Morning, everybody. If you will,
let's open up to Exodus chapter three. Exodus chapter three. I spoke to Brother Andre yesterday
and he sends his greetings to everybody and it was hopeful
he'd be here next week, but his schedule may be changing, but
Sometime soon as the Lord wills he'll be here with us, and he's
he's looking forward to that and brother Angus Fisher sends
his greetings from Australia he's been pretty sick here lately
and Recovering him and Lisa both and Lord willing we'll be down
there to Worship with him in June for a couple weeks. I'm
looking forward to that and like those brethren are too and Pray
for them as you can. He just got back from India and
pray for those brethren in India, that the Lord has a work there.
Exodus chapter three, we'll begin reading in verse seven. Remember
the Lord came in a burning bush and turned Moses' eyes and Moses
wants to see this great thing. And this was the holiness of
God. And he said, take your shoes off. You're on holy ground. Verse seven says, and the Lord
said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which
are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their
taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. And I am come down to
deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring
them up out of that land unto a good land and a large. Remember that large upper room
we looked at Wednesday? Unto a land flowing with milk
and honey, unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites,
and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
Now therefore behold, the cry of the children of Israel is
come unto me, and I have also seen the oppression wherewith
the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now therefore, I will send
thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people,
the children of Israel, out of Egypt. And Moses said unto God,
Is Moses ready to do this? He was ready 40 years ago, wasn't
he, Cass? He was ready. I'll do it right
now. Get out of my way. Henry's out here preaching one
time in California, and he's preaching twice a day, once in
the morning, once in the evening, he's having a conference. And a man
sat down next to him, and he said, Brother Mahan, he goes,
if you're tired, I got a message right here in my hip pocket.
I'll preach for you. I wouldn't let that man preach
in this pulpit if God's with me, and if somebody else let
him, I wouldn't go hear him. That man ain't ready. He thinks
too high of himself. It's bad. Did the Lord let Moses
lead his people whenever he said, I'll lead them? No, he didn't. He made him wait 40 years on
the backside of the desert. Go out there kicking rocks, watching
them sheep, get some good practice in. Live a little bit. Look here
at his attitude now. Is he ready now? Verse 11, and
Moses said unto God, who am I? That I should go unto Pharaoh,
and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of
Egypt. I think he's ready. He wasn't ready before. He doesn't
think he's ready. He had to prove to him he can't
do it without the Lord. And the Lord said, now you're
going to go. Now you're going to go. That's precious to me.
I hope it's precious to you. And he said, certainly I'll be
with thee. I ain't going to send you by yourself. And this shall
be a token unto thee that I have sent thee. When thou hast brought
forth the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this
mountain, this Mount Horeb. This is where the Lord gave his
law. He said, you're going to come right back here. I'll prove
it to you. where you're standing, that's where you're gonna be.
I'm gonna bring you to a holy place. And Moses said unto God, behold,
when I am coming to the children of Israel, and shall say to them,
the God of your fathers has sent me unto you, and they shall say
to me, what's his name? What shall I say unto them? If I'm sent in your name, I have
to tell them what your name is. What do you want me to tell them?
That's wisdom. I have a good PowerPoint presentation
I think I can bring to these people. No, you tell me what.
You're going to go with me. You tell me what to say. A whole lot of preachers beg from
a fresh word of God for that day, not from some old dried
hard tack that's preserved with preservatives from 15 years ago.
I want a word for today. You tell me what to say. I don't
want to say what I think. Lord tells him, ask and you'll
receive. And God said unto Moses, I am
that I am. And he said, thus shalt thou
say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. God said, moreover unto Moses,
thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your
fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of
Jacob has sent me unto you. This is my name forever, and
this is my memorial unto all generations. I am. You go tell
them, I am sent you. I am. Who's that? What's that
mean? I am. That means self-existent.
The self-existent one. He always has been, he is, and
he always will be, and time ain't nothing to him. We deal in time. We have a past, a present, and
a future. Not him. Those are things that our minds,
you'll go crazy if you start delving into those things. We
can't enter into it. He never had a beginning. He'll
never have an, we can kind of get, we'll never have an end,
because we ain't ended yet. We don't remember beginning,
but we know we did, and we see that happen. That's never, he
is, he's a self-existent one. That's true, but that's not just
infinite. We have to have some understanding
as to what that means. And not just what that means,
what's that mean to us? What's that mean to you? I am,
what's that mean to you? There was a fella, he was a fighter,
and I interviewed him after the fight, and he said, I broke my
back. And I said, what happened? He
said, my back is broken. And I said, yeah, I got that.
And I said, is it one of your vertebrae? He said, spinal. You think he
understood what he was talking about? Them doctors did. He didn't. He didn't have a clue what he
was talking about. He's just mumbling words, wasn't he? I
want to understand these things. I want you to understand them.
Not that the Lord's just omnipresent, that he was, he is, and he always
is. He's infinite. He's everywhere
at once. Not just that he's omniscient
and he knows all. He's the potentate. He's the
authority. And not that he's omnipotent. He's all power and governs all
things. Not that we give mental assent
to those things and say, that's true. That's accurate. You know, everything that this
is that I am for us, that's what we've been covering in John.
It's took us a long time to go through that. We'll see us next
hour. It doesn't do us good, any good, just to say these things
are true. We need to believe them. We need
to rest in them and die for them. and die with them, that's what
we need. This one speaking to Moses, this great I am, is the
same one from eternity past and is the same for eternity to come.
That's too big for us to understand, he's the everlasting God. And
there was a time he's gonna come to this earth, it hadn't happened
yet. A body was prepared for him and he's gonna enter that
body and come to this world as the self-existent one. That's a great mystery. Paul
told Timothy, he said, without controversy, great is the mystery
of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
This one who's infinite, who's all things, came as an infant. He was manifest in the flesh.
He was justified in the spirit. What's that mean? He was rendered
just. He was declared just in the spirit. Scene of angels.
This is miraculous too. Preach to the Gentiles. That's
us. We're Gentile dogs, did you know
that? Man wants to keep a law, that's
the Jewish law. We're outlaws. We ain't even
worth giving a law. He's preached to the Gentiles,
believed on in the world and received up in the glory. That's
magnificent. Turn over to John six. There's
at least seven times the Lord tells us what his name means. John chapter six, we'll look
at the first one. Just skip a rock through here and hopefully I'll
go quick for you. We can read up on these things.
We can go get a library full of books. And you know, it doesn't
do us any good to know what John Gill thinks about the IM. It
doesn't do me any good to, or any benefit of what Spurgeon
thinks that the IM is. It doesn't do me any good to
know what Mahan thinks the IM is. And it didn't do you any
good to hear what Thacker thinks the IM is. God's gonna tell us
what it means. He's gonna tell us who he is.
I wanna hear what he has to say, don't you? John 6, 35. And Jesus said unto them, John
6, verse 35. And Jesus said unto them, I am. The self-existent one, this is
him. That one that was in the bush, Melchizedek, all those
pre-incarnation appearances of Christ, this is him. And he tells
them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. I've told
you before, if you go to church and you have to have a thesaurus
or a calculator to be there, find you another church. Here's
the self-existent one proclaiming himself. And how does he use
it? He says, I'm the bread of life.
Do you know something? We all have different opinions
on how to do this. Everybody eats. Do you know that? Everybody eats. We know what
bread is. He says, I'm the bread of life.
We can understand that. We must eat to live. And this
great I am, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Godhead in a body. He says,
I'm the bread of life. We have him and we have no other
needs. We want hunger and we want thirst.
We may have some wants, but spiritually there's no other needs. We may have wants in this body.
There's no spiritual needs. He's our life. He's our bread. He's our food. We have to drink
something too, don't we? I don't like drinking plain water,
I do, but I need to. You drink things. We have to
have something to drink. He's everything. That's the basics,
isn't it? Job said, I've esteemed the words
of his mouth more than my necessary food. I need this more than I need
food. How about you? I need to hear what he says,
not what other people think, not their opinions. I wanna know
what he says. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. How do we come to him? How do we come to Christ? How do we believe on Christ?
By faith. We come by faith to him. We believe
on him by faith. Well, what's the means of that?
How do we get faith? We gotta hear. Somebody's gonna
have to come and preach to us, look us eye to eye, and we're
gonna have our mouth closed and our ears open, and that man's
gonna say something, and the Lord's gonna speak through that
to our hearts, and we're gonna hear, and we'll say, that's right.
You believe him. It ain't complicated. It's just
impossible with man. First of all, He's our life and
He's our provision in everything. It says in Ephesians 1, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who have blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. We'll never lack on righteousness. Did you know that? We'll see
this next hour too. We'll never lack in wisdom. We'll
never lack in redemption. We'll never lack in justification.
We'll never lack in sanctification. He's our bread. He's it. Turn over to John 8, verse 12. That's the first one. Here's
the second one. And Jesus spake unto them again,
John 8, 12. Jesus spake again unto them saying,
I am the light. The self-existent one, what is
he? The light, the light of the world. He that followeth me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. By nature,
everybody, sweet, precious little newborn babies, and teenagers,
and young adults, and old adults, and sweet little old people,
everybody, born of Adam, we love darkness and we hate light. That's all of us, isn't it? The
Lord told Nicodemus that in John 3. He said, this is condemnation. That the light is coming to the
world. The I am came into the world and men love darkness rather
than light. Why? Because their deeds were
evil. Light sheds. You can see things
with light, can't you? By nature, we love darkness.
Our dark selves more than the great I am. We love our way. and our thoughts and our traditions
and our experiences over what his word declares. And we're
ignorant of who we are. There's a lot of people in churches,
they'll say, oh, they're sinners and God saves by grace, and they
say a lot of things. Sounds good, don't it? They're
ignorant of who man is, they're ignorant of who God is, and we're
fumbling around in the dark thinking we're okay. But God. He comes in and He shines
a light onto us and into us. He's a light and we finally see
things as they are. And we declare things as they
are because we can see it now. We didn't see that before. There
was a time we could not see and through His command and who He
is, now we see. Has that been your experience? That blind man said, I tell you
this, I was blind, now I see. You know what happened to him?
There's a time I didn't know this stuff. I was wrong. I didn't do right. Everything
I did was sin. I thought I was doing right things.
That's iniquity. Everything I thought was good was bad. And then God
shined the light of Christ in me. Showed that to us. We're a chosen generation. We're
a royal priesthood, a holy nation of peculiar people. An odd number. We ain't like a... that you should show forth the
praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into this
marvelous light." Well, I'll tell you about my journey. No,
you won't. If you're God, you'll tell you
about what He did. It's right, ain't it? Light reveals things
as they are. He's revealed to us our darkness
and His holiness. He's revealed to us that we're
the darkness and He's the light. And he's revealed to us his redemption,
and his anointing, and his keeping, and his resurrection. That's
what's to come, that's our hope. Be made lucky. John kept talking
about these things, did you know that? He got a, he had a handle
on it, he got a better handle on it as it got old. The age,
you all get that article I sent out to Henry's? That was in Paul
Mahan's bulletin? I want to age that way, don't
you? I want to mature. As this body fails, I want to
be stronger in the Lord and the gospel. As these arms grow weak
and these knees start giving out, I want to stand on His promises
and remember them and remind other people of it. And I don't
want to be old and sad and grumpy. I want to be happy. I have a
reason to be happy. Don't we? I pray to God we do. We'll enter eternity in shambles. John aged and he said, this then
is the message which we've heard of him and declare unto you that
God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that
we have fellowship with him and we walk in darkness, if we say
I love the Lord and I love all my other brethren that hate him,
I have fellowship with him. We lie and we do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light as he's in the light, we have fellowship
one with another with our true brethren. And the blood of Jesus
Christ, his son, cleanseth. That means it don't quit us from
all sin. That's the kind of light I want
to be in, Bob. I want to see things in that light as they
truly are. And I want to warn people that's
fumbling around in darkness that think they're okay. Come to the light. Well, that's
another thing in movies, isn't it? Don't go to the light. No,
come to the light. He's the light. Turn over John
10. Here's the next one. Children get that, don't they?
Cameras on, cameras off. You turn the lights out, turn
the lights back on at nighttime. The lights are off, it's dark.
You turn the lights on, it's light. He's light. Now we see
stuff. Kids get that. A child can understand
that. Look here, verse nine, John 10,
verse nine. I am the self-existent one. Moses
go tell them this is me. Here's a spoke and a wheel. The
door. I am the door. If by me, if any
man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find
pasture. He's the door. You know what a door is? You
understand the concept of the door? If any man, whomsoever,
enter in, you're gonna be saved. That means you're bought, you're
cleansed, you're purified, you're preserved, and you shall go into
the presence of God and shall come out of the pit. You come
out of that religion and that idol worship and that self-worship
and everything, you will come out of that. You ain't gonna
stay in it. That's still walking in darkness. Come out of it. into Him, and
you're gonna find eternal pasture. What's that? Rest, food, comfort,
rejoicing, be happy on that grass. Good pasture. How are we gonna
have those things? The Lord Jesus Christ is the
means. He's the door, the means of access and entrance, the means
of our salvation. By His doing, He goes to prepare
a place for us, we now have access in the Holy of Holies. He's a
door, go through doors. Takes you from one place to another,
doesn't it? He's the means, isn't he? Next one here, same chapter,
John 10 verse 11. I am the self-existent one, this
very one. I am the good shepherd. The good
shepherd give his life for the sheep. This is the good shepherd
that will give his life that we may go free. He says, you
want me, you take me, you let these others go their way. That
ain't hard. It's him for us. This is the
I am, the very one who is called the great shepherd that's gonna
come to us. through his undershepherds. He
micromanages. You know, in leadership and worldly
things, if you want to be a good leader, you don't want to micromanage
things. You want to delegate authority. This leader micromanages
everything because he gets all the glory for it. In the world,
when people grow up, you're going to be boss one day. I'm going
to die. This is never going to die. He's a self-existent one. And all
of his under-shepherds, he controls them, and he puts messages in
their hearts, and he helps them, or not helps them, he makes decisions
with them, makes them do things, tells them what to do. And this
is the very one that's called the chief shepherd. That's the
one that's coming again. The Lord's my shepherd, I shall
not want. That shepherd provides for the sheep. Well, go tell
him, Moses, how great I am. He says, I'm your provision.
That's what that means. I protect the sheep. He heals
the sheep. He owns the sheep. How? The good
shepherd gave his life for the sheep. He bought them with his
own blood. They're a purchased possession. By dying in the place
of his elect, that price of adoption is the blood of the self-existent
one. How can that be? Oh, it's so. I don't have to
understand it and explain it, I have to believe it. And that's
so. That's so. What is that? The good shepherd
gives his life for the sheep. That's particular redemption,
isn't it? He didn't say I give my my life for the goats and
the sheep and the snails and the birds or whatever. As long
as that pretty please let me. He give his life for the sheep.
Particular people. That's who the I am is for. Fifthly,
turn over John 11. Excuse me, John 11. Verse 25. It's whenever Martha was back
talking to Lord a little bit and telling her, I know, I know.
I know you ever had somebody that knows something you don't
know, try to teach you something, and you just tell them, I know,
I know. And then when they get through explaining it and you
get it, you're like, well, I didn't know. Jesus saith unto her, verse 25,
I am. Who do I say sent me, Lord? The
resurrection. The resurrection. That's not
a doctrine, is it? What's your doctrinal views on
the resurrection? Well, my doctrinal views is that
doctrine's a person. That's the end statement. Him.
Him. I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall
he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. That's eternity. That's hope,
isn't it? He's the firstfruits from the grave. This is the forerunner. And that ascension we just got
through looking at. Him going up in a cloud is proof
everything he said has come to pass. And that assures us everything
he said is going to happen is going to happen. He'd take it
to the bank. It's so. In Acts 1, we read the
other day, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passions
by many infallible proofs. That's just so. That's what we
look at every weekend. We go back and forth between
the Old Testament. This is what's promised. And here's what's coming
to pass. And that keeps happening. It's never not happened. They
seen him for 40 days and he was speaking the things pertaining
to the kingdom of God. That's what I want to hear. I
don't want to hear about personal finance and we'll learn about
those things. I don't want to hear about how
to raise your children so they're not heathens when they grow up
and they grow up to be productive members of society as we're commanded
by God to make them. I want to hear about the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God. We get that. We get that premise.
The particulars take care of themselves. What is the resurrection and
the eternal life? What is that? I am. Christ is
the person in it. Sixth, this has three sub parts
if you like. We're doing bullet points. If
I was giving you a PowerPoint slide, I'd give you ABC. John 14. John 14, verse six. Thomas was asking some questions.
The Lord answered him. John 14, 16, Jesus saith unto
him, I am. Who's the self-existent one?
Moses gonna tell him I am. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. I'm the way, I'm the way. You
remember us looking at these three things when we went through
John? This is what Adam lost in the
garden. The way. Christ is the way. That's
what we lost in the garden. Adam lost the communion with
God, the presence of God. Taking walks with him in the
evening, and talking with him, and communion with him, the presence
of him. That was gone. There's angels with flaming swords
there now. You can't get back there. Ain't
gonna happen. We lost the way. How are we gonna
get back? Christ is the way. The great, the self-existent
one is the way. The truth, Adam, and us too, we think we know
things. You know what, there's a way that we perceive. I perceive
that this is correct, and that's the way of death. There's a way
that man thinks right, and that's the way of death. It's a lie.
We're born speaking lies. We're born superstitious. Y'all
know what superstitious means? I hope I've told you before.
I'm gonna tell you a whole bunch over the next few years. Overly
religious. That's what the word means, overly
religious. That one fella said, you superstitious?
He said, I ain't superstitious, because I'm a little stitious.
He told the truth, didn't he? That's us by nature. We lost
that. We ain't got no truth in us. He is truth. Well, no, that's truth. No, he's
truth. And that's what he said. That's what truth said. The life. He said, I'm the life. From spiritual
death to everlasting life. That's what the Lord is for us.
We were dead, trespasses and sins, because of his blood we
live. The good shepherd laid down his life for us. Seventh
one, John 15, verse one. I am the true vine. This one, the self-existent one.
The same yesterday, today, and forever, the true vine. And my
father's the husbandman. What was he saying here? Again,
you're gonna hear this over and over. It's repetitious and it's
not complicated. Salvation to the Lord. All life is from and through
him, just like a vine and a branch that produces fruit. All nourishment's
through him. All the fruit comes from him.
It originates there. It's connected to him. And all
glory goes to him. He's the vine. And I thought,
could you imagine? I was watering my trees the other
day. They're starting to bud, my fruit trees. And I thought,
well, it looks good. Them buds are popping out. Could
you imagine if trees could talk? And that branch says, I make
fruit. I do. That tree trunk, I mean,
it's OK, I guess, but I'm the fruit maker. I don't really need
that tree trunk. Ha. That's hilarious, isn't it? Because it's ridiculous. It's
comical. You can cut that branch off and you know what that trunk
will do? I prune trees. Another branch gonna pop out.
The trunk's what's needed. That's where the life is. That's
the way it makes fruit, isn't it? Without the vine, us branches
are nothing. He's the vine. The Lord purposed
this salvation. He planned this salvation. He
performed this salvation. And it's finished. You know what
you gotta do now? It's finished. Say thank you. It's called praising, worshiping. For in him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. That means in a body. And ye
are complete in him. I don't feel like I'm complete.
He didn't say you feel like you're complete. He said you are. No
matter what I feel, no matter what he says, he's true. Feelings
come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving, aren't they? That's
a lie. He's truth and he said you're
complete in him. How important is it to believe?
I'll close with this. How important is it to believe these things?
I don't mean agree that it's accurate according to the scriptures.
I mean, lay down your life for it. at all costs, that nothing
is more important than this. This is life. How important is
it that we believe that Christ is the bread, the sustenance?
How important is it that we know that he's the light? He's the
revealer. Well, I found him. This is important. How important
is it he's the door, that he's the means? How important is it
he's the shepherd, he owns, he provides, he protects the sheep?
That he's the resurrection, our eternal hope, our expected end. That he's the way, the truth,
and the life. What's that? That's the second Adam. He's
the second Adam. We all died and won, and in this
one, many will live. And he's the vine, he's the source
of all this. How important is it I mean, put
all your chips in one basket. To know these things. Turn over
to John 8. Back a few pages to John 8 real
close. John 8 verse 24. I said therefore unto you that
ye shall die in your sins. For if ye believe not that I
am, ye shall die in your sin. I want to know who that I am
is, don't you? I want to believe him at his
word. It ain't complicated, but when
he says those things, I see it. I want to believe it. I do. And
I do believe him. And I want to believe him more.
I want to remember more and stand on his word more. And I want
you to. I want you to, I want you to
believe this. And Christ is your life. That's
my prayer. All right, let's pray together.
Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for this word you've
preserved for us, Lord. And thank you for making it so
abundant. It's in every room we go to and
available everywhere and in our pocket, Lord. Your word, make
us read it. Give us eyes to see these things
and hearts to understand them. Keep sending your word to us
through your messengers in this state and throughout this nation
and throughout this world, Lord, as you promised you will. We
pray for laborers in that harvest. Lord, raise up men to go and
tell all the things that Christ is, our necessity, how we need
him. Lord, all flesh is grass and
behold our God. Thank you for this time. Lord
bless it to the hearts of your people. And we ask these things
for Christ's sake. Amen. All right, we'll meet back
at 10 30.