Alright, let's go back now to
Exodus chapter 8. The Lord sent Moses and he said
to Pharaoh in verse 20, let my people go that they may serve
me. And he told him that if he would
not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies upon thee,
and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses.
And the houses of the Egyptians shall be full, they will be full
of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are. But now look at this, in verse
22, He said, And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen
in which My people dwell. that no swarms of flies should
be there. To the end thou mayest know that
I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. And I'll put a division
between my people and thy people. Tomorrow shall this sign be."
And the Lord did so. There came a grievous swarm of
flies into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants' houses
and into all the land of Egypt. And look what happened. The land
was corrupted. by reason of the swarm of flies. And when we look at these swarm
of flies, we see the judgment of God upon a man who rejects
Christ, the judgment of God comes. And here we have an example of
the judgment of God coming upon a man who has rejected Christ
so that the man then is turned over to the corruption of his
idols. and his idolatrous worship. And
you say, well, how is that a picture of being turned over to idolatry?
Well, Pharaoh and the Egyptians worshipped Beelzebub. Remember
we saw that? He's the god of the flies. And so by sending this swarm
of flies into Pharaoh's house and the house of his servants
and all the house of the Egyptians so that it corrupted the land. You see, a picture of God's judgment
turning a sinner over to His idolatry, so that he's corrupted
entirely by his own idolatry. That's the picture here. The
land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies. When God
turns a man over to His own will, so that the man is just given
over to his idolatry, His whole land is corrupted. The Lord said
in Psalm 78, 45, He sent different sorts of flies which devoured
them. He made a way to His anger. He
spared not their soul from death but gave their life over to the
pestilence. The wrath and judgment upon reprobate
men is of God. That's of God. To let men go. To turn them over. To give them
over. to their own will. But you see, the corruption is
all of man. All God did here was gave them
over. And the corruption, when God
does that, is that a man will just be, he'll be so sincere
and so adamant that what he's preaching is true. And you're
wrong. And yet, what he's preaching
is nothing but idolatry. He's taken up with some idol
thing that is of no significance. And yet, he will be convinced
it's absolutely true. And his whole land will be corrupted
with it. Everything he comes in contact with and everybody
will be corrupted with it. See, the judgments of God did
turn a man over to that. And it's just because he rejected
God's gospel. But the corruption is all of
the man. God doesn't have to infuse any
corruption into you and me. He just has to let us go. I've
given you the illustration often about the, you know, a car that's
out of line and he's driving down the road. You have to hold
the steering wheel to keep it going in a straight line. But
if you let your hand off that steering wheel, it's going right
in the ditch. Well, that's a picture of God's hand on the reprobate. He keeps him going where He'll
have him to go. If God takes His hand off of him, he's going
to go off to the side, veer off. The earth is defiled under the
inhabitants thereof. See, that's Isaiah 24, 5. It's
not... God doesn't have to... He doesn't
have to defile anything. God's pure. But the earth is
defiled under the inhabitants thereof. because they have transgressed
the laws and changed the ordinance and broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore, hath the curse devoured the earth and they that dwell
therein are desolate. Therefore, the inhabitants of
the earth are burned and few men left. But thanks be to God,
thanks be to God, there are a few men left. There are a few men
left. And the reason there are a few
men left is by God's sovereign will. by His sovereign grace,
by God severing His people in His land. That's the reason. Look at the distinction God makes
here between His people and Pharaoh's people. Verse 20, ìLet My people
go, that they may serve Me.î Verse 21 else, ìIf thou wilt
not let My people go, I will send swarms of flies upon thee,
and upon thy servants, and upon thy people.î There's My people
and thy people. Verse 22, ìI will sever in that
day the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell, that no swarms
of flies should be there. To the end thou mayest know I
am the Lord in the midst of the earth, and I will put a division
between My people and thy people. And tomorrow shall this sign
be, and the Lord did so.î You see, God puts a division between
His people and the rest of this world. God puts a division between
His people and the rest of this world. And verses 22 and 24 teach
us how He does that, why He does that, and in whom He does that.
First of all, God Himself makes this division by His will. Verse
22, I will sever. in that day the land of Goshen
in which dwell my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall
be there. Verse 23, I will put a difference between my people
and thy people. This division we are talking
about is not made by the will of man. This division is not
made by the will of man. Some of you probably know brother
John Wamsley from Lexington, Kentucky. He was here last week. He sells Nikon microscopes to
biomedical departments and he was, there was a fella at Princeton
that had a huge budget and he was here selling some $100,000
microscopes to him. And he had two fellas with him
and when I found out he was here, I said, well, let's go to dinner.
So we went to dinner last Friday night and he brought the two
men that worked for him with him. And the one man that he
brought was an agnostic. And agnostics' chief goal is
to be as neutral as they can, to be as accepting of anything
and everything as they can. We could have just as well been
talking about the Tabasco bottle on the table and he would have
agreed. But he asked me a good question
when he found out I was a pastor. The first question this man asked
me was, what's the difference between sovereign grace and the
rest of the religions in this world? And I answered him that
When preached in truth, the difference between sovereign grace and every
other religion in this world is sovereign grace is the only
message that declares salvation is entirely of the Lord from
beginning to end and the sinner contributes nothing. Every other
religion and every other denomination in Christianity gives you something
to do, not the gospel, not the gospel. And this man's first
question to me after I said that was, where does man's free will
play into that? You see, even an agnostic can't
be neutral about his will that he thinks is free. Man, it doesn't
matter where men are, who they are, they always come back to
that argument. What about my free will? Well,
let me ask you a question. What would a man's will be free
from? Free from God? Is that what they
mean, free from God? Or do they mean free from sin
so that they are able to make right decisions? Or do they mean
free so that ultimately salvation is all dependent upon the sinner
and not upon God? None of those things are true,
brethren. Understand that. None of these
things are true. Man's will is never free from
God, ever. Listen to some scripture. Proverbs
16.33. The lot is cast into the lap. That's how come I was able
to get up off that seat, walk up here and stand right here
like this. The lot is cast into the lap. You have some free agency
to do some things within your sphere in your life. But the
whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. Though you have a will
to do some things, everything you do is going to fulfill God's
will. He's going to dispose of the whole thing. Proverbs 20.24,
Man's goings are of the Lord. How can a man then understand
his own way? Proverbs 21.1 says, The king's
heart's in the hand of the Lord. As the rivers of water, he turneth
it whithersoever he will. Jeremiah 10.23 says, O Lord,
I know that the way of man's not in himself. It's not in man
that walketh to direct his steps. See, God, by His will, is making
His will come to pass. And by the first birth, man's
will is not free. Not free from sin. By his first
birth, man's will is in bondage to his nature, to his sin nature. That sin nature is like a jail
cell. Got four walls and bars on the
door. Well, that man can do anything
he wants to within the confines of where those walls dictate
he can go. And a sinner, whose nature is
those walls and those bars, can do anything he wants to within
the confines of sin. But he can't break out of that.
He can't do anything but sin. Because that's his will. Scripture
says, when you were the servants of sin, You were free from righteousness. You had no righteousness. You
did no righteousness. You were the slaves of sin. Ephesians
2 says, In time past we walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, among
whom also we all had our conversation in time past in the lust of our
flesh. There is where a man's natural
will is. In the lust of his flesh. fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind. And we were by nature the children
of wrath even as others. Christ stood and talked to some
religious men. They were religious. They had
a will within the confines of their sinful nature. They had
a will to engage in a sinful religion that looked righteous
on the outside. But inwardly it was all exalting
themselves and their own works and their own will and their
own ways. And Christ stood and said to them, you will not come
to me that you might have life. And Paul said in 1 Corinthians
2, the natural man cannot. He cannot. Therefore man's will
is not the ultimate deciding factor on his salvation. It's God's will. It's God's will. Turn over to Romans 9, 10. God
by His will gives a... He chooses whom He will. He gives
a new heart according to His will. And He gives a new will
in a sinner. So that when He gives a new nature,
now you do what it's your nature to do. You believe on Christ.
Romans chapter 9 and look at verse 10. when Rebecca also had
conceived by one, even by our father Isaac, for the children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand. This is the purpose
of God in electing grace, so that salvation will be not of
works, but of him that calleth. It was said unto her, The elder
shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he said to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then, it's not of man that
willeth. It's not of man that willeth.
I bet the freewheeler has a big trouble with that verse. I bet
he can't preach on that verse much. It's not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that shows mercy. So in
God's time, everybody that He chose by His will shall be born
again by His will. John spoke of some men who were
born again and in John 1.13 he said, Which were born, not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God. God. It's God's will. It's God's will. And then God
teaches us His will. and teaches us in that new heart
He's created. He teaches us that salvation
is by His will. That's when you'll have a willingness
in a new heart with a new will that God's given to bow to God's
will. When He by His will teaches us
that salvation is by His will. That's exactly what He did to
Paul. Listen to this. Acts 22.14, He said, The God
of our fathers hath chosen thee, Paul, that thou shouldest know
His will, and see that just one, and should hear the voice of
His mouth. See? Everything about this is
God's will. And every good work that's done,
Scripture says, He makes you fulfill that which is according
to His will. Working in you what is His good
pleasure. What is His will? He works in
His people. It is God that works in you both
to will and to do of His good pleasure. Everything is of God. It is of God's will. And because
this is so, another thing God has done by His will is this.
He has made it so that His people and the devil's people will never
get along. They just won't get along. He
said in Genesis 3.15, I will, God said this, I will put enmity
between thee, O devil, and the woman, between thy seed and her
seed. And Christ shall bruise your
head, you'll bruise His heel. Christ is the seed of God and
in Him is the seed of God, God's children, His elect. And then
you have the devil and his seed, the non-elect. And these two
will always be enmity against each other. They will never get
along. And that's by the will of God.
That's by the will of God. So, we preach this message. And, you know, when we preach
it, we're preaching. When we preach to unregenerate
men, we're calling on men to believe on Christ. And we say,
but you can't. Believe on Him or you won't be
saved. But where you sit right there,
you can't believe on Him. What is that? That's preaching
to dry bones. That's what God told Ezekiel
to do. Preach to these dry bones. Can they live? I don't know. Ezekiel said, Lord, You know. I don't know can they live. I
don't know who God's elect are. I have no idea if they can live
or not. But I know this, if they do live,
I know how they're going to live. God said, you go declare My works
to them. You preach what I do. You preach
that this thing is all of My will. As you preach that, I'll
breathe life into them and they'll stand up and they'll live. That's
why we preach it. That's why I teach it. I used
to sit in a pew and think, why in the world is He telling me
to believe on Christ and telling me I can't believe on Christ?
That don't even make any sense. And then one day God, by His
will, breathed life into me and taught me His will. And it made
perfect sense. I understood now why we preach
this message. So secondly then, God makes this
division now. How does He make it? By severing
the land in which His people dwell. He said in verse 22, Exodus
8, 22, I will sever in that day the land of Goshen in which My
people dwell. so that no swarms of flies shall
be there. And I, verse 23, I will put a
division between My people and thy people. This word sever has
got to be important. When you come across a word like
that, it's got to be important because God said this is going
to be the difference between My people and your people. When
that word sever means to distinctly mark out and separate and distinguish
from all others. That's what it means. And the
land that God distinctly marked out, the land that He separates
from all others, the land that He has made this distinction
in is Christ. Christ is that land. The land
of Goshen here is a picture of Christ. This is the land in which
the Lord's people dwelt. The land in which we dwell is
Christ. The land of Goshen here is a picture of Christ. Before
the world was made, God marked Him out, separated Him out, chose
Him out to exalt Him and Him alone, His Son. He said, "...and
I said, Behold My servant whom I uphold, mine elect. This is the one I've chosen.
When there was nobody but God and His Son and His Spirit, He
chose His Son. Psalm 89, 19 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. Do you know what the holy one
means? It means He's the only one. Holy One. Holy means other than. Christ is other than what we
are. He is the Holy One. That means
He is marked out. He is separate. He is distinguished.
Such a high priest became us who is holy, undefiled, separate
from sinners. That's Christ. He's the one pictured
in the land of Goshen. And then by choosing His people
in Christ, just as we saw in Romans 9, not based on a good
or evil in us, by His free grace, according to the purpose of election,
that salvation might be not by our works, but by Him that calleth.
By His will, He chose His people in Christ. And when He did that,
He distinctly separated us and marked us out. as His people,
as His people, as His children. Hereby know we that we dwell
in Him and He in us. You see, this is the land in
which we dwell, Christ. All His elect dwelt in Him from
eternity because God chose us in Christ. And we dwelt in Him
when Christ walked this earth and went to the cross. We were
in Him doing what He was doing by His doing. and were in Him
when He was born of God, and He's in us. He's the land we
dwell in. So the way God puts a division
between His people and the devil's people is first of all by God's
will, and second of all, it's by Christ, whom He's marked out
and separated and distinguished from all others, and marked out
and separated and distinguished a people in Him. Just like you
see the picture there, the children of Israel. were marked out and
separate and distinctly divided from all the people of Egypt. How? They were in the land of
Goshen. That's a picture of God's elect
being in Christ. That's what separates us. We
didn't do it by our will. We didn't choose Him. He chose
us. This is all by grace. Now, here's
the third thing. in the land in which His people
dwell, that is in Christ. There is no curse, there is no
judgment, there is no corruption of idolatry. Verse 22, He said,
I will sever in that day the land of Goshen in which My people
dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there. No swarms of
flies shall be there. Christ has taken away all the
curse from His people by being made a curse for us. He took
away the curse. That's why Scripture says there
is now no condemnation to them that are what? In Christ. To them that dwell in this land,
there is no curse. There is no condemnation. It's
because Christ bore the judgment in our place. Christ came and
took the judgment upon Himself so that now justice is satisfied. There's no judgment towards His
people in this land. And Christ has taken away our
sin so that in the new man that He's made, there's no more corrupting
idolatry. No more. There's no sin. in the
new man that He creates in these dead bodies of flesh. There's
no sin, no corrupting defilement. God can't create sin. God can't
create something that's sinful. He can't create something that's
corrupt. Everything He creates, Christ creates in righteousness
and holiness. That's why Paul spoke of the
new man that's created in us in righteousness and true holiness.
This is the work of our Lord so that there's no more flies.
Hebrews 9.29 says, Once in the end of the world hath He appeared
to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. That's what He did.
That's what Scripture says. And in Christ there is no sin.
Just like in the land of Goshen there was no swarms of flies,
no corrupting idolatry. In Christ there is no sin. No
sin, no corrupting idolatry. purging the conscience of sin
by His blood in the new man. You shall defile the covering
of Thy graven images of silver and the ornament of Thy molten
images of gold. Thou shalt cast them away as
a mistress' cloth. Thou shalt say unto it, Get thee
hence. How else would we do that? How
else would we say to our idolatry, I see now, that's idolatry I
was trusting. I was trusting my own God, my
will, my works, my doctrine. That's all I was trusting. How
does a man come to see that and reject it? It's only by Christ
in whom we dwell, coming and dwelling in us and giving us
light and giving us the truth and teaching us that in Him is
no corruption because He's put away our sin. He put away our
sin. And so therefore, verse 22 says,
the land of Goshen in which my people dwell, there should be
no swarms of flies there. Listen to this, believer. I want
you to get this. We're surrounded by enemies. Number one, our sinful
flesh. We're surrounded by Will Work's
religion. And now, this whole world has
become so self-righteous. That generation that Brother
Scott read in that Proverbs, we're living amongst that generation. It's not just a particular time.
It is a people. They've been in every... what
we call every generation, but they are a generation, seed of
the serpent, that just hearty and self-righteous, and if it's
wrong, it's right, and if it's right, it's wrong. People they call bitter-sweet
and sweet-bitter. So how is it we're going to be
kept? How is it we're never going to
be so defiled that we come before God in His presence and God says,
away. How is it? Isaiah 54, 17 says,
No weapon that's formed against thee shall prosper. And every
tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. I have
a friend that's going through a great trial right now and recently
Some people have been pointing the finger at her and throwing
scriptures at her and accusing her and trying to condemn her.
You know what Satan does? Number one, he does not abide
in the truth. Number two, when he preaches,
he preaches of his own, Christ said. That means it's not of
God and he always strives for something new and novel because
the flesh loves that. And number three, he's the accuser
of the brethren. And when men fall away, prove
themselves to be reprobate, the seed of the serpent, you always
find those three things. They abide not in the truth,
they want something new and novel, and they start accusing God's
people, using God's word to do it. But God says, every tongue
that shall rise against thee in judgment, child of God, thou
shalt condemn. Stand with Christ. You won't
have to condemn it. You won't have to open your mouth.
I tell all my friends who are suffering, I tell them, do not
defend yourself. Trust God to defend you and your
brethren. God will defend His people and
condemn the tongue It comes against us in judgment. Now, the purpose. Let's look at the purpose for
this division. Exodus 8.22. To the end that thou mayest know
that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. Well, that explains
to me a whole lot. That explains to me why the devil
hates the doctrine of election. That right there explains to
him. He don't want you to know that the Lord is God. That's
why. Well, this is God's executing
judgment that is just. That's what He was doing here.
He's executing judgment that is just. Thus will I execute
judgments in Egypt, and they shall know that I am the Lord.
He's executing judgment. The judgment of God that He executes
is always holy and just. I've said this over and over.
The chief attribute of God is holiness. He always does that
which is righteous, that which is just. And this is what differentiates
Him from all other vain idol gods of men. God alone does that
which is right and just. Man, because He creates his own
idol, man can't even... He can't even... He can't even
create a God that's holy and just because He creates a God
just like Him. And you talk to men and ask them,
what's the critical key of the gospel having to do with righteousness? And they can't tell you. They
can't tell you the purpose of the gospel is to declare how
God can be just and the justifier of His people. How that God can
justly execute everybody that sinned against Him and yet at
the same time justify some of those very ones that He executes.
They can't figure that out. So they can't make a God like
that. The thing that distinguishes our God from all other gods is
He always executes that which is just. So when God here severed
His people and separated them in the land of Goshen, it was
a just thing. And when He poured out judgment
on all Egypt who rejected Him, it was a just thing. And by this,
by justly saving one people and justly passing by another people,
God made Himself to be known, that He's the Lord different
from every other idol in the world. Psalm 916 says, The Lord
is known by the judgment which He executes. That's how you know
the difference. Isn't that it, brethren? When
you hear somebody preaching, isn't that exactly how you know
whether or not you're hearing a message from the Lord? When
you hear a man preach, if a man is saying things that God doesn't
do, that God's wanting to do something or trying and He wishes
you'd let Him do this or that, you know immediately, that's
not executing justice. That can't be my God He's talking
about. That can't be the true and living God He's talking about.
Because it's justice for God to come and give life to His
people because He's redeemed them. When you hear somebody
talking about Christ on the cross was setting an example for us
to lay down our lives and that's all it was and they don't speak
of righteousness and the necessity of a man dying under the wrath
of God so that God can be holy and just and at the same time
that's God justifying His people from our sins which can only
be done in the person of Christ. If you don't hear that, the thing
that makes you know you're not hearing the Lord is that God's
not executing justice. He died for all people without
exception and wants all people to be saved, but then He's going
to turn around and throw some in the hell that He died for?
You know, that's not the Lord God, because that's not justice.
To pour out justice twice on the same person, that's not justice.
See, we know the Lord by the judgment He executes in the earth. That's how we know Him. He says,
the wicked snared in the work of His own hands. God always
only executes just judgment. And when He executes this just
judgment upon a reprobate and leaves him alone, just like I
said in the beginning, the man is snared by the work of his
own hands. He doesn't want to worship the
true God. And God gives him what he wants and he starts worshiping
a false God and he so loves his religion, he loves what he's
doing, he's doing what it's his will to do. God wanted to have
His way and His will and God said, have at it. And it's that
very will and those very works that snares Him. Have you ever noticed that when
you have a person who goes away from the Gospel and they start
condemning God's people, and quote Scripture to do it. The
very things they quote in Scripture to condemn God's people are true
of God and His people toward the reprobate. They're true.
And so you look at it and you say, well what makes it true?
If a reprobate could say this against me, but this thing is
true with me in Christ towards the reprobate, well then how
do you know the difference? God executes judgment and He
makes you to know in your heart. And you know. You believe Him.
You trust Him. And that's how you know the difference.
And you'll know one day in glory when that man who accused is
snared in justice by the work of his own hand. Only God can
make you know the difference. That's the point I'm making.
Only God can make you know the difference. So lastly then, I
want you to see this. This is going to be the best
point I've ever made to some people. Because it's going to
be the shortest. Everything God purposes and everything
He promises His people from the beginning that He will do, He
performs it. Look at verse 24. And the Lord
did so. And the Lord did so. Isn't that
good? We have a God that tells us the
truth. And He determines the end from the beginning. He declares
the end from the beginning. And then He does it. Everything
He said, He does it. All right, brethren, let's stand
together and we'll be dismissed. Brother Eric, come lead us in
a closing hymn. Father, how we do thank You for
this Word. How we do thank You for Your
will. Thank You for Christ in whom You've made a distinction
between Your people. We're thankful, Lord, that in
Him there's no condemnation, no sin. We're safe from every
weapon that's formed against us. We are thankful, Lord, because
You did this all. Just like You said You would,
You have done it and You shall continue to do it. Lord, bring
Your people to praise You, to honor You. Make those that are
suffering and being accused, make them to rejoice to see that
no tongue that is wagging against them will ever be able to condemn
them. God will defend His people. He will protect His people in
Christ. It's in His precious name we
pray. Amen.