When Good Friday Goes Bad, Forget It

Jeremiah 2:1-13
from January 3, 2006

It was one of the most disturbing messages I have ever heard: “This is a reminder that B. Braun McGaw will be closed April 14 for the Spring holiday.”

Which holiday do you suppose this company meant? Time Change Sunday has already passed. Arbor Day isn’t until the 28th. Do you think they meant Good Friday, the front door to Easter weekend? Is that so hard to say? Try it. Say it with me:

"Good."

"Friday."

See? Ain’t so hard.

That is, it’s not hard if you haven’t fallen victim to the Doublemint Twins of Evil: Forsaken and Forgotten. That is what had happened to the Jews. Despite the many blessings of God throughout their history, despite the deliverance of God out of captivity, through the wilderness and into the land of promise, the people, and even their priests, turned aside from God. In verse 13, God says, “They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters…”

Venturing outside of our passage, see verses 31 and 32 where God pleads, “O generation, see the Word of the Lord! Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of darkness…Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.”

Those verses couldn’t be clearer. Forsaking and Forgetting God come pretty naturally for a nation or an individual that no longer “sees” the Word of God--doesn’t read it, doesn’t study it, doesn’t meditate on it, doesn’t teach it, doesn’t hear it preached, doesn’t revere it, doesn't believe it.

Without the Word of God, i.e., the Bible, one has no input jack for truth. Without truth, one falls into the flow of the social current and is taken wherever the stream of political correctness leads. Sin is relabeled, tolerated, and accepted. Over time, maybe even adopted. It might not be something heinous such as racism, homosexuality, or abuse of some description. It may simply be Forsaking. And Forgetting.

The truth is, as financial icon Dave Ramsey regularly and correctly notes, “God is better to me than I deserve.” When is that more on display than during the Resurrection Day season, and when better for each of us to determine to Return and Remember?