Thank you, Bird. From sin's condemnation,
eternally, eternally free. What great comfort that truth
gives to the heart of a sinner. To know that in spite of ourselves,
the Lord has put away our sin, satisfied God's divine justice,
established a righteousness on behalf of his people, and that
we are accepted in the Beloved. I'm so thankful for that. So
thankful. And I'm thankful for you, and
I'm thankful to be here this morning. Next Sunday we'll have
lunch together after the service, and all the brethren from Sarasota
are going to be here, and several of them have asked to be baptized.
And someone asked what we do in Sarasota. We show up about
530 and we eat. And then I preach, and then we
eat, and then I preach, and then we eat. They bring food every Sunday
night. And so we eat from the bread of life, and then we eat
the fare that the Lord provides through their hands. I say that
in order to encourage you to to treat them with that blessing
next Sunday. It'll be difficult for them to
bring food from there. So let's all plan to bring a little
extra and provide for them, all right? All right, let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we are so
thankful that there is a throne of grace through which we are
able to approach your presence. For truly, Lord, apart from thy
grace, we would have no right to come before you and to ask
you for anything. But what great joy we have in
knowing that we have an advocate with thee. Jesus Christ the righteous
one, who is seated at thy right hand, and who ever lives to make
intercession for us. We thank you, Lord, that in Christ
there is no condemnation, that our sin has been put away, and
that you have declared that you remember it no more. We pray, Lord, that you would
cause our hearts to rejoice in that this morning. We ask that
you would enable us to look away from our sin and look to the
Savior and rest in Him. We ask that you would cause your
word to be alive and effectual in our hearts and that you would
speak peace and comfort. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. We've been looking for several
weeks now at the different names that the Lord has given to Himself
in the Scriptures And when the writer of Hebrews begins the
letter to the Hebrews, he says, God who at sundry times and in
divers manners spake in times past unto our fathers by the
prophets. He revealed Himself in types
and shadows in the Old Testament, half in these last days spoken
to us by His Son. He's made Himself known in the
fullness of His glory, and all the types that spoke of Him in
the Old Testament are revealed clearly. in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so we're able now to look
back to the Old Testament types in light of this glorious, as
the writer of Hebrews goes on to say, the brightness of His
glory and the express image of His person. is made known in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so now we have so
much better of an understanding of these types and shadows in
the Old Testament than our Old Testament brethren had. We can
look at them and say, oh, that's what that meant. That's what
that meant. One of the names that the Lord
has given of Himself in the Old Testament, and even in the New,
is the Rock. The Rock. If you'll turn with
me in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 32, We have so many types and shadows. We have the Ark. What a glorious
picture of Christ. Both Noah's Ark and the Ark of
the Covenant, both picture Him in a type. We have the Passover
Lamb, that Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the
world through which his shed blood God puts away the sins
of his people. We have the brazen serpent that
Moses lifted up on the pole and the Lord commanded those who
had been smitten by veminous snakes to look and to live and
so they were. We have a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ as the manna that came down from heaven, the tabernacle,
and then of course so many figures of Christ made in personalities
in the Old Testament. If we look at David, we see a
man after God's own heart, the sweet psalmist of Israel, the
king. We see the shepherd in Solomon,
the man of wisdom, in Boaz, our kinsman redeemer, in Esther,
the one who intercedes on behalf of God's people. So many personalities
in the Old Testament that speak of the Lord Jesus Christ. Joseph,
of course, the one who had the keys to the storehouse and provided
for his brethren. But truly, in the volume of the
book, it is written of me. This book that we hold this morning
is not a rule book for Christian living. It's not a book of laws
and rules and regulations. It is an indisputable fact that
every child of God desires to honor the Lord with their life. We're not going to find the power
to obey him or to please him or to honor him by putting into
practice some set of religious rules and regulations. We're
not going to find the power at Sinai. We're going to find the
power at Calvary. You want me to obey God? Tell
me about the Lord Jesus Christ. Tell me what He's done for me.
Tell me about His redemptive work. Tell me about His shed
blood. Tell me about Him being my rock. Tell me about my acceptance before
God in Him. Point me to Christ. caused me
to find my hope, my comfort, and all the power in my life
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't put it upon me.
Someone sent me a message yesterday that they wanted me to listen
to, and I did. And it was all about Joseph.
Well, the title of the message was forgiveness, and it was all
about Joseph and his brethren. and how Joseph extended forgiveness
toward his brethren. The whole sermon was about an
example that we find in Joseph and his brothers of forgiveness
and of grace, and the gospel was completely missed. Never,
never was Joseph identified as a type of Christ. Matter of fact,
in the message, Judah was referred to as a type of all believers.
He wasn't seen as the one who is the surety for Benjamin and
all the types of Christ. And, you know, I was left thinking,
well, you know, yes, I want to be a forgiving person and I want
to know about God's forgiveness, but tell me how I'm forgiven. Tell me what God has done to
put my sin away. You want me to forgive others?
Point me to Christ. Or if we're looking to Him and
believing that He has satisfied all the demands of God's holy
law, we'll be forgiving people. Believers just won't be able
to harbor bitterness in their hearts towards anyone if they're
looking to Christ. It's just not possible. Every time we open this book,
we need to be looking for the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to
be asking ourselves, who is He? And what has He accomplished
for me? And if the Lord's pleased to
open the eyes of our understanding and make Himself known to our
hearts, then all will be well. Deuteronomy chapter 32, at verse
4, He is the rock, his work is perfect. We looked last week at wonderful
counselor and we admitted that we often times use that word
wonderful which is in fact a word of worship. We stand in awe and
in wonder of something far beyond our ability to comprehend and
how loosely we use that word. And it's the same with this word,
isn't it? We say to someone who's done
a good job, perfect. Perfect. Truth is, you and I
have never done anything perfectly, have we? Never, never, we always
fall short of perfection. The Lord Jesus Christ never did. He never did. He satisfied fully
all the demands of God's holy... He's the end of the law for righteousness. He perfectly obeyed the Father. in heart and in attitude, in
word and in deed, everything He did. And God's satisfied with
Him. God demands perfection. God won't
settle for anything less than perfection. God's not satisfied
with you. He's not satisfied with me. He's
satisfied with Christ. He's the perfect One. He's the
rock and His work, what is His work? It's His redemptive work. He came in order to save His
people. Did He accomplish what He came
to do? Did He secure, once and for all, the salvation of all
that God had chosen according to His own good pleasure and
will in the covenant of grace before the world began? Did the
Lord Jesus Christ accomplish that? When He bowed His head
on Calvary's cross and said, It is finished, was it finished? Was there anything left to be
done? No. No. He is the Rock. And His work is what? It's perfect. I mean perfect
in a perfect sense, not perfect in the way we use that word.
Perfect. You can't add to it. You can't
take away from it. You can't change it. It's just
perfect. Why? Because He's perfect. He's
perfect. Oh, we have a perfect God. He's
perfect in His power. He's perfect in His love. He's
perfect in His grace. He's perfect in His mercy. He's
perfect in His redemptive work. He's perfect in everything He
does. He's not like us. That's what
holy means. That's what holy means. When
we say that He's holy, what we're saying is that He's perfect and
we're not. He's not like us in any way. As the heavens are above the
earth, so are my ways above your ways, my thoughts above your
thoughts. Oh, I'm so thankful that we have
a perfect God. And that he is the rock. Look
at verse 15 in that same passage of scripture. But Jeshurun waxed
fat and kicked, thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou
art covered with fatness. Then he forsook God, which made
him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation. lightly esteemed the rock. See what faith does is it highly
esteems the rock. It esteems the rock. This is
a rock that's higher than I, David said in the Psalms. We esteem Him highly. We give to Him all the praise
and all the honor and all the glory for He alone is worthy. Look at verse 30 of that same
chapter. How should one chase a thousand,
and two put ten thousand to flight? Except their rock had sold them,
and the Lord had shut them up. So Jeshurun esteemed lightly
the rock, and now we have the rock winning the battle for us. How are we going to defeat our
enemy? unless we have the rock to put them on the run unless
the Lord Jesus Christ himself puts to flight our enemies will
not be able to defeat them look at verse 31 in that same chapter
for their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of
Gomorrah their grapes I'm sorry verse 31 for their rock is not
as our rock even our enemies themselves being judges. They judge themselves. Why? By
esteeming our rock lightly. And their rock's not like our
rock. The rock, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is the place of revelation. If we're to know God, if we're
to know anything about Him, I mean know Him, and that's life eternal.
The Lord Jesus Christ said in John chapter 17, this is life
eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, in Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent, that I might know him in the fellowship
of his suffering, the glory of his, the power of his resurrection.
That, I mean, what is, what else is there than to know God? How
are we going to know him? How are we going to know him?
the place of revelation is the rock. Turn with me to Exodus
chapter 33. In verse 18 Moses speaking with
the Lord asked the Lord to show him his glory. Now this is the same Moses that
had stood at the burning bush and heard the voice of God declare
his name. This is the same Moses that had
gone to Egypt and had witnessed the ten plagues and the death
angel and the deliverance of the children of Israel, the dividing
of the Red Sea, the manna that came from heaven, the water that
flowed from the rock, the quail that God provided for food, the
pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day. Moses
had seen all of that. You would think that Moses would
just be reveling in those demonstrations of the glory of God. But no,
Moses wants to know something about the grace of God. And so
when he says, Lord, show me Thy glory. Lord, show me how it is
that I can find favor and grace in Thy sight. All these demonstrations of Your
power only make me to realize that I'm not worthy. Lord, how
can I stand in Thy presence? Look at verse 19, and he said,
I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim
the name of the Lord before thee, and I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will have
mercy. I will save in the manner in
which I save. This is what I'm going to show
you. And he said, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall
no man see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there
is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall
come to pass while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a
cleft of the rock, and I will cover thee with my hand while
I pass by, and I will take away my hand, And thou shalt see my
back parts, but my face thou shalt not see." Now all that
means is that, Moses, you want to know something about my grace?
You're going to have to get in the rock. There's a crevice here
in this rock. I'm going to put you in that.
And that rock is near to me. And I'm going to put my hand
over there. And I'm going to cause my goodness to pass before
thee. who is the Lord Jesus Christ
again, the goodness of God, the hand of God, the right hand of
God, the rock, everything in this picture is Christ. It's
Christ. It is through the Lord Jesus
Christ that God speaks to His people. You want to know the
Father? You have to know the Son. The
Lord said, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father, for I
and the Father are one. He's called in Isaiah chapter
9, verse 6, the everlasting Father. The Lord Jesus Christ is called
that. Now that's a mystery beyond our ability to comprehend. We
stand in wonder of the Trinity, but the truth is that God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one and yet
three. You want to know me? You're going to have to see my
back parts. All that means is, I'm going
to show you where I've been, but I'm not going to show you
where I'm going. You're going to have to trust me for that.
You're going to have to walk by faith for where I have to
take you. And I'm going to work all things
together for good for them that love me and those that are the
called according to my purpose. I'm not going to make a mistake.
I'm going to, you make your plans, I'm going to order your steps.
and I'm going to direct you in my way." And you're not going
to know where that's going to be. That's a matter of faith.
Trust me. Trust me. But I will show you
where I've been. And that's what he does when
he points us back to Calvary, doesn't he? He shows us where
he's been and what he's accomplished as I rock And He shows us that
hiding place that He's provided for us where we can escape the
judgment of God and know something about the mercy and the grace
of God. And He points us back so that
we're not looking to an experience that we had some years ago or
months ago or whatever it was. We're looking back a lot further
than that. We're looking back 2,000 years to Calvary. And we're
believing that what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished on
Calvary's cross was sufficient for our salvation. And we're
looking back even further than that. We're looking back to all
those types and shadows of the Old Testament that pointed to
Calvary. And we're looking back even further
than that. We're looking back to eternity past, before God
spun the universe into existence. Believing that God has established
in the covenant of grace before the foundations of the world.
Salvation for a people that He chose according to His own good
pleasure and will. That's my back part. That's where
you find hope for your salvation. Look back. Remember who I am
and what I've done. The place of revelation is The
rock. The place of sacrifice is the
rock. The Lord instructed the children
of Israel when they were to build an altar, they were to make it
of unhewned stones. In other words, you take these
raw stones that you find and pile them up. Don't put a tool
to them. Don't put your hand to them.
Don't shape them. Don't make them beautiful. Don't
stack them up so that they all fit together. No, they're to
be right out of the ground just like they are. And then on that
altar, you're to sacrifice this lamb. And God said to Abraham, or Abraham
said to Isaac, God will provide Himself a Lamb. God will do the
providing. God will provide Himself as the
Lamb and He will provide the Lamb to Himself. He's going to
do everything. And this altar is of unhewn stones. Don't put your hand to it. Whatever
you put your hand to, you've defiled it. That's all you've
done. You've just defiled it. And if
you make an altar that has steps to it, then all you do is expose
your nakedness. There's no steps to coming to
Christ. You don't get through, well, I've got to go through
this class and that class, and I've got to know this and that,
and I've got to quit this and quit that. No! Those are steps. All you're doing is exposing
your nakedness if you try to go through steps in order to
come to Christ. You come to Him just like you
are. He's the altar of sacrifice. He's the one who has shed His
precious blood to put away our sins and make us acceptable to
God. There's nothing for us to do. He's the rock. He's the place of safety. Turn
with me to Psalm 27. Psalm 27. Look at verse 5. In the time
of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion. Where is that pavilion? It's the cleft in the rock. It's
the same place the Lord hid Moses. In the secret of his tabernacle
shall he hide me. He shall set me upon a rock. Are you in trouble? Are you in trouble? Are your
circumstances beyond your control? Is your sin greater than you
can deal with? Are the demands of the law too
great for thee? Truth is, I know you're in trouble,
because I'm in trouble. We're all in trouble. Just whether
or not you know you're in trouble, God makes us to know our trouble
in order to cause us to see our salvation. And that's upon a rock. Turn
with me to Isaiah chapter 32. Look at verse 1. Behold, a king
shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. Who is that king who reigns in
righteousness? He's the King of Kings. He's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And who are the princes? That's
Israel. That's Israel. Jacob's name was
changed to Israel. Jacob's name meant supplanter,
and that's who we are in the flesh. But when he met with the
Lord Jesus Christ, he changed his name to Israel, which translated
means prince. Prince. In other words, we've
been made part of the royal family of God. Children of God. There's
no position in this world that's higher than that. There is no
position. There's no rank. There's no authority
in this world that you can achieve. I don't care how successful or
what your pedigree is, there's nothing that you can achieve
in this world that will lift you higher than being a child
of God. The King shall reign in righteousness,
and princes shall rule in judgment." We're ruling. We're not in subject
to the things of this world. We're not slaves to the things
of this world. Judgment's been met. Our Savior
saved us. We've been made children of the
King. and a man shall be as a hiding
place from the wind." Who is that man? In Florida here, we
know something about the wind, don't we? We watch these terrible
tornadoes. Those are worse. I'd much rather
deal with a hurricane than a tornado. In the Midwest of recent days,
these storm chasers now are taking videos that are incredible. It
used to just see the devastation after it was over. Now you watch
it happen and you see a tornado hit a house and pull the whole
house off the foundation. What an incredible power. Sometimes
it feels that way, doesn't it? Sometimes it feels like the whole
house has been pulled off the foundation, doesn't it? Sometimes
there's a whirlwind of trouble that just stirs the soul beyond
our ability to cope. What does Isaiah say? A man shall
be as a hiding place. That's Christ. He's our hiding
place. I tell you what, there's no cellar,
there's no storm cellar like that. You get in Him and you'll
be safe. And a covert from the tempest
as rivers of water in a dry place and the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. Oh, I'm so glad we've got a rock. He's a rock of eternal security.
Turn back with me to Psalms. Psalm 61. Verse 1, Hear my cry, O God,
attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed." If your heart has never been
overwhelmed, God's never brought you under the conviction of your
sin. And beyond that, you're just foolish as to the circumstances
of your life and of this world, if your heart's never been overwhelmed.
What do they say? Ignorance is bliss. If your heart's
never been overwhelmed, you're just ignorant. You're ignorant. You may be a very intelligent
person. You may be very well-educated. You may be very well-spoken.
You may be very highly respected among men, but you're ignorant.
You don't know the truth if your heart's never been overwhelmed. But if it has been, if the Lord's
given you the knowledge of circumstances for what they really are. The
temporalness of this life and the vanity of this world and
the wickedness of your own sin. Then you know something of being
overwhelmed. Where do I go? Where do I go? Lead me to the rock that is higher
than I! There He is! Yes, our God is
gracious to overwhelm us. He's merciful to overwhelm us. Why? To cause us to realize that
we don't have the answers to our problems. But there's a rock,
there's a rock that's higher than we are. It's that rock that
Moses smote in the wilderness. from which flowed rivers of living
water. And the Lord makes it clear in
2 Corinthians chapter 10 that that rock, without any ambiguity,
was Christ. It was Christ. And every time
they picked up camp and moved to another place, there the rock
was. The rock followed them through the wilderness. Yeah, I don't
know, it rolled along or it just showed up, you know, I don't
know, but it was there. It was there. And Moses, a picture of the law,
did what? He smote the rock. And that's
what God did on Calvary's cross. He smote the rock. He took the
rod of His justice and He crushed the Lord Jesus Christ as our
sin-bearer. in order to satisfy His divine
justice so that the water of life could flow from that rock
so that wherever we are, wherever we are, the rock is there. He's
the wonderful counselor. He never leaves us or forsakes
us. He's the rock that's higher than we are. He's the rock that
hides us in His cleft. He's the rock that provides safety
and security. And he's that rock that he spoke
to the disciples about when he asked the disciples, Whom say
ye that I am? And Peter, in one of those rare
occasions, speaks truthful, doesn't he? He says, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona,
Flesh and blood didn't reveal that unto you. You didn't come
to that conclusion on your own. My Father which is in heaven
has made that known to you. And upon this rock, the declaration
that you just made, that I am the Christ, the anointed one,
the one sent of God for the salvation of God's people, the Son of the
living God, unable to fail in what I set out to do. upon that rock, that sure foundation,
I'm going to build my church." He's the rock of stumbling, he's
the rock of offense, he's the capstone that the builders rejected
and God has done what? Made him the head of the corner.
He's the cornerstone for the church. He's the rock on which
we build our lives. Matthew chapter 7, he said, if
you hear these words and you don't believe them, you don't
obey them, then you're like the man who builds his house upon
a sand. And when the storms come, the house falls. But if you hear this word, this
word of mine, believe it, obey it, you're like the man who builds
his house upon a rock. rock. That's where I want my
house to be built. Truth is, apart from being founded on that
rock and hidden in that rock, there's a storm coming. And there's no Category 5 tornado
like this storm. When it comes, there'll be no
place to hide. And every structure, every structure
built by man will be destroyed. The only structures that'll last
are those that are found in the rock. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you
for the revelation that you've made of thyself as the rock. Truly, you are the rock that's
higher than we are. We ask, Lord, that you would
cause us to hide in the shadow of it, to get in the cleft of
it, to set our feet firmly on it, to look to it, to rest on
it. Lord, that we, like Jacob, would
find that rock to make for our pillar. we might sleep and rest
thy presence. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.