"FORGOTTEN LOVE"

THE PERSUASION OF GOD

Jeremiah 2:1-2 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 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.

I enjoy hearing a testimony of two people who have enjoyed a long and wonderful marriage.
I have met a number of couples that have been married for 65 years and more that have told me how happy in love they still are.
I've met widows that had such a wonderful love relationship that they do not desire to ever marry again.
I have met people married twenty, thirty and forty years that are very much in love.
On the other hand, I've met those that you don't have to be around very long before you could see the love was gone. They didn't enjoy being together.
He went one way and she went another way and they had just accepted this as married life. This is what had happened to Judah. So God tells Jeremiah, I want you to go and reason again with my people.
Isaiah tried to reason with them 100 years ago and they would not listen. God seemed to say, "Jeremiah, go and try one more time."

I - GOD REMINDS JUDAH OF THEIR COURTING DAYS: 2-3
2 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.
3 Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.
a. God says in verse 2, "Do you remember our wedding day?"
b. God says in verse 3, "Do you remember our worshipping days?"
a. Wedding Day -
God begins by saying, "I remember you." Those words had to strike a deep cord in Judah's heart. For when God called them, they were nothing. They were poor and naked and undone.
But, God loved them. He chose them and privileged them to be his wife. He gave to them what the world did not have. He gave them priest, prophets, promises and prophecies that no other nation had.
Through this nation came the Messiah, the Savior of the world, who would one day be King of kings and Lord of lords.
God then said, "I remembered the kindness of thy youth." When Israel was young, they made a lot of mistakes. They ended up in Egypt, the world, far from God. God revealed to them his might, arm of salvation and delivered Israel from Egypt and led them to Mount Sinai.
At Mount Sinai God revealed to Israel his majesty. They said to Moses, "Whatever the Lord says, we will do." We will submit our lives completely to the Lord. God says, I remember your youth, when you loved me and revered me.
God says, I remember ...the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.
God not only revealed His might and majesty but His miracles to Israel. God says, when I loved you and led you throughout the wilderness, you trusted me, you leaned on me. You followed my way. You obeyed me. "Hey, Judah, do you remember those days. When you came to the promise land, it was not sown. That means it was in war and turmoil, but you were willing to sacrifice your all for me. I loved you and you loved me.
I thank God for a fun marriage. I am having more fun today being married than I did 36 years ago. Marriage can be fun and a couple can be in loved in their elderly years more than in their younger years, if they know what love is all about. If they can learn to live for the other and serve the other and die to self.
Jeremiah is attempting to get Judah to remember how good God was to them in their courting days. It made them worship Him.
b. Worshipping Day -
3 Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.
There was a time when Judah worshipped God with all their heart. There was a time when God was first place in their lives. Their worship of God was like a couple strolling hand in hand in love. It mattered not if they were in a park or walking in their neighborhood, but they were in love.
In those days, Jeremiah hints to Judah, Don't you remember how God fought for you. God protected you from anyone who spoke evil against you. God devour them or destroyed them. He was your husband, He was your Lord.
Sometimes God's people forget that it is God who provides for them and it is God who protects them. And that is because God fights for us because He favors us.

II - GOD'S REBUKE OF JUDAH FOR THEIR CONCEITED WAYS: 4-7
4 Hear ye the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel:
5 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?
God says, a. Consider my shortcomings (4-5)
Jeremiah, probably with a tear in his eye says God wants to know, "What iniquities have your fathers found in me?" How have I mistreated you? How did I fail you?
God knew if Judah would take the time to think on God, they would have to conclude, "God you have never treated us wrong. You have given us everything we have. You gave us freedom. You gave us salvation. You gave us our family. You gave us the wealth we have. They knew God was holy. They knew God was just. They knew God never made a mistake. They knew God was sovereign.
They would have to say, "You and you alone are the supplier of all good things."
God tells them the reason that judgment had fallen on Israel and would soon fall on Judah was because ( 5) ... they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?
In a marriage relationship, often both people are at fault. But, when one has a beautiful relationship with the Lord and one day that person wakes up and realizes something is missing, it isn't God who had moved. His love is as wonderful today as it was the first day He saved you.
God says, I haven't changed. I haven't moved. I still love you as I have always loved you. But, you walked away from the marriage.
When God saves a person. He calls us to repent. He calls us to come out of the world. He calls us to himself for He is a jealous God. He doesn't want to share us with anybody.
You want to know something. I feel the same way about my wife. I don't want to share her with another. I want her to give her love only to me. And that is what God wants from us as well.
What took Judah away from God? They began a life of vanity.
I love synonyms. Most of you know that synonym means that which is similar or the same.
Words that are synonymous with vanity are narcissism, self-importance, conceit, pride, emptiness, worthless and many more.
Judah had begun to live for self. When we begin to live to please self rather than living to please our Lord, soon we forget Him and soon we lose our first love.
Therefore let me conclude. God has no shortcomings. There is no logical reason for us not to love Him with all our hearts and give to Him our best. The only reason we don't is because we have become narcissistic.
In God's rebuke of Judah, he says, Consider my shortcomings? Next he says, Consider my Salvation.
b. Consider my salvation (6-7)
6 Neither said 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 of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?
1. God's salvation is a place of special providence:
Egypt was a place of bondage. They felt like they were in prison. The leaders of Israel begged the leaders of Egypt to let them go but to no avail. When Moses arrived, he put on display nine mighty miracles from God, but still Pharaoh refused to let them God.
It took the Passover Lamb, which pictures the Salvation of our Lord, to set Israel free.
Even in Salvation, life is a wilderness. Life is filled with lustful pits, financial pits and marriage pits. Life is filled with desert places. At times a person feels empty, lonely and thirsty for something and they know not what? Well that something is God's touch, God's love.
In the wilderness of this world, there is no joy, no love and no peace. Only in God's glorious salvation can we find a purpose in living.
Before God's salvation to Israel in Egypt, the desert was a place which no man could dwell and live without special providence.
Salvation in Christ gives to us a great freedom. But, that freedom should be appreciated and God should be honored for what He has done for us.

2. God's salvation is a place of special privileges.
7 And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.
God lead Israel to a land that flowed with milk and honey. The cities had already been built. The vineyards has already been planted. They had to use their physical abilities to war and take the land that God promised they could have.
When they first took the land, all was great. David finally conquered Jerusalem and all the surrounding nations, and Israel became the greatest nation on earth.
But, David, the man after God's heart died and slowly other religions and gods were brought into the Holy Land and God's land was defiled.
Israel who were a people that was to represent the love and light of God became an abomination.
Judah became not a light for God, nor did they show God's love. They had become a disgrace. They had become repulsive to the world.
The world looked at them and said, you worship the same gods we worship. You live the same way we live. You are no different than us. Why would we want your God?
From a Christian standpoint, God has given us a promise land. It is called the kingdom of heaven. The day we got saved, the Holy Spirit moved inside of us to give to us a land flowing with milk and honey from within.
That land from within a believer is water from God's word and fed with God's manna. If we have a spiritual draught, we can become abominable.
But, it would take a war and it takes work to obtain the lifestyle. It would take sacrifice. It would take a battle with Satan and the world. It can be ours if we will give time to tilling our heart's soil and planting seed from God's word and watering it with preaching and teaching and His love.
God reminds Judah of their courting days
God rebukes Judah for their conceited ways.

III - GOD REASONS WITH JUDAH for their contemptible GAZE 8-11
8 The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle 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.
Let me stop here for just a minute. God is disappointed in His people for He had not been worshipped for a long time and their spiritual leaders did not even know it, much less the people of Judah.
Their gaze was on the things of the world and not on God.
The last days of Judah pictures the last days of the Church age in Revelation 2-3. There will be some good churches, but there will also be many churches, just like it was in the days of Judah.
Their gaze is the world. They have fixed their eyes on temporal and self seeking things, rather than god.
Jeremiah describes in v 8, lost pastors, sin loving pastors, pastors that speak from spirits, not of God but from demons, as Baal worship. He speaks of pastors that preach to profit themselves and not to profit God. ignore
9 Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead.
10 For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing.
God says go to Chittim (Cyprus). During this time the Phoenicians controlled Cyprus, They worshipped Poseidon, the god of the Sea and Baal, the storm god.
Then God said, Go to Kedar, there is where Ishamel's people live who forsook me many years ago. They worship the sky goddess know as Allat. Later Allat, was referred to in the masculine form. She became Allah. He says, these people have worshipped these false gods and have remained true to them all these years.
Then God says to His people, Judah, in Jeremiah 2:11, Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.
12 Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.
The astonishing thought is this, "How could a man who lived in a mansion, succumb to enjoy living in a mud hut? How could a man whose was married to the most beautiful woman, succumb to living with a harlot?
I will take the last few minutes of this message and end by drawing an analogy. It was a story told by Tennessee Williams years ago, but relates to Judah and I am afraid relates to many others today.
Jacob Brodzky was a shy Russian Jew whose father owned a bookstore. Mr. Brodzky wanted his son to go to college. The boy, on the other hand, desired nothing but to marry Lila, his childhood sweetheart.
She was a French girl as loving, vital, and ambitious as he was contemplative and reserve. A couple of months after young Brodzky went to college, his father fell ill and died. The son returned home, buried his father, and married the love of his life.
Then the couple moved into the apartment above the bookstore, and Brodzky took over its management.
Brodzky's love for his wife and his life for books fit him perfectly. Life was wonderful for both for a while, but she wanted more adventure and she found it, she thought, when she met an agent who praised her beautiful singing voice and enticed her to tour Europe with a cabaret company.
Brodzky was devastated. At their parting, he reached into his pocket and handed her the key to the front door of the bookstore.
"You had better keep this," he told her, "because you will want it someday. Your love is not so much less than mine that you can get away from it. You will come back sometime, and I will be waiting."
She kissed him and left. To escape the pain he felt, Jacob withdrew deep into his bookstore and took to reading as someone else might have taken to drink.
He spoke little, did little, and could most times be found at the large desk near the rear of the shop, immersed in his books while he waited for his love to return.
Nearly 15 years after they parted, at Christmastime, she did return. When Jacob rose from the reading desk that had been his place of escape for all that time, he did not take the love of his life for more than an ordinary customer. "Do you want a book?" he asked.
The fact that he didn't recognize her startled Lila. But she gained possession of herself and replied, "I want a book, but I've forgotten the name of it." Then she told him it was a story of childhood sweethearts who were married. They moved into an apartment above a bookstore. With passion she said, It was a story of a young, ambitious wife who left to seek a career, who enjoyed great success but could never relinquish the key her husband gave her when they parted." She told him the story she thought would bring him to himself.
But his face showed no recognition, as he shook his head as if he did not grasp what she was saying.
Gradually she realized that he had lost the love for her that he once had. He had forgotten what he was waiting for. He no longer knew the purpose of his waiting and grieving, that now all he remembered was the waiting and grieving itself.
Lila spoke up one more time, "You remember it; you must remember it she cried, It was the story of Lila and Jacob?"
After a long, bewildered pause, he said, "There is something familiar about the story, I think I have read it somewhere. It comes to me that it is something by Tolstoi." Dropping the key, she held in her hand, she fled the shop. And Brodzky returned to his desk, to his reading, unaware that the love he waited for had come and gone.
Jesus knocked at the heart door of the Church of Laodicea and sadly, they could not hear his knock.
He sent His spirit to convict their hearts and awaken them, but their hearts were far too hard.

Pass me not, O gentle Savior, Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by.
Refrain: Savior, Savior, Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Let me at Thy throne of mercy Find a sweet relief,
Kneeling there in deep contrition; Help my unbelief. Refrain
Trusting only in Thy merit, Would I seek Thy face;
Heal my wounded, broken spirit, Save me by Thy grace.
Refrain
Thou the Spring of all my comfort, More than life to me,
Whom have I on earth beside Thee? Whom in Heav’n but Thee?
Refrain