Thread: "For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the Fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jer. 2:13).
"For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the Fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jer. 2:13).
Posted : 10 Sep, 2011 02:18 AM
Devotional
God speaks of it as involving two evils�both the evil of forsaking him and the evil of substituting a false object of happiness for him.
Dear reader, the true painfulness of this subject consists not in the sorrow which your heart may have felt in seeing your cisterns broken. Ah no! The true agony should be that, in your wanderings and creature idolatry, you have sinned�deeply sinned�against the Lord your God. This, and not your loss, ought to lay you low before him. This, and not your broken scheme of earthly happiness, ought to fill you with the bitterness of sorrow, and clothe you with the drapery of woe.
Oh! to have turned your back upon such a God, upon such a Father, upon such a Friend, and to have supposed that even an entire universe of creatures could have made you happy without him, ought to bring you to his feet exclaiming, "God be merciful to me, the chief of sinners!"
Is it no sin to have said to God�as you have a thousand times over�"I prefer myself to you. I prefer my family to you. I prefer my possessions to you. I prefer my pleasure to you. I prefer my honor to you. Etc."? Is it no sin to have taken the gifts with which he endowed you, or the wealth with which he entrusted you, and, forming them into a golden image, to have fallen down before it, exclaiming, "This is your god, O my soul"? Oh yes, it is a sin, the guilt and the greatness of which no language can describe.
And is it no sin, O believer in Jesus, to have turned away, in your unbelief and inconstancy, from the glorious redemption which the Lord has obtained for you at such a price, and to have sought the assurance and the joy of your salvation from other sources than it? What! Is not the atoning work of Jesus sufficient to give your believing soul solid rest and peace and hope, but that you should have turned your eye from him and have sought it in the polluted and broken cistern of self?
Oh, do not slight the precious blood, the glorious righteousness, the infinite fullness, and the tender love of Jesus in this way. No, you dishonor this precious Jesus himself! Shall he have wrought such an obedience, shall he have made such an atonement, shall he have died such a death, shall he have risen and have ascended up on high, all to secure your full salvation and certain glory, and will you derive the evidence and the comfort of your acceptance from any other than this one precious source�"looking to Jesus" (Heb. 12:2)!
Then, look away from everything to Jesus. No matter what you are, look away from self�to Jesus.
The more vile, the more empty, the more unworthy, the greater reason and the stronger argument why you should look entirely off yourself�to Jesus. His atoning work is finished by him and is sealed by the Father. It is impossible that God can reject you, entirely renouncing yourself and fleeing into Christ. Coming to him in the name of Jesus, God cannot deny you. He has pledged himself that whatever is asked in that name he will grant.
Take him at his word! Ask him for a sense of his reconciled love. Ask him for the Spirit of adoption. Ask him for a filial, loving, and obedient heart. Ask him for a meek, lowly, and submissive will. Yes, pour out your heart before him: God waits to grant your utmost desire breathed out to him in the name of Jesus. He has given you his beloved Son�oh largess worthy of a God!�oh gift of gifts, priceless and precious beyond all thought!�what inferior blessing will he, then, withhold?
by Octavius Winslow, 1856
Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea,
a great high Priest whose Name is Love
who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on his hands.
My name is written on his heart.
I know that while in Heaven he stands
no tongue can bid me thence depart.
When Satan tempts me to despair
and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see him there
who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
my sinful soul is counted free.
for God the just is satisfied
to look on him and pardon me.
Behold him there the risen Lamb,
my perfect spotless righteousness,
the great unchangeable I AM,
the King of glory and of grace.
United to him I can't die.
my soul is purchased by his blood,
my life is hid with Christ on high,
with Christ my Savior and my God!
(Charitie L. Bancroft, 1863; stanza 3 alt. by LEW, 2006)
"For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the Fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jer. 2:13).
