While you're turning there, I
want to make a couple of announcements. First of all, we're not going
to have service Thursday since it's Thanksgiving. I hope everybody
has a happy Thanksgiving with family. We're not having service
that day. Secondly, I want you to be aware
that if you touch the thermostat to hold the temperature or you
think in your mind you're turning off the temperature, It holds
wherever it's at. So if it's on, it holds on. It bypasses the schedule, and
it holds it on. So sometimes when it gets touched,
I come down here Tuesday or Wednesday, and it's been on the whole time.
If it gets touched when it's off, it stays off. So like this
morning, I came in, and it was 50 degrees because it didn't
work on the schedule like it should have at 8.30 this morning.
So probably best just to leave it alone and I'll try to keep
it adjusted from my phone and that way it will stay on schedule
and all that. And then the third thing I was
going to tell you is in case anybody gets distracted by this
big giant Mark I have on my lip, just know, Melinda has a strong
right hook. Alright, let's turn to Exodus
21. Now, we see in this passage,
again, the hardness of a man's heart. You know, Scripture tells
us for the hardness of men's heart, Moses was allowed to tell
men they could divorce their wives. And we're shown here that
this was the hardness of sinful man's heart and the goodness
of God to regulate it. Because a man who fell in poverty
would sell his daughter, his young daughter. We're talking
about six, seven years old. He would sell her to be a handmaid. And so to protect the young daughter,
God gave statutes concerning how she was to be redeemed, how
she was to be purchased, and how she was to be treated by
her master. And in addition to that, to protect
the daughter, God gave us a very beautiful picture of how Christ
redeems His bride and provides everything for us. So we see
God's wisdom here. He overruled sin for His own
glory. I've titled this, The Law of
the Maid-Servant, and I want you to see that as a maid-servant
was redeemed and betrothed to be married to her master, so
God's elect, the daughter of Israel, was redeemed by Christ
and betrothed to be married to our master. Just as she was purchased,
redeemed, when that happened, she was betrothed to her master
to marry him when she got of age. And in the same way, Christ
redeemed His people, betrothed us to Him so that one of these
days we're going to have the marriage supper of the Lamb when
we're married to Him. So let's read it, Exodus 21.7. It says, If a man sell his daughter
to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants
do. If she please not her master,
who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed. To sell her unto a strange nation
he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with
her. And if he hath betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal
with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another
wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall
he not diminish. And if he do not these three
unto her, then shall she go out free without money. First of
all, we see how we came into debt unto God. We see a picture
of this in that the debt of this daughter was her father's fault. She came into debt because of
her father's mismanagement. It says there in verse 7, if
a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, the daughter,
she did no works to bring this debt upon herself. She didn't
do anything. It wasn't her responsibility.
It was the father as the head of the house. It was his responsibility
and he mismanaged his affairs and brought himself into debt.
And because of that, she came into debt. Everybody in the house
was indebted. That's how she could be sold.
Now, we've seen in Romans 5 and we've seen in Genesis 3, we did
not with our own hands do the work that put us in debt. But,
God said we were in Adam and we did what Adam did. Before God, before the law, that's
how God says it is. And however God says it is, that's
how it is. So, He imputed sin to us and
we came in debt because of our father. And so we're in need
of being redeemed. Now, what that means because
we're in sin, that means sin has made it so we're absolutely
incapable of doing anything to save ourselves. Nothing to add
to our regeneration, where we can do nothing to add to our
justification, We can do nothing to add to our preservation. We are actually totally preserved
by God. We talk about persevering in
the faith and encouraging one another to persevere in the faith.
We would not do that if God was not preserving us at all times.
We have nothing to add to our resurrection. We have nothing
to add to our glorification. We are totally at the mercy of
God to save us beginning to end and all points in between. The
works are all of God, all of God. Now secondly, I want you
to see this. In order to take care of the
debt, in order to pay off the debt, the father could sell his
daughter and that meant she was redeemed by another. She was purchased by another.
Look at verse 7. If a man sell his daughter to
be a maid servant, she shall not go out as the men servants
do. Now, that tells us she was not
redeemed to be a servant. That was not why she was redeemed.
She was redeemed to be the bride of her master or the bride of
her master's son. She was redeemed to be betrothed
espoused to either the master or the master's son. That's why she was redeemed.
He says there in verse 8, the master betrothed her to himself. He says in verse 9, if he had
betrothed her to his son. Betrothal, we've talked about
this before, is somewhat like an engagement. It meant that
there was going to be a marriage in the future. But a betrothal
was more binding They had an engagement and a betrothal was
binding like a marriage. It was binding like marriage.
So when you betrothed somebody, you were supposed to marry that
person. You gave your word that you would marry that person. And when you paid the redemption
money, that ratified the betrothal. That guaranteed, that was supposed
to be the guarantee that you would marry this person. And
that redemption money was always given to the father. In this case, it was given to
pay off his debts. But when he wasn't in debt, there
was still a dowry given, a payment given to say, yes, I will marry
this woman. I will marry her. And so the
maidservant was not like the manservant. She was to be treated
as the bride of her master who bought her out of poverty. Now
that's a beautiful picture of what Christ did for His people.
That's what Christ did for us. We were in debt. We were the
daughter, like this was the daughter. God's elect is the daughter of
Israel. We're the daughter of God. And in eternity, Christ entered
covenant with God betrothed us to Himself, promising to marry
us in the future. And that covenant is binding.
It's an everlasting covenant. And on the cross, Christ paid
the redemption price. He paid His precious blood. That's what it took to redeem
us out of debt because the wages of sin is death. So He paid the
redemption price on the cross. And you know in Hosea, remember
we saw there, there's a beautiful picture of redemption. And He
said, I betroth thee to Myself in justice, in truth and in righteousness
and in mercy. That's talking about, that's
picturing what Christ did on the cross. He was betrothing
us to Himself in justice and in mercy on the cross. And so
when He calls us to faith, We're not treated as servants. We're
treated as the bride of Christ when he calls us. Now thirdly,
we see here when the master redeemed her, he became responsible for
her full protection and her full provision or else his name and
his word were ruined. It was polluted. He had to fully
protect this woman and fully provide for her or else his word,
his covenant word he had made and that meant his name was totally
ruined. So he said here, if the master
decided he would not marry her after betrothing her to himself,
God commanded he must let someone else redeem her. See, this is
all for the bride's sake. He says in verse 8, if she pleased
not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he
let her be redeemed. And to sell her unto a strange
nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully
with her. The master was to fully protect her reputation. He was
to fully provide for this woman and for her chastity. He was to do so by providing
her the opportunity to be redeemed so she could be somebody else's
bride. He was not to just keep her and
use her in any way he saw fit. He was to allow her to be redeemed
by another. That was for her own safety and
her reputation. But when he put her up to be
redeemed, he had no power to allow her to be sold to a strange
nation. And that meant She couldn't be
redeemed by a Gentile, but I'll tell you what else it meant.
I didn't know this until I studied it. She also could not be redeemed
outside of her tribe. You know, the twelve tribes of
Israel. She had to be redeemed by someone in her own tribe.
She couldn't be redeemed outside by anybody else. That's a beautiful
picture. We're the family of God. We can only be redeemed by one
who is who is of the family of God. That's Christ, the head
of the household. And if the master didn't marry
her, now, even though he allowed her to be redeemed by another,
God declared he's dealt deceitfully with his bride. And so his name
and his word is ruined. Even though he allowed her to
be redeemed, he had given his word he was going to marry her
because he didn't. His name is ruined, totally ruined. And furthermore, if the master
betrothed her to his son, now sometimes they would purchase
a bride not for themselves but for their son. And if the son
took another wife in addition to her, this was a time when
they had multiple wives which was against God's law, yet they
did it. But God gave them a law to regulate
it. and to provide for the first
bride, fully provide for her in every way. Verse 9, he says,
If he hath betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her after
the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife,
her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not
diminish. You remember betrothal was the
same as marriage. It was as binding as marriage.
And so God knew the hardness of a man's heart. He knew that
what men would do and were doing, that they were, you know, would
marry a wife and after a little while then they'd say, well,
you don't please me. And so they would think that was grounds
for them to take another wife and just kick that first one
out. And so God provided for the first wife so that when He
did that, He couldn't kick her out. And in all of this, brethren,
we see a picture of the security of Christ's bride. That's what
we see here. Whoever redeemed Christ's bride,
Christ who redeemed His bride, He's going to fully provide for
her and fully protect her. When God the Father chose His
elect to be the bride for His Son, He attached His own name
to His word that He would He would marry her. When Christ
redeemed us, He was attaching His own name, the reputation
of Himself to His Word that He would bring us to Himself and
marry us in the last day. He promised that. So we read
this in Hebrews 6. If you want to turn there, Hebrews
chapter 6. It says, where in God willing more
abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of
His counsel. That means the unchangeableness
of His counsel. His counsel cannot be changed.
He confirmed it by an oath. He didn't have to do that. When He gave you His word, His
word is unchangeable. That was enough. But in addition
to that, he confirmed his word by an oath. It says, so that
by two immutable things, one in which it was impossible for
God to lie, or well, both of those, it's impossible for God
to lie, we might have a strong consolation who fled for refuge
to lay hold upon the hope set before us. And that hope we have
is as an anchor of the soul. It's sure and it's steadfast
and it enters into within the veil where the forerunner is
for us entered. Even Jesus made a high priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek. You remember at the end of Ephesians
1, Paul is talking about Christ being raised to the right hand
of the Father. And he talked about all the power
and dominion that God gave to Christ as the God-man. And the
Scripture there declares, it says, His bride, all the elect
of God are His own body. And it says we are the fullness
of Him. We're the fullness of Him that
filleth all in all. That's why Ephesians 4 says the
body won't be complete until we're brought to the full stature
of Christ, that is to every elect member is called into the body
and the body is totally complete. Because then Christ's body will
be complete. And so you see something of how
He made this oath and made this promise to us on the reputation
of His own name and His own glory. If He doesn't redeem us all,
He loses more than we lose. His very glory is at stake here. And so, that will never happen. Christ will never be displeased
with His pride. If He wasn't displeased with
us when we fell in sin, enough to forsake us, He will never
forsake us. He will not. Our Master fully
protects our reputation. He fully protects our chastity. He keeps us through the preaching
of the gospel. Christ does this right here.
When Paul said, I have espoused you as a chaste virgin to Christ,
this is what he was talking about. And Christ does that. He sends
the pastor and He's working through the pastor in the hearts of His
people so that every elect child is espoused to Christ as a chaste
virgin. And He won't allow her reputation
to be tainted. He won't allow it. He will not
allow it. He'll never allow us to be redeemed
by a strange nation. He's paid the full redemption
price where He is. because Christ came to glorify
His Father's name. He came to honor His Father's
name and bring glory to His name, so He will not deal deceitfully
with His bride. He will not. He'll never take
another bride. He's got one bride. One bride. And He's going to provide this
one bride not only with food and raiment and housing, But
He provides us with all spiritual blessings. Everything we need,
we have provided. Everything. Now notice one more
thing here. If the husband failed to do any
of these things, then the husband was to pay all her debts himself. And that bride was to go out
free, without price, with no debts whatsoever. He was the
setter free of all charges. When God the Father chose His
elect to be the bride of Christ and Christ in a covenant betrothing
us to Himself, Christ alone became fully responsible for our debt. He alone became responsible.
The law of God never looked to anyone else but Christ. Never looked to any of His people. Isn't that wonderful? We're going
to see in the second half that the law of God doesn't look at
us now. But this adds to that. Because He chose us in Christ,
the law of God never even looked at us. Ever. It always looked
at Christ. Always looked at Christ. And
Christ paid it all in full. Go to Ephesians 5. Ephesians
chapter 5. This is one of those cases where
We see that we are not constrained by law, we are constrained by
love. Whenever Paul is declaring that the wife should submit herself
to her husband and the husband should be the head of the house,
provide for his wife, love her. Paul doesn't bring us back under
law. He didn't say this is the law that you are to do this.
He uses Christ as the example and sets Christ before us so
that we are constrained to do this by love, not by law. That's
what it is to be under grace rather than being under law.
Look here, Ephesians 5 at 25, he says, Husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for
it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of
water by the word. that He might present it to Himself,
a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
but that it should be holy and without blemish. You see, He
paid all the debts. He paid all the debts. And He gives us everything so
that before God, before the law, we're without spot, without blemish.
We have never ever sinned. in God's account of things. We've never sinned. We're righteous
as God is righteous, as holy as God is holy by this work Christ
has done. And because of that, go to Isaiah
55, because Christ paid it all and gave us everything we need,
this is what the Scripture says now, to every one of His lost
sheep, If you're sitting here today and you're one of His lost
sheep, I pray He'll make you hear this word affectionately
in your heart. Because this is what He says
to every one of His people. Isaiah 55-1, this is because
He paid everything. He says, Ho, every one that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters, come to Christ. He that hath no money,
come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. That means everything is free. Now, listen to me carefully,
you that have never confessed Christ. I want you to listen
to this. We get this idea in our head that we need to learn
a little more and understand a little more before we can come
to Christ. That scripture tells us No. You come to Him. You come to
Him and believe on Him. Salvation is not in how much
you know. It's who you know. If you believe
the Word we've spoken concerning Christ, Scripture says come to
Him. Freely. That means you don't... If you
sit here and try to get you some understanding and some more knowledge
and think now, well, I've made myself fit to come. You're trying
to come with your own money and purchase this. It's free. You can't come with that. If you are ashamed to confess
Him, and you feel like, well, I'm going to wait until I'm not
ashamed anymore to confess Him, then I'm going to confess Him.
You're trying to purchase this thing. And God won't have it. Christ said, man that's a shame
to me, I'll be ashamed to Him when I come. So you confess Him. Come to Christ and confess Him
publicly. What I'm getting at is this, there's nothing you
and I have to do. Men think you have to turn over
a new leaf and you have to put sin out of your life and start
acting more righteous and more holy before you can come to Christ. When a man says he wants to confess
Christ, churches have programs where for six months or whatever,
they'll train that person and get them at a certain point before
they'll allow them to confess Christ. What did Philip do to
the eunuch? The eunuch said, here's water.
Philip said, if you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ
is, oh, you can be baptized. And he hopped down off the chair
and was baptized. This is what that Scripture is
telling us. He's paid everything. Come freely. Come to Christ with
nothing in my hand, no price I bring, simply to thy cross
I cling. Come to Christ only. So we see, brethren, this, and
for you that believe Him, you see here, as the bride of Christ,
we're fully provided for, fully protected, our reputation, our
chastity. He's not going to allow. one
that He died for, one that He purchased, one that He's regenerated. He's not going to allow us to
fall away in apostasy. It won't happen. It will not
happen. Let's stand together. Father, we thank You for this
Word. We thank You for the beautiful pictures that You give
us in the Scriptures and how You make our hearts just overflow
with Your love for us and how that You constrain us by this
great love to want to live under You and serve You and be the
best handmaid we can possibly be because we have such a great
Master. Thank You, Lord, for not bringing
us back under law. Thank You for keeping us and
protecting us and providing everything for us. We pray for those that
don't know You that You might bring them and make them see
this and cause them to fall down and confess You and enter into
this joy with us. We pray these things, Lord, in
Christ's name. Amen.