Exodus, starting at chapter one. And Lord willing, we'll go through
a number of sermons out of the Old Testament here. I've entitled
this message, Misery and Mercy, Misery and Mercy. There's much
to be said. about the context of the book
of Exodus. The context obviously is started
in the very beginning here, where God lists the names of the children
of Israel, of Jacob. And then you see in the next
couple of verses mention made of Joseph. So the context is
really Genesis. Genesis is the book of beginnings. That's what Genesis means. Exodus
means mass departure or a mass immigration. And we know what
it has to do with. Israel, the nation, was removed
from another nation. From Egypt, God removed them
and delivered them from that nation. And then the next book
of the Bible after Exodus is called Leviticus. And as I was
listening to that on the Bible reading, I was thinking, what
does Leviticus mean? Well, it has to do with the Levites. As
you might guess, Leviticus. That's of the Levites. which
is the priesthood. And in the book after that is
called Numbers, because God numbered his people. And why did God number
his people? Because he cares for them, like
a man cares for a treasure, you number the treasure, don't you?
Or like a shepherd cares for his sheep, you keep track of
them, you number them. And then Deuteronomy means the
second giving of the law. And it was given to that second
generation. The first generation died in the wilderness. After
they were wandering in the wilderness 40 years, they failed to believe
God going into the land of Canaan. And God allowed them to wander. cause them to wander in the wilderness
without bringing them into Canaan. And just as he's and after they
that first generation died, the second generation was given the
law again by Moses in the book of Deuteronomy. So that's what
those those books that Moses wrote are about. If you look
at John chapter five, you don't have to turn there, but these
are the words of Jesus. One of the benefits you get from
going through the Old Testament is that the Old Testament is
a reflection of the New Testament, which is the face. So, think
of the Old Testament as the shadow and the New Testament as the
substance, and as the shadow or the reflection looks like
the real thing, the Old Testament also looks like the real thing.
And it actually helps us see in clearer illustration something
about the gospel. There's so much benefit in seeing
the Old Testament first and then looking at it revealed in the
New Testament. And never look at the Old Testament
and try to establish your doctrine without referencing the New Testament,
because that's the reason God, the Lord Jesus Christ, gave to
his apostles that truth of the gospel which unfolds the Old
Testament. But in John chapter 5, Jesus
said this search the scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life and they are they which testify of me There's no
doubt that he's talking about the Old Testament there look
in verse 45 He says do not think that I will accuse you to the
father There is one that accuses you even Moses in whom you trust
had you believed Moses You would have believed me for he wrote
a of me." Now, the Israelites were a people just like we are. I used to think when I was a
kid listening to the Old Testament read by my mom or whoever was
reading the Bible that the Israelites were especially bad people because
they were forgetful, they were ungrateful, They were neglectful,
and they did things God told them plainly not to do, and they
left undone the things that God told them to do. So they seemed
especially bad. But what I realize is they're
just like me. And so, when we read these things
about them, he says, if you had believed Moses, you would have
believed me. Don't think that you would have
believed Moses either. unless God opened your eyes.
No one can know God unless God makes Himself known. No one can
understand the Gospel in the Old Testament unless God gives
them eyes to see and a heart to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And you know you understand the
Old Testament correctly if you see Christ in it and if you see
His salvation of His people and His glory and His faithfulness
and all of His goodness in spite of the badness and the unfaithfulness
of his people. So that's what we're going to
see. And we look in when we're looking at these at these books
of the Old Testament in Exodus through Deuteronomy. And there's
some repetition, but there's some things that are not repeated
either. So that's the first thing I wanted to point out is that
the book of Exodus has all of the books that Moses wrote. In
fact, all of the Old Testament is about the Lord Jesus Christ
and Jesus himself claimed that to be the case. Not only that,
but the Old Testament itself claims that to be the case. Moses
prophesied that Christ would be that prophet who would be
like him and everyone would have to hear or they would be destroyed
from among the people. So it was essential that we hear
that. Secondly, the book of Exodus and through Deuteronomy is a
summary and an illustration in many different ways of the gospel. One of the things you see so
clearly that it jumps off the page at you is that these books
are about God's people. And that seems like the most
elementary statement you can see. These books have to do with
God's people, the Israelites. And who are the Israelites? Well,
in the New Testament, and again, you have to look at these things
in order to begin to understand these. In the New Testament,
God reveals to us that there is a people called the true Israel. In Galatians 6.16, he says that
he prays that God, let me just read that
to you, Galatians 6.16. He says, As many as walk according
to this rule, peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel
of God. The Israel of God. Now, who is
an Israelite? Well, he says in Romans 2, he
says, He is not a Jew which is one outwardly, but he is a Jew
which is one inwardly. Circumcision is not in the flesh,
it's in the heart. And then he says in Romans nine,
just giving you these things to strengthen your confidence
that this is what the Bible itself says about this, because sometimes
we doubt it. He says in Romans chapter nine
that they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. They're
not all true Israelites who are of the nation of Israel. That's
what he's saying there. But he says, he goes, On to say
in Romans chapter 9, I was starting there, verse 6, he says, neither
because they are the seed, the physical seed of Abraham, are
they all children, God's children. But in Isaac shall thy seed be
called. That's just a quotation, but
it's a quotation of a promise made to Abraham. And he says
in verse 8, that is, they which are the children of the flesh,
these are not the children of God. Those born physically in
the nation of Israel are not the children of God, but the
children of the promise are counted for the seed. And the promise
is God's promise to the Lord Jesus Christ that these people
would be given to Him, and He would save them, and God would
give them eternal life because of what Christ would do. The
Old Testament books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
and even further, have to do with God's people. And God uses
the physical nation in order to reflect the truth about the
spiritual nation. He uses words and events in order
to teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ and about ourselves. And
in teaching us this, he teaches us the gospel over and over again. So one of the things you see
right away is that this is about the church, the church in the
wilderness. The gospel is preached to them
and the gospel is preached to them. You see the major truths
of the gospel, God's sovereignty, God's purpose of grace, God's
redeeming love, God's electing grace, total depravity of man,
God's particular redemption, God's saving and keeping and
preserving grace, all these things are seen in these Old Testament
books. And when you see them, your heart
should gain confidence. That the truth you believe in
the New Testament is the consistent truth throughout time. God didn't
start one truth and change directions. It's always been the same gospel
from eternity to eternity. That means God is faithful. He
didn't start a program and let it drop off. He started one program
and he's going to finish that program all the way to the end.
God is not going to fail in any of his intentions and his promises. All of his works are perfect.
Everything he intends to do will come to pass according to his
perfect plan. Now, exodus, given that as sort
of a context here, exodus occurs at a time after the Israelites were established
as a people under the father of Jacob, who was the son of
Isaac, who was the son of Abraham. And God made promises to Abraham,
to Isaac, and to Jacob. And those promises are contained
in a covenant. And that covenant was made to
them in two ways. The first way, the most significant
way, is an eternal covenant. But secondly, God also included
in that covenant, those promises to them, a physical realization
of certain things that would represent and reflect the eternal
covenant. So when Jacob had his sons, this
was in fulfillment of what he had promised to Abraham. He would
multiply his seed. And if you look at Genesis 15,
God gives the prediction, the The decree of what God would
do to Abraham's seed, Genesis chapter 15, when he's given to
Abraham a covenant, he says. In Genesis 15, starting at verse
five, God brought Abraham forth abroad and said, Look now toward
heaven and tell the stars, in other words, count the stars,
if they'll be able to number them. And he said to him, God
said to Abraham, so shall thy seed be. Now, that was a very
significant promise. He's saying your seed, those
who come from you are going to be more numerous than the stars
of heaven. They're innumerable. And he had
two things in mind there. First and foremost, he had the
elect of God in mind. In Christ, God's people would
be unnumbered, numerous, and they would all believe on Christ
just like Abraham. They are therefore called the
seed of Abraham because they were chosen in Christ by God
and believers just like Abraham. But secondly, there was another
seed, the physical seed, and that was the physical nation
of Israel. And they represented the true
nation of Israel. And they also were numerous and
innumerable. God tells how this actually was
fulfilled in their case as well later on. But anyway, in verse
six, and he believed in the Lord, what God said and God promised.
He believed. Now, Abraham had no children
at this point. No children. His wife was completely
unable to have children. And yet, Abraham believed God's
promise. That's phenomenal. That Abraham
would believe what he couldn't see to be true as if it were
already accomplished by God. His name meant Father of Many
Nations, a name that reflected something that was already true,
and yet it wasn't true in his physical life. It hadn't happened,
yet God said it's true. So then he says, but Abraham
did believe God. God enabled him. He gave him
that faith. He caused him to believe. He
was God's Child by his electing covenant love and so when God
said this to Abraham he attended those words with his own spirit
of life and grace and Abraham believed what God said as if
it were true because he believed God and verse 6 and he believed
in the Lord and he the Lord counted it to him for righteousness and
And he said to him, God said to him, I am the Lord that brought
thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit.
And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit
it? And he said to him, take me a heifer of three years old
and a she goat of three years old and a ram of three years
old and a turtle dove and a young pigeon. And he took unto him
all these and divided them in the midst and laid each piece
one against another. But the birds he divided not.
And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abraham drove
them away. And when the sun was going down,
a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and lo, a horror of great darkness
fell upon him. And God said to Abraham, Know
of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that
is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict
them four hundred years. And also, that nation whom they
serve will I judge, and afterward shall they come out with great
substance. You see that? God promised to
Abraham in his covenant, and I'm not going to explain the
rest of this chapter here now, but God promised that Abraham's
descendants would be strangers in a strange land, in a land
not theirs, And the people of that land would afflict them
for 400 years, 400 years. And then he says God's going
to bring them out in great judgments. Now, before we get into Exodus,
I want to again, I want to take those words and I want to go
to the New Testament to just one verse and show you how this
overlays with as a shadow and a reflection of the gospel. Because
God's people also, the true people of God, who are saved by the
blood of Christ, they also were brought out by great judgment.
And when they were brought out, they left with great substance.
Look at John chapter 12. This is exactly what God did
by Christ. John chapter 12. And I'm just
going to use this to help us start seeing what God has done
for his people and how Israel as a nation reflects that. John
chapter 12, he says in verse 27, he says, now, this
is the Lord Jesus talking, he's talking just before he goes to
the cross, and he says, now is my soul troubled. And what shall
I say? Father, save me from this hour? It's a rhetorical question. No.
But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy
name. Then there came a voice from
heaven saying, I have both glorified it and I will glorify it again.
The people, therefore, that stood by and heard it said that it
thundered. Others said an angel spoke to him. Jesus answered
and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. And here, listen carefully to
these words. He's about to go to the cross. What the Lord Jesus
does at the cross is to glorify His Father. This is what He's
speaking about. My soul is troubled. I came into
the world for this hour. This is the whole reason I came. And His Father says, I've glorified
My name. I'm going to glorify it again.
How? In redeeming His people by the Lord Jesus Christ. And
He says in verse 31, Now is the judgment. of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. You see that? That's exactly
in spiritual fulfillment of what happened in the book of Exodus
when God redeemed Israel out of Egypt, destroying Pharaoh
and his people and bringing them out by the blood of the Lamb. That's what happened in Egypt.
It was judgment God brought judgment on his enemies and another judgment. God showed who were his and his
love for them and his fulfillment of his covenant. And he brought
judgment in both cases, destroying their enemies and raising up
the poor out of the dust and setting him among princes. That's
what God did. He saved his people. And why
did God do all this? What was the reason? Did he find
some reason in the Israelites? Did he look upon them and say,
They are such a high quality people. Why? They're so intelligent.
They're going to be something I can really benefit from in
their life. Of course not. You can see that. In fact, look at Deuteronomy,
chapter seven, and then we'll get into Exodus here in just
a moment. Deuteronomy, the fifth book in
the Bible, and we want to look at chapter seven. Again, this is the second time
Moses gave the law, and he's given it to the second generation.
But here he says, he refers to them all as one, the first and
second generation. He says in verse 6, For thou art an holy people unto
the Lord thy God. Why were the people called the
holy people? Hint, it was not something they
did. It was something God did. God
separated them from the Egyptians, separated them from all the other
people. He sanctified them in tithe by
the sacrifices, by the priests. That's exactly what God's people
are. We're set apart by His electing
love. We're sanctified by the blood
of Christ. We're made holy by what Christ
has done. He says, Thou art a holy people
unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto himself above all people that
are upon the face of the earth. You see that? Who can deny by
these words that God had a special selection of the nation of Israel
above all the other people on the face of the earth? If you
deny That, then you deny this verse and you deny the truth
of Scripture. And yet this is exactly what God is saying in
the New Testament when He says that God chose us in Christ,
in Christ, before the foundation of the world. And this nation
teaches us as a shadow or a reflection of what the truth is. But look
at verse 7. He tells us why God did this. The Lord did not set
his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in
number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people,
but because the Lord loved you. You see that? The reason given
is found in God. When you ask the question, does
God love me? What business do I have of ever
saying, God loves me? Why would I ever have a reason
for saying that? That sounds so arrogant. People say that
when you say things like, God has a special people and I'm
one of them. People just drop their jaw. You're
so arrogant. How could you say that? You know
what? I didn't say it. God said it. who believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ are drawn by the Father, and those are the
ones given to Him. I didn't do this. He didn't set
His love upon us because we were the most numerous, or because
we were something great, but because the Lord loved you. And
what was the reason for that? The reason is found in God, and
that's the only place. So my confidence, my hope, that
God is going to deliver me, that He loves me, and that He'll do
good to me, is found in God. Do I have any reason to doubt
God's goodness, His love, His mercy, and especially since all
of it's in Christ? Absolutely no reason to doubt
it. Do I believe that with all my heart? And therefore, that's
the evidence that God has loved us. But because the Lord loved
you, and because He would keep the oath, which he had sworn
to your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty
hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the
hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt." You see that? God did it because
He's good. He did it for His namesake. He
did it because of His covenant. He did it because He's God. And that's just who He is. And
we love the Lord for saving us. So now when we look at Exodus,
keep these things in mind, that it's about Christ, the context
is His covenant to Abraham, and this was God's plan. The children
of Israel are in Egypt because God purposed for them to be there. God is the one who put in place
a decree that they would go there, we just read about it in Genesis
15, that they would go there and they would be servants to
these people who would afflict them, but in the affliction,
God would deliver them from that people. And this is redemption,
isn't it? God brings us into a case of
misery, He has mercy on us, redeems us, and then He tells us, now,
this is what I've done. I want you to remember what I've
done for you. And I want you to give thanks
to My name, to praise My name for what I've done for you. Remember
My mercy. Trust Me. And you have no reason
to look anywhere else for your salvation than the salvation
that I've provided in Christ. And that's what He's saying to
us here. Now, let's look at Exodus. He says in verse 1, Now, these
are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt,
every man and his household, came with Jacob, Reuben, Simeon,
Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, and Naphtali,
Gad, and Asher, and all the souls that came out of the loins of
Jacob were seventy souls, for Joseph was in Egypt already."
If you go back to Exodus 46, it describes where these numbers
come from. And I'm not going to get into
that technical detail right now, but just take it for faith value. Moses is consistent. Exodus 46,
he says there were 70. Here he says there were 70. And
he explains that Joseph, Manasseh, Ephraim were already in Egypt.
And if you count Jacob and subtract that from 7, you get back to
66, which is the other number given in Genesis 46. But anyway,
verse 6, And Joseph died and all his brethren and all that
generation. Now, Joseph was a glorious type
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember probably that we
just went through, a few months ago, not just went through, but
not too long ago, you remember that we went through the account
of Joseph. And Joseph is such a glorious
type of Christ that I just wanted to give you a refresher on that,
and I'm not seeing my notes here. I'm sure it's all there, but
let me just go down the list here. Joseph was especially loved
of his father. Remember that? How is how is
that evident? Well, it says that Jacob loved
Joseph above all of his sons, but he also says he made him
a coat of many colors. Joseph was loved above all of
his brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ was loved
God said from heaven, this is my beloved son in whom I am well
pleased. That's God's love for his son.
Joseph was sold into Egypt by his brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ was sold
by his people into the hands of the Gentiles, the Romans.
Judas sold him. The nation delivered him up and
cried for his crucifixion. They sold him. They hated him. They wanted to murder him. And
they, in fact, did murder him. The reason that Joseph was sold
to Egypt was so that God could preserve the life of all of the
sons of Jacob. The reason that the Lord Jesus
Christ was sold by his nation and his people into the hands
of this other nation that actually crucified him was because God
would save his people. It's the same thing. The motive
for which the brothers of Joseph sold Joseph to the Egyptians
was because they envied him and hated him. There was an evil
intent. The reason why the people of
Israel sold Christ to his enemies was because they envied him and
hated him. But even though the brothers of Joseph envied and
hated Joseph, Joseph receives them graciously. The Lord Jesus
Christ prays on the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do. All these things parallel precisely
what happened to Joseph. to Jesus and Joseph. They're
parallels one of another. And so when you read about this,
you see that God brought the Israelites into Egypt to preserve
life. He saved them by Joseph. God
saved us through the Lord Jesus Christ, in spite of the fact
that the intention of those who took him and murdered him was
only evil. In spite of the fact that Joseph
was so treated by his brothers, God saved them in spite of their
sin. God used their sin to bring about
his plan. And so in Acts 2, 23 and 4, 28,
God says it was the predetermined purpose of God that that he delivered
up Christ because of these because of his intent to save his people.
This is how all this fits together. So that the nation of Israel
now is in the land of Egypt. And God is giving us the number
of the people who came. It was Jacob's sons. All of his
sons came. It's interesting. He had 12 sons. Joseph was in Egypt and he had
11 additional. And he had one daughter named
Dinah. But they all lived. They all lived until they got
to Egypt. That's that's pretty good statistics, isn't it? And
all of their children, only a few of them died. And those two that
are mentioned that died, Ur and Onan, died because they were
wicked before the Lord and God killed them. But the rest of
them were all preserved alive. That's an amazing thing that
God preserved all of Jacob's sons alive because God preserves
all his people in spite of all the dangers and enemies. And
he brought them into Egypt. Now, look at this. It says, And
the children of Israel were fruitful. and increased abundantly and
multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty, and the land was filled
with them." This is just a testimony to the fact that God is fulfilling
his word to Abraham, isn't it? God promised your children are
going to be as the stars of heaven, unnumbered, like the sand by
the sea, like the dust of the earth, so many. And here they're
multiplying. So God's purpose for Israel is
being fulfilled. But now look in verse 8. It seems
like there's opposition to God's plan. It seems like someone's
going to try to stop God's plan. Now, there arose up a new king
over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. Now, it looks like he's going
to be able to stop God's plan, but actually, his evil and his
wicked intent is exactly what God wants to happen. It's exactly
what God wants to happen. Pharaoh is wicked. God's going
to use his wickedness for a couple of purposes. One, to show his
power over Pharaoh and all the false gods of Egypt. Two, because
through his affliction of God's people, God is going to bring
them to cry to him, and he's going to redeem them according
to his grace. So let's read on. There rose
up a new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph. He didn't know
the Lord Jesus Christ. Read it. Isn't it about Christ?
Pharaoh didn't know Joseph. Egypt, the king of Egypt, didn't
know. And the word no here doesn't
mean he didn't know who he was. Oh, he knew who Joseph was. It
means he didn't have a regard to him. He didn't have respect
to him. He didn't remember all the good things Joseph did to
Egypt. Egypt would have perished as
a nation had it not been for Joseph. The world would have
perished had it not been for the Lord Jesus Christ, preserving
it, keeping it alive. He upholds all things by the
word of his power. And yet the king of Egypt, forgot
the fact that Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream, and because
of that interpretation, saved the entire nation of Egypt, not
only his own people, Israel, but also that he accumulated
all the wealth of Egypt into the coffers of the king. Joseph
did that. The king owed Joseph everything.
Joseph should have been Pharaoh, right? In that sense. And he
was in that role. But this Pharaoh wickedly and
cruelly forgets. He denies Joseph, just like the
enemy wickedly and cruelly denies the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at
Exodus 5, chapter 5, verse 2. It says in verse 1, Moses and
Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
Let my people go. that they may hold a feast to
me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord? You see
that? Who is the Lord that I should
obey his voice? Ha ha! Who's the Lord? I know not the Lord. Neither
will I let Israel go. What a mock. What a blasphemous
thing to say. That's what he's saying here.
This new king didn't know Joseph just like the king didn't know
God. He didn't know God in Christ.
That's the evidence of false religion. Now, in Revelation
chapter 11, verse 8, it says that Jerusalem is spiritually
called Egypt, Sodom and Egypt. And that verse in Revelation
11, 8 teaches us that God used the nation of Egypt as a nation
of human religion, just like the Jews, who didn't believe
Christ, were the epitome of human religion. And all the religion
of man rises up to kill God's seed, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and His people, and to thwart God's plan, and yet God has power
and victory over them. What does human religion do?
Well, human religion doesn't know God. It doesn't know Christ.
And remember in Hebrews 11, it says that Moses chose rather
to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy what?
The pleasures of sin for a season. So Egypt is the place where the
pleasures of sin are. It's the world and world religion. That's what Egypt is. And so
we see that in Pharaoh. He didn't know Christ. It was
the place of the pleasures of sin. And what did Pharaoh do
when the people began to multiply? He said, I want you to take all
the Hebrew males and kill them. Kill them. Told the midwives,
when you see someone having a baby and it's a male, kill it. We're
going to see that in a few verses here next week. And they didn't
do it. And then he said, OK, cast them
into the river. He wanted to kill the seed royal. He wanted
to kill Christ because it was through them that Christ would
come. Herod did the same thing. The devil tried to kill Christ
too, but they couldn't do it. The other thing you see here
about Egypt, not only are they representative of the pleasures
of sin. They didn't know Christ. They sought to kill the seed,
the Lord Jesus Christ. But they afflicted God's people
with slavery and fear and burdens. That's what they did. They afflicted
them. cruelly treated them, cruelly. It wasn't just like they just
made them serve like a butler, you know, come here and fix my
food and stuff like that. No, it was cruel. They put burdens
on them that were too heavy for them to bear. They caused them
to do work that was greater than they could actually do. And they
demanded of them to do it anyway. Remember when they took away
the straw? Build bricks anyway. I don't care. You go get the
straw. Same tally of bricks. Do it anyway. Because human religion
afflicts the people of God. They afflict the Lord Jesus Christ
and they afflict his people. Look at Acts chapter 1. I'm sorry,
Acts chapter 15. Acts chapter 15. I'll just show
you these as we're going through this briefly so you see this.
It says in verse 1, And certain men, Acts 15, Certain men, which
came down from Judea, taught the brethren and said, except
you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be
saved. Can't be saved unless you're
circumcised. But then look over at verse 10. Now, therefore, Peter says, Why
tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples,
which neither our fathers nor we could bear." What is a yoke?
It's a burden. It's bondage. It's what you do
to a slave, an ox. And Peter is saying, by telling
them in order to be saved, they have to be circumcised, which
you can apply to any work. By the works of the flesh there
shall no flesh be justified in His sight. By the works of the
law, no flesh justified in His sight. Any work that we must
do to be saved is a yoke, is a burden. It's works religion. It's man's religion. And this
is what the Egyptians sought to do. Let's afflict them. They
saw that they were growing and they said, ah, let's afflict
them. Let's put burdens on them because they hated Christ, they
afflicted God's people. The way they afflicted them is
by putting burdens on them. And that, in the spiritual sense,
is telling them, you have to do this in order to be saved.
You have to do this in order to be pleasing to God. You, you,
you. Find something, you reach this
level, and you can find peace in your conscience before God.
You do these things. You know, every religion, every
religion without exception in the world, except the truth of
the gospel teaches men to do something to please God. Islam
is a case in point. Islam teaches people that you
have to, there's certain things you have to do, and you won't
find out if you're right with God until the day of judgment.
That's what Islam says. And your good works have to outweigh
your wicked works. That's what they say. There's
over a billion people in the world who follow Islam. And they
say that if you commit certain, if you are fighting for God in
one way or another, and you die in the process, you're guaranteed
eternal life. It's total works religion. Catholicism,
Pentecostalism, all these things get down to when you draw the
string tight, it's all about you. I grew up in a Baptist church,
and it was all works-based religion. So I can speak about it firsthand.
Receive Jesus into your heart. Dedicate your life. Make sure
you do these things, whether it be prayer or tithing, Bible
reading, witnessing, all these things. And at the end of the
day, you have no peace until you can say you've achieved all
those things. And they never told you that
what God thinks about you is what He thinks about His Son,
and you have to flee to Christ and look to Him only. At least
I never heard it. And even after I heard the gospel,
I still never heard it. And so that's what world religion,
that's what man's religion does. But anyway, as we get back to
Exodus chapter one, and he said to his people, verse nine, Behold,
the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier
than we, more and mightier. It was true. God's people couldn't
be stopped because God was with them. Balaam said that at one
point. We're going to get to that later in Numbers, Lord willing. So he says in verse 10, Come
on, let us deal wisely with them lest they multiply and it come
to pass when their fall without any war, they join also unto
our enemies and fight against us. And so get them out of the
land. You know what Pharaoh was? He
feared. He was afraid. that these people
were going to actually overcome them because of their numbers,
because they were blessed. And so, instead of submitting
himself to the God of the Israelites, he thought to retain his blessings
and to secure them to himself by afflicting and persecuting
them. Look at Psalm 105. We'll see
why this happened. Psalm 105. God already predicted
it in Genesis 15. But in Psalm 105, in verse 24,
it says, And he increased his people greatly and made them
stronger than their enemies. And verse 25, he turned the heart,
he turned their heart, the heart of the Egyptians, Pharaoh, to
hate his people. to deal subtly, craftily, wildly
with his servants. You see that? So in Exodus, what
we're seeing is that God actually was the one who turned Pharaoh
to think it was Pharaoh's wickedness, but God caused him to realize
these people are growing. And he became afraid of them. And so he plotted to destroy
them. And so it says, In verse 11 of
Exodus 1, Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to
afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh treasure
cities, Pithom and Ramses. But the more they afflicted them,
the more they multiplied and grew, and the Egyptians were
grieved because of the children of Israel. You see that? They
were grieved. This is amazing. The more they
afflicted Israel, the more they multiplied and grew. What does
that teach you? This fundamental truth that God
always works to bless His people in the context of great affliction. What is the greatest blessing
that God's people have? Is it not eternal life? by the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ? And how did that come? By the
greatest affliction there were ever laid on anyone. The Lord
Jesus Christ was humiliated, suffered, and died at the hands
of wicked men. And then in the Psalm 119, 67,
he says, Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I
kept thy word. In Romans 5, 20, where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. God always works out of affliction. It says in Acts that the church
was persecuted, and when they were persecuted, then they were
spread abroad, and the Word of God was preached everywhere because
of the affliction. God always works in the face
of impossible opposition. It seemed like they were going
to be destroyed, but God actually was blessing them. This was God's
will. And see, this is where the Israelites
didn't understand. They didn't understand that God
was working this way. And I can understand why. Four
hundred years, how many generations have gone, come and gone? Well,
it says in Genesis in the fourth generation, they'd be brought
out, but even if you count up 80 years going into 400, that's
five. So four generation, that's like
100 years per 400 years. That's a huge amount of time.
Wouldn't you grow impatient? Wouldn't you become doubtful?
These Israelites made a calf when Moses was on the mountain
for 40 days. And here they're gone 400 years.
My grandfather's grandfather's grandfather told me about what
something happened. But it's all getting faded. I
don't know if I can believe that. But yet God is blessing them
and His plan is unfolding. Look at this. History is just
the unfolding of God's perfect decrees and His will. Look at
verse 13. And we're going to have to come
to an end here. He says, And the Egyptians made
the children of Israel serve with rigor. Now, realize that
the Egyptians were the enemies of Israel. Do you doubt it? These
were the enemies of Israel. It says, we read it in Psalm
106, they were the enemies of Israel. Who are the enemies of
God's people? First and foremost, the enemy
of God's people is what? Sin. By one man, sin entered
into the world. You can almost see the door opening
and the evil enemy, sin, walking in through Adam's by one man,
sin entered into the world. And then what did sin do? Death
reigned by sin. Death reigned. Like a mighty, strong ruler, death is reigning
over all of Adam's children, and the death reigns by sin. It's sin. What does this sin
master do? He pays wages, just like Pharaoh
did. He afflicts, and the wages that
sin pays is death. Cruel. A cruel master. Sin. But,
God has promised to do to sin, our enemy, sin, what he did to
the Egyptians. And I will show this to you in
Micah, chapter 7. If you maybe remember that, Micah,
chapter 7. If I can find the little book,
I'll flip back and forth until it becomes evident where it's
at. Micah 7, he says, Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth
iniquity? Verse 18 of chapter 7. And passeth
by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage, he retaineth
not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. And verse
19, he will turn again. God is going to turn. He will
have compassion upon us, and He will subdue, that's to overthrow
and put under subjection, our iniquities. And thou wilt cast
them all, all their sins, into the depths of the sea, just like
the Egyptians. So God, I mean, I just use this
as the first example. Our enemy, first of all, is sin. It brings us to death. The sting
of death is sin, and the strength of it is the law. Sin is our
enemy. Do you ever feel a greater enemy
than your own sin? Isn't it what Paul said? Oh,
wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Thanks be unto God. It was the
body of sin that was crucified to the cross. Our enemy, sin.
The body of sin was crucified to the cross, and now Just as
death reigned, sin reigned through death. So now it says that Christ
reigns through righteousness or grace reigns through righteousness
by the Lord Jesus Christ. So sin reigns and Christ has
defeated our enemy sin. That's just one. But the Egyptians
represent the enemies of the people of God. And the Egyptians
made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, with rigor. That means cruelty. And with
works, as I mentioned before, they represent man's religion
who tries to produce something that will please God in order
to manipulate and coerce God to bless them. That's what man's
religion is. Trying to get God to do for man
what man once meant God to do. Instead of watching God do what
he does because of who he is and because he does it for his
own glory's sake. But the Egyptians did this. They
made them to serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter
with hard bondage in mortar and in brick and in all manner of
service in the field. All their service when they made
them serve was with rigor. This intolerable bondage. And
you know what happened? When the people were like this,
did they say, oh, I see, this is affliction from God, and this
pain and suffering is only going to last for a minute. The Lord's
going to deliver us. They didn't have any view of that at all.
They were completely under the enslavement of the Egyptians,
and all they knew is that it's hard, it's terrible, we're just
dying into this affliction. But look over in Exodus chapter
2, the next chapter, in verse 23. It says, And it came to pass
in the process of time that the king of Egypt died, and the children
of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage. They sighed and
they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the
bondage. And God heard their groaning. And God remembered His covenant
with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon
the children of Israel. He looked with pleasure and with
delight. And He says, and God had respect
unto them. Here you see the mercy in their
misery. Now, think of the spiritual application
here. Our enemy? Our sin. What did
God do? We're under sin. God did something
in Christ. He crucified the body of sin
on the cross. But in our experience, we're
just like the Israelites. What is it that gives you the
greatest sorrow, sighing, crying, affliction? Is it not the awareness
of the guilt and the dominion of sin in your old man, in your
old nature and before God? You can't even lift up your head?
And is there no greater burden than for a man to come along
in a religious way and to apply the greater bondage of having
you do something in order to solve the problem of sin, doesn't
that cause you to groan and cry under the burden? It doesn't
matter what that is. It can be anything. It can be
walk the aisle of a church, or make a decision for Jesus, or
commit your life, or it can be like the Islamists do. Five times in a day you got to
pray, and you got to take a trip to Mecca, and And you've got
to confess these things and you've got to do all this stuff. It
doesn't matter. All of man's religion will always lay something
on you to get you looking about what you have to do and about
how you're doing. And you might find in your ignorance
and blind arrogance that you're coming along pretty well and
gain some confidence. Or you may feel the total bondage
of it. But until God hears your need
The cry of your need coming up into his ears and delivers you
from works religion and from your sin by Christ alone until
he brings his Redeemer and redeemed you out of the bondage of the
law and of sin and death and the devil and all these things.
You're going to continue crying. If God is merciful to you, if
God is merciful to you and to me, then he's going to bring
us into affliction in order that he might deliver us. Isn't that
the way he works? He brings us into affliction
in order that he might magnify his mercy in our salvation. And
that's what we see throughout the book of Exodus. Salvation by works becomes intolerable
bondage. to all whom God intends to deliver
by blood redemption. That's what the lesson here is.
Salvation by something I can be, something I can do, some
level of confidence I can achieve, muster up an experience I can
have, a feeling of goodness or a feeling of a sense of stability
before. All those things are rubbish.
The only thing that gives hope, the only thing that actually
saves is the redemption by Jesus Christ. And that really is what
it gets down to. Did the Israelites here, and
do we now, do we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is Christ
all by himself enough to save us? That's the question. If he
is, then the burdens have been taken away at the cross and they'll
be lifted in our conscience when we realize God is satisfied with
me because of what He thinks of His Son. Let's pray. Father,
we pray that You would bless Your Word to each one of us.
That we would look to the Lord Jesus Christ. We would magnify
Your mercy. We would stand in awe of Your
greatness and Your goodness. We would hear of Your goodness
toward Your people. And we would pray like the psalmist
that you would have favor on us as you did your chosen people. That you would visit us with
your salvation. That we might have gladness with
your people as they rejoice in your salvation. And we might
glory in your inheritance. the Lord Jesus Christ. All of
our inheritance is in Christ, just as the Israelites was in
Canaan, so ours is in you. Lord, we pray that like David
said, this is all my desire and all my hope, that your covenant
in Christ would be fulfilled. And like Paul, oh, that I might
be found in him, not having my own righteousness. Lord, we pray
that you would bless us for Jesus' sake. cause us to feel the burden
of work's religion, the burden of our sin, and to cry and sigh
and depend upon You to look with mercy for Christ's sake, to save
us for His name's sake, and take glory to Yourself in saving Your
people. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.