Time to slip back there and get
one. Let's all stand together for
the hymn on the back of your bulletin. Christ the Lord lets every tongue
His noblest tribute pray When He's the subject of the song
Who can refuse to sing? Who can refuse to sing? Survey the beauties of His face
And on His glories dwell Think of the wonders of His grace,
And all His victories tell, And all His victories tell. Thou hast redeemed our souls
with blood, Hast set the prisoners free, Hast made us kings and
priests to God, And we shall reign with Thee. and we shall
reign with thee. The whole creation join as one
to bless that holy day of him who sits upon the throne and
to adore the Lamb, and to adore the Lamb. Please be seated. Good morning. Let's open our
Bibles together to Acts chapter 7. Acts chapter 7. I've titled this message Christ
our Moses. Christ our Moses. The passage that. I. Want you to turn to is verse
37 and this is that Moses. which said unto the children
of Israel, a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you
of your own brethren, like unto me, him you shall hear. Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father,
we come into thy holy presence. looking unto the Lord Jesus Christ,
thy precious son, as our prophet, our priest, and our king. We know that as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted
up. We know that he was lifted up
on Calvary's cross, bearing the sins of your people, satisfying
your divine justice, putting them away by the sacrifice of
himself. We ask that you would send your
spirit in power and enable us to speak of him, enable us to
hear from him. Open the eyes of our understanding
that we might see his glory and give us, Lord, the gift of faith
that we would flee to him for our rest and our salvation and
all our hope and all our satisfaction. We confess to you, Lord, that
we are full of sin. Lord, if you are pleased to have
mercy on us this morning, we'll have the hope and comfort of
knowing that we have been found in Christ, that our sin's been
put away, that you're satisfied, Lord, that we might, as you've
just told us in your word, hear him. For it's in his name we
ask it. Amen. Stephen, you remember,
is preaching the gospel to these Pharisees who are referred to
as being of the synagogue of Satan. They're refuting all that
he has to say. And he spends a good bit of his
message talking about Moses. And he's likening the ministry
of Moses to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses, whom God
raised up and sent to be a deliverer for the children of Israel, is
a type of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ, this passage
that that Stephen quotes from in verse 37 that we just read
is actually quoted twice in the book of Deuteronomy, where the
Lord said, a prophet like unto thee will I raise up. And that
prophecy was referring to Christ. And the Lord is illustrated here
in the life of Moses as the one who comes to deliver his people
from the bondage of sin. Egypt, and the taskmasters of
Egypt and the impossibility of the children of Israel satisfying
the demands that they put on them. And the hardships that
they are suffering are a picture of what you and I suffer under
the bondage of sin. And had the Lord not sent Moses
to bring them out, they would still be there. Now, we left
off last time we were here in Acts chapter 7 at verse 17, if
you'll turn back with me there. And when the time of promise
drew nigh, the time of promise drew nigh, all that God had promised
that he would do in bringing the children of Israel out of
Egypt drew nigh. The time of God's promises are
always on time. He always brings about those
things which he has promised that he would do. He's faithful
to keep his promises. Our hope is that the Lord will
send his spirit in power and that he will reveal the glory
of Christ and deliver us once again in his time of promise
from the bondage of our own sin and give us hope in Christ. So he says in verse 18, till
another king arose, which knew not Joseph. Now I fear that we
sometimes think about the children of Israel in Egypt as being under
the bondage of slavery the entire time they were there. That's
not the case. That's not the case. No, they were content in
Egypt. The scripture says in Exodus
chapter one, verse seven, they were fruitful, they increased
abundantly, they multiplied, they waxed exceeding mighty,
and the land was filled with them. They were protected by
the memory of Joseph. But now at the end of that time
that the Lord had ordained for them to be there, A Pharaoh takes
control that knew not Joseph, didn't remember Joseph, and was
threatened by the number of the children of Israel that were
in his land. And you remember in Exodus chapter
two, that he sent out a decree demanding that all the male babies
be cast into the river. And here we see a type of what
Herod did when he sent out a decree for all the male babies of Israel
to be put to death. He was desperately attempting
to protect his throne, to protect his authority. And just as Herod
died a shameful death being eaten by worms, so Pharaoh died a shameful
death, I suppose, being eaten by fish. And the Lord used the
wrath of man to bring about his purpose. And so this is the picture
that the Lord gives us of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it wasn't
until they were put in slavery towards the end of the 400 years
that they were in Egypt that they cried out to God for a deliverer. And the picture here is that
Just like the children of Israel were perfectly content in Egypt,
you and I are perfectly content in our sin until the Lord makes
us to be a sinner. The scripture says in Psalm 110,
I will make them willing in the day of my power. The day of his
power is when he sends his spirit to convict us of our sin. The
Lord said, it's expedient for you that I go away, for if I
go not away, the comforter will not come. But when he comes,
he will convict the world of sin because they believe not
on me. When the spirit of God convicts
us of our sin, then and only then will we cry for a deliverer. You remember the Lord told Moses,
I heard my people's cry. And the Lord sent Moses in response
to the cry that his people had over their bondage. And so it
is with the Lord Jesus Christ. God sends his spirit causing
us to feel the burden of our sin. Now, There's only one reason,
only one reason that men do not believe themselves to be sinners.
Only one reason they don't see themselves as sinners. And that's because they've not
met Christ. They've not met Christ. Men by
nature go about comparing themselves to themselves, believing that
they're getting better. Men by nature go about comparing
themselves to one another, believing that they are better. But when
they're confronted with the one who is holy, undefiled, separate
from sinners and higher than the heavens, the sinless one,
then they come to the same conclusion that Job came to. Behold, I am
vile. In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth
no good thing. I'm in need of a deliverer. I'm
in need of one. You see, that's the picture here.
that the children of Israel were content in Egypt. You and I would
be content in our sin. We would be content in this world
if the Lord did not send his spirit and convict us of our
sin and reveal to us the glory of Christ. That's why it's so
essential that we preach Christ. I quoted that verse in my prayer,
that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the
Son of Man be lifted up. And the Lord went on to say,
and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. Paul said, we preach Christ and
him crucified. May the Lord give us the grace
to always find Christ and look to Christ in his word, because
only in seeing him do we see our need for him. Only in seeing
him do we come to the conclusion that there is nothing in us like
him. And that if we're going to stand
in the presence of a holy God, we're gonna have to have him
stand in our stead as our substitute and as our surety and as all
our satisfaction before God. He's the sin bearer. Now that's
the picture here. They spent 400 years in Egypt
completely content until the Lord raised up a Pharaoh that
put them in bondage. And that's when they cried, And
that's when God sent them a deliverer. The gospel is for the poor and
the needy. That's who it's for. God has
to make us poor and he has to make us needy, doesn't he? He has to cause us to see that
we've got a problem that we can't fix. We've got a problem that
if God judges us for it, we'll be eternally separated from God.
And there's only one that can deliver us. So Stephen is preaching
about Christ and he says, this is the one, this is the prophet
that the Lord said, I will raise up another prophet. Now a prophet
is one who brings the message of God to man. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the prophet. He is the message of God. Every
word that proceeded out of his mouth was nothing less than the
word of God. We live in a day with a lot of
false prophets, don't we? You've noticed, I'm sure, of
this, convocation or whatever it might
be where the religious leaders of our country are calling on
a national day of repentance. And they're engaged in a nationwide
turn or burn campaign. They are threatening men with
the judgment of God if they don't turn from their evil ways. Have
you seen that? What they don't know is that
they are the judgment of God. That's right. I'm not trying
to be provocative here. I'm telling you the truth. These
men that are calling on a national repentance are themselves the
judgment of God. God has raised up false prophets
in order to send men a delusion. And when God deludes you, you're
deluded that men would believe the lie. They themselves are
the judgment of God. Now I'm all for a moral revival. You look back through the history
of mankind and the world is, societies are cyclical when it
comes to morality and immorality. Immorality finally becomes so
bad and so destructive that men raise up and realize we've got
to have a moral revival. That's what happened in Nineveh.
I notice these men are likening themselves to Jonah going to
Nineveh to preach to Nineveh. You know, there's no indication
anywhere in history or in the word of God where the Ninevites
had a spiritual revival. They never worshiped the God
of Israel. They never became proselytes
to Jehovah. It was a moral reformation is
what it was. And that's what people go through.
They go through moral reformations. And are we in need of a moral
reformation? Sure, it'd be a great thing.
A moral reformation would be a good thing. It'll save some
marriages. It'll save some individuals from
self-destructive pattern of addictions or whatever. But it will not
save one single soul. A moral reformation doesn't save
anybody, not eternally. People clean up their lives and
they make things better and they live a better life as a result
of it. But in fact, in fact, their morality actually hardens
them more in their self-righteousness and causes them to be more blind
to their need for Christ. That's the truth. That's why
I say these men are the judgment of God. All they're doing is
driving men into a into a moral state of self-righteousness and
giving them a false hope. And men, as a result of that,
cannot see their need for the Lord Jesus Christ to be their
righteousness before God. So let them talk about the judgment
of God all they want. They are the judgment of God.
They are the judgment of God. Look at verse 19. The same dealt
subtly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers. The
same, this last king, is the one who dealt subtly. Isn't that
the way sin is? Sin is so subtle. You know, people
think, well, if I clean up the outward appearance of my life,
then, you know, then I'm not so sinful. Oh, it's a whole lot
worse than that. People say, I've heard people
say, well, you just don't know how bad my sin is. Neither do
you. It's a whole lot worse than you
think it is. Sin is subtle. It's subtle. If the thing that we consider
to be the least sinful in our lives represented us before God, we'd
go to hell for it. It's just that subtle. We don't
have any idea how infected we are with it. And changing a few
habits and cleaning up your life is not gonna deal with our sin
problem. The Lord Jesus Christ has to
do that. He has to put away all our sin. And he did that. He did that by the sacrifice
of himself once and for all. So this last king that God rose
up, who do not Joseph, the same dealt subtly with our
kindred and evil entreated our fathers so that they cast out
their young children to the end that they may not live. Parents in false religion, and
I can say this from personal experience, sacrifice their children
to the God of Molech. When they, when they put them
under a false gospel. And, uh, that's exactly what
they're the, the sin is so subtle and it's, uh, it, it, it evil
entreats us and it causes us to cast our very children into
the river. In the meantime. Notice in the
mean you see this is so this is so contrary to what we hear
in free will man made works religion, isn't it? This is the only message
that gives to Christ all the glory for salvation. He's the
one that rose that raised up that God raised up to be a prophet.
to bring to us Himself as the Word of God. He's our prophet. He's our priest and He's our
King. And that's who Stephen's preaching
to these men. And that's what I'm trying to
preach to you. And He's our life. We have no hope of salvation
outside of Him. Verse 20, in which time Moses
was born. and was exceeding fair. Now you can look this, you look
up that word exceeding, perhaps you have it in the margin of
your Bible as I do. I looked it up. The word is theos,
which is the word for God. And the literal translation here
is that Moses was fair unto God. He was fair in the sight of God. He was beautiful in God's sight.
And that's what the father said about his son. The father's pleased
with Christ. This is my beloved son. In him,
I'm well pleased. He grew in stature and in favor
with God and with man. God is pleased with Christ. He's
not pleased with you and me. He's pleased with the Lord Jesus
Christ. And faith is being pleased with the one that God's being
pleased, that God's pleased with. So he said he was, Moses was
born as was the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses, the scripture tells us
in Exodus chapter two, that Moses' father and his mother were both
Levites. They were of the priestly tribe.
And here we have a picture of our Lord as our priest. Not only
is he our prophet who brings to us the word of God as himself,
but he's our priest who makes himself an offering to God for
our sins. He intercedes on our behalf.
That's what a priest does. He makes offerings that are acceptable
to God and he intercedes on behalf of the people of God. So we know
that Christ physically was born of the tribe of Judah. He is the lion of the tribe of
Judah, the kingly tribe. But here we have a picture of
him as the priest of the people of God, who's exceedingly fair
unto God. And he was born. So was our Lord. The mystery of the incarnation,
we can't enter into that. We only can believe it. We can't
understand how it is that God could be made flesh. that he
could be born of a woman, that a virgin could conceive of the
spirit of God, and that that holy thing that was in her womb
was without sin from his very conception, that's not our case. We inherit the nature of our
father when we're conceived in the womb. David said I was shapen
in iniquity and in sin was I conceived. We're sinners before we come
out of the womb. That's how insidious and how
subtle sin is. It's in our nature. We inherited
it from our father. Before we ever had an evil thought,
we were sinful before God. The Lord Jesus Christ conceived
of the Spirit of God. born of a woman, born under the
law to redeem them who are cursed by the law is sinless. From his very conception to this
last breath, father into thy hands, I commend my spirit. That's
what God requires. Perfect sinlessness. whatever
moral reform these false prophets might bring about in our country,
and I hope they do. I mean, it's always a better
thing to live in a moral society than an immoral society. But
I fear that that morality will only drive men further away from
Christ. It does. You know that you read
about historically the revivals that have taken place, the Great
Awakening and some of the revivals that have taken place in this
country, those weren't spiritual revivals. They were moral reformations
is what they were. They were just people cleaning
up their lives. And we've got a problem that's a lot worse
than that is we've got a sin problem. Lord, don't let me deceive
myself in thinking that because I've cleaned up the outside that
the inside is not full of corruption. There's my problem. Man looks
at the outward appearance. God's looking at the heart. There's
where our sin problem is. It's in the heart. Only as the heart is turned to
Christ can we believe that every thought Every thought, every
imagination of our heart before God is only evil and not continually. We're, we're, we're not like
Christ in any way, but oh, how we need him to deliver us. He was exceedingly fair. He was
fair before God. He was nourished up in his father's
house for three months. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's
daughter took him up and nourished him for her own son. What a glorious
story we see. And just as the Lord was taken
down, you remember when Herod sent out the decree to have all
the babies, the Lord told Joseph and Mary to take Christ down
into Egypt and stayed there until the death of Herod and then came
back. So we see Moses being cast out. And his mother made him an ark. And the scripture says she pitched
it. And she put him in the ark and she put him in the river.
And what a glorious picture of the Lord Jesus Christ being our
ark. He's our covering. And that river,
just like Noah's flood, represents the judgment of God. That was
the place of death for most children, most male babies anyway. And the Lord's floating above
the judgment of God. And those that are found in Christ,
in the ark, will float above the judgment of God. This is
the one that the Lord said, I'm gonna send another like unto
me. And he will deliver my people. You remember what happened? Moses'
sister stood by waiting to see what would happen. And that's
when Pharaoh's daughter came down to the river and found Moses
in the ark and heard him cry and turned to Moses' sister and
said, here, you take the child and find a nursemaid for him.
And bring him to me after he's been weaned. And Moses' sister
took Moses right back to his mother. And she trained him and
taught him so that when he went back to Pharaoh's house, he knew
where he had come from. He knew who he was. Verse 22, and Moses was learned
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds.
Oh, how mighty the Lord Jesus Christ is in every word. Every
word that proceeded out of his mouth and every work that he
performed was done in the power of God. That's what men deny
today. They deny the power of God. They. They have a form of godliness.
That's that. That's that's what we're seeing
taking place right now in Washington and other places, I guess. a
form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. They deny
the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to change the hearts of men.
They think that he's somehow dependent upon man to let him
have his way. They think that he made an offer
of salvation to man, but he's not able to save anybody unless
man allows him to. They deny his power. That's not
true. When he bowed his mighty head
on Calvary's cross and said it is finished, everyone he came
to save was justified before God by his shed blood. Everyone he came to save. That's
power. That's power. He's not waiting
on us to agree with him or to let him have his way or to do
our part so that he can have his way. No. They denied the
power thereof. Moses was learned in all the
things of the Egyptians and was mighty in word and in power. And when his word speaks to us,
it's mighty, it's effectual. You hear from God, you know it's
the word of God. And you don't if, and, and butter
about it, do you? You just bow and say, amen. Amen. This is God speaking. Who am
I to stand in opposition to him? And oh, how I need his mighty
work, his work of redemption, his work of regeneration, his
work of sanctification, his work of glorification. I need his
work. I need his work of election.
I need everything. I need his work of righteousness,
justification before God. I need his work. His work is
mighty, nothing lacking in his ability to save. He saves to
the uttermost them who come to God by him. And when he was fully 40 years
old, look with me at verse 43. You know, I think the greatest
example that we have of the depravity of man. The inability, the scripture
says, no man seeketh after God at any time. I was telling Tricia
this morning that the older I get, the more, the less enthusiastic I am about
individuals who begin showing an interest in the gospel. My attitude is becoming more
and more, let's just wait and see. Let's wait and see. People ask questions, and I used
to get excited. I used to think, well, maybe
the Lord's doing something for them. And now I've been disappointed
by so many people. who's shown an interest and then
just left the gospel. And if you can leave the gospel,
you will leave the gospel. Now, it's just simple. If you're
able to leave, you will leave. You'll be offended by somebody.
You'll find some reason or some excuse, coronavirus, whatever,
you'll leave the gospel if you're able to leave the gospel. God's
people can't leave. But I'm encouraged when I see
someone who can't leave. But prior to that, we'll just
wait and see. Let's wait and see. The greatest
example of depravity that I see in the scriptures is in the life
of the brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ. You think of depravity as being
some depraved, way of living? No. No, depravity is unable to
know God, unable to see God, unable to worship God. They lived
30 years in the same household with the Son of God and they
didn't know that was who He was. How could you not know that?
How could you see perfection in a person every day of your
life and not know that He was God? the same way that we can
be in the presence of God and not know He's God. It wasn't until after the resurrection
that the Lord revealed Himself to His brethren. Prior to that, they didn't know
He was God. Why? You see, that's what... I've shared this with y'all before.
that when we were yet ungodly, or when we were yet,
when he, how's that verse go? Anyway, the scripture says he
died for the ungodly, for the ungodly. And normally we think
of ungodly as being some sort of godless way of living. That's what these false prophets
in Washington, D.C. are promoting. That's ungodliness.
Well, we ought not to be living that way. But that's not what
that word means. The word ungodly is the word
worship with the alpha in front of it. That's the word ungodly. And that's what you and I are
by nature. When you put the alpha in front of the word, just like
in the English language, it changes the meaning of the word to be
just the opposite of that meaning. So it's the word unable to worship
God. That's it. And the brothers and
sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of God incarnate,
every day of their life and didn't know he was God. There we are. There we are. If the Lord doesn't reveal himself,
we'll not know who he is. And we'll not know who we are. Look at verse 23. Oh, here's
a good, And when he was fully 40 years old, it came into his
heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And when it comes into our God's
heart to visit his brethren, that's when he will visit us.
We come to this place every time we come here, Lord, visit us.
Lord, reveal yourself to us. We can't manipulate the heart
of God. We can't. We can't force the
hand of God. All we can do is plead for His
mercy, Lord. Could you find it in your heart
to reveal yourself this day unto your brethren? This is the one. If He doesn't,
We'll be just like the brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Don't believe for a minute that Mary didn't have any other
children. Scriptures are clear. She did. I know the Catholic
church likes to glorify Mary and think that she was a virgin.
Well, they've actually believed that she was born without original
sin. That's what they believe. That's not true. She had other
children. She was a sinner in need of salvation,
just like you and me. But the fact that those brothers
and sisters of Christ didn't know who he was, it just, it
doesn't amaze me because I see that happening right now. Talked
to a lady yesterday, you know, who sent me a video of what was
going on in Washington, D.C., and I responded to her. And we'll see. We'll see what happens. Her initial response was not
favorable, but we'll see. We'll see. In verse 21, and seeing one of
them suffering wrong, he defended him and avenged him that was
oppressed and he smote the Egyptians. Our Lord defends his children
and he avenges his children. And he has smote the Egyptians. They've been drowned in the sea,
drowned in the Red Sea. They bear on his chariots, all
of his army. The law of God's been fulfilled.
Sin's been put away. We have a righteous advocate
before our father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. I need him
to avenge me. I need him to defend me. We'll quit at verse 25, look
at verse 25. For he supposed his brethren
would have understood how the God by his hand would deliver
them, but they understood not. The Lord knows what's in the
heart of man. He doesn't suppose that his brethren would understand,
but you see the truth here, they understood not. You think that
people would understand? But they don't. That's a gift
of God. That's a gift of grace. That's
the work of the spirit of God, understanding. Understanding
and faith. They understood not. Here he
had defended them. Here he was capable of delivering
them. Here he was the son of Pharaoh.
Could have delivered them from this bondage, but they understood
not. And what did they say? Look at
the last part of verse 27. And he that did his neighbor
wrong thrust him away saying, who made thee ruler and judge
over us? Now there's the response of the
natural man. Who made you ruler and judge
over us? We'll not have this man reign
over us. We're going to do it our way. Well, God made him ruler
and judge over you. And these men in Washington,
D.C. talking about making Jesus Lord of your life. Too late. God already has. Whether you like it or not, He's
Lord. He's Lord. Oh, may the Lord give
us a grace to bow to Him. He's our deliverer. He's the
prophet like unto Moses. Amen? All right, let's take a
break.