something real sour to me and
I pray the Lord make it lemonade for you. There's something precious
and sweet here. Exodus 4 beginning verse 18.
And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law and
said unto him, let me go I pray thee and return unto my brethren
which are in Egypt and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said unto Moses, Go
in peace. And the Lord said unto Moses,
said unto Moses and Midian, go, return into Egypt, for all the
men are dead which sought thy life. And Moses took his wife
and his sons and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the
land of Egypt, and Moses took the rod of God in his hand. And
the Lord said unto Moses, when thou goest to return into Egypt,
See that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I put in
thy hand. But I will harden his heart. They shall not let the
people go. He said, you go preach those
things to him. Go show him that rod. It was made a serpent, turned
back into a rod. Go show him your hand. Touch
your heart. Tell him you're just a leper.
And show him that that water's been turned to blood. Show him
blood. but he ain't gonna listen to
you. I read an article of Henry's and I'm convinced it was from
a message, somebody just typed it out. The scriptures say, woe
unto me if I preach not the gospel. And that's so, but woe unto you
if I preach it to you and you don't believe it. People say it's against everything
that I've heard. Well, of course it is. Lord came
and it was against theology and it was against their traditions
and it was against everything they knew and they killed him
for it. He said, well, ain't what my
mama believes. He said, your mama wouldn't preach a gospel to you, I am. Well, I want a Pharaoh. I don't
want to preach it. You go preach it anyway. The
hardening and the softening, that's the Lord's business. The
heart work, circumcision, it's his business. You go do it. Verse 22, and thou shalt say
unto Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord, Israel's my son. my firstborn, you go tell that
king, all those people that represent my spiritual Israel, that's my
firstborn, that's my son. And I say unto him, let my son
go, that he may serve me. And if thou refuse to let him
go, behold, I will slay thy son, thy firstborn. Lord told Moses,
he said, now go do these things. I gave you this message to preach.
I told you what the outcome is going to be, and you go do it
anyway. All your rebuttals. Take Aaron with you. Now here's
this paragraph I want us to look at. Here we go. He's going to
go there. He's going to go to Egypt. He's
going to perform these things, but this paragraph takes place first. These three verses. And I hope
we can see this. This diamond has a lot of facets,
okay? I won't take the time to separate
them for you, but you'll see. You'll see as you go. I want
you to see Moses just as a man. This is a man that's had to...
Moses is a picture of God the Father in this, and it's a picture
of us. And Zipporah, that's a picture
of us before and after. That's a picture of us as we
come into this world, and it's a picture of us when God saves
somebody. And this child, That's a picture of Christ. A lot of
facets to this diamond, it's beautiful. I pray God make it
sweet to us. Verse 24, Exodus 4, verse 24. And it came to pass
by the way in the inn that the Lord met with him and sought
to kill him. Moses is on his way. Did he live
at that hotel, that inn? He was just passing through,
wasn't he? We're just passing through this world. There's fancy
words we can use to describe that to people and sound super
religious. But we're just passing through. We're just here for
a couple nights. And the Lord came to Moses. And
the Lord let Moses know, I'm gonna kill you. You ain't my
buddy. We ain't friends. There ain't
something likable about you. You deserve to die. You're disobedient. Does that need take place? Is
that different than what the whole world thinks? God just
wringing his hands, wishing you'd come love him too? He came to
Moses and said, I'm gonna kill you. Came to pass by the way
in the end that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then
Zipporah, his wife, took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin
of her son. and cast it at Moses' feet and
said, surely a bloody husband thou art to me. So he let him
go. So God let Moses go. Then she said, a bloody husband
thou art because of the circumcision. I titled this A Bloody Husband.
What's pictured here in these three verses? What are we gonna
see here? What are we gonna learn out of
this? I always thought this was so bad. Didn't you? Moses wrote this, and this is
a terribly embarrassing thing that took place in this paragraph.
There was a deterred husband. One son was circumcised, and
the other one wasn't, the baby. And there's a poor, this heathen
wife he'd married, that he chose, he entered into a covenant with.
She didn't want anything to do with that. And he, just like
his father Adam, gave in to his wife, disobeyed God willingly,
and didn't have him circumcised. And then this wife, what a mean
woman, what a God-hating rebel. Lord said, circumcise your children.
And she said, well, not this one. You got one, I get one.
She's compromised, may sound so sweet. There's so many things
that are absolute poison that seem kind. The enemies of the
gospel aren't carrying pitchforks or trying to set everything on
fire outwardly. Well, can I just give you just
a little bit of advice? Maybe think about this. Just
a sweet little wisdom of man that touches. Tim James, there's
a good article in that bulletin. Grab you one. Just a Scotia Levin
put in. Embarrassing thing. And Moses
wrote this. He told this on himself. Believers
admit our sinfulness. We don't confess our sins one
or another. Let me tell you all the bad things I did, and then
it gets into a contest of who did the worst things when I was
younger. That's foolishness. But we know what we are. We do. Just like Onesimus. Paul wrote
that letter to Philemon, and it says, speaking of Onesimus,
in times past, he was to you an unprofitable servant. But
now he's profitable to me and to you. And that subscript at
the end of that short letter to Philemon says, written from
Rome to Philemon by Onesimus, a servant. Onesimus submitted
it. Rahab admitted it. The thief
admitted it. Every one of God's people did.
Moses did. Moses wrote this. Moses admits
it, but this isn't really just about Moses, is it? This ain't
about him and his wife having a spat in a motel on the way
to him to go deliver Israel. The Lord said, if you believe
Moses, you would have believed me because he wrote of me. He
wrote of me. This is the circumcision of Christ
in this. Turn over to Genesis 17. It ain't
been too awful long we went through this. I know you remember, but
it's good to look again. Genesis 17, this is where this
token of circumcision was pictured. It's a token of that covenant
that the Lord made. Genesis 17, look in verse nine. God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt
keep my covenant, therefore. I look forward to us getting
the Lord giving the law. What's all the commandments say?
Thou shalt. If the Lord shalt, he said it
shall rain tomorrow. Can we keep it from raining?
If the Lord said it shall be sunny, can man make it rain?
There ain't enough witch doctors alive, are there? The Lord said
to his people, you shall have no other gods. I'm going to take
care of it. You shall never steal. That's wonderful, isn't it? He's
made a covenant. He tells us it's his command.
He's going to do it. Thou shalt keep my covenant.
Therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations.
This is about the offspring of Abraham, isn't it? That's what
the Jews thought. That's what that physical nation of Israel
thought. But Paul told us plainly there in Galatians, he said,
He said, That's who it's talking about.
Verse 10. This isn't something physical that's done that makes
someone saved or set apart. This is just a picture of it.
It's just a token. This just reminds you he that is eight days old shall
be circumcised among you every man child in your generations
he that is born in your house or bought with money of any stranger
which is not of thy seed if they're under your influence you do it well i mean that's not my flesh
and blood you own them you own them Lord, we might look at that
parable of the talents Wednesday. The Lord gave me five talents.
There's four here today. One's in Utah. He said you'd put them all in
this. Teach them. He that's born in thy house, verse 13, he that's
bought with thy money must needs be circumcised and my covenant
shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the
uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not
circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people. He
hath broken my covenant. He hath broken it. There's those
that's born in the house, that's our brothers and sisters that
are physical Israel. And we're the strangers brought
in, or brought from a stranger, we're the Gentiles. But those
that aren't circumcised, this token, the soul will be cut off
from his people because he's broken the covenant. Remember,
it's not just that inward or the outward thing. That's what
Paul said in Romans 2. A Jew is not just one outwardly,
neither is that circumcision. This circumcision that we're
looking at here in Genesis 17, this thing that took place with Moses
and his wife and his son, that's just the outward token. But the
true circumcision, the true Jew is one inwardly. It sure is just
a show. It's something to typify, isn't
it? He's a Jewish one innerly and
circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, not the letter,
whose praise is not of men, but of God. But of God, if we could
make somebody do something or do something for our children,
we said, look, we set them up for success. I wonder if we'd get
the praise for that. But this is a heart work. It
shows circumcision of the heart. Lord's covenant that he performs.
And that way the man doesn't get praise, but God does. Man
can circumcise outwardly, but who can do that in the heart?
I can't. You can't. God must. Jeremiah
4 says, For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem,
Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Plow
yourselves. Says, circumcise yourself to
the Lord and take away the foreskin of your heart, ye men of Judah
and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury come forth like
fire and burn that none can quench it because of the evils you're
doing. Lord said, there's gonna be justice. Judgment's coming. He said, now go circumcise your
hearts. Where does that leave us? Crying out, I can't. Lord, you
must do it. You have to do it. He told him
in Deuteronomy 10, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your
heart. You cut that flesh off. We can't escape this prism of
flesh. We have to be rescued from it. He said, you cut it off and be
no more stiff necked. How are we going to do that?
We can't. He said in Deuteronomy 30, and the Lord thy God will
circumcise thine heart. and the heart of thy seed, to
love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul,
that thou mayest live." How am I gonna love him with all my
heart and all my soul? Well, he's gonna circumcise your
heart. He has to do that. We can't muster it up. That's
works. It's his grace that does this. That flesh has to be put away.
Everything born of Adam has to be separated. And thanks be to
God, he don't do it all one time. We're on a cutting table, but
it's his cutting table. He's the physician. And little by
little, the things that we just cling to in this world are cut
away. And it hurts, and there ain't
no anesthetic to put on it. It stings or whatever. until there's nothing left but
what's just like Christ. That's called death, what man
calls that, and that's being conformed to his image. That
should be the presence of God. Little by little, strength goes
away, or eyesight goes away, or hearing goes away, or family
goes away. Cars rust, houses fall down, businesses crumble. And he teaches us through all
that, circumcised in our flesh, though there's a new creation
in us, but showing him more and more how valuable this earth is, which
is nothing. It don't count for a heel of
beans, does it? What's the sign of this work?
Paul told us plainly in Philippians 3.3, for we are the circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit. How many days a week do you feel
real spiritual? I'll tell you what, the believer
says none, and those that think themselves something say, well,
most days, 85% of the time, I don't know. No, we don't feel very
spiritual, but we worship God in the spirit. It's his spirit,
he gave it to us. There's a new creation, and we
know who God is. We worship him, and we rejoice
in Christ Jesus. How do I have the spirit to worship
God? Christ did it for us. He paid it all, and abounded
toward us, sent the Comforter to us, and showed us these things. And we rejoice in Him. We don't
rejoice in all these other things in this world that keep us busy. We're thankful for them, we rejoice
He gave them to us. We rejoice in Him, in a person,
and we have no confidence in the flesh. I believe the Lord
this long, I think I can tough it out to the end. No, I can't.
I know I can't. He has to do it. If he took his
hand off of me, I'd set this building on fire and who knows
what I'd do. We have no confidence. That's
circumcision of the heart. God has to do that. That's his
work. We can't do it. Now remember, we're talking about
one evening at a motel on the way to Egypt, remember? Back
in our text, Exodus 4. I pray we can see. We know what
circumcision is. That's a heart work, but this is the circumcision
of Christ. He must have been separated in the flesh. that
that bride might be covered in blood and the father still remain.
It says the Lord's going to kill Moses. Well, didn't he just set
him apart to use him? He said, you're going to deliver
my people. I'm going to use you. And he
said, well, I can't talk good. He said, I made the mouth. He said,
well, I don't want to do it. He said, too bad. I'll send your brother
with you. You're going. And then it says
he's going to kill him. He has to be shown that the son
must die for him to live. How are we going to live? An
acceptable sacrifice must take place. Must take place. Verse
24 says, And it came to pass by the way in the end that the
Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp
stone to cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at his
feet and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So the
Lord let him go. Then she said, A bloody husband
thou art because of the circumcision. The son must be wounded and bruised
for Moses to live. Is it right for the Lord to kill
Moses? Yeah. Yeah. Apart from the blood of
the son, apart from that son being bruised, you see where
I'm going with this? Remember Isaiah 53? He is despised and
rejected of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. As it
were, we hid our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. Moses' son had to bleed. He had to be bruised. He had
to be wounded for the father to live. For Moses to live. That had to
happen. And for our heavenly father,
for his glory to remain and make a people just like Christ, Christ
had to bleed. He had to be bruised. It pleased
the father to bruise him. It pleased us, this is the way
we're going to do it. I'm going to be just and I'm going to justify. This had to take place. Who is
going to wound and bruise the son? We just looked at that in Acts
2, didn't we? A couple of Wednesdays ago. Christ being delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. The Father purposed all
this to happen. This is His covenant. This is
His doing. Ye have taken, and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain." Where's Zipporah? That's the
bride, isn't it? Are we the bride? Are we the
ones that rebelled? She cried out. She said, you're
a bloody husband to me. She didn't want to do this in the first
place. I don't want nothing to do with it. I don't like your practices,
and it's mean. I know a better way. I know what
love is. And in that heart born of Adam,
as every one of us willfully do, we cry out and sit there
in Matthew 27 and answer to all the people and said, his blood
be on us and on our children. Give us Barabbas, kill him. Look
at verse 25. Zipporah took a sharp stone and
cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at his feet and said,
a bloody husband art thou to me, her son. I thought of how
this likely physically played out. She didn't want Moses to
circumcise this boy like the other boy. This is a baby. It's
her youngest one, the sweet one. And all this circumcision, I'll
let you do that with the oldest one, but this is foolishness. It's foolish. Why would you wound
your own child? This is foolishness, Moses. Why would Christ have to go to
a cross because somebody so good as me is what natural man thinks,
isn't it? The unregenerate thinks. It's what Paul said in 1 Corinthians
1.18, for the preaching of the cross, the preaching of the blood,
blood is to them that perish foolishness. But unto us which
are saved, it's the power of God. It's the power of God. Verse 26, so he let him go. Here was that bride, didn't even
know what she's doing. But God purposed it. She's mad,
she pitched a fit, and she said, fine, I'll do it. Many of the
old writers think that Moses probably laid up sick. He was
unable to. Like, it wasn't that he was just,
the Lord wouldn't give him a talking to, that he was stricken in the
body, but she had to do it. But she took that stone and she
cut her son. Where'd the blood go on her?
Here she stands with blood on her, cursing her husband, saying,
you're a bloody husband to me. So he let him go. When this took
place, the Lord let Moses go. I saw the blood. I passed over
you. You ain't going to die now. This is precious, you ready?
Verse 26, so he let him go. Then, she said, a bloody husband thou art because
of the circumcision. Didn't she just say that? Well,
no, then, something took place. God let Moses go. When we're
made to see that the only way we are gonna be let go, the only
way we can live is for another to die in our place, we cry out
again, don't we? And it sounds just the same.
There's so many things. You hear religious people, people
that don't know God, but they're playing church as hard as they
can do it with really good props and putting their money where
their mouth is. They say the same things believers say. They
use the same words. I preached on that not too long
ago. Say what you mean. And people say, oh, I believe
in a sovereign God, but they don't think God can do anything unless
they let him. Our terms don't match up. That
ain't right. But it doesn't really matter
what so much says, who says it and how they say it, right? Some
people say something to me, I get pretty mad. If somebody else,
one of y'all said it, I'd be fine with it. She said something different. Just like before, she cried,
his blood be on us and our children. There was a time we cried that.
Arr, through gritted teeth. And then after the Lord shows
you Christ and shows you what he did, do you know what you
cry out? Lord, let his blood be on me and my children. God, save my children, Lord. Save me. Save those that I love. Throw over Hebrews 9. Y'all hurry,
Hebrews 9. verse 19. This is a little further in Exodus,
but I think you'll see the point here. Hebrews 9 verse 19. For
when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to
the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats with water
and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both on the book and
all the people, saying, this is the blood of the testament
which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled with
blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.
And almost all things, or by the law purge with blood. And
without shedding of blood is no remission. Blood has to be
shed. It's either gonna be ours or
it's gonna be our substitutes. Christ bled and died for his
sheep, for his people. And that means there's now, therefore
now no condemnation to us which are in him. The soul that sinneth,
it shall die. Verse 23, "...it was therefore
necessary that the patterns of things in heavens should be purified
with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better
sacrifice than these." This is always a token, just like that
circumcision. It's spread into the blood and the sacrifices
of bulls and goats and all that. It just pointed to Christ. Verse
24, "...for Christ is not entered into the holy place made with
hands, which are figures of the true." It's just a picture. but
into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer
himself often as the high priest entered into the holy place every
year with the blood of others, for then he must have often suffered
since the foundation of the world. But now, once in the end of the
world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. John told us, he said, this is
the love God manifest towards us. That God sent his only begotten
son into the world that we might live through him. He said, herein
is love. We talk about love. He said,
I'll tell you what love is. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us and that love did something and sent his son to
be the propitiation for our sins. He sent him to be that accepted
bloody sacrifice. He's gonna die. He had to. He
had to. He came and he put it away once. He was sacrificed once. Turn
over to Hebrews 10, we'll close. Look here at verse 16, page over. Hebrews 10, 16. This is the covenant
that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I
will put my laws into their hearts. Remember he said that heart work,
he was gonna perform that circumcision of the heart. He said, I'm gonna
put that in your heart. And in their minds will I write
them. Well, he circumcised my heart and it's healed up good
and I can, I'll go on about my day. I'll worry about these things
next Sunday, the next Lord's Day. I got a lot of stuff going
on the next six days. He's, oh, no. My children, he
goes, I'm gonna write it in their minds. You're gonna think about
this morning, noon, and night. You'll dream about it. And their
sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission
of these is, there's no more offering for sin. What are we
gonna do? Believe him. He said it. It's done, it's finished. It
ain't complicated, it's just impossible with man. Do I want to sin anymore? No. I despise it. Now I know what
it is. It's against God. Know who it's against? It's unbelief. That's horrible. What is wrong
with me? I don't have to make penance or I don't have to make
a payment for it. It's done. It's over. No more
offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, what's
the result of that? Lay around, cry on your couch,
wet your couch all day long, day in and day out, cry about
it? No. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter in the holiest
by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he's consecrated
for us. Now we can come to that throne
of grace. Now we can pray to our Father. He told us to pray
to the Father. Here's the pattern of it. Right hand, we can now. Which
he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his
flesh. He was separated. Just as we
have to have that circumcision, the tokens, that useless flesh
is separated from the body. He had to be separated from God.
God turned his back on God. Our blood ain't worth nothing.
That's what takes eternity, won't pay. Won't pay for our sin. He had to be separated. And having
a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near. Oh, let us cling to him with
a true heart, a heart that he circumcised, a heart that he's
given in full assurance of faith, believing everything he says.
Having our heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies
washed with pure water. Oh, keep us, you've done this.
Circumcise our hearts and show us that the blood of Christ and
what that has accomplished and that it's done the works done
and I don't have to add nothing to it and make us thankful and
Don't make your people live live dry bones live They'll cry oh,
we're gonna die no use just dead you're live now you wouldn't
think worry about dying I and then go about our way. Moses
still got something to do. Remember, this is just a night
in a motel. He's on his way to Egypt. So are we, anyway. Let's pray together. Oh, Father, put your blood on
us, the blood of our Redeemer. Wash us in his blood and wash
our children. Teach them them things, too.
Our need, we're gonna die. We're gonna face a holy God we've
offended. One must stand in our place. Lord, pass over us as you see
that blood. Thank you for this redemption.
Thank you for your covenants that you made in Christ. Thank
you for putting us in him. Lord, make the hearts of your
people rejoice for this. Make these things sweet to us.
Be with our brethren here that's suffering and our brethren all
over. Those are heavy hearts and trouble
in the body. Lord, use those things to make us see Christ again today.
It's because of him we ask these things. Amen. All right, we'll
meet back at 1030.