Good morning. Let's all stand
together. We'll sing hymn number 15. Hymn number 15. Brethren, we have met to worship
and adore the Lord our God. Will you pray with all your power
while we try to preach the word? All is vain unless the Spirit
of the Holy One comes down. Brethren, pray, and holy manna
will be showered all around. Brethren, see poor sinners round
you Some bring on the brink of woe Death is coming, hell is
moving Can you bear to let them go? See our fathers and our mothers
and the children sinking down. Brethren, pray in holy manner. We'll be showered all around. Sisters, will you join and help
us? Moses' sister hated him. Will you help the trembling mourners
who are struggling? heart with sin tell them all
about the savior tell them that he will be found sisters pray
and Holy manna will be showered all around. Let us love our God supremely. Let us love each other too. Let us love and pray for sinners
till our God makes all things new. Then he'll call us home
to heaven. At his table we'll sit down. Christ will gird himself and
serve us with sweet manna all around. Be seated. We'll sing hymn number 268. 268. How firm a foundation, ye saints
of the Lord, is laid for your faith. in his excellent word. What more can he say than to
you he hath said. to you who for refuge to Jesus
have fled. Fear not, I am with thee, O be
not dismayed. For I am thy God, I will still
give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee,
and cause thee to stand upheld. by my gracious omnipotent hand. When through the deep waters
I called thee to go, the rivers of water shall not be overflown. For I will be with thee thy troubles
to bless, and sanctified to be thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy
pathway shall lie, My grace, O sufficient, shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee
I only design. Thy trust to consume and thy
gold to refine. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned
for repose. I will not, I will not desert
to his foes. Let soul, though all ill, Should
endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake. If you have your Bibles with
you this morning, if you would open with me to the book of Psalms.
I'd like to read Psalm 29. Psalm 29. Psalm 29. Give unto the Lord,
O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto
the Lord the glory due unto his name. Worship the Lord in the
beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is upon
the waters. The God of glory thundereth.
The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful,
and the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of
the Lord breaketh the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars
of Lebanon. He maketh them also to skip like
a calf. Lebanon and Syrian like a young
unicorn. The voice of the Lord divided
the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh
the wilderness. The Lord shaketh the wilderness
of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord maketh
the hinds to calve and discovereth the forests. And in his temple
doth every one speak of his glory. The Lord sitteth upon the flood,
yea, the Lord sitteth king forever. The Lord will give strength unto
his people. The Lord will bless his people
with peace. Bow our heads. Our most high and heavenly Father,
Lord God Almighty, we bow before you once more coming through
your Beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord, thank you for making
intercession for us. Lord, thank you for showing us
your glory and your might. Lord, we thank you for your promise
of peace. Thank you for your bountiful mercies, your bountiful
grace, your perfect righteousness, your
perfect will. Lord, we thank you for this gathering
out this morning. Thank you for sending Brother
Aaron safely here to speak to us this morning. Lord, we ask
that you would bless the message to our hearts this morning. Cause
us to bow down and worship you. Give unto thy name the glory
that is due. Lord, as Brother Aaron stands,
I ask that you would bless him as he speaks. Lord, that you would meet with
us. Let us not meet in vain. Lord, we ask for mercy for those
who are weak and weary, going through great trials. Lord, be
their peace and their comfort. Be their strength. Lord, we all need you. We need
you every moment. Lord, let us never turn away
from Thee. Hold us in Thy all-powerful hand. Keep us nigh unto Thee. Lord, we ask that You bless our
time together today. Bless this service, if it would
be Thy will. Lord, be with our pastor as he is away, preaching
unto other dear saints. Lord, we ask that you would bless
your word wherever it is being proclaimed at this morning. I
ask that you'd cause your word to go forth and prosper, conquer
sinful hearts, reveal yourself, make yourself known, Lord, according
to thy holy will. Lord, we ask that all things
be done according to thy will on earth as it is in heaven.
In Christ's name, we ask these things, amen. Let's all stand together and
sing the hymn of the day in the Bulletin. Lord, we adore thy boundless
grace, Thy heights and depths unknown. of pardon, life, and
joy, and peace in thy beloved Son, in thy beloved Son. O wondrous gifts of love divine,
dear source of every good, Jesus, in thee what glories shine! How rich thy flowing blood! How rich thy flowing blood! Come, all ye pining, hungry for
the Saviour's bounty taste. Behold an ever failing store
for every willing guest, for every willing guest. Here shall your numerous wants
receive a free, a full supply. He has unmeasured bliss to give
and joys that never die. And joys that never die. We have Seth Hardman with us
this morning. He's going to come and sing us a special. O Savior, as my eyes behold the
wonders of thy might untold, the heavens' glorious light array
the vast creations thou hast made. And yet to think thou lovest
me, My heart cries out, How can it be? How can it be? How can it be? That God should love a soul like
me? Oh, how can it be? As at the cross I humbly bow
and gaze upon thy thorn crowned brow. and view the precious bleeding
formed by cruel nails so bruised and torn. Knowing thy suffering
was for me, in grief I cry, how can it be? How can it be? How can it be? That God should love a soul like
me? Oh, how can it be? How can it be, how can it be,
was ever grace so full and free? From heights of bliss to depths
of woe, in loving kindness thou didst go. From sin and shame to rescue
me O love divine, how can it be? How can it be? How can it be? That God should love a soul like
me Oh, how can it be? Thank you, Seth. We're pleased
and blessed to have Brother Aaron Greenleaf with us this morning.
It's been a little while since you've been here. We've had you
many times, but time flies. Sure flies by. Anyway, we're
certainly glad to have him and looking forward to hearing you
preach to us today. Come on and bring forth what
the Lord's put on your heart. Morning, everybody. If you'd
like to turn to Exodus chapter one. Yeah, I think it's been two years
since I've seen you all, and you're a sight for sore eyes.
It's good to see you all again. And I bring well wishes, love,
prayers, and thanks from everybody in Lexington. Everybody said
say hi, so on behalf of them, hi. We're actually going to take
our text from Exodus 2 this morning, the first 10 verses. It's the
birth of Moses. Many of you are probably familiar
with that story. But I think to understand what's being said
there, the gospel significance, we need to see what happened
before that. We need to see the backstory. So you're there in
Exodus chapter one, and just look down and let's read verse
eight. It says, now there arose up a new
king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. Now it had been about
210 years since the death of Joseph all the way to the birth
of Moses. A lot of water under the bridge
during that time. A whole lot of pharaohs passed
during that time. Finally, a pharaoh arises, and
he doesn't know Joseph. And that doesn't mean he doesn't
know who he is. I'm sure that story of how Joseph
saved Egypt, that got told over and over again. It's that he
didn't care who Joseph was. He didn't have any love for him.
He didn't have any love for Joseph's people, the Hebrews. In fact,
what he found was is that the Hebrews, the people of Joseph,
children of Israel, they had multiplied, and they had become
greater in number and mightier than the Egyptians. And this
scared Pharaoh. He said, what they're going to do is they're
going to join up with our enemies. And then they'll conquer us. He says,
we've got to do something about that. So he concocts some schemes,
three of them, really. And the first one which fails,
he says this. He goes, we're going to put them into bondage.
We're going to make them slaves. We're going to put them under
our thumb. We'll put them in hard bonds and labors that they
couldn't possibly bear. Give them all these great burdens,
this work that they couldn't possibly do. We'll put them under
our thumb. And that way, they'll know they're
our pet. Don't rise up against us. Well, how'd that work out
for them? Look down at verse 12. But the more they afflicted
them, the more they multiplied and grew. Now, that's got to
be incredibly frustrating for Pharaoh. He thinks his plan is
going to work perfectly, right? They're going to be our slaves,
our bond servants. And no, this affliction, what happened? They
flourished. They multiplied. They grew. And as a side note, I want to grow in grace, don't
you? I want to grow in knowledge. my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I want to grow in his grace. I want to grow in faith, in love
toward him, in brotherly love, in all spiritual blessings, temperance,
meekness, virtue, humility. I want to grow in all those things. When does the believer grow?
When do the people of God grow? Is it in comfortable times when
things are good, everything's back sails downhill? It's in
that fire of adversity. It's in that trial. It's when
the Lord brings you into that place to where you have absolutely
no control and you see it all over again. I can't control my
circumstances. I can't change them. I can't
even change my attitude towards these circumstances. I got such
a bad attitude about it and I can't even change that. I am hopeless
and I'm helpless. Lord, if you don't come down
to me, come to where I'm at in this deplorable state and do
something for me, I won't be helped. There'll be no change
whatsoever. And what happens every single
time? He whispers again, I am thy salvation. And what happens? We grow. It puts the context
of trial, puts it in a new context, doesn't it? When you're in that
fire, that very difficult, difficult thing, what's happening? We're
growing. We're growing in his grace. Growth upward, growth
downward. Now back to Pharaoh. This is
his first scheme. He says, we'll make them slaves,
put them in bondage, but that fails. They actually grow through
all this. So here's the second one. Look at verse 16. And he
said, when you do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women,
and see them upon the stools. If it be a son, then you shall
kill him. But if it be a daughter, then
she shall live." Now, he's using subtlety here. He goes to the
midwives that will service the Hebrews and he says, all right,
he goes, if a baby Hebrew is born, he's male, just kill it,
right? And he says, well, the good thing
about this is nobody know it's me. They'll think they all died
in childbirth. We'll kill off all the males and then we'll
take their daughters to be our wives. We'll kill them off and
we'll breed them out and that'll be the end of the Hebrews. This
one fails too. It says that the midwives, they
feared God and they would not do this thing that Pharaoh commanded
them to do. And so finally, Pharaoh is done with subtlety and this
is his final command. Look down at verse 22. And Pharaoh charged all his people.
saying, every son, make note of that, every son that is born,
you shall cast into the river and every daughter you shall
save alive. Pharaoh makes a command, a law.
He says, this is the decree. Every son, everybody has to do
this. You take him and they got to
go through the river. Every single one of them. This is Pharaoh's command. Every
one of them have to go through the river. Now what I just talked
about there, what does that remind you of? That reminds me of human
nature in this threefold scheme that Pharaoh has here. The way
we are all born into this world, every man without exception,
save the Lord Jesus Christ, the God man. What's the scheme? Put
them in bondage, heavy burdens and labors that they could not
possibly perform. How were we born in this world?
In bondage to sin. Can't stop. Sin is what I do.
Sin is what I think. It touches everything. In my
purest motivation, my purest intention, it's sin, it's self-glorying
because it comes from this old, wicked heart. Incomplete and
under bondage to a sinful nature and to a law that I cannot keep.
A burden and a labor, I can't keep the law. No man has ever
kept the law, not in his heart, never once. Bondage, born of
this world into bondage. Secondly, what did Pharaoh say?
Kill him at birth. How's a man born in this world?
dead in trespasses and sins. No spiritual faculties. He cannot
love God, not as he is. He can love a puppet God. He
can love an idol, one who needs his help. But the true and living
God, that one who does what he will, with whom he will, when
he will, he can't love him. All he can do is war against
him. He can't believe upon him. He can't look to Christ. He can't
bring himself to repentance. He cannot change his mind. He
is dead in trespasses and sins. And finally, this, the king has
a decree. He has a command. Everybody's
got to go through the river. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. Sin's found on a man. He must
be punished. The very justice of God demands
it. Now, this is a terrible spot
for these Hebrews to find themselves in, isn't it? What do they need? They need a deliverer. They need
somebody to come to save them from that death and from that
bondage and bring them out of Egypt and bring them into the
promised land. Who's the very next person this book talks about?
The Deliverer, Moses, that one the Lord would use to bring them
out of Egypt. But what does a sinner need?
Somebody who's in bondage to sin and to a law he can't keep,
one who's dead in trespasses and sins. The King's command
is he's got to die. He's got to go through the river.
What does he need? He needs a Deliverer. He needs Christ. And that's what
this story is about. That's what Exodus 2 is about.
It's about the Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ. You look at
Exodus 1, go to Exodus 2. And look at verse 1. It says,
And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter
of Levi. Now, this is Moses' mother and
father. This is Amram, his father, and Jochebed, his mother. And
they're of the Levitical tribe. They're Levites. Verse 2. And
the woman conceived, that's Jochebed, and bear a son, Moses. And when
she saw him, that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. Jacobetta looked down, and she
looked at Moses and says, he's goodly. And that word, goodly,
you know what that means? It means goodness in the broadest
possible sense. In every way, shape, and form,
when she saw him, she saw a goodly child. And she says, I can't
put him to the river. I'm going to hide him. I'm going to put
him away. And she did that for three months. And I bet a lot
of Hebrew women did that. But how long are you going to
do it? You make three months, right? those Egyptian guards
walking around Hebron. They're just waiting to hear
a baby cry. They're just waiting to hear a little coo. That's it. And
they're going to go in there. They're going to grab that baby, and they're going to put
him in the river. And either the crocodiles are going to get
him, or he's going to drown, one of the two. But everybody's
got to go through the river. And so she hides him. You make
it three months. A year goes by. Are you going to make it
five years? Are you going to make it 10 years?
Eventually, he has to step out in the light of day. Eventually,
the sun has to shine on him, and he has to be known. And as
soon as he is, He's got to go through the river. That is the
king's command. So she's going to take him to
that river, but she's going to make a provision for him because
she loves him. Look down here. Look at verse
three. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for
him an arc of bull rushes and dulled it with pitch and slime
and put the child there in and she laid it in the flags by the
river's brink. She loved her child. He's a goodly
child. So she takes these reeds and she concocts this basket,
this ark, and she doves it with pitch and slime, this waterproofing
material. And she puts Moses in that basket, closes it up,
seals it up. So the only thing you could see
was that ark. And she sits it in the river and she does the
hardest thing a mother would ever be called on to do. She
let go and she walked away, simply trusting that ark to keep him
safe. Now, verse four, Q. Miriam. And his sister, which
is Miriam, she stood afar off to wit what would be done to
him. That's standing afar off. Yeah,
that's talking about the proximity. What that's actually talking
about is she didn't really understand. She's watching these things.
She sees her mother to make these provisions, this very special
care to make this ark, this basket. She sees it put Moses inside
there and leave him at the river and turn around and walk away.
And she sees all these things, but she stands afar off. She
doesn't really understand. She watches. But she wants to
know what's going to happen to him. And she just keeps her eyes
on him the entire time. She's just staring at Moses,
standing afar off, not really understanding, but just watching
him, keeping her eyes on him. Verse five. And the daughter of Pharaoh came
down to wash herself at the river. And her maidens walked along
by the riverside, and when she saw the ark among the flags,
she sent her maid to fetch it when she had opened it. She saw
the child and behold, the babe wept and she had compassion on
him and said, this is one of the Hebrews children. And we
have lo and behold, just by chance, right? No, by the will and providence
of God, Pharaoh's daughter, the princess, she's down by that
old dirty river and she sees that ark and she picks it up
and opens it. That crying baby is there. And she had compassion
on him. She had pity and mercy on him. And she knew this is
one of the Hebrews children. She knew her father's decree.
They all got to go through the river. She said, what love and
compassion. Someone loved this baby very,
very much. They would make such a great ark and put him in it.
And she had compassion on him. Now, Miriam, his sister, she's
a very savvy 13-year-old girl, and she doesn't miss a beat in
all this. Look down at verse 7. Then said his sister, Miriam,
to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call thee a nurse of
the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And
Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go. And the maid went and called
the child's mother. This is a savvy 13-year-old girl.
She sees this. She sees her brother get picked
up in this ark. And she watches this princess have mercy upon
him. And she saunters right up. She says, ma'am, I see you found
a Hebrew baby there. It appears you want to keep him
for your own. Would you need a wet nurse? Because I happen
to know one. She says, yeah. Go get that wet nurse. And she
runs back. And who's she going to go talk to? Her mother. Can you imagine that conversation? Mom, Moses is alive. The ark
kept him safe. Pharaoh's daughter has him. She's
gonna make him her son. She had compassion on him. She
needs a wet nurse, mom. Come on, come on. You're gonna
be that wet nurse. Let's go. Let's look at that conversation.
Look at verse nine. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto
her, unto Jochebed, Moses' mother, take this child away and nurse
it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took
the child and nursed it, and the child grew, and she brought
him unto Pharaoh's daughter, And he became her son. And she
called his name Moses and said, because I drew him out of the
water. Now, it is safe to say that this
story ends much, much better than when it began. Moses began,
he was the son of slaves, born a slave himself. Now he is literally
a child of the king. He's a grandson of Pharaoh himself. Before they were in hiding, just
waiting for one of those Egyptian guards to come in and grab him
and throw him into that river. And now he can stand in the light
of day. Everybody can look at him and
see him. And there is absolutely no terror being thrown in that
river. You know why? Because he's already been through
it. The king's command has already been settled. It's already been
fulfilled. He went through that river and that brought him safely
to the other side. Now he stands in the light of
day and nothing can touch him. He is a son of the king and his
mom is going to get to raise him. Truly, This story ends much
better than the way it begins. Now, if you're like me, when
you think of Moses, what type do you think of him as in Scripture?
I think of him as a type of the law. That's what I immediately
think of. Mount Sinai, who received the law? Moses did. Who gave
the law? Moses did. Several scriptural references
to Moses being the law, and he is a very powerful type of the
law in many places in Scripture. But his best type of the law
is this. It's in what Moses could not
do. What couldn't he do? He couldn't
bring the children of Israel into the promised land. Only
Joshua could do that, Joshua, that Old Testament word, that
Hebrew word for Jesus, that great type of Christ. The law can't
take any man into glory. The law can't do that. Only Christ
can do that. That's the teaching there. The
law, this is what Romans 8, 3 says. Paul says, for what the law could
not do in that it was weak through the flesh. What's the weakness
of the law? There's no weakness in the law.
For its purpose, it is beautiful and it is holy. It declares the
very righteousness of God. God is just this righteous. He
is just this just. He is just this holy, that this
is his law. This is a manifestation of his
righteousness right here. It's beautiful in its purpose,
but its purpose is this, to do only one thing, to declare guilty. That's it. It looks at every
man, every man that is born into this world that exact same way
we just read about in exodus one. He is guilty before the
law. It declares the guilt of men. That is the only thing it does.
That's its purpose. Says here, though, in john 1
17 for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. What's the truth? The truth is
Christ and His grace. Law. Not going to do anybody
good. Can't be saved by the law. What does that mean? To be saved
by the law? What's that teaching of law? Law is this. There's
something you need to do. Either prior to your salvation,
there's something you need to do to attract the Lord's attention,
something you need to do to get Him to do something for you.
Or at the end, there's something you need to do to preserve yourself,
to keep yourself on the right track. Somewhere in there, there's
law. There's something you've got
to do. And if you don't do it, you won't be saved. No man's ever
been saved by that. That's not even the purpose of
the law. There's one truth, Christ and his grace. What's the only
way a man can be saved? If from the foundations of the
world, he is in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. If from the
foundations of the world, Christ agreed to be his eternal surety
before the father and do everything that is necessary to save him.
He came to this world, lived for them, died for them, putting
away their sins, making them acceptable before God, sanctifying
them and keeping them to the very end. That's the truth, Christ
and his grace. This whole world, every man,
he has showed up to one thing, Christ and his grace. That's
the truth of salvation right there. Not of works, lest any
man should boast. No confidence in this flesh whatsoever
is Christ and his grace. That is the truth. If we want
to meet him, we have to look no further than the first verse
of Exodus 2. Go back and look at it. And there went a man of the house
of Levi and took a wife of the daughter of Levi. Moses, he's
a Levite. He's also a very great type of
Christ in these first couple of verses. He said, that's a
hard one, Aaron, because Christ is of the tribe of Judah. Hear
me out. Who came out of the Levitical
tribe exclusively? The priests. Those who would
make intercession for the people unto God. But in that Levitical
tribe, those Levitical priests, They were around for a very,
very brief period in history. As long as that Old Testament
economy of worship was around, we had the Levitical priests,
those types and pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ, the intercession
he makes for his people. He brings us unto the Father.
He makes intercession for us through his death, just types
and pictures. But as soon as the Lord Jesus
Christ died, that whole Old Testament economy of worship was done away
with. It was gone. It was put away because the type
and picture was fulfilled in Christ. Our Christ is the great
high priest of his people. He is our intercessor and our
mediator, but he's not a Levitical priest. He's not one that would
exist for just a little time and then go away. He's a priest
that abideth forever after the order of Melchizedek. And if
we want to know something about who Jesus Christ is, and folks,
that's what we're here to proclaim this morning. It's who Jesus
Christ is. That's what we're here to talk
about. That's the declaration of this morning, who he is and
what he did. If we want to know who he is,
We have to look no further than this Melchizedek. Now put a bookmark
where you're at. Go over to Hebrews chapter seven. You know the story here. Abraham
goes to deliver Lot. He's been taken, captured, kidnapped.
And after he comes back from the slaughter of the kings, he
goes to this Melchizedek. Melchizedek met him with wine
and with bread. And he gave a tenth of all the
spoils to Melchizedek. Melchizedek is a type of Christ here. Read
this if you want to know who Christ is. Hebrews 7 verse 1, for this
Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God who met
Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. Now, first this Christ. He is
the priest of the most high God. You know what that means? It
means he came from God speaks of his origin, but it's greater
than that. It's more than that. He's not just sent of God. He
is God. Who is Jesus Christ? He is God,
the son, the second person of the Blessed Trinity. All the
fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in him. Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
every attribute, holiness, righteousness, absolute sovereignty, omniscience,
omnipotence, it all dwells in this one God-man, Jesus Christ. It had to be God. Only God could
satisfy God. The demands he puts on a sinner,
those are God's demands, and there's only one person who can
satisfy God. It's God himself. It had to be
God. That's Jesus Christ. He's God.
But he's also this altogether God and altogether a man. Only a man could be the savior
of men. You remember the book of Ruth,
the kinsmen redeemer Boaz. If you're going to redeem your
family member, your family, you lost everything. They lost everything.
They were absolutely destitute. They lost all the land, all their
money. Your family member had done that. If you are near kinsmen,
You could be their kinsman redeemer. You could buy back everything
they had lost. What were the requirements to be a kinsman
redeemer? Remember that? First, you had to have the right
to redeem. You had to be bone of their bone and flesh of their
flesh. The same blood that flowed through their veins had to flow
through your veins. That's Christ. He was made man. God condescended
to take on human flesh, to take on the flesh of his people so
he could be the savior of his people. You had to have the right
to redeem, bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh. You had
to have the power, the ability to redeem. You had to have the
money. You have to be able to come up with the goods. Oh, Christ,
he had the power to redeem, the power to take sin into his own
body, to put it away on the tree, to swallow up the wrath of God
and put it away so that sin was never seen again. He has the
power to redeem. But this is the third thing.
He had to be willing to redeem. That family member that lost
everything, that was their fault. No one could compel him. He wasn't
on the hook to do anything for anybody. He had to be willing
of his own fruition to stand up and redeem that person. Thanks
be to God. Christ is that willing Redeemer
for his people. He stands up and says, I will
be Redeemer for them. Who is he? He's altogether God
and he is altogether man. He is a priest of the Most High
God. Look at verse two. to whom also Abraham gave a 10th
part of all, first being by interpretation, king of righteousness, and after
that also king of Salem, which is king of peace. Now don't miss
that. What's the order there? First,
number one, king of righteousness, and then secondly, king of peace. What's the issue of salvation?
God is an absolutely holy and just God. He is righteous. and his demand is perfect and
utterly righteousness. And because of his just and holy
character, he can't just have mercy on a man. He can't just
come down and say, well, I'm not gonna worry about your sin.
We're just gonna brush that under the carpet. No, his holy and
his just character won't allow for that. First, righteousness
has to be accomplished. That's Christ, the righteousness
of his people, making everyone in him absolutely and utterly
righteous with his very righteousness. And then what? What's the product
of that? Peace. The Father is at peace with everybody
in Christ. Perfect peace is there, and nothing
precludes him from showering down his mercy upon those people,
truly, because there's nothing left to forgive. All the sin
has been taken away, all the woe has been taken away, and
we are complete in him, our living head. First righteousness, first,
then peace. We should never let that go over
our head. He's a just God and he's a savior. God found a way
to remain absolutely just and holy and justify the ungodly. We can't do that. We have no
power to do that. If we show mercy to somebody,
it's always at the expense of justice. If we do justice to
someone, it's always at the expense of mercy. But he found a way
to do absolutely both to be a just God and to be a savior and to
be merciful. Thanks be to God. That's in Jesus
Christ. Verse three. This Melchizedek is without father,
without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days
nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth
a priest continually. He abides continually. A priest
that abideth forever. Who is Jesus Christ? He is the
eternal God. Always has been. I don't understand
these things. I don't. I love to think about them. I
can't process eternity. I can't process the fact that
there was a time, if you can call it time, when there was
just God. In his triune glory and beauty,
there was just him and he has always been. He never had a beginning
point and he created and he still is and he always will be. But
this is the beauty of his eternality. Everything that he has purposed.
He has already done and everything he has already done, he's currently
doing. That's the way his eternality
works. Everything he has purposed and
his purposes are from the foundation of the world. Everything's already
been planned out. Everything has already been purposed.
That means everything has always been done. What does that mean
for us? Us who look to Christ alone?
It means we've always been eternally secure in him. That he has always
been our lamb slain from the foundation of the world. What
does that mean? It means before there was ever
a sinner. before a sin was ever done. Before any of that, there
was a lamb slain who had already made atonement in the eyes of
the Father for those select people. And they are eternally secure
in Christ. We can't mess this up. It's impossible.
This is our salvation is an eternal salvation because he's an eternal
God. He abideth the priest continually.
I'll tell you what, folks, I love that word continually. You know
what that means? It means always. Right now, always was, always
will be. He abides the intercessor continually. I'll tell you why that's so important
to me, because I say with David, my sin is ever before me. It
is perpetual. It is ongoing. It is right now.
It always has been. And as long as I'm alive, it
always will be. I can't get out of it. I can't stop. There is
only one thing more constant and more now than my sin, and
that is his intercession for me. One day I'm going to die. I'm going to put down this wicked,
hard flesh. My sin being no more, I won't
experience it anymore. But his intercession continues
on. He's going to stand in heaven with his scars, constantly making
intercession for us. As long as he is, we will be
secure eternally in him. Well, he's eternal. He doesn't
end. That means we never end. That blessed state, it does not
end. This is a sure and eternal salvation
we have because of who this man is, this greater Melchizedek,
this Lord Jesus Christ. Now go back to your text. Look
at verse two. And the woman conceived, Jochebed,
and bare a son. And when she saw him that he
was a goodly child, she hid him three months. Now, I like to
think about this. When you read the gospels, talking
about the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, we get the story of his
birth, And a little while later, when he's 12 years old, we get
a story about him where he says, don't you know that I must be
about my father's business? And we have some understanding
there just from that story, what he's doing the whole time. He's
just obeying his father. He's just doing what his father
sent him to do. But until he's about the age
of 30 and his public ministry starts. We don't know anything
about what was going on. It's an obscure time. The whole
thing's just shrouded in mystery. And you wonder what was going
on during those times when he was Growing up, if you can say that
about God, the father was raising his son. And I recognize that
he had earthly parents. He had Mary and Joseph that were
assigned to him. But who raised him? His father raised him. His father was one that was looking
down on him, and he saw a goodly child. Look at him. He's doing
exactly what I told him to do. He condescended. He took on human
flesh. Look at him. And look at him.
This is the only man that's ever lived. He's never sinned. He's
incapable of it. He's perfectly righteous. He's
perfectly holy. He obeys me in all things. Look at him. He's
absolutely beautiful to me. I think that's wonderful. That's
hid from us. As if the father is saying, you don't get to know
about that. You don't get to see that. That was between me
and my son. That's what was going on there.
That's between me and him. I was looking down on him, raising
him, just looking at him in his goodly splendor. And it made
me think of David. When David is anointed king,
First Samuel 16. He's a great type of the Lord
Jesus Christ. But this is how he appeared. This is what the
scripture says that he was ruddy. That means he was earthy. That's
what the father saw. God manifest in the flesh himself
manifest in the flesh, in the beauty of holiness and wonder.
And it says this. It says he was of a beautiful
countenance. Oh, the beauty of his righteousness and his holiness.
But he says this, too. He was goodly to look to. And that's exactly what the father
did. He was the first one to look to Christ. He took that
which was precious to him, his elect, those he chose before
the foundations of the world, those he loved before the foundations
of the world, took them and put them in the one place of safety
in Christ. You're going to do everything
that is necessary for them to be saved. Nothing will be on
their shoulders, no labors, no burdens for them. The labor and
the burden is on you. I'm going to put them in you
and I am trusting them to you. Just like Moses mother put Moses
in that basket. She let go and she walked away.
The father put the elect in Christ and he let go and he walked away
and he says it's on your shoulders. He put them in that place in
that one who could not fail and could not lie. That's why it
was done from the foundations of the world. Because he is that
one that says, Father, send me. Who will go for us? Who will
be the one that will go for us? He says, here I send me. He can't
fail. He can't lie. He can't promise
something and not deliver on it. They're eternally secure.
He put them in that one place. The father was the first one
to trust him. And he's goodly also for a sinner to look to.
Let me read you this. I saw this with new eyes. This
is Isaiah 45, 22, it says, Look unto me. and be ye saved, listen
to this, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there
is none else. Who does he say that to? He says
those that are at the ends of the earth. You know what that
literally means? People who are as far off as they could possibly
be. As far from God as they could
possibly be. I can't take a step toward him.
in his holiness and his justice and his righteousness. I can't
do anything that would please him. I can't come up with any
merit. There's no reason that he should have any mercy toward
me. I'm as far off as I could possibly be at the ends of the
earth. And he says, you at the very end of the line over there,
look unto me and be ye saved. That is a commandment and that
is a promise. Here at the ends of the earth,
the worst of the worst couldn't possibly get any worse. Look
unto me and be ye saved. A promise and a command. We get
a good illustration of that in our text here. Look at verse
five. It says, And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash
herself at the river. When we read that, was anyone
wondering what a princess was doing at a dirty old river washing?
She had a palace. It's sitting on a hill. She had
as many servants as you could possibly want. Plenty of bathrooms. They could have drawn her a bath
anytime she wanted. Why is she down at this dirty old river?
Because she couldn't get clean in the palace. She had to come
down. She had to come down to the lowest
of the low, and that's where she found the deliverer. That's
where she found the Savior. What's the call, folks? Come
down. Come down to the palaces of my will and my works and self-righteousness. All these things, just sin, just
iniquity. That's all it is. Come down for
any hope of saving yourself whatsoever, any confidence in this flesh,
and look to Christ and be saved. A promise and a command, both
in the same breath. Now, verse three actually details
how he saved his people, and the type changes here. So Moses
was a type of Christ before, now he becomes a type of us,
and that orc is a type of Christ. Read this again, verse three.
And when she could no longer hide him, She took for him an
ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch,
and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags by the
river's bank." Now, what did Moses' mother do? Exactly what
the father did, put the elect in Christ. Moses, Jochebed took
Moses and put him in that ark. That ark was constructed this
way, reeds, but then daubed with pitch and slime. You know what
that word daubed means? It means to be besmeared, soiled,
polluted. Now, the theme of scripture is
this. The salvation is found in one place, one place only.
It's in Jesus Christ. The father took the elect and
they put he put them in Christ. And this is what it says in second
Corinthians 5 21 for he hath made him to be sin for us who
knew no sin. He never sinned that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. so much so in him that he became
my sin. He became the sin of all his
people. He bore in his body on the tree. I don't understand
that. I just believe it. He died under the wrath of God for that
sin. And when he died, he said these words. It is finished means
salvation accomplished for those people, all the sin being put
away. But in him so much this that when he kept the law, when
the Father looked at him and said, he's beautiful, he keeps
the law perfectly, he's incapable of sin, his life, that really
is my life before God, because I'm in him. Every step he took,
everything he did, we did it too, because we are in him. She
put him in that ark, and those waters touched the ark. The waters
of the Father's wrath, they touched Christ. But those waters never
touched Moses. Why? Because of the ark. The
wrath of the Father will never touch us. Why? We've already
been through the river. We already died in Christ. What's
the king's command? They all got to go to the river.
The soul that sinneth, it must die. It shall die. It has to.
The justice of God demands it. I died. I've already been punished. And I was in the ark. I was in
Christ. And the Father's wrath fell down on him. He swallowed
it all up, but it never touched us because of who we are in Christ
Jesus, our ark, dulled with pitch and swine. That's a beautiful
picture, isn't it? You understand these things?
You understand these things of an eternal salvation and Christ
being made my sin, and us being made the very righteousness of
God, and that being real, that transference, really one in Him.
Do you understand these things? I don't. I don't understand these
things. I read them. I believe them,
because I've written this book. And truly, it is all my salvation. Everything he says here, this
is my salvation. But I don't truly understand
it. And that's exactly the way it's supposed to be. Look at
verse four. And his sister stood afar off
to wit what will be done to him. She stood afar off. She didn't
really understand. She watched everything that happened. She
saw him get placed in this ark. She saw her mother construct
it. She saw her mother walk away from the ark and trust it. And
she watched Pharaoh's daughter pick him up and have compassion
on him. She watched. She just looked at him the entire time.
And she saw it all. And she didn't really understand.
And that's exactly how the way it is in this life. types, pictures
and shadows and seeing through a glass darkly. We just looked
at him the entire time. We believe exactly what he said.
He said, You're completing me. Sarah, look to me. Just trust
me. Keep your eyes on me. Look to me for everything in
your salvation. Be safe, Lord, by your grace. And only if you
cause me to. And with everything I've got,
I'm looking to you. I don't understand. I don't understand all this.
Not everything. But I just keep my eyes on you and I look to
you. That's blessed. Now over six,
this is the results of justification. That's what we just talked about.
And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river
and her maidens walked along by the riverside. And when she
saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
And when she had opened it, she saw the child and behold, the
babe wept. She had compassion on him and
said, this is one of the Hebrews children. Because justification
has been accomplished, because all the sins of all the elect
have been put away and we have the very righteousness of Christ,
what does that do? It opens the door of compassion
from the Father. He looks at us and says, pity,
compassion, mercy, grace. He's a God who delights in mercy. My son died for them. My son
justified them. Now I delight in raining down
this mercy and this grace upon my people, loving them as sons,
loving them in Christ, pouring it all down upon them. We have
the complete and full forgiveness of God, all his compassion, all
his mercy, all his grace, simply because justification was accomplished
in Christ Jesus. Compassion, and we're fetched.
Because justification is accomplished because we are complete in Christ.
Now the Holy Spirit must come, and in time, give us life through
the preaching of the gospel, and fetch us and drag us, literally
drag us to Christ. And the illustration here couldn't
be more perfect. Of course it's perfect because it's the word
of God, but it's perfect. And I'll ask you this question. Was Moses
looking for Pharaoh's daughter? Moses is a little infant. He's
floating around a river in a basket. He doesn't know there's a Pharaoh,
and he doesn't know he has a daughter. He's not looking for anything
or anybody. But she saw him. And she went and she fetched
him. And she picked him up and she had compassion on him. And
she made him her son. That's how the Lord deals with
us. That fetching grace, reaching out and grabs that sinner, says,
you're coming with me. And he gives us faith and gives
us life and causes us to look to Christ. We do anything to
earn that, to attract his attention? No. We didn't know there was
a pharaoh, didn't know he had a daughter. But she saw him. I love that. What happens when
we're fetched? We cry. Notice the order there.
She fetched him, and he cried. Cry out for mercy. God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. Notice the order, though. Fetched
and cried. Let me read you this. Isaiah
65, 24. And it shall come to pass that before they call, I
shall answer. And while they are yet speaking,
I will hear. God be merciful to me, the sinner. Why would a man cry that from
his heart? I don't deserve this. I don't deserve mercy. There's
absolutely no reason in me that you should show compassion to
me, that you should be pitiful to me. But I'm begging for it.
Show me mercy. Why? Because the Lord's already
been merciful to him. That's why he cries that cry.
Be gracious to me. Deal with me only in Christ.
Look at me only in Christ. Why does he pray that prayer?
because he's already been gracious to him. He was gracious to him
from the foundations of the world. What's the thing you pray every
single time? Save me. That's a big word. Save me. Come
to me where I'm at. Save me. If you've never done
before, do it this very moment. Save me. Why? Because I've been
saved from the foundations of the world. Just finding out about
it right now. Before they call, I will answer.
And while they're yet speaking, I will hear. I'll hear it because
of the words I gave them, because it's according to my purpose. Look at how the story ends. Verse
nine, and Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, take this child
away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And
the woman took the child and nursed it, and the child grew,
and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and she became her
son, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses,
and she said, because I drew him out of the water. How does
the story end? It ends much, much better than
when it began. Before Moses, he was born into
bondage, the son of bondage. Now he's free. He's a son of
the king. What do we have in Christ? Real
sonship, real freedom from the law. You're dead to the law.
You know, the law thing, the law is accomplished in Christ.
There's absolutely no bondage. You're free from the bondage
of sin. You may not feel that way. In fact, you don't feel
that way. You feel like sin has dominion over you all the time.
The very reason you believe the gospel is because you've been
freed from that bondage of sin in Christ, free from the law,
a son entitled to all the privileges of sonship. This is true. Everything
Jesus Christ has coming to him from his father. You have it,
too, because you are in him. Sonship acceptance. We are kings
and priests with God. The best thing you've ever heard.
He can stand in the light of day before he was in hiding.
Now he can stand in the light of day. Everybody in Christ can
stand in the light of day. The light of God's all seeing
eye looking over him, the law looking at him and what he sees.
Nothing but his darling son. He's beautiful for me. He's goodly
to look upon right now. Absolutely goodly. I find no
spot, no blemish in him before and hiding now. All he sees is
Christ. And, you know, that's exactly
from our story. What was the order there? Remember? Pharaoh's
daughter saw him. She picked him up. She had to
open the ark. What does that mean? It means
he was completely encapsulated in that ark. What she saw floating
out in that river, all she saw was the ark. When the father
looks at you, all he sees is his darling son. That's how real
that union is. Perfect in him, complete in him,
our living head. And truly, Things are better
than when they first began. In Adam, we were created upright,
innocent, pure, but not holy, not immutable. We could change.
We could fall, and we did. We fell in Adam. But now, in
Christ, holy and unblameable and unapprovable. That is an
eternal state, and that cannot change. Certainly, things are
much better at the end of the story than they are at the beginning.
I want to leave you with one closing thought. I think everybody's
familiar with Hebrews chapter 11. It's what we call the whole
faith. In Hebrews 11, Moses's parents
are listed there. All those different people and
their faith is commended, that God-given faith. His parents
are actually mentioned here in Hebrews 11. I'm gonna read what
it says about them in verse 23. It says, by faith Moses, when
he was born, was hid three months of his parents because they saw
that he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the king's
commandment. You know what that tells us?
This story, what Moses' parents did, what Jacob did here, this
is what true saving faith looks like. So once again, what did
she do? She took that which was most
precious to her, she entrusted it to that orc, she put it in
the river, and she took her hands off, and she turned around and
she walked away. Folks, that's what saving faith
looks like. Paul said this for the witch
calls. I also suffer these things. Nevertheless,
I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed. And I am
persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day, the entirety of our salvation, lock,
stock and barrel, every bit of it. We committed to Christ. We
take our hands off and we turn around and walk away. And just
like Miriam, we just look to him. I don't really understand,
not perfectly, but I just keep my eyes on him. He promises this. Look unto me, all ye ends of
the earth, and be ye saved. And I want you to understand
something right now. That's where all your hope is. My hands are
off. Folks, by the grace of God, my
hands are off. I'm trusting him for every aspect of my salvation,
my completeness before the Father. If you have that faith, you've
been saved. The Redeemer has come, the Deliverer
has come, and you've been brought out. It's been a pleasure being
with you all this morning. We'll talk in a little while. Have a brief word of prayer. Oh, Lord, our God, our high and
heavenly Father, we thank you once more for this day. We thank
you for this gathering of saints. Thank you for the message of
saving grace we just heard of. Or we thank you for such a. Pure
and perfect salvation found in Christ alone. Or thank you for showing yourself
to us. Lord, we ask that you'd keep
your word on our hearts as we go through our day. Lord, allow
us to gather again this evening and hear your word proclaimed
once more. Lord, we ask that you'd continue to keep us, continue
to provide for us. Teach us thy way, Lord, and have
thine own way, Lord, thy will be done in all things for Christ's
sake. Amen. Oh, how merciful. How merciful. Precious Lord, how merciful thou
art to me. Oh, how merciful. How merciful, blessed Lord, how
merciful thou art to me. You're dismissed. We'll meet
again this evening at 6 PM, Lord willing. Brother Aaron, if you
would go up there to the lobby where folks can shake your hand
or give you a hug. You're dismissed.