I'm just going to read to you
rather than have you take the time to look at them, but I'll
again repeat my title, The Pillar of Cloud and Fire. First of all,
Isaiah 4, 5, and 6, chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, and the Lord
will create upon every dwelling place in Mount Zion and her assemblies
a a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire
by night, for upon all the glory that shall be a defense. And
there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from
the heat, and for a place of refuge for a covert from the
storm and the rain. Again in Nehemiah chapter nine
in verse 12. Moreover, thou leadest them in
the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by pillar of fire,
to give them light in the way wherein they should go. And then in Psalm 105 in verse
39. He spread out for a covering,
and the fire he gave to give light in the night. And then
I want you to look at this passage with me in Isaiah chapter 4. Isaiah chapter 4, verses 5 and
6, and then I'll direct you to one other reference and then
we'll go directly to our text, but in Isaiah chapter 4, verses
five and six. And I've already quoted this
but I want to read it to you because I want you to have it
impressed in your minds. Isaiah chapter four verses five
and six. And the Lord will create upon
every dwelling place of Mount Zion and upon her assemblies
a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire
by night for upon all the Glory shall be a defense. And the interesting
thing here is the glory is the people that God has saved. That's
God's glory. Because you see, our Lord is
glorified mostly and mainly and primarily by this salvation that
is in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. God is glorified
in creation indeed. The heavens declare the glory
of God. The psalmist says in Psalm 19,
and the handiwork shows the marvelous wisdom of his hands in making
these things. And God is glorified in providence. That's God directing everything
to the end that he himself has created. Those things that he
brings to pass. But God's greatest glory is seen
in the salvation of sinners in the way that magnifies his wisdom
and his justice through the dying of the Lord Jesus, our substitute
and our Savior. Thereby God's justice is honored. Our sins are put away, righteousness
is brought in, and God is magnified in all of His attributes, the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and the Trinity of His persons
through that glorious person, the Son of God who redeemed us.
And this God who sees us as His glory is our defense. You're not your own defender.
Aren't you thankful for that? You're not your defender. You
have a defense that is of God. You have a protector that is
divine. He is the one who redeemed you. He is the one who justified you. He is the one who reconciled
you to God. Now look at verse 6. And there
shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat,
and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from
rain. The tabernacle is the Son of
God. The tabernacle is that body in
which our Lord Jesus lived and dwelt, for 33 to 34 years and
that tabernacle in which he still dwells in a glorified state in
heaven. This one who is the tabernacle
of God is our shadow in the daytime from the heat, from the heat
of the wrath of God. And this one is also our place
of refuge for a covert, for protection from the storm and from the rain.
And then go with me to the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah chapter
nine. Look at Nehemiah chapter nine. If you back up from the book
of Job, you'll find Esther. Back up one more book, you'll
find Nehemiah chapter nine. Nehemiah chapter 9 and verse
12. Nehemiah says, chapter 9 and
verse 12, moreover thou leadest them in the day by a cloudy pillar,
and in the night by pillar of fire, to give them light in the
way wherein they should go. And then to our text, back in
Exodus chapter 13. And we'll camp here for just
a little bit. Exodus chapter 13. And I direct your attention to
verses 20, 21, and 22. And they took their journey from
Succoth and encamped in Etham in the edge of the wilderness.
Now, Israel has been liberated by, first of all, the power of
God and the price that was paid for their redemption. You remember
that Moses told Pharaoh that God raised that heathen monarch
up to magnify his own power, God's power, God's great ability. The Israelites had no power,
they had no ability to deliver themselves from the Egyptian
bondage. This is a work that only God
could do. None would ever have expected
Israel to try to overcome the enemy and seek their own release
by their own strength or their own ingenuity, by their own power. They couldn't do that. They were
captives. They had been in this land for
over 400 years. When a cruel Pharaoh took charge,
he made slaves out of them. They were in a cruel situation
of bondage. And then they began to utter
their cries unto God. And God put that cry in the heart
because if there's ever a cry for the mercy of God, God has
to put the cry in the heart. It does not, cannot originate
in man's heart to cry out to God. Not for salvation, not for
deliverance, not for freedom. This is a cry that God put in
their hearts, and when God puts the cry in the heart, then people
will cry. And God will hear. And God will
answer. And that's exactly what happened.
And God is, He is releasing them. He has now released them by His
power. But not only by power, but by
price. Because there had to be the death
of the Passover Lamb. Never one time do you ever read
a Passover Lamb's It's always singular, the Passover lamb,
because each lamb that died on that night, all pointed to, directs
our attention to the Lamb of God, whom God sacrificed in order
to save His people, to redeem us, to save us, to bring us out
of the bondage of Satan, out of the cruelty of sin. from the wickedness of the world.
God redeemed us by power and by price. And that was the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So they've now come out of bondage. They're at the edge of the wilderness.
And then we read in verse 21, And the Lord went before them, Aren't you thankful that our
Lord goes before us in all things? We don't blaze the trail. We don't set the path that we
must go. Our Lord knows the way through
the wilderness, and we follow. The Lord went before them, and
the Lord goes before us. He went into the grave before
us. He came out of the grave before
us. So we're assured that one day
we must go into the grave, but we're also assured that one day
we're gonna come out of the grave. Because the Lord goes before
us. The Lord ascended back to heaven.
So we too shall ascend to heaven because He went before us. He always leads the way. The
Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud. And the
idea of a pillar is that of a column. Maybe you could think of a very
wide column of a great cloud. Yesterday, flying from Atlanta
back to Charleston, very cloudy, thick, thick clouds. We got over
close to the airport in Charleston. I always feel good when I'm able
to look out the window because I had a window seat. I can look
out and I can see the blue skies. And then you see all of these,
it looks like cotton balls everywhere. And it looks like it'd be solid.
Just step out on it. That wouldn't be a wise idea,
of course. But then you go down as we begin to descend for the
airport. Then you get amidst the clouds. It's mysterious. You hope their
instruments are working good. And of course, eventually then
you come out of the clouds and then you can see the land. Think
of a great funnel, white puffy clouds. And our Lord took up
his residence in that. The Lord was in the pillar of
the cloud. And though the Israelites did
not know the direction they were going, just like when we were
flying in the clouds, the Israelites didn't know. But the One who
was in the clouds, He knew. And He guided them by His might
and by His wisdom to the land of promise. He was indeed a pillar
of cloud, to lead them the way. The way. And isn't it interesting
in the Scriptures how the Word of God is always emphasizing
the way. The way. Because really, the
way is somebody. The way is our Lord Jesus. He
told His disciples He was going away. I'm going to the Father."
And he would go to the Father by way of the cross of Calvary.
And upon the basis of his life laid down as a substitute, as
a sin offering to God, God would raise him from the dead and would
go back to heaven. And so he told his disciples
when they said, we don't know the way, he said, I'm the way.
He didn't say, I'm going to show you the way. He didn't say, I'm
going to teach you the way. He said, I am the way. You're
looking at the way. He's the way to God embodied. He's a way to heaven. He's a
way to salvation. He's a way to forgiveness of
sins. He's the way to righteousness.
Christ is the way. The church isn't the way. Baptism's
not the way. The Lord's Supper's not the way.
Good works is not the way. The way is the person of the
Son of God. And he said, I'm not only the
way, he said, I'm the truth too. I'm the way and the truth. Everything
else is false. Everything else is error. I'm
the truth. And he said, I'm the life. If you don't have Christ, you
don't have the way, the truth, or the life. But if you have
Christ, or maybe I should rephrase that, if Christ has you, if Christ
has you, You have the way, the truth, and the life. Because
nobody can bring you to the Father except by Christ Jesus. So he
led them in the way. He led them in the way. And it
was a roundabout way. We've already read here that
the nearer way would have been the way to go through the land
of the Philistines. But the children of Israel weren't
ready for war. They were organized to look like
an army, and they were a victorious army, but their victory was not
of their own. And though they looked like an
army, they couldn't fight like an army. And God knew then that
they would have been discouraged and tempted to go back to the
land of Egypt. So he led them another way. But know this, as a child of
God, each of you, and those of you who are watching, that way
that God leads you, though it may seem to you, and to me, a
roundabout way to get to our destination, be assured, it's
the best way. It's the best way. It's the best
way because He chose it. It's the best way because He's
leading you in that way. But He not only led them by day
in this pillar, this column of cloud, during the daytime, but
by night in another pillar. And this is a fire reaching all
the way up to heaven. And when I think of this pillar
of cloud by day reaching from heaven all the way to earth,
and this pillar of fire by night reaching all the way from heaven
down to the earth, how can I not think, how can you not think
of our Lord Jesus Christ who came down from heaven to this
earth? You see, understand this, these
are not two pillars. This is one pillar that manifested
itself in the daytime by a column of a wonderful cloud reaching
from heaven to earth, and during the daytime as a column of fire,
or excuse me, at nighttime as a column of fire reaching from
heaven to earth to illuminate the camp of Israel to give life. One pillar. That's the first
thing I want you to understand. This is one pillar. You see, our Lord Jesus is one. He is God, yes. And He is man, yes. But He's
not two persons. He's one person. And this is
the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. He was one. When our Savior was
conceived in the womb of the Virgin by the power of the Holy
Ghost, when deity took hold of humanity and joined itself to
humanity, that's one person there, the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And His humanity grew in stature
and in wisdom, but God didn't grow. Simeon, when he looked in the
face of that infant, when Mary brought him to the temple, he
said, mine eyes have seen thy salvation. He saw God. And he saw an infant about yea
big, one person. I'll tell you that
one person, he's the one who went to the cross of Calvary. He's the one who laid down his
life. He's the one who took it up again. He's the one who 40
days later ascended back to heaven. And this one person, this God-man,
this pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, this
one God-man seated upon his throne in glory, absolutely God, and absolutely
man. One pillar. Tell you something
else. Here's something else. Second
point, if you keepin' an outline. Second point is, one nation,
excuse me, one pillar for one nation. This pillar, pillar of
cloud by day, pillar of fire by night, was Israel's protector. It was Israel's illuminator. It was Israel's guide. It was
Israel's forerunner, but only for Israel. He's not the protector or the
illuminator, the preserver, the guide of other nations, one nation. This is specific, specific guidance
for specific people. Because Israel pictures the chosen
of God from all eternity. Those chosen unto salvation. And the Lord is the God of His
elect. He's the protector of His elect.
He's the illuminator of His elect. He wasn't the illuminator of
the Egyptians. He wasn't the illuminator or
the preserver of the Syrians. And Israel, as we know, stands
as a picture of the elect of God chosen unto salvation in
Jesus Christ from before the foundation of the world. One pillar for one specific,
particular, chosen nation. And then thirdly, This pillar
of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night was the gift of
God. Have you ever read in the scriptures
that they asked for this pillar of cloud by day or pillar of
fire by night? Well, you can read it from now
on, and you should do that. But I'll tell you this, you'll
never read that they asked for this pillar that they ask for
this protector from heaven, this preserver, this illuminator. This is all by divine design
and by divine gift. And I'll tell you, this one who
is our pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night is
an unasked for gift. An unsought gift. You remember
the Lord said through Isaiah, He said, I'm found of those who
sought me not. Who sought me not. When Adam
and Eve fell in the garden, who did the seeking? Not Adam and
Eve. They did the sinning. They did
the running. They did the hiding, they did
the fleeing. It's our God, the Son of God
in free and sovereign mercy who sought after them, who called
them effectually unto himself, Adam, where art thou? And he
never asked a question because he doesn't know the answer. The
question was asked to bring Adam to a greater realization of the
hole that he had dug for himself. And then the Son of God proceeded
to tell Adam and Eve what he was going to do because it was
Christ who's speaking there. And he said, the seed of the
woman is coming. He's going to crush the head
of the serpent. And our Lord was speaking of
himself. And then as Adam and Eve watched,
He killed animals. The Son of God had taken a human
form that He often did in the Old Testament, and He killed
animals. He stripped off the fig leaf
aprons from Adam and Eve, and then robed them with that garment
that He Himself had prepared for them. And that's what the
Lord does for us in conversion. He strips us of our self-righteous
rags that we were clinging to, thinking we were pretty good
people. He said, you're not good at all. None good but me. That's what the Lord said. And stripped those rags off of
them. And then clothed them. You see, this pillar of cloud
by day was a covering for Israel. It covered them like righteousness
covered Adam and Eve, like righteousness covers us. And when the Lord looked down
from heaven upon Israel, all he saw was a white cloud. The pillar of cloud by day. All
he saw was his son. That's what he saw. And I'm telling
you what God sees as he looks down upon us. And indeed he looks
down upon us right now. Here's what he sees. Nothing
but white cloud. Nothing but righteousness with
which we've been clothed. I tell you this pillar of cloud
by day and pillar of cloud by night was a gift from God. And thirdly, this is a mighty
protector. The cloud protected them. And the cloud, I must go quickly,
led them on their way and illuminated them. Oh, how we need to be illuminated
by Christ who is the light. Because we dwell in the darkness,
the darkness of error, the darkness of sin, the darkness of evil,
the darkness of Satan, the darkness of this vile world. And then
Christ comes to our defense. And all of a sudden, hidden things
are made known. What happened I told you about
this young man over there in Honolulu. He said, I found myself
listening. What happened? What happened?
The Son of Righteousness, the S-U-N, that is the S-O-N, the
Son of God, arose in his heart to give light. And I tell you, in the light
of the Son of God, you see light. Oh, God caused the light to shine. that others may see. This is
a constant illuminator. But it also gave warmth. This
pillar of fire by night, it gave warmth. They didn't all have
to light campfires all over the place. That's the way we do it. Oh man,
it's cold out here. Oh, they had abundant heat. Oh,
the heat of the Son of God. warmed them by his presence. And you take a sinner with an
old cold heart, when the heat appears of the
Son of God, melts the ice. Melts the ice. And you bask in
the glow of his grace and of his goodness. And I'll give you one more thing.
You don't have to turn to this, but in Psalm 99 verse seven,
he spoke to them, God spoke to them out of the light. And God's not gonna speak to
anybody except out of the light, out of Christ the Savior. God
will not speak to nor be spoken to by any son or daughter of
Adam except through his son. God in these last days, Hebrews
1-2, in these last days has spoken unto us. How? By His Son. By His Son. God spoke to him
out of the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by
night. How exciting to know and remember. It's the Lord leading us. And
we oftentimes don't know which way the road's gonna go. Except
we know it's going to glory. But the direction that it's going
to go is left to our wise, wise counselor and guide, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Let's sing a closing song, shall
we? Let's go to 393.