Brethren, let's turn in our Bibles
to Exodus 6. Exodus chapter 6. Now the Lord sent Moses to the
children of Israel with the gospel. That's where we left off Sunday. You know, He gave him the Gospel,
He told him about His covenant, His name, His promises, His works,
and He sent Moses. He said, now go tell the children
of Israel this Gospel. Go preach this Gospel to them.
And verse 9 says, And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel. Moses told them what God told
him to say. They hearken not unto Moses because
of anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. You know, you
hear a lot of talk from those that boast in their will and
in their works and they like to speak about their seeking. They like to speak about their
will and how they accepted their poor little Jesus into their
lives. But that was not the experience
of the children of Israel. Far from it. And that's not the
experience of God's true people. They hearken not unto Moses because
of anguish of spirit and because of cruel bondage. Verse 10 says,
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Go in, speak unto Pharaoh,
king of Egypt, that he let the children of Israel go out of
his land. And Moses spake before the Lord,
saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened
unto me. How then shall Pharaoh hear me,
who am of uncircumcised lips? We are working preachers. And
the will works religionists like to boast in their works. Not
only in their faithfulness, their will and their faithfulness,
but in their works, their service and their witnessing and their
being able to plant churches and what have you. And that wasn't
the experience of Moses. Far from it. And that's not the
experience of God's true preachers. Moses found himself unable to
do the work God called him to do because he was full of unbelief. He was unable to bear witness
of Christ because he was full of unbelief. And then after all
of this, Israel showed, after they showed their unfaithfulness
and after Moses showed himself turning from the work God had
given him, then God declares, something through two things
that He does. And by those two things, He shows
how His people are really saved. And we'll look at that when we
get to it a little later in the message. But here's what I want
us to get tonight. It's by the faith and works of
Christ that sinners like us are saved by God. It's by the faith
and works of Christ that sinners like us are saved by God. It's not by our faith and it's
not by our works. It's by Christ's faith and by
Christ's works. I've titled this Salvation by
Christ's Faith and Works. Now first of all, we see here
that it's not our faith that saves us. Look at verse 9. Moses spake unto the children
of Israel, but they hearken not unto Moses for anguish of spirit
and for cruel bondage. Now I'm saying to you salvation
is not by our faith. And I know somebody is going
to object to that. Well, let me go ahead and say
this. I'm well aware that on multiple occasions Christ made
the statement to sinners saying, Thy faith hath saved thee. I understand that. He did that
more than once. But any believer, every true
believer knows. They knew and every true believer
knows. It's the object of our faith
that saves. The way that Christ could say,
Thy faith saved thee is because their faith trusted Christ to
save them. And that's who does the saving.
It's the object of our faith that does the saving. Without
question now, faith is of utmost importance. Don't think I'm saying
that it's not necessary that you and I believe on Christ.
Faith is important. Scripture says, without faith
it's impossible to please God, for they that come to God must
believe that He is, and that He rewards them that diligently
seek only Him, and rest only in Him, and trust only Him. So
faith is very much important. The very purpose for which I'm
preaching right now is that God might give somebody faith through
the Gospel to cast all their care on Christ and trust Him
to save them. That's why I'm preaching. So
faith, yes, faith is important. It's very important. But if you
do believe, it will be by the faith of Christ that you believe.
It will be by the work of Christ that you believe. And you'll
know that so. You'll confess that so. Now at
this point in Exodus, the children of Israel represent believers. At this point in Exodus, they
represent believers. You know, Moses and Aaron came
and preached the gospel to them back up in Exodus 4. And you
recall back in Exodus 4.31, after they heard the gospel, Scripture
says, and the people believed. And when they heard that the
Lord had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked
upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped. We're talking here now about
an example of believers. I don't know if they all believe,
but I'm saying they represent believers at this point in this
story. But after they went and told
Pharaoh what the Lord had told them, And the only thing Pharaoh
did in response to what they declared was make their life
even more bitter than it was before. Now, after that, Moses
comes again with the gospel. The Lord sends him with the gospel
again, even in more detail this time, declaring what He'll do
for them. But when He comes this time, they hearken not unto Moses
for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. You know, when
God puts His new Spirit in a believer, when He gives us a pure heart,
He makes us honest about ourselves. We can be honest about ourselves
with one another. You and I both can look right
here at the children of Israel and say, that is me. As a believer,
that is me. How many times, often, it's the
case that we can't find any faith at all to believe on the Lord.
There is no faith in us to believe Him. We can't listen to God's
Word. We can't hear God's Word because
of anguish of spirit and the bondage of our old sin nature.
It's taken us into captivity. We can't hear Him. Moses came there. He declared
the name of God, Jehovah, God Almighty, El Shaddai, God able
to save. And they listened to Him and
He said that, you know, He mixed His name with His promises because
when God gives you a promise, His name is behind it. And God
won't let His name be polluted. God is going to save His people
for His name's sake. So He always connects His name
to His promises. We saw that. And He's sitting
there declaring this to them. And the whole time the Word's
going forth. The Word of God's going forth.
The Gospel's going forth. And while it's going forth, and
they're hearing about the name of God, all they could think about was
where they're going to find straw to make the tail of bricks that
Pharaoh's demanding they make. That's all they could think about.
Have you ever sat here and while the Word is going forth, all
you could think about was what you have to do tomorrow? See, it's not by our faithfulness,
is it? We can be honest about that.
I know. I've been there many times. Moses declared God's covenant
promise. He said God saved His elect Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob by promise, by His everlasting unchangeable
covenant promise, that promise in which Christ became their
surety, so that covenant was sure to them. And then He said,
and not only that, He saves all His elect that way. He sent me
here now with this gospel, Moses said, because God remembered
His covenant with Abraham. He's going to save Abraham's
children like He promised He would. And that's our message. We preach that covenant word,
how God shall save His people. And the children of Israel sat
there and heard that and the only promise they could think
about was their promise to those taskmasters that tomorrow they
would bring in the load of bricks they were supposed to bring in.
They couldn't think of anything else. Moses came there and he
preached the works of God. He preached God who fulfills
all His promises. He said it's God who redeems
His people. It's God who brings you out from
under the burden. And it's only God that redeems
us from the curse of the law, sending forth Christ to be made
a curse for us. And He brings us out from the
curse and the burden of our sin nature, the bondage of our sin
nature. And He declared it's the works
of God that is done in judgment by which we are redeemed. Christ
on the cross doing the work in judgment whereby He's satisfying
divine justice for God so that God's just, His law is magnified
and honored. And he's declaring that God's
the very One who justified His people. He declared there that
it's by His power, His arm, it's the only way we're brought out
from under our bondage and brought to trust in Him and rest in Him.
And it's God who's going to save His people. It's His work that's
going to preserve them right unto the land and deliver them
into the land that God promised to give us. He declared God's
works. That's what He came declaring.
And while he declared God's works, every time they heard the word
work, all they could think about was that bitter work and bondage
they were under, and how God hadn't delivered
them out of it yet, and how it was so painful to them, and how
it plagued them, and how the taskmasters whipped them, and
they hadn't seen any deliverance from that yet. And that's all
they could think about. Do you ever think about, you
know, your sin is so bad, and your old sin nature is so bad,
and your flesh is so bad, and you think, God hasn't delivered
me from this yet. Why should I trust Him today?
He hasn't delivered me yet. I'm still plagued by this sin
burden. I see my sin before me all the time. And every believer finds ourselves
right there, time after time. It's our sin nature, it's the
cares of the world, it's the devil, it's wicked men. It causes
us anguish of spirit and makes it impossible for us to hear
the gospel and believe God. Just impossible. Spurgeon, he
said this, you know, this is, men will say, Look at the shape
the world is in. He hasn't delivered men out of
this sin-cursed world. Or men will say, I see believers
that sin and God hasn't delivered them. Why should I believe God? And those are thoughts that go
through the heart of a believer. Spurgeon said, what a poor reason
for refusing light because the night is so dark. That's a poor
reason. I'm going to refuse this light
because the night is just too dark. That's what we're saying
when men say, I'm not going to believe on God. Look, He hadn't
saved this world. He hadn't redeemed His people.
He hadn't saved us from our sin. When God first drew me to Christ
and made me believe on Christ, made me willing to believe on
Christ, I really and truly thought that now, I won't be as sinful
as I was up to this point. And I'll tell you this, after
over 30 years in the faith, I still beg God to stop me from my sin. And my flesh hadn't got better
not one bit in over 30 years. it's gotten worse. The more God
gives you light to see Christ, the more you see, I'm not getting
better in my flesh, I'm getting worse. It's always been there,
it's just now you see it a little better. You know, when you read
over there, Paul said the law is not made for a righteous man,
it's made for whoremongers and drunkards and thieves and murderers
and all those different things. That's not different kinds of
people it's made for. That's me. All those are descriptions
of me and they're descriptions of you. So we know what this is, but
you know, when we get in the bondage of our sin nature like
that, we're in good company. Go to Romans 7. Here's a regenerated
believer, not just any believer. This is that imminent apostle
Paul. Now listen to what he said here.
Romans 7 verse 20. He said, Now if I do that, I
would not. It's no more I that do it. but
sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law that when I
would do good, evil, evil is present with me." He's saying,
when I would do good, I'm thinking of doing good or maybe he's even
done something good, gone and preached the gospel. are written
these words of the Bible, inspired by the Spirit of God. While he's
doing that work, he said, evil is present with me. In him. Look at this, for I delight in
the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in
my members, warring against the law of my mind, look at this
now, and bringing me into captivity. Isn't that where the children
of Israel were? They could not hearken to Moses. They couldn't. For anguish of spirit and cruel
bondage, they were in captivity. Their sin nature had them in
captivity. That anguished spirit had them
in captivity. They could not believe Moses.
And we're often brought into captivity to the law of sin,
Paul said, which is in my members. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who
shall deliver me? Who's going to redeem me? Who's
going to bring me out and deliver me from the body of this death?
Here's why God left us in this body of death right here. So
we're brought to this place. I thank God. through Jesus Christ
our Lord. That's how I'm going to be delivered.
This hour, the next hour, the next hour, and at last, finally,
it's going to be by Christ. It's going to be by Christ. So
see, brethren, what I'm saying is it's not our faithfulness
by which we're saved. It's Christ's faithfulness. Look
here now, secondly, go back to our text. Exodus 6. Not only is it not our faith
that saves, it's not our works that save us either. Now, again,
don't misunderstand me. Faith without works is dead.
James clearly said, faith without works is dead. God said that.
Faith without works is dead. Wherever God gives faith, true
faith, the gift of God, God is going to cause His child to walk
in good works. Because God ordained those good
works before the foundation of the world. And God is going to
make His child His workmanship so that they are going to walk
in those good works. They are going to do those good works. You and
I don't have to worry. We're going to miss out on doing
any one work that God ordained for us to do. I guarantee you
God's going to bring you to it and you're going to do it. Because
He ordained it before. That's Ephesians 2. But what
I'm saying here is we see in Moses how we so often turn from
the work God's given us to do. Now this is a case of a preacher.
God had called him to go preach. But this holds true for any work,
whatever God has called you to do. You see, like I see, we can't
look to our works to be saved. Because we turn from our works.
Look here, verse 10. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Go in, speak unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that he let the
children of Israel go out of his land. See, nothing had changed
with God. God's covenant hadn't changed,
His purpose hadn't changed, His will hadn't changed, nothing's
changed with God. But something changed with Moses.
Look here. And Moses spake before the Lord,
saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened
to me. They haven't heard me. They wouldn't hear my word. How
then shall Pharaoh hear me who am of uncircumcised lips? Now Moses had been faithful to
God. He declared every word to the children of Israel that God
told him to declare. But they didn't hearken to him.
And when they didn't hear the word that he spoke, that's when
God's preacher finds that he's altogether helpless to make the
word effectual in the heart of God's people. And it's discouraging. It's very discouraging. And what
happened here when Moses couldn't make them believe? Moses changed. He went back to
where he was before. He went back to the unbelief
he was before. He turned from his work. He's
telling the Lord, I can't go do this work. He's back where
he was when God first caught him and sent him to this world.
He's even back to using the same excuse he used back then, his
speech impediment, his uncircumcised lips. You see, that's what happens
to us, a little rejection, a little difficulty in the work God's
given us to do. And it just does not take much.
Isn't it amazing how we will endeavor and and persevere in
sin, in doing that which God has told us not to do, but when
it comes to the work God sent us to do, it just takes a little
bit of opposition. And we'll turn from that work.
It must not be God's will. God's sovereign. If it was His
will, He'd have me doing it. Well, we're going to see. God's
sovereign. He's going to have Moses do it. But Moses can't
blame God for that, for he's turning from his work. A little
bit of opposition and we'll turn from our work. So we see, brethren,
that no believer can... we can't glory in our faith,
we can't glory in our works. Paul said not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to thank anything as of ourselves. Our sufficiency
is of God. I want you to look here with
me now, this last thing. We're saved by God's faithfulness
and God's works. And when I say God's faithfulness
and God's works, I mean Christ's faithfulness and Christ's works.
That's who's talking to Moses, is Christ. That's who's been
talking to Him since the burning bush back there. Because He's
the mediator between God and men. He's doing God's work. Christ
is. And so, first of all, we see
Christ's faithfulness declared in a list of names. This correlates
with the children of Israel, with their unfaithfulness. They
wouldn't hearken to God. And now we're going to see Christ's
faithfulness. What does the scripture say?
If we believe not, what? He remains faithful. He knows
them that are His. Aren't you thankful for that?
I've seen a lot of believers who come to a point where their
mind was gone and they didn't even know who they were, much
less who the Lord was. Aren't you thankful that the
Lord knows them that are His and remains faithful even when
we can't be faithful? Our sin is just a bigger disease,
or bigger than Alzheimer's. It's the cause of it. And that's
what we're looking at here. They couldn't believe. They're
unfaithful, but we see Christ's faithfulness. Look here now,
verse 13. And the Lord spake unto Moses
and unto Aaron, and He gave them a charge unto the children of
Israel and unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the children
of Israel out of the land of Egypt. He gave him this charge all over
again to go to Pharaoh and to the children of Israel and declare
this word. Now watch this. He said, to bring the children
of Israel out of the land of Egypt. These, referring to the
children of Israel, he said, these be the heads of their fathers'
houses. Now here's the head of their
fathers' houses, way back yonder. Children of Jacob. These are
the heads, the fathers. The heads over their fathers'
houses. Watch this. The sons of Reuben,
the firstborn of Israel. The firstborn of Jacob, Reuben. And then he lists Reuben's sons
whom he would deliver out of Egypt. And then in verse 15 he
said, and the sons of Simeon. He was a head. And then he lists
his sons whom he would deliver out of Egypt. And in verse 16,
ìAnd these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their
generations.î And then he lists the sons of Levi and he includes
Moses and Aaron because theyíre both sons of Levi. Verse 26,
ìThese are that Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, ìBring
out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to
their armies.î These are they which spake to Pharaoh, king
of Egypt, to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt. These are
that Moses and Aaron. He showed us here now these three
heads. Now when I first read those names,
my first thought was the Lamb's Book of Life. That's the first
thing I thought about. When we don't remember God, we
don't believe God, we're not faithful to believe God, God
remains faithful. He knows the name of every child
He wrote in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of
the world. Revelation 21-27 says, "...there shall in no wise enter
into heavenly Jerusalem anything that defileth, neither whatsoever
worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they which are written
in the Lamb's book of life." And it's called in another place,
the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. Why is it called that? Because
whenever the Lord chose His people in Christ, every name is recorded
in God's book and Christ said, I will be surety for every name
in that book. And when He agreed to be surety
for His people, right then, God's Word is true. He cannot lie. He will not go back on His Word.
So right then when Christ promised to die in their room instead,
right there in the mind and purpose of God, He was the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. The works were finished because
He shall not fail. They were sure and that covenant
was sure to them and they would surely be saved. That covenant
was ordered in all things and sure when Christ agreed to be
the surety for His people. That's the first thing I thought
of. But then I began to see something else. I began to see that only
the names of the first three sons of Jacob were given. Why? Why did He just list the first
three sons of Jacob? That wasn't the only ones in
Israel, and that wasn't the only sons He was going to save. He was going to maintain the
whole twelve tribes of Israel. All twelve of Jacob's sons were
going to have a place. So why did He just list the names
of those three? We're looking at Christ's faithfulness. That's what we're looking at.
That's what He's teaching here, that He's faithful. Even when
we're unfaithful, He's faithful. These were the most unfaithful
of all the sons of Jacob. These three, right here. Jacob
pronounced a curse on those three due to their unfaithfulness and
their sinful works. Remember when he blessed them?
He said, Reuben, you're unstable as water, nothing will come of
you. Your curse. Simeon, Levi, you went in there
to those men that harmed your sisters and you slew them. Nothing. Your curse. He takes the three
most unfaithful names, the three most sinful working of Jacob's
children, and He says, He lists their names. And now their children, the children
of those three are here in our text, and they are unfaithful.
And Moses and Aaron have turned, sinfully they have turned from
their work. See, the fruit don't fall far from the tree, does
it? We can't blame our children. Why are you like you are? Just
go look in the mirror. Brethren, every elect child,
listen to this now, every elect child written in God's book of
life, every single one that God is going to save, are the very
most unfaithful and sinfully working children they are. Every
one of us are the chief of sinners. That's all we are. And yet here
Christ is faithful. He promised Abraham he would
redeem his children and in perfect faithfulness he did so. That's what he's saying here.
He's showing here brethren our belief and our lack of service
and our sin and our murmuring does not change the faithfulness
of God in Christ toward His people. It don't change it at all. You
know what grace is? Grace is God saving us not based
on anything in us. That means good or evil. God
is not looking at you and me. Christ is faithful to fulfill
every covenant promise He agreed to fulfill. So from the moment
He entered covenant with God, God never has looked at His people
and never will look at His people. He is looking at Christ. And
so His faithfulness does not change toward us. It does not
change. The faith of Christ even takes
unfaithful, sinful workers like us and makes us priests unto
God. That's what the Scripture says. We're made priests unto God.
He took Levi and made his family the priests unto God. We're saved by his faithfulness.
And then look at this now. Then he uses Moses. And he declares
that we're saved by Christ's works. Verse 28. And it came
to pass on the day when the Lord spake unto Moses in the land
of Egypt. He is saying that God did this in addition to giving
that list of names on that same occasion, at that same time.
Not only did He give that list of names, He said at this same
occasion, when the Lord spake unto Moses saying, I am the Lord,
speak thou unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say unto
thee. And then Moses said before the Lord, Behold, I am of uncircumcised
lips, how shall Pharaoh hearken unto me? He is saying it came
to pass on that same day when all that happened that the Lord
did this right here. Look at chapter 7 verse 1. When
soon as Moses got through saying, I'm of uncircumcised lips, soon
as he proved he had turned from his work and that this work wasn't
going to be done by him, look at what happened. And the Lord
said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and
Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Aaron thy brother. thy older brother. Aaron is 43
right here and Moses is 40. Aaron is his elder brother. Thy
older brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak all that I command
thee. And Aaron thy brother shall speak
unto Pharaoh that he send the children of Israel out of his
land. Now get these pictures here. Christ is he who came to
Moses and strengthened Moses. Christ is our strength. That's
number one. He first comes to us. And then
Moses is God's preacher. So he represents preachers here.
But that also is the fact that he's doing a work that Christ
has called him to means that he represents all Christ's servants. We're all witnesses. We're all
serving Christ now. And the fact that he is called
to a work that represents all the believers. And then Aaron
here, who does Aaron typify? Who is the elder brother? Who
is our prophet? Christ. She got Christ at the
beginning, she got Christ at the end. Look at what he says
here. Christ came to Moses and Christ
strengthened him. Christ told him this. He said,
I made you a God unto Pharaoh, Moses. What does that mean? It means Christ made Moses His
ambassador unto Pharaoh. It means Moses was sent forth
by Christ's authority to speak to Pharaoh. That meant he wasn't
going to fail in what he did. That meant he was to be heard
and his message was to be heeded. That was to strengthen Pharaoh,
that I'm the authority by which you're speaking, I mean to strengthen
Moses. I'm the authority by which you're
speaking, Moses. So Christ strengthened Moses
by that, assured him that he would not fail, his work wouldn't
be in vain. And that's what Christ does for
every man Christ sends forth as His ambassador. He comes and
He strengthens His preacher and He sends His preacher forth with
His authority as His ambassador so that His message is to be
heard and heeded. And He won't fail because He
goes forth. But that shows you Christ is
our strength. Paul said, he said unto me, My
grace is sufficient for thee. My grace is sufficient for thee.
And Paul said, Most gladly therefore, I'll glory in my infirmities. I'm not going to pout away and
murmur anymore because of my sinful infirmities. I'm going
to take glory in them. I'm going to be thankful for
them. Because when I am totally weak, that's when I'm strong.
Because that's when the power of Christ is resting upon me. That's what we see here in Moses.
Christ came to him and the power of Christ sent him forth. You're
going forth of my authority to Pharaoh. But then once that happens,
and Christ makes his preacher go forth to preach all that he
commands, he goes forth and he preaches all that Christ commands
we preach. He doesn't leave anything out.
That's what Christ told him to do here. But when he's doing
that, we don't have any sufficiency to make anybody hear the Word. So what do we do? I'm going to
tell you what happens. This is a weekly occurrence. It happens between Sunday evening
and Thursday night, and it happens between Thursday night and Sunday
morning. Every week in my life. For ten
years, this is what happened. Lord, I need a message. Please give me a message. And
He comes and strengthens you and He gives you the message
to go preach. And then you start praying, Lord, will you take
these words you've given me, thank you for the message, will
you take this message now and cause your people to hear it
as I'm preaching it? Cause them to take it home and
it be in their heart and cause them to hear it, make them hear
it. See, Christ comes and gives you
the word. And then you turn around and give the word back to him
and say, Lord, would you please make them hear it? That's what
he said to them. Look, verse 2, Thou shalt speak
all that I command thee. I'm giving you the message. And
Aaron thy brother, you go tell Aaron, go talk to Aaron, tell
him what I told you, Christ said. And Aaron thy brother shall speak
unto Pharaoh that he send the children of Israel out of his
land. That's what happens. We go right back to Christ with
the Word He's given and say, He's our elder brother, He's
the prophet who makes it effectual. We go back and ask Him now, would
you preach it? Preach it in their heart. And so Christ through
the Holy Spirit gets all the glory when He makes somebody
hear it. It's by His Word. So here's what
I'm saying to you and I'm done. Our faith toward God does not
save us. If faith is needful, I encourage you to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. And I guarantee you that God
is going to gift every single one of His elect with faith and
He is going to make us believe on Christ. But don't ever think
that that faith saves you like the world talks about it. Religion
talks about, oh, my faith is what saved me, blah, blah, blah.
No. It's the object of our faith,
Christ Jesus the faithful. And in the same token, brethren,
works are important. God-given faith is going to be
accompanied by God-ordained works. And God is going to work in you
both to will and due of His good pleasure and there will be good
works. But don't ever look to those works because you turn
from your works constantly. And if it wasn't for Christ's
faithfulness working in us, we wouldn't go to the works. We
are saved by His works. He redeemed us. He shed His blood. And He is going to bring us to
trust Him, His faithfulness and His works. Robert Hawker said
this on this passage. He said, we can never trust ourselves
too little nor God too much. He said, I can do nothing by
myself. He just quoted the script. I can do nothing by myself. But
as Paul said, through Christ which strengthens me. I can do
everything. I can do all things through Him. You can't trust
yourself too little and you can't trust Christ too much. Remember
that. Alright.