FBC Morning Light – July 13, 2022

Well a good Wednesday morning to you. I hope your week is going well thus far, and that the

Lord is blessing your labors for Him in whatever area of labor you find yourself.

Well today we're in the book of Jeremiah, and a couple of verses that are, you know, right next to each other that that are a real challenge to us, and I want us to think about them for a minute.

First in Jeremiah chapter 6, verse 15, the Lord asks this. He says,

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Let me ask you something. How do you respond when you know you've done wrong, you've committed sin, and you get confronted with it?

Whether it's somebody who, you know, directly confronts you knowing the sin that you've committed, and they say, look, you've done this.

How do you respond to that? Or even in, like, a setting in church, a church setting, where in the preaching of the

Word, some sin of which you're guilty gets addressed, and you know it's talking about you, and about what you're doing.

Whether or not the preacher knows anything about it is not the point, but you know. How do you respond to that?

Or, should I ask, do you react? You know the difference between the two? When you take medicine to help you get better, if you're allergic to it, you will react to it.

You'll have a reaction, and it won't be good. But if you're not allergic to it or anything, and it's the medicine that you need for that particular malady, your body responds to it, and it helps you to get better.

So when you are confronted with some sin, do you respond, or do you react?

So the Lord is addressing here the problem of His people, those who profess to be

His people, who, when confronted about their abomination, who practice this sin, they don't respond.

They react. Listen to what He says. He goes on to say, were they ashamed when they committed abomination?

No. They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush. They didn't even know how to blush.

Caught red -handed, and they were defiant in it. They couldn't even blush at it.

Well, the Lord says, with that being their condition, He says, Therefore they shall fall among those who fall.

At the time I punish them, they shall be cast down. I think one of the good evidences of a genuine conversion, genuine faith in Jesus Christ, is a sensitivity to sin, and a response rather than a reaction when confronted with that sin.

If you find yourself constantly reacting to conviction, then you know, you got to wonder whether or not you're really converted.

The true convert is sensitive to sin, and will blush over it, if you will.

So the remedy to that problem is seen in verse 16.

Thus says the Lord, stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where the good way is, and walk in it.

Yesterday I asked about how your walk is, from the book of Colossians. Well, here we have the same idea again.

Walk in it. Walk in what? Walk in the old paths. Walk in the good way of the old paths.

Now what is that old...what are those old paths? Well, this passage is given to Old Testament Israel, to the

God's people in the Old Testament, and that would be God's Word, God's law. They're to walk in God's law, and to be obedient to God's law, what

God has given. And I think the same is true for the New Testament believer as well. What are the old paths in which we should walk?

God's self -revelation, God's disclosure of what he's like and what he likes.

We need to walk accordingly. Again, I remind ourselves,

I remind us frequently, we want to find out what God is like, and what

God likes, so that we might love him appropriately, and walk with him accordingly.

That's crucial. So here God is exhorting his people, learn the old ways, learn the old paths, learn what

I have revealed to you, and walk according to that. So that is the antidote to the condition here of the, you know, not being ashamed and committing abomination.

No, you know what the abomination is. If you're truly, truly converted, you find out what the abomination is, you find out what

God wants you, how God wants you to live, and you will blush at violating that way that God wants you to live.

You'll blush at the abomination. So may we learn those ways, may we learn the old paths, and God help us to do it.

So our Father and our God, we are thankful that you have graciously shown us the way in which we should walk.

May we be faithful to do so, we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen. All right, well have a good rest of your