The Dust Of Ashes

All right, let's be turning to Exodus 9. Exodus 9, now, the fourth plague that we looked at last week, the swarm of various flies, that one pictured the plague of eternal death. And that plague, the Lord allowed that plague, He gave that plague to the Egyptians.

They suffered, and they suffer under the plague of eternal death. But he severed the Israelites. He didn't put them under that plague. He delivered his people from the plague of eternal death, from that plague which pictured it, just as he delivers his people from eternal death. He's made provision for his people in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord's ability to make this distinction, seen here in the Egyptians or the Israelites from the Egyptians, seeing that is a picture and a testimony of God's sovereign, omnipotent power to do as he will in the earth, right? To do what pleases him. And so the Egyptian people, they're the ones that are being affected by these plagues now. Everything that's happening is life unto life to the Israelites. This is all working towards their good, their salvation, their deliverance from bondage. But to the Egyptians, this is death unto death.

This is coming to them as a plague unto death. They're being destroyed by these things. They're being wiped out. This is for their judgment. And the Lord does this, he's bringing upon them these plagues for their disobedience to the command. And it's a picture of men's disobedience to Christ, their disobedience to the gospel. That is, they don't believe. They reject it. They have no desire or need for Christ.

But to the believer, It's life to them, but this command of life, it's seen or pictured here in what the Lord says to Pharaoh by Moses, let my people go that they may serve me, right? Be free. Let my people be free from bondage to sin and the dominion of sin and death.

Now, spiritually speaking, under the plague of eternal death, man can bring forth no good works. There's no good works that man can do. Nothing he does merits the favor of God. And people think that by nature, that what we do or don't do is either a good work or a bad work judged on and based on how we perceive what's good and bad. by nature, and so that's how most people look at it, but there's nothing that you or I can do of ourselves and our works that reconciles us to God or recommends us to God's favor, to his noticing us and deciding, you know what, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna save them, I'm gonna be merciful to them. We might merit the notice of God for our wicked works, to bring upon ourselves death and destruction, but nothing we do can put away or make up for the wages of our sin, which is death. Nothing we do can give us peace with holy God.

Now, this is the bondage that man is under to sin and death by nature. We are under, the natural man is under the dominion and power of sin. And therefore, everything the scriptures tell us, everything that man does is sin. He sins continually. We sin like drinking water. That's what we are by nature, and so everything we do is displeasing to the Lord.

The psalmist writes in Psalm 5, verse 4 and 5, But that's all that man is by nature. a worker of iniquity, and there isn't a thing that you or I can do to save ourselves, to cleanse us of our iniquities and our unrighteousnesses, man will not obey Jehovah God. He will not bow to the Son, the Savior, whom the Father hath sent to save his people from their sins. And all the works that man does, thinking, this is my goodness, This is my decency.

God's gonna surely look at me and find nothing significantly wrong or bad with me. I'm just like my neighbors. I go to work, I take care of my family, I do what I gotta do. Surely, God is pleased with me. If there is a God, that's how man thinks, that's how man operates. He's just like everybody else.

But according to the scriptures, that's not enough. Our goodness, as we judge goodness according to one another and looking at one another, that's not good enough. That's not righteousness before the holy, true, and living God. It doesn't cut it. It doesn't add up. We are weighed and found wanting. That's what the scriptures tell us. All are guilty of sin.

If you would be pleasing to God, There is one way to come to Him, one way, that is in His Son. The only way to come to God and be found acceptable of Him and pleasing in His sight is to come to Him in the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as the voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. You that come to the father in Christ are well pleased to him because Christ the son is well pleasing unto the father.

And all we do in him is blessed and righteous and accepted to the father. And he bears fruits of righteousness in his people that are to our good and for our good. He bears these things in us. And so Jesus Christ, for this purpose, the father sent his son into the world to redeem, to purchase that which was lost and ruined by the fall in Adam. Father sent his son for this purpose, to satisfy the justice of holy God, which was against us. That was rightly against us because we sinned and we rebelled against God and we do so. and yet he provided the propitiation, the means of our forgiveness, the forgiveness of our sins, he provided that all in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's the hope that a sinner has before God, that he will be found righteous for Christ's sake, for the Lord Jesus Christ, for what he has done. And so for this cause, Christ came unto the hour of the cross. That time, that moment in history, He came to that very moment willingly as the Lamb of God, bearing the sin of His people to put it away from us forever. So that when God the Father looks upon us in judgment, He finds no fault, no sin. There's nothing there. It's been put away forever by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so our Lord Jesus Christ has obtained eternal redemption for us.

Paul said, To the Jews and to the Gentiles, be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses, or by your religion, or by your works. Whatever you were trusting in that it cannot justify you before God, it doesn't matter. Get rid of those things. Let those things go. They will not save you. They're dumb.

Come to the Father in Jesus Christ, the Son, because all men by nature are under the judgment of God according to the law. All will die in their sins and be judged of God according to their works and be found naked. and be found wanting, and will not measure up, trusting in themselves, but through Jesus Christ, sinners are made righteous by his blood, by his righteousness, by his spear, by his power, by his will and his glory.

All who believe and trust the Son to save them from their sins shall be saved. We believe that Christ is able to do that. That's faith. Trusting and believing that Jesus Christ is able to save me. I know he can save me. I can't save myself, but he's the Savior. He's the one whom the Father sent. Lord, save me. Wash me in his blood. Have mercy upon me. That's the cry of the believer.

And that faith that trusts that Christ is able to save me, that faith is the witness of God born in you that he has given you his spirit, washed you in his blood, made you righteous as Christ is righteous. and you are accepted of him, that's his witness.

But the natural man, he won't hear this, he won't believe it. He continues to refuse it and be disobedient to the call of the gospel. And until that man or any man or woman becomes a sinner before God, They have no interest in the things of Christ, and he has no place in Christ. Until a man confesses that he is a sinner, he has no interest in Christ, he has no need for Christ, he has no want for Christ, he has no care for Christ.

Only sinners come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Sinners are the only ones that hear this message and think, is that true? Is that so, that Christ receives sinners? that he saves sinners, that I can't save myself, but Jesus Christ saves sinners to the uttermost? Yes, that is true. That is the truth. That is the gospel. That is the good news of God given to us.

We read in Luke 15, verse one and two, then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. All the worst of the worst of Jewish society drew near to Christ to hear what he had to say. And the Pharisees and scribes, they murmured. They complained about this, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. Yes, that is the testimony of Scripture concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. He receives sinners and eats with us, has fellowship with us, draws us near to him in grace and in mercy. to rejoice in who he is, why he came, and what he accomplished for me. We rejoice in that message. So only sinners come to Christ, only sinners came to Christ, only sinners wanted to hear Christ, and the only ones to complain about this were the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees.

They're the ones who try to hold off and push back and resist sinners coming to Christ. Well, you got to clean up first. You got to fix this and fix that. You can't show your face around here doing those things. Well, those are the people that need to hear Christ. Because Christ is the one who's going to change the heart. Christ is the one that delivers sinners from the bondage of sin and death. He does that.

So we encourage ourselves who are sinners, we encourage our loved ones, our neighbors, people and friends that we know to come and hear Christ because all are sinners and all fall short of the glory of God and so they need to hear that. Now, what our Lord is showing us from the scriptures is that until a man knows himself to be a sinner, he's not gonna come to Jesus Christ for salvation. declaring what the scripture shows. That's why the scriptures teach that all men are sinners for that purpose. Cause us to, to lay down our self righteousness and our self confidence to put that aside, to cast it aside onto the heap of dung of man's works and man's goodness and to run to Christ, to flee to him, to go to him because he is salvation.

And so. But man won't hear that until the Lord does a work of grace, because until then, he's gonna boast of his goodness, of his fair works, trusting, well, the Lord, it'll be all right. It'll be all right. He'll receive me. I'm not that bad. I'm a pretty good guy. No, you're not. And I'm not either. We're not pretty good. We need the righteousness of Christ. Even our religion. even our religion, cannot soothe the guilty conscience when the Lord goes after a man, showing him what a sinner he is and his need of Christ.

The religious Jews, if you're trusting in religion, right, in your Catholicism, your Christian religion, your Mormonism, your Jehovah Witnesses, your Islam, whatever other kooky religion is out there, whatever it is, whatever you're trusting in, just understand that even the Jews, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes, the most religious people were the ones that crucified Christ. because they were trusting their own righteousness.

They rejected Christ. But the sinners among the Gentiles, they heard the gospel and they rejoiced in it when they heard it. In fact, it says in Acts 13, 48, when the Gentiles heard this, the gospel that Paul and Barnabas were preaching, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. those that were ordained to eternal life they believed.

And so when God makes you to know what a vile sinner you are, and that your works do not merit your salvation, then sinners will seek the righteousness of God in Christ. because not even a man's religion can save him. Christ is the salvation of God and Christ alone. So Christ must be believed. He alone can save you, sinner. Only when a sinner believes that Christ alone can save him will he denounce his good works and be done with them. That's when we come to Christ. That's when a sinner comes to Christ because he needs Christ. He depends upon him. Are you a needy sinner?

Do you have a righteousness or not? Because if you have no righteousness, look to Him who is the righteousness of God. He is the only righteousness. If you think you have a righteousness of your own by your own works, by your own religion, you are under strong delusion and deceit. But Christ is the Savior. That's where you'll find satisfaction and peace for your souls. in Jesus Christ. And so God gives sinners this gospel. God saves sinners by this gospel, this good news of Jesus Christ. And I give you that introduction because the truth of the gospel, that very truth there, is what we see being shown to us in the next two plagues.

That is, those who trust in their works are destroyed. We see that in these next two plagues. And so this fifth plague that we're coming to now, we'll look at the fifth and sixth, but the fifth plague is directed against the possessions of the Egyptians. It's focused against their possessions such that a grievous disease comes upon their cattle, which was their wealth. And that was one of the forms of their wealth, their cattle.

So let's read this fifth plague here in Exodus 9, verse one through seven. Then the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me. There's the command that Pharaoh was refusing to hear. For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle, which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep.

There shall be a very grievous moraine. And the moraine is an old word that describes a disease, a transmissible disease, something that was infectious, that the cattle would pass on one to another. They would all get it, would rip through the herd and kill many, would put them to death. And so that's what moraine is.

And verse four, the Lord shall sever, and he'll put a difference between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt, and there shall nothing die of all that is the children's of Israel. And so that's a miracle because this moraine is a spreading disease. It's a spreading disease that should have hopped from one herd to the next.

It was going through the air, through the feed, through the water, wherever, and it didn't touch Israel's cattle. And the Lord's saying, it won't because I'm sovereign, I'm God. And so I control it and it won't touch them. It won't affect them at all. And the Lord appointed a set time, saying, Tomorrow the Lord shall do this thing in the land.

And the Lord did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died. But of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one. And Pharaoh said, And behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.

And so the lesson for us in this, what we're to see here is gonna be understood in the meaning of the cattle and what the cattle meant here to these Egyptians. You see cattle serves men, right? They bear the hard and heavy labor that would otherwise fall upon us. But they had cattle the same way you have a backhoe or a front loader or a rototiller or a lawnmower. You know, the same, that tool that you use, but that's what they use their cattle for, especially their oxen and their horses.

They did those things for them. And so alive, they're profitable. They bring forth much good for the family. and for the owner, right? It provides good works, good fruit there unto the people. They're profitable for their wealth. It's profitable to give them food, right? To make them a garden. It's profitable for their food if need be, right? To get milk and cheeses from and other good things and to bring them food and profit and comfort to that family. Those are picture of their works. That's the lesson for man here. That's the lesson in this thing.

With regards to our works before God, the scriptures tell us they're not good works. The scriptures tell us that even the plowing of the wicked, or even the plowing of the wicked, yes, is sin, right? That a man, and this is talking about us in the flesh, our carnal nature, we think we're doing good just by doing the things that we're supposed to do. But anything that's not done in faith, is sin. And that's the nature of man in this world. Everything he does is sin.

So even the plowing of the wicked is sin. And we being dead in trespasses and sins, like these dead cattle, can bring forth nothing good, nothing profitable unto God who created us for his pleasure. We don't bring forth anything good or profitable unto God by our works, because our works are coded in sin, are born of a sinful nature.

Because the reality is what we do, it isn't for the glory of God. It's for our own glory. It's for our own profit. It's for what we want and for what we need to use as we want to use it. And that's all we do by nature and those things. We need a righteousness that is not our own righteousness, that is not like what we do to save ourselves. We need the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ who alone pleased the Father in all things, in everything. Our good works are as profitable as those dead cattle laying out in the field with disease. They couldn't even eat them. They don't want them, they're just nasty there. So we need a righteousness that is not like ours. Now over in Romans 3, if you wanna try and follow me here in this, but in Romans 3, let me read a few verses. I'm gonna take a few verses from across Romans here and just put them together for you. Romans 3 in verse 21 through 23.

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. being witnessed by the law and the prophets. In other words, don't look to the law to try and bring forth good works from you unto God. Don't look to the law, don't look to your religion, don't look to yourself to bring forth good righteousness and good works.

Here's the righteousness, the righteousness of God, which is Verse 22, by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there's no difference. In other words, the Jew and the Gentile alike need this righteousness. Whether you have the law or you don't have the law, we need the righteousness of God, which is Jesus Christ. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now flip over to Romans 10. Romans 10, verse four. Romans 10, 4, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.

He's your righteousness center. You wanna be righteous before God? You'll find it in Jesus Christ. He is the very righteousness of God to put away the sins of his people. And verse six, just a little phrase there, for the righteousness which is of faith. speaketh. It speaketh of Christ. That's what it's getting to. That is what faith speaks of. That's what our faith glories in and boasts in and comes to God in Jesus Christ.

Look at verse 9, saying that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. That's the testimony of God in you, sinner. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

There's the hope of the sinner. It's all found in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't get to heaven by your works because your works are as profitable and as good as a dead cow in the field. It's not gonna satisfy the judgment of God. Christ alone satisfied the justice of God for us in his own person. Now, let's go back to Exodus 9. Exodus 9, and look at verse 8.

Let's just look at this sixth plague here, and it's gonna reaffirm these things here. slightly differently, so picking up in verse 8, And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh.

And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains. And blains are the result of the boils. It's an inflamed, pus-filled, sack that comes up on your skin when you get an allergic reaction to a bite from an insect that you're allergic to or something like that. It's itchy, painful, inflamed, red, and in a bubble.

And they took ashes of the furnace and stood before Pharaoh, and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven, And it became a boil breaking forth with blames upon man and upon beast, that is, upon the Egyptians and their beasts. And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boil was upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians.

And so we haven't heard from these magicians, but they were obviously hanging around making sure that Pharaoh's heart stayed hard to these things and would not yield to Moses and to Aaron and the rod of God, right? They made sure that his heart wasn't being turned to this, even though they couldn't do these things and they couldn't stop these things. But now they're hit with these boils so that they can't even stand there in the court anymore. Now, we're not told much about these furnaces.

Some think that they actually were used to make sacrifices to try and prevent these plagues and turn these plagues back. And if that's the case, well, it wasn't working. And whatever they were doing was actually turned against them when they poured out the ashes like that, the dust, and released them into the heaven as it were there. And so that didn't work.

I looked up that word furnace and it seems to be a type of a kiln, either for pottery or for metal. Maybe they were going to make tools or weapons to use against Israel, to lash out back at God and it was turned against them. That's possible. But what seems to be most likely is these were the kilns where they made the Israelites bake their bricks. This is where they would, when they gathered their hay and their clay and they would make bricks, this is probably those furnaces by which they laid on them the heat of affliction.

And laid on them hard sorrows and hard labor. And so what the Egyptians did to the Israelites in making life hard for them, keeping them in cool bondage, The Lord said, well, I'll take those ashes now from the produce of their labors and I'll turn it into boils for you. It'll be a pain and a sore and a suffering on you. All that work and that labor that you had them doing, it's going to return to you with much pain and much suffering.

All right, so here, the Egyptians, all their works, everything they were doing that they trusted in, their cattle to provide for them, lay dead in the field. And the furnaces by which they made their cities and built their glory was turned to dust and ashes, and it was turned against them for pain and suffering. against them for their judgment, to plague them. In verse 12, after all that, verse 12, the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh and he hearkened not unto them as the Lord had spoken unto Moses. And that's because the Lord had determined to glorify his name in all the earth through Pharaoh and his hard heart.

He will continue in this darkness and wickedness because that's what man is. And that's the worst thing that the Lord can do to you. This heart in your heart, this side of the grave, that's the worst thing. To not hear him, to not consider him, to continue in disobedience to Christ and not bow to him and believe him.

And we're all like the Egyptians here by nature. Our works are the dust of ashes and they just will consume our flesh in judgment. If that's your hope and your trust, that everything's fine with you and all your works are good, you'll be consumed like this dust consume their flesh in judgment.

But we need the free salvation of God which is given in the Lord Jesus Christ, believe him. And thou shalt be severed from these things, delivered from these judgments which are coming upon the wicked and disobedient in the earth. The Lord's provided this in Christ. Our Lord said, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

Believest thou this? Though our works by nature are unprofitable, in Christ, that's where we're made fruitful, being connected to Him who is the root. And we are the vine connected to the root in Him. So don't harden your heart. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Amen.

The Dust Of Ashes

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The Dust Of Ashes

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