Good morning. Psalm 27. Verse 4 if you'd like
to. Look at this verse while I read
it. Psalm 27 verse 4. One thing. One thing. Remember when? Martha asked the
Lord to rebuke Mary because she wasn't helping in the kitchen. And the Lord said, Martha, you're
encumbered with many things. Mary hath chosen that one thing
that's needful. We come here this morning encumbered
with many things. Might God be pleased to give
us the grace to seek that one thing that's needful. One thing
have I desired of the Lord and that will I seek after that I
may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life
to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Oh, that God will put that on
our hearts and make that the one thing that we need to behold
his beauty and to inquire about his grace and glory here in his
temple. Yesterday, I got a phone call
from Clay Curtis, and he had known for some time that he was
going to be in Orlando this week on vacation, but wanted to be
able to relax with his family. Well, I wouldn't let him off
the hook. So, Clay and Melinda and Emily and Will, thank you
all for being here. Clay is going to be bringing
the first message this morning. So, thank you brother, appreciate
that. Tom is going to come and lead
us in a hymn. Number 21 in your spiral hymn, number 21. God the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one. In eternal ages past, Made a
covenant sure and fast, God my Father chose His own In the person
of His Son, And ordained that I should be Born with Him eternally. God the Son agreed to come in
the flesh to bring me home. He would keep God's holy law
and retrieve me from the fall. Christ, in love so willingly,
Stood as my great surety, For my price He offered blood To
appease the wrath of God. God the Spirit, heavenly dove,
promised to come down in love, bringing life and peace and grace
to the chosen, purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame, and he brings us to the Lamb. By His mighty sovereign
call, God's elect are gathered all. This poor sinner is secure,
for God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
by His Spirit and His blood. Blessed Holy Covenant God, I
am yours by ties of blood. Ties of grace and ties of love
hold me to my God above. Please be seated. Well, I have to have to say that
I told brother Brian that I was coming here and I have to say
he did a really good job. He didn't tell anybody. He kept
it a secret. I'm the one that let the cat
out of the bag. So I just couldn't bring myself to slip in here
and surprise brother Greg like that. I had to let him know yesterday.
So if you'll turn with me to Exodus 10 verse 21, It was my intention to preach
the message that I preached Thursday night back home, but I believe
God's given me a message for you. And I want to preach from
Exodus 10. After repeated warnings from
God, Pharaoh refused to let God's people go. And we read this,
verse 21, And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand
toward heaven. that there may be darkness over
the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. And Moses
stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick
darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They saw not one
another, neither rose any from his place for three days. But
all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. God's Israel shall have light. God's Israel shall have light.
God will, he will do, he has done everything and he will see
to it that his people dwell in light. Now when we look at this
darkness here, we see an example of the condemnation sent from
God upon all men because of sin. Notice the darkness came from
the Lord. It says in verse 21, and the Lord said. This was darkness
that came at God's hand. The Lord said unto Moses, and
he told him to stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there
may be darkness over the land of Egypt. And he did so. He stretched
forth his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness
in all the land of Egypt three days. As God warned Pharaoh,
God warned Adam. And he warned him, declaring
that in the day that he ate the fruit that God forbid, the day
he disobeyed God, God said, thou shalt surely die. Just like Pharaoh
was warned here, God warned Adam. And Adam disobeyed, just like
Pharaoh, Adam disobeyed. And when Adam disobeyed, he died,
just as God said he would. And he died a threefold death,
a threefold death. Adam died spiritually. He lost
the light of God. He lost the communion he had
with God. He lost the light of God. He
was in spiritual darkness. That's why he went and hid himself
when he heard the voice of God walking in the cool of the day.
He was afraid of God. Whereas once he had communion
with God and walked with God, he lost communion. He died spiritually. And immediately when he sinned
against God, he began dying physically. Physically he began dying. And
the reason we all die physically is because of sin. And then if
God had not intervened for Adam, he would have died eternally.
He would have been separated from God for eternity in everlasting
judgment. This was a threefold death. And
since Adam was the head of the whole human race, everybody that
shall be born of Adam, that's me and you and everybody, we
all died the same death in Adam when he sinned. It says here,
there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt. This darkness
was over everyone. And that's a good example. We
all died in Adam. 1 Corinthians 15 says, in Adam,
all die. Romans 5.12 says, as by one man,
sin entered the world and death by sin. And so death passed upon
all men because in Adam, all have sin. Now, due to sin, we're
born spiritually dead. We're conceived in sin, so we
come forth spiritually dead. We don't have communion with
God by nature. And we're going to die physically.
We have a physical death upon us by nature. And if God doesn't
intervene, we will die eternally under the wrath of God. Sin is
darkness. Verse 21 describes it as darkness
which may be felt. You know, Sin, the darkness of
sin can be felt. We're in chains of darkness.
The scripture says, we were such as sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death being bound in affliction and iron. You know,
men like to blame the things that go on in the world. They
like to blame God for those things. How could God allow these things
to happen? God's not the one to blame for the sin and the
evil in the world. Man is to blame. We're the ones
who sin. And it's a felt darkness. You
feel the effects of sin every day, and so do I. And sin is
a blinding darkness. It says there in verse 23, they
saw not one another. By nature, we're blind to the
triune God, and we're blind to all things spiritual. Proverbs
419 says, the way of the wicked is as darkness. They know not
at what they stumble. When I was dead in sins, that
was me. That was you. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. He
cannot know them. He does not want to know them,
and he cannot know them. They're spiritually discerned.
This is a blinding darkness, sin is. And sin is a debilitating
darkness. It says in verse 23, neither
rose any from his place for three days. The darkness of sin prohibits
sinners from doing righteousness. We cannot do anything that is
righteous before God. Proverbs 2.13 says the paths
of uprightness. We've left the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness. That's all of us by nature. It
prohibits a sinner from coming to Christ the light. Christ said
in John 3.19, this is the condemnation. Light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds
are evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hates the light, neither comes to the light lest his deeds should
be reproved. There's one reason sinners will
not come to Christ the light and cast all their care upon
it. We by nature love darkness. We love darkness and we know
by nature that our deeds are wicked and we're not going to
come into the light and have, and when we're talking about
wicked deeds, when Christ is talking about wicked deeds, he's
not talking about those back alley wicked deeds. He's talking
about the wicked deeds of sitting on a pew with your name on it
and with your car parked in a parking spot with your name on it. He's
talking about self-righteous wickedness. Men don't want to
have their very best righteousness discovered as being nothing but
sin and self-righteousness. Now that's the darkness of sin.
There was a, back before the days of electricity, there was
a young girl riding on a train with her mother and her father
and a conductor came along and he began to light these lanterns,
these lamps in the carriage car where they were. And the little
girl said, mother, why is he lighting those lamps? She said,
it's light outside. The lights shine. Why is he lighting
these lanterns? And the mother said, you just
wait and you'll see. And before long, that train went
into a long, dark tunnel where everything was darkness and the
light came on. And that little girl realized
the wisdom of lighting those lanterns before they got into
that tunnel. God's put these scriptures in his word and they're
like lamps to us. But we can't see these lamps. We can't see this light and hear
what it's saying about us while we think we have light. God's
got to take us into a dark tunnel and teach us our sin and teach
us what we are and make us hear these scriptures and say, yes,
that's me. I am in darkness. I am the sinner. Until then, These lamps won't
be light at all to us. We'll hear it and we'll say,
that doesn't describe me. That describes us all. That describes
us all. I pray today that God would be
pleased to command the light to shine out of darkness and
shine in the hearts of somebody here and give the light of the
knowledge of his glory in the face of Christ Jesus. Wouldn't
that be good? That's why we're here. You know, one day God's
gonna do that for the last time. There's going to be one last
child that he's going to shine the light in their heart and
bring them to Christ. And we're going home. We're going
home. Wouldn't it be something if it
was today? Secondly, I want you to notice this. While all Egypt
was in darkness, God gave light to Israel. God gave light to
Israel. It said, verse 23, but all the
children of Israel had light in their dwellings. Who are the
children of Israel? Who are these children of Israel?
Well, they represent God's Israel. There is a difference in Scripture
between the children of Israel and God's Israel. There is the
Israel of God. Go with me to Romans Chapter
9. Romans Chapter 9. Look at verse 6. Not as though
the word of God had taken an effect, they are not all Israel
which are of Israel. What does that mean? Read on. Neither because they are the
seed of Abraham, neither because they're the children of Abraham
are they all children. But in Isaac shall thy seed be
called. That is, they which are the children
of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children
of the promise are counted for the seed. Children of promise
are God's elect. They're chosen by God. They're
the ones God gives life, just like Isaac. And Isaac's a picture
of Christ. It's in Christ that his seed
is called. Look at verse 9. For this is the word of promise.
Here it is right here. This children of promise are
made children of promise by the word of promise. Here's the word
of promise. At this time will I come and Sarah shall have a
son. That's what God said. God's the
one that gives life to the children of promise. Verse 10, and not
only this, this is the word of promise too, when Rebecca also
had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac. These are twins
with the same father and the same mother. There's no difference
in these twins. It says, verse 11, the children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. This is who children of promise
are. This is the purpose of God in election right here. It's
so that salvation will not be of our works. It'll be of God
who calls. And here's what was, these two
were in the womb, they had done neither good nor evil, and it
says, it was said unto Rebekah, the elder shall serve the younger. As it's written, Jacob have I
loved, but he so have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? Is God not right to do that?
Is God not right to do with his own what he will? God forbid. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? God forbid. He said to Moses,
I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion
on whom I'll have compassion. So then, it's not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that shows mercy. God's Israel are those that God
chose to save simply because he would. Simply because it's
God's, by his grace, he chose whom he would save. And he passed
by whom he would. The God's Israel are those he
chose. And while in darkness, we hated
this doctrine. All men in darkness, while they're
in their death of sin, their darkness of sin, they hate the
doctrine of election. But if God reveals to us what
we are and reveals to us that all we are is sin, and that's
so of everybody, then we'll start rejoicing that God chose some. If he hadn't chosen some, there
would be none saved. We would have all remained in
darkness if he hadn't chosen some. So this is salvation that
God, before this world was made, chose a people to save. That's
God's Israel. And there's no difference between
us. There's no difference between God's Israel and the rest of
the world. There was no difference between
Jacob and Esau. In themselves, All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. That's our story. There's no
difference in any of us. Who made the difference? Who
made the difference? God chose to save some in and
by Christ. And by doing that, he manifests
that he alone puts the difference between his elect and the rest
of this world. Go back with me to Exodus 11.
Exodus 11. God declared he was gonna pass
through Egypt and smite all the firstborn sons in Egypt. But
God said that in verse seven, Exodus 11, seven, but against
any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue
against man or beast that you may know how that the Lord doth
put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. It's the
Lord who makes the difference. Who maketh thee to differ? It's
the Lord who makes thee to differ. Now, let's see how the Lord makes
us to differ. Now, back in our text, just like
God provided that Passover lamb that you read about later in
Exodus to die in place of all the firstborn, God provided His
own Son to die in the place of all His people, with all His
people in Him, so that whatever Christ did, we did. We died in
Him under the justice of God. And we see this, we're pointed
to this back in our text in Exodus 10, 23. They saw not one another,
neither rose any from his place for three days. Twice we're told
this word three days is mentioned. And when I hear three, I'm immediately
pointed to those three hours of darkness. When I hear the
word three in conjunction with darkness, I think of three hours
of darkness on Calvary's cross. And three days, I think of three
days of my Redeemer being in the earth before he came forth.
From the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until
the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus
cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that
is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What was
taking place in that darkness? Well, we saw the first Adam brought
in spiritual death, eternal death, and physical death. That's the
darkness we were in, spiritual death, eternal death, and physical
death. And so if the last Adam, Christ
Jesus, will pay the wages of sin, which is death, if he's
going to answer in place of all his people, he's going to answer
and pay what we owe. He's going to have to die a spiritual
death, eternal death, and physical death. Spiritual death is due
to God removing His presence. Well, really all of this is due
to God removing His presence. But spiritual death, when God
removed His presence from Adam, that's when Adam, as a man, being
only a man, he lost all uprightness, and he became corrupt. Adam did. And he became incapable of doing
anything holy or anything righteous before God. Anything that would
be well pleasing to God. He became incapable of that.
When he removed his presence, this spiritual death was a moral
death. It was a death that meant that
he was impotent to do anything good. It made him a servant to
evil. But Christ is the God-man. Christ
is the God man. And we see his faithfulness to
God the Father because when he was bearing the sin of his people
on the cross, God separated himself from our Redeemer. I don't know
how that happened. I don't know what is involved
in that. But when he removed himself,
there was a spiritual death that Christ was bearing in those three
hours on the cross. Not a death to his soul, but
a death that was happening in his soul. The darkness gives us some idea
of the darkness and the distress of soul that Christ was bearing.
When he was dying a spiritual death on the cross there was
a total lack of spiritual joy. There was a total lack of any
kind of comfort. There was only agony. It's what
he was talking about when he was going to the cross and he
said My soul is sorrowful, my soul is sorrowful, even unto
death." The weight of his people's sins
upon him and the weight of God's wrath upon him. And he said in
scripture, my heart is like wax, it's melted in the midst of my
bowels. But you remember Hebrews 12 tells
us when we're weary, to consider Christ because it says you've
not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. When did Christ
do that? Well I know in the garden of
Gethsemane I know he sweat great drops of blood. And I know in
the garden of Gethsemane God didn't come and strengthen him,
he sent an angel to strengthen him. And I don't know if it had
happened then or he was just showing us what was going to
happen on the cross, but he was showing us that God was going to separate
himself from him. And our Lord, being faithful
as he was, when he bore that spiritual death, he strove against
the sin and every temptation that was being hurled at him
in the midst of that. And you can read the Psalms.
He never once ceased being faithful to God the Father. He never ceased
calling on God. were accused, because we say
Christ was made sin, were accused of saying Christ was corrupted.
No, he was not corrupted. Christ never ceased calling on
the Father, even while he bore it. That's the mystery of the
cross to me. But that's the spiritual death
he was dying in. That's why he was saying, my
heart is like wax, it's melted in the midst of my bowel. And
then, And then scripture speaks about the eternal death. That's
everything Christ endured while he was alive. Everything that
was equal to what I would have suffered if God had put me in
hell. That's what Christ was suffering on the cross. You ever
thought about what hell is? Scripture says hell is the loss
of God's presence. When God will say, depart from
me, you curse it into everlasting darkness. 2 Thessalonians 1 says
men shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord and from the glory of his power. God is going to
separate himself, his presence and his glory from everybody
that is in hell. And they will be bound, men will be bound in
hell but they will be, God will take his glory away so that men
can do whatever they want to do to you. It is called weeping
and gnashing of teeth. It's being in a place where God's
presence is not there. His glory is not there. And that's
what Christ was enduring on the cross when he cried out, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was alone. He was treading
the winepress of the fury of God's wrath all alone. And there was nobody to help
him. And eternal death also includes
a full knowledge of God's wrath against sin. And that's described
in scripture as everlasting fire and the worm that never dies.
And Christ died this for his people when God's wrath was poured
out like fire upon him and he cried and he said, the sorrows
of hell have compassed me about. He didn't go to a place called
hell. He didn't go to a place of limbo,
like the papists so erroneously say. He suffered hell on the
cross. He suffered that eternal death.
That death's a living death, and he suffered that living death
on the cross. And then, at last, our Savior
commended his spirit into the hands of the Father and gave
up the ghost and died physically. And so our Savior paid the wages
of sin. He paid death. He paid that debt
in full for his people, and he's our righteousness. Christ died
spiritual death, eternal death, and physical death. So now, because
we died under the justice of God, all his people in him died
under the justice of God, justice demands we be freed from that
death. So coming out of the grave on
the third day, you know what Christ declared when he came
out of that grave on the third day? He declared it's finished. He declared God's satisfied.
He declared that everything he came to accomplish, he accomplished. So now the justice of God demands
for all those for whom he died be delivered from spiritual death.
And God's given Christ the glory to do it, and it's going to be
done in regeneration. Scripture says, the Lord said,
here's the condemnation. Lights come into the world, and
men love darkness. They won't come to the light.
But God gave him the glory. And in Isaiah, it says that thou
mayest say to them that are in darkness, show yourselves. And when Christ, when the gospel's
going forth, and you're hearing the word preached, and Christ
says, show yourself, you gonna come to the light. You gonna
come out into the light. Because he's giving you light.
and giving you life. And then the scripture says justice
demands that all for whom he died be delivered from physical
death in resurrection. That's why when we die, brethren,
our spirits can go be with God immediately. And our bodies,
all our bodies are going to be doing is waiting for Christ to
return and this corruption is going to put on incorruption.
This mortality is going to put on immortality and then it will
be brought to pass. Death is swallowed up in victory.
My grandfather down in South Arkansas out in a little cemetery
out in the middle of the country has one word on his tombstone,
waiting. That's all it said, waiting.
And one day that body is going to be raised just like all God's
people. And then the justice of God demands,
brethren, it demands that we be saved from eternal death.
And the fact of the matter is, that's already happened. We're
not gonna come into judgment because it's already been settled
on Calvary's cross. That's why scripture says the
last enemy that'll be destroyed is death, not eternal judgment,
because eternal judgment's already taken place. So brethren, he's
delivered us from all death. You see, here's my point, and
I'm gonna sit down. All false Christs, all false
Christs make salvation possible. They just open the door. You
got to do the rest. To make their blood or anything
they did to be effectual, that's not so with the Christ of the
Scriptures. The Christ of the Scriptures accomplished redemption. He delivered his people from
death. And so all God's Israel shall
have light. Christ said this, he said this,
I am the light of the world. And he that follows me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Amen. Bye.