Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to, let's turn to Exodus 19. From chapter 19 through chapter
20, we see how that God's elect are made to know that Christ
is all. This is what Christ will make
us to know. One, it's Christ who teaches
us. He's the one who teaches us. He's all in that regard.
He's our prophet. And he teaches us that he's our
righteousness. He's all our justification with
God. He's all our acceptance for God. And He teaches us that
He's our holiness. And by this, we have the wisdom
of God. We have the mind of Christ. Christ teaches us He is all. And this is how we come to know
that He's all. Now this is what we're gonna
see, and we're gonna just take a few verses at a time. Now first
of all, Christ gets the glory for teaching His people. He gets
the glory for teaching his people. He's the prophet. Moses here
typifies Christ the mediator. It says in verse 3, And Moses
went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain,
saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell
the children of Israel. See, God told Moses to speak
to the children of Israel, to the house of Jacob. He said,
You've seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bear you
on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. And in verse 9,
the Lord said to Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that
the people may hear when I speak with thee and believe thee forever. And Moses told the words of the
people unto the Lord. Moses here is a type of the mediator. We see Moses going back and forth
between God and Israel, from Israel to God. That's the work
of a mediator. Ten times here, he delivers the
word of God from God to the children of Israel and then delivers a
word, or represents the children of Israel back to God. And he's
the one here that does all the teaching. There's one mediator
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. That's who's pictured
in Moses. You might say, well how did God
deal with Moses? Because the one speaking to Moses
is Christ the mediator. God only deals with a man and
a mediator. That's the only way Moses could
be dealt with was through Christ the mediator. But Moses himself
here is a picture of Christ the mediator. Now here's the promise
of God to his people, verse 5. If you will obey my voice indeed
and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure
unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And you
shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These
are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
That's what Christ declares to us when he comes and speaks the
gospel to us. This is the promise of God, the
good news of the gospel. He's speaking to God's saints.
The Apostle Peter said this. He said, you're a chosen generation,
you're a royal priesthood, you're a holy nation of peculiar people. That's just what the Lord said.
That's just what the Lord said his people would be. But here's
what he said. Now listen. He said, there's
one way that you'll do this to me. If you will obey God's voice
indeed and keep his covenant, you have to obey God's voice
and you have to keep his covenant. Will you obey God's voice? Have
you? Is there anybody here that's
obeyed God's voice? Will you keep his covenant? Have
you kept his covenant? God's saints have. God's saints
have, but it's not how men think. It's not how the natural man
thinks. Those God saves, we all begin the same way. We all begin
vainly imagining just what the children of Israel imagined.
Here in verse 7. And Moses came and called for
the elders of the people, and he laid before their faces all
these words which the Lord commanded him. I think here that Moses
comes and speaks all these commandments, and it says, and all the people
answered together and said, all that the Lord has spoken we will
do. They heard God say, if you'll obey God's voice indeed and keep
his covenant, you'll be a peculiar treasure to me, a precious treasure.
And they said, all that God speaks, we will do. We will do. That's the arrogancy of our sin
nature. Oh yeah, whatever God says, we
will do it. We're able to do it. We'll do
it. That's how we all start out. That's what we think. We thought
eternal life was by us sanctifying ourselves by keeping the Ten
Commandments. That's what we thought. That's
what many think, that sanctification is by keeping God's Ten Commandments. We thought we could make ourselves
righteous by keeping God's law. We actually thought we could
keep God's law. Now, the Pharisees thought this. Christ said to
them, this is what he meant when he said, search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have life. That's what they were doing.
They were going to the old covenant law, looking at all these commandments
of God, and they were looking what they should do, what they
should not do, and they thought they had life by keeping God's
law. And Christ said, and they are
they which testify of me, and you will not come to me that
you might have life. That's why we're looking at this,
and the first thing I said to you is, Moses is a picture of
Christ. Because this whole Old Covenant
law speaks of Christ. This whole book speaks of Christ.
And so when we're looking at these things, God gave all of
these things to teach us to the Lord Jesus Christ. You start
out, read Romans 1. It says the gospel of God is
concerning his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything this
book teaches is teaching us look to Christ and trust him and believe
him. He's salvation. He's salvation. So in order to be accepted of
God, Here's the thing that we don't understand at first. To
be accepted of God, we have to be perfect. God said it must
be perfect to be accepted. It's not just that you've done
better than somebody else. It's not what man considers is
keeping the law. You have to be perfect. That
means no sin in thought, word, or deed, no sin on your record,
a holy and pure heart, and perfect righteousness before God. It
must be perfect to be accepted of God. We cannot sanctify ourselves,
and we cannot justify ourselves. We cannot do it. He begins here
with sanctification. The Lord's going to teach us
our inability to sanctify ourselves. And he's going to begin here
with sanctification because we have to be sanctified inwardly
before we'll understand any of this. And so this is where he
begins. He begins with sanctification.
Verse 10, And the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto the people and
sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes,
and be ready against the third day. For the third day the Lord
will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. Now sanctification is to be separated
and made holy. Just be separated and made holy.
Now Christ is the sanctifier and he is the sanctification
of his people. He's the sanctifier and he's
the sanctification. God commanded Moses to sanctify
them and let them wash and sanctify themselves. Now be sure to get
the type here. When Christ begins this work
in his child, when he comes and starts to teach us, Christ is
going to separate us out. That's what he's doing when he
first comes to you. He's separating you out. Moses sanctified them. He said, Moses, you go sanctify
them. Christ separates you out. But to show us our inability,
now this is generally where he finds us. We may have been in
religion a long time, or he may just be bringing you to the gospel
for the first time, but we think we can sanctify ourselves, and
he'll let you think that for a little while. Moses came there
to them, and God said, let them wash their clothes. So Moses
separates them, and he says, now wash your clothes, and he
lets them wash their clothes. They're going to sanctify themselves.
That's what this washing is. They're going to sanctify themselves
so they can meet God. All God said, we'll do, they
said. Now he's doing this to show us
our inability, to show us our total inability. Being born of
Adam, we have a corrupt sin nature. And even after we're born of
God, we still have that corrupt sin nature with us. So from beginning
to end, Christ must be our sanctifier and he must be our sanctification.
Job said, if I wash myself with snow water and make my hands
never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch and my
own clothes shall abhor me. Christ is the sanctifier of his
people. Moses sanctified them. Christ
sends us the gospel, and he sends the Holy Spirit, and he sanctifies
us in regeneration, and a new man is created within us, and
Christ is formed in us. And when this is all taking place,
there may be, as the Lord teaches you and teaches you, he'll give
you some time and you'll start trying to sanctify yourself.
You'll start thinking you can sanctify yourself. But Christ
is also the sanctification of his people. Christ is the holiness
of that new man. He's the holiness of the new
man. When we're sanctified within, he gives you faith for the first
time to behold Christ is our perfect holiness at God's right
hand. That's why he sanctifies us within,
is to behold Christ as our perfect sanctification at God's right
hand. Only then will we give Christ all the glory as being
the sanctifier and the sanctification. Until then, we want a part of
it. We want a glory in it. All right, so that he dealt first
with sanctification, then he's going to deal with righteousness.
Righteousness is to be justified before God, is to have no record
of sin, past, present, or future, to be the righteousness of God.
Now watch in verse 12. He's saying, Thou shalt set bounds
unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves
that you go not up into the mount or touch the border of it. You
can't go up into it and you can't touch it. Whosoever touches the
mount shall be surely put to death. There shall not a hand
touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through. Whether
he be beast or man, he shall not live. The law here represents,
I mean the mountain represents the law. This is where God's
giving the law. And them not being able to touch
it is teaching us we can't come to God by our obedience to the
law. When the scripture says to be
justified with God, we have to be justified with God, we have
to be righteous with God, it means perfect, brethren, perfect. We once thought we could keep
the law of God. Do you remember thinking you
could keep the law of God? There was a time we thought,
God's people thought we could keep the law. Now I'm not saying
God's people are high-handedly trying to sin and break God's
law, but we see now because God's given, sanctified you and given
you eyes to see that our very best obedience is not righteousness. Not as God counts righteousness
and as God requires. God wouldn't even let them touch
Mount Sinai. Would God give a law that we
can't keep? That's what he's doing. He's
giving a law to teach us that we became guilty by Adam's one
transgression. By the deeds of the law there
shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is
the knowledge of sin. God gave the law not for us to
come to God by obedience to it, but to show us our sin. That's
what he's doing right here with them. Now, we were like them. They said all that God commands
we'll do. All that God commands we'll do.
And they thought they had sanctified themselves by washing themselves.
They thought that they could obey this law. And to some degree
or another, that's where God finds us. That's where God finds
us. Listen, it's not our sin that's
going to keep you from God. We're going to see that. God
here is going to reveal to them their sin. And we're going to
see what the result is. What will keep you from God is
thinking you are righteous by something you've done. And that's
what all men are by nature. Men think they're righteous.
They don't need God. or they just need a little help
from God. That's being altogether dependent
upon oneself. We've got to be brought to see
we need the Lord Jesus to do it all. Now, in Titus 3, if you'll
go there with me. Titus chapter 3. Here we see
sanctification and justification. Right here in Titus 3. We're made holy when we're born
again of the Spirit of God, and Christ, our holiness, is formed
in us. And that's done in us, must be
done in all God's elect, because Christ already justified us.
He already fulfilled the whole law for his people. Now we see
that right here, verse 3. We ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving different lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. Listen,
when we were in our self-made religion or when we were just
You know, maybe we weren't religious, but this is what we thought about
ourselves. We heard that right there, and
speaking about those awful, vile, sinful people. Somebody else. That's who we hope. We took the
scriptures, and when we heard anything about sinners, that's
somebody worse than we were. That's who we thought about.
But we were the foolish. We were disobedient. We were
deceived. We were serving the lusts of
our flesh. It's the lust of our flesh to
have this glory that belongs to Christ only. That's our chief
sin, is we want the glory that belongs to God. We were full
of malice, envy, hateful, and hating one another. You know
what we were doing? We were saying, stand by thyself,
come not near me, I'm holier than you are. That's how we were
envious and full of maliciousness and hateful and hating one another.
That's what we thought about others. Because we didn't see
ourselves as the chief of sinners. But, verse 4, after that, the
kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. Aren't
you thankful God didn't do that to us? He really is holy. Aren't you thankful He didn't
say, get away from me, I'm holier than you are. He came and saved
us in our ungodliness and saved us out of it. Look here, not
by works of righteousness which we've done, But according to
his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost. This is the sanctification of
the Spirit. He told them, wash yourselves.
This is what the Holy Spirit must do. He washed us and regenerated. He made us a new holy man within
us. And why was this done? It's because
Christ already justified us, which he shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior. You can read it this way, that
having been justified by his grace, We should be made heirs
according to the hope of eternal life. Christ had already justified
his people. Even right here, the elect of
God that was among the children of Israel, Christ was already
their righteousness. He had already entered covenant
with God and as the surety of his people, he was their righteousness.
And so those that were born of him must be born of him. It's
the just thing because God's righteous and just to do it because
of Christ. Christ is our perfect righteousness
and he's our perfect holiness by what he accomplished as the
representative and holiness of his people. A representative
of his people. When he gives you this, does
this work, that's when you see he's your perfect holiness and
he's your perfect righteousness. This is what the Hebrew writer
said. I'm always reading Hebrews 10
to you. Christ said, Lord, I come to do thy will, O God. He takes
away the first. We heard this first giving of
this law. We were trying to come to God
under it as a covenant of works. He takes that away. He established
the second, the everlasting covenant of grace, by whose will we're
sanctified through His one offering. By one offering, He perfected
forever them that are sanctified. This is what the Holy Ghost bears
witness of when He sanctifies us and teaches us the gospel.
Now, let's go back and see what happens when the Lord works this
work. Christ reveals our inability
by making us see God's holiness and righteousness. So they've
washed themselves, and now they think they can come to God. They
think they're ready to meet God. Now this is what's going to happen
when God comes and truly washes you and truly makes you hear
what the law says. Verse 16. It came to pass on
the third day in the morning that there were thunders and
lightnings. and a thick cloud upon the mount,
and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the
people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people
out of the camp to meet with God." You see, it's Christ right
here who's teaching everything. That's the picture here with
Moses. Christ is leading us and teaching us. And they stood at
the nether part of the mount, and Mount Sinai was altogether
on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. And
the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the
whole mount quaked greatly. Look at verse 21. And the Lord
said to Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through
unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. And let the priests
also which come near to the Lord sanctify themselves, lest the
Lord break forth upon them. Verse 24, And the Lord said to
him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou and
Aaron. Christ is our mediator. He's
our high priest and our prophet. That's who Moses and Aaron were.
He's our prophet and our high priest. He can mediate for us.
Christ can. But let not the priests and the
people break through to come up unto the Lord, lest he break
forth upon them." Hebrews said, without holiness no man will
see the Lord. The Lord said here, they couldn't
even gaze upon Him. They couldn't even look upon
Him. We're made holy, truly holy, in Christ, by Christ. We can't
even look upon God. We can't see God. When he told
these priests to sanctify themselves, he's not telling, suggesting
we can make ourselves holy. He's telling them, don't you
come up here and touch this mountain. What he's saying is not even
the priests could sanctify themselves. The people couldn't sanctify
themselves and not even a priest could make themselves holy before
God. Christ, our mediator, He's the prophet and he's the high
priest here represented by Moses and Aaron. He's the one that
has to represent us to God and he's teaching us that we're unholy
and we're unrighteous in ourselves. That we have no ability to make
ourselves righteous and holy. It's the only way we're going
to give him all the glory for this. He does this by making
us see God's holiness and God's righteousness. This is when he
makes you hear the law for the first time. He's giving the law
here. And when he gives the law, when Christ comes and makes the
commandment come to you, what did Paul say? Sin revived and
I died. All my washing and all my doing
where I thought I was holy and righteous died when I heard the
law, when I really saw how holy and righteous God is. That's
what happens when men really see how holy and righteous God
is. Now, here's God giving the law,
and I'm going to just read the first commandment of the first
table and the first of the second table. It wouldn't take but one
commandment. If God didn't give but one, there'd
be enough to condemn us. God, Exodus 20 verse 1, God spake
all these words saying, I am the Lord thy God which hath brought
thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,
thou shalt have no other gods before me. When he's working
this work, when the commandment comes and you hear the law for
the first time, that's when you realize in all your self-sanctifying
works, in all your self-justifying works, you were your God and
you were serving another God. That's when you find that out.
The second command table here is, honor thy father and thy
mother. The first is toward God. We find
out we had another God, it was ourselves. We find out if we
were going under the name of Christ, we'd taken his name in
vain, we weren't resting in Christ the Sabbath. Everything the law
teaches us points us to Christ. And then the second table is
toward man. Honor thy father and thy mother.
We were dishonoring God our father by thinking we could come to
God by keeping the law, by making ourselves holy or righteous by
the law. And the whole, we were covetous for God's glory. We
were stealing the glory that belongs to Christ. Every commandment
we were breaking by trying to come to God by our works. Verse
18, and all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings
and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, and
when the people saw, they were moved and stood afar off. And they said to Moses, speak
thou with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us
lest we die. Paul said the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified through
faith in Christ. They're no longer saying, we
will do it. They're no longer saying, all
that God commands, we will do. Now they're begging for a mediator. They're begging for a mediator.
They need Christ to intercede with God on their behalf. That's
what God brings you to see. Where were they? They stood afar
off. You remember that publican in
our Lord's parable? That Pharisee went right up front,
and he was boasting all that the Lord commands I've done.
That Pelican stood afar off, just like they did. He had his
face down in the dust, saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. This is where God brings His
children. Well, what happens then? Now
sin has revived and you've died. You see, you don't have any righteousness.
You don't have any holiness. You haven't really watched yourself.
You can't come to God by anything you've done. And I remind you,
brethren, this work doesn't stop. The Lord keeps teaching us this
all our day. So what happens then when He
brings you to this place? If He left you right there, we
wouldn't have any hope. There's a man just trembling
and mourning his sin and just, if he left us there, we'd be
lost forever. When Christ has made us see our
sin and inability, then Christ reveals the good news, verse
20. And Moses said unto the people, fear not, fear not. You know, religion, preaches
the law and uses this wrath and this smoking like this. Believe
God or you'll be damned. That's not what God does. God,
that smoking and that fire and that trembling, that's to show
you God's holiness and His righteousness. You know where we see that? We
see it in Christ crucified. We see what it took to justify
His people was God coming Himself in human flesh and bearing the
sin of His people and putting away our sin by His own life. And when he makes you to hear
the law, he says, fear not. He's not trying to make his people
fearful. Fear not. Fear not. For God is come to
prove you and that his fear may be before your faces that you
sin not. This fear of God is the result
of sanctification of the spirit. If this new holy heart is created
within and Christ becomes our holiness, that's when we begin
to really see we can't come to God. We have a reverence for
God and we cannot boast anymore that there's anything in us that
we've done that can make us accepted with God. You just cannot do
it. You see your sin, you see your
nothingness, you see there's no way you can come to God by
what you are. But it's that you sin not. It's
that we cease trying to make ourselves righteous and holy
by our law keeping. He will keep his child from sinning. You're not going to want to sin
against the Lord when he's made his grace known to you. But our
greatest danger, brethren, is thinking that we can come to
God by something we've done. And he's going to do this to
you and keep showing you this so that you don't sin by thinking
that you've made yourself holy or righteous. How is he going
to accept us? How will God accept us? Now,
we still haven't gotten to the best part of the good news. How
does he accept us? What's our obedience by which
we keep God's covenant? He said, if you obey me and you
keep my covenant. Well, what's the obedience by
which we obey God and keep his covenant? This is what the mediator
reveals to us. Verse 24, an altar of earth shalt
thou make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings,
and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thy oxen. In all places
where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless
thee. That right there is the equivalent
of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in Christ. faith in Christ. He's our altar,
and he's the sacrifice by which we're made perfect. He's the
righteousness, and he's the holiness. God accepts the righteousness
and holiness of his people, and through faith in Christ, we are
what Christ is before God. Now you think about that. We
are what Christ is before God. He established the law. He is
righteousness. He is holiness personified, and
we are what Christ is before God because he's given you faith
to trust him. And then we have communion with
God, and God says, and that's where I'll come to you, and I'll
bless you. He blesses you through Christ
Jesus. All the blessings of God are
in Christ the mercy seat. But listen to what God told him
in verse 25. In verse 25, God said, he said,
but if you lift your hand upon it, if you lift your hand upon
it, you have polluted it. They couldn't put a tool on it,
on that altar, or they polluted it. He said, verse 26, neither
shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness
be not discovered thereon. This has to do with righteousness
and holiness. Christ must be all our righteousness. We can't add our hand to trying
to make ourselves righteous, and Christ must be all our holiness. We can't do this step-by-step
sanctification that men talk about. You're going to grow. All living things grow. You're
going to grow in grace and knowledge of Him. But Christ alone is our
sanctifier and our sanctification. And you're not getting one whit
more holy than He has already made His people. Now, that's good news, brethren,
when you realize that before God, as God declares it to be,
There is no record of sin, and God promises, I will never remember
the sin of my people again. When he brought you to believe
Christ, he says, I'll remember your sin no more. I've cast them
into the sea. I've justified my people. I'll
remember them no more. And when Christ is the wholeness
of your new man, making you look out of yourself to Christ, your
perfect wholeness at God's right hand. You see, when he's the
wholeness of the new man, that's when you see your flesh is nothing
but sin. So you will stop looking at yourself
for holiness and thinking that you made yourself holy because
you see sins mixed with everything you do. everything you do. If you're the very best saint
that ever lived on the face of the planet and did everything
as right as could be done by a believer, sin would still be
mixed with everything you did. But here's the good news about
this. When you sin and you do sin, the good news
is Neither your righteousness nor your holiness is altered
or changed one iota, not one bit. because Christ is your righteousness
and He's your holiness. And He's going to keep you knowing
that. He's going to keep His child knowing that. That's the
essence of what repentance is. That's what faith is all about.
It's Him showing you, I'm your righteousness and holiness. That's
what breaks your heart. That's what makes your heart
contract. That's what turns you to Him
in every time of need. And through faith in Christ,
because this is so, brethren, That publican, remember, he stood
afar off, he smote upon his breast, he begged for mercy. What did
Christ say about it? He went down to his house justified. You believe on Christ and God
will make you to know in the court of your conscience, you're
just with God. And he's going to make you walk by faith. Walk
the rest of your day trusting Christ. When God put Jacob's
thigh out of joint, he never walked the same again. He halted
every time he walked. Every time he took a step, he
humbled. And when God's given a new nature in you, you're going
to see your sin is in every step you take in this world so that
he's going to keep you walking by faith in Christ. But get this
good news. What does that mean that I'm
justified? If you believe on Christ, if you believe the message
I'm preaching to you now, stop reading the commandments of what
you must do and must not do, and start reading these commandments
as promises that God makes to you. You shall not have another
God. You shall honor your father. You have done it perfectly in
Christ. Because Christ did it perfectly.
And he'll not let you go. He'll not lose one. This is the
good news. And you know what this makes
you? Through faith in Christ. That's what Peter said. Remember
how he started? If you keep, if you obey me and
you keep my covenant. Well, Christ obeyed him and kept
his covenant. And he don't call you to keep all the law like
this because you can't. He calls you to believe him that
he's done all for you. And when he does that, here's
what he says to you. Peter said, you're a chosen generation. You're a royal priesthood. You're
a holy nation of peculiar people. Here's why he did it all. That
you should show forth the praises of him that you give him all
the glory who called you out of darkness into his marvelous
light. And so God's people say, he that
glories, let him glory in the Lord. We want him to have the
glory. That's the good news. That's
how we know Christ is all. He's the prophet who taught us. He's our holiness. He's our righteousness. He's our wisdom by which we know
Him. He's the one who redeemed us.
He's the one that keeps us. He's our salvation. He's all,
brethren. He's all. All right, let's go
to Him. Father, we thank You. What a
gracious God that You gave Your only begotten Son. What a wise
God that You worked all this out in Providence and ruled your
children of Israel to bring them to this place and give the law
and to just paint these pictures using millions of people, controlling
their hearts, bringing them there and teaching them and teaching
us through them to paint us a picture just like an artist picking up
a a pen to write or to paint or
a paintbrush to paint. Lord, that's wisdom and power. We thank you, Lord, that you've
done this for your people. We thank you, Lord, that you
brought us to hear the good news and made us to see what Christ
has done for us. Lord, make us trust you. Make
us continue to believe on Christ. Make us obedient to be more honoring
to you in everything we do because of what you've done for us. Lord,
we pray that you would be pleased to reveal this good news in the
heart of one of your people. Make your people know, make them
rejoice, and those that do, Lord, make us know you more. Make us
rejoice more in what you've accomplished. Lord, please keep us from lifting
up our tool upon this or from trying to go up step by step. Make Christ all unto us. Forgive
us, Lord, our sin, our unbelief, and our trying to put our hand
to it. Forgive us, Lord, for Christ's
sake. We ask it in his name. Amen.