[0:00] It's also part of Children's Church, so good. Take your Bibles again this week and go to 1 Kings, chapters 11 and 12 is where we'll be.
[0:13] 1 Kings, chapters 11 and 12. We started last week talking about the sins of Jeroboam.
[0:30] A phrase you see often, like I said, at least 20 times you probably see that phrase in the Bible. They walked in the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. And we started talking about Jeroboam and what he did.
[0:43] And you can see behind me, that's last week's outline. Jeroboam was not the most wicked king that Israel ever had. We said that that was reserved for Ahab.
[0:55] But Jeroboam is the one who started them on the downward path. They would continue on until they were finally conquered by the Assyrians. We talked about the selection of Jeroboam.
[1:08] Why was someone different chosen? Look in 1 Kings, chapter 11, verses 11 and 12. Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, For as much as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee and give it to thy servant.
[1:31] Notwithstanding in thy days, I will not do it for David thy father's sake, but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. God says, because you have followed idols, because you have followed foreign gods, because you have not kept my commandments and the covenant that I made, your kingdom is going to be separated from you.
[1:55] So, he says he's going to give it unto his servant. And Jeroboam was the one that was selected. You can read in 1 Corinthians 11, beginning at verse 26, and it talks about the selection he made of him.
[2:09] But then, God says, look, Jeroboam, I'm going to tell you exactly why this is happening. He told Solomon why it was going to happen. Now he's going to tell Jeroboam why it's happening.
[2:20] Look at verse 33. Because that they have forsaken me and have worshipped Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Malcolm, the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments as did David thy father.
[2:44] God says, I'm going to take the kingdom away from Solomon's heirs because they followed false gods, because they did not follow my statutes.
[2:54] They did not follow my word. So, I am taking it from them, and I'm going to give it to you, Jeroboam. Okay? God even gives Jeroboam what he's looking for.
[3:06] Look at verse 34. Howbeit, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him prince of all the days of his life for David my servant's sake, whom I chose, because he kept my commandments and my statutes.
[3:21] He goes on from there, but, okay, Jeroboam, they following false gods, they did not keep my commandments. David did keep my commandments and did follow what I wanted him to do and was the man after my own heart.
[3:37] Okay? So, God now charges Jeroboam. He says in verse 37, I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shall be king over Israel.
[3:48] And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that as right in my sight, and keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, that I will be with thee, and build thee a shore house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.
[4:12] Okay, Jeroboam. They worshiped false gods. They did not follow my word. That's why I'm taking the kingdom away. I'm going to make you king, Jeroboam.
[4:23] And when you become king, if you will follow the example of David, if you will keep my commandments, if you will follow my statutes, if you will do that which is right in my eyes, your kingdom will be on shore footing, and will last a long time.
[4:41] Pretty simple formula. Do what God asks, and everything's going to be okay. We know that Jeroboam did not do that.
[4:55] Jeroboam even wound up being seated in the king's throne. God gave him the throne that he had promised him. And he even went so far in 1 Kings 12, verses 21 to 24.
[5:09] I won't read the whole thing for you right now, but he says, look, I'm going to give you this kingdom, and you're going to be there. And Rehoboam, you're not going to do a thing about it.
[5:22] Rehoboam had 180,000 men ready to go and attack Israel. And God said there in 1 Kings 12, no, he says, speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant, thus saith the Lord, ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren, the children of Israel, return every man to his house, for this thing is of me.
[5:47] And they hearkened unto the word of the Lord, and returned to the park. God says, Jeroboam's going to take the throne, and you're not going to do a thing about it. Jeroboam, here's what I want.
[5:59] Jeroboam, here's the throne, with absolutely no opposition whatsoever. So, what would you think would be the outcome? You would think, Jeroboam would go, you know what?
[6:13] This is a pretty easy thing to do. Pretty easy thing to follow. You would expect him to follow the example of David. You would expect him to follow the things of God.
[6:25] But, as you can see from the third point up there, that's not what happened. The sin of Jeroboam. Look with me, beginning of chapter 12, verse 26.
[6:37] And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David. For this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem.
[6:48] Then shall the heart of the people turn again unto their Lord, even unto Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they shall kill me. And go again to Rehoboam, king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel and made two casts of gold and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem.
[7:04] Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set one in Bethel and the other he put in Dan. And this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.
[7:19] And he made a house in high places and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. And Jeroboam ordained a feast for the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah.
[7:35] And he offered upon the altar. He did it in Bethel, sacrificing the calves that he had made, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.
[7:48] And he offered upon the altar that which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day, the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart. Stop there.
[7:59] There's a number of things that are said in those few verses. A number of things about Jeroboam and what he set up and how he went against God and how we came up with the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.
[8:14] We talked last week about the fact that Jeroboam and those that followed him reigned for 209 years. There were 19 different men. And the Bible specifically says about 14 of them, they walked in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.
[8:31] He set the stage for someone like Ahab who's going to come along. You know, the sin of Jeroboam, as I mentioned last week, was a sin that they never recovered from.
[8:48] Israel would never recover from it. They would wind up going into captivity in Assyria. And you wonder, how could a person be handed a gift like Jeroboam was?
[9:07] How can he be handed a gift that says, here, you're not part of the kingly line but I'm going to make you king. Here, you're going to get 10 of the kingdoms.
[9:19] Here, you're now going to be king over those 10 kingdoms and nobody's going to oppose you, not even Rehoboam. Here, it's all yours. Just follow me.
[9:37] Jesus Christ went to the cross, died for our sins, rose again, ascended back into heaven and said, here's a gift, salvation.
[9:48] salvation. All that I ask is that you follow me. And yet, how many people turn that aside? Say, we get upset with Jeroboam, we read things like this and say, how can you be so dumb?
[10:05] People do it all the time. What was Jeroboam's problem? Well, as I read through that, what did he say? They're going to go back to Rehoboam, they're going to get reacquainted with their friends and relatives and they're going to be there to worship God and stuff and they're going to come back here and they're going to kill me.
[10:21] Fear. Fear is what motivated him to go his own way. He forgot about the hand of God working his life, he forgot about the power of God working in his life, he forgot that God had taken care of everything for him.
[10:38] And because of that fear, he went and he set up false gods, the two calves, he brought people in who were not qualified to be priests, he set up a feast that was not according to God's timetable or what God wanted.
[11:01] He showed us some things that he was missing. First of all, a lack of respect for the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20, verse 4 says, I shall not make any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or is it on earth beneath or is it in the water under the earth.
[11:18] Remember we talked last week, he dumbed God down past the angels, past man to calves. How far can you drop God down?
[11:30] We talked last week about Isaiah. Isaiah said in chapter 46 starting at verse 5, to whom will ye liken me and make me equal and compare me that we may be like.
[11:43] They lavish out gold out of the bag and weigh silver in the balance and hire a goldsmith and he maketh it a god. They fall down, yea, they worship. And remember I mentioned last week, think about this.
[11:56] He's making a thing for them to worship. Why aren't they worshiping the goldsmith? He made it. He's actually got more power than the idol does. He's the one who made it. God says at the end of that, verse 9 there, he says, remember the former things of old, for I am God, there is none else.
[12:15] I am God, there is none like me. And we ended last week talking about the fact that they had gone into this idolatry, but it wasn't the only thing that Jeroboam changed.
[12:27] Jeroboam also changed the way Israel looked at the word of God. That's that word of prayer, and then we'll talk about that. Dear Heavenly Father, I pray today that you would just help us to understand the importance of your word.
[12:40] Lord, so many people today, so many Christians today, do not think your word is important. They do not think it has to be followed. They think that they can come up with their own ideas, do their own things, and go their own way.
[12:56] Jeroboam is going to show us it doesn't work that way. Lord, help us to understand today the importance of the word of God in our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So idolatry was a problem, but so was his view of the word of God.
[13:11] The first thing I want you to see this morning about Jeroboam and his view of the word of God is he said that God's requirements are too exhausting. They're too exhausting. He took counsel, it says, it is too much for you to keep down to Jerusalem.
[13:35] He didn't want the possibility of him staying down there and killing him. So what's he going to do? It's too much for you. Notice verse 28 there in chapter 12.
[13:47] It's just too far. It's just too much of a journey.
[13:59] It's just too hard. It's going to tire you out going down there. So I'm going to put these two calves a lot closer. Make it a lot easier. You don't have to travel all the way down there to Jerusalem.
[14:11] You can go these two places and you can worship God there. He's saying, look, it's just too much work to try and obey God. After all, it only matters that we worship God.
[14:25] Right? Does it really matter where we do it as long as we worship him? We were talking in the back there this morning about those who say they're going to go out in the woods today.
[14:36] It's a nice sunny day and they're going to go out in the woods today or they're going to go down by the ocean and say, I can worship God there. Well, that sounds good. You can because God created it all. but Deuteronomy chapter 12, verses will be behind me.
[14:52] God had said this to Moses and the children of Israel, but when ye go over Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about so that ye dwell in safety, then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there.
[15:17] Thither shall ye bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes, your heave offering and your hand, and all your choice vows which ye vow unto the Lord.
[15:28] And ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men's servants, and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your gates, for as much as he hath no part nor inheritance with you, take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest, but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there shalt thou offer thy burnt offering, and there shalt thou do all that I command thee.
[16:02] Did it matter to God where they did their worship? Yeah, it did. He says, I'm going to prepare a place for you. I've got a place that I want you to do it.
[16:13] It's going to be in Jerusalem. It's going to be at the temple in Jerusalem. That's the place I want the worship to take place. But Jeroboam says, oh, no, no, it's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem. It's too much for you to do all of that.
[16:25] That's just silly that you do all that stuff. God's requirements, God's instructions are just too hard.
[16:39] You don't have to worry about those. It's just too hard to obey those. Does that happen today? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[16:50] We don't have to tell others about Jesus. It's just too intimidating. We don't have to tithe. It's just too expensive. You don't have to read your Bible every day.
[17:01] It takes up a lot of time. You don't have to go do missions type work or things like that or being a testimony and stuff. It's just it can be really dangerous. So, you know what?
[17:13] God's asked you to do some hard things and you don't necessarily have to do hard things. You know what Jesus' favorite commandment was? Follow me.
[17:27] That's it. Follow me. Any of the things that Jesus asked them to do, he did himself. You think about it. Leave your father and your mother.
[17:39] Follow me. Leave your fishing business. Leave your tax booth. Follow me. Leave your ambition and your dreams. Follow me. Leave your sin.
[17:52] Leave your selfishness. Follow me. Be ready to be homeless, hated, persecuted, and martyred. Follow me. Does that sound hard? Yeah.
[18:04] But Jesus did every one of those. He says, follow me. Think about what Jesus told Peter. The ascension is about to take place. Jesus is risen from the dead.
[18:15] He's having a conversation with Peter. And he says in John 21, 18, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walked whither thou wouldest.
[18:28] But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee, whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.
[18:41] And when he has spoken this, he saith unto him, follow me. What was he telling Peter? Peter, you're going to wind up being crucified, just like me.
[18:55] Peter, you're going to wind up glorifying God by what you do, just like me. Follow me, Peter. Be ready to go wherever I would go, to do whatever I would do.
[19:10] See, Jesus knew God's requirements. And remember when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane? What was his whole thing about that? It was, I'm here to do the will of the Father.
[19:22] That's my purpose in being here, is to do the will of the Father. Follow me. In Luke chapter 13, verse 24, strive to enter in at the straight gate.
[19:34] For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. it's not going to be easy, but it can be done. It's not going to be the most fun that you've ever had in life, maybe, but it can be done.
[19:50] Follow me. Who gives us the right to say, you know what, you don't have to obey God. It's too hard to obey God.
[20:03] You don't have to. That's what Jeroboam was trying to do to the children of Israel. you don't have to obey him. Hardship does not justify disobedience.
[20:17] That mindset came from Jeroboam, and it led Israel into a belief that they only had to obey those commands that came easy. And that led to heresy, and that led to their downfall.
[20:33] He taught them that God's requirements were too exhausting, and they didn't have to follow him. But that wasn't all he taught them. He also taught them that God's requirements are too exclusive.
[20:46] Look at verse 31 there in chapter 12. And he made a house of high places and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the son of the Levites.
[21:00] He had set up two new places. He put those two castes, one in Bethel, one in Dan. He put those castes there. He had to set up new places for worship there and everything, new temples, had to have new priests. The only problem was all the priests were in the tribe of Levi were in Jerusalem.
[21:14] So he says he made others to be priests, people who were of the lowest. And it didn't matter to Jeroboam who it was. He says, look, God's requirements are too exclusive. Anybody can be a priest.
[21:26] It doesn't matter. The problem is that it's more than just a sacrifice. It was who was doing it. Did it matter to God?
[21:38] Numbers, chapter 3. If you read the whole thing, it's verses 45 through 45. I'm going to show you verse 41.
[21:50] And thou shalt take the Levites for me. I am the Lord. Instead of the firstborn among the children of Israel. You're going to take the Levites. that tribe of Levi is going to be the priest that I'm going to use.
[22:04] If you look at verse 45, he says, take the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel. He says, the Levites shall be mine.
[22:16] I am the Lord. God says, here's who I want to be the priest. These are the ones who are going to have that job. Did it matter to God?
[22:27] Yeah. He gave them instruction as to who it was supposed to be. And if that wasn't enough, back up a couple of generations. Jeroboam would have known about this.
[22:39] King Saul. Remember it was the day when King Saul was waiting for Samuel to show up to do sacrifices and do blessings and all this. And finally he got tired of waiting for Samuel so he did it himself.
[22:54] God was okay with that, right? No. You know the story. He was not okay with that. As a matter of fact, in 1 Samuel 13, verses 13 and 14 it says this, And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly.
[23:10] Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee. For now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue.
[23:23] The Lord has sought him a man after his own heart. And the Lord had commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee.
[23:35] What did Saul do? He offered a sacrifice to God. That's a good thing. Except God said the Levites are supposed to do that. Not you, Saul.
[23:47] The Levites are the priests. The Levites are the ones who bring the sacrifices. That's important to me, Saul. And he went against what God's word had said.
[24:00] And he did his own thing. It mattered a whole lot to God what happened. But Jeroboam says, oh, that's too exclusive. We can use other people. Does that sort of thing happen today?
[24:13] Yep. Like it or not, God set requirements for people. You want to be a preacher? Great. Be a man above reproach, he says. You want to be a deacon?
[24:25] He says, great. Be a man who's a tested servant, who has stood up for me and followed me. You want to get married? Make sure you marry somebody from the opposite sex. Can you believe that God would have such a thing?
[24:38] Would say something like that? You want to be a Christian? Deny yourself and follow me. You know, those requirements are just too rigid. We're all about loving people today.
[24:51] We're supposed to love people. We don't want to hurt their psyche. We don't want to make them feel bad. We don't want to God says, no, these are the requirements. This is what's supposed to happen.
[25:04] Let anybody preach. It doesn't matter who they are. Let anybody be a deacon. They don't have to meet any requirements. Let everybody be married. It doesn't matter as long as they love each other and they're happy. You want to be a Christian?
[25:16] You want to identify? We'll use today's words. You want to identify as a Christian? It doesn't matter if you really trust Christ or not. You can identify as a Christian if you want to. See, that's what we're teaching people today.
[25:32] And that, we're teaching them that God's standard does not matter. The word of God and what it says does not matter. You know, Jeroboam taught Israel that.
[25:44] God and they learned to ignore God's righteous standard. They learned to ignore God's word. So God, Jeroboam says God's requirements are too exhausting.
[25:57] God's requirements are too exclusive. God's requirements are too explicit. God's requirements are too explicit. 1 Kings chapter 12 verse 32.
[26:11] And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month like unto the feast that is in Judah and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel sacrificing unto the calves that he had made and he placed in Bethel the priest of the high places which he had made.
[26:29] So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month. Even in the month which he had devised in his own heart.
[26:40] Did you catch that? He devised it in his own heart. I think this is a good idea. I think we should do it now. I think this would be better for us.
[26:52] Even though God had said something different. God's given you too much detail. You have some freedom to kind of go and do things the way you feel they should be done. It says there that Jeroboam instituted a feast on the eighth month.
[27:07] Leviticus. It should be up there behind me. Leviticus 23. Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month.
[27:20] The seventh month. When ye gather in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days. And the first day shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth day it shall be a Sabbath.
[27:31] And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and the willows of the brook. And ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.
[27:43] And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. And it shall be a statute forever in your generations. Ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.
[27:55] And ye shall dwell in booths seven days. All that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths. That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.
[28:08] I am the Lord your God. And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feast of the Lord. God says, I want it done seventh month, fifteenth day, dwell in booths.
[28:21] Because why? Because the children of Israel had to do that when they came out of Egypt. Did God have a reason for the time he wanted the feast? Yeah. He wanted them to remember.
[28:35] What were they remembering on the eighth month, the fifteenth day? Jeroboam thought it was a good idea. That's what they're supposed to remember out of it.
[28:47] See, God's very explicit about when these feasts were to occur. Jeroboam didn't care. He said he had devised it in his own heart.
[28:57] So often today, we do things like that. So often today, people do things because they think it's a good idea. There are so many churches around that are doing things just because somebody thought it was a good idea.
[29:15] It has nothing to do with the word of God, it has nothing to do with what God instituted it. It sounds like a good idea. just like here. It wasn't God's command.
[29:26] It was Jeroboam's idea. Again, does it matter? I mean, all that matters is really that we have the feast, we have a time of remembrance, we do all that. Does it really matter when?
[29:39] Obedience matters to God. Jeroboam taught to people that your idea is just as good as God's. Just think about that statement for a second. Your idea is just as good as God's.
[29:53] Now, we all know that's not true. We all know that we don't even come close to what God thinks. We don't have to give God the worship that he requires, just as long as you give him some worship.
[30:09] And that's what Israel started to do. And God was never pleased with that. You think about it, why did they end up in judgment?
[30:19] They ended up in judgment because Jeroboam said, God's requirements are too exhausting, let's do something easier. God's requirements are too exclusive, let's just lower the standard a little bit.
[30:35] God's requirements are too exclusive, let's just loosen the boundaries a little bit. And Israel never got over it. so-and-so walked in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.
[30:50] So-and-so walked in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. For 209 years, they walked in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, until finally they were destroyed by the Assyrians.
[31:06] So, what's the point I'm trying to make last Sunday morning and this Sunday morning? What is it I'm trying to point out? Let me ask it this way, let me ask a question. What are we doing with the commands of God?
[31:22] We have a Bible that we can pick up and read at any time. And God has instructions in there. What are we doing with the commands of God?
[31:35] You look around and you say, what are we doing with commands like forsake not the assembling of yourselves together? What are we doing with commands like pray without ceasing?
[31:48] What are we doing with commands about reading God's word and studying it and making it part of our lives? What are we doing with, I could go on, there's so many different things in the Bible and every command that is in there is important.
[32:02] But Jeroboam did not esteem the word of God. He did not lift the word of God up. He did not hold it up high. He did not think it all that important. No commandment was sacred to him.
[32:15] We can change them, we can make them a little different, we can adjust them, we can do all that. When he read the word of God, he didn't take it seriously. Do we take it seriously?
[32:30] We kind of do like horseshoes, just get close. As long as you come close. it's okay, you can do all right.
[32:42] Don't put yourself out by trying to obey what God's word says. But that mindset that Jeroboam had, Israel wound up being destroyed 209 years later.
[32:56] That mindset in a church finds churches being destroyed. It's a low view of God's word and that's not what God is looking for.
[33:09] James chapter 1. Again, it should be behind me. James chapter 1, beginning of verse 19. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.
[33:21] Stop there for a second. We need to be swift to hear the word of God. We need to look at what the word of God says and we need to take it in. And he says, be slow to speak. I know God's word says this, but I think.
[33:34] No. I know this is what God's word says. And so I'm paying attention to what it says. He goes on. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
[33:48] Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save souls. Okay, how do we get saved?
[34:00] The word of God tells us about Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us, died on a cross, rose again, ascended back into heaven, provides salvation for us for all eternity. How do we know about that?
[34:11] The word of God tells us. Verse 22. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own self. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face and a glass.
[34:29] For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whosoever looketh unto the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
[34:50] You want to be blessed by God? You want God to reach down and touch your life? You want God to help you through things that you are facing? You want God to do his work in your life? Look on the perfect law of liberty, this book.
[35:07] Keep your eyes here. Look at what God has for you. Look at what God says for you. Look at the instruction that you will get. And continueth therein. I don't just look at it and say, oh, that's what it says, but I'm going to be like Jeroboam and do something else.
[35:22] No, I'm going to look at it and say, this is what it says. I'm going to do what it says. I'm going to follow it. Because it says, he not being a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man is blessed in his deed.
[35:37] You want God's blessing on you? You want God's hand of blessing touching you? Follow the word of God. 1 John, chapter 2, verse 3.
[35:50] And hereby do we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. You want to know for sure if you're a Christian or not? Are you doing what he says? Are you following him?
[36:02] Are you keeping his commandments? He goes on. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
[36:14] But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. How are you doing keeping the word of God?
[36:27] He says when you keep the word of God, you're demonstrating that God lives within you, that you're one of his, that you are following him as you should. That comes from knowing that I'm keeping the word of God and doing what it says.
[36:44] So, how about you? How are you doing this morning? Are you a Christian who's following the word of God and doing what it says?
[36:57] Are you a Christian who says, I want God's best for my life, I am going to follow and obey his word? Or, are you a Jeroboam type Christian?
[37:09] You know, it's just too difficult. It's too exclusive. It's too specific. You know, it's just too hard to obey God's word.
[37:24] Jesus gave us one commandment, one very short little commandment. John chapter 14, verse 15. It's behind me.
[37:35] If you love me, keep my commandments. I talked earlier about what God gave to Jeroboam. Follow me, keep my words, obey my statutes, don't have false gods before you.
[37:48] Pretty simple formula for doing things. God made it even simpler for us. If you love me, keep my commandments. How are we doing?
[38:01] The sins of Jeroboam messed people up for 209 years until they were finally taken into captivity. us not obeying the word of God, what is that going to do to us?
[38:18] God says simply, if you love me, keep my commandments. Are we following him? Do we love him? Are we concerned about what he thinks?
[38:32] Are we just living for ourselves, saying, ah, it's too hard, it's too exclusive, too specific, I think we'd be better this way or that way, no, if you love me, keep my commandments.
[38:48] Now, the question comes, do you love him? Is he the most important thing in your life? is he the one who really matters?
[39:01] How important is Jesus to you? He says you'll know that by whether you keep his commandments. How deep is your passion for him?
[39:15] Take your hymn books this morning so he