A. If you have your Bible, please turn to Jeremiah 2. For several weeks now, I’ve had this very strong sense that there are a number of things about which God wants to speak to us from this book.
1. It really is an amazing book. Now while there isn’t really any chronological or thematic order to the overall book, there is something very significant that happens in chapters 2-4 which lays a very important foundation to everything else God wants to speak to us about.
2. The issue in chapters 2-4 is sin. God speaks very passionately and directly about our sin. Now a few weeks ago, I was planning on looking at these chapters from that broad perspective--what does God say about sin in general.
B. But as I was praying about this, I felt that the Lord was wanting us to look more specifically at a particular sin that the people of Judah were wrestling with. It’s not the only sin mentioned in this passage but it is the predominate one.
1. What is it? Sexual sin. Throughout these chapters, it is very clear that God’s people are struggling with sexual immorality.
C. The people in Jeremiah’s time were living in a very sexually promiscuous and sexually obsessed culture.
1. Everywhere you looked there were these ’temples’ where a person could act out their sexual fantasies and desires with a temple prostitute any time they wanted.
2. These temples were a part of the accepted practices of the culture in which they lived and the people of God began to indulge in this stuff. And didn’t think it was that big of a deal.
3. Now the similarities between their culture and ours are striking. We too live in a culture that has become increasingly obsessed with sex and has made sexual sin incredibly accessible--through the internet or pay per view tv, a person can indulge in most any sexual fantasy imaginable.
4. The stats on porn usage are staggering. 12% of all web sites are pornographic in nature. 42% of all internet users view porn. Every month, there are 72 million visitors to porn sites. 1 out of 3 of those visitors are women. The revenue from the porn industry exceeds the combined revenue of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, ebay, Yahoo, apple, and Netflix combined.
3. And that’s just porn. That’s not including all the other avenues for sexual immorality in our culture.
D. And here’s what’s really scary: Statistics reveal that the sexual practices of Christians and non-Christians are virtually identical in terms of porn usage, premarital sex, adultery, you name it.
1. A survey a few years ago of Christian men who attended Promise Keepers revealed that 53% had viewed porn in the previous week.
2. While God’s people have never stood for or encouraged this in our culture, what is happening is that we are increasingly allowing this into our lives.
3. Now I know that, especially for women, there is often a difficulty in seeing the relevance of this. But I want to encourage you to listen with an open heart because this is relevant to you.
4. It’s a struggle to probably 95% of the men you know. The other 5% are probably lying. It is relevant in the huge self esteem issues that women often struggle with--feeling like they have to look and dress a particular way in order to feel valued. It is relevant if you have experienced the trauma of being touched inappropriately or gawked at.
5. That’s where this stuff leads. This issue is incredibly relevant to all of us and to those we love, which is why God talks so frankly about it.
F. Last week, we looked at the first part of chapter 2 and discovered what sexual sin looks like from God’s perspective--and what we saw was a bit unnerving.
1. God’s word to us, His people, is not the ranting of a school principal over some broken rules, but rather is the words of a lover whose heart is broken over the unfaithfulness of His spouse.
2. Well today we are going to look at the next part of chapter 2 in which we see what I think is one of the most profound descriptions of sin contained in the entire Bible.
3. It is an incredibly powerful picture of what the experience of sin entails. Why is this important? It’s important because sin’s MO is this idea that somehow our life will be better if we indulge.
4. But is that the case? Let’s look together beginning in vs 13 of Jeremiah chapter 2.
G. My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Is Israel a servant, a slave by birth? Why then has he become plunder? Lions have roared; they have growled at him. They have laid waste his land; his towns are burned and deserted. Also the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head. Have you not brought this on yourselves by forsaking the Lord your God when He led you in the way? Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Shihor? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the River? This is God’s Word.
1. There is a very powerful image God uses here to describe the nature of sin. It is the image of water. Notice how God describes Himself: vs 13 They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water.
2. This is what God offers us in Himself--a constant flow of life. A spring is not a swamp. In a swamp, the water stagnates and gets all yucky and corroded.
3. But not in a spring. In a spring, the water is moving. My son is in boy scouts and one of the things they teach the scouts is that when you are out in the wild and are looking for water to drink, drink from the part of the stream where there is the most movement.
4. Because that will be where the water is the purest. God describes Himself as the spring of living water. This constant source of life-giving, pure water that feeds our souls.
H. The people to whom God was speaking were landowners who worked the fields. They would have loved to have a living spring flowing on their land.
1. A constant source of life-giving water, to nourish their crops and their live stock. The imagery would not be lost on them--God is describing Himself as just such a spring of life.
2. To live in God is to drink deeply of His life-giving presence. To let His pure water flow into our souls, satisfying our every thirst. This is who God is.
3. He is not some far removed deity who distances Himself from any connection with or interaction with us. No. He is life in abundance. He is what we are ultimately thirsty for.
I. So if God is this spring of living water, what then is sin? Look again at vs 13 "They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns."
1. What does that mean? In that day, what people would do to water their crops was this: they would dig these cisterns, these water storage areas into the limestone hills. They would line these wells with plaster to hold water.
2. And then they would direct any rainwater so that it would land in these cisterns. It was a very crude and difficult way to try and collect water. But it was all they had--unless there happened to a spring on their property.
3. Then there would be no need for a cistern. No need to carve out this crude water storage tank, because the water would be flowing freely.
J. Given a choice, a landowner would choose a spring over a cistern any time. Which is what makes this image so powerful to the people listening.
1. God is saying, My people are rejecting me, the spring of living water for their souls, and instead they are digging their own cisterns.
2. They are choosing to reject the water that brings life and instead are trying to create their own source of life. They are trying to find life in something other than God.
K. That is exactly what sin is. It is our attempts to find life and acceptance and significance in anything other than God.
1. It is our attempt to satisfy our soul craving, our soul thirst with anything other than God--which raises a very important question.
2. What is our soul thirsty for? I think every human being is longing for acceptance and significance. We want to be accepted, to be loved for who we are. And we want to feel significant. We want our lives to matter.
L. These are legitimate God given cravings that are ultimately found in Jesus--acceptance and significance--are found in a r’ship with God through Christ.
1. But the tendency of our flesh is to not turn to God for those things. To not find them in Him. We want to find them other places. We want to dig our own cisterns.
2. And this is especially true in the area of sexual sin. Sex is this wonderful, God given experience that can fuel the fire of love within the covenant of marriage.
3. Where two people have committed themselves to each other for life. Within that context, sex thrives and grows because it is rooted in love. It is a soul to soul connection. Which we talked about last week.
4. You can’t rip sex from that soul to soul connection without causing incredible damage and a cheapening of it.
M. But here’s what often happens. The experience of sexual pleasure is so real and so accessible that we subconsciously begin to look to it to meet a soul craving within us, to meet a thirst within us.
1. Let me give some examples of this. For instance a teenager may give up her virginity to some guy she barely knows--risking pregnancy, STD’s, heart ache. Why? Why would she do that?
2. It’s because below the surface of the all the logical reasons why not, there is a soul craving. She desperately wants to feel loved and accepted.
3. And for a few minutes at least, this boy gives her that. He says he loves her and wants her. The sex may feel good, but the acceptance and love feel a whole lot better.
N. This is what drives a lot women in terms of the way they dress. They dress in such a way so that the opposite sex will notice their cleavage or their underwear or whatever.
1. Our society urges women to dress in such a way to look ’hot’. But what is that rooted in? Why is it so important to some women to look sexy to men? And for some men to look sexy to women?
2. Isn’t it because we want to be noticed? We need to be affirmed? I don’t think it’s about sex at all. It’s about a soul craving.
O. Another example. A man who a few times a week or more surfs the internet for some visual images that sexually excite--maybe the images are pornographic or maybe they’re more ’acceptable’--swimsuits or lingerie.
1. But the reason this guy is looking for images is for sexual arousal. Now At one level, we could say that he is looking at this stuff because it feels good. It is sexually exciting--and there is certainly some truth in that.
3. But when you look at the sheer numbers that I mentioned earlier--the millions of porn web sites, the millions of people regularly and increasingly going there, it is not hard to deduce that this is not simply a physical desire. I mean, there aren’t millions of internet sites giving people an opportunity to stare at food.
4. There is something else going on, beyond a physical hunger for sex. This is also a soul craving.
5. For some, the use of porn is rooted in a craving for acceptance--this beautiful person looks so inviting and welcoming. She doesn’t seem to care that I’m overweight and losing my hair. She likes me. She wants me. I feel attractive. For a few moments I feel accepted and loved.
6. For others, the craving is for significance. Boy it feels good to have someone this beautiful at my beck and call. I can stare all I want and it looks like she wants me. For a few moments, I feel alive. I feel significant and powerful and in control.
7. My life is out of control at work or in my family, but here--in this secret place--I feel in control again.
P. Again, I don’t think most of us are even aware of this when we are engaged in sexual lust. "I’m not feeling accepted so I’m going look at Pamela Anderson in a swimsuit."
1. This is not a conscious thing, but under the surface, there is a very real soul craving that is feeding that desire, that is fueling that sin--which is why so many people are hooked. It’s feeding something much deeper than physical pleasure.
2. Another example. I remember visiting with a Christian man who had committed adultery and was leaving his wife. And I was talking with him, trying to convince him to repent and to stay in his marriage and work through it.
3. I’ll never forget what he said to me. He said, "You know, I was on a business trip with this woman colleague, and I had just given a presentation. Afterwards, she came up to me and told me what a good job I had done."
Q. And he said to me, "It felt so good. I hadn’t heard affirmation in such a long time." His soul was craving affirmation, so desperately that he was willing to break covenant with his wife and put his kids through the hell of divorce all because of this longing for affirmation.
1. You see, when we give into sexual sin--in the way we dress, the things we look at, the actions we take--what we are doing is building our own cistern. We are saying ’no’ to the spring of life, to the only One who can meet those deep cravings in our soul.
2. And we’re saying yes to sexual pleasure or sexual attractiveness. We’re saying, I want a few moments of sexual pleasure to give me the acceptance, or the significance I long for.
3. Again, this is what sin is at its root. Digging our own cisterns, looking for our soul cravings to be met apart from God.
4. There is nothing wrong with our soul cravings for affirmation and significance. They are a fundamental part of our humanity. God placed those cravings there.
5. But ever since Adam and Eve, we as humans instinctively turn away from the One who can meet those cravings, and instead we try to satiate our soul thirst somewhere else.
R. Now someone may argue, so what? So what if I want to satisfy these soul cravings with sexual involvement? So what if I consider porn a legitimate way to satisfy my urges?
1. Doug Roberts, a contributor to Glamour magazine, once wrote: One of the things I love about [porn] is that it’s sex with anybody I want: Halle Berry, the weather woman, the blond who brushed against me on the subway...I can summon any one or two of these ladies for a romp under the covers, or on the kitchen table...why not be adventurous? It’s not as if she’ll balk at the idea...Ah the freedom of solo sex. When you don’t have somebody else’s wants and needs to consider, you can have whatever experience you’d like."
2. It sounds like a logical argument, right? Why not consider porn a legitimate way to satisfy your sexual urges?
3. But there is a huge gap in Robert’s argument. Let me read that last sentence again: He writes, "When you don’t have somebody else’s wants and needs to consider, you can have whatever experience you’d like."
4. No you can’t have whatever experience you’d like--if the experience you’d like to have is love? Or acceptance? Halle Berry doesn’t even know you. She couldn’t care less about you. Do we really think lusting after her image on a computer screen will meet that soul craving for genuine love?
S. It’s obvious that Roberts doesn’t really care about love--at least that’s what he wants us to think. But one wonders where, in a few years or decades, his own personal philosophy will lead?
1. And what about a woman whose self esteem is built on the shape of her body. What happens when her body no longer turns heads--when plastic surgery has done all it can. What then?
2. Which is the very thing God addresses at the end of vs 13. "They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns (Now look at what He says next) broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
T. We can choose to dig our own cisterns, to look for affirmation and significance in sexual pleasure, but the truth is, these cisterns we dig cannot hold water.
1. They cannot do what we are looking to them to do. In Jeremiah’s day, these cisterns would be dug into limestone hills and would then be lined with plaster--which had a tendency to crack and water would then leak out, leaving a farmer without this precious, life-giving substance.
2. That’s exactly how sexual sin works. We easily start to think that this sexual involvement will bring some life into our lives, some pleasure, some filling of our emptiness, some relieving of our stress.
3. So we give in--what happens then? Do we stop? Not usually. We usually give in again and again.
4. Now with the help of certain friends or the entertainment industry or enough brainwashing from television, we don’t have to think much deeper than the physical pleasure we experience.
U. But in our quiet moments, in our times in worship or in prayer, something deep within us realizes, this doesn’t satisfy. I’m still looking for affirmation or for significance.
1. Notice vs 18 "Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Shihor? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the River?" In other words, why are you looking at other water sources to try and bring you life?
2. Here’s the truth about those other water sources. God says in vs 36 "Why do you go about so much, changing your ways? You will be disappointed by Egypt as you were by Assyria?
3. Look at those 4 words again because they are so important: You will be disappointed.
4. You can look for life in sexual experimentation, or in dressing in a way that makes the opposite sex notice your body, or in pornography, in adulterous flirting--you can look for life in these places.
5. But you’re going to be disappointed because this activity or this person is still not going to be able to satisfy your deepest soul craving.
V. Going back to the examples I mentioned earlier--the girl who gave herself sexually to her new boyfriend as a way of feeling love and acceptance.
1. What happens the next week when he finds someone more attractive, more to his liking and breaks up? What happens to this girl’s soul? She gave the most precious part of herself away, and now this guy just trampled on it and threw it away.
2. Perhaps she now tries to find someone else who will love her the way her soul longs to be loved--but the reality is, no human being can love her perfectly. Even if she meets Mr. Right, a few years of marriage will open her eyes to see that even he will disappoint her.
3. This broken cistern cannot hold water, even though we desperately want it to. And what about the person who is obsessed with looking and dressing sexy so the opposite gender notices?
4. How does it feel when deep in your soul you know that the only reason people show attention to you is because they want something from you?
5. And what happens when someone sexier than you than shows up at work or school and now everyone pays attention to them? What happens when age catches up to you and you’re not as attractive as you once were? This is a broken cistern that won’t hold water.
W. Pornography is the same way. I already talked about the emptiness that results from porn usage because it can’t satisfy what our soul is looking for--to be loved and accepted, to feel good about ourselves.
1. As I mentioned last week, it brings a deadness to our soul. It’s much easier than real love but it also makes real love impossible. The image on the screen doesn’t love you and he or she wouldn’t if they knew you. That’s the little lie about pornography that no one wants to think about.
2. It’s not real. It’s a broken cistern that cannot hold water. It will disappoint you eventually. It will bring a deadness to your capacity to love your spouse, to love anyone for that matter.
3. Every woman you see is now an object to use for your sexual pleasure. The longing in your heart for love will never be satiated with lust.
X. And what about the adultery situation I mentioned--the guy who was so hungry for affirmation that he divorced his wife and ran off with another woman.
1. I haven’t seen in him years but I wonder how affirming his new wife is now. I wonder if his soul soars with her constant affirmation. I wonder if the distance he now feels from his kids was worth it.
2. No human being can meet our ultimate longing for affirmation. We all need to hear this. Singles, no Mr or Miss Right is going to ultimately satisfy your soul.
3. And married folks, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. It is so easy to start comparing our spouse with the co-worker who is always so sensitive and always looks so good.
4. But beware. As I heard someone once say, the grass on the other side has to be mowed and watered just like your side.
Y. God desperately wants us to understand that when we try to meet our soul yearnings with sexual sin, it will leave us empty and disappointed. Perhaps not right away but eventually it will take its toll and become obvious that it doesn’t hold the water of life.
1. So how can we experience this spring of living water? As we increasingly realize the cisterns we have dug are broken and unable to hold the water of life, how do we taste of this water of life?
2. How do we open our hearts afresh to its life-giving stream? Jesus tells us the answer in one of my favorite passages of Scripture:
3. Listen to these words in John 7. "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scriptures has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
4. Notice the prerequisite for drinking deeply of the water of life. It’s not, ’get your act together.’ ’Clean up your life.’ ’Try really hard to be a pure person.’
5. No. That’s not the invitation even though that is the invitation we often believe God asks of us--Clean up your life. Then I’ll accept you.
Z. But that’s not what Jesus says. Look again. What is the prerequisite to experiencing the spring of living water flowing through us?
1. If anyone is thirsty. If anyone is thirsty. That’s it. Admit you are broken. Admit that the cisterns in which you are trying to find life don’t give life.
2. And come to Jesus instead. If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.
3. Are you thirsty for acceptance, for a love that is not dependent upon your body or your willingness to give yourself away? Are you thirsty for a love that is real, not a fantasy you are cultivating in your mind with someone you don’t know?
4. A love that knows you, even the sinful secrets you carry, and loves you right there in that place. That’s a love your soul craves and it’s a love that can be found in Jesus.
AA. How is this found in Christ? Jesus gave His life for you on the cross. Jesus paid for all the broken cisterns, all the disappointments, all the sinful choices. He paid for all of that so that we could enter into a r’ship with God.
1. So that we, at any moment in time, could drink deeply of Him. This living water is available to any and to all--no matter how deep into sexual sin you are, no matter how ashamed and guilty you feel.
2. If you are thirsty, come to Him. Open your heart to Him. Admit your brokenness and drink deeply from His mercy and love.
3. This is not a one-time offer. It is a standing invitation from Jesus to anyone--follower of Christ or not. Are you thirsty? Are you trying to find life in your sexual attractiveness, in porn, in sexual immorality, in adultery?
4. If so, come to Me, Jesus says. Let me fill and satisfy that longing in your soul. I accept you and love you, no matter what your body looks like. No matter what you’ve done in the past. If you are thirsty, come to Jesus.
Let’s pray.
*****
Alan Kraft is lead pastor of Christ Community Church in Greeley, CO and author of Good News for Those Trying Harder. He is a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. To find out more about Alan’s ministry to the spiritually exhausted, check out his website at www.alankraft.net. For free MP3 downloads of sermons by Alan Kraft, visit www.cccgreeley.org. For Alan’s blog, visit www.stoptryingharder.com
