Alright brethren, just hold your
place right there in Exodus 3, that's our text this morning. I want you to notice here in
verse 16, Christ here is speaking. He says to Moses, go and gather
the elders of Israel together and say unto them, Christ sent
Moses with the Word. And Moses delivered the Word
to the elders, and then the elders delivered the Word to their tribes. And that's similar to what God's
doing now in our day. God has sent Christ the Word. And Christ delivers the Word
to His elders, pastors that He's put in place, And the elders
deliver the Word to the churches over which they are made a pastor.
That's what He's doing in our day. Now, the subject we're dealing
with today is declaring the end from the beginning. That's what
Christ is doing here in this passage. Before He sends Moses,
He's declaring the end from the beginning. Now, we're going to
look at four things here. First of all, the message Christ
gives His preachers to preach. And then we're going to see the
outcome that Christ promises to bring to pass. And then we're
going to see what Christ promises the enemy will do and what Christ
will do to the enemy. And then lastly, we'll see Christ's
promise to provide all our need. Now first of all, Every promise
Christ has made to us, He shall bring to pass and none shall
stop Him from doing so. That's what we see here. Every
promise He's made, He shall bring to pass and nobody will stop
Him from doing so. Now first of all, Christ gives
the message that His preacher is to proclaim and His witnesses
are to proclaim. In verses 6 through 9, we find
the Lord declaring the same thing to Moses that He's declaring
to him here in verses 16 and 17. Almost word for word. And the point I want you to get
from that is, the Lord does not send His preacher forth to preach
something novel, something new, something that He's just discovered. He sends you forth to preach
what He's already revealed to you. That's the only thing you
can preach, is what He's revealed to you. What He's made you to
know by grace, by experience, is the only thing you can proclaim.
And that's what He sends us forth to preach. The message is the
name of the Lord. That's the message. He says there
in verse 16, Say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers. The Lord God who saves by covenant
grace. That's what He's talking about.
That's that name. Covenant grace. Making all these
promises, fulfilling all these promises, coming to us and telling
us that they're sure because He's fulfilled every one. The
Lord God. Covenant God. Declare Him to
be the God, He said in verse 16, the God of Abraham. There's
only one. He's the God. He's God who's
sovereign. He's God who created the heavens
and the earth by His voice, by speaking. He's God who rules
everything in heaven and in earth and none can stop Him from doing
so. It's God who brings to pass His sovereign will. Everything
that comes to pass is according to His counsel. He's the all-knowing
God. He's the all-powerful God. He's
the ever-present God. He's the self-existing God and
the self-sufficient God. Declare Thee God, He said. And
declare Him the Lord God of the living. He says there, verse
16, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Not He was the
God of Abraham. He is the God of Abraham. He
was their God when He called them by grace. The first hour
He made them to bleed. And He was still their God right
then when He was speaking to Moses. Even though they were
dead, He made them alive. and they were alive and He is
still their God. That's what we saw last week
when we saw Christ transfigured. Who was He talking with? He was
talking to Moses and He was talking to Elisha. Even though they were
dead, they were alive because He makes His people alive. He
said, He that believes on Me, He that lives and believes on
Me shall never die. So He's the God of the living
and He'll be the God of the living forever. He'll be our Lord for
eternity. The God of the living. Declare
Him to be the God who's able to call His people by divine
revelation. He said there, verse 16, the
God appeared unto me. That's divine revelation. Now,
God's not going to appear to us in person like He did to Moses. He's not going to appear to us
in a burning bush like He did to Moses, but He's going to appear
by revelation in the heart through faith, through the Gospel. That's
how He appears. He makes you to believe Him and
behold Him through faith. And He does this by revealing
Himself in us. We can't know Him any other way.
The natural man cannot and will not receive the things of the
Spirit. He has to make us new and give us a divine revelation
of Him. Now each time I stand here, that's
what I try to declare to you. I try to declare what God has
revealed to me and what I know to be so. The covenant God, who
is the God, who is able to save to the uttermost, who does it
by divine revelation, that's who I try to proclaim to you
every time I stand here. every time I stand here. And
the message is the message of His works. It's not the message
of our works. That's what you hear preached
today, the message of man's works. That's what majority in religion
are preaching now, what you need to be doing for God. The message
we're sent to proclaim is what He's done for His people. the
works He's done. Look at verse 16. He says, Say,
I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you
in Egypt. That's Christ speaking. He's saying what He's done. God
visited His people in bondage when He came to this earth. He
visited His people. And when He saw our bondage,
He, just like He went to Israel and saw their bondage, He saw
our bondage. Bondage, a legal bondage wherein
we're guilty before the law of God, and a bondage of our nature
wherein we have a sin nature that could not, would not believe
on God. That's bondage. He saw our bondage. And God in Christ came to deliver
us from that bondage and He did. That's the message. Look at verse
17. And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction
of Egypt unto a land flowing with milk and honey. That's the
message. Christ Jesus came to this earth
to do two things. There's two works involved in
Christ's salvation. And listen to me, we dare not
diminish one of those works in an effort to exalt the other.
We dare not speak lightly of one of those works in an effort
to exalt the other work, because they are both by Christ, they
are both absolutely necessary, and both of these works declare
you and I have nothing to boast in. We do not add or do anything
to save ourselves. Christ does this work. The first
part of that work is He had to go to the cross and be made sin
for us in order to make us righteousness in Him. Because we were guilty
before the law of God. That's the first thing that had
to be taken care of. God's justice had to be upheld.
His people had to be made righteous. When God imputes righteousness
to us, brethren, He's not making us righteous by imputing righteousness.
God only imputes what you are. And when He imputes righteousness
to you, He is imputing to you what you are by Christ's Word. That's why He says in Romans
6, He seems to be grasping at emphatic language. When He said
Christ has died unto sin once and now that He's risen, He lives
unto God. And then He says, now reckon,
impute yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
God. God reckons you to be what you
are. He's not treating you as if or
treating you like it's that way. It is what you are or God wouldn't
impute it to you. You know, there's an article
in the Bulletin I wrote this week about when he said, account
the long-suffering of God salvation. That word accounts impute. He's
not saying you're going to make it His long-suffering to be salvation
by accounting it so. God doesn't make you anything
by imputing to you. He says, account the long-suffering
of God salvation because that's what it is. And when God imputes
to you, He's imputing to you what you are. He had to come
make us righteous. And then not only that, He had
to come and create us anew in the heart by being formed in
us. He's both our righteousness and our sanctification. He's
our righteousness and our holiness. And He has to be formed in the
heart before we'll ever believe that. and see Him, and behold
Him, and rejoice in Him. And when He does this work in
the heart, we're not saying now for you to look inward in you.
We're not saying now for you to boast in something that's
in you. We're not saying you've done any work whatsoever. We're
saying that when He's created this inward man, that's when,
for the first time, you will actually look outside of yourself
and look to Christ and glory in Christ alone. This is a two-fold
work that had to be done and we dare not diminish the work
that He does in His people in order to exalt that work He does
for His people. Both were absolutely necessary.
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. Why not? Because they've got
none to impute. That's why. Because your sins
are covered, because Christ had them imputed to Him when He was
made sin. And so God will not impute sin
to His people anymore. That's the message we are sent
to declare. That's the message of the gospel to comfort His
people. And that's what the gospel is. The gospel is not a whip. It's
not meant to whip people. When I was younger, I heard something
that helped me. Helped me a great deal. Brother
Scott Richardson talked about how you could take corn and there
would be some chickens around you and if you slung that corn
at those chickens, they would just all scatter before they
came back up to eat it. But if you just walked along
with that corn and just dropped it out like this, they would
just flock all around you and just stay right there and eat
it. See, the gospel is not something we are to sling at people. We
are not to whip people with it. We are to just drop it. gently
and give it to His people. He says, Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her that her iniquity is pardoned. She receiveth the
Lord's hand double for all her sin. That's comfort. Now secondly,
Christ declares what the outcome will be when we preach this message.
And I don't want you for a second to start thinking, well this
message is just about you as a preacher, Clay. No, this message
is about us as God's witnesses spreading the gospel. And He
tells us together as His church what will be the outcome when
we preach the gospel. He says in verse 18, and they
shall hearken to thy voice. Oh boy, I wouldn't preach the
gospel if I didn't have that promise. What good would it do? What good would it do? Christ
says here, all God's elect, all those that Christ redeemed shall
hearken to the voice of the Gospel. They are going to hear the Gospel
and they are going to hearken to it. How so? He is going to
make them hearken to it. He said, all that the Father
has given to me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me
I will in no wise cast out. Well, how are they going to come
to Him? He said later, it's written in the Prophets, they shall be
all taught of God. And every man therefore that
hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto Me. That's our confidence, brethren.
That's our confidence to continue to not lose heart, but to continue
to spread forth the Word. Because God our Savior, our Lord
Jesus promises His people are going to hearken to the Word.
They are going to hearken. He said, so shall My Word be
that goes out of My mouth. It shall not return to Me void.
It shall accomplish the thing whereunto I sent it. And even
if we are spreading the Gospel and it doesn't appear that anybody
is believing, know this, He is still accomplishing His will
with that Word. Even in those that do not believe,
He is accomplishing His will. Now, not only will they hearken
to the voice through the gospel, not only are they going to believe
on Christ through the gospel, He's going to make His people
bold. He's going to make His people take a stand for this
gospel. Look down there now at verse
18. And thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto
the king of Egypt. And you shall say unto him, The
Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, now let us go. We beseech thee, three days journey
into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God."
Can you picture that? Here's these people who were
slaves to the Egyptians. Here they are, slaves under Pharaoh. And when Christ says, when you
preach this word to them, I'm going to create them anew in
the heart so they obey the voice, my voice through this gospel.
And when they do, they're going to go to Pharaoh with you, the
king of Egypt, the most powerful man in the world. And they're
going to speak to him now and say, let us go worship God. He's visited us and we beseech
thee, let us go three days journey and worship God. That's boldness. Can you imagine
going into the President of the United States who is not letting
you worship God and say to him, God's appeared to us, we're going
into the wilderness to worship God. Peter and John did it. Remember, they were arrested
and those powerful rulers told them not to ever preach the gospel
again. And they did anyway. And the
Scripture says, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John,
They perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men and
they marveled. And they took knowledge of them
that they had been with Jesus. That's how they got their boldness.
And all Christ's people are weak. That's all we are in ourselves
is weak. You can't have boldness to speak to somebody, to an enemy
of God, unless Christ gives you that boldness. It has to be. but we can be sure and we can
have a good hope knowing He's promised He will give that boldness
to His people. Paul said this, according to
my earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed,
but with all boldness as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified
in my body, whether it be my life or death. How could He make
that statement? What was that sheer expectation?
What was that sheer hope? He said later, I can do all things
through Christ which strengthens me. That's the sheer hope. That's
our expectation. Christ will strengthen us. Do you think, left to yourself,
do you think you could face death with boldness? I don't think
I could. But Christ promises He'll be
your strength so that you can. When you need that grace, He'll
give it. That's right, He'll be your strength. And that's
what He says He'll accomplish. He will bring His people to believe
on Him and He'll bring His people to take a stand for His gospel
before the enemy. And then look at this, the third
thing. Christ even tells us beforehand what the enemy shall do. He tells
us here what the enemy shall do. He says, And I'm sure that
the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand.
He is not saying this is what I think. He is saying I am sure
of it. I know this is what He is going to do. God only has
to leave a man to Himself. That is all He has got to do.
Christ was sure of this because He just left Pharaoh to Himself.
And when a man hears the gospel left to himself, he hates it.
He rejects it. He won't have a thing to do with
it. And he knew that when he sent this message to Pharaoh,
Pharaoh would not let his people go. Not by a mighty hand. And
then God justly hardened Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh hardened his own
heart, and for that reason, God justly hardened Pharaoh's heart,
so that he couldn't believe. In other words, God says to a
man at some point, and whenever it pleases God, He says to him,
you wouldn't believe, now you can't believe. Listen to this,
they receive not the love of the truth that they might be
saved, And for this cause they would not receive the love
of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause
God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie,
that they all might be damned who believe not the truth but
have pleasure in unrighteousness. Now why does God deal with His
enemies that way? Why does He do it that way? Go
to Exodus 9 and look at verse 16. Here's why he does it that way.
He told Pharaoh this, In very deed for this cause have I raised
thee up, for to show in thee my power, and that my name may
be declared throughout all the earth. Go to Romans 9 with me
just a minute. You recognize that Paul quoted
it in Romans 9. I want you to remember this though,
when God raises up an enemy against us, when they reject our gospel
and when they try to slander you. Just remember this, God's
declaring His power in His name even using our enemies. I've
been opposed several times and I can tell you this, in all of
it, when I felt so dejected and I felt like so weak and like,
you know, this is just no good could come out of this. Yet,
God did bring good out of it. God showed me His power and His
great name out of it. He does it for a reason. Look
here, Romans 9.22. What if God, willing to show
His wrath, that's something He shows His people, and to make
His power known, that's what He shows His people. What if
he endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fit for
destruction? Why would He do that? "...and
that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels
of mercy, which He had aforeprepared unto glory, even us whom He has
called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles." You
see that? That's why He does it. Why are
enemies in this world? Why are they people that oppose
Christ and oppose the Gospel? Why was He crucified? Why did
all that happen? It was because God was manifesting
His power and manifesting His name. even using His enemies
to do so. So He promises here what He will
do to our enemies. He said in Exodus 3.20, He says,
ìAnd I will stretch out My hand.î Pharaoh will exercise his mighty
hand and not let you go. But Christ says, ìThen I will
stretch out My hand.î Letís see how mighty Pharaohís hand is
up against Christís hand. I'll stretch out my hand and
smite Egypt with all my wonders which I'll do in the midst thereof,
and after that He will let you go." And He did. We're going to see that later,
all the wonders that He did in Egypt. But Pharaoh's mad rejection
of God was the means that God used to work all those mighty
wonders for His people. He wasn't working them for Pharaoh.
He wasn't being long-suffering to Pharaoh. He was being long-suffering
to His people. He was manifesting His name and
His wondrous works of grace to His people. That's what He's
always done. Nothing's ever been out of God's
sovereign control. When Christ hung on that cross,
God was in full control. For this very reason have I raised
thee up, He could say to Pilate. Jews and the Gentiles and the
Romans that were there doing what they were doing to Christ.
He could say the same thing to them that He said to Pharaoh.
For this very reason have I raised thee up, that I might make my
power known and that my name might be declared throughout
all the earth. And for that reason, for the reason that Christ was
crucified and accomplished the will of God in redeeming His
people, we see God's power to justify, we see God's power to
save, and we've been declaring His name for 2017 years ever
since He did it, haven't we? I was told, Melinda and the kids
yesterday, I was reading something that some believers wrote in
107, the year 107. And I thought, wouldn't it be
strange to write, you know, February the 12th, 107, instead of 2017?
But even then, They were reading the same Word
we're reading. And they were receiving the same
Gospel we receive and declaring the same name we declare. It
hasn't changed. It's the same message. All these
years later, same message. Now lastly, let's go now back
to our text, Exodus 3. Christ promises to provide all
our needs. Everything we need, He promises
to provide it. He says in verse 21, I will give
this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. And it shall
come to pass that when you go, you shall not go empty. But every
woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in
her house, jewels of silver... We're not just talking about
just barely supplying your need. He says they're going to be supplying
you with jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment. And you
shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters, and
you shall spoil the Egyptians. Brethren, Christ accomplished
everything He promised for His people. He declared the end from
the beginning and He came and accomplished everything He promised
His people. He actually put into the heart
of the Egyptians to favor the children of Israel. They didn't
do that before. For 400 years, they had never
looked upon the children of Israel with favor. They've been slaves. They've made their lives bitter
with hard bondage. But when the time came, Christ
put it in the heart of those same Egyptians to now look upon
those Israelites with favor. Isn't that amazing that God can
do that? Have you ever been surprised
when somebody favors you in a job you know, in your community or
something like that, to where it just opened up a door that
otherwise would not have been open. And you were just shocked
that all of a sudden this person I did not expect would favor
me, favored me. Well, now you know how. Now you
know why. It's not by accident. God does
that for His people. He puts favor in the hearts of
our enemy. And God our Father now, you remember,
He chose us by free grace. That's that favor. Grace. He
chose us by grace. And Christ came into this world
and He redeemed us by grace and the Holy Spirit called us by
grace. And when He did that, He gave us a new spirit to believe
Him. And when we cast our care on Him, He supplied us with riches
far greater than silver and gold. The exceeding unsearchable riches
of Christ. Justification and righteousness,
pardon, complete forgiveness, complete acceptance with God,
glory with Christ in heaven He's promised us. All this He gives
us through His blood. All these riches He's supplied
and He's done it all because we found favor in God's sight. If you want to study something,
you take your concordance and you look up favor and you see
how many times Scripture speaks of God's people finding favor
in the sight of God. It's all in the Old Testament.
That's how we found favor with God in His sight. Freely by His
grace. Well, much easier than all that. Hear me now. Far easier than
all of that. For some reason we got this backwards. We act like we think it's far
harder for God to provide for us in this life than it was for
what He did for us on the cross. No. It's far easier than what
He did on the cross to provide for us in this life. And don't
forget that now. Our Lord and our Savior controls
the hearts of men. Not just the hearts of His people,
the hearts of our enemies too. He controls the hearts of His
people and He makes people look upon us with favor and provide
for us. He does that. I pray He gives
those people at the at Ewing Township office. I pray
He'd make them favor us in their sight. We get all this stuff
inspected and get all that over with. But He does that for His
people. And here's the point we've seen
in all this right here that He's shown us. And everything He's
shown us here, this is the point. Every promise Christ has made
to us from the beginning, He has He is and He shall bring
to pass and nobody can stop Him. We're going to see, as we go
through Exodus, everything He promised Moses, right here, before
He ever sends him forth, everything He promised Moses, He brought
it to pass. Exactly. Every promise He makes
to Israel was a temporal earthy promise to deliver them to an
earthly inheritance. He made good on every promise.
Even though they failed, He made good on every promise. He spoke
through Joshua and said, I've done everything for you I said
I'd do for you. And that's a picture to you and
me who are His spiritual Israel that every everlasting spiritual
promise God makes to His people, He shall perform it. Now go with me to Isaiah 46.
I'm going to end with this verse right here. Isaiah 46 verse 9. Remember the former things of
old. For I am God, and there is none
else. I am God, and there is none like
me. Declaring the end from the beginning,
and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying,
My counsel shall stand. and I will do all my pleasure,
even calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth
my counsel from a far country. Yea, I've spoken it, I will also
bring it to pass, I've purposed it, I will also do it." That's
our God and that's our reason for this earnest expectation
and this sure hope. He will bring to pass everything
He promised from the beginning. And you can rest in that. Father,
we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for Your mercy,
for Your grace. We thank You, Lord, that You're
such a sovereign, all-powerful God that You can tell us how
You're going to do it and then do it exactly how You told us.
What a God! What a Savior! What a Name! Lord, make us no more doubt and
fear. Make us no more be bashful to
declare Your Name. Make us believe You. Make us
bold. Make us preach Your Word in kindness
and sympathy for lost sinners. But make us preach it boldly.
Not holding anything back but speaking the truth. And Lord,
we love to watch as You bring to pass all Your promises. We
love to see You do what You've promised You'll do. And we anticipate
that You will do things for us here in this place that we can't
imagine. Things that You've promised in
Your Word by blessing the Gospel. by blessing it to our hearts
and to those that come our way, that you'll bring them and draw
them and make them hear you. And Lord, we hope and we pray,
we ask you to do those things in this place. We have everything
here of your hand and we ask you now, Lord, to use us as just
instruments in your hand to bring to pass your will. We're thankful,
Lord, that you work in the hearts of lost sinners
and we pray there are some here that you're working in now, teaching
them and drawing them. We look forward to that day when
you'll bring them to confess you publicly and join with us
in spreading this gospel. Lord, we ask now the only thing
we can ask and that is your will to be done. If your will is done,
it will be best. It will be right, and it will
be what we can glory in and praise you for. And so Lord, we ask
your will to be done. In the name of our precious Redeemer,
Christ Jesus, we ask thee stand. Amen. All right.