Alright, brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Deuteronomy 32. It's always good to... The Lord gives
us another day to come into His house and assemble with His people
and hear the person of our Redeemer declared. Hear all of His works
declared. That is a blessed day. Blessed day. We'll give the brethren some
time to get settled. Deuteronomy 32. This is the second
to the last sermon that Moses preached to the children of Israel. second to the last sermon. They
had come to the end of their 40 years of wandering in the
wilderness. And Moses here declares the Gospel
to them. He preached the works of the
Lord. He preached God's person, His
Son, and he preached His works, what He did for the children
of Israel. He warned them. He declared that Jeshurun had
waxed fat, kicked, They turned, that word Cheshren means upright
one. And it was a term, a name God
gave some in the children of Israel who esteemed themselves
upright and they ended up turning from trusting the Lord and worshipping
idols. And, but it's only those who
can do that, that will do that. Those in whom the Lord's working
effectively, He won't permit to turn from Him. And that's
what we see in our text here this morning. I want you to just
look at this one verse. There were some true elect among
Israel, Moses and Aaron and Miriam and Caleb and Joshua and And this is what the Lord worked
in His true people. There were probably many more,
but this is what He worked in His elect in Israel. This is what He did for them.
Deuteronomy 32, verse 10. He found Him in a desert land,
speaking of His elect as Jacob. He found Him in a desert land,
in the waste, howling wilderness. He led Him about. He instructed
Him. He kept Him as the apple of His
eye. This one verse declares what
our Lord does for every sinner who He saves. This is what He
does for every sinner He saves. I want to just take each part
of this and we'll just look at this one verse. First, the Lord
finds each sinner that He saves. he finds each sinner he saves.
It says there he found him. The Lord found him. They were
in Egypt. They were in bondage, unable
to free themselves. That's where they would have
remained. But the Lord found his people. The Lord came to
his people. The Lord Jesus gave three parables
to illustrate this. He gave the parable of the lost
sheep who the shepherd seeks and finds. That shepherd is Christ. He finds His lost sheep. He gave
an illustration of the lost coin who the woman found. Christ Jesus
will find His child. They are His treasure. He says
there in verse 11, I'm sorry, in verse 9, the Lord's portion
is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. They're his treasure, like that
lost coin, and he will find each one of his people. He gave the
parable of the prodigal son. who came to himself. Why does God's child come to
ourselves? Because the Lord makes us come
to ourselves. He speaks life and He corrects
and chastens and makes us come to ourselves. And the Father
saw him afar off. And our Lord sees His child afar
off. His eyes always upon His people. Always upon His people. And the
Lord's point in those parables is this, Christ is the one who
seeks and finds the lost. He's the one that seeks and finds
His lost elect child. Our Lord Jesus does. You think
of how many people in this world in religion make the boast that
they sought God and they found God. How many people make that
boast? But this is what the Lord says.
The Lord says in Romans 3.11, there is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God. That's everybody on this
earth, everybody born of Adam. None seek God. If you seek Him,
It's because He first sought you. Because He first sought
you. He seeks and He saves. He finds
some when they're young, in the young age. He finds some in middle
age. He finds some in old age. The
thief on the cross was just moments from going into eternity when
the Lord found him. He set the time. It's called
the season of His love when He'll come to His people and He will
find His child and reveal Himself in His child. He seeks and finds
us. You can tell a lot by what a
sinner believes concerning the Lord by how he began in the faith. Who sought who? Who sought who? The Lord seeks His people. And His people, to tell you plainly,
He sought me. I wasn't seeking Him, He sought
me and He found me. Where does the Lord find us when
He seeks us? It says there the Lord found
him in a desert land, in a waste howling wilderness. A desert
land and in a waste howling wilderness. We saw this Thursday and it needs
to be repeated often. The desert and the wasteland
wilderness is you and me dead in our sins. That's where he
finds us, dead in our sins. In scripture, life is often described
as water, as water. But without the Spirit of God,
without Christ our life, we're as dry and dead as the desert
sand. We're dead, spiritually dead
without any understanding whatsoever. Look over at Isaiah 35. Isaiah
35. He's talking about his people
right here. Isaiah 35 and verse 6. He's talking about when he comes
to his people and calls his people out, he says, Then shall the lame
man leap as a heart, And the tongue of the dumb sing, For
in the wilderness shall waters break out. and streams in the
desert, and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the
thirsty land springs of water. In the habitation of dragons,
where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. Remember
what the Lord said on that day when He stood up and said, If
any man thirsts, let him come unto Me. He said, Out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living waters. Christ is that living
water, the Spirit of our Lord. Our God is life and He is the
life in His people. The Spirit is life. Out of His
belly shall flow rivers of living waters. But our sin nature is
the waste places. Our sin nature is the desert.
It's the waste howling wilderness. Wasted in sin by Adam. Wasted in sin by being born of
his corruption. Listen to Isaiah 51, verse 3. The Lord shall comfort Zion.
He will comfort all her waste places. That's every sinner he
saves. He'll comfort all her waste places. He'll make her wilderness like
Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness
shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. That's
what the Lord Jesus does. He said in Isaiah 52, In verse
9, break forth in his joy, sing together, ye waste places of
Jerusalem. For the Lord hath comforted his
people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. That's what he does. Isaiah 52
is where he said that in that day they'll know it's I that
speak. They'll hear my voice, they'll know it's me. And he
speaks the word and that word creates life where there was
just a wasted wilderness. Just a dry, dead desert, He speaks
life. And He is that life. He is that
life. Now what does the Lord do when
He finds us and He creates life in us, He brings us to faith,
He brings us to trust Christ, what does He do for us? He says
there in our text in Deuteronomy 32.10, He led them about, He
instructed them. He led them about and He instructed
them. When the Lord came to Israel
in bondage, the way He delivered them out was through the Passover
lamb. He said, take this Passover lamb. Who was it that slew the lamb? It was the head of the house.
Who applied the blood to the doorpost? The head of the house.
Christ is the head of the house. He's the lamb. He's the one who
laid down His life in place of His people. And he's the one
that applies the blood in our heart as the head of his house. And what he makes you to behold
is that night everybody, all the firstborn died. Even the
firstborn in the houses of Israel, the difference was those in the
houses of Israel died in the Lamb. They died in the Passover
Lamb. And that's what the Lord Jesus
makes us see when He calls you and gives you faith. He makes
you to see that Christ came to where we are, took our place,
bore our sin and our judgment, and He died in our place. He
died the death we owe. And by His death, He justified
us from all our sins. This is why the waters break
out in the desert. This is the life. This is where
you, when you see Christ Jesus is righteousness. Righteousness
and life are synonymous. Sin entered and death by sin. Where righteousness is, there's
life. And Christ is that righteousness.
And when He enters in and gives you faith to lay hold of Him
and rest in Him, He makes you know you've been made perfectly
righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ. Perfectly righteous in Him. But
we don't know Him as we shall as He leads us and He instructs
us. He leads us and He instructs
us throughout the desert to teach us. He didn't take them into
Canaan. He could have taken them directly into Canaan. He didn't.
Why? He shows us what we are. He brought them to Canaan and
they wouldn't go in because of unbelief. And He led them about
in the wilderness for 40 years. And that whole time He led them
about in the wilderness, He was instructing His true people amongst
them. He was leading them and growing
them and teaching them more of who He is. And that's what He's
doing for you and me. He's leading us the whole way
and He's instructing us. He's bringing us to submit to
the Lord Jesus in faith. and trust Him in all things that
He brings to pass in our life. They had been in Egypt, they
had been worshipping idols, they could see. The children of Israel
adopted those idols that Egypt had, and they started worshipping
those idols. They could see those idols. And
here God takes them out into the wilderness now, and they're
going to have to walk by faith. And so that's what the Lord's
teaching you and me. He's teaching us to walk by faith. To walk by faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And He's increasing our faith
in Him the whole way. He's increasing our faith. So,
what did He do after He delivered them through the Lamb? And what
I want you to see as we review these. I know we've looked at
these. But I want you to think about how every one of these,
they were all in the scripture, they're all called trials. They
were all given to prove Israel. And they taught Israel two things.
They taught them they were sinners, and they taught them that the
Lord is salvation. Every one of these trials pictures
the Lord Jesus Christ. and they were turned to the Lord
Jesus Christ. In everything the Lord is doing
in our life, and mine and yours, what he is teaching us is those
two things. Over and over again, he's teaching
you and me, we're the sinner. We are the desert, waste, howling
wilderness in our sin nature. But he's teaching us also, he
is salvation. He is salvation, and he's bringing
us to trust him and submit to him more and more in everything,
in everything. So first thing he did is he takes
them to the Red Sea. He told Moses right where to
go. The Lord knew right where they
were headed. He took them to the Red Sea. There's an idol
god on one side, a big mountain. There's a mountain on the other
side. There's the Red Sea in the middle. And then the Lord
took his hand off of Pharaoh and let Pharaoh and his army
pursue them. And there's Israel now hemmed in on all sides, unable
to save themselves, and there they are. And that was a test. That was to prove the Lord knew
what they were. He knows what we are. But it
was a test to show them what they are. And what did they do? They began to murmur against
Moses. They began to murmur against
Moses. And the Lord gave the message to Moses. And Moses was
no different than them. Moses was scared too. Moses was
afraid too. He was crying out to God. And
God gave him the message to preach. And he told him to stand still,
see the salvation of the Lord, hold your peace, and see the
glory of the Lord. And the Lord split that Red Sea
and took them across on dry ground and then he, when Pharaoh and
his army went in after him, he's destroyed them in that Red Sea.
Who did that? The Lord did it. What was the
spiritual lesson they were taught and that we're taught? Salvations
of the Lord. We can't save ourselves. Salvations
of the Lord. Well, he let them out three days
into the wilderness and think about this now. All these hundred
thousands of people, I can't remember exactly how many there
were, but they had no water. It was over a million because
he just counts the men and there were women and children with
them. And he lived three days and there was no water. And that's
a test to prove them. What happened? They started murmuring
again against Moses. And the Lord leads them to some
water and they see some water and they think this is going
to be good water to drink. Can't you just picture how excited
they were? And they get to that water and
it's bitter and they can't drink it. And they began to murmur. He
showed them their sin again. that they were the only sinners,
they're the waste, howling wilderness, and then what did he do? He told
Moses to take a branch and put it in the water, and it made
the water sweet. That branch being thrown in that
water is a type of Christ and Him crucified. It's this gospel
of Christ and Him crucified, the good news of Christ and Him
crucified that God gives in every single trial we go through that
makes the bitter waters sweet. And what did the Lord declare
to them there? He declared to them, I am the Lord that healeth
thee. I am Jehovah Nissi, the Lord
that healeth thee. That's what we're learning every
single trial we go through. Our flesh is just sinful. He
is the Lord that healed us every wit at Calvary's cross by laying
down His life in our room instead. Well, two and a half months after
they come out of Egypt, the Lord led them into the wilderness
of sin again to prove them. And they got hungry. And again, they began to murmur
against Moses. Again, they began to sin. They
began to sin. And that's when Moses, the Lord
gave Moses this word to speak to them in Exodus 16, 3. The children of Israel said unto
them, unto Moses and Aaron, they said, would to God we had died
by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. When we sat by
the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full, for you've
brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with
hunger. And Moses said to them, this
murmuring's not against me and Aaron, it's against God. The
Lord led us here. the Lord led us here. Every complaint
that we have in Providence, wherever the Lord has put us, is a complaint
against God. He brought us here. Why does
he teach us that? Why does he bring us into bitter
trials where we become hungry and thirsty and start pining
after what we had? And you think of that. Them pining away after what they had
in Egypt. They were slaves in Egypt. Every
bit of that is our sin, brethren. That's our sin. That's showing
us we're sinners. Showing us we're sinners. And
what did the Lord do? He rained down bread from heaven.
He gave them bread from heaven. He's leading us and instructing
us. That bread from heaven is Christ.
He said that in John 6. He said, I'm the true bread.
I'm the bread which my Father has given you. He that eats my
flesh and drinks my blood shall never hunger and thirst. And
spiritually, we're never going to hunger and thirst. The righteous,
that He's made righteous, will never be begging for spiritual
bread. He'll show us that in our flesh
dwells no good thing. He'll show us we're not going
to find anything in this world that's
going to appease our hunger. But in the Spirit, He will continually
give us the bread from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
He told them, He proved them by the bread. And this is Christ
is proving us by Himself. He told them, He told them just
gather enough bread for the day. Just enough bread for the day.
And then he told them on the sixth day gather enough for two
days so that on the seventh day they could rest from all their
works and from all their labors. He's teaching us by that brethren
just what he said when he said the Gentiles, the men of this
world, they're going after the things of this world. And he
says to us don't Don't go after the things of this world. Your
Father knows you have needed these things. Don't worry about
it. Don't be anxious about it. Seek ye the kingdom of God and
His righteousness. These other things shall be provided.
Don't worry about yesterday. Don't worry about tomorrow. He
said He'll give you grace for today. That's what He was teaching
them. I'll give you bread for today.
But did they believe Him? You know what they did? What
you and me would have done, exactly. They went out there and saw that
bread on the ground and they said, we better get all we can
right now while we can. They might not be here tomorrow.
But God said it would, but it might not. And they gathered up more than
they needed for the day. And what happened? The Lord made
it breed worms and stink. Why? To show us He's our life. It's not our gathering. It's
not our... Everything that comes in our
life where He opens the door for you to have something that
He's given. He gave it. He gave it. Everything. And if it's taken away, He took
it away. And what's He teaching us in all of that? That He's
our life. He's our bread. And that's what
he was teaching them, instructing them, leading them, teaching
them the whole way, the whole way. Then he led them to refit
them, again to prove them. And there was no water to drink,
no water to drink. Now, they saw him make the bitter
water sweet. They saw him destroy Pharaoh
and his army. They saw him rain down bread
from heaven. He gave them quails to eat too.
They saw the Lord do all of these mighty, wonderful works. And
they get there in Rephidim and there's no water. What do they
do again? They murmur against Moses. That's us, brethren. This sin nature is not going
to change. It's with us. And when we we could be taught
this gospel today and by this afternoon you let something,
some providence come across your path that troubles you and you'll
find out real fast you're still a sinner. You're still a sinner. What was the Lord's answer? In
all these trials the answer was the same. It's Christ. He told
Moses, you go and stand on a rock And he said, and you smite that
rock and out of that rock came gushed forth water from it. That
rock is Christ. That one who went to the cross
and was smitten in the room instead of his people under divine justice
from whom all our life flows. That's what was pictured in the
smitten rock. And it says there, they tempted
the Lord saying, after all of that, this is what they said,
when they got there before he smote the rock, this is what
they said, it says, they tempted the Lord saying, is the Lord
among us or not? After all they'd seen, is the
Lord among us or not? Our shepherds gonna teach us.
This same lesson over and over and over. Our murmuring is not
against man. Our murmuring is not against
just the circumstances. Our complaining is against God.
He's ruling everything that comes to pass in our life. Not even
a leaf falls off the tree without Him. Everything is tempting the
Lord. It's tempting the Lord. And by Him continuing to save
us when we do this over and over, and we do this over and over,
don't we? And by Him continuing to show us mercy and show us
Christ and teach us and instruct us and lead us, what's He teaching
us? Salvation is all of grace. It's
all of grace. We certainly are not meriting
His favor, are we? We don't merit His mercy to us.
That shows you it's all of grace. It's all of grace. He commanded
that rock be smitten and that water gushed out, and that rock
followed them wherever they went. He was with them. Paul said in
1 Corinthians 10, 4, they drank of that spiritual rock that followed
them, and that rock was Christ. That rock was Christ. He teaches
us our need of this gospel. This is how He's going to teach
us this. It's through the preaching of the Word. It pleased God to
save through the foolishness of preaching. He's going to have
His sheep together, and He's going to teach us this through
the gospel to keep us together. And so He showed them their need
of the gospel. He leads them forth, and in Exodus
17, 8, the Lord permitted Amalek to come up against them. He attacked
him from behind. Well, Moses, as long as he held
up the rod of God, Israel prevailed. But when his hands would grow
heavy and he would let down the rod, Amalek would prevail. That
rod of God is a picture of the preaching of the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord provided Aaron and
her, and they set Moses on a rock, and one got on one side, one
on the other, and they held his hands up. And that rod of God
being lifted up, Joshua, on the battlefield, defeated and conquered
the enemy. And the Lord, by the Spirit of
God, He will use brethren to strengthen his preacher, to hold
his hands up, to keep preaching Christ and him crucified, to
set him on the rock, Christ Jesus, to keep him lifting up this banner,
preaching Christ crucified, and it's through the preaching of
the gospel that Christ enters our heart. Our heart's where
the battlefield is, in us, between the flesh and the spirit. Our
flesh is Amalek, and our new man is where the spirit of the
Lord dwells. And He's gonna, as long as this
gospel's held up, He's going to speak into our heart, and
He's gonna strengthen you in the heart, and He's gonna make
you see He's conquered every enemy. He already has conquered
them. The warfare's accomplished. And
He'll make you more than conquerors through Him that loved us by
this word of this gospel. That's what he's teaching us
through that. And so Moses built an altar and he called the name
of it. I said Jehovah Nisi a while ago.
He called the name of it Jehovah Nisi, which is the Lord, our
banner. The Lord, our banner. What's the Lord that healeth
thee? Is that Jehovah Repha? The Lord that healeth thee. Jehovah
Nisi, the Lord, our banner. Let me show you something. Go
to Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59. Listen to this good news, Isaiah
59 verse 19. It's talking about His people
when He draws us to Him, teaches us through the Gospel. It says,
so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and His
glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come
in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard
against them. That's a banner. That's what
Moses called that place Jehovah Nisi, the Lord, our banner. He's
going to lift up Christ in the preaching of the gospel just
like He lifted Him up on the cross. He's going to make you
see Him there on that cross dying in the room instead of His people
and by that He's going to conquer the enemy of our flesh and show
us He's conquered all our enemies and that's how He's going to
keep saving us through the preaching of this word. Christ has redeemed
His people. He's justified His people. His
justice demands He save His people. So He finds them And then He
leads us and He instructs us. And I want you to see this next
thing right here, this last thing. The whole way Christ is keeping
each one of His people as the member of His own body. Look here in verse Deuteronomy
32.10, it says, And he kept him as the apple
of his eye. The apple of the eye is the pupil.
And it's the weakest, most tenderest part of the body. The apple of
the eye. You know how you protect your
eye. Well, the strongest in the faith, the strongest child of
God, is as weak and frail as the apple of your eye, as the
pupil. It's just a weak and frail member,
the strongest in the faith. But notice here, it says Christ
keeps us as the apple of His eye. He's keeping you as the
member of His own body. He's keeping you just like you
would keep your The pupil of your eye, He's keeping you like
you're the apple of His eye. That's how He's keeping you who
are His. The word there in the Hebrew
is, He encircled them. He encircled them. His child, everyone born of His
Spirit, we're one with Christ. We are really and truly members
of His flesh and of His bone. We are members with Christ. His
church is His body and each believer is a member in particular of
His body. And He's keeping every member
of His body as the apple of His eye, as the apple of His eye
preserved in Christ Jesus. No enemy shall prevail no weapon
shall injure us. We're counted as sheep for the
slaughter by this world. That's what they consider us,
but we're more than conquerors through Christ that loves us.
We're kept, Peter said, by the power of God through faith unto
salvation. We have an eternal inheritance
ready to be revealed. And here's, you know, when you
want to be assured, just always The reason we always go to the
cross is because that's where you see the righteousness of
God. And everything God does, He does
in righteousness. It is righteous for God to show
you mercy because He justified His people at Calvary. He fulfilled
His law at Calvary. It's just for Him to show us
mercy. And because He justified us at
Calvary, that same righteousness demands that he not lose one
of his sheep, and he won't lose one of his sheep. He will keep
us as the apple of his eye. It's just, brethren, for you
and me to be merciful to one another. We see here in every
trial The true elect children of God murmured. If you go back
and you read those trials, Moses had his fair share of sin in
it too. Aaron did. Miriam did. The true
elect child of God is a sinner still. And the just thing for
me and you to do knowing it's God that justifieth, knowing
it's Christ that died, that's risen again, that's seated at
God's right hand interceding for us, and knowing that every
one of His people died in Him and rose in Him and are seated
there with Him, that He's interceding for every one of His people,
that He found His child, He's leading His child, He's instructing
His child, The best thing and the right thing, the just thing
for you and me to do when we sin, when your brother or your
sister sin, is to be merciful to them and
forgive them. And the unjust thing is not to
be merciful and forgive them. Well, I just don't know if they'll
believe it. That is not your and my business. That's not our
business. If we're not careful, we cross
the line and start trying to crawl into the judgment seat.
Judgment belongs to the Lord. If a person professes to believe
Christ, you take them at their word. You don't know their heart.
I don't know their heart. You believe them. Don't you want
your brethren to treat you that way? And because if they are his,
and you always give the benefit of the doubt, if they are his,
to condemn them and judge them is to judge Christ. And James
said that's not doing the law, that's being a judge of the law.
There's one lawgiver. the Lord Jesus Christ. And He
is able to save. He's able to make His people
stand. He's keeping every one of His people as the apple of
His eye. Sometimes we can do some foolish
things, real foolish things, and sometimes we can continue
in them a long time. But He will not fail to keep
His people as the apple of His eye. He delivered every one of
them every one of them into the promised land, His people. And
He's going to deliver all His elect into that promised glory
with Him and there won't be one lost. This is true. This is the believing sinner's
path right here. He found Him in a desert, in
a desert land, in a wasteland wilderness. He led Him about
He instructed him and he kept him as the apple of his eye.
That will be said of every one of the children of God. And you
know what was said of Abraham at the end of all his days? After
everything Abraham went through, the ups, the downs, the crooked,
the straight, everything he went through at the end of his life,
it was said, and the Lord blessed him in all things. That's what
will be said of you. You trust him. You look to him.
Amen. Father, we thank you for this
word. Lord, we thank you that beginning to end, you are the
salvation of your people. Thank you for the trials, Lord,
that you teach us by. Thank you for the gospel whereby
you instruct us. We thank you, Lord, that you're
our teacher, that you keep us as the apple of your eye. Lord,
how thankful we are that you do it all in the person of your
son, for his sake, according to his righteousness, or keep
us looking to Him. Keep us knowing Him. Grow us
in the grace of knowledge of our Lord Jesus. It's in His name
we ask it. Amen.