Alright brethren, let's go back
now to Exodus 3. Exodus chapter 3. And verse 10, the Lord says, Come now therefore. It says, God's appointed time
has come. This is the time now when He
would send Moses forth to deliver the children. And when God chose
to do this, He chose the best means in order to glorify His
power and His grace and His ability. He chose the very best means
He could use to deliver the children of Israel. He chose something
that this world considers absolutely foolish and absolutely useless. He chose to save through the
preaching of the gospel of Christ, and he saved to do it using a
sinner, just like those that he's calling out. Scripture says,
after that in the wisdom of God, it pleased God. After the world
by its wisdom did not know God, it pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believed. That's the best means
God could have chosen to manifest His glory in saving His people.
Now, what is going to qualify God's preacher and God's people,
His church, for this work? And this is the work of God's
preacher and His people. I told our brethren back home
last Thursday, I said, when I go down there and preach, It's not
just me down there preaching. Our whole congregation is represented
there because I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. It's not
my ministry in New Jersey. It's our ministry in New Jersey. And so wherever I go, it's that
church sending forth the Word. So this is a work for God's preacher
and His people, His church. So what qualifies God's preacher
and His people for this work of being Christ's minister, being
able to serve Him in sending forth the Gospel. It's the same
thing that qualifies a sinner to be able to come to Christ.
And we're going to see it here in the things that Moses said
and the things that God said to Moses. Look at verse 10. "'Come now, therefore, and I
will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth
my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." And Moses said
unto God, Who am I? Who am I? That I should go unto
Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel
out of Egypt. And God said to Moses, Certainly
I will be with thee. And this shall be the token unto
thee, that I have sent thee. When thou hast brought forth
the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain."
Now here's what I want us to see in this message today. God
will receive no sinner. He will save no sinner. And He will use no sinner until
God has humbled us to behold that God our Savior alone is
all our sufficiency in all things. He will not save us, He will
not receive us and save us and use us until He's brought us
to see He's all our sufficiency in all things. Now, first of
all, we have to be humbled by God to acknowledge our own nothingness. We have to be humbled by God
to acknowledge our own nothingness. It says here, it says, Moses
said unto God, Who am I? Now, God didn't rebuke Moses
here for saying this. This is humility of heart here. in this case. Later he's going
to rebuke him because he turned into unbelief. But right here,
this is humility. Who am I? Who am I? Now at the age of 40, when Moses
was back there in Egypt, he freshly freshly coming off of getting
his good education in the house of Pharaoh. He knows God is going
to use him to deliver the children of Israel. And he went in the
power of his flesh. He went having a high opinion
of himself. And he went to try to deliver
God's people. And God made him fall on his
face because it wasn't God's time, but mainly because Moses'
spirit wasn't wasn't right. He couldn't be used of God when
he had the spirit of thinking he had some ability in himself.
Now, that's the case with anybody that God is going to save. He
won't receive us as long as we think there's something in us
worth saving. He won't save us and receive
us as long as we think that we're going to contribute something
to salvation. Now get this, it's very simple.
I can't believe on Christ for all my salvation if I think that
I'm adding something or contributing something to my salvation. We've
got to be brought to see that we have nothing, we are nothing,
and we contribute nothing. That's the only way we can come
and worship the Lord Jesus Christ and give Him the glory for doing
all the saving. This is what Christ meant when
He said, I didn't come to call the righteous. A man who's righteous
is too good to be saved. He thinks he's good. He thinks
he ought to be saved. And he thinks he can contribute
to being saved. That man's not qualified to be
saved. He thinks he's righteous. Christ
said, I didn't come to call the righteous. I came to call sinners
to repentance. A sinner is somebody who sees
himself as absolutely nothing. God has to make us see ourselves
that way. And he said, those are the ones
I came to call to repentance. Now 40 years have passed. Moses
has been out here tending his father-in-law's sheep in Moab
in the middle of nowhere. Forty years have passed and Moses
answers God Who am I? When God says, come, I'm sending
you to deliver my people, Moses says, who am I? That's where
we have to be brought to see, I'm not qualified. I have nothing
in me. I have no power in me. His heart
had been broken. His spirit had been brought down
and made contrite. And that's the spirit God gives. That's the spirit God will receive.
A broken and a contrite heart, that's the sacrifice of God.
You say, well, that's no sacrifice at all. Exactly. Because a broken
and contrite heart is coming to God asking God to save, asking
God to have mercy, asking God to receive us in God's sacrifice. That's why a broken and a contrite
heart is the sacrifice God is pleased with. That's the heart
God will receive. Look over at 1 Corinthians 1.
And this applies to not only those He receives and He saves,
but to you and I who He uses to preach the gospel and send
the gospel forth into the world. 1 Corinthians 1.26. You see your
calling, brethren. Look around. There's not many
wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are
called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise." He's talking about
His people. He's talking about this means
of preaching. He's talking about a bloody cross,
things that that are foolish to this world, God's chosen to
confound the wise. And God's chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the things that are mighty. And base
things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God
chosen, yea, and things which are not, things that are nothing,
to bring to nothing things that are. Why is this the best means
God could have possibly chosen? that no flesh shall glory in
His presence." Using nobodies and nothings is the way God is
going to make His glory shine forth. He said, My grace, My
strength is made perfect. It's made manifest through weakness,
through your weakness. And God's going to use weak nobodies
And that's how he manifests that it's all of him and not of us. You know, you young folks are
probably sitting here with this small group, and you were once
in bigger churches and what have you, and you think, you know,
why are we here? Why are we here in this little
group, meeting in this place, in this little rented building
and all that? I felt the same way when I was younger. We drove about 45 minutes over
to a building, at that time was sitting in a frog pond, you had
to walk on stepping stones to get in the front door, because
there wasn't but about seven or eight of us. And my uncle,
my grandfather was the pastor, and it's the church down there
where Darwin pastors now, but it wasn't that building, it was
another building. And that building is nice now compared to what
it was back then. But I can remember my uncle,
we were driving over there one day, and he asked my grandfather,
he said, Dad, why don't we drive all the way over here to go to
church? We pass bigger and better churches the whole way over here.
And that's probably what you think. Why do we come here? We
pass bigger and better the whole way here. Well, God's going to
separate His people out and use a little, small, insignificant
bunch of nobodies to do His great work of calling out His people
to show the works of Him and not of us. Now, secondly, we
must be made to acknowledge that we're no match for our enemy. We're no match for our enemy.
Moses says, who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh? Moses knew. Pharaoh is a wise man. Pharaoh is the most powerful
man on the planet. Pharaoh, he's got mighty armies
and people to do his bidding for him. And Moses knows he's
no match for Pharaoh at all. And we have to be made to see
we're no match for our enemies. Satan. Take the devil for example. You and I, we can't overcome
the devil. If God permits him, to do anything
to us, He'll have His way with us. We can't fend Him off of
ourselves, but Christ can. Do you remember that man that
was possessed of the demons in Gadara? And Christ came there,
and this man was living amongst the graves, and he was running
around naked. He was a crazy man. He was cutting
himself and doing all these outlandish things. You know what that's
a picture of? That's a picture of you and me and our sin nature.
That's a picture of you and me while we're dead in sin. Crazy. Absolutely insane to believe
a God that needs me and you to do something to help Him save
us. That's crazy. That's insanity. But when Christ
got through with that man, you know what? The Scripture says
this. It says, The man that was possessed
with the devil and had the legion of devils was sitting and clothed
and in his right mind. That's what Christ is able to
do. You know how He did it? With a word. He spoke and the
devils left. And that's how He's going to
do this. He's going to speak a word. And He's going to give
you a new heart, new life, and bring you down. He alone can
do it. He must bind the strong man and
deliver his people. out from His power, and only
He can do that. For this purpose, the Son of
God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.
That's why it came forth. And then sin is an enemy that
we're no match for. The bondage of sin is far too
powerful for you and I to break its chains. First of all, we
had the problem with the fact that the law has something against
us. We've sinned, and the law says
we're guilty. How are we going to remedy that? We can't put away our sin. We
can't justify ourselves before the law. There's nothing we can
do because we already broke it. And not only that, we have this
sin nature. We can't do anything about the
sin nature. Can an Ethiopian change his skin? Can the leopard change his spots?
Then can you do good that are accustomed to do evil? We cannot
give ourselves a new nature. So there's a sin issue we can't
deal with. The Lord Jesus Christ came forth
to serve under the law in the likeness of flesh like his people
to serve under that law, to magnify the law and make it honorable,
to fulfill it, to dot every I and cross every T and fulfill the
law for his people. Totally. So that now righteousness
is brought in for his people. And not only this, but through
this gospel he enters in and creates an entirely new heart. He gives a new spirit that did
not exist in his people before. So when he gets done with you,
you're all together a new creation. righteous before the law of God
by what Christ has done for His people, and created anew in righteousness
and holiness in spirit by what Christ does in His people. And
when we go to glory, that's going to be a place where everything
there is the creation of Christ that He created in righteousness. And so the Scriptures tell us
this, in that he died, he died unto sin once. But in that he
liveth, he liveth unto God. So he says, now you likewise
reckon you also yourself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive
unto God. Everybody that was in Christ
when he died, died. We really died. When he says
reckon it to be so, it's like he was talking about account
that the longsuffering of God is salvation. He's not saying
treat it as if it's salvation. He's not saying think of it as
if you're dead. He's saying you are dead. He's using the most emphatic
language that can be used. You are dead indeed. That's what
he says to his people. When Christ went into that grave,
my body of sins was buried. And God says, I don't remember
them anymore. That's so of all his people. And when he came
out of that grave and went and sat down at God's right hand,
all his people came out and sat down with him in glory, in Christ. And so he says now, if any man
be in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. Old things are
passed away. What does he mean by that? All
that old covenant way of trying to come to God is passed away
from our thoughts and our ideas of trying to come to God. Have
you ever read where he said in Jeremiah 3.15, I will give you
pastors after my own heart which will feed you with knowledge
and understanding? Have you ever read the next part of that, the
next verse? He says, and the ark of the covenant
won't come into your mind anymore. That old covenant and all the
pictures and types and trying to come to God in the Ten Commandments
and by your doing and all that. You know what I used to do? Tell
me if you did this. When I went and read the Scriptures
before God gave me an understanding of the Gospel, before that, I
went to the Scriptures trying to find out what can I do? What
am I supposed to do? That's all I read them for. I
was trying to figure out what should I do? And God gives you
a hard seat. Christ has done it. So those
old things are passed away. And now all things are new. We
have a new and living way. Not that old cloth veil in that
old temple with the blood of bulls and goats. But Christ has
come in His flesh and made us a way into the holiest of holies,
into the presence of God with His own blood. And now He's washed
us and made us new so that we have boldness and access to come
to God in Christ right now. Isn't that wonderful? Everything
is new to us now. We have a new way, a new righteousness
that Christ provided. We now know holiness is not by
our law keeping. And in fact, holiness doesn't
have anything to do with law keeping. Holiness is a new heart. It's a new character put in you
by God. And now we know Christ is that
holiness. It's Christ in you that is the
life and the spirit and the holiness. He talks about you have to have
that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. That
means nobody that's ever been saved was saved without holiness. That includes that man on the
cross. That thief on the cross that Christ created anew hanging
there on that cross. to show you that it has nothing
to do with law keeping, nothing to do with your works. Tell me
what that man did to make himself holy, to have that holiness he
needed to enter in glory when he had his hands and his feet
nailed to a cross. He didn't do anything. Christ
gave him a new heart and a new character. That's what made him
say to that other thief, we're getting what we deserve. This
man's done nothing wrong. Lord, remember me when you come
into your kingdom. He was given a heart that was
purified to see the Lord Jesus, his God in human flesh, his Savior,
and he believed on Him. That's what holiness is about.
Being made new and pure and holy in the heart to believe on Him.
And so thou, all things are new. All the old things are passed
away. All things are new. And death's an enemy we can't
conquer. I can't give anybody spiritual
life. If I could, I would. But I can't
give anybody spiritual life. And I surely can't raise anybody's
body from their grave. But Christ can do both. Christ
can do both. He came forth and said, Lazarus,
come forth! And Lazarus came forth. He speaks,
and you have life. Just like He spoke this world
into existence, and it was. See, we can't overcome our enemies.
We've got to be brought to see. I can't. I can't overcome sin,
death, and I can't overcome any enemy. I can't do it. Satan. Thirdly, we have to be made to
acknowledge that this work of salvation is a work we can't
accomplish. The work of salvation is a work
we cannot accomplish. Look back at our text. He says,
Who am I? Exodus 3. He says, Who am I? Verse 11. That I should bring forth the
children of Israel out of Egypt. Who am I that I'm going to deliver
your people? Lord, I don't have power to do
that. Think about this mission Moses
has been sent on. It's like the mission of God's
preacher and his church. Moses has been gone from Egypt
for over 40 years. He don't know who God's people
are now. He don't even know what they
look like now. It's been 40 years since he's
been there. And you and I are going forth spreading this gospel
and we don't have any earthly idea who God's elect are. We have no clue who they are.
How are we going to be used to call them out if we don't even
know who they are? It's not for us to know who they
are. Moses was going to be sent forth to do one thing. Just speak
what God gave him to speak. And God was going to do the delivery.
And that's up. We just sent forth to speak what
God has given us to speak. God will do the delivering. But
I can't deliver His people. I can't bring His people out.
This work of salvation is beyond me. And then another thing, Moses
had no power to make them believe the Word he preached. Not only
can I not give life and you can't give life, we can't make somebody
believe. When Moses went to them before when he was in Egypt,
he went to them and he said, He spoke some words to them,
you know, why are you smiting your brethren? Because Scripture
says he supposed that they would believe that he was sent by God
to deliver them. We always get in trouble when
we suppose. We always get in trouble when we suppose. Supposing
is not faith. But when he spoke that to them,
you know what the answer was to them? Did they believe him?
Did they believe him? They said, who made you a ruler
and a judge over us? Why are you speaking to us? So
he had no power to make anybody believe, and he knows that now.
Here he's going to be going in there, and they're in bondage.
He knows he can't make them believe. It's easy to make a person make
a profession of faith. It's easy to make a person give
up some sin outwardly and do some service out in For the church,
in the name of the church, it's easy to get a sinner to do that.
You can guilt him into making a professional face, scare him
with hail. You can give him an aisle to walk down or an altar
to bow to, a prayer to pray, and some hoops to jump through. People will do that. People will
do that. That's easy to make, but to make
a sinner believe on Christ and cease from all his vain works
and do nothing but trust Christ to save him? Nobody can make
a sinner do that but God. Nobody but God. The things that
are impossible with men are possible with God. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, because they are foolishness
unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned." I can't make a man hear. I can't
make a man see. I can't make a man believe. Only
God can. And it's because of the enmity
of our flesh. You know what enmity means? Enmity
is hatred. Hatred. Everybody sitting here
right now that does not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ hates
Him. Everybody sitting here that doesn't
believe on Christ hates God. That's all the depraved nature
is. Romans 8 says the carnal mind, that's a natural man, that's
an unregenerate man. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. It's not subject to the law of
God, not subject to His Word, and neither indeed can be. That's the natural heart. How
am I going to? I'm just a sinner like you. How
am I going to change? I couldn't give my own self a
new heart. I can't give you one. I can't
bring you to believe, but God can. So we've got to be made
to see that. You know what the problem is?
We were just talking about preaching just a minute ago. You know what
the problem with most preachers in most churches is? They haven't
been made to see this. They're trying to get people
in that seat and trying to get that money in that plate. And
here's what churches do. Let's advertise our prayer and
all the praying that we do and how many prayer meetings we have.
Let's advertise all our ministries and how we go to this place and
have missionaries and we do this work in this place and this work
in this other place. Let's advertise that stuff because
that will make people want to come in. And it will. And it's
exactly why Christ said, Don't do any of those things before
men. Don't pray to be seen of men, and don't do your alms to
be seen of men, because that will attract men to you. And
we don't want men attracted because of something we do. We want them
to come in because of Christ. And then they say, let's get
us a ball team, and let's add on and make the building bigger
so it's more impressive. And then once you've got all
these things, we'll get the people in, and then we'll preach some
gospel to them. But here's the problem. Now you've
got all these bills that you've incurred to get all this impressive
stuff and you get people in there from all walks of life that came
there for that stuff instead of having a heart made new by
God and drawn by Christ. So you can't preach the truth
to them or they'll get mad and leave and there won't be any
money in that to pay for all this stuff. So they have to water
it down and preach it to the lowest common denominator and
make it as least offensive as they can to keep people in the
pew and money in the plate. Is that not right? Is that not
what's going on in most churches? There's one reason a man won't
preach the truth, just one. The love of money is the root
of all evil. You're going to lose everything
he loves if he preaches the truth, and he won't do it. Until God
gives him a heart to see that he is nobody, and he's no match
for his enemy, and he can't make a man believe. And then God will
bring him down to speak His Word, God's Word, instead of His own
Word. Here's the fourth thing. We must be made to believe that
our only sufficiency is God. This is for the new one He's
drawing to Christ, and this is for you and I who He's going
to use after He's called us. We have to be made to see all
the time, constantly, our only sufficiency is God. The Lord said in verse 12, here's
how He answered him, "...Certainly I will be with thee." There's
the answer to all Moses' problems. I will be with thee. Moses said,
who am I? You're nobody, Moses. But certainly,
I will be with thee. Moses said, I'm no match for
Pharaoh. That's right, you're not. Certainly,
I will be with thee. I can't work salvation. I can't
call your people out of Israel. I don't have power to do that.
No, you don't, Moses. But certainly, I will be with
thee. And you know that's exactly what
the Lord Jesus Christ has said to His church. When He called
His disciples together and He was sending them forth into all
the world to preach the gospel, He said this, All power in heaven
and earth is given to me. Well, I thought He had all power.
He's the Son of God. He had all power as the Son of
God. But now, the God-man. is seated
at God's right hand. There's a man who is God seated
at God's right hand who is the head of the church, who has all
power over all things, who everything is under His feet. He has the
power over all. And He said, all power is given
unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go forth, therefore, preaching
all things that I have commanded you, and, lo, I will be with
you always. I wouldn't preach I wouldn't
waste my time studying if he wasn't with me. You know, most
people think a preacher can just stand up and preach. You know,
I've got, I've got in this notebook right here, I've got a thousand
sermon notes. I've preached over a thousand
times since I've been, I got over a thousand sermon notes
right here. And you would think you just pull up one and preach
it. It don't work that way. You pull them up, look at it,
and it's just black ink on white paper. God has got to give you
a message. He's got to give you the message,
or you can't preach a message. He's got to be with you, or you
can't get the message, but let's deliver the message. I wouldn't
go anywhere and preach if I didn't trust God will be with me, because
what's the use? It'd be no good to anybody. But
knowing God's with me, knowing God's given me this promise and
you who are His this promise, we can go forth with confidence
because He's the power. He's the power. Look at Isaiah
41. Now when I say He's sufficiency, I want you to get what I mean.
I mean when it comes to wisdom, Christ is our sufficiency of
wisdom. When it comes to righteousness,
Christ is the full sufficiency of our righteousness. You and
I don't contribute any righteousness to salvation. When it comes to
sanctification, Christ is the full sufficiency. When it comes
to redemption, He's the full sufficiency. When it comes to
being our guide and directing us, it's Him, not us. When it comes to being the power
that blesses the Word, it's Him, not us. Now look at this, what
He says right here. Isaiah 41.10, Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed,
for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness." Look at Isaiah 43 and verse 1. Isaiah 43, verse 1. Now thus
saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee,
O Israel, that's you and me who he saved, Jacob in our flesh,
Israel in the new man. And here he says to us, Fear
not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. When thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee. You're going to pass
through deep water. But He says, I will be with thee.
When you pass through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.
When you walk through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither
shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Sheba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my
sight, and hast been honorable, and I have loved thee, therefore
will I give men for thee, and people for thy life." God says,
I will be with thee. Look at Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13. We get so discontented, you know,
and we fret, and we get all of our trouble. Everything we have
is trouble. You know where it comes from?
Everything that causes us trouble is not being content with where
God's put us and what God's doing in God's time. We want to be
out of it now. Or we want it to be different
than it is. Or we want something we don't have. That's the heart
of all our trouble. Now look what he says right here.
Hebrews 13, verse 5. Let your conversation, your conduct,
be without covetousness. Don't want what you don't have,
he's saying. Don't want a different situation or this to happen faster
or anything like that. Why not? Be content with such
things as you have. For He has said, I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee. I will be with thee. So that
we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what
man shall do unto me. You see there, He's our contentment.
He's the one who makes us know whatever He's doing right now,
it's suffering, it's deep water, it's hot fire, but He's promised
me I'll be with you. He's promised me it's not going
to destroy you. And He's promised me I'll bring you through it.
And He's promised me I'm doing it for you good. And as He told
Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. My grace is sufficient
for you. My strength. is made perfect
in your weakness. When did you see God as being
all your salvation? When He made you see you didn't
have any ability to save yourself. When does He make you see that
He's worked the trial right and He's brought you through the
trial in the right time and done what's best for you? When you
see that you didn't have any strength whatsoever, that He
did it all. His strength is made perfect. It's made to be seen
and to be understood by us when we see how totally incapable
we are. He's sufficient. His grace is
sufficient. Go over to 2 Corinthians 3. 2 Corinthians 3. Paul was speaking here about
preaching, and this holds true for everything. Everything we
need to be saved, everything that we're doing in His name,
everything even in our temporal lives, brethren, He's our sufficiency
in everything. All things are of Him, through
Him, and to Him. Everything is of Him. Now watch
this. 2 Corinthians 3. Paul says, not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God. Our sufficiency is of God. We've got to be made to see our
sufficiency is of God. Look at 2 Corinthians 4. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not
of us. We have the treasure of this
gospel in an old clay pot that one day is going to just break
and go back to the dust. And there is no power in us,
there is no strength in us, there is no ability in us, but God
did it that way. I said it is the best way He
could have chosen to manifest His strength and His glory. He
chose it that way so that we are made to see the excellency
of the power is of God and not of us. He is our full sufficiency. In righteousness, in holiness,
in redemption, in all things, He's our full sufficiency. Everything we need. And here's
the last thing. As we go forth to the work that
He's called us to, this applies to you being called to Christ,
to believe on Christ, and this applies to us going forth and
spreading this Gospel. We have to be made to see and
to hope only in the hope that God's given us, only in the promise
God's given us. That's our hope, but what's going
to come to pass is only what God has hoped and promised to
us. Now look here, in Exodus 3, he says, Exodus 3, verse 12, Certainly I will be with thee.
Now here's the promise. This shall be a token unto thee
that I have sent thee. When thou hast brought forth
the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain."
Now you get the picture. Moses is in this mountain, and
God's fixing to send him down out of this mountain into Egypt.
And he's going to go forth into Egypt, he's going to declare
God's Word, he's going to work God's works, and he's going to
deliver God's people. And God's promised, you're coming
back to this mountain from which I sent you, and you and my people
are going to worship me together right here in this mountain.
And God did it. Moses came there to that very
mountain with all the children of Israel after they came out
of Egypt, and they built an altar there and they worshiped God
right there in that mountain, just like God said they would.
Brethren, that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He
stood with God in His holy mountain before the foundation of the
world. And God made a covenant promise to Christ that when He
went forth and He worked the works of God and He established
the gospel of God and delivered God's people, that God would
bring Him again to that holy mountain and all His people would
be brought to that holy mountain and we would all worship God
together in righteousness and holiness forever. That was God's
covenant promise to His Son. That was Christ's hope when He
came forth and why He came forth in work to works. That's what
made Him look at that cross and face that cross and say, I'll
set my face like a flint because I know the Father will help me.
I know that He will justify me. I know that He will not allow
my soul to perish in hell because of that covenant promise, because
He had that hope that He's going to come back to that mountain
with His people and worship God. And He did. He did. And He's
called you and me now into this mountain. And He's making us
to worship Him. And He's telling us, go forth
and preach this Word. And He's saying, and I promise
you, here's your hope. I'm going to call out My people,
and you're going to worship Me together in My holy mountain. Listen to this. Micah 4.1 said,
In the last days, The last days started when Christ came. He
has spoken to us in these last days. He has spoken to us by
His Son. When Christ came, He said, in these last days it shall
come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall
be established in the top of the mountains. That is what Christ
did at Calvary. That is what Christ did when
He arose to God's right hand. He established the mountain of
the house of the Lord in the top of the mountains. And it
says, He says in Micah 4.1, "...and it shall be exalted above the
hills, and people shall flow unto it." We're not going to
one day go back to a mountain over there in Mount Zion in Jerusalem
in that part of the world. We're not going there. God's
people are going to Christ's church where Christ is worshipped
in spirit and in truth, and one day we're going to go with Him
into that holy mountain in glory. That's the mountain He's talking
about. That's the mountain He's established. Now brethren, this
is our work. This is our work. This is what
God's called us to do. He's called us to rest in Christ
entirely for salvation. He's called us to go forth and
preach this Word to others. This is the work of God. I was
telling Levi all the things that preachers
preach on, all the works they preach on, where they get out
of the New Testament, what they call the practical thing. If
you summed all those things up, here's what they have to do with.
Don't do anything, say anything, anything whatsoever, ultra-religious
or ultra-sinful, that's going to cause people to take their
eye off Christ and on you. Because you don't want to be
a distraction from the Gospel. You want folks to hear the Gospel.
You want folks to hear Christ in the Gospel. So you summed
them all up. It's just this. I'm doing what
I'm doing because I want Christ to have the preeminence. I want
His Gospel to go forth without distraction. That's it. That's
the sum and substance of all of it. Our work is to preach
that Gospel. Our work is together to support
the preaching of the Word so that this Gospel goes forth and
He calls out His people. And for you and I to trust Him,
and for you and I to be able to do this work, He's going to
have to bring us to see. I'm nobody. I have no strength
for my enemy. I have no strength to deliver
out His people. I can't save His people. I have
to be brought to see all my sufficiency is God alone in my salvation
and in the salvation of others. And I have to be made to hope
only in Him. There's not a word He's spoken
that He hasn't brought to pass. And He's going to bring this
from the past. He's going to use His people, call all His
people out, and we're going to worship God together one day
in glory. all of us, all His people. All
right brethren, I want to thank the Bonnevers for being so hospitable
to me and it's just been very, very, very pleasant. Thank you.
Thank you all for having me and the church was delighted for
me to come and they're praying for you. We're praying for you
together and we hope the Lord will be pleased to give you a
pastor one day. Anything we can do to help you,
don't hesitate to call us. We'll help you any way we can. I'm looking forward to seeing
what God does with you. I trust He's going to do something
beyond what we could have ever imagined. That's usually how
He does it. All right, brethren.