If you would, turn with me again
to Exodus chapter 23. Exodus 23. Teresa and I have been watching
a television series based loosely on a true story, but the history
of the show seems to be accurate. And the show is about the building
of the railroad and the little vagabond town of misfits that
followed the lane of the train tracks out to the Wild West. This little town picks up and
moves as the track advances west. And there are many obstacles
in building the railroad and laying these railroad tracks.
There were deep valleys and bodies of water that they must either
go around or build bridges over. There were mountains that they
must either go around or go through or go over. There were native
Indians, there were wild beasts, along with total isolation from
family and friends and the rest of the world. It was tough times,
tough times in the 1800s. And one of the railroad men's
greatest enemies on this journey west proves to be self, the depravity
within themselves. was probably their biggest adversary. Alcohol, drunkenness, prostitution
were rampant. And if the Indians and the wild
beast and the elements didn't kill them, they would wind up
killing themselves by riotous living. Yet in spite of all these
things, they headed west. And what was it that drove them
and compelled them to make this journey? Well, it was the hope
of a better life. It was the pursuit of the American
dream, a land of promise for those who were strangers and
pilgrims in this world. How much easier do you think
this difficult journey out west would have been if these sojourners
had been promised that every enemy and every obstacle in their
way would have been removed. What if these pioneers had assurance
that God himself by sending an angel before them to lead the
way and keep them on the path would protect them from their
enemies and saw that they arrived safely to their end destination. Do you think it would have made
it easier for them to go? I'm sure it would. You know it
would have, or at least it should have. And yet that is exactly
what God did for Israel. Now I didn't tell you that little
story to keep you informed on what we're watching on television,
but that is exactly what we have here in Exodus chapter 23. God gave Israel much assurance,
many assurances and promises, and it's important to remember
that after giving His law to the children at Mount Sinai,
God was about to thrust them into the wilderness where He
would try them and prove them for 40 years. And it's in the
verses before us tonight that God Almighty both warns Israel
of the pitfalls of this world and the religion to avoid, At
the same time, God gives Israel precious promises of His love
and His care and provision in this world while on this journey.
And as we look at the journey of physical Israel, I pray that
God might be pleased to show us that God will also fulfill
every promise to spiritual Israel, the Israel of God. We need to
remember that the things that were written in the Scriptures,
especially in the Old Testament Scriptures, were written aforetime
for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures
might have hope. The Scriptures are for our learning. They're to teach us patience.
They're for us to experience comfort. Do you find that in
studying the Word of God and hearing the preaching of Christ?
It's through God's Word that we might have hope. I would say
that's probably why you're here tonight. We need hope. And you know what gives me hope?
Hearing the Gospel gives me hope. Hearing what Christ has done
for me gives me great hope. Hearing who God is, hearing what
I am, seeing my need of God gives me great hope. And it teaches
me patience It teaches me patience with myself. Well, what do you
mean by that? Well, I've often thought, how
can one who professes to know and love God be so indifferent
and lacking in faith? How can we be so faithless? How can we be so doubting? But
I see in this book how. Paul in Romans chapter 7 very
well describes how. There's two natures within me.
There's a war going on in my members. when I would do good,
evil is present with me. The inward man delights in God's
perfect law, but there's another man, another nature within, one
that brings me into captivity to the law of sin. Have you experienced
this? Is this your findings with you?
The enemy is from within, and I think the sooner we learn that,
the better. So look at verse 20 here in Exodus
23. God says, behold, I send an angel
before thee to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the
place which I have prepared. As you know, the place that God
had prepared for Israel was the land of Canaan, the land of promise,
the land that flowed with milk and honey. And the land of Canaan
represents two things in scripture. First, Canaan. represents heaven,
the final place of rest with Christ in glory. And secondly,
the land of Canaan also rightly represents the believer's present
life in Christ. In this world we have many enemies,
and we have much trouble, but Christ is with us all the way. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God that's in Him, and what a comfort that is. So
again, here we see in Exodus, of all places, the gospel of
the Lord Jesus. God promises to send an angel
before His people with two specific tasks. First, to keep them in
the way. And secondly, to bring them to
the place that the Lord prepared for them. Who is this angel? Well, this is not talking about
one of the created angels that God sends forth to minister to
those who shall be heirs of salvation. No, this is the angel. Notice that it's capitalized.
The same angel that spoke to Moses out of the bush that burned
but was never consumed. This is the angel of God's presence
as he's described in Isaiah. This is the angel that was with
Israel at Mount Sinai and in the wilderness, the one who saved
them, the one that redeemed them. This is the one against whom
they rebelled. This is the one that they tempted
for 40 years. This angel is none other than
the Lord Jesus Christ. And it in no way conflicts with
His eternal deity. The word angel, as you know,
simply means messenger. Jesus Christ is THE angel. He is THE messenger of God. And He's the angel spoken of
here. And this is how I know. There
are two things here in this text that makes us certain that this
angel is Christ, our Savior. First, in verse 21, we're told
that this angel has the authority and the ability to forgive sin.
You see that? Well, that's a privilege that
God only gave to Christ. Our Lord said this. He said,
which is easier to say, thy sins be forgiven thee, or take up
thy bed and walk? He said, but that you might know
that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. This
has to be, this angel has to be Christ. Only He has power
to forgive sins. And secondly, notice that the
Lord also declares here at the end of verse 21, He says, My
name is in Him. Meaning that this angel of God
and God are one and the same. This angel is the Lord Jesus
Christ, God the Son. Now did you notice that it was
God that sent this angel? Christ is God's messenger sent
before us. In eternity, before the world
began, He was sent to be our surety. Oh, I love that word,
surety. Why, He was the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world, and He was sent and went before
us as our substitute. He died under the wrath of God
to put our sin away. Then in the realm of time, Christ
went before us to the cross, being our Lamb, slain before
the foundation of the world, and we were there crucified with
Him. That's what Paul said, I'm crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. He went before us to the grave,
yet all His elect, all His people will be raised with the same
power that raised Him. And He went before us within
the veil into God's holy presence and as our high priest before
God. He not only offered my sacrifice
to God, that's what the high priest did, but He was my sacrifice
to God. And a perfect sacrifice at that,
because he perfectly fulfilled God's law and he satisfied God's
justice completely. And with Christ as our forerunner,
the scripture says, he is entered into the presence of God, made
an high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Christ
is the way, He put us in the way, it says here, and He leads
us in the way, and He keeps us in the way. That's salvations
of the Lord from beginning to end, and it's God's angel, our
Savior, the Lord Jesus that brings us to that place that He's prepared
for us in Heaven's glory. That's what it says there in
verse 20. And I'm convinced that that's exactly what the Lord's
talking about in the 10th chapter of John, verse 15, when He said,
As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father, and I lay
down My life for the sheep. And he said, and other sheep
I have, which are not of this fold, them also I must bring,
and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and
one shepherd. Who did Christ lay down his life
for? For the sheep. Did he lay his life down for
goats and then make them sheep? No. What did he say in verse
16? He said, other sheep I have which
are not yet of this fold, them also I must bring and they're
going to hear my voice. Now they've always been sheep,
just lost sheep. And they won't and don't hear
the voice of a stranger because there's only going to be one
fold and one shepherd that God's sheep will hear. The question
is, do you hear His voice? Is Christ calling you? Are you
lost? You know, men say that there
are many ways to eternal life. It don't much matter what you
believe, just do the best you can. God loves you. God not willing
that any should perish. He'll make an exception for you.
Well, the God, the holy God of this book won't. He's too holy
and just to make any exception. And the Lord speaks of two roads,
two ways, the right way and the wrong way, the broad way and
the narrow way. And many find the broad way,
that way that leads to destruction. And the Lord Jesus said, few
find the narrow way. He said, narrow is the way which
leads to life and few there be that find it. I often scratch my head, I think
folks wonder how the masses can be wrong and how so few can actually
be right. Not only can it be that way,
but God ordained it to be that way. He said, for you see your
calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble are called. How many were saved
when God destroyed the world by the flood? Eight souls, just
eight. How many people over the age
of 20 entered into the land of promise? Two, Joshua and Caleb. And I think when studying the
Scriptures, we need to always compare Scripture with Scripture. You can prove just about anything
if you don't compare Scripture with Scripture, or if you don't
study the Scripture in the context For example, John 3.16, For God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. There's
no doubt that that's true. But does the word world there
mean everyone in it? If it does, would Christ have
prayed in John chapter 17, I pray for them, I pray not for the
world, but for them which Thou hast given me, for they are Thine?
Would Christ refuse to pray for those that He died for? No. If He died for everyone in the
world, would He have distinguished there between them that He prayed
for and the world that He didn't pray for? You know, I thank God
for the commentaries that we have written by faithful men
to glean from. I'm extremely grateful. But I
found that most of the time the scriptures themselves shine a
great deal of light on the commentaries instead of the other way around.
And scripture shines great light on the other scriptures that
we know and love. And when it comes to the gospel
of Christ, according to the scriptures, the Bible says, there's only
one way to be saved, and God is adamant about it. Jesus Christ
is the way. There's not many ways, just one
way. And when it comes to the truth
of God, only one can be right. There's only one way to be saved.
There's just one shepherd. There's just one who leads the
flock. There's just one master. You
can't have two. There's just one shepherd who
leads the ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance
to find that one lost sheep that has a great need. Well, this
is a simple gospel. There's but one Lord, one baptism,
one faith, only one God and Father of all. There's but one mediator
between God and men. Who is that? The man Christ Jesus. We're kept by the power of God,
and I love to think about that. The angel of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ, goes before us to keep us in the way. Our Lord keeps
us from looking anywhere else but to Him for acceptance with
God. If you belong to God, He's not
going to let you look to anything else but Him for salvation. Here
God gives us a warning concerning the angel of God. Look at verse
21. It says, Beware of him and obey his voice. Provoke him not,
for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him. But if
thou shalt indeed obey his voice and do all that I speak, then
I will be an enemy unto thine enemies and an adversary unto
thine adversaries. Now, do these verses mean that
God's grace is conditional? No, not at all. Does God require
obedience from us as a condition of mercy? Well, you know he does. God is worthy of our obedience
and we should always obey God. Obedience is not the cause of
God's grace to us. Obedience is the result of it.
Did the children of Israel obey the Lord? Did they obey His commands? No, they constantly provoked
Him to anger. Did their disobedience keep the
Lord from fulfilling every word of promise to them? No, that's
the beautiful thing about God's grace. The psalmist said it this
way, he said, nevertheless, he saved them for his namesake,
that he might make his mighty power to be known. God saves
sinners for his own honor, for his own glory, for his own namesake. God saves his people for the
glory of his own great name. And God will not forsake any
that Christ died for. Why? For his own great name's
sake. Because it pleased the Lord to make you his people. What obedience does God require
from us? Well, that's where a lot of folks
miss it. You see, this isn't talking about
the obedience with the hands. This is talking about obedience
of the heart. This is talking about the obedience
of faith. What must I do to be saved? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. How was
Abraham saved? Abraham believed God and it was
counted unto him for righteousness. We're saved by grace through
faith and that's not of ourselves. It's the gift of God. The Lord
here declares in verse 21 that Christ, His angel, He says, will
not pardon your transgressions. I got to thinking about that,
and I thought, well, that can't mean that. But from a strict
legal sense, that's exactly correct. Our blessed Savior never just
pardons sin. Our sin's got to be justly dealt
with. It's got to be dealt with. The
law must be perfectly kept. God's justice must be perfectly
satisfied. And in order for our sin to be
put away, that has to be done. And our Lord removed our sin
altogether. The angel sent before us was
sent to make salvation sure. Look at verse 23. For mine angel,
speaking of the Lord Jesus, shall go before thee, and bring thee
in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites,
and the Canaanites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And God says,
I will cut them Shout to God, God will cut off every enemy
that you have. Every sin is paid for by the
blood of the Lord Jesus. In verse 24, the Lord says, thou
shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after
their works, but thou shalt utterly overthrow them and quiet break
down their images. And that's what we do in preaching. We overthrow the gods that this
world possess and we break down men's images and their idols. We're not just picking on religion,
we're trying to expose what's false in this world. In verse
25, and you shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless
thy bread and thy water, and I will take sickness away from
the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast there
young nor be barren in thy land the number of thy days I will
fulfill. My, these are just wonderful
promises. As we read these verses, we see
that to our enemies, Christ is an enemy. To our adversaries,
Christ is an adversary. He blesses our bread and our
water. He nourishes us and refreshes
us. Why, He is our bread from heaven,
and He is the water of life. And He says He takes away our
sicknesses. Do you know why? Because He takes
away our sin. Our young will be taught and
not barren. God will fulfill the number of
our days. And look at verse 27. He said,
I'll send my fear before thee and will destroy all the people
to whom thou shalt come. and I will make all thine enemies
turn their backs unto thee." And you know, that's exactly
what happened when the people of God crossed the Jordan River.
God sent His fear to the people of Jericho. You remember what
Rahab said? She said, our hearts did melt
within us, and there remained no courage in any man. The Lord had sent His fear before
them. Just a short time later, they
were fighting one of these Hittites or Amorites or someone,
and the Lord sent down hailstones from heaven, knocked men off
their horses with such precision. God slew more of the enemy of
Israel that day. They died from the hailstones
than they did from the swords of Israel. And Joshua told Israel,
he said, and you've seen all that the Lord your God hath done. Have you seen all that the Lord
your God hath done? He said, see all the Lord your
God hath done unto all these nations because of you. For the
Lord your God is He that hath fought for you. It's the same
today, friends. The angel of God, Christ Jesus,
has gone before us. He's the one that's fought for
us, and it's finished, the battle's over. I wish we could get a hold
of that, I really do. God delivered Egypt as we've
seen in these studies with blood, with frogs, lice, flies, pestilence,
boils, hail, and fire, locusts, darkness, and then death. What
military can fight? Against that, truly, if God be
for us, who can be against us? Look at what he says in verse
28, and I'll send hornets before thee which shall drive out the
Hittite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee. Only
God could drive out armies and destroy nations with hornets.
Some think that this is speaking figuratively, and it may be.
But God is able to do whatever He pleases with whatever He pleases. And I find it interesting that
the word hornet here is defined as a sting, a whip, or a blow. Christ gave a stinging death
blow to our sin. We are crucified with Christ
and we're dead to sin. The sting that Christ gave to
our sin disabled our sin to have a sting. No wonder the scriptures
say, oh death, where is thy sting? And oh grave, where is thy victory?
Christ took them out of the way, friends. All these enemies mentioned
here are those with whom we all constantly do battle. These are
the enemies that we're constantly at war with. But these Amorites,
these Hittites, these Perizzites, these Hibites, Jebusites are
from within. These are the Canaanites dwelling
in our hearts. These are the lust of the flesh. And I found this to be amazing
but true. For reasons only known to God,
the Lord in His great mercy promises in verse 29 that these foes,
that these enemies that are against us, shall not be quickly destroyed. Look at verse 29, I will not
drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become
desolate and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I'll drive
them out from before you until thou be increased and inherit
the land. God in his infinite wisdom knows
that it's best that we live with our old, fallen, wretched, depraved
natures until we completely possess the land of our inheritance.
God's going to see to it that we remember that salvation is
God's work of grace. God's going to see to it that
we always are reminded that the only difference between us and
others is the distinguishing grace of God in Christ. That's
the only difference. Whom maketh thee to differ? What
do you have that you didn't receive? And if you received it, why do
you glory in it as if you didn't receive it? We're going to constantly
struggle, as we said in the beginning, with this old man, this old nature. And we prove that God's grace
is sufficient for us. It always is. His grace is always
sufficient for us. How can we doubt Him? The Lord
Jesus goes before us. He promises us that sin will
not have dominion over us. Why? Look at verse 31. Because
God will set thy bounds from the Red Sea, even unto the Sea
of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river, For
I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and
thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant
with them, nor with their gods. Thou shalt not dwell in thy land,
lest they make thee sin against me. For if thou serve their gods,
it will surely be a snare unto thee. Now the point is this. Christ sets the bounds of our
sinful flesh. Christ is our strength. It's the love of Christ that
constrains us. It's Christ that subdues our
sinful lust. Paul asked this question, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Well, there's
only one that can. And he said, I thank God through
Jesus Christ, my Lord. Now listen to me in closing.
The child of God never becomes independent. We teach our children
of the flesh to be independent, but not the children of God.
For without Christ you can do nothing. We love being dependent
on Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us. And may the Lord
make me less dependent on me and more dependent on Him. With your sin, I do that. Did
it keep you clinging to Christ alone? Well, may God make it
so for His own glory and honor and namesake. I'm so glad that
the Lord sent our beloved Savior before us to do for us what we
could not do for ourselves.