A God of Commitment

Well, one of the questions, I guess, as we get older, that we might get, is what was the happiest time in your life? Or what was the happiest day in your life? Now, for those of us that are older, I would venture to say we're going to come up with one or two answers that we answer that with. If we're a little younger, the answer is going to probably be a little different. As you think back on your life, probably something pops into your mind right away when you think about, what was the happiest day of my life? As I think back, there's actually two days that I would look back and say were the happiest days of my life. One of them was when my wife said yes when I asked her to marry me. And the other time was when she actually did marry me. And then closely following behind those days would be the birth of our children. Those were very happy days and it was, well, happy and they were life-changing days. And I think as all of you look at your lives, you look back over time and it's really what's important in your life is the people that are in it, the relationships that you have, and not so much what you've accomplished in the business world or how much money you have in your bank account or anything like that. Relationships are important and relationships, good relationships, change us. They make us better. When we look for a mate and when we marry, we want someone who complements us and who we know is committed to us for the rest of our lives. Now some of you are thinking, you blew it, Rick. That's not the answer you should have given. And I know what you're thinking because I would say, there's another day that was happy in my life, but happy isn't the word that I would use to describe it. Sometimes in the English language, we don't have words to convey what things mean. So to say, this day would be the happiest day in my life, yes, it was happy, but it wasn't happy as we think of happy. The most important day in my life, if I were asked, was the day I was baptized. The most important day, the day that changed me and the day that put me or made me into a new creation where there was a commitment to a new life, was the day I was baptized. From the time that I was engaged and married, from the time that I was baptized, I spent a lot of changes in life and I wouldn't have it any other way.

You know, you can go out and you can go to any bookstore and there are going to be shelves and shelves full of books on relationships and what makes a good relationship. The Bible is the best relationship book. God wants a relationship with all of us and He tells us how to have good relationships. We can talk about trust and we can talk about communication and we can talk about time spent with each other and those are all important things. They have to happen. But today I want to talk about one word in a relationship that makes the difference and whether it's going to really make the difference in your life and become all that you hoped it would be. And that word is commitment. Commitment. When we enter into a relationship, we want commitment must be part of it if it's going to produce what we want it to.

Let me read to you a section here from a business book. The man who wrote this book is Thomas Watson and it was about a business and its belief and this was from the ideas that helped build IBM. And this was a quote that the president of IBM back years ago when IBM was beginning to form. He said, the basic philosophy, spirit, and drive of an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation, or timing. All these things weigh heavily in success, but they are, I think, transcended by how strongly the people in the organization believe in its basic precepts and how faithfully they carry them out. Are they committed to what they're doing? Do they believe in what they're doing?

He goes on to say, or the author goes on to say, as true as this is for the success of a corporation, it's even more so for the individual. The most important single factor in individual success is commitment. Commitment ignites action. To commit is to pledge yourself to a certain purpose. It also means practicing your beliefs consistently.

So when we get engaged to someone and you say yes, or you ask the person, there's a commitment that's implied. Do you believe in where I'm going? Do you want to share this with me? Do we have goals in common that we can work toward as a partnership?

Same thing when we marry and we say, I do. We commit to that person, not just for the good times, but for all the times. Not just for fun, but commit to a purpose in life and to commit to each other for a lifetime. When we listen to God's call, when we respond to Him, when we repent, and when we're baptized and we say, I do, we're committing to Him for eternity. We're telling Him, yes, we've heard what you have to say. Yes, we believe where you're going. Yes, we trust you. And yes, we believe you can take us there. And yes, I will dedicate my life to serving you.

It's a commitment, not just through the good times, but through the bad times as well.

You know, there are so many things in life. God wants us to do things or asks us to do things, but He never asks us to do anything that He doesn't do Himself. Before He ever asked us to love Him, He loved us. Romans 5 and verse 8, I believe it is, says Jesus loved us before we ever knew Him and gave His life for us. Before there was ever Adam and Eve, God so loved what He was going to create that He went to great trouble, if you will, to create a perfect earth and a perfect environment for people to live in. And He committed to a plan. Before the foundation of the world, He committed to what He was going to do. Let's take a few minutes here and look at some of the commitments that God has made to see how trustworthy He is. You can be turning back to Genesis 3. Of course, this is the account right after Adam and Eve rejected God. Here they were placed in this beautiful environment that something that we can't even imagine. God took the time. They knew that He had created them. He took the time to educate them. And in essence, He gave them two trees. One tree was life. Commit to Me. Take of this tree and you'll live and things will be well with you. The other tree was not commit. Betray. Deal treacherously with God.

After all, it seems even incredible that Adam and Eve would choose the tree of the knowledge of good in life and reject what God had done and be unfaithful to Him and betray His trust and His love in that way. But that's what they did. There were certainly repercussions from it. In Genesis 3 and in verse 14, it says, The Lord God said to the serpent, here when it all came to light what had happened, because you've done this, you're cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.

And He says in verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel. And here He says, there will be a seed that comes from Eve that will overcome Satan. Mankind had chosen death and the wrong way, but God committed to His plan going forward. Even though He had to be very disappointed with what Adam and Eve had done, He committed that the man would go on and that the plan that He and the Logos had formed before the foundation of the world would continue.

He wasn't going to abandon it. He was committed to what He had done, even though things didn't go the way that He had hoped. So mankind continued to live. And you know the story. As the years went by, mankind didn't get better. They didn't learn their lesson from this. They continued to get worse and worse and worse. So much so that in Genesis 6, it tells us that God was so sorry that He had created man because they were just totally wicked. That He decided He was going to flood the earth and everything on earth was going to die except Noah and his family and the animals that would go on that ark with them. And so God did that. The world had become so disgustingly revolting to Him at that point that's what He did. And through it all, of course, He saw Noah through the time there and the water is receded. And in Genesis 8, we find God after the waters are receding. Genesis 8 and verse 21 says, the eternal smelled a soothing aroma. And He said in His heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. I'm committing. God says that not again will I have destroy all of mankind through a flood. Over in chapter 9 and in verse 8, God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him saying, As for me, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you.

You know what a covenant is? It's a binding contract or a binding agreement between two people, a commitment, if you will. No covenant is complete unless there is an inherent commitment to it. Because you can have a covenant and if one party or the other has no intention of committing to it or abiding by it, it's as useless as the piece of paper that is signed on.

For a covenant to mean anything, it has to be a commitment. So as we read through this and we see the word covenant today, let's think about commitment and the commitment that God is making. So he tells Noah, I'm going to establish a commitment with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you of all that go out of the ark, every ark, every beast of the earth. Thus I establish my covenant, my commitment to you. Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this is the sign of the commitment which I make between me and you and every living creature that's with you for perpetual generations. I set my rainbow in the cloud and it'll be a sign for the covenant between me and the earth. An unconditional covenant. God just said, never again will I allow the earth to be flooded and all mankind die. He made that commitment.

And here we are some 35,000, 4000 years later, and God has kept that commitment.

We know very well that He will keep that commitment because when God commits, it's binding.

And He absolutely abides by what He says He will do.

There's other commitments that God made as well. He made some commitments to men.

Abraham, right here, just a couple chapters forward in Genesis, he made a commitment to him. Out of all the people on the earth, Abraham obeyed God. He was loyal to him. He was faithful to him. He kept his statutes, his commandments, and God was impressed with Abraham. And God loved Abraham because Abraham loved God. He did what God wanted him to do. And over in Genesis 12, God makes him some promises.

Genesis 12, verse 2, He says, I'm going to make you a great nation.

I will bless you. I'll make your name great and you will be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you. I'll curse him who curses you and end you. All the families of the earth will be blessed.

One man, Abraham. But God is making some promises to him. And in chapter 15 and chapter 17, he talks about the commitment and spells it out. Let's turn over to Genesis 17. Genesis 17, verse 1, he says that when Abraham was 99 years old, God appeared to him and said, I am Almighty God, walk before me and be blameless. Keep walking before me. Keep living the way you are doing. Live according to my laws and I will make my covenant, my commitment between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. And Abraham fell on his face. God talked with him, said, for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you'll be a father of many nations.

At this point, he didn't have one son. Well, he had Ishmael, but he didn't have the son that they've been waiting for. He and Sarah. And God is telling him, at 99 years old, I'm making this commitment to you. You will be a father of many nations. Verse 6, I'll make you exceedingly fruitful. I will make nations of you and kings will come from you.

And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you and their generations for an everlasting covenant. Not something that was just going to be for his lifetime, an everlasting commitment to Abraham. Also, he says in verse 8, I will give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, at the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession. And I will be their God. This land flowing with milk and honey, that's your land, God says. For many years, the descendants of Abraham wasn't there, or weren't there. Some of them are there now, but in Ezekiel 36, so we see at the time that Christ returns, he will gather all those descendants of Abraham and he will bring them back to that land that he promised. And that's where they will be, the land flowing with milk and honey. He made a commitment. That commitment stands, and when Christ returns, that commitment will still be there in all the people, because God knows who those descendants are. He will bring them back. He's true to his commitments. He also made a covenant with David. Let's turn over to 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel 7.

After David sinned with Bathsheba and had Uriah murdered, he repented of his sins, a true and godly repentance, and it turned his life around that he committed that he would follow God, and he did, and he became a man after God's own heart. And God made a commitment to him. Let's pick it up in verse 8.

Speaking of the same things that we've just been talking about.

It's quite a commitment. Only God can make a commitment like that, and a lot of the world would look at that commitment and say, well, where is David's throne today? It disappeared when Israel was overthrown. It disappeared when Judah was overthrown. But those of us who have been in the church, we know David's throne still exists today. And in Luke 1, verse 32, it says that when Christ returns, God will give him the throne of David. That throne is alive and well. When God commits to something, it happens. We can absolutely take it to the bank. So we have no reason to not trust God.

Not to have faith because the Bible is full of covenants and commitments that God has made that are still in place today, and that will be for all eternity or as long as there's a heaven and earth as whatever time frame he set on it. We know that God honors his commitments. We know he's true to him. We know that what he says he will do. If a commitment's broken, it's not by God, it's by man.

Let's go back and look at another covenant. One back in Exodus, a covenant and a commitment between God and his people, Israel. We're here on Pentecost weekend, and traditionally we believe that God gave the commandments to Moses and the people of Israel around the day of Pentecost. So as we read this, we realize we're at the same time of year that the people of Israel are gathered here at the base of Mount Sinai. They have seen God's great power. They were a people going nowhere, as we've talked about before. They had absolutely no future. They were sitting there just as slaves in a nation with absolutely nothing to hang their head onto. When God looked down on them and God decided he was going to take them out of Egypt and make them into the people that he hoped they would be, the descendants of Abraham that he said he would make into a numerous people. He was ready to do it. And they saw the power of God as he just dismantled Egypt. And one by one took away their gods, took away their power, and they watched as God opened the Red Sea, delivered them, and crushed the remainder of Egypt in the Red Sea. So they knew the God they were talking to. They knew the power that he had. And as they were assembled here before him at Mount Sinai here in Exodus 19, he was ready to talk to them. Let's pick it up in Exodus 19, verse 3. It says, Moses went up to God, and God called to him from the mountain, saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and all, and tell the children of Israel, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle's wings, and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you will be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine. If you will obey me, if you will do what I ask, if you will love me the way I say, and ask you to love me, then I'll make you a special treasure above all people. And he had the power to do it.

It's a true rags-to-riches story. What was that movie? There's a movie, My Fair Lady, is that the one where they take a lady and turn her into something precious? That's what God was going to do with Israel. Take her from being slaves, and turn her into the most beautiful nation on earth. And he committed that he would do that. And we know, and Israel knew, he had the power to do it, and he was committed to that. But Israel had to commit, too. This wasn't an unconditional commitment. Israel had to commit as well. In verse 6, he says, you'll be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you will speak to the children of Israel, and Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before them all these words which God commanded him. And all the people answered together and said, all that the eternal has spoken we will do.

You know, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 that all these things that happened to the Israelites, all the things that are recorded in the Old Testament, they're examples for us. Examples for us. So that we can learn from their mistakes and learn from the things that they did well.

So what happened to the Israelites here in this commitment ceremony that they were going through with their God tells us a lot about how we should respond to the commitment ceremony that we have with God. You know the history of Israel. It didn't go well. This wasn't a successful marriage, but it wasn't God's fault. There was a commitment ceremony, and God said, this is what I will do. And he proposed to Israel. This is what I'll do. Will you follow me? And they said, yes, we will.

But they didn't. It could have been a beautiful love story.

Could have been something that was tremendous. A story for the ages.

But it didn't turn out that way. It had a sad ending.

Through Exodus 20, God recounted for them what those principles were that he wanted them to live by.

And he said, if you just do these things, they're all good for you, and I will rain my blessings down on you. In Deuteronomy 28, you see the blessings listed, and you know that God has the power to do that. All they had to do was obey.

But they didn't do it. God did everything right.

Everything right. Because He's a perfect God who honors His commitments and is committed to the plan that He sets. But the story of Israel and the story of Judah doesn't have a happening ending later on in the Old Testament. Turn with me back to Isaiah 5.

As you turn there, I'll bring your attention to a sermon I gave a couple years ago about God's grapevine. You remember we talked about grapevines and how God uses the analogy of grapevines and how we are attached to Christ, and that we have to be attached. He's the vine dresser, garden keeper, God is, and we have to be attached if we're going to grow. And there's an art to growing grapes. If you're going to have a grape of successful vineyard, it has to be just perfectly done. In Isaiah 5, God is talking and using the analogy of a grape vineyard again to His people. Chapter 5, verse 1, says, Let me sing to my well beloved, a song of my beloved regarding His vineyard. My well beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones. He planted it with a choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst and also made a wine press in it. Everything that needed to happen for a very successful and productive vineyard, God did, and He did it perfectly. After having done all those things and committing to do everything that He said and doing what He said He would do, He expected it, it says in verse 2, to bring forth good grapes. But it didn't bring forth good grapes. It brought forth wild grapes. And He says, Now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge please between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done to my vineyard that I haven't done to it? God asked that rhetorical question. What Israel? What more could I have done for you? I took you out of bondage. I gave you everything that your heart desired. When you asked for water, you got it. When you asked for quail, you got it. You were fed manna, and I brought you to a land flowing with milk and honey. The choicest land on earth. What more could I have done for you? I honored my commitment. I was the perfect provider, perfect sustainer, perfect protector. Everything that you would expect a God and a husband to be, God was to Israel. And yet, that vineyard didn't bring forth good grapes. It brought forth bad grapes.

Well, we know the answer, but let's turn to Ezekiel. Ezekiel pretty much lays out here where the problem is and what happened with Israel. As you're turning to Ezekiel 20, remember the commitment ceremony that Israel and God had at the base of Mount Sinai. He laid out for them, and he proposed to them, this is what we'll do. Let's partner together, and let's do this. And I will do this if you will obey these laws, and they said, yes, we will.

In Ezekiel 20, verse 1, and let's pick it up in verse 2, it says, The word of the Lord came to me, me being Ezekiel, saying, Son, a man, speak to the elders of Israel and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, have you come to inquire of me, as I live, I will not be inquired of by you. I won't listen to what you have to say. Will you judge them, Son of man? Will you judge them? Then make known to them the abominations of their fathers. Say to them, Thus says the Lord God, On the day when I chose Israel and raised my hand in an oath to the descendants of the house of Jacob, on the day I committed to them, and I said, This is what well I will do, and I made myself known to them in the land of Egypt, I raised my hand in an oath to them, saying, I am the Lord your God. On that day I raised my hand in an oath to them, I committed to them, I promised to them that I would do this, to bring them out of the land of Egypt, to a land that I had searched out for them, flowing with milk and honey the glory of all the lands.

Then I said to them, Each of you, throw away the abominations which are before his eyes. Don't defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

When I entered into that commitment with them, that exclusive partnership, I and I alone, God is saying, was their God. They weren't supposed to be looking at other gods in Egypt. They weren't supposed to be looking at the nations around them. They were supposed to be committed directly to God. And had they just done that, they might have kept the rest of the law.

But they were an unfaithful partner. They didn't have eyes only for God.

They were the apple of God's eye, it says in Zechariah 2.

But God wasn't the apple of their eye. They had other people they were looking at.

And no matter what God did, they didn't come back and they were never faithful to Him in the way that partners in a commitment should be and the way that a husband and wife should be, if you will.

Verse 8 says, God goes on, But they rebelled against me. They wouldn't obey me. They didn't.

All cast away the abominations which were before their eyes, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt.

They kept looking. They kept their eyes open and didn't focus on me. Then I said, I will pour out my fury on them and fulfill my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

But God relented because He didn't want the nations to say He didn't have the power to do that.

Verse 11. He says, I gave them my statutes. I showed them my judgments, which if a man does, he'll live by them.

Everything I asked them to do was going to produce life. It was only going to be good for them.

All they had to do was obey, and it would have been good for them. Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between them and me, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

Told them what to do. Yet the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They didn't walk in my statutes. They despised my judgments, which if a man does, he'll live by them. And they greatly defiled my Sabbaths.

The two chief things that Israel did was break God's Sabbath and defile it and not keep it the way that he had said. They were always willing to compromise with the Sabbath, and they were always looking for other idols. Anything that we put between us and obedience to God is an idol. And they paid a heavy price for it.

They greatly defiled my Sabbaths, he says, and I said I would pour out my fury on them in the wilderness to consume them. Now put yourself in God's place for a moment.

You make a commitment to Israel, or you make a commitment to your wife.

Or your husband. And you do everything right. Everything right.

And yet that spouse doesn't heed anything you ask them to do.

Even after you're married, there's other, there's former boyfriends, girlfriends, or whatever. But they're still talking to, keeping contact with.

Whatever you ask them to do, they may do if it pleases them, but if there's something else that comes up, they'll do that instead. You ask them to join you at a business dinner, and time and time again it's like, I have better things to do than that. I don't want to be at that dinner.

A relationship can't exist that way. It can't endure that way. There has to be commitment on both ends. So when God says he's angry with Israel, we can understand why. They committed and told him, Wes, what you ask us to do, we will do. But they didn't. And so God is ready to consume them. Let's go back to Isaiah 5, or to put them away. Let's go back to Isaiah 5 and finish what we were reading about the grapevine. Isaiah 5, we left it off in verse 4 with God asking, why did this grapevine that should have brought forth good grapes bring forth wild grapes? In verse 5, he says, And now please let me tell you what I'll do to my vineyard. I'll take away its hedge, and it'll be burned. I'm not going to protect it anymore. I'll break down its wall, and it'll be trampled down. I'll lay it waste. It won't be pruned or dug, but there shall come up briars and thorns. I will also command the clouds, that they may rain no rain on it. The blessings that could have been there are now gone. The love that was there, or that should have been there, has been gone. Not God's fault. And God never stopped loving them, but they got what they sowed. Rather than living by the things that would have produced all the blessings, they chose to live by a different law. And when we choose to live by a different law, we can't expect the blessings of God. Israel wanted their cake and needed it too.

They wanted God to provide everything they wanted, but they wanted to worship however and whoever they wanted. And it just doesn't work that way.

In a committed relationship, the partners worked together. Over in Jeremiah 3, God humanizes the relationship between Him and Israel for us. In Jeremiah 3 and in verse 6, it says, She's gone up in every high mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot.

And I said, after she had done all these things, return to me, he was willing to forgive. What could have been a beautiful love story? What could have been a beautiful relationship? That the world would still be talking about ended in a bitter divorce. God putting Israel away and then later Judah because they didn't learn the lesson as well. Was it God's fault? No. Was it Israel who didn't keep her commitment? Yes. And they found themselves in a divorce from God.

I can't even imagine what it must feel like to be in a divorce from God. It has to be an awful, awful feeling. But that's what Israel found themselves in. In verse 14, God says to Judah, return, O backsliding children, for I am married to you.

I will take you, he says, one from a city, and bring you back. I'm married to you. It was a marriage relationship. God was the husband. Israel was the wife. God perfectly fulfilled everything that he said he would fulfill to Israel. But his wife would have none of it. She simply didn't want what he had to offer. And so that relationship, for the meantime, ended. Although the relationship will be renewed again, because God has always true to his commitments. It's coming from me over, or turn over to Jeremiah 31. Verse 31, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

The old covenant's done. They broke it. They're done. But there's a day coming when there will be a new covenant, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But here's the covenant, the commitment that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will put my law in their minds. I will write it in their hearts. And I will be their God. And they shall be my people. Israel couldn't obey God. They didn't have the Spirit of God.

And the lesson that we have of them is a nation that never even really tried to commit to God. They simply just went astray and dealt treacherously with God. You see that word? They dealt treacherously with God. They said, what you do or what you ask us to do will do. But then they didn't do it. And so that covenant and that commitment was broken, not by God, but by them. And Jesus Christ was born, and He lived, and He died. And because He loved every all of mankind so much, He was willing to give His life for us. Before we knew Him, He loved us.

Over in Hebrews 9 and verse 15, as it talks in these chapters about how Christ came and fulfilled the sacrificial rituals back then, that He was the perfect sacrifice, because of Him there is life and life everlasting. Because of Him there is a future. Because of Him we have hope. It says He, for this reason, in verse 15, He is the mediator of the new covenant, the new commitment, if you will, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal, eternal inheritance.

Because God makes eternal promises to us. We know that. We know those promises. We know what God has said He will do. And for each one of us sitting in this room, He's called us. He's proposed to us, if you will. He's opened our minds and said, here's what my plan is, and I want you to be part of it. I want you to receive this internal inheritance, and I want you to be part of this group of people that I'm calling and working with now and preparing for a special purpose.

And we all heard that proposal. And we all listened to what He had to say. And we all believed what He had to say, or we wouldn't be sitting here. Because what He had to say is so far superior that the world, what He has to offer, there's no reason even discussing it. It's not in the same ballpark. Now we saw eternity, and we believe that He could do it, and this is the God we will follow. This is the God we will obey. This is the God we will love. This is the God we will trust. And we believe that what He says He will do.

He will provide. He will protect. He will provide salvation. He will bring us in to His Kingdom because He said He will do it. And He did. Or He's working with us. Every single one of us who have been baptized, He proposed. And when we repented and we were baptized, we said, I do. I do.

I commit to you. Not just for a physical life like we do in marriage, but for eternity. I do. The same words that Israel said to Him back there, everything you say and ask us to do, we will do. That's what we said when we were baptized. That's what we say as we continue in courtship with Him. And as He brings us along to the point where we say, yes, we will do it. We want to partner with you. And when we do that, God works with us. Now, after we're baptized and hands are laid on us, He puts His Holy Spirit in us. Tomorrow we'll talk about the Holy Spirit more. Pentecost was the first time the New Testament church was given the Holy Spirit en masse.

And that Holy Spirit made all the difference in the world. It, from God, gives us the power to obey, to overcome, to walk with Him. It makes us part of His family, as we'll talk about. And it makes us part of something very special in this day and age that God for someone to reach down and invited us and proposed to us that we could be part of. Turn with me over to Revelation 19. Revelation 19, verse 5. Then a voice.

Now, this is the speaking of the time when Christ returns to earth. He's come down, He's taken the kingdoms of the world, made them His own. A voice came from the throne, saying, Praise our God, all you His servants, and those who fear Him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of many thunderings, saying, Remember Israel? Back at the bow of the base of Mount Sinai, they heard these same sounds.

They felt and they heard the magnitude of God. When Ezekiel was in God's throne room in a vision, he saw and he was awed by the presence of God. And here at this time, all these things, the awe of God is displayed, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns.

Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. His wife has made herself ready. This wasn't the beginning. She's already been working, and God working with her to make her ready for that wedding so that she's ready to be fully in that partnership. When did that happen? It happened in the weeks, months, years, decades before this. During the time that those He proposed to said, Yes, I will marry you. Yes, I will give my life to you. And during that time with His Holy Spirit, He's been perfecting.

He's been weeding out. He's been eliminating from our lives the idols that are there so that when we marry Him, we have eyes for one God and one God only. The same thing we should be living by today. His wife has made herself ready, and to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, white and clean. Bright and clean for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

A tremendous time that's coming in the future. The marriage of the Lamb. The time that Romans 18 says, Romans 8 says, the time all creation has been waiting for. The time for the revealing of the sons of God. The time for the revealing of the bride of Christ. The bride has made herself ready. Let me read to you a portion of the wedding ceremony that we use in the church today. Most of you, a lot of you in here, have heard this read at your weddings or have heard it in another ceremony.

This is near the end. But as I read through this, it's okay if you think about you and your spouse, but think about it as Jesus Christ and His bride. Let the words sink in of what He's committing to and what He's committed to and what we're committing to. It says in Ephesians 5, verse 21, Paul talks about submitting to one another in the fear of God. The sacred marriage covenant calls upon you to yield yourselves to God and to each other, to hold each other in high esteem, giving honor and respect to one another with love and devotion.

Always give preference to the welfare of the other. Outgoing concern is the foundation of the marriage relationship. And then the vows. And I'm going to put Jesus Christ's name in here for the husband, and you can put your own name in there when we get to the wives.

Do you, then, Jesus Christ, faithfully promise and covenant with God in the presence of these witnesses to take the Church of God to be your lawful wedded wife, in sickness and in health, in good times and in difficult times, for as long as you both shall live to love her, cherish her, honor her, and provide for her? And Jesus Christ says, I do. He said it to Israel. He said it many times.

And do you put your name in there, faithfully promise and covenant or commit with God in the presence of these witnesses to take Jesus Christ to be your lawful wedded husband, in sickness and in health, in good times and in difficult times, for as long as you both shall live to love him?

Christ says we love him? John 14, verse 15, if you love me, keep my commandments. Now, I've got myself off track. To be your lawful wedded husband, in sickness and in health, in good times and in difficult times, for as long as you both shall live to love him, cherish him, honor him, and, as God has ordained, submit yourself to him, and then we answer.

And what we answer, we better mean. If we say, yes, or I do, we'd better mean it. Israel said, I do, and they didn't. And we see the repercussions for them. If we say, I do, and we don't, the same and worse will be our lot. Commitment. We know we have a God we can trust. We know we have a God we can have faith in. We know we have a God who is perfect and is capable of doing anything and delivering us from any situation and through any situation.

That's not even up for discussion. The question is us. He's committed. Will we be committed? Will we do what He asks us to do? I won't take the… Well, you know I'm going to take a minute here. Turn with me back to Ephesians 5. For those of you who were here at the Bible study last month, we went over a few of these verses and I just want to read over them again, a few of the verses here in Ephesians 5, just in the context of us thinking of what we're committing to Christ.

Remembering that He's the husband and we're the bride. Ephesians 5, verse 22, wives, submit to your husband. He's the spiritual head we talked about in that Bible study. We know that our husband, our father, is the perfect spiritual leader. We can look at him and we can follow him implicitly and that's the only person we should follow.

For the husband is head of the wife, as also it says, Christ is the head of the church and He's the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, let wives be to their own husbands in everything. In verse 25, he says, husbands love your wives. Is there any doubt that Jesus Christ loved us? Absolutely not. Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might prepare her for the role that she was going to take.

Because in a committed and in a good relationship, people become better. God didn't call us to be the same as when He called us. He called us to perfect us, to grow us, to help us to become what He knows we can be. And in our relationships, if we're living the way God wants, we become better people as a result of those relationships. Verse 28, husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Verse 33 says, nevertheless, that each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Do we respect God? Did Israel respect God, we might ask? The answer would be no. They didn't honor God. Whenever they had the opportunity, they did the opposite of what He wanted. Tomorrow we celebrate Pentecost. The question for us is are we committed to God? Are we committed to the relationship that He's called us to be part of? Are we committed? And when we said, I do, do we mean it? Have we meant it? Because if we haven't meant it through the way we live our lives and pay attention to the way we love Him, just as He said to love Him, there's time.

Throughout Exodus 20 that we read, God, and through Jeremiah, again and again, God went back and said, return to me. God doesn't want to leave anyone behind. He doesn't want to end the relationship. It's not Him who ends relationships. It's us.

Make sure we're committed to Him. Make sure that in our relationship with God, commitment is there. We entered into a covenant, and tomorrow as we go to Pentecost, it's that Holy Spirit that we allow to live in us, direct us, and guide us. That's going to help make that commitment sure and to keep that relationship intact, and so that it ends up not the way Israel's did, but ends up in the picture of Revelation 19 verse 5 through 9 that we read.

That you will be part of that bride, finishing or in the commitment that you've made now, the commitment that will be completed at the time Christ returns.