Exodus chapter 5. Read in verse 1, And afterward
Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord
God of Israel, Let my people go. that they may hold a feast
unto me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the
Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not
the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. Now, Pharaoh was like
every unbeliever, every spiritually dead sinner. had many gods and he regarded
himself a god. And that's the problem with every
unregenerate sinner. The unregenerate sinner has many
gods, regards himself as a god. Pharaoh regarded himself as wise,
so does every unbeliever. Pharaoh regarded himself righteous
by sacrifices to all his many idol gods. And that's the case
with the unregenerate, unbelieving sinner. He thinks he's righteous
by what he's done, by his works. Pharaoh regarded himself to be
in need of nothing from the Lord God. And that's the case with
the unbeliever. He doesn't feel like he needs
anything from God whatsoever. And something else with Pharaoh
is, when he heard this word about my people, He looked at Israel,
those that God called His people, and He looked at them, and to
Pharaoh, those people were nothing. They've been slaves for 400 years. They were his slaves. They were
nothing to him. And that's the case with the
unbeliever. When he looks at the believer, they're nothing
to him. They're nothing to him. There's nothing impressive about
them. They're nothing. And so sinners make the same
mistake that Pharaoh made. The mistake Pharaoh made was
he would not observe the works of the Lord. And he would not
hear the Word of the Lord. Going no further than just what
we have right here in these two verses. If Pharaoh would have
acknowledged the work of the Lord, he would see that standing
before him were two men declaring God's Word. So obviously the
Lord is He who sends forth His messengers preaching His Word.
That's who the Lord is. And they came forth and they
spoke this, they said, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my
people go. Obviously the Lord is He who
has a people that He calls My people, who He will deliver,
who He says let go. And then they said, ìThus saith
the Lord God of Israel, ìLet my people go, that they may hold
a feast in the wilderness.î Obviously the Lord God is He who spreads
a feast before His people and feeds His people with this feast
in this wilderness. And then they said, ìThus saith
the Lord God of Israel, ìLet my people go, that they may hold
a feast unto me.î So obviously the Lord is He whose people worship
and bow and praise and glorify. They glorify Him. You see, if
he would have just listened to the Word of the Lord and heard
the Word of the Lord and paid attention to what the Lord was
doing, he wouldn't have had to ask, who is the Lord? Now will
we listen today and pay attention so we can answer this question,
who is the Lord? Who is the Lord? First of all,
the Lord is He who sends His messenger speaking His Word. Verse 1 says, Moses and Aaron
went in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel.
You see, the Lord God is He who is able to rule everything in
this world and send His messenger with His Word to His people. That's who the Lord is. Go over
to Malachi 3. Matthew minus 1 equals Malachi. Malachi chapter 3. Go to Matthew
and go back 1. Matthew and back 1. Malachi chapter 3. Look at this. This is the Lord speaking. Behold,
I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before
me. And the Lord, whom you seek,
shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant,
whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. Look at Malachi 4 and look at
verse 5. Behold, I will send you Elijah
the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day
of the Lord. I will send Elijah the prophet
before that day. Now go to Matthew 11, verse 10. Is the Lord able to send His
messenger? Matthew 11, verse 10. Christ, speaking of John the
Baptist, He said, This is He of whom it is written, Behold,
I send My messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy
way before thee. And look at John 1. What does
His messenger preach when Christ sends His messenger? Does He
just go forth and preach just whatever He will? Go to John
1. John 1. The Lord said He's going
to prepare the way before me. He's preparing my way into my
temple. Look at John 1.6. There was a
man sent from God. That's how he came. He was sent
from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness. That's what all His people are
sent for. His preachers. He was sent for a witness to
bear witness of the light that all men through Him might believe. You see, it pleased God to save
His people through the foolishness of preaching. And so the Lord
always sends His messenger with His message to His child and
then Christ comes into His temple. That is, His child. Christ sends
His messenger declaring, Christ the King is coming, preparing
the way before Him, and Christ enters His child, His temple,
and gives life and light and faith in Him. This is how it's
always going to be. That tells us the Lord is sovereign
over all. That's why He does it this way.
One reason is to teach us He's sovereign in salvation. He's
sovereign over all. He's sovereign in the salvation
of His people. Now, before God teaches us this
about ourselves, about Himself, that He's sovereign over all,
here's how we view things. We think, well, if a man's out
in a secluded place, and he never hears the Gospel, and he perishes,
that shows you that God was unable to get the Gospel to him. So
God must not save everybody through the Gospel. That's not what that
teaches you at all. That teaches you that God put
that man in a secluded place and God did not send the gospel
to that man because God never intended that man to hear the
gospel because that man wasn't God's elect. That's what it teaches
you. In Scripture, wherever God scatters
His elect child, God sends His messenger with His gospel ruling
everything to do so. God sent Abraham the Gospel and
Galatians says the Gospel was preached to Abraham. Where was
Abraham? Out in a land of idolatry. There
wasn't any Gospel there. But God sent the Gospel to Abraham
and called him out of the land of idolatry and did it successfully. Here is Moses. God put Moses
on the back side of the desert for 40 years. until the exact
day that God prophesied, God promised that He would deliver
Israel and then He sent Moses in preaching His Word. Before
God put Nebuchadnezzar in the dust. Do you remember what He
did? He sent Daniel and told Nebuchadnezzar why He was doing
it. And you know what He told him?
Know this, that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men. and giveth it to whomsoever He
will." That's what He was teaching. That's what He's teaching us
just by the fact that He sends His messenger with His gospel
to us. God sent Jonah. Do you know what
the result was? Jonah 3.3 says, So Jonah arose
and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. God
used the hatred of His enemies to arrest the Apostle Paul on
multiple occasions. Do you know why? Because from
prison, there was somebody God would have Paul preach the gospel
to. And God preached the gospel to him. Paul preached the gospel
to him and God saved him. He even had Rome foot the bill
and the state paved the way to bring Paul all the way to Rome
and put him in prison. And from there, God brought the
gospel to some of his elect in Caesar's household and saved
him. From the first believer to the
last believer, wherever God has got a people, He is going to
send the gospel to them. You all met brother Andre that was
here a week or so ago. You remember ten years ago when
the night of my ordination service, Philip Wachey stopped and his
dad came in. There was a church that he had
been in, they were giving him, they wanted to put him under
discipline because he was going to Iraq to fight in a war. Well,
Philip Weishi went to Iraq and met this boy named André Gillet
and began to teach him the Gospel. And God used Philip to bring
André under the preaching of the Gospel and saved him. Wherever
he's got a people, He's going to send the Gospel to them and
going to save them. Now brethren, be sure to get
this. This is important. God sending His Gospel to His
people. Here is why we maintain this
doctrine. God sending His message to His
people is Christ sending the gospel to His people. And Christ
does not fail. Christ does not fail. Was God
able to send forth Christ to accomplish the redemption of
His people? When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth
His Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them
that were under the law. Was God able to send forth the
Spirit of His Son into our hearts and give us life and faith? Because
you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Is Christ able to send His messenger
to blow the gospel trumpet and then enter into His child? He
said, Behold, I'll send my messenger and He'll prepare the way before
me and the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to His temple,
saith the Lord of hosts. That means the Lord who's ruling
everything and everybody. Now God is sovereign in salvation. That's why we preach this. He
is sovereign in salvation. God was able to send Christ,
redeem His people. God sends the gospel and quickens
us and calls us and keeps us. God is sovereign in salvation.
Now, who is the Lord? He is the one who sent the gospel
to you this morning. He sent it for a reason. We saw
Thursday night. He sent it either to damn or
to save. Now, do you hear Him speak? Do
you realize that He is able to send forth His Word? Here it
is right before you. Who is the Lord? Here is the
second thing. The Lord is He who has a particular
people who He sets free by Christ from all our bondage. He said
in verse 1, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go. Let my people
go. Now, natural Israel is who He
is talking about here. He is saying, let my people go. They were the one nation on the
earth that God regarded. He didn't regard any other nation
as His people. And God did that to teach us
that His elect Israel is the one nation of people that He
regards on this earth and no other people. He regards His
elect people only. Romans 9, 6 tells us, they are
not all Israel which are of Israel. He had some who were His elect
people there in Israel when He said, let My people go. But not
all of those people in Israel were His people. It means this,
they which are the children of the flesh, just the natural born
sons, these are not the children of God. Those who are His are
the children of the promise. They're God's elect. That's who
He counts as His seed, as His true children, His true Israel. Those God chose in Christ before
the world was made are the true Israel of God. And God alone
is the one who puts a difference between His people and the rest
of the world. Look at Exodus 11 and look at
verse 7. God is showing us here using
natural Israel what's true of spiritual Israel. Look here at
Exodus 11 verse 7. 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. That's the picture of God's elect.
God alone puts a difference between His elect child and the rest
of the world. His election of grace is particular,
distinguishing, and He alone puts the difference between His
people and the rest of the world. And that difference is Christ.
Christ is the difference. He came forth and Because He
was made sin for His people, He redeemed us from the curse
of the law. Delivered us from the curse of
the law. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. That's what He
accomplished. And then He delivers His people
from Satan. He did that on the cross, and
He does it when He comes and brings the gospel to you. When
the gospel is being preached, what's happening is Christ is
saying to Satan what He said here to Pharaoh, let my people
go. And He works that effectually
and sets His child free. Christ was there and He was casting
out devils out of men. And they were accusing Him to
be of the devil. And He said, if I was of the
devil, I wouldn't be casting out devils. The kingdom is not
divided against itself. But He said, but because I am
casting them out, you know the Kingdom of God has come to you.
And He said this, no man can enter into a strong man's house
till he first binds the strong man. And then when he's bound
that strong man, he'll go in and spoil all his goods. And
that's what Christ did for us on the cross. That's what He
does when He comes in the day of His power. He binds the strong
man and enters in and spoils Spoils Satan of all his goods.
He takes us from Satan. He redeems us from the power
of the devil. And Christ delivers His people
from the slavery of our sin nature. He said, I'll put my spirit within
you and I'll cause you to walk in my statue. and you shall keep
My judgments and do them. And He causes His Spirit to enter
in, and when He does, He causes you to walk in His statutes by
causing you to walk by faith in Christ. And He causes you
to keep all His judgments by causing you to believe on Christ
who established the whole law for His people. He takes us from
that sin nature. We couldn't believe on Christ
when we were in our sin nature. You just can't do it. Your will
is in bondage to your nature. But when He gives you that new
heart, He'll make you willing then. And that's when you'll
believe. The last enemy Christ will deliver us from will be
death. Paul said, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where
is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. What
did Christ come and do? He put the sin of His people
away. The strength of sin is the law. What did Christ come
and do? He fulfilled the law for His people. So sin and the
law are removed. There is no more sting, is it? Death doesn't have a sting anymore. Thanks be to God who gave us
this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then, Christ
shall deliver us into that glorious liberty of the sons of God in
heaven's glory where we'll praise Him for this redemption forevermore.
You see, that's what we're being taught here. Whenever He said,
let my people go and then later on when He gives the Passover
lamb and sets them free through that Passover lamb, that's picturing
Christ our Redeemer. Christ our Passover lamb. So
that's who the Lord is. He's the Lord who has a particular
people who He sent His Son for and who His Son redeemed and
who His Son sets free. Now here He sent the Word to
you today. Do you hear Him? Are you one of those He redeemed?
Do you say, who is the Lord that I should believe on Him? Or do
you say, oh, I see who the Lord is. He sent the Gospel to me.
He redeemed me. Well, thirdly, who is the Lord?
The Lord is He who spreads a feast for His people in the midst of
this wilderness. He said there in verse 1, Thus
said the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may
hold a feast in the wilderness. Go to Psalm 23. This is probably,
every believer, one of our favorite Psalms. Psalm 23, the Psalm of
our Great Shepherd. It's our great shepherd, the
Lord Jesus, who spreads this feast for us in this wilderness.
Look here, Psalm 23, 5. Thou preparest a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil
and my cup runs over. See that? There's a two-fold
work involved in preparing this feast. He prepares the feast
and then he has to make us eat the feast. You prepare the table
before me in the presence of mine enemies and you anoint my
head with oil. Make my cup run over so I can
actually partake of this feast. He makes us hear and believe
in spirit and in truth. Why are you here this morning,
you that believe? Why are you here rejoicing in
Christ Jesus the Lord and why weren't you out at sunrise watching
the sun come up and worshipping the sun? Why are you here hearing Christ
preached and not somewhere where this is the one day out of the
year other than Christmas day where you will actually hear
Christ preached? Because Christ put a difference. He spread this
feast before you right here in the midst of your enemies and
anointed your head with the Holy Spirit and made you believe Him.
It's in this holy mountain right here. Go to Isaiah 25. He doesn't
spread this feast everywhere. He spreads it in His holy mountain.
That's His church. His church. When we talk about
His church, that's Christ on the throne in glory with all
the spirits of just men made perfect. He's already called
home. And that's us right here, right now, worshiping Christ. And that's His elect over in
this other local assembly where he has established the gospel
and they are there worshipping Christ. And there is another
one over in another country and there is one in that country
and this country and the other country. But we are all together
in heaven and in earth in this holy mountain right now where
this feast has been spread before us. Christ the Lord, the glory
of Christ is the feast. Look here. Isaiah 25.6, In this
mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people, that is
His elect among the Jew and the Gentile, I'll make a feast of
fat things, a feast of wines on the leaves, of fat things
full of marrow, of wines on the leaves well refined. What's this?
He just keeps making this feast sound better and better and bigger
and bigger. What is it? It's Christ. It's
Christ. It's Christ our righteousness
and Christ our holiness and Christ our perfection. That's who this
feast is. He spreads the feast and He is
the feast. And He makes us keep this feast
without adding any works of our own or any of our sin, whether
it be self-righteousness or immorality. He makes us keep this feast in
truth. Look here at 1 Corinthians 5.
1 Corinthians 5. This is why we don't have to exert all our efforts trying
to discipline the church. Because He is going to make His
children do this. And when we fail to do it like
they did in Corinth, He is going to send forth His Word and make
certain that we are keeping this feast. as we ought to. Look here, 1 Corinthians 5.8,
Therefore let us keep the feasts, not with old leaven, neither
with the leaven of malice and wickedness. That old leaven is
works, not with the works of the law. That don't even enter
into this feast. When you go sit down at a table,
when you were a baby you had to be told constantly what to
do while you sat down at a table. And when we were For we knew
Christ, we were under a schoolmaster, we had to be taught by the law,
by Christ, by the law, what we are. But when you are mature,
when you've grown and you've got faith in Christ, you don't
have to have rules and regulations to sit down at His table and
eat. You sit down and eat, just like you do at home. And He brought
us here. That old leaven of works is gone
now. That old leaven of the law is
gone out of here. And neither is it we keep this feast with
malice and wickedness. There is no pretense. We are
not doing this just to be seen of men or anything like that. No, we are doing this in sin. But look, but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth. That unleavened bread is Christ
the living bread. That unleavened bread of sincerity
is that godly sincerity that gives Christ all the glory and
all things for our salvation. That unleavened bread of truth
is the Word of God in which we hear God in spirit and in truth
and worship God. God has spread His feast here
now of electing, redeeming, regenerating, keeping love and grace. Now, are you hungry? Are we still
sitting here, somebody sitting here saying, well, who is the
Lord that I should believe on Him? Well, look who He is. He
sent His message to you with His Word. He has declared to
you that He has a people that are His people, that He redeems
Himself from beginning to end by Christ His Son. He has declared
to you that He is the One who sets the feast in the midst of
His enemies. Here we are with this feast spread.
Do you know what a privilege it is to have the gospel preached
to you in spirit and in truth? It's a rare thing to have that. You that know Him know this.
I'm speaking to you that don't know Him. You just take this
for granted. You think this is like what's
going on everywhere else. This ain't what's going on everywhere
else. You got something others don't have. Now, are you hungry?
A hungry man don't have to be. You don't have to twist a hungry
man's arm and get him to eat. He's going to eat. Are you hungry? Now lastly, who's the Lord? The
Lord is He whom His people worship and praise. Look at verse 1. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness. You know, there's places today
where they're holding a feast, but it's not a feast unto the
Lord. They're talking about their works. They're talking about
their will. They're there to see how pretty
one can dress for Easter and who's got the prettiest Easter
lily and who's got the prettiest hat on. That ain't God's people. Our feast is unto the Lord. We
are here to look at the Christ. We are here to hear about Christ.
We are here to rejoice in Christ. Now, for His children gathering
to this feast, this is not an option. This is not an option. Not at all. This is something
we must do. Over in Exodus 10 verse 9, Moses
said, he said, We will go with our young and with our old and
with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our
herds. Will we go? For we must hold a feast unto
the Lord. It's not optional. We must do
it. We must hold this feast unto the Lord. Job said, ìNeither
have I gone back from the commandment of His lips. I have esteemed
the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.î In other
words, a believer could sooner do without eating breakfast and
lunch and dinner than he could do without this word right here,
without this feast right here. Iíve told you this before. I
tell people this. They look at you funny. I tell
them, you know, they will preach. I am going to get over there
to hear the gospel one of these days. I am sorry we are not over there
all the time. Well, I tell you what you do.
Each time you miss the service, just don't eat that week. Don't
eat regular food that week. And just keep on not eating any
food at all. Well, I got to eat, they say.
I got to have my food. I got to eat. Why do you have
to eat that food but you don't have to eat this fish? If you can do it without the
word of God, go without your regular food. And when you get
real good and hungry, realize you need the gospel way more
than you need that food. You're just going to die physically
if you don't eat that food. You're going to die eternally
if you don't eat this food. And it's because the head of
the table, the one person at this feast who spread it and
who is the honoree of this feast, is Christ our Lord who we must
feed upon. He's the living bread. He's the
living water. And each time we assemble here,
His people aren't coming together to do anything else but to gather
unto Him. We came here to worship Him.
We came here to hear of Him, only Him. We came here to bow
only to Him. And we came here to praise and
glorify and give all the glory to Him and Him alone. Now let me sum it all up with
this. First of all, remember this. All questions that anybody
has concerning the Lord, all questions is answered by examining
the Lord's works and hearing His Word. When you hear the Gospel
preached, don't look for some work you should do. Hear Christ's
works. And when you hear the Gospel
preached, don't look for your word that you can interject and
try to make it mean what you want it to mean. Hear God's Word.
And when you go home and read it, do the same thing. All answers
about the Lord are answered by looking at His Word and hearing
His Word. If Pharaoh would have done that,
he wouldn't have had to say, Who is the Lord? And then, now
let me ask you this question. Who is the Lord that I should
obey His voice? Who is He that I should obey?
He is the sovereign Lord of salvation who sent this gospel to you this
morning. He is the Lord who set His people free by Christ Jesus
His Son. He is the Lord who spread this
gospel feast and fed His people here this morning. He is the
Lord who makes all His people worship in glory only in Him.
That's who the Lord is and that's why you ought to worship Him.
Isn't that true? What other reason does a man
need? That's all the reason I need right there. He showed me who
He is. Amen. Let's stand together. Father, we thank You for Your
Word. We thank You for Your works. Make our heart be set on everything
you do and say that we might behold your glorious person.
Lord, we thank you for bringing us here and giving us the gospel
again and spreading this feast before us. And we pray for our
loved ones that this will be the day that you might open their
hearts and make them behold you in all your glory. Make them
see you and bow to you and believe on you and worship you. Lord,
we ask this. We desire this. And above all, Lord, we pray
Your will be done. We pray Your will be done. Make
us glorify You and honor You. Lord, in all Your assemblies
this morning, where You've gathered Your people together, pour out
this bread to us. Feed us from Your throne in glory. Let us, everyone, be turned and
look to the head of the table. And thank You for this abundant
feast You've given us in Your house, in Your mountain. And
let us praise You alone. Forgive us our sins, Lord. We
ask it in Christ Jesus' name. Amen.