Let's go back to the book of
Exodus tonight. The book of Exodus. And I really want to revisit
some verses that I just kind of touched on last week, and
that would be Exodus chapter 4 and verses 1 through 5, and
I want to talk to you about the rod of Moses. That's my subject tonight. The
rod of Moses. Exodus chapter 4, And Moses answered
the Lord and said, But behold, they will not believe me, nor
hearken unto my voice. For they will say, The Lord hath
not appeared unto thee. Isn't it wonderful that our salvation
and acceptance before God is not based upon our faithfulness,
but upon His faithfulness. Indeed, I read this to you last
week. Paul said, if we believe not,
yet He abideth faithful. He's faithful to His covenant
promises. He's faithful to His Son. And
He's faithful to every one of His children to do that which
He has purpose to do for us. He has washed us. He has made
us righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to God. For he has long ago adopted us
into his family. And he said, I'll never leave
you. I'll never forsake you. When
you go through the deep waters, I'll be with you. When you're
called upon to endure fiery trials, you'll go through them. They
will not devour you. Thank God for His faithfulness. All of us are surely aware of
the weakness of our own faith. And I wouldn't give that as an
excuse, but there's not one of us who believes God like we ought
to. If we believed Him like we should, We wouldn't be troubled
in our hearts. We wouldn't know anxiety. Worry
would be something altogether foreign to us. But all of us
know all too well about the reality of these things. May God give us faith to trust
him. No matter what. No matter what. And though he puts us through
the fiery trials of life, Malachi, the prophet of God, the last
one to speak in the Old Testament, said that he shall sit as a refiner. He watches us. And those difficulties
that He brings to pass in our lives, they're never going to
consume you. Because the Lord sits and watches. He governs. He measures out exactly
that which He deems necessary for you and for me. And we often find ourselves like
Moses. Of whom, in the book of Hebrews,
we read nothing about his unbelief. We only read in the book of Hebrews
that he was one of the heroes of the faith. And the reason
that we don't read about that, like what he said here, it's
obvious he's in an unbelieving stupor. But the reason we don't read
of these things in the New Testament is because the sins of Moses
and the sins of all of God's people in the Old Testament,
and our sins, all of them, even our unbelief, even our unfaithfulness. And I wouldn't make excuses for
them. But all of our sins are under the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You need to get comfort from
that now. You need to rest your weary soul
upon the bosom of the blessed Savior who loved you and gave
Himself for you. Moses here is having a fit of
unbelief. He doesn't believe God. Though
the Lord has just said He's going to be with you, He says, The
people are not going to hear my voice. The Lord had just said,
they're going to hear you. I'm going to make sure they hear
you. But God forgave him. And don't beat up on yourself
too much, because I'm telling you, God has already forgiven
you of the weakness of your faith. And here's what we ask the Lord.
Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. Enable me to believe you more.
I tell you, without faith, the Scripture says, Hebrews 11, it
is impossible to please God. Would you be one who's pleasing
to God? A child of God? and doing that
which is honoring to the Lord. I said last week and I've said
it many, many times. There's no greater thing you
can do than just take God at His Word. I know people want to do great
things. They want to do magnificent things. Things that really will
draw attention to them. Tell me some work to do so I
can honor God. Well, this is something you can
do, but nobody will see it but God. And He honors the heart that
rests in Him. Well, let me go on, verse 2.
And the Lord said to him, what is that in thine hand? He said,
a rod. And the Lord said, cast it on
the ground. And he cast it on the ground
and it became a serpent. And Moses, he ran from it. He fled from it. And the Lord
said unto Moses, put forth thine hand and take it by the tail.
And he put forth his hand and caught it. And it became a rod
in his hand, that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath
appeared unto thee. And here's another name for that
Moses rod, the rod of Moses. Here's another name for it. Look
over in verse 20. And Moses took his wife and his
sons and set them upon an ass, And he returned to the land of
Egypt, and Moses took, it isn't just Moses' rod, this is the
rod of God. This is the rod of God, and he
took it in his hands. Now, I got two things to say
about this serpent business. Number one, the serpent is indeed
the symbol of death, of man's ruin. Go back to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3. Adam, our representative, has
sinned against God. Nothing happened when Eve sinned
because she represented nobody. She wasn't even her own representative. So when she defied what I'm sure
Adam had relayed to her, the words of Adam that God said,
don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in
the day ye eat thereof, you'll surely die. I'm sure that Adam,
I feel positive that Adam informed his wife, who's the mother of
all flesh, he would have said to her, That tree right there
in the middle of the garden, now honey, that's a symbol of
God's absolute authority over us and over all things. And God
told me, God told me, don't eat of the fruit of that tree, for
in the day ye thereof, you're going to die. And Eve, being tempted by the
serpent, the evil one, Satan, the devil, She went ahead and took that
fruit. I suspect that she saw the serpent
probably. He said, well, watch me eat.
And he took whatever the fruit was and he ate it. He said, nothing
happened to me. I didn't die. Well, he's already dead. Spiritually. He's already spiritually dead.
I'm sure Eve said, now honey, It's what God told us isn't right.
And I just believe this serpent talking to me, I believe what
he has to say that in the day we eat, we'll be as God's knowing
good and evil. Why don't you eat? And we will
enjoy absolute authority. We'll enjoy dominion over all
the world. And it won't be God who has dominion
over us. We will have dominion over everything. We'll be as God's. And he deliberately went against
what God told him not to do. And he ate. All of us became sinners as a
result of that. We know that and I'll go over
that in just a little bit. But I want you to look down. Let me read verses 13 and 14.
It says, After Adam fell and all of us fell in him. Look at
verse 13. And the Lord said unto the woman,
in fact, I'll back up to verse 12. The man said when God asked
him, have you eaten of the fruit that I told you not to eat of,
verse 12. The man said, the woman whom
thou gavest me to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I
did eat. And the Lord God said unto the
woman, what is this that thou hast done? And the woman said,
the serpent beguiled me. He deceived me and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the
serpent, because thou hast done this,
thou art cursed. That serpent is the symbol of
death, the symbol of curse. It's the symbol of God's curse.
Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle,
above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go,
and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will
put enmity between thee, serpent, Satan, the devil, Lucifer, between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and it
shall bruise thy head." You're going to receive a mortal blow,
a death blow from the seed of the woman. We know that's Messiah,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And in doing that, thou shalt
bruise His heel. He'll be wounded, but you're
going to be destroyed. And so we have here God's first
words concerning a curse. But actually, there was a curse
already pronounced that was going to happen. See right here the
curse is upon the serpent. Go back to Genesis chapter 2
and verses 16 and 17. And the Lord commanded the man
saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it. Very clear commandment, thou
shalt not. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die." The Lord didn't say, if you eat
of it, you'll die. He said, in the day you eat of
it. Because the fall of man did not catch God off guard. God had already ordained all
things before He ever made the heavens and the earth. And it was through the fall of
man that sin would be brought in which would necessitate the
presence of a Redeemer whom God would send into this world to
save sinners by His bloody sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary, thereby
God will get His greatest glory. The forgiveness of sins. The
declaration of sinners being made the righteousness of God
in Christ Jesus. This death that God announced
to Adam, it was really a curse because it's a punishment. That's
what a curse is. A curse is a punishment. And
the Lord is going to punish sin. He has to. He has to. And the Lord says, here's the
curse upon you. You'll die. That's the punishment. That's the curse. And it will
not only be physical death, but it will be spiritual death. And
unless God is pleased to intervene, there will be eternal death. I have five questions. Number one, what was the curse
of God's law upon man? What was the curse? Very simple. Death. Now hold your place. Go over to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. And I want
to read verse 12 to you. These are elementary truths,
but vital truths that need to be ingrained in us, put in us
by the Spirit of God to remember. What was the curse of God's law
upon man? Death for sin. Romans 5.12. Wherefore, as by one man, who's
that? Adam. Right? Wherefore, as by
one man, this thing called sin entered into the world. And death
by sin. And so death passed upon all
men. For all have sinned. That is,
all sinned in Adam's transgression because he was our legal representative
before God. And you see, the curse was death. Here's what God did. God placed
a value on violating His law. There was a cost involved. Adam,
here's what it's going to cost you if you defy Me. If you break this one commandment
that I give you, if you eat of the fruit that I have forbidden
you to eat of it, Here's what it's going to cost you. Here's
the cost. Are you ready to pay the cost,
Adam? It's death. It's death. That's the curse
of the law. Go over to Galatians chapter
3. Galatians chapter 3. And look
at verse 10. Oh, there is a cost. There's
a payment price. for violating, breaking, defying
what God told you not to do, Adam. It's death. You're under a curse. Punishment. Galatians chapter 3 and verse
10. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, For it is written, Cursed is
every one that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law, to do them." What did God say in the Old Testament
about breaking His law? About sin. He said, the soul
that sinneth shall die. You're going to die. That's what God told Adam. That's
the value. That's the value that God placed
upon, that's the cost that had to be paid if Adam went against
what God told him. Death. That's very clear. Which brings me to the second
question. since the curse for breaking God's law was death,
what price was required to satisfy the curse of the law? What price
was required? And once again, the answer is
death. For the law of God to be satisfied,
it has to exact The value, that price that God has determined
is the cost of sinning against Him. Your death, the soul that sinneth
shall die. Which brings me to the third
question. Since death was the curse, that God placed upon man,
that's the cost of defying Him, and Christ has come to save His
people from that curse, what had to happen to Him? Death! That's the only thing
that's going to satisfy the law of God, since the curse was death,
and death was the price that God required and demanded, but
man's death, Couldn't pay the price in full. Never could. You see, when God sends a sinner
into everlasting torment, darkness, the object of God's retribution,
God's vengeance, God's wrath, that sinner is an object of God's
judgment for the rest of eternity. He's never going to satisfy the
cost. He can't pay the cost. Not if
a person was punished for a million years. Not eternity. Man's death couldn't pay the
price in full. Therefore, the Scripture says
here, look in verse 13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse
of the law. How did He do that? He was made
a curse for us. He had to die. Somebody's going
to die. That's just the way it is. Because
that's the value, that's the cost, that's the expense that
God has placed upon defying Him. Death. And therefore Christ died. And the death of the Son of God,
you see, is altogether different from the death of a sinner. Because of who He is. He's the Son of God. Made flesh to suffer, bleed and
die. And in the death of the Son of
God, He paid the price. that all of his people, if they
had suffered in hell forever, the price that they could never
pay, he paid it. In full. You know what paid in
full means. That's kind of nice. Here you've
borrowed some money or whatever and you pay on it and pay on
it, pay on the note, maybe it's your house, maybe it's your car,
whatever it is. And when you finally make that
last payment, and you put there in your checkbook a little note, paid in full, that gives you
a good feeling. When our Lord Jesus died under
the curse of God's law, He was cursed! And the curse is death. The curse is punishment. He was
punished in our stead because all of the sins of God's elect,
of God's people, were transferred over to Him. And He was responsible
for the cost. That price of redemption that
God demanded to be freed from the curse of the law, Christ
said, I'll bear the curse. And He did. Because He bore our
sins in His own body on the tree. And God the Father exacted from
Him everything that His law demanded. And he paid it in full so that
he then said with his dying breath, it is finished. Or you can just
say paid in full. Paid in full. You see, the price of redemption
was a death equal in value to spending an eternal life. suffering
the wrath of God, suffering the curse of the law. Number four,
how did Christ come to die this death? Was this in the hands of men?
No. God appointed Him to die this
death. and the covenant of grace. God
had chosen a people unto salvation. And the Son of God was appointed
and He willingly entered into the covenant to the legal binding
agreement with the Father and the Spirit. Father, I trust Him
to me. I'll be made flesh. I'll live
amongst wicked people in the earth, I'll be tempted in all
points like as they are tempted, and yet I'll prove that I'm without
sin, I'm qualified to be the payment price for redemption
in my death. And He redeemed us from the curse
of the law. I love this language. Christ
hath redeemed us. It doesn't say He tried to redeem
us, made an effort to redeem us. He did His dead-level best
to pay the price demanded by God's justice. It doesn't say
that. He hath redeemed us. Which brings me to the next question.
Who did He redeem? Us. Us. There's a particular people involved
here. Not all of Adam's fallen race, but all that the Father gave
to Christ Jesus before the world began. He hath redeemed us. And let me tell you something.
If He bought you, He will have you. It can't wind up any other
way. What kind of justice would there
be when a bill is paid in full and then the law still comes
after you and says you've got to pay this? Well, that's no justice at all.
Christ hath redeemed us. Us. Which means we cannot be
cursed. We cannot be cursed. 1 Peter
chapter 1 says we're redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Surely one of the greatest truths
of the Word of God is that Christ has borne the curse, the punishment,
the death that we deserve to die. And since He died the death
that we deserve, No curse remains for us. There is no curse. There
is no punishment. There is therefore now no condemnation
of them which are in Christ Jesus. That's why I keep harping on
these two words, probably mention them just about every time I
preach. Two of the most important words you can learn to understand
the gospel of the grace of God substitution and satisfaction. If the Lord Jesus died for me,
God's justice, God's law can demand nothing from me except
my everlasting freedom. Because somebody's been punished
in my stead. He was my substitute. He died
in my place. and He satisfied the justice
of God. And you see back over here in
Exodus chapter 4, this serpent, the Lord said, throw down your
rod, Moses. That rod then became a symbol
of death. And our Lord Jesus is likened
to that serpent which was lifted up in the wilderness. He's the cursed one! And because He's the cursed one,
we'll never be cursed. See, the serpent was the symbol
of death and punishment. That's what Christ suffered for
us. And then secondly, the serpent was a symbol of healing. Of healing. That's why we're introduced to
the rod of Moses. This rod was a picture, not only
of the very power of God, but it's a picture of the Son of
God. Turn to Psalm 110. Psalm 110. I told you to go back
to Exodus 4, but look at Psalm 110. That rod of Moses that turned
into a serpent and then he picked it back up and then it was turned
into a rod again, which later the Lord called it the rod of
God, this rod pictures somebody. No question about it. Psalm 110,
you there? Psalm 110 verse 1. The Lord said
unto my Lord, this is what David said, My Lord is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Same one Thomas was talking about
there in John 20. My Lord and my God. The Lord
said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine
enemies thy footstool. And we read those words in Hebrews
chapter 10. Watch this. The Lord shall send
the rod of thy strength out of Zion. The Lord Jesus Christ is
the rod of God's strength. And I know that because look
at the next words. Rule thou, this rod of God's
strength, rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.
And then He says of our Lord Jesus, Thy people, this One who
is the rod of God's strength, He has a people. Matthew 1.21,
His name is Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. Thy people. Thy people, you're
going into the world to save, to redeem, to buy back. to pay the price demanded by
the law of God. Expensive it was to Him, because
it cost Him His life. It cost Him a brief amount of
separation from the Father. This was an expensive price to
redeem us. And remember, God set the value. God set the cost. And since Christ has come and
died under the wrath of God, being made sin for His people
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, now He says, Thy
people shall be willing. In the day of thy power and the
beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning, thou hast
the dew of thy youth." This rod of God's strength is obviously
somebody. The Savior is the rod of God's
strength. When Moses went, and as we're
going to see in the next several weeks, When he goes and the Lord
gives him the ability to work all these plagues in Egypt, you
know what he will use? The rod of God's strength. Listen
to me. Our Lord Jesus is the rod of
God's strength in grace. But he's also the rod of God's
strength in judgment. In grace, in salvation, and in
judgment. He does both. Both. Do you remember, let me show
you one more passage. Go back to Numbers 21. And this
will tie in with what I read to you from John 3 a little bit
ago. Numbers 21. The Israelites murmured as they certainly
tended to do. I'm so thankful. I was thinking
about this today when I was rereading this passage of Scripture. I'm
so thankful that God doesn't send literal fiery serpents to
bite us. when we murmur against Him. We'd be in bad shape, wouldn't
we? We'd be in bad shape. They've
bussed, they've fumed, they've raised up their voices in complaint
against God's providence. We'd never do that, I'm sure.
None of us. But they did. They said, wish we was back in
Egypt. It's amazing what their hindsight
was. We had things made back then.
It's so much better, really, in slavery, in captivity. flesh boiled for us? You mean
you had buffets there in Egypt? Is that what you're saying? No, you didn't. But verse 6 says, because of
that the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people. They bit the
people and much people of Israel died. Remember, that serpent is a symbol
of death. but also it is the symbol of
healing and life. Therefore the people came to
Moses, verse 7, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken
against the Lord and against thee, praying to the Lord. They did take away the serpents
from us. And Moses prayed for the people,
and the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, set
it on a pole. It shall come to pass that everyone
that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses
made a serpent of brass, a base and very common metal. But it's a durable metal. Put it on a pole. And it came
to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld
the serpent abreast, he lived. And our Lord Jesus Christ used
this as an illustration in John 3 to Nicodemus. I wonder how many times Nicodemus
had taught about this miracle. him being a master teacher in
Israel. He knew all the ins and outs
of this story, or he thought he did. What he didn't realize was this
fiery serpent lifted up on a pole made of brass, which is the symbol
of death and cursing. By the grace of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ was made to be sin for us, that one who knew no
sin whatsoever. And God exacted from him the
price of redemption. That one who suffered the wrath
of God and who was made a curse, made a curse, he was cursed by
God. I can't even comprehend that.
He was accursed by the Holy One. Cursed! And the Lord says, I'm going
to be lifted up, Nicodemus. I'm going to tell you what that
story is all about. One of His eyes got wide as it
could be, you know. He never heard that before. He heard the gospel from the
lips of the Son of God. See, John 3.16 is not the gospel. Because there is no cross in
John 3.16. Here's the cross, here's substitution,
here's satisfaction. That brazen serpent lifted up,
even so the Son of Man must be lifted up to die. Why? That's the curse of the law.
And that's the good news for poor sinners like us. The reason for the gospel is
for God so loved the world. That's the reason. And the results
of the gospel is this. No condemnation. We can't be
condemned. You a believer? Your belief is
not the reason for your condemnation, but your belief is the evidence. Christ was cursed in your stead.
And now God's law says, I got nothing to do with you. Because there is one who came
into this world. God had placed a value on your
salvation. And He placed a value on His
law. You break my law, it's going to require death. And Christ
came and what did He do for us? Paul says, Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried and He rose again
the third day according to the Scriptures. And the curse of
God is satisfied. And now that one who has made
a curse is the healer. And I say to all of us, look
and live. The Lord said, look unto me and
be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God. There's none else. Well, let's
get our psalm books. We'll sing a closing psalm. 495, Unsearchable Riches. Oh, the unsearchable riches of
our Lord Jesus Christ.