That is something worth singing
about. I pray the Lord will be pleased
to make it clear and plain to our hearts and that He'll make
us to be sinful men. The Lord only saves sinners. He only saves sinners, but He
saves every one of them. Paul said, this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all's acceptation. Christ Jesus came to save sinners. A sinner is a person that has
nothing but sin. No righteousness whatsoever.
Nothing in their life except sin. That's who Christ came to
save. What great hope we have. The
law's been satisfied. Christ is our advocate with the
Father. Good to see you all this morning.
We're going to be looking at a passage of scripture in Exodus
chapter 15. It's good to have the Fisher
family with us from Pennsylvania. They attend the the group that
I go up and preach for on occasion, and they watch our services. I assume they'll be watching
this morning up there, but it's good to have you all here with
us this morning. Let's ask the Lord to bless His
word to our hearts this morning. Heavenly Father what great hope
and joy you give us in knowing that you are pleased to show
mercy towards sinners and that truly the Lord Jesus Christ has
put an end to the law, satisfied thine divine justice and is seated
at thy right hand, ever living to make intercession on behalf
of sinful men." We ask, Lord, that you would
cause him to be lifted up from the pages of your word in our
hearts, that we would be drawn to him, and that we would find
in him that only one that is without sin before thee. the
only one who is righteous in and of himself, the only one
with whom you are pleased, that we might be found in him, not
having our own righteousness which is of the law, but that
righteousness which is by his faith. For we ask it in his name. Amen. Our Lord said in John chapter
17, this is life eternal that they might know thee the only
true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I remember some
time ago telling a person that I knew God. And they thought
that that was the most presumptuous statement that a person could
make. You know God. You mean you really
know Him? I said, yeah, I do. He's made
Himself known. The means by which our God makes
Himself known is the names that He's given to us of Himself in
His Word. We have a dear friend. and brother
with us this morning, and his name is Cody Gruber. And when
I hear that name, I don't think of the letters C-O-D-Y-G-R-O-O-V-E-R. I think of my friend and the
good times that we've enjoyed together. and the sweet spirit
that he has, and the love for Christ that he has, and the fellowship
we've had in the gospel together. That's what I think of. I don't
think of the spelling of his name. I think of him, and his
nature, and his character. And that's just the way it is,
isn't it? When we speak someone's name, if we don't know that person,
then that name is just a name. But if we know that person, then
that name communicates to our hearts the things that are precious
to us about that individual. David said in Psalm 9 verse 10,
and they that know thy name shall put their trust in thee. They that know thy name. Paul said in Romans chapter 10
verse 13, and whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved. Now, don't misunderstand. Calling
on his name is not the means by which we are saved. Calling
on his name is the evidence that he has made himself known to
us. So the proof of our salvation is that we're brought by His
grace to call upon His name. Our faith in Christ is not the
cause of our salvation, it's the result of it. And when the
Lord is pleased to make Himself known to the hearts of His children
through the names that He has given to us of Himself in the
scriptures, Then we're brought to love Him, to call upon Him,
and to trust Him. Paul said in Acts chapter 4,
neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none
other name, none other name under heaven, whereby man must be saved. There's only one name. Only one person who has revealed
himself to us through so many different names, different aspects
of his character. We've spent now the last 10 weeks
looking at various names that the Lord's given to us in his
word. You remember that we looked at him as the Alpha and the Omega. the beginning and the end the
first and the last everything in salvation is wrapped up in
him he reveals himself to us as Jesus he said you shall call
my name Jesus for or you shall call his name Jesus for he shall
save his people what precious truth there is in calling him
by his name Jesus Isaiah calls him the mighty God.
He's sovereign. He's omnipotent. He's God. The messages that you
hear about Jesus today, in essence, deny His deity. They deny His omnipotence. He's not the mighty God. He's dependent upon you in order
for Him to be able to have His way. Scripture refers to the
Lord Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace. The only way that we
can have peace with God is to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the only way that we can
enjoy the peace of God in our hearts is to be trusting in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah calls him the wonderful
counselor. He's the one who communicates
to us the truth of God's Word and intercedes on our behalf. The prophet calls him the rock. He is that foundation stone. He's that capstone. He's the
one on whom the church is built, on whom our lives are built.
He's the one that holds all things together, the rock of ages. He's the Nazarene. He's the one
who fulfilled that Nazarite vow and the one who intercedes on
behalf of his people. In the last few weeks we've been
considering the titles of Jehovah. that he's given to us of himself.
We saw that he's called Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. And then in another place the
Lord refers to his church, the body of Christ, by the same name. She shall be called the Lord
our righteousness. If we're going to know God, we're
going to know him in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. All
we'll ever know about God will be found in Him. And this book that we're holding
and we're looking at this morning is written in order to reveal
Him to us. And He reveals Himself to us
through His names. We saw that He is the one who
sees and provides Jehovah Jireh. You see, Abraham said, God shall
provide himself a sacrifice and he called the name of the place
Jehovah-Jireh. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
is that sacrifice. He provided himself to God and
he provided it himself, himself. Last week we saw that he is called
Jehovah Nissi, the Lord our banner. He's the one who represents and
accomplishes the victory of his people. He's the one to whom
we look for all of that. You remember Moses' hands being
lifted up. And when the law is honored,
Joshua gets the victory. And how glorious That is, we
were, after the message last Sunday, I was talking to Logan
Dunbar and Logan said, you know, when you were talking about Jehovah
Nissi, the Lord our banner, I was thinking about those banners
that we hang in our gymnasiums when a team you know, becomes
the national champs. They've got a banner that they
hang up there for years to come. And the date that they won that
victory is on that banner. And he said the Lord's banner
would just have eternity written on it. From eternity to eternity. He's our banner. He's gotten
the victory. He's the champion and commander
of his people. What glorious names He's given
us of Himself. This morning in Exodus chapter
15, at the end of verse 26, Moses calls the place, the Lord
that healeth thee. You see that? Now I don't know
why the translators sometimes, like Nissi and Sidkenu and Shalom,
they would take these words and give them to us in our English
Bibles in the Hebrew. And then sometimes they didn't.
But nevertheless, his name is here in this verse. Where it
says, the Lord that healeth thee, it is Jehovah Rapha. Jehovah Rapha. And that's one
of his names that he gives us of himself. He calls himself
the Great Physician. The one who healeth thee. in Isaiah chapter 53 he was wounded
for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the
chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we
are healed that's Jehovah Rapha he's our healer the question
that you and I have to ask this morning is do we need God to
heal us. Do we need Him to heal us? Do
we need a physician? He said, the well need not a
physician. He said, I didn't come for the
righteous, I came for sinners. It's those that are sick that
need a physician, that need a healer. that need me to touch them and
recover their sickness. And the miracles that we have
in the scriptures referring to our Lord in doing such healings
are given to us in order to illustrate the real sickness that we have,
which is our sin sickness. It's not, He didn't He didn't
come to make us wealthy in this world. He didn't come for health,
wealth, and prosperity reasons. That's not our need. Our need
is what we open this service singing. Our need is that we're
sinners in need of a Savior. Our need is that we, as Isaiah
described, turn with me to Isaiah chapter 1. Look at verse 5 in Isaiah chapter
1. Why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick. The whole heart faint. From the
sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in
it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not
been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." Now that's the description of
a leper. A leper. who when the priest
inspects him cannot find a clean square inch of flesh anywhere
on him. From the top of his head to the
sole of his foot, he's just open wounds and sores. And if you
go to Leviticus chapter 13, you'll find that when the priest finds
a man like that, He declares him to be clean. You say, that doesn't make sense.
Well, if you know anything about sin, if you know anything about
the gospel of God's free grace, if you know anything about what
it means to be a sinner, then it makes perfect sense. Because
the truth is that most people come to God with a sore of leprosy
here or there. Most people come to God thinking,
well, this is what I need. I spent several hours this past
week talking to a relative of mine, a dear, dear cousin, and she's, well, her life was
just in a mess. She was here locally and needed
some help, and she thought that her need was to be delivered
from the problems that she had brought into her life. And I
was able to share the gospel with her and tell her, I said,
Becky, your need is so much greater than that. So much worse than
you think it is. It's not just a matter of getting
your life cleaned up and getting off drugs. It's more than that. She was very open. I hope you'll
pray with me for my cousin Becky. She told me, she said, I've just
been in and out of religion trying to find deliverance and can't
find I've been shamed and guilty. She was very thankful to hear
a message of free grace. That's our need. It's not the
pressing need that we think we have. If God makes us to be a
sinner, we'll know that our greatest need is for the Lord to save
us, to put away our sin once and for all, to impute to our
account a righteousness that will make us acceptable before
God. That's our greatest need. You hear stories, perhaps it's
happened to you, you go to the doctor with a minor problem and
while you're there they run some tests and they find a major problem.
And the minor problem no longer is the issue. And you know, that's,
that the Lord would just shine the light of the gospel in such
a way as to show us what our real problem is. He is the great physician. He's come to heal lepers. He's come to give sight to the
blind, those who can't see. Now the self-righteous, the self-righteous
would say, are you suggesting that I'm blind? Surely not. I can see. The worst blindness
of all is the person who thinks they can see when they can't. And if the Lord ever shows you
that you can't see anything apart from the light of His grace,
apart from Him becoming Jehovah Rapha, the one who meets Bartimaeus
and gives him sight, Don't you love that story in John chapter
5 when the Lord went to the pool of Bethesda and the scripture
says that there were many there that were halt and blind and
lame and crippled and they were waiting for the stirring of the
water and the Lord went to a certain man who had been afflicted for
38 years. Remember what the Lord said to
him? The Lord looked at him and said to him, wilt thou be made
whole? Wilt thou be made whole? You
know the Lord's still asking that same question. Wilt thou
be made whole? Do you realize how serious your
problem is? Do you know that you're a leper?
Do you know that from the top of your head to the sole of your
foot there's nothing but sores? There's not a clean bit of flesh
on you? That your problem is not a little
ailment here, a little ailment here, there. Your problem is
this sin that infects. It's like leprosy. Leprosy is
a disease of the blood and it affects every cell of the body.
and uh... that's those are the ones that
the Lord came to reveal himself as Jehovah Rafa the Lord who
heals he's still healing sinners he's still giving sight to the
blind he's still raising dead men he's still cleansing lepers
I love the story of Naaman. The scripture says that after
the Lord cleansed him of his leprosy his skin became like
a child. I mean it just you know just
you know the skin of a child is just so flawless and here
it is a baby makes him whole. Children of Israel had just been
brought across the Red Sea and The Israelites had been, I mean
the Jews, the Egyptians, I'm sorry, had been drowned in the
sea. We're back in Exodus chapter
15. And Moses and Miriam in that
chapter lead the children of Israel in a great chorus of praise
of their deliverance and how God had brought them out and
delivered them. And now in verse 23, and when
they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters
of Mara for they were bitter poisonous poisonous and here
they are in the in the desert they come to an oasis to to in
hopes of finding sustenance for life and they find the water
to be poisonous they can't drink it and so they call the place
Mara you remember when Naomi came back from Moab. Her husband had taken her to
Moab and he died in that place and she came back from Moab and
they all were amazed of how much she had changed. And they said,
is this Naomi? Is this Naomi? And she said,
do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara. for the Lord has
suffered me great bitterness." Great bitterness. She'd lost
her son, she'd lost her husband, and her need was for a Redeemer. She knew that. She knew she had
need of a Redeemer and that's when Boaz came on the scene and
became her kinsman Redeemer. And what a glorious story that
was. But she saw the bitterness of
her soul as a result of the afflictions that God had put on her. If the
Lord's pleased to make us to be a sinner, there's going to
be a bitterness of soul. We're gonna say with Naomi, call
me not Naomi, which means pleasant, but call me Mara, which means
bitterness, for the Lord has afflicted my soul with bitterness. David said, my sin is ever before
me. I'm a sinner in need of a savior.
That's what I have the greatest need for. And so this place is
called Mara because the water there is bitter. How many people
drink poisonous water in order to try to quench their thirst?
They go to broken cisterns. They drink polluted water of
religion. And you drink poisonous water,
polluted water, it's worse than drinking not any water at all.
You'll lose everything you've got. It'll just accelerate your
death, won't it? The problem was that there was
no fresh water in this place. There was nothing but bitterness. They were in need of God performing
a miracle. Now look what happens. For they
were bitter, therefore the name was called Marah. Verse 24, And
the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
What are we going to do? What are we going to do? We're out here in the desert.
There's no water. We're going to die. Well, you get in a situation
like that, do what Moses did. If God puts you in the bitterness
of your own sin, and you're brought to that place of thinking, what
am I going to do? Do what Moses did. Cry to the
Lord. Cry to Him. Cry out a bitterness
of soul. And ask Him to deliver thee. And he cried unto the Lord, and
the Lord showed him a tree. The Lord showed him a tree. You know, if you cry to the Lord
in the bitterness of your sin, that's what the Lord's going
to show you. He's going to show you that tree of life that bears
twelve manner of fruit in its season, whose leaf never withers. He's going to show you that stem
that sprouted from the root of Jesse. He's going to show you
the tree of righteousness, which is the planting of the Lord.
He's going to show you that good tree, which can only bring forth
good fruit. He's going to show you that olive
tree into which his wild branches have been grafted. He's going
to show you that tree on which he hung. Cursed is every man
that hangeth upon a tree. He's going to show you the cross.
He's going to show you Calvary. He's going to point you to the
Savior that hung there, who took away the bitterness of your sin
and satisfied the demands of God's justice once and for all.
He's gonna show you how that tree, like Moses takes this tree,
was cast into the bitterness of your sin, was cast into the
bitterness of God's wrath. And wherever there's sin, there's
got to be wrath. God's eyes are too pure to look, He's gonna,
He cannot, He cannot not punish sin. Every sin must be punished. And what bitterness there is
in the punishment of God for our sin. Moses cried out, what
are we going to do? What are we going to do? There's
no water, there's nothing in the world to satisfy this problem.
I've tried religion and I've been like the woman who spent
all that she had on physicians and now I'm worse off than I
was before. I've got an issue of blood. I've
got an issue of blood. I've got a sin problem. I'm a
leper. And the water that I've tried to drink from is bitter
water. It's poisonous water. What am I going to do? Cry to
the Lord and He'll show you a tree. He'll show you a tree. He'll
show you that tree that the Lord Jesus Christ hung on on which
he bore all the sins of his people in his body and suffered the
bitterness of God's wrath in order to put that sin away and
make us sinless before God. God showed Moses a tree. Look what Moses did. which when
he had cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There
he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved
them." The gospel of God's free grace
always proves men. Some love it and some hate it. But the thing about the gospel
is it does not provide an opportunity for neutrality. There's no place
in the gospel to be neutral. Either you love it or you hate
it. There's no middle ground. It's not a take it or leave it.
I mean, it's not, well, you know, I'll pick and choose parts of
it. No. It's take it or leave it. It's
one way or the other. God proves to them. And Moses said to the children
of Israel in verse 26, If thou will diligently hearken to the
voice of the Lord thy God. Oh, what sayeth the Scriptures? I told my friend, I know God. How do you know Him? Because
He has spoken to me. He has revealed Himself to me.
You mean to tell me that God has just spoken to you audibly? Oh no. It is much lighter than
that. Much louder than that. He gave
me the faith to believe that this is His Word. And when I
read it, He's speaking to my heart. He's making Himself known. There's no question in my mind
about it. It's not, well, I wonder if that's really... No! How much
of this book do you have to believe to be a believer? If God's made
you to be a believer, you believe every word of it. You know it's
the Word of God. There's no question in your mind
about it. You're absolutely certain. And
God speaks to his people by his word. Of his own will, James
said, begat he us with the word of truth. The word is the means
by which God is pleased to give life to his people. If thou wilt hearken diligently. Believe God. Say, I can't believe God. Ask
God for the faith to believe Him. Ask Him for the faith to
believe Him. Lord, would You cause what
that preacher just said to be true for me? Would You cause
Your Word for me to be that confident that this is Your Word and speak
to my heart off the pages of this book? Would You do that? No one's ever asked God for that
kind of faith and he's denied them. Ever. You ask him, he'll give it to
you. You ask him, it'll be proof that he has given it to you.
How about that? Cry unto the Lord. He'll show
you a tree. And that tree will be cast into
the bitter waters of your sin and of God's wrath. And then
he'll say to you, hearken diligently unto my voice. Believe all that
I've said. And we'll do that which is right
in his sight and we'll give ear to his commandments and keep
all his statutes. Say, how do I do that? Only in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Looking to Christ. Faith is the
means by which you do this. Here's the commandment of God.
They asked the Lord, what works can we work in order to earn
the favor of God? What can we do to work the works
of God? And the Lord Jesus Christ said to them, this is the work
of God that you believe on him whom he has sent. The work of
God in you is to give you the faith to trust the Lord Jesus
Christ for all your righteousness before God. How can a man stand
before God? How can he have clean hands and
a pure heart? You remember the story of the
prophet Elisha lying over top of the boy that was dead, hand
to hand, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, heart to heart, feet
to... And he imputed to him his righteousness. And so it is with us. We're found
in Christ. not having our own righteousness.
I'm looking in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only one
who was able to keep all the statutes of God. And the Lord's promise is, I
will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought
upon the Egyptians. You know, there's only two nations
in the world. There's only two nations in the
whole world, Egypt and Israel. All the attention you see on
the news given to those nations right now, it's the only two
nations in the whole world, Egypt and Israel. And I'm not talking
about those physical nations over there. You're either a citizen
of Egypt, you're either an Egyptian or you're an Israelite. All the curses of God are coming
upon every Egyptian and none of them are coming upon the Israelites.
Every one of them is going to be saved. Why? Because God's
made them to be a sinner. They've seen the bitterness of
their sin. They've seen the bitterness of
God's wrath. They've cried out to Him. He showed them the tree.
The tree's been thrown in and it's been made sweet and in Him
they've kept all the statutes and commandments of God. He said, I'm not going to put
any of the curses of Egypt on you. Look at the last phrase
of verse 26. For I am Jehovah Rapha. That's who I am. I'm the God who heals. Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse
39 says see now see now that I even I am he and there is no
God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal our hearts desires that God be
pleased to save sinners But you know, in order for Him
to save a sinner, He's got to make us a sinner first. And I know that if the Lord's
been pleased to make me a sinner or you a sinner, He's not going
to leave us there. Not going to leave us there. David said in Psalm 41, verse
4, Lord, be merciful unto me and heal my soul. for I have sinned against thee."
That's my greatest need. I need Jehovah Rapha, the Lord,
our healer, to heal the disease of sin in my soul. Lord, show
me the tree. Show me the tree. Make the bitterness
of this sin sweet in thy sight. God be pleased to do it. It's
His name. It's His name. It's just another
one of His names. And His names reveal His character, His nature. And we love Him by His name.
They shall be saved who know Thy name. Amen? Alright, let's take a break.