If thou lend money to any of
my people that is poor by thee, this is God speaking, this is
his law. He says, thou shall not be to
him as an usurer, taking advantage of a poor man, extorting him. Neither shalt thou lay upon him
usury, interest. If thou at all take thy neighbor's
raiment, or if you take all of his raiment to pledge as a surety
ship that he'll come back and pay you what he owes you, thou
shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down. By the time the end of that day
comes, you give it back to him. For that is his covering only.
That's the only covering he has to sleep in. It is his raiment
for his skin. It's to cover his nakedness.
Wherein shall he sleep? Now that's the question God asks.
Wherein shall he sleep? If he has no raiment, wherein
shall he sleep? He says, and it shall come to
pass when he crieth unto me, and I will hear him, for I am
gracious. This afternoon, Robert and Melinda
and the kids were sitting around the house and I told them, I'm
going to preach tonight about this question that God asked.
If you take a man's pajamas, what's he going to sleep in?
And it really amounts to about that. The Lord is saying here,
if a poor man comes to you and he has nothing and he asks for
you to lend to him, and you lend to him, and you don't take usury
from him, you don't exact any interest of him, you only say,
give me a pledge that you're going to come back and pay me.
And so he gives you his raiment. And I believe he's saying here
all his raiment. And he says, by the end of the
day, you give that raiment back to him, because if you don't,
What's he going to sleep in? That's his raiment. That's to
cover his skin, to cover his flesh, his nakedness. So what
will he sleep in? And the Lord says, and if he
cries to me, I'll hear him because I'm gracious. I'm gracious. You
know, whenever we men get into religion before God quickens
their hearts and gives them an understanding of what he's done
by grace, just having a form of godliness. A man could do
the letter of the law. He could take what God has said
here and obey it in the letter. Cross every T, dot every I. But he's apt to do it without
a cheerful heart. He's not doing it because he
wants to do it. It's not his heart to do it.
And also he's apt to point his finger at other people and judge
them. or to point his finger, which
is the same thing, point his finger at others and say, you're
judging me. You know that when the Lord said,
judge not that you be not judged, the moment that I look at somebody
else and say, you're judging me and I use that scripture,
you know what I've started doing? Disobeying that command. I'm
judging you when I do that. It doesn't say take care to look
after your brethren to make sure they don't judge you. It says,
don't you judge them. And the Lord said, the Lord said
through Paul, He said if we would judge ourselves, if we would
condemn ourselves, we would not be judged, we would not be condemned.
And He said, but when we are judged, when we are condemned,
He said, it's the Lord chastening us that we should not be condemned
with the world. But unto God's work and grace
in a man's heart, we won't hear that it's God that is chastening
us. It's God that's judging us. We'll
say, you're judging me. We won't hear that it's God doing
it. But if we would judge ourselves, what will make us judge ourselves?
What will make us condemn ourselves and look at ourselves as being
the chief of sinners, the least of the least, and esteem others
better than ourselves? What will do that? Grace. Sovereign, free, saving grace
will make a man do that. That's what God is teaching us
right here. This last phrase in verse 27 reminds us why the
believer will be willing to do this. Look at verse 27. It shall
come to pass when he crieth unto me that I will hear him for I
am gracious. God is gracious and the believer
knows that. The believer's motive in all
our dealings with men arises from the fact that God has been
gracious to us. That's our motive. We know God
has been gracious to us. Now, He reminds us here in our
everyday dealings with men. When you think of something like
this, about a man not having some pajamas to sleep in, that
God is concerned, that concerned about our dealings with men.
He's that involved and takes notice of our dealings with men.
That's truly how involved God is. He regards every detail.
He does. And so He's showing us here that
in all of our dealings with men, in all of our everyday mundane
dealings with men, when we behold that poor helpless, needy sinner
that's staring back at us. We ought to see ourselves. We
ought to see what we were and see our need of God's grace. How we needed God's grace when
we were that sinner. And how we need it now. We need
His saving grace now. I want to show you several examples
of this and this will make up our divisions as we go along.
First of all, we were strangers to God. Look at verse 21. He
says, Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him,
for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Now God is speaking
to His elect in Israel right here. And that's who heard it.
That's who got this message. He said this to everybody, but
those that had not been born again by His grace, by His regenerating,
quickening grace, they only heard it in the letter. But those who
heard him in the heart by his grace, they heard him and this
is what he was saying to them. He was saying, don't vex, don't
oppress, don't harass a Gentile stranger. Somebody that's who
a stranger was, a Gentile. Don't vex him and oppress him
and harass him because remember when you were slaves in Egypt?
Remember when you were there and Pharaoh and his taskmasters
oppressed you and made your life bitter with hard bondage and
constantly put a weight of bondage upon you? And he says, now who
made the difference? He said, I did. I came to where
you were and I brought you out of that bondage and delivered
you out for I am gracious. I did it by my grace, God said.
I love it how that we can be going through two or three different
books and how it's not planned. This is not planned. I began looking at this scripture
this week and I thought how perfectly this goes along with what we
saw Sunday. Look over at Ephesians 2.11.
This is what we saw Sunday, and Paul here is reminding the Gentile
Ephesian believers of this, and he's saying the same thing. He's
saying this to you and I. We're Gentiles. Now listen to
what he says. I don't think I've made this
point clearly enough, Sunday, and I want to look at it again,
but he's saying the same thing he said there in Exodus. Look
at verse 11. Wherefore remember that you,
being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, Those
natural Jews had not tasted of the Lord's grace in their hearts.
So when they heard the Lord say, don't vex a stranger. Remember,
you were strangers in Israel. It just went in one ear and out
the other. They resolved for about a day or two and said,
okay, I'm not going to vex an entire stranger. But they didn't
have grace working in their heart. And so they oppressed them and
they harassed them and they reproached them and they called them all
kinds of names. And so, Paul's saying to these
Gentiles, he says, now you remember, you were once held in reproach. You were once... your life was
oppressed and it was made bitter because of self-righteous religious
men. And he's saying, but God showed
us grace, brethren. God delivered us out of that
bondage of religion, of self-righteous men. He brought us out of that.
So now he's saying to us, now don't play the self-righteous,
haughty religionist. Whenever you behold a blind,
unregenerate sinner in religion, just remember that's what we
were, brethren. And we couldn't deliver ourselves
out of that. So don't turn around now and like they held us in
reproach when we were outside of religion. Don't turn around
now and take that haughty spot and hold them as a reproach. They can't save themselves. They
can't do anything about it. That's what God was telling them
over there in Exodus 22. He was saying, these Gentiles
can't deliver themselves any more than you could bring yourself
out of Egypt. It's all God's grace that did it for us. In
our flesh, we were strangers to God. Look at Ephesians 2.12.
At that time, you were without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world. We were dead. We
were lost. We were without God. We were
without hope. We were without Christ. We were
strangers to God's covenant promises. But now, verse 13, in Christ
Jesus you, who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the
blood of Christ. It's not by merit in us. It's
not by anything we did. It's not by anything God foresaw. Look at verse 4. But God, who's
rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,
by grace you're saved. This is what He's saying. Therefore,
God says, in all our everyday dealings with men, He says, remember,
sinners, whether they're in religion or they're not, remember this,
they're in bondage. Just like the Israelites were
in Egyptian bondage, just like we were in bondage. They're in
bondage and they cannot free themselves, so be gracious because
God's been gracious to us. That's the only thing that saved
us was God's grace. Well, look over at Hebrews 13.
Hebrews 13. And look at verse 1. This is what he's saying to us,
brethren. Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to
entertain strangers. For thereby some have entertained
angels unaware." Just because they're not in your congregation,
just because they're not in, you know, affiliated with people
you know, what have you, you never know when that might be
one of God's elect children. It might be one of His children.
So don't neglect entertaining strangers. Don't vex them. Don't harass them. Don't oppress
them. Do what you can. Temporally speaking, do what
you can to relieve any burden that's on them. And as you do
that, take the opportunity to tell them about our burden bearer,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Tell them about how he broke
your Egyptian chains. Tell them about how he drowned
Satan and all his army in the flood of the Red Sea of his blood. Tell him about that and tell
him how that he called you in grace and he said, now you come
unto me, you that are laboring and are heavy laden, that are
oppressed and vexed and burdened down by the bondage of religious
men who are putting all kind of oppressive yokes on you and
making you feel guilty and making you feel like there's something
you can do to save yourself. He's called us effectually to
himself and he said to us, take my yoke upon you and learn of
me for I'm meek and lowly in heart. And you'll find rest unto
your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. What's
his yoke? His yoke is now that you've been
saved purely by grace, elected by grace, redeemed by grace,
called by grace, kept by grace, preserved by grace, grown by
grace, now that you're saved by grace, here's his heavy yoke. This yoke's so light and easy.
Here it is. Now you be gracious to others
because I'm gracious to you. Isn't that light? That's it.
That's it. See, what I'm looking at tonight
is the letter of the law. But believers are not under the
letter of the law. We've been brought under Christ
our Master and we've been brought under the rule of faith that
works by love. We have the spirit of the law
within us which is grace. It's grace. Working by grace. Alright, go back now to Exodus
22. There's another example that he gives here in our text. Exodus
22. We were spiritual widows and
orphans. Look here in Exodus 22 and verse
22. I love how when we see here how
that God is compassionate toward helpless folks, towards folks
like the stranger, and folks like a widow, and folks like
an orphan. When you see that, how God has pity on those, know
for certain that God's particular grace toward His elect, toward
those He's everlasting love, just know that it's infinitely
greater towards those because these are ones He's loved from
everlasting. Now look here at what He says. We were widows
and orphans, verse 22. You shall not afflict any widow
or fatherless child, an orphan. If thou afflict them in any wise
and they cry it all unto me, I will surely hear their cry.
Brethren, we were the widow. A true widow in the Scriptures
was one without a husband, one without children, without any
extended family to care for them at all. That's what a widow is
in the Scriptures, according to the Scriptures. That was us,
brethren. That was us. We were dead in
trespasses and in sins. Do you remember how it was lonesome
to be a widow? A widow's a lonesome person. A lonesome person. How did we
become a widow? I'm talking about Christ's church. His bride. How did we become
a widow? Our first husband, according to the flesh in time, our first
husband Adam sinned against God. And when he did, he died. And
when he died, he left us a widow. And all the children of Adam
died in Adam. So that we had no sons and daughters
to care for us either. Not at all. We were spiritual
widows, brethren. That's what we were. But by pure
grace alone, by pure grace alone, before the foundation of the
world, Christ Jesus became the husband of all God's elect children,
of His church. He became our husband beforehand,
before Adam fell. Because God betrothed us to Him. And He became our our husband. And in time, when we fell, He
came to where we are and He loved us and He paid all the debt that
we owed and redeemed us from all iniquity. Look at Ephesians
chapter 5. He says there in verse 23, The husband is the head of the
wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. Christ is the
head of the church, and He's the Savior of the body. Therefore,
as the church is subject unto Christ, just like a wife is subject
to her husband, that's why, because Christ's bride is subject to
Christ. So let the wives be to their own husbands and everything.
Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church
and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present
it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Look down at verse 30. For we're
members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. It's for this
cause that a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh. What
is marriage about? Why do we have marriage? Why
do you have a man leaving his mother and his father and joining
his wife and they too becoming one flesh? Because it was given
as a picture patterned after Christ and his bride. Look at
the next verse. This is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the church. We're members of
his body. We're one with him. One with
him. So, when he did this great work
for his church, for all the elect of God included in this body,
when he did this work, then he came to us, brethren. Individually,
he comes to us and he calls us and he says to us what Hosea
said to Gomer. He says, I said unto her, thou
shalt abide for me many days. Thou shalt not play the harlot,
and thou shalt not be for another man, so will I also be for thee. All that was by grace. Every
bit of it was by grace. And likewise, believer, while
in our flesh, we were the orphan. We were the orphan, without father
or mother, without sister or brother. The scriptures describes
us as being enmity against God, as being hating God, and hating
one another. That means we didn't have anybody.
We didn't have God and we didn't have any brethren while we were
in our flesh. We were orphans. But because God chose us alone
by His grace without looking at anything in us, He called
us and He revealed Christ our everlasting Father to us. Christ is our last Adam, our
everlasting Father. That federal head and representative,
that father that will never stop being a father like Adam did
when he sinned in the garden. And He's God our Father. And Christ is our elder brother.
That's right. He brought us into His church.
You know what the church is called? We didn't have a mother before.
You know what the church is called? Jerusalem, which is above, is
the mother of us all. Now we got a mother. Now we're
in the family and household of God. Paul said, of whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named. We have a heavenly Father
who provides everything for us. He has been before we ever knew
it. We got an elder brother, Christ
Jesus, our everlasting Father, who's provided everything for
us. We got a mother by the church who God uses Himself to provide
for us. We've got brothers and sisters
who He's given to provide for us. We're no more orphans now. We're in a family. And it's called
God's family. So God says to you and I that's
been saved by grace. He says, now just behold what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should
be called sons of God. And behold how He did it. He
did it all by grace. And He says, so now you be gracious
to the widows and the orphans as I've been gracious to you.
Look over at James chapter 1. James chapter 1. Right after
the book of Hebrews. James 1 verse 27. Pure religion,
those that have been given a new heart by God's grace and made
new in Christ. Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father is this. It's before our Father. You see
that? It's before our Father. It's
this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction
and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Widows and fatherless
and widows includes all needy sinners. That's who it includes.
So he's telling us wherever there is a needy sinner in affliction,
Visit them if you can. That's what he's saying. It may
be a real widow. I have lots of believing friends
who spend a great deal of time going to nursing homes and spending
time with folks and reading a script like sitting with the elderly
ladies and reading scriptures to them or something like that.
Whatever you can do. And he says, and as you are visiting
them literally in their temple affliction, tell them about God
our Father. Tell them about how we were widows.
You know something a widow, that's a widow in a nursing home for
instance, something she can relate to is being a widow. And tell
her about how God our Father loved us. and sent Christ, our
elder brother, to save us. And how that He came forth, Christ
as a Son, over His own house, whose house we are, if we hold
fast to confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
He says, so visit them. Tell them, it's not enough, we're
not talking about here about just going out trying to clothe
and feed those in need. We're talking about truly clothing
and feeding them. with this gospel of his grace. This is what men need. This is
what sinners need. That's what you do when you provide
for this work and you help to support the work and we're getting
this gospel out like we are. We're visiting these needy sinners
in their affliction. And he says, now personally,
if you get the opportunity to do it, do that too. Do that too. Because remember, here's your
motive. I've been gracious to you. That's
what I did to you. He sent somebody to you personally. And then likewise in our text,
now God says, remember you were the poor man. Go back to Exodus
22. Exodus 22, look at verse 25. If thou lend money to any of
my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as a
usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. You know, believers
are not in the business of trying to take advantage of one another.
We're just not in the business of trying to find somebody who
needs help amongst our brethren or without our brethren and trying
to help them just so we can make a dollar off of them. That's
what he said. Don't do that. Don't do that. And he says, now,
if at all, if thou at all take thy neighbor's raiment to pledge,
if you do lend to him and you take the raiment for pledge,
thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down, for
that's his covering only. It's his raiment for his skin.
Wherein shall he sleep? If he has no covering, how is
he going to rest? How is he going to sleep? It
shall come to pass when he cries unto me, I'll hear, for I'm gracious. Now brethren, we were the poor
man. We were this poor man. We sold ourselves for naught. We sold ourselves for nothing.
When God began a work of grace in our heart, we didn't know
it till then, but when God began a work of grace in our heart,
He first made us to see that sin, our sin, our rebellion,
our transgression against God had stripped us of all righteousness
and of any hope of righteousness whatsoever. You remember when
Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, and when Adam sinned, and it
says, as soon as Adam sinned, being the head of the human race,
as soon as he sinned, they knew they were naked. Well, God comes
to us, and He makes us to see we've sinned, and He makes us
to know we're naked before God. He makes us to see our nakedness,
and He makes us to see that all our fig leaves won't avail anything.
There'll be times when people will think, well, I believe God.
I know I'm called by grace. And God comes and makes you see
that when you made your decision for Jesus, that was your flesh.
That wasn't God doing it. And he makes us to see that I
make my people willing in the day of my power. My people aren't
willing by themselves. They can't come to me by themselves.
But when he did that, he made us see that our creditor, the
one that we owed, is God. And he made us see that we owe
God's divine justice. And we owe God's divine justice
eternal death. And so he makes us see we couldn't
pay it. And you know what happened then?
We didn't have any raiment. Wherein could we sleep? Wherein
could we find any rest? When God does that, we were stretched
out on that big old bed that we had made ourselves, our big
self-righteous, self-sanctified, self-willed, self-working, self-self-self
bed that we had made being a self-made man. And God began to do this
work. And you know what happened? You've
seen those movies when the wall starts coming in like this, you
know, getting smaller. That's what happened to our bed.
It became too short. We couldn't stretch out on it.
And the covers became too narrow. We couldn't wrap ourselves in
them anymore. So God stripped us, but He hedged us about and
He made us to cry. He said there in verse 27, It
shall come to pass when He crieth unto me that I'll hear, for I
am gracious. And all of this work, as painful
as it is, I wish, I don't have to wish, God will do it, but
how I do pray that if there's a sinner who is being judged, that God will make
them know that God's the one doing it, that God's chasing
them, that He's doing it. Because if we're without that,
we're bastards. If we never are brought down
and brought to bow and brought down to where we behold what
God is doing and that He's doing it for us, we just go on in our
rebellion saying, oh, this is just folks picking on me. Then
we're bastards in our sons. But if where he is, he's going
to make us see he's the one that's been doing it all along. And
it's so painful. But what we find out, when we
cry unto him, he hedges up our way to where it's so narrow,
we can't do anything else but call out to him. And when he
does that, he makes us to see how gracious he is. And he's
been doing this all along by his grace. by His grace. And He showed us Christ when
He did that. He showed us. When He brought
us to cry out, now He's got us where we're a sinner, and we're
poor, and we're bankrupt, and we can't do anything. He brought
us to see Christ. on that bitter cross, who willingly
took our sin, who willingly took our curse, who willingly became
the poor man for us on that cross, and who's bearing what we deserved
on that cross. And when He makes us to behold
Him there, He ravishes our heart with His love for us. He makes
us to see that it is a particular, distinguishing love for His elect
people, for us individually. And he makes us to begin to...
We were pining for ourselves. We were feeling sorry for ourselves.
And all the while we were blaming everybody else, what we were
doing was exalting ourselves. We were struggling for one last
good reach to just throw everybody else down so we could crawl up
on them and exalt ourselves a little bit. And He turns us from that
and makes us repent from everything we ever thought about God that
was wrong, everything we've ever done in religion or out of religion. He makes us turn from any hope
we had in ourselves, of ourselves, and He plants us at Christ's
feet. And when He does that, brethren,
He brings us to mourn for Christ as one that mourns for His only
begotten Son. We see we don't deserve any mercy. We don't deserve the least of
mercy, any mercy from Him. And when He does that, He said
there, you give this man his raiment back before the sun goes
down. And when He did that for us, brethren, before the sun
went down, God said, bring the best robe and put it on him. Bring the robe of my son. Bring
my son's perfect righteousness and robe him in that spotless
garment of my son's righteousness. And for the first time, you know
what happened? Now our nakedness is covered.
Now our sin is covered. Now our transgressions are covered.
Now they're all put away. And for the first time, we stretched
out on God's bed. The bed got made. Wrapped up
in that raiment of righteousness and we found some sweet rest
to our souls for the first time. And he said there in verse 27,
this is what happened. Christ became our only covering. He became our only covering.
Our raiment wherein we now can get a good night's sleep because
our conscience has been purged from our sins and from all those
dead works. And we see now God accepts me. He's made me accepted and He
accepts me in the beloved. I don't have to keep up this
goofy charade anymore of trying to make other people think I'm
something I'm not. Because God says I'm perfectly
righteous in His Son. And what anybody else says, don't
matter. It's what God says. And why did
He do all this? Why did He show us all this kindness?
He says there at the end of verse 27, for I am gracious. That's why. For I am gracious. Remember what Ephesians 2 said,
He saved us that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding
riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
For I am gracious. So, God says, when you behold
that poor, needy sinner, now, remember, you were once that
poor, needy sinner. That was you. Lend to him whatever
temporal thing he needs, just like God's given to you, expecting
no usury in return, expecting no interest in return. And you
know, sometimes a man will need that from you when he's not treating
you very well. He'll smite you on the cheek
and say, give me your coat. And Christ said, give him that
coat. But Christ said, also give him your second coat. What's
that second coat? Tell him about Christ. Tell him
about Christ and what Christ has done. While you're giving
him your temporal coat, take it as an opportunity to give
him your second coat and tell him about this raiment that never
grows old, that no moth can corrupt whatsoever. Is there, you think
about it now, we just looked at a couple of examples, but
you think, is there any downcast, needy, vile, wretched sinner
in this world that you can come across, that you can't look at
them and say, that's me right there. That's me, spiritually,
that's me right there. However bad they may be temporally,
however, however, wretched they may be temperately, we can know
I'm way worse than that spiritually. In my flesh, I'm way worse than
that spiritually. But God is gracious. God is gracious. He's gracious. Alright, so what
does this do? Let me give you this. The Lord,
this is what the Psalm says. Psalm 145 verse 8 says, the Lord
is gracious. Here's what that means. He's
full of compassion. He's slow to anger and he's of
great mercy. Isn't that what you found to
be the case? Now the grace of God toward the child of God.
That child has been made to see himself as nothing but full of
fault. You know what it's going to do?
It's going to make us cease finding fault with our brethren. When
you see all your spots and all your faults in your flesh, doesn't
it make you stop wanting to find fault with your brethren? That's
what grace does. Grace does that. It makes us
cease taking advantage of those in need and it makes us want
to be gracious to them. It makes us want to cover the
sin of our brethren instead of exposing it. That's what grace
did for us. The grace of God did for us.
It makes us want to be gracious. It makes us want to bear their
burden instead of giving them a heavier burden by our backbiting. That's what we do if we talk
about somebody behind their back and it gets back to them. We
just load them up with a heavier burden than they already had.
Grace don't want to do that. We want to take it off of them.
It's what grace did to us. We want to restore them in the
spirit of meekness rather than empty them with a pharisaical
eye. Whether we're just out and out
judging them or whether we're saying, now you're judging me.
When we start doing that it just, man that puts a burden on our
brethren. I've had folks do that to me and it puts such a burden
on you. burden on you. We don't want to put that burden
on them. Christ took that burden off of us and we want to take
it off our brethren. Grace does that. Because now
we see that what we are complete in Christ as he is in glory so
are we right now in this earth. We see that what we are we are
by the grace of God. By the grace of God only. And
so if we've tasted the Lord is gracious how can we be anything
but gracious? If we know that we're truly saved
by grace, the more we know that truly, the more gracious it'll
make us. You know that? Because we see
it's only by grace that I'm saved. It's only by grace. Now, that's
not the letter of the law, brethren. That's not preaching law. That's
not preaching legalism. We're not under the law. We're
under grace. Under grace. And this is the spirit of grace.
God says, now, to the stranger, remember you were a stranger.
To the orphan and the widow, remember you were an orphan and
a widow. To that poor, needy sinner, remember you were poor
and needy. And who made the difference? I'm gracious. I'm gracious. And
so the law we're under is faith that works by love, constrained
by His grace. That's that light and easy yoke
that He's brought us under. Amen. Let's stand together, brethren,