Our scripture reading this evening
will be taken from Exodus chapter eight. Exodus the eighth chapter. We'll begin in verse 20 and read
down through the end of the chapter. And the Lord said unto Moses,
rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh. Lo,
he cometh forth to the water, and saying to him, Thus saith
the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. Else, if thou
wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon
thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into
thy houses, and into the houses of the Egyptians, shall be full
of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are.
And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which
my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, to the
end that thou may knowest that I am the Lord in the midst of
the earth. And I'll put a division between my people and thy people.
Tomorrow shall this sign be. And the Lord did so. And there
came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, into
his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt. The land
was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies. And Pharaoh called
for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your
God in the land. And Moses said, It's not me,
it's not right so to do, for we shall sacrifice the abomination
of the Egyptians to the Lord our God. Lo, shall we sacrifice
the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they
not stone us? We will go three days' journey
into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he shall
command us. And Pharaoh said, I will let
you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness.
Only you should not go very far away, entreat from me. And Moses
said, behold, I go out from thee, and I will entreat the Lord,
that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, and from
his servants, and from his people tomorrow. But let not Pharaoh
deal deceitfully any more, in not letting the people go to
sacrifice to the Lord. And Moses went out from Pharaoh
and entreated the Lord. And the Lord did according to
the word of Moses. And he removed the swarms of
flies from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people.
There remained not one. And Pharaoh hardened his heart
at this time also. Neither would he let the people
go. We'll end our reading there. Let's bow before our Lord together. Our Father, we humbly bow. in your presence. We come carefully
and reverently, yet Father, we come a thankful and a grateful
people. Thankful that because of the
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ that we can come boldly, confidently
before your throne of grace, pleading only the Lord Jesus
Christ, pleading only his obedience as our only righteousness Pleading
only his blood is the only way that our sin could be forgiven.
Pleading only his precious person that we could be accepted in
your holy presence in his person. Father, we're thankful. Human
language is not sufficient to express our thanksgiving that
you would be so merciful and gracious to sinful men and women
like we are. Enable us to come into your presence
and call you our father. Father, we can't even begin to
express our thanksgiving and our awe and wonder that you would
sacrifice your darling son to put away the sin of people like
us gathered here together this evening. Father, we're thankful.
As we think about your gospel, the glorious good news of your
gospel, Father, it's so plain to see what man is sufficient
for these things, who's sufficient to open your word and to declare
the gospel to declare your son and father who's sufficient to
hear father without thee we can do nothing and i beg of you this
evening that you would send your spirit upon us that you would
enable me to rightly divide the word of truth and father to preach
your gospel to preach your son and the power of your spirit
and father be with your people enable us to hear, enable us
to have a true hour of worship, and leave here tonight rejoicing
in Christ our Savior. And Father, what we pray for
ourselves, we pray for your people, wherever it is they're gathering
together tonight to worship you. Father, we pray you'd cause your
word to run well. In this dark, dark day in which
we live, how we beg of thee that you get glory to your name. Father,
we continually beg of thee worldwide and in this country and in this
little town, this little congregation, Father, show us your glory, your
redemptive glory in calling out your people, saving your people
and calling them to faith and repentance in our Lord Jesus
Christ. And Father, all these things
we ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name, the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. I've titled the
message this evening, no compromising the gospel. No compromising. You know, compromise is the way
of the world, isn't it? And in some ways, that's good.
Sometimes compromise is good. You know, I think about politics.
Compromising politics is not all bad. You know, the hardliners
of both parties have to compromise. They have to come as close to
the middle as they can get, you know, to get a bill That's the
closest thing we're going to have to a good bill and good
law. Both parties not getting everything
they want because they have to compromise. That's the best we
can hope for, and it's probably best. But compromise can be a
bad thing, too. Our world today tells us we have
to compromise with everything, including what's wrong. The definition
of compromise, if you talk to folks, What they think of when
they think of compromise is this, you can't call anything wrong,
even if it is. You just got to compromise with
it. There's no absolutes. Now, people
can do what they want, can't they? As long as they're within
the bounds of the law, they're not hurting other folks, as wicked
as it might be, they can do what they want. And you and I shouldn't
persecute them for it, because that's just being self-righteous.
That's all that is. Don't tell me I've got to join
in. Don't tell me that I have to approve of it, of something
that is contrary to the word of God. We're not gonna compromise
there. See where the gospel of God's son is concerned. There
cannot be any compromise, none whatsoever. And I ask you, if
anybody who knows the gospel of God's grace, why would anybody
want to compromise it? Why would we want, anybody who
trusts Christ, why would we ever want to compromise his glory? What do you think we'll gain
from that? If we compromise the gospel of God's glory, now we
might get a large following. We'll end up preaching a message
that will appeal to the flesh, and we might gain a large following.
But if we've compromised the gospel of God's glory, we're
gonna take away all the joy and all the comfort of the gospel.
away from believers. Why would you ever want to do
that? Why would you want to? There can't be any compromise
where the truth of the gospel is concerned. There are things I can compromise
on. I can compromise on is Melchizedek just a type of Christ or is he
actually Christ? A pre-incarnate appearance of
Christ. I happen to think he's a pre-incarnate appearance of
Christ, but I'm not gonna split him with anybody over that. But
the truth of the gospel, the heart of the gospel, the heart
of redemption in Christ, why would you ever want to compromise
that? Why would anybody who cares anything at all about sinners
want to compromise the truth of the gospel? You know, I've told you before,
I know that we live in an area, people call us hillbillies and
think we're real backward and all that kind of stuff, and maybe
it's true. I don't know. I don't know. But I kind of like the folks
around here. I kind of like the, I like us.
I mean, I just, I like the people here and I care about them. I mean, I really do. I care about
them. I never want us to fall into the trap of making fun of
unbelievers and not caring about them. I care about those that
don't know the Lord. Well, if you care about those
people, why would we ever compromise the truth of the gospel? Yes,
we could preach a false message. We could take the edge off of
it and actually preach some things that aren't true. And more than
likely, we'd attract a large audience, a large following.
More than likely, we would, because that message appeals to the flesh.
But that message won't save a lost sinner. And if they believe it,
it'll only damn them. Now, if you care about them,
why would you ever compromise the gospel and do that to them? You know, I've been accused of
being a hardliner. A hardliner. And it's probably
true. I take a hard stance on our message
and our methods here. If somebody wants to accuse me
of that, I'm fine with it. I don't want to be mean. I don't
want to be divisive. But by God's grace, we're never
going to compromise the truth of God's word just to get along
with people. Now we need to decide this. And as a congregation,
we've decided it a long time ago. We're either going to serve
God or serve people. One or the other. one or the
other. And I say, along with Joshua,
as for me and my house, and me and this congregation, we're
gonna serve the Lord. Now I want tonight to look at
four times that Moses was faced with a compromise from Pharaoh.
And see how it is that he handled this compromise. You know, after
some of the plagues against Egypt, it says Pharaoh hardened his
heart. After some of the other plagues,
it says the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. But after four of the
plagues, Pharaoh offered Moses a compromise to try to get out
of the mess that he was in. And Satan is still pressing these
same four compromises on the church today. So the number one
is this, is compromising the commandment of God. Exodus 8
verse 25. And Pharaoh called for Moses
and Aaron and said, go ye sacrifice to your God in the land. What
he means is you stay here in Egypt and sacrifice to your God.
And Moses said, it's not me, so to do. For we shall sacrifice
the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God. Remember
sheep and shepherds, they were an abomination to the Egyptians. We'll sacrifice something that
the Egyptians call an abomination to the Lord our God. Lo, shall
we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their
eyes? Will they not stone us? We will go three days journey
into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he shall
command us. Now Pharaoh offered this compromise
to Moses. You boys, you want to go out
and offer these sacrifices, just worship God here in Egypt. You
don't have to go three days journey. Just stay right here in Egypt.
You don't have to go far. And you just worship however
you want. You just offer whatever sacrifice you want. But just
do it here in Egypt. You don't have to go three days
journey out in the wilderness like God commanded you. Now,
you know, that could make some people think, you know, Pharaoh
sounds, he sounds pretty generous here, you know. Pharaoh's saying,
make it easy on yourself. Don't make that hard trip like
God told you to do. Just stay here and offer your
sacrifices and worship God. Sounds easy. You know, people,
well, always, of all times, we want it easy, don't we? This
sounds like the easy way to do it. But here's the problem. That's
not the way God said he's to be worshipped. That's not the
place God said he's to be worshipped. God commanded his people, leave
Egypt. Go three days journey out of
Egypt and that's where you worship me. God commanded that his people
worship him in complete freedom from bondage to the law. That's
God's commandment. They had to go out of Egypt Remember,
Egypt's a picture of bondage to the law. They had to leave
the bondage to the law so they could go worship God. But Pharaoh
wanted to compromise the commandment of God. And you know, Satan is
still pushing that same compromise on the church today. Satan wants
to get people to accept this compromise. Compromise the salvation
that's found through the sacrifice of Christ alone. To Satan, The
sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, is an abomination. And the sacrifice, salvation
and the sacrifice of Christ alone is an abomination to everybody
who's in man's worst religion, aren't they? Well, by God's grace,
we're not gonna compromise. We'll not compromise on this
point. We'll not compromise. We'll not get together and worship
and have religious services together with folks that think that salvation
through the sacrifice of Christ alone is an abomination. They think it's an abomination
that you don't have to tell people to make a decision for Jesus.
We're not gonna compromise with that. We're not gonna do it.
God commands his people to be completely free from the law
through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness. He's the goal of the law, but
the goal of the law is to get us to look to Christ and trust
Him, and Christ is the end. He's the termination point of
the law to every believer. You've got nothing to do with
the law anymore if Christ died for you, because God commands
His people to be completely free from the burden of the law. God
commands that sinners come to Christ begging for mercy. That's
not an invitation. It's a commandment. You believe
on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're here tonight
and you don't believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
it's because you made a conscious decision not to. To not believe. And it's God's commandment. You
trust Christ alone. Without any of your religious
works, with anything that you've done, everything that we do is
full of sin and self-righteousness. God's not gonna accept that.
Don't bring your works to just come to to God in Christ alone. This is God's commandment. Salvation
is by grace, through the Lord Jesus Christ, through his obedience
and through his sacrifice. And Satan's goal is to try to
get us to compromise and mix grace and works. That was the
problem facing the early church, wasn't it? All those Judaizers
would tell the apostles and those in the early church now, Boy,
you're right. You preach salvation by grace. That's right. Salvation is by
grace. It takes God's grace. But you
still have to be circumcised in order to be saved. And when
Paul met those folks in wherever it was he met them, he's writing
to the church at Galatia about it. He said, we wouldn't compromise
with them for an hour. I mean, we wouldn't submit to
that for even an hour. To mix salvation by grace, but
you've got to be circumcised too in order to be saved? But
Satan's still pushing that same compromise today. There's so
many people who say they preach salvation by grace. And as they
go through their message, you listen to them. They'll talk
about being salvation by grace, being by grace, but you just
keep listening to them. Before they're done, they're
gonna throw in some things you've got to do. Some laws you've got
to keep. Some things that you've got to
do. Yes, oh yes, you're saved by grace, they say. but you still
gotta act moral enough to keep it. You still gotta make this
decision, you know, in order to have it. And you know what
that does? That makes the gospel an offer,
not a commandment. That makes salvation dependent
on man, not God. They say they're preaching salvation
by grace, but it's not grace. It's not grace if you gotta do
something to accept it and you gotta do something to keep it.
That's works, that's works. We can't compromise there now.
We must preach the commandment of the gospel. This is a commandment
from God Almighty. Don't you try to earn your own
righteousness by obeying the law. You believe on the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is had by faith, just
by believing Christ without doing one work, just believing Christ. Now that's the commandment of
the gospel. And I ask you, Why would we ever want to compromise
that? To compromise that commandment of the gospel and say, salvation
is by grace, but you gotta do some works in order to have it.
You gotta do some works in order to keep it. That compromise puts
helpless sinners under the burden of the law. It never even lets
them out from under the burden of the law. That compromise,
to compromise the commandment of the gospel as you just believe
on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to compromise and say,
yeah, but you gotta make a decision. You gotta do this and you gotta
do that. That compromise takes away the right of a poor, guilty
sinner who can't do anything for themselves to come to Christ
for salvation. Your right to come to Christ
and believe on Him is this. The Father commands you to. That's
all the right that you need. You come to Christ and he'll
have mercy on you. You believe on the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. That's God's commandment. And I love that it's so simple. If it got any more complicated
than that, I couldn't preach it and I couldn't believe it.
I really couldn't. But it is that simple. Now, why would we
ever want to compromise that simplicity? The singleness of
the gospel is believing Christ alone. Why would you ever want
to do less than the Lord commanded? And why would you ever want to
do more? Either way, you're going to put people under the burden
of the law, or you're going to take away their joy and their
comfort. We won't compromise there, will
we? By God's grace, we won't. Then a second compromise is this,
it's compromising the success of the sacrifice of Christ. Still
in Exodus 8 there, verse 27, Moses says, we'll go three days
journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God
as he shall command us. And Pharaoh said, I'll let you
go, that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness.
Only you shall not go very far away. Now entreat for me. Now whenever the scriptures talk
about three days, almost always it's a picture or it's a reference
to the resurrection of Christ. He suffered and he died and he
rose again from the dead after three days. Now that's what's
pictured here in the Lord's commandment to worship him. by offering these
sacrifices, not one day, not two day, but three days journey
out into the wilderness. And Pharaoh offered this compromise.
All right, this has got to be done in the wilderness, but don't
go very far. Just go out there by the horizon
where I can still see you. Don't go too far. And I know
why he offered this compromise. It's because he's afraid of the
children of Israel went three days after a journey out in the
wilderness. They're just going to keep going. They'll not come
back and he's going to lose all of his free labor. Now, I know
that's why Pharaoh wanted this compromise. But the picture in
this compromise is compromising the success of the sacrifice
of Christ. When Christ was resurrected from
the dead. He proved to everyone everyone in creation that his
sacrifice was a success. His sacrifice put away the sin
of everybody that God gave him to save. There wasn't even one
sin left. The father took all of the sin
of all of his elect and charged it to his son. And the blood
of Christ, the suffering, the sacrifice, the death of Christ
paid that entire sin debt. The sacrifice that took roughly
three hours put away all of the sin of an innumerable host of
people. If there was even one sin left
on the Lord Jesus that his blood did not put away, he would not
have been raised from the dead. He was raised again as proof
his suffering, his death, his blood had justified all of his
people from all of their sin. The resurrection of Christ proved
this. Not one of God's elect can ever be condemned. The justice
of God won't allow it. Now that's good news, isn't it?
And the resurrection of Christ is so vital to the gospel, you
can't preach the gospel without it. You can't believe on Christ
without believing on his resurrection. Without the resurrection of Christ,
we've got no good news for sinners. The resurrection of Christ is
proof. His sacrifice put away all of
the sin of all of his elect. The elect's sin and nobody else's. Now why do I make such a point
of that, of saying that? It's for this reason. The Lord
Jesus Christ did not die for someone who would not believe
on him and is damned. He didn't die for that person.
He died for his elect and the sin of those elect, whoever they
are, their sin is gone. They must be given life, they're
made righteous, and they will be glorified together with Christ
when man's history on earth is no more. And I know a lot of
people in false religion will say, now don't go that far. I
mean, if you tell people that, then nobody will believe. You've
got to put some pressure on them to believe. You're not putting
pressure on somebody to believe if you tell them all of God's
elect are saved. They'll all come to Christ. You're
just making it too easy for people not to believe on Christ. They
say, you tell people this, that Jesus died for their sin, because
that's what God sent Him to do. And the blood of Jesus put their
sin away, but you have to tell people they can't be saved. unless
they make a decision. They have to decide to accept
Jesus as their personal savior, then his blood will save them.
They say, don't say that Christ died for the sin of the elect.
A man pointed this out to me the other day about a very well-known
false prophet in our day. And he said, this is the way
that this man packages the gospel. He never says Christ died for
the sin of God's elect. Never. This is what he says.
He says, Jesus died for the sin of those who would believe on
him. You hear the difference? Yes,
Christ died for the sins of those who would believe on him, because
they're his elect, he's gonna make them believe on him. But
this is what he says, Jesus died for the sin of those who would
believe on him. That's not saying Christ died for the elect, is
it? The difference is this, that slight compromise. takes away
the success of Christ's sacrifice and makes it dependent on man
to accept it. Now you just put a burden back
on people instead of setting them free from that burden. God's
gospel proclaims there is absolute, complete liberty in the Lord
Jesus Christ. If Christ died for you, you're
free from the law. The songwriter said, free from
the law, oh, happy condition. You're free from the law. Now,
since you're free from it, don't stay in it, don't keep one toe
in it, leave it, don't compromise with it, leave it. We go to Christ
outside the camp, outside the camp of the law, outside the
camp of man's religion, outside of the camp of man's works, we
go to Christ crucified alone, because that's where redemption
is found. and you go to Christ, you'll have redemption full and
free. Now I ask you, why would you
ever want to compromise the gospel of the success of the Lord Jesus
Christ and preach a Savior that's not successful? Or preach a Savior
that's only successful depending on you? If you know anything
about man and anything about this flesh, you don't want salvation
to be dependent on anything about this flesh. I want it all depended
on Christ, don't you? Why would we ever want to compromise
the gospel of the success of the Lord Jesus Christ? If we
do that, we take away all the hope from dead, guilty sinners. You know, we're not in the business
of trying to talk people into making a decision for Jesus.
If we preach the gospel, Christ crucified, the successful, victorious
Savior. Dead, guilty sinners are going
to flock to Him. They'll all come to Him. I promise
you they will. But if we do the reverse and
try to talk people into getting to do something, you know, we're
going to attract a bunch of self-righteous people and we'll have a goat
farm instead of a sheep herd. That's what we're going to have.
We're not going to compromise the gospel of a successful Savior. Because you know what the Savior
said? If I be lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all unto
me. All my elect, I'll draw all guilty,
helpless sinners to me. They'll be drawn to Christ, and
I'm telling you, their hearts will be made sure, and they'll
be comforted by the preaching of a successful Savior. Wouldn't
it be disappointing on this dark, cold night for me to preach to
you for about 35 minutes on how you've got to do this, that,
and the other in order to be saved, in order for God to bless
you, in order for God to keep you, and go back out in the cold
with that burden put on you and try to go home and go to bed.
Wouldn't that be awful? There is complete salvation in
the Lord Jesus Christ because He's the successful, victorious
Savior. All right, number three, look
at Exodus chapter 10. Here's the third compromise.
It's compromise, compromising, committing all to Christ. Look
at verse 11, or verse eight, excuse me, verse eight. Exodus
10, verse eight. And Moses and Aaron were brought
again unto Pharaoh. And he said unto them, go serve
the Lord your God. But who are they that shall go?
And Moses said, we will go with our young and with our old, with
our sons and with our daughters. with our flocks and with our
herds will we go for we must hold a feast unto the Lord. And
he said unto them, let the Lord be so with you as I will let
you go and your little ones look to it for evil is before you. Not so, go now ye that are men
and serve the Lord for that ye desire. And they were driven
out from Pharaoh's presence. Now here is Pharaoh's compromise.
Only let the men go out into the wilderness. You know, Pharaoh
is making it sound like he's very concerned, you know, for
the people of Israel. And let's protect the women and
the children and the old people. Don't take them three days out
into the wilderness and expose them to all the dangers of the
wilderness. Just let them stay here and be
safe. But again, Pharaoh's real purpose
is not because he cares anything about Israel. He's wanting to
keep them slaves, isn't he? Pharaoh knew this, if only the
men went out in the wilderness to worship, they're coming back. They'll come back because they
left the things that are most precious to their hearts back
there in Egypt. They left their wives and their children and
their elderly parents. They're not leaving them. They'll
come back to them. Pharaoh knew that. And Moses
was not gonna accept that compromise. All of God's people are gonna
worship him. All of them. They're all gonna go out there
and worship around this sacrifice. All of them. You know, salvation
requires a commitment. It does, it requires a commitment
to Christ and a commitment to his gospel. Christ saved all
of his people. There's not one gonna be left
behind. He saved everyone that the father gave him to save.
He saved all of them and his people are to commit all to him. no matter what it costs. We're
to commit all of the salvation of our souls to Christ. All.
Now if you make that commitment, I tell you what, you're gonna
have to give up. Your righteousness, your works of religion, your
works of morality, you're gonna have to give that up and commit
all to Christ. And I'll tell you when we'll
do that. When we learn that Christ is all. He's all of our wisdom. all of our righteousness, all
of our sanctification, all of our redemption. We're going to
commit all to Him when somebody dares preach that Savior to us.
We're to commit our lives to Christ. You know, when I say
a believer doesn't do any works in order to be saved, I mean
that. We do no works in order to be saved. But in no way does
that mean the believer doesn't work. No, sir. We're to commit
our lives to Christ. Our lives are not our own. We've
been bought with the price, haven't we? We're not to live to serve
ourselves. We're to live serving the Lord, to live serving one
another. We don't do works of the law,
but we work according to the royal law of love. And I'd say
anybody that loves will do for those they love. And they won't
call it a work. They won't, they'll call it a
joy. You know, we just came through the Christmas season, and I bet
my house is like your house at Christmas. All the family is
enjoying all the stuff of Christmas, the presents and visiting with
each other, sitting around in your pajamas all day, drinking
coffee and drinking hot chocolate and eating, but there's one person
that's not there in the living room with everybody else, it's
Mama. She's in there in the kitchen, she's working and cooking This
is how it goes at our house. We get up and we eat breakfast
that Janet cooks. And then we all sit around. We're
full and got to take a nap and drinking some coffee and stuff.
And while we're doing that, Janet's cleaning up, getting ready to
cook lunch. And then we stuff ourselves and
we lay around and Janet's cleaning up. She's getting ready to cook
dinner. And in the end, you just, honey, I'm so thankful. I thank
you so much. I know that was a lot of work.
And she said it wasn't worth it. She said, I love to feed
my family. I love to see my family happy.
I love to do something to make my family happy. If we commit
our lives to Christ and serve him because we love him, you
won't call it a work. You call it a joy. If we love
one another, serving one another, doing for one another, just being
kind to one another, loving one another, being with one another,
showing them our love. You're not going to call that a work.
That's a joy. That's a joy. We're to commit
all to Christ in that way. We're to commit our children,
our families, we're to commit them to Christ. Jan and I raised a family. And
I've got a daughter and a son raising a child now. And they
ask us questions a lot of times about preparing, you know, for
when he's old enough to go to Sunday school and they can start,
you know, teaching him things at home and so forth and what
they're supposed to do. You know, they're worried about
his soul. Every parent here understands
that. And you know, we can't save them. As much as we love
our children, we cannot save them. And we sure ain't going
to try again and make a decision, are we? Then they'll just trust
that decision and live their lives with a false hope. But
I'll tell you what we do. We commit them to Christ. We
pray for them. We beg God to be merciful to
them. We have them here to hear the
gospel as much as is humanly possible. And I say this to all
parents, those that are here and those maybe listening on
tape or audio or however you're supposed to listen to. I guess
I just dated myself, didn't I, saying you listen on audio. You
bring your children here. I promise you this. In every
message, there's gonna be a word for them. I think about them,
I pray for them, and I think about them, I think about the
words that I'm gonna say. Can the youngest one here understand
these things? There's a word for our children
in every message. You bring them. By God's grace, I'll have something
for them. I'll try to, I'll tell you that. We're to commit our
well-being to the Lord. Now listen, don't say, well,
I trust the Lord, so I'm not gonna go work. I'm not gonna
do anything to provide for myself or anything, because the Lord
will provide it. No, no, no, no. Believers are to be hardworking,
industrious people. You go work. You work to earn
a living, take care of your family, be able to give an offering,
be able to give to help those that are in need. Work, earn
a living, earn as good a wage as you can earn, and be wise
with your money. all the while trusting the Lord
to provide. If somebody said, well, should
I say less and give more? Trust the Lord to provide. You
know what? That answers all questions of
selfishness, doesn't it? Trust the Lord to provide. Commit all. I'm telling you,
commit all to Christ without holding anything back. forsake
everything and everyone to follow Christ. Now that's not to mean
that we're to be a cult, that you're to separate yourselves
from your family and just, you know, be, be, no, no, no. You
love your family. You love them deeply. You be
with them. You show them that you love them, but don't let
them keep you from Christ. Don't let you, don't let them
keep you, keep you from worship and all the responsibilities
you've got in this life. Take care of them. Take them
seriously. But beware, don't get so many
responsibilities, it's gonna keep you from worshiping Christ.
Keep you from Christ, that you just get too big for Christ. There was a man talked to me
one time. He had a job offer, a good job offer. And he could
still live in a place where the gospel was preached. Big increase
in pay. Take care of his family. Everybody
likes a big paycheck, don't they? But he said, this thing's gonna
require a lot of evenings and a lot of weekends. I don't think
I should do it. I think that's wise. I think that's wise. And let
me ask you this. Why would you ever want to compromise
committing all to Christ? Why would you want to? If we
compromise on this point on committing all to Christ, we're gonna make
people live under the delusion that this world has some lasting
value for us, and it'll rob us of the joy of trusting Christ
alone. If we compromise on this point
of committing all to Christ, all my soul is committed to Christ. I can honestly say that, but
if it's not, And I've got to do something to help him along
the way. I'm robbing people of the joy of just resting in Christ. You commit all to Christ. Commit yourself to his hand. And he'll take care of you. He
will. And then last is this. It's compromising the sacrifice
of Christ. Exodus 10 verse 24. And Pharaoh called unto Moses
and said, Go ye, serve the Lord. Only let your flocks and your
herds be stayed. Let your little ones also go
with you. And Moses said, Thou must give us also sacrifices
and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also should go with
us. There shall not an hoof be left behind, for thereof must
we take to serve the Lord our God. And we know not with what
we must serve, serve the Lord until we come thither." Now here
Pharaoh's compromise was this, all right, go three days journey
out in the wilderness, all of you, your wives and your children,
your old folks too, all of you, but leave your herds behind.
Here's what Pharaoh knew, if they don't take their flocks
with them, and remember their flocks at this time, that's a
measurement of their wealth. If you go out in the wilderness
without your flocks, you've got nothing to eat, you're starved
to death. And so Pharaoh figured, There's
no way Israel's gonna go out three days journey in the wilderness
and not come back and get their flocks. They'd never be so foolish. But Moses wouldn't accept that
compromise. If we go out into the wilderness without our herds,
here's the problem. There'll be no land for the sacrifice. And Israel knew from way back
there. Isaac knew it from way back there, didn't he? Father,
here's the fire. Here's the wood. But where's
the lamb for the burn off? There must be a lamb for a blood
sacrifice. God cannot be worshiped without
a blood sacrifice. And Satan is still trying to
push this compromise on the church today. And boy to the flesh,
it's easily done. Most religion today, I say most
and I'd say it's probably closer to the truth to say all. All
man-made religion today is religion without a blood sacrifice. I
listened. I couldn't stay in the whole
half hour program. I made it through about 15 minutes, but
I'd say the first 15 minutes are indicative of the last 15.
There was never one mention of the sacrifice of Christ. There
was never one mention of man's sin that requires the blood of
Christ for us to be forgiven, for us to be cleansed, Every
bit of the message, and this is, I'd say almost all religion
today, is how to have better stuff in this life. Oh, yes,
yes, yes, they say, yes, yes, Jesus died. And it's just a passing
statement, just like a statement of historical fact. Yes, Jesus
died, but here's what Jesus really wants. He wants you to be happy.
He wants you to be wealthy. He wants you to be healthy. He
wants you to have lots of friends. He wants you to have comforts
in this life. And if you do this, and you do this, and you do this,
oh, God will bless you. All you gotta do, all you gotta
do is have a positive attitude, you know, just Jesus will bless
you. You know the subject of that
message? It's you. The subject of that message is
you. It's what you can do and what
you can get from God. The subject of the gospel is
not you. The subject of the gospel is
not even how you can be saved. It's not. The subject of the
gospel is the Lord Jesus Christ and His glory and how and why
He would save an undeserving wretch like you and me. The subject
of the gospel is Christ. There's blood in our message. There's a lamb in our message. If you take the lamb out of our
message, you take Christ crucified out of our message, and we just
have a talk about a positive mental attitude, you know, you're
gonna take away the forgiveness of sin from guilty, hell-deserving
sinners. You who believe will almost surely
remember a time When you felt like you were on your tiptoes
on the brink of hell and getting ready to fall in, you remember
that? The utter fear, that's what I
deserve. I deserve for God to cast me
into hell for my sins. Now, wouldn't it be something
to tell that person on the precipice of hell, have a positive mental
attitude. God wants you to be rich. If we take the lamb out of our
message, you take away the forgiveness of sins from guilty sinners.
If you take away the lamb, you take away justification in the
blood of Christ for the unjust. How can the unjust ever be justified
in God's sight? The blood. It's the blood of
the lamb. If you take away the lamb and
his blood, you take away righteousness for the unrighteous. There's
righteousness in the sacrifice of Christ. But if you take away
the lamb, there's no hope of righteousness for the unrighteous,
is there? If we take away the lamb, we take away cleansing
from the filth of our sin in the blood of Christ. The only
way we can be cleansed from our sin is in the blood of Christ.
And you take away that hope from a filthy, guilty, hell-deserving
sinner, why would they ever want to listen to us preach? Why would
you ever want to compromise that glorious message of everything
that's found for God's people in the blood of Christ. If you've
got an age topical Bible, just go home and open it up and look
at it and look at all of the scriptures you find in the benefits
of the blood of Christ. Now, why would you want to compromise
and take that away from people like us? The blood of Christ
is our only hope. By God's grace, we're not going
to compromise at all. We're not going to compromise
it, because Christ is our only hope. All right, let's bow together. Our Father, how can we ever thank
you for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, that you've always seen your people in Him. Christ
the Lamb slain in time. The Lamb slain, whose bloodshed
put away all of the sin of all of His people. the sole object
of our faith and our hope and our confidence. And Father, how
we long for the day where we'll see him face to face as John
saw him in heaven, the lamb as it had been slain. The one whose
scars in his body show how he was crucified for us. Father,
I thank you for the hope, the confidence, the assurance that
we have in this world by trusting Christ and Christ alone. And
I pray you'd keep us faithful to preach him alone and to believe
him and him alone. Father, it's in Christ's name.
For his sake, we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, Sean.