I haven't heard those two hymns,
you know, a long time. And they took me back about 37,
38 years ago. And I was about 15 sitting in
a small congregation in South Arkansas, and we used to sing
those hymns often. And I thought, of the members
of that congregation, there's only three now. that are still
alive and only two that are able to attend service in that church. And I thought those that have
departed and are with the Lord, just imagine, they're in a true worship service. Being able to sing the new song
in spirit and in truth with no sin, and truly, truly worship
the Lord. Won't that be amazing and wonderful? Our subject this morning is true
worship. In Exodus 34, 27, the Lord said
to Moses, Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these
words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And
we see who Moses typifies here because the next verse says he
was in the mount 40 days and 40 nights and that immediately
takes us to Christ, our savior, as we think about him going 40 days and 40 nights during
his temptation. Now in this old covenant carnal
worship, this was a carnal commandment, a carnal covenant, dealt with
carnal promises, with carnal laws, and this was carnal worship. But in this, we see a type and
a shadow of new covenant spiritual worship, true worship. It's a shadow of how God brings
his people into the everlasting covenant of grace. God revealed
to Moses his glory. We saw that earlier in the chapter,
and that's when That's how God brings his child to truly worship
Christ. 2 Corinthians 4, 6 says, God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in
our hearts to give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Christ Jesus. And the result was when Moses
beheld his glory, he hid his face and began to beg mercy from
God. And that's what the Lord does,
and He reveals His glory in the face of Christ. He reveals the
Christ in your heart, and you start begging God for mercy.
And then in verse 10, God said, Behold, I make a covenant. Now,
God wrote this covenant on tablets of stone. It was earthy. It was carnal. But the new everlasting
covenant of grace is spiritual. God writes it on the heart in
spirit and in truth. And when he does this, and let
me read Romans 8, 1 to you this way, the everlasting new covenant
law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from
the old covenant law of sin and death. This is the new law he
writes on our heart. It's the covenant of grace. And
then we saw in verses 10 through 17 Christ is jealous for his
bride. One of the first things our Lord
Jesus does is he comes and conquers the enemy of our flesh. and separates
us from our vain idolatrous worship, from all of the vanity that we
thought was true worship, which was just of our flesh. It was
idolatry. And just like he promised to
conquer those enemies, that's what he does in his child. And
then the Spirit of God in our text teaches us seven statutes. These are the statutes foreshadowing. Remember God said, when I write
this law on their heart, they're going to walk in my statutes
and keep my judgments and do them. This is a picture of those
statutes that he writes on our heart, the true statutes of the
everlasting covenant of grace. When he writes the law of love
and the law of faith on our heart, these are the statutes we walk
in, in spirit and in truth. Seven is the number of completion.
And this picture is spiritual worship of Christ in spirit and
in truth through faith. This was their worship. It was
carnal. It typified Christ, and those born of the spirit of God
saw Christ in this. But this was how they worshiped.
But you and I no longer need the shadows and types because
we have the full scriptures, and we have Christ, and we behold
Christ in spirit and in truth, so we worship by faith. but we
see it foreshadowed here. Now we've looked at each of these
statutes in detail in previous parts of Exodus, so today we're
just going to briefly look at them, but I want you to see how
they go together to make up a picture of true spiritual worship. Now
first of all, by faith we begin feasting upon Christ. He's the
bread from heaven. He's the unleavened bread from
heaven. And we began feasting upon him
by faith, and we do so all our days once God has called us to
faith in him. He says there in verse 18, the
feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt
eat unleavened bread as I commanded thee in the time of the month
of Bib, for in the month of Bib thou camest out from Egypt. The
feast of unleavened bread began that first month that he brought
them out of Egypt. That was their beginning. That
was the Jewish first month on the Jewish calendar. That was
the beginning when he delivered them out of Egyptian bondage
through the Passover lamb. And so this feast began the day
after they observed the Passover. And so you have pictured here
God's gift of life and faith in Christ through the Passover
lamb. When he brings you to behold
Christ our Passover who sacrificed for his people, he brings you
to begin to feast on Christ the bread. Christ our Passover. All who
Christ redeemed by his blood, all for whom he died shall be
regenerated to life and they shall live by Christ, our bread
alone will live by him alone. He's our bread, he's our life.
We saw it Thursday night. This is why he redeemed us. He redeemed us from the curse
of the law being made a curse for us that the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles. That we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith. This is why he did this. Spiritual
life begins when God comes and reveals in our hearts that Christ
is our Passover. He's our life. He's our bread. And he's delivered us. Now this
feast lasted seven days. It lasted seven days. Again,
that's the number of completion in the scripture. Seven days.
It began on a Sabbath day. It ended on a Sabbath day. Think
of the picture of that, brethren. The day God brings you to faith
in Christ, the day he brings you to faith in Christ and you
begin to feast on Christ the bread, we rest from all our works. And the whole week of our life,
from the beginning of faith to the last day of our life, that
full complete week, we feast on Christ the bread. And how
does it end? With rest in glory in Christ. That's what's pictured here.
From the first day until the last, we live by faith, feasting
on Christ, our unleavened bread. Leaven was a picture of sin.
that which puffs up. Christ is the sinless Savior. He's the sinless bread. He's
the unleavened bread who knew no sin, who bore the sin of his
people and put away our sin. And now with his, the bread,
you eat bread, and when you eat it, you live by it. And we Feast
upon Christ by faith and we live. And the reason we live is because
he's made us righteousness. Remember Paul in Romans 8, he
says, if the spirit of Christ be in you, the body's dead because
of sin. One, that means our spiritual,
I mean our dead sin nature is still dead, but it also means,
but it's also been crucified in Christ, it's dead. But the
Spirit in you, the Holy Spirit in you is life. Why? Because
of righteousness. If you have life, you're righteous.
If you have spiritual life, you're righteous. If you're righteous,
you're going to be given spiritual life. And so then from that day
forward, we feast on Christ. Go to John 6, you're familiar
with this, but John 6, 53, the Lord Jesus said, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, John 6.53, except you eat the flesh of the son
of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. That means
who believes on me has eternal life. And I'll raise him up at
the last day for my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink
indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. We're inseparably united. When you eat bread, it becomes
one with you. And when the Spirit of Christ
enters in, He brings you to believe on Christ, to feast upon Christ,
and we're one with Christ, never to be separated. We're unleavened. We're without sin in Christ.
We're righteous in Christ. So we live by faith, feasting
upon Christ, our unleavened bread, and by the Spirit of God, we
do so in sincerity and in truth, as opposed to our false worship. He makes you put off the old
man with his self-righteousness and his malice and his wickedness.
This is what Paul was declaring in 1 Corinthians 5-7 when he
said, Purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be a
new lump as you are unleavened. You are unleavened. In this unleavened
bread, Christ, we are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover
is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast. He's saying the whole life that
we live now, let us believe on Christ. Not with the old leaven.
Not with the covenant of works and ceremonies and observing
days. Christ commands we follow him
in baptism and we remember him at his table and those are the
only ordinances we have now. So we walk by faith. We worship
him in true spiritual worship, which is by faith. Neither with
the leaven of malice and wickedness. Neither with our old fleshly
man and his deeds. Pretending like we're righteous
when we're not righteous. Pretending like we're not sinners
when we are sinners. Put off the old man. but with
the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. This is true worship. This is when he makes you truly
worship in spirit and in truth from the heart. That's what he
does. Now secondly, back in our text
in Exodus 34, by faith we worship giving all
glory to Christ who redeemed us and in whom we approach God. We give all the glory to Him
because He redeemed us and He's the only one in whom we come to the Father,
by whom we approach the Father in worship. Exodus 34, 19, it
says, all that openeth the matrix is mine. Everyone born is mine,
and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep that's
male. But the firstling of an ass thou
shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou redeem him not, then
thou shalt break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons
thou shalt redeem, and none shall appear before me empty. All God's
elect are represented by the ass. All of the elect, naturally,
as we come into this world, are represented by this ass. And
ass in the law was an unclean animal. The law demanded our
necks be broken because we sinned against God. But Christ the Lamb,
he said, you can redeem the ass with a lamb. And Christ the Lamb
redeemed us. He paid the price and redeemed
us so that we're not going to be be judged by the law anymore. In doing so, he bought us. Redemption
is a purchase price. He bought us. And so when we're
born again, God says, all the firstlings are mine. Everyone
born is mine. And when we're born again, God
says, they're mine. They're mine. You're mine. I
bought you. I paid the price. I bought you. And God says, and
so none shall appear before me empty. We don't come to God with
any works of our hands or anything we've done to try to commend
ourselves to God. If you come that way, you're
coming empty. We have to have our hands emptied of all our
works so that what we have in our hands when we come to the
Lord is Christ. We come by faith in Christ. He's
the only one and the only way we can come to God and not come
empty. We come with His fullness. And
doing so, brethren, is to give Him all the glory. We assemble
together to appear before God, to worship God in spirit and
in truth. And the only way we can worship
Him, the only way we can preach is in His name. The only way
we can sing is in Christ's name. The only way we can pray is in
Christ's name. Because the only way we can approach
God is through our Lord Jesus Christ. We come in Him. coming
in him, and we do so, we give God all the glory. Now thirdly,
so by faith we rest from all our vain works, and this rest
is having peace with God. He says in verse 21, six days
thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest, in earring
time and in harvest thou shalt rest. Christ is our Sabbath rest. He is. When you look at the Ten
Commandments, the first table, you have to love God perfectly
to fulfill it. Our Lord Jesus Christ loved God
perfectly and fulfilled that first table of the law on behalf
of his people. The second table of the law is
toward men. You have to love man perfectly. And the Lord Jesus Christ loved
us perfectly. How did he do this? How did he
love God and his neighbor as himself with a perfect love.
He did it by going to the cross, declaring God just and justifier
and justifying his people in the process, laying down his
life under the curse of the law. And so in the middle of the law,
you have a Sabbath and we rest in Christ. He's the fulfillment
of the first table. He's the fulfillment of the second
table. And that is rest. That's rest. And we rest in Him. We which have believed do enter
into rest. Here it is, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
What about earing time and harvest? Our Lord's going to bring forth
good works in His people. He creates a people zealous of
good works. He creates a people who hate
our sin and we're zealous of good work. We want to walk in
Godliness. We want to adorn the doctrine of our Savior in all
things. But when he creates these works
in you, earring time and harvest was a busy season. No matter
what works He creates in you, while you're doing the works
God has commanded and that He's working in you, all the while
we're resting in Christ. We never stop resting in Christ.
We don't put any confidence in any work we've done, only in
Him. We are the circumcision which
worship God in spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no
confidence in the flesh, not any. Fourthly, believe in Christ
as the head of his church. We preach Christ crucified, trusting
that Christ will gather his people through the spirit. We preach
Christ, he's the head. We preach Christ and we wait
on Christ to work in his people, to affect obedience in his people,
to gather his people to himself. Verse 22, thou shall observe
the Feast of Weeks of the first fruits of wheat harvest and the
Feast of Engareth gathering at the year's end. The Feast of
Weeks was held at harvest time. It was held 50 days after the
Feast of the first fruits. They brought the first fruits
to God and 50 days later, they observed the Feast of Weeks.
And that's why it's called Pentecost. When Christ finished the work
of redeeming his people, when he finished that work on the
exact day that this Feast of Weeks was held, on the day of
Pentecost, our Lord Jesus Christ sent forth the Spirit And his
apostles preached every man in tongues they had not even learned
in foreign languages that they had never before learned, but
they all preached intelligibly. They preached the gospel to the
people in their languages. And as they did, the Lord Jesus
Christ poured out the Spirit and called, gathered in 3,000
of his people. He harvested 3,000 of his people
through that gospel. It's what Christ did. And so
Peter said, being by the right hand of God exalted and having
received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed
forth this which you now see and hear. So rest assured, he
said, Christ is the head. He's the Lord and the Christ.
He's the Savior of his people. He's the King of his people.
He rules in the midst of his church. And so you read on down
the page and it says, so they assembled and they worshiped
the Lord and the Lord added to the church daily such as should
be saved. We preach Christ and we know,
we trust, we believe Christ is the one who's gathering in the
harvest and he's doing it through the spirit. And so we preach
Christ, we believe him. This is what he said in Isaiah
43, 5. Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the
east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north,
give up, and to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from
far and my daughters from the ends of the earth, even everyone
that's called by my name. For I have created him for my
glory. I have formed him. Yea, I have
made him. Christ is the one who created
us, he formed us, he made us, and he's the only one that can
call in his true fruits. He's the only one that can reap
this harvest. So we preach him. And fifthly,
because Christ is our life, by faith, walking by faith, we arrange
our lives around the worship of Christ. We arrange our lives
around the worship of Christ. He says in verse 23, thrice in
the year shall all your men, children appear before the Lord
God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations
before thee and enlarge thy borders. Neither shall any man desire
thy land when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy
God thrice in the year. Three times in a year, the Lord
required the males to drop everything in their lives, to leave their
farms, to leave their families, to go to the place of public
worship where the Lord had set his name, where he said, I will
be worshiped in this place. That's where they were to go
to. And the Lord said, now I'm going to enlarge your borders.
I'm going to cast out nations. You're going to be far away from
this place that I've told you to assemble to. But you're going
to leave your families, you're going to leave your farms, and
three times in a year you're going to assemble and worship
me. That took faith, didn't it? That
takes faith. But doing so, they proved they
believed God was the Lord God. They believed he was their covenant
God. He said, you'll appear before
the Lord thy God. They believed he was their covenant
God who would keep his promise. He would keep his promise. Brethren,
God's cast out every enemy for his people. He is enlarging our
borders as he adds to the church daily such as should be said. And when they left their family
and their friends and their farms and they went, traveled this
great distance to worship, the Lord fulfilled his promise. He
ruled the hearts of the enemy around them so that they didn't
touch their farms. They didn't touch their families.
They were safe, because the Lord promised it. We need to remember
this, especially in this time when we have all this scare going
on. The Lord's going to honor his people that are assembling
to worship him, and he's going to protect that, just like he
did in that day. They went up to worship, and
the Lord made it so nobody plundered their farm or their family while
they were gone. They were safe. By the power of the spirit of
God, true faith does not arrange worship around our lives. We
don't arrange worship around our lives. We don't fear the
enemy, the economy and the government and our finances and our jobs
so that we give that our attention and then when we can and we have
the time, we fit in public worship. We don't do that. Spurgeon told
a story of a man who said he always worked rather than assemble
with the Lord's people when they assembled to worship, because
he said that puts him at least two days ahead of all the church
folks. And Brother Spurgeon told him,
in the day of judgment, you're going to find out that your addition
don't tally, that it hadn't put you two days ahead. If we believe
our sovereign Lord Jesus, then we know He's the one who provides
all for us. He provides everything for us.
Do you believe God's sovereign? Do you believe He's working in
my heart and in your heart and in the hearts of your brethren
and in the hearts of your enemies? If you do, you can believe God
and wait on Him and trust Him. You really can because He really
is working. He really is working. He said,
arrange everything around the worship of Him. This is the one
thing needful. This is more important what we're
doing here right now. This is more important than anything
in our life. Than anything in our lives. This
is. And he says in Hebrews 10.23,
let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.
For he's faithful that promised. Let us consider one another to
provoke unto love and to good works. How are we provoking each
other to love and to good works? Not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
In a day like our day, it ought to make us want to assemble together
more, shouldn't it? When you see the world in chaos,
shouldn't it make us want to assemble more and more and let
nothing stop us from that? With all these new rules and
regulations, it made me think about a story I read about the
old brethren years ago that were forbidden to assemble to worship.
The law of the land said they couldn't assemble to worship,
and they were assembling to worship. They were in a wagon headed to
a barn somewhere in the middle of the night, and they got stopped
by some authority. And he asked them what they were
doing out on the road at night, where they were going. And they
said, we've had a death in the family, and we're going to hear
the reading of the will. That's what they were doing.
That's what we're doing right here today. They assembled together. He said,
because if we sin willfully, after that we receive the knowledge
of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sin. If we
leave Christ, if we forsake assembling, that's the first step to apostasy.
If we leave Christ, There's no more sacrifice. All we have left
is a fear looking ahead to the day of judgment, to that fierce
anger of God that's going to devour the adversaries. If they
didn't escape, who neglected Moses' law? If they didn't escape,
how are we going to escape if we neglect this great salvation
God's given to us? So we assemble, we arrange everything
around the worship of Christ. Sixthly, By faith, we add nothing
of us to Christ's gospel and nothing of us to his worship.
Verse 25, thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with
leaven. Neither shalt thou the sacrifice
of the feast of the Passover be left until the morning. Verse
26, the second part says, thou shalt not see the kid in his
mother's milk. Those would be works that we
would contribute. That's what God's forbidding.
Any works of our own that we attempt to add to Christ's blood
is leaven. It's leaven. All it's going to
do is puff us up. It's going to puff us up. It's
leaven. It's sin. And God rejects it. So he commands us to preach Christ
all he is all we preach Christ is all and we rest in Christ
and we leave nothing of Christ our Passover until the morning
meaning we receive all of Christ we receive him as all we don't
like like you get the picture if they left some of it they
didn't they didn't partake of all of it and he says Take all
of Christ. Take Him as your righteousness,
as your holiness, as your redemption, as your wisdom, as your strength,
as your provider, as your sustainer, as the ruler and head of His
church. Take Him all. Take Him. Christ is all in the
hearts of those in whom He dwells. And we partake of all of Him.
We don't hedge the message. We don't leave out something.
We don't take the offense out of the cross to try to to try
to add to the church ourselves. That's all that is, is trying
to figure out a way we can bring more people to assemble. No,
I would rather have five people assembled that Christ assembled
than have 5,000 that I had something to do with assembling. I want
Christ to work in the hearts of his people, and he only works
through the message that declares Christ is all. He's everything,
and we contribute nothing. That's the message by which he's
going to draw his people. And so we preach Christ as all
the salvation of his people, and we add no man-made doctrines. We're not preaching our own doctrine.
We're not adding commandments of men. We're not requiring people
to jump through some church denominational hoops and all of that. We're
not adding anything. To do so would be to see the
kid in his mother's milk. That's a man-made invention.
And to do so would be to add our own invention to the worship
of Christ. True spiritual worship preaches
Christ, believes on Christ, and receives him as all, and adds
nothing, and subtracts nothing. And then lastly, all of this
is summed up right here. This is the sum of everything
we've heard right here. Faith gives Christ all preeminence. All preeminence. That doesn't
mean at on this day we give him all preeminence and tomorrow
we go back to, it means today we give him all preeminence,
tomorrow and whatever we're doing we give him all preeminence,
at all times he has the preeminence. He's first and he's all and he
gets the best from all of us. He says in verse 26, the first
of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house
of the Lord thy God. It pleased God to have all preeminence. It pleased God that all fullness
dwell in Christ. And to a believer, Christ is
our fullness. He is our life. He is our completion. He is everything to a believer.
And so everything that we have spiritually and everything we
have temporally, we know it came from Christ, our provider. He
gave us everything we have. We have everything from Him.
And when David offered so abundantly, go to 1 Chronicles 29. When David
offered so abundantly in the house of the Lord, listen to what he said, verse
10. We know whatever that we give, the first fruits is the
best. It's the first. You give the
best, you give the first to him who is first, to Christ. And
we're talking about everything, our time, our money, our attention,
our study, everything he should receive first. He should be first. And this is in the heart. This
is in the heart. You can't see my heart, I can't
see your heart. But we're giving to him what's first in everything. He's the reason that we do what
we do. We're giving him the first in
everything. But listen to what David said here, verse 10. David
blessed the Lord before all the congregation. Now they've just
taken in all this great offering and they're getting ready to
build, to provide for the building of the temple. And David blessed
the Lord before all the congregation. And David said, blessed be thou,
Lord God of Israel, our father, forever and ever. Thine, O Lord,
is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory
and the majesty. For all that is in the heaven
and in the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord,
and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor
come of thee. and thou reignest over all. And
in thy hand is power and might, and in thy hand it is to make
great and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God,
we thank thee and praise thy glorious name. But who am I and
what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly
after this sword? For all things come of thee. and of thine own have we given
thee. For we're strangers before thee,
sojourners, as were all our fathers. Our days on the earth are as
a shadow, and there's none abiding. We don't possess anything in
this earth. It all belongs to him. O Lord, our God, all this
store, all this offering that we've prepared to build thee
a house for thine holy name, it came of your hand. and it's
all your own. Everything you give to God, He's
first giving it to you. You believe Him, you give Him
your heart, you believe Him, you give Him faith, He gave it
to you first. You give Him your temporal things,
He gave it all to you first. Everything we have, He gave it
to us. Paul said, who is first given
to him, and it'll be recompensed unto him again. You find one
man that gave to God first, it'll be paid back to him. You won't
find one. Because he said, for of him and
through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. Those seven statutes, what
they picture, The spiritual worship in spirit and in truth, those
are the statutes and the judgment that God said, my people will
walk in. When I write my law in their
heart, the law of the everlasting covenant of grace, they're going
to walk in these statutes and keep them. And God's people do.
We worship him in spirit and in truth by his grace. Amen. Our Father, we thank you that
you've not left us alone, that you've gathered us and assembled
your people. We're thankful your son is the
head who's working in the hearts of each one. Lord, thank you
for permitting us to worship you. Thank you for giving us
all things necessary, life and righteousness and repentance
and forgiveness. for giving us hearts and making
us willing and everything we have we receive from you. Lord,
help us to look to you, help us to trust you, help us to walk
in you, help us to wait on you, help us to give everything to
you that you've given us. Lord, make Christ preeminent
in our hearts. Make him preeminent in our hearts.
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory. Make each esteem
the other better than themselves. Lord, make us have the mind of
Christ who made himself of no reputation, who humbled himself
and became obedient to the death of the cross. Make us partake
of his sufferings. Make us suffer, Lord. Make us
suffer. If we're lifted up and we think
we're something and we can affect something, Lord, make us suffer. Teach us that we're nothing.
Teach us we're nothing. Strip us and clothe us. Kill
us and make us alive. Lord, it hurts and we are fearful
of that, but if you do it, it's what's necessary. Lord, please
work in your people. Keep us worshiping you and you
alone. And we pray, Lord, if there's some young believer that's
struggling and being tempted by the devil and false preachers,
that you'd be working their heart, strengthen their faith, teach
them this is true worship. And Lord, help us to do this
in spirit. Don't let us put confidence in our flesh, and help us, Lord,
to do it in a truth. Forgive us, Lord. We have sinned,
and we sin, and we sin. In our flesh, we are not truthful. We are liars. Lord, restore a
right spirit. Make us walk in the spirit, not
in our flesh. Help us to look to you. And Lord,
we thank you for your mercy in doing so. We thank you for your
forgiveness in doing so. Make us like you. We ask it in
Christ's name. Amen.