“Has a nation changed its gods even though they are no gods? But my people have exchanged their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate,” declares the Lord. “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.”
-Jeremiah 2:11–13
These are three of the most powerful, indicting, convicting verses in the book of Jeremiah, and really in all of the Bible, as God looks at his people who had turned aside from him and from all of his goodness and his grace and the glory he had given them. “My people have exchanged their glory.” And what did they exchange it for? For that which doesn’t profit. They exchanged relationship with the one true God for the worship of all kinds of false gods who are no gods.
Jeremiah 2:11–13 reminds us we are prone to seek satisfaction in the things of this world.
In verse 13, the way it puts this picture, listen to this language. “They have committed two evils. One, they’ve forsaken me, the fountain of living water.” They’ve turned aside from the fountain of living water and they’ve built cisterns for themselves that can hold no water. It makes no sense. And yet, this is what the people of God had done, and it’s what you and I are tempted to do every day, today, to turn aside from the fountain of living water, to the satisfaction and security and comfort and strength and hope and truth and joy and life that are found in Jesus alone, and to turn aside to the things of this world, the possessions of this world, the pursuits of this world, the pleasures of this world, looking to this world for security satisfaction, hope, joy, life.
Jeremiah 2:11–13 is telling us today, “Don’t do it.” Don’t do it. Drink today from the depths of who Jesus is in your life. Drink today from the fountain of living water. Look to Jesus alone today as your strength, as your hope, as your joy, as your security, as your satisfaction. Abide in Him and in His Word, and don’t turn to the things, the ways of this world today in any way, for those ways cannot hold your security. They cannot hold your satisfaction. They cannot hold the joy, the peace, the strength, the life for which you long.
Jeremiah 2:11–13 reminds us to seek satisfaction only in God.
So God, help us today, we pray, to drink deeply from you as the fountain of living water, as our life. Jesus, help us not to exchange the glory of life in you and you in us today in any way for sin, for lesser pleasures, for looking to the things of this world, for our security or satisfaction.
God, help us to trust in you today to keep our eyes fixed on you, to seek you with all our hearts, to love you with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. And in doing so, to experience the fountain of your Spirit, living water flowing in us, through us. Help us to lead others to you as the fountain of living water. God, we pray that you would keep us from these two evils in Jeremiah 2:11–13.
Prayer for the Mbojo People
And God, we pray for people around us and people around the world who don’t know the glory of life in you, who’ve never taken a drink from you, the fountain of living water. God, help us to share that living water today, and we pray for the spread of that living water all around the world. God, for the Mbojo people of Indonesia… We pray and intercede for them today… For all 843,000 of them… Including the few followers of Jesus among them who heard the gospel years ago… And yet have such a small elementary understanding of the gospel in a way that they’re so prone to error.
God, please strengthen your church among the Mbojo people. And cause the living water of Jesus to spread to all who are thirsty among the 843,000 Mbojo of Indonesia. We pray all this according to your Word in Jeremiah 2:11–13… In the name of Jesus, who we know from John 4, John 7, is living water. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
