We're going back to the study
in Exodus this evening, and so I'll invite you to go to Exodus,
and we'll look into the 10th chapter this evening. And I'm
not going to deal specifically with plagues numbers 8 and 9,
not tonight, which would be the locusts and the darkness. God willing, we'll deal with
those next Wednesday evening. I'm going to go a little bit
different direction tonight, but I want to read here beginning
in chapter 10 and verse 16, and I'll read through the end of
the chapter. Exodus chapter 10, and we'll
begin at verse 16. This is immediately after God
sent the locusts. All right, chapter 10, verse
16. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste, and he said,
I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you. I'll therefore forgive, I pray
thee, my sin, only this once, and entreat the Lord your God
that he may take away from me this death only. He went out
from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord. The Lord turned a mighty
strong west wind which took away the locusts and cast them into
the Red Sea, which is what the Lord is going to do with the
Egyptian army in just a few days. There remained not one locust
in all the coasts of Egypt, but The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart
so that he would not let the children of Israel go. And the
Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven,
that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness
which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his
hand toward heaven, And there was a thick darkness in all the
land of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, neither
rose any from his place for three days. But all the children of
Israel had light in their dwellings. And Pharaoh called unto Moses
and said, Go ye serve the Lord. only let your flocks and your
herds be stayed." In other words, they'll stay here in the land
of Goshen. Let your little ones also go
with you. And Moses said, thou must give
us also sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice
unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with
us. There shall not an hoof be left behind, for thereof must
we take to serve or sacrifice or worship the Lord our God. And we know not with what we
must serve the Lord until we come thither. But the Lord hardened
Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go. And Pharaoh
said unto him, get thee from me, take to thyself, see my face
no more. For in that day thou seest my
face, thou shalt die. And Moses said, thou hast spoken
well. I will see thy face again no
more. Let's seek God's face in prayer. Our Father, we gather this evening
to worship, to worship Thee and the Trinity of Your persons,
to worship in spirit and to worship in truth. O Lord, we seek Thy
face. We are a pitiful people and we
are a sinful people. But you have been pleased to
reveal Christ the Savior to us. And there is deep within our
innermost beings a desire to honor God. We have come together
to exalt thee in the trinity of your persons. make us to be full of fear and
reverence and awe. May we seek thy face in the face
of Christ the Savior. O God, may we see the very glory
of the triune Lord in the face of our Savior. Thank you for
him who loved us with an everlasting love and came and laid down his
life in order to save all of your people from our sins. We
thank you for that blessed covenant of grace in which we were included
by your sovereign mercy. And our names were written down
in that Lamb's Book of Life. And the Son of God volunteered
to take our place. And he became fully responsible
for our salvation. Oh God, how we bless you. How
we honor you for that great purpose of eternal grace. in which we
were numbered among your people. For no reason that could ever
be found within us, you chose to save us, and you sent your
Son to redeem us, and you sent your Holy Spirit who directed
our steps to hear a gospel preacher. And then we learned something
about the very character of God And we learned about ourselves
in our neediness, in our helplessness, in our sinfulness. And the Spirit of God taught
us the good news of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, buried, risen
again. That salvation's in Him, that
He who came into this world is the Son of God with power. And
He alone is the Savior of the sinful. Lord, thank You for teaching
us. Thank You for revealing the truth
to our hearts. You could have left us in error,
but You did not. And You have blessed us abundantly
in Christ before the world began. And we are seeing the results
of those blessings now. in that we've been made to love
this gospel of sovereign grace. And we bless you for all you
have done, you are doing, and you shall yet do for your people.
For those of our congregation who are hurting, we lift them
up to thee. May they discover that thy grace
is sufficient for all of the needs of your people. Teach us, O Lord, to fully trust
you, to rely on you, and to look to you for all things. We bless
you for who you are, and we worship you tonight. Send the spirit
of truth. May he speak to each of our hearts,
and bless those who watch Those who have a love for this gospel
of grace, teach all of us, Father, more of Christ our Savior. And
may we fall deeper in love with Him, whom to know is a life everlasting. So as we open the scriptures,
be thou our guide, O Holy Spirit. And we will give all the glory
unto our God. For Christ's sake, amen. Our subject this evening consists
of two words, no compromise. That's the title of the message,
no compromise. And I'll begin this way. According
to the purpose of God, Israel has been taken captive by a very
cruel Pharaoh. Now, Israel was already in Egypt
because Jacob brought his family into Egypt in a time of need. And in that time of need, there
was a drought that was going to happen, and indeed it did
begin to happen. But the Lord had raised up a
man who would be a great deliverer. Joseph. And Joseph was his father's
favorite. He made for him a coat of many
colors. And the other sons of Israel
were jealous of Joseph and the favor that his father showed
him. And they hated him. And without rehearsing the whole
story again. You know that they sought to
be rid of him. Some of his brothers wanted to
kill him. Others said, let's throw him in a pit and maybe
the Ishmaelites will take him and we'll get some money out
of this transaction. We'll sell him into slavery.
So Joseph goes from being his father's favorite to being degraded
and utterly humiliated by his brethren, who hated him and who
were jealous of him. And Joseph descended into days
and weeks and months of cruelty at the hands of others. But over
a course of time, God promoted him. God exalted him. And he wound up second in command
to Pharaoh. And of course, in many, many
ways, Joseph is a beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus. But there
are many beautiful pictures of our Lord Jesus in the Old Testament. Men who portrayed many of the
characteristics of our Savior and animals whose lives were
taken from them in order to spare the guilty souls for which those
animals died. But though all of these men who
portrayed Christ and animals who pictured Him, typified Him,
though there were so many of them, all of them together are
inadequate to set forth the glories of Christ Jesus. Joseph, A.W. Pink, has in his
book on Genesis, Joseph is a picture of our Savior in over a hundred
different ways, according to Arthur Pink. And it's very good
if you have his book, read Gleanings in Genesis. He does an excellent
job on that. But the picture of our Lord is,
just like Joseph, He was the favorite, He was humiliated,
and then he was exalted to give bread to Israel. Now, all of
the other nations that surrounded Egypt, they also benefited from
the provisions that they could receive from Joseph. But know
this, the real reason Joseph was exalted was to take care
of the people of God. The Lord would take care of Israel. And even today, you know, of
course, our Lord Jesus was humiliated and then died the death of a
felon. But He died that death in order
to save His people from their sins. And God has highly exalted
him. I'll be preaching Sunday night
on the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the first step of his
exaltation. God has exalted him and given
him a name which is above every name, that it's the name of Jesus.
Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess of things
in heaven, things on the earth, things under the earth, and every
tongue shall confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. Now all of the nations of the
earth benefit from the mercies that come from the hands of the
Son of God, a greater than Joseph. But know this, the blessings
that come even upon people who hate God. Because the scripture
says the sun shines upon the just and the unjust. The rain
falls on the righteous and the wicked. But the reason the wicked
partake of the mercies of God is because God's true Israel
is still in this world. And they receive of the benefits
that they do receive because Christ's redeemed people are
here. Now, when our Lord takes his
people out of this world, there will be no more benefits coming
to this world. A good illustration would be
Lot in living in Sodom. The angels came to escort him
to forcibly remove him from the city of Sodom. because God would
not destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with Lot within
their borders. So Lot must be taken out of the
danger zone, and then when he is safely out, then the judgment
of God fell. And this world will stand It
will continue to exist. Pay no attention to those people
who talk about man's destroying the earth. Man's not going to
destroy the earth. God's going to destroy the earth.
It's foolish to worry about such things. All matters are in the
hands of our sovereign God. And this world will continue
to exist in some form Until our Lord exits His people out of
this, and then the wrath of God's gonna fall upon this earth. The
earth will be renovated by fire, the scripture says. But only
after God's people are safely out of the way, once we enter
into the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, just like
God raised up Joseph to be a mighty provider, so our Lord, our God, the triune
God, ordained that Christ would be raised up to be the provider
of His chosen people. And just as Israel, though they
numbered but 70 people when they came out of Canaan into the land
of Egypt, though they were a small number of people, there was no
way they could be destroyed. Because God had to ordain the
Messiah come through that lineage. The Lord Jesus is coming through. He's going to be the son of David,
the son of Abraham. And that's the way the New Testament
begins. So there was no way that the
people of God could cease to exist. God had a man in position
to take care of them. And I tell you, as far as God's
elect is concerned, God has put into position a man, the man
Christ Jesus. And he shall save his people.
He shall bring them under the sound of the gospel. We can't
perish. Well, so Israel winds up in Egypt. And things go quite well for
a long time and the nation kind of blossoms, they grow. And then
a cruel Pharaoh takes over. But that didn't take God by surprise. That didn't frustrate the purpose
of the Lord. Because the Lord had brought
together a young couple named Amram and Jochebed. And they
fell in love. And they got married. They had
a daughter, Miriam. They had a son, Aaron. And then they had another son
they named Moses. Well, they didn't name him, but
Pharaoh's daughter named him. But that was the deliverer that
God had purposed who would lead His people out of Egyptian bondage. You see, God has never and will
never forsake His people. He is always looking after His
spiritual family. And it is true that on occasion
things may become difficult for the children of God. There may
be many fiery trials that we have to go through, and indeed
the church has through the years. But though the world rant and
rave against the people of God, though Satan goes on the war
path to stamp out God's true Israel, nevertheless she continues
to prevail. And she will always prevail.
And the reason is not to be found in the people themselves, but
in the God of the people. Our God has a chosen people in
this world. They have been redeemed by the
bloody sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. They must hear the gospel. They must hear of how God can
be just and justify the ungodly. and the Spirit of God must quicken
them. They must be birthed into the
kingdom of grace. They must be given the gifts
of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance toward God. They
must be brought to fully depend upon the Lord Jesus Christ for
salvation. God will not fail to reveal His
truth to all of His people. And though that fiend of hell
oppose the building of God's church, though the gates of hell
try to prevail against her, the church continues to grow and
thrive. She's on a firm foundation. The
church's foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord. And she can't
be defeated. So all the while that within
the heart of Pharaoh, he begins to boil over with anger and wrath
and malice toward Israel. The Lord is preparing a deliverer. And he raises him up. And he's
given a name, Moses, drawn forth out of the water. And he is God's
chosen vessel to lead his people out of Egyptian bondage. And
Moses is another type of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the
one who sets the prisoners free. He is the one who liberates the
captives. And just as Moses will be successful
in leading the children of Israel by the power of God, of course,
out of Egyptian bondage, so our Lord Jesus Christ the mighty
savior, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace.
He will lead all of his captive people out of that terrible slavery
and servitude to Satan. He will lead them all to liberty
and freedom in the Lord Jesus Christ. So Moses, he has a few things
to learn. And he goes to the backside of
the desert and God teaches him. And when he's 80 years of age,
the Lord is ready to use him in a mighty way to deliver his
people. And he sends him for this great
work. And the Lord has so worked in
the heart of Moses that Moses is a willing vessel. And he's just a inadequate picture
of our Lord Jesus Christ who was fully willing to come into
this world and do that which is absolutely necessary for the
salvation of his people. Our Lord Jesus redeemed us by
His blood at the cross of Calvary. Now, Pharaoh is a ruthless man,
and in many ways he's a very smart man. He's a very intelligent
man. And his goal, especially now
that they're getting toward the more severe plagues His goal is to try to thwart
the purpose of God. He's already admitted he doesn't
know who the Lord is. But he's beginning to see the
awesomeness of the power of the God of Israel. And now he's trying to trip up
Moses. And I want you to see that he
repeatedly makes efforts to cause Moses to compromise. And this
has been the scheme of Satan from the beginning, practically,
to get the servants of God, to get the leaders, to get the preachers,
to compromise the very truth of God. And those who are preachers
of the gospel, and those who support and listen to preachers
of the gospel, we must all be on our guard lest this ruthless
fiend, Satan himself, trip us up. Because what he wants to
do more than anything else is to hinder, at least in his own
mind, the work and purpose of God. And he does that by attacking
the leaders. If it can get us to compromise,
and many do, many preachers have compromised. As I read some of
the writers who are dead now, It is not unusual toward the
end of their ministries, they begin to go a little soft. They're not as steadfast as they
once were. And it isn't that they directly
oppose or contradict the gospel of God's grace, but they're just
kind of let up a little bit. That's what Pharaoh wanted Moses
to do. And I want to show you this.
First of all, go back to chapter 8. And he makes four great attempts. He makes four great attempts,
Pharaoh does, in the effort to cause Moses to compromise. Just a little. Just a little. First of all, back in chapter
8 and verse 25. Now the Lord has said in verse
23, he's going to put a division between my people and thy people. He says that through Moses. In
verse 24, and the Lord did so, and there came a grievous swarm
of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses,
and into all the land of Egypt. The land was corrupted by reason
of the swarm of flies. And Pharaoh called for Moses
and for Aaron and said, go ye sacrifice to the Lord in the
land. In the land. Now we know what
the Lord had said to begin with and what Moses and Aaron had
said to Pharaoh. God said, let my people go three
days journey to leave the land of Egypt and go and worship God. But Pharaoh's first temptation,
as it were, to Moses, the first effort he makes to get Moses
to compromise, is to just stay right here with us. And you worship
God your way, and we'll worship our gods our way, and we'll do
it side by side together. We'll get along. But truth cannot get along with
error. There must be no compromise.
My friends, when the Bible says predestination, we must not make
an effort to weaken that and say something else. If it says
predestination, let's say predestination. If it says election, let's say
election. If it teaches particular redemption
that Christ died for and redeemed only His people, let's preach
that. That's the gospel of substitution. If it says that it's by God's
will that men are saved, let's say that. Let's say it the way
God says it. There's nothing wrong with saying
things the way God says it. There's something wrong with
saying it differently than God says it. Right? There can be
no compromise. Pharaoh says, just worship right
alongside of us. Why can't we all get along? After all, we all want to go
to the same place. So, can you lay down some of
your differences? Do you have to be so dogmatic?
Yes, we have to be dogmatic. And we're not going to back off. And I don't intend to ever let
any preacher behind this pulpit who would kind of dull the sharp
edge of the sword of the Spirit. It's the sharpness of the sword
that cuts. We must not go soft when it comes
to the things of God. The truth of God, that's His
glory. He's exalted His Word above His
name. Heaven and earth may pass away,
but not the Word of God. Let's don't compromise at all.
I can't get along with other preachers here. I can't get along
with other churches. How can light get along with
darkness? It's impossible. How can truth
get along with error? It just can't be done. You see, Pharaoh would have Moses
compromise. And Moses says this in verse
26. And Moses said, it is not meet,
it is not right, it is not proper, so to do. In other words, he's
saying no compromise. That's what he said. No compromise. It just can't be. And then the
second subtle effort to get Moses to compromise is in chapter 8
and verse 28. And it says, Pharaoh said, I
will let you go that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God
in the wilderness, only you shall not go very far away. Pray for
me. That's intended to kind of soften
it a little bit. Seems genuine. He seems sincere. Okay, you can go a little ways
away. But you can't leave the land
of Egypt. And I want you to pray for me. Here's another trick of Pharaoh. Avoid being extreme. Avoid being fanatical. You can go a little ways, but
don't really separate from us. After all, don't we all have
the same goal? I remember when I lived in Alamo
and that have, you know, National Day of Prayer and The local preachers
meet down at the flagpole, the school. Everybody pray together. Everybody except me. I'm not
going to join in with people who embrace heresy. I tell you, there's a lot at
stake here. First of all, it's the glory
of God. And secondly, it's the very truth of God. It's the people. We've got to sound a good, clear
message of grace. And never even get anywhere close
to the smell of works or man's will. We must not do that. And I'm sure there are some people
through the years who've said, you just need to back off, can't
you back off a little bit? Do you have to talk about God
not loving everybody? Do you have to talk about the
death of Christ Jesus and He wasn't for all men? Do you have
to insist that the Spirit of God is only going to deal with
the elect, the redeemed of God? Can't you be just a little more
generous in your language? And the answer is, no compromise. No compromise. And then the third effort is
in chapter 10, verses 9 through 11. In fact, I'll back up to verse
7. And Pharaoh's servants said unto
him, after Moses and Aaron had gone out, said, How long shall
this man be a snare unto us? Let the men go that they may
serve the Lord your God. Knowest thou not yet that Egypt
is destroyed? Do you see what's happening? They're destroying the country. And Moses and Aaron, verse 8
now, were brought again unto Pharaoh. And he said unto them,
Go serve the Lord your God, but who are they that shall go? And
Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with
our sons and with our daughters, and with our flocks and with
our herds will we go, for we must hold a feast unto the Lord.
And he said unto them, Let the Lord be so with you. I will let
you go, and your little ones look to it, for evil is before
you. Not so. Go now, ye that are men,
and serve the Lord. For that ye did desire, and they
were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. And the emphasis of
the language of Pharaoh in verse 7 is, ye that are men, go. But you can't take the kids with
you. They'll stay behind. Well, that can't be, because
if the little ones stay behind, and the men go and worship, then
their hearts are going to be upon their families that are
still in Egypt. You see, Pharaoh throws another
obstacle at Moses. You can all go except your little
ones. They don't know what's going
on anyway. Well, but they do grow up. And Moses is insistent. All of us must go and serve the
Lord. And then the fourth effort to
get Moses to compromise is in chapter 10, a little deeper into
the chapter, in verse 24. And Pharaoh called unto Moses
and said, Go ye, serve the Lord. Only let your flocks and your
herds be stayed. We'll let your little ones go
with you. But all your flocks and all your herds have got to
stay. And Moses said, Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt
offerings that we may sacrifice unto the Lord. You see, the animals
were necessary to be offered to God The blood sacrifices pictured
the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And here the subtle temptation
to Moses is, stop offering your sacrifices, we'll let you go. But Moses sees right through
that and again he says in essence, no compromise, because look what
he says. Verse 25, Thou must also give
us sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice unto the
Lord our God. We're going to continue to worship
Him because that's the only way we can worship Him. Look at verse
26, Our cattle also shall go with us, there shall not an hoof
be left behind. It is impossible that any of
God's elect It is impossible that any of God's people could
ever be left behind to be devoured by the evil one. There shall
not a hoof be left behind. Our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed
His people with His precious blood. He bought all of His elect
people. It's impossible for any of them
to be left behind. And we're not going to give up
the gospel of substitution. You see, our enemy would like
nothing better than for us to go easy on substitution and satisfaction,
because that's the very heart of the gospel. Don't be so insistent upon the particular redemption
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just say Christ died for sinners. Well, he did die for sinners. But we can narrow it down more
than that. He died for his church. He died for his people. And we shall not back off. And if anyone is offended by
that kind of preaching, I'm sure none of you are. But if anybody
is kind of turned off by the insistence on sovereign grace
and anti-free will preaching, anti-works preaching, anti-man's
worth preaching, they just have to be turned off. Because we
don't believe in compromise, do we? Can't do that. Listen, this is the sweetest
message that ever was. The gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace to his chosen people. I'm not ashamed of that. I'm not embarrassed to preach
that. I love to tell people who God
is, what we are, and who Christ is, and what He did of His triumphant
work. Our Savior's no failure. And
our Savior didn't put forth an effort to save. He saved His
people from their sins. That's why His name is Jesus.
I shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people
from their sins. And if somebody asks you what
we believe, You go ahead and tell them. And if they say, well,
how come you don't get along with the rest of the churches
around here? Just tell them, no compromise. We don't believe
in compromise. We're gonna stand up for the
truth, even if we have to stand by ourselves, but we don't. We
don't. But we'll take a stand of the
very truth of God. Well, I hope that'll encourage
you. and remind us to stay the road, stand fast. Let's turn to 477 at Calvary.