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You Really Do Not Want To Know God's Will, Do You?

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• Title of the message today is this: You really do not want to know God's will, do you? So you'll understand Jeremiah 42, beginning with verse 1: "Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, came near, and said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we beseech thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the Lord thy God, even for all this remnant, for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us, that the Lord thy God may show us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do. Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you. Behold, I will pray unto the Lord your God according to your words, and it shall come to pass that whatsoever thing the Lord shall answer you, I will declare it unto you.

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• I will keep nothing back from you. Then they said to Jeremiah, The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for the which the Lord thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send thee, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.

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• In my 50 years of preaching, I've heard a multitude of Christians make a simple statement hundreds of times, and that simple statement is simply this: "I only want the will of God for my life." Or its equivalent would be something like this: "I only want the will of God in this matter." Strangely enough, those who say that they really genuinely and truly want the will of God never really seek it for their lives, or for the situation that they're involved in. And so I could only conclude that they really and truly did not want God's will, because they never really sought God's will. So what they were saying when they made the statement they wanted God's will for their life was nothing more than a pious platitude, or spiritual exaggeration, or simply a hypocritical statement. Similarly, when most people come for counsel, they really and truly do not want counsel.

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• They will tell you, "I need counseling. I need help. I want your advice. I want to know what the Bible says." They will tell you that, and then you discover what they really want is not your counsel, not your advice, not what the Word of God says, but what they want is your stamp of approval upon what they've already determined that they're going to do. It's just that simple.

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• Jeremiah encountered such individuals in his ministry. Now we just read the first six verses of chapter 42. If you took just those first six verses alone, it would be enough to make any pastor's heart rejoice. I mean, because here's the people that come and say, "We want the will of God. We want it. And we're willing to do God's will whether we like it or not, whether it's good or bad, we want it. You just tell us what God's will is and that's exactly what we're going to do." So they came to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah said, "Fine, I'm going to seek God's will for you. And I'm going to give it to you." If you look in verse 4, look what Jeremiah says: "Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you. Behold, I will pray unto the Lord your God according to your words, and it shall come to pass that whatsoever thing the Lord shall answer you, I will declare it unto you.

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• I will keep nothing back from you." So these people then professed to desire and covet and want the will of God. Jeremiah said, "Wonderful, when God gives it to me, I'm going to give it to you. Full speed, full force, I will hold nothing back." Now, look in verses 5 and 6 after Jeremiah told them he would give it to them straight. Verse 5: "Then they said to Jeremiah, The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for the which the Lord thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send thee, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God." Now, let me just kind of give you the background so that you can

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• understand the significance of this dialogue. What many people do not realize when you read the first six verses here is that Judah and Jerusalem have basically been destroyed. The Temple has been destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has come in and there has been a multitude of Judahites killed and a multitude already taken into captivity as well. And so what Nebuchadnezzar has done is he took a Judahite by the name of Gedaliah and he made him governor over Judah and Jerusalem. And then he left just a few soldiers in that area as well. And basically, Gedaliah was to see that the people continue to support Nebuchadnezzar, but all they had to do was support him and they could go about their business because he had left in the land the very poorest of the people.

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• Before they could ever really get settled down and start their farming and start their homes and get their lives back together again, tragedy struck. Because now all of a sudden Ishmael the son of Nethaniah comes along and he murders Gedaliah, his assistants, and the Babylonian soldiers that Nebuchadnezzar had left. Wow! These people now realize they are in danger. They are in a very volatile situation because the country has basically been destroyed and they are there, and before they ever have a chance to begin to rebuild, this happens again.

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• And so they come to Jeremiah and they said, "Look, we need to know God's will. We are in trouble. We are in desperate straits." You know, I wish folks in America could come to that realization as well of how desperate we really are and we really need to know God's will. Now they promised Jeremiah that if he would seek God's will and God revealed it to him and he told God's will to them, that they would obey it whether they liked it or not. In fact, they even called God to be a witness. For instance, look at Jeremiah 42 and verse 5: "Then they said to Jeremiah, The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for the which the Lord thy God shall send thee unto us." Wow. So now they've called God Himself as a witness.

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• Now, I want you to stop and think about this. These people are in a dangerous situation. They have not murdered Gedaliah. They have not murdered his assistants, nor the Babylonian soldiers. But they are assured that Nebuchadnezzar probably has heard by now, and he's probably going to take his wrath out upon the few people that are left. So they're in an emergency situation, so to speak. That's why they are asking Jeremiah, "You better tell us what to do, and you better tell us what to do now." But look in verse 7, the Bible says, "And it came to pass after ten days that the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah." Isn't that amazing? We are in an emergency situation and God doesn't speak for ten days. Which teaches us something. It teaches us we may be impatient, but God is not. And we may be frightful and upset, but God is not. And it teaches us that God has absolute and total control even over the heathen. You remember the Bible says in Proverbs 21 and verse 1, listen carefully, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will."

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• So God has them in absolute control. The Babylonians, the enemy.

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• Now, I want you to look—he understood that and he understood the people were afraid of Nebuchadnezzar. So if you'll skip down to verse 11, and I'll come back to that verse momentarily, but look in verse 11, he says, "Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saith the Lord: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you out of his hand." Well, God says you don't have to be afraid of Nebuchadnezzar. I have him under control as well. So they have come now to ask Jeremiah to seek God's will. Jeremiah said, "Look, I'm gonna do this and I promise you I'm gonna tell you exactly what God says." So if you'll skip down now to verse 7 and let's read through verse 9: "And it came to pass after ten days, that the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah. Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces which were with him, and all the people from the least to the greatest, and said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of

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• Israel, unto whom ye sent me to present your supplications before him." Now wait a minute, go back if you would to verse 1, look at this: "Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest came near." So it's a whole group of people that came to him and said, "We want you to intercede for us." Now he calls this whole group back and said, "I did. I did."

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• Now the interesting thing is, Jeremiah is telling these people very plainly, "I have that which you asked for. I have the will of God for your lives and for your situation." He could have bluntly said, "You asked for it. You got it. I'm giving it to you. Here is what God has said." Now, I want you to watch in verses 10 through 12. God's will is revealed and at the same time God gives a promise. Watch it: Jeremiah 42 and verse 10, "If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent me of the

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• evil that I have done unto you. Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saith the Lord: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you out of his hand." I'm going to be honest, I don't think it could be any plainer. God says, "Here is my will. I want you to abide in the land. As long as you stay in the land, I'm going to build you. I'm going to plant you. I'm going to sustain you. I'm going to provide for you. I'm going to protect you.

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• That's all there is to it. It's my will that you stay in the land. Moreover, I not only want you to stay in the land, I want you to not be afraid of Nebuchadnezzar." And remember, he's called my servant by God. In other words, God had him on a leash. He was God's servant. He couldn't do anything except what God allowed. So God says, "Here's my will. You stay in the land. You be obedient. You do not be afraid.

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• I'm going to take care of you." Now, watch if you would. Once God has given His will along with the promises, He now gives a warning along with a curse. Look at it in verse 13. Verses 13 through 19: "But if ye say, We will not dwell in this land, neither obey the voice of the Lord your God, saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell: therefore hear the word of the Lord, ye remnant of Judah. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and to go to sojourn there, then it shall come to pass, that the sword which ye feared shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine whereof ye were afraid shall follow close after you there in Egypt, and there ye shall die. So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt, to sojourn there.

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• They shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, and none of them shall return or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, As mine anger and my fury have been poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my fury be poured forth when ye shall enter into Egypt, and ye shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach, and ye shall see this place no more. The Lord hath said concerning you, O remnant of Judah, Go ye not into Egypt.

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• Know certainly that I have admonished you this day." Now, I want you to note, God says, "I'm going to give you a warning. My warning is this: you obey me, do not disobey me, do not go into Egypt. If you go into Egypt, you're going to be cursed. In fact, the curse is going to be the very thing that you're afraid of. The curse is going to be the very thing that you're running from right at this particular moment. Do not go into Egypt. You want to avoid the sword? Stay in the land. You want to avoid the pestilence? Stay in the land. You want to avoid the famine? Stay in the land. If you go to Egypt, you're running into it.

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• Now, I hope, just reading this passage right now, I hope it makes you think of two passages in the Bible. The first one is Leviticus 26, and the second one is Deuteronomy 28. Because both of those passages deal with the blessings and the curses. So I want you to turn to Deuteronomy 28. I won't deal with Leviticus 26. But I want you to just see this. Look in Deuteronomy chapter 28 and we're going to first look at verses 1 and 2. By the way, when you hear the word Deuteronomy, Deuteros, or second, and nomos is law. It just simply means the second giving of the law. The first time the law was given was in Exodus, the second time in the book of Deuteronomy. So look what he says in verses 1 and 2 of Deuteronomy chapter 28, God says, "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments, which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will

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• set thee on high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God." Now, note if you would what God said. If you will obey me, then all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you. Now skip down if you would please to verse 14—and by the way, all those blessings are enumerated from verse 3 through verse 13—now in verse 14 he said, "And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee." Now, I don't know if you put two and two together or not, but if you will go back to verse 2, he said, "And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee."

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• Now skip down to verse 15, and he said, "And all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee." In other words, the wording is the same for the blessings and the curses. The blessings follow obedience, and the curses follow disobedience. What he said, and he said, "If you obey then all these things shall come upon thee," and notice his next phrase, "and overtake thee." And then he also said the same thing in verse 15, if we disobey all these curses will come upon us and overtake us.

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• So, if you can just picture this in your mind. Here you are obeying God to the best of your ability by His grace. God is blessing you like you would not believe and you just say, "I just can't take it anymore. I've got so many blessings I just don't need anymore. I can't handle them anymore." And you say, "I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna just run away from all these blessings." And here you are running down the road as fast and furiously as you can. God says, "My blessings will only come upon you. They'll overtake you." The words: you can't run from them. God said they will catch up with you, knock you down, and fall all over you. But He also said, "If you disobey me, these curses are going to do the same thing. You can't outrun the curses of God. They will chase you down and knock you down and fall all over you."

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• So God's Word has sanctions. There are negative sanctions. There are positive sanctions. The positive sanctions are the blessings and the negative sanctions are the curses. So this is exactly what Jeremiah is telling these people in Jeremiah chapter 42. He said, "Look, if you obey, then I'm going to build you. I'm going to plant you. I'm going to protect you. I'm going to promote you. I'm going to provide for you. But if you don't obey and you go into Egypt, everything that you're afraid of, that's exactly what you're going to run into." Now, I want you to go back to Jeremiah 42 and I want you to look at verse 20. Jeremiah 42 and verse 20. Look what Jeremiah tells them. After he tells them, God says, "Do not go into Egypt." Verse 20: "For ye dissembled in your hearts, when ye sent me unto the Lord your God, saying, Pray for us unto the Lord our God, and according to all that the Lord our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it."

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• Ah, Jeremiah said, "You dissembled in your heart." What in the world does that mean? When he says you dissembled in your hearts, it meant you erred. You went astray. You were led astray. You were deceived. You played the hypocrite. They did not deceive God. And in all probability, they did not even deceive Jeremiah. Well, who did they deceive? They deceived themselves. They deceived themselves. Flip back in your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 17 and look at verses 9 and 10. Jeremiah 17 verses 9 and 10. Here's what God says: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." Now, he says in verse 9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," and then this question, "Who can know it?" And yet I've heard preachers say, and I've heard Christians say, "Well, I know my heart." And the truth of the matter is, you don't know your heart.

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• And if you're honest with yourself, there are times that you have been serving the Lord and doing certain things and you think, "I'm doing this for God's honor and God's glory. I'm doing this for Him." And all of a sudden God pulls the veil back from your eyes and all of a sudden you see your pride and your wrong motives and your desire for vainglory and you have to confess, "Lord, I really wasn't doing this for you. I thought I was. But I'm trying to get something out of this for myself." That's what he said. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Perfectly, totally, and completely.

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• So, the heart then is deceitful. And these men deceived their own selves. In Isaiah 44 and verse 20, which I'm going to deal with that passage in the not too distant future, but the Word of God says, talking about the wicked, "He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside." And that's what happened here. A deceived heart had turned them aside.

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• Now, let me be blunt with you. God knows our hearts. He knows our hypocrisy. He knows when we're trying to deceive Him. He knows when we're not being truthful and when we're not being honest. And when we think we're going to deceive God, we're only deceiving ourselves. It is impossible to deceive the omniscient, sovereign God of Heaven and Earth. It is absolutely impossible. What can you say about these people who came to Jeremiah and said, "Seek the Lord's will for us.

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• You tell us what it is. We're going to do it whether we like it or not. We're going to do it." And they knew they were not going to do it. The only thing you can say, what a miserable, incorrigible people. I mean, ingratitude, hypocrisy, rebellion, and cruelty was seemingly enthroned in their hearts. They could care less for God and His will. No. You see, man may think himself to be wise and astute and crafty, but the truth of the matter is, you cannot fool the one true and the living God. You cannot do so. They assumed—now listen to me—they assumed because of all the trouble in the land and because of the possibility

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• of Nebuchadnezzar coming back, they assumed that God would direct them to go into Egypt. And when He did not, they could not reconcile themselves to that reality, to that fact. So let me just emphasize this again. It should be made clear that they consulted God not in an effort to determine what His will was so that they may do it. They consulted God so that God could put His stamp of approval upon what they had already decided and determined to do, whether it was God's will or not. They just said, "We want to go into Egypt. I know God's going to tell us to go into Egypt. I just know it." And consequently, when He did not tell them that, they lost their common sense. I'm going to show you that. I want you to look, if you would, back to Jeremiah 42. Because these people are not going to obey God, the only thing left for them is the judgment of God. God is going to judge them. God is going to chastise them.

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• So look in Jeremiah 42 beginning there in verse 21. He says, "Now I have this day declared it to you; but ye have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God, nor any thing for the which he hath sent me unto you.

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• Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go and to sojourn." Wow. Did you hear what he just said? Jeremiah said, "I told you what God's will was. You didn't want it. I knew you weren't going to do it. The only thing left for you"—and look what he said in verse 22—"now therefore know certainly," in other words, mark it down, this is absolutely sure, "you're going to die by the sword, by the famine, by the pestilence. God's gonna kill you. That's all there is to it." Now listen, when we disobey the Word of God, the only thing that we're doing is basically condemning ourselves. When we despise God's blessings, the only thing left are His curses. When we refuse life, the only thing left is death. When we refuse to obey, the only thing left is disobedience. When we refuse to turn, the only thing left is that we are to die in our sins. Now I want you to listen to what God said to these people through the prophet Ezekiel.

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• In Ezekiel 33, in verse 11, God said this, saying to them, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" So, when you refuse to repent, when you refuse to turn, the only thing left is death and judgment, that's it. It'd be wonderful if the people in this land could see that truth. Now let me show you something. What happens next would be absolutely hilarious if it was not so pathetic. Do you realize

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• that by nature man always tries to justify himself. And he always tries to justify his decisions, his actions. I've had people tell me over the years such things as this, when they have done wrong and they've been caught in it. They'll usually say something like this, "Well, you would have done the same thing I did if you'd been in my shoes. You'd have said what I said if you'd been there.

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• I had no other choice in the matter. I had to do what I had to do." Really? Lord, that's justifying yourself. That's saying, "I did wrong, but, you know, I've got this taken care of." Now, I want you to see what our Lord said. I want you to turn—hold Jeremiah 42, we're coming right back—but look in your Bible to Luke chapter 16. Luke chapter 16 and notice if you would verse 15. Look what he says, Luke 16 verse 15. He's talking to the Pharisees. In fact, if you look down in verse 14, "And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him." So now he's rebuking them. Watch in verse 15: "And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." Wow. He said, "Justify yourself all you want to. And you can have all the praise and recognition of men that you want to have, but it's an abomination in the sight of God."

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• So, usually, when we sin, instead of confessing it, acknowledging it, and repenting of it, we try to justify our actions. Now, let me ask you a question. How do these people try to justify their actions? They have come to Jeremiah and said, "Pray for us. Intercede for us. Give us God's will. We're going to do this. Whatever God says, that's exactly what we're going to do." And then he comes and tells them and they don't want to hear what he has to say. I want you to notice something. This is why I said it'd be hilarious if it was not so pathetic. How did they try to justify their sins and their rebellion? First of all, they tried to justify themselves by attacking Jeremiah and calling him a liar.

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• Look in chapter 43, verses 1 and 2: "And it came to pass, that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the Lord their God, for which the Lord their God had sent him to them, even all these words," now watch verse 2. There is an interesting word that is found in verse 2: "Then spake Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the Lord our God hath not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there." What? Now wait a minute. On one hand they're coming to him and saying, "Pray for us, intercede for us. You're God's man. You're the prophet of God. You're the preacher of God." Now they're saying, "You're lying to us. God never sent you to tell us not to go down into Egypt." What did they do? They vilified Jeremiah and their vilification was extremely insolent and reproachful. They had already testified that he was God's man, that he was God's preacher, that he was God's prophet. And now they're saying he's a liar. He does not bring forth God's truth. So now they're accusing him of substituting his word for God's

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• Word. And so basically now, they tell him off. "You're just lying to us. You are not God's prophet. God did not send you to say this to us." Let me ask you a question. Why did they attack Jeremiah? You know the old concept, if you don't like the message, attack the messenger. But why did they attack Jeremiah? Here's why. Think about this. They are seeking to justify their rebellion. They are seeking to justify their sins. Now, Jeremiah comes and says, "God said, do not go into Egypt. Do not go into Egypt.

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• You stay in the land." They said, "God did not say that and God did not send you to tell us that." So they are denying then that what He said is of God and of God's Word, therefore it cannot be God's will. So now watch this. So now they are justifying their rebellion and their sins by saying this, in essence, "We are not fighting against God. We are not resisting God. We're not in rebellion against God. What we're resisting is that preacher that's not telling the truth. It's all him. We're fighting against him. We're not fighting against God."

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• So how do I justify my sin? How do I justify my rebellion? Well, that's his interpretation of scripture. That's not what God said. Well, I don't believe that. That's not the way I was taught. I've never heard that in my entire life. I've been in church all my life. I just don't believe that. I'll keep doing what I want to do. God hasn't convicted me of it. He's just making that up. And so now, I'm not in rebellion against God. I'm just resisting this preacher who's lying to me and not telling me the truth. So in essence, they're still trying to justify themselves. Men will oftentimes do that, and God's men oftentimes bear the brunt from a rebellious people who do not wish to appear to be in rebellion to God. I've known of a number of godly men that have been run off from churches. The people did not want the Word of God and did not want the will of God, but yet at the same time they didn't want to appear to be fighting against God.

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• Wow. I heard one woman say it like this after they had run their preacher off, "Well, 21 Holy Ghost people could not be wrong." Really? They could if they are going contrary to Scripture. They could. So, here is how they try to justify, they attack Jeremiah. Watch secondly. Here is another attack. Look in Jeremiah chapter 43 and verse 3. After they tell Jeremiah he is preaching falsely, he is lying, now it gets even worse. They say in verse 3: "But Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us, for to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they might put us to death, and carry us away captives into Babylon."

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• Now, I want you to mark something down, the greatest integrity in God's men does not absolve them from reproaches. Now look at what they are saying, "But Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us."

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• Now, Jeremiah, according to these people, is such a numbskull and so weak-brained he can't even think for himself. No, it's Baruch who sets him on the people. Baruch happened to be his scribe, his secretary, his amanuensis, and also happened to be a much younger man as well. And they're saying, "It's Baruch. He hates us. He hates his own countrymen. He wants to see us slain. He wants Nebuchadnezzar to kill all of us. Jeremiah, the problem with you is you've been listening to your scribe. You've been listening to this much younger man." You've got to remember something. Back in the Old Testament, even in the New Testament, old men didn't listen to young men. Young men listened to old men.

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• Read the book of Job. And by the way, you have to remember, in the New Testament, in our Lord's day, a man was not even considered a man until he was 30 years of age. And so now they're saying, "Baruch is the man who sets you on." And now, what they are doing is they are not only accusing Jeremiah of being a false prophet and speaking lies and giving his own message instead of God's message.

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• Now they are accusing him of fraud and misrepresentation and allowing himself to be used for a very villainous purpose. And in actuality what he is doing is impersonating a prophet of God. Which of course merits a death penalty. I want you to understand something. This is not even logical. Their thinking is so perverted. They can't even think straight. Let me put it to you bluntly. Rebellion and sin destroy even common sense. You cannot fight against God and be in your right mind.

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• And that's what these people were doing. They were fighting against God.

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• Now, what was the result of their vile and vain accusations? Well, the result was that they had previously determined to go into Egypt, watch what happens, beginning in verse 4. No matter what God says, watch verse 4, Jeremiah 43: "So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the Lord, to dwell in the land of Judah. But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all nations, whither they had been driven, to dwell in the land of Judah; even men, and women, and children, and the king's daughters, and every person that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah. So they came into the land of Egypt: for they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: thus came they even to Tahpanhes."

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• So, what did they do? They kidnapped Jeremiah, and they kidnapped Baruch, and probably some of the other people as well. They forced them to go into Egypt. Boy, you're talking about intent on rebellion, and intent on sin. So, the question has to be asked, well, what are the consequences for what they have done? Well, I want you to see it. Let's begin in verse 8. We'll read through verse 13. Here's what's going to happen. Jeremiah chapter 43 verse 8. Here's what God says: "Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in the clay in the brickkiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah;" that is those men who carried him down there, "and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that I have hid;

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• and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And when he cometh, he shall smite the land of Egypt, and deliver such as are for death to death; and such as are for captivity to captivity; and such as are for the sword to the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace. He shall break also the images of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire." In other words,

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• God says, "Here's the problem folks. You are going to run into the very thing that you're running away from. You wanted to get out of Judah because of the war and the famine and the pestilence, guess what? You're going into Egypt. You wanted to get out of Judah because of Nebuchadnezzar, you were afraid of him. Guess what? He's gonna be in Egypt. He's going to destroy Egypt and he's going to destroy you." When you have disobedience, you have destruction. I read years ago a fable, a story that was very impressive to me. And it was told—its setting was in Persia, modern-day Iraq or Iran it is—and about

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• the man who was walking down the street in one of the cities and he met Death. Death was walking the opposite way and he and Death stared each other in the eyes and the man turned around and ran and Death looked shocked. And when the man escaped, someone looked at Death and said, "Why were you so shocked when you saw this man?" He said, "Well, I was surprised that he was here because I have an appointment with him tonight at midnight in Baghdad." So he ran from death and ran right into death.

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• That's what these people were doing. That's what these people were doing. They said they wanted to know God's will, but they didn't. Let me tell you, most people really do not want to know God's will. What we want to do is what we want to do. We want to do what we've determined in our hearts that needs to be done. These folks believed they needed to go to Egypt and get out of Judah and get out of harm's way, and yet they ran right into it. If they had listened to God, they would have been out of harm's way. I don't want to forget to say this, so let me say it now. The safest place for any child of God is right smack dab in the middle of the will of God. That's the safest place. Okay.

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• Now, let me make just two applications. The first one is this: Do you want the will of God in your life? Do you really genuinely and truly want the will of God in your life? If you want the will of God you would read and study and listen to His Word, apply it. If you really, truly, genuinely wanted the will of God, you would attend the preaching and teaching of His Word with an open heart and a prayerful attitude.

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• You would be asking the Lord to lead you, guide you, direct you, order your steps, establish your paths. You would have to say, "It is not in man, O Lord, to direct his paths." You would have to say, "Order my steps in Thy Word, direct my paths O Lord." And here is the truth, the truth is there is absolutely no excuse for a child of God not to know the will of God because we have His revealed will right in front of us. We know what God's revealed will is. I may not know His secretive will but right now that is none of my business. My business is revealed will. Let me show you.

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• Look in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 29:29, one of my favorite verses, Deuteronomy 29:29. Look at what the Scripture says. Interestingly, Deuteronomy 29:29, He says, "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." So I'm not to concern myself about God's secretive will.

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• He will work that out in His providence. I'm to be concerned about His revealed will. And the Bible says in Ephesians 5 and verse 17, "Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is." So He's commanded us to understand His will. The second application is very simple as well. When we sin, we must acknowledge it. We must confess and we must repent. We must turn from it.

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• We can't sit back and try to justify our actions. There's no reason to justify our actions or justify our attitudes or justify our decisions. If they're wrong, they're wrong. The thing to do is to repent and acknowledge them. What does the Bible say in Proverbs 28 verse 13? "Whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have mercy: but whoso covereth his sins shall not prosper." So we cannot do like these people. We cannot try to justify those things which are wrong in our lives. We must acknowledge them and confess them and repent of them. And we must make sure that we stay right smack dab in the middle of the will of God. And when we ask God for His will, and He shows us, we need to do it and not make excuses. Let's pray.

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• Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we do ask for Your blessing and Your help and Your direction. Lord, we do need Thy will. We do want Thy will. And we know that Thou art too loving to be unkind and too wise to make a mistake. Help us to trust Thee because Thou art our Father. Thou art our God. We love Thee and confess our need of Thee. In the name of Jesus Christ, help us to live for Thee. In Thy name we pray. Amen.

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-04T23:01:17Z