My pleasure this evening to extend
a warm welcome to Mr Rowan Wheatley in ministering to us this evening
and may the Lord greatly help you Rowan in speaking to us.
Thank you. Thank you very much, John and
the Lord. I answer the petitions that have
been put up just now and prior to this meeting. We're seeking
for the Lord's help. The subject that I desire to
bring before you this evening is the consequences of partial
obedience. I trust that all of us, if we
have the fear of God before us, that we desire to obey the Lord. But we know that there are those
that are recorded in the Word of God, that they also desire
to obey the Lord, and some of them, they really profess that
they had obeyed, and yet it had only been a partial obedience. And with that partial obedience,
there were consequences that were very far-reaching for them,
and indeed some of them, it meant that really they were not one
of the Lord's people at all. So the subject this evening,
it is not disobedience, it is not obedience. but it is the
consequences of a partial obedience and I hope you will find it profitable
and searching as I have in studying it up. Now I want to begin in
the portion that we have read. There's four portions or examples
throughout the Word of God and then I'd like to bring it together
a little bit at the end of it. But we have with our reading
the children of Israel just coming into the wilderness. In fact,
it's 31 days after they left Egypt and 6 days after they left
the Red Sea. And the Lord was pleased to give
them a test of obedience. We read of their murmuring, of
their complaining, and the Lord says in verse 4 of Exodus 16,
that I may prove them. And He was going to use the giving
of manna specifically, we'll lay aside this evening the quails,
but it was the manna specifically that would be used to prove the
children of Israel and so he gave them commands in relationship
to it and what was commanded for five days did not apply to
the other two for five days they would be given an amount of manna
and they were to gather just what they needed for that day,
and they were not to leave it until the morning. If they did,
then it would breed worms and stink. And some of them, they
did not obey the Lord in that particular. They did what was
right, they obeyed, they went out, they gathered the manna,
But when it came to the next part of obedience in not keeping
it until the next day, they didn't keep that. And so it did breed
worms and stink. But then on the sixth day, there
was a double amount there. They reported that. Why was there
a double amount? And Moses said, well, this is
what God has said. You'll have twice as much today
for the provision for tomorrow. So now they had to not do what
they had been doing before, which was to get rid of it and not
keep it up overnight. They had to keep it overnight.
So they had to pay a strict obedience to what the Lord was saying,
and not say, well, we've done for five days this, we can do
it again for the next five days. It was to be no, the Lord has
said on this day it's going to be different. But then again,
there were some that on the next day, the Sabbath, which the Lord
said there wasn't going to be any there at all, this is what
you've got to use, what you've stored up, and they went out
together. And again, the Lord was angry
with those, we read that in verse 28, of those that didn't regard
the commandment of the Lord. Now, right at a very, very early
on, in the formation of the people of God, the children of Israel,
we have the message, pay attention to detail in the commands that
I give you. Don't just say, well, one command
applied for today, so it will do good for tomorrow, and the
next day, and the next day, and the next day. No, pay attention
to the actual detail of it. And don't think, well, because
we've started to obey, that we are going to continue to obey. Now, in this, the Lord was truly
angry with them. but there weren't those severe
consequences, long-lasting ones, but it was a real lesson to them
that whatever the commands that the Lord gave them, and they
were soon going to be coming to Mount Sinai, that they were
to pay attention to detail and just a partial obedience in one
aspect, but not in it all was not enough they had to look at
the whole plan for that whole week not just part of it and
so this is the the first instance that i'd bring before you and
laying a foundation and really the apostle paul is very clear
when he writes to the corinthians that that which is written here,
these things that happened to the children of Israel, especially
later when the Lord visited them and corrected them and judged
them, were to the intent that we should not lust after evil
things and that we shouldn't fall into the same traps as they
did. So this very principle This applies
to the Church of God today. Pay attention to details and
don't think that, well, we're obeying the Lord, when in actual
fact, yes, it is a partial obedience and almost blinkers us and blinds
us to the fact that we've disobeyed. we need to pay attention to all. And so the consequences of a
partial obedience in this, not very severe, but a real lesson
to be learned, a foundation for later on. Now the next one I'll
bring before you is commencing at the next chapter in the 17th
of Exodus and this is 42 days after they departed from Egypt
they come to Rephidim And in that place they murmur because
they have not got any water to drink. And so the Lord gives
them a direction and command what they should do. and Moses
was to go and he was to smite the rock Moses was told in Exodus
chapter 17 the Lord said unto Moses go on before the people
and take with thee of the elders of Israel and thy rod wherewith
thou smotest the river take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I
will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb. So the
Lord is standing upon that rock, and thou shalt smite the rock,
and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink.
Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. Now, here
we have a beautiful type, again right at the beginning of the
sojourning, they have been given the manna, they've been given
the quails, now they've been given the water in this miraculous
way, but it points to the Lord Jesus Christ, this smitten rock,
that which he endured at Calvary, the wrath of God falling upon
him, that blessing that was at Calvary, the living waters, we
are told, shall flow from Jerusalem, half toward the Hindousee, half
toward the Formosee, half toward the Gentiles, half toward the
Jews, and those living waters of the Gospel we're told by the
Apostle again to the Corinthians, they drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. And it's
very important to believe and to know that there was only need
of one sacrifice. This was a type and our Lord
at Calvary is a great anti-type and he's only smitten once he's
not offered again he's not smitten again and that is very important
and so Moses he actually obeyed in this instance right at the
beginning of the sojourn of the children of Israel. Now I just
mention it as an aside. It's only a couple of days here
now before they come to Mount Sinai where the law of God is
given. So here we have a real time. Our Lord is the land that was
slain from the foundation of the world. Always the Lord had
appointed it should be Christ that should put away sin. The
law was not given that man should live by the law. Law was given
that sin might appear sin. and that men might then be brought
in guilty, that all the world might be brought in guilty before
God. And it was said with Abraham,
Abraham was blessed with faith in Christ before even Levi was
born, before the ceremonial law, before the law, there was Abraham
blessed. And so we have these living waters,
we have the water given before we even come to Mount Sinai.
The other thing about this time, the very next day when this water
was given, we read, Then came Amalek. And Amalek came when
the children of Israel were there faint in the way. He came at
the end of their assemblies for the week, and he attacked them. And that was the occasion when
Joshua was appointed to fight with Amalek. and Moses and Aaron
and her went up the mount and Moses with his rod he held up
his rod and a beautiful type of prayer and when his rod was
held up then Israel prevailed when it was let down then Amalek
prevailed I just mentioned this the antagonism the hatred of
Amalek and how they attacked Israel at this vulnerable point
because we've come a bit later to that but now i want to go
the other end of their 40 years in the wilderness remember of
course they came to the promised land they sent in the spies after
two years and they brought an evil report and they would not
go in. So God sent them back again into
the wilderness to be consumed in the wilderness for another
38 years. So 40 years in total. In Numbers 13 we read when they
were sent back that was two years after they
came out of Egypt but numbers 20 then we read of them in the
very last year just before they are going into the land of Canaan
so in the space of those seven chapters between chapters numbers
13 and 20 we have 38 years so What I want to speak to you about
now is the second time that Moses brought water out of the rock,
and here comes his partial obedience. We read again the children of
Israel in Numbers 20 that they were seeking water, they were
chiding after the Lord because He had not provided for them
that water. and we read it is in the desert
of sin in the first month that's the first month of the last year
so that's Numbers chapter 20 and we read in verse 2 there
was no water for the congregation they gathered themselves together
against Moses and against Aaron. Now the Lord gave Moses a command. In verse 8 we read, Take thou
the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou and Aaron
thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes, and
it shall give forth his water. Thou shalt bring forth to them
water out of the rock, so thou shalt give the congregation and
their beasts drink. Now we read of Moses' obedience
first. Moses took the rod from before
the Lord. The Lord had told him to do that,
and it's emphasized that in verse 9. He took it as he commanded
him. The emphasis is Moses is obeying. And the second thing that they
obeyed in verse 10, and Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation
together before the rock. That's what they'd been told
to do. But now he does wrong. What did the Lord told him to
do? Speak ye unto the rock. But he doesn't speak unto the
rock, he speaks unto the people. And he speaks in a very antagonistic,
angry way. He says, here now, ye rebels,
must we fetch you water out of this rock? What, Aaron and her,
they're going to provide the water? He was told to speak to
the Lord, or speak to the rock. But no. He speaks to the people
and speaks in an angry way. And the second thing that he
did wrong, just because he'd been told to bring the rod, didn't
mean to say that he had to smite the rock. The rock had already
been smitten 38 years before. And Moses here, even if this
had been the only occasion He smites it twice, which again
completely destroys the type of our Lord Jesus Christ being
smitten just once. But in effect, the rock had been
smitten three times. Maybe you could say there's a
type there as well, because our Lord Jesus Christ is truly God. One God, Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, all bound up in salvation. But the type is that the Lord
Jesus Christ was the one that suffered, and he bled at Calvary,
and it was only to be once. Now the Lord said to Moses, and
there's no doubt at all in how the Lord viewed this, And of
course the blessing was there, the water came out in spite of
Moses' only partial obedience here. But we have the Lord saying,
in verse 12, to Moses and Aaron, because ye believed me not, their
actions were interpreted by the Lord. as that they did not believe
him, and to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel."
Would it ever be thought that the gospel, the beautiful freewill
offering of the Lord, should be offered from a pulpit? Must
we bring you the gospel? Must we speak the gospel to you
after all what you've done? The gospel is the gospel of good
tidings. to sinners. And it's not begrudgingly, it's
freely. Father, forgive them, says the
Lord, even on the cross, when they're crying away with Him,
away with Him, and crucify Him. Father, forgive them, they know
not what they do. What a different spirit than
Moses. So ye shall, therefore ye shall
not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them."
We know Moses, he tried, he pleaded with the Lord that he'd change
his mind and that he'd be able to bring him in, but the Lord
wouldn't, and the consequences of this were far-reaching for
Moses. Again, of course, overruled by
the Lord, a beautiful type, Moses, who signified in a way the law
of God, He should not be the one, but Joshua or Jesus should
bring them into the promised land. All of these things overwritten
by the Lord, and you can see the types and see the Lord's
purposes, how He brings good out of evil, but the consequence
for Moses. What are the lessons for us?
Listen when the commands are different. Don't just think,
well, last time, when I had the rod, I smoked with it. But wait
on. You haven't been told to do that
this time. It's different this time. You
know, the disciples, when they were going with the Lord up to
Jerusalem, and the Samaritans didn't receive them, then they
said, shall we call down fire, like Elias did, lighted it? No. ye know not what spirit ye
are of. The Jews, they take a woman taken
in adultery. Moses commanded in the law that
such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? Is it different
now, under the gospel, than under the law? Does the Gospel speak
different things? In Hebrews 12 it certainly says
so. You not come unto the mount that
might be touched, that burn with fire and smoke, but ye come unto
Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. The Gospel speaks of those things
that the wrath of God has fallen upon Christ. His sacrifice was
a propitiation for sin, a wrath-ending sacrifice. So there's a lesson for us even
with Moses who no doubt really wanted and desired to obey the
Lord is one make above any man and yet you say well maybe it
was the people so stirred him up that he just didn't pay attention
clearly to what the Lord was saying. So may we really pay
attention to what the Lord speaks to us. Partial obedience, the
consequences. You asked Moses, he said, I couldn't
go into the promised land. the third one I'll bring before
you is that of King Saul and in this if we turn to 1 Samuel
and chapter 15 1 Samuel chapter 15 now this is where we referred
briefly to Amalek And here the Lord was going to really prove
King Saul. I don't believe it was long after
he became king he'd already had a time fighting with the Philistines
and again he had not listened to direction, not waited for
Samuel, he forced himself and he offered the sacrifice before
Samuel came. and he had no right to do so
and Samuel reproved him for that but here King Saul was told to
go and utterly destroy Amalek, everything he was not to leave
anything that breathed both of men, women, children the cattle,
the beasts, the field, everything he was to kill but Saul, well
he did, he went and he did kill a lot but he
spared the king and he spared the best of the livestock in
verse 9 in a way what he did he just
got rid of the rubbish that's easy for you and i to do in our
homes isn't it but when it comes to something nice to cast that
away, and besides, these things that he kept, if they could use
them for the sacrifice of God, they wouldn't have to use their
own flocks. And they ate of the sacrifices,
so it'd be nice to have a nice meal from that as well. So he
spared of the flocks. And what a wonderful trophy to
have. A king. Bring the king back. Kill all the women and all the
children, but bring the king back as a trophy. But what a difference you have.
You know, when Samuel came to him, and we read in verse 13,
Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou
of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. He believes he has been obedient,
and in some ways he has. A lot of people have lost their
lives, a lot of livestock have been slain, But then Samuel,
he says, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine
ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said,
They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared
the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord
thy God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed. He cannot see. He doesn't really
see. And when it is that Samuel is
not happy, he's starting to then blame the people for what is
done. But we read of what the Lord
says through Samuel, and in verse 18 he says, And the Lord sent
thee on a journey and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners,
the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.
Wherefore then hast thou not obeyed the voice of the Lord,
but didst fly upon the spoil and didst evil in the sight of
the Lord? And later on, He says that it
is his rebellion, which is as the sin of witchcraft. But we have, amazingly, in verse
20, Saul is still protesting his innocence. He says unto Samuel,
Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the
way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of
Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. but the people,
and then he lays the blame on the people. But this is real
searching for us. Are we just choosing what we
will obey and what we won't obey? Are we blaming others whenever
the Lord reproves us? Are we self-serving, seeking
that we might gain things for ourselves and our own honour?
And this comes later on, because even though Samuel tells him,
and this is the consequence, that the Lord had rejected him,
and he would find another king, which was to be David, and Samuel,
he didn't see him any more from this time to the day of his death.
Saul was rejected, but even then he says, turn again, honour me
before the people. He'd lost the honour of God,
he'd got the wrath of God, but don't worry about that, just
honour me before men. And there he is all the time
protesting that he is obeying. He doesn't realise the consequences
for him of this partial obedience. And all he seems to be blinkered
with is what he has done. Dear friends, may we not be like
that. May we not be like that. It may
be that there's aspects that you're saying before God, I've
obeyed, I've done this, I'm walking in the Lord's ways. But there's
other things that clearly you're not. Clearly that you're just
blanking out acting as if that's not part of the command, it's
not part of the package and that you can have part of it and be
obedient but leave the rest. So King Saul is a very solemn
account. Then we have the fourth one which
if we turn to 1 Kings and chapter 13 and quite amazingly really
I mean this prophet is termed or the account usually is known
as the disobedient prophet and yes he was disobedient but he
was disobedient as well it was a partial obedience Now this
is the case where Jeroboam had taken ten of the tribes away
from Rehoboam, so that he'd stopped the children of Israel, the ten
tribes with him, going back to Jerusalem to worship. He made
in Bethel and in Dan two calves of gold and altars and altars
of incense with them, And he offered on them and he made the
lowest of the people priests and really set up his own religion
in direct conflict with the true religion of the true and living
God. So God sent a man, we read in verse 1 of chapter 13, a man
of God, out of Judah. And he came to Bethel, and Jeroboam
the king, he stood by the altar to burn incense. And the prophet,
he cried against that altar, he said, O altar, altar, this
is in verse 2, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, a child shall be
born unto thee, unto the house of David, Josiah by name. and upon thee that's upon that
altar shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn
incense upon thee and men's bones shall be burned upon thee and
that came to pass two hundred and ninety years later but he
gave him a sign there a sign the same day not for two hundred
and ninety years later but that the altar should be rent and
the ashes poured out and that sign actually came to pass so
then the king he and we passing over some of the details of the
account because time doesn't permit but the king invited him
to go back home to eat and drink with him and then the man tells
the king of the other part of his commission what he was to
obey not only just to speak against the altar but in verses 8 through
to 11 The man of God said unto the king, If thou wilt give me
half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will
I eat bread, nor drink water in this place. For so it was
charged me by the word of the Lord, saying, Eat no bread, nor
drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest. So he went another way, and returned
not by the way that he came to Bethel. So again we have the
prophet obedient, he resists the king's invitation for hospitality,
he clearly tells him the command, he's not ignorant of it and he
obeys that command. But then we have an old prophet
and he hears his sons tell him of what had happened and he longs
to have some fellowship with this prophet. So he sends to
him, and he lies to him. And when he's told the same reason
why he shouldn't come back, then we read that he says in verse
18, I am a prophet also as thou art, and angels spake unto me
by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into
thine house, that he may eat and drink bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. So he went back with him, and
did eat bread in his house, and drank water. And you picture
them sitting at the table, and suddenly that old prophet, that
he, the word of the Lord comes to him, and he cries to this,
the man of God that came from Judah. Thus saith the Lord, forasmuch
as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept
the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, But camest
back, and hast eaten bread, and drunk water in the place of which
the Lord did say to thee, No bread, and drink no water, thy
carcass shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers. And
when he left that prophet, a lion met him, and slew him. It didn't
eat him, it didn't tear the ass, it just stood by. And the prophet,
he got to hear of it, and brought him back, and buried him in his
own sepulchre. And the account is known as the
disobedient prophet. But in most of all what he did,
his commission, he fulfilled it exactly. And he was deceived. But the consequences were still
there. Why? Because he did not do as
to the command given him. And what a lesson that is for
us. How we need to be clear, if the
Lord has told us something, then we should not be turned away
from man. But in this, I want to be very,
very careful. We must know, we've been talking
about obedience and partial obedience. Obedience to what? In these Gospel
days, if you and I are obedient, What are we to be obedient to?
Is it to be a dream that we've had one night? Is it to be that we say we've
had a word from the Lord because we heard a minister say that
word and it just suits what I'm going through and I've now got
an exercise and the Lord's told me that that's going to happen,
that's what I should do. What is it? I want to be very
clear in this. Now our subject really all hangs
on this, the consequences of partial obedience to the Word
of God. And there is no other revelation
from God apart from the Holy Bible, the inspired Word of God
from Genesis to Revelation. It is vital that we have a correct
interpretation of the Word. Peter, when he writes his epistles,
he says that no Scripture is of any private interpretation. In other words, when God speaks
in His Word, He's speaking a very clear message. that we are not
to take, and by adding to it, subtracting to it, twisting it
around, we make it a different message. You probably all heard
the account of a thief that was brought up before a judge, and
the judge said, he said, look, why do you keep stealing things?
Haven't you read in the commandment, thou shalt not steal? And he said, yes, but it says
thou shalt steal. No, said the judge, it says thou
shalt not steal. Oh, he said, I don't have any
use for the word not. And we can have a way that we
use the Word of God and just twist it and turn it to suit
us. Or, like King Saul, take one
part and leave another. Obey one part, but not obey the
other part of it, as if it was not a whole. God has a specific
message. And so we should have regard
to the context We should be comparing scripture with scripture. Remember
when our Lord was tempted in the wilderness, Satan came, took
him up to the pinnacle of the temple, cast thyself down from
hither, he says, And backs it up with scripture, it is written,
the angel shall give charge over thee, lest thou dash thy foot
against a stone. And the Lord said, it is written
again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And so the Lord
brings all of the Word, not just part of it, to bear on that point,
to resist Satan's temptations. And we need to regard the time
as well, law and gospel. Paul makes it very clear we can
learn that which was written aforetime, written for our learning.
But that which we said about with the woman taken in adultery,
Moses says this, but what sayest thou? The question with the Gentiles,
should they be circumcised or should they not? There is a change. We're under the gospel dispensation. We're not under the law. We're
not part of Israel. And so again, there's taking
care. What is the Lord saying? Moses
would say, he told me different at the beginning of the 40 years
than he did at the end. The rock was before me, or a
rock, a different one, but the commands were different. The
same God. And so, we need to be very clear
on this. If you and I obey, it must be
tested by the Word of God. And if someone challenges you,
why are you doing that? You can give a reason from the
Word of God. You don't just give an isolated
text, or a dream, or whatever it is, and say, the Lord told
me that, but you that are speaking to me, you are a man, and so
I'm not going to agree with you, and I'm not going to obey you. No, because if I am reading the
Word of God, that is the Word of God. There is no further revelation
than the Word of God, and we must be clear. So if we're not
going to fall into the trap of our last illustration, then we
hold to the Word of God. and the light that God gives
on it in comparing Scripture with Scripture and context. And
if people come and they say, no, you do something different
than this, you say, all right, well, you explain to me from
the Word of God why you feel I should do different. And if
they cannot, and cannot so that you can clearly see the Lord's
mind and will, then you hold on fast to your way. to the way
of the Lord. Now, it's been very evident from
the word this evening that man's obedience, even if he is a good
prophet, even if he is Moses, man's obedience will never be
sufficient to save him. It was never meant to, never
appointed to. We have in Romans 5 and verse
19, For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Thinking of
the partial obedience, even of godly men, what is so vital is
a perfect obedience. We think of the hymn, In Christ's
obedience clothed, and wash me in His blood, so shall I lift
my head with joy among the sons of God." Yes, the Apostle exhorts
that, as we have obeyed the Gospel, that we should obey from the
heart that form of doctrine that has been delivered unto us. We are to hold fast to the doctrine
of the Gospel, that we are saved by grace through faith alone,
and that it is Christ crucified, it's His blood, it's His righteousness. It is the plan that the Lord
has set for us, for the churches. We hold fast to that, and we
seek to obey that. But we don't do as what Paul,
despaired of his fellow countrymen in Romans 10. who were ignorant
of God's righteousness and went about to establish their own.
We should never sin that grace might abound. We should always
seek that we might be obedient servants, not fashioning ourselves
after our former sins in our ignorance. But we are to know
this, that our hope for heaven is in Christ. and in his obedience
alone. And that is the great encouragement
for us. But who will look upon those
examples that we've had, and especially of Moses, and really
the solemn cases of Saul? You might say, oh, but I'll be
saved by grace. But King Saul, he was found out
and rejected for his partial obedience. Moses was truly a
man of God, but he wasn't allowed to see that promised land, except
from afar off. And so the consequences of sin,
the consequences of disobedience, ask David in his adultery and
murder, ask any of the people of God, that sin, God will deal
with it, He'll chasten, and not just out and out of disobedience,
but when it is a partial obedience. And I hope that those of you
listening tonight, and it may be you've had Satan deceive you,
or your own deceitful heart, and you're saying, well, I'm
alright, I am obeying the Lord. And it may be that it is only
a partial obedience, and the Lord make you fully obedient,
to fully follow the Lord and not partially, especially when
you see the message here tonight. May the Lord bless the word through
you and help you through it tonight. Amen.