All right, you're on. Well, it's good to be with you
again. It's been a couple of years now, I think. And I saw
last night on my wife's Facebook page this beautiful picture of
Jay's barbecue, and I took a picture of it with my phone, and I sent
it to my mother, and I said, this man knows what he's doing
with a smoker. I've had his barbecue. And I
said, I'm going to go have some this weekend. So I'm very much
looking forward to it. But I'm glad that, thankful you
had me come down again, and it's good to see you all, and good
to be with you. I want you to turn with me to
Romans chapter 3. You know what? Turn to Exodus
13. Turn to Exodus 13. On the way down here I was trying
to talk to Rob about this and I've just I felt like I saw it
clearly, and I want to preach to you on this. So, we may not
turn to many scriptures, but I just want to show you the gospel
in this passage. And I pray the Lord to bless
it. Exodus 13, it begins this way,
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all
the firstborn Whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of
Israel, both of man and of beast, it is mine. Now, prior to this,
the Lord had provided a Passover lamb. You
know the story of the children in bondage in Egypt. And the
Lord had provided a Passover lamb. And through the blood of
this lamb, The Lord had delivered the children of Israel out of
Egyptian bondage. And He's bringing them out now
from that bondage and bringing them completely out of it. Just
as He promised Abraham He would do. And through the blood of
this lamb now, God says, because He's provided a lamb to die in
the place of all the firstborn in Israel. And he now says to
Moses, sanctify unto me all the firstborn because they are mine. They're mine. Now this passage
has to do with sanctification. There's a lot said about sanctification
that's just simply not true. Here's the truth of sanctification.
It is all of the Lord. Sanctification is entirely by
God apart from man's works whatsoever. Now, sanctification means to
be set apart, to be made holy by being set apart, by being
perfected through the redemption that Christ accomplished and
it's to be cleansed within and to be brought, to be consecrated
to God by the Spirit of God. Set apart by God the Father in
divine election is to be redeemed by Christ, perfected by Christ's
blood, and is to be brought by the Spirit, cleansing us within,
brought to be consecrated to God. Now, that's the picture
we have here. God has already provided the
Passover lamb, and He's redeemed the children of Israel. And so
next, God says to Moses, sanctify unto me all the firstborn, they're
mine. Now the firstborn is like the
firstfruits. Whatever the firstborn is, that's
what the rest are. Whatever the firstfruit is, that
represents the whole. And so he's not just speaking
of the firstborn, he's saying they're all mine. All God's elect
that Christ redeemed, that he regenerated, they're his. They're
his possession. And so we have three things in
this passage that shows us Not everything there is to know about
sanctification, but it shows us how God sanctifies His people. First of all, it's of God through
the Lord Jesus Christ, who's the only mediator between God
and men. We see here God says this to
Moses, and Moses here is a picture of Christ. Moses goes then between
the Lord and the children of Israel and speaks on behalf of
God. And this he does to sanctify
the people. to sanctify the people. Now we're
past the redemption, so we're past the Christ on the cross. This is Christ now coming to
his people to sanctify his people, bringing the word of the Lord
to his people, to sanctify his people. That's the first way
that we're sanctified, by God, through our Lord Jesus Christ
as the mediator, the prophet, priest, and king who speaks to
his people. The second aspect of this sanctification
is is through the hearing of faith. It's through the hearing
of the faithful works of Christ on behalf of His people. Go with
me to Galatians chapter 3. Galatians chapter 3. Paul says
here, and let's go to verse 2. He says Christ was set forth
before you, crucified among you. How was that done? Look at this,
this only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith. That's how Christ was
crucified amongst them. That's how he was evidently set
forth before them. It was through the preaching
of the gospel, the hearing of faith. It was not through the
works of the law. The Spirit was given through
the hearing of the Gospel of Christ, not through the works
of the law. Then he says this, Are you so foolish having begun
in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? After we come to Christ and we've
been brought to Christ by the Spirit of God, the Spirit's been
poured out upon us, are we going to now go back to our flesh and
to the law? And he says here, have you suffered
so many things in vain if it be in vain? He therefore that
ministers to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you, that's
Christ who does that. He ministers the Spirit. He said,
I pray the Father. He sends the Spirit and he ministers
the Spirit to you and he works the miracle of grace in the heart,
sanctification in the heart through regeneration. He says, does he
do that by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Does
He continue this work? Does He continue keeping you
sanctified by now sending you back to the works of the law
of our continually hearing Christ and Him crucified? It's through
Christ. Even as Abraham believed God
and it was accounted to him for righteousness, that was 430 years
before the law was given. Look down at verse 8. The scripture
foreseeing God would justify the heathen through faith preached
before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations
be blessed. So this second aspect of sanctification
is through the hearing of faith. And this is done, or pictured
in our text, through two things that the Lord sent Moses to tell
the people to do. One was to observe the Passover
ordinance. And then observe that seven days
called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And on the seventh day
it ended in a feast. So they were to go those seven
days eating no unleavened No leavened bread, only unleavened
bread. And then that was one way they
were to continually be reminded of what God did for them. That's
an illustration of the gospel of Christ. That's what the gospel
is about. Peter said, I will not cease
to put you in remembrance. of these things. Though you know
them and you're established in the present truth, I'm going
to put you in remembrance." That's what the gospel is. Paul told
Timothy, if you put them in remembrance of these things, you'll be a
faithful minister of the gospel. And so that's what we have here.
This Passover feast and this feast of unleavened bread is
to remind them of the works of God, just like the gospel does,
just like the Lord's table does. Just like baptism does. These
are things that remind us. That's the first thing that pictures
the hearing of faith. The second thing is, on down
the page, we're going to read all this. I'm just giving you
the overview of it. The second thing he told them
to do was sanctify unto him all the firstborn children. They
were to literally sanctify those firstborn children to the Lord. So every time they did that,
they were reminded of who it was that bought them, who it
was that redeemed them, who it was that sanctified and separated
them out. And then, so the first way we're
sanctified is by God through Christ, our mediator. He's the
one that brings this to us, brings this gospel, and makes it effectual
in our heart. Secondly, it's through the hearing
of faith, being constantly reminded of what God has done for us in
Christ. And then the third thing is,
is the Spirit of God, is given to us, the Spirit of Christ is
given to us in our heart to cleanse us in the washing of regeneration
and from then on God leads us and keeps us sanctified into
Him. He leads us and keeps us separated
from the evil, sanctified in Him. And that's pictured here
at the end of this chapter where it says that the pillar of the
cloud and the pillar of the fire led them, the Lord led them the
whole way. All right, now let's go back
and we'll just go through it verse by verse and see what we're reminded
of in this. All right, verse one. The Lord
spake unto Moses. Our Lord speaks to Christ and
he sends forth Christ. And he says, sanctify unto me
all the firstborn whatsoever openeth the womb among the children
of Israel, both of man and of beast. It is mine. It is mine. Now Christ himself is the firstborn. Romans 8 tells us that he is
the firstborn God chose His people and predestinated His people
that Christ might be the firstborn among many brethren. And Hebrews
12 tells us that all God's elect, all those He sanctified in Christ
and gave to Christ before the foundation of the world, in Christ
the firstborn, all God's elect are the church of the firstborn. We're all firstborn sons in Christ
the firstborn. So he sends forth Christ to sanctify
all the firstborn, all his elect, all those who are firstborn sons
in Christ. So that's the first thing. This
whole thing is through the mediator, Christ Jesus. This whole work,
when you read of God speaking to a man in the Old Testament
scriptures, it's the Lord Jesus Christ, pre-incarnate, the Son
of God, speaking to him, because there's one mediator between
God and men, and that's the man, Christ Jesus. Now, secondly,
this thing is through the hearing of faith. That's what we came
here tonight for, is to hear of Christ and His faithfulness
in all the works He did on our behalf. All right, let's see
this picture now in the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
verse 3. God tells him to sanctify the firstborn, and Moses said
unto the people. This is how he begins the sanctifying
work. He speaks to the people. He speaks the word to the people.
We're going to have to be born of the incorruptible seed, which
is the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, Peter said,
which by the gospel is preached unto you. but my preaching it
to you won't sanctify you. It's gonna have to be Christ
who mows his pitchers here. He speaks to you. And he says
to them, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt,
out of the house of bondage, for by the strength, by strength
of hand, the Lord brought you out from this place. There shall
no leavened bread be eaten. This day came you out in the
month of Eve, the month of the green leaves. What day do we
remember? When we're hearing the gospel
preached, what's the day we remember? What's the day when we were brought
out of the house of bondage, out of slavery? We hear Christ
and Him crucified. We're looking to that day when
Christ went to Calvary and represented His people and was made sin for
us and bore and was made a curse for us and satisfied the justice
of God on our behalf. That's the day we came out. So
this hearing of faith, just like this feast they're going to observe,
the whole thing was to point them back to what God had already
accomplished on their behalf. And he says here, in this day
that you came out in the month of Bib, the green leaves, I'm
told that's March and April. That's sometime about when our
Lord was crucified. And so this is all picturing
Christ crucified. This is what they're being put
in remembrance of, verse five. And it shall be when the Lord
shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites,
and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swear
unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and
honey, that thou shall keep this service in this month. Now, sanctification
involves being separated out. You know, when Paul was speaking
to the Corinthians and he said, how can light and darkness dwell
together? How can the child of God and
the child of the devil dwell together? And he says, come out
from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord. And this is what
our Lord is doing through the gospel. He separates us out and
he keeps us separated out. Here they are. They're going
to be in a land surrounded by reprobate men. and the Lord's
gonna have to keep them separated out. And he's doing it by putting
them in constant remembrance of what he's done for them, just
like he does for us through the gospel. Verse six, seven days
thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall
be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten
seven days, and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee,
neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters.
Now, in addition to being constantly reminded by the gospel, that
we were redeemed, justified, and sanctified by the strong
arm of the Lord, by Christ Jesus, the hand of our God, when we're
reminded that constantly, we're also at the same time reminded
we did not contribute anything to the work. That's what's pictured
here in this unleavened bread. You remember when our Lord told
his disciples, beware of the leaven of the scribes and the
Pharisees. And they didn't understand what he meant. They thought he
was talking about literal bread. And he said, I'm not talking
about literal bread. I'm talking about their doctrine. They want
to sanctify by just taking care of the outside. They just want
to cleanse the outside of the cup when the inside of the cup
is full of dead men's bones. And the Lord said, you've got
to cleanse that which is within. And Paul tells us this. Go with me to 2 Corinthians chapter
5. Look at what Paul tells us. This is so of every believer
that the Lord has sanctified through the blood of Christ.
Look at 2 Corinthians and verse 5. I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians 5. 1 Corinthians 5. Look here, verse
7. 1 Corinthians 5, 7. Purge out
therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump as ye are
Unleavened. You are unleavened. Unleavened's
a picture of sin, specifically the sin of self-righteousness
and self-sanctification and self-redemption and self-salvation. He says here,
you are unleavened. They didn't look unleavened,
but he said you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified
in the name of our Lord and by the Spirit of our God. You are
unleavened. There is a new man created in
all of His people that is unleavened, that is without sin, that He
has created. How is this so? Look at this,
you are unleavened for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for
us. Therefore, let us keep the feast.
Let us keep this gospel feast. Let us keep this gospel feast.
Let us go this whole state of grace, all of us sanctified by
God, let us keep this whole feast from the From the beginning to
the end, let us keep this feast right here, not with old leaven. Not bringing in the sin of self-righteousness
and self-sanctification. Let's keep self out of it. He
says, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but
with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. This is
what we're constantly reminded of. We're constantly reminded
by the strong hand of our God, Christ Jesus has brought us out.
and He has sanctified us and He has made us unleavened by
His blood, by His righteousness, through the Spirit of our God,
so that you are unleavened. And He says here, not only do
you not have any leaven in this feast, He says unleavened bread
shall not even be seen with thee, neither shall leaven be seen
with thee in all thy quarters. Nowhere around you, nowhere where
you live, nowhere. Now the world talks about sanctified
men letting their light be seen before men. And what they're
talking about is all these outward things they're doing and all
these things that they make their boast about how they sanctify
themselves. The leaven that our Lord says
don't let be seen is that leaven. But what will be seen when people
look at us? We're not mixing any of that
with us. There's no leaven mixed with anything. That's what men
are going to see. And men notice this difference about us by God's
grace. Men will say to you, you folks
don't, y'all don't preach anything about man's works. You don't
preach about man, you know, doing this or doing that to save himself
or to sanctify himself. They notice the difference. And
that's how you let your light shine before men. You don't do
anything to be seen of men. And you don't do anything that
will cause men to see you and see the gospel in a bad light.
That means we don't sin that grace may bound. That means we
don't sin in that regard and we don't sin in the regard that
we want the light to be on us and how far we've come, as they
say. No, no leaven. None of that leaven as we purge
out the old leaven. and were constantly, just like
they were reminded of this, they'd eat this seven days, unleavened
bread, reminded, we didn't have anything to do with this. In
fact, the Lord in Exodus 12 said He brought them out so quickly
that they didn't even have time for their bread to mix any leaven
with it and for it to be leavened. They had to eat unleavened bread.
And that's declaring the truth that God has done all the delivering
and we didn't provide anything. We made no provision for ourselves
in this thing. He did it all. All right, let's
go on now. Verse eight. And thou shalt show
thy son in that day saying, this is done because of that which
the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt. This is our
gospel. This is why they were observing
this. And when our children ask us,
why do you preach the gospel of Christ? Why don't you preach
man and build man up and try to shave off this offense off
the gospel and what have you? It's because this is what the
Lord did for us. This is what the Lord did for
us. That's why we preach what we preach. That's why we're observing
this feast the way we are. And look here. He says, And it
shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial
between thine eyes, that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth.
For with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt.
Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season from
year to year. A sign is a reminder. A sign
and a memorial is to make you remember. And he said, when you're
partaking of this Passover feast and you go these seven days eating
unleavened bread, this is going to be a reminder upon your hand
and a reminder between your eyes so that my law is in your mouth
continually. You see, the gospel that we hear,
what Paul was getting at in Galatians is, is once you've been brought
to Christ, we don't go back to the works of the law to try to
sanctify ourselves. We continue to be kept by God,
sanctified by God, by the hearing of Christ. And this is truly
what constrains us. This is the message, the love
of Christ constrains us in what we do with our hand. And it constrains
us in where our eyes look. We don't look to ourselves, we
look only to Christ. And the law here that's in our
mouths coming out of the abundance of the heart is not the law at
Mount Sinai. It hadn't even been given yet.
This is the law that he declares right here where he says, because
with a strong hand, the Lord brought you out. That's the law
that's in our mouth, the gospel, the gospel. Now, that's the first
way in which we're We're constantly sanctified. His hearing of faith
of Christ is pictured here by the Passover feast and the Feast
of Unleavened Bread. But the Lord gave him something
else. He gave him this thing of sanctifying the firstborn
child. Let's read this, verse 11. It
shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the
Canaanites, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and
shall give it thee, that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord
all that openeth the matrix. that is the womb, and every firstling
that cometh of a beast which thou hast, the males shall be
the lords. And every firstling of an ass
thou shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou will not redeem it,
then thou shalt break his neck. And all the firstborn of man
among thy children shalt thou redeem. Now, what this meant
was when the Lord said all the firstborn of beasts and of men
are mine, It meant then, so first of all, when they got into that
land, he says there, now when it comes to the clean animals
that God said were clean, he says, you're gonna set apart
unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix. Every firstling that
cometh of a beast which thou hast, the males shall be the
Lord's. So that set apart there means,
the margin says, cause to pass over. And quite literally it
meant you're going to take those firstborn clean beasts that God
says I will receive, I'll take them as a sacrifice. And you're
going to take those and you're going to cause them to pass over
the fire and you're going to offer them to God as a burnt
offering to the Lord. Because that shows that everything
that we have came of the Lord. It all came of Him. And it's
acknowledging that to the Lord. All the clean beasts, those firstborn
clean beasts were all burnt in a burnt offering to the Lord.
And what is that picture concerning you and me? By this washing of
regeneration, by the work of Christ Jesus on our behalf, brethren,
we have been made clean. We have been washed and we've
been made clean before God. And so now, we don't have to
come and offer lambs and the firstborn of clean animals to
the Lord. Go with me to Romans Chapter
12. Now that you're cleansed by God,
this is what God says that He's due, right here. This is what
He's due. From every one of us, He's sanctified.
Romans 12. I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, since He's done all this for us, that
you present your bodies. They've washed. They're clean
now. Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed
to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God. That's what the clean beast pictured,
that were burnt offerings to the Lord. You that the Lord has
cleansed now, you that the Lord has sanctified and cleansed by
his blood and the washing of regeneration now, he says now
it's reasonable for you and me, in light of what Christ has done
for us, it's reasonable for us to present our bodies as a living
sacrifice unto the Lord. That means whatever we do, we
ought to do it as unto the Lord. We ought to have the gospel on
our mind, the gospel on our hearts. We ought to have God's people
on our hearts. We ought to have the furtherance of the gospel.
We ought to have God's lost sheep on our hearts. Everything we
do ought to be for the furtherance of the gospel, no matter what
it costs me. No matter what it costs me. That's
reasonable, isn't it? When you think about what Christ
did, that's reasonable. And see, the true believer in
Moses' day, every time that he brought that clean lamb, and
he gave that clean lamb as a burnt offering, he was reminded, everything
I have is the Lord's. It all belongs to the Lord, including
me. You're not your own, you're bought
with a price, Christ Paul said. Glorify God in your spirit and
in your body, which all belongs to the Lord. And then look at
the next thing about this offering. It says, verse 13, and every
firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou
will not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck. And all
the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem. Now
what does this redemption of the firstborn son and the redemption
of an ass mean? An ass was an unclean animal. An ass was an unclean. You can't
offer those to me. You can't sacrifice those to
me. Now an ass will not do what you tell it to do. And if you
get on an ass too hard, he'll just sit down and won't do anything
that you're trying to get him to do. That ass is a picture
of you and me by nature. That ass is me and you in our
flesh, our old, wretched, sinful flesh that's still with you and
still with me. God says, you can't bring that
to me. You can't offer that to me. But
how are we going to be made clean even who by nature are unclean? Go with me to Hebrews. He said,
well let me show you there first before you go. He said there
in verse 13, you gotta redeem it with a lamb. You gotta take
a clean lamb, and he's gonna have to die for the unclean.
The clean's gonna have to die for the unclean. Go with me to
Hebrews chapter 12. And he said, and if you don't
do that, you break its neck. If you don't do that, break its
neck. That's what God's justice demands. It's unclean, it's unjust,
gotta die one way or the other, either in itself or in a lamb.
Watch this, Hebrews chapter 12. And look at verse, I'm sorry,
Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. And look
here in verse seven. Then said I, this is Christ.
He said, I come to do thy will, O God. Now look down here at
verse 10. By, oh, look at verse nine. Lo,
I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away that first covenant
that he may establish the second. Everything we're looking at here
in this old Old Covenant is a picture of what Christ came to establish. He's the fulfillment of all that
and He's established the new. By the witch will, by Him doing
the will of God, we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. There's the clean lamb. Look
down here now with me at verse 14. For by one offering He hath
perfected forever, them that are sanctified. So every time they came with
this ass that's unclean, and they were to kill a lamb, a clean
lamb in place of that unclean ass, they were reminded, this
ass is a picture of me. And it worked but for God sending
forth His only begotten Son, the Lamb of God, and laying down
for me. God wouldn't receive me. And now, don't forget, this
is all what we, we don't have to do these things. We hear this
preached in the gospel. We're reminded of this like they
were reminded, literally bringing it. We're reminded of it by hearing
it preached, by hearing it preached. And now he says, look at verse
14 again, and it shall be, when thy son asketh thee in time what
this means, you shall say unto him, by strength of hand, the
Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage. This
is all picturing what our Lord did, redeeming us. He says, and
it came to pass when Pharaoh would hardly let us go that the
Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn
of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the
Lord all that openeth the matrix. It's his. It belongs to him,
being males. But all the firstborn of my children,
I redeem. I buy them back. I buy them from
him. I pay a purchase price and I
buy my son. There he is. If I'm gonna have
them, and I'm gonna use them, I'm gonna have to buy them. And
every time I do that, I'm reminded that Christ has bought me. Like Paul said, Peter said, you're
bought not with silver and gold, you're bought with the precious
blood of the Lamb of Christ. I'm reminded of that, I'm bought.
I'm bought, just like I'm buying my son right here from the Lord.
He bought me, I'm his. And that's what we're reminded
of constantly. And he says here, And it shall be for a token upon
thine hand, for frontlets between thine eyes, for the strength
of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt. Again, same thing.
This is how we're sanctified. This is how we're constrained
by the love of Christ to walk by faith which worketh by love.
You know when the scripture says the just shall live by faith? In Galatians 3, when he's talking
about that, and he comes down there and he says, but that no
man is justified in the sight of God, it's evident, for the
just shall live by faith. And the law's not of faith. But
he says, the just live by faith just like Abraham lived by faith.
What is the just live by faith? Well, they're justified by Christ.
And he said one chapter before that, and we live by the faith
of Christ abiding in us. He's the way we live. He's the
one who guides us. He's the way we hear this gospel,
and it's made effectual, and we hear the voice saying, go
this way, don't go that way. It's by him. I'm crucified with
Christ, and the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son
of God. He abides in me, and I live by
the faith of the Son of God. And that's what it is, to just
live by faith. Not just faith in Christ, though
we do, but we're justified by Christ so that we're the just,
and we live by the faith of the Son of God, leading us and guiding
us in every way. And that's the last thing that's
pictured here, verse 17. It came to pass when Pharaoh
had let the people go that God led them. God led them. This is all, when I read at the
beginning of a chapter like this, and it says sanctify me unto
the firstborn, until the subject changes and we get into something
else, this all right here looks to me like a picture of how we're
sanctified. Every bit of it. Because this is how God sanctifies
us. God leads us. Once Christ has taken up a boat
in you, the way you live by the faith of the Son of God is He's
the one that's leading us. Look at this. God led them not
through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that
was near. For God said, lest perventure
the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt.
But God led the people about through the way of the wilderness
of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went
up, harnessed out of the land of Egypt. Look at verse 20. And
they took their journey from Sukkoth and encamped in Etham
in the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them
by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way, and by
night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day
and night. He took not away the pillar of
the cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night from before
the people. Now, this is what the Lord does. The Lord leads us, Christ is
that pillar of fire, he is that pillar of that cloud that leads
us in the way that we should go. And He doesn't always lead
us in the nearest way. When He brought them out, He
could have taken them right into Egypt, but He would have had
to go through the land of the Philistines, and the Philistines
were a people of war. And the Lord knew to take them
that way, these young These young, just delivered, former slaves,
been slaves 400 years, bring them out and take them across
that and confront them with those Philistines like that. And he
said, I know they're going to turn around and go right back
to Egypt. So what did God do? He kept them sanctified from
Egypt by leading them in the way they should go. Go to John
17 real quick. Here's what I'm getting at. John
17. When our Lord prayed this high
priestly prayer, and this is what He's praying for His people
right now, as He leads us. John 17, He said, verse 15, I
pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but
that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. That's sanctification. Look here, they're not of the
world even as I'm not of the world. Sanctify them through
thy truth. Thy Word is true. As thou hast
sent me into the world, even so also have I sent them into
the world for their sakes. I sanctify myself that they also
might be sanctified through the truth. Christ is, he came into
this world holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and gave
Himself, He was fit to give Himself as the spotless Lamb of God to
be made sin for His people, to bear our curse and to put away
our sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And He did that that He might
be the truth that His preachers preach to His people. And Ephesians
4 says that He might sanctify and cleanse us with the washing
of water by the Word. He's the one that does this.
And that's what he does here. So he keeps us from the evil,
not necessarily taking us the way we think we ought to go,
not necessarily taking us the way that it looks would be the
easiest for us to go, but he's always leading us in the right
way we should go. Number one, we're always being
kept in Christ the way. And number two, whatever he's
doing in this world, it's right because God knows what's best
for his people. And that's how he's leading us.
I got two more things to show you real quick. Two more things.
Now look at verse 19. And Moses took the bones of Joseph
with him, for he had straightly sworn the children of Israel,
saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my
bones away hence with you. Now, back yonder at the end of
Genesis. Joseph said this to the children
of Israel. He said, God will surely visit
you. God will visit you and you shall carry up my bonds away
hence with you when you go out of here. And Genesis ends and
it says Joseph died and he was buried in a coffin in Egypt.
Now that was not a coffin like me and you have a coffin. He
was embalmed and he was put in an Egyptian sarcophagus. so that
he was above ground so that, and I just picture it being one
of those ornate Egyptian sarcophaguses. He was the second man behind
Pharaoh. You know they didn't bury him in a wooden sarcophagus. It was something with gold all
over it and pretty. But that was a constant reminder
all through that time they were in that bondage in Egypt. There
was a constant reminder to them when they would look at that
coffin, they will remember that promise that Joseph told them
saying, God's going to bring you out of here. God's going
to bring you out of here. And so when it came time, and
God brought them out, just like Joseph said do, they took his
bones out of there with them. Brethren, we've got something
better than that. We've got an empty tomb. We got an empty tomb. to remind us constantly, as we're
hearing this gospel preached, we're constantly reminded our
Lord is risen to the right hand of God and all power is given
to Him as the God-man. We got a man that's seated at
God's right hand that knows what we suffered, knows what we're
going through in this life, and that man's God. He can provide and He can comfort. And that's what we have as our
assurance. And one of these days, brethren, they carried up Joseph's
bones out of there. They carried his body out of
there. That's not how it's going to be. When this sanctification
is finished, he's carrying our body out. He's carrying our body out. And here's the second thing I
want to show you at the end. That seven-day feast of unleavened
bread, This gospel feast we're in, that's what it picture, this
gospel feast we're in right now, you know how it ended? Look back at, look at verse six.
Seven days shall thou eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day
shall be a feast to the Lord. We're gonna keep on partaking
of this gospel until the perfect time is fulfilled, the perfect
day is fulfilled. And this feast is gonna end.
at the marriage, to marriage supper at the Lamb,
and we're gonna have a feast unto the Lord. And he said, in
that day, you're gonna sit at my table, in my kingdom, and
I'm gonna serve you. We don't know nothing about righteousness.
We don't know nothing about holiness. We just think that ain't right
for Him to serve us. Where there's an absence of all
that pride and all that mess, He said, I'm just gonna serve
you. And we're gonna feast unto the Lord. That's sanctification. That's sanctification. This stuff
the world's talking about, that's not sanctification. This is sanctification
of the Lord. Amen. That blessed my soul. You know, people actually say,
folks like you stress Jesus Christ too much. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that sad? Stress Jesus
Christ too much. I'm reminded of something. I
hope I don't steal anybody's thunder, but I remember something
that Clay mentioned Last time he was here, I think it was when
he was here, but people think, Clay's talking about sanctification
is all of God, period. That's what you talk about. That's
what it is. And people think, well, once
you're saved, then you need some kind of rules and regulations
to guide you along the way. But Clay gave the illustration.
He said when he was over here at the hotel last time, he didn't
know how to get here. Now, someone could have told
him, well, follow that sign, follow this sign, you know, go
this way, go that way. He said, but you know, I didn't
have to do that. He said, Marvin Stoniker had already been there
and he knew how to get there. He said, and I just kept my eyes
on him, and I followed him, and I made it there. That's what
it's about. That's what it's about, ain't
it? And God's gotta give you the sanctification to even do
that. That's amazing. All right, let's take about a
10-minute break, and then we'll get started again.