God’s people have committed two evils: They’ve turned from Him to what is worthless. Sinners have gone from the Garden of Eden to hell.

First, He protected us [vs3]. “Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who ate of it found themselves guilty; disaster came on them.”

Could He have treated us better? He made man upright, and we rebelled. Likewise, He redeemed the saints, and we walked away. He took us as His own, and then we drew back. He protected us, but we thought it was our wisdom, intelligence, and zeal. We thought that we could make it on our own, so we fell headfirst into sin.

The sinner has himself to blame, not God: It is not that He was cruel! It was not that we needed to go somewhere else to be happy. We refused the Fountain. We turned on Him.

Secondly, we turned to the Devil [vs7]. “I brought you to a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but after you entered, you defiled My land; you made My inheritance detestable.” All that He did for us was forgotten, and we thought our lovers did it! We are like Gomer - the harlot who went back to whoredom. “For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink [Hosea 2:5].’” Bless God, He will not forsake us. He has an elect who shall come back, or we’d all be destroyed like Sodom.

In our flesh dwells no good thing, even after we are saved. Everything is the power of the Spirit through the gospel - not just head knowledge but heart knowledge that only He can give. We forgot to worship Him and trusted ourselves. Therefore, we sinned. Therefore, misery struck us. It is NOT the gospel’s fault, as if the promises are not real; it is our fault alone.

Thirdly, these idols we follow are useless [vs8-11]. “The priests quit asking, ‘Where is the Lord?’ The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the rulers rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols… Has a nation ever changed its gods? (though they were no gods at all!) Yet My people have exchanged their Glory for idols that are useless.”

They are useless because they cannot save. There is no joy and peace, not satisfaction, and no atonement with God. They don’t have the power of the Spirit, so the religion is vain: It is man’s USELESS attempt to serve himself and overcome Satan, who cannot be charmed. Can we bind leviathan? Do we have power over sin? No. These things belong to God, and without Him, we are helpless. It is all fleshly religion, human works, and self-righteous pride. There is no God, no mystery, and no revelation. There is no heavenly mindedness of Christ crucified! It is a horrible thing - religion without God - but it deceives us, because we think we’re worshiping, and we’re not! Satan blinds us to the gospel’s power of the new covenant, where God does everything. “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ [2 Cor 4:6].”

Are you here now? Far off from God? Repent. Disaster is coming.

Finally, we see this double evil. “For My people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.”

They are miserable, depressed, and deluded. Rolfe Barnard said, "The reason that you put on that face you got this morning is to hide your real face. Miserable. This is a miserable generation." It's sad to see. We hide behind the mask of self-righteousness, happiness, and success! We pretend we’ve got it made. We cover our emptiness by busying ourselves on idle things, but we can’t pray for a minute and have long ago forgotten joy. It is a fairytale to us and a fantasy - that there’s joy in Christ Jesus - because we have religion without Christ, the Spirit, and without God. We’re fighting Satan on our own, and he’s having his way. Fornication, adultery, and drunkenness… sexual immorality, lust, and porn. We are addicted to distractions because we DON’T HAVE GOD, and there’s no enjoyment of His sweetness. How pitiful we are, and what a miserable condition.

Repent. Go back to Him. Turn to the Lord. Confess your sins, your brokenness, and your inability. Say, “Make me able to serve You. Give me the joy of salvation.” David said, “Restore the joy of Your salvation to me, and give me a willing spirit [Ps 51:12].” This is what we need: JOY! We need to rejoice in forgiveness, so we can love God. We need the nearness of His presence.