A Poor Substitute
Submitted by Frank Williams
April 3, 2025
Jer 2:11 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.
What happens when a person abandons his faith in God? Cases differ, to be sure, but most faith-renouncers confess to sensing a void inside. They have an emptiness that must be filled. Inevitably, they turn to a God-substitute.
Almost anything can serve as a God-substitute—sports, art, sex, music, work, gambling, drugs, alcohol, TV, social media—even another person.
Joseph Goebbels scorned his religious upbringing that taught him about Christ. He later remarked, “It is almost immaterial what we believe so long as we believe in something.” For Goebbels that something was really someone. None other than the murderous Adolf Hitler became Goebbels’ God-substitute. When Hitler was finally trapped and defeated, Goebbels killed himself and his family.
God spoke to the people of Judah through the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Jer 2:13 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.
Like so many today, they had turned from the One true God to worthless God-substitutes.
To abandon God means we risk being made “afraid and desolate.” Jer 2:12 Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.
But obedience to the Lord Jesus brings complete fulfillment that gives life, peace, and hope.
Consider – The one who tries to abandon God may find that God will let him.
