But in verse 13, it says, And
when he went out the second day, Moses went out the second day
after he went out the first day. Remember, he went out. He was
the prince of Egypt, a prince in Egypt, not the prince of Egypt,
but a prince in Egypt. He was the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
the king's daughter. He is 40 years old. He goes out. It comes into his
heart to go out and visit his brethren. And we know that God
put that in his heart from Hebrews chapter 11. It says, it was by
faith that Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
And so he went out to visit his brethren. He went out thinking
they would know that God sent him to deliver them, but they
didn't. And that's what we're reading
here in verse 13. So he went out the second day. Behold, two
of the Hebrew men strove together, and he said to him that did the
wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? Now, this man knew
that Moses had killed an Egyptian. He says it in the next verse,
and he throws it in Moses' face. And think about it. If here's
somebody coming to you who was a prince in Egypt, very powerful
man, very wise man, accomplished, and obviously a man of renown,
and you see him going out and killing an Egyptian in defense
of a Hebrew. And now you see him the next
day coming to you to separate you. And he doesn't strike you.
He simply speaks to you. Isn't that a mercy? Wouldn't
you think that the man, even on a human scale, would recognize
that this man is standing up for us? He didn't, obviously. And in verse 14, The man he spoke
to said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest
thou to kill me as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared
and said, Surely this thing is known. Now, there's a lot I think
about in these verses. This was Moses is 40 years old. God put it in his heart to visit
his brethren at 40 years old. God had just put this, I don't
know if he just put it in his heart, but it welled up, it compelled
him to go out and visit his brethren after this period of time in
his life where he was in the Egyptian court, in the Egyptian
household, living off of the Egyptians basically, understanding
their wisdom, obviously getting indoctrinated in their religion.
But he goes out to sea and he did this at God's prompting and
really God had had anointed him, had selected him, had determined
that it would be through Moses that he would actually deliver
Israel from Egypt. So he was the man. He was the
man. And he put it in Moses' heart.
And Moses thinks, because of that, I want to go see my brother.
And I don't know why he did it the way he did. You would think
that maybe he would have gone to the elders, some kind of the
organization of the Israelites and start from the top and work
his way down. But he just goes right out to the slaves. And
that was obviously teaching us something that he was identifying
with, not just identifying with them as I'm one of you guys,
but and maybe sending them a letter saying, I'm one of you, I sympathize
with you, I really pity your situation, and I'm going to do
all I can in my position to see what I can do to set things more
easy for you. He didn't do that. He actually
went out and He went to be with them. The word with is important.
That means fellowship. Paul said, I want to know Christ
in the fellowship of His sufferings, the Lord Jesus Christ, went to
be with his people, to fellowship with them, to abide with them,
to never depart from them, to actually be in them. And Moses
here is like that. But he went out to be with his
brethren. And we also need to learn from
that, that we go in our lives to be with people and with them
in such a way that we understand their trouble. We understand
their internal and external struggles and we bring The message of the
Lord Jesus Christ that delivered us in our affliction to them
so that they might be delivered in their affliction, especially
their affliction of sin and the guilt of it before God and the
pending doom of it before God in judgment. And to know the
Lord Jesus Christ, which is worth worlds to realize. So Moses had
that in his heart and he went out to be with them. But notice,
even though he was God's chosen man and even though he went out
with the purpose of doing what he was in, God had put in his
heart, he acted out of faith. And there's a couple of things
here I want to point out here that that we need to we need
to consider. One is. than in acting out of
faith. Notice, there were no circumstances
that rose up to suggest that he should do this. Sometimes
we think, well, I'm going to wait on the Lord. He's going
to move things out of the way. He's going to open a door of
circumstance. And that way I'll know that's the way he wants
me to go. I've done that. I've thought that way. But that's
not the way faith acts. Faith does believe God in his
providence, opens doors and prays for that. But when Moses was
grown up, And he was in Pharaoh's court. He could have looked at
those circumstances and if he was living by circumstances,
looking at the situation he was in and said, this must be what
God wants me to do, to grow up in Pharaoh's court and obviously
use my influence here and my power, maybe my wealth, who knows
what, to affect my brethren. That's not what faith compelled
him to do. Faith said, I'm going to go out
and God will make the circumstances fit what faith wants to do. In
fact, Jonathan did this, remember, in the Scripture. He said to
his armor bearer, he says, here's this, the Philistines are all
over the place. Israel is hiding in dens and
caves and behind rocks. And there's no evidence that
God is going to act for them. And Jonathan says to his armor
bearer, come on, you and me, let's go up to this This group
of Philistines, there were maybe 25 of them, and they were on
top of the hill. They had the advantage strategically. And
he said, you go up and follow me. If they say, when we discover
ourselves to them, if they say, come on up, then we'll know the
Lord has delivered them into our hands. But if they say, we're
going to come to you, then we'll... and so on. So Jonathan also acted
like by faith. He had something in him. That
he saw the promises of God. He knew that God would act for
Israel and that if he went by faith, that God would deliver
his enemies to his hand. So he acted on the principles
of knowing God's will because of God's word and acting that
way. And that's what Moses did. There was no circumstance that
led him to do this. It was just raw faith. Raw faith
compelled him to act. In Christ's name, for Christ's
people. And that's what faith does in
our lives. It compels us to be creative. Remember what Miriam
did? She said, you know, aha, Pharaoh's daughter comes down.
She discovers the baby. The baby's crying. What should
I do? She gets all creative. Why does she have that creative
energy going on? Because she believed God was
going to be gracious to them and save her brother. And so
she suggested to Pharaoh's daughter, I can get a nurse for you. And
then she said, sure, why don't you? And she brings her mother.
And you could go on and on. This is the way faith acts. Faith
doesn't look for God to do things in circumstances, although faith
accepts the circumstances. But faith acts out of the principle
of looking to what God will do because of his promises. And
so the apostles, they were compelled to go into places in the earth
and preach the gospel to every creature. And a lot of times
they would go forth and that door would be shut down and they
would go in a different direction. Paul found himself in prison.
Now, there's circumstance. There's providence. He's preaching
the gospel. He's going here. He's going there
all over Asia. God sticks him in prison. He
says, this is God's will. God's going to magnify the gospel
through my imprisonment. And he did. He wrote almost the
entire New Testament there. But in any case, we see Moses
acting in faith, and I think that's significant. But the other
thing I think is significant here that sometimes we don't
realize is that 40 years Moses was doing what he did in Egypt. And then he comes out to this
man, to these two men, and tries to separate them, tries to do
what he thought God would want him to do. But God didn't open
the door. Excuse me. God didn't open the
door to him. There was no A group of Israelites
that came together with hidden weapons and saying, finally,
our leader has come, our deliverer has come. Let's rise up and overthrow
the Egyptians who rule over us and deliver ourselves from there
was none of that. God didn't open and suggest a
way. It was closed down. And and the way it was closed
down, the way it was shut down was this man pushed back and
said, who made you a judge, a ruler over us? Are you going to kill
me? And we went over that somewhat
last week. So, the thing is, is at this point,
reading the New Testament in Acts chapter 7 and verse 23,
you can see that it was God who gave Israel up at that time to
reject Moses. And I'm using my words carefully.
He gave them up. He didn't... overcome their their
rejection of Moses. They just rejected him. This
man was the significant man who spoke and acted. And it was then
that God sent Moses out into the to the wilderness, into the
desert for another 40 years. What happened to this man who
was beating up his fellow and the man he was beating and all
the other slaves at that time who were grown men? What happened
to them? I'm sure they were more than
20 years old. Forty years later, most likely, they would have
all died. And so, you can see several things that happened
because of his rejection of Moses. Number one, this rejection of
Moses allows us to see our perversity. God wants us to see how wicked
the people were that he had to save. This man was wicked. He rejected Moses. And in rejecting
Moses, Stephen said in a sermon that just like the nation of
Israel rejected Christ, just like we naturally do. So that's
the first thing. Those that God saves are themselves
the children of wrath, deserving of all that God has for sinners
in judgment. But the second thing it teaches
us is that, and this is more historical than anything, but
it's still in God's will, another rejection. It foretold, it foreshadowed
the fact that Israel as a nation would one day reject their own
Messiah, their own Christ, and they would hang him on a tree.
And that rejection of him was actually going to work out to
the salvation of God's people worldwide. In other words, Israel's
rejection of Christ, God actually used that to save His elect Gentiles
because then the gospel went throughout the world. And so
God used their rejection to foreshadow the rejection of Christ by Israel
and His salvation of the Gentiles throughout all the world. Just
like here in Moses' case, in miniature, in a small specimen
as you would, of what God is going to do in Moses life, showing
us what Christ would do. God sends Moses out into the
desert, which we're going to look at here in a minute. But
the other thing here is that this rejection shows that God
is going to come back 40 years later and actually deliver Israel
from Egypt. God is going to do that. So even
though they rejected and they forsook their own mercies at
this time, God is still gracious. And even though it reveals how
wicked we are whom God saves, it also reveals something else
about God. And that is for his people, for
his church. He saves them in spite of their
own sin. Look at this in Hosea. This is
one of my there's several verses in Hosea that teach us a great
deal about who we are and God's salvation. But this is one of
them. The book of Hosea, while you're turning there in summary,
is about a prophet. God told the prophet, go take
a wife who is a harlot, marry her and have and she's going
to have children of other men. But I want you to marry her.
And this woman is going to typify the entire nation of Israel and
the way that they've treated me in spite of how I have been
to them as a husband. And so throughout the entire
book of Hosea, you see the perversity of our own hearts in the life
of this harlot who's married to a prophet. And then in chapter
11 of Hosea, There's a point here where God
is speaking to His people and He calls them Ephraim. Ephraim
was one of the sons of Joseph. It was just another name, a handle
that God would use to refer to the entire nation of Israel.
Ephraim. He says in verse 8, How shall
I give thee up, Ephraim? Now, the words how shall I give
thee up means God is saying, considering my great love for
you, how will I deliver you, Ephraim, into the hands of your
enemies to be destroyed? That's what He's saying. Not only to deliver them to their
enemies, but to forsake them as His people. How can I do that?
How can I do that? He says, how shall I give thee
up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel?
How shall I make thee as Adma, and how shall I set thee as Zaboem? The words Adma and Zaboem are
just synonyms for Sodom and Gomorrah. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
He sent fire. The entire city was destroyed.
There was nothing left but ashes. And that's what they deserved.
Israel rejected their Messiah. Israel rejected Moses all through
their history. They were stiff-necked. They
rejected God's salvation. And he says, how shall I do this?
Listen. Listen what God says. My heart
is turned within me. The word turned has to do with
being repenting. God is saying, I have turned.
I've repented. But wait a minute. God didn't
do anything wrong. He turned away His own wrath. which was deserving towards his
people. And look what he says. My own
heart is turned within me. My repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness
of mine anger. I will not return to destroy
Ephraim, for I am God, not a man, the Holy One in the midst of
thee. I will not enter into the city in way of destruction. Look
at Psalm 85. This is brought out there. Psalm
85, verse 1. Lord, thou hast been favorable
unto thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity
of Jacob. Why was Jacob in captivity? Because
of their departure from God, because of their sin against
God, God allowed their enemies to come and take them away into
captivity. And God says, I've turned them
back. I've brought them back. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of Thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin. Thou hast taken away all Thy
wrath. Thou hast turned Thyself from
the fierceness of Thine anger. And then look at the verse in
verse 4. This is the way we respond to when God tells us what He's
done in Christ. How should we respond? In prayer,
we say back to Him what He's done and the implications, the
consequences of it on our lives. He says, verse 4, Turn us, O
God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.
The psalmist is saying this is what God has done. And now his
prayer goes up and says, Lord, you've turned away your wrath.
Now turn us to you. And see that? And we could go
on here. This is what God has done. And so, in Exodus, when
the man rejects Moses, he's just a miniature, a specimen of the
entire nation that rejected God's mercies toward them, their own
Deliverer, and ultimately Christ. And yet God in His mercy, even
though that's how bad we are, God in His mercy saves His people
for His namesake. And that is God's grace. Isn't it a great grace that God
would save us? In fact, this is what, as we
looked at last week, this is what the New Testament teaches
us. God is gracious to us, but what is the nature, what is the
character of the people to whom he's gracious? We are the worst
kind of people. It's not like we were equal.
We're lower than others. It's borrowing words from someone
greater than you to take the Apostle Paul's words and say,
those are mine. I'm a great sinner and nothing
at all. I'm a great sinner and God has had mercy on me. It's
borrowing words from someone more noble than we are to say
that I am the sinner. I'm worse than they, because
what I've done to turn away from and to reject The salvation that
has been provided for me and God has saved me in spite of
myself, in spite of myself. And so in this case, not only
do we see that this reveals how bad the people are that God saves,
reveals ultimately that Israel would reject their own Messiah,
but it also reveals that God, even though they were that bad,
ultimately did deliver them because of his great mercy. But then
the fourth thing you see in this rejection is that the rejection
had another effect. It had another effect, just like
in the gospel, the rejection of Christ by Israel resulted
in the gospel going forth to all the world and the Gentiles,
us, being saved. So this rejection of Moses did
something which was for the salvation of Israel. It sent Moses into
the wilderness, into the desert. And in the desert, God prepared
his deliverer. He prepared him. And isn't that
what the Lord Jesus Christ did? Look at another verse in Hosea.
Well, actually, I will turn there in a minute. Let's just go ahead
and read through here. In verse 15 of Exodus 2. Now, when Pharaoh
heard this, heard that Moses had killed an Egyptian and he
had left the court, and had renounced his identity with Pharaoh's daughter. When he heard all these things,
he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face
of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian, and he sat down by
a well. Now, Midian, if you remember,
the Midianites were the descendants of Abraham through Keturah, the
wife after Sarah died. So these were actually relations
in some way to Israel through Abraham, their father. Verse
16. Now, the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they
came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's
flock. These seven girls came out to,
or ladies, whatever they were, they came out to water the sheep,
and they filled these troughs with all the water from the well.
And the shepherds came and drove them away. These were rogue shepherds.
They weren't the shepherds that worked for their father. They
were nomads or whatever they were, but Moses stood up and
helped them. He's probably sitting there by
the well under a palm tree or something, and he's watching
the drama unfold. He sees these women filling the
troughs with water, and then he sees these men come up, and
these men say, you guys get out of here. And then they try to
bring in their flock to get the water these ladies had provided.
Apparently, this happened every day. Because we'll see in a little
bit, it says in verse 18, when they came to rule their father,
he said, how is it that you are come so soon today? The shepherds
must have come there every day knowing these girls were going
to pull out all this water in order to feed their flock, and
then they just took advantage of it. But Moses stood up and
helped them. Moses stood up and helped the
helpless. Isn't that what the Lord Jesus Christ did? He helped
the helpless. You've probably heard, God helps
those that help themselves. That's used a lot by fathers
when they're trying to get their sons to do things because they're
lazy or something. Or maybe you'll see somebody
who looks at a poor person and says, God helps those that help
themselves. That's not true, is it? It's
not in the Bible. It's not true that God helps
those who help themselves, because God helps the helpless. He says,
blessed are the poor in spirit. It means those who have nothing
spiritually. We need to think about it on
the level where God is. God looks at the heart. Outward
things are just the fruit of what's on the inside. And what
comes out of the heart in God's eyes from His people? Nothing
spiritual. Spiritual bankrupt. There's no
storehouse of spiritual value God could look at and derive
some good for His kingdom in us. There's nothing in us that
God can find, He can use to build His temple or His kingdom with. He doesn't see value in us. He
puts the value there. He brings the value to us in
Christ, causes us to see that God has found in him all that
we need. And then he gives us his spirit and in his spirit
bears fruit to God. So God helps the helpless. He
helps those who are poor in spirit, those who have nothing in themselves.
And that's the way it is. And Moses shows that. He helps
these ladies. So the ladies go back to their
father, and their father says, How did you get done so soon
today? And they said, in verse 19, An Egyptian delivered us
out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for
us, and watered the flock. Evidently, Moses not only drove
away the shepherds, these nomads, these rogue shepherds, who were
picking on these seven ladies. But he also got the water out
of the well and watered their flock. I don't know how big their
flock was. But here, look at this. What was Moses? Well, he was a Hebrew. But if
you look at him, he was an Egyptian. These ladies thought he was an
Egyptian. They said to his father, he's an Egyptian that helped
us. And if he was an Egyptian, you know what the sheep were,
the shepherds were to Egyptians? According to what Joseph told
his brothers, every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians. Shepherds are an abomination
to the Egyptians. In other words, it's like you
have the garbage collector job. You have the worst job in the
world to be a shepherd. Now, why would they say that?
Why would they think that taking care of sheep was an abomination? I don't know exactly. But I can
expect I would know because isn't it true that those who care for
God's people as preachers and teachers and ministers, those
who care for the young and the sinful and the helpless and those
that are despised, aren't they considered really of no value
in the earth? That's like the lowest job you can get. And yet
that's the highest job you can get. Jesus told Peter, He says,
Do you love me? Do you love me? Three times. Do you love me? And you know
what Jesus said to him? You do, so go feed my sheep. You can't feed my sheep unless
you love me. But if you love me, this is the
highest honor you can possibly have. Go, feed my sheep." So
Moses is there. He's taking care of these sheep
by watering them. And the father of these seven
girls, he asks them, where's the man? He says, go get him.
Why did you leave him? Call him that he may eat bread.
In verse 21 of Exodus 2, and Moses was content to dwell with
the man. He was content to dwell with
the man. And he gave Moses his daughter, Zipporah, however you
say that name. I'm not sure if I've got the
pronunciation right. Zipporah. Now, the word here
for content is an interesting word. We think of content when
you think of content. A lot of times we think of it
in a way that's like, you know, maybe rule said to Moses, hey,
how would you like to stay here with us? And Rule probably had
some other things that he was thinking about, such as Moses
could take care of his daughters and feed his flock. He'd be a
great son-in-law to have around. But that wasn't exactly what
Moses had in mind. The word content actually is
translated differently in several other places in the Old Testament.
And I'll just point you to a few of those. In Genesis 18, verse
27 and 31, it's translated to take. Abraham was praying to
God. He says, I've taken upon me to speak to the Lord. In other
words, I've undertaken to do something. And then in 1 Samuel
17, 39, David tries to go out to fight Goliath and Saul offers
him his armor. But David says, I can't go with
this. I haven't assayed it yet. In
other words, I haven't tried it on. I haven't I haven't found
out that it's that it's going to work. I haven't assessed.
whether the armor is going to be good enough yet. So undertaking
and assessing. And then the other place is in
1 Chronicles 17, 27, where David asked the Lord, be pleased, Lord,
to bless me. Be pleased to bless me according
to your word. And again, in Job 6, 9, Job says,
if the Lord was pleased to destroy me, he would have done it. So
the word is also translated in that way as being pleased to
do something. And then one more in Joshua 17,
12, the Canaanites didn't want to leave the land and the Israelites
couldn't drive them out. It says the Canaanites would
dwell in the land. They were purposed to do something.
In Hosea also it's the same way. So the word content here has
a much stronger notion than you would think. It's not like Moses
said to rule, well, you know, I don't have anything better
to do. Why don't I just hang out with you? I'm content to
stay with you. It wasn't that way at all. Or it wasn't like,
well, I don't not only have anything better to do, but I have nowhere
else to go. So I might as well stay with you. And I'll just
be content to do this. You know, life was hard in Egypt
as a prince. And now I'll just take it easy
out here with the sheep. That's not the way it was either. That's
not we think of that kind of a contentment. It's kind of like
the contentment of of that you would think, I'm just going to
retire. I'm going to sit on the beach and watch the waves or
something that not not that kind of a contentment. It was a contentment
of purpose. It was a contentment of being
pleased to do something after assessing the situation. So Moses looked at the situation
that God had him in and he was purposed in his heart to take
care of the sheep there in the desert. He would do it and he
was pleased to do it. And so he undertook to do it.
And it was his purpose to do it. And so you can see here much
about our salvation also in what Moses was doing here. There's
two things you can see here. And I want to look at just one
of a couple of these things briefly with you. First of all, again,
Moses foreshadows what the Lord Jesus Christ would do. Look at
Hosea again. Hosea, maybe your Bible is going
to start opening there. We turn there enough. Hosea,
it's right after Daniel. You found it once and you wondered,
how did I get there? I want to go back there. It's
right after Daniel. Hosea chapter 12. It says in
verse 12 of Hosea 12, he says, Jacob fled into the country of
Syria. Now, you recall the story. Jacob was running for his life.
He was running from his brother Esau, who wanted to kill him.
So he fled to the country of Syria. And it says, and Jacob
fled into the country of Syria and Israel. That's also his name. God changed his name from Jacob
to Israel. He uses both names in this one
verse. Jacob, that was the the conniver, the deceiver. He fled
to the country of Syria and Israel, which means prince with God.
He served for a wife. Israel served for a wife and
for a wife. He kept sheep. You see that?
Israel fled, Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept
sheep." Now, this is exactly what happened to Moses, isn't
it? Moses fled from Pharaoh. Moses, for a wife, kept sheep. He served for a wife, didn't
he? The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who was anticipated by
Moses. Christ was pleased to dwell with
his people. The Lord Jesus Christ purposed,
He resolved to undertake for them, to serve His Father for
them. Look at John chapter 10. We need
to see this. When we think about what the
Lord Jesus did, there's two things that we need to understand about
it. Number one. He did it in obedience to his
father. He did it because it was what
God, his father, wanted him to do. But secondly, not only did
he do it in obedience, but when we think of obedience, at least
when I do, obedience to me usually means dad says, son, Go pull
the weeds. Oh, OK. I'll go pull the weeds.
I don't really want to, but I will since Dad said it. What else
am I going to do since Dad said to go pull the weeds? I'll have
to face the consequences if I don't do what Dad said. That's not
the kind of obedience that Jesus gave. Not at all. Look at John
chapter 10. He says in verse 11, I, Jesus
talking about himself, I am the good shepherd. You see that? The good shepherd gives his life
for the sheep. There are a lot of people who
want to be shepherds, but none but Christ is the good shepherd. What does the good shepherd do?
How do you know he's the good shepherd? He so cares for the sheep that
he gives his life for them. Look at verse 15. As the Father
knoweth me, even so I know the Father. In other words, as well
as I am known by eternal God, He knows everything about me.
That's how well I know God. And this is what I did because
of my knowledge of my Father. I laid down my life for the sheep. This was in the heart of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It was obedience. It was for
obedience that the Lord Jesus Christ gave up His life. And
that's why His obedience is the righteousness of His people.
But His obedience wasn't just obedience like we think of obedience,
where it's coerced from us, sort of unwillingly or maybe willingly,
in order to get on to the next thing. No. This was the reason
He came, to give His life. He loved his father and he loved
his sheep. Look at Exodus chapter 21. He didn't just do this because
he was, well, I haven't got anything better to do or, yeah, I really
need a living here. I need a job, so I'm going to
do it. It wasn't like that at all. Look at Exodus chapter 21.
And these are the words God gave to Moses. These are the judgments
in verse one. Which thou shalt set before them,
if thou buy a Hebrew servant six years, he shall serve, and
in the seventh year he shall go out free for nothing. If you
buy a Hebrew servant now, one of your own brethren, because
he's poor for whatever reason, he's a slave, and you're going
to buy him and he's going to serve you, he can't serve more
than six years. The seventh year he's got to
go out free for nothing. He doesn't have to pay. He's
free. Then in verse three, he says, because you know how it
is when you make up these these rules, there's always these situations
that you have to take care of the corner cases. It says if
he came in by himself, he's going to go out by himself. If he were
married, then his wife shall go out with him. But if his master
have given him a wife and she, his wife, has born him sons or
daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters. And he
should go out by himself. So that's the way that God made
the law back then. If a man is a slave, he's a Hebrew,
and while he's serving, his master is good enough to give him a
wife. And he's serving his master still in a six-year period. And
while he's serving, he and his wife have children. And now comes
to the end of the time. He gets to go out free for nothing.
And most people would take it. Just to be free from this service,
what am I going to be in life if I'm only a slave? But notice
in the next thing, if he wants to do that, then his wife and
his children are still his masters. They have to stay with the master.
It seems a little hard, but listen, there's a reason why God did
it this way. Verse six, verse five, I'm sorry. And if the servant
shall say, at the end of this six-year period, in the seventh
year, if he shall say, no, no, I love my master, I love my wife,
and I love my children, I will not go out free. You see that? That's the love the Lord Jesus
Christ had when he says, I'm the good shepherd, and the good
shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Who were the sheep?
His wife and His children, His people, those He laid down His
life for. How did He get them? God the
Father gave His people to His Son, that His Son might save
them by laying down His life, taking their sins as His, confessing
their sins as His, bearing their sins as His own burden, and the
punishment of them as His punishment. And not only that, but yielding
to God obedience which was theirs. All that Christ did, He did in
love to His sheep, in love to His Master, in love to His people,
His wife and His children. And this is what Moses is doing
here in Exodus chapter 2. He's content. The first thing
you see here is that Moses was content as the Lord Jesus Christ
to give His life for His people. to give all of his life. We think,
well, the Lord Jesus Christ gave his life, that means on the cross
he died and that was it. He came and for a few hours he
suffered and then he died and that was it. No, no, it was nothing
like that. He who is God emptied himself,
took on the form of a servant. He emptied himself of his God.
He who was rich became poor. that we, through His poverty,
might be made rich. That's the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. And that grace was such that
not only did He become poor, He served as a servant, obeyed
in all of His life, and yielded His life in obedience to death.
And then He rose from the dead, and now He's also serving His
people and interceding for them. And it says in the New Testament
that when the King, the Lord Jesus Christ, shall sit in his
kingdom, he will gather his people together and he will rise up
and serve them. This is the nature of the love
the Lord Jesus Christ has for his people. He will never stop
serving them. He is our life. And so Moses
shows us this. He's content to dwell with the
man. But the second thing we see from this is that Moses also
typifies or shows us what we, as people of God, do. We're content
to dwell with the Lord Jesus Christ. We're content to dwell
with Him. Look at 1 John 2. We're content. And when we dwell
with the Lord Jesus Christ, this word with isn't like With in
a in a casual way or with in a distant way, it's within an
intimate way. It's in the most intimate way.
He says in First John, chapter two. In verse twenty four, he
says, First John to twenty four, the apostle John is writing to
those who were being assaulted by deceivers, and he says, let
that therefore abide in you. which you have heard from the
beginning. If that which you have heard from the beginning
shall remain in you, then you shall continue in the Son and
in the Father." And this is the promise that He's promised us,
even eternal life. These things I've written unto
you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which
you have received of him abideth in you, and you need not that
any man teach you, but as that same anointing teaches you all
things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught
you, you shall abide in him." Now, little children, abide in
him, that when he shall appear, we may have confidence and not
be ashamed before him at his coming. Do you see this? Abide
in the Lord Jesus Christ. When Moses was content to dwell
with this man, Reuel, it teaches us that God's people are content
to dwell with the Lord Jesus, to dwell in Him, abide in Him. Have you ever asked yourself
the question, what does it mean to abide in Christ? Jesus told
his disciples, abide in me, as the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself unless it abide in the vine, neither you, neither
can you except you abide in me. Abide in me. Abide. And I've read that verse hundreds
of times. Abide in me, abide in me. I can't
figure out what does it mean to abide in me. Well, the word
abide, there's two ways to look at this, and the Bible teaches
us both of these things. It has a positive and a negative.
A positive and a negative. And I want to look at the negative
with you and the positive. Let's look at these. What does
it mean to abide in the Lord Jesus Christ? John 5. Just quickly
here, John 5, verse 38. Jesus says in verse 38 of John 5, And you, He's speaking of His enemies,
you have not His word, abiding in you. How do you know? Well, for whom he has sent him,
you believe not. That's how I know. How do you
know they don't have his word abiding in them? How do the people
Jesus was speaking to, how can he say you don't have my father's
word abiding in you? How does he say that? Because
you don't believe him whom he sent. So what does this word
mean here? Well, it means that to abide
in him here in this verse is saying clearly that if you have
if you don't have God's word abiding in you, then you don't
believe Christ. But if you turn it around the
other way, it means that if you do believe Christ, then what
do you have abiding in you? God's word, right? If you don't
believe. Christ, then you don't have God's
Word abiding in you. Therefore, if you do believe
the Lord Jesus Christ, what is abiding in you? God's Word. Look
at 2 John, a very small book in the Bible. 2 John, just before
the book of Revelation, actually before the book of 3 John and
Jude, but it's back there on the very back. 2 John, and verse
9. These two verses, I think, here
really clarify for me what does it mean to abide. He says in
verse 9, Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine
of Christ hath not God. That's the negative, right? If
you don't abide in the doctrine of Christ, you don't have God. And here's the positive. He that
does abide in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father
and the Son. Now, what does transgress mean?
Well, this is what it means. Here's my border, and I'm going
to put a border there on my land, and if you trespass that crossing,
then you've transgressed. You've gone beyond it. You've
gone beyond the legal boundary. And God's law is like that. It
says, here's what you have to do, or here's what you must not
do. And when you transgress God's
law, you've gone beyond what God has said. But here, transgressing
is to transgress the Lord Jesus Christ. It's to go beyond Christ
Himself. And He says, whoever transgresses,
whoever goes beyond Christ. In other words, whoever says,
The Lord Jesus Christ is not enough. I need something else,
or I need something in addition to Him to make me right with
God, to come to God, to serve God, to be accepted by Him, to
have a reward from God. I need something of those things,
and I have to bring something of myself, or I have to go around
Christ to get it. There's something I need. Maybe
it's a priest, maybe it's a... A work that I have to do. Maybe
it's a commitment I have to make. My own sincerity. My experience. A mystical kind of experience
that I had. I had this moment in my life
where the lights came on and all this happened. No, no. There's
only one thing that saves us. It's what God has done in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And if we go beyond that, that's
transgressing. That's going beyond the boundary.
Whoever transgresses, whoever goes beyond and abides not in
the doctrine of Christ, to go beyond the gospel. To say what
God has taught in the gospel concerning His Son, that Christ
is the one God is pleased with, that Christ alone has borne the
sins of His people and saved them by Himself on the cross.
And that now He sends His Spirit to bring the knowledge of that
to them so that they believe and hold to Him. and believe
Him. When you go beyond that, you've
gone beyond Christ, you've gone beyond the doctrine of Christ,
and you don't have God. That's the negative. But, on
the positive, he that abided in the doctrine of Christ has
both the Father and the Son. Not just the Son only, but the
Father, because God sent His Son and gave us the gospel concerning
His Son, and He says to us, this is My beloved Son, hear Him.
Moses was content to dwell with his father, Reuel. We're content
to dwell with the Lord Jesus Christ, to abide in the gospel,
to abide in Him. What does it mean to abide? It
means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that what
this is saying? To believe Him shows that you are abiding in
Him, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. What does it mean to
be in Christ, to abide in Him? Well, to be in the Lord Jesus
Christ is the only way we have any blessings from God. If we're
in Christ, it's like there's several examples given. It's
like the man who had accidentally killed someone and he realizes,
I just was chopping a tree. The axe had flew off and killed
this man. I've got to escape because the
relative is going to avenge his blood on me and kill me. God
said, whenever that happens, then you run to the city of refuge
and you stay in the city of refuge from the avenger of blood. That's
abiding in Christ. Stay there. Don't go on beyond
it. Don't leave the city. Because
if you leave the city, then the avenger of blood can take you
out, and it will be according to God's will. So if you are
suspected of killing another man, committing manslaughter,
then you better stay in the city of refuge. Christ is our refuge. We've fled to Him. We've fled
to Him to appease the wrath of God. In faith, we've looked to
Him only. And another example is in the
Old Testament. We're going to get to this in
Exodus 12 through 14. God gave the people a Passover.
He said, put the blood on the post of the door and of the house. You go inside the house and you
stay there because at night when God comes by and sends his destroying
angel and sees the blood and he's going to pass over you.
But if you're outside the house, you're going to die. Same thing. Abiding in Christ. God saw the
blood and he passed over them. Because what? They were in the
house. God's people are in Christ. When God comes looking for his
people, if they're in Christ, then they're safe. Paul wrote
to Philemon and said, here's this slave Onesimus. He's disobeyed
and left you. He's become dear to me in the
gospel. And now Paul sends Onesimus back
to Philemon and he says, receive him as me. He's my own bowels. I love him so much. When you
see this man, think. Don't think Onesimus, the slave
that ran away. Think, that's Paul. And receive
him like me. That's abiding in Christ. That's
the way we come to God. We come to Him only in the Lord
Jesus Christ. On no other basis. We don't look
for something to happen additional to what Christ has done. We come
on the basis, it says in Hebrews chapter 10, having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. So Moses was content. to abide
with His Father-in-law, just like we're content to abide with
the Lord Jesus Christ. He was content to give up His
life for His people, and His people are content to stay with
Him. Those two things are mutually held in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy. You see this over and over again.
What God does for Moses and in Moses not only shows us Christ,
but it shows us how God deals with His people and saves them
through Christ. And so Moses is like that. He
teaches us both things. How Christ laid down His life
for His people and how His people abide in Him. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
You wouldn't pass us by. You would save us in spite of
our wickedness. Our sin, Lord, is great. Therefore, we pray, pardon it
for Your name's sake. and say unto our soul that you
are our salvation. We have no other hope, no other
answer to God's justice, no other plea, no other way that we can
provide an obedience acceptable to God in ourselves. Not even
partially, not even by some infusion of grace. Our acceptance, our
righteousness, Our satisfaction to your justice must occur entirely
in what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us on the cross and answered
every question, every requirement that God has for his people.
He is our refuge. He is our Passover. He is our
substitute, our surety. He's everything, our mediator.
Lord, intercede for us. Cleave your own blood for our
sake. And we pray, Lord, as you've
taken away your wrath by the Lord Jesus Christ, turn us to
yourself. Cause us to hold to you and not
leave the gospel, not leave the Lord Jesus. In Jesus' name we
pray. Amen.