You know that's the wonderful
thing about believers as the Lord calls them home. It's easy to talk about them. Easy because you know what God
done for them. And the last breath, the first
breath that a man takes is because God lets him live. And the last
breath he takes, if God saves him, it will be by grace. Grace
will carry him all the way home. What a blessed hope we have.
What a blessed hope we have. Alright, I'm going to talk about
God's claims upon us. God's claims on people. God's
claims. God has claims upon people. But
I want you to start reading here with me at verse 18. Read to
verse 21. You know I dealt with the verses
from 8 to 17 last week. Now let's deal with these verses.
The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days shalt
thou eat unleavened bread as I commanded thee, and the month
in the time of the month of Abib, in the month Abib thou camest
out from Egypt. And all that open the matrix
is mine, and every firstling among the cattle, whether ox
or sheep, that is male. But the first leg of an ass shalt
thou redeem with a lamb, and if thou redeem him not, thou
shalt break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons
thou shalt redeem, and none shall appear before me empty. Six days
thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest. In erring
time and in harvest shalt thou rest." Now God has claims upon us as
I said. And one claim He has upon us,
because He's the Creator. He's the Creator. He made all
things. And He made us. Paul told the
Athenians on Mars Hill, said, God doesn't need anything we
got. He's not worshipped with men's
hands, nor by in buildings. You know, because He giveth life,
breath, and all things to men and it's by him by him we live
right now by him we live right now we have our being we have
our existence our natures and what we are as persons as people
we have our being and we move through him I mean
there's And so God has claims upon us because He gives life.
He gives life. He sustains our life. And God
just considered in the natural realm, in the natural realm,
considered everybody in this world. Without God, man can't
exist. He can have him silver. He can
have him gold. He can have him monkeys. He can have him statues.
He can have him snakes. He can have anything he wants.
And calls it to worship. And calls it he's God. But man
cannot exist and live without God Almighty. He can't do it. I don't care where he's at. And
there's multitudes and multitudes of people that won't acknowledge
that. They won't acknowledge God. Much less that their life
comes from Him. But as our Creator, He has claims
upon us. And He'll, one of these days,
them claims will be, you know, it's like that man who said,
listen, I've got, I've got these, I've got so much stuff, I've
got to tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And he filled
him up, and then he sat down and said, soul, take thine ease.
Take your ease. God told him, you fool. This
night, this night, your soul is required of you. God come
and got him that night. The night he said, I've got everything.
God said, this is your time. This is your time. So I'll tell
you, everything we got, thus as of us believers, everything
we got, we say God gave it. God gives it. Everything. I understand that my life's in
His hands and your life's in His hands. And when it's I, He's
got a time appointed, for they set the bounds of men, have set
the bounds of the habitation of men. What that means is, He
set up the bounds of how long you're going to live, where you're
going to live, and how many breaths you got, how many heartbeats
you got. He set the bounds for that. And He gave me a time to
be born, He gave me a time to be, to die. Ain't that what scripture
says? Time to be born and time to die.
And so I tell you what, He has claims upon us. Let me show you,
you keep Exodus 33, look over here with me, then Isaiah 42.
Isaiah 42. Verse 5, look what it says here,
verse 5. Thus saith God the Lord, He that
created the heavens stretched them out. He that spread forth
the earth and that which comes out of it. Now listen to this. He that giveth breath unto the
people and spirit to them that walk therein. God does that. So back over here in this book
of Exodus. Book of Exodus. We're about done
with it. It's called the Book of Redemption. Because we see
the Passover lamb. We see the blood shedding. To
put away sin. God said when I see the blood
I'll pass over you. That's why it's called the Passover.
There was a lamb slain. The blood was shed. And it was
put on the lintels of the door. And everyone inside that house
where that blood was shed, God said, when I see that blood,
I'll pass over that house. And if every house that didn't
have blood applied, God said, I'll visit that house with death
on the firstborn. So it's called the book of redemption,
the Passover, the blood shedding. And when we look in this, we
see the brazen altar. The place where they offered
the sacrifices on that brazen altar and it could bear the heat
and the wood and the fire upon that sacrifice that was put upon
it. And then behind that tabernacle veil, there was a mercy seat.
And that mercy seat was made out of gold. And inside that
mercy seat that was laying there with those cherubims up there,
there was an ark under it, had a lid on it, made out of gold. And inside that ark was God's
law, Aaron's rod that budded, and Moses' rod. They had all
that in there. And he had that law, had it all
covered. And I tell you what, that priest
went in there once a year and put blood on that mercy seat. And that was an atonement for
all of Israel on that one great day, the Day of Atonement. And
I tell you, for the redeemed, God's claims are realized in
us, acknowledged by us, and desire to be honored We desire to honor
God's claims on us. He told Moses here in verse 4,
and he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and Moses
rose up early in the morning, went up unto Mount Sinai, now
listen to this, as the Lord had commanded him. You know why he
went up there? The Lord commanded him to. He
didn't say, Moses, I sure would appreciate it if you'd come back
up here. I want you to exercise your will. I want you to exercise
the power of your choice. You've got a chance now. Come
on up here. He commanded him to come up there.
God don't ask nobody to do anything. He commands people to do things.
A sovereign don't beg. He proclaims. And I'll tell you
what. He took these two tables of stone.
And what the law represents is this. The Ten Commandments. We're talking about the Ten Commandments
now. The law tells us to submit ourselves to him. I am the Lord
thy God. Worship him only. Have no gods
before me. The law teaches us submission
to himself. His revealed will is that love
your neighbor as yourself. Don't you lie, don't you steal,
don't dishonor your father, don't dishonor your mother. Listen,
He get those and when we see that, we submit to that. I find
no fault in it at all. And that's what He requires from
His people. And we'll see that we can't do
that. And we have to have someone else to do it for us. Someone
else has to fulfill the law for us. Someone else has to do the
Ten Commandments for us and fulfill them. You know, God demands perfection. The perfect keeping of the law. If you offend in one point, you
fail in one point of the law, you've destroyed the whole. Destroyed
the home and this is what people some people do they'll say well
You know I've done this and I've done that and I've done this
and that but right today I'm gonna start living good and I'm
gonna start living better and I'm gonna go to and they'll say
they'll say I'm gonna start today But you can't undo that yesterday You can't undo that yesterday But anyway, now look what else
he says here. Here's how God governs his people. Look in verse
6 and 7. God governs him. And the Lord
passed by before him. Talking about Moses. And proclaimed
the Lord. What did he proclaim about him?
The Lord God. Merciful. That's how he governs
us. Not by law. He said, listen. Merciful. Gracious. long-suffering
abundant in goodness and truth listen here keeping mercy keeping
it got abundance of it keeping mercy for thousands forgiving
iniquity and transgressions and sins and here's the thing here
that will by no means clear the guilty so if we've offended in
the law how in the world can we be clear if we're guilty how
can we be clear Well, I'm going to tell you. Look over here in
verse 18. I'm going to tell you. I'm going
to tell you. The feast of unleavened bread
shalt thou keep. Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened
bread, as I commanded thee in the time of the month Abib. For
in the month of Abib thou camest up out of Egypt. And the Lord
brought them up out of Egypt's bondage, out of slavery. and
he brought them to himself and he calls it here the first thing
he calls it the feast the feast of unleavened bread seven days
you're going to eat unleavened bread and as I commanded thee
and I brought you out of Egypt now let me tell you he redeems
us and brought us out of Egypt first and foremost to feast he said you've got to feast Oh,
keep the feast! He redeems us to feast with Him. And that's why that Passover
lamb, that blood was shed. That blood was shed, put over
the lid of those doors. So God, He said when He passed
over us, and He said, now when I do that, listen, the first
thing you're going to do is you're going to have a feast. I just
brought you out of Egypt. I just passed over you. I provided
a lamb for you. I shed blood for you. And why
did you do that? To save you from slavery, to
save you from sin, to save you from your iniquities, to save
you from your rebellion. Oh my, and I tell you when we
talk about feast that speaks of boy everybody sitting down
eating big and communion and joy. And he sets us free from
sin and from Egyptian slavery to sit down and eat. That's what
we do when we gather here. And all he called it the feast
of unleavened bread. And that's connected with the
Passover. Now I want you, you keep this,
and I want you to look in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and I'm going to show
you. Look at this right here. Look at this. 1 Corinthians 7.
Excuse me, 5-7. 1 Corinthians 5-7. Here we go. 1 Corinthians 5-7. But you know it, he talks here
in verse 6. Your glory is not good. Men glory
in anything that they do. It's not good. What have we got
the glory in? What have we accomplished? What
did we do to save ourselves? Your glory is not good. Don't
boast, don't brag, don't glory in yourself what you've accomplished.
What did you have to do with salvation? And he said, oh listen,
don't, there's no glory, it's not good. And then he says in
verse 6, no you're not, still in verse 6, that I live and leaven,
leaven the whole earth. All it takes is just a tiny bit
of leaven to leaven the whole earth. A little self-glory, a
little self-will, a little self-righteousness, you add anything to Christ and
His accomplished salvation and you run it all. Ruin it all. And then he goes
on. Purge out therefore the old leavened. Oh, listen. We're not going to
glory in self anymore. We're going to glory in Christ.
That you may be a new lump. Now listen to this. As you are
unleavened, you're unleavened. You ain't got no leaven in you.
For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Who's our
Passover? Christ. Now watch this. Therefore
let us keep the feast. Not with all that old leaven
that we had, our old religion, and our old self, and self-will,
and self-glory, and all that. Let's don't do that. He said,
you know, we're unleavened. Therefore let's keep the feast
Christ was passed over for us. He's our Passover. So let's keep
the feast Keep the feast and I'll tell you what beloved and
you know when when it says that we were that we're unleavened
Leaven always represented sin And we're unleavened. Do you
know why we're unleavened? Because Christ put away our sin. He put away all our sin. And they said, keep the feast
of unleavened bread. Well, we're unleavened. Why? Because our sins are gone.
Christ our Passover. He was our Passover sacrifice
for us. God can commune with us and fellowship
with us. God counts us to have died with
Christ. You know the scripture says that
he died, he died unto sin once. In that he liveth, he liveth
to the glory of God. Likewise reckon yourselves indeed
to be dead unto sin. And Paul told the Corinthians,
2nd Corinthians, he said this. We thus judge that Christ died
for all. Now listen to this. Then we're
all dead. If Christ died for all, you know
what happened? The ones he died for, they died
with him. They're dead with him. And so
that's why it says consider yourself dead. Dead to what? To sin. Dead to the world. Dead even to self. I've heard this story and I know
you have too time and time and time again. You go to somebody's grave that
you think the world of and you go up there and I'll tell you
there ain't nobody been perfect. You can go to anybody's grave
and you can stand there and tell them all the things that aggravated
you about them. They aggravated you about it.
I mean they just aggravated you and troubled you and vexed you
and all the times you got angry and all that you know. Go up
there and walk up in front of their tomb and I mean just tell
them you did, I tell you, you made me feel this, you done this,
you done this other thing. And I tell you I just cannot,
oh you drove me nuts sometimes. Never heard a word. Now tell
them, oh my, but I loved you. Oh, I love you. Just tell them
all the wonderful qualities they had. Tell them how sweet they
was and how pretty they was and how strong they was. Tell them
how they love Christ and all that. They won't hear a word. And God make us that way to this
world and everything in it. No matter what anybody says to
it. Let's just keep our minds and hearts and ears on Christ. Ain't that right? That's what our Lord, that's
what He said. And we're to express this unliving life as we live
in this world in our daily lives. And you know when it talks about
the unleavened bread, our Lord Jesus Christ was the true bread
from heaven. And that true bread that came
from heaven was unleavened. What does that mean? That means
he was without sin. We have such a high priest, holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, higher than the
heavens. And our Lord Jesus Christ, He
came into this world and He had no sin. Did no sin. Knew no sin. So He was the unleavened
bread. And if we're in Him, we're unleavened
too. We have no sin. They have no
sin. They feasted on unleavened bread. We feast on Christ, the true
bread. The one that put away our sins by the sacrifice of
Himself. And I tell you, when Israel participated
in that feast, that typified, showed the holiness and righteousness
which believers have in Christ. Christ is our bread, unleavened
without sin. And so they kept the Feast of
Unleavened Bread back over in Exodus 34, seven days. Seven days. You know what seven
in the scriptures means? It means complete. It means perfect. Seven means always. Seven always
means perfect, complete. Complete. Seven days. Or else you could say our life,
or a whole of our life on earth. And you know we feast on the
Lord Jesus Christ without any leaven, without any addition.
And the scriptures tells us that you are complete in Him. Perfect
in Him. Perfect in Him. In Him dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And then look what He
said in verse 19. Oh my! That's why, you know, He cleared
us from our guilt. We was guilty. I tell you what,
I never loved God. Didn't even know God. Till I
was way up in my twenties, late twenties. Didn't even know Him. Didn't
have a clue what He was like. But until He made me know Him,
revealed Himself to me. So I was guilty. Well, how in
the world is He going to clear me? He can't. What has He got
to do? He's got to shed blood. Slay
a lamb. And when that lamb was slain, God
said, when I see that Passover, when I see that blood, I'm going
to go over you. And God's went over all of his
elect because of the blood of Christ. He passes over all of
them. Clear them of their guilt. Clear
them of their sin. By Christ our Passover sacrifice
for us. And now wherever sin's at, there
can't be no... wherever sin's gone, there can't
be no guilt. I ain't got nothing to be guilty
of. Is that not right? If you ain't got no sin, what
do you got to be guilty of? You say, well I don't love God
as much ought to. That's not what the Bible says.
You've got to love Him perfectly, completely. All the heart, mind,
body, soul and strength. Now where in the world am I going
to get somebody that can do that for me? The Lord Jesus Christ
loved God. And because I was viewed in Him
and represented in Him and everything He did, I love God in Christ. My faith is not perfect. My faith
is not perfect. Ain't even close to being perfect. So where in the world am I going
to get perfect faith? We live by the faith of the Son
of God. His faithfulness. What He did. Huh? Now that'll give you a little
comfort for your soul. Oh my. And I'll tell you, look
what He said here now in verse 19. All that opens a matrix is
mine. What he's talking about is everything
that's born of a woman or an animal is mine. It's mine. And whether it's a cow, an ox
or a sheep, a son or a daughter, it doesn't
make any difference. You know why God said it's all
mine? Because He's the only one that can give life. He's the
only one that can put it in the womb. He's the only one that
can. It's rightfully His when it comes out. God owns all. He created all. And His rights
are absolute. You know, I'll tell you, and
I know this without a shadow of a doubt. I know this and this
is hard for us to deal with as human beings, mothers and fathers.
But mothers and fathers, our children are not ours, absolutely. They're really not. In reality,
they belong to the Lord. Is that not right? Have you given your child to
Him? You know, she brought Samuel
and gave him to the Lord. and the scriptures you know people
talk about christening babies and baptizing babies and there's
no infant dedication but you know our Lord's mother and father
in the days of her purification the scripture says they went
up to the temple to present their child to the Lord When you have
a child, Lord, here He is, it's yours. And I tell you what, you say,
oh listen, and if God comes and takes a child, it was not ours
to start with, it was His. It'll hurt, it'll hurt, it'll
hurt. Oh, I'm not saying it won't hurt. I'm not saying that it
won't make you to grieve. I'm not saying it won't make
you just to hurt and cry and weep and feel like your heart's
torn out and the flesh coming off your bones. But I tell you what, I really,
really believe that. Huh? I really do. Anything that
God gives us, it belongs to Him. That's what Job said, the Lord
gave. He gave me 10 children. A storm
come through and killed all 10 of them at one time. He said,
the Lord gave. And the Lord took away. And he said, Blessed be the name
of the Lord. Did he suffer? Oh, he suffered. He lay seven days without one
word being spoken. In a place where potsherds were. And he is scraping himself, busting
up the balls and all the pus running out of him. Oh, his body
was awful and stinking. But he still says the Lord gave.
God saw his wife come to him and said, go ahead and jump!
Cuss God! Just cuss him! And die! You know what he said
to her? He said, you acting and talking
like a fool. That's what we're talking about,
God having claims on us. Huh? Oh my! And I tell you what, now I'm
sure, I'm sure when some of you all was having your children,
carry them in your womb, you said, Lord, I want these children
to know you. I want my children to know you. I heard a parent pray one time,
said, Lord, if you're not going to save my children, don't let
me have none. I can tell you who that is that
said, don't let me have no children if you ain't going to save them.
If you're not going to save them. Well, they're children. They
had them. God saved them. They worshiped Christ. They're
in a sovereign grace church. That every person of a flock
among the cattle is going to be mine. Keep that in mind. Look with me over in Psalm 50.
with me over in Psalm 50 Psalm 50 look down here in verse 9 now listen to what he said here I'll
take no bullock no bull out of your house nor he goats out of
thy foes For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle
upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountain
and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I
wouldn't tell you, for the world is mine and the forest thereof. So he does this, he says everything
is mine and I want you to know that, that I've got the claim
on you. Even though everything in this world is already mine.
Already mine. And I tell you what, we are stewards
of God. Paul said if a man's a steward,
it's counted that he be faithful. Now what are we stewards of? Well, you got any money? God
lets you have it. Got any health? God gave you
that. Got any talents? God gave them
to you. Got a right mind? God gave it
to you. So everything, we even made us
stewards over our own bodies. That's why I said if a man's
given to gluttony, let him put a knife to his throat. Because
he's going to eat himself to death, going to kill himself.
And the Scriptures tells us all those things. We're stewards.
Stewards over everything God gave us. And that's why the Lord's
people live like they do. Because everything they know,
God gave it to them. But you know what we do? He yells
out His hand, gives us things, all we do is take. We never give
Him nothing. Have we ever given Him anything?
Does He need anything from us? Only thing he wants from us is
worship, heart worship. And then look here in verse 20,
I got to hurry. And the first leg of an ass or
an old mule, let's talk about a mule or an old donkey, that's
what it's called, is the first leg of an ass thou shalt redeem
with a lamb. And if you redeem him not, you
shall break his neck. And all the firstborns of thy
sons shalt thou redeem, and none shall appear before me empty.
Now, if you don't redeem him with a lamb, if you don't pay
for it with a lamb, that old mule, that old donkey, if you
don't redeem him with a lamb, you know what he says? Kill him.
Break his neck. Break his neck. And you know
under the law, the donkey, the ass, was an unclean animal. He
neither chewed the cud nor divided the hoof. And you know what it
talks about us? Our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. We're all as an unclean thing.
Tell you something else about these things. They're stupid
and they're senseless. It sounds like, you gotta be
redeemed by a lamb or kill him. That's us. Oh, the natural man
don't receive the things of the Spirit of God. Stupid and senseless. But thank God He said He had
come and given us an understanding. We may know Him, that is true.
This is the true God, even Jesus Christ. There's something else
about these things that He said, redeem Him with the Lamb. He's
stubborn, He's obstinate, and He's hard to get to move sometimes. They'll just sull up. Just stop
and you can't get them to move. And that's the way man is. Oh,
he's stubborn, he's obstinate. He, you know, he'll sull up sometimes,
you know. And you know, that's why God
calls us. He told Job, he said, you know, he said, we're like
a wild ass's coat. Sniffing the wind, snuffing the
wind up on the hillside. And do you see yourself like
this? Oh, stupid and senseless and unclean. Stubborn and obstinate. Well, that portrays us. And I'll tell you, if God treated us like we deserved,
he'd have broke our necks. He'd have broke our necks. But
he said this, when we were yet without strength, In due time
Christ died for the ungodly. Oh the first leg of an ox shall
thou redeem with a lamb. I was the first one in my family. He didn't break my neck. He bought me with a lamb. Redeemed
me with a lamb. Oh my. And then I love this there
in verse 20 last part of verse 20 And none shall appear before
me empty If you've been redeemed by a
lamb and you've been called to the feast And you've got the
lamb and you've ate that lamb And you've got that unleavened
bread, the Lord Jesus Christ. How in the world can we appear
before Him empty? Huh? We've been redeemed with
a Lamb. And the redeemed can't appear
before the Redeemer empty. We can't appear before God empty.
Why? We've got Christ. We've got everything
God required. Well let me show you this and
I'm going to wind this little message up. You know worship,
he said none shall appear before me empty. You know the first
time the word worship is mentioned in the Old Testament is when
Abraham, when God told him to take his son up on the mountain.
and offer him there. You know what Abraham said when
he left those men, you know they went a three days journey, got
up there to the mountain. Mount Moriah got up there and
he said you all wait here, I and the lad are going to go worship
and come again to you. And they all worship, in all
worship you got to have something to present to the Lord. The first time in the New Testament
the word worship is presented and mentioned is when the wise
men brought gifts to Christ when He was an infant in Bethlehem.
And when we're going to worship God and come before Him, we've
got to worship and present Him, Son. What are we going to present
Him? Here, Lord, He's your blessed
Son. He loved me, gave Himself for
me. died for me, lives for me, intercedes
for me, keeps me, and Lord I dare not come into your presence without
Him, without His blood, without His righteousness, without His
name, without His worth, without His merit. That's the only way
I can come. But oh my, we'll never ever appear
before the Lord empty. Never. Really. Alright. I would say something
about that verse 6, but I'm not going to do that. I'll just let
it go. Right there. We're not going to go before
Him empty. We're not going to go before
Him empty. Oh our blessed Master, our Lord,
our Savior, our Redeemer, blessed be your name. Oh Lord. Oh God, you're to be worshipped,
you're to be adored. And we always, we would not dare
come before you except the way you told us to. Even our Lord
Himself says, no man comes unto the Father but by Me. So here
we come, like we always do, in that blessed person, in that
precious name, that blessed name, that glorious name, that saving
name, that strong name, that precious name, that name that
It's above every name, the Lord Jesus Christ, your son. Thank
you for allowing us to come into your presence. Thank you for
allowing us to meet again. And blessed be your name that
you allowed us to come into your presence and for allowing us
to speak and preach your gospel, to mention our Lord Jesus Christ
again as he is, as he is. We praise you and thank you in
Christ's name. Amen. Amen.