Let's go now back to Exodus 23. To you and I that God has redeemed
by His grace, God gives us this command of grace. He says in
verse 9, Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger. To oppress is to put pressure
on. It's to oppose and to pressure. It's to put under a heavy weight,
to force, to bind, to thrust upon or to thrust out. It's to afflict. Now, you can
do those things physically and we should never do those things
physically. God is speaking here primarily
of oppressing spiritually. with the heavy yoke of the law,
with the heavy yoke of the heavy burden of charging and pointing
the finger and charging others with sin, and that bondage of
condemning others, that bondage of not being forgiving, not being
merciful, oppression. Thou shalt not oppress a stranger. And then God gives every believer
motive for obeying God. He gives us three motives here. Three constraints of grace. Three
constraints of mercy to be merciful. Motives of mercy to make us merciful. He says here, these will be our
divisions, Our motive is remembering what and where we were by nature. He says in verse 9, For you know
the heart of a stranger. Don't oppress the stranger. And
here's the motive. You know the heart of a stranger.
And here's where you were. Seeing you were strangers in
the land of Egypt. And then our motive to show mercy
is God's mercy to us. Christ our refreshing, Christ
our life, Christ our rest. This is pictured in the law of
the seventh year Sabbath and the law of the seventh day Sabbath. He says here in verse 10, six
years thou shalt sow thy land. You till it, you break up the
land, and you sow your seed, and then you gather in the fruits
thereof. But the seventh year, thou shalt
let it rest and lie still, that the poor of thy people may eat. That's why, that the poor of
thy people may eat, and what they leave, the beasts of the
field shall eat. In like manner, thou shalt deal
with thy vineyard and with thy olive yard. And then he gives
us the Seventh-day Sabbath, he says, six days thou shalt do
thy work. You toil and you work in those
six days, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest. Here's why. That thine ox and
thine ass may rest, and that the son of thy handmaid and the
stranger may be refreshed. And then thirdly, our chief motive
to not oppress a stranger, It's because we want to give the one
true and living God all the glory and all the praise. We want to
give Him all glory and all praise and not give it to any other.
Look here in verse 13, And in all things that I have said unto
you, be circumspect, and make no mention of the name of other
gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth. Our subject
is motive of the obedient. Motive of the obedient. Be sure
to get this. This is something that we need
to understand. In our walk before God, in our
walk before God, our motive, the motive of our heart, not
what we do, but why we do it. That's the difference. between
being under law and being under grace. If a man's motive is to gain
God's favor, if the motive of his heart is to gain God's favor
and God's acceptance, if he's trying to earn a righteousness,
a holiness with which to stand before God in the day of judgment,
then he's under law. He's under law. He's a legalist.
He's yet under law. But, if a man's motive is the
love and the grace of God in Christ, if his motive is because
Christ has already made him righteous and holy, and he knows he's complete
in Christ, and what he does, he does from the constraint of
gratitude to Christ, that's a man who's under grace. You see, In
our walk before God, the motive of the heart, why we do what
we do, is the difference between being under law and being under
grace. First of all, God gives His child
the motive of remembering what we were and where we were. He says there in verse 9, this
is why you shall not oppress a stranger. For you know the
heart of a stranger, seeing you were strangers in the land of
Egypt. You notice there in Exodus 23,
look there in verse 9 again. He doesn't say you ought not
oppress a stranger. He says thou shalt not oppress
a stranger. And his people won't. God makes
it so you won't. He doesn't say There's a possibility
you won't. He says thou shalt not. You shall
not oppress a stranger. And it's because of this motive
God puts in the heart. You know the heart of a stranger.
You know where you were. You know you were a stranger
in the land of Egypt. Every sinner that's been born
of the Spirit of God has been taught of God what we are by
nature. We've been taught of God what
we are in our flesh, in that sinful heart that we got from
Adam. We've been taught, as David said,
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. In sin did my mother conceive
me. We've been taught this, and God,
by His grace and by His love, won't let His child forget this. Every sinner is conceived in
sin because our father was a sinner. From his corrupt seed we were
conceived in sin. So when we grew in our mother's
womb, we were shapen in iniquity as we grew in our mother's womb.
And God desires truth in the inward parts, doesn't He? We're
talking about the heart. We're talking about the inward
part. We're talking about the nature. God desires truth in
the inward part. God looks on the heart. He knows
what the inward parts are. And what did God see when He
looked on our heart by nature? Genesis 6 verse 5 says, God saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Now listen,
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, It was
only evil continually. You know why God said He wouldn't
curse the earth anymore? Because a man's heart is corrupt
from his youth up. That's why. Somebody will come
up after you preach and they'll say, I don't believe my heart
is corrupt. You know why they do that? Because
the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked
who can know it. Sinners by nature don't know
their own heart. God has to give us life and teach us in our heart
and teach us the truth. He has to teach us the truth.
Sin in the heart, that's where sin comes from. Sin doesn't come
from things. It comes from our heart, brethren.
The Pharisees, go over to Mark 7. The Pharisees thought that
If a man ate food and he had not washed his hands, that would
defile him. That would make him sinful. If
he ate food and he had not washed his hands, that would make him
sinful. You know, that sounds absolutely
absurd, doesn't it? That sounds absurd. But there's
people all over the place that believe that things make you
sinful. If you drink a glass of wine,
that's going to make you sinful. People believe that. Religious
folks have a whole host of things that they believe will make you
sinful if you partake of those things. But look here what the
Lord said, verse 18. He said, look after the question
there. He says, Do you not perceive
that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man? Whatsoever
thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him. It cannot defile him. Look at
verse 20. He said, That which cometh out
of the man, that defileth the man. for from within out of the
heart of men. Out of my heart and out of your
heart. Out of that heart we got from
Adam. Precede evil thoughts, and adulteries, and fornications,
and murders, and thefts, and covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
lasciviousness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from
within. and defile the man. That's where
the sin comes from. Does a child cry to become alive? Does a child cry to become alive? Or does he cry because he is
alive? Which one is it? Does he cry
to be alive or does he cry because he is alive? He cries because
he is alive. Well, does a child of Adam sin
to become a sinner? No, we sin Because we are sinners. Adam is the only man that became
a sinner by sinning. The only one. Ever. He's the
only man that became a sinner by sinning. By one man's disobedience
though, many were made sinners. That's what we are. And so we
sin. That's all we do in our flesh. We can't do anything else. Paul
said, I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, in that heart
I got from Adam dwells no good thing, none whatsoever. The carnal
mind, that's the heart we got from Adam. The carnal mind is
enmity against God. That's what it is. It is enmity. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. So then, they that are in the
flesh, They that just have that sinful nature, those that are
just that old man born of Adam cannot please God. It's an impossibility. So we don't pressure sinners.
We don't oppress sinners to believe on Christ. We don't pressure
them into making a decision and oppress them And if they don't believe the
gospel we preach, if they become angry at the gospel we preach,
we don't oppress them. We don't get angry at them. Why? You know the heart of a stranger.
You know what it is to only have that heart, that sinful, deceitful
heart. God makes His child remember
this and He makes us merciful. He makes us forgiving of one
another. remembering what our heart is.
If somebody who professes to believe Christ, if they are easily
offended, and they are pointing the finger all the time, and
everything is always blaming others, and they won't forgive,
they won't be merciful, that is somebody who don't know their
heart. They don't know the heart they were born with. Because
when you have been made to know your heart, And you be merciful
to others because you know the heart that's in them. And also
God graciously constrains us by making us remember where we
were. Go to Ephesians 2. He said you were strangers in
the land of Egypt. Here's where we were right here.
All of us right here. Ephesians 2, 1. You had the quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. And so here's what we did. wherein in time past, in your
death, in your trespasses, in your sin, wherein in time past
you walked according to the course of this world, according to this
Egypt, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among
whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and of our mind.
And we were by nature the children of wrath even as others. And
who made the difference? But God. That's the difference. But God. Look down the page there
in verse 11. Wherefore remember that you being
in time past Gentiles in the flesh. Who are Gentiles? That's those barbarians down in the jungle
of the Amazon who worship the river and the sun and the moon. That's those idolaters in Africa
who drain in the goat's blood and drink in it and worship in
their idol gods that way. That's you and me in America
who worship our idol our house, and our car, and our career,
and our sports, and that God that we said made salvation possible
if we let Him save us. No difference. No difference. You were called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. And
at that time, you were without Christ. Being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, you were an alien to everything good that
God gave to Israel. Strangers, there we were, strangers
from the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in
the world. I think I told you this story
when I preached from Ephesians 2. One time, brother, Henry Mahan
and Brother Scott Richardson took their wives out to eat at
this real nice restaurant in Fairmont, West Virginia. And
it was in this old house that they had made into a restaurant.
And they were sitting there eating in a nice place. Nice table settings
and, you know, a real nice place to eat. And they're sitting there
in this place eating and out of the blue, Brother Scott said,
he said, I used to live in the attic of this house. They looked at Scott and he said,
we were so poor. He said, my dad made a chest
of drawers for the lady that owned this house and farmed me
out to work for her and her husband in exchange for them feeding
me and giving me a bed in the attic. And Brother Henry said,
Scott, when you use that little poor coal miner son, he said,
living up there in that attic, did you ever imagine that one
day you'd drive up here in a nice car and you'd be escorted to
a table by these servers and sit here at this fine table with
these fine place settings and all this nice food and have money
in your pocket to pay for it all? And Scott said, you know,
it's good. to remember what we were, what we are now, and who made
the difference. It's good to remember. That's
the second thing, brethren. Look back now at Exodus 23. The
Lord says, Here's our motive to be merciful
to the stranger. It's not only remembering what
we were and where we were, it's to remember God's mercy to us. It's to remember who made the
difference. He said that the purpose of that seventh year
Sabbath, there in verse 11, he says, the purpose was that the
poor of thy people may eat. The poor, the needy, those that
couldn't provide for themselves, that they may eat. not be oppressed
that they might eat. And then in verse 12 he said
the reason for that seventh day Sabbath was that thine ox and
thine ass may rest and that the son of thy handmaid and the stranger
may be refreshed. Brethren, Christ is our Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath. He was
the one pictured in the Sabbath. You know Colossians 2.16 it says
of the sabbaths, speaking of the sabbaths, plural, all the
sabbaths were a shadow of things to come. They pictured something
to come. And he said, but the body, that
which they pictured, is Christ. That's what they pictured. The
seventh year sabbath, think about this. During the six years preceding
that seventh year, that land was tilled. It was broken up. Seed was planted and that seed
was broken and from it come life and fruit and a harvest during
those six years. And the Son of God, He became
a man that He might give His body to be tilled and broken. That's why He came. to take the
place of His people, to be made sin for us, to be made a curse
for us, that His body might be broken under the wrath of God
in our place. Christ is the seed that was cast
into the ground and broken and He arose from the grave. He came out of the earth like
a tender plant comes out of the earth and from Him is life. He said, verily, verily, that
means this is But most important, verily, verily, I say unto you,
except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He said that going to the cross,
telling them, I must die. I must be broken. I must be broken. So God, He provided the harvest
in those six years. From that ground being tilled
and broken and that seed being broken, He provided the harvest
in those six years. And then in that seventh year,
they could eat without doing any work whatsoever. The poor that came there to glean
out of that field, that's a picture of you and me who were so poor,
we can't do any work to eat, to have life. But we get our
life. Where do we get it? Look at this
picture. That land had already done its
work. The land had done its work. It's
in the seventh year. The land's at rest. The poor
simply came and they ate out of that field which was at rest. By faith, poor sinners come to
Christ who's already finished the work. He's at rest at God's
right hand. We come to Him and we find life. Jesus said unto them, I'm the
bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. And then you have that seventh
day Sabbath. On the sixth day, God provided
all they needed. God did. So that they could rest
on that seventh day. They didn't... They didn't have
to work. They didn't have to do anything.
God provided everything for them so that they could rest. You
know, when creation, when God was creating the world, in six
days He created the world. On the seventh day He rested.
Why? Because all the work was finished.
There wasn't anything else to be done. He finished the work,
so He rested. Well, likewise, The Lord Jesus
Christ entered glory and He sat down at God's right hand. When?
When He had by Himself purged our sin. He sat down. The work
was finished. There was nothing else to do.
And so, all who believe on Christ, we rest from all our works of
trying to find acceptance with God, of trying to earn a righteousness
before God. We rest just like God did. Hebrews
4, 3, we which have believed do enter into rest. He said in
verse 10, for he that entered into his rest, he that has entered
into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did
from his. We're resting in Christ. Sinner,
Christ promises you, listen to this carefully now. Christ promises that all who
come to Him will find rest from all your works. Rest from the
labor and the bondage of trying to fulfill the law. Rest from
that toil and torment of guilt in trying to find acceptance
with God. Rest. He said, come unto me all
you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me for I am meek and I am lowly in heart. Christ, He's
not going to shame anybody that comes to Him. He's not going
to oppress you. Listen to this. He said, you
come, I'm meek and lowly in heart, you shall find rest for your
souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden
is light. Christ is the truth. He does
not lie. He doesn't do like preachers
do in this world. He doesn't call you to Him and
then once you come to Him, then He takes you to the law and oppresses
you. No. He said, come to me, I'm
going to give you rest. My yoke is light and easy. Why?
Because His yoke is the holy commandment. This is His commandment
that you believe on His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as
He gave the commandment. That's a light and easy yoke.
Believing on Christ. All the yoke of the law is removed
from us because we fulfilled all the law of God in Christ
Jesus our rest. And now the believer does what
we do from the motive of love. That's what our motive is. That's
our constraint. It's love. 2 Corinthians 5.14. Let's go there and read it. 2
Corinthians 5.14. Look at this. Here's our motive right here. For the love of Christ constraineth
us. That word constraineth means
motivates. That's what motivates us. Because
we thus judge that if one died for all, then all he died for
are dead. We're dead. We're dead to the
law, dead to sin, we're dead. And that he died for all that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, We don't
live unto ourselves anymore. Warren, that was the message
of my soapbox Sunday night. We don't live unto ourselves
anymore. Kaylin, that's what I was talking
about. We live unto him. We live unto him that died for
us and rose again. That's our motive, brethren.
But here's the question. How is a dead sinner given life
so that we can come to Christ and believe on Him in the first
place? How are we given life to even come to Him and believe
on Him in the first place? Well, you notice here, God said
that the purpose of that seventh day Sabbath, He said it's so
that the stranger may be refreshed. So that you may be refreshed.
Our Lord Jesus came and took the place of His people. He took
the place for people. On the cross, He became the stranger. He became the one oppressed with
the law. He said in Psalm 69, 8, I am
become a stranger unto my brethren and an alien unto my mother's
children. He took the place of His people.
And the purpose was so that the stranger may be refreshed. That
was the purpose. Christ brought us near with His
blood. He justified us, made us righteous
with His blood. But He did it so that He could
send the gospel to us and send the Spirit of God to us and regenerate
us. Listen, Ephesians 2.13, But now
in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off, you who were strangers,
you are made nigh by the blood of Christ. He fulfilled the law
for us when He became a stranger for us. And He did it though,
verse 17 says, and He came and preached peace to you which were
far off. Christ did. And to them which
were nigh, for through Him, we both, Jew and Gentile, have access
by one Spirit unto the Father. See, that was the purpose of
this Sabbath day. It was picturing Christ who made
us, brought us near by His blood so we can have rest, but it also
pictured how He sends forth the Gospel and refreshes us through
the Spirit. See, it says that the stranger
may be refreshed. I looked the word up, refreshed,
and it means this. Listen. It means passively to
be breathed upon. Refreshed as if by a current
of air. Go to Ezekiel 37. In that valley of dry bones,
those dry bones picture you and me who are dead sinners, spiritually
dead sinners. Ezekiel preached to those bones
as God commanded and told them to live as God commanded. And
as he preached to them, bone came to bone and sinew came upon
the bones and flesh came upon the bones. So here you have a
man standing there or laying there, but there was no breath,
there was no life in him. Look at verse 9. Then said he
unto me, Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith
the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe,
and breathe. That's the same word, refresh. Come and breathe upon these slain
that they may live. That they may live. Christ came
and preached peace to us through the gospel. Sent forth the Spirit
of God and He refreshed us. He regenerated us. He breathed
and gave us life, spiritual life. That's how we heard this gospel
and that's how we were made to come to Christ and believe on
Him. And now, therefore, you're no more strangers and foreigners,
but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of
God. That's what God's picturing in
the Sabbath. That's what He's picturing in
the Sabbath day. It's not only rest that Christ came to give
us. He brought us nigh by His blood
and He gives us rest from the law, but it's also pictured how
Christ sends us the Gospel and through Him the Spirit of God
regenerates us and breathes and refreshes and we're made alive. That's the picture in the Law
of the Sabbath day. Now let me ask you this, who
served their master out of gratitude and who served from a heart of
bondage? Who do you reckon? Who served
their master out of gratitude and love just simply because
they were thankful for what their master had done and who served
their master with just mean as they could be and hard and just
angry and just did it because they had to? That poor hungry
stranger whose master oppressed him by leaving him nothing to
eat in the field. He didn't let the ground rest.
He went on and plowed the seventh year and he didn't leave a thing.
He gathered in every last kernel and didn't leave nothing for
the poor man. You reckon he served for the
motive of love? I don't believe so. That man
wasn't left a thing. He was oppressed. That weary
stranger whose master oppressed him by making him work on the
seventh day instead of giving him rest and refreshing. He didn't serve out of love.
His motive wasn't love. His constraint wasn't love. Oh, but that one whose master
didn't till the ground on the seventh year, and he said, don't
touch it. Don't touch it. You leave handfuls
of purpose out there. You just load up, up, so when
the poor comes, they and their beast can just feast on everything
that's left. That one who said, on the end
of Friday we're done and we're resting and no more work gonna
be done. I want my man, my maid servant,
I want the stranger and their beast and their oxen, I want
them to rest, I want them to be refreshed. That servant served
his master thankful with a heart of gratitude because he loved
him, because he was a good master. That's what the Lord is teaching
us here. It's amazing to me, it shouldn't be, but lawmongers
take this very law that says, you shall not oppress. And they
do exactly what that law forbids. They force sinners to obey a
law that commands them not to oppress and force sinners to
obey the law. They turn the law of rest and
refreshing into an oppressive work of bondage. They claim to
believe grace, but they accuse and condemn and show no mercy. And those of you who have experienced
grace and experienced this love of Christ in taking away all
our sins and giving us life, we are constrained by His love
not to oppress others. We are constrained by His love
not to put that heavy yoke on one another, not to point the
finger, not to expose sin, not to condemn and refuse to forgive. We are constrained. to cover
one another's shortcomings, to bear one another's burdens, to
forgive. Don't you... A believer doesn't
want to have trouble with anybody. Especially not with a brother.
And you're quick to forgive because you've experienced forgiveness.
You know what forgiveness is. Those that have experienced mercy
are merciful. This is the motive the Lord puts
in the heart. And I'll tell you what, when
you're constrained by His love, this last thing is the chief
motive. You want God and God alone. the true and living God and no
other to receive all the glory and all the praise. That's why
you do what you do. Look at verse 13. And all things
that I have said unto you be circumspect and make no mention
of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.
Those that have not been given this new motive They are just
like we were when we were in that place. They do everything
for the motive of giving glory to their idol God, self. Everything is for self. Everything
is for self. The mantra of this wicked world
is look out for number one. Do everything for self. But those
under grace are motivated by what we were and where we were. We are motivated by the rest
and refreshing that Christ gave us so that we have everything
in Him. And we are motivated by the desire
to give the true and living God all the glory and all the praise. That is what motivates us. What
we were. What we are now. And who made
the difference. Amen. That is what it is to walk
under grace and not love. That is the difference in walking
in grace. and love, the motive of the heart. All right.