Word of Salvation – Vol. 19 No. 01 – October 1972
The Sin Of Forgetfulness
Sermon by the Rev. C. W. Oppelaar, Th.Grad. on Jeremiah 2:32
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 2:29-37
Psalter Hymnal: 262:1,3; 94:1,2,3 (after law); 448:1,3 (Creed);
231:1 (after declaration of grace);
384:1,2,3; 431:1,6,7,10; 310:1,2
Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
The Lord uses many methods to bring His children, who have gone astray, back to Him.
One of these methods is that He beats us, or chastises us. Verse 30 of this Chapter talks about that. Here the Lord says that He has smitten His children.
What kinds of judgement are meant here is not said in so many words, but possibly it is meant that Judah has lost its national freedom.
Of course it was not easy for the Lord to so chastise His children – which father takes pleasure in doing so?
But it was doubly sad that the Heavenly Father had to experience that this beating had practically no result, and that His child, Israel, quietly continued in its sinful way.
That is why the Lord says: “In vain I have smitten your children, they took no correction!”
On the contrary, instead of returning to the Lord, the prophets, those awkward messengers of God, had to be shut up, and the most radical way of shutting them up was to murder them. “Your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion.”
A second method which in God’s Hand can lead to conversion is God’s goodness.
The Apostle Paul once asked the Jews whether they did not know that the goodness and mercy of God leads men to repentance. In the same light you must also see God’s words in verse 31: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness?”
Were things so bad for God’s people, did He treat them so badly that they were having a life as if in a terrible desert? And was it so dark around God for them, that they were all doomed to hopelessly lose the way?
Of course: to ask these questions is to answer them!!
It had been just the other way around. The history of Israel was proof of God’s continual goodness. In the desert the Lord had been for Israel like a wall around them, like a protecting cloud by day, and like a pillar of fire by night. He had given bread from heaven, and water from the rocks.
And the Rock which was to follow was Jesus Christ – in Him the Lord was and is like green pastures, and abundance and beaming light for His people. And if God asks us that question: “Have I been so bad for you?”, then something gets stuck in our throats and we should like to exclaim: “No, Lord, never hast Thou been for us as a desert or darkness, but always as joy and light!” If it were otherwise in our life, it was our own fault!!
Oh yes, there was sorrow and suffering in our life, but He turned it to our good, and He granted us power to carry our cross. Actually exactly in that darkness we experienced our best hours!! The Lord, however, does not give us His goodness and mercy, just for us to admit that He gives us His goodness and mercy but He gives it to lead us to repentance!!
If we do not become different people under God’s goodness and mercy, then our admitting His goodness has very little value.
For then we have not yet seen God’s actual goal with His love.
Just like Israel did not see it.
His chastising them did not make them change!
His love and goodness did not make them change!
And so the Lord has to complain: “Why then do My people say: “We are free, we will come no more to Thee?””
To serve God was like a heavy burden for His people. And so away with that burden, we want to be free!! Yes, despite everything Israel remained unchanged and unconverted!! And this unconverted condition now shows up in the sin of forgetfulness. This is what we read about in the words of our text, verse 32. A sin which in its unnaturalness and understandableness is shown up by Jeremiah in this moving picture of the Bride and her ornaments: “Can a maiden forget her ornaments, or a Bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.”
What strikes us most in this complaint is the disappointment of God. We taste in it the sadness of the Lord. And if we really study this picture, then we feel a deep shame!
BECAUSE THAT BRIDE . . . . THAT IS US, TOO . . . !
The prophet wants to point out something completely unthinkable. And therefore we must not just think of just any young woman, who forgets her jewels.
In some cases that seems unthinkable that a girl would forget her make-up. There are girls who would sooner forget their right hand than their nice clothes. But there are others who care little for make-up. A truly beautiful woman does not need all the make-up, anyway, just as little as roses or lilies or camellias have to be painted up.
The young woman or maiden and bride of our text are one and the same person. And the ornaments mentioned, were very special ornaments, part of her bridal gown, and given to her by her bridegroom. A kind of embroidered belt, to be worn on her wedding day. This probably is what Jeremiah is referring to.
Just imagine that the bride would forget to wear this. That would be unthinkable. She just would not be dressed without that belt. She would not be able to appear as bride. It would be impossible to come before her bridegroom that way. And the bride who would forget to wear that part of her bridal attire, especially given to her by her bridegroom, would almost show to have forgotten the person of the bridegroom himself. No, it would be unthinkable that such a thing would happen.
The opposite probably would be true!
That ornament given her by her bridegroom in her eyes is the most beautiful and most valuable part of the whole bridal gown. How could she possibly forget that!! Especially painful in the light of this comparison now becomes the complaint of the Lord: “Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.”
We just heard, that forgetting the present of the bridegroom almost equals forgetting the bridegroom himself. That is why the Lord can say: “You have forgotten Me.” And when we remember that the relation between God and His people is continually and especially painted by Jeremiah as a relationship between Bridegroom and Bride, we feel that this complaint is laden with sorrowful emotion.
He had given His bride many presents. Oh well, to forget His generosity, is bad, very bad. But it is NOT THE WORST, that His PRESENTS were forgotten. But that HE HIMSELF is FORGOTTEN!!
That a woman forgets her husband, who has surrounded her with so much love. That she has forgotten what should be dearest, best and highest to her! That is so unnatural! So unthinkable! And so sorrowful!
Yes, especially sorrowful, because forgetfulness is not a matter of the mind, but of the heart. And all the worse, because they have not just forgotten Him for a little while, after which with a big shock they realized what they were doing. Oh no!! “DAYS WITHOUT NUMBER.”
So, they did not even discover that they missed Him and SO PROVED THAT THEY COULD VERY WELL DO WITHOUT HIM.
Well, congregation, because Israel forgot the Bridegroom, therefore it did not go so well with the ornaments either! And therefore so few could see that Israel were the people of the Lord, the bride of the Saviour; because they did not wear the Jewels of the Lord and the embroidered belt.
That ornament, that crown of God’s people is not what they say,
BUT WHAT THEY DO!
That crown can be seen in a life lived according to God’s commandments.
Love is the same as obedience, is equal to obedience.
When we forget the commandments of God and pay no attention to His will, we have lost our glory and crown! To forget the Lord does not just mean:
TO NOT THINK OF HIM,
OR TO JUST THINK OF HIM A LITTLE,
no, to forget the Lord means:
TO IGNORE HIS COMMANDMENTS.
And not to forget the Lord means:
TO PRACTISE HIS COMMANDMENTS.
And that is what was wrong with Israel. And perhaps it is not much better with us! Oh, perhaps we only find this just a small neglect.
The people who had not fed the hungry,
who had not visited the prisoners,
who had not clothed the naked,
did not worry so much about these neglects.
They had just forgotten. That was all.
But you see, that exactly showed up their lack of love!!
THAT WHICH YOU LOVE, YOU DON’T FORGET!!
That is why I said:
FORGETFULNESS IS NOT A MATTER OF THE MIND
BUT OF THE HEART.
In the beginning of this sermon I spoke of the unnaturalness of forgetting the Lord and His commandments. On the contrary, we should be busy with Him every day, and every new day the Lord should have our first thoughts. And the prayer of every new day should be: “WHAT WILT THOU THAT I SHOULD DO?”
There are those who find this unnatural. There are too many things which ask our attention. Especially young people find such “piety” unnatural. All right, when you are a bit older, and when death comes closer….! But when you are young you should be allowed to think of different things, should you not? But we think this way because we wrongly separate the “NATURAL” life from the “SPIRITUAL” life.
And then the sphere of the “SPIRITUAL LIFE” should be as small as possible, and the sphere of the ordinary “NATURAL LIFE” should be as large as possible. Such separation is wrong. It should not exist. All of life is one! Not two spheres! But one!
It is exactly in the so-called “NATURAL LIFE” and the things of every day that we should serve the Lord.
Not just a few years, but all of our life.
Also when we are young…! That is not unnatural! It is unnatural when we go our own way!!
Sin is the most UNNATURAL business in the life of man. God has created us to be totally his. And that is how it was, originally. IN A SINLESS WORLD THAT WAS COMPLETELY NATURAL.
And the grace of Jesus Christ, which restores what was kaput, again makes the love for the Lord and His commandments very natural!!
Only the “natural man” does not understand how unnatural it is that he forgets His Maker!!
AMEN.