“Will I Follow Through?” – FBC Morning Light (9/4/2024)

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Well a good Wednesday morning to you. I hope your week is going well thus far. Today we're reading back into the book of Jeremiah chapters 42 through 44 and these chapters occur after the fall of Jerusalem.

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I remember Jeremiah had been prophesying that this was going to come, that the Babylonians were going to come and you know destroy the land, the city of Jerusalem, the temple and everything.

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We read yesterday the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah's lament after that occurred and now in chapters 42 and following we read about a situation that Jeremiah encounters after that destruction of Jerusalem by the

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Babylonians. And what happens here is a group of individuals and we read about them in verse 1 of chapter 42, all the captains of the forces that were left in the land, a remnant of individuals, all the people from the least to the greatest, they came to Jeremiah and this is what they said,

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Please let our petition be acceptable to you and pray for us to the Lord your God for all this remnant, since we are left but a few of many as you can see, that the

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Lord your God may show us the way in which we should walk and the thing we should do. Wow, yeah, this is a perfectly acceptable and desirable request.

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They come to Jeremiah the prophet, they recognize that Jeremiah has access to the

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Lord, if you will, that Jeremiah will honestly tell them whatever he senses the

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Lord's counsel would be for them, and they ask him, Tell us.

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Tell us what the Lord would have us to do. And then they make this commitment. Jeremiah then responds and he says,

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I've heard indeed I will pray to the Lord your God according to your words. It shall be that whatever the Lord tells me,

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I will declare it to you and I will keep nothing back from you. I promise to do that. I won't hold back anything.

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And they reply in this way, in verse 5, Let the Lord be a true and faithful witness between us if we do not do according to everything which the

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Lord your God sends us by you. And then they take that commitment a step further. They say whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the

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

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God. Well, that's exactly the attitude that a person should have when they're seeking direction from the

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Lord. So have you been there? Have you been in this situation before? These are people who are, they're struggling, you know, they're going through a severe crisis, a severe time of crisis.

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They're a remnant after so many of their fellow countrymen have been taken captive, they've lost their lives in battle and so forth, and they're now in a land of, you know, basic captivity with a foreign power overlording it over them.

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And they want to know, what do we do? What do we do? How should we now live under these circumstances?

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Have you been there? Have you had that kind of a response to a critical situation? You're like, what did you do about it?

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What did you do about it? Well, these people made the right choice. They went to seek the

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Lord's direction and seek the Lord's will in the matter. The question is, will they follow through with their commitment?

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They promised Jeremiah, whatever you tell us, whatever you tell us that the Lord would have us to do, whether we like it or not, we promise to obey.

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Now, I've sat with people many times through the course of my 40 some years of ministry, and I've had people basically tell me the same thing.

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They've come with a problem, they've come in a crisis situation, and they say, I don't know what to do. What should

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I do? What would the Lord have me to do? And I listen to them and, you know, pray about it.

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Sometimes I can give some direction right away, sometimes it takes a while, as it did with Jeremiah.

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Jeremiah said, okay, I'll let you know, and it was in verse 7, says ten days later, that the word of the

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Lord came to Jeremiah, and he had an answer for the people. So sometimes you can give some direction in the session itself.

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Sometimes it takes some time of prayer and, you know, letting the Lord give wisdom from his word.

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But then you get with the person and you say, okay, here's what I believe the Lord would have you to do.

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Here's how I believe he would have you respond to this situation. And how many times?

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Well, I can say pretty confidently that almost every time that I tell the person that the

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Lord would have them to do something that is difficult, that is really difficult, they won't do it.

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They just, they won't do it. Why? Because it's too hard. They're not gonna do that.

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They're not gonna humble themselves in such a way. They're not gonna eat crow. They're not gonna swallow their pride and do this.

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There's just no way that they're gonna do that. And it grieves my heart, just as it did

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Jeremiah. Because this is what happened. They had made the commitment that whatever the Lord says to do, whether we like it or not, we're gonna do it.

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But ten days later, Jeremiah comes back to them and says, okay, here's what the Lord would have you to do. Stay right here.

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Stay right here and live submissively under the authority of the Babylonians and life will go well with you.

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Whatever you do, he says, don't go to Egypt. Don't think that if we run down to Egypt, we'll be safe, we won't know war, etc.,

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etc. Jeremiah says, don't do that. Or, he says, if you do, you're gonna be sorry, because the war will overtake you there and you will perish and suffer greatly in Egypt.

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Okay, so what are they gonna do? Chapter 43. It happened when Jeremiah had stopped speaking to all the people the words of the

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Lord their God, which the Lord their God had sent him to them. All these words that Azariah, the son of Hoshiah, and Johanan, the son of Korea, and all the proud men spoke, saying to Jeremiah, you speak falsely.

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The Lord did not tell you to say this, don't go to Egypt and dwell there. And you know what they did? They went to Egypt.

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And you know what happened to them? They suffered for it, just as Jeremiah said. All right, now look, you know, it's one thing, it's one thing in the middle of the crisis to say,

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I need direction, whatever the Lord would have me to do, give me, give me direction, give me wisdom, help me to see, help me to understand, and I will do it.

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Doesn't matter what it is, I will, I will do it. It's another thing altogether, when the word comes back and you don't like it, and you have to swallow your pride, what do you do then?

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Do you follow through? You follow through? Or do you do what so many people have done that I've talked to?

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They walked out of the room and they said, thank you, and they went right on their merry way, doing just the opposite of what the

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Lord would have them to do. And then they suffer for it. They don't, you don't want to do that, you don't do that.

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If you're in that position of crisis, and you need direction from the Lord, be committed to doing whatever he would have you to do, and then follow through with it.

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It will, in the end, go well with you. I can assure you of that.

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Father in heaven, I pray, give us that wisdom to trust you, to obey you, even if it's hard.

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