You know the difference between
the flesh and the spirit that Brother Ben just read about?
The flesh hears that and thinks, yeah, they need to do that for
me. The Spirit of Christ hears it and thinks, I need to do that
for my brethren. And that's the difference. And
did y'all notice when we were singing Be Thou My Vision, that
song is from the 8th century. Believers have been singing that
song a long time. That's a good song. Alright brethren,
let's go to Exodus 34. Now from Exodus 34 and verse
10 down to verse 27, God gives the tenor of the covenant that he made
with the children of Israel and with Moses. Now we're gonna just
look at the covenant concerning the enemies of Canaan and their
idolatrous worship today. We'll just look at this part.
Let's begin at verse 10. And the Lord said, behold, I make
a covenant. Before all thy people, I will
do marvels. such as has not been done in
all the earth nor in any nation, and all the people among which
thou art shall see the work of the Lord. For it is a terrible
and amazing and astounding and marvelous thing that I will do
with thee. Observe thou, that is, do thou
that which I command thee this day. Now let me say a few comments
as we read this. The Lord God of heaven and earth
is a covenant God. And he deals with men on the
basis of covenant. And we are all gonna stand in
the judgment day either under the covenant of works in Adam
or we're gonna stand under the covenant of grace in Christ. We're all gonna come to God in
a covenant, either the covenant of works or the covenant of grace. Now this was a covenant of works.
This was a covenant of works. God promised what he would do,
but then God gave something for the children of Israel to do. He said, I'm going to do marvelous
things. I'm going to do things that have
never been seen in the earth. and I'm gonna use you and I'm
gonna show everybody around you my glory in what I do for you. And he said, now you observe
to do what I'm gonna tell you to do. And he says in verse 11,
here's God's part, he says, behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite
and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite
and the Jebusite and there was a seventh nation, the Gergesites,
he drove them out too. That was God's side, what he
would do. Now here's their side, what God commanded they do. Take
heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants
of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the
midst of thee. God commanded them not to enter
into any covenant of any kind with the enemy. No covenant of
any kind. The law is spiritual now. This reaches to the heart. They
could not even think about entering a covenant with somebody else. Couldn't even think about it. But it wasn't enough to be neutral.
God commanded, verse 13, but you shall destroy their altars,
break their images, cut down their groves. Now here's the
reason. For thou shalt worship no other
God. For the Lord, whose name is Jealous,
is a jealous God. God's name is Jealous. And he's
jealous for his glory, for his honor, for his people with a
holy, righteous jealousy, a perfect jealousy. We must be, his bride
must be chaste. perfectly chaste, in perfect
faith and perfect love to Him alone. God will not allow any
rivals. He will not allow any to share
in the glory and the praise and the adoration and the worship
that's due unto Him. And again, this is spiritual.
They couldn't even think about other gods. They couldn't even
think about taking it easy on these idolaters. They had to
do exactly what God said, break those images down. Now listen
to what the jealous God calls it if we do make a covenant. If we turn from God's covenant
and make a covenant with the enemy and worship the enemy's
gods, here's what the jealous God calls it, verse 15. He says,
lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and
they go a whoring after their gods. He calls it that because
he's speaking here of a covenant union, a relationship. He's the
jealous God. And his bride, his church, is
to be perfectly chaste to him. And he says, and if you're not,
you go whoring after their gods. You do sacrifice unto their gods. And one call thee, and thou eat
of his sacrifice. And thou takest their daughters
unto thy sons, and their daughters go whoring after their gods,
and make thy sons go whoring after their gods. Thou shalt
make thee no molten gods, no images, no likeness of any images,
not even in the heart. Now, our subject this morning
is chaste before the jealous God. Chaste before the jealous
God. God's name is jealous. Therefore, we must keep covenant
with God in perfect chastity, in perfect faith, in perfect
love, without even a thought of another God. Now, I want to look for our divisions
at who is represented by these enemy idolaters? And then secondly,
who conquers these enemies? And then thirdly, what is the
result? Now, first of all, who's represented
by these enemies, these enemy nations? Who's represented? Well, we could say the devil.
We could say sin, death, and hell. But brethren, the enemy
is us. These enemies are us. Every fallen child of Adam, you
and me included, we are by nature the enemy of God, idolatrous,
unchaste, worshiping the idol called self. Now we're born in
the same state that the children of Israel were in when God gave
them this covenant. We're born in the state they
were actually in. The state they were in. They
were already guilty of breaking God's law in Adam. They were
already guilty of breaking covenant with God because they themselves
had just made an idol. They were already guilty and
so were we. So were we. So what was God's
purpose in giving a law, a covenant, that they'd already broken? You're
familiar with Romans 3.19, and he tells us clearly what God's
purpose was in giving the covenant at Sinai. He said, we know that
what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under
the law. Brethren, God says to you who
he's brought under the covenant of grace, you're not under the
law. The law doesn't say this to you.
But all who would be under the law, all who are yet under the
law and all who want to be under the law, here's what the law
says, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become
guilty before God. So by the deeds of the law there
shall no flesh be justified in his sight for by the law is the
knowledge of sin. Now we see our depravity here
when we look at what the children of Israel did. Shouldn't the
word of God be enough? Shouldn't gods who cannot lie
making a promise to us, shouldn't that be enough? to make men worship
and look to Him only? Shouldn't that be enough? The
children of Israel had the very promise of God. God told them
what He was gonna do. He was gonna work unprecedented
miracles before their eyes for them on their behalf. Never before
seen in the earth, He's gonna destroy all these enemies in
Canaan for them. Shouldn't that be enough to make
a man say, I'm gonna look to this God alone? If this God's
on my side, who can be against me? It wasn't enough for them,
and it wasn't enough for us either. They had God's word that as they
destroyed those enemy idols, not just abstained from making
a covenant, but as they destroyed those idols and those groves,
those places where they worshiped, God said, I'll destroy the enemy.
I'll protect you, I'll destroy the enemy. They had God's word
on that. Shouldn't that have been enough?
It wasn't enough for us either. Like all God's law, like every
word that proceeds from the mouth of God, it's for God's glory
and it's for our good. These were enemies. These fellas
where they were going, these were enemy combatants. They were
the enemies of God and they were the enemies of the children of
Israel. And what God commanded them was
only for their good. Every word God speaks is for
our good. Shouldn't that be enough to make
up worship and serve God in truth? It wasn't enough for them and
it wasn't enough for us either. seeing and hearing. I hear people
say, well, if I just had some proof, if I could just see and
just hear the Lord, I believe him. Remember the rich man in
hell? If you send back Lazarus from
the grave, let him walk down the streets and let them hear
him. Or was it Abraham, he said, if you bring him back, he said,
they'll believe you. The Lord said, they have the
word. They won't believe the word. They won't believe a man
rose from the grave. They saw God deliver them out
of Egyptian bondage through a Passover lamb. They saw God destroy Pharaoh
and his army at the Red Sea. They saw with their own eyes
how that God led them. They saw his presence in the
cloud and in the fire that led them. They saw God provide for
them all the way from Egypt to Sinai. They saw this with their
natural eyes. They saw the mountains smoking
and quaking in God's presence. They saw that later Moses is
going to come down from the mountain. They're going to see his face
glowing so brightly they couldn't even look up on it. Wasn't that
enough? You know, men saw Christ with
their own eyes. They saw God in human flesh with
their own eyes. They heard him preach. Never
been a better preacher. They heard him preach. And that
wasn't enough. It wasn't enough for you and
I to hear the gospel preached. It wasn't enough for us to look
around us and behold God's, God's, His Godhead in everything that's
made. That wasn't enough to make us
bow down and worship Him. It left us without excuse, but
it wasn't enough to make us worship Him. It wasn't enough for us to hear
the amazing, marvelous works of God in this gospel that had
never been done before or since. It wasn't enough just to hear
the word preached. Not with these natural ears.
That's depravity. That's total ruin and sin, brethren. Having the covenant word of God
and having seen all of this and heard all of this, soon as they
got into Canaan, They made covenants with the enemy, forsook God's
covenant, made covenants with the enemy, and went whoring after
idols. So did you and I. What then,
are we better than they? Paul said, no and no wise. We've proven before, both Jews
and Gentiles, that we are all under sin. There is none righteous,
no, not one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. We're all gone out of the
way. We're together become unprofitable.
There's none that doeth good, not even one. God's name is jealous. God's
name is jealous. He's jealous for his glory. the
honor due to Him, the praise due to Him. So we have to be
perfectly chaste before God in faith and in love, looking to
Him alone with no just fleeting thought of turning from Him. And if we do, if we have a covetous
thought in our heart, God says we're unfaithful. We're a harlot. It's by Adam and it's by our
own sin nature. All we are is base idolatrous
harlots by nature. So we're the enemy. We're represented
by these idol nations that are the enemy. That's us, brethren. So who must conquer the enemy
for God's covenant people? Who's gonna have to conquer the
enemy? One day, our Lord Jesus Christ
made an unimpressive nobody cross our path, just an earthen vessel
like we are, just a sinner like we are, nothing about him to
be impressive, and God made us hear a message he was preaching.
This was a nobody and it was an unimpressive earthen vessel,
but God had filled him with some unsearchable riches. And we began
to hear the gospel go forth from this earthen vessel. And the
gospel was of another covenant. The gospel was of an everlasting
covenant, a covenant of grace. We began to hear about this covenant.
And here's what we began to hear. God found us when he brought
the gospel to us that day. He found us enemies, enemies
in our minds by wicked works, idolaters, worshiping the idol
of self. That's where he found us. And
we heard this amazing work that God has done. which has never
been done in the earth before or since, but we heard the everlasting
covenant of grace the same way they heard the covenant of works.
Isn't that depravity? We can hear the message of an
everlasting covenant of grace and hear it just like they heard
that covenant of works with the same heart. Oh, we'll do it. Some of us went on whoring after
our idol self in sin and unbelief. We all did. Others of us went on thinking
we were actually the chaste virgins of God, that we had actually
been chaste to the jealous God. We imagined we kept the Law of
Sinai, but every bit of our law keeping was whoredom worship
of the idol of self. Some got a head full of true
doctrine but are arguing over the doctrine of election and
the doctrine of predestination and the doctrine of limited atonement.
All it was was the worship of the idol self. Really what we
thought was we had a superior knowledge than other people.
We had arrived at an intellectual understanding of some things
that these other poor folks couldn't comprehend. And we basically
switched from the Ten Commandments to the Five Points of Calvinism,
but it was the same idolatrous worship. Imagining we're chased before
God. All of us, when the gospel came
to us, were ignorant of the perfection of faith and the perfection of
love which the jealous God requires in order to be chased before
him. We were ignorant of that. But
thankfully, God's name is jealous. That's a good thing for his people.
You know why? Because God's going to have the
bride that he's chosen for his son, he's going to have her united
to his son. And he's not going to share that
glory. That glory belongs to his son and he's going to cause
each member of this bride to be brought to faith in Christ
because he's a jealous God. So one day by his grace, He began
to work and make us have spiritual ears, and we started hearing
how these enemies are conquered. We began to hear how the Son
of God came down. He had entered this covenant
with God, this everlasting, eternal covenant, God the Father and
God the Son, and left nothing in the hands of His people. The
Lord entrusted the people to His Son. He entrusted the glory
of God to His Son. He entrusted Him to fulfill all
covenant obligations for His people. And so the Son of God,
in time, came down and took a body, took flesh, and was made under
this very covenant of works we're looking at. We heard how he served God under
that law in place of his people. He served God in place of his
people. He served God for us, brethren. We were in Him when He served
God, and He served God for us. And how did He serve God? As
a perfect chaste worshiper of God, perfectly faithful to God,
perfectly loving God. All the days that He walked this
earth, it was perfect chastity to God. That which God looks
upon and says, that's chaste. That's righteousness, that's
holiness, that's faith, that's love, that's my glory. And he did it so that he might
fulfill that covenant of works, this covenant we're looking at
here, that he might fulfill this for his people. So that we actually
did everything it says in him. And He did that so that also
He might establish the everlasting covenant of grace and bring us
into this covenant. It's all in His hand. It's all
up to Him to do for His people, to conquer our enemies, do these
marvelous works that's never been done in the earth before
or since. Chaste. Facing enemies, facing sinners,
facing the temptation of the devil, chased, never a thought
about ever looking to anybody but the Father, never a diminution
of His perfect love for the Father and for His people, never. He was perfectly chased in faith
and in love to God our Father the whole time He walked this
earth as our head, as the last Adam, representing his people,
perfectly chaste in faith and love, not only when things were
peaceful, but even when God lay the shameful,
shameful iniquity of all his people on him. You think about, just take the
law we're looking at today. We were all these whorish idolaters
and he made him sin for us. who knew no sin, he made him
bear this before God. And while he took that shame
in going to be made sin and submitting himself to be made sin, he did
it in perfect chaste faith and love to the Father. And then
think about this. You know how easily we're turned
aside. I mean, just something that just offends us. We get
offended so easy. Brethren, Don't get offended. Just don't
get offended. I know that's easier said than
done, but I mean, just always remember how offensive we are
to Him. But listen to this now. He was
perfectly chaste in faith and love to the jealous God, and
to the God of holy jealousy, He was perfectly chaste to Him,
even when God looked upon him as one who had broken the whole
covenant of works and was an unchaste idolater." Think about
that statement. He was perfectly chaste and perfect
faith and love without sin in his heart even while all the
whorish idolatry of his people was laid on him and God regarded
him as the one who had broken the whole law and been the whorish
idolater. He was perfectly chaste in faith
and love to God even as he suffered the wailing and the gnashing
of teeth of hell that you and I owe to divine justice. I'm so unchaste. I'm so unfaithful. I don't even possess love. He puts a little light affliction
on me and I'm just pitying myself and worshiping the idol self. Not
him. Not him. He was perfectly chased
in faith and love right to the end. And here's what he said
to let us know he was chased to the very end. He said, into
thy hands, I commend my spirit. I trust you now with my spirit. And with that he gave up, he
released his spirit from himself. That day that that gospel was
sent to us, when we heard this gospel, you know what happened? To make us hear how Christ conquered
our enemies on the cross, Christ entered in and He conquered the
enemy of this flesh that day. He conquered the enemy within.
He came in and His presence created a new man that caused us to be
able to hear what He had done and believe what He had done
and to confess that we are the enemy, the unchaste idolater. We heard it and for the first
time, It became so personal, Christ did it for me. All of that, He did for me. It got that personal, didn't
it? Now, thirdly, what's the result? What was the result of
Christ's finished work? He made us to know that on the
cross, oh, listen to this good news, brethren, on the cross,
Our whorish, idolatrous body of sin was crucified and died
and was buried forever. How can it be in two places at
once? Well, with God it can't. It's
gone. Our body of sin, Romans 6 says,
was destroyed. was crucified and died so that
we're dead to sin. And because justice was satisfied,
we're dead to the law. Dead to sin and dead to the law. Has nothing else. We're not under
the law. The law has nothing else to say
to it. It said it all in Christ on the cross. And while that
was happening, also, We were perfectly chased in perfect faith
and perfect love, fulfilling all the law of God in perfect
righteousness and perfect holiness. And we arose with Him to God's
right hand and sat down. There we are, brethren. There
we are. Can you see yourself on the cross,
crucified, died, buried, out of sight? then now turn and look
and see Christ at God's right hand and know, believer, that's
your life. That's you. That's you there. God says that's you there. As
he is, so are we in this world. How is he? Accepted of God, complete,
perfect, delighted in. And so are we. So are we. did this conquering work in our
heart, he declares to us. This is why Paul declared this,
and I declare this to you and you as well, just like Paul did.
Paul said, we know the devil's wiles, we know something of it.
His desire to conquer us, is to send his preachers and turn
you from this chaste one. His desire is to turn you, and
it doesn't matter what he turns you to, just as long as he turns
you from Christ, that's all he cares about. And he does it by
beguiling you, by tricking you. laying a snare for you to make
you worship the idol self, to part and quit assembling with
God's people, to leave the gospel, to go into the groves where they
worship idols, that idol of self and worship there. That's what
he's wanting you to do. And that's why Paul said, I am
jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I have espoused
you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin
to Christ." And brethren, the reason our Lord draws us to Him
and makes us His chaste virgin, makes us perfect in His perfection,
is so that one day The mediator is going to present us to Himself
who is the true and living jealous God. And when He does that, He's
going to present us to Himself perfectly chaste, without spot,
without blemish. But we have to be kept looking
and resting and trusting Him only. Oh, our faith is not perfect. Our love is not perfect. We have
the enemy with us all the time. It's not our faith itself that's
going to be our salvation. It's not our love itself that
keeps us. It's His faith and His love. That's what true faith knows.
True faith looks out of self to Him and says, there's the
author and finisher of my faith. There's the lover of my soul,
the lover of God in whom I've loved perfectly. There He is. But brethren, when He brought
them into that land, He left some enemies. He didn't take
out all the enemies. He left some enemies in that
land. And He's left some enemies in this land, in our body, called
the sin nature. Why did He leave those enemies
in that land? To prove the children of Israel. Some were proven that
He had not sent forth His Spirit and had not done His work in
conquering the enemy of their flesh, and so what did they do?
They entered covenant and worshipped idols. But others He proved were
His, who even though they sinned, He still kept them looking to
Him and resting in Him. He's left us in this body with
these enemies in our land to teach you and me we can never
look to ourselves. Not ever. We can't trust the
enemy within. We can't do it. And because he
did this work through the preaching of the gospel now, we know, we've
experienced it. We know the power of God and
we know that the weapons of this warfare are not carnal. They're
mighty through God. He came to our Jericho heart,
walled up to heaven that was not gonna let him in. And what
did he do? He blew the trumpet and he broke
down the stronghold and he came in and the gate of hell didn't
prevail against him. And he created a new heart. And
we know that, we've experienced that. So we can't look to our
flesh to try to do anything to affect obedience in us or in
our brethren. We have to depend on the Word
of God. We have to depend on our Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh, we use His Word. We point
each other to His Word and remind each other of His Word, and He'll
use us in that way. But all the while, He's gonna
constantly keep us remembering it's His mighty power that's
gotta do the work. He's left us here to prove to
us there's no righteousness in us. There's no strength in us,
there's no power in us, except Christ keep us in our new man,
pure and sanctified unto Him, we'll fall away in an instant.
Why does He let you fall into sin? Why does He let you just
stumble and fall like He does? Why does He do that? He keeps
you knowing you can't do this yourself. You can't do this yourself. He uses our own sins to keep
us at His feet. He uses it to your helplessness
and your utter weakness. He uses it to keep you at His
feet, praying, Lord, please save me. Please save me. You just
beg Him, Lord, please be my strength. Please be my refuge. Please be
my stronghold. Lord, please save me from me. And all the while you're confessing
to him, oh, wretched man that I am. Nobody can deliver me from
the body of this death. I can't do it. Nobody else can
do it. But I thank God through Jesus
Christ, my Lord. He's the conqueror. He's the
one who can deliver me. He has, he is, and he shall.
And He continues to deliver through the Spirit, giving us strength
to mortify our flesh, turning our affection to Him above. And He makes us, by His Spirit,
He makes us endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the
bond of peace. You know what the chief reason
is that you endeavor to keep unity? You want to be unified
with your brethren, you want to be assembled with your brethren,
and you want to keep your brethren in peace with one another. And
he makes that just preeminent in your heart that you want peace. You want peace. Why do you want
peace with your brethren? Because I need the peacemaker.
I need this gospel. I need this word. And I need
my brethren. He's going to use my brethren
to send it forth. And I need them because I need
Him. And He keeps you by that spirit.
He keeps you from reading the text, brother, being read and
saying, yeah, they ought to do that. And He makes you say, I
need to do this better. I haven't done this, even begun
to do this like I ought to. That's what he does. That's really
the heart of his people. And when our Lord is working
in his people, it's not that we ought to do it, he makes you
do it. Now there may be, you may not
see how your brother has done this for you, but you trust the
Lord they have. Because if you start thinking
they have it, you're going to start thinking, well, they ought
to be doing that for me. That's that beguiling devil again. You keep your affection set on
Christ so that you know, he's working this in my brethren.
What I'm saying is, he makes you see your brethren as better
than yourself. He makes you see your brethren
as faithful. He makes you see your brethren
as doing what they ought to do. And instead of imputing something
wicked to them that they haven't done because they didn't come
and bow down to the idol self like they should have, He breaks
down that image in your heart. He breaks down that grove in
your heart and He makes you realize, I need to help them. I need to
do for them. We can't exalt ourselves over
anybody because He makes you know You are the worst, unchaste,
whorish idolater of the bunch. Doesn't he? True worship has got to be spiritual,
brethren. It's got to be a new heart. It's
got to be from a new heart. It can't be in the letter. The
letter killeth. The letter kills not only us,
it kills everybody around it. The letter is, it just devours. That's what the letter does.
Those brethren, when they got into the land of Canaan and was
broke covenant and was worshiping idols, you know what they really
thought in their hearts? We've kept covenant with God.
That's what they thought. How have we not kept the covenant
with God? And that's such a deception,
isn't it? And he keeps you saying, I've
never kept this covenant with God, but thank God my Redeemer
has. He kept it. And in Him, I'm complete. He's got to conquer the enemies
within and without, and He does it by the regenerating, sanctifying,
mortifying fear of God that He puts in our heart. Make us see
He's a jealous God and He won't receive anything but perfect
fidelity from His bride. And that's in Christ, Christ
only. And He keeps you looking to Him.
But here it is, brethren. All our resting, all our comfort,
all our hope, all our joy is knowing this. None of these enemies
are going to separate us from Christ. None of them. None of
them are going to separate us from the love of God in Christ.
But though we're just weak sheep killed all the day long, Here's
the good news. We're more than conquerors through
Him that loved us. More than conquerors. Amen.