Brethren, let's go to Exodus
chapter 10. Lately, I've had some folks that
in different places, several different places that are setting
me straight on my doctrine and particularly insisting that God
did not choose to save some and pass by others. And they're insisting
that God would not harden a sinner in reprobation. And I didn't plan it this way.
It's God's sovereign hand that it seems like things like that
happen right when you're coming to a text that deals with it.
And this happened this week, it happened last week, it's happened
pretty often here in the past month or so, but here we are
at Exodus 10 going into Exodus 11. Now before I get into the
message, as we simply read our text, I want you to please pay
attention here and tell me And I don't want to just argue with
men. I never want to do that. I hope
that these folks who are saying these things, I hope they're
listening and I hope that God will reveal this in their heart. This is what I want. I want to
see sinners brought to Christ and to bow to our Lord and be
able to rejoice with us in what God's done for us. And so as
you read this and we read this together, Let's be honest and
see, does it appear here, in what we're going to read, does
the Scripture bear out that God chooses some and passes by others? Let's just see if Scripture bears
this out. Let's begin in Exodus 10.27. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's
heart, and He would not let them go. Now what does that say? The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. Verse 28, And Pharaoh said unto
him, to Moses, Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see
my face no more, for in the day that thou seest my face thou
shalt die. He basically said, if I see you
around here again I'm going to kill you. Verse 29, And Moses
said, Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no
more. Now, in the next verses, we have a parenthesis. And it
tells us what the Lord had already told Moses. There's not a literal
parenthesis here, but it is a parenthesis. He's telling us what the Lord
had already told Moses. And then after that, we're going
to pick up with the rest of Moses and Pharaoh's meeting here. But
here's what the Lord had told Moses. And the Lord said unto
Moses, Now what does that say the Lord said unto Moses? The Lord didn't say this to Pharaoh.
The Lord did not say this to the Egyptians. The Lord said
this to Moses. He says, yet I will bring one
plague more upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. And he says, and
afterwards he will let you go hence. When He shall let you
go, He shall surely thrust you out hence altogether. He is going
to beg you to leave when I get done. Speak now in the ears of
the people. Now the Lord is telling Moses
here, speak this privately in the ears of the children of Israel. He doesn't say tell it to Moses.
He doesn't say tell it to any of the other Egyptians. He says
speak this in the ears of the children of Israel. Verse 2,
And let every man borrow of his neighbor, that is his Egyptian
slave master, and every woman of her neighbor jewels of silver
and jewels of gold. Now these are the children of
Israel who have been slaves for 430 years in Israel. And now These Israelite slaves are to
ask their Egyptian slave owners to let them borrow their silver
and their gold jewelry. Verse 3, and the Lord gave the
people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. The Egyptians
didn't know what was going on. They just found that they thought,
it's a good idea. I'm going to give them my gold
and my silver. But it was the Lord that gave the children of
Israel, favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the
man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of
Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people. It was because
the Lord gave him favor. You see, they're going to need
a lot of silver and a lot of gold to furnish the tabernacle
when they get into the wilderness. But they're slaves. They don't
have anywhere to get that silver and that gold, but the Lord provided
it. by giving them favor in the eyes
of the Egyptians. Now we come back to Moses. He's
standing before Pharaoh and now around them all are Pharaoh's
servants, his nobles, his ministers and his counselors and verse
4. And Moses said, Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will
I go out into the midst of Egypt. and all the firstborn in the
land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that
sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant
that is behind the mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry
throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it,
nor shall be like it any more." Now, there was no difference
between sinners. Look here, from the throne to
the mill, from the king to the maidservant, they were all guilty. But watch this, verse 7, but
against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his
tongue, against man or beast, that you may know how that the
Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. Moses still speaking, and he
says there before Pharaoh and all his servants, he says, And
all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down
themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people
that follow thee, and after that I will go out. And he went out
from Pharaoh who was in a great anger at all of this. Then in
our text, he reminds us that all this came about exactly as
God said it would, way back there before he ever sent Moses to
Egypt. This is the way the verb tense
is, this is how it should be read, verse 9, and or as the
Lord had said unto Moses. He's reiterating here what he
said back in Exodus 4, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, All
this happened just as the Lord had said unto Moses, Pharaoh
shall not hearken to you that my wonders may be multiplied
in the land of Egypt. And Moses and Aaron did all these
wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart
so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of
his land. Go back to Exodus 4. I want to
show you back here where the Lord said that. Exodus 4.21. And the Lord said unto Moses,
when thou goest to return into Egypt, remember Moses had been
in Egypt and now he's on the back side of the desert and the
Lord's sending him back to Egypt. And he says, when you go to return
into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh
which I have put in thine hand. But I will harden his heart,
that he shall not let the people go. And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh,
Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn. And I say unto thee, Let my son
go, that he may serve me. And if thou refuse to let him
go, behold, I will slay thy firstborn. So, it's obvious from this text
now that what we've read that God alone puts a difference between
His people and the rest of this world. God alone puts a difference
between His people and the rest of the world. God plainly said
there that He was doing all of this so that you might know that
the Lord does put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.
Now, I know what... I can just hear what men will
say. Well, that's speaking about Israel and Egypt. Okay? Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter
4. 1 Corinthians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul is speaking to believers. That's who he's talking to. He's
writing to believers. And he's telling us that we don't
have any reason to be puffed up one against another. He declares it by giving us a
few rhetorical questions. He says in verse 7, For who maketh
thee to differ from another? Who distinguishes you from another? The Lord just told us it's the
Lord that puts a difference between His people and the rest of the
world. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now, if thou
didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received
it? See, no one has any reason to
exalt ourselves over any other, especially believers. We don't
have any room to exalt ourselves over any other because the only
one who makes us to differ from any other sinners in this world
He's God. God does put a difference between
His people and the rest of the world. That's where the difference
came from. So our subject this morning is
God alone makes the difference. And for our divisions, I just
want to talk to you about four things that this world today
knows nothing about. These are four things that are
not being preached. sinners on their way to hell
that are going to stand before the God we're talking about here.
We're going to deal with God. My neighborhood, folks just act
like they've got their head in the sand, don't talk about God,
don't mention that, don't bring that up. I'm not going to have
to ever deal with that. No, we're going to have to deal with God.
Sooner or later we're going to stand before God. And here are
four things that this world knows nothing about God, nor about
themselves. And these are four things that
our preachers are not telling sinners. First of all, men and
women today know nothing about the character of God. Absolutely
nothing about the character of God. Men and women are being
told that God loves you. God's being presented to men
and women as a beggar, a helpless beggar, just begging for sinners
to let God do something for them. He loves you. He wants to do
something and you just won't let Him. That's not the God of
this Bible. That's not the God of the Bible.
God is love and God delights to show mercy. But that's not
God's chief attribute. God's chief number one attribute
is holiness. He's holy God. He's holy God. That means that everything He
does is going to be absolutely holy. When He saves a sinner,
it's going to be in accordance with His holy character. He said
to Moses, I will by no means clear the guilty. The soul that
sinneth, it shall die. God must, He must punish all
who sin in order for God to remain holy, in order for God to be
just, for Him to be righteous. And so He will because that's
His character. God, if you notice there in our
text, in Exodus 11, the Lord said there in verse 5, all the
firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. Do you get that? He said all the firstborn in
the land of Egypt shall die. That included the firstborn in
Israel. Why? What's the significance
of the firstborn? Well, the firstborn are the firstfruits.
And you remember what the firstfruits meant? Whatever the firstfruits
were, that's what all the rest was going to be. And if the firstborn
are guilty and worthy of death, everybody else is guilty and
worthy of death. That's the significance of the
firstborn. So, what you have here is God declaring that all
are guilty and that all must die. From the throne in Egypt
to the maid behind the mill and all the firstborn in Israel. All the firstborn in Egypt will
die. All of them. Every one of them. God says that
when you're guilty, that sinners in ourselves are guilty and we
all have to die. But the difference is made by
God providing Himself a lamb. By God Himself coming and being
the lamb that He's provided. By God providing His Son to lay
down His life and bear that justice for His people. God puts a difference
between His people and others. See, holy God can have nothing
to do with a guilty sinner. He can't have anything to do
with us. He can't be reconciled to us and receive us into His
presence and have communion with us because He's holy and we're
guilty. He told Moses and Leviticus,
it has to be perfect to be accepted. There can't be any blemish whatsoever. And that's how we are by nature,
is blemish. Before sinners start rejecting
the gospel and start popping off about about what they know
about God's character, and making Him out to be a beggar, men and
women need to, they need to learn that God is holy. He's not like
us. We're unholy. We're everything
God is not. God's holy. He's holy. And everything God does is in
according with His holy and righteous character. Now secondly, Men
and women today do not know and are not being taught that God
is absolutely sovereign. That's who God is. A God that
is at your whim and has to do whatever your will is, is not
God. God is sovereign. God does what
God will do. Daniel 4.35. Let's go there and
just read it. We quote this all the time but
we need to hear it, I mean put our eyes on it. Daniel 4.35.
Let me begin in verse 34. At the end
of the days, this is when Nebuchadnezzar had been out, the Lord had made
him into just a had no understanding whatsoever,
took his understanding from him. He was so proud and arrogant
and says, At the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up
mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me,
and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him
that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion. Dominion means he's got all the
power, and all the authority, and all the rule. and His kingdom
is from generation to generation, and all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing. And He doeth according to His
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay His hand, that means nobody can stop
Him, nor say unto Him, What doest Thou? In our text, God determined the
end from the beginning. God told Moses, back there in
Exodus 4, everything that God would do. And then God did it
exactly like He told Moses He would do it. That's a sovereign
God. That's a sovereign God. From
the beginning, God said, Israel is my son. And from the beginning,
he said, Pharaoh will harden his heart and therefore I will
justly harden his heart in reprobation. You go back and you read it and
you'll find out. Pharaoh hardened his heart and
he did it repeatedly. God repeatedly sent him the Word.
He repeatedly hardened his heart and God hardened his heart in
reprobation. Before God made the world, before
He ever created anything, God first sovereignly chose His Son. That's who He chose. To work
all the works necessary to save His people and to glorify God.
He chose His Son to do that. The Lord, speaking of Christ
our wisdom, He says in Proverbs 8.23, I was set up from everlasting
from the beginning or ever the earth was. That's Christ our
wisdom. Scripture says, for whom He did
foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Salvation is about two things. Salvation is about God's holy
righteous character being put on display and it's about all
those that He saves giving all the praise and all the honor
to God in the person of His Son. That's what salvation is about.
It's about us, our understanding coming to us from God, and us
beholding God in the heavens as He is, like Nebuchadnezzar
did, and understand that in and of ourselves, God reputes us
as nothing. We don't give Him anything, we
don't add to Him anything, He doesn't need anything from us.
He said, if I was hungry, I wouldn't ask you. God doesn't need a thing
from us, brethren. But the reason God saves sinners
is to manifest His righteousness, His holy character. And He does
it so that all His people will be brought to give all the praise
and all the honor to His Son. That's why He does it. So in
eternity God chose His people unto salvation in His Son. He chose His Son and He chose
a people in His Son. speaking to those God called
to faith in Christ. He wasn't speaking to anybody
else. He was speaking to those God called to faith in Christ.
Paul said, we thank God. We are bound to give thanks always
to God, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from
the beginning chosen you to salvation. In Ephesians 1.3 it says, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why do we
call Him blessed? Because He chose us. He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as He chose
us in Him before the foundation of the world. That we should
be holy without blame before Him in love. And God chose His
people by His free and sovereign grace. Not because of anything
in those He chose. He chose us by His free and sovereign
grace. This is what we mean by sovereign.
God can choose whom He will. and He does it by His grace.
2 Timothy 1.9 says, He saved us and called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works. God did not see anything
in us that would warrant choosing us. He called us and saved us
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace. I just said that purpose was
that He might manifest His righteousness to this people and that His Son
might receive all the glory. He did it on purpose. And He
did it according to His grace. Free grace. Sovereign grace. Choosing whom He would. And it
was all given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Romans
9.11. Go there with me again. What's
the purpose of God choosing a people? There's got to be a purpose.
Here's the purpose. Romans 9,11. The children being
not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. That's why He did it this way.
So salvation wouldn't be by us calling Him. Salvation would
be by Him calling us. Look at verse 15. For He said
to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. And I'll
remind you this. This is when Moses said, show
me your glory. And God said, I'm going to show
you my glory. This is my glory. God said, I'll
have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. and I'll have compassion
on whom I'll have compassion. So then, salvation is not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
shows mercy. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? If you're one who's been made to bow to Christ, to
bow to God our Father, God made you to differ by choosing you
in His Son by His free grace before the foundation of the
world. Before sinners start boasting
about their will, they need to learn that God alone is sovereign. He said, is it not lawful for
me to do with mine own what I will? Is thine eye evil because I'm
good? You're going to get to stink
eye against God because God's good and chose some to save? Why would anybody have an evil
eye against God for that? We hadn't chosen, we'd all perished.
It's God alone who puts a difference between sinners by His sovereign
electing grace. And then thirdly, men and women
today don't know anything about themselves. They don't know a
thing about themselves and they're not being taught anything about
themselves. God says in ourselves, as we're
born in this world, there is no difference. Go to Romans 3. Let me show you that. Romans
3. Look at verse 22. He is talking
about the righteousness manifest by the faith of Christ. Look at the end there. For there
is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. In ourselves, I don't care what
you try to do, I don't care how you, if you join the biggest,
finest, nicest cathedral there is, with the most finest people
in the country, and you even got your doctrine right, you
got your I's dotted and your T's crossed on your doctrine.
If Christ hadn't come and called you and the Spirit of God hadn't
given you life and God hadn't chosen you before the world was
made and He hadn't redeemed you, brethren, and He hadn't brought
you to Him, there's no difference between you and anybody else
in this world. Men want to look down their noses
at those that are dopeheads and drug addicts and drunks and harlots
and everything else and the poor and the backwoods and everything
like there is somebody, there is no difference between one
sinner and another sinner in ourselves. Not any difference. All who meet God outside of Christ
are the same and so they are going to each justly be damned.
That's what the Lord was showing us there in Exodus 5, when He
said, All the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from
the firstborn of Pharaoh that sits upon his throne, even to
the firstborn of the maidservant that's behind the mill. They're
all going to die, He said. You mean there wasn't something
in God that made Him say, Well, look at Pharaoh, and look at...
Surely there was some good Pharaoh had done. God said, He's going
to be condemned just like the maid behind the mill is. from
the throne to the mill. Everybody's guilty. Sinners imagine
that they can make a difference. That's what we all thought by
nature. We can make a difference. And
there's three ways we think we can make a difference. Number
one, by our blood ancestry. We think it matters who we're
related to. The Lord looked at the Pharisees
and He said, don't think just because you're the natural sons
of Abraham that you're mine elect. Who mom and daddy is, does not
matter in this thing of salvation. Contrary to what men preach and
teach and that's why they promote infant baptism. Because they
say it gives you a leg up because of your mom and daddy, believe
it. It don't at all. Not at all. By the will of their
flesh, men think they can be saved. By their decision for
Christ and by their works. And number three, by the will
of man. Priests and preachers and parents think they can do
something to make their child be born of God and be in the
family of God. We can't do a thing. We can't
coerce sinners. All you can do is make a sinner
guilty and make them join a church and make them do religious works
and religious deeds and those kinds of things. But you can't
make a child of God. I can't, you can't. God says
those who were born again, those who were saved, were born not
of blood, not blood ancestry, not of the will of the flesh,
they didn't do anything, nor of the will of man, the priest
and the preacher and the parish didn't do anything, they were
born of God. God did it. God made the difference. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, Christ said. That which is born of the Spirit
is Spirit. Marvel not that I said unto you, you must be born again. And faith is not even by the
will of man. We are like a man out in the
ocean and you throw him splinters or something off of a ship, you
know, and he is just grabbing on to anything he can grab on
to. So a man will grab on and say, what about my faith? Faith
is not even of man. You are saved by grace through
faith in that night of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Lest any
man should boast. That is what you hear men doing.
Men that think that they believe by their will, you hear them
boasting about their faith. That's why God said, I don't
save that way, because you're just boasting your faith. So
He gives you faith. And be sure to get this, when
God gives life and faith, here's another one of those straws men
grasp for. They say, well, when He gives
you life and He gives you faith, now, now, it's up to you To choose
him or reject him. No sir, it's not. It's not. God draws us irresistibly to
Christ. Christ said this. The Lord Jesus
Christ said this. No man can come to me except
the Father which hath sent me draw him. And that word, draw,
is the exact same word that's used when it said, when the soldiers
came to arrest Christ, Peter drew his sword. Now, you just
picture that. It was a fisherman's knife. He
drew that fisherman's knife out. And that's what God does. He
lays hold of His child who's in darkness, who is no different
than any other man, and God makes the difference by drawing him
out and drawing him to Christ. This is what God does. He said there, I lay my hand
upon Egypt, and I bring forth my people out of the land, and
I stretch forth mine hand, and I bring out the children from
among them. That's why He said this, God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit
and belief of the truth, whereunto He called you by our gospel. to the obtaining of the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Two people sit and they're hearing
the same sermon. Hearing the same sermon. Equal
distance from the preacher. Same pew. Looking in the same
Bible. Hearing the same words spoken.
One of them, their heart's broken, they fall down before God in
their heart and they confess that all they are is a sinner,
unable to do one thing to please God and they beg Christ for mercy. The other one, just like Pharaoh
when he heard everything Moses declared, gets angry and says
it's not fair for God to be God. Who made the difference? God
did. God did. I've heard brethren
talk to me and tell me about what their family or somebody
said to them. And here you've got a believer just rejoicing
in what they've heard and just delighting in what they've heard.
And the mother, the father, the aunt, the uncle, whoever it is,
just angry and mad as they can be about it. And you think, were
you even listening to the same message? How could you get what
you got out of it? Blind, dead, trying anything
they can do to save face and be able to find something to
glory in. That's all it is. You go to the
child of God by God's grace and the sinner left to himself, they
go to the Word of God looking for different things. Child of
grace goes looking for Christ, wanting Christ to have all the
glory, wanting to hear what Christ has done because Christ is all
our hope. A sinner that's unregenerate goes looking for something he
can do. Because that's what he thinks
his hope is. And only God makes the difference. We need, before
sinners start exalting their will to choose and refuse and
making themselves out to be bigger than God and speaking lowly of
God as a beggar who can't do what he will, who loves but has
a love that's meaningless because he can't save those he loves. They need to learn who they are
and be brought down from their pride and their high horse and
brought down to the dust just like Saul of Tarsus was. And only God can do it. Only
God can do it. And here's the last thing. Men
and women today don't know nothing about God's Son, Christ Jesus
the Lord. Absolutely nothing. Most are
preaching Him as an example for you to follow so you can be moral
in your life and be saved by your righteousness and your holiness.
Others are preaching Him as just a prophet, just a man. He's God. God sent His Son to satisfy His
holy justice for all those the Father gave Him before the world
was made. God sent him on purpose to satisfy God's divine justice
for a particular people. Christ came forth saying, I know
my sheep. I'm laying down my life for my
sheep. I know who I came to save. I came not to destroy the law,
I came to fulfill the law. He knew what He came for. He
came on purpose to fulfill God's purpose. And He came to bear
their sin and to bear their justice and to satisfy that justice for
them as He declared God righteous and just. And brethren, He cried,
It is finished. He did it. He did it. He accomplished
it. Go to Hebrews 1.2. Hebrews 1.2.
God! God! Hath in these last days spoken
to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, by whom also
He made the worlds? That's who this Christ is. He's
the heir of all things. He's the Creator. He's the brightness
of God's glory. He's the express image of His
person. He upholds all things by the word of His power. A little
sinner talking about letting Jesus into your heart. He's upholding
your little sinful heart. If it wasn't for Him upholding
you, you would die right now. Are you going to let that Jesus
do something? Look here. Upholding all things
by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our
sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Why did
He sit down? Go to Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10.12. This man, after he offered one
sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God,
verse 14, because by one offering he's perfected forever them that
are sanctified. That's why he sat down. He finished
it. God is holy. God's holy character now will
not allow him to pour out judgment on anybody for whom Christ died
because Christ already satisfied God's judgment, justice. God's
Son made satisfaction, propitiation for His people to God. The Apostle
John was talking to believers. He's writing to believers. This
is a mistake men read when they read the Scriptures and they
think that He's speaking to everybody. You go to the beginning of the
epistles and you find out He's talking to a particular people,
believers. Not talking to everybody, He's
talking to believers. If you got a letter that's addressed
specifically to you and it said something particular to you,
it'd be wrong for me to come along and say, well that's talking
about everybody in the world. No, it's just written to you.
This is to believers. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be satisfaction
for our sins. That's what propitiation is.
He sent His Son to be satisfaction. And so God's holy character now
demands, that same holy character demands that everyone for whom
Christ died, since they're justified, they now have to be called to
life and faith in Christ. They have to be. They have to
be given eternal life. Because Christ didn't come to
make it possible. He didn't come to make it possible.
That's the great lie that men are being told. Christ did everything
He could do to make it possible for everybody. Now you just exercise
your will and you can make it effectual for you. That's not
offensive. That makes you God. That makes
me God if I'm told that. That's not offensive. That's
not the truth. He came and accomplished salvation.
Christ said this, ìYouíve not chosen Me.î Who did He say this
to? Some people say, ìWell, He just
said that to His apostles.î This is every disciple Heís ever chosen,
ever called. This is what He says to us. ìYou
didnít choose Me. Iíve chosen you. And Iíve ordained
you that you should go forth and bring forth fruit and that
your fruit should remain.î He chose us. He ordained us to bring
forth fruit. That means He made us bring forth
fruit and He even makes our fruit to remain and be everlasting. As the Father raises up the dead
and quickens them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. Why does He do it? Because He
justified them. Go back to Romans 3 with me and
look at this. We'll be done. Romans 3. Verse
24. This is how we're saved, brethren.
This is where the difference is made. We're justified freely
by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That
means He accomplished it Himself. Whom God has set forth to be
a propitiation, satisfaction through faith in His blood. And
that's faith God gives. to declare His righteousness,
to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins, or
His righteousness in the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God. That simply means every believer
in the Old Testament was saved the same way, by the blood of
Christ, through God's righteousness. Verse 26, God sent His Son to
declare, I say it this time, His righteousness, His holy,
righteous character, that He might be just, He killed everybody
He saves in His Son. That's how come He's just. He
killed us all. Just like He said all the firstborn in Egypt is
going to die. He provided the lamb and all the children of
Israel died in that lamb. Well, all sinners are going to
die in this world. The difference has been made.
God provided His Son and His people died in His Son. Watch. And He is the justifier of him
that believes in Jesus because He is the one that was on that
cross dying for His people. Now what do we conclude? Where
is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law?
Of works. By the principle of works. No. Is it excluded by works? No,
but by the law of faith. By the law of faith. Because, therefore, we conclude,
a man is justified by faith, that is, by Christ, without the
deeds of the law. Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid. Faith is the only way you are
going to establish it. The only way God is going to be just and
justifier and His law be honored and totally fulfilled is Christ
only. The only way you are going to
be one God looks at and says, He has established my entire
law is by believing on Christ. So there's no condemnation now
to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. You know what that means for
me and you? For you that believe. I just pray God would take men
who are opposed to this and hate this and rail upon God because
He's holy. I don't want you just to believe
the doctrine of election. I want you to behold God our
Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I want you to rejoice
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because this is what it means. It means when God takes you and
makes you see you're not on the side of the goats. That He's
actually before the foundation of the world made you one of
His sheep. When He makes you see this, this is the rejoicing. God says against any of mine
elect shall not a dog move his tongue. Against man or beast
that you might know. how the Lord does put a difference
between the Egyptians and Israel. Even every day in your life,
everything that comes to pass in our lives, we get to boasting,
you know, well, I got this door open and I accomplished this.
No, no, no, no. You know how every door has ever
been opened in our lives? He gave you favor in the sight
of the Egyptians just like He did Israel. That's how. He opened
the door. That's how come all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are called
according to His purpose. Everything God does, He does
on purpose. I hadn't heard this story first
hand. Well, as first hand I guess as
I could hear it. But when I was in Rocky Mount
the other day and I went to see Brother Henry Kevin and I did. We asked Paul, his son, to tell
us the story of when Ralph Barnard was at, when he came to Pollard.
And when he came there, Brother Henry was a song leader. And
he was sitting in the front row and he, Brother Ralph was rough. He was the man for that time.
We needed a rough man to wake people up. And God used him and
he told Henry, stand up, quote, Romans 8, is it 829? 828. Quote Romans 828 for me.
And he quoted it right up to the part where it talks about
purpose and he left that off. And he sat back down. Ralph said,
stand back up and finish it. And he stood back up and he said,
all things work together for good to them that are called,
to them that love God, to them that are called according to
His purpose. And Ralph Bonner went, EVERYTHING GOD DOES, HE DOES
ON PURPOSE! And yelled it as loud as he could
yell it. And Henry said, God got me. He said, I went home
that night and I couldn't shake that word purpose. And he said,
I started looking at scriptures and I found out everything God
does, He does on purpose. Therefore, if God be for us,
who can be against us? Ain't nobody gonna lay anything
to the charge of God's elect because it's God that justifies.
It's Christ that interceded for us and still intercedes for us.
There's nobody, no thing, nothing that'll ever separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus. I don't know anything other than
the insanity of false Christianity that would make a man deny that
good news. Do you? That's good news. If you ever find that out, if
God ever reveals that to a man, he'll quit arguing with God. You can't argue against that
kind of good news. I pray that's what happens. Amen.