Exodus chapter 3. The title of this sermon today
is taken from verse 7 of Exodus chapter 3, and we'll see that
in a minute. But let's start with verse 7. We're going to
read down to verse number 12, 7 through 12, Exodus chapter 3. Now, when we read the book of
Exodus, I hope that you take time just to read through here.
Sometimes when we read it in our service, we're focusing on
just a few verses. But it's good if you can get
the context by reading through at least four or five chapters
at a time. And so as we're reading through
there, you can see that in chapter three, The context here is the
misery of Israel in Egypt and the answer of God to their misery. And so it picks it up here in
verse seven. God is speaking to Moses out
of the bush in these words. Actually, I want to I want to
start with verse six, verse six of Exodus three. He says, moreover,
God said, moreover, he said, I am the God of thy father. the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses
hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord
said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which
are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their
taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. And I am come down to
deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring
them up out of that land unto a good land, and a large, unto
a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the
Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites,
and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore behold, the cry
of the children of Israel is come unto me, and I have also
seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppressed them.
Come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that
thou mayest bring forth My people, the children of Israel, out of
Egypt." And Moses said unto God, Who am I that I should go to
Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel
out of Egypt? And he said, that is God, God
said, Certainly I will be with thee. And this shall be a token
unto thee when I have sent thee, when thou hast brought forth,
I'm sorry, this shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee,
when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, you
shall serve God upon this mountain. I'm going to stop there. Let's
go back to verse six. And look at this, in verse 6,
God speaks to Moses and says, out of the bush, I am the God
of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he
was afraid to look upon God. Now, Jesus expands these words
in the Gospels and actually records a response in Matthew, Mark and
Luke. But I'll just turn to one of
those. If you want to look at Matthew 22 with me, Matthew chapter
22, and I've alluded to this in the last couple of sermons,
but it's good that we go through these verses and you see it for
yourself. In Matthew 22, It says in verse 23, the same
day came to Him, the Lord Jesus, the Sadducees, which say there
is no resurrection, and asked Him, saying, Master, Moses said,
if a man die having no children, his brother should marry his
wife and raise up seed to his brother. Now there were with
us seven brethren, and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased.
and having no issue, left his wife to his brother. Likewise,
the second also, and the third unto the seventh. And last of
all, the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection,
whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her."
And they thought by saying this that Jesus would be perplexed
and not know how to answer such a hypothetical case. I doubt
that there was actually one woman who married seven brothers, but
perhaps there would be. And in verse 29, and Jesus answered
and said to them, you do err. You make a great error, not knowing
the scriptures nor the power of God. So he he corrects them
with just that word. You're you're in great error
here. And here's why. You don't know the scripture
and you don't know the power of God. And then he refers back
to the scripture. Now, Jesus himself is the word
of God. He could have just told them,
look, this is the way it is. And that would be it. That would
be done with it. But he refers back to the scripture because
the scripture cannot be broken. The scripture is the word of
God. And so he says, for in the resurrection, They neither marry
nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection
of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken unto you
by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead.
but of the living. And this is repeated in the Gospels
and Mark and Luke. Almost the same words are repeated.
So in Exodus chapter 3, when God answers Moses from the bush
and says, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham and
the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. What is God saying by
this? He's saying that these men, Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob, these men, God had made a promise to them,
and God kept that promise. And the fact that God speaks
to them in the present as being their God now, at this time,
as He speaks to Moses out of the bush, He's not the God of
the dead, but of the living. God is the Lord Jesus Christ.
tells us what this verse means, that God is saying here He's
the God of those people, that He has fulfilled His promise
to them, He has raised them from the dead, and they're with Him
now. He's not the God of the dead, but of the living. And
there's many things that we could observe about this, but one of
them is comforting to us. When you look into the face of
a loved one who was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
you see their body laid out in death. A miracle has happened
there. A miracle has happened. Because
in 1 Corinthians 5, it says, to be absent from the body is
to be present with the Lord. When we die, Because the Lord
is our God, because He is not the God of the dead but of the
living, He takes those who are His people to be with Him in
their spirit. He takes their souls and their
spirit with Him at the moment of death, so that when you look
at their body, there's a vacancy there. Their body is a tent,
like a tabernacle, just a tool that God gave them to fulfill
their work on earth. An opponent at times and an assistant
at other times. An opponent because the flesh
lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh,
so you can't do the things you would. But also a tool by which
the Spirit of God works in us to enable us to overcome the
flesh and to serve God in that flesh. To believe God, to actually
love God in our heart and in our soul and in our body. And God is not the God of the
dead, but of the living. And these words, identifying
who God is, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob, He's building up to something, and He's going to
say it in the next verse. This is a message of comfort,
a message of great comfort. God keeps His Word. God fulfills His promise. He
made the promise. And he meets every condition
required to fulfill it. How could God raise Abraham or
Isaac or Jacob? They were sinners. How could
God raise a sinful man from the dead? Wouldn't that be against
the justice of God? The wages of sin is death. Doesn't
sin demand that we die? It does. In the day you eat of this tree,
God said to Adam, you shall surely die. In dying thou shalt die. And they did die. Adam and Eve
died in all their seed. All people born to Adam and Eve,
all people of the earth died in Adam when he died. As in Adam,
all die. We all die in Adam. And so how
could God raise Abraham or Isaac or Jacob or anyone from the dead?
Only one way. He had to first conquer death.
He had to bring the payment of sin's wage on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Christ had to bear that payment
in His own body up to the tree, that He dying for His people,
and they dying in Him. would then die to sin. And having
died to sin, having died to the punishment of sin in His death,
then God could raise them from the dead with Christ. And so,
the Lord Jesus Christ says, I am the resurrection, I am the life.
And the way He is the resurrection and the life is by Himself going
to death and conquering death for His people. And so, this
verse in Exodus 3, 6, is a declaration by God that He has actually accomplished
for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob what He promised in that covenant
to them. That in Abraham, in thy seed,
all the nations of the earth would be blessed in Him. And
so, even though the Lord Jesus Christ had not yet gone to the
cross in history, Before the foundation of the world in God's
eternal decree, God actually had purposed that the Lord Jesus
Christ would be the Lamb of God and He would be slain for His
people. In fact, God actually recorded
in a book called the Book of Life all those for whom the Lord
Jesus Christ would die. And those for whom He died would
certainly be given life. And so when Jesus, in John chapter
6, And verse 51, he says these words, he says, I'm just going
to turn there and read it to you. You don't have to turn there,
but he says in 651, I am the living bread, Jesus says, I am
the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of
this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Do
you see that? For the life. His flesh was given
for the life of the world. If Christ gave His flesh for
the life of the world, then the world has life. All for whom
the Lord Jesus gave His flesh, He also gives Himself in the
in the work of the Spirit of God, in causing them to look
to Him, believe on Him, and therefore eat of Him in their soul. And
that eating, by faith on the Lord Jesus Christ crucified for
them, is life in their soul. And that's the life that God
is talking about. I give my flesh for the life
of the world means that the world for whom that was the purpose.
Why did Jesus die? To give life to the world. And
what world is He talking about? All those for whom He died. His
work is successful. All for whom He died must live.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were in that world. Those men lived
in God. They lived because of Christ.
They lived in Him. And so when He says, I'm the
God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the
God of Jacob, He's saying here that all that God has promised
to them, he has fulfilled in his purpose. God always speaks
about the future as history. When he spoke to Abraham, and
just to show you how this is recorded in Scripture, he says
in Genesis chapter 16, in verse 4, God says, But as for Me, behold,
My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many
nations. In that sentence, He's talking
about the future. You shall be a father of many
nations. And verse 5 of Genesis 17, He says, Neither shall thy
name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham,
for a father of many nations Have I made thee? You see that? The tense is what
I'm trying to emphasize here. God already, in this verse, He
speaks about the future when there would be many nations brought
into the Kingdom of God by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
and by the work of His Spirit, giving them life and faith in
Him. He says, I've already done that in my purpose. In the Lamb's
Book of Life, their names are already written. Because it's
the Lamb's book of life, the Lamb would shed his blood, and
they for whom he died would be guaranteed to be given life.
And so he speaks about them in this verse in Genesis 17, verse
5, as having already been made the sons of Abraham by faith
in Christ. And he can do that because God's
word is as good as being done when he speaks it, when he purposes
it. But back in Exodus 3, in verse
6, these words are words of comfort. God is giving them to Moses,
and He's not giving them just to Moses. He's giving them to
Moses to give to the children of Israel, because Moses is a
mediator. He's giving God's Word so that
he can take that Word to God's people. So look in verse 7 of
Exodus 3. It says, And the Lord said, he's
still speaking to Moses. He said, I have surely seen the
affliction of my people. You see that? He had just named
his people, Abraham. I'm the God of Abraham. I'm the
God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And now he extends the boundary. Specifically naming those, he
says, I have seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt. This is important. The words
are not insignificant. Jesus proves the doctrine of
the resurrection just by verse 6 here. God is the God of the
living, not the God of the dead. And here he proves something
else. That the people of God didn't just include Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob and Moses. It also included others. Isaiah,
David, Paul. And all those who like Abraham
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Galatians chapter 3 to
see that this is so. Galatians chapter 3, he says
in verse 6, Even as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him
for righteousness, Abraham's faith was in the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham's faith was that God
would raise him, Isaac, and all his descendants in him from the
dead, when he raised Christ from the dead, and he would give them
life, and that was the object of his faith. What Abraham believed
is what his faith was in its essence, not his exercise of
some kind of a virtue of straining forward or making a decision
or some kind of an internal working up of a persuasion on his own
part. That wasn't faith. Faith was
what Abraham believed. It was the facts, the truth that
Abraham believed. What Christ did the object of
his faith was counted to him for righteousness and verse 7
of Galatians 3 He says know ye therefore that they which are
of faith The same are the children of Abraham So if Abraham believed
God And God gave him righteousness without any contribution of his
own, but simply because of the one to whom he looked who was
righteous, Christ the Lord. He says, Know this, therefore,
that they which are of faith are the children of Abraham.
Those who have faith believe because the Spirit of God gives
that faith to them. And how does He do that? Through
the preaching of the gospel. God unfolds His truth to us in
the preaching of the gospel, convinces us in our heart of
the truth of it, persuades us it's true, convinces us that
we can hang the weight of our eternal soul on the Lord Jesus
Christ alone. And we rest in Him. We trust
Him. We come to God by Him. We joy
in Him. We rejoice in Him. The truth
of our faith, what we believe, is known by the object, who it
is we're believing. We don't believe God just as
His Creator. We know that God can do anything,
but that's not saving faith. Saving faith is not believing
God can do anything. Saving faith is believing what
He did in the Lord Jesus Christ, and coming to Him on that basis,
coming to Him in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says here in verse
seven, those who believe are the children of Abraham. And
he goes on and he says in verse eight and the scripture. Look
at these words carefully now. This is God's word and no words
are here accidentally or incidentally. He says the scripture foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith preached. before the gospel to Abraham,
saying, In thee shall all the nations be blessed. There was
a sermon. The preacher was the scripture.
The text of the scripture was Genesis 12, 3, which says, In
thee shall all nations be blessed. The message of that sermon was
God will justify the heathen through faith because of what
Christ has done. Do you see that? The scripture
preached, the text was Genesis 12.3, and the message was that
God will justify the heathen with no contribution of their
own. And all of their boasting would be in Christ and Him crucified.
They would have no cause to boast because they would have no reason
to boast. They had nothing to bring. They brought nothing,
contributed nothing to this. Christ did everything. God accepted
them because of what He thought about His own purpose, His own
promise, His own provision, and what Christ did in doing all
that God said He would do. And that's what the sermon was
about. And Abraham believed that. In thee shall all the nations
be blessed. All the nations, irrespective
of their race, all the families, all the tribes of the earth,
there would be God's people out of each one of those. And those
who believe are called the children of Abraham. That's what Galatians
3 is teaching. And so he goes on in Galatians
3, and we won't at this time. But back to Exodus chapter 3.
In verse 7, God says to Moses, and the Lord said, I have surely
seen the affliction of my people. Now, God is the one who makes
us his people. We don't make ourselves the people
of God. Our being the people of God is
a choice God makes. We don't choose to be God's people.
God chooses us. And aren't you glad it's that
way? Because if the choice was up to us to be God's people or
not, we already made a choice, we already voted, and our vote
was cast, and we have disqualified ourselves from being God's people,
both by our desire, our will, our actions, our thoughts, our
motives, everything about us has disqualified us in ourselves
from being God's people. But God, irrespective of our
choice, irrespective of our qualities, Irrespective of a contribution
we can make, or could have made, or someday would make, God has
made us his people, and he made that choice on his own volition,
of his own will, freely, without any regard to us, God did it. Election is of grace, it's not
of works, and that's the reason God elects us, is to establish
his purpose of grace in election. And it has nothing to do, not
only that, but if God didn't make us his people, none of us
would be his people. We think sometimes, I know I've
had these thoughts perhaps, you've had them, and I've heard the
outcries against God's truth of His electing grace and His
specific and definite redeeming grace in Christ, and I've heard
the outcry against them, and they all have the same argument. Basically, man is worth something,
and if God doesn't save everyone, then there's something wrong
with God. He doesn't recognize the value, the intrinsic value
within man. Or God isn't fair because men
are trying to be saved and God isn't accepting their efforts. He's disregarding their valid
attempts to bring Him out of their own self some goodness.
But this is nothing other than exactly what Cain did. Cain brought
the works from the fruit of the ground, his own labors from the
sweat of his own toil, an offering to God. No doubt it was beautiful.
Purple and green and yellow and red fruits and all sorts of sweet
and tasty things, bringing it to God. And he didn't eat it
himself. He's giving it to God as a sacrifice. And God says,
absolutely rejected. Nothing is acceptable to God
from us, only what He provides in Christ. And so, when He says,
My people, He's talking about His covenant of grace in which
He chooses His people to make them His people and to save them
independent of their choice and in spite of their inabilities,
in spite of their sinfulness, God overcomes. what we are not
in order to make us what He would have us to be in Christ. And
so this is the covenant. This is what He's referring to.
The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob is the
God of His covenant. Look at chapter 2 and verse 24. He says, And God heard their
groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob. Those who are God's people are
those with whom he has made a covenant, a covenant. Look at Hebrews chapter
eight, just to give you this. What is the covenant that God
has made with his people? What is this covenant? That's
the first question. And secondly, how do I, because
I want to be one of God's people. Do you? I want to be one of God's
people. I want to be one of those. What
is this covenant? Look at Hebrews chapter eight.
Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 10 starts the quotation from Jeremiah,
but it's used here in Hebrews chapter 8 and explained. He says,
For this is a covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, saith the Lord. Now, I want you to notice what
God does in these verses that follow and what we do in these
verses that follow. What God does and what we do,
because there's two kinds of covenants. Covenants are binding
agreements. Covenants are something where
there's two parties involved. And God, or whenever God is involved
in a covenant, He always establishes the criteria, the conditions
of the covenant. This is what must be done, and
God is the one who says, and this will be the outcome, this
will be the consequences of those conditions either being met or
not being met. There's two kinds of covenants.
One is a covenant in which the conditions are on those that
God is making the covenant with. He says, if I'm making the covenant
with you, He tells His people at Mount Sinai, He's making the
covenant with them, and He says, if I'm making this covenant with
you, and I'm giving you these commandments, and if you keep
these commandments, you shall live. But if you don't keep them,
you shall die. And so the condition was placed
on God's people. All those who continue in all
things which are written in the book of the law to do them, they're
blessed. But all those who fail at one
point in keeping the commandments of God are cursed. That's what
the law says. The law is a covenant in which
the conditions are placed on those who receive the blessings.
The conditions are placed on men and men always fail. They always fail to meet those
conditions. But notice this covenant here in Hebrews chapter eight,
verse 10. For this for this is the covenant. In fact, let's back up. I will
I will look at this in verse seven of Hebrews chapter eight.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no
place have been sought for the second. There was a covenant,
but it had faults. And the reason it had a fault
is because it depended on sinful men. For finding fault with them,
he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their
fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them
out of the land of Egypt, Because they continued not in my covenant
and I regarded them not. You see, there's a covenant that
depended upon the people of Israel. They didn't continue. Therefore,
God said that the covenant is severed. They've broken my covenant.
They don't receive the blessings of it. But in verse 10, he says,
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws
into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be
to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." Remember
what he said? I have seen, I have surely seen
the affliction of my people in Egypt. My people. Here he says,
I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. What is God saying? He's saying
this, that if He has made you His people, if He is your God,
then God is for you. God is for you. God will not
fail you. He will not leave you. He will
surely bring to pass all of His promises for you. God is for
you. And He says, So, He will be their
God. They shall be His people. And
it says in verse 11, And they shall not teach every man his
neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they
shall all know Me, from the least to the greatest. How shall they
know Him? How shall God's people all know
Him? Sometimes you wonder about that, don't you? Do I really
know the Lord or not? Am I just... Trying to be a Christian? Am I just striving to be good?
Am I just trying to know the Lord, and I'm never really reaching
that goal? How do I know that I know the
Lord? How do I know that I'm one of
God's people? How do I know that God has made
a covenant with me? He says, this is how. You'll
know the Lord. And how do you know Him? Listen. Four. This is how you know. Four. I will be propitious. I will
be merciful. to their unrighteousness, and
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." You
see that? How is God a God to His people? What does it mean to be in this
covenant? It means this, that God's covenant
with His people, those He has chosen from before the foundation
of the world, those for whom He has He has designated Christ
to die and redeemed them from all their sin. And those to whom
He sends His Spirit to give life and faith in Christ. This is
how you know. Because He teaches you that in
the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone, He has forgiven you all
your sins. Your sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. Look at Hebrews chapter 10. The same thing is recorded. He
says, In verse 16, actually verse 15, he says, Wherefore, the Holy
Ghost also is a witness to us, for after that he had said before,
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in
their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. No more remembered. Why? Because,
verse 18, now where remission of these is, there is no more
offering for sin. If there's a remission of sins,
then there's no more remembrance of sins. The debt has been paid. The account has been blotted
out. Everything has been wiped clean. The sinner is cleansed
by the blood of Christ. The record in heaven is clear.
All sins and iniquities have been removed by the Lord Jesus
Christ, because by remission, by His blood, there is remission
of sins. And that's the blessing of the
New Covenant, that God has redeemed His people, has saved them from
their sins. This is what God promised in
the Covenant, that He would take away their sins. That's the promise. That's the blessing. And everything
else comes because of the work of Christ. Our salvation is because
of what God has done in Christ and in Christ alone. So look
back at Exodus chapter three. God says to Moses, I will surely. I said I have surely seen the
affliction of my people, which are in Egypt, and I have heard
their cry. by reason of their taskmasters,
for I know their sorrows." Now, these people were enslaved. They
were terrified and they were afflicted all the time by the
slave masters, the taskmasters, who would beat them and lay burdens
on them too heavy to carry. They had no power against it.
They were in bondage. They were constantly being tormented
by all of this. And this pictures Every sinner
under the weight of sin, the condemnation and the guilt of
sin, and also under the weight of the nature of our sin, our
corruption, our internal corruption, and also the cries, the demands
of the law for the death of the sinner, the curse of the sinner,
and also for the requirements that law places on us to undo
ourselves, to bring ourselves up out of that pit and to stand
before God holy in our own obedience. But nothing could be more burdensome
than that, that salvation in some way depends upon me, on
what I can do. And so it says here, that God
says, I've surely seen the affliction of My people. God sees, and when
God sees the affliction, He sees with an intent to save. Remember? What is the reason? What is the blessing God promised
in the New Covenant? It's this. I will remember their
sins and iniquities no more. God's covenant with His people
is to save them from their sins. To save them from their sins.
And so He says here, When he says, I've seen the affliction
of my people, which are in Egypt, and heard their cry, it's because
God intends to save them. He says, I've heard their cry
by reason of their taskmasters, and I know their sorrows. When God says he knows their
sorrows, the first thing we think about is he knows about their
sorrows, right? I know about them. I know that
Pastor Harmon is sick. I know that Pastor Crabtree is
laboring under some burden in his church, or I know this or
that. That's not the kind of knowledge God's speaking about
here. He says, I know their sorrows. And look at the next words, he
says, because it all goes together. And I am come down. to deliver them out of the hand
of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a
good land, and a large, to a land flowing with milk and honey,
and so forth. So here, God's saying, I know their sorrows,
and how do we understand God's knowledge of our sorrows? How
do we know that? Well, look at a few verses with
me. It's important that we see this, because this is the gospel. First, look at Psalm 77. Psalm 77. I was just reading
this last week. He says, just one little verse
here, and we're going to go through a few verses. Psalm 77. How does
God know our sorrows? He says in Psalm 77, verse 1,
I cried to God with my voice, even unto God with my voice,
and he gave ear unto me. In the day of my trouble, I sought
the Lord. My sore ran in the night and
ceased not. My soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God and was troubled. I complained and my spirit was
overwhelmed. Thou holdest mine eyes waking. In other words, I can't go to
sleep. My eyes are always awake. I'm
always awake. I'm so troubled that I cannot speak. That's sorrow,
isn't it? That's trouble. He's so troubled
that he cannot speak. He can't even cry. And yet he's
uttering these words. His mind is towards the Lord
because he knows that only God can save him. And so he's troubled
that he cannot speak. And now look at Isaiah 53. Isaiah
53, he says in verse 14, sorry, verse. Verse 14 of Isaiah 52, As many
as were astonished at thee, his visage was so marred more than
any man in his form, more than the sons of men. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. And look on down, he says in
verse 3, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from Him. He was despised and we esteemed
Him not. So how was He a man of sorrows?
Verse 4. Surely He hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken and
smitten of God. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And the chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, with His stripes we are healed. Look at Lamentations,
the book right after Jeremiah. Lamentations in chapter 1, he
says in verse 12, Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold and see, if there be any
sorrow, like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." Now
the children of Israel in Egypt were people in a sorrowful state,
no doubt about it. And that Psalmist speaks in his
experience of his own sorrows because of trouble from without
and trouble from within. Enemies from without and his
sin from within. And his doubtings and his fears
and all the things that contribute to our sorrows. But when it speaks
about the Lord Jesus Christ, it's speaking about a sorrow
that's entirely at a different level. First of all, these sorrows
came upon him personally. He endured these sorrows as His
own sorrows, but they were not because of something He did.
They were sorrows that came upon Him because of the sins of His
people that He took to Himself. He owned His people's sins as
His own sins. Because they were removed from
His people and became His, they were His. He owned them as his
own. He confessed them as his own.
And he cried out because of the trouble of those sins as his
own. That's why it says in Lamentations
in verse 12, Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like my
sorrow, which is done to me wherewith the Lord has afflicted me in
the day of his fierce anger. And that's why in Psalm 77, 4,
he says, I am troubled that I cannot speak. And in Isaiah 53, 3 and
4, he's a man of sorrows because he took our sorrows. And listen
to this verse in Psalm 40, verse 12. Verse 11 says, withhold not thy
tender mercies from me, O Lord, let thy loving kindness and thy
truth continually preserve me. Verse 12, for innumerable evils
have compassed me about, that would be the judgments of God
and the evil men that were about him and all the terrors of hell,
the onslaught of Satan, everything. Innumerable evils have compassed
me. Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I'm not
able to look up. They are more than the hairs
of my head. Therefore, my heart faileth me." That is sorrow.
The sorrow that the Lord Jesus Christ experienced is the sorrow
His people should have experienced for their sins, but they did
not experience it because He took their sin and under God's
law bore all the curse and so bore the sorrows that their sins
deserve. And so when it says, I know their
sorrows in Exodus three, seven, he's speaking about. The fulfillment,
the ultimate fulfillment. of this affliction and this crying
and this sorrows that the children of Israel feel in Egypt, the
fulfillment of that in the people of God, in their experience of
sin, the guilt of it and the shame and the condemnation of
it, that He would take and own as His own and bear that sorrow
before God and so remove that sorrow from them. And so He says
in verse 8 of Exodus 3, I am come down, to deliver them out
of the hand of the Egyptians. Look at Luke 4. In Luke 4, Jesus
says these words, I'm come down, God says in Exodus 3. I'm come
down to deliver them. And so it says in Luke 4, verse
18, Jesus says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He
hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent
me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance. Deliverance
is what the Israelites needed from Egypt, wasn't it? To preach
deliverance to the captives, and the recovering of sight to
the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. Weren't
the Israelites bruised by the Egyptians? Aren't God's people
bruised? by their own sin, there's no
soundness in me." In Isaiah 1.6, he says, there's no soundness
in you. From the sole of your foot to
the crown of the head, there's no soundness. But wounds and
bruises and putrefying sores, because God has afflicted His
people because of their sins, and Christ has come and lifted
their sins from off them, and taking those sins, He now attracts
the vengeance of God against those sins in his own person,
and he says, now I've come to preach deliverance to the captives,
recovering the sight of the blind, and to set those at liberty who
are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord,
the year of liberty. The year of Jubilee, the year
of setting free. And so he closed the book, he
gives it to the minister and he sat down and the eyes of all
them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him when he
spoke these words and read them. And he began to say to them,
this day, Is this scripture fulfilled in your ears? I've come here
to preach this, and this is the message, and I'm the one, the
Spirit of God is on, to preach this message. I've come to fulfill
it. Every condition of God's covenant
has been fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ in His own person.
God didn't send an angel to save His people. An angel couldn't
save His people. It required the work of God Almighty. God didn't send a man to save
His people. A man couldn't do it. God Himself
must save. There's no Savior but Me, saith
the Lord. Beside Me there's no Savior.
But God by Himself couldn't do it. The Lord Jesus Christ must
take the nature of His people. He must empty Himself, be made
of no reputation, take upon Him the form of a servant, be made
in the likeness of sinful flesh. And in that flesh, God must condemn
sin in His flesh, and He must go to the grave, and then He
must conquer death, and overcome the grave, and end sin, and establish
eternal, everlasting righteousness, and rise from the dead. And so
He says, Back in Exodus chapter 3, where we are here, he says,
I'm come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians
and to bring them out of that land to a good land and to a
large, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to a place of
the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites
and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Now there's two things, a couple
of things going on here. First of all, God says He's going
to bring them into this land. This land is large, it's flowing
with milk and honey. And milk and honey refer to the
plenteousness of this land. There was everything you needed
in this land. And it was all there just for
the taking. You didn't have to water the
crops. You didn't have to plant the crops. It was just flowing.
It's like there's just rivers of milk and honey all over the
place. And milk and honey are delicious. In fact, milk is that
one thing that newborn infants can live off milk all by itself. It's a complete food for them.
And God's saying, I've given you a complete sustenance in
this land of Canaan. And not only sustenance, but
an overwhelming blessing of sustenance. Food that is to you would be
delightful. Milk and honey. And not only
that, but He's given them this land. It's going to be a large
land. It's plenty of room for you to
stretch out. It's as big as you can possibly
occupy. And all this refers to are the
blessings of the New Covenant in the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember
what it says in Ephesians chapter 1. I'll just read it to you.
Ephesians chapter 1. He says, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 3, "...who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ."
You see that? That's the fulfillment of what
he's talking about in Exodus chapter 3. The blessings are
what he speaks about in the land of Canaan. Canaan is the heavenly
places in Christ. Canaan is that being in Christ
where being in Christ we have all the blessings of God given
to us, lavished upon us without Without any limitation. God doesn't limit the blessings. He gives them all to us. If Christ
was delivered for us, how shall not God give us all things with
Him? Everything is given to His people.
Justification. God has declared us to be righteous
because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, because of His
obedience. Romans 5.9 and 5.19. Everything. Not only justification, but sanctification. God gives us life by His Spirit.
Not only does He give us life, He gives us faith to look to
Christ and to find everything God requires of us in Him. All
of God's glory magnified by what Christ has done. And we delight
in that. We can rejoice in it. We can
take comfort and rest in it. That's a land of rest. In Christ,
it's a large land. There's no boundaries to God's
blessing. Jesus says, I'm come that they
might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. It's flowing with milk and honey,
flowing with milk and honey. The gospel is that milk that
we buy without money and without price and drink of. And when
we hear the gospel, we're drinking of that. The honey, what is this
honey? He says, In Psalm chapter 19, I'll just read another verse
to you here. It's in Psalm 19, verse... I'll tell you when I get there.
He says, The law of the Lord, verse 7,
is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is
sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is
pure, enlightening the eyes. Verse nine. The fear of the Lord
is clean, enduring forever. And listen to this. The judgments
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. And then he sums
it all up. He says, more to be desired are
they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than
honey and the honeycomb. What's he speaking about here?
All the blessings. of God are fulfilled by the Lord
Jesus Christ. The judgments of the Lord are
right altogether. When God justifies the ungodly,
it's right that He do it. Why is it right? Because Christ
paid with His own blood. He fulfilled every requirement
of the law. He did it all. And it's right
that God should justify His people. And that's sweet as honey. To
take that into our souls by faith, we find it especially sweet And
he says it's a place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites,
and the Perizzites, and the Hybites, and the Jebusites. God is not
reluctant to name His enemies. I'll just tell you who they are
before you get there, so that when I wipe them out, you'll
know that that's what they are. They're my enemies. God isn't
embarrassed to call them His enemies. Anyone who opposes Christ
is the enemy of God. And He freely identifies them. The enemy of God. They have received
the love of the truth. And they'll all be damned because
of that. And so, when we read these verses... Don't forget
what God is doing here. He's sending Moses with this
comfort for his people. He's given it to the mediator
and the mediator is taking it to his people. And then the mediator
is acting upon it because this is the promise of God, the covenant
of God fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ for his people.
And God will surely bring them out and deliver his people by
the work of Christ. And how do I know? that I am
one of these, he calls, my people. How do I know this? Well, we've
already really answered the question, but look on further. In verse
10 through 12, he says, Come now, therefore, I will send thee
to Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children
of Israel, out of Egypt. And Moses said to God, Who am
I? That I should go to Pharaoh?
That I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
And God said, Now, the word certainly is used, but I think of the New
Testament, the way Jesus said it, verily, verily, certainly,
I will be with thee. And this shall be a token, a
sign. This is the certainty of it. This is how you know it's sure,
that I have sent thee. When thou hast brought forth
the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.
How do we know? What is our assurance that God
will do what He said? When we see the completion of
it, when we see the accomplishment of it. God sent Moses and He
says, this is how you know I'm going to send you, that I've
sent you, because you're going to come back to this place with
those people and you're going to serve God on this mountain.
You're actually going to deliver them. You're going to be successful. You're actually going to accomplish
what I sent you to do. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who was sent by God. God sent His Son. And in sending
His Son, He sent Him to accomplish His will.
It was the will of God that He was sent to do. And this is the
way we know that God sent His Son. because he actually accomplished
what God sent him to do. He rose from the dead in rising
from the dead. He was delivered for our offenses
and he was raised again because of our justification. Romans
chapter 4, 25. He tells us this so that we would
know most certainly that God sent his Son and that God actually
fulfilled his covenant in Christ. And the way we know we are his
people is because this assurance is given to us. This is the token.
The only way you know that God has sent the Lord Jesus Christ,
the only way you know that you have a part in this, is that
Christ has fulfilled the covenant and you look to Him only. Isn't
that what He said when He said in Hebrews, that they shall all
know the Lord? And how do they know Him? Because
He says, their sins and their iniquities will I remember no
more. In John chapter three, Nicodemus
raises the puzzling question back to the Lord Jesus Christ
when Jesus says that you must be born again. And he says, and
Nicodemus said to Jesus in verse nine of chapter three, John three,
he says, How can these things be? And Jesus answered him and
goes on, he says in verse 14, as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
And here's the answer. How do I know that this covenant
is mine? How do I know that God has done
this for me? How do I know that God has named
me in this covenant? Whosoever believeth in him."
Just as the Israelites, bitten by the serpents in the wilderness,
had nowhere to look, no remedy, but in that serpent lifted up
on the pole, our only remedy is in what God has done in Christ.
Christ became our sin, was cursed under that sin, and was lifted
up by God's purpose, and actually satisfied God, pleased His justice,
manifested His grace, saved His people and rose from the dead.
And I find that all of my hope, everything I need from God is
met in Him. That's the way I know I'm looking
to Christ. Look what Galatians chapter 6
says, and this will be our last verse. Look at Galatians chapter
6. Remember, we read in Galatians 3 that who are the children of
Abraham? Who were those named in the covenant? Those who believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. He says it here in a different
way. In Galatians 6.15, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according
to this rule. What rule? That in Christ, It
doesn't matter what you are. It matters what God thinks of
Him. It matters what God has done for us by Him. As many as
walk according to this rule, peace be on them and on the Israel
of God. The Israel of God are those who
believe. They are Abraham's children, those who look to Christ only,
those who look at the serpent raised up by God. raised up his
son, and God causes his people to look to his son who was raised
up to save them from their sins. And to these, he says, I have
surely seen the affliction of my people in the bondage of their
sin. I've heard their cry, even though
their cry may not even be really earnest enough or sincere enough
or really directed toward God properly. God hears the cry because
of their taskmasters, because of the burden their sin has caused. And He says, and I have surely
known their sorrows, because in Christ He bore that sin and
knew their sorrows in His own experience. Let's pray. Father, we thank You that You
have come down Yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver
us from our sin. He bore our sorrows. He was the
man of sorrows because he bore our sins, our iniquities, our
transgressions in his own body. This is your covenant. This is
your promise to your people. Lord, we want to be your people.
We want to know you in this way that you save us from our sins.
We want to know your name, Jesus. He shall save his people from
their sins. Help us to call upon you, Lord,
as the one who fulfilled your covenant. You even call yourself
by the name of your relationship to your people in saving us.
Thank you for this salvation. Thank you for your promises,
for your provision in Christ. Thank you that we can rest our
souls, the weight of our souls, even though we are guilty in
ourselves and vile and corrupt and cannot rescue ourselves,
can't deliver ourselves. We know that in Christ we have
been delivered. and we shall be delivered. We
shall have this great salvation that You've told us about. He
is accomplished and You've brought to us by faith even now. Lord,
we pray You would preach to us from the Scriptures and You would
so give us faith to believe You that we would be comforted and
we would watch You and see our salvation accomplished by You
in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.