Our next speaker is Pastor Clay
Curtis from Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Princeton, New Jersey.
Brother, please come. God be with us. I echo Brother
Gabe's thoughts on the conference and the work that goes into it.
And thank you very, very much. I enjoy going to other conferences. But don't you enjoy having brethren
come to your house and get to serve them? That's a blessing God gave us
to be able to serve one another, and that's a joy. It's more blessed to give than
receive. I think about this a lot. When
you're troubled and you're afflicted, The best thing to do in that
case is find somebody that's in need and help them. It takes your mind off of your
trouble and you help them and you're blessed by the process. So thank you very much. I hope
the Lord has blessed you through this. Let's turn to Exodus 19. I thought after the message yesterday
that I had preached too long a passage, so I was going to
try to preach from a verse or two or three, and I just kept
coming back to this, so now I'm going to preach from two chapters. So the question I want to answer
is how Are we taught the gospel? How do we come to know the gospel? How are we made holy and righteous? I pray God be pleased to teach
us now and to work this in our heart right now. Now the first
thing I want you to see, and we're just going to go a few
verses at a time here rather than read everything at once.
The first thing I want you to see here is there is no knowing
God, there's no being taught of God, there's no being accepted
of God, except through Christ the Mediator. Christ the Mediator. It's Christ that's going to teach
His people. He is the Apostle. That's who He is. He's the Prophet. The Hebrew writer called him
the apostle and high priest of our profession. He's the priest,
the high priest of his people. He's the king of his people.
He's also the bishop of our souls. He is the pastor who is God,
who teaches us the gospel. Moses here typifies Christ the
mediator. It says in verse 3, and Moses
went up unto God, And the Lord called unto him out of the mountain,
saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell
the children of Israel, You've seen what I did unto the Egyptians,
and how I bear you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Verse 9 says, And the Lord said
to Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people
may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee forever. And
Moses told the words of the people unto the Lord. That's the work
of a mediator. Moses here is receiving the law
from God and he's giving it to the children of Israel. Galatians
3.19 says the law was given in the hand of a mediator. Ten times
here the Lord speaks to Moses. And Moses delivers the word to
the children of Israel. And then Moses represents the
children of Israel to the Lord. This is typifying Christ Jesus,
our Mediator. God taught them the word through
Moses, and Christ is the one who's going to teach us the word.
He's the Mediator. The Lord said there, verse 4,
you've seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I buried you on
eagles' wings and brought you unto myself. The children of
Israel here have been brought out of Egyptian bondage. They
typify God's elect. Not all of them were God's elect,
but some of them were God's elect. Romans 9, 6 says they're not
all Israel which are of Israel. Neither because they're the seed
of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shalt thou seed
be called. That is, those that are children
of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children
of promise are counted for the seed. Children of promise are
those God chose in Christ and trusted in Christ before the
world was made. Children of promise are those
that Christ creates. Gabe preached on the new creation
last night, the new heavens and the new earth. His people are made a new creation.
Entirely created anew by Christ. By Christ Jesus. Nothing of Adam
is used. We got corruption from Adam and
sin from Adam. Nothing of Adam is used. Christ
creates us entirely new in His righteousness and His holiness.
So He's our Redeemer. the mediator. God said there's
one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Now secondly, the promise of
God to his people. This right here is the good news
of God to his people. Look here in verse 5. It said,
Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant,
then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people. For all the earth is mine, and
you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which I shall
speak unto the children of Israel." This is what Christ declares
when the gospel is preached. This is what He declares. This
is what all God's people are to God. A peculiar, that means
a precious treasure unto God above all people on the earth.
God's people are a kingdom of priests. God's people are a holy
nation. Look over at 1 Peter chapter
2. 1 Peter chapter 2. This is what Peter said of God's
saints right here. 1 Peter 2 and verse 9. He says,
but you are a chosen generation a royal priesthood, a kingdom
of priests, kings and priests unto God, a holy nation, a peculiar
people. That's what God's people are.
But God said the only way this is so, there's only one way.
He said if we will obey God's voice and deed and keep His covenant,
if we will obey His voice and deed and keep His covenant, Will
you obey God's voice indeed? Will you keep God's covenant? Have you? Have you obeyed God's
voice? Have you kept His covenant? If our Lord blesses this message
to your heart through the Spirit, today you will. Today you'll
understand what that means, and you will. If the Lord teaches
you and the Spirit of God blesses this to your heart, you'll understand
what that means and you will do that. That's the promise. That's what His people are to
God. Now, thirdly, those God saves start out vainly imagining
exactly what the children of Israel imagined. Now, some were
in religion and really thought this to be the case. Maybe you
weren't in religion at all, but we all really thought this. Here
it is, Exodus 19, 7. Moses came and he called for
the elders of the people and he laid before their faces all
these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered
together and said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. This is what all God's elect
start out thinking. It's what we start out thinking
right here. We hear God say, if you will obey my voice indeed
and keep my covenant, and we say all that the Lord has spoken,
we will do. We thought eternal life was by
us sanctifying ourselves. Sanctifying ourselves by keeping
God's ten commandments. That's what all men really think
in this world. That's what religion's teaching. The Pharisees thought this. Christ
said, search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life. They were going to the scriptures
to see what the commandments were, and they were trying to
keep the commandments to have eternal life, to earn eternal
life. And Christ said, and they are
they which testify of me. and you will not come to me that
you might have life. Until the Spirit regenerates
the sinner, not only will he not come to Christ, he will not,
and he cannot, he will not understand and receive the things God teaches,
and he cannot understand the things God teaches. It's foolishness
to it. That's what Paul said, the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for the
foolishness to him, neither can he know them, because they're
spiritually discerned. Now we all thought that all that
God commands, I will do. So many poor people, poor sinners
in this world this morning are hearing a message about what
they must do, and they really think in their heart, all the
Lord commands, I will do. And they think, that's how I'll
be saved. Well, in order to be accepted
of holy and righteous God, as Kate pointed out, we must be
righteous and holy. If we're going to be accepted
of the righteous and holy God, we have to be righteous and holy. It must be perfect to be accepted. That's what God said. We can't do either one. We can't
be made righteous by our works and we cannot be made holy by
our works. Christ alone teaches us that
he is the righteousness and holiness of his people. This is what Christ
must teach us. He's the righteousness and he's
the holiness of his people. Now in our text, God's going
to begin with sanctification. That word, sanctification, means
holiness, that's what it means. Because we must first be sanctified inwardly in regeneration for
us to even see our sin and understand that Christ must do all the work.
We have to be sanctified inwardly to be able to see Christ must
do the work. The Lord said to Moses, go unto
the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow and let them
wash their clothes. Now notice how he said that.
He told Moses, you go to the people and sanctify them today
and tomorrow and let them wash their clothes. And be ready against
the third day, for the third day the Lord will come down in
the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. Now, sanctification. True sanctification
is performed within God's child. It's performed within God's child
and it is to be made holy. It's to be made pure. Without
sin. Holy. Whole. Being born of Adam,
we have a corrupt sin nature. That's how we are by birth. Born of Adam's corrupt seed,
we have a corrupt sin nature. Unholy. Unholy. So a new man's got to be created
within us in holiness. Now Christ is the holiness of
the new man. Christ is the holiness of the
new man. Christ is called in scripture
the sanctifier. He's the one that does it, and
he is the sanctification. Christ is the holiness of the
new man. God commanded Moses to sanctify
them. And he said, and let them wash
themselves. Let them sanctify themselves.
That's what he said. Now, when Christ begins His work
in us, and He's really teaching His child, Christ separates us
out. He begins to teach you, just
like He told Moses, go there and sanctify them. Christ is
going to separate you out, and He's going to begin to teach
you. And He will let you think. he will let you try to sanctify
yourself. And he'll let you think you can
sanctify yourself. Why does he do that? Because
we have to be taught our complete and total inability. That's right. We have to be taught we are incapable
of making ourselves holy. Job said, if I wash myself with
snow water and make my hands never so clean, yet thou shalt
plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall it pour me. He will let you think you can
sanctify yourself. Some people go a long time thinking
that. But Christ is going to teach us that we need the Spirit
of God to sanctify us by forming Christ our holiness within us. That's the holiness of the new
man. And then next in our text, he deals with righteousness.
We need to be made holy, we need to be made righteous. Next, he's
going to deal with righteousness. Verse 12, he said, And thou shalt
set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves,
that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it. Whosoever
touches the mount shall be surely put to death. There shall not
a hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through. Whether it be a beast or man,
it shall not live. Now, to be sanctified is to be
holy. To be holy within. A new holy
man is created. But to be righteous is to be
just before God. before God's law, before the
just judge, is to be perfectly righteous before God with absolutely
no sin. We once thought that we could
obtain that by keeping the law of God. God would not even let
them touch Mount Sinai. He told them, you can't even
touch Mount Sinai. That's where he gave the law,
and that's what he's speaking about here. You can't put your
hand to it. You cannot even touch the mountain
or you will die. Or you will die. Due to Adam's
one transgression, we are all guilty before God. We come into
this world guilty before God because of Adam's one transgression.
People will say, but God wouldn't give a law we couldn't keep.
That's exactly what God's doing. He gave a law we could not keep. We were already guilty in Adam
when he gave this law. They were already guilty. When
Moses goes up this second time to get the law from God, by the
time he gets back down, they have already made a golden calf
and they're dancing around an idol. We had already broken the
law, brethren. We were already guilty before
God. When God gives the law, the reason he gave it, By the
deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his
sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." That's what
Christ is teaching his elect among them that they're sinners.
And that's what God's going to teach us. That's what Christ
is teaching us. To some degree or another, this
is where we all were when Christ began to teach. We thought we
could be made holy by our works, we thought we could be made righteous
by our works. Turn over to Titus chapter 3.
Let's hear what the New Testament says on this, Titus chapter 3. Now this new holy man's got to
be created in us and it's created in regeneration. by the Spirit
of God. Just think about it this way.
It's a birth. When you were conceived the first
child of Adam's corrupt seed, you were conceived in unholiness. You were completely, totally
unholy. So when we're born of incorruptible seed by the Word
of God, we're born holy. We're created in Christ's holiness. Now watch this, verse 3. We ourselves
also were sometimes, Titus 3.3, we ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving different lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. When
we were the self-sanctified man, when we were the self-righteous
man, we heard that word right there and we thought, that's
those awful, vile, sinful people. That's who that is. Those awful,
vile, sinful people. And every time we heard the gospel
preached, we about gave ourselves whiplash, agreed with the preacher,
but we was condemning somebody else the whole time. We didn't know that the awful,
vile, sinful person was our own selves for our attempt at sanctifying
ourselves and our attempt at making ourselves righteous by
our works. What were we? We were foolish, disobedient,
and deceived. We were serving the lust of our
flesh. The lust of our flesh is to steal
the glory that belongs to Christ, and this is the glory that belongs
to Christ. We were full of malice and envy, hateful and hating
one another. Brother Gabe preached it last
night. We were saying, stand by thyself, come not near me,
for I'm holier than you are. God said, that's a stench in
my nose, a fire that burns all the day. Verse 3, but after that,
the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according
to his mercy he saved us. We had nothing to do with it.
By His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and
renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through
Jesus Christ our Savior. That, having been justified by
His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of
eternal life. God's elect must be born again. They must be washed, they must
be sanctified, and every one of them shall be, because Christ
had already justified his people and made us righteous by his
obedience in our room instead. So every one of his people, and
that's why, that's what he said there, having been justified,
we should be born again. We must be sanctified and made
new so that God brings us to experience and know we're heirs
of God. We're heirs of God. But you see
there, this sanctification is all of Christ. It's all of Christ. Look over at Hebrews 10. Don't
you see this? Hebrews 10. This is what Christ
did for us. He was holy in heart as He fulfilled
the law for His people. Look here at Hebrews 10 and verse
9. All the sacrifices never put
away sin. They couldn't do that. But it
says, verse 9, then Christ said, Lo, I come to do thy will, O
God. He took away the first. He took
away that covenant of works. He took away the curse of the
law that He might establish the second, the everlasting covenant
of grace. By whose will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ one time. Look
at verse 14. For by one offering Christ hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy
Ghost also is a witness to us. This is what Christ, the Spirit
of God is going to teach us when He regenerates us, is that Christ
is our sanctification. This is the covenant I'll make
with them after those days, saith the Lord. I'll put my laws into
their hearts, and their minds will I write them, and their
sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission
of these is, there's no more offering for sin. Now, let's
go back to our text, and let's see how Christ reveals this to
us, and shows us this, and it's by Him showing us God's holiness
and God's righteousness. He's going to show us we can't
do this ourselves by showing us how holy and righteous God
is. So they had washed themselves, and they got themselves all good
and cleaned up, and they think all God commanded, we've done.
We're ready to meet God. Verse 16, And it came to pass
on the third day in the morning that there were thunders and
lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and the voice
of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that was
in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people
out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the nether
part of the mount. It's Christ who's teaching us
everything. Moses brought them out up there, and Moses and Mount
Sinai was all together on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon
it in a fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace,
and the whole mount quaked greatly. And God called to Moses, listen
to this in verse 21, And the Lord said to Moses, go down and
charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord,
to gaze upon, to gaze, and many of them perish. He said, they
can't even come and look upon me. And let the priests also,
which come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the
Lord break forth upon them. Verse 24, he told Moses, away,
get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou and Aaron with
thee, Christ our mediator, our high priest, he can come up,
but let not the priests and the people break through to come
up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them. Do you remember
Hebrews says, without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. Without
holiness, no man shall see the Lord. And the Lord charged Moses
here to go tell the people, they can't even gaze upon me. They can't see me unless they
die. That's how holy God is. And when
he told the priests to sanctify themselves, he's not suggesting
here that we make ourselves holy. He's telling them, stay away
from the mountain. He's telling them, don't come
to this mountain. What he's saying is, not even the priests of God
can make themselves holy. Christ our mediators, he's our
prophet and he's our high priest represented by Moses and Aaron.
And we're going to behold holy, righteous God beholding Christ. He's going to teach us this,
he teaches us that. We're unholy and unrighteous,
but showing us how holy and righteous God is and what he required. When he made you behold his unapproachable
holiness and righteousness, that's when you saw you needed Christ.
Exodus 20 verse 1. I'm not going to go through all
of this. You know the giving of the law, but he gave the law
here. First table, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Worship God only. The second
table here is toward man. He said, honor thy father and
thy mother. Thou shalt not commit adultery,
thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against
thy neighbor, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. This
is even in the heart. You can't even think about it.
And it says here in verse 18, And all the people saw the thunderings,
and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountains
smoking. And when the people saw, they removed, and they stood
afar off. And they said to Moses, speak
now with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us
lest we die. What did Paul say the law was?
He said the law is our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that
we might be justified by faith. The law was given to give us
a knowledge of our sins. Here we are, we've washed and
we think we're holy and we've done a few things and think we're
righteous and we're ready to meet God. And Christ comes and
He makes you behold God's holiness and God's righteousness. And
you flee back and say, I need a mediator to represent me to
God. I can't come to God. That's what
they did. And when Christ has brought you
to confess your need of Christ, that's when Christ begins to
show you the good news. It says here in verse 20, Moses
said to the people, he's a picture of Christ here, he said to the
people, fear not, fear not, for God has come to prove you and
that his fear may be before your faces that ye sin not. Christ speaks into our hearts
when he brought you to this place where you see your trembling,
you see God's holiness, you see your sinfulness, you see you've
never made yourself holy or righteous, And you see, I need a mediator. And Christ comes to you and he
says, fear not. Fear not. God's come to prove
you. You know what that means? God
has come to approve you. He's come to make you approved
by creating godly fear in your new heart that you'll sin not. That's what he said. that his
fear may be before your faces, that you sin not." That right
there, fear that you sin not, that's sanctification of the
Spirit and that's righteousness through faith in Christ. This fear of God, that's the
result of sanctification. When God has sanctified us by
the Spirit and created a new heart in us, when Christ our
holiness is formed in us, for the first time, You see the holiness
of God. You see you can't make yourself
holy or righteous by anything you've done. And He does this,
that you sin not, that you stop trying to make yourself holy
and make yourself righteous. We cease trying to come to God
by our law keeping and by our own self-sanctifying words. We believe on Christ and trust
He is our righteousness and our holiness that makes us accepted
of God. And the mediator revealed here,
God gave to Moses to reveal here to them, this is grace, grace,
grace. Look at this now, they saw this
blow and they saw they had not washed themselves, they couldn't
make themselves righteous, they were fearing, they were trembling
and Christ comes and says, fear not. God's come to approve you. He's come to put his fear in
your heart so that you stop sinning by trying to come to God some
other way. And he says, here's how you can
come to God. He tells them in verse 24, an
altar of earth thou shalt make unto me and shall sacrifice thereon
thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thy
oxen. And in all places where I record my name, I will come
unto thee, and I will bless thee. Christ is our altar. Christ is
our sacrifice from which we're perfect. And coming to God through
faith in Christ, God promises, I'll come to you, I'll meet you,
and I'll bless you. That's the gospel. That's the
gospel. But God told them there, he said
in verse 25, if you lift up your tulip on that altar, you polluted
it. Neither shall you go up by steps to my altar, that thy nakedness
be not discovered thereon. Christ must be all our righteousness
apart from our works. We trust in Him only. And it's
not this step-by-step sanctification that men are preaching. That'll
discover your nakedness before God. Christ has to be all our
sanctification and all our righteousness. And we're going to grow in grace
by the knowledge of Christ. Christ is going to grow us up,
but Christ alone is our sanctification. The good works that He causes
you to do, that's not what makes you holy. That's not your holiness.
And conversely, the sinful things that you do, it's all of you,
it's all of your sin nature, but that don't make you stop
being holy. Christ is the holiness of His people, and Christ is
the holiness of the new heart. The sins of our old flesh, it's
all of us, but in Christ our old men of sin died at Calvary,
and Christ justifies, and He made us the righteousness of
God in Him, and He's our holiness, perfect holiness at God's right
hand, and the holiness of the new man. Paul said, when He renews
you, Colossians 3, he said that new man is created in knowledge
after the image of Christ that created him. You're one with
Christ. What Christ is, you are in the
new man. You're one with him. Perfect
in Christ, with Christ in you. That'll never be undone. Now
brethren, this is when we truly confess to God that we need a
mediator. And when you're confessing that
you need Christ to represent you, to be your righteousness
and your holiness, that's when you really confess your sin.
Men will come up and they'll confess that bad things they've
done and they still haven't confessed sin. You confess your sin when
you're confessing, I have to have Christ my mediator to be
my righteousness and my holiness or I can't come to God. Look
here in verse 21. The people stood afar off, and
Moses drew near to the big darkness where God was. Remember our Lord's
parable about the publican? Where'd he stand? He stood afar
off. And he had his face to the ground,
looking at the dust, looking at what he was, beating on his
chest, saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And Christ
drew near on his behalf and interceded for him. And Christ said it.
He went down to his house justified. And any man that's trying to
come to God by his self-sanctifying works and his self-righteous
deeds, he's not going down from that house justified. He will
be consumed because he's trying, he's breaking every commandment
of God. He has another God besides God. It's himself. and he's trying
to steal Christ's glory, he's coveting the glory that belongs
to Christ, he's robbing Christ, everything God's law says don't
do, he's breaking every commandment by not looking to Christ and
trusting Christ alone, by trying to come to God by his own word.
Paul said, I do not frustrate the grace of God if righteousness
come by the law of Christ died in vain. That's how bad it is. Now you remember how God said,
if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you
shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people in a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation. Obedience, do you now know what
it is? Obedience to God is believing
Christ. He's worked all this to bring
you to trust Him. That's obedience to God. He said,
about this everlasting, if you keep covenant with me, Christ
has kept the covenant. We saw there in Hebrews, and
He comes and makes this everlasting covenant in your heart, making
you know it is done. It is done. You know what happens when He
does that? The covenant are these Ten Commandments,
really. That is the covenant. If you
go, if you read the Scripture, you'll find out the covenant
was the whole law of God gave Israel. Christ fulfilled it all. You know what the Ten Commandments
are, and I want you to start, as a child of God, if you believe
Christ and trust Christ, you read those Ten Commandments.
Stop reading them as what you shall do and shall not do, what
you should do and shouldn't do. Start reading them as God's promises. You shall not have another God
but Him. And you shall not break any of those commandments. Why?
Because you've kept them all perfectly in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter said, it's all by Christ alone. That's how you are a chosen
generation and a royal priesthood and a holy nation and a peculiar
people. Why? That you should show forth the
praises of Him that called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light. That's what Peter said, 1 Peter
1.21. It's by Him that you believe in God. That's why I said to
you, we see Moses here. He taught him everything. Christ
came and taught you everything. He came and fulfilled it all
by laying down His life for us. He represents us there at the
right hand of God. His sin of God is mediated through
the preaching of the gospel, and He teaches you. And by Him,
you believe in God that raised Him from the dead, that your
faith and hope might be in God. It's all of Christ. It's all
of Christ. That according as it is written,
He that glories, let him glory in the Lord. I tell you who will
glory in the Lord. Anybody in whom Christ has worked
that word right there. You'll glory in the Lord. You
don't want the glory. You don't want to hear anybody
else giving the glory. You want Him to have all the
glory. He's the only one that deserves
it. Thank y'all so much, brethren. I pray the Lord bless you. I'm
thankful to our God for this brother that's gonna confess
Christ. All right, brother John.