Our Lord Jesus, in the Gospel
of John, Chapter 5, he said to them, Had ye believed Moses,
ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me. And that is readily seen and
understood by most of us, by many of you, and most of you
who are watching, I presume. Because in the Word of God, the
Bible begins with creation. Who created all things? In the
beginning, God created all things. And we read in the Gospel according
to John, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. And then we read, all things
were made by him, and without him was not anything made that
was made. That's the Son of God. Moses
wrote of Him. He wrote of His creative glories. All of Genesis chapter one magnifies
the Son of God in fashioning all things according to His own
sovereign will, and then making man, creating man out of the
dust of the ground, out of red dirt. And then God breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life. Who did that? The Son of God
did that. He's the one who created all
things and they were created for His pleasure. For His glory. Christ said, Moses wrote of me.
There in Genesis chapter 3 after Adam and Eve had fallen and Adam's
transgression plunged all of us into a state of depravity
and alienation from God, it's the Lord Jesus who was spoken
of, the seed of the woman who's coming. And the Son of God illustrated
what He would do when He came into this world. He would lay
down His life in order that the guilty would be free, would be
saved. How was Adam and Eve? How were
they clothed? How were they robed? They were
robed due to the death of innocent victims in their stead. And that
lays the foundation that's seen all the way through the Scriptures.
If us guilty sinners are going to go free an innocent victim,
a suitable innocent victim, the perfect man, has got to die. He's got to lay down His life.
And so, our Lord Jesus Moses wrote of Him there in Genesis
chapter 3. And then you go all the way through
the book of Genesis, and the book of Genesis is really about
God's electing grace. That's what Genesis is about.
You see, the Lord chose Abel, not Cain. He chose Noah. not somebody else. He chose Abram,
not somebody else. He chose Isaac, not Ishmael. He chose Jacob. And on and on
we go, because you see, ultimately God chose Israel. And that choice
of Israel was the choice of the Son of God. In fact, all of the
Trinity collaborated, if that's the right word to use, in old
eternity for the purpose of choosing a people unto salvation. And
in that we see the brightness of the glory of the Son of God.
It's like He said to His disciples, You didn't choose Me. I chose
you. I ordained you. And so, Christ said, Moses wrote
of me. He wrote of him in the book of
Genesis. What did he write of? He's the
one who chooses a people. What? To deny God's electing
grace to sinners through the Lord Jesus because the election
is in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 1. We've dealt with that somewhat
this past Sunday evening. To deny that's to deny the word
of God. Only a fool would do that. Only
somebody who's untaught by the Spirit of God would deny that.
Because to deny God's electing grace to sinners through the
Lord Jesus Christ is to deny the glory that is God's due.
It's to deny the Word of God. We're not going to do that, are
we? We're not going to deny the Word of God. that others refused
to believe the word of God like Pharaoh did. You don't want to
be like Pharaoh, refused to believe what God said. Our Lord said, Moses wrote of
me. What do you write about in the
book of Genesis? God's electing grace. And then
we come to the book of Exodus. What is Exodus about? It's about
the deliverance of those people that God chose unto salvation. That's what Exodus is about.
If you can remember those two things, it'll help you understand
the books of Genesis and Exodus. Genesis, God chose a people. Exodus, God redeemed a people. God delivered a people. How did
He deliver a people? By the blood of the Passover
lamb. That's what the book of Exodus
is all about. I say, blessed are your eyes
if you've been made to see that Christ is all, not only in Genesis
and in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, but
in all of the Old Testament. Blessed are your eyes for you
see. You remember our Lord said earlier
in Exodus in chapter 3 when The Son of God spoke to Moses and
he identified himself to Moses who sought an answer to what
he anticipated that the Jews would ask him, who sent you to
deliver us? You say you're the deliverer,
who sent you? The Lord said to Moses out of
that burning bush, I am, that's my name, I am. And our Lord Jesus
identified Himself in the Gospel of John several times as being
the I Am who spoke to Moses out of that burning bush. He said,
I am the bread of life. He said, I am the light of the
world. He said, I am the good shepherd. He said, I am the resurrection
and the life. He said, I am the way, I am the
truth, I am the life. He said, I am the true vine.
When they came to arrest him, he said to them, who are you
looking for? And they said, we're looking for Jesus of Nazareth.
And he answered this way, I am. And the very authority of his
voice knocked them all to the ground. Who is this that Moses
wrote about? He wrote about the great I Am.
And our Lord Jesus did not hesitate to claim that title for Himself,
for He's the first one to use it in the book of Exodus chapter
3. So we're always on the lookout
for Christ. in the writings of Moses, in
the writings of all the prophets, in the writings of the poets,
the poetry books, and in all of the New Testament. We're always
looking for the Son of God. Well, first thing I want to identify
for you just briefly is Aaron's rod that became a serpent. We've
already seen how the Lord sent his servants to perform a miracle
before the eyes of Pharaoh. God said to Moses and Aaron,
he said, Pharaoh will say, show me a miracle. The implication
being, he seems to be saying, if I could see a miracle, I'd
believe. He already said, who is the Lord
that I should fear him? Who is the Lord that I should
release the children of Israel? But the Lord says, he's gonna
say to you, show me a miracle. I wanna see a miracle. That reminds
me of the people in John chapter number 10. where the Jews said unto our
Lord, show us a miracle, show us a sign, and we'll believe
you. If we could just say one miracle
that would validate who you claim to be, we'll believe you. Just
show us one miracle. And our Lord Jesus said, in essence,
how many miracles it gonna take? You've seen many miracles. But
you don't believe me, and here's the reason you don't believe
me, because you're not of my sheep. You're goats. And no matter what
it is that I say, you buck me on every hand. You're opposed
to me with all of your heart. Another miracle? No use for me
to perform a miracle before you. in the very next chapter. You
want a miracle? He raised Lazarus from the dead.
You think that convinced them? When Mary and Martha and all
the friends of Lazarus went around saying, Jesus of Nazareth raised
our brother from the dead. You think that convinced anybody? Show us a miracle and we'll believe.
And Pharaoh in essence was saying, show me a miracle, maybe I'll
believe you're God. Well, God showed him nine miracles. Even his own soothsayers, his
magicians will say in the eighth chapter, this is the finger of
God. All these things that are happening,
this is the finger of God. And then that 10th miracle, that
10th destructive plague, the death
of the firstborn. Now that did work to the release
of Israel from Egyptian captivity, but that change of heart to Pharaoh
wasn't a thorough change because after they left town, he got
to think, what have I done? I've released my slaves. I've
lost all my workers. Let's go get them. Let's go round
them up." And that was according to the providence of God, because
God purposed to drown all the army of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. See, it's like people today who
say, you people believe Christ, you preach Christ and Him crucified. If we could just see a miracle,
There are miracle workers that they say they're working miracles
all around. Why don't you grace preachers,
why don't you perform a miracle? Well, I got news for them. The
miracles that men are involved in, they ended with the death
of John, the last of the apostles. When he died, that ended the
miracles. There are no apostolic miracles
anymore. because we don't need the validation
of a miracle. We have the validation of the
very truth of God right here in front of us, the word of God.
That shows the validity of who God is and of what we are and
of the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the Lord told Moses, say
to Aaron, throw your rod down. And he did, and it turned into
a serpent. And the magicians of Pharaoh
duplicated that, maybe really or maybe by deception. Maybe
by the sleight of hand. Ever watch these so-called magicians
on television? It's amazing what they can do.
And you know they're not, it isn't magic. But it sure looks
like it's magic. That's clever deception. And I think that's what these
magicians are. I don't know, that's my opinion.
And you're welcome to disagree with me if you want to. I don't
care on that. But I believe they were just
deceivers. Deceivers. And they changed their rods. They
threw their rods, and it all turned into serpents. In fact,
there's a verse of Scripture. You want to learn the names of
two of the men who's involved in all this deception among the
Egyptians? Turn over to 2 Timothy chapter
number 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3. And I'll tell you, the reason
I think that these were deceivers, it really wasn't, I mean if they
did some kind of miracles by the power of Satan, according
to the will of God, but I think it was more deception because
here in 2 Timothy chapter Number three, he's talking about false
preachers, false prophets. He says of these that they have
verse five, having a form of godliness, but denying the power
thereof from such turn away, stay away from false preachers.
So I want to hear what they're saying. You don't need to hear
what they're saying. You don't need to go dumpster
diving to find out that there's rotten food in there, do you?
Why in the world would you want to listen to a false preacher? He says they have a form of godliness
by denying the power thereof. From such turn away. Don't fool
with them. Leave them alone. For of this
sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly
women laden with sins, led about with divers lusts, ever learning
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as
Jennys and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist
the truth. Men of corrupt minds reprobate
concerning the faith. Leave them alone. So two of these
Egyptian magicians were Jannes and Jambres who were deceivers. Deceivers. And they didn't have
any trouble deceiving Pharaoh. And here's the thing about false
preachers. They don't have any trouble deceiving
many, many people. because people are open to deception
and their minds and hearts are closed to the truth. See, the
truth is salvation by sovereign grace. Salvation by the substitutionary
sacrifice of the blessed Savior. Salvation by the sovereign call
of the Holy Spirit. That's the truth. How many people
believe that message? Not many. Many are called, but few are
chosen to believe that message. And we were once of those who
believed that sovereign grace wasn't the truth. And we withstood the truth, just
like Jannes and Jambres. And we were like Pharaoh, so
easily deceived. So easily deceived. We believe
lies rather than the truth. Christ said, I come along preaching,
telling you the truth. Telling you about God. Telling
you about sin. You don't believe me. I tell
you, I'm the son of God. You don't believe me. I tell
you, I'm the promised Messiah. You don't believe me. I tell
you, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. You don't
believe me. But another come along, and he preaches a lie,
and boy, you'll grab hold to that like it's the greatest thing
in the world you ever heard. That's the way people are. That's
the way Pharaoh was. You want to say, Mr. Pharaoh,
don't you know who these two men are? To whom God sent to
you? This is Moses. This is Aaron. This is Moses
who's going to lead the children of Israel to the land of promise.
This is Aaron, the first high priest. Both of them were types
of Messiah who's going to come thousands of years in the future.
Don't you know who they are? They meant nothing to him. And that Lord that they preached,
he said, who is he? I don't know your Lord. I have
no interest. And when they showed him a miracle,
the serpent, Aaron's rod threw it on the ground,
turned into a serpent, and the magicians by some kind of hocus
pocus or something, their rods turned into snakes. But then
something happened. Aaron's rod swallowed those snakes
up. Because you see, our Lord is
set forth in the scriptures as that brazen serpent lifted up. And this is what our Lord Jesus,
that brazen serpent who was lifted up, That was lifted up in the
wilderness and pictured, and I quoted Sunday night. Our Lord
Jesus made application of that to Himself. And He said, I, if I be lifted
up, lifted up like the brazen serpent, I'll draw all men, all
men that God gave me before the foundation of the world, I'll
draw them to Myself. He said. He is Himself the serpent that absolutely did away with
the evil one upon the cross of Calvary. I mean by that, not
the end of him ultimately, but the end of him definitely. Christ Jesus crushed his head. Well, then we get in this next
part, Pharaoh's heart was hardened. And we've talked about this a
little bit before, That's verses 13 and 14, but the Lord hardened
his heart. Why did God harden his heart?
Because it served God's purpose to do that. The Lord had already
said back here in, look at chapter seven, verse four. But Pharaoh
shall not hearken unto you, and God's gonna make sure he doesn't
hearken to Moses and Aaron. And the reason he won't hearken
to you is because I'm going to harden his heart that I may lay
my hand upon Egypt and bring forth mine armies and my people,
the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. I'm going to make sure he doesn't
let you go. What about that? That's the God
of the Bible. He hates you, you hate him. But I'm gonna make sure that
your hatred of him continues to grow and his hatred of you
continues to grow. So I'm gonna harden his heart
till ultimately he finds out I have all power over him to
do my sovereign will. He's gonna find out who's got
the power. He said, who is the Lord that I should fear him and
obey his voice? I'm gonna show him who I am. I'm gonna show him. So Pharaoh's heart was hardened. And let me say this, everybody's
heart is hard by nature. And I know that's right. That's
why the Lord said, is not my word like a hammer, saith the
Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh a rock in pieces. If
you've been converted, he broke your hard heart. He took the
hammer, the hammer of the word of God. The Word of God is powerful
and sharper than any two-edged sword. It'll cut right to the
rock of your heart. In fact, He'll take away that
stony heart and give you a heart of flesh. Or He can just make
your heart harder. That's His sovereign will. He
can break it. He can make it harder. Why, He can even send you A very
powerful delusion that you should believe a lie. Read 2 Thessalonians
2 on that. Because you see, the same sun
that melts the ice, it hardens the clay. It depends on what
God's purpose is. And then here's the third thing,
let's address this in the next few minutes, turning water to
blood. Look at verse 15, let's just
go down through here. He says, get thee to Pharaoh
in the morning, lo, he goes out unto the water. Why'd Pharaoh
go out to the water? Well, I read several Commentators
on this some said you know he was believed. He was believed
by the people to be a God and Some say that he went out
to the river Let me say this delicately to take care of morning
business, okay? That it didn't want to be observed
by any of the people because he didn't want to be found out
that he's just a man like everybody else. See, they thought he was
a deity. Well, surely the deity doesn't
need to go to the bathroom first thing in the morning. So he goes
out. This is one theory. So he went
out by the river, okay? Another idea, others say that
he went to the river to wash. to bathe, and that's reasonable. Others say that he, and I think
this is probably the most correct, that he went to the river to
offer worship to the river, which was the very origin of all of
the gods that the Egyptians worshiped. This is the Nile River. This was the source of their
life. That river provided water for
them to drink, to bathe, cause their crops to grow. So I suspect the main reason
is he went to worship. One God worshiping another God. They believed that all their
gods originated on the banks of the Nile River. Longest river in the world, according
to what I read, 4,132 miles long. And here's what the Lord told
him. You've got to get the picture in your mind here. The Lord says there in verse
15, Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning, lo, he goeth out
unto the water. So you go out first, and thou shalt stand by the river's
brink against or until he comes. Here's the river, here's Moses,
here's Pharaoh. Moses stands between Pharaoh
and his God. And that's what a true preacher
does. He stands before helpless sinners,
before their God. I remember hearing Barnard say
a long time ago, somebody said to him, you know, you can catch
more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. He said, I'm
not trying to catch flies. I'm trying to kill sinners. And
he said, in order to kill sinners, they gotta kill their God. I
gotta kill their God. What in the world is Moses, and
Aaron will join him, what are they doing there by the river's
brink, interrupting Pharaoh from getting to the river? What are
they there for? To kill his God. to expose the
helplessness, the uselessness of the Nile River as being a
God to be worshiped. And that's what preachers of
the gospel do. We stand before people, interrupting
them and their false worship and saying, your God can't save
you. That God that you say, He needs
your help and He's weak. He needs your willingness before
His purpose can be accomplished? Let me stand between you and
the river and your God. Let me stand before you, interrupting
you and your worship of that kind of God, and I'll tell you
about the God who brings to naught all of your false gods. They're
nothing. We are really, God's preachers
are really in the God-killing business, and I mean that with
a little g. And if your Jesus needs your
help, you got the wrong Jesus. The only Jesus that can save
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one who can save. And these people in churches
who preach and believe a false Jesus, who's gotta have your
permission before he can do anything? That's a false Jesus. The Lord Jesus, our Savior, he
said, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. I
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. So there is Moses and Aaron standing
between Pharaoh and his God. And the Lord tells him something.
He says, take that rod. Take that same rod. You got to
remember that because the Lord says up here in verse 15 again, And the rod which was turned
to serpent thou shalt take in thine hand Christ That's who's
pictured with that rod that swallowed up the rods of the magicians
of Pharaoh take it in your hand Because that's what I'm gonna
use And Aaron takes that rod Moses
goes with him and We know what happened The Lord had Moses in
there and warned Pharaoh, said, Behold, I will smite with the
rod that is in mine hand the waters which are in the river,
and they shall be turned to blood. When I think of blood, there
are two things that I think of, life and death, right? That's what you think of when
you think of blood. Leviticus 17, 11, the life of the flesh
is in the blood. It's in the blood. Years ago,
they thought, well, if somebody's got a fever or whatever, they're
bloodletting. We'll just bleed them a little
and maybe bleed them to death. Whereas the word of God, which
was written hundreds and hundreds of years ago, this passage in
Leviticus 17, 11, says the life of the flesh is in the blood.
That's where the life's at. And we read about the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. We're talking about his life
laid down. His life laid down. But blood also speaks of death. It speaks of death. You lose
too much blood, you're gonna die. You're gonna die. It doesn't matter. If there's
not blood available to give you a transfusion, you're gonna die. Blood's that important. You've got to remember, when
the Lord says he's going to turn that river from water to blood,
you've got to remember that the Lord is killing, at least temporarily,
this God. See how much power this Nile
River's got. God said, you take that rod.
You take that rod. Stretch out your hand upon the
waters of Egypt, upon the streams, the rivers, the ponds, the pools. They'll become blood. And Aaron
did that. Even if it'd been a rain, maybe
the day before and he had some rain water. You know, we had
a hard rain yesterday. And you see the water puddles
up. Man, every puddle in Egypt was
blood. except where the Israelites lived
in the land of Goshen. Everything was blood. Who did
that? I'll tell you who did that. The
same Lord of glory to whom belong the issues of life and death. I'm telling you, he can cause
you to live forever, or he can harden your heart like he hardened
Pharaoh's. I tell you, it's time preachers
stood up on their hind legs and said, our God is sovereign. He
does his will in heaven, earth, and in all deep places. And in
his power is to give life. It's in his power to give life.
It's in his power to send death. That's who we're dealing with.
We're not dealing with some kind of mamby-pamby God that can't
make up his mind what he wants to do and he's leaning over the
banisters of heaven. Saying, oh, where did I go wrong?
Maybe I'll have to start all over. I heard some stupid preacher
saying that the other day. It's the God who says, I kill,
I make alive. And I'm telling you, he has the
power to kill you or make you alive. He can put you away forever.
That's what he did to Pharaoh. Or he can save you forever by
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and make you a trophy of his
grace. That's up to him. Take the rod. Take the rod. And he did. And everything that
had to do with the Nile River and water in a bucket, I mean,
they didn't have toilets like we have. We'd turn on the faucet. If they'd had faucets, they'd
turn it on, it'd been bloody, been blood water. Water in the buckets. I just
read it. Wooden bucket. Stone bucket. It didn't make any difference.
Could have been a beautiful bucket. Bucket crafted by some skilled
worker. It became blood. I don't care
how beautiful your religion is. If it's not the truth of God,
is death in it. It's death like Elisha, death
in the pot. See the blood meant death. And notice in verse 20, I gotta
go quickly. But Moses and Aaron did so as
the Lord commanded. He lifted up the rod, he smoked
the waters that were in the river in the sight of Pharaoh. Now
watch this. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants
and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.
This wasn't a secretive thing where the water was turned to
blood. But I would have you fast forward to another bloody scene
at the cross of Calvary. That wasn't a secretive thing
either. That's what Paul told King Agrippa
in the book of Acts. He said, I'm preaching just what
all the prophets preach. The Lord Jesus died, was buried,
and rose again the third day. He said, oh, King Agrippa, you
know these things weren't done in a corner. They weren't done
in private. and this judgment that God sent
upon the river Nile, it wasn't done in a corner. Pharaoh and his servants were
there and they saw all of a sudden that water that they worshipped,
that they honored, that they bowed to, all of a sudden that
water, boom, just like that, became blood and all the fish
died immediately. And it didn't take long for the
river to stink. And there's another way of looking
at this too. I pray that God will so kill
your God, that false God in your mind, that everything about him
will stink. Because religion by works, religion
by man's self-righteousness, religion by keeping the law,
religion by doing good is a stinking religion to God. Only grace, the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ. His sacrifice was a sweet savor
to God, a sweet savor. Well, we know the magician duplicated
that miracle as well. And I think they did it with
the sleight of their hand. I don't know where they got their
water from. Perhaps they dug down. There's
an indication down here in verse 24 that the Egyptians could dig
down and find some subterranean water. Perhaps they did that
and they come up with, all right, I got water here. And I think,
again, they deceived and they dropped something in it and turned
it, make it look like blood. That's what false preachers do. They say they believe in the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they're deceptive. They're
not telling the truth. They're not honoring God. What effect did it have upon
Pharaoh? Show me a sign, show me a miracle. He said, I'm going back to my
palace. You done fooled with my God now,
you've hurt my feelings. I'm gonna go back to my palace.
That's what it says in verse 23. Pharaoh turned and went into
his house, neither did he set his heart to this also. It didn't
have any effect upon him. Seven days were fulfilled. And
I can give you one more thing, and I've held you a little bit
long, but let me give you one more thing. Here is water, water
turned to blood. That's judgment. But I would
have you think of another scene in the Gospel of John, Chapter
2, another case of water. And it's changed into something.
But it's not changed to blood. It's not changed to death. It's
changed to wine. I'll tell you what, that's God's
doing. and he can give you a taste for
the gospel of God's grace, and you'll see the blood of Jesus
Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin, and you can drink
that wine, that golden elixir of substitutionary sacrifice,
and it'll make you happy and make you joyful. And you'll go
away so delighted with the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. And that
he, through that sacrifice, God makes you alive. You're not dead. Well, we'll keep on going next
Wednesday. Let's get our psalm books one
more time. Let's sing another song about the blood, number
210, saved by the blood.