“What God Expects” – FBC Morning Light (9/17/2024)

Faith Baptist Church

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A good Tuesday morning to you. Today in our Bible reading we're in the book of Zechariah, the minor prophet next to the last book in the

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Old Testament, and specifically today reading in chapters 7 and 8. You know, what

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God expects of his people, on a basic level, is pretty straightforward.

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It's pretty simple. And God has made clear throughout the generations to his people, this is what

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I want of you. This is how I want you to live. And here in chapter 7 of Zechariah, Zechariah is sort of rehearsing, perhaps in summary form, some of the message that God has sent to his people regarding his expectation of how he, of what he wants his people to do, how he wants his people to live.

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And what he says here is not rocket science, and it isn't anything that should invite any objection.

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Listen to what he says in verses 9 and 10. Thus says the Lord of hosts, execute true justice.

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Should anybody object to that? Especially those who profess to be God's people. Show mercy, that is, that's our

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Hebrew word hesed, steadfast love, loyalty to your covenant. Show mercy and compassion, everyone to his brother.

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There shouldn't be any objection to that. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless.

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Well, you know, why would anybody complain about that? Don't oppress the alien or the poor.

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Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother. Now, those seem to be pretty basic, straightforward things that those who claim to be

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God's people would accept without any reservation. They'd say, well, yeah, of course, yeah,

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I'll live this way, but that isn't how far too many of those who were supposedly

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God's people responded. Because it goes on to say in verse 11, they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear.

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Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the

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Lord of Hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Can you imagine this?

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What does that indicate? What does it tell you? If the

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Word of the Lord is preached, and it is clearly, unequivocally, without any doubt, without any question, it is the

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Word of the Lord. It is proclaimed, it is preached. What do you make of it when the response is one of plugging the ears, shaking the fist at the preacher, saying,

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I'm not going to listen to that, and storming out? What do you conclude about such a person?

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Would you suggest for a moment that such a person is truly, indeed, converted?

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Is really a child of God? Well, I think not. I think that's a pretty good indication that they're anything but truly a child of God.

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In this Old Testament economy, these people proved that they were divorced from the

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Lord, if you will, and so the end of verse 12 says that great wrath came from the

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Lord of Hosts, and it says, therefore it happened just as he proclaimed, and they would not hear, so they called out, and I would not listen.

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They have proved to be not my people, and therefore I won't listen to their pleas.

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Instead, the Lord says in verse 14, I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known, thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned, for they made the pleasant land desolate.

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Now what Zechariah is doing here is he is rehearsing the cause of the exiles, the northern tribes taken into exile, and eventually

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Judah taken into exile. He says, here's why, here's why. I sent my word, the

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Lord says, by by the mouth of my prophets, and you would not hear.

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In fact, you defiantly rejected it. Now, we're not living in the

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Old Testament economy, but we're still living in an era where God's Word is taught, it's preached, it's proclaimed by some faithful voices.

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How do those who profess to be Christian respond to such things?

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Let me give you an example. If you go into one of the contemporary, modern, mainline churches that has thoroughly embraced same -sex marriage and the ordaining of homosexuals to the ministry, and so on, and you had the occasion, not that you would ever have the occasion, but you had the occasion to stand in the pulpit and say, this is what the

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Lord says, and you started to lay out God's design for marriage between one man and one woman for life, and God's view of such unions and practices.

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How long do you think you'd stand in that pulpit? Not very long.

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You'd be shouted down, and you would be kicked out, and you'd be thrown out, you'd have the police called on you, and everything else.

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Why? Because here are some people who profess to be the people of God, but who will not hear the truth of what

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God has to say. So we have some of it even in our day. So the challenge for us, the encouragement for us, is to be sensitive to God's Word.

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When the Word of God is truly rightly preached, we want to be humbly submissive and welcoming whatever it is

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He says, whether it hurts or not, whether I like it or not. Our Father and our

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God, help us to have such an attitude, we pray, and we ask this in Jesus' name, for His sake, amen.