That was such a blessing, wasn't
it? Thank you, Brother James. Let's go back to Exodus this
evening. Exodus, and we'll go back to
chapter 13. Exodus, chapter 13. My subject this evening is redemption
or death. Redemption or death? Let's ask the Lord to bless the service
again. Lord, we once again beseech you
to bless your Word. We're so in awe of this book. We bow to
its authority. We submit to its accuracy. We rejoice in its message. For this is the book that tells
us of our great God and of your purpose of redemption. It lays out for us our awful
dilemma. and shows us that you only could
meet our need. You only could save the lost. You only can raise the spiritually
dead. You only can save from sin. And it is this book that speaks
to us about that one who is identified as being the Lamb of God. We rejoice in who he is. We thank you for all that he
has done. We worship and we adore him. And Lord, we do love him. We love him because he first
loved us. He gave evidence of that love
by laying down his life for the likes of folks such as ourselves. And as our brother, just sang
for us, blessed Redeemer. Oh, how we exalt Him and we honor
Him who finished the work that you gave Him to do. And having
redeemed your people by His blood, He has gone back to glory where
He represents us and intercedes for us where he governs all things
for the interests of his people in order to fulfill your eternal
purpose. We look forward to that day when
our Lord Jesus shall come back and gather us together unto himself,
and then we shall be with him forever. Lord, this evening, speak to
the hearts of your dear children And Lord, speak to the hearts
of those who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. Bring about a great
revival here within our congregation. And Lord, warm all of our hearts
and speak to each of us. We thank you for all things,
for all things are of God. And may we have that great determination
as did David who said, oh God, my heart is fixed. I will sing. I will praise thee. Whatever
my physical circumstances may be, yet deep within my heart,
I will bless the name of my God. So speak as the word goes forth
this evening. For Jesus' sake, I ask these
things. Amen. About 430 years before the Exodus,
God spoke to a man who was an idolater. A man who knew nothing
about the God of grace. God revealed himself to him,
that is, God's Son revealed himself to Abram. He lived in Ur of the
Chaldees. He was a man who was a heathen
idolater. But he was a vessel God chosen
to salvation. And he drew that man out by free
and sovereign, irresistible grace. And the Bible says that Abram
went out not knowing where he was going, only that he would
follow the word of God. Later, some 30 years later, God
promised Abraham he would have a seed. That seed, first of all,
is the Lord Jesus. Therefore, we read in Matthew
chapter one that our Savior, who was born of a virgin, was
the seed of Abraham. We find in the book of Galatians
that when God spoke to Abram about having a seed, he spoke
of only one seed, and then that seed is identified as God the
Son. Well, after many years, Abraham,
then Isaac, and then Jacob, Jacob had his sons, and out of jealousy
for one of the sons of Jacob, the other brothers kind of ganged
up on Joseph. And in the purpose of God, which
was obviously unseen and unknown by Jacob or any of the rest of
the family, Joseph was taken into captivity, sold into captivity. Some of the brothers wanted to
kill him, jealous of him and his coat of many colors. And
yet, God purposed for Joseph to be in Egypt. It was not a delightful journey. It wasn't all satin sheets and
what we'd call smooth sailing for Joseph. He had some very
rough times, but he was on the very road that God would have
him to be on. You see, no child of God goes
through life having a rose-strewn pathway. If that's what you expected
when God saved you by His grace, you're greatly mistaken. We shall
through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of heaven. You
say, I sure do have my troubles, join the crowd. All of God's
people have. I don't think that as it says
in Hebrews chapter 12, that you've ever suffered unto blood." He
had been persecuted like so many of the saints of God have, like
Joseph was. Unfairly charged with making
advances toward Potiphar's wife. She accused him of that even
though she was trying to seduce Joseph. Joseph eventually winds
up in prison. but God would have him to be
second in command to Pharaoh. And through God's very mysterious
providential ways, that's exactly where Joseph wound up. And just like you and I, we're
gonna wind up in glory. We don't know all the crooks
and curves and turns of life that will bring us to that eventual
destiny, but we have God's Word. That's where we're going. That's
where we're going. Joseph went into Egypt. He's now on the throne right
beside a Pharaoh. He's a man in charge. He had
interpreted Pharaoh's dream. And then he came to interpret
the dream, and Joseph told Pharaoh, now you need to choose a man
who's wise, a man who's knowledgeable, a man who's trustworthy, to go
out and buy up all the grain while it's good and cheap, and
fill up all the barns of Egypt, because there's gonna come after
that 70 years of plenty, be seven years of famine. I tell you,
Mr. Farrell, you be careful who you
choose for that job. And Farrell said, oh, I got the
right man in my mind now. It's you. And that's who he put
in charge. And so, as we know, over the
course of several years, Joseph bought up, he bought up grain,
he filled up every storehouse in Egypt. And then the famine
came, and then his brothers came. And finally, through a series
of providential events, his daddy came to Egypt. And there, Joseph and his family
lived. At that time, only 70 people. That was the total of the house
of Israel. And then the children of Israel
began to grow. That passage Joe read to us indicated
that, and they became very strong. And then another pharaoh, an
evil pharaoh, took over. And then he made life difficult
for them. Keep on making them bricks, but
you'll have to get your own straw. You'll have to get your own stubble.
But even though you're going to have to get your own stubble
to make your bricks, I don't want the number to go down at
all. And he just made life awful for the Israelites. You've never
been in that kind of shape, have you? You hadn't been in slavery. You hadn't worked for a man who's
cruel, who thought nothing of killing babies. That Pharaoh thought nothing
about killing babies. And he did. But God had a deliverer for Israel
in those days in Egypt. And when this deliverer was just
three months old, his mother put him in an ark
of bulrushes. And she set him out in that ark
of bulrushes amidst the reeds of the river. And this little
infant, his sister, Miriam, She stood a ways off and she watched. And she saw Pharaoh's daughter
come down. And Pharaoh's daughter spied
out that little baby. And she took that little baby
and she raised that baby into her house. And that little baby
was Moses. He learned the ways of Egypt. And then in the providence of
God, he had to leave because he killed an Egyptian soldier
that he saw roughing up the Israelites. And Moses had to leave, and so
when he was 40 years old, he had to go to the backside of
the desert because he had some more things he needed to learn. He had learned how to be a leader,
but then he had to learn how to be a humble man. And he had
to learn how to be a shepherd. and he had to meet God. And he
met God at a burning bush. He met the Son of God, who identified
himself to Joseph. He said, I am that I am. The scripture says that the one
he met was the angel of the Lord. That's the Son of God. The Lord told him, you're the
deliverer. You're the deliverer. Moses said,
I can't talk. God said, I'll give you Aaron,
your brother, and I'll give you the message and you give it to
Aaron. But you know, somehow or another, Moses became a pretty
good speaker, didn't he? And he was able to convey the
message to the children of Israel. And then ultimately the message
was delivered to Pharaoh. God said, let my people go. Things were bad for the Israelites,
but God had, he had already determined the exodus out of Egyptian bondage. Now, in this message tonight,
let me begin where I left off this morning, that self-deliverance
for Israel was absolutely an impossibility. The deliverance
of Israel from Egyptian bondage could never be attributed to
their strength, never be attributed to their ability. They had no
strength. They had no ability. While the
men of Israel were being worked to death, they were building
all of these things for Pharaoh. Are you talking about slave labor? There was slave labor. They had very cruel taskmasters. You see, Satan, of whom Pharaoh
is a picture, and the world are very cruel taskmasters. They're gonna be hard on you.
They hate the God of glory. They hate the God of grace. They
hate the God of salvation. And if you identify yourself
as being one of the people of God, don't be shocked. They're
gonna hate you too. Because those things that we
are in favor of, they're against. The things that we love, they
hate. The things we're thankful for,
they're not thankful for. The righteousness that God has
freely given to us in the Lord Jesus, our Savior, our righteousness,
they have no interest in the least in that righteousness.
They have interests that run totally different and contrary
to ours. So don't be surprised if you're
not welcomed into their close fellowship. The Israelites were in a, we
would say they were in a pickle. And in their agony, they cried
out to God. And God heard them. God heard
them. He saw their inability to free
themselves from Egyptian bondage. He knew of the cruelty He himself began to burden them
with their circumstances because I remind you, all things are
of God. Who do you think made life difficult
for them as the first cause? God did. You see, as long as
they did not have a cruel Pharaoh, they loved Egypt. It's the greatest
place in the world. and our nation is growing, we're
getting stronger. Oh, how God is blessing us. And
then another Pharaoh takes over and he says, I don't like you
people. You're gonna build buildings for me, pyramids for me, you're
gonna work for me for nothing. You're my slaves, you're my servants. But who brought this to pass?
Doesn't the Bible say, the heart of the king is in the Lord's
hands, is the rivers of water. He turneth it wither so ever
he will. Who raised up this evil Pharaoh? He's an ungodly man. He's a mean,
very mean monarch. He has no pity for Israel and
he has no love for the God of Israel. He considers himself
to be a God. But who raised him up? God did. That's who raised him up. He
didn't get to where he was by accident. The Lord raised him
up because God was going to use him. And after he used him to do what
he would do with the children of Israel, then God was going
to lure him into the path across the Red Sea in pursuit of the
Israelites. Pharaoh said, I will pursue,
I will pursue. Come on, follow me. And there
they go into that broad path through the Red Sea. And God
then, said, I'm finished with you now. And when the Israelites were
safe, God brought the waters back together
and he sent Pharaoh to hell. They couldn't get themselves
out of that mess though. And in that, they're very much
like us in our sinfulness. We read in Romans chapter 5,
when we were yet without strength. That's when Christ died for the
ungodly. When we had no hope. You see,
our Lord Jesus, he entered into this world some 4,000 years after
God made the world, where it had been abundantly proven that
the world by wisdom knew not God. There's no question about
the ignorance of man. They pursued idolatry, they pursued
false religion, and never once did anybody embrace the gospel
of God's saving grace through the redemption that's in Christ
Jesus apart from a revelation of God. And when it was abundantly
clear, when there was no doubt of the evidence, that this world
is in heathen darkness. That's when God pierced the darkness
and he sent the light of the world to this earth. But if he hadn't come, no hope
for us when we were yet without strength. And that's the Israelite situation. So self-deliverance was an impossibility. Here's the second thing I want
to show you. Deliverance from bondage, therefore, it had to
be of God. It had to be of God. Who could
possibly bring the Israelites out of their Egyptian bondage? Is there a hand that is strong
enough and powerful enough to release him from this awful prison
house of Egyptian bondage? There is a hand that can do it,
but it's not the hand of a man. It's the hand of God. Look here
in chapter 13. Look at verse three. And Moses
said unto the people, now the people have been freed from their
bondage due to the Passover lamb, the death of the Passover lamb.
And Moses said unto the people, remember this day in which ye
came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for by strength
of hand, the Lord brought you out from this place. You mean they didn't help out
on this? No, by strength of hand, the
Lord brought you out. Look at verse nine, go down to
verse nine. And it shall be for a sign unto
thee between thy hand, for a memorial between thine eyes, that the
Lord's law may be in thy mouth. Of course, the law of God not
been given and won't be given till Exodus chapter 20, but this
is to be understood the word of God. that the Lord's word
may be in thy mouth, for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought
thee out from Egypt. Drop down to verse 14. And it
shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come saying,
what is this? Why are we observing the Passover,
which they did every year? Thou shalt say unto him, by strength
of hand, the Lord brought us up out of Egypt from the house
of bondage. And again in verse 16, and it
shall be for a token upon thine hand and for frontlets between
thine eyes, for by strength of hand, the Lord brought us out
of Egypt. Could we not say, therefore,
that the verse that fits all of this comes out of the book
of Jonah, salvation is of the Lord. That just seems to fit
somehow. That salvation is of the Lord. They could not extricate themselves
from the Egyptian bondage, but there was a hand that's strong
enough and powerful enough if he was pleased to exert the force. And he was pleased to exert the
force. And he brought them out. Is there
a hand that can save us? We're without strength. We're hopeless. We're like lost
sheep. Many illustrations of our dilemma
set forth in the scriptures. Is there a hand strong enough
to meet our need? We cannot come to Christ. We
will not come to Christ. Well, who can help us? And bless
God, there appears on the horizon of grace one who is mighty to
save, one who is all-powerful, and one whose heart is touched
with our own infirmities, one who loved us with an everlasting
love. And he says, I'll go to their
rescue and I will redeem them. I will take them out of bondage,
the bondage of Satan. And so he came into this world.
He kept the law of God and made it honorable. Then he paid the
penalty for us breaking God's law, which was death. I tell
you, salvation is by grace alone, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. Let me show you this, illustrate
it. Let's read, beginning in verse five here in chapter 13.
Look at verse five of chapter 13. It shall be when the Lord
shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites,
and the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware
unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and
honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month. seven
days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and the seventh day shall
be a feast to the Lord. Now, you know, because of your
knowledge of the Old Testament, you know that the Passover the
God's Passover that they commemorated every year and the Feast of Unleavened
Bread kind of joined together, right? They overlapped. So there
was really kind of this one leading into the other. This is what
he's talking about, the seven days of eating nothing but unleavened
bread. Look at verse seven. Unleavened
bread shall be eaten seven days and there shall be no leavened
bread There shall no leaven bread be seen with thee, neither shall
there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters. In other
words, God says during that week, you don't eat any leaven with
your bread. In fact, there must not be any
leaven under your roof. Get it out of the house. Remove it. Well, the question
then is, why no leaven? What is leaven? And I was asking,
Susanna made homemade bread yesterday. I'm not supposed to have much
of it. It sure was good. Delicious. And I asked her, I
said, how much yeast do you put in there? Would you say one and
a half teaspoons or something like that? And I even looked
up recipe on the internet. You can find about everything
there. It said three quarters of an ounce for a two pound loaf
of bread. Well, that's not very much. In fact, we learned from
the New Testament, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, is
what it says. Well, God says to Israel, during
the Passover and during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, I don't
want you to have, this is my law, no leaven in all your house. Because leaven, you know, our
Lord warned his disciples of the leaven of the Pharisees,
which he said on one occasion was hypocrisy. And on another
occasion, he warned of the leaven of their doctrine. Well, what
was the leaven of their doctrine? Works. That was the leaven of
their doctrine. Oh, they believed to a degree
in predestination and the election. They believed in atonement by
the lamb. They were still observing the
Passover. There were so many things. If
you had asked him, do you believe in the grace of God? Yes, we
believe in the grace of God, but they always had to add the
leaven of works, law keeping. Obey the commandments,
always. Believe God and keep the commandments,
you'll be fine. They have then added leaven,
which means when our Lord Jesus said, beware of the leaven of
the Pharisees, he means this, they have introduced something
else into the world. pure, pure doctrine of salvation
by grace. And when they did that, a little
leaven, leavened it the whole lump. And you see, God said,
get all the leaven out because I delivered you. You didn't lift
a hand. You made no contribution. And
in this matter of our salvation, of the salvation of our souls,
we've got to understand we don't even lift a finger to help God. If you say you do, you have added
a little bit of leaven. That's no good. God'll kill you
for that. No leaven. And I'll tell you,
the adding of leaven, it is so sneaky. Because people will say
this, I believe we're saved by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
but you gotta live it now. Oh, there goes that leaven again.
There you go, adding a little bit of leaven. I believe you're
saved by grace, but you know you gotta pray through. What? Why you wanna add that leaven
to it? Salvation's not by praying, it's by believing. That's what
it is. Salvation is by believing. Somebody
else says, I believe salvation is all together by grace, but
you know you've got to be baptized, you've just added 11. Now listen
to me, in this house, we must get rid of all 11. You understand
what I'm saying? There must not be any 11 in this
house. Because if you introduce anything
into God's purpose of grace, that is the salvation of unworthy
sinners by the doing and the dying of the Lamb of God, you
have brought in leaven, God will put you away for that. Can't do that. And we're sticklers
on that because God's a stickler on that. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy, he had saved us. By the washing of regeneration,
the scripture says, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which is shed
on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Lord. That being
justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the
hope of eternal life. Who redeemed them? God did. God did. It's God's work. He brought them out of Egyptian
bondage. And you know, every year the
Lord says, now have this Passover as a reminder. I redeemed you. You didn't lift
a finger. You didn't lift a finger. I passed
through Egypt and killed the firstborn of all the Egyptians.
And when I came into Egypt, I passed over you. I did it, God said. He gets all the glory. He must
get all the glory for salvation. This Passover then would be a
lasting remembrance to all of Abraham's posterity of what God
did for Israel in getting them out of Egyptian bondage. Well, how does God remind us
of what he's done for us? The Lord's Supper. And I regret,
normally we would have had the Lord's Supper today, but it just,
We can't have it yet. We will have it again, the Lord
willing. But our Savior said, this do
in remembrance of me. Could we ever forget? Must be
that we can. Otherwise he wouldn't say this
do in remembrance of me. And I know we don't totally forget,
but it's not always in the very front of our minds. It's kind
of in the back of our minds. But the Lord said, this doing
remembrance of me. Remember me. Remember me. I see on television, I don't
like to watch much of the news. It's so doom and gloom. I watch
people burn the flag. That troubles me. Nancy said
she saw somebody burned, they had a flag wrapped around the
Bible, burnt the flag and the Bible. I see people wiping their
feet on the flag. I see them kneeling on the flag,
showing disrespect to the flag, showing disrespect to law enforcement
officers. Oh, how quickly we forget 9-11. We forget that. Of course, a bunch of these people
that are out here tearing up Jack, they were probably little
children when that happened. How quickly we forget. Let's
rough up the policemen. I'll try not to get on this long,
but you know what? Like the Twin Towers, when all
them people were running away from the towers, who's running
toward it? Policemen. Oh, how quickly we forget. How
quickly we forget the wars that our fathers and our grandfathers
fought to have our freedom. Remember, Deuteronomy 15 and
15, this was John Newton's favorite verse. One day a preacher came by, William
J. He came by Oldney, which is a
little community in England. It's where Newton was. And there's
another songwriter there, and I can't, his name escapes me
now. Who wrote There is a Fountain
Filled with Blood? Oh, William, I wrote it down
here, sir. Whoever it is, I can't remember.
Remember? Look it up, for goodness sake. You got a songbook there,
would you look it up? Calper, William Calper. Okay, thank you. That's where, William Calper's
from Oldney, and he was there for 20 years. That was their
favorite poet. And Newton, Newton pastored there. One day, another
preacher, William Jay, stopped by, and there was Newton. He
was sitting at his desk, and he noticed that verse of scripture,
Deuteronomy 15, 15, on the wall. And that verse says, remember,
you were a bondman in Egypt and I redeemed you. When you get
home tonight, you remember where you were when
God found you. You remember you was in the mire,
in the filth. Remember you were dead in trespasses
and sin. There was no arm that could lift
you up save the arm of God himself. Remember who you were. Remember
what God's done for you. Well, let me move on. Now, verses 11 through 13, I
wanna show you this. Here is redemption or death. And it shall be, the Lord says,
or Moses said, when the Lord shall bring thee into the land
of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee, unto thy fathers,
and shall give it thee, that thou shalt set apart, that is,
sanctify unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix, and every
firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast. The males, The
males, the Lords. You see that the word shall be
italicized because our King James translators put that in there.
But here's what he's saying. The males are God's property. And look at verse 13. In every
firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou
wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck. and all
the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem. Let me give you a parallel passage
to this, deeper in the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 34. Perhaps you could turn there
and I'll read this to you. Exodus chapter 34 and verse 18.
Exodus 34 and verse 18. The feast of unleavened bread
shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened
bread as I commanded thee in the time of the month Abib. For in the month of Abib thou
camest out from Egypt. All that openeth the matrix is
mine. And every first sling among thy
cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male, belongs to God. Verse 20, but the firstling of
an ass thou shall redeem with a lamb. And if thou wilt not
redeem him, then thou shall break his neck. All the firstborn of
thy sons shalt thou redeem and none shall appear before me empty. Preacher, what does that mean?
Empty of a sacrifice. Don't you come before me without
a sacrifice. That's what that means. Don't
come before me without a sacrifice. There are four things I want
to show you. In fact, you just go back to
that passage in chapter 13. Four things I want to show you.
Number one, the ass being an unclean animal was not accepted
by God. The ass being an unclean animal
was not accepted by God. You see, the only animals that
God would accept had to be those who divided the hoof and chewed
the cut. In fact, you could get into the
book of Leviticus, and he gives some illustrations of those who
divide. There are some animals who divided the hoof, but they
didn't chew the cut, so they were still considered to be unclean. There were some who had a hoof
like a horse, for instance, though that isn't mentioned, but a hoof
like a horse, and they did chew the cud, but that wasn't acceptable
either. No, the only animals that God
considered to be animals that were clean had to have a divided
hoof and chewed the cud. Those only. The ass was therefore
an unclean animal, because it did not chew the cud, nor was
its hoof divided, because an ass is in the horse family. Smaller
than a horse, but still in the horse family. You can look it
up. Same as a zebra. Now, by that standard, If only
that which was accepted by God had a divided hoof and chewed
the cud, by that standard, we're not even acceptable to God. Ever
thought about that? By that standard, we aren't acceptable
to God. We're not fit for God's presence. That's why he sent the Lamb of
God. One of the reasons Christ is
so often set forth is the lamb, the divided hoof that chewed
the cud. He pictures a lamb acceptable
to God. He is impeccably clean. And he came to save those who
are unclean. We're filthy. You see, the ass,
the jackass, the donkey, whatever you want to call it, it was a
filthy beast. It's a filthy beast. And we're
filthy. And I almost felt like in preparing
this message that really to compare us to an ass is an insult to
the ass. You say, what in the world are
you talking about? Because in the book of Isaiah chapter one,
the ox knows his owner and the ass knows his master's crib,
but Israel does not know, doesn't consider. And in that way, the
ass is actually better off than we are. What do we know about an ass
by nature? Stubborn, is that us? Rebellious,
is that us? Before they're broken, before
somebody tames them, I've seen people try to get them to do
something and pull them and they just sit back on their haunches.
That's us. As stubborn as we can be, unless
somebody breaks us. like the Lord Jesus Christ. He can break us. I don't care
who the rebel is. It might be a Saul of Tarsus. What are you talking about? You
know, one of Job's friends talked about being as wild, being as
rebellious as a wild ass's colt. You look at Saul of Tarsus. Well,
he didn't want to have anything to do with Jesus of Nazareth.
He's rebellious and he's stubborn. Well, who can break him? God, by his grace through the
omnipotence of Jesus Christ can break him and he did break him.
He broke that old ass. And I think about that passage
of scripture when our Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Guess what
he rode on? An ass that had been broken and had
been redeemed. All the unclean ass was not acceptable
to God and we're unclean. All our righteousness is his
filthy rags. Job 14.4, who can bring a clean
thing, I have an unclean. Not one. Can't obey the law.
We can't even believe. We're really bad off. And to
stay with the picture that's given here in the text, let's
say a man says, you know, gets the kids together and says,
let's wash this donkey. Let's give him a good bath. And
says to his wife, you ain't getting that good smelling perfume that
you use. Well, yeah. He washes that donkey
really good, puts a ribbon around his neck, spray some perfume
on. Guess what? He looks better and
he smells better, but he's still an ass. Or maybe a man might say, you
know, I'm gonna separate him from the rest of the donkeys.
I'm gonna put him out there in the field with the sheep. Yeah,
he'll do good with the sheep. There he is out there with the
sheep. Guess what? He's still a donkey. Or maybe,
maybe he decides he's gonna torture, oh, torture that donkey. And he splits his hoof. Torturous. Causing great pain. Well, he
may have the hooves that are divided, but he's still a jackass. And he'll always be a jackass. Unclean. God said. Here's the second thing. Though
the ass was unclean, God still owned it. Look here in verse
12, back in chapter 13, verse 12, the last phrase, the males
of the Lords. Even if it is a jackass, God
still owns it. Because he owns everything and
everybody. Yeah, he does. He does. And I'll tell you something else,
though thirdly, though the ass was unclean, God provided the
way whereby the firstborn ass could be redeemed and be spared
the death penalty. That's what he says in verse
13, in the firstling of an ass thou should redeem with a lamb.
Here's a man, he's thinking ahead, he's thinking, you know, I could
use this donkey to plow for me and we'll break him. We'll settle
him down. I could use a good donkey." Well, Moses, what did you say
we had to do about the firstborn male of an ass? Moses said, you've got to redeem
it or kill it. I want to redeem it, Moses. Moses
said, go to Aaron. and bring with you a lamb. And that lamb's gotta be killed.
And then that ass can live. We're filthy donkeys, all of
us. There's only one way we could
be redeemed. The lamb of God come and shed his blood to redeem
us. See, once that ass was redeemed,
Hey, the law of God isn't going to touch it because God gave
the word himself. The ass can live if you redeem
it. And once it's redeemed, the life
is spared. How were we redeemed by the blood
of the Lamb of God? Our lives are spared. Everybody
Christ died for is redeemed. Ye were redeemed by the blood
of the Lamb is what Peter says in 1 Peter 1. How can the ass be redeemed by
the death of a lamb? What will it take for God to
save us stubborn, insolent, rebellious creatures who refuse to bow to
Him? It take the Lamb of God to lay down
his life and then will be spared. And here's the fourth thing.
The redemption or the death of the ass was owner's choice. Is that right? That's right, isn't it? Owner's
choice. Redeem it or break its neck. There's your choice. Redeem it
or break his neck. Let me tell you something about
salvation. I'm so glad and thankful for
the good news of the gospel. But know this, whether you live
or whether you die is not in your hands. You've got to know
that. God says, I will have mercy on
whom I'll have mercy and whom I will, I'll harden. It is not
up to you. Preachers are running all over
this country and all over the world saying God's done all he
can do and now it's up to you. They are lying to people. The
issues of life and death are in God's hands and they'll always
be in God's hands. Whether you live or whether you
die is not up to you. It's up to God. God gave instructions to the
owner of the ass. You do what you want to with
this. You'll either redeem it and it'll live or you kill it
and it's done for. And that's the way it is in salvation.
That's why that leper met the Savior at the bottom of the mountain
where our Lord had preached that great message, the Sermon on
the Mount. And the leper was waiting on
the master. The leper fell down on his face
before him and said, if you will, if you will, you can make me
whole. He didn't say, I'm exercising
my choice. I'm exercising my will. He recognized
the sovereignty of Christ. If you will, I'll live. If it's not your will, I'm gonna
die. These things are in the hands
of God. He said, well, Jim, how do I
know if the Lord has redeemed me? Well, has he broke you? Like that jackass that the Savior
rode into Jerusalem in his triumphant entry into the city, John 12
records it and other gospel narratives as well. How do I know if I've
been redeemed? Has He broken you? Has He brought you to believe
Him? That's the only way you know. Now, I've got to leave with this.
I'll quit with this last concluding point. He says in verse 13, If thou
wilt not redeem it, break its neck. There's going to be a lot
of people, God's going to break their necks forever. That's what
hell is, God breaking necks forever. You do what you want. Get serious about the things
of God and not serious about the things of God. I'm serious.
You know, this is always my prayer. Lord, you can do with me as you
will. You have the right. If you will,
show me mercy. And he's never turned anybody
away. And according to his word, I
look to Christ Jesus for everything. Don't you? He's my only hope
of heaven. Why, he's the lamb who redeemed
this jackass. It's stubborn, rebellious, wallowing
in the mire, sinful man. He saved me by his bloody death. I owe him everything. Therefore,
like David, and I begin the service with this verse out of Psalm
108. God, you see my heart. My heart is fixed. Do you have
a fixed heart? An established heart? Lord, I'm
going to sing your praise. I'm going to worship you forever
and ever and glorify you for saving this old donkey. He redeemed me. I ain't worth
much, but I'm his. because he paid the ultimate
price for me. He died for me. Well, Father, thank you for the
day you've given to us, another day of worship. And we honor
you, we bless you. We know the issues of life and
death are in your hands. Oh God, save. Oh God, show mercy. Glorify yourself and we know
you're going to get glory. Your justice is going to be glorified
either in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ or in the death
of the sinner. We look to your son and we believe
him and we rest in him for all of our salvation. Bless these
dear people. Bless those who are watching
by way of the internet. Lord, we all together say thank
you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation, thy
great salvation, so rich, full, and free. To God be the glory
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.