In the book of Hebrews, if you
would like to turn there this morning. Hebrews chapter 11. Some preachers, some men have
foolishly called the men and women of this chapter heroes,
heroes. And if you were to ask any of
them, Are you a hero? Were you a hero? They would say
no, but I had one. I had one, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was the hero. He was the savior. See, the definition
of the word hero is a person who is admired or idealized for
courage, outstanding achievements, and good qualities. Well, that
don't really describe us very much, does it? But it describes
Him. It describes the Lord. Well,
He had good qualities. He had good qualities. Scripture
says that there's none good, no not one, but our Lord Jesus
Christ and His Father are good. They are good and they have good
qualities. Understand something, the men and women of this chapter,
Hebrews chapter 11, they're no different than you and I. There's
a song in that hymn book that we, we'll never sing, that's
called Dare to be a Daniel. And it talks about how we should
be more like Daniel and more faithful like Daniel. That's
a misconception because in order for us to be faithful, the Lord
has to make us faithful, enable us to be faithful, cause us to
be faithful. And so these men and women don't
get glory here. That's not the focus of chapter
11 to say, hey, look at what great things Enoch did. Look at what great things Abel
did. Look at what great things Noah did. No, it's by faith. That's the common denominator,
isn't it? Whenever you look at these people's lives, these individual,
these brethren's lives, it's by faith they did these things,
not in of themselves. That's the whole point. Faith
is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. Our substance is Christ. Our substance is Christ. These men and women had to be
saved by grace alone, just like you and I. They didn't produce
a single thing that pleased God. They didn't merit their salvation
based upon works. When the Lord said, Abraham believed
God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, it was
accounted to him because God reckoned faith to him. That's
why he believed God. Otherwise, he would have never
believed God to begin with. The Lord caused him, he made him,
and he enabled him to believe God. All these from Abraham on, as
we go through all of these individuals, we see that they were, as we
are, hell-deserving, dead dog sinners that need grace, that
need mercy. And if we don't have grace and
mercy, we don't have any hope of eternal life, no hope of salvation. If the Lord doesn't choose to
save us, we will never be saved. He must do that. The common denominator
here is everything good about them came from God. Everything good about them came
from God. They didn't produce it. Daniel believed God. The Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
that got thrown in the fiery furnace, they believed God. But
did they produce that ability to believe? No. Their faith was
a gift by grace. And we see we can always go back
to that former nature that we have that does not trust God,
that does not believe God. What we wrestle with, we can
see it's ever present. We wrestle with unbelief. And
yet it is said of the Lord people, Abraham believed God. Abraham
believed God. Here in our text, we'll find
Moses, whenever he heard of Pharaoh, you go all the way back to Exodus
chapter two, you see whenever he hears a Pharaoh coming after
him, going to kill him because he murdered a Egyptian. It says, and he feared, he was
afraid and he fled. But here, when we read this and
pay attention, and we'll talk about it in a minute, but it
says, but Moses did not fear the wrath of Pharaoh. It's like,
well, is it contradicting itself? No, the Lord doesn't look at
your sin, it's been put away. The Lord doesn't look at your
unbelief, it's been put away. The Lord sees the faith that
he's given you where you're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ alone
and that's who he looks for for our righteousness. And the Lord's
people look the same place, don't we? We look to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Everything good about these men and women came because
of God. Came because of God. They believe
God because of grace through faith. Now the words by faith
in this chapter are mentioned 20, 24 times in Hebrews chapter
11, by faith. That's the common denominator.
That is the base of all believers is it's by faith. It's in Christ
we live, move, and have our being. And it's by faith we believe
him. It's by faith we know him. It's by faith we see him and
trust him. Otherwise we would never trust
him. I love the thought that as I
was studying how the Lord, well, I'll just, I'll just try to show
you what he showed me. So if you go back to verse four,
you can take the words by faith. We can start all the way back
by faith. Abel, see verse four, it says by faith, Abel, you can
take that word by faith and you can put the words by Christ. Let's read it. By Christ, Abel
offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Go to verse
five. By Christ, Enoch was translated that he should not see death.
Go down to verse seven. By Christ, Noah. And it's the
same all the way down, isn't it? Why is that? Because it's
faith bestowed upon the Lord's people. It's how we're enabled
to believe, but what is the sum and substance of faith? It's
Christ, isn't it? He's the focal point. He gets
all the glory for it. No glory for us. Men will make
faith a work. They'll say, well, God's justified
you because of your faith. No, God gave you faith because
you're justified. That's the difference. He justified
you. He sanctified you. He made you
the righteousness of God in Christ. And then in time, he calls you
out of darkness into his light, giving you faith to believe him.
Now, faith is evidence of justification because only those who are justified
receive the faith of the Lord. But we don't look to faith as
our justification. We look to Christ as our justification.
We look to Christ. He is the message of faith. He
alone is the singular source and provider of faith. And without
faith, it's impossible to please God. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. Without God-given faith. Now,
we'll call that the intro to this message. Let's read our
text here in Hebrews chapter 11, 23 through 27. By faith, Moses, when he was
born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw
he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the king's
commandment. By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused
to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to
suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasures of Egypt. For he had respect unto
the recompense of reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not
fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him
who is invisible. I've titled this message Nevertheless. Nevertheless. The reason we've
titled it that is because Moses, first and foremost, was born
with a death sentence on his head. Pharaoh had said, kill
all of the Hebrew boys. The nation's getting too great.
The ones that are being born, slaughter them. And they saw
that, or he says that he was a proper child. His parents saw
that. What does that mean? The Lord revealed unto them they
needed to save their child. They didn't fear the wrath of
the king. They hid their child away. Pharaoh tried to kill out what
would be the Savior. Moses became the Savior. A picture
of Christ delivering his people from bondage, from slavery, from
sin, from the law. That's the picture of Moses we
see. And later on Joshua finishes
that because Moses also is a picture of the law. We see that because
God had a purpose, God had already made the way to deliver his people
through Moses, no matter what Pharaoh thought he was going
to do, he would never be able to accomplish it. God was going
to do exactly what he had purposed. And he placed on the heart of
Moses' parents faith to believe God. He placed upon them faith
to believe God and hide their child. Now the glorious part
is, is Moses was supposed to die as soon as he was born. But
we've titled this because we're going to see a bunch of neverthelesses
in this message. Moses was supposed to die. Nevertheless,
God said, no, God purposed. Pharaoh planned and calculated
and tried to figure out things God purposes, doesn't he? See,
he's seated and he's sovereign. And I love the thought of him
purposing because it's always been his purpose. It's not that
it changes. He doesn't change. He said, I
am the Lord, I change not. So if it's his purpose right
now to save his people, it's always been his purpose to save
his people. I love that. I love that. He purposed Moses
to deliver the children of Israel from the foundation of the world
before even in eternity, didn't he? So Moses was hid. He was placed. in an ark made
of bulrushes by his mother, and she pitched it. Do you remember
what the word pitched means? We looked at that whenever we
studied Noah's Ark, brought a message from Noah's Ark. That word is
the same word as atonement. Atonement, it's a picture of
the Lord's people. In order for us to be saved in
the river of death, that's what the Nile is, is the river of
death. In order for us to be saved in the river from death,
we must be in Christ with the atonement, with the blood. If
we don't have Christ's blood applied, that's our message,
second hour is the blood. We don't have the blood, we have
no hope. And without faith, it's impossible to believe the blood.
And that's, it's all, it's all he has to give, the ability to
believe it. So we see that Moses is placed
in an ark, a place of covering. And that's exactly what the Lord
did for all of his chosen people on the cross of Calvary. We were
placed in Christ as the wrath of God was poured out upon his
son. The Lord put away the sin of his people. All the sin has
been gone. It's been put away by the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that now the Lord's people
are seen as perfectly righteous, perfectly righteous. They're
safe. Just as Moses was safe. Now,
Moses was powerless. Moses should have, I mean, by
all accounts, Moses got put into the river Nile. I don't know
if you know this, but there's crocodiles in the river Nile. And when we
lived in Florida for some time, there were alligators. I don't
know if we had any crocodiles down there. I never saw any. They
said maybe. I don't know. But I do know this. I went fishing
a couple of times where there's alligators. And they're huge. And they're sometimes aggressive.
And I'd be fishing and just have a bobber out there. Something
come up, just grab it. That'd be the end of that. Well, what
about a little baby in a basket? Was it not God's hand that had
to be upon this baby as he's floating down the river? They
say crocodiles are twice as aggressive as alligators are. That's what
I read. What's my point? My point is, is it had to be
God's hand upon this child. It had to be God's purpose. And
that's the nevertheless here. Moses probably should have died
by all mathematical calculations. Nevertheless, God protected Moses
for his purpose. And the most glorious part is
where did Moses end up? Did he ended up way down the
river somewheres and nowhere? No, he ended up on the threshold
of the Pharaoh's daughter. Now who does that? God does that.
God does that, and she had compassion upon, knew who he was, knew who
he was, but still had compassion upon him, sees him, says, this
is a Hebrew, and had compassion upon him. Who put that compassion
in her heart? God did. God did. Now maybe the scripture is not
clear on this and we don't want to speculate or speak if the
Holy Spirit is silent, but perhaps she couldn't have had children.
Maybe that's why she, we don't know what all the Lord had purposed
is what I'm saying in order for her to latch onto this child
as she did and rear him as a Prince of Egypt, as a Prince of Egypt. Now the, The second best part
of this account that we read in the scripture is that Mariam,
Moses' sister, is walking beside the river, watching him, making
sure he's okay, and he ends up at the palace where Pharaoh's
daughter is. And Mariam comes up and says,
do you want me to fetch one of the Hebrew women to nurse him?
And she said, yes. And who do you think she got?
His own mother. His own mother got to suckle
her child. This is the province of our Lord.
This is mercy and grace that's renewed every day for the Lord's
people, not only in eternity, but in time as well. So what
happened after that? Well, I love Pharaoh's daughter
says to Moses's mom, I'm going to pay you your wages. She got
paid to nurse her baby. Only the Lord can do something
like that. Only the Lord does things like that. Now the river
should have killed him. Nevertheless, he ends up at the
palace with his mother being the one that takes care of him.
What, what grace, what mercy? Our Lord bestows upon His people.
Every day there's new grace. Scripture talks about His mercies
are renewed every day. You know what that means? You
can't exhaust Him. You can't exhaust Him. I can't exhaust
Him. His grace is fresh. It's never gonna expire. It's
never gonna get older. It's never gonna lose its power,
its purpose. It's always gonna be the same because of the author
of it, because of the finisher of it. It's always gonna remain
the same. It's the same for Moses. It's
the same for you and I today. They're renewed every morning.
I love the thought that he bestows this grace and mercy. It's not merited, it wouldn't
be grace. What the scripture says, if it's works, it wouldn't
be of grace. It's of works, and if it's of
grace, it can no longer be of works. It can't be one, it's
one or the other. It's one or the other, but he
says, I'm gonna bestow this upon you freely, freely by my choice,
to all those that he loves, his beloved, Now the next thing we
get to in Moses' life, early life, we're not gonna go into
his latter part of his life today much, but Moses, it's clear he
was a prince of Egypt, so what does that mean if you're a prince?
You could have had anything, he could have had anything he
wanted in Egypt. I mean, figuratively or realistically, whatever would
have been available to him. He's a real prince of Egypt.
So he could have had, well, the scripture even tells us here
about the treasures of Egypt. It talks about how that he didn't
esteem them like he esteemed Christ. He was a prince of Egypt,
could have had anything he wanted. Nevertheless, God gave him faith
to believe God. It looks what it says in verse
24 and 25. by faith when he was come to
years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy
the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ's
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. He chose not to enjoy
the pleasures of sin for a season. Now what sin is he talking about
there? What sin is he talking about? He's talking about the
sin of unbelief. He's talking about the sin of
false idols, false worship. Because Egyptians, they're pagans. They don't worship God. They
worship all these false idols. They all worship all these false
images, false beings. They don't worship God. So for
him to take part in Egypt and to be accepted by them, he would
have had to go through the rituals. He would have had to go through
their worship. He wouldn't have been able to
say, no, I'll take the treasures and I'll take the riches But
I'm not going to, and I don't know what they would have called
it then, but I'm not going to church today with you because you're going
to false worship. He couldn't have done that. So he couldn't
have had both. So he esteemed Christ, the truth, and the true
gospel. And it's amazing that it says
he esteemed Christ. Did you notice that? It doesn't
say he esteemed God. He esteemed the Lord Jesus Christ,
the promise of the Savior, the promise of the Messiah. It's
the same faith you and I have. He was just looking forward to
the cross. You and I are looking back to it. It's already happened.
We were talking back there in the men's study and I said, he
didn't even know his name yet. Lord hadn't given his name as
Jesus Christ yet. That wasn't given until Matthew
chapter one. We know that his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counselor, the Prince of Peace, the Everlasting Father. We know
he had names, Jehovah Sikhenu, the Lord Our Righteousness. We
know that he had names, but I'm talking about his actual name
upon the earth. They didn't know it, but they
believed him nonetheless, nonetheless. Moses, it says here, chose affliction. Did you know Being a believer
does not mean you're gonna have it easy. I hear messages from
false, or I have in past, false preachers talk about health,
wealth, and prosperity as the life of the believer, and that's
not true. That's not true. Christ warned
us. He said, in the world, you shall have tribulation. I mean,
that's as clear as it gets, isn't it? In the world, you shall have
tribulation. But he doesn't stop there. He
said, but be of good cheer. I will overcome the world. What
we could not do, our Lord did. And what we could not produce,
our Lord provided for his people. That's the good news of the gospel.
Our adversary desires for all of us to fall flat on our face.
Nevertheless, we are kept by the power of God. Nevertheless,
be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. The
Lord will not lose one sheep. We are kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last
day. Moses could have renounced his heritage. He could have despised
his parents' God. Nevertheless, God taught him
the truth about who he was. Moses was not left to himself.
Moses was taught the truth. Now, I'd imagine it started with
his parents. He had to hear about it from somebody. So I'd imagine
his mother took every opportunity, his father took every opportunity,
but it's only the Lord that can really teach in the heart, isn't
it? It's good to have conversations and it's certainly good to teach
your children. It's certainly good to talk about
the Lord's goodness and mercy, but he saves through the foolishness
of preaching, the scripture says. And so this that happened with
Moses, we don't know exactly how he heard the gospel, but
what we do know, he heard it. And he believed it, because the
Lord gave him faith to believe it. Gave him faith to believe
it. One day, Moses saw a Hebrew,
another Hebrew, that was being beaten by an Egyptian, and he
didn't like that. And it says he looked around,
he was trying to be careful, he didn't want to get caught,
and he murdered that Egyptian, and buried him in the sand, scripture
says. Couple days later, some of the Hebrews said, you're our
judge as well, are you gonna kill us also? And he said, uh-oh,
this thing's known. And it says in Exodus chapter
two, Pharaoh found out about it. And when he did, Moses was
afraid and he fleed. And he fled, he went all the
way down to Midian. He went all the way down to the priests of
Midian and he ended up marrying one of his daughters. And that's where he spent the
next 40 years, herding sheep on the backside of a desert.
Who purposed that? God did. God did. You want to
know something about the Lord's people? Watch sheep. That's exactly
the Lord's example that he uses all the time. They need a shepherd.
They need a shepherd. They need to be led. They need
to be nurtured and cared for and protected and provided for.
And what do we do that with? The gospel. The gospel does all
of that, doesn't it? So let's read here. Even though
it says Moses was afraid, let's read 25 and 26. Choosing rather
to suffer the affliction with the people of God than to enjoy
the pleasures of sin for a season. esteeming the reproach of Christ
greater riches and the treasures in Egypt, where he had respect
into the recompense of the reward. But faith by faith, he forsook
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king for he endured as
seeing him who is invisible. Now, wait a minute. It says he
was afraid, but then it says he's not fearing the wrath. What
is he talking about? Is it contradicting itself? No. He was looking to
the invisible. He was looking by faith to Christ. And although he was fearful,
although he was afraid, the Lord did not see that fear. The Lord
did not see him in doubt and in unbelief. And take, oh, take
courage, brethren, that whenever you are in fear and in doubt,
The Lord's not marking that down in a book to hold that against
you. Christ has already put that away. Look to Christ. Don't worry
about, don't sit there and think, oh no. What if the Lord does
something against me because I've done this and I've done
that? Christ says, I've put away your sin, you shall not die.
Somebody said, well, you preach like that, you're gonna tell
people they can live frivolously and do whatever else? No, you
tell people that hear the gospel that, and they're gonna say,
woe is me, I'm undone, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner.
And they're gonna worship God, because the Lord gives faith
to do so. We live our life by faith, looking to him in all
things. Although we are afraid, full
of sin, full of doubt, full of unbelief, the Lord sees us perfectly
righteous because we are in the Lord Jesus Christ by his grace. That's the good news of the gospel. He sees the sin is gone. You
know, he sees you, that new man, he sees you trusting him all
the time, never wavering. Can you grasp that? Boy, I can't
sometimes. I see myself doubting. I see
myself questioning. I see myself murmuring. He doesn't
see it. He just sees the blood. He just
sees his son. So stop looking at yourself.
I need to stop looking at myself and look to Christ, who is our
righteousness, who is our sanctification, who is our redemption. Being a believer with a new heart,
being a believer with a new heart, and I wanna say this as clearly
and plainly as I can, being a believer with a new heart does not mean
that your fears are gonna go away. Does not mean that you're
never gonna doubt again. Does not mean that your flesh
is gonna stop kicking against the truth of the Lord. Our flesh
is, we're just rebels, that's all. All of the law can do is
make a rebel and a Pharisee, that's all it can make. But it
means, being a believer means we are made to believe Christ
is our only hope of eternal life. Doesn't mean you're gonna stop
fearing. Doesn't mean you're gonna stop doubting. Doesn't
mean you're gonna start seeing yourself as getting better and
better. To the contrary, you'll see yourself getting worse and
worse. What it does mean is you being a believer, believe Christ
Jesus successfully redeemed his people from their sin. And that
is your only hope of eternal life. That's what a believer
is. That's what a believer is. This old nature doesn't go away,
doesn't change. Moses was fearful here and he
left and you, The Lord had to give him grace, but he was afraid
when the Lord said to him, go speak to Pharaoh and tell him,
let my people go. What did Moses say? Lord, you got the wrong
guy. That's what he told God. The bush is on fire. It's not
being consumed right in front of him. God's speaking to him,
verbally speaking to him, audibly, he can hear. He says, take off
thy shoes for the place you stand is holy ground. He's on holy
ground with God. And God says, I want you to go to Egypt, tell
Pharaoh to let my people go. For I've heard the cry of my
people. What does Moses say? Lord, I'm slow of speech. I can't do this. I'm slow of
speech. I'm not able to do this. Send
Aaron to do it. He said, well, Aaron can go with
you. But he told him, he said, well, who taught the dumb to
speak and the lame to walk? Did not I? Go, and I'll be with you,
Moses. Moses said, well, I'm going to
have to see a sign or something. He just keeps on back and forth.
It actually says that the Lord got frustrated with him. Even
after all that he showed him, but the Lord also did something
miraculous that he does with you and I. He was patient and
he was loving. He was tender and he drew him
unto himself and gave him faith to believe. And guess what Moses
did? You know, it never does say that
whenever he went down to Egypt that Aaron spoke one time before
Pharaoh. It doesn't say that Aaron spoke
on Moses's behalf. If he spoke, it wasn't on Moses's
behalf. Moses did the talking. Why? Because
God gave him the grace to do it. God gave him faith to believe
him. Now being a believer doesn't
mean we don't have fears and doubts anymore, but being a believer
means we believe Christ. We believe his gospel. We believe
he is salvation. We believe he is salvation. We
believe he is all our wisdom, all of our righteousness, all
of our sanctification of redemption. We esteem the reproach of Christ
greater than anything in this world. We have respect unto the
recompense of reward, just like Moses here. What does that mean?
That mean Christ is the reward and we value him more than anything.
That's what a believer does, it values Christ more than anything. The writer said, he's fairer
than 10,000 to my soul. Can you say that? He's fairer
than 10,000 to my soul. I am my beloved and he is mine.
This is the heart he gives his people. We love our Lord because
he first loved us and we value him. We esteem him higher than
the riches of this world. We esteem him higher than our
own righteousness, our self-righteousness. We esteem him. We prefer him.
We've taken sides with God against ourself. Why? He made us do it. He gave his faith to do it. What else does a believer give
up? Well, we've forsaken our old thoughts
of self-righteousness, haven't we? We don't think about ourself
being righteous anymore because of what we do. We've forsaken
things of the world pertaining spiritual things, we're not trying
to attain salvation anymore. We know that salvation is of
the Lord and it was attained by him. We now count, what did
Paul say? We now count everything but dung
that I may win Christ. And I wanna give you the context
of that, those verses. Paul said, if you have something,
you have glory, wherein you can glory, I more. I was born, a tribe of Benjamin,
circumcised the eighth, and he gives his pedigree, circumcised
the eighth day, and he says, I learned this, and I knew this,
and I studied this, and I went here, I've done that, and did
this, and he said, at the end of it all, he gets done, he says, but
all these things I counted loss, for the excellency of the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I count them but dung,
that I may win Christ. Can you say that? That's the
heart he gives us, isn't it? We just believe God over self. Believe God over self. Not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us. Unto thy name be all glory and
honor and praise. We are born hell-deserving, dead
dog sinners with no hope of attaining salvation because of what we
do. Nevertheless, God, who is rich in mercy, And oh, His precious
love chose to redeem us when we were unlovable, dead in trespasses
and in sin. That's what the neverthelesses
of the gospel are. We see our depravity, but our
depravity can't keep us from being saved if the Lord purposed
to save us. We can't stop Him. I can't restrain
Him, and I can't constrain Him. I can't make Him do something,
and I can't prevent Him doing something. I love God that way.
I love God that way. In religion, most religion, they
do one or the other. That means God's not the alpha
and omega. At some point along the line, they can either make
him do something because of what they do, obligate him, or prevent
him from doing something because they don't do something. That's
not true. That's not true. There was nothing Pharaoh could
do to stop God from delivering his people in Egypt. Nothing.
Pharaoh hardened his heart, and God hardened the heart of Pharaoh,
it says. But ultimately, what happened? The Lord did that.
For one reason, he told Moses the reason. He said, I'm gonna
do this to show you all my signs and wonders. What do you mean
by that? I'm gonna get all the glory. So when you leave Egypt,
there'll be no doubt in anybody's mind who delivered you from Egypt,
no doubt, who delivered you from Egypt and who gets all the glory
for it. Who gets all the glory for it. Understand, we have no hope of
attaining salvation, no hope coming to God. What hope did
Moses have whenever he was born under Pharaoh, Pharaoh's death
sentence? What hope did he have of being
saved by floating down the river Nile, the death river? What hope
did he have, God? It's his only hope. And scripture
tells us clearly what the Lord said, I've chosen you unto salvation.
There's your hope. There's your hope. Scripture
says, nevertheless, or I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now
live in the flesh, I live how? By the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me. We could have had all
that Egypt had to offer. All that Egypt had to offer,
nevertheless, God, who is rich in mercy, loved us when we were
unlovable, sent his only begotten son to die for his people on
the cross to redeem us back to him. And in time, he makes Egypt
no longer appealing to the believer. We no longer desire the bondage
of Egypt. We no longer desire the flashy
things of Egypt. Why? We're seeking a city now.
We're seeking a promised land. We're seeking where Christ is
to see him face to face. We esteem him greater than what
these eyes see. We see him through faith. You know, it's true. It's true
that our flesh did like the bondage of religion, because it gives
glory to the flesh. Whenever you were, now you look
back in when you were in religion, false religion, You despise it
now because you know the truth. But during that time, we thought
ourself high. We thought ourself good. We thought
ourself better than others. The flesh loves that. Look at
me. Oh, we don't do that. I've never done that. I would
never do this. And we brag about ourself. And we glory about ourselves.
So our flesh loves Egypt is my point. But God gave us faith
to see Christ. And oh, we hate Egypt now. So our flesh loves it, the new
man hates it. And guess what? The elder shall
serve the younger. That's the good news of the gospel,
isn't it? That's the good news of the gospel. The new man is
in control, and the Lord himself is the one that's purposed it. We no longer stand upon the foundation.
We have a new foundation. Do you know that? Our foundation
before was all lies. Our foundation, what we had before,
we were standing on nothing but lies. Didn't even know it. Didn't
have a clue. We were standing dead in darkness
on lies. I guess we weren't standing if
we're dead, but you understand what I'm saying. Our foundation, however
you want to say it, our foundation was lies, deceit, darkness. that God commended his love toward
us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Second Timothy 2.19, nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth
sure, having this seal, the Lord knows them that are his. He says knoweth there, and I
like knoweth. That means continually. He never forgets them. He knoweth
them that are his. We believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is, what is it to believe? You believe God. You
believe God, you believe Christ. You believe he successfully redeemed
his people. You believe that he's the seated sovereign King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. You believe that he reigneth.
You believe that he doesn't need your help and he doesn't need
my help for anything pertaining to salvation, because salvation's
already accomplished. He did that. That's what it is
to believe. That's what it is to believe.
Looking to him as all, the author and the finisher of faith. He
could have left us to ourself. You know it's true. We deserved
it, didn't we? He left us to ourself. Nevertheless, he came
to where we were, lost, dead, in darkness. He shined the light
of his glorious gospel into our heart, gave us faith to believe
him. Now we just believe God. Now we just believe God. Matter
of fact, that's why he came, is to save his people from their
sin. That's what he tells us. That's the whole purpose that
he came, and that's exactly what he did. Thank God for the nevertheless
interjections of the gospel. Could also just be another message,
but God, it'd be the same thing. You are dead and trespasses in
sin, but God who is rich in mercy, it's all his interjection. That's
the whole beauty of the gospel is if God doesn't interject,
if God doesn't intercede, if God doesn't arrest us where we
are and give us faith to believe, change our mind completely, give
us repentance and faith to believe, we'll never come to him. But
he promised to do just that for all of his chosen people, and
that's our hope, isn't it? Lord, arrest me. Lord, let me
be one that you say nevertheless to. Caleb was gonna die in his
sins. Nevertheless, God, who is rich
in mercy. Let's pray. Lord, arrest us,
cause us to see Christ, shut us up to him. Let us all be trophies
of your nevertheless good news. Thank you. Bless us to our understanding
for your glory in Christ's name. Amen. Let's take a break.