Go ahead and be turning with
me to Exodus chapter 18, if you would, please. Exodus chapter
18. In verse one we read, when Jethro,
the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard of all that
God had done for Moses and for Israel, his people, and that
the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. Then Jephthah, Moses'
father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent
her back, and her two sons. The 18th chapter of Exodus here
introduces us to some who haven't been mentioned since early in
the book of Exodus. I speak of Moses' wife, Zipporah,
Moses' two sons, Gershom, and Eliezer. I think I'm saying that right. I want to say Eliezer, but I
looked at the pronunciation, it says Eli-ezer. And it also speaks of Jethro,
Moses' father-in-law. And you might recall that Moses
and Zipporah, his wife, had parted somewhat on bad terms. You remember
that? Way back in Exodus chapter four. Strong, hard words had been spoken. And yet in the will and the purpose
and providence of God, that happens sometimes. But in the fourth
chapter of Exodus, we find Moses, his wife, his two sons heading
to meet Aaron to go down to Egypt to do God's bidding. And on the
way, while staying at an inn, the Lord came and sought to kill
Moses. You remember that? He sought
to kill Moses because he had yet to circumcise one of his
sons. Matter of fact, we're right here
close. Look at Exodus 4 with me. Let's look at this. Stick
a marker there in Exodus 18 and look back at chapter 4 with me.
Beginning in verse 24. Exodus 4, 24. And it came to pass by the way
of the end that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then
Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son
and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband
art thou to me. So he let him go, meaning the
Lord allowed Moses to continue on his journey. But then said
she, as he's leaving or whatever's going on here, then she said,
a bloody husband thou art because of the circumcision. And after
this account, we don't hear another word about Zipporah, the wife
of Moses, until we get right back here in the 18th chapter
of Exodus, when Jethro brings her back to him along with their
two sons. So before, I want you to understand
what's going on here. Before Moses and Aaron ever got
to Egypt, before they ever went before Pharaoh, Moses had sent
his wife back home to her father. And now, several months later,
most of the commentators think a year or longer had passed. Several months later, maybe a
year, Jethro brings her back to Moses with his two sons. I
was thinking what a beautiful picture We have here of Christ
and his bride, the church. Zipporah being brought to Moses
is a very, very good representation of the church being brought to
Christ to be reconciled to God. Zipporah was a Midianite. She was an Ethiopian. She was
a black Ethiopian woman, a heathen who worshipped a false god. Do you see the picture there
of us by nature? Matter of fact, Miriam, Moses'
sister, and Aaron, his brother, were not pleased at all that
he married Zipporah, according to Numbers 12.1. And what a picture
here of black-hearted sinners who are by sovereign grace and
mercy brought to Christ. What a picture this is of us,
His bride being brought to Him. Do you realize where Moses and
his wife were being reconciled here? At the Mount of God. At Mount Sinai, the place where
God's justice and the sinner meet. That's where the Lord meets
with his people and sacrifices himself in their room and in
their stead. What was Zipporah's confession? Thou art a bloody husband to
me. A bloody husband thou art, she
said. And the church of God is redeemed
and reconciled to God by the covenant blood represented in
the act of circumcision. I suppose if Moses was to be
obedient to the call of God, he must be willing to part with
anything that would hinder him from the work that God had given
him to do. And no doubt an unbelieving spouse
would be a constant hindrance to the work that God gave him. But this not only applies to
an unbelieving spouse, but to anything, now listen, to anything
that would hinder us from being faithful stewards to our Lord. Moses sent back his wife, showing
us that we must be willing, if necessary, to set aside that
which is most dear to us to serve Christ. We never sacrifice more
than we gain when we do. But now Moses and his wife are
reconciled, and before the mount of God they stand as one. What
a picture that is of Christ and his bride. What a blessed union
God's people have with their heavenly husband, Christ Jesus.
as faithful as Moses was to God, and his wife for that matter,
Christ, the Son of God, our Heavenly Husband, set aside His glory,
and He took on flesh, and He made Himself, the Scripture says,
of no reputation, and He took on the form of a servant. This
is God we're talking about. When the time was come for our
Lord to enter into His public ministry, He parted ways with
His earthly parents because they would have been a hindrance to
Him. One time His family came to see Him and someone said,
Behold, thy mother and thy brethren are outside and they desire to
speak with you. And the Lord answered and said,
Who is my brother and who is my mother? And it was then that
he stretched out his hand to those who were there listening
to him and said, behold, my mother, and behold, my brethren. They're
the ones who do the will of my Father in heaven. That's the
same, my brother, sister, and mother, Matthew, Chet, Petraeus.
I would also want us here to at least take notice that in
the names of Moses' sons we have a picture of redemption. The
gospel is everywhere in the Old Testament. Gershom was the oldest. Gershom, the name means a stranger
in a strange land. That's what God makes us when
He gives us faith in Christ. We become strangers and we become
pilgrims in this world. Moses said, I've been an alien
in a strange land. For 40 years, he lived in the
palace of Pharaoh. And he was driven into the desert
as a wanted man and he lived there in Midian a stranger in
a strange land for 40 years. And that's exactly what a believer
is. He's an alien. He's a foreigner
in a strange foreign land. In the land of wildernesses we've
seen. In a wilderness of sin. And I
tell you, I thank God that I'm just a stranger here, don't you? Just an alien, soldier name,
passing through, heading home. I'm heading home. Being alien
means that I wasn't born here. I've been born again. I've been
born of God. I've been born from above. This
foreign land that we're in is a place that speaks a different
language than we speak. We don't speak the same language.
The believer understands the language of the world because
we used to speak it. But the world doesn't understand
the language of grace. The language of the world is
the language of self. But my Heavenly Father speaks
the language of grace and mercy and forgiveness in Christ. Not by any works of righteousness
that I endeavor to do. Pure, free, sovereign grace. Someone asked me one time, he
said, why do you always say sovereign grace? I said, because most folks
don't know the difference in true grace, sovereign grace,
and what they call grace. Grace is sovereign if it's grace. People save their money for years
to go on exotic trips to foreign and luxury places. And they go
and they enjoy themselves immensely. And they come back and they've
got pictures. And they tell you the stories
of the places that they went. But every time at the end of
their speaking, one of them will say, but it sure was good to
get home. And it was. And it is. Truly, there's no place like
home. When I travel, I hate to be gone
from my house. I hate to be gone from my bed.
I don't like to be gone from home. But my real home's not
on Simmental Street here in Madisonville, Kentucky. I have a house there
where I dwell temporarily. That's where I'm sojourning.
But my home is that place that Christ has prepared for me. And it's home because that's
where He is. And it's called heaven because
that's where I shall be also. The mansions in glory is not
what makes heaven glorious. The streets of gold and the pearly
gates mean nothing to the redeemed of the Lord. Heaven is heaven
because Christ is there. Yes, I am Gershom. I'm a stranger
in a strange land. And then Moses' second son was
named Eliezer. It means God is my help. God is my salvation. That's what
God's people confess when he brings them to faith in Christ. When this second son was born,
Moses was mindful and thankful that he'd been delivered from
the sword of Pharaoh. As you know, he had killed an
Egyptian and Pharaoh was after him. And he defected into the
wilderness and wound up by God's hand of providence in Midian
and stayed there for 40 years. And God met with him up on Mount
Horeb, Mount Sinai, right where they're at now, in Exodus 18. And appeared to him in a bush
that burned but wasn't consumed. Isn't that what Christ is? When
the judgment of God fell upon Christ at Calvary, God's wrath
and judgment was consumed, but Christ remained. Yes, in the
names of these two boys, we have the life of faith. I'm just a
stranger passing through. I'm not where I really want to
be. Are you? Just a sojourner in a strange
land, following Christ, the pillar of the cloud, and following my
Savior as he leads me home. And I'm certain that from this
moment on, every time that Moses looked at that boy, he said,
thank God that He's my help. And not just my help, but all
my salvation. Isn't that what David said on
his deathbed? He said, God hath made with me
an everlasting covenant. What kind of covenant? An everlasting
covenant. It's ordered in all things and
sure. See, it's sure because of who ordered it. And it's sure
because of who honors it. David said, this is all my salvation
and all my desire. Jesus Christ is all in all. He must be. Now listen to me
on this. Salvation is not believing in
a doctrine. Salvation is believing in a person. It's believing in Christ. Salvation
is not trusting in God's election to save you. It's trusting in
Christ to save you. It took a perfect man to come
and fulfill the law. It took a perfect man to die
and satisfy God's justice. And in order to pay sin's wages
of death, it took the God-man to save us. You know why? Because
God could not die to pay them, and man's death couldn't satisfy
the first sin. So God took upon flesh and blood
and became a man and He died in the place of those that God
gave Him before the foundation of the world. He took the sacrifice
of a perfect man who was God and only He could satisfy justice
and justify you and I. Larry emailed me a little short
article today written by Tim James that read this. I read this several times. said
mercy is nothing but sin where justice is not satisfied. Mercy
becomes sin now when justice is not satisfied. God Himself
would sin if He showed mercy without justice. That's what
we preach here. That's the key to understanding
why Christ had to die for our sins according to the Scripture.
It had to be according to justice. Without the shutting of blood,
there is no forgiveness. God's law has to be fulfilled. His justice satisfied. How can
that be done? We know only one way. I'm ringing
one note up here. We're blowing one note on the
bull's horn. Week after week after week. Aren't
you glad that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word
of God? Just maybe, just maybe, God will enable me to believe.
Small child, I'm telling you, a small child can understand
the basic principle of substitution. But God has hid these things
from the wise and the prudent. Look at verse five back here
in Exodus 18. And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law,
came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness,
where he encamped at the mount of God. And he said unto Moses,
I, thy father-in-law, Jethro, am coming to thee, and thy wife,
and her two sons with her. And Moses went out to meet his
father-in-law, and did obeisance, and kissed him, and they asked
each other of their welfare, and they came into the tent.
And look at verse eight, and Moses told his father-in-law
all that the Lord had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians
for Israel's sake, and all the travail that had come upon them
by the way, and how the Lord delivered them. Now there's some
real lessons here for us to learn. May God be pleased to teach them
to us. First, God's people are quick
to tell others what the Lord's done for them. Moses and his
father-in-law, no sooner get into the tent and sat down after
exchanging pleasantries, and Moses immediately begins to tell
his father-in-law what the Lord had done. He told him what the
Lord had done unto Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel's sake. That's the problem today. We've
got a lot of folks telling others what they're doing for God and
not what God has done for them. We cannot preach what we've not
experienced. I can tell you a sure way to
know if God has sent a preacher or not. You can tell by the message
that He preached. If His message gives all the
glory to God and the salvation of sinners, then God sent that
preacher. You can count on it. But if his
message gives any glory whatsoever to man, then God did not send
him. Paul told the Galatians just
that. He said, But though we or an
angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that
which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. God hasn't
sent a man to preach if they don't know the true message of
the gospel. Paul asked this question in Romans
chapter 10. He said, How shall they hear
without a preacher? You see, that's God's ordained
means of saving the lost. He uses what He calls the foolishness
of preaching. It's foolishness to the world.
But it's not to a believer, it's everything. What He lives for. To please the Lord by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. But then Paul really
asks the real question and the real issue, which is, and how
shall they preach except they be sent? That's talking about
God sending preachers. A man can't preach the truth
unless God sends him. How shall they preach except
they be sent? That's not talking about being
sent by man. That's not talking about being
called to preach because your grandmother always thought you'd
be a good preacher. This is talking about God raising
up a man, revealing Himself to him, showing him the truth about
who that man is, and who God is, and who Christ is, and what
salvation is, and whose salvation is ours. He's going to be preaching
on the subject of Christ and Him crucified. He's going to
be preaching substitution. He's going to be preaching how
a sinner can be saved. He is, with the Word of God,
pointing sinners to the precious blood of the Passover Lamb, Christ
Jesus. But the Scripture says they've
not all obeyed the Gospel. Isaiah said, Lord, who hath believed
our report? You know what? In the overall
scheme of things, not many. Not many. So what are we going
to do? Are we going to quit? No, we're
going to keep preaching. We're going to keep on reporting.
We keep reporting what God's done for us. We plant and we
water and we trust God for the increase. That's what Moses is
doing here. He's preaching and he's telling
Jethro all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians
for Israel's sake. You see that in verse 8? We preach
what God has done for Christ's sake, don't we? Paul said, forgive
one another even as God has forgiven you for Christ's sake. Moses
told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh
in Egypt in the ten plagues. Can you imagine how captivated
he must have been? Moses giving him a first-hand
explanation. Moses told Jethro how God provided
all the firstborn in Goshen a lamb to die in their place so that
he might pass over them when he saw the blood. That's what
we preach. Moses is not telling Jethro about
all that he did. He's not telling him about all
that Aaron and Israel had done. No sir, he's telling Jethro all
the things that the Lord had done. The Lord had done great
things for us. Don't you just know that he told
Jethro about the Egyptians just walking up to them and handing
them their possessions. But that's what we do in preaching.
We faithfully declare how God has provided His people with
the unsearchable riches of Christ's wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption. It's a free gift. God just gives
it to us. We didn't earn it. We didn't
deserve it. We sure didn't merit it. Moses
tells Jethro about God's redemption and deliverance at the Red Sea,
and we faithfully preach and declare how all God's children
are baptized in the Red Sea of His blood and have been made
to sing that song of redemption. That's what preaching is. Moses
is telling Jethro what he and Israel experienced. He's reporting
to Jethro as an eyewitness. He said, I've seen these things.
I've experienced these things. I know these things to be so.
True preaching testifies to the perfect work and righteousness
of Christ. Any preacher that has any inclination
of what preaching is will get out of the way and point men
to Christ and say, this is your only hope of redemption. Trusting
in Him. Don't you imagine that Moses
told Jethro about the bitter waters in the wilderness at Marah. I can see Moses just smile as
he tells Jethro how the Lord sweetened those bitter waters
with a tree. Is that not what God did with
the tree on which our Lord and Savior hung? He made the crucifixion
of Christ sweet to the saved sinner. And God's children drink
from Christ, the fountain of living water. It didn't stop
there. Moses told his father-in-law
about the bread, the manna that fell from heaven. And he told
him about the Sabbath rest, the rest from gathering of the manna
and how that God provided. And in our preaching, we declare
Christ the Bread of Life, who is our Sabbath rest. And it was
with great delight that Moses declared how God delivered them
from Amalek. How God delivered us from ourselves. He holds up Christ to us in preaching. How important is preaching to
Amalek? As we hold up the arms of those
that hold up Christ, we exalt Jehovah Nissi, the Lord our banner,
who defeats and overthrows our flesh. And that's what we've
been studying. These are the things the Lord's
teaching us. The journey home to the land of promise. I'm telling
you, it's a long, hard one that's going to wean God's people from
all independence and trust of this world and the things of
it. Look at verse 10, and Jethro said, Blessed be the Lord who
hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out
of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under
the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater
than all gods. For in the thing wherein they
dealt proudly, He was above them. And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law,
took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God. And Aaron came and all
the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before
God. All this hoopla here, and Jethro
was a lost man. He was a priest of Midian. The
Midianites were said to have worshipped many, many idols. Notice in verse 11 that He doesn't
denounce His gods, He simply puts Moses' God alongside all
His gods, but declares Him to be the greatest. There can only
be one God. There can only be one Sovereign. We have a picture here of what
God does when we preach and declare His wonderful works of redemption
in Christ. God brings His people to rejoice
in God's goodness. God brings them to trust in Christ's
work of righteousness in their place. And they come to faith
in Christ. Pictured here, I believe, in
Jethro's offering. Our great commission is go ye
into all the world and preach. Preach what? How to live? How
to be good and do good? What good is that going to do
you when you've got to be perfect? In order to be saved and reconciled
to God, I've got to be perfect? Preach the gospel and tell me
how I can be perfect. Go ye into all the world and
preach the gospel. Preach the good news for sinners.
Well, what's the good news for sinners? God saved sinners. Let
the wicked know that Christ died for the ungodly. I'm ungodly. That's who Christ died for. I'm
lost. Christ came to seek and to save
that which was lost. Preach the righteousness of God.
That's the only way that God can be just and justifier of
those which believe in Christ. Now look at verse 13 and let
me show you one last thing. And it came to pass on the morrow
that Moses sat to judge the people and the people stood by Moses
from the morning until the evening. Now we'll have a lot more to
say about this next time. But I find it very interesting
here that Moses hadn't seen his wife and his children for probably
at least a year, maybe longer. But where do we find Moses the
next morning? Right back doing what the Lord
had given him the honor to do. He judged the people from morning
till evening. Now let me just say this in closing.
When we have unbelieving friends and family come to visit us,
I know it's not often, but it's often very common for us to think
that they might think less of us if we don't maybe take off
work or, well, it won't hurt me to miss church services when
they're here. I mean, after all, they only
come once in a while. It's not really that big a deal,
just once in a blue moon. But I think maybe the real question
we ought to ask ourselves is, what will they think of my God
if I do? The Lord Jesus will never mean
anything to your loved ones if they don't see that He means
everything to you. And yet I know that there's not
a single thing that you, I, or anyone can do that would cause
God to be mindful of us in any way. But I've got to believe
on Him. I've got to trust in Him today,
and I've got to trust Him tomorrow, and I've got to trust Him the
next day. And in order to do so, He's got to be my everything.
Lord, help me. Lord, help us to trust in You
and You alone. That's my prayer for You, and
that's my prayer for me. Lord, help us to trust in You
and You alone.