Hebrews chapter 11, verse 27
to 29, and the title of the message this morning is the faith of
the Exodus. The faith of the Exodus. The Scripture says, By faith
he, Moses, forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. For he endured as seeing Him
who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover
and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn
should touch them. By faith they passed through
the Red Sea as by dry ground, dry land, which the Egyptians,
assaying to do, were drowned. We have, in this study of the
eleventh chapter of Hebrews, we have seen many things concerning
faith. This is a chapter of faith. Most call it the hall of faith
or the monument of faith. And we have seen many things
as we travel through the hallowed halls of this history. We have
seen that faith that these men possess is the same faith that
we possess. Their faith was no different
than our faith. Their faith was in Christ and
our faith is in Christ. These men received faith the same way we receive
faith, by the grace of God. You know Ephesians 2 verse 8,
for by grace you are saved through faith and that, what is the antecedent
of that? It's faith. That faith is not
of yourselves. It, faith, is a gift of God,
not of works. Why? Lest any man should boast. We see that faith is of God,
the substance of things hoped for. Substance. Do you have faith? Well, faith is substance. Because
without a new creation, there can be no faith. You have substance. God hath created in us a new
man, a new heart. Even as He had promised in the
covenant of grace to give us a new heart. He promised that.
I have substance of things hoped for. Evidence
of things not seen. Faith in Christ alone is evidence
of the work that God has given us. If God had not wrought a
new creation in us, we would have no faith. It's God that
worketh in us both to will and due of His good pleasure. And
it is His will that we believe on Jesus Christ whom He has sent. It is His will. And we saw in this chapter that
faith rests in the blood offering of Christ alone. As God only
respected the offering of Abel, and not the offering of Cain. Even so, does God have respect
only to one offering, and that is the offering of Jesus Christ. This is the only offering of
respect. There is no other offering of
respect. God has no respect to our works,
our good deeds, but only to Christ's work and blood. And faith that
is of God does not rest in carnal wisdom of men, but completely
on the Word of God, wherein are contained the promises of God."
Our faith rests completely on the Word of God. As did Moses'
faith. Moses forsook. If you look up,
we read this last week. It says, by faith, in verse 24,
when he was come of years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter, choosing rather to suffer the affliction with the
people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin, for seasoned,
esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures
of Egypt. For he had respect unto the recompense,
the payment of the reward, the payment which was of Christ.
payment which was of Christ. He had respect to that. Now,
that's not earthly wisdom, is it? To leave the titles and wealth
of Egyptian fame and money and power. That's not natural. That's not earthly wisdom. But
by faith, Moses easily left these things. He refused to be called
the son of Pharaoh's daughter. It was by faith he forsook those
treasures and identified with suffering. Who does that? Who
does that? I do that. You do that. We would rather identify with
God's suffering church than to be in enjoyment of the pleasures
of this world. We identify with Christ and His
sufferings. And so now we see here In this
text, that this faith spoken of, of Moses, was after he had
spent forty years in the wilderness, tending to the flock of his father-in-law. Remember, Moses forsook Egypt
the first time, and he killed that Egyptian soldier. But I'll tell you, I'm glad God
paints His saints warts and all, because Moses at that time feared
the king. The Scripture says he knew that
the king heard of it, and he feared and fled to Midian. So we know that the verse we're
speaking of here, in verse 27, he said, by faith he forsook
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. We know that that's
not the first time that he forsook Egypt. But this was the second,
the exodus. He forsook Egypt and cling to
the promise of God. In other words, he was able to
boldly stand before Pharaoh. He didn't run like last time. He fled Egypt. Yes. When God
delivered them, he fled and left Egypt. And this was by faith. We see here that this is the
faith of Moses. When I first believed, my faith
was not perfect. Was yours? I believe now, but
my faith is still not perfect faith. My faith at best is altogether
unbelief. That's why I don't have faith
in my faith. I have faith in the object of
my faith. I have faith in his faith. I
have faith in his faithfulness. Therefore, I'm sure that I will
be delivered, that I am able to forsake this world, this life,
the treasures of a family, the treasures of earth, that I might
be able to depart from them, identifying myself with the sufferings
of Christ by faith. Not fearing the wrath of the
king. It was said of Moses' parents.
We discussed this as well. I preached this. That Moses'
parents did not fear the king when they hid Moses for three
months in that basket. And I said, imagine the faith
of that to leave your child in a basket in the river. Believing
God who told you he was a proper child. Believing God as told
them that he should deliver Israel. And they left him there. Tended
to him, but really left him in the care of God. And they didn't
fear the wrath of the king. For him where faith is, fear
can't be. Where there's faith, fear cannot exist. If you take a flame, a fire,
and it doesn't matter how big the fire is, it doesn't matter
how vast the fire is, if you can somehow devoid that fire
of oxygen, it would go out. It would go out. And friends,
if we, by faith, believe God's Word, trust His providence and
His grace, trust in His Son and His righteousness and His blood,
then fear must flee. And when you cut on a light in
a dark room, can the darkness stay? No, it must flee. And so must fear, where faith
is present. Moses was able to defy the most
powerful man in all the known world at that time. Stood before
him ten times concerning the plagues, and yet Moses' faith
was not in his own strength. Moses' faith was not in his own
ability to defend himself against that man. Moses' faith was in
the Word of God who told him to go. He told him, this is what's
going to happen, Moses. You're going to go there. You're
going to tell him about this. And he's going to say, no. Now,
did that discourage Moses in any way from going? Should that discourage us in
our witness? Well, I just know that they're
not going to come to church. So. What's that to us? That's not our business. Our
business is to ask. Our business is to stand boldly
for the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that God chose
a people, Christ redeemed those people, and the Holy Spirit will
come and give them faith and life. This is our message. This is our message of hope,
because this is the message Moses had. God is faithful. And every time, was not God faithful?
Do we not have over 5,000 years of history of God being faithful
to His people? God has always been faithful. It's us who are unfaithful. And yet, even in our unfaithfulness,
God is so good to us that He turns it for our good. How great
is that? Moses was able to defy Him without
fear. Because he trusted God. Faith is not by sight or carnal
reason. How often do we pray, I believe, Lord help thou my
unbelief? How often do we pray for the
grace of faith? That our faith might be strengthened. That we might grow in the grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We should pray
this often. And if we would pray this often,
I know this, troubles will come. Do you want patience? Do you
want faith? Do you want to grow in the grace
and knowledge of God? Do you really? You better be
sure before you ask. A lot of times I don't even ask
and He does it anyway. But I know this, when we ask,
He will give us what we ask for. I love that poem by John Newton.
I ask the Lord. He said, I ask the Lord for faith
and grace. But instead, he gave me trouble. He come to despair and he said,
will thou pursue thy worm to die? And the Lord replied, this is
the way I answer prayer. This is the way I answered your
prayer. To draw you away from the things
of this world. and to draw you to myself." Without
tribulation, would we not let go of these things? We would
hold on to these things, wouldn't we? If God did not pry them from
our hands at times, we would not let them go. Friends, this was easy for Moses
to let Egypt go. This was easy because he believed
God. He trusted God. What a blight
it is on the church when we fear men instead of believing God. When we grumble about our circumstance,
we complain, we murmur at our lot in life. How is that
consistent with sovereignty? Can anyone tell me? Is that consistent
with sovereignty? Because I believe in a sovereign
God, don't you? So then whatever is happening
to me, God has done it. God has ruled and overruled so
that it would happen. It's then by faith we turn and
admit we don't understand. I'll tell you, that's the hardest
thing for us to do, is to admit that we don't know something. I'm so glad the Lord is patient
with me. Aren't you? Because I know there are times where somebody
will come to me with a word of comfort, a word of assurance,
and the first words out of my filthy mouth would be, I know,
I know, I know that. Yeah, but you don't know it by
experience. If you don't know it by experience,
you don't know it. You don't know it. And then God convicts
me of the very thing that they said that I didn't know it. I
didn't believe it. I didn't trust it. Otherwise,
I wouldn't be in such a funk, such a mess. And see that the promise of God,
that Moses forsook Egypt by the promise of God, by seeing spiritually. It says that in verse 27, he said, By faith Moses
He forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he
endured as seeing Him who is invisible." Now, how do you see
Him who is invisible? How can you endure seeing Him
who is invisible? I have not seen Christ. I have
not seen the Father or the Spirit. Yet I endure because I see them
with the eye of faith." I see them. I know them. And when I
preach to you, I want you to understand that I am preaching
a person to you. Not a creed. Not a doctrine.
Not something you can check off a list of theology. I want you
to see the person of Jesus Christ. The glory of Jesus Christ. The face of Jesus Christ. Because in seeing that, you'll
see God. If you know Him, you'll know God. And Moses saw this
by the exodus, the Passover, which is part of this. And that's
the only thing I'm going to go over right now, is this Passover. It says in verse 28, it says,
Through faith he kept the Passover in the sprinkling of blood. lest he that destroyed the firstborn
should touch them." The children of Israel were now on the brink
of deliverance. They were on the very night.
This was the time after all of those plagues. This was the last
one. This was the straw that broke
the camel's back. This was it. This one last plague. It was the plague of the Passover
where God had promised to send the death angel to kill the firstborn
of every man and beast in Egypt. Yet God, for His people, had
made provision. For His people, He had made a
way. He told Moses to take a lamb. A spotless lamb. They were to sacrifice that lamb
and place the blood, strike the blood on the doorpost and on
the lentil of that house. Then they were to roast that
lamb with fire and they were to eat it all with great haste. And they were to have their loins
girded and their shoes about their feet. Why? Because they
were ready to go. In the morning, I see the kids in
the chair and running around. I've got a little time after
they leave. They run around and they're running around getting
all things together and they're eating breakfast and just shoveling
it in. They've got to get going. They've
got to go. It's time to leave. My drill sergeant used to tell
me, eat it now and taste it later. Out the door we went. This is
the kind of haste that they were in. Kill the lamb, put the blood
on the door, get inside, eat it with great haste, with your
shoes on your feet, staff in your hand, loins girded, ready
to get out and go. And this is how we, as believers
in Christ, are to live. Are you ready to go? Are you ready to go? The Passover. Jesus Christ is the perfect Lamb
of God. The only sinless man. The only
mediator between you and God. The only mediator between any
person and God, any man and God, is Jesus Christ. He's the only
one to stand between you. Just like that blood stood between
the firstborn and the death angel of judgment, even so the blood
of Christ that is applied to the heart by the Spirit of God
stands between me and the judgment of God. That seems so small though, doesn't
it? Do you imagine that the firstborn of those houses were not worried? Do you not suppose that they
said, Father, are you sure you put the blood on the outside
of the door? Are you sure you put the blood
out there? Are you sure he was a perfect
lamb? You made sure of that? Are you sure that you put enough
blood on the outside so that He won't come in? How can you be sure He won't
crush this house unless the whole house is covered in blood? Why
just the doorpost? Are not these our same fears?
Was Christ perfect enough? Was His blood enough? Was His blood applied to my heart
enough? Now, I know God is good to Israel,
but as for me, me and Asa, we're like this. We're joined together
because I have those same doubts and fears. But as for me, I don't
know. I don't know if I have enough
blood. Friends, this is why God's Word
is here. He was the only perfect man who obtained righteousness for
his people. Therefore, he shall be called
the Lord our righteousness. And therefore, I am called the
Lord our righteousness. That's my name, too. It's his
name. It's my name. Was His blood enough? As the spotless Lamb of God,
Jesus was the only just and holy God-man. As such, He was the only one
who could mediate and bear the sins of His people. God not only demanded spotlessness
from His Lamb, but that the Lamb should die. And Jesus, did He
die? Did the Lord Jesus die as a substitute
for His elect people? Was God satisfied with His blood? That was the prophecy. That the
Lord shall see him and be satisfied. What did Jesus say about His
own death? He said, it is finished. The
work is accomplished. Redemption is wrought. God is
pleased. God is satisfied with my offering. God the Father in love. Imagine
the great love of this. That God took our guilt. Our sin. that we actually committed. And transferred it, imputed it,
charged it to His only beloved Son. He forsook His Son in justice
and poured out His wrath on His Son Do you suppose then he would
come back and pour his wrath on me? No. Our God is just and the justifier
of the ungodly. How? By Jesus Christ. By this Passover lamb. When I
see the blood, I will pass over. you. Is that not wonderful? I need that assurance that God's
judgment over me is passed. And I can only see it in the
cross. I can only see it in the blood of the Savior. Well, how will they not crush
us because our whole house is not filled with blood, is it?
I'll tell you what, I still have this old nature. You imagine
a house and just the door post and the lintel had blood on it.
The rest of it was just old house. Seems that way to me that there's
a lot of old man, old house still here and just a little blood. My faith is so small. Jesus, when He was washing His
disciples' feet, if you remember, He came to Peter and Peter said,
no, you've got to wash my... don't wash my feet. And He said,
if I don't wash your feet, you don't have any part with me.
He said, what? Wash my whole body! And He said, no, that's
not necessary. That's not necessary, save to
wash your feet. And friends, it's not necessary. Otherwise, God would have eradicated
this old nature if it was necessary. It's necessary that we fight.
It's necessary that we struggle. It's necessary that we suffer.
And it is necessary that we have faith so that fear flees and
we might stand boldly before our enemies. Stand boldly because
God will not crush us. God has only our good in mind. Not what we think is good, because
that's not what he has in mind. If you confuse those, or you
try to unite those two things, you're going to fear. God does all things well. And by faith, let us forsake
this God forsaken world. And cling by faith to Christ.
Friends, fear will not be able to stand. May God give us grace and mercy.
We're dismissed.