Good morning. We're going to be in John chapter
5 this morning. First hour, John chapter 5. And that hymn goes very well
with the message I want to try to bring this morning. What liberty we have in Christ. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father, what hope and comfort we have
in the precious promises that you have made. Lord, you've told us that where your Holy Spirit is, there's
liberty. And if Christ has set you free,
you're free indeed. Lord, what a blessing it is to
have you to set us free from the curse of the law, from the
penalty of sin, from the power of sin, and Lord, for the hope
of knowing that one day we'll be completely delivered from
the presence of sin. We ask, Lord, that you would
bless your word to our hearts, that you would cause us to find
all our strength, our hope, and all our salvation in Christ. his glorious person and his completed,
accomplished work. Lord, we pray for Jeanette and
ask, Lord, that your hand of healing would be upon her and
that you would give those that minister to her the knowledge
that they need to treat her well Lord, we pray for your hand to
heal her, bring her back to us safely. And we ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. As most of you know, Jeanette
Briggs has been suffering with leukemia, a form
of leukemia, and has been taking chemo the last two or three weeks. She went in the hospital last
night at midnight and was not doing well and not sure if she
was having a reaction to the chemo or what. But as of this
morning, she was better. And so they're going to hold
her for observation. And hopefully, she'll get to
go home tomorrow. Remember to pray for Jeanette
and for Donnie. All right, you have your Bibles
open to John chapter five. John chapter five. I've titled this message, Moses
spoke of Christ. Moses spoke of Christ. John chapter five, verse 45.
Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one
that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you
would have believed me. For he wrote of me. But if you believe not his writings,
how shall you believe my words?" The Lord is rebuking these self-righteous,
holier-than-thou, judgmental Pharisees who had a works gospel
as the hope of their salvation. They were looking to the law,
they were looking to the writings of Moses that they said they
believed in. But the Lord clearly says to
them, if you believed Moses, you wouldn't believe me. You
don't really believe Moses because Moses wrote of me. Now, the sect of the Pharisees
began after the Babylonian exile. When the children of Israel came
back from Babylon, there was a group of Jews that separated
themselves from the rest of Israel and promoted themselves as the
religious standards for Israel. The word Pharisee literally translated
means separated ones. And now, hundreds of years later,
there's, according to some historians, some 6,000 Pharisees that belong
to this holier-than-thou sect of religious leaders. And we find the Lord often in
confrontation with them over the same thing. Over the same
thing. They hated Christ because the
Lord Jesus robbed them of their righteousness, he robbed them
of their gospel, they had a works gospel. Interestingly, the word saint
also translated means separated one. Pharisee and Saint. Two different
words but they have the same definition. But they are much,
much different in meaning. And the meaning of the two words
really boils down to who does the separating. If we separate
ourselves and look to our works then we're Pharisees. If God
has done the separating and he has separated us in Christ, then
the Lord, the scriptures refer to us as saints. Who does the
separating? Unlike the self-righteous Pharisees,
The ones who Christ separates find their righteousness only
in him. They know that apart from him,
they have no righteousness. They look to Christ alone for
all the hope of their salvation. They believe themselves to be
sinners and they know that the only hope of their salvation
is the grace of God. The Pharisees go to the Bible
looking for something to do so they might promote themselves
among men and find a false hope in what they see in their own
performance for their salvation. The saint, on the other hand,
goes to the word of God, not looking for something to do,
but looking for someone who has done for them all that God requires. The Lord tells us that the gift
of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. God declares in his word that
all that he requires is found in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he only accepts what he provides. And what hope and
comfort the child of God has in finding their rest. That hymn that we just sang was
such a blessing to that. We have not the legal rigors
of of the law of Moses to direct us. We have Christ himself. The
Lord Jesus said, follow me. We have the spirit of grace. We have the law of grace and
the law of the spirit to direct our steps. The Lord Jesus called
the Pharisees whitewashed tombs full of dead man's bones. They
were concerned with the outward appearances, but the heart was
still corrupt. The Lord told us that we should
do what the Pharisees say to do. They were, we're not talking
about being lawless here. The question is the motivation
for obedience. And the Lord says to them, to
us, he says, what they tell you to do, do, but except your righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you
shall not enter the kingdom of God. Paul was a Pharisee. He thought
that he measured up. Concerning the law, he said,
I was blameless. And he made that confession after
the Lord taught him the gospel, after the Lord saved him. He
said, concerning my outward behavior, concerning my obedience to the
law of God, no man could find charge against me. And that which
I thought was gain, I thought that was going to earn me favor
with God. It was working very well in earning
me favor with man. But he said, I was alive once
without the law. But when the commandment came,
and what was that commandment? It spoke to his heart. I like to think of the, we don't
know this for sure, and I realize I'm speculating, but seems like
that rich young ruler may have been none other than Saul of
Tarsus. And when he came to the Lord, He said, good master, what
must I do to inherit the kingdom of God? And the Lord pointed him to the
law. He said, you know the law. And
the Lord recited the 10 commandments. And what did that rich young
ruler say? These things have I done since
my youth. And the Lord did not rebuke him.
The Lord didn't say to him, no, you haven't. That's one of the reasons why
I think the rich young ruler may have been Saul of Tarsus.
Because Paul makes the same confession that the rich young ruler made.
Concerning the law is blameless. I've done these things since
my youth. And the Lord Jesus said, OK, sell all that you have
and give to the poor and follow me. And he walked away sad. Why? because of covetousness. And
the Paul later says that when the commandment of God came in
power to my heart, sin revived and I died. I realized that my
sin problem was a problem of the heart. So when we talk about
being free from the law, we're not talking about not being obedient
to the things that God commands. Do the things that they tell
you to do. It's the right thing to do. The law is holy. The law is just. The law is good. David said, I love thy law. We
love God's law. But God's law cannot make us
holy. The Pharisees believed it did. God's law cannot justify
us before God. The Pharisees thought it did.
And God's law cannot add goodness before God to our lives. That's a work of grace in the
heart. And that's what Paul said. There's plenty of outwardly moral
people that are gonna die without Christ and end up in a godless
eternity. We can't look at those things
for the hope of our salvation. That's what the Pharisee does.
That's what the Pharisee does. The Lord Jesus said to these
Pharisees, You have one that condemns you already. I don't
need to condemn you. You have one that condemns you.
Yes, the one that you say that you believe, Moses. But Moses spoke of me. When Moses
wrote, he was being moved by the Holy Spirit to give us God's
word which reveals the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses wrote of me, not just in
the law. Yes, in the moral law, Moses
wrote of me because the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one
that was able to keep the law of God, not just in outward appearances,
but from the heart. And that's what God requires.
Man looks at the outward appearances, God looks at the heart. When
the spirit of God reveals to us the sin of our hearts, then
we realize we've In our hearts we've never been able to keep
God's law. The Lord Jesus is the only one
that did that. And so when Moses wrote, he wrote of Christ. When he wrote the civil law,
all those things in the civil law related to the Lord Jesus
Christ. The ceremonial law in particular.
The sacrifices, the blood sacrifice that was made throughout all
the ceremonial laws. The Sabbaths, the Holy Days,
everything was, these are the things that Moses wrote up. He
was speaking of Christ. And a proper understanding of
the writings of Moses do not lead us to the law. A proper understanding of the
writings of Moses leads us to Christ. It leads us to Christ. who himself is our life. And I love, there's a little
quote I think in your bulletin this morning, I believe it's
by Robert Hawker. The greatest inducement in the
believer's heart to obey God is the knowledge of our disobedience
has already been forgiven, something to that effect. You can read,
he said it a lot better than I just did. But we look to what
the Lord Jesus has done in forgiving us of our sin. That's the inducement. The inducement for obedience
is the love of Christ. It is the love of Christ. It's
not my love for Christ that constraineth me. It is the love of Christ
that constraineth me. When I'm able to see the Lord
Jesus for who he is and what he did to put away all my sin,
past, present, and future, there is found in that faith the greatest
motivation. toward love and obedience. It's
not the law. These Pharisees were going to
the law and they were looking to the outward appearances of
their obedience, just as the Apostle Paul was, just as the
rich young ruler was. Paul said, those things which
I thought were gained to me, I realized they were lost because
they were the hope of my salvation. Do not think that I will accuse
you to the Father. The Lord Jesus doesn't have to
accuse Pharisees before God. He's saying to them, and God's
saying to us, the one whom you trust is going to accuse you
because you said you put your trust in him, but you didn't
really believe him because had you believed what he wrote, you
would have believed in me. Because he wrote of me. He wrote
of me. Now, the Lord's not just referring
to the Ten Commandments here. He's referring to all the writings
of Moses. What did Moses write? He wrote
the first five books of the Bible. The first five books of the Bible
were written by Moses, called the Pentateuch. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy. Moses wrote those five books. And everything he wrote, as is
true with all the other penmen of scripture, points God's people
to Christ. So that we read the very first
words that Moses put down in the beginning God. That's very, oftentimes in the
scriptures, the word God is the word Yahweh, and it's his covenant
name. But in Genesis 1.1, the word
is Elohim, and that's the plural name for God. That's a reference
to the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. And so even in the very first
words of the Bible, the very first words that Moses wrote,
he is revealing the gospel in that it's God the Father. who
elected, it's God the Son who redeemed, it's God the Holy Spirit
who regenerates. And even later in Genesis chapter
one when God says, let us make man in our image. Here's the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let there be light. The world was without form and
void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. This is a picture
of our hearts, our lives outside of faith. grace and God says
let there be light and the scripture says that the Lord Jesus is the
light of the world in him was light and the light in him was
life and the life was the light of men. Light has come into the world
but men by nature love darkness rather than light they love being
without form and void they love the darkness of their own sin
and But when God has to say, let there be light. So when the
Lord Jesus says to these Pharisees, Moses spoke of me. When Moses
was writing, everything he was writing from the beginning of
Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy was all about Christ. Adam, Moses wrote, the story
of Adam and Eve in the garden. And Adam, though Eve was deceived
by the serpent, as we are, Adam took of the fruit with his eyes
wide open. And Adam suffered death as a
type of Christ to save his wife. When the Lord Jesus went to the
cross, He went with his eyes wide open, we're deceived by
Satan, but the Lord Jesus took our sin, fully aware, and he
went into death in order to deliver his wife from her sin. What a
picture. And everything that Moses wrote. When God said to Abram in Genesis
chapter 15, Abram, I am thy shield, I am thine exceeding great reward. Moses was speaking of Christ.
When Abram takes Isaac up on the mountain to sacrifice him,
that's all about Christ. If you believed Moses, you would
believe me because Moses spoke of me. And what did Abraham say to Isaac? God will provide himself a lamb. God will do the providing. He
will provide the sacrifice to himself and he himself will be
the sacrifice. God will provide himself a lamb. when Jacob was fleeing from his
brother Esau and he came to Bethel and he laid his head on a rock
and God gave him a vision of a ladder going up into heaven.
Moses wrote that story and that ladder was Christ. If
you believed Moses, you would believe me for Moses wrote me. What's the most, the clearest character
in the Old Testament and in book of Genesis of the Lord Jesus? Is it not Joseph? Is it not Joseph
who was sold into slavery and falsely accused and went into
prison and came forth out of prison and became the The one
who had the keys to the storehouse to where Pharaoh is a picture
of the father says to all the people of Egypt, if you want
something, go see Moses. You're gonna have to get it from
him. He's got the keys to the storehouse. Joseph has them. I say Moses, Joseph. And Joseph says to his brothers,
you meant it for evil. God meant it for good. Is that
not a clear declaration of the Lord Jesus at the cross? You
meant it for evil, God meant it for good to bring salvation
to his people. If you believed Moses, you would
believe me for Moses wrote of me. Then we go to the book of Exodus,
the second book that Moses wrote. And he tells us all the story
about the second, yeah, he tells us the story about the Exodus
and how he had tried to deliver his people by his own strength
and power and God sent him into the wilderness for 40 years and
how the Lord brought him through that burning bush, there's Christ.
The bush that's burning with fire, the picture of God's wrath
falling on Christ but not being consumed, and the Lord Jesus
speaking to Moses and sending him as a deliverer to bring the children of Israel,
and God saying of Moses that the Lord will raise up another
prophet like unto thee, that he will bring his people out,
that's Christ. Moses wrote of me. Everything
he wrote, the rock that followed the children of Israel through
the wilderness from which came the water of life, that's Christ.
Oh, and even before that, the Passover lamb and the blood that's
placed on the doorpost. And these Pharisees are still
making sacrifices and still looking to the blood, but not seeing
it for what it, or what God was revealing it to be, the sacrifice
that Christ would make. If you believe Moses, you believe
me for Moses wrote of me everything he wrote. How Moses is, he's followed by Joshua and Caleb
Christ and his church, Caleb being that faithful dog who follows
on the heels of Joshua, a picture of Christ. Moses couldn't bring
the children of Israel into the promised land any more than the
law can bring you and I into the promised land. Joshua had
to do it. Moses had to die on the other
side of the Jordan. And the only one that can take
you and I across that river of death into the promised land
is our Joshua. There's Christ. The tabernacle, the Ark of the
Covenant, all the blood sacrifices we read about in the law, the
ceremonial law that God gave Moses in Exodus. You see, these
Pharisees thought, well, we'll just continue practicing these
religious rites and ceremonies. And we'll just continue promoting
ourselves as separated ones who are going to stand in the presence
of a holy God based on their obedience to the law. And the Lord says to that, you
don't believe Moses. You don't really believe Moses.
Moses wrote of me, if you believe Moses, you believe me. The one
you say you believe in is gonna condemn you because you did not
believe. Here's the truth about God's
condemnation. God condemns unbelief. He condemns unbelief. That's the sin that that still remains in our flesh,
that's our old man, that's the sin that doth so easily beset
us and we, by God's grace, ask the Lord to mortify that man,
kill that man, put him to death, keep him from manifesting himself,
keep him from, restrain him. That's God's condemnation. But
those who only have, what is the, What is the unpardonable
sin? You know, much speculation has
been made about, well, you know, if you do this or you do that,
it can't be pardoned, you know, that's the unpardonable sin.
I've heard lots of people say different things about what the
unpardonable sin is. The unpardonable sin is unbelief.
It's unbelief, that's it. And it's unbelief that'll send
men to hell. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus is saying here in John chapter five. The one you say
you believe, you don't believe. And because you don't believe
him, he will condemn you. You say you believe the law,
but if you believed the law, you would believe me. For the
law speaks of me. What the Lord's saying here is it's not the obvious violations
of the law that's going to condemn you, it's that you don't really
believe the law. If you believe the law and you
understood what it really meant, the law's good for those who
use it lawfully. What is the lawful use of the
law? To make sin utterly sinful. It exposes us. If we believed what God's saying
in his law, we would come to Christ, realizing
that he's the only one that can satisfy the demands of God's
law for me. I've got to have him. Everything that Moses wrote,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, All the burnt offerings, the sin
offerings, the peace offerings, the drink offerings, the grain
offerings, all those offerings that God gave to the children
of Israel in the Levitical law. The Levites as a type of Christ
in the priesthood, the scapegoat, that's all in the book of Leviticus.
How Aaron was to place his hand on the head of the goat and symbolically
transfer the guilt of the sins of the people of Israel onto
that goat who was sent out into the wilderness and separated
from the people of God. There's a picture of Christ.
Moses wrote of me. He wrote of me. If you believed
Moses, you would believe me. And all the feast days in the
Old Testament, in the book of Leviticus, the Sabbaths. Christ is our Sabbath, Hebrews
chapter four. He's our rest. It's not performing
some religious rite on a particular day of the week. It's that this Sabbath day points
us to Christ. If you believe the Sabbath, you
believe me. The Sabbath was a sign and it pointed to me. The Passover,
all this is in the book of Leviticus. The day of atonement. When Aaron
would go in once a year into the holies of holies and place
the blood on the mercy seat and God would say, here, I will meet
with you. That was, you see, these Pharisees
were still trusting in what they were doing ritualistically. They
were still trusting in their outward appearances. They could
not see the mystery of the gospel. And the Lord says, if you believe
Moses, you believe me, but you don't really believe Moses. And
because you don't believe him, he'll condemn you. Numbers, the exact number of
the 12. A lot of the first part of the
book of Numbers has to do with the counting of the children
of Israel. And the book of God completes
with 144,000 and the 24 elders, the 12 tribes of the Old Testament
Israel and the 12 apostles of the New Testament Church. What
is this a picture of? It's a picture of God's elect.
God knows his sheep. He's counted every one of them
and every one of them will be saved and we won't lose one of
them. That's what the message of the book, Moses wrote of me. He wrote of that one who would
be successful in saving all of God's people. But you're all
caught up in what tribe you're a part of and who your descendants
are and how you relate to this elder or that elder and you've
missed it. In the book of Numbers is the
law of the Nazarite The Lord Jesus was born in Nazareth, born
in Bethlehem, he's raised in Nazareth, he's called a Nazarene. And that was a separated one,
that was a consecrated one. And all that Old Testament law
of the Nazarite was fulfilled in Christ. The law of the Nazarite,
see, they were still trying to practice the law of Nazarite.
Matter of fact, you remember in the book of Acts when the
apostle Paul came back to Jerusalem, James tried to get Paul to take
a Nazarite vow and shave his head and go make a blood sacrifice
in order to appease the Jews. They were still practicing the
Nazarite vow. And Paul was tempted to do it. And God had to raise up a riot
and get Paul out of the city so that he wouldn't do it. Christ was the fulfillment of
that Nazarite. Moses wrote of me. If you believe
Moses, you believe me. In the book of Numbers, we have
the story of the stoning of Sabbath breakers. If a man picked up
sticks on the Sabbath day, he was to be put to death. And these
Pharisees were still practicing that law. And you see it practiced
in churches today, legalistic churches, particularly reformed
Calvinistic churches who crack the whip of the law. And you
don't show up for a few Sundays and see what the elders do. See what they do. What are they
doing? Well, we're gonna force you to keep the law on the Sabbath. Moses wrote of me. Christ is
our Sabbath and the picking up of the sticks that were brought
about the stoning is a picture of trying to add to the finished
work of Christ our works. The word Sabbath means rest.
We rest in Christ. We trust Christ. We believe on
Christ. We can't add anything to his
finished work. And if we look to any work that
we've done as the hope of our salvation, the result of that
is eternal separation from God. Moses wrote of me. You're looking to these laws
and you're thinking that you're practicing them and you're going
to somehow work your way to heaven and earn favor with God and establish
a righteousness with God but you're ignorant of the righteousness
of God for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. In the book of Numbers is the
rod of Aaron that budded and the tablets of stone and the
ofar of manna that was put into the Ark of the Covenant. And
it's a picture of the Lord Jesus as the prophet of God, the manna
that came down from heaven. The king who gave the law And
the priest, Aaron, whose rod came alive, prophet, priest,
and king. Moses wrote of me. If you believe
Moses, you believe me. The fact that you don't believe
me only proves that you don't really believe Moses. In the book of Numbers, we have
the story of the brazen serpent. What clearer picture could we
have? And those, you know that serpent
that was put on a pole and the people, if you've been bit, look
and you'll live. And those who have been bit with
a fiery serpent of sin that looked to Christ, who was made sin,
That's the serpent on the pole. God made him who knew no sin
to be made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Look and you'll live. And what
the children of Israel do with that serpent after they came
into the promised land? They made an idol out of it.
And years later, Hezekiah had to take it and grind it up into
powder and make them drink it. Oh, we'll make an idol out of
anything. You know, we're so, there is a recovering Pharisee
in all of us in that we find false hope and false comfort
in that which can be seen. And we're drawn to that which
can be seen. But the Lord's saying to me and you,
If all you see is the outward appearances, they that are after
the flesh, they mind the things of the flesh. That's the letter
of the law, but there's a spirit to the law. The spirit of the
law is grace. Last example, there's so many,
we're just... You know, we've, last few minutes,
we've just touched the tip of the icebergs of the first five
books of Moses, or the five books of Moses, first five books of
the Bible. But we can be sure that the rest of that iceberg
that's hidden under the water of God's word is made of the
same thing that the tip that's sticking out of the water is
made of. It's made of Christ. And in the book of Deuteronomy,
we have a picture of those cities of refuge, the cities that God ordained
on both sides of the Jordan, three on the west side, three
on the east side of Jordan. And those who had killed their
brother, And the law said that an eye for an eye, a tooth for
the tooth, and the nearest of kin had the legal right to take
your life for having taken their kin's life. And so he's called
the avenger of blood. He's going to avenge the blood
of his brother that you killed. And God gave the children of
Israel a city of refuge. You get to one of those cities
of refuge and get in that city, and you're safe from the avenger
of blood. What a glorious picture of Christ. You say you believe Moses? Here's
what the Lord Jesus is saying to us. You say you believe what
Moses wrote? Moses wrote of me. If you believe
Moses, you would believe me. And the fact that you don't believe
me only really proves that you don't believe Moses and it will
be your unbelief. that will be your condemnation.
That's so simple, isn't it? All right, let's take a break.