I wanna continue our study in
Exodus today with you. Exodus chapter four. We're gonna
be looking at verses 13 through 23. This particular passage of Exodus
seems to have a number of things in it. I was telling Denise about
some of the difficulty in just reading it through and seeing
a a theme, a single theme that
fits into all of it, and I couldn't really see a single one except
this one. Salvation is of the Lord. Now,
that's not said right here, but it's evident from here. And so,
I think of what I What I read in scripture, it says in Hosea
chapter 13, he says these words, I am the Lord thy God from the
land of Egypt. And thou shalt know no God but
me, for there is no savior beside me. You see, the deliverance
of Israel from Egypt is to teach us our salvation by Christ from
sin. And if we see that, then we won't
go too far astray. The Bible has one message, the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so everything we read here
ultimately teaches us about the Lord Jesus Christ. But we want
to read here from verse 13 through verse 23 together, and then just
go through this, because I think as I'm looking at this, there
are many things here which are a blessing to us and instruct
us. He says in verse 13, this is in the middle of the discourse
between God and Moses, Moses is trying in these words that
we read here to withdraw himself from the call to go to Pharaoh
and take God's word to him and to Israel and deliver Israel
from Egypt. A huge assignment. And Moses
senses his own inadequacy, his complete inadequacy, and it feels
like he's backing up. God has called him to this. God
has appeared to him in many ways and spoken to him many words
to comfort him. And given him, equipped him,
given him his rod, given him signs, given him the words to
speak. And yet Moses speaks in verse 13, and he said, O my Lord,
send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. And
the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, the
Lord said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can
speak well, and also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee,
and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. And thou
shalt speak to him, and put words in his mouth, and I will be with
thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall
do. And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people, and he shall
be, even he, shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou
shalt be to him instead of God. And thou shalt take this rod
in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs, And Moses went and returned to
Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, Let me go, I pray
thee, and return to my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether
they be yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go
in peace. And the Lord said to Moses in
Midian, Go, return to 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 to Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that
thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in
thine hand. But I will harden his heart that
he shall not let the people go. Verse 22. Here's the gospel in
a nutshell. And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh,
thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn. And I say unto thee, let my son
go, that he may serve me. And if thou refuse to let him
go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn. So the first
thing you see in verse 13 and 14 is that, as I said, Moses
tries to withdraw himself from the service that God called him
to do. And so I think the first thing
I see in this text of Scripture we just read is Moses learns
obedience. And then we see Moses going back
to his father-in-law Jethro in verse 18 and following, and there
I see The next point I'd like to make today is that Moses follows
Christ. And then we see in verse 19 how
the Lord told Moses that all those men that were in Egypt
before, when Moses fled from Egypt for fear of his life, all
those men that sought his life are now dead. And so in this
point I want to see that God previews He gives a foreshadowing
of the victory God would give them over His enemies. And then
lastly, we see in verse 22 and 23 how God highlights the mission
to which God had sent Moses to accomplish. So the first thing
that we see here is that Moses learns obedience. The obedience
that Moses learns. He learns it for many reasons. This is instructive to us. Moses
was a man. And we look at Moses' life, we
see great things God did through him. And we can elevate him to
a status higher than an ordinary man in our thinking. But never
forget the fact that all that God accomplishes through His
people, He does it by His grace, to the glory of His name. And
so when Moses brings up objections in several verses, the one we
looked at in particular last week, where he said to the Lord,
I'm not eloquent, I haven't been able to speak up to this point
in time, and ever since you've been talking to me, I still haven't
been able to speak well. And so Moses was constantly thinking
about his own inadequacy. But God's will and God's work
are never done based on our adequacy, based on our sufficiency. Paul
the Apostle said in 2 Corinthians 3, who is sufficient for these
things? None of us are, but God can accomplish
his will through men, and he chooses to accomplish it through
men. That doesn't surprise us if we're familiar with the Bible
at all. We see all sorts of things. We see the Apostle Paul in his
life. He was in opposition to Christ,
and then God saved him. And then he says in 2 Corinthians,
he says that he is what he is by the grace of God, and God's
grace worked in him. in such a way that he was able
to accomplish more things through Paul by his grace than he did
through the other apostles because God had chosen him to be a vessel
to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. So we see that God's work is
never dependent on the strength of the messenger Or is it hindered
by the weakness of the messenger? It's always dependent upon God.
And that's why I said the title, really, of this sermon today
is Salvation is of the Lord. It's not of men. It's not of
us. And we shouldn't look to ourselves
and be discouraged because we find weakness. So we look at
ourselves, we find no strength in a certain area, and yet we
feel compelled to put our hand to the plow, as it were, in the
kingdom of God, to believe Christ, to come to Christ, to lean upon
Christ, to lay hold on the promises of God that He's given us in
Christ. And then to rejoice in Him, and to love Him, and to
love one another, and to declare the gospel. All these things
require the grace of God working in us. We should never be intimidated
by our own weakness, nor should we find any comfort in our own
strength. Because what we are, we are by
the grace of God. It never comes from us. But Moses
pushes back. He says, basically in verse 13,
find someone else. And God is angry with Moses at
that time. So here you see a theme throughout
Egypt, I mean throughout Exodus. And this theme is good to capture
here at a summary point here because What I would say in summary
is that despite the unbelief of the Israelites, and remember
they rejected Moses when he was 40 years old, and Moses fled
from Egypt and it was 40 years later now, and even at this time
Moses knows they will not believe him and God graciously gives
these three signs. So despite the unbelief of Israel,
And despite their long bondage and their entire weakness to
do anything to deliver themselves from their oppressor, their helplessness
as slaves, and despite the weakness of Moses and his objections,
and more than that, despite the unbridled fury and obstinacy
of the king of Egypt, God delivers his people from bondage by blood
redemption. And this you see throughout the
book of Exodus. And he delivers them that they
might serve him. Now, if you remember, when Israel
left Egypt, they come into the wilderness. What did they do
in the wilderness? You kind of wonder, why did they
spend all this time in the wilderness? Well, remember in the wilderness,
God gave Moses from Mount Sinai, how they were to construct the
tabernacle. And they built the tabernacle,
and there was in the tabernacle all of these things. There were altars, and incense,
and showbread, and tables, and various instruments in the tabernacle
itself, all of which pictured, foreshadowed, and looked forward
to the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact,
you could summarize that tabernacle in this way, and the service
of the Israelites in it. Their service in the tabernacle
was worshiping God by Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It was trusting
in God through the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's
what the tabernacle was about, about Christ, who was God, who
would take on human flesh and redeem His people in offering
Himself to God, and God receiving that. and therefore being reconciled
to His people and treating them with grace and mercy because
of Christ. And the children of Israel constantly
worshipping God around that. They spent all their time in
the wilderness with the tabernacle at the center of the nation and
the tribes assembled around it because it was Christ and Him
crucified which was all their glory, and all their hope, and
all their worship, and all their trust, and their life. Remember,
everything in the wilderness was about the Lord Jesus Christ.
The manna was Christ and Him crucified. The water from the
rock was Christ and Him crucified. Everything was about Him. And
if we see that then, when we hear the words of God, to Moses
to give to Pharaoh, say to Pharaoh, Israel is my son, even my firstborn. Let my son go, that he may serve
me." We see here, in those very words, we see the promise of
God to deliver His people in order that they might serve Him,
and we'll get into that in more detail later. But I want to to
keep the summary of what's happening here in Exodus in mind so that
when we see these details here of Moses learning obedience,
it fits in with that. Now, as I said, Moses was a man,
and God corrects His people. He doesn't correct them in anger.
And I had a little article in last week's bulletin for you. Maybe you read that. But turn
with me to Jeremiah chapter 10. I want to read these verses to
you to show you how God is merciful to his people. Jeremiah was a
prophet to the nation of Judah, and particularly centered in
Jerusalem. The two tribes, Judah and Benjamin,
and the Levites who dwelt among them were there in Jerusalem.
And God, over the course of time, was going to bring chastisement
on the nation. And the chastisement was going
to be in the form of the Babylonians coming and taking them away in
captivity for 70 years. And so, the people should have
understood that this was a chastisement of God on them for their wickedness. Years and years of wickedness.
All their kings and even them. And yet, Jeremiah is not getting
through to the people. They don't believe that God is
really going to send the king of Babylon and take them away.
And so in verse 23 of Jeremiah 10, Jeremiah prays as if he's
the man praying with the voice of the nation as they ought to
pray. And he speaks first in verse 23 and he says, Regarding
the king of Babylon, he says, who's going to come against them.
Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It
is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. The king of
Babylon is coming against us, not of his own initiative, though
he thinks so. It's God who's bringing him.
Man doesn't direct his steps. Ultimately, God is the one who
brings about his will through men. And so, verse 24, "'O Lord,
correct me.'" Jeremiah prays. And this is his teaching the
people, what they should be thinking and praying. Because the summary
of Israel was they knew the acts of God, but they didn't know
His ways. They didn't really know God. And so he's praying
this way in order to teach them. They weren't listening to his
prophecy. And he prays for them, and he prays as they ought to
pray. And he says, "'O Lord, correct
me.'" But with judgment, not in thine anger, lest thou bring
me to nothing." And the word there, judgment, is also translated
differently in Jeremiah 30.11, which I'm just going to read
to you. He says, in Jeremiah 30.11, he says, For I am with thee, saith the
Lord, to save thee, though I make a full end of all nations, whither
I have scattered thee. Yet will I not make a full end
of thee, but I will correct thee in measure, that's the word for
judgment there, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished. So God is saying here, through
Jeremiah. The Spirit of God moves Jeremiah
to pray. The words are written according
to his will to teach us as his people what we ought to say in
any trouble. And this trouble was brought
on them because of their wickedness against God as a correction.
And the correction, the response of Jeremiah is praying, Correct
me but in measure because if God brings upon the nation his
anger there would be nothing left He says that in in Jeremiah
20 20 verse 24 10 24 he says if you if you correct us in anger
We will be brought to nothing because if God marks iniquities
who could stand but Jeremiah understands this that rather
than than trying to get away from the correction of God, it's
better to receive it. Like Job said, though he slay
me, yet will I trust him. Or like David said, when God
was going to bring a correction on Jerusalem for his sin, he
says, let me now fall into the hands of the Lord, for with the
Lord is mercy. You see, the child of God understands
the ways of God. They understand that only God
is good. Only God is interested in their
salvation, and only He can save them. And so He encourages us
by this man, Jeremiah, by David, by Job, and now here in Moses'
case, not to Not to look at the correction of God as His judgment
in wrath, but to look at it as a correction from the hand of
a loving Father. Correction has this result in
our lives. It causes us great sobriety in
our thinking. It straightens us out, doesn't
it? It says in Psalm 119, 67, Before I was afflicted, I went
astray, but now have I kept thy statutes. And this theme goes
throughout the scripture. Let me read to you one other
place in Jeremiah. In fact, it says in Jeremiah
31, This is a graphic language, Jeremiah
31 18, I have surely heard Ephraim, it's another name for Israel,
I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, Thou hast chastised
me, and I was chastised. As a bullock, unaccustomed to
the yoke, turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord
my God." You see how he's praying here? Again, this is the Spirit
of God moving the prophet to pray. Like a bull, unaccustomed
to pulling the load and the yoke on him. He had to whip me to
get me to pay attention and to go in the right way. But he says
he sees that as God's correcting hand to turn him. And he prays,
Lord, turn me! Turn me! And so he says in verse
19, "...surely after that I was turned, I repented, and after
that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh, I was ashamed,
even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth."
So all these things teach us to trust God even in affliction
and trouble because it's the correction hand, correcting hand
of a loving father. And that's the good news. Moses
learns from this. God corrects him. He's angry
with him. He says, I'm going to give you
Aaron. Aaron's going to speak. I know
you don't think you can speak. Aaron can. He's coming to meet
you. And you're going to be glad. And he's going to be glad when
you see each other. And so then we go on in Exodus
chapter 4 to the next theme I see here. which I have entitled,
Moses Follows Christ. By the way, Moses hasn't fully
learned obedience yet in this, because we see later on, and
we're not going to get to that today, this event where his son
is not circumcised, and that whole thing also is another correction
by God. But look now at Exodus chapter
4, verse 18 and it says and Moses
went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him
let me go I pray thee and return to my brethren which are in Egypt
and see whether they be yet alive and Jethro said to Moses go in
peace now this this seems like a strange thing at first when
I when I look at this going back to his father-in-law. Because
it brought to my mind a passage in Luke chapter 9. Take a look
at the New Testament in the book of Luke, in chapter 9. At least
these verses came to my mind. And so that's where, as I was
thinking about this and looking at it, it seemed to lead to other
thoughts. Look at Exodus, Luke chapter
9, sorry, Luke chapter 9. He says in verse 57 of Luke 9,
it came to pass that as they went in the way, this is Jesus
and the disciples, as they went in the way, a certain man said
to him, to Jesus, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou
goest. And Jesus said to him, foxes
have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man
hath not where to lay his head. You see the same theme carried
out in the next two or three verses here, too. Here's a man. He comes up to Jesus. He says,
I'll follow you. I'll follow you. those days there
were there were men who called themselves rabbi and they love
to have others listen to them and be their disciples and this
man obviously thought Jesus was a good rabbi a good teacher and
so he comes to him he sees other disciples he says I'll follow
you I'm gonna add something here to the Lord I'll follow you you'll
want to have someone like me In fact, if I follow you, I'm
expecting good things will follow from that. And Jesus tells him,
it's interesting. You would think that if the Lord
wanted everyone to follow him, he would have encouraged the
man, wouldn't he? He said, well, you really need to take it slow,
and let me help you one step at a time, and don't get discouraged.
But no, he just gives him this hard saying. He says, foxes have
holes, and the birds of the air have nests. But the Son of Man
has a place to lay His head. And that was a discouragement,
I'm sure, to the man. Because it doesn't say anything
more about him following Jesus. He must have been looking for
comfort and status and other things. Status among men and
status before the Lord Jesus for following Him. But it didn't
do any good because following Christ is not a reward in this
life. It's not a reward in this life. Jesus didn't have a reward
in this life. He had suffering and his disciples
also had to follow in that. And so he discourages the man.
But discouraging words from Christ are meant to correct us. They're
not meant to set us aside. Remember the woman that came
to him who had a daughter who was taken by a devil and she
prayed the Lord and he said, I'm not sent but to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. And right then and there I would
have left. Okay, that doesn't include me, because I was a Syrophoenician
woman. I'm from the city of Tyre and
Sidon, a place condemned by God, and I have no reason to be in
here. And I knew I was afraid, if I even came, that I would
hear something like that and I'm gone. But she says several
things that led to, ultimately, her daughter being healed. It
got down to the point where he said, you know, it's really not
good for me to take bread and give it to dogs. And I can imagine
that that would have completely turned me inside out. Yeah, I'm
a dog. I'm really not worth anything.
And I'm not certainly worth the bread. And so, but she says, oh, but
even the dogs get the crumbs from their master's table. She
identified with the dogs and say, I just need a crumb from
you and that will be enough. And so the corrections from the
Lord are not meant to set us aside. They're meant to cause
us to realize, to strip us of everything. So that we lay hold
on salvation in Christ alone. That God would receive us entirely
for what he thinks of his Son. And not for what he finds in
us or our abilities to follow him or anything. But let's go
on. In verse 59 of Luke 9 he says, And he said to another
man, now Jesus is saying it, he says, follow me. But that
man said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. And
Jesus said to him, let the dead bury the dead. Bury their dead,
but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. So he had called this
man to the ministry, but the man refused. Kind of like Moses. But in this way it's different.
Moses didn't say, I gotta go first bury my father. He just
said, I don't think I can do it. Verse 61. And another also said, Lord,
I will follow thee, but let me first go bid them farewell. Go
first Let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at
my house." I just want to go say goodbye to my family, my
folks, and everything. And he didn't really just mean
I'm going to say bye, like I'll see you, like Moses actually
did to Jethro. He meant he was going to go back
and get their approval. He's going to go back and get
their blessing to go on and follow the Lord. He needed someone else
to give secondary support besides the command of the Lord Jesus.
And Jesus said to him, no man, having put his hand to the plow
and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Now, consider
Moses going back to Jethro, his father-in-law. He was his father-in-law. And God commanded that we are
to honor our father and our mother. Moses had been with Jethro 40
years. If you look at the first verse
of Exodus 3, he says that Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his
father-in-law. So Moses was keeping his father-in-law's
flock. He was serving him. He was taking
care of his sheep. That's what he was doing when
God met with him. Forty years. Now Jethro had given him his
daughter, Zipporah, to be his wife. And Moses and Zipporah
had two children, Gershom and Eleazar. But, so, from a family
standpoint, Zipporah was his daughter, and the two sons of
Moses were his grandchildren. And Moses was a faithful son-in-law,
had been serving him 40 years. And so Moses wants to keep the
peace with his father-in-law. It says in Romans chapter 12,
he says, "...as much as lieth in you is, be at peace with all
men." Now keep those two things in mind, honor your father and
your mother, and keep maintaining peace with all men. Moses, I
think, is doing those things. When he goes back to Jethro,
he says to his father, he said, let me go, I pray thee, and return
to my brethren, which are in Egypt, to see whether they be
yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, go
in peace. So he maintained the peace, didn't
he? But he didn't seek Jethro's approval or his support. In fact, Moses didn't even tell
Jethro what God had told him. He didn't tell him, I'm going
to Egypt to bring the nation of Israel out of Egypt, and God
has given me this rod and all these signs. He didn't give him
any of that because he didn't need Jethro to be the one who
decided whether or not he was going to follow Christ. The Lord
Jesus Christ had called him. He was going to follow him no
matter what, Jethro said. But in the process, he wasn't
going to go unless he first went back to tell Jethro in peace
and as an honor to him. Because if Moses was his son-in-law,
that obligated Moses to show him honor and respect. And we
need to show our parents respect. Children need to show their,
and we think of that as saying, yes sir, yes ma'am, and those
kind of things, being respectful in our words. But God means more
than that. He doesn't just mean being respectful
in the way we talk to them. He means for children to do that,
to be respectful, to obey them, but also, in this particular
case, He means that they should support them. that children are
to take care of their parents when they're able to, and their
parents have that need, so that they can show them honor in that
way as well. And this is seen in Matthew 15.
I'll just read this to you also. In a couple of places it shows
up in the New Testament, but in Matthew 15, he says, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees
and the scribes, and he said, "...the scribes and the Pharisees
came to Jesus, and they said, Why do thy disciples transgress
the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands when
they eat bread. And Jesus answered and said to them, And why do
you transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" You
see that? The scribes and the Pharisees
had elevated their tradition above the commandment of God.
They created a tradition that would obviate them or allow them
to get out from under their obligation to God's commandment. And Jesus
cites that here. He says, "...you say, Whosoever
shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever
thou mightest be profited by me, and honor not his father
or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have you made the commandment
of God of none effect by your tradition." What Jesus says in
lifting up their robe of righteousness they had created and showing
that they were totally corrupt, He says, you haven't honored
God. God gave you a commandment to
honor your father and mother, but you say to your mom and dad,
because you created this tradition, you know, what I have is devoted
to God, and therefore I can't help you, because it's God's. And there, by doing that, you've
got yourself out from under that obligation. But Moses doesn't
do that. He goes back to his father-in-law,
and he treats him respectfully, They were his children, his daughter. He had served him for 40 years. I think that's long enough, but
he still goes back very meekly and he asks him, he tells him,
this is what I want to do. I want to go back to Egypt and
I'm going to see how my brethren are doing. Even though God had
given him a much greater work, he doesn't bring that up. And
sometimes I've seen zeal, especially among young people, where they
think, the Lord has called me, and they use that call as an
excuse to be rude and arrogant towards those who they don't
think the Lord has called. And I'm guilty of this. In most of the things I know,
I learn by failure. I saw a sign somewhere that says,
judgment comes by, I can't remember, experience, and experience comes
by making mistakes, or something like that. But that's another thing. But
most of the things I've learned, I've learned by actually failing
to do them myself, and feeling the sting, either in my conscience
or otherwise, of that. of being arrogant and rude to
those who you ought to show honor, because in the name of God, you
know, you say, well, you know, the Lord has called me to this.
And even though you say one thing to me and another, I'm just going
to consider all of us to be cut off, essentially. Moses did not
do that. He didn't use the call of God
in his life as an excuse to not take care of his family responsibilities. That's not what Jesus was saying
either. He did say in one place, if you don't hate father or mother
and all these things, then you can't be my disciple. But in those things, he's talking
about I believe that if they dissuade you from following Christ,
that's when you have to treat them as someone that you would
hate, someone you would not listen to that advice. So here we see
Moses doing that, and I think in respectfully too, and we also
see his his meekness. But he also respects what God
has told him. He doesn't try to give them everything
God has told him and doesn't tell them everything he's going
to do with God's grace in Egypt. So he goes on. So that's the
next thing. Moses follows Christ. He follows the Lord Jesus Christ.
He serves him and he leaves all and trusts him alone. When we
follow Christ, we follow Him only. Remember what we read in
2 Kings 17? Israel and Judah, they served,
especially in Samaria, they served the Lord and they served other
gods. They feared God and they served
and they feared other gods. Whatever we fear, that's what
we're going to serve. Whatever we trust, that's what
we fear of losing. If we trust in riches, then we
fear losing riches and we serve in our life to gain riches. If
we trust in our works to make us pleasing to God, then we're
going to do all that we can and fear that we don't come before
God if we don't have the right kind of works. But God says,
fear the Lord only, only. He excludes, it's an exclusive
thing. Following Christ is exclusive.
Worship of God is exclusive. And in Isaiah chapter eight,
he says this, sanctify the Lord God of hosts himself and let
him be your fear and let him be your dread and he shall be
for a sanctuary. to His people, a sanctuary, a
sanctification really is what it has to do with. Christ is
our sanctuary, He's our sanctification. Christ is either all to me or
He's nothing at all to me. That's what the gospel teaches.
If Christ is all to me, then I have all things in Him. If
Christ is my trust, I do not need to fear what man will do
to me. I don't have to trust men. I don't have to trust their
philosophies. I don't have to trust man's wisdom.
I don't have to seek man's wisdom. I don't have to seek their approval
of their religion. I'm trusting Christ only. I come to God because of what
He has done by the Lord Jesus Christ only. I don't look to
myself. I don't take confidence in myself.
As it says in Philippians 3.3, we are the true circumcision,
which worship God in Christ Jesus, and rejoice in Christ Jesus,
and take no confidence in the flesh. Worship God in the Spirit,
rejoice in Christ Jesus, and take no confidence in the flesh.
So the Lord says to Jeremiah 1.8, do not be afraid of their
faces. I am with thee to deliver thee.
Trust the Lord. Isn't that the message of scripture? Trust in the Lord. Trust in the
Lord. It's such a comforting thing
to trust in the Lord, isn't it? It is a comforting thing. And
I'm pausing there because I think about it. Sometimes when you're
preaching, you just have to stop and think about what you're saying.
Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. If I could
leave you with anything, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust
Him. He's worthy. God has made Him
so. He's God Almighty. I was thinking
about this yesterday. I was out walking, stretching
between my studies, and I was thinking, His name is I Am. He never changes. God is I Am,
never changes, never learns, and He is eternal. All that He
knows, He's known from eternity. Everything He's determined, He's
determined from eternity. His salvation of His people was
an eternal salvation. It's called an everlasting covenant.
His people were chosen in eternity. They were redeemed in eternity
by his decree. Christ is the lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. We're redeemed by the precious
blood of Christ as of a lamb, which God ordained before the
world was. All these things are eternal.
God's salvation of his people are eternal. Our God is eternal. Trust him. Our justification,
our sanctification, our glorification are all determined in eternity. He predestined us to adoption
of sons in eternity. Everything was done by God before
the world was ever created. And the world was created as
the canvas on which God would paint His will. Time is simply
the unfolding of God's eternal will for us. God is good. All that God does is good. Truly
God is good to Israel. Truly God is good to Israel,
the psalmist says. And so we see that. So trust
in the Lord. Moses goes to Egypt, looking
back at Exodus chapter 4. Trust in the Lord, all ye righteous. And then we see in Exodus chapter
4, after he leaves his father-in-law, In verse 19 it says, And the
Lord said to Moses in Midian, Go, return to Egypt, for all
the men are dead which sought thy life. God appears to him
again, speaks to him again. He had spoken to Jethro, now
God speaks to him again. After God had spoken to him so
much there out of the burning bush, God appears to him again
in Midian and says, Go, return to Egypt, for all the men are
dead which sought thy life. All your old enemies are dead.
That's what he's saying. Does that say something to you?
It's really God's preview of what He's going to do for all
of the enemies of God's people. You know, we see in the Old Testament
such a theme on the struggle between God's people and all
of their surrounding enemies, don't we? It seems like the whole
Old Testament is almost taken up with the struggle between
God's people and all those who are in the land there as their
enemies or people who are constantly coming against them, don't you?
Isn't that one of the big themes of scripture? Are the enemies
of God's people? Remember David and Goliath? David
killed the enemy of Israel. Who are you that defies the armies
of the living God? And David killed him. It was
Christ killing our enemies, wasn't it? Who are our enemies? I want to take you to a few verses.
There are several, and I've brought this out before, but take note
of these scriptures. Look at Luke chapter 1. This
prayer given by Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, in
his prayer in Luke chapter 1, In verse 68, starting at verse
68, listen to these words. Now, the Spirit of God gives
this prayer to Zechariah, opens his mouth to speak these words,
and it really takes so much of the scriptures of the Old Testament
and compacts them into such a small space. He says, Blessed be the
Lord God of Israel. for he hath visited and redeemed
his people." Isn't that what Exodus is about? God says, tell
them, the Lord has visited you and he's going to redeem you
out of the hand of Pharaoh and bondage and affliction in Egypt. And you're going to spoil the
Egyptians. You're not just going to go out at night in the cover
of darkness, sneaking out. You're going to go out, they're
going to really kick you out and give you gold and silver.
And you're going to look back and you're going to see all the
plagues decimated, all the foliage of Egypt eaten up by locusts. The land stinks. The firstborn
and all the houses from the servant to the king are dead. The people
are so anxious to get rid of it. They were so interwoven into
the fabric of the Egyptians building the pyramids and all the structures
of Egypt. that you can imagine slaves for
400 years and suddenly in one day all of them just ripped out
of that nation and taken out God separated the entire nation
of Israel in one day from the from the nation of Egypt their
enemies amazing absolutely amazing and that's what he says here
look at this in Luke 1 68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. He
has visited and redeemed his people. But here he's not talking
about Moses in Egypt and Israel and Pharaoh. He's talking about
the Lord Jesus Christ and his people chosen in Christ. God
has visited them. Emmanuel, God with us. Christ, the Son of God. God incarnate
in the flesh come down from heaven to earth to save his people from
their sins. He visited them and he has redeemed
his people. To redeem means to buy out of
bondage, to buy out of prison by ransom. Not only to buy out,
but to deliver to liberty. And he says, "...and He raised
up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David..."
That's our Lord Jesus Christ. "...as He spake by the mouth
of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began."
that we should be saved from our enemies and from all the
hand of all that hate us to perform the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant the oath which he swear to our
father Abraham that he would grant to us that we being delivered
again out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without
fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our
life Isn't that what God told Moses to tell Pharaoh? Let my
people go, that they might serve me. That was the message. And
that was God's prophecy. This is what I'm going to do.
I'm telling you, let them go. But you know what, Pharaoh? You're
not in control here. You're going to go kicking and
screaming the whole way, and God is going to extract them.
He's going to take them out. He gives you the command, because
he's going to fulfill it. And He's going to fulfill it
in your total humiliation and destruction and to the glory
of His name. And that's what God has done
in Christ. He has sent His word, I'm going to save my people from
their enemies, all of their enemies. And here we see what those enemies
are in the New Testament. Look at these, and I'm going
to break them up for you. Our first enemy and our foremost
enemy. And strangely enough, here is the mercy of God. Here
is the mercy of God. What if you went to the door
and invited in the villain who came in and you invited him in
and sat him down and you fed him and became friends with him
and started doing whatever he did. And then he rises up and
murders you or something like that. You would think, well,
that was a real stupid thing to do. Why did you do that? Why
did you invite the enemy in? I mean, you kind of deserve what
you got, didn't you? But God is so gracious to his
people. We invited sin in, and God looks
in mercy on us, and He sees our sin as our enemy, and He knows
we can't deliver ourselves. We're in bondage to sin, and
He redeems us from our sin. Look at Romans chapter 6. I'm
going to take you through these quickly, because we could spend
the rest of our lives looking at these, really. But look at
this, Romans chapter 6, verse 6, knowing this, That our old
man, that's part of us, isn't it? Our old man is crucified
with him. That the body of sin might be
destroyed. That henceforth we should not
serve sin. Doesn't that sound kind of like Egypt and Pharaoh?
God says our sins were laid on Christ in his body. Our sins, because you can't kill
a principle, you kill a body. And in Christ our sins were laid
and God crucified our sins in Him. That body of sin, our old
man. He says it in Romans 8 also,
the same place. God condemns sin in the flesh,
in His flesh. God put our sins in His body
to death. Our enemy. Look at verse 11. Likewise then, reckon ye also
yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Doesn't that sound like a redemption?
You've died to sin, you've been delivered from the bondage you
were in, but you're alive to God. Now you have liberty, you
have freedom. And what you've died to is your
enemy, sin. Look at verse 14 of the same
chapter. Know ye not I'm sorry, verse
14, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under
the law, but under grace. Sins, the strength of sin is
the law, and the law causes us to sin because it excites our
flesh. We're always constantly at fear,
thinking God is against us, and we're at war with him in our
mind, and we can't have peace with God, and so we're doing
nothing but sin. Everything we do is motivated
out of this hatred of God. and fear of Him. We won't come
to Him. We can't come to Him. We're so bound up by our own
guilt and the fear of the wrath of God on us that we can't call
upon Him. But look at verse 17. of the same chapter. But God
be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but you have
obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered
to you. In believing Christ, we've obeyed the doctrine. We've
laid our total weight, eternal destiny in His hands and said,
my righteousness before God is what God said it is, Christ's
obedience. My sin has been put away by His
blood, and we believe that, the message God has given. So sin
is our enemy. In Acts 3, verse 25 and 26, in
preaching to the children of Israel after Christ rose from
the dead, it says, You are the children of the prophets and
of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to
Abraham, In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be
blessed unto you first. God, having raised up his son
Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of
you from his iniquities. God turned us from our iniquities
And that turning was God, like it says in Jeremiah 31, 18 and
19. He, like the yoke on accustomed to the ox, God turned us from
our enemies, our iniquities, in turning us to the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's amazing. And one of my favorite scriptures
in all the Bible, Micah 7, look at that in verse 18 and 20. It's
hard to find, so I wrote it down here so I wouldn't have to find
it. He says, I'll read it to you. Who is a God like unto thee
that pardoneth iniquity and passes by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage? Not all of Israel is Israel,
but the remnant is. He retaineth not his anger forever,
because he delights in mercy. And listen to these words. He
will turn again. What grace is that? God, because
of His, we were the children of wrath, even as others, and
God is the one who took the initiative to reconcile us to God, to Himself. He will turn again. He will have
compassion upon us. And He will subdue our iniquities,
and I will cast them all, cast all their sins into the depths
of the sea. That sounds just like the Egyptians,
right? Those are our sins, our iniquities. The fulfillment of
it is what Zechariah has talked about in Luke chapter 1. The
second enemy is death. In Hosea 13, 14, it says, I will
ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them
from death. We're redeemed from sin, but
we're also redeemed from death. Oh death, I will be thy plagues. Oh grave, I will be thy destruction. Repentance shall be hid from
mine eyes. I'm not going to turn back from
this. God is going to fulfill this. And you can almost hear
the gladness the voice of prophecy here the Lord Jesus Christ taking
this on to save his people from their sins I'm going to be the
plague of their enemy death the grave I'm gonna do that and he
did that in his own death so in 1st Corinthians 15 he says
this so in this in verse 54 through 58 So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality." In other words, when this body is changed to
be like His glorious body, and it's eternal and not a dying
body, He says, He says, "...then shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. There's the victory.
That's the enemy, right? And then the world is our enemy,
and in Galatians 1.4 it says, The Lord Jesus Christ gave himself
for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world
according to the will of God our Father. Christ did that. Jesus said in John 16.33, I've
spoken these things to you that in me you might have peace, in
the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have
overcome the world. You almost hear David carrying
the head of Goliath. I've overcome. I can see it now. He's all dead, dead twice, with
a stone, with a sword, twice dead. And then our flesh. In Romans 7, he deals with this.
And remember what he says. I'll leave the reading of it
to you, but he says at the end of Romans 7, Paul comes to this
conclusion. When he considers the struggle
in his heart, the constant, it's like the body of death is strapped
to him and he can't escape it. And he says, oh, wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He doesn't stop there,
he doesn't stop there. He goes on. That's what faith
does. Faith lays hold on eternal life. So our flesh is our enemy and
God has dealt our flesh a death blow in Christ. The law. The law is against us. In 2 Corinthians
3 it says it's the ministration of death. But in Romans chapter 7 it says
we are dead to the law by the body of Christ. That we might
be married to another. And then we know Satan is our
enemy, and I'll leave to you all the verses that deal with
this. But there's one in particular that's constantly coming to my
mind. And let's turn to this one too. 1 Peter chapter 5, I'll
take you to this one. 1 Peter chapter 5, our enemies. God told Moses, all your old
enemies are dead. And that's the message he tells
us. He says in chapter five, verse seven, casting all your
care upon him, for he careth for you. That's the first thing. Be sober, be vigilant, because
your adversary, the devil, has a roaring lion, walks about seeking
whom he may devour, whom resists steadfast in the faith, knowing
that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren
that are in the world. See how to resist the devil?
Do you shout at him? Do you go into your closet and
stab yourself and afflict yourself and do things to try to kill
yourself so he doesn't have any power over you like the monks
do? chants in early dawn in stone
castles, those things don't help, do they? There's only one thing
you can do. Whom resists steadfast in the
faith? Looking to Christ. Christ is
the one who overcomes. He says that we overcome him
by the blood of the Lamb. So all of our enemies, we have
victory over our sin, over death, over the world, over Satan, over
the law, everything that would keep us from God, God has taken
care of. And so consider those things. And now we're going to have to
leave the last one to the next sermon, which is one of the words
I wanted to get to today. Thus saith the Lord, let my son
go that he may serve me. And let me just say this about
that and give this to you to contemplate. God required Israel
to leave Egypt before they could serve Him, didn't He? Let them
go, that they might serve Me. Now we know that all of our enemies,
sin, death, devil, and all these things are opposed to us. Do
you know it says in 2 Corinthians 4, 3, that the God of this world
has blinded the minds of those who believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel should shine to them? Unless God does
something Unless He commands our enemies to stand down, unless
He sends forth His commandment to save us, then our enemies
are going to have the victory over us. But He delivers us from
sin, He delivers us from the law, and He delivers us from
these things that are our enemies in order that we might serve
Him in liberty. Because you cannot serve God
unless you're free. You can't serve him unless you're
free. And so the gospel comes to us with this as the starting
point, redemption in his blood. Remember, that's how Israel,
they didn't leave Egypt until they were redeemed by the blood.
They weren't able to serve God in freedom until their enemies
were destroyed. God has done that in Christ.
We cannot serve God until we know what we are in Him, by Christ. We can't, because all the time
we're serving, we think we're serving Him, we're actually doing
what we do out of fear or reward. And neither of those things are
serving God. The only way we can serve Him is when we're free.
It's a fact. And you've experienced it, if
you know the Lord. As soon as you realize, you know
what? All of the struggles in my mind and in my body and everything
that would keep me from God and I think are just going to sink
me lower than the grave. I find in Christ everything has
been met that God requires of me. And I can come to God because
of Him. I can come asking Him to receive
me entirely by what He sees in His Son. That is liberty. It says In Him dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily. And the next words say this,
and you are complete in Him. And it doesn't mean sometime
down the road. It means that's the starting point for the child
of God. That's freedom, isn't it? Redeemed
from all of our enemies and given an inheritance before you even
set out in faith. God says, look to Christ. Having
Christ, you have all. And having Him is enough when
you have all, isn't it? Everything else, when you have
all, is nothing. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you that you've given us all things in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That you've made us your sons by adoption, by the redemption
of our Lord Jesus Christ. You've saved us from our sins,
given us your spirit to call you Father. And now we live by
grace, looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. We see the light of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And it thrills our heart. And we look for the redemption
of our body. We walk by faith. Lord, we pray that you would
say to our souls, even to our souls this day, that you are
our salvation. Say it long and say it loud,
Lord, and don't let us falter, but let us hold fast to you,
cause every affliction in our life to bring us to you, to lay
ourselves before you, and look to Christ only. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen.