“Easy to Commit” – FBC Morning Light (2/5/2024)

The Challenge of Following Through After a Spiritual High

Well, good Monday morning to you. I hope you we had a good weekend and were able to gather with God's people, learn something from God's Word yesterday, and and just really profited from your worshiping of the Lord yesterday.

Well today, and through the course of this week, we're in the book of Exodus, and today we're going to be reading in chapters 24 through 26, but I want to zero in on the experience of God's people in chapter 24.

Have you ever been in this kind of a situation where you were maybe at a church service or a special kind of evangelistic service or meeting of that nature, and it was just really evident that the Lord was working, and there was a great spirit in the congregation, great spirit in singing?

Hopefully this is the way it was yesterday, but maybe not. Well anyway, you've been in one of those situations, and on an emotional level, as well as the impact of God's Spirit and His Word working in your heart, you were just able to, you responded to it all in such a way where you verbally, maybe internally, expressed a sense of devotion to God like you had not maybe in a long time.

Remember a time like that? When was that last time? Well, this is what we see in Exodus chapter 24. The children of Israel are at the base of Mount Sinai. Moses has been up on Mount Sinai. He's received the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, excuse me, and it says that Moses came and told the people, this is chapter 24 verse 3, Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments.

Well, okay, they've heard God's Word, they know what God wants of them, but I want you to get the scene here and get a feel for the context of where the people are. It says in verse 15 that, well in verse 14, it says, you know, Moses says to the elders, wait here till we come back to you, and so forth, and then in verse 15 it says, Moses went up into the mountain and a cloud covered the mountain.

Now the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. On the seventh day he called Moses into the midst of the cloud. Could you imagine seeing this scene? I don't really have any idea what it was like.

I mean, it was extremely majestic, there's no question about this. A cloud-covered mountain, that I understand, but one where it says the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, the cloud covered it six days.

What was it about that cloud that was so distinguishing that it was clearly the glory of the Lord that covered the cloud? Well, whatever it was, it definitely would have made a huge impact on God's people down on the side and down at the base of the mountain.

Well, when Moses said to the people, when it says in verse 3 that Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, it says, all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words which the Lord has said we will do.

And then in verse 7 it says, Moses took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, all that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient. All right, here's what I want us to get.

When we're in one of those kind of environments where the Lord is working, and it's very clear, and there's a great deal of enthusiasm and excitement about the things of the Lord, it's easy at a moment like that to say, all that the Lord says we will do, I will be obedient.

The question is, how about tomorrow, when the emotions wear off, and the scene isn't quite so ecstatic, and the way that I'm traveling becomes difficult, or a crisis arises, when the water is bitter, and the desert is dry, and the food is tasteless, will I be so determined and committed to do all that the Lord has commanded and be obedient?

See, that's the question. It's then where it becomes important and critical that the commitments made at those mountaintop type of experiences, where they become reality, and we really need to follow through on them.

I hope we'll be challenged by that today. And so our Father and our God, we do thank you for this challenge, because we know how easy it is to make commitments in the church service. It's another thing altogether to follow through on Monday morning.

Help us to do that, we pray, in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, well I hope your week gets off to a great start today. Have a good Monday, and may God bless you in it.