Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Exodus chapter 9. Exodus 9. We'll begin reading in verse 27. Exodus
9, 27. And Pharaoh sent and called for
Moses and Aaron and said unto them, I have sinned this time,
The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. Entreat
the Lord, for it is enough, that there be no more mighty thunderings
in hell, and I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.'
And Moses said unto him, As soon as I am gone out of the city,
I will spread abroad my hands unto the Lord, and the thunder
shall cease, neither shall there be any more hell. that thou mayest
know how that the earth is the Lord's. But as for thee and thy
servants, I know that you will not yet fear the Lord God. And the flax and the barley was
smitten, for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bowled
or budded. But the wheat and the rye were
not smitten, for they were not grown up. And Moses went out
of the city from Pharaoh and spread about his hands unto the
Lord, and the thunders and hail ceased, and the rain was not
poured upon the earth. And when Pharaoh saw that the
rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more,
and hardened his heart, he and his servants. And the heart of
Pharaoh was hardened, neither would he let the children of
Israel go, as the Lord had spoken by Moses. And again, we see here
that Pharaoh falsely repented. This was not true repentance.
It was false repentance. But we got a lot more things
here to look at other than just his false repentance. We've seen
that in a prior passage. I want to look today at confession,
possession, a lesson, and faith. That will be our subject and
our outline. Confession, possession, a lesson,
and faith. First confession. Now this is
the confession of every unbeliever who meets God in the day of judgment. This will be the confession of
every unbeliever who meets God in the day of judgment. Verse
27. Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said unto
them, look at the last part there, the Lord is righteous and I and
my people are wicked. You can mark it down. All who
would not confess God's righteousness in their salvation shall be forced
by God to bow the knee and confess God's righteousness in their
condemnation. Philippians 2.9 says, God has
highly exalted Christ and given Him a name above every name.
And at the name of Christ, every knee shall bow and every tongue
shall confess that Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. Now for you that do not believe,
please understand this. This is real. This is so. You
will either bow And thank God for His grace in this life or
you'll bow and confess God righteous to condemn you in judgment. That's so. That's going to happen.
One way or the other, we're going to bow. Why not bow now? Why not bow now? The Lord said,
ìAs I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but
that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye
from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? Kiss the son, lest he be angry,
and you perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but
a little. Blessed are all they that put
their trust in him.î Now secondly, we have possession. We see the
earth is the Lord's. He possesses all things. Verse
29, Moses said unto Pharaoh, As soon as I am gone out of the
city, I will spread abroad my hands unto the Lord, and the
thunder shall cease. Neither shall there be any more
hell that thou mayest know how that the earth is the Lord's. Verse 33 says, And Moses went
out of that city from Pharaoh, and spread abroad his hands unto
the Lord. And the thunder and hail ceased, and the rain was
not poured upon the earth. No matter how big men become
in this life with their empires, God still possesses them and
all that they possess, and God possesses everything else. It's
all His possession. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. Now
there's a lot of people in our day that are all worried and
concerned that the fat cats at the top have rigged the system
of capitalism so that they're the ones in their greed that
are benefiting and everybody else is being taken advantage
of. Well, that may be true. But God still owns everything.
God owns everything. When God commanded the children
of Israel to enter into the promised land, you know what He gave them
as strength to enter in? When He told them to go in there
and face their enemies. You know what He told them? Behold,
the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's, thy God,
the earth also with all that therein is. That was their comfort
and their strength to go in and face their enemies. And because
that's the case, because everything belongs to the Lord, And it's
His, and He will take care of His people. The scripture says,
the Lord said, Now Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require
of thee but to fear the Lord thy God? Don't fear man, fear
the Lord thy God. You know, when we become afraid
and troubled by what men are doing, we're sanctifying those
men. and exalting those men above
the Lord. He says, fear the Lord. Sanctify
the Lord in your hearts. See Him as set apart, holy, higher
than all, more powerful than all, and able to take care of
His people. Fear the Lord thy God. Walk in
all His ways and love Him and serve the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, with all thy soul. For the Lord your God is God
of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and terrible that
regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. Now listen to this. This
is what He told them when He was sending them into the land
of Canaan. He doth execute the judgment
of the fatherless and the widow. God executes judgment for the
fatherless and the widow, and He loves the stranger in giving
him food and raiment. You know what the widow is and
the fatherless, the orphan is in Scripture? They're represented
as the most helpless. The most helpless. We ought to
help every pastor's wife that's a widow. We ought to help them.
Because I guarantee you they don't have anything. Because
their husbands gave everything they had to minister while they
lived. And they don't have a retirement
to speak of. We ought to help them. But the
helpless, the total helpless, God is going to provide. He's
going to provide for the helpless. That's you and me who are sinners
who have no ability in ourselves to open any door or to cause
anything good come our way. We don't have that ability. But
God is ruling and He does. And He's going to execute judgment
for those that are helpless. That means He's going to do what's
right for His people in the midst of this world. We don't have
to worry about that. You go, you look to the cross.
Did the devil and all the enemies of Christ, did they stop Christ
from redeeming His people on the cross? They didn't. They
tried, but did they succeed? No. Did anything stop God from
bringing the Gospel to you? If anything stopped God from
bringing the Gospel to somebody, that thing would be more powerful
than God. But God promised this is how
He will save, and that's how He saves, because God's able.
He's sovereign. He's thoroughly sovereign to
send the Gospel where He will. And nobody prevented him from
doing that. Nobody stopped him from doing that. But on the contrary,
God said this, Every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle
upon a thousand hills, I know all the fowls of the mountains,
I know that the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were
hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine and the
fullness thereof. We never have to stoop to the
tactics. that this world uses, the evil,
wicked, sinful tactics this world uses to try to get ahead. Believers
don't have to stoop to that because our God is providing. Though
earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. So fear God and obey
Him rather than men. Now thirdly, we have a lesson. We have a lesson. Look at verse
30. Listen to this, ìBut as for thee,î this is Moses talking,
ìBut as for thee, Pharaoh, and thy servants, I know that you
will not yet fear the Lord God. And the flax and the barley were
smitten, for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was budded.
But the wheat and the rye were not smitten, for they were not
grown up. And Moses went out of the city
from Pharaoh, and spread abroad his hands unto the Lord.î Now
does it seem strange to you that verses 31 and 32 Does it seem
to you like they are out of place in this passage? I read this and I thought that
makes no sense that those two verses are stuck right here in
the middle of this where Moses is speaking to Pharaoh. But I believe what we have here
is a parable. Perhaps Moses is speaking this.
Maybe he spoke it at the time that he told Pharaoh this, or
maybe the Spirit of God moved him to insert this when he was
writing this letter. But regardless, it's an earthly
illustration of a heavenly truth. That's what a parable is. It's
like the parable of the wheat and the tares. By our first birth
in sin, as we come forth into this world from our mother's
womb, by our first birth, We're like the flax and the barley.
The barley was in the ear. It was grown up and it was full
in the ears and the flax was budding. And we come forth proud. We come forth proud in this earth,
determined to stand against God and against Christ and against
the gospel and against His people. That's how we come forth into
this world. And everybody that's found in that state in the day
of judgment, God will smite them down. just like He did the barley
and the flax. But sinners born again of God
are given a broken and a contrite heart and they're lowly at Christ's
feet like the wheat and the rye. It says they were not grown up.
You picture the wheat and the rye, they were just little tender
plants like this, just lowly. And that's God's people that
He's given a new heart. We're low at Christ's feet, dependent
upon Christ for everything. And then if you look in the margin,
it says they were hidden. They were hidden. Brethren, God's
people have been hidden in Christ since before the world was made.
The Lord Jesus Christ has been our shelter before as yet sin
even entered the world. And when He went to the cross,
God smote Him in place of His people. So God will not smite
us who are hidden in Christ. So in this passage, the unbeliever,
the rebel, the proud, stout-hearted is represented by the bolly and
the flax that were standing tall and they were smitten down. And
the rye and the wheat represent the believer lowly at Christ's
feet. Brother Don's friend that he
always talks about, he had an interesting point. He said concerning the wheat
and the rye, I mean the wheat and the tares. He said, you know,
you can't tell a difference between the wheat and the tares in this
life. You can't tell the difference just by looking at them. But
he said, in the day of judgment, in the day of judgment, the wheat
will bow its head. The wheat will bow its head.
Reverence to God. Lastly, faith. Faith. Now we see here what faith is
not. We see what faith is not. Verse
34. When Pharaoh saw when he saw that the rain and the hail
and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more and hardened
his heart, he and his servants. And the heart of Pharaoh was
hardened, neither would he let the children of Israel go as
the Lord had spoken by Moses. Now, for you that do not believe,
let me ask you this question. Because I know what's in your
heart, I remember what was in my heart. If you heard that God
was sending hail, we're talking about larger than you've ever
seen, basketball size hail. And you saw it fall. You heard He was going to do
it and then you saw it fall. And you saw fire coming down
in the thunder and the lightning and running on the ground like
you've never seen it before. And then you ask, a preacher
and said, would you intercede? Would you call upon the Lord
and ask Him to stop this? And then you saw that preacher
call upon the Lord and you saw that hail and that fire stop. Having seen all this take place,
would you believe God? Would you believe God? Seeing
it with your own eyes, would you believe God? You would not. No, you wouldn't. Look here,
verse 34. Pharaoh saw all that. And when
Pharaoh saw that the rain in the hill and the thunders were
ceased, he sinned yet more and hardened his heart, he and his
servants. You know what that tells us?
Seeing is not believing. Seeing is not believing. Seeing
is not faith. People think seeing is evidence.
They say that, you know, if I have the evidence, then I'll believe. No. Not by natural sight. Seeing is not faith. Seeing is
not believing. Faith is the evidence itself. Look over to Hebrews 11. Hebrews
11 chapter 1. Hebrews 11 verse 1, I'm sorry.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence
of things not seen. Faith is the substance. That
means faith is confident. Not in faith. Faith is confident
in Christ. Faith is looking to Christ and
He's all our confidence. He's our evidence. And faith,
the evidence, the proof is all in Christ. We behold it all in
Christ through faith. And so we need nothing else. The reason faith is the substance
and the evidence is because through faith we've been established
on Christ the solid rock. You know, you take a lie. If you believe a lie, lies true to you. Well, when God gives true faith
and you believe the Gospel, everything in God's Word is true to you.
It is the evidence, it is the substance of everything. We see
Christ through faith and we see one who satisfied and honored
God's holy law for His people. We couldn't do that. And we see
one who did. We see in Christ someone who
is seated at God's right hand, who is the one that owns all
things in heaven and earth and working all things for our good.
We see that through faith. I just declared that text to
you where the Lord is the earth and the fullness thereof. And
I saw you smiling, you that believe Him. Because that's comfort to
you. You know the Lord is ruling everything. It's because we have faith. We
know. We know by faith that these things
are so. These are true. We know through
faith that Christ is more substantial and more lasting than the things
that we actually see with these eyes. Did you know that? He's more lasting and more substantial
than the things we see with these eyes. Go to 2 Peter chapter 3. Look at verse 7, 2 Peter 3, 7. The heavens and the earth which
are now by the same word of God, they're kept in store, but they're
reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition
of ungodly men. They're reserved for that day,
brethren. Verse 10, The day of the Lord
will come as a thief in the night, into which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat. The earth also and the works
that are therein shall be burned up. He says in verse 11, All
these things shall be dissolved. You see, the things you see that
we think are so substantial and so solid, They're going to all
be dissolved into nothing. Into nothing. And so we who believe
on Christ, we're settled and we're immovable on the foundation. Christ the foundation. Go to
2 Corinthians 4. 2 Corinthians 4. Look at verse
18. We look not at the things which
are seen, But at the things which you're not seeing, for the things
which you're seeing are temporary. They're temporal, they're temporary.
But the things which you're not seeing are eternal. For we know,
this is by faith, we know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Scripture speaks
of heavens in the plural. You know, the first is the atmosphere
in which we live. The second heaven is where the
moon and where Scripture says Arcturus and Orion and Pleiades
and the other starry hosts dwell. Space. But the third heaven,
Scripture speaks of a third heaven. Remember, Paul was called up
to the third heaven. He was called to be with Christ
And he saw things that he said not lawful to utter. He's the
only man who went to be with Christ and continued living on
this earth. He saw the third heaven. And
his message to us is my message to you, brethren. The only way
into that third heaven with God is through Christ the door. He's
the only way to enter that third heaven. Christ the door. And
by faith, we believe the Word of God. We trust this, brethren. Before God made the heavens and
the earth, there was only God. Eternal God. And when God has
fulfilled His purpose in this earth, and when this little tiny
blip called time is over, when it's all dissolved, There will
only be God and His Christ and His people. And we believe that. We believe that. This little
life that's just a vapor, this is not what it's about. We're
not pigs just feeding on slop, getting ready to be slaughtered.
God's people are pilgrims. We're just passing through. That's
all. and we're going to be with the
Lord. This is where we're headed. So this life, I don't want to
ever have roots that run too deep in this earth. I want to
be able, if the gospel dries up here today, I want to be able
to just cut ties and take off where I can hear the gospel and
it not even be a problem to me. I don't want roots that are so
deep with family and jobs and all these other things that I
can't get close to God's people and be with the Lord's people.
I don't want that. God help me, I'm not going to have roots like
that because I'm just passing through and you're just passing
through. This is not what it's about.
It's about Christ and His people. If I don't want to be with Christ's
people now, What makes me think I want to be with them in heaven?
I want to be with them now. Faith says, what other evidence
could I possibly need than the Word of God? Isn't it amazing
brethren that we have the very Word of God? Do you ever think
about that? This is God's Word that He has
given us. We'll believe the word of some
charlatan that comes down the pike talking about something
we've never heard, tickles our ears, you know, and men will
run off after that. Oh, this is deep. And yet men won't believe the
word of God. This is God's word. But the believer
says, I don't need any other evidence. This is God's word.
Men will say, well, you know, that scripture has been corrupted
by translation and translation. It may be, but I tell you this,
the message is still the same. The message, God has preserved
the message. There may be a word here and
there that wasn't translated correctly, but the message has
been preserved. And God has seen to it that it's
preserved, so His people can hear the gospel. That's certain. That's so. And every other religion. You know what every other religion
is? A bad imitation of this one. Every other book men have written
is a bad imitation of this one right here. Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon,
he just was trying to imitate this. And a bad imitation. The Koran, it's just an imitation
of this. And it's a bad imitation. This
is the Word of God. The Word of God. That's why Old
Testament saints, when you read about these Old Testament saints,
and they're looking forward to Christ's coming. He hasn't even
come yet in their day, but when you read them, they spoke of
His redemptive work as already accomplished, as being in the
past tense. Why do they speak like that?
Because faith possesses it already. Faith makes you possess it already.
We speak of heaven and earth, don't we? I mean, a heaven and
a glory with Christ as if we already have it. Because we do
already have it in Christ. See, faith gives you a present
possession of the things hoped for. Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Christ said, he that believeth on me hath. Right now, present
possession. He has everlasting life. If you then be risen with Christ,
if you believe Christ, that you are risen with Christ, seek those
things which are above. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on this earth, because you are, you are,
present tense, dead. The old man of sin was crucified
in Christ. And you are, hidden. Your life is hidden in Christ
with God. It's a present reality. And faith
has that. Faith has that present reality. So we speak of it as a possession
we already have just like the Old Testament saints did. Because
there's no possible way we won't have it. This is the confidence
of faith. That's why faith is a substance,
brethren. I pray God help us all now to truly believe on the
Lord. Alright, let's stand together. Father, we thank You for every
blessing we have. We don't have one thing in this
life that we can brag about or boast that we provided. Everything
we have is of Your hand. everything. We thank you for
the salvation you've brought for us freely in Christ and brought
to us through this Word and made us to know in our hearts that
it is sure and certain. We're thankful, Lord, that you
promise us that that inheritance is reserved in heaven for us. Lord, help our unbelief. Help our unbelief. Don't let
our old man reign and Don't let us fall into these seasons of
unbelief and despair. Keep us trusting You, Lord. Keep us looking to Christ and
knowing that all the promises of God are yes and amen. We pray
now for our brethren that are suffering. We pray for the families
of the brethren that are suffering. It's a suffering for them just
like it is for those that are sick. And we pray for them, Lord. Pray that You'll keep them and
strengthen them. Lord, we pray for Brother Cyril,
that You'd give him healing and help him to get back on his feet.
Bless Sister Lenore, having to take care of him. Lord, we pray
that You bless Your pastors everywhere, that they would be able to stand
today and speak with boldness, preach Christ and Him crucified. Lord, let us hear. Let us hear. Let us have a unction from You
today and to truly hear and truly enter in to these things. And
Lord, we ask You, keep us. Please keep us. We need Your
keeping power every hour. All these things, Lord, we ask
and we're assured of in Christ Jesus, our Lord and our Savior.
It's in His precious, precious name that we pray. Amen.