If you want to turn in your Bibles
again to Exodus chapter 4, we're going to continue our study there. Exodus chapter 4. Moses is probably, undoubtedly,
one of the greatest saints ever mentioned in the scripture. He
obviously wrote more of Scripture than anyone, the first five books
of the Bible, and it's referenced as the anchor point for just
about everything in Scripture, from Genesis through Deuteronomy. Paul was like him in that he
wrote much of the New Testament. God used him for that way. But
when we think about Moses, we mostly think about what he did
right. But today, when we look at Moses,
we'll see some things that he didn't do right. There are a
few things that come to mind immediately when we think of
that. Remember when God told him to smite the rock the second
time. He didn't tell him to smite it,
he told him to speak to it. And Moses actually did smite
the rock again. He hit it twice that time. And
for that reason, God kept him from going into the land of Canaan.
But here we see another occasion, and there's going to be one following
it probably next week in Exodus 4, but I want to look at this
one this week, about Moses and his interaction with God. And
I've entitled this message, Unbelief, Its Rebuke and Its Remedy. Now, the answer is fairly simple,
but we need to appreciate how God teaches this to us through
Moses, and so when we look at this, I want you to consider
Moses and how God has been speaking to him. Remember, all through
chapter 3, and now even in the middle of chapter 4, God has
been speaking to Moses. God saw his people. He heard
their groanings, and He remembered His covenant. I purposefully
emphasize the action, the one acting there is God. God saw,
God heard, and God remembered. And remember, it was out of the
bush that God appeared, and God spoke and called Moses, and told
him, don't come near, as he showed him all of his perfections in
his name, his name over his people, as the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, and his name as the great I am. And we saw in that
that the Lord God, our God, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He appears
to us in the nature of his people. He comes, He whose God came and
was made a man, and He appears to us as to Moses in a burning
bush, the Lord Jesus Christ appears to us in the nature of a man,
and He endured the wrath of God, and all that God is, He is for
His people. That's hard to imagine, but that's
my summary of what God told Moses. He's the eternal God. He's the
I Am. He's the unchanging God. He never
changes. What He is today, He was before. What He is in the future, that's
what He is now. He never changes. And that's
the anchor. That is the rock of our God. And He is all that He is to His
people. He delights in that. And so he
speaks to Moses out of the bush. He made himself known to Moses.
And since he spoke to him out of the bush, we know he made
himself known in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm refreshing your memory
of what happened in chapter 3. And then God sent Moses to deliver
Israel from Pharaoh and the bondage of Egypt just like God makes
his known himself known in Christ to us and Sent the Lord Jesus
Christ into the world. He's the one called in John over
and again the one God sent He's the one sent he healed the blind
man by putting clay that he mixed with spittle on his eyes And
he sent him to the pool of Siloam. He's the one sent he sent him
to himself and that in that portrayal of our salvation. But God sent
Christ into the world, and it's Him, it's Him alone who redeems
and delivers His people from bondage, bondage to sin and the
law, bondage to the reign of death because of our sin and
Satan and the world and all that it holds. And God makes Himself
known to Abraham, I mean to Moses in this way. as the covenant
God, the one who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's who God is, and that's how he makes himself known. And
so Moses hears this, but he tells Moses to tell the people all
that God told him. And Moses, as we saw in chapter
4, verse 1, says, after God had told him, In chapter 3, verse
18, they will hearken to thy voice, Moses says, but they will
not believe me, and they will not hearken to my voice. And
then God gave him the three signs, which we've been looking at in
the last three or four weeks. And I won't rehearse those to
you. But it was God's way of giving to Moses and to the elders
of Israel, and really the whole nation of Israel through them,
the object of their faith, what Christ would do to redeem his
people. And we saw that in those three
signs. And then, we read now in Exodus chapter 4, in verse
10, we see another reaction to Moses. Moses had several reactions
to what God said. In chapter 3, he says this, in
verse... I'm sorry, I'm looking for it.
I thought it was in verse 11, but, oh yeah, Moses said to God,
who am I? You see that? Who am I? I can
imagine, I can identify with Moses. He had gone to the people
when he was 40 years old. It's 40 years later, now he's
80 years old. The first time he went, they
rejected him. He was trying to help them. He even stepped down
from his place as the prince of Egypt to help them and to
deliver them. He thought they would know that
God had sent him to do that. But they didn't, and they rejected
him. Forty years later, God says, I'm sending you. And he says,
who am I? God says, I want you to go to
Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. And he says, who am I to go to
Pharaoh? That's what he says in verse 11. And then when God
gives him all that he told him in chapter 3 about his name and
how he was the God of his people and how that he would surely
deliver them, most certainly be with Moses and go with them.
And Moses says, but they won't hear me. They won't believe me,
and they won't hear me. So you can see that Moses is
humble, and you can attribute it to his humility, but at the
same time, he's doubting something. And I want you to see this. He's
doubting something. It's brought out in verse 10
of Exodus 4. Look at these words with me.
I'm going to read from verse 10. through verse 17, and then
we'll go back and look at this more carefully. In verse 10 he
says, And Moses said to the Lord, now remember Moses wrote Exodus. He wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy. So the fact that God tells him
to write these things and he writes them faithfully is a testimony
to his faithfulness, isn't it? Think about that. I wouldn't
want to include the things in my life. I would be embarrassed
to include the things in my life out of which God saved me. It's
very, very shameful. And yet, Moses just puts it right
there. And that encourages me that,
remember all the names God, I think about this, when God refers to
those in the New Testament that He saves, sometimes He doesn't
even mention their name. He doesn't call them Bob or Dave
or Henry or Sue or Mary. He calls them the woman out of
whom Jesus cast seven devils. Or things like that. The man
who had the demons and Christ delivered him from those. Or
these kinds of things are used to refer to them. In other words,
God holds them up as a trophy of His grace and identifies them
by what He saved them from. He saved us from our sins. His
name is Jesus because He saves His people from their sins. But
our name is sinner because we're the ones He came to save. And
we have a problem owning that name, but that's the only name
that we can own because that's the only name that fitly describes
us. But here Moses does so in so many words. He says, And Moses
said to the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore
nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant, but I am slow of
speech and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said to him, Who
hath made man's mouth? Or who maketh the dumb, or deaf,
or the seen, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now therefore
go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt
say." 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, 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 unto
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. Look back at verse 10 with me
and consider what Moses said. He said to the Lord, O my Lord,
I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken to
thy servant, but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. Now, there's no doubt that Moses
believed that about himself. I don't know what he was able
to do 40 years prior, but in Acts chapter 7, Stephen said
that Moses was learned, he was learned in all of the wisdom
of Egypt, and he was mighty in word and in deed. That's what
Stephen said. He was mighty in word and deed.
And I'm convinced that what Stephen was talking about there was his
mightiness in word and deed as the prince in Egypt before God
sent him to his people. Because that's what Stephen mentions
before he goes on to describe how Moses at 40 years old goes
out to his brethren to deliver them. And then Moses here at
80 says, I'm not eloquent. I really am not eloquent. I've
really, I'm just paraphrasing here, I've never been able to
speak. And all the time since you've been speaking to me, Lord,
I haven't noticed a change in my ability to speak. And so,
he describes it as being, I'm slow of speech, and I'm of a
slow tongue. Because God had told him, this
is what I want you to do. Go to the elders of Israel, tell
them what I've told you. Moses says, I don't think they're
going to believe. I don't? They are not going to believe.
And then said, God gives them these signs. And so he has the
rod of God in his hand. He has the signs and he has the
words God gave him. God has made himself known to
him in the Lord Jesus Christ in the signs and in the bush
and speaking to him out of the bush. And Moses has all that.
And he says, I have another objection. I can't talk. Now, what is Moses
doing here? Everything that God had said
up to this point was what he was going to do. There was absolutely
no doubt that God was going to be successful. If he says he's
going to do something, he most certainly will do it and bring
it to pass. But Moses hears what God says, sees the signs, hears
God speaking out of the bush, has all of this communication
with God, one-on-one. And he says, I have a problem. It's me. The problem is with
me. Now this is what I call unbelief. Moses did not believe. Why do
I say that? Because unbelief fundamentally
does this. It considers itself in the equation. Unbelief makes its own ability,
its own understanding, its own zeal, its own tears, whatever
you want to put in there, as a factor in the equation that
makes God able to do what God is going to do. And there are
several examples that contradict Moses in this case. And Moses
lived after them. Remember Sarah and Abraham? How
long did God tell Abraham? Abram, he says, he calls him
by his name Abram, which meant father of many. And then he changes
his name. He says after he promised to
him, you're going to be the father of many. He says, and your name
is no more going to be called Abram, father of many, but Abraham,
father of many nations. And Abraham, believe the Lord,
before he even had a son, father of many nations. Amazing. Sarah had more trouble, and she
doubted. And the Lord appeared to Abraham,
remember, in the plains of Mamre, and told him again, at about
this time, according to the time of life, I'm going to appear,
I'm going to come, and Sarah herself is going to have a child.
And Sarah laughed. Remember that? But in the New
Testament, in Hebrews 11, 11, it says this about Sarah. Sarah
herself received strength. to conceive seed when she was
past age for this reason. Listen to what it says carefully.
I love these words. Because she judged him faithful
who had promised. That's what God says. That's
what faith is. Faith sees only one factor in
the equation. It's God's word, God's promise,
God's power, and what he's going to do. And so when Moses does
this, it's not humility on his part, although it's real. It's
real, isn't it? There's no doubt he couldn't
speak. And he was looking, perhaps, for a change. Somehow he's going
to be able to stand up and speak with the articulate oratory required
to speak to the king of Egypt himself. And someone might say,
well, he grew up in the house of Pharaoh. Maybe he couldn't
speak Hebrew right. No, it was to the Egyptians he was going
to go. and speak to them. And God didn't have a whole lot
of things for him to say. God was going to give him the
words. He says, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go that they
may serve me. Pretty clear. How much speech
does it take to do that? You see, Not only did Moses look
to himself, that gave him all kinds of fear about his ability
to do what he was going to do. Not only that, but he didn't
consider who it was that sent him, or the power of what he
sent him to do. And so, he says in verse 11,
God's response, And the Lord said unto him, This is to Moses,
who hath made man's mouth? Or who maketh the dumb, or deaf,
or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now, I remember
the first time I encountered this verse, it was when I was
in contact with lots of people who didn't truly believe the
gospel, and they were always throwing things in your face
like, well, the reason you don't have what you want is because
you don't believe. The reason people are sick, for
example, is because they just simply don't have enough faith.
But then, look at this verse here. Tell that to a blind man. The blind man in John 9, the
disciples come to Jesus and they say, Lord, was it this man that
sinned or his parents that he was born blind? And Jesus said,
neither one. It was for the glory of God.
And here the Lord says, at least at the first glance, the reason
that there are people born blind, the reason there are blind people
and people who can't speak and people who can't hear, the dumb
and the deaf, is because the Lord made them that way. And
if there are people who can speak, it's because God made them that
way. And so all abilities that people
have is they come from God who is the giver of every good and
perfect gift. And so when you say that you
can't speak, you're not considering the source the Lord God himself
who gives that ability to men to speak, to hear. In other words,
Moses, you're not looking to the one who is going to do what
he promised to do. Abraham was fully persuaded that
what God had promised, he was able also to perform. In Romans
4 it says that. And so Moses was considering
himself, he was not considering God, God's power. And the fact
that God was sovereign and God's sovereignty was absolute as creator,
he could give or take the ability to speak or hear. And so Moses
didn't consider the fact that it's not the messenger, it's
not the messenger's skills or ability that makes it effective
It's the message that makes God's Word accomplish what God would
have it accomplish. Look at Isaiah chapter 55 as
an example of this truth. In Isaiah 55, 11, I should read
verse 8 through 11. It says here, For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." What
could be clearer there? We're not like God, are we? We
don't think like God. And our ways are not like God's
ways. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down,
and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth
the earth, and makes it bring forth in bud, that it may give
seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, Whenever you see
things in creation, it's to teach us the gospel. He's saying, rain
goes down from heaven, it doesn't come back up. God sends the rain
to do something. And he uses that principle in
verse 11. He says, So shall my word be that goeth forth out
of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it. You see, it's not
the messenger, it's the message. And it's the one who sent the
messenger that makes God's Word accomplish what He would have
it accomplish. And this same thing is brought
out wonderfully in Ezekiel 37, where God says to Ezekiel, He
says, In verse 3 of Ezekiel 37, he said, Son of man, can these
bones live? Ezekiel was brought to stand
over a valley of dead bones, of dry, very dry and dead bones. And God asked him a question,
Son of man, can these bones live? It was a rhetorical question.
And he says, he said, and I answered, O God, O Lord God, thou knowest. That was an appropriate response,
wasn't it? Moses could have said that, couldn't
he? You've sent me, Lord. You can do all that you please. And I'm sure that you will, it's
your word, it's your message, and these are your people, and
these are your enemies, it's your mission, and I'm simply
the messenger. And so in verse 4 of Ezekiel
37, again, He said to me, prophesy unto these bones, and say unto
these dry bones, say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word
of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto
these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and
you shall live. The bones had no cooperation
in it, did they? Ezekiel, Ezekiel didn't have
any power over the bones, but he simply said what God told
him to say, prophesy to the bones and say, oh bones, hear the word
of the Lord. And the bones lived. the bone's
lip. And then, again, one more verse
along these lines. In Zechariah chapter 4, he says
in verse 6, Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This
is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might,
nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the LORD. When things are
done, To bring about the will of God, it's God's Spirit that
does the work. Jesus said, that which is born
of flesh, it's nothing but flesh. It can't accomplish what God
would have done in the kingdom of God, only God's Spirit. It's not by might, not by power.
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the strong man
in his strength, or the rich man in his riches. But let him
that glorieth, glorieth in this, that he understandeth and knoweth
me, that I am the Lord that exercise lovingkindness, and judgment
in the earth and righteousness and judgment in the earth. And
so Moses considered himself, Moses looked inward, Moses thought
about his own abilities or the lack thereof. And that's what
unbelief does. Unbelief thinks the only way
God's will can be done is if I have a part in it. God has
told me to do something, the only way it can get done is if
I have a part. And sometimes we think arrogantly, I'm able
to do that, and we put ourselves in the place of doing God's will
of our own initiative and under our own power. And alternatively,
God says, do this, and we think, I can't. And so we withdraw in
unbelief. Both are wrong. And here's a
lesson to be learned from this, because God's response to Moses
was his sovereignty over the hearer and the speaker. Over the one to whom they were
sent, he was sent, and the one he sent. Moses was sent to Israel
and to Pharaoh. God would accomplish what he
wanted when Moses spoke his word. And it was God's sovereignty
that would do that. So the lesson is this. Sometimes
we use the sovereignty of God as an excuse, don't we? We use
it as an excuse. I've done this. I'm guilty. We
think if God is sovereign, he's gonna get done what he wants
to get done, and he doesn't have to use me in it. Or maybe he'll
use me when I feel appropriately equipped. But God never gave
the ability to Moses to speak throughout the whole communication
process with him. And not even at this point in
time. He said, you go and I'll give you the words to speak.
Moses didn't receive the grace to do what God told him to do
until he actually believed God and went to do what He said.
And the same thing is true for us. The same thing is true for
us. Let me take you to a few verses
of Scripture, because when I speak about this, we might immediately
think, well, yeah, I mean, I need to get up and go find a job,
because God has told me to go out and get a job. And we begin
to apply it to these everyday circumstances of life. And to
a measure, that's correct. But really what God is trying
to get us to see is our need to act in faith when we go to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at John, and I've quoted
these with you, but I want you to think about these verses in
light of this, because if God has told us, you know what God
told Joshua? Joshua came right after Moses,
and God told Joshua, just after Moses died, And before Joshua
was to go into the land of Canaan, God told him in Joshua 1, He
said, Have not I sent thee, or commanded thee? Have not I commanded
thee? Now, if that's... I remember when I was growing
up as a little kid, my dad's word was the ultimate authority.
Even over my mom. And if my dad said to do something,
you better do it. One time he told me to leap off
of this cliff into the water. I didn't want to go that far.
He said, do it. And I did it. And it hurt just
like I thought it would. But I did it. But my dad wasn't
God. But the analogy is still there. Have not I commanded thee? Who
is it that told you to do this? If God commands and he provides
the grace to do what he commands, then command whatever you will.
God said to the light, light. Let there be light. And the light
leaped out of the nothingness of the darkness. And the light,
God commanded the light to shine out of darkness. And Paul uses
that in 2 Corinthians 4 to teach us, as God commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, even so, he's shined the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That's the God that has commanded us to go to Christ. Look at this
in John 20. And verse 31, but these things
are written. Now here's Moses. God has been
speaking to him. He's been showing him signs,
teaching him all the things we've talked about over the last few
weeks. And John summarizes the gospel that he was given to write. And now he does what the good
preachers do often. They say, is this your case? Do you hear this word? He says,
but these things, John says to us, and this is the Spirit of
God. This is God, remember? Joshua, have not I commanded
thee? And John says, but these things
are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his
name. This is God's warrant to every one of us to look to Christ. Now, I don't know about you,
but when I hear those words, I've heard the preaching over
and over. I even read the Bible myself,
and I ask myself this question. Maybe you have too. Do I have
part, any part, any interests and inheritance in all the things
that God has been describing about what Jesus Christ has done
for His people? Do I have a part in that? Have
not I commanded thee? These things were written that
you might believe." And I find the tendency in my own self to
look inward and say, but I haven't been able to speak ever before,
I haven't been able to believe before, and I don't find myself
believing now, even after you've spoken to me. And we begin to
analyze what faith is. And we lose sight of what God
has said because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
Word of God. I was thinking about this. God
tells us that Because of our sin, we're dead spiritually. Because of our sin in Adam, because
of our own sin, it evidences, it gives evidence to the fact
that we, in ourselves, spiritually, are dead. And there's many examples
of what that means to be lost in sin in the Gospels. The blind
man, he can't see. And I was thinking about how
I would like to be able to explain what faith is to somebody, but
the problem is that when we try to dissect these things which
are spiritual graces that God gives, We can't understand them,
can we, if we're dead in sins? So we wonder, how is God ever
going to instruct us in believing if we're dead and can't understand
what believing is because we've never experienced it? We don't
know what it is. How can I do what I've never done before?
I don't have any concept of what that is. And that's a problem.
It's like, how do you do that? And God's solution is so simple.
The rebuke to Moses for his unbelief was because he looked at himself
and failed to look at what God said he was going to do. The
remedy of unbelief is what God says in his word about what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done. You see, I thought about this. Let's say that you were the friend
of a man who was blind. And this man had been given something,
something amazing. He had been given a large amount
of land, beautiful trees. running water and grasslands
and just beautiful beyond mountains and things. And you want to say
to your friend, you have to realize what you've been given. I want
to tell you what you've been given. The blind man would like
to find out. Of course, it's way too big for
him to touch and feel. He can't take it in through his
senses. And so you have to describe it to him. And so you begin to
show him. All the things that he has, and you describe it to
him, and maybe God is, you have the ability to do that. You see,
the blind man cannot take in what he's been given through
his eyes, because he has no eyes. And that's the way we are by
nature. We have no faith. We can't see by nature. And so
God holds up to us, by his word, the Lord Jesus Christ, and describes
how Christ, in spite of our sin and even our unbelief, has saved
His people by what He has done. These things were written that
you might believe. In other words, look at what
God has said about His Son. Look at Him. Look at Him. And
He says that to us. In other words, Don't consider
yourself at all in this equation. Look at him. I want to emphasize
that. That faith is believing God.
Remember what it says in Hebrews 11, verse 3? Through faith, we
understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. Now,
if you want to understand something, I was watching a video this last
week about a guy named Richard Feynman, a famous physicist,
very intelligent, very gifted to understand physics and math
and other things. He was a co-developer of the
first atomic bomb and a teacher at very recognized schools, lived
his life discovering things that God had made. Sadly, though,
he thought the only way to understand God and to know God was through
the same process by which he understood creation. But God
says in Hebrews 11, He says, through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the Word of God. And if you think
about that, what it means is this, just like the friend of
the blind man. You'll have to take my word for
it. This is the way things are. You can't see it, and you can't
discover it. Your senses are incapable of
taking it in. And so God says, hear my word. Let me tell you what it's like.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And
faith, the gift of God given to us in our heart, here's what
God has said. and believes what God has said,
and we therefore understand now how the world was created. That's
the way faith works. But you can't produce it. You
have to put all of your focus on what God is saying and the
description of the Lord Jesus Christ that he's given in his
word. And Moses shows us this. So God says to Moses, his remedy
for his unbelief in looking at himself was, haven't I created
man's mouth? And I, in fact, created the dumb
and the deaf and the seeing and the blind. And so when we look
at that ourselves, we need to understand this as well, that
when the Lord Jesus Christ is presented to us in the gospel,
God is not looking. for some kind of response in
us in order that he might connect the benefits of Christ to us. He brings him to us, shows him
to us, and as Ezekiel spoke to the dead bones, gives life to
those by the Spirit of God that he preaches Christ to their hearts.
He opens our eyes. And you can think of many cases
of that in the scripture. But this one comes to my mind
in Luke chapter 8 as another illustration. I've given you
a few. Sarah, Ezekiel's dry bones, and the command. I mean, the
fact that the book of John, the entire gospel of John was written
with this goal in mind that you might believe. And if that's
why God wrote it and gave it to us, then isn't it a valid
ground to stand on that if God gave his word about Christ, then
I, who am a sinner, can lean the whole weight of my eternal
soul on what God has said about what Christ has done? And I don't
have to look at myself at all, but I can consider only Him.
And you know what? Faith is not a process. I say,
you know, sometimes we address those things that we learn the
hard way through our lives and in experiencing it, but faith
is not a process whereby we see steps by which we come to God
and we see these gradual changes and finally, ah, there, I finally
got it now. I finally arrived at that point
in my spiritual growth where I can look back and say, there,
I finally got it. No, no. As soon as you look to
Christ, You have eternal life. As soon as you see that it's
the Lord Jesus Christ to come to, who alone before God has
taken your sin and purged it by his own suffering and death,
and now sits in glory, that he did it by himself, he accomplished
your redemption. And as soon as you begin to come
to him, you're with him. Faith is not a process, it's
seeing Him. All that faith does is attribute
everything in my salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ. So we
have to address these things, but that's in the negative as
well as the positive, because we're so prone to do that. David
said it this way in 2 Samuel 23 5, I love these words. Although my house be not so with
God. When he thought about his own
life looking back on it, his own family, his own kingdom,
even his own heart, he says, although my house be not so with
God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant. And
he takes and lifts his eyes from the end of his life, almost in
the weakness of his old age, and perhaps even his own deathbed,
he says, he looks at the covenant that God made, and he says, and
this is all my salvation, and all my desire. It's everything. And what is that covenant? The
Lord Jesus Christ, crucified, He says, my blood, which is shed
for you, is the new covenant. It's the new covenant in my blood.
It's because of my blood that the new covenant and all the
conditions God placed on me for His people have been met. And
David says, it's all my desire. But in Luke chapter 8, to go
on to another example, because I love the examples God uses
to teach us this. There was a man, in verse 41,
whose name was Jairus, and he was a ruler of a synagogue. The
synagogue was the place where the Jews met to worship, and
he was a ruler of the synagogue. And you know the rulers of the
people in those days were opposed to Christ, so this is a premier
example of God's grace in this life. This ruler of the synagogue,
he came to the Lord Jesus Christ, it says in verse 41, And he fell
down at Jesus' feet, and he besought him that he would come into his
house. And he had only one daughter,
who was about twelve years of age, and she lay dying. And so,
as he went, the Lord Jesus, to go to Jairus' house, people were
all around him. And I'm an impatient person. My wife can tell you so. Here
we are. I've gotten to Jesus. I've got
his attention. I've told him my only daughter,
a young girl, only 12 years old, is sick and dying. And he meets
him in the crowd. And the people are all around
him. And Jesus begins to go. And it's moving slowly. The crowd's
moving so slowly. I want to... clear the crowd
out, go more quickly, move faster, she's dying. And on the way,
there's this interruption in verse 43. A woman having an issue
of blood, 12 years, which had spent all her living upon physicians
and neither could be healed by any, came behind him and touched
the border of his garment. And immediately her issue of
blood staunched or stanched. And Jesus said, who touched me?
And I would have been like, if I was Jairus, I would have said,
please, please move more quickly. But here's an example. It's actually
a benefit to him. So the woman touches him, and
Jesus asked, who touched me? And everyone around him who had
been touching him, obviously, they denied that they touched
him, because they probably thought, he's accusing me. And Peter,
and they that were with him, said, Master, the multitude thronged
thee and pressed thee, and sayest thou who touched me?" Peter seemed
like he was always trying to correct Jesus, wasn't he? I would probably have thought
the same thing. We're moving, we're trying to get somewhere,
and you're worried about someone touching you. It seems like you're OCD
or something. And Jesus said, Somebody has
touched me, for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. What
a picture of faith. This woman, she just said, all
I need to do is get to Christ and everything will be fine.
Everything will be fine if I can just touch him. And she did. And when the woman
saw that she was not hid, she came trembling and falling down
before him. She declared to them before all
the people for what cause she had touched him and how she was
healed immediately. And he said to her, daughter,
Be of good comfort. Thy faith hath made thee whole.
Go in peace. And every human heart, without
the grace of God, will see those words and attribute virtue to
faith instead of virtue to Christ. Haven't you done that? It was
the virtue from Christ that healed her. But verse 49, Jairus undoubtedly
saw this. And he was thinking, whoa, he
healed this woman. He can definitely heal my daughter.
We're on our way, everything is fine now. While he yet spake
to this woman, had taken time on his way to heal Jairus' daughter,
there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house saying
to Jairus, he says, your daughter is dead, trouble not the master. And what a fall. What a fall
that would be. Here, your daughter is dead,
your only daughter, or dying. She's your only daughter. You
finally get to Jesus. He's taking his time. Things
are moving slow. And someone comes along and says,
forget it, she's dead. But I just saw him heal this
woman if he just would have gotten there sooner. then all would
have been well and is just about at the lowest point you could
imagine. His hopes and fears have come
to fruition. His hopes are falling. And Jesus
speaks to him so graciously. But when Jesus heard it, he answered
him. He answered Jairus because Jairus
hadn't said anything at this point. He said, fear not, believe
only, believe only, and she shall be made whole. And you know the
rest of the story. Jesus gets there and he speaks.
The people mock him and Jesus speaks to her. In fact, let's
just go ahead and read it. And when he came to the house,
he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, James, and John,
and the father and the mother of the maiden, that would have
been Jairus, and his wife, and all wept and bewailed her. But
he said, Weep not. She is not dead, but sleepeth.
And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And
he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called,
saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came again, and
she arose straightway. And he commanded to give her
meat. And her parents were astonished. But he charged them that they
should tell no man what was done. You see, Moses was commanded
by God. He looks at himself. That's the
problem with unbelief. God rebukes him for it. Is the
whole thing not resting on me? And is not all of our salvation
resting on the Lord Jesus Christ? These things were written that
you might believe. It is. It's on Him alone. And
so God speaks to us, and when He says things like we've quoted
so many times before that are dear to our hearts, and we lay
hold on them as we read, as we sang, tell me the old, old story. When He had by Himself purged
our sins, He sat down on the right hand of God. He actually
accomplished salvation for his people. And David said, what
we ought to say, all my salvation, he's all of my salvation, all
my desire. And Jesus says to this man, believe
only. Look at Luke 17. I like these,
I love these things that God has taught us. about the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says in John 17. I'm looking at Luke 17. I didn't
mean to go to John 17. Matthew 17. I'm really confused. Matthew 17. I knew it was a 17
something. But Matthew 17. Jesus is transfigured. He goes up to the mountain. Peter,
James, and John are with him. Moses and Elijah appear with
Jesus talking with him about his decease, which he should
accomplish at Jerusalem. And Peter says foolish things.
He says, let's make a tabernacle for the three of you. And I'm
just speaking, I'm just giving you the summary. In verse 5,
While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And
behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. And when the disciples heard
it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus
came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And
when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man save Jesus
only. Do you see that? Believe only. It's Jesus only. It's about Him
only. Every imagination of the thoughts
of the heart of man in the beginning were evil. only evil continually. That's us. Only evil. Only guilt. Only corruption.
Only this foul, leprous heart and body. And yet, all of our
salvation is what God says He has done in Christ. It's Jesus
only. Believe only. And when we say
believe only, we just mean Look only to Him. Don't consider yourself. Don't consider yourself. You'll
find no help there. If you do find help in yourself,
you cannot believe. If you think you have the strength
to do what God has said, you cannot believe. God has to bring
us to the end of ourselves. We're like the dying children
of Israel in the wilderness. We just lift our eyes and say,
there, there's the remedy. No other remedy could be found.
Not among men, not in me. But God sent His Son. And so,
we can't believe God until we believe His Word. And we can't
believe His Word, we won't believe His Word until we believe what
God has said. Until we know what God has said,
we can't believe Him. Believing God without knowing
what He said is not believing God. Believing God is what He
said, isn't it? And so David said in 2 Samuel
7, 25, he says, Lord, do what you have said. Do what you have
said. And when John comes to the end
of the gospel, he says, these things were written that you
might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that
believing you might have life through his name. We say, Lord,
do what you've said. Like Mary, when the angel told
her, you're going to have a child. He's going to be born of the
Spirit of God. And he's going to be the Lord's
Christ. And she said, be it unto me according
to your word. According to your word. And what
word do we believe only? It's the word about the Lord
Jesus Christ. How he saves his people from
their sins. When he cried, it's finished.
He did the will of God. He only, and so in the Psalm
71, 16, he says, I will make mention of thy righteousness,
even thine only. I love the fact that God only
directs our faith to Christ, because when he does so, he teaches
us something, and he causes us to rejoice. Can you rejoice in
Christ only? You can if you have nothing,
but if you have something, then you can't because you're always
thinking of what you don't have or what you do have and you can
never rejoice in what God has done in Christ. And so Moses,
the remedy for unbelief is to look to Christ only, to believe
Him only. His remedy for going to Pharaoh
and saying what God has said was to believe the message. And
God who sent the message was the one who would accomplish
all that He said He would do. Like Sarah, she judged Him faithful
who had promised. Now, we think of all these things
and sometimes we limit our knowledge and understanding of God's salvation.
And we say things that are incorrect. And we have to correct those
too. When I was listening for years, a famous Reformed teacher
on the radio, he would constantly say, when asked, but what do
I do? How do I become saved? Various
other questions. And he would say, just cry out
to God for mercy. And that sounds like a good thing,
doesn't it? Just cry out to God for mercy. Cry out to God for
mercy. And many examples were cited, like the Ninevites, who
just said, maybe God will have mercy, and so on. But you know
what? And I say this for a purpose, to try to emphasize what God
means when he says, believe only and look to Christ only. When
God says, when the preacher says, just cry out to God for mercy,
we have to be careful. Because if God could have saved
us by just crying out to him for mercy, and just showing mercy
on us, He would never have sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's always my litmus test, if it's true or not. Does it
answer to Romans 8, 34? It's Christ that died. If it
doesn't answer that, then it's not the truth. Just crying out
to God for mercy, just pleading over and over to God, Lord save
me, Lord save me, Lord save me, is not faith. looking to Christ
only is what faith does. And we can't produce that. What
do we do then? We look to Christ only. Look
at what God thinks of him. Come to God like Paul told Philemon
regarding Onesimus the slave. Receive him as myself. He's my own bowels. And we say,
Lord, Receive me for Christ's sake. All I can see that you
accept and are pleased with, the only thing that pleases God
is the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what faith says. It
looks to Christ only. And that's why God says, without
faith, it's impossible to please him. We come to God knowing that
He is and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek
Him. Because all grace we need from God is found in Christ and
in Him alone. It's not found in us, not even
a part of it. God doesn't save us by what He does. what he finds
in us, or even by what he works in us. He saves us by what he
did in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he brings that to us, and
when he makes Christ our only salvation, all of our salvation,
then we know that we believe him. And we can take confidence
that God has received us for Christ's sake. Because we say
what God says, Jesus only. Let's pray.