Morning, everybody. If you will,
let's turn to Exodus chapter 6. I got another message ready.
I promised a few of you that I would address some things first
thing this morning. But most of the people I was
going to address to ain't here. I guess because of road construction
and downed power poles and stuff. But we'll look at Exodus 6 first. I want to start having a Sunday
school. Words mean things. Bible studies
mean something different than a worship service. I don't see
how you can preach and not teach, and I don't see how you can teach
and not preach if you know the Lord. But I'd really like to start
the first message on Sunday mornings, and for my exercise too, I want
to get short. If I keep it 20 minutes, I'll
try hard. But I want to go through basic Bible doctrine and just
elementary school. I want us to go back to having
Sunday school and just learn who's God. What if our children
ask us such? What if a little person came
up and said, why we go to church? What sin? Why are we having this
feast? We ought to be able to answer
them. And I hope they can answer them. They'll learn, too. Children learn more than you
think they will. But I want to get back to basics for me and
for you. And I think it'll do us good.
And I think that'll answer a whole lot of questions people have.
Instead of jumping the gun and getting ahead of ourselves and
waiting on the Lord, we'll just still wait on him. But we'll
go through just bit by bit. Second hour, we'll start looking
at total depravity. We'll see if that's important.
There's a reason that's first. While the spirit convicts of
sin. Here in Exodus 6, I want to look at the seven eye wheels.
Eye wheels. We remember that Moses, the Lord
had come to him in a burning bush. And he said, this is holy
ground. First time holy is mentioned
in the scriptures. There's a bush that has fire on it. fire of
wrath, and it's not consumed. Real fire on it, a real bush,
but it's not consumed. This is holy ground, Moses. They
start teaching that Christ and Him crucified, Him being made
sin for us, and us being made the righteousness of God in Him.
And he said, that's holy. Mankind explains that away. God
says it's holy. It's important. They gave him some things to
preach, didn't they? They said, you take that rod, that's Christ
and him crucified. He came down, he was made the
serpent. He was made sin. He's that serpent
that's high and lifted up, that brazen serpent. He was the rod
of Jesse come down, he was made sin for us, and that sin has
been put away as far as the east is west, he's still the rod.
Their heads, as they told Ezekiel, they said, they're gonna think
that your forehead's something wrong with it. You ever look
somebody in the forehead? Somebody saying something real
mean to you? Just look at them and go... They won't hear
you, Moses. He said, so you go again and
you put your hand on your heart and you say, I'm a leper. Just
like you. You don't know it. You didn't
see my hand was leprous, but just like you, that's how I am. And that's the heart work that
God does. He circumcises in the heart. He gives us a new creation. That means there's an old creation
and a new creation. There's two. We'll get back to elementary
school right now. Words mean things, don't they? And he said,
but they won't hear you. Because they really don't think
there's a sin problem yet. That's the rub. That's the high
intellectualism of all this explaining junk away that sounds so good.
But the problem is, they don't know they got a heart problem.
They think, well, I might have a little murmur. I got a little
bit of arrhythmia or something. I ain't got a bad heart. He says,
finally, you go tell them. He'll take that water and it's
going to turn into blood. And that's what they're going
to need. They're going to need both. We're going to be from his wounded
side, which flowed be of sin the double cure, saved from wrath.
We're going to be bought with blood and make me pure. You have
to wash me. You're going to have to sanctify
me because that's his name, Jehovah M. Kadesh. Man wants to sanctify
himself. He's taking God's throne away from him. You're a rebel
against God. You're his enemy. You're trying
to fight him tooth and toenail. He said, go preach it. And you
go straight up to Pharaoh. and your shepherd's clothes.
We talk about our attire, how we come in the house of the Lord.
Our gospel is what we're clothed in. Do you know that? We're robed
in his righteousness. This is important business. We're
in the presence of God. If he sends his spirit, we ought to dress
appropriately. And he said, you go talk to Pharaoh. And he went down there in shepherd's
clothes. I mean, the high court, buddy. They knew him. They knew him enough to let him
in. And he went straight up to that king and he said, God says,
let my people go. What happened? We looked at that
last week, fallout. Pharaoh got mad. He said, you're
gonna let them take three days off of working? He's a hard taskmaster. He expects a lot of them work.
He says, don't you talk to them people, my people, without talking
to me first. What are you doing? Why are you
down there preaching? Let them go out in the wilderness
and worship God. Who's God? Good question. And then what
happened? The self-elected, the self-appointed
leaders of Israel went in there to go smooth things over Pharaoh.
And he said, don't even give them straw. They had it rough,
make it rougher. Work them harder. Give them more
to do. And they come out and what were they like? Moses, you
tried, man. Maybe go in for round two, buddy.
We about got this. They was mad at Moses. They said,
this is your fault. We had it fine before you showed up. It was nothing but milk and cookies.
We had it great before you showed up. You come in here, ruin everything
for us, Moses. What Moses do? He went to God.
That's wise. Prayed to him. Lord, this is
what happened, you know. I did what you told me. Nobody
listened. It got worse. Lord didn't strike him dead,
did he? That was Moses' burden. Moses took his burden to the
Lord. It was a ridiculous burden. Everything happened what the
Lord said was going to happen. He took it to him anyway and
the Lord heard him. And here in Exodus chapter 6 verse 1,
Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will
do to Pharaoh. I wanted you to, I wanted to
prime the pump. We'll get all those, come on in. It's all right,
buddy. He said, I'm going to prime the
pump. I'm going to get everything situated just the way I want
them situated. And then I'm going to do something on the Pharaoh.
He says, for with a strong hand, shall he let them go? And with
a strong hand, shall he drive them out of his land? He says,
that's his land. And he's going to be so excited
to get rid of them. He's going to beg you to go. Verse two. And God spake unto Moses and
said unto him, I am the Lord. That's the first thing Don looked
at, you know that? That basic Bible doctrine. God is. You know how simple that is? That's too simple, that's not
intellectual enough. God said, I am. What's his people say?
He is. Elementary, isn't it? God has
to do that. That's a work of God, isn't it?
He says unto him, I am the Lord, verse three, Exodus six, verse
three. And I appeared unto Abraham and
to Isaac and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty. But by my name Jehovah was I
not known to them. And I have also established my
covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land
of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. And I have
also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the
Egyptians kept in bondage. And I have remembered my covenant.
Remember what we looked at last time? The Lord remembered His
covenant that He made. And He had sent the taskmasters
and made those people cry out to Him. And He said, I heard
them. I've done all this. And they're inquiring of me right
now. Now, there's a lot of I haves and I shalls. I want to look
at the seven I wills this morning. Here in Exodus chapter six, we'll
look between verses six through eight. Exodus 6, 6. Wherefore say unto the children
of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under
the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you of their bondage.
I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great judgments. And I will take you to me for
a people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall know that
I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the
burdens of Egypt. And I will bring you into a land,
in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give
to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. And I will give it to
you for an heritage. I am the Lord. Let's look at
this first, I will, there in verse six. It says, wherefore
say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord. I will bring you
out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. Who's working
here? Now Moses is going to go declare it. He's just going to
say what God says. Who's doing the work? The Lord
is. He said, I will bring you out.
Who's he bringing out? Well, all of Egypt and all of
Ethiopia and all the continent, Africa and all everybody. No,
you tell the children of Israel, you tell my people, My people,
somebody asked a preacher of old, they said, if you believe
in election, why you even preach to anybody? Why don't you just
preach to elect? He said, well, you go point them out and I'll preach
to them. So I don't know who they are,
so I'll just broadcast that seed. Lord does the work. He's the
one working. He's the one that's gonna bring
them out, isn't he? He said, you just go tell my people. Where are his
people? Where is Israel? This picture,
this physical nation, that's a picture of his spiritual nation.
Where are they at? In Egypt. They're an agent. It's a picture of this world,
isn't it? What are they doing? Working real hard. They're giving it
all they got. They're making bricks out of
straw and mud. Slime. They're down the slime pits.
And they're laboring for nothing. They're in bondage, ain't they?
And they're working so hard at it. And you know what? They don't
know any different. They ain't a day that they, from
their birth, that they've seen anything different, that they've
heard anything different, that they've known anything different.
They think they're just fine. Now it's some rough days, there's
some inconveniences, but everything's just how it is. Until God sends
a man to bring them out. People can fight that tooth and
toenail, that's God's words, and that's how he does it, by
the foolishness of preaching. That's us, isn't it? You know
what happened to you? We're here in Egypt, we may have been in the
courts, we may have been one of the officers, one of the founders,
one of the leaders, and we was talking to, I talked to Pharaoh
all the time. We was in bondage and we didn't even know it, and
never seen anything different, didn't know what freedom even
looked like. May have known the word, hadn't experienced it,
but God. We labored hard under sin, and
we didn't know it until God came to us and made us know that we
are sin. I'll deal with that next hour,
but our enemy is not just Satan and the law and all these dark
things. It's us. I'm the enemy. I'm my worst enemy. That's true.
God saved us from ourselves until we saw our sin. And when we see
that, not just a legal standing in the law or a legal standing
with an accuser called Satan, but it's in light of Christ's
righteousness. I'm wrong. He's right. Not that the doctrine says that.
It's personal. Me. We're in bondage. I'm in bondage. And he came and
said he's going to bring us out. He was going to do the saving. We see that judgment's already
been satisfied and that the work's finished. We're working ourselves
to death and we have to stop working because he makes us and
we rest. Come unto me, all you that labor
and heavy laden. I'll give you rest. What's that?
Don't work no more. What are we gonna do in that
rest? I'll work myself to the bone trying to serve him. Totally
different now. They're born in that bondage.
Now we're willing bond slaves, aren't we? We get to. We get to clean his toilets.
Isn't that good? We get to wash his dishes. We get to pray. Sin was our taskmaster. It had
dominion over us. That's what Paul wrote in Romans
6. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under
the law, but under grace. The sin was just made evident
by the law, right? I'll get to that too. There's
so many people that won't be out from underneath the law and
they think, well, we was doing okay, but we just couldn't get
there. And so Jesus kind of came in
and helped us out. No, that's not the schoolmaster. The schoolmaster
said, I'm, I'm what all the prophets say. I'm a man of unclean lips. I'm filthy. I'm wretched. That's me. Because that law showed
us, didn't it? And then he fulfilled the law
and said, he's righteous. He's righteous. We're none the wiser, just like
Egypt, aren't we? Those physical Israelites, they're gonna wish
that they were back in Egypt. They're gonna bellyache to Moses
about it. So we had it good before. I'll tell you what, God's spiritual
Israel, if the Lord brings us out and takes us from the bondage
of our taskmaster of sin, we'll never desire to go back to a
life without Christ our husband. We won't entertain it and we
won't dance with the devil and play with those that do. I can't
be around it, I gotta have him. That's so, isn't it? There's
times it might cross our mind. We'll think they got it easy
and we'll wish that they didn't have it so easy. David prayed
that, didn't he? Said in Psalm 73, he said, I
was envious at the foolish. I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Their eyes bugged out with fatness. Everything they had was good.
And they were just smiling like a bunch of possums. Isn't it
good with high pitched voices and everything seemed fine, didn't
it? He said until, He goes, I was thinking on all these things,
it was just too painful for me. He said, until I went to the sanctuary
of God and I understood their end. I have no desire to be around
them. I don't want to be associated
with them. We stopped laboring, we stopped worrying, we stopped
trying and we rest in the name, in the blood, in the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who did that? God said, I will.
And bring them out of bondage. Second thing, there in Exodus
6, 6. Wherefore saying to the children of Israel, I am the
Lord, I will bring you out from under the burdens of Egypt. I
will rid you of their bondage. This is more than just a relief
from burdens. When we're rid from our bondage, that means
we have eternal freedom. We will be rid of bondage. And
what is it? Anything that ties us down and
waits us and keeps us away from Christ. Whatever it is. I'm jumping, I don't know where
I'm at in my notes, but what did the Lord say when Lazarus
came forth, when Lazarus had life? Loose him, let him go. Well, they didn't snap their
fingers and all the grave clothes fell off, did they? No, it took a little
knot, one knot at a time and one piece of cloth at a time
and takes a lifetime, don't it? But that final day will come,
we'll be completely rid of this body of death. He's rid us from
our burdens. Turn over Galatians four. Verse 3, Galatians 4, 3. Even so we, when we were children,
were in bondage under the elements of the world. Galatians 4, 3.
When we were children, we were in bondage under the elements
of the world. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth
His Son, made of a woman, made under the law. to redeem them
that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption
of sons. And because of your sons, God
has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts. What's that spirit gonna do?
Cry, Father, Father, wherefore thou art now no more a servant. That's what you was. You was
a servant to sin. You was in bondage, right? He
said, I've rid you, I've rid you. You're no more a servant,
look what it says in verse 7, but a son. And if a son, then
an heir of God through Christ. You're in a whole nother family.
You're in a whole nother kingdom. This is His doing, isn't it?
Paul said in Colossians 1, he said, who hath delivered us from
the power of darkness. That's what we are and that's
what we love because we're lovers of self, right? That's condemnation
coming to the world. Men love darkness rather than
light. They don't want to hear it. They like their way. We like our way. We like ourself,
don't we? He's delivered us from the power of darkness and hath
translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. That's where
we are now. And it's forever. It's red. It's
put away. As far as east is from the west.
Gone. Clean gone. That's good. Back in our text,
Exodus 6. Verse six, wherefore say unto
the children of Israel, I am the Lord and I will bring you
out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will rid
you out of their bondage. I will redeem you with a stretched
out arm and with great judgments. Does that mean he's going to
stick his arm out? Yes. So God has no arms with your
arms. Maybe you're God. My Lord has
arms, and he sent his arms. That's what Isaiah wrote. You
know that well, don't you? Who hath believed our report?
He thought he's the only one on earth. He keeps saying this
and saying this and saying this, and there just might as well
be a stone wall. Not a word's getting through.
Nobody's rejoicing. Nobody's hearing this. That poor
fella. He said, Lord, who's believed our report? This is your report.
It's mine. Mine and yours. Who's believed it? And to whom
is the? Arm of the Lord revealed. That's the report. That's the
gospel. The arm of the Lord. For he shall
grow up before him as a tender plant. This arm's a person. I
hear righteousness preached as a doctrine. Righteousness is
a person. That's the difference between knowing some facts and
knowing God. Big difference, buddy. Dangerous
difference. This arm is the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 59 verse 1 says, Behold,
the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. I don't
think the Lord can do that. You don't know him. If he wills
to do it, it's done. His arm's not shortened that
it cannot save. Neither is his ear heavy that
he cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you between you
and your God. Well, the law was between us.
No, my sin was what I am. Well, Satan pulled the wool over
our eyes. No, I did. I would not come to him. And
all the things I thought was good were just the bad stuff. I thought we was doing okay.
I was handing out Bibles. I was saying good gospel songs. You were wrong, but that's what
kept you from God. You were doing. Your iniquities were separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from
you, and He will not hear you. What a shame, isn't it? But God,
He sent His arm down, grabbed ahold of us, against our will,
because we would not. And we'll thank Him for it for
the rest of eternity. I'll tell you that. Very thankful.
This is the one that redeemed us. He says, I will redeem you with
a stretched out arm and with great judgments. When we see
our sin, we see our bondage, but all of a sudden that judgment
of God's great. That wrath of his indignation, that fire that
burns, I want no part of it. That's a great judgment. And
it shall happen. God's just. And the soul that's
in it, it shall surely die. I was laid on Him. When He became
me and I became Him, He was on that cross and I was in Him.
The Father looked at me and forsook me. And that's why the Lord said
it out loud. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Well, He said that so we would know He was forsaken.
God turned His back on God because of what we were. Without the
shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. How's that
gonna happen? He reached down His hand, that's
attached to an arm, For me, he came to this world, a body prepared
for him to redeem his people, to lay down his life. He came
in flesh, not as if. He lived, he bled, he died, he
rose again, not as if, he did it. That we may have eternal
life in him. And it's not as if we have eternal
life, it is. I don't want something that's
pretend, I want something real, don't you? I don't need something that
just sounds good, I need something that is good. Well, here's the
fourth and fifth I wills, they go hand in hand, verse seven.
I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you as a God,
to you a God, and ye shall know that I'm the Lord your God, which
bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. He
doesn't just take a people. That's a banker's thing, isn't
it? You move stuff from one account to another. He said, I take you
to me. for a people. Instead of being
in the right bank account, it's being the right person. I'm going
to keep saying it over and over and over again, hopefully until
I die. Because it's important, right? He said, I take you to
me for a people. And by doing that, by the Lord
taking these heathens to himself for a people, that is right.
It's just, it's holy, and that has to happen. Why? His arm came
down. Christ came down. He accomplished
it. It's right. We're his possession. We're his possession. You know,
he's going to take delivery of us one day. If you go down to
the car lot and you write them a check for a car, right, and
you do all the paperwork, the title work, and all that stuff,
you've done all the things necessary to own that vehicle, but you
haven't took delivery yet. That ain't yours until you put
the keys in and drive off a lot. Legally, in our nation, you don't
own it yet. You've got to go off the property.
That's it. He's got to bring us out. He's
gonna come for us and take us and make us to Him a people. A people. It doesn't say a peoples,
right? One nation. One mind. One purpose. Of one accord. Of one Savior. One last name.
Family, isn't it? Family. We have a family now. We're in a kingdom now. We're
fellows in the same ship. Not scattered abroad, throughout,
all over by ourselves. He brings us together. Now it
might be two. I sure would be thankful for that other one,
wouldn't you? That's a work of God. We're gathered together in this
life also. Not that we're going to be gathered
together in eternity. Well, we'll all meet up in glory. I don't
want nothing to do with you while I'm here. I don't want to do it further
than this gospel. And I give a lot of lip service
to it. No, we're gathered together in this life, but in eternity
too, right? Lord said, verily I say unto you, there's no man
that hath less house, or brethren, or sisters, or fathers, or mothers,
or wife, or children, or lands for my sake. Not for your own
sake. A fellow one time at the preacher
school Henry had, he said, I just feel like I'm called to the people
of Hawaii. I was like, yeah, me, you, and
everybody else too, huh? That's for God's sake and the
gospel's sake. But he shall receive a hundredfold.
And the Lord said now in this time, and that's so. I'll probably
lose some friends today, but the Lord's gave me brothers and
sisters. I've lost some physical brothers and sisters, The Lord's
gave me spiritual brothers and sisters, a hundred fold, more
than that, abundantly. There'll be some people, I know
some people that's lost a spouse because of the gospel. The spouse can go to hell all
by themselves. I don't need you to go with them. We need Christ, and no matter
the cost. We have to have Him, don't we?
And He's give us people of like mind. We have to have Him for
us to live with in this world. And we can go golfing together,
and we can have a cookout together. Isn't that precious? Isn't the
Lord kind to us? It ain't just, well, we go to
church every Wednesday and twice on Sundays. We live in this world
with people that we know, that know our God. And He's a God
to us. He said, I'm gonna make them
to me a people, and I'm gonna be a God to them. He's a God
to us. I am my beloved's. I'm his property. And you know what comes with
that hand in hand? He's mine. He's mine. He's our inheritance.
Here's that covenant. He said, I will be their God
and they shall be my people. That happens over and over, doesn't
it? I will and they shall. That's good news. Because I want
and I can't. He can and he will. I will and
they shall. I'll make them. I'll walk in them. We're not godless heathens anymore.
That's what we were. And now our God is God. We're his and he's ours. David
said that in Psalm 48, for this God is our God forever and ever,
forever and ever. This is an imagination. This
is real. This is not a God of our imagination. This is the
true and living God. And he's brought us in to him
up and out, out and up. We look at it that way. To him,
to be a people, the true and living God. Sixth, we're in verse
eight. And I will bring you unto the
land concerning the which I did swear to give unto Abraham, to
Isaac, and to Jacob. He'll bring us to the place that
is promised and prepared. What's that? That's a place of
atonement, atonement. Christ said, I go to prepare
a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I'll
come again. I'll receive you unto myself. That's what he said.
We're going to be a people unto him, to him. That where I am,
there you may be also. That's the place he's prepared
and that's the place we're going to go. Not just the streets of
gold and not hell, heaven, eternal paradise. No, it's him. Lastly, verse eight, he said,
I'll bring you into the land concerning the witch I did swear
to give to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and I will give it
you. for a heritage, I am the Lord. He's already given us a down
payment of our inheritance, hasn't he? Of our heritage. We read
that in Ephesians 1, that we should be to the praise of his
glory, who first trusted in Christ, and whom he also trusted. Always? No, after he heard. Someone had
to tell us. You heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation. What about this gospel? What
is it? No, it says, in whom? Also, after
you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,
which is the earnest of our inheritance. That's a down payment until the
redemption of the purchased possessions, until He drives us off of this
lot of Egypt that we're on. We're with Him forever. Unto
the praise of His glory. This is all His will. This is
all His doing, isn't it? We are His inheritance, and He's
ours. He's given us all these things
in Christ and Christ. We get our cake and we get to
eat it. That's what we were given to
him. He said in Psalm two, I've set my king upon my holy hill
of Zion. I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, thou
art my son. This day I begotten. He's speaking of God, the son. He says, ask of me and I shall
give thee the heathen for thine inheritance. and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession. Who's the heathen? That's the
ones that'll tell you all about me. I didn't know him. I was
down in them slime pits, didn't know any different. I thought
I was just fine. But God willed to save me, and he came to me,
sent a man to tell me about me and tell me about him, and he woke me up, gave me life,
and made me just adore his son. Serve the Lord with fear, and
rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry,
and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. The Lord
says he's gonna do something, Willie. Is he lying? Did he tell the truth? God's
promised something, and he fall back on it? Can somebody else
mess it up? We know better, don't we? That
makes me happy. I hope that makes you happy.
Let's pray together. Father, as we look in this world
and we're in this slime pit looking for straw that will burn, make us know our life. Make us know that we're in your
hand. and that our promises and our
intentions mean nothing, Lord, but your word. Remind us often
of your promises to your people. Lord, allow us to encourage one
another and rest from our labors. Thank you for this word, Lord.
Thank you for your will. Thank you for Christ who's fulfilled
it and honored it for us and us in him. And thank you for
our inheritance. our Lord and our God, because
of Him, because of the atonement that He's made, because of the
intercession of Christ, because of our eternal mediator, we ask
these things, Lord. Amen. All right, we'll meet back
at 1030.