Exodus chapter four. Exodus four. Read with me three verses. Exodus four. We're only going to look at three
verses. And the remainder of the verses, five verses, 27 through
31, are wonderful. thing in themselves, in itself. We're going to look at that next
time we meet. It's just a blessed thing. But
there are just three verses here, verses 24 through 26. It came
to pass, by the way, in the end, that the Lord met Moses and sought
to kill him. Then Zipporah, that's his wife,
took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast
it at his feet, Moses' feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband
art thou to me. So he, God, let him go. Then she said, A bloody husband
thou art, because of the circumcision. Now, this is, at first glance,
very hard to understand, mysterious. Is it uncomfortable? Is it embarrassing
a little bit? Well, it shouldn't be. To God,
these bodies are these bodies. It's like a father and mother
looking at a child's body, male or female. It's all the same,
right? But it's three verses only here,
and it's right in the middle of this. Why is it there? Why
did this happen? Why is this written? All things
are written, Paul wrote, for our understanding that we, through
patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. Where's our
hope? in Christ. If I told you this
had something to do with Christ, would it surprise you? What if
I told you that the whole meaning, I'm going to go ahead and tell
you the whole meaning. God was going to kill somebody, but they
lived because the Son's blood was shed. Now do you know the meaning of
this story? It can't be anything else. Although
much of this was a revelation to me in studying it, we studied
it before years ago, but I kind of just passed over it. I dealt briefly with it, but
this time it just opened up. But it's not something new. It's
not something different. It's the same thing. It's Christ
and Him crucified. That's what all this represents,
okay? Our Lord said, Moses wrote of me. This was a very personal,
embarrassing, humiliating story for Moses. He had failed to circumcise
his youngest son. He did his oldest son, but not
his youngest son. And the Lord thought it was going
to kill him. And so this was something personal, something
humiliating, but the Lord had Moses write that down. He said,
Moses wrote So, this has everything to do
with Christ. Circumcision is mentioned 87
times in the scriptures. Is it important? Is it vital? 52 times in the New Testament. He said it's an Old Testament
document. The majority of times it's in
the New Testament. In Galatians and Romans, 25 times. Both books. It's vital. Right? Let's look at the law
of circumcision. Genesis 17. Genesis 17. Okay? This is the law that the
Lord handed down for His people. Genesis 17. Now, the law was
not given until Exodus 19 and following. This is before the
law. Circumcision was law before there
was law. Are you with me? Christ the Lamb
shall reign before the law was given. But Genesis 17, look at
verses 1 through 4. Abraham was 90 years old, and
Abraham, and 90 and nine, and the Lord appeared to Abraham
and said unto him, I am the almighty God. Walk before me, be thou
perfect. I will make my covenant between
me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. Abraham fell
on his face. God talked with him, saying,
as for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt
be a father of many nations. Who's he talking to? But in Galatians,
Paul said, this life, this seed is Christ. That God blessed all
the people of the earth, not for Abraham's sake, but for Christ's
sake. Now look down at verse 9. God said to Abraham, thou shalt
keep my covenant. Therefore, thou, you, Now, and
I see that today in their generation, this is my covenant, which you
shall keep between me and you, and I see that every man child
among you shall be circumcised. Every one of God's people, and
you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, Abraham. And
it should be a token for the covenant between me and you. This is between God and Abraham,
and he's doing it for the seed. That's pretty clear who he's
talking about in Christ. You're going to be circumcised.
You're going to do it. Verse 12, And he that is eight
days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in
your generation. He that is born in the house,
or bought with money, or a stranger. Doesn't matter. All of them. He that is born, verse 13, in
thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be
circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your flesh. Who's he talking to, people?
Christ, my covenant is with you and your flesh, and you're going
to do this for my people. Verse 14, the uncircumcised man
child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul
shall be cut off from his people. He hath broken my covenant. All right, now look with me at
1 Corinthians 11. Now, this involved a man. The
woman wasn't involved. Right? Right? God said this to a man. And this
involved men. Man. Spoken to a man, not a woman. Why is that? Because by one man's
disobedience, many became sinners. Even so, by the obedience of
one what? Man. One man, many will be made
righteous. In Adam, all died. In Christ, all made alive. There is no record of Adam ever
being circumcised. You know that? He lived 930 years. Jesus Christ, when he was eight
days old, was circumcised. Thirty-two and a half years later,
he was crucified. His flesh, he was cut off out
of the land of the living. Now you know what this stuff
is. The man, not the woman. The man. We fell in Adam, not
Eve. Adam. In 1 Corinthians 11, Scripture
always says this because it represents Christ, the God-man. Our covenant head, Christ. 1
Corinthians 11 verse 7 says, The man indeed ought not to cover
his head for much as He's the image and glory of God, but the
woman is the glory of the man. The bride of Christ, those whom
Christ came to save, are his glory, for his glory. See there? The man's not of the woman. Christ
was made of a woman. Did a woman give him life? Oh
no, he gave her life. Verse 9, neither was the man
created for the woman, But the woman for the man. Our Lord wasn't
created at all. But we were created, regenerated,
given life. Why? For the glory of Jesus Christ. Verse 10, For this cause ought
the woman to have power on her head. Well, let's go on. So,
long before the law, go back to Exodus 4. Long before the
law was given, Exodus through Numbers, Circumcision was law. Circumcision was given to Abraham,
who is the father of The people of God and all the
elect of God came through Abraham, right? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Jacob had others, alright? Sons
of Jacob. He's the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. God's elect. God gave this to His people.
His people only. Not Egypt, not anybody else's.
His people. It was a mark of God's true people,
alright? Male and female must be sent. Look at Romans 2, verse 28. Romans 2, verse 28. He is not a Jew which is one
outwardly. In Romans 9, he plainly tells
us that the children of the flesh are not the children of promise.
Jews by nature are not all the children of God. Not at all. And they're no different than
Gentiles. God's Word is very clear about that. The children
of promise are counted for the seed in Christ. I'll read on, verse 28 of Romans
2. Neither is circumcision outward
in the flesh. He is a Jew, verse 29, who has
won inward love. And circumcision is of the heart. In the spirit, not in the letter,
whose praise is not of men, but of God. And another place says
it's not circumcision with a hand, but God did. It's something God
does to all of His people, male and female. If you're not, cut
off. You'll be cut off, destroyed. That soul will be destroyed.
If this work on the heart, if God doesn't do this work in the
heart, you're going to be cut off. Alright? Now as I said,
this was very personal. Every single person. And it's
inward, wasn't it? Actual circumcision was something
that's always covered. It's not seen. You can't tell
if someone's been circumcised or not. They're covered up, got
clothes on. And you and I can't look on somebody's heart, can
we? God does. God does. That's what he looks on. And
so everybody's got all these outward marks. All these religious
people all over the world have their different marks outwardly
that prove that they're the people of God. That doesn't prove anything.
What that proves is that you're hung up on the flesh. Circumcision is the removal of
flesh. Right? So, here's the thing. It's a heart work. And, like,
if your heart is operated on, there's going to be pain in the
body. All right? There's going to be blood. There's
going to be blood. The heart is where all the blood
is. The Lord says, I'm going to take
away a stony heart. Is there any blood in stone?
I'm going to give you a heart of flesh. I'm going to fill it
full of blood. And I'm going to take the knife
of my word and prick you in the heart, and it's going to be full
of blood. It's going to bleed. You cut
into the heart and the mind of God's people, everyone of them,
and you know what you'll find? Blood. The blood of the covenant. The blood of Christ. Christ crucified. They have a new heart, a living
heart. They know God. They know Christ. They know the
truth. They have peace with God. Why? Peace how? Blood. The blood of Christ. Somebody
else's blood. The Son's blood. Moses lived
because the Son's blood was shed. There are three marks, if you
haven't seen this, Philippians 3. Go to Philippians 3. There
are three marks. I'm going to get to Exodus 4,
but you already know what it's saying. But Philippians 3, we've
looked at this so many times, Philippians 3 gives us three
marks of God's true people, and he calls them the circumcision. Look at Philippians 3, verse
3. We are the circumcision. We're the true people of God
whom he's operated on, given a new heart. How's that, Paul? Three things. We worship God
in spirit. from the heart, by the aid of
the Holy Spirit. And in the next lesson is what
the Holy Spirit does. What does He do? He takes the
things of Christ and shows them to you. All right, we worship
God in the Spirit. We worship Him in the Son. The
next thing, we rejoice in Jesus Christ. That's what God's people
do. How do you know? Because that's all they want
to do. That's all they want to hear.
He is all they want to hear. That's how you know. That's how
you know God's people. All the people that look like
they are and sound like they are, no. God's people don't need
all this stuff. They put no confidence, number
three, in the flesh. Let's cut off the flesh. Let's
get rid of all that flesh. Flesh keeps us from worshiping
the Spirit in it. Let's have a big band. No, let's
not. Then you'll go away talking about the band. Well, let's all
wear a robe. No, let's not. You go away talking
about how good we all look. What about flowers? Dead flowers. You know, let's have all these
pictures and stained glass windows. No, let's not. Make it as plain
as we can get it. And make the message plain. We
come here to worship God, not look at the building and look
at each other. We've come here to worship the Lord Jesus Christ,
to see what He did, and it was an awful, gory, ugly thing what
Christ did on that cross. You wouldn't hang a picture of
that on your wall. You wouldn't hang around your
neck the thing that killed your child or somebody. You wouldn't
hang a gun around your neck if somebody killed your son with
a gun, would you? The cross was a thing of torture,
brutality. We don't hang a cross around
our neck. We got Christ in our heart. That's how you know God's
true people. Away with all this flesh. Get rid of it. Cut it off. I
tell you what will cut it off is the circumcision of Jesus
Christ on that cross. I just told you what circumcision
means. Christ's flesh was brutally cut. And he was cut off out of
the land of the living. Cut off from God. Sold it. It's not circumcised. I'm going
to cut him off. Christ was cut off because we have not kept
the knowledge. Do you understand? Sure you did. You knew the meaning
of this before we studied it. Just the particulars. So, in
our hearts, the Lord removes all fleshly works. In our hearts,
the Lord tells us, we have in our hearts the belief, the faith,
the knowledge that it's only the blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son. It's not our religion, it's not
our works, it's not our sincerity, it's not our what all we do for
God. Our salvation is what Jesus Christ
did for us. He shed his precious blood for
us. Salvation is by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He was stripped,
he was naked, and he was not embarrassed. Imagine the humiliation and the
shame and the embarrassment. All those women around at the
foot of the cross. He's hanging there naked. He
doesn't have sin. He's not ashamed. We are. You understand? Our Christ was... Our Lord... There's no sin in
Him. No shame. No reason or cause.
Adam, before he sinned, they were both naked. No shame. No
sin. No lust. All good. Christ said, no sin. The Lord
said, strip him naked. Stripped him. Now cut his flesh. God did that. God did. Not for him, but for us. In the garden, when the Lord
killed that lamb to cover two naked sinners, He skinned, he
cut that lamb in two, didn't he? Skinned that lamb, took the
skin off that lamb, uncovered that lamb, and wrapped that skin
around those two shivering, naked sinners. And it warmed them and
it covered them. And there was blood shed. That's
Christ crucified. That's what that is. There was
never blood shed before that. There was never death before
that. That's Christ. That's how we're covered. We're
going to stand before God someday covered. No shame. No sin. God's people. Those who know. Those who believe. Those who
have in their heart. Why they should, God should let
them into his heaven. Everyone of God's people. No.
Not because of anything I did. My whole hope is what Jesus Christ
did. Okay? Do you understand? I think
you do. You know, there are only two
things. Circumcision, like baptism, symbols of Christ crucified.
And circumcision is no longer required. The law, we're not
under the law anymore. Okay? When Christ was crucified,
he took it away. Okay? There are hygienic reasons
and so forth. God never did anything that wasn't
perfectly good in every single way. But it's not a requirement. Baptism is. Baptism is. But like circumcision, it doesn't
do you any good. It doesn't do you any good. It's
just flesh, okay? It's just Washington and Franklin
County water. It's not going to put away sin.
Circumcision won't get you into the Kingdom of God. That's what
the Jews think. Paul said, if I preach circumcision,
if I believe Christ's prophecy doesn't. You understand? But baptism, our Lord commanded
it. But it doesn't do anything for
your soul. Symbolic. Blood was shed to keep
God from killing someone. The blood of the Son. And God
was satisfied. God was satisfied, the blood
of the Son was shed, and God spared the life of this man.
That's substitution. That's what this is about. All
right, go back to Exodus 4 now. Let's look at it, each verse.
It came to pass, by the way, in the end, the Lord met him.
The Lord met Moses. The Holy Gods. This is the Holy
God. Well, he proves here, doesn't he? I'm holy, I'm just, I'm righteous.
I will by no means clear the guilty. This man broke the law.
He's going to kill him. But this is a lawgiver. Moses
didn't give you that law. Didn't our Lord say that, Patrick?
Moses didn't give you that law. Moses was a sinner just like
the rest of us. Moses was saved just like the
rest of us. How? Blood. But Moses here represents,
as he has so many times, the Lord Jesus Christ. Before the
world began, God the Father met with His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And in a covenant, they determine,
someone's got to die. Blood's going to be shed. The
law will be broken here. You see? The Lord met him. In
the end, in the end, sought to kill him. Moses, the deliverer? The deliverer? Would God have
killed Moses? God told him. Would he? Would he kill Isaac? Isaac, the
son of Prometh. Would he? Could he? He didn't. Did he? He didn't. Why? All the promises of God. But someone died. Christ died. God will by no means clear the
guilty. No means clear the guilty. It
says he sought to kill him. Who? Moses or the Son? Which
was it? Huh? Eliezer or Moses? Which
was it? Well, I know which one's blood
was shed. The Son. But this much is clear
from this, the soul that sinneth shall surely die. Moses did not
circumcise his son, so he broke the law, and God sought to kill
him for his disobedience. Moses, yeah. But Moses, God can't
kill the father. He can't kill the father of the
faithful. The seed's got to live. Right? Like Isaac. He can't kill
Isaac. He's the son of promise. But
blood was shed. Blood was shed. Who died, Isaac
or a substitute? A substitute, a lamb. So Moses,
the father, did the father die? No. But the son's blood was shed. See, God is the father. God can't
die. But the son was made flesh. He
did die, didn't he? God didn't have blood. The life
of the flesh is in the blood. Christ became flesh and he died. God can't die. Man must. Man can't satisfy. God does. Can't. God can't die. Man can't satisfy. So God became
a man. Satisfied. Died. Blood was shed. God's propitiated. That's what
the word propitiating meant. Propitch, covering, autumnal.
He said in Acts 20, our Lord said in Acts 20, 28, feed the
church of God which he purchased with his own blood. The blood of God. God was in Christ. What a mystery this is. This
little story here, the mystery of Eurasia. What's this all about? Well, now you know. See, the Father can't die. But
the son's blood was shed. Christ came. Verse 25, Zipporah,
the wife, took a sharp stone and circumcised the son. Why?
Well, most of the writers believe that God actually struck Moses
ill, so that he was dying from an illness. And he couldn't do
it, and the wife did it for him. But this was very clear to me,
very clear to me, that when Christ came, He came for His bride,
didn't He? He came for His wife, the Lamb's
wife, that's who He is. And when God said in Exodus 12,
He said, all the congregation shall kill this Lamb. Please
God to bruise Him, but the Father, but He had, And the purpose of God had the
people crucify his very son. Zipporah, in doing this, got
the son's blood all over her. John's catching this. The wife,
the bride, got the son's blood all over her. And all she could
say was, bloody, bloody, bloody. We with wicked hands took and
crucified the Lord. The people at the foot of the
cross said, let his blood be on us and our children. not realizing what they said.
God in justice did this to the Jews. He shed the blood of many,
many Jews. But God in His mercy and grace
makes His people true Jews. And they all from the heart say,
let His blood, let His blood be on us. Don't you? Isn't that what you
want more than anything? And the blood of that son kept
God from killing both of them. We with wicked hands. And you
know this was painful and difficult for Zipporah to do, don't you? This is brutal. She may have
said this to Moses with contempt. Some say that. She said, you're
a bloody... There's nothing to indicate that
Zipporah was a believer. She did not take part of the
Passover in Exodus 12. She wasn't there. She wasn't
there. She didn't come to chapter 18.
She was a Gentile, from, from, where is her father from? Anyway, wherever he was from,
that's where she was from, Midian. And she didn't take the Passover.
Could be. Could be. But I prefer to look
at it this way. God's people, who through the
blood of Christ are made His people. Though they were Gentiles,
though they're unbelievers. And thank God we have the blood
of the Son on us. That's our hope. That's our hope.
You know, it's the blood that makes atonement for the soul.
And when we see Christ crucified for us, we mourn. We mourn. It's a hard thing. It's a brutal
thing. But it had to happen to spare
a life. It says in verse 26, So God let
him go. God let Moses go. Blood was shed. When I see the blood, that's
it. I'll let you go. I'll let you go. Is that it?
Yeah, that's it. She kept saying, surely a bloody
husband arched out of me. A bloody husband arched out because
of the circumcision. A bloody husband. Isaiah 53,
and I close. Isaiah 53. This is the gospel
of Isaiah, chapter 53. A bloody husband. A bloody husband
to me. You know that Jesus Christ is
our Father. He's our brother. He's our Redeemer. That's right.
You got it. He's our Savior. He's our Lord. And He's our what? Husband, a bloody husband, he is to her. Aren't you glad? That's what we all say. Whose
blood? His own. For surely he hath borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God. Yes, he was. God's holy, God's
just. The soul that sinneth shall surely
die. Cut off. He was wounded for our
transgression. Bloodied. He was bruised for
our iniquity. The chastisement of our faith.
He was whipped. Blood was shed. It was upon him.
With his stripes we are healed. Oh, we like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned everyone to his own way. But the Lord laid on
him the iniquity of us all. God's people. He was oppressed. He was afflicted. Isaac, not
Isaac, but Eleazar didn't utter a word. In this story, the son
never uttered a word like Isaac up on the mountain when the father
was doing it. Didn't utter a word. He's like a lamb before her shearer's
death. He was oppressed, he was afflicted,
he opened not his mouth, he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
as a sheep before her shearers is done, so he openeth not his
mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment. Who shall declare his generation? He was cut off out of the land
of the living, like circumcision, his flesh cut off. For the transgression
of my people was he stricken." And so our cry throughout eternity
is going to be of our bloody husband. Is that gruesome? It is to the
world. You know, the world says you
don't need circumcision, you don't need this cross, you don't
need to talk about it. Let's not talk about the cross.
It's a pretty sunny day, you know, next to Easter. Y'all ready
for Easter? Fooey on that crap. We worship
Christ, not a day, not flowers. We worship a bloody man hanging
on a tree who is now seated on the throne of the majesty on
high. Nobody gets to him. Nobody comes to God but through
his blood. And we'll never quit saying that.
Never. Never quit meaning that we don't
talk about the blood of God's Son. Clear? Yeah. Amen.