're His, that means you're a son, you're a daughter of the most God. Amen.