Keep your Bibles open if you
still have them there to Exodus chapter 32. I would hope this
afternoon if you haven't already read the bulletin carefully that
you would. I hate to point out the article
I wrote. Like Eric, I'm gonna read my article. I think the
article I wrote and the one on the back of the bulletin by Brother
Todd Nyberg, just outstanding. It'll be very helpful to you. right where you're at. I hope
you'll read those things carefully. All the articles I think are
good, otherwise I wouldn't put them in a bulletin, but I think
those two might be especially helpful to you. You can read
them when you have the time. I've titled the message this
morning, Who is on the Lord's Side? Who is on the Lord's Side? That title made me think of a
statement one of my heroes made many years ago It is reported
during the Civil War that someone asked President Lincoln if God
was on his side. President Lincoln wisely replied,
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My greatest
concern is to be on God's side. For God is always right. And
I agree with President Lincoln. I want to know if I'm on God's
side, don't you? That was the question Moses asked
when he came down from the mountain. Who's on the Lord's side? And
the consequences are grave. The consequences that day when
Moses asked this question, who's on the Lord's side? There are
very serious consequences. It was a matter of life and death.
And the consequences are just as important to you and me today
as we sit here this morning hearing the gospel preached. Let me give
you a few examples from scripture how important this matter is.
In Matthew 12, verse 30, the Lord said, he that is not with
me is against me. No in between ground, he that
is not with me is against me. If I'm not on the Lord's side,
I'm against the Lord. And I know this, if I'm against
the Lord, I'll never prosper, never be successful there. Romans
8, 31, if God be for us, who can be against us. Isn't
that such a comforting verse to the hearts of God's people?
If God be for us, who can be against us? But when you say
the opposite of that, it's also true. If God be against us, who
can be for us? If God be against us, there's
no help. Hold your place there, look over
at Joshua. Look at Joshua chapter 24. You can know whether or not
that you're on God's side. Joshua 24, verse 14. Joshua knew. Joshua 24, verse 14. Now therefore, fear the Lord,
and serve him in sincerity and in truth. And put away the gods,
put away the idols which your father served on the other side
of the flood and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord. And if it
seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, Choose you this day whom
you will serve. Whether the idols, the gods which
your father served, they were on the other side of the flood,
or the gods of the Amorites in whose lands you dwell, that's
for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua knew for
sure whose side he was on, didn't he? Joshua said, it's for me
and my house, we're on the Lord's side. Well, I'm glad for Joshua,
aren't you, that he knew that? But how can you and I tell? What
my concern is this morning is this, how can you and I tell
whether or not we're on the Lord's side? I want to give you three
marks this morning, three marks of those who are on the Lord's
side. If you're on the Lord's side, these three marks will
be evident in you. And then I want to send you home
with a word of comfort and assurance. Now, number one, if you're on
the Lord's side, you know what it is to be naked. Verse 25 of
Exodus chapter 32. And when Moses saw that the people
were naked, for Aaron had made them naked under their shame
among their enemies. Now Aaron had made the people
take off their clothes and expose their nakedness. Now can you
imagine the sight? I mean, my soul, three million
people, they're all naked, just how embarrassing that was for
them. They're naked. in front of their
family and their friends and their neighbors. And if any of
their enemies happen to be around, they're naked in front of their
enemies. I mean, their enemies could be scouting them out and
kind of seeing what's going on with these people and they're
scouting them out, they see them all naked. I mean, it's just, it's humiliating. Well, now try to imagine how
humiliating it would be to stand before God naked in your seat. to appear before God in our nakedness
without a perfect righteousness will leave us damned. Whoever's
in Christ, the scripture says, will never be ashamed. But if
you're not in Christ, if you're not clothed in his righteousness
and you're not hidden in him, you'll appear before God naked
without a righteousness and you'll be damned. I mean, that's how
serious this thing is. Everybody has, you know, some
fear of being naked. I don't know if you're like me.
I always dreamed in high school I was waking up in science class,
you know, naked. It was just horrible. And we
all just, you know, we want to cover ourselves. It's just, yuck.
Well, you know, the same thing is true spiritually. It's in
the nature of man not to want to appear before God naked, spiritually
naked without a righteousness. So you know what all men by nature
do? They try to make a covering of
their own. And when we try to make a righteous covering, the
only thing we know to do, because we're dead in sin, our mind is
dead, the only thing we know to do is try to do some good
works, try to obey a few of God's laws, do our best, and think,
well, that'll be a righteousness that God will accept. And in
all our works of religion, all we can produce is rags. We can't produce a clean, spotless
robe that covers. All we can produce is rags. And scripture calls them filthy
rags. They're rags that are defiled with sin. They don't just have
a little dirt on them. They're defiled with sin. So here's what
the Lord does for his people. You wouldn't think this is an
act of mercy and grace, but it is. The Lord shows his people
our sin. He exposes our nakedness. He exposes our shame before him. He makes us know that we're naked.
Now, if you're on the Lord's side, the Lord's made you to
feel the shame of your sin. That's what made you run to the
Lord's side in the first place. He exposed your sin and your
shame to you. He exposed to you your sin. I've said this so many times,
as long as I've ever understood language from as far back as
I can remember, I've been a Calvinist. I've always believed in the total
depravity of man. What was that? Then one day, the Lord showed
me I'm totally depraved. That's a white horse of a different
color, isn't it? The Lord shows us our sin so that we'll run
to him. What did the Lord say? He said
it publicly to all the people around him, come unto me. Are
you thirsty? Come unto me again. Are you weary? Come unto me. I will give you
rest. If you come to me, you quit trying
in vain to weave your own robe of righteousness. I'll give you
one for free. A perfect one. Make you righteous in me. And
Lord says that to you. I can tell you what you're going
to do. You're going to come running to him because he made you feel your
need of Christ. See, everybody who's on the Lord's
side needs it. We feel a need of Him. I need
Christ to be everything for me. If you're on the Lord's side,
you know what it is to be naked and feel your need of Him. That's
what made you come to Him. All right, here's the second
thing. If you're on the Lord's side, we talked about needing Christ,
you need Christ to be your great high priest. Verse 26, and Moses
stood in the gate of the camp and said, who's on the Lord's
side? Let him come unto me, and all the sons of Levi gathered
themselves together unto him. Now Moses said, who's on the
Lord's side? If you're on the Lord's side, now take a stand
right here. Take a stand. Maybe you drew a line in the
sand. Just cross this line. Come and stand right here beside
me. Now Moses said that the people who came to him were the Levites,
the tribe of Levi. The Levites were the priestly
tribe. The high priest always came from the tribe of Levi.
and the function of the high priest was to offer sacrifices. That was his job. God could only
be worshipped through a blood sacrifice. It was the job of
the priest to have animal sacrifices, shed their blood, burn their
bodies so that God could be worshipped. That's what God required in order
to be worshipped, a blood sacrifice. Now that's what the Lord required
at that time. He required that animal blood. And God couldn't be worshipped
any other way. All the other nations of the
earth, they had idols, they had ceremonies. God wasn't there. Oh, they were sincere. They were
sincere, but God wasn't there. They were very faithful to their
ceremonies, but God wasn't there. God could only be worshipped
through a blood sacrifice that he commanded his priest to offer. God required him. But you also
know this. Those animal sacrifices could
never take away sin, could they? Then why did God require? He
required them to be a picture of Christ, the Lamb of God who
is coming to be sacrificed for the sin of his people. Lord had
his people offer their sacrifices over and over and over and over
again to remind them of their sin. To make them think, why
do we keep doing this? This is not putting away our
sin. And to make them look for the Lamb who is coming. To make
them depend upon the Lamb who is coming. Whose sacrifice would
put away sin. See, the Lord was showing them
the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin. And
then in the fullness of time, at the time God appointed, He
told Daniel about the 70 weeks. About 70 weeks are done. And
Christ is coming. And when he came, he offered
one sacrifice for sin forever. Why did he offer many sacrifices
like the Levites did? Jesus of Nazareth did not come
from the tribe of Levi, did he? He couldn't be a priest on earth.
He had to be from the tribe of Levi. He was the priest after
the order of Melchizedek, and he didn't offer sacrifice after
sacrifice after sacrifice. He offered one. because his one
sacrifice did what all those animal sacrifices could never
do. Put away the sin of his people, so their sin is no more. For by one offering, not many,
one offering, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
So today, we don't have a man offering animal sacrifices. We
don't have an altar where we offer sacrifices and we take
turns bringing a lamb, you know, to sacrifice or something. We
don't have animal sacrifices today. But we do still need a sacrifice,
don't we? We need a sacrifice that will atone for our sin. We need the blood of Christ to
atone, to cover for our sin. That's what Moses told him in
verse 30. And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said
unto the people, you sinned a great sin. And now I'll go unto the
Lord, perventure, I shall make an atonement for your sin. they
needed an atonement. Just like we need atonement.
And the atonement was in the blood. And that atonement was
pictured in the day before. Look back at verse 27. And he
said unto them, thus saith, he told these Levites who came and
stood with him. He said unto them, thus saith the Lord God
of Israel, but every man his sword by his side and go in and
out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his
brother and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And
the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And there
fell of the people that day about 3,000 men." Now, doesn't that
sound brutal? Just brutal. Doesn't that sound
so cold-hearted? Tell those Levites, go kill your own family members.
Go kill your own friends. Take your sword and go kill your
own brother, your own cousins. You know, these ones from these
different tribes, that's your cousins. Go kill them. Take your sword, look them in
the eye and kill them. That sounds brutal, doesn't it?
But I'll tell you what that's a picture of. It's the picture
of the sword of God's justice. The father himself took the sword
of justice and he thrust it into the heart of his fellow. He thrust
it into the heart of his son to make atonement for sin. You
think this was bad and brutal, those Levites going and killing
their friends and neighbors? The father slaughtered his own
son. Oh, he spoke from heaven, said
how much he loved his son. He's pleased with his son. But
when his son was made sin for his people, the father himself
slaughtered his son. He made his soul an offering
for sin. You know it hurt when those nails
went through the hands and the feet of our Savior. Oh, but his
anguish was anguish of soul. The father thrust the sword of
justice into the soul of his son. The father did it. And that
bloody, awful death of Christ made full atonement for the sin
of God's elect. That act of justice on the part
of the father when he slaughtered his son because his son was made
sin was an act of justice, wasn't it? It was also an act of great
mercy. The father slaughtered his son
so he could give his people life. Oh, what an atonement Christ
made. And that's the atonement I need.
I need to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ so I don't stand naked
before God's throne. And if Christ made an atonement,
he made a propitiation, a covering for my sin by his blood, then
I have no shame whatsoever before the father because the blood
of Christ took away everything that causes shame. He took away
the sin that caused I'm covered in Christ. Now, remember the
old Testament is a picture of Christ. These Levites were a
picture of Christ, our great high priest. But Christ, our
great high priest, he's so much better than the Levites. The
Levites, every single day they had to do this. They had to go
get an animal. Somebody had to bring them, and
if somebody had seen them, they needed to make an atonement,
they brought an animal. They brought a lamb, or a bullock,
or a goat. If they were real poor, they
brought two turtle doves. And that priest, day after day
after day, year after year after year, had to take that animal,
slit its throat, and kill it. He had to continually slaughter
those animals as a sacrifice for sin. But the best thing he
could do, the best he did in all his earthly ministry, that
high priest, was offer a picture of Christ. Nothing he did ever
purged sin away. Well then, Christ, our great
high priest, came. Christ, not a priest after the
order of Levites, but a priest after the order of Melchizedek.
I'm confident Melchizedek is a pre-incarnated appearance of
Christ. Our savior is so great, he's a priest after the order
of himself. After the order of himself. And he came to offer
a sacrifice. But he didn't take a bull, a
lamb, a goat. He offered himself. He's the
great high priest who offered the sacrifice. He's the sacrifice,
and he's the altar on which the sacrifice is offered. The writer
of Hebrews said, we have an altar. Our altar is the high priest
and the sacrifice boat. It's all Christ in it. Look at
Hebrews chapter nine. Now what happened when the Lord
Jesus Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for sin? What
happened? Hebrews nine tells us, Hebrews nine verse 22. And almost all things are by
the law purged with blood. You know, the high priest would
dip his finger in the blood and he'd sprinkle in that blood everywhere.
Almost all things are by the law purged with blood and without
shedding of blood is no remission. It was necessary, therefore necessary,
that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified
with these, purified with animal blood. But the heavenly things
themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not
entered into the holy places made with hands, which are figures
of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the
presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer
himself often, as the high priest entered into the holy place every
year with the blood of others. For then must he often have suffered
since the foundation of the world. But now in the end of the world
hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. When the Lord Jesus Christ offered
himself as a sacrifice for the sin of his people, all of that
sin was put away forever, made not to exist. And if I'm on the
Lord's side, the only hope I have and the only hope I want is that
Christ, the great high priest, offered himself as a sacrifice
for my sin. That's my hope. All right, now
back to our text, Exodus 32. Here's the third thing. If you're
on the Lord's side, you have come to Christ and made a public
confession of identifying with him. In verse 26, when Moses
stood in the gate of the camp and said, who's on the Lord's
side? Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered
themselves unto him. Now Moses said, who's on the
Lord's side? It's the Levites that stepped
away. Everybody's all victory, all 12 tribes, all mixed up here.
And when Moses said, who's on the Lord's side? The Levites
stepped out from the people. He came and stood behind Moses.
Now that was a public confession of where they stood and what
they believed, public confession. Now the only reason you and I
could be on the Lord's side is the Lord saved us by his grace.
That's the only reason. You and I didn't make a decision
to be on the Lord's side. Now come on, you know better
than that. No, God saved us by his grace. He called us. He laid
his hand upon us and took us out of the depths and brought
us to himself. That's why we're on the Lord's
side. And the Lord's the one that's done the saving for you.
You will confess him publicly. You will. Sooner or later, you
will, you can't help it. That's why you notice nobody
from this pulpit ever begs you to come and make a public confession
and be baptized and all those things, because if the Lord saved
you, you'll do it sooner or later. This way, the Lord laid on your
heart, you just can't help it because that's your nature. Now,
if you're on the Lord's side, you've been saved by his grace.
You've been saved through the blood of Christ. And Lord's done
that for you, you will confess him and believe his baptism.
It's the Lord's commandment to his people to confess him and
believe his baptism. This is the way we confess him.
And if you're on the Lord's side, one thing about you, you wanna
be obedient to your master. You will sooner or later. But
listen, this is not something that the Lord forces you to do.
You'll also want to. If you're on the Lord's side,
you want to confess him publicly. And there's not a more beautiful
way that the Lord did just the most perfect thing, the way we
confess Christ as believer's baptism. What a simple, clear
picture. I'm so sinful, the only way I
could be saved is the Son of God took my seed. He died for
me. He was buried for me. And here's
the evidence that he saved me. He rose again from the grave.
His resurrection is proof positive. He justified all of his people.
What a beautiful way to confess salvation in Christ, to confess
faith in Christ. And if God saved you, you will
want to confess Him that way. You'll want to. You'll be like
so many came before you, you'll say, oh, I wish I'd done that
so long ago. It's obedience. But now don't
think, once a person is baptized, well, now that's over, I never
get a chance to confess Christ again. Oh, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no. A believer doesn't just confess
Christ once. We don't just identify with the
Savior once. You know how else we continue
to confess our Savior? Doing what we're doing right
now. Attending public worship. If I'm on the Lord's side, if
the Lord saved me by His grace, He's revealed Himself to me,
I need to hear more of Him. Oh, how glorious it is to your
soul when the Lord has been pleased to reveal himself to you. And
if you got a taste of that, you want more of it, don't you? And
here's where we taste it. It's in the preaching of the
gospel. I need, oh, the Lord spoke to my heart. He's called
me to himself. He's revealed himself to me.
I need to hear more of him. I need to hear more from him.
And the way I do that is the preaching of Christ in public
worship. Here's another way I want to confess Christ. I need to
meet together publicly and worship the Lord with other people who
love him too. The world in which we live hates
God. Hates God. Now they love religion,
but they hate God. They hate the sovereign savior
of sinners. And if I love the Lord, I love him. I do, I love
him. I'm I'm I'm ashamed of the weakness
and fickleness of my love, but I can tell you this is the honest
truth. I love the Lord. And I want to
worship publicly with other people who love it. I need to come out
of the world and meet together with people who love the Lord
like I do and worshiping together. That's confessing Christ. It's
confessing. And here's another way believer
confesses Christ. I confess the Lord publicly.
by the way I live my life. Now I'm not preaching works to
you here, but you know, if you know the Lord, you want to live
honestly in the world. He told you to live honestly,
live honestly. I want to live a life of faith. I don't ever
want to give somebody the impression I'm trusting my works and trusting
my knowledge and trusting my religious ceremonies. I want
to live by faith so they know, oh, Frank knows he's saved by
God's grace. He trusts Christ. And I also
want to live a life of grace. And the best example I can give
of living a life of grace is this. I want to live truly believing
God saved me by his grace, not my words. He saved me by his
grace. And when I truly believe that, and I don't lose sight
of it, I won't be so judgmental and so critical and make fun
of unbelievers. They hate God, they love their
false religion, but a believer can understand an unbeliever
better than anybody. Now I know the unbeliever can't
understand you to believe, but a believer should be able to
understand an unbeliever. They need God's grace the same
way I do. And you'll notice I didn't say the same way I did. They
need God's grace the same way I do. Same way I do. Now we're gonna point out error.
but I have compassion for those that are in, don't you? That's
why we want to preach the gospel to them. A believer makes a public
confession of Christ and they're committed to Christ, they're
committed to Him. And that commitment to Christ
is this, it's a refusal to believe anything other than Christ. Commitment
to Christ is a refusal to trust anything other than Christ alone. Now if the Lord has saved you,
Those three things are true. They surely are. The Lord's taught
you something of your sin, showed you your need of Christ. He showed
you that the only hope you have of eternal life is Christ crucified. That he crucified himself for
he made an atonement for sin by his death for you. And Lord
saved you, you've come to Christ. You're committed to him. You're
committed to trusting Christ and not your works. You're committed
to the gospel of Christ. You're committed to the cause
of Christ. You're committed to the people of Christ. You want
to help them whenever you can. You want to identify with them
and meet together with them. You are fully satisfied with
trusting Christ and Christ alone. Look at verse 29. For Moses had
said, consecrate yourselves today to the Lord. Even every man upon
his son and upon his brother that he may bestow upon you a
blessing this day. Now that word consecrate means
to be full and to be satisfied. Now if you're on the Lord's side,
you're full. You're full because Christ is all you want. He's
all you need and he's all you want. You don't want any other
hope other than Christ alone. You don't want the hope of Christ
plus your works, do you? No, the only hope you want is
Christ alone. If you're on the Lord's side,
the Lord has made Christ to be everything you need. He's your
wisdom, your righteousness, your sanctification, your redemption.
He's your prophet. He's your priest. He's your king.
He's your shepherd. He's your guide. He's your friend.
He's everything that you need, and you're completely satisfied
by trusting Christ alone. That's my three points. But if I end this message now,
I'm going to send you home with a lot of doubts. I'm going to
send you home with some fears. And that would break my heart.
If I would end the message now, I'm going to go home. And I'm
going to say, I feel ashamed of myself. But not like I should. I'm going to doubt because I
know I trust Christ. I don't trust him as fully as
I should. If I trusted Christ as fully as I should, I wouldn't
be so self-righteous and keep thinking if I do this, God will
bless me. All that is is self-righteousness. I wouldn't do that if I trusted
Christ as much as I should. And I'll doubt, because I can
say I have confessed Christ. I do, I confess Christ. But not
as well as I should. Not as well as I should. I'm
committed to Christ. I am committed to Christ. I'm
committed to his gospel. I'm committed to the cause of
Christ. But not like I should be. And that's going to make
me doubt. But it's you. Well, here's the
word of comfort and assurance I told you I want to give you.
I want you to take this and take it home with you. Here's our
word of assurance and our word of comfort. It's very simple.
Look to Christ. Don't look for evidence of your
salvation in yourself. Don't look for these three things
in yourself, think that is the evidence of your salvation. The
assurance of our salvation is look to Christ. Look to Him and
trust Him alone. Looking to Christ, what that
means is trusting Christ. Looking to Christ will cure whatever
ails me. If I'm in the midst of a painful,
horrible trial, I don't know the way out. I don't know why
God's doing what he's doing. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. When you look to him and you
depend upon him, you quit trying to find your way out depending
on him to bring you. You depend upon him to comfort your soul.
You depend upon him to be with you in the valley. When I know
that my soul is sin sick and what I deserve is for God to
send me to hell. I'll tell you what, look to Christ. Looking to Christ, depending
on Christ, will cure our sin sick souls. Because salvation
is in Him. He is our salvation, now look
to Him. Look to Him and be saved. Looking to Christ is a cure for
all of my doubts and fears. You know why I have doubts and
fears? When I look at myself. I don't have any insurance, I
don't have any peace when I look at myself. Well then look to Christ. I'm not afraid of anything when
I'm looking to Him. I'm depending on Him to take care of it, to
take care of me, take care of my soul. I'm not afraid of anything. If I'm on the Lord's side, I
do, I feel the shame of my sin. That's what makes me run to Christ
in the first place. And like I said a minute ago, I know this,
I'm not nearly as ashamed of my sin as I ought to be. Well,
here's the believer's comfort. Here's the assurance of our salvation.
The Lord Jesus Christ took the nakedness of his people from
him. When those Roman soldiers stripped
off his clothes and mocked him and made fun of him, yes, he
was naked in front of those men, and that had to be horrible,
but that was just a picture. When Christ was made seen for
his people, he was stripped naked before his father. They nailed
him to the tree and hung him up there naked. There he stood
naked between God and men. Men saw his physical nakedness,
his father saw his spiritual nakedness. And I assure you this,
the Savior felt the full weight of that shame. I don't, he did. He felt the full weight of that
shame as he suffered and died for the sin of his people. But you know what? He's not ashamed
anymore. He's not ashamed anymore, you
know why? His blood put all that sin away. and he's not ashamed
anymore. If Christ died for me, I don't
stand before God ashamed either, because the blood of Christ took
away the sin that causes my shame. And even though I don't believe
him as fully as I should, I still don't stand before God ashamed.
See, it's not the strength in my faith that makes me unashamed.
It's the power of the blood of Christ that makes me ashamed.
and I'm looking to Him crucified, there's no doubt. There's no
doubt He is the successful Savior of sinners. There He died for
the likes of me. Now that makes me want to run
to Him, doesn't it? And if I'm on the Lord's side, I need Christ,
my great high priest. I need Him to offer a sacrifice
that will atone for my sin. Now I trust Him. I do. I trust
Him to get the job done. But I don't trust Him near as
fully as I should. Well, here's the assurance of our salvation.
It's not the strength of our faith that saves us. It's the
object of our faith who saves. It's not faith that saves. It's
Christ who saves. Then look to Him. Don't look
to your faith. If you look to your faith, I promise you, you're
going to be discouraged. Look to Christ. When the Lord
Jesus Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice for my sin, He
did just exactly what he came to do. He got the job done. That's what the word of God says.
Now look to him, look to him. I know we don't trust the Lord
like we should, and believe me, I'm not making an excuse for
weak faith. There's never an excuse for weak faith. But if
the Lord has saved me, this is true. I'm just as saved when
my faith is weak as it is when it's strong. A good example of
that is the night of the Passover. The night of that first Passover,
Moses told the family, fathers, you take a lamb, you watch it
for 14 days, make sure it's spotless, make sure it's perfect. At the
appointed time, you kill that lamb. You slit its throat, you
catch its blood in the basin. You roast the lamb, whole lamb,
roast it with fire. You take that lamb into your
house, you put the blood on the door, and you eat the Passover
with your family. I'm passing through in judgment
this night, and when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. Now, there was a father in the
land who did all that, put the blood on the door. He went in,
told his family, get your shoes on, put your staff in your hand.
He'd just be on, hey, we're leaving here tonight. And he just kicked
back in his easy chair and waved for the Lord. Waved for the Lord,
said, get up and go out of this place, just as calm as could
be. There's another father who's
pacing, worried, he's wringing his hands. He's always watching
that son, making sure that firstborn's still And Lord passed through
judgment. And Lord saw the blood and passed
over his house too. That father who was, who had
fully confident in the Lord, his son was spared, wasn't he?
That father who was so worried and fretful and his heart rate
was up and blood pressure was sky high, his son was spared
too. Because it wasn't the strength
of their faith, it's the blood. It's the blood, it's the blood,
it's the blood. Oh, if we could get that through
our head, we'd have so much more peace, wouldn't we? I hate my
weak faith, but thank God I'm just as saved and just as accepted
when my faith is weak as when it's strong. Because Christ is
our salvation. Christ is our salvation. And then if I'm on the Lord's
side, I've confessed Him. I've committed to Him. You have
too. I know you have. but not nearly like we should,
not near as much as we should. Well, here's the assurance of
our salvation. I have not confessed Christ like
I should, but he's confessed me perfectly.
Look at Hebrews chapter two. When we find ourselves ashamed
of Christ like Peter was as our Lord was being tried, here's
our comfort. The Savior will never be ashamed
of us and he'll never cast us out. Hebrews 2 verse 10. For it became him, for whom are
all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons
unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause? He's not ashamed. call them brethren. He's never ashamed of his people. He always said, this is my brother.
Doesn't that make you want to run to him? And you know, we
may find ourselves not as committed to Christ and not as committed
to his cause as we should. But here's our comfort. This
is our salvation. The Savior is always committed
to his people. Look at Hebrews chapter 13, we'll
quit here, Hebrews 13. Verse five, let your conversation,
your conduct be without covetousness and be content with such things
as you have. For he has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. so that we may boldly say the
Lord's my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
The promise of our Savior is I'm committed to you. I'll never
leave you. I'll never forsake you. And his commitment for me, to
me, makes me want to be more committed to him than you. His
love for me makes me love him even more. That's the comfort
and assurance of our salvation. Let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for your word. How we thank you for Christ,
our great high priest, whose sacrifice has put away the sin
of his people, completely redeemed his people from their sin. And
Father, how we thank you that you've not left it to us to figure
this thing out to come to Christ and to believe on him. But Father,
that you call your people through the preaching of your gospel,
that you give faith in Christ, that you call us to come to Christ
and make us come running to him. Father, how we thank you. We
ask you forgive us for the weakness of our faith, but we thank you
for giving us faith in Christ. We ask you forgive us for the
weakness of our commitment, but we thank you that you're committed
to us, and that you'll never leave, you'll never let your
people go. But cause this to comfort our
hearts, cause this to make our hearts burn within us, and cause
us, that makes us run to Christ. Find our rest and hope and peace
in him. It is in his blessed name, for
the glory of his name we pray. Amen. All right, Sean.