All right, let's go to Hebrews
chapter 11, everyone. And let's read back through verse
23, down through the end of verse 31. And we're gonna look again
at Moses tonight and talk a little bit more about him. By faith,
Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his
parents because they saw that the child was beautiful. and
they were not afraid of the king's edict. By faith, when he was
grown up, Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to
enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach
of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he
was looking to the reward. By faith, he left Egypt, not
being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing
him who is invisible. By faith, he kept the Passover
and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn
might not touch them. By faith, the people crossed
the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted
to do the same, were drowned. By faith, the walls of Jericho
fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By
faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were
disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
Let's pray. Lord, I need your grace, Lord,
in your mind so that I might rightly expose that which you
want us to see in this text tonight. Father, help us to open our hearts
to see and know that if it were not for your spirit guiding us,
we would not. Lord, help us to be at peace
in the gospel. Help us to be at unity in the
grace that you've given your people. Father, help us to walk
in a manner worthy of the calling that we've been given, the high
calling of the efficacy of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross.
Father, help us to live in a manner that is congruent with the promises
that you've given. Lord, that we may walk not fearfully,
but faithfully. trusting in you in all times.
And father, that when our faith wanes, we know that you remain
faithful for you cannot deny yourself. And so as we learn
more of this today, as we continue to look at the basics and the
depths of your mercy and grace to your people, father, I thank
you and I rejoice that you have given us this opportunity. Lord,
help us to put away every sin that so easily entangles us and
trips us so that we may look to the founder and the perfecter
of our faith, Jesus Christ, the righteous. For in him and in
him alone do we have our center. Do we have our righteousness?
Do we have eternal life? And it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Beloved, I'm tired. My brain
is tired. It's been tired since Saturday.
So forgive me if I seem a little off or that I cannot, I seem
to stutter when I read because I can't see well. Ever since
I had a headache Saturday morning, I'm not, I don't have clarity
of eyesight. Pray for me in that. May the
Lord either provide for me a bigger Bible or make my eyes work again. I want to revisit this context
here when Paul is writing about Moses. We know that Jesus tells
us in John 5 where he tells the Pharisees that Moses wrote of
him. We know that the scripture shows us that the one to whom
the prophets point is Jesus Christ. We know that the purpose of this
writing is to encourage the saints of God. so that they may rest
and rest some more in the finished work of Christ, so that they
would not be fearful, so that their faith would be strengthened,
so that together they may walk as a people through the barren
lands of this life. Now, I have a sort of a vocabulary that's odd
to some people. And when I talk about things
and when I use certain words and when I use certain phrases,
A lot of people go, where did you come up with that? Well,
I'd love to take credit for my vernacular, but honestly, my
vernacular is not historical. The way I speak and the way I
address certain things, whether it be the Bible or music or whatever,
these things that are common for me are not something that
I read in a book. They're not something that I
picked up off of television. One's vernacular, especially mine,
comes from my family. It comes from how I grew up.
The things that I say are often identical to the way my father
says them. The way I stand is the same way my father stands.
I cross my arms the same way. All my brothers cross their arms
the same way. We laugh the same way. We nod our heads the same
way. We stand on the same foot. We lean in the same direction.
We have similar ideas about the world. Our language is similar. And so we are products of our
upbringing, parents, We are teaching our children a language. We are
teaching our children, in some sense, through observation, grammar. We are teaching our children
certain contexts in which we could see the world, worldviews. And so when I teach the Bible,
a lot of people have often said to me, oh, well, you sound like
so-and-so. No, I don't sound like so-and-so.
I sound like me. And the language that I have
and the vernacular that I have comes from my life. And the same
is true for you. The same is true for you. For
those of you that I know, and you know, I don't know your extended
family, it's interesting because we can see like with your families,
when they visit for the first time, I can see you in them.
I can see your personalities, I can see their facial expressions,
the way you laugh, the way you hold your face, the way you tilt
your head. I look at your faces a lot more than you look at your
faces. Believe it or not, I'm staring into your face and individually
identifying the emotion or the observational assumption that
I can make based on what I see every single week that you sit
here. That's why Corona has been such
a terrible thing with this disassembly of so many of our beloved brothers
and sisters because I can't see them. I don't know what they're
doing. I don't have a barometer with which to gauge what they're
thinking or that they might be going through something. But
either way, I'm just saying all this so that you can understand
that you have learned some things because of who you've been around.
And sometimes other people can know us a little bit better than
we can know ourselves in certain areas of life. For example, like
Trey was telling me last week or the week before, that I say
the word totality often. And when I say it, I say it with
certain emphasis. And I didn't know that. Now I'm
going to make sure I don't say it. Or many years ago, someone
came up to me and said, you know, when you say the word God, you
emphasize it and you make it almost two syllables, God. And
I'm like, do I? So I cut that out. So every time
that someone makes me aware of certain ways in which I speak
or certain word uses that I have, I'll sort of cut them out. Not
purposefully to say, I'm going to stamp that out, but I've become
more aware. And so then I train myself. I train myself to communicate. And when we heard the word tonight,
you heard the words that were not unfamiliar to you. You heard things that you heard
last week and the week before. We've read this section of scripture
now three different Wednesday nights. You have read these things
for years. You know the teaching here. But
when we hear the words, there's a lot of times we hear what we
have always heard. And that's why exposition is
so important. That's why the body of Christ being together
is so important. That's why oversight of the elders, plural elders,
is so important so that together we walk in a way that is careful. Because as Paul is writing to
these Christians, he's not writing theologically to them to train
them in the doctrines. He's writing theologically to
them to apply it to their lives with joy. There's a big difference. And there's a big difference
in how I used to teach fresh out of graduate school versus
how I teach now. So far away from education that
I can't get my grammar right. And people would hear differently
then than they would now and they would come to me and they'd
say, Pastor, I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Your
word usage is too big. The language and the way you
have spoken is confusing because I don't understand what you're
trying to say. So I became more mindful of who
I'm talking to. I became more mindful of why
I'm talking here. And I have seen a huge difference
in the academic idea of theology and the applying or the encouraging
idea of theology. The Bible is not here to teach
us first and foremost academically. The Bible is here to teach us
primarily, intimately, that we may grow to understand the gospel,
that we may grow to hear the repeated truth over and over
again that may be the basics, but in the basics we also see
the depth and the meat of the glory of God. And the difference
in the basics to the new year and the basics to the mature
year is that we have spent more time digesting this. And we've spent more time applying
this. And it's not necessarily a season
to say, okay, after four years, after six years, after 20 years,
we'll all be here. That doesn't mean anything. I've
seen people in months have maturity and after 20 years still be an
infant. Paul deals with infancy. And
he said, we need to be teachers, but somebody needs to go back
and teach you some things. And what was he doing? He was
encouraging them to pay attention. He was encouraging them to pay
attention because he wanted them not to skip over that which they
thought they already knew, which they knew but they didn't know.
And he's using this chapter 11 as the expression of what the
people of old have always known. Not what they've done, not how
they've done it, not the level of their faith or the power of
their faith or any of these things, but what they have known. And
he's reminding them, thus, as we read it, he's reminding us
about what we know concerning God. In 1 John, we have already
learned two things that God is. God is light. God is love. And we will continue to learn
certain things as we move into the book of James as we move
into other things in 2nd John, 3rd John and so forth. And the
same thing is true here. By faith Moses, by faith Moses'
parents, by faith Abraham, by faith, by faith, by faith, by
faith, by faith. And last week we looked at a
comparison of Moses so that we could see that the beautiful
one truly is Jesus Christ. We don't look to Moses as our
beautiful one. We don't look to Moses as our
redeemer. We don't look to Moses as our
victor. We don't look to Moses as the
father of the faith. We look to Christ. So my Jewish
brothers and sisters, Paul is saying, look to Christ. Stop
looking at Moses. Moses, look to Christ. Stop looking
at Abraham. Abraham, look to Christ. Stop
looking at Jacob. Jacob, look to Christ. Joseph,
look to Christ. Sarah, look to Christ. They sat
still. They rested. They were not moved. Yet we don't see all the different
failures of these people. Because ultimately, as I share
often, with people when they talk to me privately about personal
things and how they can discern the will of God. My first answer
is this for them is that the will of God is easily seen in
the pages of scripture and the will of God is where you are
this very moment. We aren't trying to look at the
signs and look at the bottom of our coffee cups and look at
the tides and look at the moon and call up the soothsayers. Should I do this? Should I do
that? We know that where we are and where we've come and that
which we've come through has been the will of God. This is
what Paul is reminding these Jews of today. That all the reality
of your existence as a people came from when God had no people
to call His own in the world, yet He knew a people eternally
called the elect. And He wanted to show that picture
of election, and so He called a man named Abram out of earth.
And He called him His own. And He promised him a son that
was impossible in any scientific way. Impossible in the physical
way. It was an impossibility in any
way in creation for Abraham and Sarah to have a child. But God
can do all things outside of everything because He created
everything. Even that which is invisible.
And as much as I love the laws of nature and the laws of physics
and the laws of the world and as math and others. would say,
Oh, these are solid. There is a more solid reality
that we cannot see. And that is the solidity of the
immovable God who created it all. And in an instant can change
everything. So that as Abraham went out,
not knowing where he was going over yonder, remember I was talking
about that. I don't know how that keeps sticking in my head.
He just believed God because God granted him faith to know
that he was indeed leading him to a promise that was secure. As Sarah believed, it was impossible
for her to see physically. She even tried to physically
answer the promise. We know what God wants. I know
how to get what we need. You need a child. It isn't necessarily
with me. Hagar is available. She's our
property. Have your way. There's a child.
There we go. Ta-da! The son of promise. God
says no. With Jacob and with Esau, and
we can go through all the list. Cain and Abel, it starts there
with the creation of the world and the first family. It's always
about focusing on that one thing that is immovable. And this language is not from
a book. This language that you hear out
of my mouth today is from almost 47 years of thinking about the
immovability of God. Almost. We're almost there. The immovability of God. The
immutability of God. The grandness. The perfection. The standard. The power. The
knowledge. the grandeur, the majesty of
thinking about who God is and what it's like to be God or what
it's like to behold God. Much like Moses would say, can
I see your face? No, you cannot see me. Yet in
2 Corinthians 4, Paul writes to those pretty flustered Christians. who were having a hard time with
it. He writes to them and he says, we don't look at God the
way Moses did through a veiled face. We don't look at him from
the backside, we look at him from the forward face and that
face is Jesus Christ. And there's something sufficient
about that that we must always keep on the bottom of our shoes.
So that as we walk, we walk and the picture and the metaphor
of the gospel of peace as our shoes, we walk in peace, we stand
in peace, we go where we're going about this life, not worrying
about how we're going to do what God's called us to do or be where
God's called us to be or live how God's called us to live.
But we rest knowing that he is guiding us through his word and
together we can be safer than if we were by ourselves. But we look and we get this language
and this language is differentiating two things. This language is
showing us what faith looks like, what faith looks like, what faith
looks like lived out. And this language is in contrast
to what fear looks like. You might think, well, where
does fear come in? Well, that's the whole point. That's the occasion of
this writing, isn't it? What were causing the Jews, I'm
going to stop saying Jews, what were causing the Hebrew Christians
that received this letter, what was causing them trouble? They
were fearful. They were fearful that what they
had learned concerning Christ, that what God had shown them
through the teaching of the apostles might not be enough or might
not be correct. They were fearful that if they
weren't placating somewhat to the culture of the religion that
they lived in, that maybe they would lose everything. They were
fearful of losing everything. They were fearful of being called
losers and heretics. They were fearful of being arrested
or being mistreated. They were fearful. And they thought, well, all I've
got to do is take on circumcision. All I have to do is just go back
to the feasts. All I have to do is just start
tithing again. All I have to do is just, I can,
but when does it stop? You got this group over here
that wants to tithe. You know what? I can afford that. Got
this group over here that wants circumcision. You know what?
Take three weeks off work. I'll be all right. You got this
group over here that wants the sacrifices. And you got this
group over here that wants this and this group over here that
wants that. And then before you know it, just as we see in the
Mishnah, the law begins to step on itself. And then God Himself in the world
is convicted by the leaders of the faith as a sinner because
He heals a man's body on the Sabbath, which is the whole point
of the healing. is to point to the finished work
of Christ, our rest. Fear, fear motivates us more
than anything. My question is, do you hear the
language of this letter with ears of fear? Or do you hear
the language of this letter with ears of faith? That's my question
for tonight. The ears of fear look at the
warning passages in Hebrews. And the ears of fear make provision
for the flesh to straighten out one's life or attitude or focus,
actions. And the ears of fear always have
a failed model as its goal. Some other person. Some other. approach, some other something. But ears of faith hear the language
of faith as true faith. And we hear what Moses did. We hear what Moses' parents did. And we go, why? Am I supposed to do these things?
Yes, you are. You are supposed to believe in
the promises of God. But what if it costs me? It's
going to cost you. What if it scares me? It's going
to scare you. What if it makes everybody hate
me? It's going to make everybody hate you. What if I lose my job? It's probably
going to cost you a job one day. What if my spouse leaves? Many
have. What if my children disown me?
A lot of them will. But is it because you are resting
in the promises of God by faith or is it because you were so
fearful that you are pressing an unbiblical idea on all of
those circumstances, relationships, and instances? Moses was hidden by faith, not
fear. And that is the contrast. Remember
last week I talked about the contrast between the kingdoms The kingdom
of God, the kingdom of man. Now this is the contrast, the
same language, the same text, the same message, just another
focus. The language of faith versus
the language of fear. Hearing. Faith led Moses, God's
promises led Moses to not fear the king, but to go back into
the kingdom after being wanted as a murderer. You think, well
didn't he fear? Yes, he feared when he left for Midian the first
time. What did he fear of? For being executed as a murderer.
That's what. I mean, isn't that normal? Yes,
it's normal. It's not sinful to kill a man
and then, well, That was stupid. It's not weak faith or saying,
I'm not trusting the Lord when you kill a man and flee persecution. That's common sense. And I'm
not going to talk about whether his murder was sin or his fear
of, but either way, when God called him to go back, there
was no more fear. Was there? Yeah, there was. It
wasn't a fear of death anymore. What was Moses' fear when God
called him to go back? He couldn't talk well. He couldn't
speak well. He's like, how am I supposed
to go stand before the king, God, and communicate? And I think
that's when God gave him the staff. I'll give you some help. Here's a stick. I mean, you know,
it's a magic stick. Nah, I just picked it up in the
desert. It didn't burn. It's part of that bush I was
with. Remember? Just being funny. Oh, you need somebody to hold
your hand and speak for you? Here's your brother Aaron. Matter
of fact, Aaron, you're gonna be the king of the priests. Now
go make a golden calf. I mean, that's what Aaron did.
And God gave Moses the faith to walk back into possible death
and put his stick in the face of the king and let Aaron say,
you see what Moses is putting the stick in your face? He's
telling you to let God's people go. These are not your people.
Now, could you imagine the king seeing that and laughing? God purposed that the Pharaoh
would not kill Moses. That's why Moses didn't die. And then God has told us in his
word, I raised Pharaoh up that I may show my power through him.
And God brought plague after plague, after plague, after plague,
nine times. And all of those times, it caused
the Pharaoh to fear. I will not Let these people go. And he made it harder on them,
right? And God said, OK. All your water
is blood. See how thirsty you are next
week. The dust of the ground is fleas. See how itchy you are
next week. Locusts are going to devour your
crops. Your animals are going to die. The sky is going to go
black. And every time God poured out
wrath, justice, righteousness, and power, Pharaoh cowered in
fear. He understood the language of
fear. Please, I'll let them go. Just take away this pain. And God would take away the pain.
And when Pharaoh wasn't hurting, Pharaoh's heart grew cold. He
hated God and God's people more and more and more. And the Bible tells us that God
hardened his heart. And it was God's grace of relenting. It was God removing the fierceness. Because it was the fierceness
that what? that caused Pharaoh to repent. And when he didn't
see the pain, he went, I'll show you. So God hardened the heart of
Pharaoh over and over and over again. And Moses was God's instrument. And Moses saw these things and
believed in God. And Moses is not the one to be
praised here. God is the one to be praised
here. God caused Moses to believe and all the Egyptians saw this
same thing. But now when we look at this
faith and fear idea, we see Moses in a different way. We talked
about this last week. He refused to be called the son
of the Pharaoh. And he chose rather to be mistreated
with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting sinfulness
of Egypt. How are we going to survive?
Fear. We have everything we need. Peace. I mean, think about this
for a second. What's going to happen to us if we don't join
the palace? If we're not part of the right
community? Oh, we've got peace. We're in
the right place. Oh no, we're with the slaves. We're fearful.
But it was the opposite from Moses. Moses wasn't fearful of
being hated with God's people because Moses was taught by the
Spirit of God and equipped by God to believe in the promises
of God and God's promises, though He never saw them eternally in
the sense of understanding all of it, He saw them in time. He
saw God's power. He saw God's exodus. He saw God's
redemption. He understood. And so the language of faith
teaches us that when we are brought to a place of choosing, And we look over here and we
go, whoa, look at the cons. Whoa, look at the pros. This is going to cost me. This
is going to hurt. I'm going to be a nobody. I'm going to be
hated. I am going to suffer. This is the path of righteousness.
This is the path of faith. Jesus uses the same thing, the
same illustration. Broad is the path that leads
to destruction. Many will go that way. Narrow is the gate
that leads to righteousness. Few will find it. The reproaches
of him fell on me. Moses had the faith to understand
that he was trading all the treasures and all the wealth and all the
joys and all the power and all the security of Egypt and the
world at his disposal so that he could be mistreated with the
people of God. That's insane. But that is the
work of our God. Beloved, we are going to experience
these same things. He considered the reproach of
Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. He considered
being hated and despised by men, but counted worthy in Christ,
greater treasure. He considered being hated by
his own family. being arrested. Think about the
apostles. Paul says it this way, I count it all loss. All of it. What? Everything that he ever
was. Everything that he'd ever accomplished, everything that
he'd ever learned, everything that he'd ever practiced, every
level and stature that he'd climbed to, his righteous works of the
law, his teaching, his sermons, his
prayers, his prosperity. He counted it all as loss with
a priceless gain of knowing Christ as Lord. So I'm losing everything,
but I'm gaining everything. Jesus teaches us this over and
over again when he says the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure
hidden in a field. Now here's a man working and
laboring and finds the treasure. Some people say he was trespassing.
Whatever way, he found a treasure. It was not his. He did not steal
it. But he saw this treasure and he goes in his mind, he covers
it up. He's not stupid. He covers it
up and then he goes and sells everything that he has so he
can buy the field so he can own what's in it. The kingdom of
heaven is light. That's a simile. That's not teaching
us to sell our stuff to get to heaven. It's showing what God
does in the heart of his people to give them faith in the face
of all adversity, in the face of all wealth, in the face of
all prosperity, in the face of all success. When we look at
that stuff and we go, really? You want to give me all of this
in exchange for Christ? Are you crazy? Christ is more
valuable. Christ is more valuable. The
promises of God in Christ are more valuable because they are
eternal. 1 John 2, we know what it says in 15-17. To not love
the world or the things of the world, the lust of the eyes,
the pride of life, the pride of possessions, for the things
of the world are not of God and are passing away. 2 Corinthians
chapter 4, as we look with light momentary affliction prepares
us for an eternal weight of glory. As we look, what? Not to the
things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. The
invisible God, the invisible promises, that which is ours.
Beloved, I swear that we need to get really focused on the
reality of what the true gospel will do for us. It will destroy
our worldly lives, ultimately one day. And right now we live
in a manner of just, I believe, gospel prosperity. Because we
aren't truly being persecuted. But when we are, we need to have
the mind of Christ. We need to be reminded of these
things. And how do we do that? How do we endure? We've already
been talked about that. We need endurance. We are not
of those who shrink back. We are not of those who go back
to the flesh. We are not of those who walk away and are destroyed. But we are those who have faith
and we are those who preserve our souls. That's chapter 10,
verse 39. And how do we do that? You are in need of endurance
so that when you've done the will of God you may receive what
is promised. Here are the examples of this endurance. This endurance
is not self-motivated. This endurance is not self-willed.
This endurance is not self-proclaimed. This endurance is not within
our own selves. This endurance is the truth of
the gospel of free and sovereign grace. This endurance is about
the eternal love of God for us through Jesus Christ, so that
when Christ died and said it was finished, that all the elect
will come in. Because He's bought us all. And no matter what the world
looks like today, no matter what the faith looks like today, no
matter what the church looks like today, it is all going to
be tainted with the world and with the flesh and we're always
going to make mistakes, we're going to make missteps, we're
going to have problems, we're going to have error, we're going to do things
that glorify God and we're going to do things that don't glorify
God. But in the end, it's all for naught. I remember conferences
that I used to teach at with thousands and thousands of people,
and there was always the war stories after lunch, and the
bragging after lunch, and all that kind of stuff, and there
was the opportunity at the last evening, you know, where all
the different pastors and ministry leaders would come up and go,
hi, my name's Bob, and we baptized 743,000 people last year. We had so many people come to
faith that we just decided to rent the stadium and we got 45
fire trucks. We just hosed them all down.
We just wet them all at one time. In the name of Jesus, amen. Everybody's
like, oh, praise God, oh my God, praise God. Where are those 745,000? I don't know about three of them
going to church. We don't know where the rest of them are. you know I mean
it was bragging rights after bragging rights after bragging
rights after bragging rights after bragging rights and they'd
be printed in the magazines and they'd be on television and we
do like this and then the missionaries would come in and talk about
all the little children that they read Bible studies to over
and over again and all the different things and all the stuff and
every hour it was another testimony of the power of God but it was
bragging rights about the power of man to administrate change
in the lives of people God's not in all that garbage.
God's not doing that. We're doing that. We are that
talented. If people can jump off a mountain
and skid down on skis without dying, I mean, we can manipulate
people to think they're involved in the body of Christ. And when
the world stands before the Christ, he's going to judge all of it. And the elect are free. We are
judged, and then there's nothing to judge us with. If he looks
at us and looks at the account, there's nothing, James, there's
nothing written here. Enter in. Oh, the guy standing next to
you though, oh my goodness. Can you pull those 643 million
volumes down? Oh, and there's 745,000 wet people that need to go with him. There's no bragging rights before
the Lord. Faith believes that Christ and his promises are enough. Moses knew that fear would not
win. He left Egypt because he was
looking for the reward. Now the crazy thing about this
is we know the story, right? Paul has already said something
about the unfaithful grumblers of that number, right? The multitude,
the majority. Why 40 years? Today if you hear
his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on
the day of testing in the wilderness where your fathers put me to
the test and saw my works for 40 years. Therefore I was provoked
with that generation And I said, they always go astray in their
heart. They have not known my ways. As I swore, very key, in
my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. And then Paul warns
his brothers about having a like-mindedness. Take care, brothers, lest there
be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away
from the living God. But my brothers, exhort one another
every day, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may
be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, for we have come to share
Christ. Indeed, if we hold our original
confidence firm to the end. And we've already seen that.
We've already seen what happens to these people. We see it over
in Jude. We see it in Genesis. We know
the story. These people die in the wilderness
because they do not believe in the promises of God. So much so did Moses believe
and could hear the language of faith and hear the truth of the
promises of God. It says that he endured mistreatment. He endured suffering. He endured
trials. He endured hatred. He endured
pain. He endured. Look what Moses endured. Moses endured the hatred of his
own people that he was sent there by God to set free. They're no
more out in the wilderness for just a couple of days and they're
complaining. Well, at least we had somewhere to sleep. At least
we had better food than this matzah bread on the dirt. At least we had better food than
that. And you gotta go find a rock to scream at to get water out
of or to hit. I mean, they complained and grumbled
because they didn't believe in the promises of God. Why didn't
they? Because just because they were
Israel doesn't mean they were elect. And so as the world is, God takes
His elect out of the world and reveals to them His perfect finished
work of redemption through Jesus Christ that He has set forth
in time eternally before the foundation of the world that
at the right time Christ would die for the ungodly. And then
He created a people to show the smaller picture of that, this
microscopic reality, this microscopic picture of this cosmic reality.
people he called Israel and then out of Israel it's a small representation
of this larger group of people that are still a small group
of people that he elects out of the world and out of this
elect people he elects the true church and through these small
little tiny remnants of people. He brings them through faithfully
to the end of their lives that He might use them to bring about
His purposes in Jesus Christ and moreover to bring the person
of Jesus Christ incarnate Himself. So it was no big deal for Moses to believe the Passover. He sprinkled
that blood without hesitation. He did it. And then just when they thought
they had escaped, here come the army again. And what happens? The sea opens and they cross
over on dry land. Now a lot of people don't like
to hear that story. They don't like to hear, that's just impossible.
Must have been low tide. Must have been some kind of a
barge or some kind of land mass there in low tide and they walked
over and the tide came up and swallowed them up. No, the Bible
says that God parted the waters of the sea. You can't prove that scientifically
because it goes against it. But Moses had no problem. And
then when the Egyptians tried to follow after them, they perished. Why? That picture in and of itself
is a picture of resting in the promises of God. God had promised
Moses and his people that they could cross over. He had not
made the promise to the people behind them. And I'm willing
to bet you that it was pretty close. It wasn't like six miles
away and then as the Israelites are standing on the... Wait a
minute, is that somebody coming right there? No, I bet they were on
their heels. And I bet as the Israelites were
ahead, the water's swallowing up and if I were God, I'd have
done it from the back. I'd have waited until all the
army was in there and then I'd have started swallowing them
up from the back. So that first chariot that was in line after,
all of a sudden heard, he's the only one left, swoosh.
I mean that would just be the way I'd do it and make a good
movie like that, wouldn't it? Almost made it, oh well. Almost
made it. I remember through the years
teaching that to my children and they all teary eyed. What's wrong?
They killed all the horses. To heck with the Egyptians. I
mean, you know, they're reprobate daddy. That was their intention. Touche. They believed. They were drowned. And that's
the end of Moses. according to Paul's testimony
of his ability to believe in the promises of God. And there
was so much more for Moses to do in the wilderness for 40 years
of rebellion and 40. But that's not the point. We're
not here to look at those rebellion, those rebellious people. We're
here to look at those elect people. We're here to look at the faithful,
that God had granted the faith to believe in his promises against
all Common sense and knowledge and wisdom of the world. And
then Joshua took over at Moses' death. And Joshua was faithful. And Joshua believed. Rahab believed. And the list goes on and next
week we will finish up this chapter. And continue to see what it is
that God is showing us. And ultimately it is this, is
that we need to listen and hear the gospel with the ear that
trusts in the promises of God. That is faith, that trusts in
the finished work of God, that trusts in everything that we
cannot see because of the promises that have been made. And we have
much more than Moses had. We have Christ. We have the clarity
of the story of the finished work of Jesus. We have the testaments
of the apostles to teach us about what he accomplished for us.
So in a way, it's almost easier. So we do have something to behold. We do understand it. But it doesn't
make it easier, does it? In our flesh, we still work and
debate in ourselves, and worry in ourselves, and fear in ourselves,
and wonder in ourselves, and second-guess God inside of our
own minds. And when it's all said and done,
He is the promise keeper. I always hated that organization.
God is the promise keeper, not man. And so in that, we can rest. We can walk into a sea. We can
stick our finger in the face of a king, but we're never going
to be called to do those things. But just the same, the faith
that calls Moses to see and do that is the same faith we've
been granted to sit in these chairs and to hear this word
and to be encouraged and to be equipped and to be at ease, to
be at peace and to rest. Let's pray. Father, rest is something that
we desperately need. We need it in our bodies. We
need it in our souls. Father, I pray that you would
just grant us peace of mind. Father, that you would draw into
us the reality of the gospel and its power. And Father, that
you would help us to understand your purpose in leaving us in
this world to live together in this gospel. So that we would
see that the power of the gospel of Christ is unto salvation and
that it is also the power unto intimacy. That Lord, the gospel
that you teach us in your word is also that which equips us
to endure. And we have so many heroes, as
we like to call them, that have gone before us. But we must look
over them and look to Jesus. Because that's what you've been
showing us in this text over the last few weeks. We do not
need to look at these men and women. We need to look at who
they looked upon. And that was Jesus Christ, your
Son, whom you killed to satisfy your wrath against your people.
And Lord, we pray that as your people, that you would help us
to go into the world and that we would teach the gospel to
all men and all women and all children, that you would call
your own children out of the world. Bring them to the knowledge
of your promises and grant them the faith and the change of mind
to believe them. And we pray these things in Christ's
name, amen.