FBC Morning Light – January 30, 2023

Well, good Monday morning to you. How are you doing on this first day of the new week and almost the last day of the first month of 2023

January is just flown by and It's a winter month. So I don't I don't mind that too much myself.

Well, anyway on this Monday morning We're reading in the book of Exodus in chapters 9 and 10 and we see in this passage a truth that you've probably seen illustrated perhaps in your own life and Maybe in the lives of others

I can remember many many years ago when I was a youth pastor we've taken our young people to a

Christian camp and and on one particular night of this camp this week of camp the preacher in the service made a really hard case against listening to rock music and he

He really challenged the young people to to make the commitment come forward at the end of the service make the commitment that they were going to Go home after camp is over.

They're gonna throw away all of their rock music CDs and cassettes it tells you how old this was right and They they were not going to listen back into music again

Well, I remember after that incident there was a young lady in who can't have come along with camp

She was in and out of church. She wasn't real faithful, but she had come to camp and my wife and I were talking to her after that service and you know, just kind of trying to figure out where she was spiritually and Talked about that particular message and she said

I won't do those things I I won't I won't do this thing at the end of the service where I promised to do that I've done this too many times.

I make this promise I make this commitment and then you know, I go home or the things over and a couple days later

I'm right back to where I was. I'll just go right back to listening to it again well what she expresses is

The same thing we see in Exodus chapter 9 but with Pharaoh Lord's been sending his plagues upon Upon Egypt and he's come to this one plague of Thundering and the hail and it has been a devastating attack of hail and finally

Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron and he says to them I have sinned this time now

There have been a whole bunch of other plagues that have already hit Egypt But Pharaoh comes to this place where he says he says

I have sinned this time and he says the Lord is righteous And my people and I are wicked

It comes to this acknowledgement in the middle of this catastrophic destructive hailstorm

And then he says and treat the Lord with me that there there be no more mighty thundering and hail for it is enough

And then here's the commitment. I will let you go and you shall stay no longer

Now that's exactly what Moses and Aaron have been Telling Pharaoh to do to let the people go and he finally comes to this place of making a commitment and saying

I Will let the people go I just entreat the Lord for me that these this thundering this hail stops

And you know, he is he is right. I'm wrong. He's right. We're wrong.

We're the sinners. He's righteous But please, you know make this hail go away and I will let you go

So sure enough Moses goes out it says in verse 29 of Exodus 9 he says he's goes out of the city and he prays to the

Lord that the hail stops and the hail stops and Then you come to the end of the chapter and verse 34 says and when when

Pharaoh saw that the rain the hail the thunder had ceased He sinned yet more and he hardened his heart he and his servants so the part of Pharaoh was hard Neither would he let the children of Israel go just as the

Lord had spoken to Moses to Moses So here's another case of that very kind of thing under duress a

Commitment is made and I would suggest that back in that camp experience. I Just know

It's just from my experience as a youth pastor and now, you know years and years later of experience in the ministry it's it's easy to make a easy to make decisions spiritual commitments in a time and a moment of emotional duress and That particular speaker was putting the screws to the young people and he was really you know doing a good job of emotional manipulation as unfortunately too many of Those kind of speakers do and a lot of young people made the commitment, but I know that when they went back home very very few

Actually followed through went to their CD collection or their cassette tape collection and tossed it in the garbage

I just know that why? Because I know how they lived afterwards and I know what they listened to after the fact

So it's just the way it is it's just like just like Pharaoh when a spiritual commitment is

Made under it in the moment of emotional duress in a time of great

Affliction and a promise is made the likelihood is when the affliction is passed the

The commitment will will be forgotten It'll be reneged upon and it may very well be just like this young lady

That the heart will be even harder the next time such Such efforts are made to try to get her strong arm her to make a decision.

She won't do it. She won't do it So how about in your own life? Have you had that experience where in a time of great a great?

Conviction and great trouble great affliction perhaps you made some strong commitment how did you follow through on that or or did you maybe that's something you need to be to go back and revisit and reconsider your

Reneging on the commitment that you've made Well some food for thought today our

Father in heaven. We do thank you for Genuine spirit conviction and we thank you that your spirit does not let us rest when we have sin in our life and we have

We need to repent and we need to turn from it Father, I pray that when the affliction the conviction is passed.

We won't forget We won't forget the commitments that we've made in that time of duress.

We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen All right, well listen have a good rest of your