Exodus chapter 4. Our first message has to do with
chastening and repentance. And our second message has to
do with love and forgiveness. Now Moses was a child of God. He had been chosen by the Father
by free grace. He had been brought to believe
on Christ as his surety and his redeemer. God had separated him
and called him and sent him to preach God's word in Egypt. And so Moses is headed to Egypt
with his wife and his sons. And he stops at an inn so he
can rest. And we read in Exodus 4.24, And
it came to pass by the way in the inn that the Lord met him
and sought to kill him. The Lord brought the sentence
of death upon Moses. in his conscience and probably
by some debilitating sickness. He brought the sentence of death
upon him and he made it clear to Moses that it was because
Moses had not fulfilled his responsibility as the head of his house to circumcise
his son. This was the cause of it. Moses
had been disobedient and not fulfilled his duty as the head
of his house to circumcise his son. Verse 25 says, Then Zipporah,
that's Moses' wife, then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off
the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses' feet and said, Surely
a bloody husband art thou to me. Now we learn some things
about Zipporah from this. She had a very hot temper. She was very angry at Moses because
he commanded her to do this and she despised God's ordinance
of circumcision. But her real problem was she
despised God and she despised his Christ and she despised his
order and his command. That was the real problem. But
Moses understood what God was telling him and he obeyed God. And it says verse 26, So God
let him go. So God let him go. Moses repented
and he circumcised his son and God was pleased and so he let
Moses go. Verse 26, Moses is immediately
tried. He is immediately tried by this. It says, Then she said, A bloody
husband thou art because of the circumcision. And we'll see Moses
continue to obey God by how he dealt with Zipporah as she continued
to be angry. Now when a believer disobeys
any known duty that God gives us to perform, we're displeasing
God. When a believer disobeys any
known duty, it's displeasing to God. Now His Heavenly Father
had done so much for Moses. His Heavenly Father had chosen
Moses by His sovereign free grace, not based on anything in Moses. So this is nothing but ingratitude
for Moses to disobey God. His Heavenly Father had set His
Son apart and chosen His Son to be Moses' substitute and representative,
his legal head, to come forth and redeem him. And he revealed
this to Moses. And he taught Moses salvation
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Moses has a responsibility
to obey God, to do whatever God tells him to do. God's not giving
him the charge of keeping the law on his own. He can't do that. He's going to send his son to
do that for Moses. Moses is simply to obey God and
do what God tells him to do. And so this was in gratitude
by Moses. God had honored Moses by choosing
him and sending him to represent him in Egypt. And so to not obey
God is to dishonor him after God had put all this honor upon
Moses freely by grace in Christ. And here's what I want us to
see. Though we're complete in Christ, We are complete in Christ
so that no charge will ever be laid to one of God's elect. Still, God our Father requires
His child to obey Him in that which He calls us to do. He requires
us to obey Him. First of all, when a believer
disobeys any known duty, God will chasten him. It says here,
the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Now God did not seek
to kill Moses in the sense that he sought to eternally condemn
Moses. It wasn't the second death we're
talking about here. There's a first death where you're
going to die naturally. There's a second death if you
come to God without Christ where you will suffer eternally in
condemnation. That's not the death. The second
death is not the death God sought to kill Moses with. Turn over
to Romans 8 with me just a moment. That will never happen to one
for whom Christ died. Romans 8 verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit. No condemnation. For the law
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the
law of sin and death. The Spirit of life has come into
me and He has taught me the truth of Christ and freed me from the
law of sin and death by making me cast all my care and all my
hope on the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is verse 3. For what the
law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, I could
not obey God. I could not keep God's law in
perfection and righteousness and justify myself. I couldn't
do it. God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh
and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. He condemned that
which was condemning me. by taking my sin, taking my flesh,
taking my sin and bearing my condemnation. And this he did
for all his elect so that he condemned the condemnation. And
it says, and he did it that the righteousness of the law might
be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the
spirit. Christ totally, thoroughly, completely
fulfilled the law of God for his people so that we've been
made the righteousness of God in him. And when He calls you
to believe on Him, that is what He teaches you through faith.
He shows you that He has imputed the righteousness of Christ to
us so that there will be no charge laid to us. We are made righteous
in Christ. So look now at Romans 8.33. It would be unjust if God
charged us now that Christ has paid the sin debt of His people. But God will never do that. Christ
has made us righteous. Verse 33 says, Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who is He that condemneth? It's
Christ that died, yea rather that's risen again, who's even
at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
There'll never ever again be a charge laid to one for whom
Christ died because He purged our sin and made us righteous.
So past, present, and future, when God beholds his child in
Christ, he beholds us as Christ. Perfectly righteous and holy.
Perfectly righteous and holy. And because God called us by
free grace, not based on anything in us, God will never take away
his gifts and he'll never turn from this calling with which
he's called us. The gifts and calling of God
are without repentance. That means God will never turn
back from that which he's given us freely in Christ through faith. He'll never turn back from it.
God brought the sentence of death on Moses on his natural body. On all things natural. That's
what he, he's teaching him not to trust in anything natural. Remember Paul said we had the
sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves
but in God who raises the dead. And that's what God's teaching
Moses And that's what God teaches you and I because that's our
problem any time we disobey God and God's displeased. We're trusting
ourselves. If God left us there and did
not do a thing, we would not believe on Christ, which is obedience. We wouldn't follow Christ alone,
which is obedience. We wouldn't do that which honors
and glorifies Christ, which is obedience. We would do none of
that if God left us to ourselves. The sentence of death has to
be upon everything about our natural lives. What's taking
place here is if Sapphora refuses to circumcise her son, the Lord
God shall kill her husband. If she refuses to circumcise
her son, the Lord God will kill her husband. And if Moses allowed
his love for his wife to prevent him from circumcising his son,
God will kill him. God will kill him. And the thing
we're being taught here is the sentence of death must be upon
everything about our natural lives. We're not to trust in
ourselves in any way. In any way. Zipporah is a picture
of the church here in some ways. God's elect children. Those that
he chose is a picture of the church. She was married and united
to Moses. She was married and united to
Moses, but their union could not be complete until she was
reconciled to him by blood. Moses had to become a bloody
husband to her. Well, that's the case with God's
elect. from eternity he chose us and put us in Christ and we've
been united in Christ from eternity. But that union will not be complete
until Christ has shed his blood for us on the cross and circumcised
us in heart to make us behold Christ as a bloody husband unto
us. That's when the union will be
complete. We must be in every way conformed
to his death and conform to him in his death. That's what Paul
was talking about in Philippians 3.10. He said, I want to know
him. I want to know the power of his
resurrection. I want to know the fellowship
of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. In other words, how did he die? He died in the flesh. And we
have to be made conformable to his death. Our flesh has to die. And we have to be conformable
to him in his death. We have to view our flesh as
dead and trust only Christ to save us. We have to be brought
to that place. So be sure to get this now. Our relationship with Christ
is founded upon blood. It's founded upon blood. And
the manifestation of the power of that relationship involves
death to nature. It's a necessity. The way that
union is going to be manifest is death to all things natural. And so we must be made to mortify
our fleshly members, to not look to ourselves for anything at
all to bring us to God. We must not look to anything
in our flesh that would come between us and Christ. We must
be made to mortify our fleshly members on this earth Take up
our cross daily and follow Christ. Now for the believer who is compromising
with his flesh, or compromising with flesh, for the believer
that is doing that, God made it clear to Moses he must repent. And he must obey God by doing
what God commands. That is what repentance is. Repentance
is turning from what we were not doing and doing it as God
commands. So that was what God is teaching
Moses. He must repent. He must obey
God. That's the only way this can be manifest that he's not
trusting his flesh anymore. He's trusting God only. You take,
for instance, faith is obedience to God. Faith in Christ is obedience
to God. If a man says, yeah, I believe
Christ, but he never confesses him in believer's baptism, he
never publicly unites with God's people, has anything been manifest
at all that he is actually united to Christ and actually believes
Christ? No. As far as you can tell, he's
still living after the flesh. even though he says he believes
Christ. You see what I'm saying? There has to be something performed
by God in us to make us mortify the flesh and cast all our care
on Christ. That's how these things will
be manifested. Now secondly, what was Moses' offense? His
chief offense was he had not fulfilled his responsibility
as the head of his house. That was his chief responsibility.
Now his head, he was to honor God before everybody in his house.
Before his wife and before his children he was to honor God.
He was to have the rule of his house in love. And he was to
circumcise his son. That was what he was to do. Now
each of these things were given by God to glorify the Lord Jesus
Christ. Each of these things glorify
Christ. You see, obedience to Christ is important because whatever
God commands is always glorifying the Christ. And all these things
glorify Christ. Christ is the head of his church. He's the head of his bride. He's
the head. We don't tell Christ what to
do. We don't treat Christ like Zipporah was treating Moses.
That would be totally out of order for the bride to try to
refuse Christ to circumcise us in the heart. just like she refused
Moses to circumcise her son. This would be disobedience. And as head, Christ honored God
by circumcising his people on the cross and by circumcising
us in the heart through the Holy Spirit. See, this honors Christ. And as head, he rules his house
in love even when his bride objects. You think about this. You and
I, at one time, as His bride, we rejected Christ. We did like
Zipporah. And what did Christ do? He didn't
take no for an answer. But, let me ask you, did He whip
us? Did He give us a tongue lashing? Did He rule us like a tyrant? No, He loved us to Himself. That's what He did. He constrained
us by His love. And a believing husband honors
Christ. and fulfills his duty as a husband,
as the head of his house, whenever he circumcises his children. I don't mean in the flesh. The
only way you and I, the only thing we have to do with circumcision
is having our house under the sound of the gospel. Because
it's through the preaching of Christ that Christ circumcises
his people in the heart, through the spirit. So that's what we
have to do with that. A husband rules his house not
as a strict, unmerciful tyrant giving out his demands and criticizing
and all that kind of stuff, nor does he rule his house as being
a pushover and allowing the wife to tell him what to do. That's
not how Christ rules his house. A husband is faithful to rule
his house by doing so in love, in grace, in mercy, in long-suffering,
in forgiveness, all the things Christ does to us. That is how
a husband faithfully rules his house. And anything else is natural
and is dishonoring to Christ. Now, let me stress this point.
I feel like I have to stress this because it's important.
Believers are not commanded to circumcise our children. And
there is no New Testament ordinance that is the equivalent of circumcision. Baptism is not the New Testament
equivalent to circumcision. Not at all. In no way. As with
the Old Testament ceremonies, circumcision pictured Christ
and his work. That's what all the Old Testament
ceremonies typified, and that's what circumcision typified, Christ
and his work. In Colossians 2.11, it says,
in Christ, you are circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ. That means when he went to the
cross, what he was doing on that cross was circumcising all his
children. He was going to the cross and
putting off that filthy, corrupt body of our sins by taking all
that sin upon himself and being judged by God in our room instead
so that the body of our sins is now removed from us. That's
what Christ did. He circumcised us on the cross.
And then also, That has to be applied to you and me. And circumcision
also is by the Holy Spirit when He circumcises the heart. Romans 2.28 says, Neither is
that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. That is not God's spiritual circumcision. Circumcision is that of the heart,
in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of
men, but of God. He's saying God circumcises the
heart. So circumcision was what Christ
did on the cross and what Christ did in the heart. Now look at
the picture. Circumcision was to be performed by the father
when the child was eight days old. That's a picture of you
and me helpless. and totally incapable of doing
anything for ourselves like an eight-day-old infant. But our
case was, it was in sin. And therefore, Christ, our everlasting
Father, had to do it all. He had to circumcise us on the
cross and send forth the Holy Spirit and circumcise us in our
hearts. And when the child was circumcised, he was brought under
the old covenant of works. When we're circumcised, In the
heart, we're brought under the everlasting covenant of grace. The everlasting covenant of grace.
The scripture says this, God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision
as a seal. S-E-A-L. Like you have a letter
and you used to put wax on that letter and they put their seal
on that letter. You know, their stamp in that
wax and it would be a seal. Well, the seal, he says here,
of the righteousness of the faith which he had before as yet he
was ever circumcised. What is our seal? Somebody will
tell you it's baptism. No, it's not. Listen to this.
The Holy Spirit in our hearts is the seal of the righteousness
of the faith that we have. Remember he said after that you
believed, after he brought you to believe, It says, you were
sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest
of our inheritance and to the redemption of the purchased possession
and to the praise of his glory. So our part in circumcising our
children is not to bring them when they're infants and have
them sprinkled. That's not even baptism, but that's not to be
done. Nor are we to baptize an unbelieving
child. Our part in circumcision is having
them under the sound of the gospel because that's how the Lord is
going to circumcise his people in the heart and make them believe. Thirdly, disobedience is displeasing
to God because it indicates an idol has come between our hearts
and Christ. That is why it is displeasing
to God. An idol has come between our heart and Christ. Now verse
25 in our text says, Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off
the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses' feet and said, Surely
a bloody husband thou art to me. For Moses, his idol, was
Zipporah his wife." Moses' idol was Zipporah his wife. Now Moses
disobeyed God when he married Zipporah because she was a Midianite. She was of the descendants of
Ishmael. She was the son of the son of
the bondwoman. a child of works. She was a picture
of an unbeliever. And God says, be ye not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers. He tells the believer, do not
be yoked together with an unbeliever. What fellowship have righteousness
with unrighteousness? You'll never have any fellowship
with one another. What would a marriage be if you
didn't have fellowship in Christ? And what What communion hath
light with darkness? An unbeliever's darkness. You'll
have a believer's light and they'll never get along. Light and darkness
can't cohabitate. It's impossible. And the believer
will always compromise with the unbeliever. That's just going
to, it's so. The believer will always compromise
with the unbeliever. And it will be because the carnal
heart is enmity against God. We see this in Zipporah. Zipporah's
heart is enmity against God. And so anything that has to do
with God, she's angry about it. And she's mad about it. And she
don't have anything to do with it. And Moses displeased God
rather than displeasing Zipporah. It's just the way of our flesh.
She was right there in front of him. And he had to deal with
her on a daily basis. And he just found it easier to
displease her than to displease God. He actually feared her more
than he feared God. And that's what will always take
place between a believer and an unbeliever. But, thankfully,
because God chose his child by grace, God will not allow Moses
to preach his word. To go forth and preach his word
in Egypt until Moses is turned from this idol back to Christ
alone. And God's going to turn His child.
If an idol comes between us and God, He will turn us to Christ. You just imagine how it would
have affected Moses if he would have went down to Egypt with
Zipporah and how it would have affected him preaching the gospel.
Just imagine how it would have affected him preaching the gospel.
He would have compromised with Zipporah. No man can serve God
in any capacity, especially preaching the gospel, if he is more concerned
with pleasing his wife or his children or any other loved one
or anything else than he is with pleasing God. He can't serve
God. That's why God said, he that
loveth father or mother, son or daughter more than me is not
worthy of me. If there's anything that can
keep us from confessing Christ, keep us from walking with Christ,
keep us from serving Christ, we're not worthy of Christ. He
must have total surrender to Him. God's minister must be one
that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection
with all gravity. And again, ruling well according
to God's characteristics of ruling. It's
not to rule as a tyrant. It's not to lord over. It's to
lead to Christ. It's to be merciful and loving
and gracious and kind and patient and long-suffering. Even if it's
somebody like Zipporah. And it wasn't easy. But that's
the responsibility, to rule in love. So Moses must be made to
repent. He must be made to trust Christ.
He must be made to obey God and what God would have him to do
here. Now lastly, when God chastens his child, he always produces
fruit. When he chastens his child, he
always produces fruit. The Hebrew writer said in Hebrews
12, 11, no chastening for the present is joyous. It wasn't
joy for Moses to be there stricken with a sense of death. and knowing
God is displeased with him. That wasn't joyful. You know,
if a child comes into a situation where he gets in trouble with
the police and the police has, he's worried the police are going
to charge him and he's worried that he's going to be found guilty
and he's worried that he's going to come, you know, be charged
and all that, that's not pleasant. His conscience is defiled. His
conscience is plaguing him. worried and he's concerned and
he's fretting the whole time. And that's even worse for a sinner
whenever you realize that that person that's got all against
you is God. And he knows you sin and he knows
that you're guilty. What you need to soothe that
conscience forever and bring you into a peace of conscience
is to know you have an advocate between you and God. And the
way God's going to bring that fruit forth is to always turn
you from trusting you to trust Christ. And he always, just like
he affectionately brought that fruit, produced that fruit when
he called us by his grace in that first hour, he always produces
that fruit, even every hour after when he chastens us. The scripture
says, no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but it's
grievous, but afterward It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness
unto them which are exercised thereby. God always produces
the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Now after God chasing Moses,
we don't really know what happened, we're not really shown what happened,
but it brought forth peaceable fruit. Because Moses repented
and he obeyed God by taking the rule of his house. That's shown
to us by the fact that Zipporah circumcised the child. Zipporah
circumcised the child. Maybe Moses was debilitated at
this point with that sentence of death in his physical body
to where he couldn't actually do it himself. But what I tend
to think more accurately would be that because he had submitted
to Zipporah in this, that to take the rule of his house, God
required him to tell Zipporah to do it. And so he did. And
so Zipporah circumcised the child. But at any rate, what it shows
us is Moses obeyed God. He took the rule of his house
and he obeyed God by circumcising his child. And so after he repented
and obeyed God, the scripture says, then God let Moses go. Do you know what a joy, you do
know what a joy it is when you know God has let you go. I don't
mean letting you go as in turning you away. I mean when he's charged
you, and he made you know that you're guilty, and then he lets
you know that now you're off the hook. I found satisfaction
in my son, and you're not guilty. And it's the same kind of peace
when he brings you to know that you've sinned against him, and
he turns you in repentance, and you've turned and obeyed him,
and he says, now I'm pleased. He let you go. That's a peaceable
fruit, and that's what happened here. But then God brought forth
more peaceful fruit in Moses. Moses was immediately tested.
Zipporah was still angry about having to circumcise her son.
After God let Moses go, God's got no more problem with Moses. But verse 26 says, then she said,
a bloody husband thou art because of the circumcision. What do
we learn by that? She did what God commanded be
done. And yet she's still just as angry
as she can be. You could do outwardly what God
commands to be done. But that's not obedience. Obedience
is in the heart. And it takes God circumcising
the heart and making us obedient from the heart for that outward
form to be true obedience. So she was still angry. So Moses,
in faithfulness to God, is he going to bow to Zipporah? And what's he going to do now?
No, in faithfulness to God, he obeys God. And he sides with
God rather than with this wife who he loves. He loves her. Loves
her dearly. She's his wife. She's had his
children. He loves her. But he's not going,
this is what's best for Zipporah. He's not going to allow her to
have the rule of the house. And he can't take her with him
to Egypt. There's no way he can take her with him to Egypt. He
has something to do here. He's going to speak to the most
powerful man in the world, declaring the gospel and leading God's
chosen people out of Israel, out of Egypt, and he can't be
distracted while this is going on. So he sent her back with
their sons to live with Jethro, their father, while he went to
Egypt until this work was finished. He didn't divorce her, he provided
for her. And he just simply sent her away
so he could go forth and finish this work and then he would call
her to himself. How do you know that? Look over
to Exodus 18. Exodus 18 and look at verse 1. When Jethro the priest of Midian,
Moses' father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses
and for Israel, his people, and that the Lord had brought Israel
out of Egypt, the works finished now. Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law,
took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her back and her
two sons. He took them to meet Moses, because
Moses had sent them back. You know, we hated God in enmity
just like Zipporah did. And so God sent His Son into
this Egypt. But He did not allow His Bride
to aid and to be a part of this work and do anything with Him.
Christ came forth and did all the work for His people by Himself
and delivered us out of Egypt. And when the work was finished,
God our Father drew us to Christ His Son just like their throat
brought Zipporah to Moses. That's how we were saved. So
what Moses did sending her back was honoring to Christ because
this is what had to be done. And then also after Moses repented,
God brought forth this peaceable fruit. And this is what He'll
always do in His child. Now listen to this, verse 27,
Exodus 4 verse 27, And the Lord said to Aaron, go into the wilderness to meet
Moses and he went and met him in the mount of God and he kissed
him. When God has brought us to repentance,
to turn to Christ and trust him and obey him, God causes us to
once again have communion with Christ, our elder brother, our
high priest. He comes forth and meets us and
kisses us with kisses of love once again. That's the peaceable
fruit God always brings to pass. Now let me give you what obedience
is. First of all, obedience begins with believing on Christ. Turning
from our flesh and trusting Christ alone. Now let me tell you something.
Trusting Christ and believing Christ is not being in the right
church. It's not having a mother and
a father that believes Christ. It's not having somebody that
you love that believes Christ. It's you believing Christ. confessing Christ and believers
baptism because Christ said, be baptized and follow me. It's
following Christ and everything he commands you to do. It's uniting
with his people in his church and continuing supporting the
gospel with our attendance, hearing it and alighting in it and with
our money to send it forth into the world. It is partaking of
the Lord's table as He commanded, remembering Him at His table.
And it's obeying Him in everything that He tells you to do. Everything. It's honoring Christ in every
way in all things that we do in our life. Bringing no dishonor
to the gospel. That's obedience to Christ. And
I know this because of him being able to cause his people to see
him and behold how Christ laid down his life and justified us
and poured out his blood for us and how he sent the gospel
to us and how he did all this for us freely by grace. God's
able to constrain us in our heart by love as the head of his house
And Christ will bring his bride into subjection to him. And he'll
do that for every one of his children. We can't fake obedience. God's going to bring it to pass
in his children. And if we're not here, we won't
be obedient. That's just that. But he will
always produce this peaceful fruit. All right, let's stand
together. Father, we thank you for the
word. Pray now that you'd apply it to us. Truly circumcise our
hearts and make us believe on you. Make us come into subjection
to you as a faithful bride. Make us trust you and follow
you and obey you and honor you. Lord, remove the idols and make
us have nothing between us and Christ. We hang on to dirt and
we hang on to bricks and mortar and we hang on to a job, we hang
on to everything in the world that keeps us from being near
your gospel and worshiping you and with your people. Turn us
from that, remove us from that, and make us follow you in faithfulness.
Forgive us, Lord, of our sin. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.