I want to just make a comment
or two before we get into the study tonight. We've not studied
through the book of Genesis and now almost through the book of
Exodus, just to know the history of what was going on in old biblical
times. Paul very plainly said in Romans
chapter 15, for whatsoever things were written aforetime, written
in the Old Testament scriptures, were written for our learning,
that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might
have hope. In the Old Testament, we have,
as you know, many, many pictures and types of many different things. In Israel, we see something of
our sin and our rebellion against God. We see throughout the Old
Testament, God's long suffering and patience and His grace with
rebellious sinners. But I suppose the most glorious
thing that we see in our studies of the Old Testament scriptures
is that everywhere you look, you see something of Christ if
God is pleased to show them to us. And my intention in these
studies is always to strive to show you Christ and point to
Him as your only hope of redemption. That's the reason for these studies.
The things that God pictured and typified in the Old Testament,
Christ fulfilled and Christ finished. forever accomplished, and we
read about those in the New Testament. So we see pictures of Christ
so that we might truly see Christ. From God's promise in the garden
of Christ being the seed of the woman until Christ became an
infant in Bethlehem's manger, the scriptures all point to Him,
the Savior and the Redeemer of chosen elect sinners. These Old
Testament studies can be very profitable to us. They've been
very profitable to me. And there's just some things
that need and must be understood in the Old Testament for us to
ever truly understand and appreciate the fulfillment of those things
in the New. When God called Abraham, who's
called the father of our faith, he called him out of a land of
idolatrous living. Matter of fact, Abraham, along
with his father, were idol makers. God came to Abraham and he made
with him an everlasting covenant of grace. That being that salvation
is truly of the Lord. Abraham, he wasn't seeking God. He had no interest in God Almighty. He was learning the trade of
an idol maker. A single solitary sovereign God
would have put him out of business, but God put him out of business
and God put him out of the idol making business. God came to
Abraham. If you're ever to be saved, God's
going to have to come to you. By nature, we don't seek God.
There's none that seeketh after God. It's what the scripture
said. God didn't have to come. God didn't have to intervene
in your life. God could have left Abraham with
his idols, but God initiated this relationship of mercy. God established this covenant
of grace with him. And there were no conditions
for Abraham to keep. The law had not yet been given.
There were no laws for Abraham to fulfill. And that's what made
it an everlasting covenant of grace. Oh, that just sounds good,
doesn't it? An everlasting covenant of grace,
not of works, not of righteousness that we must do, but a covenant
of God's mercy and grace to us. And when God initiates contact
with a wretched sinner, it's to do them good and it's to save
them. And when God initiates the relationship
with a sinner like me, it could be nothing but grace. And it
was the same with God's dealings with the children of Israel.
While they had been in slavery and in bondage for over 400 years,
God came to them freely. There was no merit or no cause
in them that God would come. Most of Israel was actually worshiping
the same idols as Egypt were. They had forgotten their God. 400 years, they had been under
Egyptian bondage, and they began to worship the gods of Egypt. Matter of fact, when they made
the golden calf, that calf was one of the idols of Egypt. Israel
was the least of all nations. God loved them because He would. If God loves you, it's because
He would love you. God had mercy on them simply
because He would have mercy on them. Isn't that what God said?
I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. That's the glory
of God, having mercy on whom He will. There's none that deserve
His mercy. The gospel message is that God
has mercy. Aren't you glad that God has
mercy? Deuteronomy chapter seven, verses
seven and eight. Let me read it to you. The Lord
did not set His love upon you, nor choose you because you were
more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all
people. But because the Lord loved you,
If you're saved tonight, it's because the Lord loved you. Because
the Lord loved you, because he would keep the oath which he
had sworn unto your fathers, what he had sworn unto Abraham
in that everlasting covenant of grace. This was why the Lord
hath brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of
the house of bondmen and from the hand of Pharaoh, king of
Egypt. And oh, how that mirrors so beautifully
our redemption in Christ. God brought us out with a mighty
hand. He redeemed us out of the house
of the slavery of sin from the hand of the God, the Prince of
this world. God freed them through the blood
of the Passover lamb, a type of Christ, our Passover. He led
them through the cloud and the pillar of fire, a type of the
Lord Jesus, our shepherd. God provided them manna from
heaven, a type of Christ, the bread of life. God provided them
water out of a rock. Paul said that rock was Christ. Now, before turning with me to
Exodus chapter 34, I want you to first look at Exodus chapter
19 with me. Turn there if you would, I wanna
show you a couple of verses here that'll be introduction into
the verses that we're going to look at tonight. Exodus chapter
19, verse five, if you would. God brought the children of Israel
under the Mosaic covenant of works. From then on, conditions
were included with everything that God did concerning Israel. The covenant said, this do and
live. Look at verse five. Now, therefore,
look at this. If ye will obey my voice indeed
and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure
unto me above all people for the earth is mine and you shall
be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." But because
Israel was dead in trespasses and sin, just like we were before
the Lord came to us in mercy and grace, because they were
dead in their sin, when God instituted his law, Israel by the covenant
of works was doomed from the beginning. Israel failed miserably. You see, the Holy Spirit teaches
his people so that they know that a man or a woman cannot
be justified by the works of the law, but can only be justified
by the faith of Jesus Christ, Galatians 2, 16. In fact, God
gave the law to Israel to show them and to show us our sin in
Adam. The law was never given for us
to keep in order to be saved. The law was given to show us
that we couldn't keep the law and that we had to be saved by
this amazing covenant of God's grace too. All the sons and daughters
of Adam became guilty sinners by Adam's one transgression,
making you and I and every other man and woman born of woman totally
unable and totally incapable of keeping God's commandments.
Now, by this comes the gospel. Those that have no need of a
physician won't ever seek one, but those that are sick will.
Christ came and he fulfilled the law for his elect people.
Provisions were made for Israel to offer a blood sacrifice. When
God gave Moses the law, he told him how to build the tabernacle.
He taught him about the priesthood, about offering sacrifices, offering
of blood sacrifices, acceptable sacrifices unto him in order
to appease his wrath against sin. Blood was shed, an innocent
victim was offered in Israel's guilty room and stand. We looked
at all that and every single sacrifice offered upon the mercy
seat in the tabernacle in the wilderness pictured the wondrous
work of God's grace and redemption. Every sacrifice that had its
blood shed and that was consumed by fire picture and testified
the spotless lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're
no longer under a covenant of works. It's no longer if you
will, then you shall. Now in the covenant of grace,
it declares that Christ has done, therefore you are. And boy, I
like that much better, don't you? The children of God are
as lively stones and they're built up a spiritual house, a
holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices. The shedding of the
blood of bulls and goats never put away one sin. But now we
offer spiritual sacrifices, Paul said, acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ. We're made acceptable unto God
only in and by and through the Lord Jesus Christ and the Beloved. That's Him. That's the Lord.
Paul said, you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a peculiar people that you should show forth the praises of Him
who had called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. And
the Lord Jesus Christ filled the whole covenant of works.
He took away all our sins and He put them away forever. How? By the sacrifice of Himself.
All those sacrifices in the Old Testament pointed to Him. And
that's the point I'm endeavoring to make. Christ fulfilled the
whole covenant of works. And we're free from the law of
sin and death, we're told, and we're under the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus. Now, Exodus 34. Here we find
the Lord giving the covenant of works to the people of Israel. Now God not only gave the law
to shut our mouths and declare us guilty before God, but God
here shows us shadows and types of Christ who kept and fulfilled
the law for us. And the message of the gospel
is always always the message of substitution, the message
of Christ and Him crucified. That's what John wrote. He said
the law came by Moses, but Grace and truth came by our Lord Jesus
Christ. John chapter one, verse 17. Matter of fact, we can see a
very good shadow, a very good picture and type of Christ in
Moses. First thing we see here in our
study tonight, the verses before us, is that the law is in Christ's
hands. Look at verse one of Exodus 34. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Hew thee two tablets of stone, like unto the first. And I'll
write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables,
which thou breakest." Now, when the Lord here established the
old covenant of works, the first thing the Lord did was to look
to Moses. Do you see Christ's shadow in
that? God the Father put the work of
establishing the law in the hands of his beloved son. God put the
fulfilling of the law in the hands of our perfect substitute. It says there in verse one, and
the Lord said to Moses, the Lord looked to Moses, the Lord spoke
to Moses, and Moses was the Lord's mediator with the people of Israel. The Lord shared with Moses his
mind and his heart and his purpose concerning his law, his tabernacle,
his priesthood. God showed Moses how he would
fulfill and how he would establish the covenant of works. Only by
blood sacrifice of an innocent victim would God pass over their
sin. When God sees the blood, he passes
over. Without the shedding of blood,
there's what? No remission, no forgiveness
of sin. And it's the same with the everlasting
covenant of grace. The first thing that God the
Father did in order to save His people from their sin was to
look to His Son, the Lord Jesus. God the Father and God the Son,
they entered into a covenant together, that covenant of grace
in eternity. Before there was ever a sinner,
there was a Savior. Isn't that amazing? The father
there made known to his son the end from the beginning, and Christ
purposed to come into the world to save his people by the sacrifice
of himself. God said this through the psalmist.
He said, to the holy one, I have laid help upon one that is mighty,
and I have exalted one chosen out of the people. And that's
exactly what God did. That's what God told Moses that
he would do. Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse
15. He said, the Lord thy God will
raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy
brethren, like unto me, and to him ye shall hearken. Well, that's
speaking of Christ. our great prophet, priest, and
king. It wasn't speaking of Joshua
that would come after Moses. It wasn't speaking of Jeremiah
or Isaiah or any of the other prophets of the Old Testament.
That was speaking of Christ, the Messiah, the seed of the
woman that was to come. Jesus Christ is a truth, that
prophet that should come into the world, John 6, 14. Now, the
real question is, what does that mean to the believer? Well, Hebrews
2.11 says this, listen carefully. For both he that sanctify and
they who are sanctified are all of one. For which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren. Now the simple message of the
gospel, and it is simple. God became a man to redeem fallen
men and women, but he became a man who knew no sin. We who
are nothing but sin, sin's what we are, but Christ became a man
who knew no sin so that he as a man could put away sin. Christ
became what we were so that we might become what he is. That's
not hard, is it? He was made our sin, we were
made his righteousness. Christ is not ashamed to call
us brethren, and friends, God is not ashamed to call us children.
What is man that thou art mindful of him? That's the question.
The Lord put the work of hewing these tables of stone into Moses'
hands and no one else. He said, hew these two tables
of stone. But notice that God went on to
say there, but I will write on these tables the words that were
in the first. In verse three, God said, and
no man shall come up with thee. You see that? Neither let any
man be seen throughout all the mount. Neither let the flocks
or herds feed before that mount. Why? Because God who is holy
is present. As God looked to Moses and no
other man, God the Father put the whole work of fulfilling
his law and bringing in the new covenant of grace into Christ's
hands. It's in his hands and his hands
alone. No man but Christ the God-man could keep the law perfectly
and satisfy God's justice completely. I couldn't help but to think
about that word hue there, hue, and its meaning. It means to
carve. Now Moses carved out those stones
to, I'm sure, the dimensions that God gave him, but it was
the finger of God that wrote upon them. That's what God does
for his people. You think about that. God writes,
God carves his holy law upon our stony hearts and that gives
us life. That's what God said he would
do. He said, and I will give them, being his people, one heart. And I will put a new spirit within
you. And I will take the stony heart
out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 11, 19. And that's what
God does. I've told you many times that
there's no perfect type and picture of the perfect Christ and Savior.
There's just not. There are some great differences
here between Christ and Moses. First, Moses couldn't be a true
mediator. Now, what do I mean by that?
Well, because Moses was only a man. Moses being a man, he
can only represent men. Moses was not God, so he couldn't
represent God. Galatians 3 19 says wherefore
then serveth the law. It was added because of our transgressions,
till the seed, Christ, should come to whom the promise was
made. And it was ordained by angels
in the hand of a mediator." Now, a mediator is not a mediator
of one, but God is one. You see, our mediator, the great
mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one mediator between God
and men, had to be able to represent both parties. had to represent
man and had to represent God. So he had to be both God and
man. He's the only one that could
redeem us and could mediate between us and God. Now, Moses was only
a man and a sinful man at that. But the Lord Jesus is the God
man. He's the mediator, the perfect
in every single way. He's a mediator who can lay his
hands on both God and his elect people. And I never grow tired
of thinking about that. For there's one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself
a ransom to be testified in due time. Secondly, another difference
that I see here between Moses and the Lord Jesus was that Moses
was called to bring this covenant of works after the children of
Israel had already broken the law. while Moses was up in the
mountain receiving the law of God. You remember, Israel was
already down and they already made the calf and danced around
it and worshiped the golden calf. But God called his son before
Adam ever broke the commandment of God. Before there was a sinner,
as I said a moment ago, there was a savior. God who's eternal
and who's sovereign does nothing ever as an afterthought. God
has never needed a backup plan. Never. God chose Christ and chose
his people in Christ. And he purposed how he'd save
them before he created the first particle of heaven and earth.
There was a savior ever before there was a sinner. And then
another difference between Moses and the Lord Jesus, we see that
the Lord himself wrote the law of the covenant of works on tables
of stone. God said in verse one, I will
write upon these tables. But hear me when I tell you our
substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ had the law of God in his heart. His nature was being holy and
just and good. And he was just as holy and just
and good as the law that he came to fulfill. That's why he could
fulfill it. And when a sinner trusts in Christ,
I mean, leans on him totally for his reconciliation to God,
that everlasting covenant of grace becomes theirs as a free
gift. We didn't do anything to earn
it, merit it, or deserve it. It was a free gift. You know
the verse well, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace are you
saved. It's not of yourselves. It's
the gift of God. It's not by works, lest any man
should boast. in the spiritual blessings that
we have in Christ. We ourselves become the epistle
of Christ, Paul said in 2 Corinthians, written not with ink, but with
the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in
fleshly tables of the heart. My, my, when God writes on our
hearts, it can't be erased. It can't be removed. Written
with the finger of God. Fourthly, another difference
is to see that with Christ, there is but one covenant. God said,
I'll write upon these tables the words that were in the first
tables, meaning the ones that Moses broke. Moses broke the
first tables, but God's word on the second tables were the
same law, the same words. These words were still, you do
and you shall. Nothing had changed. It was the
same law. It was the same commandments.
But in the covenant of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled
that first covenant that Adam broke. And he redeemed his people
from the curse of the law by being made a curse for them.
And that included this covenant of work, this law of works. He
fulfilled that first covenant. And this is what he said. He
said, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first. that he may establish the second.
God took away, he put away that covenant of works so he could
establish that covenant of grace in his beloved son, by the which
will you are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all." Now, there you go. How are we reconciled
to God? By the sacrifice of our Lord
and Savior. Hebrews 10, nine. Then another
difference between the mediator of the law and the mediator of
grace is that Moses broke those stone tablets. What a picture
that is. God said, and I'll write upon
these tables the words that were in the first tables, which you
broke. Moses was a sinner, just like every other child of Israel.
But Christ, our mediator, came forth holy. He knew no sin. Our great high priest, who is
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than
the heaven, who needeth not daily as those high priests to offer
up sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the people's. No, for this he did once when
he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests
which have infirmity, but the word of the oath which was since
the law, make it the son who is consecrated forevermore."
You see, the only reason our substitute died is because he
bore the sin of his people. The law of God, the justice of
God had no claim on the Lord Jesus. He was perfect in every
way. But by being our substitute, by being our sacrifice for sin,
he paid the wages of sin, which is death. And you and I who were
guilty, who deserve death, were spared. And again, we see that
it's substitution that saves us. Death had no claim on the
Lord Jesus. He himself knew no sin. He bore
our sin and he kept God's law and he satisfied God's justice
so that his Holy One could not see corruption. And that's a
wonderful revelation that you and I are now holy because of
what Christ has done for us. And I mean, you cannot take that
too far. You can be assured that you're
as holy in Christ as God himself. We can't fathom that, can we?
But it's nonetheless true. God raised Christ from the grave
because death has no claim on anyone who has no sin. We have
no sin. And the Lord Jesus Christ, he's
freed us from death and he's given us victory over the grave. Why? Because we have no sin. In Christ, no sin. Now look at
verse two here. God told Moses to be ready in
the morning and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai and
present thyself there to me in the top of the Mount. Look down
at verse four. And he, Moses, hewed two tables
of stone like unto the first. And Moses rose up early in the
morning and went up into Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded
him. And he took in his hand the two
tables of stone Now watch this. And the Lord descended in the
cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the
Lord. And the Lord passed by before
him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy
for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and
that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
unto the third and to the fourth generation." Now it's here that
we see that Moses did as the Lord commanded. He rose up early
while he was a man on a mission. His concern was for the people
of Israel. as God's mediator to them, his
concern was for them. And when our Lord came, it was
early in the morning in the sense that it was a new day. It was
the day of grace, the day of salvation. And Moses, we see,
was zealous to bring the law of God to Israel again. He had
come down from the mountains, seen them worshiping the golden
calf, got angry, righteous indignation, I would call it, broke the tablets
of stone, and now he's zealous. He's a man on a mission to bring
God's people the law again. But our Lord Jesus, he differs
from Moses in the fact that he was not only zealous to fulfill
the law for his people, His first words were, I must be about my
father's business. And he never stopped. He never
stopped being about his father's business. He went about doing
good. He went about healing the sick
and the oppressed and the diseased and those that were possessed
by evil spirits. He never stopped until upon the
cross, he said, it's finished. Beloved of God, your redemption
is finished. It's accomplished. You're no
longer under a covenant of works. It's not what you do for the
Lord. It's what the Lord has done for you. Moses did all the
Lord commanded him. But friends, Christ himself finished
the work of restoring his people in perfect standing with the
law and with God who wrote the law. And he, the Lord Jesus,
is our righteousness with God. He's made unto us the very righteousness
of God. So much so that when God now
looks upon us, the sinners that we are, he sees his beloved son. He now appears in the presence
of God for us. Moses came down unto physical
Israel with two tables of stone, but the Lord Jesus ascended up
into heaven for spiritual Israel after keeping the law for his
elect and having fulfilled all righteousness. Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness. You can't produce it, but he's
the end of the law for your righteousness. The priests of the Old Testament
were never finished, but our great high priest is forever
finished. His work has been accomplished
and the redemption of his people is complete. It's paid in full.
I don't think there's any prettier red ink on a loan papers than
when they stamp it and send it back to you in the mail, paid
in full. paid in full. Boy, that's a good
feeling, isn't it? How much more so is it when we
think about our sin being paid in full by our Lord and Savior? Moses interceded for the children
of Israel. Look at verse eight. And Moses
made haste and he bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
And he said, if now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let
my Lord, I pray thee, go among us, for it is a stiff-necked
people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for
thine inheritance. But our Lord Jesus, he makes
intercession for his people while in God's presence. Now, what's
the significance of that? Well, that means that God's already
accepted His work of righteousness, or He wouldn't be in the presence
of God. He wouldn't have rose from the dead. He wouldn't have
ascended on high. Wherefore, He is able to save
them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing that
He ever liveth to make intercession for them, Hebrews 7.25. Now look
at verse 10. Here we see the promise. Here
we see the covenant that God made with Israel through Moses.
And he said, being God, behold, I make a covenant before all
thy people. I will do marvels such as have
not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation, and all the
people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord, for
it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee. And then he says
in verse 11, observe that which I command thee this day. You
see the covenant of works is a conditional covenant. It's
conditioned upon God's mercy is conditioned upon what you
do. "'You do and I shall, read on.' He said, "'Behold, I drive
out before thee "'the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite
"'and the Perizzite and the Hibite and the Jebusite. "'God promised
to destroy all Israel's enemies "'and deliver them into the land
of Canaan "'if they obeyed his word. "'But our covenant of grace
is not conditional at all, "'it's unconditional. God commands us
to rest in a risen Savior, promising us that in Him, all our enemies
are already conquered or shall be conquered, the last being
dead. And before us and on our behalf,
God's gonna do marvels such as have not been done in all the
earth. He'll drive out all our enemies,
but it's not conditional on what we do. It's unconditional love. It's unconditional mercy and
grace and favor with God's unmerited favor. It's accomplished by what
Christ did. I think about the words of Paul
there in Romans, if God be for us, who can be against us? The
next time that you think that the world's against you, ask
yourself that question. If God, the God of heaven and
earth, the sovereign God of the universe is on my side, who can
be against me? That calms me, that gives me
great rest. Nothing or no one can eternally
harm me. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for all God's people, shall he not with
him, with Christ, freely give us all things? That includes
grace, that includes mercy, that includes eternal life. My, my. Can anyone lay anything to my
charge? Can anyone lay anything to your
charge? No, it's God that justifies. If God justifies me, no one can
object. Can anyone or anything condemn
me? Absolutely not. It's Christ that
died. It's Christ that rose again.
It's Christ who's even at the right hand of God making intercession
for us. Who shall separate us from the
love of God? There's none who can. In Christ,
we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Now a conqueror
defeats his enemy, but one who is more than a conqueror brings
his enemy under his dominion. A conqueror nullifies the purpose
of his enemy. His enemy's out to destroy him,
the conqueror, he nullifies that, he takes away that. But one who
is more than a conqueror makes his enemy to serve his purpose. A conqueror strikes down his
foe, his enemy, but one who is more than a conqueror makes his
foe his slave. What Satan means for evil against
God's people, God means it for good. It works a greater weight
of glory in the trial that we're going through. And that's why
we can rest. Sin, death, hell, and the grave,
Satan, and even self, we're right there in that group. We're our
own worst enemies. None of these things, the flesh,
have any power or dominion over us. Why? Because we're more than
conquerors through Him that loves us. Where are we more than conquerors? Through Him, through Christ who
loves us. And that's all that matters.
Jesus Christ is made to me. All I need, all I need. He alone
is all my plea. He's all I need. Wisdom, righteousness,
and power, holiness forevermore. While our redemption is full
and sure, Christ is all we need. Is He all you need? Is He enough? Well, He is if He's all you have.
May God be pleased to make it so for Christ's sake.