and who hated Him. And they got
very upset with our Savior here in John chapter 5. And they got
upset with Him for two reasons. Number one, because He performed
this miracle on the Sabbath. That angered them because they
said He broke the law. And this is what they failed
to see. The Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. He is our Sabbath. We rest in
the Lord Jesus. Now, let me say to you this evening,
this is the law of the Sabbath. Now listen. Cease from your labor,
from your efforts, from your works, and rest in the Lord Jesus
and His work of redemption. That's salvation. It's not by
works. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done. Or by grace we say through faith. That not of yourselves. Not of
works. Not of works. That's the most
difficult thing for the natural man to learn, isn't it? It's
not something we do. There's no contribution that
we make to salvation, to redemption, to reconciliation, to our acceptance
with God. Oh, may God the Spirit, through
the word of the gospel, invade our poor hearts and bring us
to just rest in the Lord Jesus. He said, you come to me, all
of you who labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you Rest. Rest. Stop working. Stop striving. Stop laboring. Is salvation no contribution
from you? And I would ask you, are you
fully content to be saved by God above upon the basis of the
work of somebody else? I am, by the Spirit of God, by
His dealings with me, by His free grace, by His effectual
work, I am absolutely satisfied in my very soul to rest all of
my salvation, all of my acceptance upon the Lord Jesus alone and
that work that He's already finished. They got upset with the Savior.
He did this on the Sabbath. And I'll tell you, He is our
Sabbath. Secondly, they got upset with Him because of what He said. He said, My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work. And they got mad at him because
they understood what he was saying, that he's the Son of God. He's
divine. He's God incarnate. But listen,
my friends, he couldn't save us unless he's God. There is
no salvation for poor sinners like you and me unless God Himself
comes down here to this earth and does the work of redemption
by Himself. He has trodden the winepress,
listen to this next word, alone. Alone. Who did? God did. God did. Nobody else could save us but
God. Who can raise the dead but God? Who can forgive sins but God? Who can stand eye to eye with
God but God? Just God. And they got upset
with our Savior. You did this on the Sabbath day.
We hate you. You said you are the Son of God.
You said God was your Father. We hate you. Well, then our Lord
Jesus, He goes down and He speaks of how the Father has exalted
Him. And then go all the way down
in chapter 5 to verse 31. He says, if I bear witness of
myself, if I'm the only witness, he said, well, you don't have
to believe me. After all, in the Old Testament, in the mouth
of what? Two or three witnesses. Let every
word be established. Watch what he says. Verse 32. There's another that bears witness
of me, and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is
true. Well, who is that? That's John.
John the Baptist. He said, you sent unto John,
and he bear witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony
from man, but these things I say that you might be saved. Of John,
he says, he was a burning and a shining light, and you were
willing for a season for a very short season to rejoice in His
light. But I have a greater witness."
Okay, he bore witness of himself. John the Baptist bore witness
of him. But he says, I have a greater
witness than that of John. Well, what's that? The works
which the Father send me. Notice he doesn't say, send me
to do, but he sends me to finish. The same works that I do bear
witness of me that the Father has sent me. Every work that
the Father sent Him to finish, He accomplished. In old eternity,
God the Father ordained that God the Son come into the world
to do, to finish certain works. And every work that God the Father
ordained for His Son to do, He finished it. He accomplished
it. Most notably, that great work of the salvation of His
people. And that He accomplished by His
substitutionary death on the cross, whereby He put away our
sins. He satisfied God's justice. And He brought in for us, oh,
how can it be such amazing grace? He brought in for us everlasting
righteousness. He finished the works that the
Father gave Him to do. He said, the same works that
I do, they all bear witness of Me that the Father hath sent
Me. He says, the Father himself which
hath sent me. Here's another witness. God the Father hath borne witness
of me. He says, you've neither heard
his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And you have not his
word abiding in you. For whom he hath sent him ye
believe not. And then he says, search the
Scriptures. For in them ye think ye have
eternal life. But they are they which testify
of me. And I believe the Savior is saying,
you do search the Scriptures. You labor in the Word of God. Reading and studying and memorizing. And they did that. They did that. But they thought they had eternal
life by going through the scriptures. And what they failed to see was
that all of the scriptures, they testify of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is one big book. Now I know over 40 different
men were used of God over a period of what, 1,500 years or so to
write the Word of God, but this is one book. And all of the writers,
every book tells the same story. And this book is always up to
date. It's never outdated. It always
applies to us. It is always a valid book. If
you were going to go to the doctor, Nancy went to the doctor yesterday
and was looking at all his degrees. That kind of makes you feel good.
I wouldn't want to go to a doctor who didn't have some kind of
degrees, you know. But if Father looked up on his bookshelf and
I saw these medical books, surgical books, if he had come in and
said, yeah, I just got through studying. I'm ready to perform
surgery. I just read that medical book
there out of the 1600s. I'd say, wait a minute. Have you read any that were published
recently? No, I'd go by those. Well, we'd just get up and say,
we're going to go see another doctor. Because medical books
that were published back then, they are outdated. But the Bible
is never outdated. It is as valid today, it is as
true today as it has ever been. And the message is always the
same. It's never changed from one generation
to another generation. It's always the book of God.
It's always the book of Christ Jesus. It's His story. That's what the Bible is. As
you've heard a hundred times, the Old Testament says, somebody's
coming. And all of the writers of the
Old Testament wrote, he's coming, he's coming. And Malachi speaks
for all of them in the end as he summarizes all of the words
of the Old Testament prophets. And Malachi says, he shall come. And they all waited for him,
they all looked for him. And in the gospel narratives,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they all said, He has come. He
has come. They set forth His life and His
substitutionary death. That work of redemption and His
resurrection. And in the book of Acts, through
the book of Revelation, it says forth His exaltation. And he
is, right now, the fact that he is ruling all things by the
word of his power. And that he is coming again.
This entire book is his story. It's about Jesus Christ the Lord. But these Jews, they read the
Bible to no profit whatsoever. Because they didn't see the Lord
Jesus Christ in it. And he said, these are they which
testify of me. Now, I know every Lord's Day,
we have in the bulletin certain chapters of Scripture for you
to read, and you can read the Word of God through in a year.
And that's a very commendable thing to do, read the Scriptures
together. I'll tell you one of the things that we did. And some
of the saints in Almond have joined us for worship tonight
by the internet. And we welcome them and we welcome
whoever else is watching on the internet tonight. We welcome
you to our worship service. But what we did years ago, we
started reading through the scriptures as a congregation. And we did
that. We read every verse of the Bible
together. And I do strongly stress the
reading of the Word of God. But when you read the Word of
God, don't just read it so you can say, I've read the Word of
God through this past year now. Aren't I good? I'll pat myself
on the back. That's what the Jews did. And the scribes copied the scriptures
and they said, wow, we're so gifted of God. We can copy the
scriptures. And you talking about memorizing
the scriptures, they were walking Bibles. But when you read the word of
God, if you don't see the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to reread
that passage of scripture. Don't read it just for the sake
of, well, I'm following the schedule here. Well, I'm supposed to read
these chapters today, so let me get my bifocals just right
and get me a cup of coffee, and here I go. And you finish reading,
and you say, OK, I'm good till tomorrow. Well, I would say to you what
Philip said to the Ethiopian eunuch. Understandest thou what
thou readest? You say, well, I don't know.
I was reading so fast because I've got to get through with
my reading for today. Well, in that case, forget the
schedule. You see, it's better to read
one verse of Scripture with understanding, and see the Lord Jesus Christ,
and worship Him, and adore Him, and rest in Him, and flee to
Him, and rejoice in Him. Better to read one verse of Scripture
than five chapters and you never see Him. The Jews, they read, they searched
the Scriptures. He didn't deny that. He said,
you do search the Scriptures. but it doesn't do you any good. It doesn't do you any good. Isn't
that sad? To have the Bible, to have the
Word of God, and to read it, and it doesn't do you any good. And for a person to think that
by reading the Word of God, I've got eternal life. Oh, I know
I'm saved, preacher, because I read the Bible. Salvation. Now listen. Salvation
is not in reading the Bible. Salvation is in knowing Him of
whom the Scriptures speak. And if you miss Him, if you miss
Christ Jesus, you miss salvation. You miss heaven. You miss God. If you miss Christ, You've missed
everything. That's what the Savior said.
He said, you've searched the scriptures because you think
in searching the scriptures you have eternal life. But these
are they, they testified me. Now look, read on. And you will
not come to me that you might have life. Where is life? Well, people say life's in the
church. Life's in baptism. Life's in
the Lord's Supper. Life's in keeping the Ten Commandments.
Well, where is life? The Savior said, I'm life. Now listen to it. He said, I'm the way, I'm the
truth, and I'm the what? What did He say? I'm the life. I'm the life. And if you don't
have Christ Jesus, you don't have life. You don't have spiritual
life? You don't have everlasting life?
You don't have eternal life? If you don't have Christ Jesus,
all you've got is death. That's all you've got. You've
got death. He says, you won't come to me
that you might have life. And I'll tell you this, nobody
ever will come to God in His mercy. And according
to His effectual purpose of grace, draws us to Christ Jesus irresistibly. He makes us willing in the day
of His power. If He doesn't do that, you're
not going to come. You won't come. He says in verse
41, I receive not honor from men. But He says, but I know
you. Oh my. I know you. I know what's in you. You know,
He knows what's in your heart. He knows what's in your thoughts.
In fact, He knows the thought that you're going to think before
you ever think it. I know you. You don't have the
love of God in you. The Apostle Paul writes about
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. He says you don't have the love
of God in you. The Spirit of God has never done
work in you. Because if the Spirit of God
had ever done a work in their hearts, they'd love Christ Jesus.
They'd be bragging about His blood, about His righteousness,
instead of bragging on their own self-righteousness. Instead
of bragging on what good people they were and how they kept the
law of Moses, they'd be bragging on Christ Jesus. I was preaching with Brother
Jack Shanks years ago. It was in Appomattox, Virginia. And this older preacher, he was
older than Jack, he got up and preached and he didn't say anything. I mean, it was just worthless.
Jack had known him for years, and I'd known him, I hadn't known
him as long as Jack had, but I'd known him a good long time.
And this is a man who's like in his early 80s. And Jack and I, we were, he was
riding with me, he was staying with me. I was pastoring in Rocky
Mountain. Jack came out and he said, isn't
it a shame? A man that old, you'd think that all he'd want to talk
about is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he didn't have anything to
say about him. Didn't have anything to say about him. I tell you, if you love somebody,
you love to talk about them. If you're around me very long,
I'm going to talk about that woman right there and I'm going
to brag on her. I have never in public said a negative word
about her. And private, that may be a little
different story. Okay. You got me on that one. But not in public, have I? No. You know why not? I love her. If you're around
me for very long, I'll talk about Nancy did this and Nancy said
that because I love her. If you love somebody, you're
going to say good things about them. And if you love the Lord
Jesus Christ, you're going to talk about how wonderful He is,
how glorious He is, and how marvelous He is to save a wretched, poor,
dead dog sinner like you by the freeness of His grace. That preacher didn't preach Christ
Jesus. Jack said, I don't believe the
love of God has ever been shed abroad in his heart. Because
if it had been, he'd be bragging on Christ Jesus. Christ said, look at verse 43,
I'm coming in my Father's name and you receive me not. If another
shall come in his own name, him you will receive. And that will
happen every time. Isn't that right, Pastor? Every
time. Unless the Spirit of God does
a work of mighty grace in our hearts, we'll receive another
Jesus and another Gospel every single time. But if God the Holy Ghost ever
does a quickening work within our hearts, if He gives us a
new heart of faith, we'll flee from all these false Gospels. These idols that we've been worshipping
and adoring and bragging on, and we'll look to and we'll brag
on, we'll fall in love with and we'll embrace the Lord of Glory,
Christ Jesus the Lord. We'll receive Him as Prophet,
Priest, and King. Isn't that right? We'll say,
He's my Teacher! And He's my priest who offered
the sacrifice to God that put away my sins. He's the priest
who makes intercession for me. I praise Him for His mediatorial
reign today. And I bow to Him as my King. He's my King. We'll receive Him. Christ says, but you don't receive
Me. And He says in verse 44, How
can you believe? which receive honor one of another,
and seek not the honor that cometh from God only." You're interested
in the honor that men can heap upon you. You're not interested
in God honoring you with life and with salvation and with righteousness. You're not interested in the
honors of God. And then he says this. He says,
don't think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one
that accuses you, and that's Moses, in whom you trust. He says, for had you believed
Moses? They bragged on Moses to me.
Ah, Moses is our teacher. And the law of Moses, that's
what we live by. Moses, Moses, Moses. He said if you'd have believed
Moses, you'd believe me. For he wrote of me. All that Moses wrote. Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Job maybe. Some are Job anyway. Psalm 90 for sure. All that he
wrote, he wrote of me, Christ said. He wrote of me. But you don't believe his writings.
How should you believe my words? You won't believe Moses. Look
at what Moses wrote over here in Exodus chapter 1. Look what Moses wrote over here. The book of Exodus was given
by divine inspiration of Moses. It definitely continues the book
of Genesis. And the reason I was led to this
tonight, at least one of the reasons, I think, is because
in our Bible classes we just finished several lessons in the
book of Genesis. And now this coming Lord's Day,
we'll begin several lessons in the book of Exodus. And I know
that we tend to think that these books of the Bible are standalone
books. But these books of the Bible
are joined together books to make up one big book, the Word
of God. It's a continuation of the book
of Genesis. You see, in the book of Genesis,
we see God chose a family. And in Exodus, we find that God
redeemed that family. In the book of Genesis, God separated
Abram. He called him out of Ur of the
Chaldees. He was an idolatrous man. He
hated God. He worshipped other gods. He
wasn't seeking the Lord. Faith wasn't a reward that God
gave him because of Abraham's persistence in seeking the Lord. It's a sovereign act of mercy
that God went down into the land of Ur of the Chaldees and one
man, He called him. Called him by His grace. Why,
that man's name had been written down in the Lamb's Book of Life
before the foundation of the world. Christ Jesus would come
into the world to save that man and his seed, his spiritual seed. Abraham is called the father
of the faithful. In the book of Genesis, we see
God exercising His sovereign right in calling Abraham. In the book
of Exodus, we see God redeeming that chosen seed by the blood
of the Passover lamb. In the book of Genesis, we see
the beginnings, the beginning of creation, the beginning of
our population. We see the beginning of sin. In the book of Exodus, we find
out what's to be done for those who are enslaved to sin, who
are God's people. They're going to be liberated.
God is going to liberate all of His people. The Lord said
of Israel in the book of Exodus, He said, I'm going to redeem
you with a high hand by the blood of the Passover lamb and not
even a hoof is going to be left behind. I'll have all of My people
and all of their possessions. Bless the name of God. That's
effectual redemption. Jesus said, Moses wrote of me. Moses wrote of me. Now if you
read through the book of Exodus, we're going to have several lessons
in the book of Exodus. But if you go through the book
of Exodus and you don't see Christ Jesus, well I just have to conclude
you're blind. Because I would say, I would
venture to say this, that there are more types and pictures and
symbols of Christ Jesus and His work of redemption in the book
of Exodus than there are in any other book of the Old Testament.
It's a fabulous book. In Exodus chapter 1, we find
that God's chosen people were but a few at the beginning. Look at verse 5. All the souls
that came out of the loins of Jacob were 70 souls. But Joseph was in Egypt already.
Joseph and his wife and his two boys. There are 66 that come
out of Canaan with Jacob. And then Joseph and his wife
and two more make 70. Well, that don't look like much.
Wait. Just wait though. Remember the
Lord said if Abraham's seed is going to be more than the sands
of the seashore and more than the stars in the sky. You get
down here to verse 7. And all of the children of Israel
were fruitful. The years go by. They increased
abundantly and multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty and the
land was filled with them. They're filled with it. They're
everywhere. And Pharaoh said, a Pharaoh that didn't know Joseph,
Pharaoh said, man, a lot of these people are multiplying fast.
We're going to have to do something about this. We're going to afflict them.
I'm going to put them to work. I'm going to get them to build
some monuments to my glory, he said. Everybody is so in love
and infatuated with the pyramids, they were built with slave labor.
The Jews. I'm not interested in them anymore. This group of people began to
grow and grow and grow. They afflicted them. Look at
verse 12. But the more they afflicted them,
the more they multiplied and grew. You just can't stop them. And they were grieved. The Egyptians
were grieved because of the children of Israel. They had a sickening
dread of them. That's what the word grieved
means. They had a loathing of them. And God's kingdom. Look at our Lord Jesus. When He was on this earth, His
visible church, it wasn't very many. It was just a few. after
his death and his resurrection that attested to the successfulness
of his work of redemption? And he said, wait for the Spirit
of God. It wasn't many that waited 120. That's not very many. Well, it wasn't very many right
then. But I'll tell you what, in the
final day, when all of them are gathered together, all these
sheep, And the shepherd brings them all in together. Well, John
said, as he saw them, and he wrote by divine inspiration,
he said, there's more than I can number. You see, God's church has always
had their enemies. But our Lord Jesus said, I will
build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it. And the afflictions and the hardships
and the persecutions against God's church can't slow anything
down. I'll tell you something about
the work of God. You can't speed it up and you can't slow it down.
You can't hinder it in any way. And here's Pharaoh, the most
powerful man in the world. He said, I'm going to put a stop
to this growth. Make their labor harder. They just keep on growing. And
then he said, kill all the boy babies. They just keep on growing. You can't stop God's work. I will work, and who's going
to hinder me, God said. It was going to stop me. It was
going to stop God. All of the forces of hell itself
cannot slow God's work down. In verse 6 it says, Joseph died. Well, that's going to slow things
down, surely. Joseph. Man, everybody loved
Joseph. Everybody respected Joseph. Joseph
was a Savior to Israel. to Egypt, to all the nations
round about. And I'll bet you when Joseph
died, they said, oh no, there goes the work now. Wait. This work isn't dependent
upon a man. This is God's work. You see, God doesn't need me.
He doesn't need you. You know, people work for years
at a factory or a business, and then they get ready to retire
and say, boy, this company will never do without me, I'll tell
you. I'm one of the main ones here.
And then you retire on Friday, you go by Monday, and they're
all working. And if they are on the Dow Jones,
you look at the Dow Jones and the stock is going up. You say,
well, I guess I wasn't so important after all. No, you weren't. Things just keep on rolling along. And God's work is not dependent
upon Joseph. Now God used Joseph greatly. And we are thankful. And I'm
thankful for all of the servants of God down through the years,
but we're not indispensable. It's like each of us is just
a little thread in the whole blanket of God's eternal purpose. And we serve whatever purpose
God has ordained for us while we're in this world, and then
He's finished with us. He takes us off the scene, and
there are other threads to be used. But you see, the work of
God is not dependent upon Joseph, or Bill, or Jim, or Ron, or Aaron,
or Marty, or anybody. I go all the way around the room,
not dependent upon any of us. He'll do His work. God's doing
His work. And Pharaoh said, well, I'm going
to I'm going to make things really rough for them. Look at verse
13. The Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. In verse 14, they made their
lives bitter, with very hard bondage, and in mortar, and in
brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service
wherein they made them serve was with rigor, with harshness,
and cruelty, and severity. But remember God has, He's promised,
He has promised He's going to bring them out of Egyptian bondage.
Boy, it doesn't look, the scene looks real bleak right now. We know God's promises to us. We know some of them. No evil
shall come against you. No weapons that's formed shall
be prosperous against you. All things will work together
for your good. And we say, Lord, I believe your
promises, but boy, they sure are slow in being fulfilled. Well, they are slow to us, but
not to God. And I tell you, my brothers and
sisters, and some of you going through some dark valleys, And
if you're not in a dark valley, you've just come out of one or
you're about to go into one. That's about the way it is with
God's people. If you're not in one now, you
were or you're going to be. But don't disbelieve the promises
of God because they don't come to pass today. He will fulfill His Word. Oh, ye of little faith, Christ
said. Why did you doubt? I tell you, patience is a hard
thing to learn, isn't it? Hard to be patient. Because when
we want something, we really want it yesterday. But God says,
no, things are going according to my timetable. And every once in a while I have
some good sins and I remember the promises of God and I actually
live on them. Every once in a while. Is that
the way it is with you? Every once in a while. I mean,
I know what they are. I know the promises of God. But I'm impatient like you are
and I'm a sinful man like you are. And I'm weak and I'm frail
and I'm feeble and I wonder a lot of times if I don't have more
unbelief than I've got of faith. And then I'm so thankful none
of this is dependent upon me. It's His faithfulness. And God
Almighty said to Abraham, I'm going to bring you people. I'm
going to put them into bondage and I'm going to bring them out.
I'm going to bring them out. And the book of Exodus is about
God bringing His people out of bondage. but not without blood. And that's why I'm going to leave
you with that. Not without blood now. He's not going to bring
them out of bondage without blood. And He brings us out of bondage
by the blood of His Son, the Lamb of God, that took away our
sins. Is that right? All right. Let's sing a final song. And I forgot to set my stopwatch.