“Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children’s children will I plead. For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:9-13)
The choices that people make can be mind-boggling. That Israel should forsake their God for other gods caused the Lord to call the heavens to be astounded. He pointed to it being all the more remarkable because other nations, whose gods were “no gods,” chose to stick with them, while Israel forsook the “Fountain of living waters” for broken cisterns that could hold no water.
There was no blacker day in the history of Israel’s rejection of their God than when He came into their midst and they chose the murderer Barabbas over Him. What horrible blindness causes such decisions? How are people so ignorant of their folly? When Jesus hung on the cross He asked the Father to forgive them for their rejection of Him because they failed to grasp the enormity of what they were doing.
God prophesied of a coming day of recognition in which “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.” (Zech. 12:10)
How long-suffering is our God! How patient He is towards those who despise and reject Him; even choosing vanity over Him. We, on the other hand, are impatient in our desire to be recognized and known for the worth we believe we possess. If our Master is willing to wait for vindication, even until that day when every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord, we can wait with Him. If we suffer with Him now, we will reign with Him for all eternity.