FBC Morning Light – August 16, 2022

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. Let me ask you this as we begin today. What is your attitude toward the receiving of God's Word?

I ask that question because of what we read in Jeremiah 42 and 43. In the beginning of chapter 42, a remnant of the people who are left after the

Babylonians have come to Judah and Jerusalem and they've pretty much taken captive everybody, they left the poor people, the

Babylonians left the poor people in the land and they're occupying various places in the land.

But the remnant that's been left behind, they come to Jeremiah and they want to hear a word from the

Lord. They want to hear what the Lord has to say. Now, listen to their request and listen how they ask for the

Lord's Word. They said to Jeremiah in 42 .5, let the

Lord be a true and faithful witness between us. If we do not do according to everything which the

Lord your God sends us by you, whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the

Lord our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the

Lord our God. Jeremiah is the prophet. Jeremiah is the one whom people know, they can count on to hear from God and to give them a word from the

Lord. So they say to Jeremiah, please go to the Lord for us and ask him what we are to do and we will do it.

Did you hear that attitude? Whatever the Lord says, we will do. Whether it pleases us or displeases us, we're going to do it.

That's a wonderful attitude to have and that's the attitude that we should have when we come before God's Word.

When you sit down in the morning and you open up the Scriptures, if you're following the Bible reading plan or whatever plan you're following to read the

Scriptures, when you sit down, your attitude ought to be, whatever the Lord shows me, that's what

I'm going to do, whether I like it or not. When you go to church on Sunday morning, you go to the

Sunday Bible study time, you go to the morning service, you go to the Sunday evening service, you go to the Bible study on Wednesday night, when you're approaching a situation where God's Word is going to be opened, your attitude of heart, my attitude of heart, needs to be, whatever the

Lord tells me to do, however the Lord tells me to be, I will do it, whether I like it or not, whether it's pleasing or displeasing.

That was what they said, and oftentimes that's what we would say.

But is that really the reality? Does that attitude really show itself on the follow -through?

So Jeremiah does what they asked, he goes to the Lord and says, do you have a word for these people?

The Lord comes back to Jeremiah and he says to Jeremiah, and I'm going to the

Lord, he says to the remnant, stay put right where you are, don't leave, serve the

Babylonians here, you'll be safe, you'll be protected, you'll have all you need, you'll have plenty of provision, just stay put.

Jeremiah goes back to the people and he tells them that very thing. After all, they said, whatever the

Lord tells us, that's what we're going to do. So he expects that they're going to be true to their word, he's going to share what the

Lord told him to say, and they're going to say, okay, very good, we'll stay right here. But that's not what happens.

They hear that, and they don't like what they hear, and so what do they do? We read in chapter 43 that what they do is they leave the land of Judah, the city of Jerusalem, what's left of it, they leave that region and they flee to Egypt.

They think they're going to be safe in Egypt, they'll be out from under the reach of the Babylonians if they go to Egypt, even though the

Lord said, stay put and you'll be safe. They say, no, that's not what we wanted to hear.

We wanted to hear that the Lord would tell us to go to Egypt and we'd find safety there.

So they leave, and chapter 43, verse 7 says, so they went to the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of the

Lord, and they went as far as Tapanes. You can read on in chapter 43 and hear what the

Lord has to say to this disobedient remnant. So the challenge for us is twofold.

The challenge for us is to have the attitude of the remnant as they expressed it, have that truly to be our attitude as they expressed it.

All right, what the Lord says, whatever the Lord says for me to do, however the Lord says for me to be,

I will do it. Whether it's hard or easy, whether it's pleasing or displeasing,

I will do it. Then when we do hear something that the

Lord calls us to do, when he calls us to change a way in which we are, to be different than we are, and we don't like it, it's hard, it's difficult, or it goes against what our desires are, we nevertheless need to have the response that says, yes

Lord, I will obey. So those two challenges from Jeremiah 42 and 3.

Our Father and our God, I pray today that this would be our response to your word, that we would approach it with a willingness to obey you whatever you ask of us, and that we would follow through on that which we hear.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well have a good rest of your Tuesday.