Alright brethren, Exodus 34,
and if you have 1 Peter marked, go ahead and mark 1 Peter chapter
2. I want to show you something
there before we get started. Now, long before we get to our
text, our text is where the Lord says to Moses to hew two tables
of stone like the first and come up into the mount And God's going
to write the law, He's going to restore the law again on those
tables. So He's at Mount Sinai. But long
before this, long before this, over 430 years prior to this,
God made with Abraham an everlasting covenant of grace. That means
He came to Abraham and promised to save Abraham. And He promised
to save a multitude of his elect who were Abraham's
spiritual children. And God promised to do this without
any conditions that Abraham or his elect had to meet. It was
not a covenant of law, of works. It was a covenant of grace. There
were no conditions that Abraham or the people God saved had to
meet in order to be saved. There were no laws they had to
keep. There were no works they had to do. It was a covenant
of grace. God promised to save Abraham
and his spiritual children from all their sins. That's what a
covenant of grace is. It's free. God does it all. When God came to Israel, and
they were in Egypt in bondage, these are the physical children
of Abraham, there were some of those elect who were spiritual
children amongst them, but God came to them and he showed us
a picture of this covenant of grace. He showed us what it is.
He came to them freely, there was no reason in them, they were
in bondage, and there was nothing in them that made God set his
affection on them. God said, you were the least
of all nations, but because I loved you, that's why I set my favor
on you. That's grace. And then God provided
them a, he provided them a preacher in Moses, a shepherd to lead
them, And he said, now, slay a lamb, Passover lamb, and tonight
I'll pass through, and when I see the blood, I'll pass over you.
And that's how he brought them out of Egypt. Picture Christ
bringing us out of bondage from under the law by his precious
blood. And then he takes them and he
destroys their enemies at the Red Sea and he begins leading
them through the wilderness. He led them by a cloud by day
and a pillar of fire by night. A picture of Christ our shepherd
leading his church. All this was grace. They didn't
have a law. They didn't have any works to do. They didn't
have any law to keep. This was all grace. God just
leading them to a land of promise. And he fed them with manna from
heaven. A picture of Christ our bread. He gave them a day where he provided
everything for them so they could just rest from all their labors
and not do anything on that day. Picture of Christ, our Sabbath,
in whom we rest from all our works of bondage. And he gave
them water out of the rock. Paul said that rock is Christ.
It all pictured Christ, everything. And that was a covenant of grace.
He didn't give them a law. He didn't give them anything
to do. He just let them. brought them out of bondage and
was leading them through the wilderness. And they just heard
the word at Moses' mouth and they followed the Lord. They
followed that cloudy pillar. When it stopped, they stopped.
At night, by fire, he surrounded them, protected them. When the
Lord moved, they moved. And this is how they served God. That's a picture of grace. Picture
of grace. Now he brought them then to Mount
Sinai. And look back at Exodus 19. It
says in Exodus 19, now he's going to show a covenant of works. He's going to show a covenant
of works, and he's giving this to them to show them their sin
and to show us our sin. That's why he gave this covenant
of works. And he said to them in Exodus 19 5, Exodus 19 5,
he says, now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, now
he gave them some laws to keep. He'd come down with the Ten Commandments
and all the law of God and he gave them some laws to keep.
If you'll obey my voice indeed, keep my covenant. Now they have
to keep a part of this covenant. He said, then you shall be, now
watch these words, a peculiar treasure unto me above all people,
for the earth is mine. If you keep this law, if you
do all these work, you'll be a peculiar people to me. He said
in verse six, and you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests. You'll be king priests, and you'll
be a holy nation. And of course, you know the rest.
They said, oh, we'll do everything God says, and that was presumption,
thinking we can please God, but they failed. And the fact is,
they were guilty already in Adam when God gave the law to them.
God didn't give them that law. He could make a statement like
that, say, if you keep this, this is what you'll be. That
does not imply in the least bit that God ever thought they could
keep that law. If they would have kept it, that's
what they'd have been. But they couldn't. They were already guilty.
And he gave it to shut our mouths and declare us guilty. Now, go
to 1 Peter chapter 2. We were all guilty in Adam, and
so God gave that law to show us our sin, show us we couldn't
come to God by a covenant of works. We gotta be saved by another.
And that other is Christ. He came And he fulfilled every
law. He fulfilled all the obligations
for his people. When God said, if you keep this
covenant, if you obey my voice, Christ did that for his people.
So that when now God comes to us, he comes to us like he did
Abraham and makes a covenant of grace with us. He tells us
the works are done. Follow me. Follow me. Now watch
this. He sent, Christ sent the Spirit.
He made us the temple. He made us spiritual stone. He
made us priests to offer spiritual sacrifices. Now watch this, verse
four. To whom coming? To Christ, a
living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and
precious. So now we come to Christ. There's
no conditions for us to meet, no laws for us to keep, because
Christ did it. Now look at verse five. Ye also,
as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house. We don't worship
in a physical temple. We're the house. We're the spiritual
house. You're a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices.
We're the priests now. He made us priests under God
to offer up spiritual sacrifices and they're acceptable to God
by Jesus Christ. Everything's accepted by God
in Christ. He accepts us in Christ. Now
look at verse nine. Remember what he told them they'd
be if they kept all the law? Now Christ has done it for us,
and look what he says to us. He didn't tell us to keep it,
and this is what we'll be. He says, this is what you now
are. Listen, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,
a kingdom of priests. You're a holy nation. You're
a peculiar people. That means a treasured people.
See, we don't have to do these, we don't have to do the covenant
of works to be this. Christ did it, so he's made us
this. He's made us this. And here's
where our spiritual sacrifices are, that you should show forth
the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light. So he's done that. Since Christ fulfilled the whole
covenant of works, now you understand this, Gentiles, you and I, were
never under this law he's giving at Sinai. We were not under this
law. But the whole religious world
is trying to take those who profess to believe Christ and take them
back to Sinai and put them under this covenant of works and require
and say that you have to keep the law or you can't be saved.
Gentiles, you and I, were never under that law to begin with.
But Christ came and he fulfilled all of that covenant of works
and took it out of the way for his elect among the Jews, but
you and I were under the law we broke in Adam in the garden.
We were under that curse and Christ took us out from under
that curse. He fulfilled everything for His elect, whether we're
Jew or Gentile, so that He took it all out of the way, so that
now we're led of the Spirit, we can follow Christ and hear
His voice, and He gives you the power of His Spirit to obey Him
and follow Him and do as He says. And so now we're here at Sinai. in Exodus 34, and God's giving
that covenant of Sinai, giving this covenant of works now. I
said all that to say this to you. We're not under that covenant
of works. We're not under this covenant of works we're about
to see. If you're a believer, see, we were under the law of
sin and death. But now, as a believer born of
God, we're under the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. We're living under God. There's
no law except the law of Christ, the law of faith, the law of
love, the law of liberty that we're under. We're following
Christ. We do as Christ commands, following
him. But even as God's giving this
covenant of works, he shows us a picture. Even as he's given
us a law to shut our mouths, he shows us a picture of Christ. He foreshadows Christ to come
and how Christ came and fulfilled the law for his people and ascended
to the Father and made it so that we're a holy priesthood.
He shows us a picture as Moses is reinstating this law. And
that's what I want to show you today. Remember John said the
law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. We're gonna see the law here
coming by Moses, but in that, we're gonna see a picture of
grace and truth coming by Christ Jesus. Okay, you with me? You with me? All right. Now,
let's just jump into this and we'll take it verse by verse.
First of all, God our Father put the work of establishing
the law in the hand of His only begotten Son. All the work that
was required to save His people from the law broken in the garden
and to fulfill this covenant of works that He gave, all the
work was put into the hands of Christ Jesus, the only begotten
Son of God. We see that pictured here. Verse
1, the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone,
like unto the first, and I will write upon these tables the words
that were in the first tables which thou breakest. Now in establishing
this old covenant of works, that's what's being established, covenant
of works, that's the opposite of a covenant of grace. Covenant
of grace says there's nothing for us to do. Covenant of works
says you gotta do all this law yourself. Now, in establishing
that covenant of works, the first thing the Lord did is he looked
to Moses. It says here, the Lord said unto
Moses. This was the very first work
of establishing the old covenant. The Lord looked to Moses. The
Lord told Moses his mind and purpose concerning how he would
establish this covenant. Well, brethren, there's a foreshadowing
there of Christ, because the first work of establishing the
everlasting covenant of grace was God our Father looked to
Christ his Son. He didn't look to anybody else,
he looked to Christ. Just like God looked to Moses
when he was instituting this covenant of works, and nobody
else, he didn't look to anybody else in Israel, he looked to
Moses. Well, when he was establishing the everlasting covenant of grace,
God looked to Christ. He looked to Christ his Son alone.
His scripture says, Psalm 89.9 says, then thou spakest in vision
to thy holy one and said, I've laid help upon one that's mighty,
I've exalted one chosen out of the people. He chose his son.
Both he that sanctifies and they that are sanctified are all of
one, for which cause he's not ashamed to call us brethren.
Just like God chose Moses from among the people, God chose his
son who would be made flesh from among the people to be the one
who would institute this covenant of grace. And the Lord put the
work of healing these tables. You know, he came down, he broke
those tables, so now this law's gotta be restored. And so he
put that work in Moses' hands to hew these stone tablets. It
says there in verse two, he said, hew thee two tables of stone. In verse three, he said, and
no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout
all the mount, neither let the flocks nor herds feed before
that mount. He put the work of restoring
the law, of making these tablets, he put that work in Moses' hand. No man could help him, not even
the sheep or the herd could be up before the mount. Well, God
put the work of fulfilling the law, restoring the law, honoring
and magnifying the law, God the Father put that work in the hand
of Christ. He gave that work to Christ.
No man but Christ the God-man could fulfill it. Listen to scripture. Psalm 14.2 says, the Lord looked
down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any
that did understand or seek God. They're all gone aside. They're
all together become filthy. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. That's God's word. He looked
upon all the children of men throughout all time and he said
there's not a one of them that does good, not one. None of them
seek God. He said in Isaiah 63, 5, I looked
and there was none to help. I wondered that there was none
to uphold. Now listen, therefore, mine own
arm brought salvation unto me. He put the work in the hand of
Christ, his own arm, Christ the Lord alone was sent forth to
fulfill the whole law. and honor it and magnify it and
make good for his people. God said no man can even be seen
throughout all the mount. Christ alone is the one who works
it. You and I, none of us can get any credit in establishing
the law. Christ alone. He said not even
the herds and the flocks can feed before this mount. The herd and the flocks are a
picture of God's elect, Christ's sheep. But you and I can't even
feed on this Mount Sinai. We can't be fed on Mount Sinai. And when I say that, I mean we
can't go to the law and try to find life. It won't happen. Our shepherd is seated in Mount
Zion. That's the church. And the word's
going forth out of Mount Zion, and he's feeding his sheep with
the gospel of the everlasting covenant of grace that he fulfilled. We can't go to Mount Sinai and
get life. We have to go to Christ on Mount
Zion to get life. There's some differences here,
though, between Moses and Christ. We can see a picture of Christ
here from the differences. One, Moses couldn't be a true
mediator. Now, he is, in a sense, a mediator. He's going between God and the
children of Israel. But in the truest sense, he couldn't
be a mediator. Go to Galatians 3, I'll show
you why. The scriptures, Moses, a mediator, represents two parties. He's able to lay hold of each
party. That means the mediator had to
be, he had to be God and he had to be man. To be able to represent
God and represent man, he had to be able to lay his hand on
both. Moses was just a man. Now look here. Galatians 3.18,
if the inheritance be of the law, it's no more of promise,
but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth
the law? Now that's what we're looking
at in our text, God giving the law. What's the purpose of the
law? It was added because of transgressions. It was given to show you and
I we're sinners and we're guilty and we can't come to God by the
law. That's why it was given. But
look, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made,
that is Christ. And it was ordained by angels
in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator's not a mediator
of one, but God is one. You see, what he's saying here
is in order for Moses to be a true mediator, he had to be able to
represent both parties, God and his people. And Moses was a man,
and not only a man, a sinful man. And so he couldn't satisfy
God. The only one that could do that
was the God-man. the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
why he's God and man. He can represent God and he can
represent his people and he can bring us together. Moses couldn't
do that. Moses was only representing one
party. He was only representing men. He could not represent God
because he wasn't God. There's one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself
a ransom for all to be testified in due time. He's the mediator. He alone. So that's one difference. Moses wasn't a true mediator.
Now here's another difference. Moses was called to this work
after the children of Israel had broken the law. They'd already
broken the law. God called the Son before as
yet a law had ever been broken. Before we ever broke the law
in the garden, God set up the Savior. There was a Savior before
there was ever a sinner. Eternal sovereign God chose Christ
and chose his people in Christ and blessed us in Christ before
as yet there was ever one law broken. Here's another difference. The Lord himself wrote the law
of the covenant of works and he wrote it on tables of stone.
You see, this covenant of works, the spirit of God wasn't given.
It was written on stone. And it was simple as this. This
says do and don't do. You need to do this, you need
to keep this. And if you break one commandment
in your heart, you broke the whole thing. 613 commandments,
you broke them all if you broke one. But now the new covenant, go
to 2 Corinthians 3, it's written by Christ and it's written on
the heart. Look here, 2 Corinthians 3. Paul said, verse three, you are manifestly declared to
be the epistle of Christ. Christ is the author, ministered
by us through the gospel, but written not with ink, but with
the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in
fleshly tables of the heart. He comes and he writes not the
law of Sinai on your heart, He writes the law of the everlasting
covenant of grace on your heart. He makes you to know Christ has
put away all your sin, he's made you righteous, he's made you
holy, and he is all, and you're complete in him. It's called
the law of faith. And when he does this, you believe
on him. And he writes this on the heart. The old covenant of
works didn't do that. It didn't do that. It never showed
us mercy. It never showed us grace. It
didn't make mercy and truth meet together in harmony. It was just
the truth. It was the law. Here it is. Do
it or be damned. That's all it said. And gave
no power, no help, no aid to do it. The covenant of grace
says it's done. Here's faith to believe me. Here's
repentance to turn from your flesh. Here's mercy and long-suffering
and patience, all the fruit of the Spirit. He writes it all
on this new heart. He gives you a new heart. Now
Moses was only used to establish one covenant. You can say, well,
he established the first time when he came down the first time
and told them all this law and then they broke it and then he
went up again and got it again and brought it down and established
it, but it was just one covenant. It was just the covenant of works.
But see, our Lord Jesus, he established the first covenant The covenant
we broke in Adam and the covenant of works, he fulfilled everything
required to bring his people out from under that covenant.
But he also established the new covenant. He did everything required
for us to be accepted of God into his presence. He did everything
to redeem us from the old and satisfy the old, and he did everything
to make the new everlastingly new to his people. Scripture
says, Hebrews 10, 9 says, Christ said, Lo, I come to do thy will,
O God. He taketh away the first, he
took away that first covenant, that he may establish the second,
the everlasting covenant of grace, by the which will we're sanctified
through the offering of the body of Christ one time. That's how
we're made perfect, that's how we're made holy. He fulfilled
the first covenant and established the second covenant. Another
difference is Moses himself broke those stone tablets. He said
there in verse one, I'll write upon these tables the words that
were in the first tables which thou breakest. Moses came down
from the mount and he saw they were dancing around a golden
calf, he threw the stones down and broke them. So Moses can't
be the one to fulfill the law, Moses broke it. He himself was
a sinner. But our Lord Jesus Christ came
forth holy He knew no sin. He came forth perfect. He had
to be. There's only been two men in
the history of this world who came into this world without
sin. That's Adam and the Lord Jesus
Christ. And those are the two heads.
Adam represented everybody that be born of him. We all sinned
in him. Christ represents all who shall
be born of him, his elect. and he made his people righteous.
He said, for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be
sanctified through the truth. Does that mean Christ had to
make himself holy? No, it just means he was holy.
He set himself apart. Such a high priest became us,
who's holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher
than the heavens, who needeth not daily as those other high
priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins and then
for the people's. He did this one time when he
offered up himself. The law makes men priests who
have infirmities. They have sins. But the word
of the oath, which was since the law, makes Christ the Son
who's consecrated forevermore. He's holy, he's holy. Now let
me tell you something, and you get this. There's only one reason,
only one reason that the Lord Jesus Christ, who was holy in
himself, who knew no sin, there's only one reason that he was able
to die on the cross, only one. He was bearing sin. That's the
only reason he could die. He had borne the sin of his people
and was made guilty before the law of God so that God was just
to pour out justice on him. And if a man has no sin, he can't
die. Death has no claim on him. The
only way Christ could die was that He took the sin of His people
and stood in our place and really did bear our sin. He was a sin-bearer
on that tree. That's the only reason Christ
could die. People want to argue, was He
really made sin? Did He really die? That's the
only way He could have died, was to be made sin and bear the
sin of His people. Yes, He was made sin, but He
bore that sin away And now, you know why God said he wouldn't
suffer his holy one to see corruption? He could not stay in the grave
because he himself was holy and he satisfied justice and honored
God's law and brought in perfect righteousness so that death had
no claim on him. Death couldn't hold him in the
grave. So he came forth. And brethren, the good news to
you is death has no claim on you. He put away our sin. You sitting here right now, I
know that the most fearful thing or the thing that causes the
most anxiousness is that when you really get the news that
you're going to die and you know it's coming. But let me tell
you something believer, you're not going to die. You're not
going to die. When you go home today and you
take off your Sunday clothes I want you to think of this.
This is what it's going to be when I close my eyes in death.
All you're going to do is take off these old dirty clothes,
this old dirty garment of flesh, but you're still going to be
alive. That's all that death will be
for a believer is putting off this body of death and awaking
in God's presence. I was talking to some of you
the other day. I don't think we We're like a fish in water,
we just, all we know is sin. Like a fish only knows water,
all we know is sin. You know how Eddie was telling me the other
day about this, something he had with his ear and his ears
swole up and he had all this pressure on his ear and he was
talking about when they popped it. He said, man, it just, he
said it was such a relief. It just felt so good because
that pressure was gone. And my thought was this, I thought,
That's about as close as I could get to thinking of what it'll
be like when we put this sin off one day. To have none? Just to be totally conformed
to Christ's image and have no sin? I bet that'll be the first
time we realize how bad sin had really affected us. When it's
gone and you're just, you have none anymore. That's what death's
gonna be to a believer. It's gonna be a glorious, joyous
release from all this pressure and burden of sin. No more, no
more. All right, look here, then we
have a shadow of Christ risen, how he went up into God's presence.
Verse two, the Lord said, be ready in the morning, come up
in the morning unto Mount Sinai and present thyself there to
me in the top of the mountain. And Moses did what the Lord commanded.
He rose up early in the morning. And in that we have a shadow
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came in the morning, the new
day, the day of grace. It was the dawning of a new day
when Christ came. And our Lord Jesus was ready,
He was zealous to fulfill all God's will. He said, I must be
about my Father's business. He said, the zeal of Thine house
has eaten me up. And He went about doing everything
God the Father gave Him to do until the last breath. And He
cried out, It is finished. He did it all. He did it all. And then he ascended up, just
like Moses went up Mount Sinai, our Lord Jesus ascended to Mount
Zion into God's very presence. It says there, verse four, he
hewed the two tables of stone like the first. Moses rose up
early in the morning, went up onto Mount Sinai as the Lord
had commanded him and took in his hand the two tables of stone.
Moses did everything God commanded him. Our Lord Jesus Christ did
everything God the Father commanded. Moses went up there with two
brand new stone tablets and presented them to the Father for the Father
to write the covenant on them. Our Lord Jesus Christ went up
and presented himself, the perfect fulfillment of the law, himself,
the righteous fulfillment of the law. He who had the law written
on his heart, who never did anything but what pleased the Father,
who bore the sin away, satisfied justice, honored the law, glorified
God and his government, he went up and presented himself to the
Father. You notice there when this work
was done, that's when Moses saw the glory of God. That's when
God showed his glory to Moses. We read verses 5 through 7. I
won't go into it again, but that's where he saw all, he saw the
name of the Lord. He saw his mercy and his grace
and his long-suffering and his goodness and truth and how he
was keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, but how he by no means cleared the guilty. what Christ
did at Calvary on the cross, when you see Him there on the
cross, when you see Him ascended to the Father, when you see Him
there accepted of God, when God makes you to see Him, you see
the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. It's not an
accident that when Moses came down and he did what God commanded
and made those tablets and went up to God, that's when God showed
him his glory. Because the picture is of Christ. We see God's glory in how Christ
came down and did everything the Father commanded and ascended
to God, righteous. He is the righteousness we need.
And there you see the glory of God. God commands the light to
shine out of darkness, just like He did in the beginning. And
He shines in your heart, and when He does, He makes you behold
God's very glory in the face of Christ Jesus. Everything God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit has to say
about Himself, you behold in Christ Jesus the Lord, that God-man,
mediator. He's the glory. And Moses, at
that point, when he went up, Moses immediately began to intercede
for the people. He said there in verse eight,
Moses made haste, he bowed his head toward the earth and he
worshiped. You know why our worship is received of the Father? Do
you really think, anybody here think that this worship we're
doing here, where we're bowing down in our hearts and worshiping
God, do you think that this of itself would be acceptable to
God? No way. Why is it acceptable to God?
Because Christ, like Moses, was doing this in the place of Israel.
Christ, in our place, has bowed and worshiped the Father perfectly. And all these spiritual sacrifices
right here we're offering up, they're accepted of God in Christ
Jesus. And look what Moses did, verse
9. He said, O Lord, let my Lord,
I pray thee, go among us. It's a stiff-necked people, and
isn't that true of us? That's what we are, a stiff-necked
people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for thine
inheritance. And just like Moses prayed and
included himself with them, saying, pardon us and go with us and
be with us, our Lord Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren.
And His intercession for us is why God promised, I will never
leave you, I'll never forsake you, I'll be with you all the
time, and I'll go with you, and I'll deliver you, and I'll pardon
you, and I'll forgive you, and I'll never stop doing it for
the sake of my son. He ever lives to make intercession
for us. He's able to save you to the
uttermost, sinner. You think you're too far gone?
You think you're too much of a sinner? That's not the problem. The problem is you think you're
too righteous. That's the problem. But he's
able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him because
he ever lives to make intercession for his people. He'll intercede
with God for you. You need an advocate. You need
somebody speaking to you on your behalf. And when the Spirit of
God has made us behold the glory of God in Christ, he makes us
bow in faith just like Moses did. And that's when He makes
with us this new covenant of grace. He reveals to you, the
works are finished. He reveals to you now, believe
on my Son and love one another. And look what He tells you. We
see a picture here in verse 10. He said, behold, I make a covenant.
Now this was a covenant of works, but we still see a picture of
God's grace in there. He said, before all thy people,
I will do marvels. And that's who's doing the marvels
with us, brethren. It's God. I will do the marvels, God says.
And such have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation. And it is truly that amazing.
Nothing's ever been done like what God's done in his son for
his people. He says, and all the people among
which thou art shall see the work of the Lord. And all his
people are gonna see it. Nobody else outside of Israel
saw this, but the people among whom Moses was saw it. And Christ's
people are gonna see this work. It's a terrible, it's an amazing
thing that I'll do. Observe thou that which I command
thee this day. Behold, I drive out before thee
the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite,
and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. We'll look more at this another
time, but what God is saying is, I'm gonna conquer all your
enemies, and I'm gonna deliver you into this land I've promised.
And brethren, in Christ, that's the covenant God makes with us.
Did you see anything there that God said, now you're going to
have to do? And that was a covenant of works. There was some things
he was going to require them to do, but it's a picture of
the covenant of grace. And when he makes this covenant
with us, he tells us, Christ has conquered all your enemies,
and I'm going to conquer your enemies. The enemies in your
flesh, you still have that sinful flesh, for now he's subduing
our flesh, but soon he's going to put that flesh off and conquer
that enemy for good. He's conquered the devil, he's
crushed his head, and soon he's going to brew Satan under our
feet. And the last enemy that's going to be destroyed is death.
And so we go to Romans 8. This is what we read because
of this covenant of grace. Verse 31, What shall we say then
to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He spared not his own son, but
delivered him up for us all. He's talking to God's people
here now. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea rather
that's risen again, who's even at the right hand of God, who
also makes intercession for us. Who's gonna separate us from
the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it's written,
for thy sake we're killed all the day long, we're counted as
sheep for the slaughter, we're helpless against our enemies,
but no, In all these things, we're more than conquerors through
him that loved us. I'm persuaded that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. Brethren, the covenant of grace
is this simple. Believe God. Believe on his son. And as we travel through this
wilderness together, trusting that he has delivered us, he
is delivering us, and he shall yet deliver us, love one another. Be merciful, be kind, be long-suffering,
be patient. Do whatever we need to do for
each other to keep each other, help each other continue looking
to Christ alone. That's our rule. The rule of
love is this. What will be best in this situation
to keep our brother looking to Christ? What's going to be best
to keep him looking to Christ? That's love. And this is the
rule we're under. Believe on Christ, love one another. He shall deliver us into the
promised land. He did that for them and they
didn't keep one requirement. And he still delivered them into
Canaan and said, there's not one thing that I promised you
that I haven't fulfilled and you haven't fulfilled one of
them. Now if he did that for them and they didn't fulfill
any, what do you think he'll do for us now that Christ has
fulfilled every obligation? We shall be delivered. That's
the law in Christ's hand. Aren't you glad it's in His hand,
not in ours? Amen.