Let's go back to the book of
Exodus now, and I want you to turn to Exodus chapter 7. I've actually read these verses
to you on three or four occasions at least, and I just want to
start here and then lay a foundation for the remarks that I'm going
to make tonight. And here's my subject, bringing
Israel out of Egypt. Because that's what God purposed
to do, was to bring his people. He called Israel, he said, they're
my people. And he purposed to bring them
out of Egyptian captivity. They've been in Egypt now for
400 plus years. And the last 80 to 100 years
have been miserable years. Years in which they toiled at the hands of a cruel pharaoh
who showed them no mercy. And in their time of grief, in
their time of bondage, in their time of captivity, the scripture
says they cried out to God. And the Lord who put that cry
in their hearts answered the cry. See, that's the way it works. The Lord puts a desire in our
hearts, a cry in our hearts. Oh God, show me mercy for Christ's
sake. Oh God, forgive me. Oh God, receive
me upon the basis of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
died, was buried, and rose again, and who intercedes for us in
heaven, seated at the right hand of God. God puts that cry within
our hearts, and when he puts the cry within our hearts, he
will answer the cry. That's the way it works. And
so they have cried out to the Lord. And now look what the Lord
says to Moses. He says in verse 3 of chapter
7 of Exodus. He says, and I will harden Pharaoh's
heart. That's God's prerogative now. Don't take issue with God over
that. He who softens hearts has the
right, the sovereign right, to harden hearts according to His
will. If your heart has been made soft,
receptive to the gospel of grace, receptive to the truth of God's
Word, of who God is in His glorious sovereignty, in all of His attributes,
If your heart has been made soft to receive what God says about
you, about me, about all of us, that we've all gone astray, we've
all together become unprofitable, and there's none of us any good. No, not even one. Has your heart
been made soft to hear what God says? There's not a just man
upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. Oh, how blessed
is that heart that has been softened to receive God's testimony of
our terrible condition. And if your heart has been made
soft to receive who God is, in His holiness, in His justice,
in His sovereignty. If your heart has been made soft
to receive what God says the way He describes you and the
way He describes me, then your heart will also be soft to receive
this word. The only way of salvation is
the Lord Jesus Christ who was sacrificed by the justice of
God in order to save his people from their sins. Not by works
of righteousness, which we've done, but according to his mercy,
he saved us. You see, salvation is not about
merit. It's not about getting what we
deserve. If we got what we deserve based
on what we've done, while we'd get nothing but death and judgment
and hell. But we are rewarded for the faithfulness
of our Lord Jesus Christ who laid down His life to satisfy
God and put our sins away. We're rewarded for His obedience
unto death, even the death of the cross. The wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God, now that's eternal life through Jesus
Christ, our Lord. Oh, God's softened hearts. It
please you to do so, but he doesn't have to. He can leave your heart hard
and he can harden it even more. That's what he did to Pharaoh.
He who softens hearts, he also hardens hearts. God said, I will
harden Pharaoh's heart. And I'll multiply my signs, verse
three, and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But he says, Pharaoh
shall not hearken unto you. Now Moses, you're gonna go forth
with my message. by my authority, because I'm
sending you forth. But you need to understand this,
Pharaoh is not going to hearken to what you have to say. And here's the reason, that I
may lay my hand upon Egypt and bring forth mine armies, that
is my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt
by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know
that I am the Lord when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and
bring out the children of Israel from among them." He's going
to bring them out. That's what God has purposed
to do. That's His design. That's His intent. That's what
He has decreed to do. Turn over to the New Testament.
I want to read you a verse over here that you've read many times
in Ephesians chapter one. Ephesians chapter one. Now keep in mind through all
of this the subject is bringing Israel out of Egypt. That's what
God is designed to do. That's what God is purposed to
do. And we know he's successful because he brought them out,
and I'll show you that in a little bit. But Ephesians chapter 1,
now we believe, according to the scriptures, that the Lord
our God is a God of purpose. His purpose is eternal, his purpose
is absolute, and his purpose is unchangeable. Before the world
began, God determined all things that will ever come to pass.
Nothing, nothing in His vast creation is left to chance. Everything is moving, everything. Everything is moving to the predetermined
end of God's eternal purpose with absolute Absolute, precise
accuracy. This book teaches that the Lord
our God is the first cause and the designer and the originator
of all things. Now look at Ephesians 111. In
whom? Now that's in Christ. You go
through the first chapter as you know, and you've heard this
many times. Henry told you and Bill told
you and I keep telling you. Everything's in Christ. Everything
God has for sinners is in Christ. You go through here, we were
chosen in Christ, predestinated in Christ, accepted in Christ,
on and on it goes. And now he tells us in verse
11, in whom, in Christ, we have obtained, in Him, in Him, we've
already obtained an inheritance. being predestinated according
to the purpose of him who worketh all things, who worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will. You see, if all things
are of God, and if the Lord accomplishes his purpose always, then four
things have to be true. Let me give you these four things. Number one, there must be a divine
purpose. This is the divine will, the
divine design. See, he who would begin a project
or she who would purpose to do something of any greatness or
of any magnitude at all, if they begin that purpose with thoughtlessness,
that person is foolhardy. Well, God is not foolhardy. And before the world began, he
ordained, he purposed absolutely everything without exception. There are no exceptions. So that
means everything that happens to you and everything that happens
to me, everything that happens in the world, whether we like
it or don't like it, whether we approve or we don't approve,
whether it's in health or in sickness, whether it's in wholeness
or disease, whatever it is, whether it's in peacetime or wartime,
whether it's in feasting or famine, All things that happen in this
world happen according to the purpose of God. He has purposed
all things. Secondly, when we talk about
the purpose of God, there is a permanence to the purpose of
God. That is, His purpose is unchangeable,
and the Bible word for that is immutable. His purpose, He has a purpose
in everything. To everything there is a purpose,
Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes. And of God's eternal purpose
regarding everything, there is a permanence to it. You see,
God is eternal. We know that. From everlasting
to everlasting, thou art God. Therefore, His purpose is eternal. In other words, God is making
no new decrees. He doesn't have knee-jerk reactions
like we do. It isn't that you do something,
then God reacts. No, God has purpose, and you
react, and we react. I just read there from Isaiah
46, God said, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient
times, the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel
shall stand, my purpose shall stand, my intent shall stand,
my design shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. Now, you
want to do all your pleasure, you want to do all of your intentions,
but you don't have the ability to do that. But God does. And there is therefore
a permanence to his purpose. When did God ordain all things? When did God purpose all things?
Back in what I call eternity past. Thirdly, here's the third thing.
So we got purpose, we got permanence, here's the third thing. Everything
God does regarding his purpose that is permanent, he does it
with prudence. He does it with wisdom. God does
not, he does not exercise his sovereignty in fulfilling his
purpose haphazardly. But according to his infinite
prudence and wisdom, You see, the purpose of God is always
in His view. And all things are continually
fulfilling His will. After all, who but God could
purpose all things and then determine how all things will work toward
the fulfillment of His eternal purpose? This took infinite wisdom. What prudence! You see, wisdom
is knowledge rightly used. And God has a knowledge of all
things. He rightly uses His infinite
knowledge in fulfilling His design. He has infinite prudence. I spoke yesterday at the funeral
and I was talking about my last visit in the hospital with Janet.
We talked about glory. We talked about heaven. And I
was reading some yesterday by a writer, I'm sure Bill is aware
of, Thomas Boston. And he was talking about what
are we going to be doing forever? He said, we will be learning.
about the infinite God infinitely. Oh, how great is our God and
how infinite is his purpose and we will spend eternity, if that's
the right way to say it, learning infinitely about him and about
the glories of Christ our Savior, the glories of the Holy Spirit.
and the intricacies of God's purpose that is permanent, that
he is bringing to pass with his divine prudence. Oh, how wise is our God. And fourthly, of his purpose, which is permanent,
exercised in prudence, In order to bring it all to pass, there
must be power. There must be power. You see it says here in verse
11, he worketh all things. Think of that word worketh as
God is exerting energy and yet his energy level never goes down,
okay? In fact, energy comes from this
original word. God is continually working. You
remember in John chapter five, the man who was lame for 38 years
and the Lord Jesus healed him. And it was on the Sabbath day
and the Jews were ready to kill him. And they go try to put him
out of business. And he goes into the next, The
next chapter, and the Savior said, my father worketh hitherto,
and I work, and that's when they picked up stones to stone him.
My father worketh. He's working. God's always working. He's always exerting his energy
that never goes down. His energy level never goes down. Ours does. But not our God. He's always working. He's working
all things after the counsel of His own will. He's always
at work. That's His power. His power that
is never diminished. He's ever active, fulfilling
His purpose. You see, in these words, Paul
leaves nothing out of God's active control. Unlike what most people
think, God is not an idle bystander or onlooker or spectator with
regards to all that He has made. He's working. He's working. And you see, that's the meaning
there in Romans chapter 8 and verse 28. And we know that all
things work Work together. Who's working them together? The God of purpose. The God of
prudence. The God of permanence. The God
of power. You say, I don't see how in the
world He does that. Well, you don't need to see how
He does that. You say, I can't wrap my mind
around it. You can't wrap your mind around
the infinite God. His ways are higher than we can
even begin to commence to get started understanding. Faith
just lays hold of him in his greatness and says, Lord, I believe
you. I believe you are as you say
you are in your word. Absolute great. The Lord is always
working. Because he has absolute power,
he has all power over all things to give eternal life to as many
as the Father has given him is what the Savior said in his high
priestly prayer. He said, he said, all power is
given unto me in heaven and in earth. He told his disciples,
now you go forth and preach the gospel. That's one of the reasons
we keep on preaching, because the one we represent, the Savior
of sinners, the sovereign King of kings and Lord of lords, He
has all power over everybody. And He'll give eternal life to
as many as the Father has given Him. Now, we see these four things
in God's purpose to liberate Israel. from Egyptian captivity. We see these four things. We
see his purpose. What is God's purpose? Well,
his purpose is to bring Israel out of Egyptian bondage. That's
his purpose. Well, how long has God had this
purpose? Well, permanently. This was always
his design. He's the one who brought them
into Egypt to begin with. And sin is how he raises up one
king and brings another down. The cruel Pharaoh that knew not
Joseph, nor anything about Joseph, that is nothing about Joseph,
interested him. It was the Lord who brought down
the Pharaoh that liked Joseph and the Israelites, and put up
a man on the throne who hated Israel. God did that. That's
God's purpose at work. It was God's purpose at work
when the Israelites were then treated cruelly. And then when
they really began to multiply. And He said, you know, if they
joined with other nations, they could put us out of business. They could conquer our country,
Pharaoh said. So let them make bricks without
straw. We're not gonna provide the straw
for them anymore. We're not gonna provide the materials.
They'll have to provide the materials for themselves. I'll make life
as hard on them as I can possibly make it. Was God still in control
then? Oh, yes. Because you see, he's
bringing Israel by his power And according to his purpose,
he's bringing Israel to such a point that they'll cry out
to God in their need, in their dismal time of trouble. And when they cried out, God
heard them because his purpose was at work. He's going to deliver them according
to His prudence in a very wise way. Now, you know and I know
He could have liberated them right from the get-go, right? The Lord could have willed the
death of Pharaoh and all of his armies that all fell down dead.
Well, sure He could have done that. But He's not going to do it that
way. Because he's exercising prudence. He's going to go through a series
of plex judgments that he's going to bring upon the Egyptians.
And the Israelites are going to watch. And they're going to
watch and they're going to see God has made a difference. Look
what's happened to them and it's not happening to us. Look how the flies are over there,
but there are no flies over here in Goshen. Look at how there's
darkness over there and there's light over here. Look at their
cattle dropping dead from the disease. Our cattle are doing
just fine. They're going to learn that it's
the Lord who makes the difference. It's the Lord who makes the difference
in all issues, including the issues of life and death. Those are in the hands of God. God did make a difference. Turn
back to Exodus chapter 11. Let me show you this. Exodus chapter 11. And look at, and Moses is speaking
to the Israelites, and this is very important. Anytime you go
to a passage of scripture, you want to consider who the speaker
is and who he's speaking to. Okay? The speaker here is Moses,
and he's just relaying God's message on this occasion, not
to the Egyptians. But the Israelites, chapter 11
and verse 4, and Moses said, he's speaking to the children
of Israel, here's the representatives of the families, here are the
elders of Israel, and they're all gathered together, and Moses
said, thus saith the Lord, I'm delivering to you God's word,
he said, about midnight. Well, I go out into the midst
of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die,
from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne,
even unto the firstborn of the maid servant that is behind the
mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a
great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there
was none like it, nor shall be like it any more. against any of the children of
Israel shall not a dog move his tongue against man or beast,
that ye may know," not that the Egyptians may know, but that
you may know. This is for you to think about,
to ponder, to meditate, that you may know how that the Lord
doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. You
think about that. I tell you, here we are tonight,
seeking the glory of Christ, studying the word of God. You
folks joined here and those of you who are watching by way of
the internet, we have an interest in the things of God, thanks
to his grace given to us in Christ before the foundation of the
world. And here we are believing the Son of God. We love the Word
of God. We love to study. We love to
know more about this God who chose us, who ordained us into
everlasting life, and this Savior who prevailed over the law of
God in fulfilling it and dying under its curse, He whipped the
serpent. He crushed his head when the
Savior died. The Savior put away our sins.
He brought in for us everlasting righteousness. Know this, God
has put a difference. He's made you different. There's a difference between
the Egyptians and the Israelites. And it wasn't a difference that
they made because in many ways, the Egyptians and the Israelites
were just alike. Hey, the Israelites, as sinful as the Egyptians, rebellious like the Egyptians,
unthankful like the Egyptians, idolaters like the Egyptians
because there's every indication that they fell into idolatry
right in line with the Egyptians. In fact, had not God made life
difficult for them and stirred them up, while they'd have been
quite satisfied to just sunk their roots down in Egypt and
just been absorbed into the Egyptian empire, and then Israel would
have been done away with. That would have suited them just
fine to live a life of comfort and ease and pleasure, living
out the rest of their days. They're just like the Egyptians.
but there's a difference. And the difference is the difference
God made. And we know that Israel stands
as a picture, a type, of God's true Israel, spiritual Israel. And in this world, there are
the people of God, And as it says in Romans chapter 11 and
verse 7, the rest. That's the only two groups there
are. The chosen of God, the elect, the remnant, according to the
election of grace, chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world unto eternal salvation, the election hath obtained it.
The rest were blinded. Why did God deliver Israel from
Egyptian bondage, and yet He drowned the greatest army in
the world in the Red Sea? Why did He do that? Because of
a difference He purposed before the world began that was a permanent
difference, a prudent difference, and a difference that was made
known by His power. His power. God had Moses tell Israel, I'm
doing this. I'm delivering you. I'm going
to bring you out of Egyptian bondage that you may know. And those of you here, those
who are watching, who believe the glorious gospel of the grace
of God, know this. It's of God. God made a difference. And he made the difference before
the world was created. Before he ever invented or created
time. The Lord said there are just
two groups of people. Look back at chapter I believe
it is. Watch this. Look what the Lord
says. And for brevity's sake, let me
just begin at verse 22. The Lord says, tells Moses to
tell Pharaoh, and I will sever in that day the land of Goshen
in which my people dwell. Listen, 18 times, if I counted
right, about 18 times in the first 12 or 14 chapters of the
book of Exodus, God refers to Israel as my people. My people. And I'll tell you, God's got
a spiritual people that he says are my people. In fact, the name
of the Lord Jesus means he shall save his people from their sins. And people fuss about that and
argue about that. Well, I tell you what, you just
arguing against the Word of God and you can argue from now to
eternity and it ain't gonna change a thing. Bow to the Word of God. Believe what God says. God made
a difference. There's his people, now read
on. So I will sever in that day the land of Goshen in which my
people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there. And
we'll talk about this later. You know, they worship Beelzebub,
the God of the flies, the Lord of the flies. Lord, you want
a fly for your God? Here's millions of them. But he says to the end, that
thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth
and I will put a division. I will put a division between
my people and thy people. Pharaoh is a type of Satan. They're the only two groups in
the whole world, God's people and the devil's people. That's
what the Lord told those hard-hearted Jews in John chapter eight. They
said, we're of our father Abraham. He said, you of your father the
devil. There are just two groups, children
of light and children of darkness. My people and thy people. And this is a permanent thing.
It's a permanent thing. It's not going to change. God made a difference. Now, how
would the difference be manifested? Let me give you this. How would
this difference be manifested? Well, first of all, God's going
to give to His people a Passover lamb. The Passover lamb starts with
a lamb, then the lamb, then your lamb. That's who Christ is to
us. The Lord himself ordained their
deliverance, that he would bring them out of Egypt by means of
death, but not their death. the death of a suitable substitute. That's according to his purpose.
He permanently ordained that. In his prudence, in his wisdom,
this is the way he ordained it. And he brought it to pass by
his power. Passover lamb. That's different. When the Lord passed through
that night, as all those houses of the Israelites, the blood,
the blood, the blood saved the firstborn. And God said, Israel
is my firstborn. How does God save his firstborn? How has he saved us? How has
he redeemed us? the blood of the Son of God.
It's the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. Without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission of sins. But he's gonna make this difference
known another way, and I'll give you this, and then we'll sing
the closing song. Look at chapter 10. He's gonna make this difference
known another way, too. The Passover lamb, He's gonna make this difference
known. Instructions given to Israel, not to Egypt, to the
Israelites. But here's another way. Here's
something else. God makes the difference. Look at verse 21. And the Lord,
chapter 10, verse 21. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness
over the land of Egypt. How thick was that darkness?
Even darkness which may be felt. Boy, that's blackness, isn't
it? That's darkness there. And Moses
stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick
darkness in all the land of Egypt for 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 this is a difference God made
with this group over here in the dark. ain't gonna stay in
the dark. And here are the Israelites.
He's bringing them out of Egypt. And guess where they are? They're
in the light. They're in the light. Oh, blessed grace of the sovereign
God. He has put us in the light. He
shined the light of the gospel in our hearts. Christ the light
has come to us, and in thy light, we see light. You see, we will
remain in darkness until him who is the light of the world
comes to us. And I'll tell you what, when
he comes, he brings a light with him. And he illuminates us. In our hearts, the son of righteousness,
he comes and shines the gospel light in our hearts. And we see
him who is the light. Could have left us in darkness,
but he didn't. The Lord put a difference. Thank God for the light of the
gospel of the grace of God in Christ. Well, let's get a song. We'll sing a closing song. Let's
turn to 204. Turn your eyes upon Jesus.