Again, turn with me to Exodus
chapter 13. And look at the latter part of
verse 14 again with me. Your son is going to ask, What
is this? And thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the
Lord brought us out from Egypt from the house of bondage. Three statements in one by strength
of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt from the house of
bondage. You know, the only hope for a
fallen man, for the depraved, selfless, helpless sinners that
we are, is the omnipotent intervention of God's irresistible grace. That's not my statement. Brother
Don Fortner made that one. That's a good one, isn't it?
Let's see it again. The only hope for fallen, depraved,
helpless sinners is the omnipotent intervention of God's irresistible
grace. He is our only hope. And with strength of hand, the
Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of bondage. You
know this is the most repeated story among Israelites or all
through the Bible. This is the most repeated story
that you read it in almost every book of the Bible. You'll read
this two, three, maybe four times. It'll come up. Isaiah mentions
it several times. Jeremiah mentions it. All the
prophets mention it. Moses mentions it here and then
several times as you go through the first five books of the Bible. It's just mentioned so many times.
What had happened was that back in Genesis chapter 15, Abraham
was told by the Lord that his descendants would be 400 years
in bondage. And God providentially guided
the affairs of men until Joseph, who was second only on the throne,
he died and all the people that he had brought down, Jacob and
all the descendants of Jacob, he had brought down into Egypt
and when Joseph died They put them to taskmasters. They made
slaves out of them. And for 400 years they were in
slavery. And they cried to the Lord. But
God said, 400 years. This is my purpose. This is my
decree. You're going to spend some time
down there. And God made slaves of them.
But you know, they were God's people. They were God's people,
not because that they were great in number or greater than any
other nation, but they were God's people because He loved them.
He loved them and He chose them through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were God's people because
they were desirable to Him. He just desired to have them. And isn't that something today
that God still does the same thing? We're God's people because
He loved us. No other reason. No other reason. We're God's people because He
desired us. He chose us before the foundation
of the world. We're God's people. Turn with me to, not only is
it a story that you read several times throughout the scripture
and the most told story all through the scripture which in a physical
sense we see what happened there but there's a spiritual sense
to it and that's why it's told so many times and that's why
it's told to us and why we're talking about it tonight. Turn
to Colossians chapter 1 Colossians chapter 1. We're going
to do a little bit of a study tonight. Colossians chapter 1 and let's look at verses 12 13 and 14 Colossians chapter 1 giving
thanks unto the father which has made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light who have delivered us
notice these words who have delivered us from the power of darkness
and have translated us into the kingdom of his dear son in whom
we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness sins. Tonight we're going to talk about
Christ, our Deliverer. He's the one who did the job.
He's the one who delivered us. I might not be telling you anything
new or anything that you've never heard before. I couldn't do that
if I wanted to. And the writer said, the wise
man said, there's nothing new under the sun. So if I try to
tell you something new, then you ought to cut me off. God
just cut me off right there. What I'm telling you tonight
is things that we've already heard and learned, but what a
blessing it is to know that He has taken us out of the pit and
put us on the solid rock. He's taken us from the dunghill
and made princes and kings of us. He's taken us out of the
miry clay and set our feet on the rock. What a God, what a
Savior that we have who would do such a thing for people like
you and me. You see, he says, with strength
of hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of
bondage. He says in verse 13 in Colossians
1, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath
translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. We were once
in the house of bondage. We were enslaved to the law. We were enslaved to sin. We were
enslaved to self-will. We were in the house of bondage,
and our taskmasters were cruel, cruel, heartless people, tyrannical
over us. We were the slaves, but thank
the Lord that the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the law for
us. He made it honorable. You see
the law has no call on me. It has no choice in me. The law
was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Now I have the obedience of Jesus
Christ to the law. I have the righteousness of Christ
to the law that God has indwelt in me. And so The law is no longer
my taskmaster. He's translated us from the kingdom
of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. I've been a slave. Still am. A slave
to my sinful will. Aren't you? Every time I turn
around, that sinful will crops up. I want to do it this way. I want to do it that way. I want
to go here. I want to go there. And that sinful will, by nature
we have it. We were fallen in Adam, ruined
in Adam. And in practice we have it because
we practice sin. We do the things that we should
not. Our will is bent only to sin. Our choices are always tainted
with sin. And all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. We were in bondage. We're in
bondage to self-righteousness. And the Bible says our righteousness
are as filthy rags. And we're in bondage to that
self-righteousness. Paul said it this way, not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but according to
his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the
renewing of the Holy Ghost. There are people that are a righteousness
unto themselves. They have their own righteousness.
They don't need God's righteousness. When you talk to them about the
Lord and our sovereign God and how wonderful the gospel is and
we who know the gospel know what it's all about and you talk to
them about it and they just turn away. They don't want to hear
it. Because the first thing it does
is it puts them in bondage. It brings them down. They don't
want that. They want to exercise their own
self-will, their own self-righteousness. We're in bondage because of the
love for the things of this world. Yes, we live in this world, but
we're not of this world. We're of another world. We're
of the kingdom of God. Yes, we have to make a living
in this world and so on. And yes, things help us to do
and to be comfortable in this world, but don't love them. Don't love the love of the world.
Love not the things of the world, but the love of the world, the
lust of the flesh, the pride of life, and all those things.
It's not of God. It's of the world. The Bible
says, Center affections on things that are above, not on things
that are on the earth. That's what Paul told us to do.
Temporal things are passing away. I've never seen a funeral yet
that a U-Haul truck was following right behind. Have you? Because he died and left it all. Nothing he's taken with him.
Temporal things are passing away. Whether I pass away and leave
them behind or they're always corrupting. Always having to
fix your car, aren't you? Something about it goes bad.
I've got a light in my truck I've got to fix tomorrow. Something
in your car is going to go bad because it's corrupting. It's
passing away. After a few years, what do you
do? If you've got the money, you get rid of the car and get
a new car. And then start all over again.
Our houses are deteriorating. We're always having to work on
something at the house. But the Son of God remains the
same. Never changes. Always there. Always the same. Love not the
world, neither the things that are in the world. And we're in bondage to sometimes
satanic influences. Principalities and powers. Powers
in dark places. We war, our warfare is not with
the flesh but with principalities against powers, rulers of darkness
in this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. And we're in a warfare there.
Satanic influences. This world is under satanic influence. He's a liar and the father of
it. And this whole world is full of lies. And the worst lie of all is,
I don't believe Jesus Christ is God. I don't believe he could
be my savior. I'm good enough to save myself. I wonder why John, in the end
of his book, 1 John, the very last thing, now he's talked about
life, he's talked about love, and he's talked about light,
love, and life. He's talked about these three
things. And he goes through all five chapters talking about all
these things. And then the last line of it
is this, my little children, Keep yourselves from idols. We can make an idol of almost
anything in our lives. Anything that would come between
us and the Lord Jesus Christ would have to be an idol. Oh,
don't let anything happen like that. We need to pray for God's
grace that we may keep our minds and hearts stayed on Him because
then He says we'll have perfect peace. Perfect peace. Now, we were in bondage. With strength of hand the Lord
brought us out of Egypt from the house of bondage. We were
in bondage. But let's just note for a moment
the Lord's strong hand. with strength of hand. How strong
is he? Well he holds all the waters
in the hollow of his hand. How strong is he? His hands were
raised and the troubled seas calmed. How strong is he? These are the hands that hold
all his people securely in his hand. How strong is this hand? It's the hand that touched the
leper, the blind, the lame, and made them whole again. How strong
is this hand? This was the hand that was pierced
for all the elect. How strong is that hand? He set
his face as a flint. to do the purpose of God in dying
on the tree, bearing our sins, bringing in eternal righteousness
and eternal redemption for us. This was the hand that was against
all those who were against Him. One of these days that hand will
be raised. There will be on the right hand
all the sheep, on the left hand all the goats, And he'll say,
depart from me to the goats. I never knew you. He'll say to
those sheep on the right, enter in to the joy of thy Lord. Psalmist David said it this way,
he will save with his right hand. I'm glad he did. I'm glad he
did. I'm glad he does. With a strong
hand and an outstretched arm, he brings his people in. David
said it this way, thou hast a mighty arm, strong is thy hand, and
high is thy right hand. He said another thing, he said
the Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my
God. he's my strength and my Redeemer
the saving strength David talks about the saving strength of
his right hand the strength of Israel gave him a name the strength
of Israel will not lie nor repent he's not a man when I am weak then he is strong would it be wrong to pray Lord
make me a weakling make me a weakling. Because when
I'm weak, then He is strong. And I want Him to be strong. I want to show forth His strength. The Lord Jesus said, all power
is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and preach
the gospel. The Lord taught an old heathen
king by the name of Nebuchadnezzar, who stood on his balcony one
day and said, look at everything I've done. And just a day or
two later, he was out in the fields eating grass like a cow.
A few years later, a few years later, God brought him back to
his senses. You remember what he said? None can stay his hand. He does
whatever he wills in the armies of heaven and the inhabitants
of the earth. And none can stake his hand.
And who would say, what dost thou? In the book of Revelation, it
tells us that he goes forth to conquer. And he's conquering
his enemies. He's already triumphed over them
openly at the cross. He's already, and the resurrection,
he's already triumphed openly over all his enemies, but he's
going to go after them one of these days. And then also, in
his conquering, he conquered my heart. Did you? I wasn't turning my heart over
to him. I had no desire. I thought I had the tiger by
the tail. I thought everything was hunky-dory. I'd studied the
scriptures, I'd been in the scriptures for most of my life. And then
I sat there and heard a preacher preach the gospel for the first
time in my life. I heard the gospel. And I realized I didn't have
the tiger by the tail. Lord if you don't take me by
the tail, I'm not going to be helped at all. Lord have mercy
on me. Have mercy on me. I cried out
and you know what? He delights in mercy doesn't
he? He stands still when the call of mercy comes. And He gave
us mercy. He routed the taskmasters with
that strong hand. They would just add more to your
task. They would add more to do this and do that. And for
40 years, that's what I told people. You've got to do this.
You've got to do this. This is what God requires of
you. And if you don't do it, you're not going to make it. Guess what? Nobody did it. Not even me. God gave the law as a schoolmaster
to show us what sin actually is. God knew that we could not
keep the law, so he kept it for us in Jesus Christ. He routed the taskmasters. He
destroyed all the idols in Egypt. 10 plagues, all of them were
on Egyptian idols. When you read about Egypt in
the history books you'll note that those 10 plagues were on
idols that they had. Either idols were about good
things that would happen to them or the idols were about bad things
that was happening to them. The flies, the locusts and the
storms and so on. But that 10th one that 10th one,
that Passover where God went through the land of Egypt and
killed all the firstborn of men and of cattle and as I said before many died
by the death angel and God's people did too in their substitute
the Passover lamb and that's where we died I'm
crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Yet not
I. I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I died in Jesus Christ. We are just a brand plucked out
of the fire. As I mentioned at the beginning,
we were in the pit and He brought us up out of a horrible pit. We were in the miry clay and
He set our feet upon a rock. We were on the dung hill and
He made us princes to our God. No wonder Paul says in 1 Corinthians
chapter 3 that we are saved yet so as by fire. He took the fire. He took the
fiery judgment of God for every one of us and showed us mercy. He's our deliverer. They cried
by reason of their taskmasters and God heard their cry. Sent
Moses down with Aaron to bring the people out of Egypt. Is the
Lord's hand shortened that it cannot save? That was the question
that Isaiah asked. No. It's not shortened. God can do all things. All things
are possible to him that believe it. The disciples said to him
after he sent the rich young ruler away and said how hardly
it is for a rich man to enter in the kingdom of heaven. Easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to get into heaven. The disciples said Well, who
then can we say? With men it's impossible. But
with God, all things are possible. Hallelujah. I'm glad they are
with Him, aren't you? That all things are possible
with Him. He took our sins and cast them behind His back. He
cast them as far as the east is from the west. He covered
them with His blood. He put away our sin. You see, the Lord delivered his
people. With a strong hand, the Lord
brought us out of Egypt from the house of bondage. It was
the Lord that did it. It was the Lord that did it.
Moses didn't do it. He just did what God told him
to do. Moses didn't bring them out.
The miracles that happened, Moses, God spoke to Moses, Moses raised
his rod and they happened. The Lord did it. The Lord did
it all. The Lord is the one who delivers
us. He delivers us from the power
of darkness into his marvelous light. He saves us from the wrath
to come. Paul said it this way in 2 Timothy
4, 17. He's saved out of the mouth of
the lion. Remember Daniel? He was thrown
into the lion's den. And the Lord closed their mouths. The Lord did it. The Lord is
the one who delivers his people. Who could do such a thing? God
himself in the person of Jesus Christ. The God-man. He's the
one. You see, we were enslaved. We
had to do what our master says. But God made himself our master. And now he's able to save to
the uttermost all who come to God by Jesus Christ. Who could do such a thing? Well,
the Lord did. The Lord did. He's king of kings. Lord of lords. He's the potentate. The only wise potentate. He's
able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.
That's who did it. He's God. He's sovereign. He
does as He pleases. As a matter of fact, whatsoever
the Lord pleases, He did in heaven, in earth, in seas, in all deep
places. He does as He purposes. Whatever
He purposes is done. He purposed the salvation of
His elect. It's done. It was done before
the world ever started. It was made final when Jesus
Christ died on the cross and now he's drawing all those, his
elect, to himself. Until one day, they'll all be
there. He won't fail. He's going to
bring the children to God. He does as He purposes. He has
predestined all things. Providentially guides everything
to His conclusion. All things work together for
good to them that love God, to them that are called according
to His purpose. 400 years in bondage. It was prophesied. It was done. It was predicted. It was accomplished. 400 years they came out of Egypt. It was prophesied. It was predicted. It was accomplished. Our lives
before we met the Lord we had to be convinced of sin and that's
what the Holy Spirit did. No man could convince any other
man that he's a sinner. Only the Spirit of God can. And
the sin that he convinces of is, because they believe not
on me. There's the sin of this world. He does everything according
to his own purpose. He knows everything from the...
knows all things, the end from the beginning. He loves us, I don't know how,
but He's pleased with us. And He chose us in Jesus Christ. The elect of God. You know the
rulers cried out to Jesus Christ when He was there on the cross?
If He be the Christ, the chosen of God, let Him come down and
save us. How wicked their thoughts. He was the Christ. He was the
Son of God. And if He had chosen to, He could
have come down and saved them. But He was there for His people.
And His people alone. The good news is, it's all in
Jesus Christ. He's the Deliverer. He said, A body hast thou prepared
for me. That body that could die. Great is the mystery of godliness. God became a man. He was made
to be sin for us who knew no sin. He bore our sins in his
own body on the tree. God would see the travail of
his soul and be satisfied. He took our place. He was our substitutionary lamb. He is our Passover lamb. Redemption
has been accomplished. Justice has been satisfied. And I want you to read two verses
with me in closing. Turn to Romans chapter 4. Romans
chapter 4. Christ our Deliverer. Romans chapter 4 and verse 25. Verse 25, speaking of Jesus Christ
who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our
justification. He's our deliverer. Not only
delivers from bondage, but he delivered himself for our sins
and our justification. Now look at Romans chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8. Verse 32. Let's start with verse
31. What shall we then say to these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things? No wonder the Lord said, if the
Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. That's grace. He graciously freed us too. walk
in this new life in Christ. He graciously freed us from the
law and given us His own righteousness and obedience. He graciously
freed us from death and the wrath to come. He's given to us eternal
life. He graciously freed us from the
dominion of sin. Sin will not reign over us. He
graciously freed us to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth and one day we will be free from
this body of flesh and will go into the promised land death
will be swallowed up in victory because we have passed from death
unto life Heavenly Father, thank you for
your word. Thank you how plain you make
the gospel to be understood by your people. And I pray, Father,
that this gospel would be on our lips wherever we go, in our
mind and heart, that we may dwell upon it, meditate upon it, the
grace and the mercy and the love of God for us sinners. Thank you tonight for your word
in Jesus' name. Amen. Turning your hymnals, I
don't know that we know this song or not. Song number 459. 459. Have we sung this one here before?
Some of you know this one. Okay. Let's try it. In loving kindness Jesus came,
my soul in mercy to reclaim. Run from the depths of sin and
shame, through grace he lifted me from sinking sand. he lifted me with tender hand
he lifted me from shades of night to plains of light oh praise
his name he lifted me he called me long before Before my sinful
heart was stirred, And when I took Him at His word, Forgiven He
lifted me. From sinking sand He lifted me,
With tender hands He lifted me from shades of night to plains
of light. Oh, praise His name! His brow was pierced with many
a thorn His hands by cruel nails were torn When from my guilt
and grief forlorn In love He lifted me From sinking sand He
lifted me With tender hand He lifted me From shades of night
To plains of light praise his name. He lifted me. Now the songwriter said now on
a higher plane and I changed that. He put me on the highest
plane. Did he you? He put me on the
highest plane. He put me in Jesus Christ. Now on the highest plane I dwell
And with my soul I know it is well Yet how or why I cannot
tell He should have lived me from sinking sand. He lifted me with tender hand. He lifted me from shades of night
to planes of light. Oh, praise his name. He lifted Our pastor will be back with
us Sunday morning, Lord willing, and we'll see you then. Good
night. Hope you have a good week. And
you too, brother.