Exodus chapter 21 please. Our Lord Jesus in the fifth chapter
of John said, search the scriptures for in them you think that you
have eternal life and they are they which testify of me. The
scriptures testify of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every word, every
sentence, every verse, every chapter, every book in the Bible
points and bears testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ. We say
it all the time, but it's true. The Bible is a hymn book, H-I-M. It's a book about hymn. In Luke chapter 24, We're told
that beginning at Moses, that's the book of Genesis. First five
books of the Bible, beginning at Moses, and all the prophets,
all the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus expounded, which means
preached, He preached unto them in all the scriptures, the things
concerning Himself. I'm reminded of a story that
I heard many years ago about a young preacher who was about
to preach for the first time. He prepared for weeks. He made sure that he had a good
understanding of the text. He practiced pronouncing the
words. He had a lot of scriptural illustrations. He made sure that he covered
the doctrines of grace. He was certain to mention election
and God's predestinating grace and providence. He made sure
that his hearers understood something of their depravity and their
deadness and trespasses and sin. And when he stepped down from
the pulpit, he was feeling pretty good about himself and he was
eager to have someone give him some encouragement, so he quickly
found a man who had been a mentor of his an elderly man, one who
had for many years faithfully preached the gospel of God's
sovereign grace. And he asked him what he thought
of his message. And the old fellow kind of took
a deep breath and sighed and turned his head a little sideways
and was a bit slow to answer, but at last he said, well, I
didn't care much for your message at all. And the young man was
surprised and said, why? And he said, there was no Christ
in your sermon. No Christ in your preaching.
And the young man defensively said, but I didn't see Christ
in my text. And the old preacher said, that's
what alarms me. You said that you saw election.
You said that you saw God's predestinating grace. But Christ you did not
see. And the young man said, well,
Christ wasn't in the text. And the old man said, oh, is
that right? Well, I'm afraid if you don't
see Christ in God's election, and if you don't see Christ in
God's predestinating grace, then you've not only missed the meaning
of the doctrines, but more importantly, you've missed Christ. You see,
God's Holy Word is a road map to Christ, he said. There's an
old saying in England that from every little town and village
and tiny hamlet, there's a road that leads to London. He said,
young man, there's a road, there's a path from every text of Scripture
that leads to Christ. And when you don't see Him, go
over every hedge and every ditch and land and sea till you find
Him and preach Him. Preach Him right there from the
text. Preach His substitutionary work
of redemption. Friends, Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. I'm becoming more convinced of
this every day. Jesus Christ and Him crucified
is the message of Holy Scripture. How Christ died for our sins
is our gospel. I have nothing new to tell you
tonight. Paul said in Romans chapter 1 that the gospel is
concerning God's Son, Jesus Christ. That's what the gospel is about.
And we say it all the time, but let's never let it become cliché. Salvation is of the Lord. That
means something. That's not just a little saying.
That's not just something we put on our bumper sticker. Salvation
is of the Lord. The gospel is concerning God's
Son, Jesus Christ. Salvation is in a person, it's
not in a doctrine. The Apostle Paul called the church
at Galatia, he called them foolish and bewitched. Why? Because,
it says, before their eyes Jesus Christ had been evidently set
forth, crucified among them. That simply means that the message
that they had heard and believed was the message of Jesus Christ,
who He is and what He's done. That's the issue. Setting forth Jesus Christ crucified,
that's our message. And it's good news. And it's
all that Paul was determined to know among those whom he preached
to. God in the person of His Son. Taking on flesh and blood. Living
perfectly righteous. He knew no sin. He did no sin. He was made sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. And He's the only
one that can make us righteous. For He's the only righteous one. He was made to be sinned. I hope that never becomes cliched. Who did this originate with?
With God. Salvation. is of the Lord. Christ died for the sins of His
elect. And that's the only way that
God can justly put away the sinner's sin without compromising His
justice. See, I told you it's nothing
new tonight. Gospel preaching is not simply preaching the five
points of Calvinism. Gospel preaching is preaching
Christ and Him crucified. Believing the doctrine of election
is unto salvation. For the Scripture is clear, God
hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. But for the
foundation of the world, He chose a people to salvation. But He gave them to Christ. What did we have to do with our
salvation? God says, where were you and
I when He laid the foundations of the earth? Where were you
and I when God chose us? According to the Scriptures,
we'd not yet been born. We had not yet done any good
or evil that the purpose of God, according to election, might
stand, not of works, but of Him that caught them. And that's
why we love the doctrine of election. It removes all doubt about who
does the saving. Jesus Christ is God's elect,
and that's what God said. He said, Behold, my servant,
whom I uphold, mine elect. And if we don't see that we're
elected in Christ, then we've missed it. Election, my, it upsets so many people. It's
the most wondrous thing I ever heard, that God would set His
affection on me before I ever was. To get back to our study, the
law of Moses had three grand divisions. We talked about this,
the moral law, the civil law, and the ceremonial law. And in
Exodus chapter 20, we have the giving of the moral law, the
giving of the Ten Commandments that we looked at last week.
And we know that the first four commandments shows us something
of our responsibilities toward God. And the last five commandments
show us our obligations and responsibilities toward man. And the fifth commandment
seems to kind of be a bridge between the two categories. And in the fifth commandment,
God commands us to honor our father and our mother, the parents. He says what He gave us. To honor
a parent is to do much more than just obey them. A parent is to
give them that place of superiority and authority. And it's to bow
to their authority and submit to their rule and to hold them
in high esteem and reverence. And this was something that God
set up and it's right and it's holy. And it's the thing that
we should do, honor our parents. But how much more so is that
true concerning our Heavenly Father? God, our provider and
our sustainer who causes the rain and the sun to fall on both
the just and the unjust. The problem we have is not with
the Ten Commandments. The problem we have is with us
being able to keep them. The problem with the law is that
it was weak in the flesh, and that's our flesh. The law is
good and holy and right, but we can't keep it. Therefore,
we can't be saved by it. And it's in the law that we see
our inability of keeping the law, being dead in trespasses
and sin. This is so simple. Don't know
why folks don't understand. We're dead. And in order to be
reconciled to God, we've got to be made alive. We can't exercise
our will. We can't take a step until we're
first made alive. That's not hard to understand.
The problem is men and women don't
think they die. They don't think they're dead
in trespasses. I'm not perfect, but I'm not
all that bad. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. The law shows us our need of
a savior, a substitute, a sacrifice for sin. So in chapter 20, we
saw that the giving of the Ten Commandments. And then in chapters
21 through 23 of Exodus, we're given the civil law. And then
the third division of the law, the ceremonial law, is principally
found in the book of Leviticus. But the law of God is one law.
We've said that before. Not three. God claims the right
as God to demand the things written in His law from us. He has the right to do that.
As God, He has that right. God is holy. God is just. God
is sovereign. And He has the right to demand
and the right to expect holiness and perfection from us. He created
us that way. But we were unable to meet the
demands and we're unable to meet the demands and the expectations
of God and provide the perfect righteousness that God requires.
That's why we're Shut up to needing a substitute, someone to do it
for us. We can't do it. What mercy and
grace it is that God provided that sacrifice and that substitute
for. That's why God required an offering,
a sacrifice, a substitute, where a burnt offering was made to
appease the wrath, the judgment, and the justice of God for a
season. And last week we saw the gospel
in the book of Exodus. We saw first that in order to
be reconciled to God, you've got to have a mediator. Exodus
20 verses 19 and 20. Moses, you speak for us, and
you speak to us, but don't let God speak to us. Lest we die, they say. A sinner
doesn't just walk into the presence of a holy God. He's got to have
a go-between. He's got to have a mediator.
There's just one mediator. Just one mediator between God
and men. You know who that is? The man Christ Jesus. Secondly,
in order to be redeemed, divine revelation is required. Verse
22 of chapter 20 informs us that God must talk to us from heaven.
Isn't that what divine revelation is? God talking to us from heaven. In order to be reconciled to
God, you and I are going to have to hear from heaven. Thirdly,
we saw that in the matter of salvation, in the presence of
the law, there must needs be an altar. There must needs be
a sacrifice. There must needs be a substitute.
There must needs be a savior, a surety. And it's in the gospel
of Christ that we see the promises of God. In verse 24 of Exodus
20, God says, I'll come unto thee and I'll bless thee. What
a promise that is when it comes from a sovereign God. And the
fifth thing we saw that in order for a sinner to be justly saved
is by the gift of God. In verse 25, Exodus 20, the Lord
says that his altar must be made of what? Uncut stone. Hewn stone
is cut stone. God said, don't you dare lay
your tool to it. Don't you dare lay your tool
to the altar of God. Don't you add your work to it.
You'll pollute it. You'll defile it. You'll make
it of no effect. And that's exactly what we do
when we depend or trust our salvation to anything that we do or any
effort that we make. We defile it, pollute it. And
then lastly, we saw that there are no steps to salvation. I've
been thinking about that ever since I looked at that verse.
The word steps insinuates our walking, our rising, our coming
up. It suggests an effort of our
will, but a dead man can't walk. He can't take the first step.
If he can take the first step, he can walk all the way to glory,
but he can't take the first step. A dead man has no will. A dead
man can only do one thing, and that's be dead. God's got to
give us life. Salvation requires no steps,
no walking, no rising. No of anything in and of ourselves. Salvation is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. And that's how we're saved. And
that's what we must see. How that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scripture. And that's why we study the Old
Testament Scriptures. They're still very relevant.
You can find the Gospel right here in Exodus the same as you
can in the New Testament. The Old Testament is the Scriptures
that the New Testament refers to as the Scriptures. It's all
the Word of God. And all the Scriptures are what?
Concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you learning anything tonight?
Well, I hope not. I hope you already knew this.
So we come to verse 1 here in Exodus 21, and this passage begins
a series of judgments or statutes that God gave to Israel in the
ruling of their social and civil lives. But for us, I'm interested
in the spiritual applications that these verses have to Christ.
We have here a beautiful picture of the Lord's person and work.
Look at verse one. Now these are the judgments which
thou shalt set before them. If thou buy a Hebrew and Hebrew
servant, six years he shall serve. And in the seventh, he shall
go out free for nothing. Now, the very first civil law
here mentioned in Exodus 21 had to do with the Hebrew bond slave. Oftentimes, in the day-to-day
living of God's people, a man might become insolvent, bankrupt,
unable to pay his bills, unable to relinquish his debt. So he sold himself into slavery
to pay the debt that he owed. Or maybe a man got caught as
a thief and was required to pay restitution and this was how
he was able to do so because of the situation his master now
had claim upon him for six years. In verse two it says, six years
he shall serve. For six years this man was responsible
to his owner, and for six years he submitted himself in obedience
and in humility to everything that his master told him. Again, how much more does this
apply to fallen men and women and their Creator? How much more
does man owe his Maker? When all our sin is against Him,
against Thee and Thee only have we sinned and done this evil
in Thy sight. But we also see here in verse
two that in the seventh year, the year of completion, we know
what seven stands for. The bond slave, it says, shall
go out free for nothing. After the Hebrew slave had served
for six years, his master had no further claim on him. The
service was completed. The debt was paid. He was at
liberty to go out free and serve no more. And this was also true
of Christ our Lord and Savior. By the way, He's a perfect servant. He's a perfect servant. I love to think about this. Jesus
Christ, as a man, fulfilled every jot and tittle of human responsibility
where the law of God was concerned. And when the law had no further
claim on him, the law had to let him go. He had finished the work that
he came to do. That's what he said. He said,
lo, I come to do thy will, O God. And then on the cross, he said,
it's finished. The first words ever recorded
in Scripture by the Lord was, well, didn't you know that I'd
be about my Father's business? He said, plainly and simply,
I came down from Heaven not to do mine own will, but the will
of Him that sent me. That pretty well summed up His
whole life. The whole of His perfect life.
He said, I am among you as He that serveth. Luke 22, 27. And
every demand upon man was fully met by the perfect man, the perfect
servant, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now look at verse 3. It says,
if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. And
if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. And
if his master hath given him a wife, and she hath borne him
sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters,
and he shall go out by himself. Now there's much we could say
about this, but tonight again I just want to confine my remarks
anyway as to how this relates to what Christ our perfect servant
has done for us. And I won't keep you much longer.
First, the Lord Jesus had no wife when He entered into His
service. And upon the fulfilling of the law and the completion
of the law's obligations against God's elect people, Christ was
entitled by the law to go out free for nothing. The law had
no hold on Him. No charge against Him. But the
same law required him to go out alone. To go out by himself,
according to verse 4 here. Now listen, I want you to help
me here. I want to try to be simple. That's the frustration
of preaching sometimes. It's so difficult to explain
what you yourself have received. It's just hard sometimes. I know
it, but I can't tell you. But I want to try to. Christ
living a perfect life of righteousness will not benefit you or me in
the least unless His law against us is fulfilled and satisfied. This is exactly why the Lord
in John chapter 12 verse 24 said, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. You see, it's the very perfections
of Christ. His perfect righteousness can
only be given to me when my sin has been taken from me. And neither
of those two things can occur if Christ didn't die for me.
And it's only on resurrection ground, that's a subject I run
across a lot lately. It's only on resurrection ground
that our union with Christ is possible. Christ suffered death,
which was the payment of sin's wages. We all know that the wages
of sin is death. And He suffered death because
the sin of God's elect was found upon Him. He suffered what we
should have suffered. But when God's justice was exhausted,
when God's justice was appeased and satisfied, we were accepted
in Christ the Beloved. But that would have never been
possible had Christ not died in His people's place. You know,
I find it interesting, and I didn't know this until I was reading,
anybody I can find on these verses, actually, but I didn't know that
it was until resurrection morning that our Lord, for the first
time, called His disciples brethren in all the Scripture. It was
only after He had lived, died, been buried, and rose again,
paying their debt, that He calls them brethren. Christ must first
die the just for the unjust so that He might bring us to God.
There's no bringing a sinner before a holy God without the
shedding of blood and by the remission of sin of a perfect
sacrifice. No. Okay, look at verse 5 and
you'll see that the type and the picture of Christ holds true.
Look at this, and if the servant I shall plainly say, I love my
master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free. Am I going to go? Am I going to go? How beautiful
this is. Christ was compelled to forego
the freedom to which He was entitled by the law. And it was a threefold
love that moved him to forever commit himself as God's perfect
servant. A love for his master, a love
for his wife, and a love for his children. And our Lord said,
it was for this hour that I come. Father, glorify thy name. It
was love, not love for self, but love for those that the Father
gave. Love, first of all, for His Father,
and love for those that the Father gave Him. And it was for the
joy that was set before Him that the Lord Jesus endured the cross,
despised the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of
the throne of God. And do you know what all that
means? That means that it's finished. And that means the salvation
is accomplished. Christ has accomplished for His
elect all that God required of them. And no doubt that He is
God's perfect servant. Oh, it was love. It was love
that led Christ to undertake a service that the law didn't
lay upon Him. This was a service that involved
suffering as the board ear represents in the verse. The service which
was to last forever. Look at verse 5 here in chapter
21. And if the servant shall plainly
say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, and I will not
go out free, then his master shall bring him unto the judges. and he shall also bring him to
the door or into the doorpost. And his master shall bore his
ear through with an awe, and he shall serve him forever." Did you notice that this love
for God is avowed before his love for his wife and children? God's got to be the first in
a believer's life. Who among us can this be said
to be true of? Men by nature love themselves
before and above any other. Whether it be their wife, their
children, or way down the list, God. But not so with Christ. Being the perfect servant, He
first and above all others loves His Master. You see, the Father's
glory was always His first concern. And our Savior, God's perfect
servant, said this. He said, I love my wife. You
see, the Lord Jesus, He has a bride. And she's the one to whom He
presents to Himself a glorious bride, a glorious church, a redeemed
people. A bride not having spot, wrinkle,
or any such thing, but a bride that's holy and without blemish.
Ephesians 5, verse 27. And He's the one that's made
her that. And lastly, God's perfect servant said, I love my children.
Our Lord said, behold, I and the children which God hath given
me, Hebrews 2.13. All those who were once children
of wrath, even as others, are now the children of the living
God. And it's called the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself. And it's according to the good
pleasure of His will. The boring of the ear marked
the dedication and the devotion of the servant to do his master's
will. Look at verse 6 again. Then his
master shall bring him unto the judges, and he shall also bring
him to the door. Now this door post mentioned
here was the sign of personal limits. one other than family
was permitted or had the right to go beyond that place. It was not a place that a stranger
was permitted to enter. This too was the reason why this
was on the doorpost that the blood of the Paschal Lamb was
sprinkled, showing us that those who are under the blood of Christ
are the true family of God, whether Jew or Gentile. You can go beyond
that point. You're faint. Christ didn't die
for the whole human race. He died for the household of
God. He died for His wife and He died for His children and
none else. And when the Master took His
servant's ear and bore it with an awl, the Scripture says He
served him forever. For as long as that servant lived,
He carried about in his body the mark of his servitude. And
so too did Christ our Lord, who forever wears in His body the
marks of the cross. After He was risen from the dead,
He said to Thomas who doubted, He said, Reach your finger and
behold My hands, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into My
side. Remember what Thomas said? My Lord and my God. Ed Hale,
I don't know if any of you remember Ed Hale. He was a great old gospel
hymn writer, songwriter. He wrote a song, I'll Be Looking
for Scars up in Heaven. Those scars won't be difficult
to find. Just follow the sounds of the
singing of holy, holy, holy. They'll lead you to the one who
possesses Calvary's wounds. He's holy. And he will not go
out free without you, child of God. Those scars are the proof of
his love for you.