v
The hindrance of CHEAP obedience, Jer. 34:11.
Here is yet another
way to see why the people of Judah and Jerusalem were not willing to persevere
in their commitment to follow the law of the Lord. They did not count the cost! The release
of the Hebrew slaves meant the loss of cheap labor. They may have known it at the time, but they
had not reckoned with it.
There is, on the
surface, at least, a cost to
following the Lord. Obedience means we
have given up the path of disobedience.
The path of disobedience might be quite lucrative, for a while. Remember that Moses, at age forty, chose rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of
Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt (Heb. 11:25-26).
King David understood
this when he made the deal to purchase the threshing floor of Araunah the
Jebusite. David wanted the property in
order to make sacrifice for his sins. It
was ultimately the site where his son Solomon would build the temple. It was the Mountain of the Lord where Abraham had brought Isaac many years
before, bringing him to offer in obedience to the Lord (Gen. 22). And of course it was the same area where God
Himself would offer up His one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, for our
sins (Gen. 22:14: In the Mount of the
LORD it shall be provided.)
For Abraham, and for
God, faithful obedience was going to cost him the life of his precious and
promised son. Perhaps (I don’t really
think it was perhaps; I am sure David
understood the significance of the property) David thought of this when he
refused to take the property for free from Araunah. No, but
I will surely buy if from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to
the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing. David was the king; he could have whatever he
wanted. He had proven that fact in the
matter of Bathsheba; and it had resulted in severe sin and terrible
consequences. He had proven it again
when he overcame the resistance of Joab in the numbering of the people, his sin
that precipitated the need for a place of sacrifice (2 Sam. 24:1-17).
In Luke 14:25-33 Jesus
warned the multitudes that they must consider what it meant to follow Him. The context of these words is found in v26 in
words Jesus spoke that some do not understand.
If anyone comes to Me and does not
hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and
his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. Perhaps what we have considered today will
help bring this into focus. What Moses
and Abraham and David did was to hate
everything and everyone else, including themselves, in the way Jesus meant
it. And what the people in Jeremiah’s
day would not do was to hate all else
in being obedient to their God.
Obedience is never cheap.
Count the cost!
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