There is only one true God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor.1:3), and the greatest blessing which anyone can experience in this life is to find the true God, but the greatest tragedy is to pass through life without ever finding Him. In our Key verses we have a brief description of one phase of Israel's history, but it also describes thousands of people throughout the world. Notice how this brief portion of scripture unfolds to give us a sequence of teaching.

1. THEY WERE WITHOUT THE TRUE GOD.
Verse 3 tells us that this had been true of them "for a long time". They were Godless, less God - look up Ephesians 2:12. This is a perfect description of multitudes of people today, they are living without God. He does not enter their thoughts, except in times of emergency, and He has not been welcomed into their lives. The Israelites still believed in the existence of God, and they experienced and benefited from His providences, but for all that they were "without the true God". We are not told they were without a god, for everyone worships a god of some kind - the god of self, money, pleasure, or ambition. These words in verse 3 , therefore, are descriptive of many people  -" for a long time...without the true God".