Let's turn to Exodus chapter
4. Now, in order for us to be saved,
in order for us to be able to hear the Gospel and obey, and
trust the Lord Jesus Christ alone. We must be cleansed. We must
be washed from our sins. It is what we refer to as sanctification. We must be sanctified. We must
be cleansed. We must be washed. And God is
the only one that performs that work. He is the only one that
performs that work. Now we have seen here that the
Lord is preparing Moses to go and preach His Word to the children
of Israel who are in bondage. And God said when Moses went
forth and declared the Word of God, God said they will hearken
to your voice. But what God meant is by the
work that He performs in the hearts of His people whereby
He cleanses us, of our defilement, creates in us a new heart. He
meant by His work they are going to hearken to your voice. They
are going to hear my word. But Moses thought it was by his
own voice that they would hearken or by their own power that they
would hearken. And because that is what he was
thinking, he didn't believe God. Look here in Exodus chapter 4
and verse 1. Moses answered and said, But
behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice,
for they will say, The Lord has not appeared unto thee. That's what we think. We doubt
God when we look to ourselves and think that we will perform
something. God wasn't saying Moses was going
to accomplish this. He was saying He would by cleansing
His people. And so the Lord gave three signs.
Three signs. By these three signs, the Lord
shows us in type how He makes His Word effectual. This is how
He made His Word effectual in Moses. This is how He made it
effectual in the children of Israel. It's not by Moses' ability,
it's by God's sovereign grace. That's what He shows in these
three signs. And when God works in us, that's
which these signs typify. That's when we will hearken and
believe God. You believe on Christ. Now the
first sign was the rod of God. It was a sign of God's power.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It was a sign
of God's power to reveal the Lord our righteousness through
the preaching of Christ. That was the first sign. We saw
that last week. Now today we'll focus on the
second sign. Now it involved Moses' hand becoming
leprous and then clean again. I've titled this the leprous
hand cleansed. And the leprous hand cleansed
typifies the cleansing from sin which God alone performs for
and in His people. This is the cleansing from sin
that God alone performs in and for His people that we see typified
here in what's taking place. This second sign. Let's read
it together. Exodus 4 verse 6. And the Lord
said furthermore unto him, Put now... Now let me stop. Let me
read that again. And the Lord said... The Lord
said... by the Word of the Lord. The
Lord said unto Moses, Put now thine hand into thy bosom by
your heart. Put it in where your heart's
at, in your jacket where your heart's at. And he put his hand
into his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was
leprous as snow. And he said, the Lord said, the
Lord spoke, Put thine hand into thy bosom again, And he put his
hand into his bosom again, and he plucked it out of his bosom,
and behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. It was clean. And God said, It shall come to
pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the
voice of the first sign, they will believe the voice of the
latter sign. If they don't believe the voice
of the first sign, they'll believe the voice of this sign, God said.
Now, first of all, we have a lesson concerning our sinfulness. Now,
in Scripture, leprosy is presented to signify our sin. That's what leprosy represents
in Scripture. At your leisure, I encourage
you to read Leviticus 13 and 14. That's where God talks about
leprosy and what must be done with the leper and how he can
be cured and that sort of thing. I'd encourage you to read it.
What you find there is leprosy begins with one little spot that
appears harmless. One little spot that appears
harmless. That's how it starts. Well, in the garden, when Satan
tricked our mother Eve, he made it seem harmless to her to eat
of the fruit of the tree which God had forbidden. It just seemed
like one little harmless spot for her to eat of that tree.
But that led to our father Adam eating of that tree by which
all mankind became lepers, spiritual lepers, dead in sin. Another thing about leprosy is
it spread rapidly through a person. And it was contagious so that
it spread rapidly throughout the whole tribe. Sin entered
by one man, but it spread rapidly. Scripture says, As by one man
sin entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men. For in Adam all have sinned.
Sin is contagious like leprosy. It spread throughout all mankind. And then leprosy was such a dreaded
disease because it ate a person entirely. It ate up a person
entirely. And that's what sin does to us.
It entirely devours a man. We come into this world entirely
eaten up with sin, ruined in sin, dead in sin. Listen to the Scripture. It's
written in the Scripture, there is none righteous, no not one. There is not a single person
born in this world righteous. We died in Adam. We sinned in
Adam. We became guilty in Adam. There's none that understandeth.
Nobody even understands who God is or how God saves by nature.
There's none that seeks after God. Nobody. By nature, nobody seeks
after God. In all their religion, they're
not seeking God, not the true God. They are all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable.
There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Not one person does
good. We look at things and we say,
well, that was good. God looks at it and says, no,
it wasn't. It was not good. You see, God's standards are
not our standards. Sin has lowered our standards
of what we think is righteous and good. But it hasn't lowered
God's standards. God says there's not one good.
And as far as man's ability, leprosy was an incurable disease.
He could not cure himself. And sin is incurable. You see
how it's such a good picture? God said, can the Ethiopian change
his skin? Can the leopard change his spots?
Then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil. We
can't change this deadly disease in us. So leprosy was a good
picture of sin. So to teach Moses that this work
of cleansing God's people will not be by Moses' own hand. Not
going to be by Moses' hand that his people are going to be cleansed.
And to teach Moses this, God very quickly shows Moses what
his hand is due to his fleshly heart. He shows him what his
hand is due to his fleshly heart. That is, helpless in sin, ruined
in sin, leper, leprosy. We are lepers in sin and that
is what our hands are. Look here, verse 6. The Lord
said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom.
And he put his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out,
behold, his hand was leprous as snow. Now Moses' hand didn't
make his heart leprous. Moses' heart made his hand leprous. That's important. You hear what
I said? Moses' hand didn't make his heart
leprous. His hand was clean, but when he stuck it in by his
heart and pulled it out again, his heart had made his hand leprous. In Christ's day, the entire religious
world had that backwards. And in our day, the entire religious
world has that backwards. Because man by nature is backwards.
Unless God sets us upright, we're backward, we're upside down,
and we'll get it all upside down. The Lord said, it's not the hand
that defiles the heart, it's the heart that defiles the hand.
What makes a man's outward works be defiled? His inward heart. Listen. Go with me. Mark 7. I want you to see this.
Mark 7, verse 21. Mark chapter 7, verse 21. Look
here. The Lord said this, Now let's read verse 20. That which cometh out of the
man, that defileth the man. Did you get that? That which
comes out of the man defiles the man. For from within, out
of the heart of men. Where did Moses put his hand?
God said put your hand in there by your heart. Out of the heart
of men proceed evil thoughts. And here they are, adultery,
fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness,
an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things
come from within and they defile the man. Now be sure to understand
what that verse meant. All these evil things are not
simply evil acts that we do now and then. These are the evil
thoughts that come from our old fleshly man, and they are the
only thoughts that come from our old fleshly man. That's all
that comes from us by nature, is what you just read. That's
it. That's all that comes from our flesh. In Genesis 6, verse
5, when the Lord was going to destroy the world, it says, God
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Now listen
to this. and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's all you and me produce
of ourselves. That's it. That's it. Therefore, outward reformation
of life, changing your outward conduct, it doesn't make the
heart clean. It doesn't make the heart new.
A profession in religion doesn't make the heart clean. God must
cleanse and give a new heart. He must do that. And I get this,
how did Moses behold that his hand was leprous? What made him
see that his heart was leprous and therefore his hand was leprous?
What made him see this? God said. It was by the Word
of God he was made to see this. God spoke it. And what we see
this morning, the only way you are going to see the sinfulness
of your heart is for God to speak and make the commandment come
alive and make you hear what the law says about you. You see,
Moses is going forth to declare the word of the Lord. And so
the Lord shows here, it is not going to be by your word, Moses,
that is going to cleanse them and make them see themselves
in need of me to save them. It is going to be by my word
showing them what their heart is. He has to cleanse us to see
that we are sinners. So here is the first lesson.
No sinner is able to cleanse ourselves. Because we are just
lepers by nature. And we can't cleanse anybody
else that God sends us to declare the Word to. Not at all. That's
God's work. Remember Titus 3.5, Not by works
of righteousness which we have done. We didn't change our outward
conduct and become clean. You know, if you're down on I-40,
and you're driving across the state of Tennessee, you're going
to cross the Tennessee River over near Knoxville, and the
water's going to be running south. You're going to cross the Tennessee
River again over at Jackson, over halfway across the state,
and the water over there is running north. Same river's running north,
but it's the same muddy water that was flowing south that's
just flowing north. See, you can change directions.
You can reform your life. You can put away outward sins
and those things. That hadn't made the muddy water
clean. God's got to give you a clean
heart. Not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according
to His mercy He saved us by the washing, the cleansing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost which was shed on us abundantly
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Alright? Now secondly, God alone
makes His people clean. That's what I just read in Titus.
God alone does it. Now let's see it here, Exodus
4, 7. And He said, God said, Exodus 4, God said, Put thine
hand into thy bosom again. And He put His hand into His
bosom again, and He plucked it out of His bosom, and behold,
it was turned again as His other flesh. It was clean now. Again,
it was not His hand It was not His hand that made Moses' hand
clean. His hand was made clean because
His heart had been made clean. And Moses was made to see this
by God's Word, by God speaking. God had already created a new
heart in Moses, else he wouldn't have been a child of God believing
God. We don't believe God until God has put a new heart in us.
God had already done that in Moses. And so at God's command,
Moses was made to behold that because God had made his heart
clean, now his hand was clean. That's what he's teaching him
here in this sign. Because his inward man had been
made clean, now his hand is clean. You know that the Lord spoke
to the Pharisees and He said, You make clean the outside of
the cup and the platter. That is, you reform the outside
of your life. You get all cleaned up outside
where men can see. But within, you're full of extortion
and excess. In other words, the heart's defiled. It's sinful. And He said, thus,
He said, Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within
the cup and platter. That's got to be cleansed first.
And the outside of them may be clean also. You clean the heart,
then the outside will be clean. But the inside has got to be
clean first before the outside can be clean. Christ declares
that. He declares that. Then the outside
will be clean. But don't misunderstand this. Christ is not saying by that
word that you and I have the power to cleanse the inside.
even though He told them to do that. God tells us often in Scripture
to do things that we have no ability to do. The whole law
of God was given and God said, keep this and I'll bless you
with all these blessings. It never meant they had the ability
to do it. And that's where religion gets
us wrong. They say, well, God wouldn't have given a law unless
we had the ability to keep it. Oh, no. The whole reason God
gave it was to show that you can't keep it. Do you realize
responsibility does not mean ability? Next time your bank account is
flat broke, you have the responsibility to pay all your bills, but you
won't have the ability to do it. Responsibility doesn't mean
ability. Yes, we're responsible to serve
God in perfect righteousness, but we do not have the ability
to do it. So Christ wasn't telling them that you and I have the
ability to make our heart clean. He was just stating that's what's
got to happen first. The heart's got to be made clean
before the hand will be clean. Just like it's not the hand that
defiles the heart, it's not the hand that cleans the hand. It's got to be the heart mainly.
God's got to do that. Christ said, either make the
tree good and its fruit will be good, or make the tree corrupt
and its fruit will be corrupt. The tree is known by the fruit.
In other words, the fruit produced comes from the heart within.
We must be made a new tree. We must be made a tree of righteousness.
So knowing a sinner is unable to cleanse himself, then how
are we going to have this new clean heart? How are we going
to have it? It's by a two-fold work that God performs through
Christ, through the Holy Spirit. We just read it. By washing of
regeneration, renewing of the Holy Ghost, and that is shed
through the Lord Jesus Christ, the work Christ did for us. So first of all, the Lord Jesus
had to do a work for His people in order to make us clean. He
had to do a work for us before we could be made clean. And then
that grace shed abundantly upon us is through that work which
Christ did for us. But that work has to be done
first. God commanded in the law, you'll read this in Leviticus
13 and 14, He commanded that a leprous man had to come to
the high priest. And that's where we've got to
come to. We've got to come to Christ, the High Priest, because
we're lepers. We can't be cured any other way
than Christ, the High Priest. And that's what it meant. That's
what it typified. And listen to this now. The first
step in cleansing a leper in the law, the first step was that
the High Priest alone, nobody else, just the High Priest, he
made offerings for the leper. He made some offerings for the
leper. Christ Jesus is the high priest and Christ Jesus is the
offering made for lepers like us. That's right. He's the high
priest and He's the offering made for lepers. Now get this. You'll read this if you read
Leviticus 13 and 14. Now this was all in type. It was a type. It was a picture.
Now get this. It's a strange picture. A clean
bird. was made a leper in type. A clean bird was made a leper
in type and when it was, it was slain. This bird was slain. And
all his blood was drained out into a fountain. And then they took another bird
that was clean and they dipped that entire bird in the blood
and brought him out and let him fly away. And that clean bird
flew away with that bird, with that blood all over him, and
he flew up into the sky. Now the picture in that, brethren,
is just like Moses was clean, his hand was clean, and then
when he stuck it in, it became leprous. Well, Christ was clean. He's the clean bird. Christ came
into this earth. He was clean. No sin, did no
sin. He was not born of a man, so
He was not sinful in nature. And He never committed sin, and
He would not commit sin. Holy, righteous. But Christ Jesus
willingly submitted Himself to God who made Him the leper. He made Him the leper, just like
that clean bird in tight was made the leper. But Christ, it
wasn't a tight, Christ was made the leper. He made Him sin for
us who knew no sin. And He bore our sins in His own
body on the tree. And so there is the blood that
was shed. Now in that law, God required
that the leper be put outside of the camp. He could not be
inside the camp with the rest of the people. He had to be put
outside of the camp, forsaken and left alone. Listen to it. Leviticus 13.46 says, All the
days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled,
he is unclean, and he shall dwell alone. Without the camp shall
his habitation be. Now listen to Hebrews 13.12.
What was God picturing by that? Why did God say the leper had
to be forsaken and dwell outside of that camp? Hebrews 13.12 says,
The Lord Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people, cleanse
the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Without the camp. When He was
made sin, when He was made the leper in place of His people,
Christ suffered without the gate. Out on that hill called Golgotha
on a cross. And worse than that separation
was, God forsook him for three hours. When sin was found on
him, the just judgment of God required that Christ be forsaken
in order that God's justice be upheld. And that's what he suffered. He suffered being forsaken without
the count by everybody, by man and by God. But when justice
was satisfied, oh I like this picture, the clean bird that
was dipped in his own blood flew away. He didn't stay in the grave. He ascended to the Father. Our
High Priest went into the holiest of holies with His own blood,
having cleansed His people, having washed His people in His own
blood. Revelation 1.5 says, unto Him
that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. Look
at Zechariah 13. Zechariah 13. Zechariah 13.1 In that day, when you read in
that day, I'll say most of the time because I haven't looked
this up for certain, but almost every time and probably every
time, when you read in that day, it's talking about in Christ's
day, when Christ hung on that tree and ascended to the Father.
In that day, there shall be a fountain open to the house of David and
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. You know we sing, there is a
fountain filled with blood. That is where we get it. There
is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and
sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilt and shame.
How are we going to be made to plunge in that flood and trust
Christ alone? How are we going to do that when
our hearts defile? Look at this. It shall come to
pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off
the names of the idols out of the land. Not just cut them off
out of the literal land, but cut them off out of the land
of our flesh. Watch this. And they shall no
more be remembered. They won't be worshipped anymore.
And also I'll cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass
out of the land. When are you going to hear that
a man that you thought was so dear to you, loved you and was
preaching the gospel to you, when are you going to hear that
that man is a false prophet that has been lying to you the whole
time? When God applies His blood and cleanses our hearts, that
is when we will find it out. When God makes that unclean spirit
pass out of us, when Christ binds the strong man and spoils his
goods, that is when we are going to find out. that these men are
false prophets, and then we'll hear God. Then we'll see that
fountain of Christ's blood and plunge ourselves in it through
faith. Now that's the work the sinner must have performed upon
us. We saw the work Christ did for
us, but there's a work that has to be done upon us or within
us. And the blood has to be applied to the leper by the high priest.
After they did all that cleansing in the law in Leviticus 13 and
14, the high priest took the blood and oil, picture Christ's
blood through the oil of the Holy Spirit, and the high priest
applied that blood to the right ear and the right thumb and the
right toe. That means the hearing is now,
you can hear now. That means you can, your hands
You are purified. You can do what God says. And
your foot is purified. Now you can walk the way God
says walk. In other words, your heart has been made new. Entirely
made new. But it was by that Word being
applied. Just as God spoke the Word and
Moses found out he was a sinner and his hand was leprous because
of his heart, God speaks and made him find out that it was
God who made his heart new and that is why his hand was clean.
You see, God, the commandment has got to come to make you see
you are a sinner, and the commandment has got to come to make you see
you are clean. It is the washing of regeneration,
the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which is shed on us through the
work of Christ Jesus our Lord. This is when God cuts off the
names of the idols, when He applies the blood. This is when He makes
you hear the false prophets, or really false prophets, when
He has applied the blood. And so God showed Moses by this
sign that none of this was... His people weren't going to be
made to hearken because Moses was speaking. And they weren't
going to hearken because they just found it in their heart
to believe. God is showing here, I'm going
to speak and make them see they're unclean, and I'm going to speak
and make them see that I've cleaned them. Now, here's the last thing. Remember how this is going to
be accomplished in the children of Israel. God's sending Moses
forth to preach it. Sending Moses forth to speak
God's Word and declare God's name. And God said, this is the
work I'm going to do. And so what we're seeing here
is this is a picture of how God applies this whole thing through
the preaching of the Gospel. Look here at Exodus 4.8. It shall come to pass, if they
will not believe Thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first
sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.
When God creates a new heart, when He cleanses us, gives us
a new heart within His child, Christ then speaks to us through
the preaching of the Gospel. And after He has spoken and He
has made the commandment come and He has made you see that
you are a leper, because your heart is full of leprosy, full
of sin, that is all you are by nature, and you see your hands
defiled, then He speaks in this Gospel and makes you see He has
given you a new heart and He has cleansed you. Listen, what
did Christ say? Now ye are clean through the
word which I have spoken unto you. You see, it wasn't by Moses'
voice, and it won't be by my voice. Moses was used as an instrument
in God's hand, but it's Christ's voice that speaks this. It was
God who said, Moses, stick your hand in your bosom, and it became
leprous. It was God who said, stick your
hand in there again, and it became clean. It has got to be Christ
that tells us you are a sinner and Christ that tells us I have
cleansed you. I have cleansed you. And He declares
to us now, when He does this, then we are delivered out of
our bondage. That is what was going to happen to the children
of Israel. And when He has done this for us, we are delivered
out of that bondage of not being able to believe God, not being
able to hearken to His Word. Now we have the liberty because
we have been cleansed to believe Him and trust Him. and we can
have communion with Him. Let us draw near with a true
heart. That's a new heart. In full assurance
of faith, trusting Christ alone who did it all. Having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure
water. We've been cleansed. Now God can receive you. You
see that? So, now we saw how Christ said
that when the inside is cleansed, the outside will be too. Remember
that? Christ said when the inside of
the cup is clean, the outside will be clean. When the tree
is made good, the fruit will be good. You see, it was the
hand plucked out of the bosom that made Moses to behold what
was within. Both times. The hand plucked
out of the bosom made him see what was within the bosom. Left
with our defiled heart. Left with our defiled heart,
the sinner will only bring forth a defiled hand. He will deny
his ruined, lost condition. That's what I'm talking about.
When I say He'll bring forth a defiled hand, the fruit He'll
bring forth, left with a defiled heart, will be to deny He is
a sinner, to deny He is unclean and defiled, and it will be the
fruit of putting on a disguise to try to disguise His leprosy. And that's what religion is all
about. Religion is all about teaching you how to be a garment
maker. Teaching us how to weave a garment
for ourselves, out of fig leaves and hide the fact that we are
lepers. That is what religion is teaching.
And left with a defiled heart, that is what a man will keep
on. He will just keep weaving out his little robe to wear his
disguise because that is the only kind of fruit that the defiled
heart will produce. When Moses pulled that hand out,
when God was showing him the defilement of his heart by nature,
the nature that is in him, all he brought out was a defiled
hand. That was the fruit that was produced. When that tree
is corrupt, the fruit it's going to produce is corrupt fruit.
But when God's Gospel comes and God speaks the Word and He makes
the heart clean, applying the blood of Christ to us, the fruit
that's going to be produced then is a clean hand. Like as Moses stuck his hand
in and it was clean the second time. Now God's showing He's
put a new heart in. And the fruit that is going to
come from that tree is going to be good fruit. What is that
good fruit? First of all, man is going to
come out of the darkness, out of his disguise, and he is going
to come into the light of Christ and he is going to confess to
God, I am a leper. I am a sinner. Remember when
that leper came to Christ? And he fell down before Christ
and he said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. That is
going to be the fruit that is produced. repentance. And God works that fruit. And
the second fruit that is going to be produced runs right with
it. It is a two-sided coin and that
is faith. Faith. Declaring all my cleansing,
all my sanctifying has been done by the blood of Christ alone,
by His work on the cross applied to me in my heart by the Holy
Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel. And that's going
to be the fruit produced. And from then on now, there's
going to be some other fruit that's going to be produced.
It's going to be this. God's going to send you forth
to declare the Gospel. And you're going to go forth
and you're going to declare the Gospel. Why? That's the fruit He produces.
It's to preach His marvelous works and what He's accomplished.
Because the heart's been made clean. And that's what a man
will do. That's the fruit that will come
forth. And that's what God is showing here. He's telling Moses
now, Moses, this is what he did to Moses in the process of showing
him this sign. He cleansed that defiled heart.
He turned him from trusting his fleshly nature, thinking it was
going to be done by the work of his hand, and made Moses see,
Moses, God's going to do this work. And that's what He does
in our hearts. And when he does that, when it
gets done, Moses goes on forth then and declares the Word, trusting
God will do what he said. And you know what we do when
this Word has been applied to us? We'll start declaring His
glory. We'll start declaring His works
and His accomplishment for His people. And I think it's interesting. Go to Matthew 10. I want you
to see this. I'll close with this. Matthew
10. You know, when Christ sent forth His disciples to preach,
He told them to go forth preaching and He told them to do this. And this that He told them to
do is a picture of what Christ does through the preaching of
the Gospel, through the declaration of all God's marvelous works
fully accomplished for His people. This is what He does through
this Gospel. He told them right here, Matthew 10a. He said, go
forth and preach. And this is what He said to do.
This is what He does through that preaching. Heal the sick.
Cleanse the lepers. That's what's going to happen
through the preaching of the Gospel. He'll heal the sick. He'll cleanse
the lepers. He'll raise the dead. He'll cast
out devils. He said, freely you've received. I did this freely for you. Now
you go forth and give this Word that I might do it freely for
others. See, the only way. So now Moses can go forth because
he knows how lepers are going to be cleansed now through the
Word of the Gospel. That's why we preach Christ and
Him crucified. That's why we don't preach man's
works. That's why we're not telling men to try to cleanse themselves
by the work of their hand. God alone cleanses His people.
That's the lesson in the leper's hand cleanse. I pray God teach
that to all of us. Cleanse our heart, teach us that.
Amen.