Exodus 21. It's been 20 years
since we looked at this. It's a story I had forgotten
and now reminded of it. How marvelous. How wonderful. A story of redemption. This is another marvelous type. I love the types, don't you? I like that statement that Abraham
Lincoln said one time when they asked him about a book. He said,
if you like this kind of book, this is the kind of book you'll
like. He wasn't trying to be clever. It's just true. And if you like the types, this
is the type of type you'll like. Oh, the types prove this is God's
Word. Prove God's Son. Prove Him. Declare Him before He came. Very
clear types. No type is perfect, that's why
there's so many. Right after the law, let me quote
this verse to you before, because this is the story. It's the story
of a maid servant being redeemed. And I love this verse in Psalms.
Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters,
as the eyes of a maiden under the hand of her mistress. So
our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until he have mercy upon
us. I love that. Psalm 123 verse
2. But right after the law in Exodus
20, the Lord begins to give laws, dealings with everything and
everyone. The Lord hands down laws all
through the book of Exodus. The law of God is good. God is
so merciful and gracious. Don't think of law as something
strict that's going to judge you and condemn you. But there's so many laws that
God made that were so just and righteous and provided for the
care of everything and everyone. God is just. Don't think of His
justice as merely going to send an unrighteous sinner to hell.
His justice is His fair and righteous dealings. Everything He does
is right. It's just. Man's not just. God
is just. He's going to do what's right
by everybody. He's so just. A just God and
a Savior. He'll save anybody and everybody
that asks Him. Now isn't He good? But His just
dealings. He hands down these laws. God's
tender mercies over all His work. His just dealings for the care
and provisions for everything and everyone, even the poor servants. He even deals with animals, the
fair dealings with animals. And that's our God in every way
in this universe. He deals with everything. But
the greatest picture here, and the whole reason for this, is
God's wise, just, and good, and merciful dealings with His people,
poor sinners, sold to sin, and His great redemption by the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the story here. of a Jewish
handmaid or servant. Let's read it. Exodus 21, verses
7. Just one, two, three, four, five
verses. Oh my, what a story. Verse 7, if a man sell his daughter
to be a maid servant, she shall not go out as the menservants
did. If she pleas not her master,
who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed. To sell her unto a strange nation
he shall have no power, no right, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully
with her. If he hath betrothed her unto
his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.
If he take him another wife, Her food, her raiment, her duty
of marriage, that is love, shall he not diminish. If he do not
these three things, then she shall go out free without money. He gets nothing from her going
out and leaving. Now this is all concerning the
daughters of Jerusalem. Do you hear me? The daughters
of Jerusalem. These are daughters of Jacob,
like the sons of Jacob. And that's important, okay? Because
God didn't redeem, He didn't send His Son to redeem all mankind,
but to redeem His people, His elect, sons of Jacob, elect,
whom He loved. Now, the time, you need to consider
the times here. How could a man sell his daughter
to be a servant? Well, there was abject poverty
everywhere. It was so common that the only
way a person could get bread is to sell themselves as a servant.
If debts piled up and there were no means to pay or if you committed
a crime, we saw that in the first, the manservant, you became the
property of the one you were indebted to. And you have to
pay that full price to go free. Times were so bad, so hard, that
a man with a large family who couldn't afford, couldn't leave them, go work
somewhere else, but he must continue to try to support them. But to
help with his debts, he may have to sell a daughter or son as
a servant. to help out to pay the debts
that that man incurred. And that's what happened. You
say, how could a man do this? Well, he had no choice. Okay. He had no choice. So, he sold
his daughter. Verse 7, if a man sell his daughter
to be a maid servant, she shall not go out as the men servants
do. Now, our Lord said she's not
to go out and be a common field laborer. He wouldn't let children. There was no child slave labor.
Our God is too good. The women were not to go out
in the fields and work hard labor like the men did. They were house
servants. God is good, he said. Because
that was hard labor back then. No machines, all by hand. But
she was to be a house servant, a handmaid, a maid servant, okay? She wasn't to be sold as a harlot.
We're going to read that. in exodus. No, no. You don't
sell your daughter for any unjust purposes. But honest, good labor
to a good man who's going to take care of her and do what's
right by her. Cook, clean, keep house, and
not put on her more than she could bear. Our Lord's good like
that to all mankind. His tender mercies are over all
His work. It really is. So she's sold as a maidservant
to a master. God in mercy, and continuing
this thing of our Lord's practical or just dealings with all mankind,
God in mercy, knowing the depravity of man here, the temptations
that would arise, He established a law that would not allow a
daughter of Jerusalem to be sold unless she was to be really cared
for properly. Married. The man that bought
her, he was to marry her. Okay? Because of the temptations
there. He's to marry her. Treat her
right. Treat her like a wife. Okay? And so the Lord provided
for the poor, debt-ridden daughters of Jerusalem. None of them were
treated unfairly. Our Lord saw to it. Nobody's
going to mistreat my children. Isn't God good? Verse 8, If she
please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then
shall he let her be redeemed, but not to a strange nation. He has no right to do that. He'll
be dealing deceitfully with her. He's not going to sell her out
completely. It's not lawful to turn her out
into the world among strangers. She's his daughter. She's his
daughter. All right? This is the story
in the story. And this is the story of redemption.
The king's daughters. And I love Psalm 145, don't you? Psalm 145. The king's daughters. They're all glorious. They're
brought to the king in raiment of needlework. Glorious in their
apparel. Read that if you haven't read
it in a while. Psalm 145. Wonderful. All about the king's
daughter. By the way, were you born a king's
daughter? We were all born in a hospital
called King's Daughters Hospital. Tammy, Ron, were you born there? You were born in a log cabin
somewhere, weren't you? Anyway, King's Daughters. We
were all born of God right here. We're the King's Daughters. We're
all the weaker vessel. We're all like His daughters. And this is our story. We're
poor, debt-ridden sinners when He finds us. We've sold ourselves. That's what the Lord said about
His people of Israel. You've sold yourself for nothing.
And you're going to be redeemed without money and without pride.
It's going to take something to redeem you that is not money.
Not gold and silver or your vain conversation, your will, your
works, but it's going to be the precious blood of His Son. And God in mercy causes us to
know that we have sold ourselves. God in mercy allows or lets us
get in that predicament to get us out of it. All mankind has
sold themselves. God is going to tell us, going
to show us. I allowed you to do that so that you'd see what
I've done for you. We're all going to see them,
like right now. We owe a great debt we cannot
pay, don't we? God's love, God's mercy, God's
grace, God's law. God's law is not unfair. It's
just. We're the problem. The law is
not the problem. We are. We're rebels. We hate law. We
hate authority. But it's good for us. You see,
if you'd be willing and obedient, you'd eat the good of the land.
Just do what I tell you and it will go well with you. Obstinate,
rebellious, children of wrath, even as others. I will not. Okay? Remember me saying last Sunday,
God will give you what you want. Go ahead. You want the world?
Go ahead. That's what he said of Ephraim,
didn't he, and Hosea. He's joined to his idols. Leave him alone.
Let's see what happens to him. But he belongs to the Lord. And we belong to Him even when
we were dead in trespass and sin. While we were yet enemies. Like Gomer, God had been providing
for us and caring for us. We didn't know His name. He said,
I girded you though you didn't know, man. But you're going to
know. You're going to know. And you're going to loathe yourselves.
You're going to realize that you sold yourselves. Who was
it read? Kelly, John. John, you read Psalm
44 last Wednesday. Lord, why have you done this?
You remember that? Lord, why have you done that?
Read it for yourself. You remember reading that? Why have you done
that? He didn't do that, but he allowed us to do what we did. Forgetting the predicament that
we got ourselves in. To sell ourselves. You see, God
only saves sinners. This redemption is for sinners.
Christ died for sinners. You ask the average person, are
you sold to sin? Did you do this to yourself?
Are you a sinner? Well, no, I'm not too bad. That's
what they'll say about it. No, you've sold yourself to sin.
You owe a debt. Oh, no, I'm a good fellow. I'm
okay. I'm not that bad. I've got some
faults, but I'm not that bad. You're not being redeemed. Christ
died for sinners. And He's going to show every
one of His people, you've sold yourself for nothing. You gave
yourself, mind, body, soul, and strength to the world and everybody
in it. Like a harlot. Right? It'll make you realize that.
And God allowed it. God directed it, if you will.
God willed it to show us His great mercy. Tell us what a great
sinner we are to show us His great mercy. Look what you've
done. Look what you've done to yourself. Now, look what I've
done. Look what my son did. Look what
my son did. McCain's daughter. It says, if
she pleased not her master, verse 8, if she pleased not her master.
Oh my! God is not pleased. Didn't He say that in Hebrews?
With many of them God was not well pleased. God looked down
upon the sons of men to see if there were any that didn't understand.
If there were any that didn't seek after God. He said, there's
none. And all together become filthy,
He said. None of them. altogether displeasing to God. None righteous. Not one, but
God. You see, I cannot preach without
those two words. You can't preach the Gospel unless
you put man where he is. Unless you show man what he really
is. And then that really reveals
who God is, what God is, what Christ is. Like you go to a jewelry
store and you want to look at a diamond or a pearl. Let's look
at a pearl. You look at a beautiful white
pearl. What does a jeweler do? to show you that pearl, to exhibit
the brightness and the luster and the beauty and the purity
and the spotlessness and the whiteness, if you will, of that
pearl. What does he do? He brings out
a black velvet or a dark blue velvet cloth and puts that bright
pearl on there. So there you see, at the backdrop
of that black cloth, you see the beauty of that pearl. And
no one can appreciate it. No one sees. No one understands
what Christ really did except sinners. We know. He's given us an understanding. He causes us to understand what
we are, what we've done. And then causes us to understand
a little bit of just how great He is. How great. How merciful. We don't please him, no. But
verse 8 says, if she pleased not her master who hath betrothed
her to himself. There in Hosea is the story of
the love of God to Israel, isn't it? Who are like harlots, that's
what he said. And the Lord sent Hosea down
to marry this Gomer, you know, that didn't care anything about
God or Hosea. He said, that's the love of God
to His people. And God betrothed Gomer to Hosea. Okay? She's going to be his wife. She's going to be his wife. It
doesn't look like it for a while. Things look really bad. It gets
really black. She gets real low. Oh, my. When it's all over. When it's
all over. The whole story of Ephraim. I've
got to get to the end. I'm going to clear the envelope again. When
it's all said and done, God said, I can't give Ephraim up. He's
mine. He's mine. He's a jewel in my
crown. I'll lose that glory if I lose
him. And when it's all over, Ephraim
said, what have I to do anymore with idols? I've heard him. I've heard the truth. I've heard
the gospel. I've seen his glory. I've seen what he did for me.
I've observed him. Now I'm His and He's mine. So
we're betrothed to Him. Though we don't please Him, it
pleased the Lord to make us His people. Look at verse 8. To sell her to a strange nation,
he hath no power, seeing hath dealt deceitfully. Our Lord doesn't
deal deceitfully with us, does He? When He promises something,
He means it, doesn't He? Come unto me, all ye that labor
and heavy laden. I'll give you bread. All that
come to God by Christ, He will receive. Every one. Every single
one. As many as receive Him, to them give He the power and
the right to become sons of God. That's right. He that believeth
on the Son hath life. Do not come into condemnation.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ. None.
Zero. No deads. Gone. Redeemed. You come to Christ
and He will redeem you. You'll find out he already did.
But she doesn't please the master, and the debt still has to be
paid, okay? So he says, let her be redeemed,
but he's not going to let her go anymore. That's what happened
to her. Someone's going to have to claim her. Someone's going
to have to pay her debt. Someone's going to have to pay her crimes.
Who's going to do that? Look at verse 9. If he betrothed
her unto his son, now he's going to deal with her
like a daughter. He gives her to his son to redeem
her. Isn't that our story? Someone has to do it. Listen
to Romans 3. Listen to this. Here's the whole
story of redemption, you know, Romans. It says, "...being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God set forth to be propitiation through faith
in His blood..." Not work, faith. To declare His righteousness. Isn't our God righteous to do
what He did? Just and Savior. From remission
of sins that are past, debts, all gone, through the forbearance
of God. Though we didn't please Him, Christ did. God's well pleased
with His righteousness. To declare, I say, His righteousness. We're not redeemed with our own
righteousness, but His. That God might be just and justifier. He's not going to turn her out.
He promised to redeem her. So he gave her to his son. And
that's what he did. How God can be just and justifier
is the God-man came down here. I'm going to read that in Galatians
4 in just a minute. He just can't turn her out. That
would be deceitful of him, wouldn't it? So he gave her to his son. To her son. Betrothed him. That
sounds like so many stories in the Scripture doesn't it? Boaz
and Ruth. Naomi, you know the whole story
of Naomi, she did that to herself. Didn't she? She was fine in Bethlehem. She left Bethlehem. She left
the house of bread. Why? Better opportunity. Better opportunity. She went
there and boy, it all went bad. She said, the Lord has dealt
bitterly with me. The Lord has dealt real hard
with me. No, Naomi, you sold yourself. You left the people
of God, the place of God. But God let you get real low
to bring you high. Boy, didn't it have to end with
Naomi and Ruth. It was all about a maiden. It
was all about a maiden marrying a Redeemer. That's what it's
about. And as I said, the story of Hosea
and Gomer. And that's our story, brothers
and sisters. Oh, in mercy and goodness, our
Lord God in heaven betroths us, promises us, gives us this handmaid
to His Son, that we be displeasing to Him. And it says in our text,
it says, He shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.
Okay, if she's the wife of his son, if she's married to his
son, that means she is his daughter, right? We call it daughter-in-law,
but not back then. They didn't call them daughters-in-law.
I was hugging, what's your wife's name? Tracy. It's going to happen. I was hugging
Tracy. I said, what are you to me? My
niece-in-law? You know, he's my beloved nephew.
I love her like I love Luke now. You reckon Bob loves her like
he loves Luke? Oh, my. You know, he doesn't
think of you as a daughter-in-law because you have to be. That's
not the way God thinks of His people. He doesn't love us because
He has to. It was the love of God that sent
His Son to marry us. It was the goodness of this Master
that gave this woman, though she displeased Him, gave her
to His Son, so His Son would marry her and treat her right,
so He wouldn't have to turn her out. I'm going to give her to
somebody that will love her and care for her. My Son. And so God loves His people,
and this is amazing. We have a hard time believing
this, don't we? But God loves you if you're a
child of God, if you love Christ. He loves you as much as He loves
Jesus Christ. Boy, I didn't hear an amen. I
didn't hear a hallelujah there. I thought I'd hear one, just
a wow. It's true. And our Lord kept talking about
His Father in John's Gospel. My Father, I go to my Father,
my Father, my Father. And then after He arose from
the grave, He said this, I go to my Father and your Father. Tell them, I go to my father
and he's your father. It was the father that sent his
only begotten, well-beloved son to be abused like this woman
deserved so that she'll go free, redeemed by his own death and
blood. All right? Now, if she's the
wife of his son, that means she is his daughter. And she's to
be treated like that. As many as received Him, to them
gave He the right, the privilege, to become sons of God. All right? Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons
of God. Say, I'm not a son of God. I know it doth not yet appear
what we shall be. But God said you are, if you
believe His Son. That's what He said. Romans 8,
listen to this, God has sent His Spirit to give us this adoption. We have not received the spirit
of bondage again. See, this woman, she's married
to the son now. Is she still a maidservant? Is
she still under bondage? No! Because when the son marries,
this is the son of the master. He has everything. He's the heir. So once he marries her, what
does that make her? A joint heir with him. So now she's no longer
a slave in the house. She's a daughter with full rights
and privileges and boldness and access and love of the Master
and love of His Son and everything. She can come and go now. She's
free. But like the servant before her
in Exodus 21, she don't want to go anywhere. It was the master's goodness
to bring her to that place to marry her son. And now she sees
I'm better off here than I was out there, out there sold. And
now I'm just, I want to stay right here. Married to this loving
husband of mine. Is that true? We were out there
once, weren't we? Course of the world, like everybody
else. Thought we were free. But God. And now, married to
another, oh Lord, I pray all the time, don't let me leave. I don't want to go back out there. Please. You promised me to Christ,
please keep me. Oh, He will. Look at our text,
it says, if he take another wife, how many wives does our Lord
have? You know, that's the only reason
for the story of Solomon having 300 wives and 700 concubines. You know that? A thousand. That's
the only purpose you can find why God allowed Solomon to have
so many wives, as a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. How could
300, 700, a thousand women feel like their husband loved her?
How could he possibly pay attention to all that? How could he care
for so many? John, how could he please so
many? He can. The Lord gave Solomon. This is the whole picture of
Christ. He gave him such largeness of heart that every woman felt
like she was his only bride. I remember when we had that little
farm. I had Abner, you know, he was
my choice. And I got another old pound dog
and betrothed Annie to Abner, my dog, just for him, okay? So she's my dog. So I had these
two dogs. Well, the neighbor's dog came
up, and I tried to run her off, but Abner and Annie told her,
no, he won't run you off. You keep coming, he won't run
you off. Okay? I had a way that I could
make all three of those dogs feel like I was talking just
to them. You know that? I had two arms,
two legs, and I'd pet and scratch all of them. You know what I'm
talking about. You who have multiple dogs. You crazy people. But I could make all of them.
I'd be petting and talking to them, and they all thought, he's
talking to me. I'm his special dog. Oh, you all are. When you come in here sometimes,
you hear the gospel. on rare occasions, and it's wonderful.
And you say, the Lord spoke to me. No, He's speaking to all
His bride. He loves all His bride. He treats
them all the same. He provides everything for all
of them the same. He has a way. He's able to speak to you personally. He makes you feel like He loves
me. He's talking to me. He chose
me. I know He chose Sinner. But now
I believe He chose me. You know, this man may have seen,
may have married a prettier wife, a younger wife. Okay? Brother Nybert one time, when
Len turned 40, his wife turned 40. Man, that's young now. That's
a young bride now, isn't it? Anyway, Todd told her, I'm going
to trade you in on $2.20. She said, you ain't wired for
$2.20. What if this man had a prettier
wife, okay? Younger or wife, it doesn't matter. He loves them all the same. Well, she gets down and old and
ugly and sick and afflicted. She sees no beauty in herself at
all. He's going to love her more. Our Lord sends those things. Brother Jim Groover, Walter Groover's
brother, They passed away not too long ago, but if you've seen
Walter, you've seen Jim. They look just alike, didn't
they? His wife, she had cancer. They
were married for 60 or 70 years. The Lord gave her cancer. She
died from it, with it. And she got bedridden and gaunt
and just a skeleton, just a, you know, just a, you know, you've
seen people. And he was bathing her, and she was crying. She said, I'm so ugly. He said, you've
never looked prettier to me in all your life. You've never looked prettier. is to a sinner who says, I'm
the chief of sinners. I'm the worst. There's no way
he could love me. That's who he sent Christ to
die for. You know that? Not the proud. He'll divorce
the proud. And this is the way he sends
these afflictions. He sends these things all the
lifetime of all of God's people. I don't even have a handkerchief.
Just what I needed to move. He sends His afflictions, causes
us to get old and ugly in our own estimation, to show us His
love and His beauty and His glory and His mercy and His grace. His gospel for sinners. This
ain't for pretty women. It's for harlots and publicans
and thieves on the cross. and old and worthless and dried
up and cancer-stricken lepers. That's who this guy is. And that
glorifies him. He says, her food is not to diminish. I'm going to feed her fat things,
wine on the leaves, well refined, until she or he dies. She's not
going to be hungry, ever. Arraignment. She's clothed. Never going to be found naked.
Beautiful raiment. Glorious raiment. White robe. Her duty of marriage. He's going
to love her. He's going to commune with her.
He's going to prove his love to her until the day she dies. He's not going to diminish. He's
going to increase. If he doesn't do these things,
he doesn't get anything out of her. Just let her go. No money. He doesn't gain anything. He loses. He doesn't get anything
out of her. She's not worth anything, but
he won't get a thing out of her if he doesn't do what he promised
to do. He'll lose his name. He'll lose his glory, his reputation. If God doesn't do what he says
he would do for sinners, he loses his glory, doesn't he? His son's
blood doesn't really pay the price, does it? And God didn't
really love you if He quit loving you. God loses His glory. And we're turned loose and back
out and lost again, you know, in the world. But so God gave
this command, didn't it? And this story is the story of
Christ redeeming his people. He's not going to let one of
his daughters go. They're betrothed. And the son
paid. You're not your own anymore.
You're bought with a price and you're married to another. Bless
his holy name. Okay.