This is part three in our series
on this particular passage in Exodus 4, the three signs that God gave
to Moses to give to the elders of Israel. And because Moses was concerned
that they would not believe that God had sent him, that God had
appeared to him, and this is what happened here. God addressed
Moses' concern by giving him three signs to give to the elders
of Israel. Now I want to say a couple words
by introduction and to remind you what we went over last time. Remember the first sign, God
commanded Moses to cast his rod down, and then to pick it up
again by the tail. When he cast it down, it became
a serpent. And when he told him to pick it up, it was a serpent.
And he picked it up by the tail, and God restored it back to his
rod again. Now remember that these signs
were given for a purpose. They weren't just given to entertain.
God gave them to Moses. Moses was commanded to give them
to the elders of Israel, and the elders of Israel, these were
given to them in order that they might believe. So we saw in the
first sign that God's miracles are always about, not the miracle,
but Christ. Remember, when the Lord Jesus
Christ walked on the earth and did miracles, we're often tempted
to look at just the miracles. He turned water to wine, wow,
or He opened the eyes of a blind man, or He raised a man who was
paralyzed. And he did all these things for
sure. There's no doubt about it. He calmed the seas. He raised
Lazarus from the dead. He fetched a coin out of a fish
to pay the taxes. He did all these miracles. But
the message of the miracles is not the miracle themselves. The
message of the miracles is always about the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we understand that, then we won't go too far afield of what
the miracles have to do with. Remember, and I mentioned this
I believe in our first part of this series, when writing in
the book of John, he says many other things, many works Jesus
did, but these 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. It's imperative. It's essential. It's crucial. It's our life depends
upon it that we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so these
miracles were given to the elders of Israel At that time in history,
they were given to cause them to believe that God sent Moses.
But more than that, God sent the Lord Jesus Christ and he
gave these miracles to prophetically look forward to the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ and what he would do. So the first miracle
we saw that when God commanded Moses to cast his rod on the
ground, he's speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the
rod out of the stem of Jesse, Isaiah 1, 11, 1, and many other
places, who is in himself the King of glory. But in order for
him to be the king and rule over his people, he had to first fulfill
the will of God. And he did this by humbling himself
and becoming a servant, and in all things serving his father
and his people out of love at the cost of his own self. He
descended from heaven in order that he might ascend and fill
all things. He who was God became the son of man, and as the son
of man, he had to be made under the law. He had to be made sin. Being made sin under the law,
he was cursed by God. He did all that to fulfill the
obligations of his people. And then when he fulfilled them,
he rose again. And in rising again, he assumed
the role of king over all things. In Matthew 28, 18, he says, all
power is given to me in heaven and earth. And then he tells
them, go ye therefore and teach all nations. And in prophecy
in Daniel 7, I didn't read this that week, but in Daniel 7 in
verse 13 he says, Daniel is seeing a vision. He says, I saw in the
night visions and behold, one like the Son of Man came with
the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days and they
brought him near before him. This is speaking about a vision
Daniel saw and he sees the Son of Man. He's in heaven. He's
in heaven before He comes to earth, and in heaven He has glory.
He says, "...and there was given Him dominion and glory and a
kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom, that which
shall not be destroyed." That's the Son of Man. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. But in order for him to have
rule over all things as our mediator, he had to fulfill the role as
our mediator, as our surety, our high priest. He had to lay
down his life, overcome all our enemies. He had to satisfy God's
law. He had to put down the rule of
Satan under his feet by satisfying God. And in the court of heaven,
God would subdue Satan under all the feet of his people under
Christ. So when Moses picks up the serpent by the tail, it testifies
to the fact that Christ had fully extinguished the wrath of God,
had fully fulfilled His will, and overcame the curse, overcame
the one who was cursed, the devil, and overcame all of our enemies,
sin and Satan and the world and everything. Now, think about
it, this sign, we can read that sign, we can think about the
meaning of the sign, but God gave this sign to the elders
of Israel by Moses in order that they might believe. God gives
us this sign of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not just a sign,
it's the reality of it. He gave us the reality of what
Christ did, and this is meant As John said in John 20, 31,
this is meant so that we might believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
When God tells us from His Word what He has done and accomplished
by the Lord Jesus Christ, what does He expect of us? He expects
us to be persuaded of the truth of it, to embrace it, and to
confess this is all of our hope. And so He went on and gave them
another sign. He says, if they don't believe that sign, then
give them this sign. And He took His hand and He put it into His
bosom. And when He drew it out, it was leprous, like snow. And
God said, put it into your bosom again. And He did, and He drew
it out again, and it was white and clean, just like the other.
I mean clean, not white, but clean, just like the other hand.
And we saw there that God Even though when we examine all that
we are in our hand and able to do and in our heart, by the law,
we're completely leprous. We're covered. We're contaminated. We're defiled. We have a plague
and it's leprosy. We can't overcome it. We're unclean
before God and there's only one way that it can be overcome is
Christ himself had to come to us. He had to take all of our
iniquities. He had to take our sicknesses
to himself and by his stripes we're healed. So he did that
and he touches us. But this sign was a sign that
points to our experience as believers, because when the Lord Jesus Christ
took our iniquities, He also brings to us His Spirit and teaches
us what He's done by faith, so that we look to Him. And in looking
to Him, we experience in our conscience and in our life that
healing. We have the new birth. We have
the Spirit of God dwelling within us. All of our corruption, we're
actually pure before God in our new man. We have no sin, and
we have no sin before God because Christ put it away. And so when
we come to the Lord Jesus Christ as the leper's hand going back
into the bosom the second time, it teaches us that even though
the law provides us no help, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled
that law, and He did, in fact, cleanse us from our sins by His
own work for us, Himself becoming plagued by our sin. So the first
sign teaches us objectively what Christ did without our experience. The second one is in our experience,
we experience those three things. The cleansing of Christ, because
we see it by faith, we take it to ourselves by faith, and we
know it's true. And so that cleansing from sin
is meant to teach us what Christ would do for us and also bring
that in application to ourselves. That's meant for our faith. Who
do we look for? Do we recognize that we're plagued? Do we recognize that we have
this sin-cursed heart and that it's inclined towards sin in
every aspect until God comes and gives us a new heart, circumcises
our heart, takes away the stony heart and gives us a heart of
flesh to know Him? We're without strength to do that. It's new
life God has to give us. And when he does that, he's teaching
us, this is the experience of the believer, and this is meant
to give us faith that God not only saved us in what Christ
did for us, but saves us by what Christ does in us by his spirit.
And now we come to the third sign here. And this one perhaps
is the more difficult for me. And he says here in verse 8 of
chapter 4, And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe
thee, nor hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they
will believe the voice of the latter sign. That means the one
with the leprous hand. And it shall come to pass, if
they will not believe also these two signs, Now, Moses was concerned
that the children of Israel, even the elders, wouldn't believe
him. And I can understand that. He
heard God. He saw the burning bush. God
spoke to him out of the bush. He could see these things and
he knew that it was God's voice. He wasn't imagining these things.
God actually spoke to him. But you can imagine going to
them and telling them, God spoke to me. And having a doubt that
they would believe you. because he had no confidence
in himself, but also he knew that they were like him. He was
a man of like passions like they were. He needed to know that
God, in fact, he acts almost as a mediator. who comes between
God and His people, and he recognizes their weakness and unbelief,
and he tells God, even though he's contradicting what God has
said. God said, they'll believe you. Moses said in verse 1 of
chapter 4, but they won't listen to me. They won't believe. And
God gives him these signs. You can see his weakness there,
but that there's a sympathetic one. The sympathetic attitude
Moses has towards the people, and he expresses this to God
in this way. And I think that that's a lesson
to learn from this, because in Hebrews it says, We have not
a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities. The Lord Jesus Christ knows our
infirmities. And what is our infirmity? What
do we need most? We need to be healed of our unbelief. God has to give us faith. And
these things were written that you might believe. And that's
what we want to look at is what has God said and how is it that
he gives us this faith today. And so I've entitled this message
today, Faith, the Receiving Grace. And look at this last sign in
verse 9. He says, "...it shall come to
pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither
hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water
of the river, and pour it upon the dry land, and the water which
thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry
land." Go down to the river, take some water out, and then
pour it on the land. And when you pour it on the land,
it's going to become blood on the dry land. Now, again, I said
this one's difficult for me because Moses wasn't told by God to offer
a sacrifice. If he had been told that, it
would be clear. This is pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ offered.
And his blood was shed. But water is taken from the river
and that water is poured on the ground and it's turned to blood.
And so I'm not entirely confident what this sign is pointing to. But there's a few things I would
point out here. First of all, without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission. We know that's true, that's a
fact. It's the blood, Leviticus 17, 11, it's the blood that makes
atonement. And Hebrews 9, 22 says, without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission. So we know that
blood is required. This principle was set down from
creation. And so blood is what makes atonement.
And we also know that God offered his son. He gave his son, did
he not? For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son. And he offered his son, did he
not? Doesn't it say in Genesis 22
verse 8 that Abraham tells Isaac, my son, God will provide himself
a lamb for the burnt offering. That would be the Lord Jesus
Christ. Wasn't he offered? And didn't, doesn't it say in
Isaiah 53 10 that it pleased the Lord to bruise him when thou
shalt make his soul an offering for sin? So God offered his son. In Romans 8 32, it says, he that
spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall
he not with him also freely give us all things? God offered the
Lord Jesus Christ for his people. This is grace. This is the sign
that we need to understand. So God offered His Son. But the
Lord Jesus Christ also is said to offer Himself. In the end
of Hebrews 7, it says, he offered himself to God as the high priest
offered, the sacrifice Christ offered himself to God. That
was the sacrifice he offered. Paul says in Galatians 2.20,
the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He gave
himself in offering, and he gave himself as a servant. He gave
himself in love to God. He gave everything he had, his
own life, unto death, and that offering that he gave was our
righteousness. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
offered himself. God offered his son, Christ offered himself,
and that's where the blood comes from. It comes from the Lord
Jesus Christ. But also remember this, that
when the Lord Jesus Christ was offered, God, according to His
predetermined counsel and foreknowledge, He gave the Lord Jesus Christ
to be delivered into the hands of sinful men. And you can read
about this in Acts 2 and Acts 4, but let's just take the first
one. Acts 2, he says in verse... 23, it's familiar, but I'll read
it to you. It says in Acts 2 23, Him being delivered remember Romans 8 32 God has
delivered him up he didn't spare him but he delivered him up him
being delivered by the determinant counsel and for knowledge of
God you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain
you see that so the Lord Jesus Christ indeed was offered God
offered him and he offered himself to God he did it for his people
but at the same time God delivered him into the hands of wicked
men in order that he might be offered. And so, because this
is true, there's a double activity going
on here. God accomplished the offering
of his son through the wicked intentions of evil men. And God
always brings justice in every situation. So the Lord Jesus
says to the Pharisees, and I was just looking for it, I think
I had the wrong reference to it, so let me look just a second
to this, because I want to read this to you, if I can put my
finger on it. He says, let's see, unfortunately I'm not gonna,
I'll just have to quote it from memory. He says, that because
the Pharisees didn't believe him, because the scribes, the
rulers, and the Pharisees, and the Jews rejected the Lord Jesus
Christ, he says that all of the blood that was shed from the
foundation of the world up to that time of all the righteous
servants of God. All that blood would be required
of this generation. He said that. From the blood
of Abel to the blood of Zacharias that you slew between the altar
and the something. I can't remember exactly how
the verse goes because I've misplaced the reference to it. But you'll
recall that verse, don't you? Christ is laying to the charge
of those who refused and rejected Him. The guilt of the blood of
His people. What an enormous weight of guilt
He lays to their charge. Because of how they treated Him.
Cain killed his brother Abel. And yet, and he was guilty and
God sent him out. He fled from before the presence
of the Lord. God put a mark on him. But the Lord Jesus Christ
takes all the blood of His servants who were killed by those who
would not believe, who refused to believe the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and He lays it to the charge of those men.
That's hard to imagine, isn't it? But it was a righteous judgment.
Because they would kill the Lord Jesus Christ, they're refusing
God. They're refusing everything.
They're trampling underfoot the Son of God. God is going to hold
them accountable. So when here in this sign what
we see, I believe we're seeing two things. God sends Moses to
the elders of Israel. Take the water that's in the
river. Now the water was life to the Egyptians. That's the
only way they could have crops. Egypt is a desert without the
Nile River. So take the water from the river.
The water in scripture also points to life. And poured on the ground.
Christ is the Prince of Life, is He not? Poured out. His soul
was poured out. He says, I'm poured out like
water. And I'm trying to remember, I
think it's in Psalm 22. And so when God offered him up,
his soul suffered under the wrath of God for his people. But there
were men who were guilty of that. And so I think we're seeing both
of these things in here. Take this sign to the elders
of Israel. Tell them the first one about
how Christ would rule over his people for their good and rule
over his enemies to their destruction. Tell them about how he would
save his people from the plague of the leprosy of their own heart
by taking that plague and providing a way that even the law couldn't
fulfill for them. He would do it all for them.
What the law could not do, and that it was weak through the
flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us who believe." That's what
the second sign points to. But now we come to the third
sign, and then there's blood poured out of the river onto
the dry ground. And I think this is pointing
to the fact that God's people see the blood poured out. They
see that the Lord Jesus Christ, all that He did, the proof that
what He did was actually giving His life for His people is that
His blood was shed. How do we know that Christ died?
Because of His blood. How do we know atonement was
made? Because His blood was shed. 1 John chapter 5, the Apostle
John points to this. He says, we saw blood and water
come out of His side. And it's the blood that makes
it atonement. It's the blood that justifies us from our sin
and cleanses us before God, and the water that purifies us. And
here we see the Lord Jesus Christ. He's poured out, but there's
a guilty party here too. And the guilty party, the blood
comes on the dry land. Because at this time, Egypt was
going to come under judgment. God is going to destroy all of
Egypt through these coming plagues. And finally at the last, even
the firstborn in Egypt. And so I think this is pointing
to the fact that in the time when Jesus was on the earth and
the Jews rejected Him, all those who reject Him are in the same
lump. They're in the same group, even
though we see it in the nation of Israel at the time of Christ's
rejection on earth and His crucifixion. We see it throughout time. All
those who refuse to bow to the one who is the rod of God, who
was made the curse for us because He was made sin, made under the
law as our surety and fulfilled that law. All those who refuse
to bow to His rule will be dashed to pieces with the rod of iron,
with the rod of His rules in Psalm 2. And those who refuse
to believe are going to be like the Egyptians. The nation of
Israel is a type of... I mean, Egypt was a type of the
nation of Israel and all those who've refused to believe Christ.
They hold God's people under bondage and they afflict them.
It's the kingdom of Satan. It's the kingdom of this world.
And so God says that the Lord Jesus Christ's blood would be
poured out. But that blood would become a
curse to the land of Egypt because by it God would destroy them.
And I think that's what it's pointing to. But I can't be certain. So I say it with some reservation. But nevertheless, whether or
not the sign points to that, the truths still hold true. The
truths still hold true. God did offer His Son. Christ
did offer Himself. That offering of Christ is the
salvation of His people. And that same offering of Christ
is the charge laid to those who reject Christ. And so I want
to go through the Scripture with you and look at this thing of
faith. Because that's why these signs were given. That's why
these signs were given. If we miss that, then we miss
the purpose of the signs. But we have to see what the signs
point to. Because they were meant to give
faith to the elders of Israel. Moses was
sent by God. God sent Tell them, I sent you. He says, they won't believe me.
God says, here's these signs. They'll believe you because you
do these signs. The Lord Jesus Christ was sent
by God. God sent him. God did signs through him. The
signs were not pointing to something else. They were the actual fulfillment
of all God gave him to do. And it's believing him, what
he did, that God teaches us that he truly sent his son. When he
raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand,
that's when we understand of a certainty that he shed his
blood in order to save us from our sins. Christ's work, declared
to us from the gospel by the Spirit of God into our hearts,
gives us faith. And that's our life. If we don't
believe Him, what does it say in John 3, 36? Look at this with
me. John 3, 36. It's a serious thing. It's a very serious thing, and
it is something that causes me great concern in my own heart,
but also for you. Yeah, John 3.36, he says this,
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And he
that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of
God abideth on him. That's the third sign, isn't
it? The third sign, God shed the blood of his son. It saves
his people. Believe him. Believe the blood. Come to God by him. If you don't,
if you refuse, if you, like Cain, think you can bring another offering
that God will accept instead of him, then you're trampling
underfoot the blood of Christ. He says, and the wrath of God
abides on you. The blood on the dry ground,
I think, is pointing to that. But I want you to think about
the faith that God gives. Now, when we think of faith, it seems
like a simple thing, isn't it? Do you believe that I'm standing
here before you? Of course you do. I'm standing
right here. You can see it. You can touch me. It doesn't
even come to your mind. A shadow of a doubt doesn't even
cross your mind that I'm standing here before you. Because it's
a fact, isn't it? It's easy to believe things you
can see. But faith is a curious thing, isn't it? Does it ever come across your
mind? You know what? I spend my whole life thinking about
and working on. And doing things for a purpose,
I can't even see it. I can't even see the things that
motivate me to do what I'm doing. Do you ever think about that?
The things that either give you unrest or comfort at night, you
can't even see them, can you? That's what faith is. Faith is
the substance the tangible substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen. That's what faith is. Faith is
the reality of everything that we cannot see. And we know that faith is precious,
isn't it? Without faith, You don't know
God. Without faith, you cannot be
justified. You cannot stand before God.
You cannot receive anything from God without faith. It says that
without faith, it is impossible to please Him. You cannot please
God without faith. So we need to understand what
faith is, because faith is very important. It's very important.
But when we start to talk about faith, It's easy for us, because
we're so prone to do this, about everything God tells us, I don't
know about you, almost everything that God tells us, somehow we
twist it and wrap it around in order to make it to be about
me, so that I begin to look about myself. But this is something
that we are totally surprised by when we first believe. And
we're shocked that we didn't realize it up until this point.
That faith always causes us to look outside of ourselves and
upward instead of inside and downward. In the ark, there was
one window. Where was it? It was above. Because
Noah and his family could only look up out of the ark. And there's
a purpose for that, because we walk by faith and not by sight. Faith is so important. Faith
is the gift of God that connects my soul to Him. It does. I don't know God without
faith. Faith connects me to the knowledge
of God. I have nothing from God, spiritually,
but that he does not give me by faith." When we're born, and
this is a sad thing to think about, when my children were
born, I realized that they were sinners. But I didn't realize
that they were sinners so much as I realized that I myself had
begotten sinners because I'm a sinner. And that hurts the
most. Look what I've done. Sometimes
you think, why did I even have children? They're all sinners,
just like me. Everything that they do wrong
came from me. How can you bring a clean thing
out of an unclean? Job says, who can? Not one, no
one. David said, I was shapen in iniquity
and in sin did my mother conceive me. I received from my parents
this sinful nature and they received it from theirs and so on. Adam
passed it along to his children. Abel and Cain had the same sinful
nature. That which is born of the flesh
is just flesh and that's all it is. It takes the Spirit of
God creating in us His Spirit in us in order for us to have
faith. That's how precious faith is.
It's the breath of our life by the Spirit of God. We eat and
drink and breathe faith out of faith. That's what faith is.
It's this way that God has given us to lay hold on. To lay hold
on Him. To come to Him. To call upon
Him. To worship Him. Everything springs
out of this. So, I want to consider this with
you. But keep in mind as we go through
this. that faith is never meant to cause you to focus inward
to see if you have faith. How do I know if I have faith
if I can't look to see if I have faith? Because faith, and this
is another thing that seems simple enough, but almost, it's like
when I was a kid, it's a good thing they don't, but we would
break open a thermometer and hold the mercury in our hand.
And it was so weird. Don't touch mercury. It's poison. But we would play with it. You
couldn't get a hold of it. It's weird. That's kind of the
way faith is. It's not weird. But it's hard
to get a hold of. Faith is discovered not by how
I feel. But faith is discovered by the
object of faith that I hold. If I have faith, then I have
it in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. If I don't believe
Him and Him crucified, then I don't have faith. It's that simple.
And so we need to understand this. So let's think about this
through the scripture together. According to Hebrews 1.3, and
I do this on purpose, I thought about this carefully. The Lord
Jesus Christ by Himself purged our sins. Do you doubt that? Don't you love the simplicity
of that verse? When he, when, it talks about a point in time.
When he, the Lord Jesus Christ, by himself purged our sins. He sat down on the right hand
of the majesty on high. What did he do? He cleansed us
from our sins before God. When did he do it? It wasn't
in your experience. It was when he cried, it is finished. And when he cried, it is finished,
all of our sins were cleansed. Atonement was made. He propitiated
God. He satisfied justice. He appeased
God's wrath, removing God's wrath from his people. And he cleansed
them from their sins. All that was done when he cried,
it is finished. He reconciled us to God by his
death. He established everlasting righteousness. He obtained eternal redemption. He secured our eternal inheritance. He justified us by His blood. He did all this in His death. God tells us that, that we might
believe it, that we might know the certainty of it. When did
this occur? It occurred before he sat on
the right hand of the majesty on high. When he had by himself
purged our sins, then he ascended and sat on the right hand of
the majesty on high. When did he was seated on the
right hand of the majesty on high? After he purged our sins. So if he's seated on the right
hand of the throne of the majesty on high, our sins must be purged. This is the sign. This is the
reality for our faith. What does faith do when it hears
that? Faith says, tell me more. Tell me what does it mean? Well,
he tells us. He purged our sins. This is how
we come to God. Remember Cain and Abel? What
was the difference? God rejected Cain, but he received
Abel. Why? entirely because of what
they offered. Remember? Cain brought from the
fruit of the ground the best he could find. I was thinking
about this. What if you had a whole football field full of the most
exotic flowers and their fragrances? That's what Cain did. He just
brought the whole field full of all that he could, bundled
up, and he must have smelled great and looked great. beautiful
fruits and vegetables and flowers and everything, probably arranged
in the best way possible. And he brings it to God, and
God rejected it. He rejected him. Why? Because
he came as a sinner, expecting God to receive a sinner out of
something God created. And God can only receive a sinner
by the blood sacrifice of His Son as that sinner's substitute. And Abel knew that. How did he
know that? Well, remember, God offered the first animal and
clothed Adam and Eve with the skins of that animal. God offered
and with that animal clothed them so that God could receive
them. And Adam told his sons, I sinned. God provided the lamb and clothed
us. And this is the only way we can
come to God. And Abel said, I can only come
by the Lord Jesus Christ offered for me." And so he comes to God
bringing the lamb without spot. without blemish in order that
he might, and God says, by faith, Abel offered unto God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain, by the witch, by the witch, the
offering, he obtained witness that he was righteous, because
Abel came, this is key, by faith, looking to the offering, looking
to what the offering pointed to, looking beyond it to Christ,
and coming to God, looking to Christ, that's what faith does,
it comes to God, looking to Christ, and looking nowhere else and
no further. And God received Abel. So the Lord tells us what
He did. He purged our sins and He holds
that up to us so that we might believe it. Leviticus 16.30 says,
that on that day, that day, not a week or a year or over the
course of your lifetime or through endless struggles in the night
season, on that day shall the priest make an atonement for
you to cleanse you that you might be clean from all your sins before
the Lord. What else is needed? All your
sins cleansed before the Lord? That's what God says the priest
would do. That's what Christ did. He purged us from our sins.
The proof is that He rose from the dead and sat on the right
hand of God. That was also the proof that
all of His enemies were doomed, incidentally. Now faith, first
and foremost, is the gift of God. And this is a hard thing. I don't know how long I've heard
people wrestle over this and argue over it. I remember my
mom talking with Jehovah's Witnesses at the door over this verse when
I was a kid. And she even wrestled with this.
She argued with the pastor at that time. She didn't understand
it. God did reveal it to her. He
did make it known to her in her heart. But the thing of it is,
at some point, the thing of it is, is God says it very plainly,
that faith is the gift of God. He says this, for by grace are
you saved through faith, and that, that faith, is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not, in
case you didn't hear it, not of works, lest any man should
boast. Why does God make it so that
we're saved by faith in Christ? so that you will not boast, so
that God alone gets the glory. Therefore, it says this in Galatians
3, 11 and 12, he says, the law is not of faith. Do we understand
that? So clear, the law is not of faith.
Your personal obedience in order to please God and bring something
acceptable to God or making reforms or doing whatever you do, thinking
that someday you can get yourself so that you'll be able to rest
in your conscience before God, is works, and that's not of faith. To him that worketh not, but
believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted
for righteousness." Romans 4, 6. And so, faith is the gift
of God. And it's not surprising, is it,
that faith is the gift of God? Faith is the gift of God, because
I want you to think about this. It says in the scripture that
every good and every perfect gift is from above. Remember
that in James 1, 17? Every good and every perfect
gift is from above. It's from God, the Father. Every
good and every... Is faith a good and perfect gift? Then it's from above. He also
says this, Romans 11 35 who hath first given to him and it shall
be recompensed to him again God is never a receiver God is always
the giver who has first given to God and it shall be recompensed
to that man again God show me one person has brought anything
that God hasn't already given him God gives and Man, when he
gives to God, gives out of what God has given him. How can we
expect to use that? It's like taking a lever and
trying to move the earth with a stick. You can't do it. It would seem ludicrous, but
that's the way we think. It says in Acts 17, he says,
God is not worshiped with men's hands. That's trying to give
something. That's what Cain did. As though he needed anything.
He doesn't need our worship. That's humbling to our pride,
isn't it? I can go to Bill Gates, who's
got a lot of money, and I could wheedle my way somehow into his
good graces, maybe by fawning or doing something ridiculous
to earn his favor. Maybe invent some cool tool,
some software or something like that. You can't do that with
God. You cannot motivate God to look
on you with favor because of what he finds in you. You don't
bring something out of yourself to cause God to draw attention
to yourself from God. He says, God is not worshipped
with man's hands. He doesn't need it. Remember
what he says in the Psalms, If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell
you, because you don't provide me with food. you don't provide
me with anything that I need. I don't need anything, and I
certainly don't need it from you. And listen to this verse
in Hebrews 7.7. Remember when Abraham was blessed
by Melchizedek? Remember that, Melchizedek? This
is a proof that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham. He says,
without all contradiction, the less Abraham is blessed by the
greater Melchizedek. If Abraham was blessed by Melchizedek,
it absolutely is certain that Melchizedek is greater than Abraham.
Who is blessed? Are we blessed by God, or is
God blessed by us? Well, the answer to that question
is so obvious. Then who is the greater? God.
He does the blessing. We're on the receiving end. In
1 Chronicles 29.14, it says, David said who am I and what
is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after
this sort when he brought all the things to make the temple
he says for all things come of thee and of thine own hand have
we given thee of thine own have we given thee have you ever thought
about that that thing what Jesus said he says it's more blessed
to give than to receive But if we think that God receives from
us, then somehow we're more blessed than He is because we came up
with something we could give Him. Faith is always the gift
of God. But here's the thing about faith.
God gives it, but in giving us faith, He's giving us that gift
of grace which allows us, in turn, to lay hold on all that
He's given us. It seems difficult to understand,
but it's really not. It says in John 1.16 that God gave, let me read it here
to you, John 1.16, He says, "...of His fullness, of Christ's fullness,
have all we received in grace for grace." of Christ's fullness have we
all received. And that's the only way we have
anything. In fact, He's given us this most important thing
from Him, grace. And the grace that He's given
us even includes grace to receive grace. And that's what faith
is. Faith is that gift of God which
allows us to take part of all that God has for us in Christ
by grace. Faith lays hold on what God has
given us by grace. Even though God gives it to us
freely, yet He's pleased to give us faith to lay hold on it. Now we think immediately faith
is a hand. Now I'm exercising my hand and
I'm laying hold on things and we begin to turn faith into a
work. But remember, No, faith can't be a work because, therefore
we conclude that, it says in Romans 3, let me read this to
you, because sometimes we get ourselves in these little mind
wars and tangled around the axle of our own righteousness and
we forget what faith is, but he says in Romans chapter 3,
therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without
the deeds of the law, and then later he says, Let's see. Where is boasting
then? Verse 27. It's excluded. By what
law? Works? No, but by the law of
faith. Faith excludes all boasting.
So that even though God gives us faith to lay hold on His grace
and promises in Christ, that faith is never a work. It's a
gift of God's grace. And the reason it's not a work,
listen to the way that it lays hold on these promises. Think about the children of Israel
in the wilderness. They had sinned. God sends the
flaming, the fiery serpents, and they bit the children of
Israel, and they were plagued. They were all dying. There was
no remedy. Moses couldn't do anything. There was no doctor.
The priests couldn't do anything. The people were dying. Many of
them actually died. And God says to Moses, lift up
the serpent on the pole, and whoever looks, is that a work? Is looking a work? It's not. Because looking ascribes to the
one to whom it looks all of the virtue, all of the goodness,
all of the authority. Remember the woman who had an
issue of blood 12 years? She had faith. And what did her
faith cause her to do? to press through the crowd, to
reach out and lay hold on the garments of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And in doing that, virtue came out of him and to her. She laid
hold on him. And this teaches us what faith
is. Faith lays hold on virtue in Christ. And it draws that
virtue. It draws from him. It's like
taking from him virtue. It's not something where we're
doing it surreptitiously or secretly or covertly where he doesn't
know about it. He's giving us this faith. He's telling us to
come and that faith lays hold on him. I need all that you are
and all that you have in order to appear before God and to receive
cleansing for the plague of my heart and my soul. And so faith
lays hold on him and he's pleased to give us from himself with
that faith. And faith does that by looking
to what He's done and ascribing to Him all God requires He's
met in Christ. So faith is the gift of God,
and God gives it because God gives us all things. And when
He gives us faith, He gives it to us in turn that we might take
what He's given. Remember, David says, "...of
thine own hand have we given to you." Of his own hand, he's
given us faith. And of that faith, we're coming
to him. And what do we come to him with? What did Abel bring?
He brought an offering. What do we come to God with? We come to him with the Lord
Jesus Christ in our eye, in our heart, in our confidence, on
our lips, we're calling upon Him, upon His name. We're looking
to Him, we're trusting in Him. Everything we come to God, in
everything that we come to God, we come to Him with the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we don't come to Him, you
know, think about this, we don't come to Him in order to get something
after we come to Him with the Lord Jesus Christ so that we
get what we really need. We come to Him in the Lord Jesus
Christ in order that we might have the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the end also of our coming. We come to Him by Him, we come
to Him in Him, and we come to Him for Him. He says in Genesis
15.1, I'm your shield and your exceeding great reward. And he
says in Psalm 115.11, you that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord.
He is their help and their shield. The Lord Jesus Christ is everything
to us, so we come to him. And in coming to him, we receive
him, and that's what faith looks for. That Christ may dwell in
your hearts by faith. That's what he says. So the next
thing I want to look at here real quickly with you, because
time seems to be fleeting, is that faith is our evidence that
God has chosen us to salvation. Did you know that? Faith is the
evidence that God has elected us to salvation. Isn't that a
comfort to you? He says in Acts 13, 48, as many
as were ordained to eternal life believed. How do you know you
were ordained to eternal life? All the Gentiles were hearing
the preaching. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Jesus said, you do not believe
to his enemies because you are not my sheep. My sheep hear my
voice and they follow me. That's what faith does. Faith
follows Christ. And then he says in John 6, 37,
all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Therefore,
faith is coming to Christ. It's believing Him. And that
believing is evidence that God the Father gave us to Christ,
that we were ordained to eternal life, that we're the sheep that
God has given Him. So faith is our evidence that
God has elected us. And that's such a comfort. When
you look to the Lord Jesus Christ, when you find in your soul this
struggle, how do I know that God has accepted me? How do I
know that I have a part, a portion in Christ? How do I know anything? And God upholds what Christ has
done for you as the sign, the three signs, and He says, look
to Him. Do you find that in Him God has
received full satisfaction? Is God pleased with anything
but Him? Faith says, no. Everything I
need to be pleasing to God is found in Him and there's no righteousness
outside of Him. I'll only make mention of thy
righteousness, Psalm 71 16. And here he says that our faith
is the evidence that God has chosen us to salvation, actually
elected us. And then this second thing about
faith is faith is the gift that God has given to those Christ
redeemed. All that the Father gives me
shall come to me. Remember John 6, 37? Without exception. All those
that are my sheep hear my voice. And the reason they're given
faith is not only because they're chosen in Christ, but also because
the Lord Jesus Christ purchased them with His own blood. And
having purchased them, He lays hold, He takes possession of
His purchased possession, and He gives them faith so that they
would take that faith and look to Him for all they need from
God. He worked out a perfect righteousness for them. They're
sinners. In their souls, they need to have their sins forgiven. They look to Christ for forgiveness
of their sins. Faith causes that. They are void
of righteousness. They have the plague of a defiled
heart. And their conscience is corrupt. Everything they touch is sinful.
And God gives them a perfect righteousness. He gives them
faith to see that all God requires is found in Him. And so faith
is given to us because the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us. He
says in Acts 5.31 that Christ was exalted in order to give
repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. So He reigns
in order that He might give the results of His redemption to
His people, which is forgiveness of sins and repentance, which
obviously includes faith. Do you know that Christ is the
author and finisher of our faith? He says in 2 Peter 1.1, turn
to this passage of scripture with me because I'm going to
read it slightly different than it's written in the King James
Version. If you look at this in the original language, which
I don't read, but if you look at it in like an interlinear,
then you'll see this in 2 Peter 1.1. It says, Simon Peter, a
servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained
like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior Jesus Christ. And if you read it a little more
like the inner linear is, it would be this way. those who
have obtained like precious faith through or in the righteousness
of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. So we're given faith through
or in the righteousness and either way is still the same because
if we're given it through the righteousness of Christ it means
that his righteousness is ours and imputed to us and therefore
God gives us faith so that we will turn then and look and lay
hold on that righteousness which he's given to us already in Christ.
If we have righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ, then we believe
that His righteousness is our righteousness before God, and
it comes down to the same thing. Faith is not righteousness. They're
two different things. aren't they? Faith and righteousness
are spoken of in this sentence as two different things. Faith
lays hold on Christ's righteousness, but it's not that righteousness.
God imputes righteousness by faith, but faith is not righteousness.
Faith looks to Christ, and faith sees that Christ is our righteousness,
and God imputes righteousness to us, because that righteousness
He imputes is Christ. and His righteousness. So God
gives us faith because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done
for us. And then I would say this, faith, this is important too,
faith is the evidence, and I mentioned this already, that the Lord Jesus
has actually given us His own Spirit. How do you know you're
born again? Only this, you look to Christ. Nicodemus was puzzled by this
whole experience of being born again, and he asked the Lord,
how can these things be? And Jesus said, In verses 14
and 15 of John 3, he says, "...as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that
whosoever believeth in Him should have eternal life." So it's the
one who believes who is born again and has eternal life, because
eternal life is given to those who have the new birth. And those who have the new birth
believe. And that's the evidence of that new birth. The Spirit
blows where He will, Jesus said, and you hear the wind blows where
it will, and you see the effects of it, but you don't know where
it's going or where it comes from. But you know this when
a person believes they're born of God. Now faith, what Christ
did for us is outside of our experience, but faith clearly
is part of our experience, is it not? And I want us to see
this because sometimes in the scripture you'll see many things
that are ascribed to faith as if faith is somehow virtuous.
But we have to understand it. It says we're justified by faith.
Doesn't it say that in scripture? We're justified by faith. And
sometimes, a lot of times, many years in fact, I've struggled
with what does it mean we're justified by faith? Does faith
justify us? What causes a person to be justified
before God? To be justified means God says
you're just. It means you're righteous before
God. You do what's right. You conform perfectly to the
law. Does faith do that? Does faith
obey the law? Did faith die for our sins? No. Faith neither died for our
sins nor obeys the law. If faith could die for our sins
and obey the law, then why did Christ die? Of course not. Faith doesn't do any of these
things. Faith simply looks to Christ and has confidence that
what God said is going to, He's going to do. And in fact, one
of the best definitions Scripture gives of faith, in my opinion,
is found in Hebrews 11. Look at this. And this is clearly part of our
experience. He says, In verse 13, speaking
about all these people who came before, Abel and Noah and Abraham
and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob. And he looks back in verse 13
and he says, These all died in faith, not having received the
promises. There it again, it's invisible.
Someone, mockingly, the world says, You only think God created
the world just because you believe it. You have no evidence for
it. And what can you say? It's true. The only evidence
I have is faith. God said it, and I believe that
He did what He said. And here He says, these all died
in faith, not having received the promises. They didn't have
the tangible fulfillment of what God promised. But here's what
faith did. But having seen them afar off,
here's a man standing on the boat, and he looks, and another
man next to him, and he looks out, and he says, do you see
those people there? And the other man next to him
says, I don't see anything except water and the horizon. He says,
what's the difference? Because one is looking through
his telescope far off into the distance, and he sees another
ship, and on that ship, on the deck of that ship, he sees people.
That's the man who has faith. He sees things that are far off.
They saw them when they were afar off. God promised them further
in the future. And they saw them and brought
them near by faith. Having seen them afar off, they
perceived what they were. They perceived that Christ would
come, lay down His life, and give Himself for His people.
And they trusted that He was their approach to God and their
righteousness. And they were persuaded of them. That's what
faith does. Faith is actually persuaded that
what God said is true. How do you know it? Just persuaded
of it. I'm confident it's true. Are you sure that Jesus Christ
came and that He's God and was born? How do you know it? Well,
the Bible says, and I'm persuaded of it. I'm actually persuaded
of it. I'm persuaded that all of my standing before God depends
exclusively on what Christ has done. That He receives me entirely
because of what He thinks of His Son and His obedience and
His righteousness. I'm persuaded of that. Faith
sees and faith is persuaded. And then look, and faith says
that they were not only persuaded, but they embraced them. Like
the woman, she laid hands on the Lord Jesus Christ and embraced
Him. She touched the hem of His garment. And so many cases where that's
what faith does. God has declared to us that by
His blood we're justified. And what does faith teach us
in our heart? That's mine. It's mine. I see that God has
revealed that He justifies sinners by what Christ has done. It's
mine. I'm a sinner. I need that. Everything
I need before God and in my soul I find in Christ, I lay hold
of that. That's what faith does. It embraces.
It lays hold. He says in Hebrews 3, We're partakers
of Christ if we hold fast the confession of our faith. That's
what faith does. It lays hold. And it confesses. They confess
they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth because faith says,
this is all my hope. And it's not a shame to say that.
In fact, faith is not only not a shame to say it, faith boasts
in Christ being everything before God. And people are offended
by that. Cain was so offended that he
rose up and killed Abel. Because God accepted Abel's sacrifice. And therefore accepted Abel.
Abel was offended because God didn't accept him in his sin
with his offering. And God accepted Abel because
he looked to Abel's offering. And that offended Cain. What
are you Because Cain couldn't see virtue in Christ. He couldn't
see beauty in Him. He didn't have that telescope
to look out across the miles of ocean and see there the Lord
Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, His substitute before God. He
didn't. He didn't have faith. And he
rose up and killed his brother. And so faith is in our experience.
And it sees, it's persuaded, it embraces, it confesses. Abraham
was fully persuaded. Not that he was a believer. This is what I believe, that
I'm a believer. What good is that? That's like having a car
that runs on its own energy. That's a perpetual motion thing.
It doesn't work. You don't get virtue out of yourself. No, he was fully persuaded that
what God had promised, he was able also to perform. Therefore,
it was imputed to him for righteousness. Sarah, it says, through faith,
Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered
of a child when she was past age. Why? Because she judged
him faithful who had promised. It all laid on God. So that's
what faith is. And our salvation was accomplished
by Christ at one point in time. And faith says, and that's all
I need before God. I come to Him by Christ. I come to Him in Christ. I come
to Him for Christ. I worship God in Christ. I have
no confidence in the flesh. Faith strips me of that. It sees
that I'm a sinner, and yet it comes to God without the law
in Christ, and it lays hold on Him, and it says, in coming,
Lord, You're precious to me. You've given me this faith. Proof
that you elected me. Proof that Christ died for me.
Proof that the Spirit has come to me and given me this precious
faith because all I see before God of any value that He esteems
in me is in Christ and Him crucified. That's what faith does. Doesn't
it make you pray, Lord, increase our faith? Lord, give us this
precious faith. It's God's gift. It's given to
us by his will. Of his own will begat he us by
the word of truth. And it's by hearing that we are
given faith. Oh, that we might hear. I used
to, I used to, we used to drive from Santa Rosa to the Bay Area. And oftentimes I would have the
question, why do I go so far? Take my kids, little kids as
they were growing up all the time, because I knew that faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, and I wanted
my children to hear as clearly as possible the gospel preached,
because I knew if God would ever be pleased to save them, he would
save them in hearing the truth about Christ. If we see Christ,
and God gives us faith in Him, we have our present possession,
eternal life. And so when Moses brought to
the elders of Israel the signs he's teaching us, God brings
to us the fulfillment of those signs in Christ in order that
we might believe. Thomas couldn't believe, I just
can't, I can't believe, I'm not gonna believe until I see the
nail print in his hands and thrust my hand into his side. And Jesus
said, Thomas, Reach hither your finger, and put it here in my
hand, and your hand, and thrust it into my side. And be not faithless,
but believing. And Thomas sees him wounded for
him, and he cries, my Lord, my God. And he worshiped him. Let's
pray. Father, we pray that you would
give us this precious faith in Christ. We're ashamed to admit
that we cannot believe because of our sin unless you overcome
this sin in our heart and give to us this new birth, your spirit,
and not only give it to us initially, but maintain us in it and cause
us to walk in it. We know we live by faith. We
need to eat and drink of the Lord Jesus Christ in order that
we might live and come to you. Lord, help us to rejoice in what
you've done for us by faith, to stand in faith, to have peace
in our heart by faith, and to know we have access to the throne
of grace by faith. Everything comes to us by this
gift you've given to us. Lord, give us this faith and
increase it. Hold us fast to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Help us to never look inward,
but always look outward to him. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.