Exodus 13, O may the Lord indeed
keep the fowl of the air from stealing this wet. Keep your
minds and hearts. Keep my mind, heart, head just
about. This is the one thing, people,
there is nothing on earth more important than what we're doing
right now. Nothing. Maybe the last message
I've preached, maybe the last message you hear. That's a fact. I've preached lots of people's
last messages. It really is life or death. It's
not just Sunday morning service. It's not a sermon. I hope this
will be a message from God. Alright, in the bulletin it said
that we're going to deal with the token and the frontlets and
the cloud and the pillar. Well, I didn't get to the cloud
and the pillar. We don't need to rush through
this. There's so much here. This morning we're going to look
at verse 16. The token and the frontlets.
And then Wednesday night, Lord willing, well, next Sunday, verse
18 is a blessed verse. It said, The Lord led the people
through the way of the wilderness, and they went up harnessed. What that means, being harnessed
together, going out of the land. Harnessed. Yoked together. What a message that is. Well, this morning, look at verse
14 again. It shall be when thy son ask
thee in time to come, saying, What is this? That thou should
say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out
from Egypt, from the house of bondage. It came to pass when
Pharaoh would hardly let us go, our captor, that the Lord slew
all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, man and beast. Therefore,
I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix, being male,
that all the firstborn of my children I redeem. He says, It
shall be for a token, the Lord shall say, this is for a token
upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes. Once again, by strength of hand,
the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt. Alright? A token, a front look. That's today's message. Now this
is to Israel. This is to God's chosen. Remember
the unleavened bread and all of those things that we looked
at? Circumcision? Someone that's not circumcised
can't You can't take the Passover. So what is that? Do you remember
that? Well, he is not a Jew or an Israelite
outwardly, but inwardly. Circumcision is not an outward
thing. It's an inward thing done by
God upon the heart. removal of flesh, male and female,
to take away all your fleshly religion, all your fleshly confidence,
all your fleshly hope, and put all your hope in the Lamb. This is the mark, a mark, the
principal mark, God speaking, male and female, circumcision
of the heart, unleavened bread, sincerity and truth. Sincerely
and truly worshiping the Lamb. Now, look at chapter 13, verse
5. He keeps saying it. The last
part of verse 5. Thou shalt keep this service.
Keep this service, this Passover service. Unleavened bread. Lamb. Now, verse 10. Thou shalt keep
this ordinance. Keep it. Keep doing this. Don't
stop doing this. It's an ordinance forever. Whenever
you can get together, this is what you do. This is the mark
of God's people. This is the token of God's true
people. In front of you. Between your
eyes. Okay? Look at verse 8. He said,
Show your son. He keeps telling this. Show your
children. Talk to them. Tell them. Tell them what? What
the Lord hath done. Or say, this is done because
of that which the Lord did to me. What wonderful things the
Lord did to me. I was in Egypt. He brought me
out. And verse 9, he says, this is
for a sign unto thee. A sign. A sign of God's people. A sign of your election. A sign
of God's love. A sign that you belong to him.
And it goes on to say, and a memorial. This is a memorial. He's telling
us, this do in remembrance of what? Of what God has done. The Lamb. A Lamb died that we
might live. Do this. Don't ever quit doing
this. This is the token. Now do you
know? This is the token of God's true
people. Nobody else. This is it. And the frontlet between your
eyes, it's right there all the time. What? What the Lord hath done. Always on your mind. Now I've told you the whole story.
I've told you what frontlets are. I've told you what the token
is. It's the gospel of Christ. You know it's not something different.
Something new. Same thing. Keep telling them
the same thing from chapter 3 on. He's going to bring you out and
what you're going to do is sacrifice. And bringing you out to sacrifice.
And to me, because I'm the one that's going to bring you out.
You didn't even want out until I made things miserable for you
to bring you out. Now, for the rest of your days,
this is what you're going to do. This is our testimony. Verses
14 and 15. He said, Tell your children. This is our testimony. Salvation is of the Lord. We
tell them. We tell everybody. This is what
we say. This is what we do. How the Lord
has done great things for us. We are glad. Is that all you
all talk about? Is it? What do y'all do down there?
One thing. Is that all y'all talk about?
Yes, it is. Christ is all. He's either all
or he's not. If he's all, then that's all
you talk about. That's all you do. This is the token. This is how you know God's true
people. Yes, this is what the Lord says. Christ is all. If Christ is all,
he's all you'll talk about. He's all you'll trust. If this is the church of Christ
and the church of God, all we'll do is worship God and worship
Christ. Nothing else. Not a fun place. It's a house
of worship. Lamb. It's what we have for our
children. It's what we have for ourselves.
Nothing else. If you don't like lamb, don't
come here. Token. What is a token? A token
is a symbol. A token is a distinguishing mark.
A token is a pledge. And I want to give you several
things in Scripture that talk about tokens. A frontlet. What's a frontlet? Well, phylacteries are phylacteries.
Phylacteries are only used one time in the New Testament, and
our Lord brought it up. And it's the frontlet. The frontlet
back then was a leather headband. It was made out of leather. Something
had to die. An animal had to die. Leather,
mind you, not polyester. Man-made. Leather. An animal
provided by God died, and you're going to wear this around your
head. It was a leather headband, like a belt, a girdle, to hold
everything in, around your waist, your loins, girded with the truth. And this was something on your
head. All right? And it had on it, literally,
an ark. Ark, the word ark means casket,
or a little receptacle, a leather receptacle that had scripture
verses in it. Scripture verses. All right?
And this was a symbol of the Lord, and the Jews literally
wore these leather headbands with scripture verses here and
right here. It's a token on your hand, something
always on your hand, you see it, and something always between
your eyes, you can't get it out of your vision. You with me? Alright, what is the token on
our hands? What is the token between our
eyes, the front lip between eyes? What is it? It's the gospel.
How our Lord chose us and called us and provided a lamb and passed
over us and mercy and grace and saved us and brought us out of
bondage. It's the gospel of Christ. It's
the token. It's the distinguishing mark.
It's the pledge of God's favor. It's a token. Matthew 23. This
is where our Lord brought it up, the phylactery. Matthew 23. This is the only use in the New
Testament. Look at it. Matthew 23. And the Lord is warning
throughout Matthew 23 of the scribes and the Pharisees and
the hypocrites. Always call them hypocrites.
Lay it apart. Eleven. A full eleven of hypocrisy. Insincerity. Hypocrisy. And in
Matthew 23, he said these scribes and Pharisees, they sit in Moses'
seat. Verse 2. And whatever they bid
you observe, that is, the word of God, do it, but don't do what
they do. They say, and do not, they bind
heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, lay them on men's shoulders,
but they will not move them with one of their fingers. Verse 5,
all their works they do for one reason. To do what? to be seen of men. And they make broad their phylacteries,
in large quarters of John. They make broad their phylacteries.
Some of them wore big old phylacteries this big, covering their head. Look how many verses of Scripture
I know. Look how many verses of Scripture.
And they did pride themselves in It was said that some Pharisees
could quote whole books of the Bible. Well, and you know, you ask, and you'll
see Jews today, some of them still wear, the real Orthodox
Jews, you'll see, watch them, look at them, they're still wearing
these boxes on their head and on their hand. But the modern equivalent of that
is those in religion, whether it be Southern Baptist, Amish,
German Baptist, Methodist, whatever, that people do what they do to
be seen. They literally wear their religion
on their sleeve. It's done to be seen. Look what
we're doing for God. Look what we know. Look what
we Believe, you know, bumper stickers, t-shirts, you know, you'll see stickers
on their cars advertising where they go, you know, Sons of Faith
Fellowship. Is that advertising Jesus Christ?
No, that's advertising your religious organization. That's what that's
about. It's all about our church. This ain't about this church.
It's about Jesus Christ. Right? And we don't wear those
things to be saved. I'm telling you the truth. I'm
warning you about that stuff. Our Lord is the one person that
warned us. We don't wear this. The distinguishing
mark of God's true people, the token of God's electing love
is that they say, It's not by works of righteousness which
we have done. Look at Titus chapter 3 with
me. Titus chapter 3, over there. Here's the mark of God's people.
So you shouldn't call names. Paul names 16 names in his epistles,
warning people. Should I call out the great whore?
If I don't, I'm not doing my job. If I see a wolf, I don't
call it and say, there he is. That's a wolf there. If I don't
warn our children, don't go in that place. Don't let your children
pass through the fire. All of this Pentecostal stuff
is letting your children pass through the fire. They all talk
about acquire the fire. Don't they? Acquire the fire.
You want the fire, don't you? Our Lord said he came to bring
fire. It's an unseen fire. It's the fire of the gospel.
Titus 3, and this is what distinguishes God's true people. Titus 3, verse
4. After the kindness and love of
God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy he hath saved us."
This is the testimony and the token of all God's true people. You ask them, they're going to
tell you. It's in their heart and in their
mind. They're going to tell you what the Lord had done for them.
It's not our works. In my hands, no price I bring. And I don't wear my religion
for people to be sent to see it. I want people to see Christ. Come and see His glory. Come
and hear His glory. "...not by works of righteousness,
which we have done." Verse 6, "...accordingly He has shed on
us abundantly through Christ our Savior, justified by His
grace, made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." That's our testimony. Look at
Psalm 90. We don't wear things on our bodies
to be seen so people will know that we're religious. We don't
put things on our car so people know we're religious or where
we go. But it's our testimony. Psalm 90, look at this. Psalm
90, verse 16. He says, let thy work appear
unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. Thy work. Thy work upon us. Verse 17, let the beauty of our
Lord be upon us. Establish the work of our hands
upon us. Yea, the work of our hands. What's
the work of our hands? What are we doing right now?
What are we doing right now? What's this all about? Christ. Everything we do is into service
toward promoting His Word, the gospel. Look across the page
at Psalm 92. Look at Psalm 92, verse 4. Here's the token. Thou, Lord,
hast made me glad through Thy work. I will triumph in the works
of Thy hands. Now, religion says this across
the board. I've said it thousands of times. Whether it be Southern Baptist,
Pentecostal, Methodist, it doesn't matter what it is they say. I've
heard preachers say this constantly. They all say this. God has no
hands but your hands. They all say that. Meaning you
need to go to work for Jesus. You need to go to work for the
Lord. You need to serve the Lord. To be seen. Show people that
you're a Christian. Don't show people you're a good
Christian. Let's show people who Christ
is. It's an abomination to God to
be seen of being that. It is. His works. God has hands all right now,
not mine. His hands. He saved us by His
work, by His hands. All right? And I remind you,
everything the Lord did and said in the Old Testament were types
and symbols and shadows and pictures, weren't they? The Jews took it
very literally and took great pride in doing very literally
what they did. Let the Lord say it. The Lord
said, after a while in Isaiah, he said, You do, you sacrifice
lamb, but you might as well cut a dog's head off. Remember that?
He said, I'm sick of it. Your new moons, your Sabbaths,
things that he said to do. He said, I'm sick of it. Why?
They were doing it to be seen. It was all an observation, all
a ceremony. They didn't have Christ in mind
at all. Worshipping God for the forgiveness of sin. They forgot
His mercy. They forgot His mercy and His
grace. And they were going through the motions. And God said, I'm
sick of it. You might as well slay the dog.
I don't care how many lambs you've slain. When I see the blood,
He said, it doesn't mean anything to me. Because you're not thinking
of Jesus Christ. And that's religion across the
board, isn't it? All they do, our Lord said, they
do to be seen of men. God forbid that we should do
anything to be seen of men. There are several tokens in the
Scripture. Just listen. I'll give you this
list later. Genesis 9, the first time he
talked about a token was a bow in the clouds. A rainbow. This is all so significant, people.
The first token of God's mercy and grace and love, and God's
not going to slay and kill everybody like He did the first time, was
a rainbow in the clouds. After God poured out His wrath
and His judgment on a filthy, evil world that corrupted His
way, He put this blessed rainbow with every color in the spectrum
in it. What is that? Well, this evil,
wicked world is taken as a symbol, as a token of perversion. I hate it. Don't you? This is what,
you know, blame it on religion. Blame it on the pulpit. That
rainbow is Jesus Christ. Like the multicolored coat of
Joseph, the spectrum, every color in the spectrum. You see all
those things in the sky. From sky to sky, rainbow. What's
that all about? The mercy and grace of Christ
that covers this earth, the people of every kindred, nation, tongue
under heaven, that God spared them by Jesus Christ. We're under
that covenant, under that bow, he's got that sheer token, sheer
mercies of the Son of David. That's the first token. And man
is part of it. We are in the last days as in
the days of Noah. The whole earth has corrupted
his way. What's his way? One thing. Christ said, I'm the way. There's
no other way. There's no other worship. There's
no other thing to do. There's no other thing to talk
about. There's nothing else to do in the Church of God but worship
Jesus Christ. Preach the gospel of Christ.
Nothing else. My next token, circumcision. He gave it to Abraham, circumcised.
Every male should be circumcised. We've already gone through that.
What's that? That's Christ crucified. Cutting away all the fleshly
religion. Bloodshed. It's a token. The next token,
Exodus 12. The blood on the doorpost in
the middle. The next token, Aaron's rod that
budded. Number 17, the next token. Aaron's
rod didn't budge. There were a bunch of fellows
that rose up in rebellion against Moses. Aaron is the man God chose. Aaron was the one high priest.
Aaron was the only man that could go in before the Lord. The only
man the Lord would accept. The only man. And some men rose
up and said, no, we can go. We can do this. He said, no,
you can't. And God had this rod of Aaron's
that budded, that bore fruit, like Christ, the rose of Sharon,
the lily of the valley, the fairest of ten thousand, the fruitful
one. Had Him put that rod in that
ark of the testimony, along with the manna and the testimony,
the Word of God, it's all in that ark, in that casket, it's
all Christ. Aaron's rod that budded is Christ,
the tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nation."
And he said, this token is against these rebels who think they can
come to God any other way but heresy. What's that? Christ, one mediator between
God and man. The next token, Joshua 2, Rahab's
scarlet lie. Show me a token," she said. Show me a token to the spy. Show me a token. You see that
red line? You see that scarlet line? You
tie on around that. And you don't let loose of it.
We're going to come back, and when we see that scarlet line,
you're coming out with us. The next token in the New Testament.
2 Thessalonians and Philippians 1 talks about persecution of
the truth being a token of God's elect. Y'all think you're right and
everybody else is wrong. No, we think God's right and everything's
wrong. We know for a fact that anything other than Jesus Christ
is wrong. Anything that's done in the house
of God other than worship Christ, preach the gospel, is dead wrong.
It's to be seen of men. It's all fun and games. This
is the totem. This is the totem. Now, salvation is on two good
works. In Titus 3, it says that we are
careful to maintain constantly that David had been saved and
do good work. But works are not what we trust. Works are not what we look to.
Works are not how we're saved. We're not saved because of good
works. We're saved on too good work. Works are not what we talk
about. It's not what we wear and show
people. It's not what we want people to see, our good works. We do. They do. Scripture says
they may behold your good works and glorify your power. But the
principal work is what we're doing right now. This is it.
And works are works of mercy and grace and love and kindness
and so forth. That's not what we talk about.
We don't talk about our works. We don't promote our works. We
don't talk about it. We promote His. Alright, look at Revelation 13
with me. Revelation 13. This talks about a mark of the
beast on the hand and the forehead. Revelation 13. Mark of the beast. This is really getting people's
attention now. And don't ask me any questions
after this, I don't have time. And there have been men trying
to figure this out for years, and nobody has pulled it. But
I know this much. Revelation 13, it talks about
the beast and the dragon. That's Satan and false religion
is what it is. Satan's a dragon, the beast is
false religion. 16. It causes all, both small and
great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their
right hand and in their forehead. What is that? Well, on down it
talks about the mark is the number of a man, 600, 3 score and 6. The mark of the beast in your
right hand and in your forehead. It's your works and what you
think about. Alright? It's the number of a
man. I'll tell you this much. That's
what every preacher I've ever known has
concluded. Man was created on the sixth
day. And there are many things. The numerical number of Latin,
Latin, the actual numerical value of the word Latin is 666. And the Latin church was a Roman
church. The Bible was in Latin only,
and Latin this and Latin that. 666. But here's the thing. Man was
created on the sixth day. Seven has always been the number
of perfection. God rested on seven from his
work. Seven is God and six is man. The mark of the beast is
man, man, man, man, man, man. Everything about man. The works
of man, the will of man, the works of man, the ways of man.
It's evil. It's all about man's glory and
man's will and man's works and for his glory. The mark of the
beast, the mark of false religion has everyone looking to their
works. Everyone looking to their work. Look what I've done for
Jesus. Look what I've done for Jesus. Look where we go. Look what we do for Jesus. Man,
that's the mark of the beast. Look with me at the frontlets. Let's look at this frontlet.
The Jews wore this Word of God on their head. The Word of God
is not something to wear to be seen by others. This frontlet
was between their eyes. This frontlet was to be worn
on them, each one individually, so that what? Others could see
it? They can see it. Are you with me? This wasn't
for other people to look at. Well, look at him. No, it's for
you to keep between your eyes, always have on your mind. It's just the same. Okay? All right? The Word of God is
not something we wear as an emblem of our Christianity, but it's
something that we have in our minds and in our hearts. All
that. Before our eyes, in our minds,
something we meditate, something we think upon. And look at, I'll
show you several things. First, Revelation. Are you still
there? Revelation 7. Turn there with me. It talks
about the seal. The seal. Revelation 7 and the
forehead. Verse 3, you have it? Revelation
7, 3. The Lord said, Hurt not the earth,
that is, don't destroy the world, till we have sealed, verse 3,
sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. Every one
of God's people had this in their minds. Look at chapter 9, verse
4. It's commanded they should not
hurt the grass, the earth, and every green tree, only those
men which had not the seal of God in their forehead. Chapter
14. Turn quickly. I've got to stop. Chapter 14. Look at this. I looked. Lo, a lamb is on the
Mount of Zion, with Him 144,000. How do you know they're His? They have their Father's name
written in their voice. Our Father is our God. Look at
verse 9 and 10 here, the same chapter. The third angel followed
and said with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast in
his image, that's man, receive his mark in his forehead and
his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.
Chapter 17, quickly, chapter 17, verse 5. Upon her forehead,
false religion, the great whore, upon her forehead was a name
written, Mystery, Babylon, the great mother of hardness, abomination,
Roman catharsis, drunken with the blood of the martyrs and
the saints. And I close, chapter 20, over
there with me. Chapter 20, verse 4. This is good. It says in chapter 20, verse 4,
I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them, and judgment was
given unto them. I saw the souls of them that
were beheaded, for what? Witness of Jesus, for the word
of God. They had not worshipped the beast,
neither his image, man. Neither had received his mark
upon their foreheads. What they had was tokens of God's
mercy and frontlets before their eyes. And that was the truth
that they believed in their hearts, in their mind. And in our text,
it says this, in closing. Do you wear these tokens upon
your hand, these frontlets between your eyes, because by strength
of hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt. Remember this. Keep this in mind. Always keep
it before your eyes. Always remember, it's not your
words, it's His. It's not anything but crap.