And from Jeremiah, chapter 2, verses 4-13, hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, all you clans of the house of Israel. This is what the Lord says. What fault did your fathers find in me that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. They did not ask, where is the Lord who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives. I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce, but you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. The priest did not ask, where is the Lord? Those who deal with the law did not know me, the leaders rebelled against me, the prophets prophesied by bail, following worthless idols. Therefore, I bring charges against you again declares the Lord, and I will bring charges against your children's children, cross over to the coasts of Kyroman look, send to Kitar and observe closely, see if there has ever been anything like this, has a nation ever changed its gods, yet they are not gods at all. But my people have exchanged their glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror declares the Lord. My people have committed two sins, they have forsaken me the spring of living water and have dug their own sisters, broken sisters that cannot hold water. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Father, we are needy people, and what we need more than anything is to hear your word. So we humbly ask that you would today open our ears, our eyes, our hearts, our minds, and speak to our souls. Let us hear the gospel in Christ's name, amen. One thing that our generation has in common with the people of Jeremiah's day is a deep-seated concern about security, and our culture we talk a lot about security these days, don't we? For example, homeland security, how do we keep ourselves safe from more attacks? National security, do we have the military and the economic strength to secure our place in the world anymore? Social security, they tell us those who know that the system is breaking down. And so many of us ask, will there be any money at all left when I'm old, when I can't work anything left to protect me from being poor? We talk about security a lot in our day, and this is not just something that we think about on a broad national scale. Security and safety are issues that touch us personally as well, don't they? Many parents here will tell you of times when they felt fear, real fear as they thought about all the dangers that are out there in this world, and they thought about the safety of their child. I was at the beach in Rockaway earlier this week with my family, and a little four-year-old boy was pulled out of the surf no longer breathing. And they stretched his little body out there on the sand, and I don't know how it happened so quickly. Maybe his mom was looking the other way for just a second, maybe the lifeguard was distracted looking somewhere else, and thank God they were able to revive him and breathe air back into his lungs. It looked like he would be okay, but I tell you, I would bet every parent on that beach has held their child a little closer when that happened. And then just thought about how in just a second, the amount of time it takes for a wave to crash into the sand, the amount of time it takes for a car to run a red light in just a second, our whole world can change. For some people, security is an issue that they deal with in the sphere of relationships. If you are in a troubled marriage, or if you are a child from a broken home, or if you deal with loneliness on an ongoing basis in your life, I tell you the world can sometimes feel like a pretty insecure place to live, can't it? Is there anyone out there that I can count on to be there for me tomorrow? Is there anyone I can trust to keep their promises to me? So in our culture and our day's security is a topic that we talk and think about all the time, and this is something we share in common with the people of Jeremiah's day. We have been studying this month, the selected passages from the prophets and Jeremiah was a prophet who lived about 600 years before the time of Christ during his lifetime, Jerusalem, the city where Jeremiah lived, Jerusalem during his whole lifetime was continually under threat of attack from the nations that surrounded it. Egypt was to the south and west of them, a Syria more or less to the north, Babylon was to the east, and so a whole generation of men and women who lived in Jeremiah's city lived their lives in constant fear that they would be attacked. And this fear that they had was, it was not an irrational fear. A hundred years before this, as Jerusalem looked on, the ten northern tribes of Israel had been invaded by the armies of Assyria, the whole populace of the land from the northern region had been either enslaved or put to the sword. The pregnant women were ripped open, little children were dashed to the ground in entire families, the mom, the dad, all the brothers and sisters, entire families were dragged off to a life of servitude. And see, these were the kinds of things that really happened in Jeremiah's world and the people of his day they knew, especially as they watched Babylon rising in the east, they knew that these same atrocities could very easily happen to them. So security was a hot topic in their day just as it is in ours. How do we keep ourselves safe? What can we do to be protected? How do we make our lives secure? Now the passage from Jeremiah that we're looking at this morning, I think that it talks among other things, it talks about this subject. And in doing so, it basically tells us two things. It tells us first that there is such a thing as false security. There is such a thing as false security. And secondly, it tells us that there is such a thing as security. That is absolutely true. There's false security. There's true security. First, the false security. Whenever you or I or anyone else, whenever we look to anything other than God, to be that which will keep us safe, we are trusting in something that is not true. We've placed our hope in a false form of security. Now in Jeremiah's time, this was a problem that was widespread in the land rather than trusting God, just trusting God to be their defender. The people of his day had begun to worship idols. You know what idols are, right? Pagan deities that are represented by statues made of stone or wood or metal or things like that. The end of verse 11, God says, my people have exchanged their glory. In other words, the glory of the one true God. My people have exchanged their glory for worthless idols. Now it's kind of hard to put ourself back into what was going on that long ago, but apparently the way they were thinking as they looked out at this dangerous world that surrounded them. The way they were thinking was they were thinking, now if I, if I bow down to this idol, if I just pay homage to this, this foreign God, then I'll be safe. I won't have to worry. Then I will be protected from harm that we read later in this chapter. It wasn't printed for you, but verse 2427 says, they say to wood, you are my father and to stone, you gave me birth. In other words, they turn from Yahweh, they turn from the one true God and they incline their hearts, trusting for safety and statues made out of stone. Now, all right, let's be honest. That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Come on, we look back on that and I can imagine what you're thinking. How in the world could anyone be so dumb? How could anyone be so dumb? Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone worship a false God? It sounds ridiculous, but the truth of the matter is, it still happens. It still happens all the time. You're thinking, wait, I don't see people bowing down the statues anymore. I don't either. That doesn't really go on, but you know what? People still do have false gods and they trust them to keep them safe. For example, you see this, you've seen this. Some people make an idol out of their career. They think that their career, if they can just get it in the right place, it will keep them safe. You know, if I just could get the right training, if I just had the right credentials, if I could just land the right job, you know, establish myself in a secure position, then I won't have to worry about the future anymore. Then I'll be safe. If you hear someone talking that way, you almost want to chuckle. I mean, you just don't listen. There are no secure jobs anymore. What are you getting? And even if you could find one, you want to ask them. Don't you suppose there are dangers in life that a paycheck can't protect you from? But other people, you know, will make an idol out of romantic love. They think if I just had someone to hold or someone to hold me at night, then I wouldn't have to be afraid of being alone anymore. The other day, I watched this old movie from the early 50s. You might have seen it. A street car named Desire. And in the movie, there's a scene where a man named Mitch, he's played by Carl Maldon. He looks into the eyes of Blanche, who's played by Vivian Lee. And Mitch says to Blanche, he says, I'm a man who can't live alone. I need to have someone with me. And you're a woman who needs someone to maybe we can find happiness together. And if you've seen the movie, you know what's going on in these people's lives, and you feel like shouting at the screen, don't do it, Mitch, don't do it. That Blanche is bad news. You're ruined your life, right? You see that in the movies and you feel like stopping it, but you know what? That scene, you know it. That scene is repeated in New York City every day of the week. A person with deep needs and deep brokenness looks to another person with deep needs and deep brokenness. And thinks to themselves, if I were just with him, or if I were just with her, I'd never be lonely again. I'd be kept safe from all that. Now, don't misunderstand me. There's nothing wrong with falling in love, okay? But if you think that another fallen fragile human being will ever be able to satisfy the deep needs of your soul, I'll tell you what you're doing. You're lying to yourself. You're being unfair to them and worse than anything. The Bible would say you are worshiping a false God. You're trusting something other than the one true God to keep your life safe and secure. That's that's false security. Now, in Jeremiah's time, the most popular false God apparently, you know, the flavor of the month, if you were looking for a statue to bow down to, the most popular false God back then was a certain pagan deity called Bale. You saw his name at the end of verse 8, the prophets prophesied by Bale. Bale was the most popular false God in Jeremiah's time. Now, you could disagree with me, maybe I'm wrong, but I think that the most popular false God of our day is named money, money. Now, here in the United States, right on our $1 bill, it is printed in God we trust. That's a lie. For most of us, if it's accurate, it ought to say in money we trust. We trust our money to keep us safe. We trust our income to insulate us and protect us from people who might encroach on our comfort zone. We trust our savings account or our retirement to protect us from ever being in need. That's a false security. You know, one of the reasons I would think that many people, many of us struggle to give away our money, to give at the level of giving that was commanded of people in Bible times, is because a lot of us have made money our false God. We're looking to keep us safe. I don't know if you've ever studied this in the Bible, but in the Old Testament in Bible times the people were commanded by God to give away at least 10% of their income to the Lord's work and to the poor. And if you listen, for the most part, we are far wealthier people than they ever were. Far wealthier. But many of us struggle to give anywhere near that amount. Why? Why is it so hard to give? Could it be that rather than trusting the God of heaven to be the one who will provide for our needs, we've begun to place our trust in our money to keep us safe? We can't give it away. We're counting on that to protect us. Well anyway, this kind of searching for security in false places. This was going on in Jeremiah's day. They were surrounded by danger and they knew it. They longed for security. They all wanted that. But rather than trusting God to keep them safe, rather than just very simply walking in his paths, following his word, they turned to God's that were false. Verse 5 at the end says, they followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. Jeremiah repeats a couple of times. They didn't say where is the Lord. They weren't crying out to him. Instead they were bowing down to statues of wood, statues of stone, expecting those things to keep them safe. And God looks down and God sees what they're doing. He says that what they're doing is so ridiculous. It's so shocking. It's so repulsive. He says that even the inanimate forces of nature will convulse in disgust. When they see what the people are doing, verse 11 and 12, God says, be appalled at this. Oh heavens and shutter with great horror declares the Lord. My people have committed two sins. They forsaken me the spring of living water and they have dug their own systems, broken systems that can't hold water. You see guys, whenever we look to anything else, other than God to be that ultimate source of our safety, our security, we're trusting something false. So that's the false security. What about the true security that Jeremiah mentions here? There's true security, you know, in life. We do not have to go through our days, ringing our fingers and biting our nails and tossing and turning at night and wondering if we will be safe. We do not have to live that way. There is a source of security that is absolutely true. God says in verse 13, he says, I am the spring of living water. I'm the spring of living water. Now in an arid environment where it doesn't rain much where the land is dry in an arid environment, such as you find in the Middle East, when they, when they spoke about water, they weren't just talking about a cool form of refreshment. In an arid place like the Middle East, when they spoke about water, they were talking about survival. They were talking about life to have water was to live, not to have water was to die. And so when the Lord uses this image to describe who he is to them, he's saying to them, listen, whenever you turn from me and you trust in other things to keep your life safe, he says, you're like people who get their shovels and dig systems, dig holes in the ground and then just sit back and wait. Hopefully the rain will fill them up and then watch in despair as the water they've collected seeps through the cracks into the ground. He said, that's what it's like when you look for safety anywhere else, but in me, but he said, whoever just trusts me. Follows my commands, honors my word, whoever just does that will find me to be a spring of living water that never fails. In other words, God is saying, I know this is simple stuff, but our hearts will turn from it as quickly as you can imagine. God is saying, if you trust and honor me, I will keep you safe. I'll be the spring of water in your life. Now, I know some of you like to go out hiking in the mountains or in the forest. I don't know if you've ever hiked along and you've come to a place where there's a natural spring gushing out out of the ground. I did this once years ago, hiking with some friends in the Dominican Republic. They said, we got to take you to see this place way up in the mountains and we got way up there. And it was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen this spring of water just gushing out, forming this natural pool of crystal clear water. So pure, you could just plunge your head into it and drink so cold it would refresh you on the hottest day, just gushing out, never stopping. That's what a spring is like. It doesn't matter how hot it is. It flows. It doesn't matter how dry it is. It flows. It doesn't matter whether or not there's a cloud in the sky. The spring flows. It just flows and flows and flows. And that's what God is saying. I will be to anyone, anyone who just trust me. Now, you might be thinking, wait, this is God saying that we'll never have bad things happen to us. We'll never go through hard times. That's not what you say. When there's a spring, there's still hot weather, right? When there's a spring, there's still dry times. You and I will still go through some very hard things, but if we make God our God, no matter what we go through, he'll be there. He'll protect and preserve. You know, our brother Darce, he's going through something painful right now. Matt Kaiser, also you know him lost his father last week. When God is our God, we'll go through hard times, but the spring of water will never cease to flow. The hard things will never touch us deep down inside. They'll never destroy who we are. Even when we die, God will deliver us from that, raise us out of the grave someday. He will be that spring for those who trust in Him. The soul that trust, the soul that on Jesus relies, He'll never, no, never deceive. He freely and faithfully gives more blessings than we can conceive. Even down to old age, He will keep nor will He forsake us at last. He knows and is known by His sheep, their hives, and He will hold them fast. You trust God, rely on Him, follow Him, honor His Word, let Him be your safety, and you have found a security that is true. Now, that sounds nice, doesn't it? Some of you are probably thinking out of that, that sounds nice. Nice and phony. How do we know this is true? It's great when a preacher gets up there and gets on a roll and starts talking about this. It's great when Jeremiah told it to his day, but how come on now? How do we know this is all true? How could we possibly know that God actually is the spring of water that will supply the needs of His people for years to come and never fail? How can we know that He'll really keep safe whoever comes to Him? Well, here's what Jeremiah told the people of his day as the Lord directed him to bring this word to them. Just in case they were asking that question as well. He said, the way to know that God will indeed keep His people safe in the future is to look to what He did in the past. This is what it says starting at the end of verse 5. They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. Why did they do this? Verse 6 says, because they didn't ask, where's the Lord who brought us up out of Egypt and let us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives. God says, I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. You're saying, what's all that about? Well, here's what Jeremiah was saying. Listen, guys, we live in a dangerous world. There's all kinds of perils that surround us on every side. I know that you have this need for security. Trust God to keep you safe. Jeremiah, how do we know He will? Jeremiah was saying, don't you remember? Have you forgotten so soon? Don't you remember what He did for us in the past? We were slaves in Egypt. We were absolutely powerless and helpless. There was no way we could ever escape that bondage. God came and delivered us. We had to cross this big wilderness. There was no water there, but we never went thirsty. There was no food there, but every day we ate. He delivered us. He rescued us. He's our redeemer. He saved us. He did that for us in the past. How can you doubt? He'll keep you safe for years to come. You know, guys, the people of God today are called to do the very same thing. When you attempt to start trusting in other things than God, making them your security. You know, Jeremiah, we're here today. He'd say, oh, man, I don't even want to talk about Egypt. There's so much better. You guys can talk about. There's an even greater deliverance. You can look back on. We were slaves in our sin. We were absolutely helpless. We were in bondage and there was no way we could escape. And yet God came in the person of his son and he delivered us. He delivered us at the cost of his own life. They nail him to the cross and through him and the grave and even broke out of that. He delivered us and rescued us. We have nothing to fear. If he would love us so much in our sin that he would do that for us, how can we ever doubt that he will rescue us and protect us and preserve us? Today. So if you're struggling with this question of security and you are feeling the strong pull of temptation to turn from God and seek your safety somewhere else, let me remind you of what God did in Christ. Any God who could save us from the depth of our sin, any God who has that power, any God who would love us when we were sinners, any God who has that love, he will be for those who trust and follow him a spring of living water that never fails. Would you pray with me? Father, we confess that we have the very same kind of hearts that the people had in Jeremiah's day. Our hearts will deceive us. Lie to us and pull us into turning from the only one who can ever keep us safe. But we ask for better things. We ask for mercy even right now. I would pray that if there's anyone here who's trusting in a career or a relationship or their own scheming or strategizing or anything other than you to preserve themselves and keep them safe, God in mercy open their eyes. Let us see that those things are false. Let us turn to you. If there are any of us here who've never taken that first step of turning to you, I pray that they would hear that Jesus is a savior who came for people lost in brokenness and sin, and that he will receive anyone who will just turn to him and ask for salvation. And that God maybe today you'd work in their heart in such a way that they would ask for that very thing in Christ's name. These are our prayers. Amen. On the night before Jesus died, he took bread, he gave thanks, then he broke it, and he gave it to his disciples. He said, this is my body given for you. Amen.