Alright, if you would, let's
begin our service opening our Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter
1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. As you're
turning, I want to tell you we had an outstanding weekend at
Cottageville last weekend. The folks there send their greeting
and their thanks to you for letting them borrow your pastor for the
weekend. It was really a special, special time. All right. Second Corinthians chapter one.
We'll read the first 10 verses. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, out of the church
of God, which is at Corinth with all the saints, which are in
all of Ki. Grace be to you and peace from God, our father, and
from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be God, even the father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God
of all comfort. who comforteth us in all our
tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in
any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of
God. For as the sufferings of Christ
abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And
whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation,
which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which
we also suffer, for whether we be comforted It is for your consolation
and salvation. And our hope of you is steadfast,
knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall you
be also of the consolation. For we would not, brethren, have
you ignorant of our trouble, which came to us in Asia, that
we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that
we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death
in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in
God, which raiseth the dead, who delivered us from so great
a death, and doth deliver, in whom we trust that he will yet
deliver. We'll end our reading there. We will turn to number 258. 258. We'll sing the chorus after the
second and the fourth verse. Second and the fourth. A wonderful Savior is Jesus my
Lord, a wonderful Savior to me. He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock, Where rivers of pleasure I see. The wonderful Savior is Jesus
my Lord, He taketh my burden Holdeth me up, and I shall not
be moved. He giveth me strength as my day. He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock that shadows the pride perched in hand. He hideth my life in the depths
of his love. And covers me there with His
hand. And covers me there with His
hand. With numberless blessings each
moment He crowns, And filled with His fullness divine. I sing in my rapture, O glorious
day, For such a Redeemer as mine. When clothed in His brightness,
transformed To meet Him in clouds of the
sky His perfect salvation, His wonderful love I'll shout with
the millions on high He hideth my soul in the cleft
of a rock that shadows a dry, thirsty head. I turn over to 298. In shady green pastures so rich
and so sweet God leases their children along Where the water's
cool flow bathes the weary one's feet God leaves his dear children
alone. Some through the water, Some
through the flood, Some through the fire, But all through his
blood. Some through great suffering, God gives the song in the night
season and all the day long. Sometimes on the mount where
the sun shines so bright, God leads his dear children along. Sometimes in the valley, in darkest
of night, God leaves his dear children alone. Some through the waters, Some
through the flood, Some through the fire, But all through His
blood. Some through great sorrow, The
God gives a song, In the night season and all the
day long. Though sorrows befall us and
Satan oppose, God leads His dear children along. Through His grace
we can conquer, defeat all our foes. God leads His dear children
along. Some through the waters, some
through the sea. Some through the fire, but all
through His blood. Some through great sorrow, but
God gives us all In the night season and all the day long. Away from the myron, away from
the clay, God leads His dear children along. Away, up in glory, eternity stay,
God leads His dear children along. Some through the waters, Some
through the flood, Some through the fire, But all through His
blood. Some through great sorrow, All
right, let's open our Bibles now to Psalm 105. Psalm 105. We'll begin our reading
in verse 25. He turned their heart, the heart
of the Egyptians, to hate his people. To deal subtly with his
servants, he sent Moses his servant, an heir in whom he had chosen.
They showed his signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham.
He sent darkness and made it dark, and they rebelled not against
His word. He turned their waters into blood
and slew their fish. Their land brought forth frogs
in abundance in the chambers of their kings. He spake, and
there came diverse sorts of flies and lice in all their coasts.
He gave them hail for rain and flaming fire in their land. He
smote their vines also and their fig trees and break the trees
of their coasts. He spake, and the locusts came,
and caterpillars, and that without number, and did eat up all the
herbs of their land and devoured the fruit of their ground. He
smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of all
their strength. He brought them forth also with
silver and gold, and there was not one feeble person among their
tribes. Egypt was glad when they departed,
For the fear of them fell upon them. He spread a cloud for a
covering and fire to give light in the night. The people asked
and he brought quails and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock and the waters gushed out. They ran in the dry
places like a river. For he remembered his holy promise
and Abraham his servant. And he brought forth his people
with joy and his chosen with gladness. and gave them the lands
of the heathen, and they inherited the labor of the people, that
they might observe his statutes and keep his laws. Praise ye
the Lord. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
that in your goodness to your people, you've given us one more
opportunity to meet together and to worship your matchless
name. Father, I pray that this evening you would give us the
spirit of worship, of true heart worship. Father, I beg that you
cause your gospel this evening to go forth in power, to reach
the hearts of your people, to reveal to our hearts the glory,
the sufficiency of Christ our Savior, Christ our Deliverer,
who has delivered his people from all their sins. by His sacrifice
for them. Cause your word to go forth in
power to comfort the hearts of your people that are in a time
of great trouble, heartache and sorrow. Reveal to our hearts
Christ the Deliverer, the one who is in charge of every event
in this earth, every event in His creation, especially our
trials, that you can You control when they start. You control
the heat of them. You control when they end. You
control the lesson that we learn in them. Father, reveal that
to our hearts, that we might find our comfort and rest and
peace in Christ our Savior. That we not look to the arm of
the flesh for deliverance, but that we look to and trust our
Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I thank you for this
place. I thank you that you've given us a place where we can
meet together peace and unity with our brothers and sisters
and worship you. Father, I beg of you that you
would preserve this place as a lighthouse of the gospel where
sinners can come and hear of the Savior. Where poor, sick,
dead sinners can come and hear of Christ the Great Physician.
Find the balm of Gilead for their souls. Father, for your great
namesake, we pray you'd preserve your gospel here and for the
good of your people. Don't leave us without your word,
without provision for our souls, we pray. And Father, we thank
you for our little ones. We thank you for the children
that you've given to us. And we pray that, Father, you
would protect them. We become afraid of the world
in which they grow up in and remind us you're still in control
of it. And fathers, we pray you'd protect
their bodies and their minds, their hearts, that you'd have
mercy upon their souls. Father, again, bless us. Give
us a word from thee. Enable us to leave here tonight
rejoicing in Christ our Savior. For it's in his precious name
we pray and give thanks. More secure is no one ever And the loved ones of the Savior,
Not yon star on high abiding, Nor the burden on this tiding. God is owned, attend, and nourished,
In his holy courts they flourish, Like a father kind he spares
them, In his loving arms he bears them. Neither life nor death
can ever From the Lord his children sever, For his love and deep
compassion Comforts them in tribulation. Little flock, to joy then yield
thee, Jacob's God will ever shield thee, Press secure with this
defender, At His will all foes surrender. What He takes, or what He gives
us, Shows the Father's love so precious, We may trust His purpose
wholly, His children's welfare so solely. All right, let's open our Bibles
again to Psalm 105. You've been looking at this psalm
for a few weeks, and you may remember that the psalmist began
this psalm telling us to give thanks to the Lord. He told us
to give thanks for God's deeds, His works. He told us to give
thanks for God's character. We do that because God's works
are controlled by His character. Everything God does is holy and
right and just because God's character is holy. The only thing
he can do is what's holy and right and just. Well, tonight
we're going to look at God's deliverance. That's the title
of the message, God's deliverance. And when God delivers his people
in salvation, God makes it so that it's holy and it's right
for him to save them by totally and completely saving them from
their sin. God saves his people from the
penalty of sin, from eternal death in hell, because Christ
suffered it for them. God saves his people from the
power of sin. The power of sin is not the power
that keeps us sinning. I guess that's part of it. But
the power, that's the power of our sin nature. But the power
of sin brings spiritual death. The power of sin makes it so
we cannot see Christ, that we cannot believe Him. Well, God
saves His people from the power of sin by giving them spiritual
life, by giving them faith so that they see and they believe
Christ and they can't quit believing on Him. The power of sin doesn't
have control over them to stop their faith from trusting Christ.
That's God saving His people from the power of sin. And one
day God will deliver His people from even the presence of sin
and their bodies won't be there anymore. And this is why I want
us to see in these verses this evening, four things. When God
saves his people, he delivers them from the idolatry that's
in their heart. Not just the idolatry in the
world around us now, the idolatry that's in our heart by nature.
God delivers his people by and because of the sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And when God delivers his people,
he delivers them completely. Lastly, God delivers His people. He will lead them and guide them
all the way through this life till they get to Christ to be
with Him in the next life. So first, there's this. God delivers
His people from the idolatry that's in their heart. That's
got to be done. We're born with a heart of idolatry,
trusting in anything but Christ. If God's going to save us, He's
got to deliver us from that. And we see that pictured in the
plagues that the Lord sent to Egypt. Now these plagues, the
10 plagues God sent in Egypt were not random events. Each one of them had a specific
purpose. Each plague targeted or was directed
at one of the idols of Egypt to show the Egyptians and to
show the children of Israel that that idol that the Egyptians
trusted in was an idol that nobody could trust. And that plague
was sent to show them and us that God is God. He is the one
who is to be feared and trusted. God sent these plagues to make
the people who were trusting in that idol miserable. That
was his purpose in those things. God made the very thing that
the Egyptians took pleasure in to be a misery to them. He made
what they trusted in to be a misery. And when we look at these idols
and these plagues here in just one minute, try not to think
about the Egyptians. We need to try to think of these
things personally and apply these things personally to our heart.
Because by nature, like I said a minute ago, by nature, we all
trust in an idol, one form or another. It may be a stone. or ceramic statue. Jan and I
were in Mexico one time with our girls and Cody was giving
us a tour of the oldest Catholic cathedrals, I don't know what
they called it, I don't know, a building, in Mexico. And we actually saw a
mother teaching her three little children to bow down to this
ceramic statue. I saw that with my own eyes and
she was showing them how to put their knees. They were bowing
down and how to hold their knees, how to hold their hands, how
to hold their head. She's teaching them to bow down to a ceramic
statue. It could be that we're trusting in. It may be self,
probably in one form or another. That's what it is, it's self.
I trusted in my decision to accept Jesus as my personal savior.
I'm trusting in my morality that makes me appear to be a better
person than everybody else, you know. Or, and this may be applicable
to someone here this evening, our idol may be right doctrine. You know, that was my idol, right
doctrine. I can tell you from experience,
you can know right doctrine and not know Christ. If God's going
to save us, he's going to have to deliver us from that idol
in me. Salvation is knowing and trusting
Christ. It's not knowing the right doctrine
now. It's knowing and trusting Christ. And we'll never turn
from our idols. I mean, because we love our idols.
I mean, we're, we're hanging our soul on. We love our idols.
We're not going to turn from that idol until God makes the
thing, the very thing that gives us spiritual comfort to be a
misery to us. That's what God does with these
things. Now, verse 25. says that God turned their heart,
the heart of the Egyptians, to hate his people. They didn't
decide to do that. Devil didn't do that. God did
that. He caused them to deal subtly with his servants. And
then he sent Moses, his servant, and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
Now Moses came as the deliverer. Moses is a picture of Christ
who came to deliver his people from bondage to sin. And here's
the first plague, verse 27. And they showed his signs among
them and wonders in the land of Ham. He sent darkness and
made it dark and they rebelled not against his word. Now the
Lord sent darkness in Egypt. Scripture says it was so thick
it could be felt. I mean, people could literally
not see their hand in front of their face. They just didn't
move for three days. They were afraid to move out
of their place. But now, you know, Israel dwelt
in Goshen. That was the land that Joseph
gave them when they came there. They still live there in Goshen.
And you know, there in Goshen, there was light in all the houses
of the children of Israel. But there's darkness in all of
Egypt. Now, this was directed, this
darkness was directed at the most important idol in Egypt. I think his name was Ra, the
sun god. I know at least he was the sun god. Ra, I think is his
name. And God showed them his power over light and darkness,
and hence he had power over their sun god. The sun god couldn't
give them light, only God could do that. And this is what the
Lord's teaching us, that what we think is light, our light,
we think it's spiritual light, but it's really darkness. And
turning, trusting in our idols, All that is, is spiritual darkness. The only reason we trust in an
idol is we are in spiritual darkness and we can't see. Our Lord said
in Matthew 6 verse 23, if thine eye be evil, thy whole body should
be full of darkness. If therefore the light, what
you think is light is in thee, be darkness. If it's actually
darkness, how great is that darkness? And he told them, take heed therefore,
that the light which is in thee is not darkness. You take heed,
you beware, you be sure you're not worshiping an idol. You be
sure you're not trusting an idol. And the Egyptians, of course,
hated this darkness. They wanted God to take away
the pain of the darkness, but they didn't repent. And I'll
tell you the reason for that. God's judgment never brings repentance,
ever. Only God's goodness and God's
mercy can give repentance. You and I will never repent and
turn to Christ from our idols until God makes it so that that
idol is painful darkness to us. And if we don't turn from our
idols, if we don't turn to Christ, we'll be condemned just like
Egypt was. Our Lord told Nicodemus, this
is the condemnation, that light has come into the world and men
love darkness rather than light. Men love darkness because our
deeds are evil. Their sun god, the Egyptian sun
god, could not give light to anybody. That's an idol. An idol
can't give light to somebody. It can't make them see. But God
gave light to his people there in Goshen. They had light in
their dwellings. That's a picture of what God does for his people,
how he delivers his people from the darkness. In creation, God
said, let there be light. There was light. When God delivers
his people, he says, let there be light in the hearts of my
people. God, who commanded the light
to shine out of the darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, where? In the
face of Jesus Christ. That's the, he's the light. God
delivers his people from darkness, from the power of darkness, and
he's translated them into light, the kingdom of his dear son.
God gives his people light by revealing Christ the light to
them. Christ the light. You may wonder, why is it to
hear we are so insistent on preaching nothing but Christ. Her story
this weekend, a woman years and years ago came to Katie Baptist
Church, and she attended there for a while. She had her Bible. She made notes every time Brother
Scott Richardson preached from her passage. She'd make notes.
She was getting frustrated. After a couple months, she brought
her Bible and came to Brother Scott to study one day. And she
said, I got a question for you. He said, all right, I can just
see, I can just see this going in my mind's eye. Brother Scott
said, all right, now ask me a question. And she said, I've been coming
here for months. And she said, all you do is preach Christ. And she said, like he was going
to deny it, she said, I can show you the notes here in my Bible.
And Brother Scott just smiled. He said, would you write that
on my tombstone? All I preach is Christ. You know why? Because
that's the only way God's ever going to give his people light.
It's the light of Christ. Matthew 4 verse 16 says this.
The people which sat in darkness at one time, that's all of us,
sitting in darkness. They saw a great light, a great
light. Though to them that sat in the
region of the shadow of death, light is sprung up. How'd that
happen? Christ came. He revealed himself. And when Christ comes, darkness
flees. Darkness has got to go when light
comes on the scene. Christ delivers his people from
the power of darkness simply by appearing to them. Darkness in scripture is often
referred to as ignorance of unbelief. Well, God delivers his people
from that darkness of ignorance of unbelief by giving them faith
in Christ so that they know Christ. They're not ignorant anymore.
Now they know Christ. They're not in darkness anymore.
Now they know, they see, and they believe Christ. Darkness
in scripture also refers to death. God delivers his people from
the darkness of death, spiritual death, by giving them spiritual
eyes to see Christ. So they see him and they follow
him because they have the light of life. That's how God delivers
his people from darkness. All right, the next play, the
next idol is in verse 29. He turned their waters into blood
and slew their fish. Now the Egyptians had a god at
the Nile. This was another very, very, maybe the second most important
idol that they had. The Egyptians worshipped the
Nile. I mean, the water of the Nile
is what gave that whole region life. It's what they had to drink. That water is what they had to
drink. And that water would, that Nile River would flood once
or twice a year and just flood that whole plain And that would
make that such a fertile area where they could just grow crops
like crazy, like nobody else could in the world. And that
Nile River was always full of fish. They just always had plenty
to eat. And you know what they did? This
just shows you human nature. You know what they did? This
was a prosperous, prosperous area because that Nile River,
they started worshiping the water. Not the creator, not the giver
of the water. They started worshiping the water. And you think, well, that's crazy
Egyptians. Wait a minute. You and I are
the same way. Even the unbeliever is interested
in the blessings of God. Even the unbeliever is. Honestly
and truly, you'd be really hard pressed to find somebody that
wouldn't like to have forgiveness for their sins. And if they told
you they weren't interested in forgiving sins, they're lying
to you. I mean, that's just so. But now be careful. Let's not
be so sure that we're looking for the blessing and we don't
see Christ who forgives sin. There's a difference there. Let's
just be very, very careful that we're not seeking righteousness.
I just want to be righteous. Instead of seeking Christ, our
righteousness. Big difference. And again, this
is something I don't think you're going to find anybody tells you
they want to go to hell. Everybody likes to say, I'd like to be
delivered from hell. But now let's be careful. Let's seek
Christ our glory. Big difference. Wherever Christ
is, that's heaven. And wherever he's not, that's
hell. then let's seek him to be in
his presence. See what I'm saying? There's
a difference in seeking the creator and the giver, the being of all
blessing and seeking just the blessings. There's a difference.
And God took that thing that they blessed. It was a blessing
to them. They worshiped it and God turned
it into a curse. He turned that water into blood.
Now the Nile killed all their fish. They had nothing to eat.
If that Nile flooded blood, it's going to ruin the crops, going
to ruin the land. If they drink too much of it,
now they're going to die. That thing that was a blessing,
God turned into a curse because they worshiped it. But when God
saves his people, he makes them see that what they used to trust
in was really a curse to them. Only God can make a person trust
Christ. Only God. And that's what he
does when he delivers his people. He takes them, he gives them
a new heart that does not trust in what they used to trust in.
Now they trust in Christ. All right, verse 30. Their lamb
brought forth frogs in abundance in the chambers of their kings. Now the Egyptians had a God of
fertility and had the head of a frog. You, for a brilliant people,
that built pyramids that nobody today could understand how they
built for a brilliant, brilliant people. My, what ignorance. They thought this thing that
had the head of a frog gave them life. And God made the image
of their idol to be obnoxious to them. God just made frogs
everywhere in the land. I mean, they were everywhere.
Can you imagine how gross it would be to go to bed tonight
and turn those covers back and have frogs in there? I can tell
you one little old woman wouldn't be sleeping in that bed. I mean,
you know how gross that is. You'd have, you'd go up and open
the cabinet and there's frogs in your dishes. They had those
kneading troughs or bowls or whatever, where they kneaded
their bread every day, there's frogs in them. How gross, and then
you're going to smush that dough down to where that frog's been
sitting? No, you're not. I mean, how obnoxious that was
to them. Just croaking everywhere. Well, God delivers his people.
He makes what they used to trust in to be obnoxious to them. They can't stand it anymore. In the Apostle John, the book
of Revelation, chapter 16, gave us real good insight to what
these frogs represent. John said he saw unclean frogs
come out of the mouth of Satan and out of the mouth of the false
prophets. The frogs represent the message of false religion. And before we knew Christ, that's
the message we love. That's right. That's the message
we love. To my shame, again, this is one of the things I can
tell you from experience, you can sit and listen to the gospel,
I mean the gospel, and still love a false gospel, because
you just twist it up in your mind to be something that the
preacher is not saying. You can do that. We all loved
a false gospel before Christ saved us, before we knew Christ.
But God's people have been delivered from that. God delivered them
from that. And now they cannot stand that message anymore. What they used to love, they
now hate. God's delivered it. Oh, they
loved it, but now they hate it. Why? God's delivered them from
it. Thank God for that. Verse 31. He spake and there came diverse
sorts of flies and lice in all their coasts. Now the Egyptians
had a god of creation that had the head of a fly. And I guess
that's probably pretty appropriate, something that's the head of
a fly. It's got to be gross. That's the kind of life we can
produce. Something that's just gross,
full of sin. But they worshipped that. And
God sent swarms of flies to show them this idol doesn't give life.
Scripture says those flies came and they corrupted everything
in the land. And this is what God is going
to do. God's going to deliver you and me. He's going to show
us that we can't do anything to produce spiritual life because
we corrupt everything we touch. So we can't put our hand to it.
Nothing we put our hand to can deliver us and can give us life
because we corrupt everything we touch. Everything that we
do to try to earn salvation, all of our actions that we try
to do to earn salvation, you know what Solomon called it?
A dead fly in the apothecary's ointment. That's exactly what
it is. Everything we do makes that ointment
stink so that it doesn't heal us. It just adds to our corruption. Only God can give life. And when
God delivers his people, this is what they see, what they believe,
what they love, Christ is the only life that I have. And he's the only life I want.
Now the Egyptians also had a God over the dust of the earth. It
had a head, I guess, kind of like these lice, you know. And
Aaron took his rod and he smoked the dust of the ground with it.
And that dust became a swarm of lice that covered the country. And on all these plagues, Pharaoh's
magicians came up and they did some sort of magic trick that
kind of mimicked this, you know, try to say, you know, God didn't
do this. We can do this too. I don't know how they did it,
but you know, magicians do that kind of thing. This plague of
lice was the only plague, the Egyptian magicians, try to say
that fast three times, couldn't mimic it. They couldn't do it. And they tried. And you know
what they came told Pharaoh? They told Pharaoh, this is the
finger of God. You better let those people go. They couldn't
mimic it. Well, God delivers his people.
This is what he shows them. Spiritual life cannot come from
our works. How do I come up with that? Well,
this plague was against the God of the dust of the earth. That's
our bodies, aren't they? Our bodies are made up of the
dust of the earth. And what about that dust? After
Adam fell, God cursed it. Our bodies, our physical bodies
are made up of dust that's been cursed by God. So any works produced
in these bodies can only produce death. Salvation can't come from
cursed ground. So when God delivers his people,
He delivers them by giving them faith in Christ, to trust Christ
completely without any of their work being added to it. All right,
verse 32. He gave them hail for rain and
flaming fire in their land. He smote their vines also in
their fig trees and break the trees of their coasts. Now the
Egyptians had a God of love and protection. And this God had
the head of a cow. Sounds to me like a God that
loves everybody. Doesn't sound like to you? But
God sent fiery hail from heaven and destroyed not just the crops,
but it killed all the cattle of the field. Remember this,
God's got the head of a cow. God sent this hail and killed
all of the cattle in Egypt. When God did that, you know what
he showed them? The love of that idol doesn't mean one blessed
thing. That idol may love everybody,
but that idol cannot protect you from God's wrath. Now in
scripture, hail is a picture of God's wrath against sin. Remember
Isaiah told us about that overflowing scourge, the sweeping hail that'll
come through. They'll sweep away the refuge
of lies. But God has delivered his people from his wrath because
he loves his people. And God's love means something. God's love means something. God protects his people. from
his wrath by providing a substitute. God loves his people, so he's
given them a hiding place. They can hide in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And when the overflowing scourge
passes through, it should not come near you. It's not going
to touch you. You see it with your eyes, but it'll not come
near you. When God delivers his people, they trust God. You don't hear them talking about
their love for God. You hear them talking about God's
love for me. Oh, I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus, the
Nazarene. And I wonder, I wonder how he
could love me a sin of condemned unclean. That's the song of God's
people. Now verse 34. He spake and the
locust came and caterpillars and that without number and did
eat up all the herbs in their land and devoured the fruit of
their ground. Now the Egyptians had a god of storms, and it had
a head of a locust. And God sent, to show this idol
had no power, was nothing, just a figment of man's imagination,
God sent a storm cloud of locusts to come in and devour all the
planets. To devour everything that the
hell hadn't destroyed, the locusts came in and destroyed it. And
that idol couldn't do one thing about it. Couldn't stop him at
all. See, that which the Egyptians trusted in became hated by them. And they should have learned
in all this. God's the one who's in control of all things. And the Egyptians didn't learn
it, did they? But God's people did. They were delivered. They
learned our God is in control of all things. You can trust
him. All right. God delivers his people.
from the idolatry that's in their heart. But here's the second
thing. How does he do that? How does God deliver his people
from the idolatry that's in their heart? He does it by the sacrifice
of Christ. Verse 36. He smote also all the
firstborn in their land, the chief of all their strength.
Now, all 10 plagues aren't listed here, but there is one more Egyptian
god. It's not quite so obvious as
some of the other ones. It's Pharaoh. Pharaoh was considered
deity. He was considered to be a God.
And on the night of the Passover, God killed every firstborn child
in a home that did not have blood on the doorposts. Even Pharaoh's
son, who I reckon stands to reason would be a God too, right? God
killed him. To show us this, God Almighty
is the one who gives life. He's the only one who can. That's
true physically and that's true spiritually. God Almighty is
the only one who can give life. He's the one that takes it when
he will. In both ways it's right. Both ways it's right. All the
Egyptian firstborn died. But not the Jewish firstborn. Why not? Was it because Well,
they're God's people, so God's not going to kill their firstborn.
That wasn't it. Was it because they were less sinful than those
Egyptians? Those Egyptians worshiping all these crazy-looking idols,
all these different kinds of heads and stuff? No, that wasn't
it. Was it because they were just better people? No, they
were made of the same flesh, had the same nature the Egyptians
had. The Jewish firstborn child didn't die for one reason. Blood
had been shed and applied to the That's the only reason that
firstborn lived. You see, God delivers his people
from his wrath against their sin by passing over them. And when God passes over his
people, he's not passing over their sin. He's not passing over
it like he's ignoring it. God passes over his people, God's
judgment against sin. passes over his people because
his wrath has already fallen upon Christ, our substitute.
Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. For us, us
who believe, us who are God's people. Oh, isn't that wonderful
news? Well, how do you know if Christ
was sacrificed for you? And we know he wasn't sacrificed
for everybody. There was no sacrifice for the
Egyptian firstborn. There was no sacrifice for Pharaoh's
firstborn, was there? How do I know? Christ did not
die for everybody. How do I know he was sacrificed
for me? It's the blood applied. The blood
applied. The Holy Spirit applies the blood
to the hearts of God's people and makes them, gives them a
heart that believes Christ. Christ has been Sacrifice for
you. And the only evidence you have
of that is you believe Christ. Faith. That's the only evidence
you have. That's the very reason the father
took that blood and applied it to the doorpost. Went in and
shut the door and ate the Passover with his family. The only reason
you apply that blood to the doorpost is you believe God. That when
he comes through, he'll pass over you if he sees the blood
on the doorpost. And when God sees the blood of
Christ applied to our hearts, his wrath will pass over us. It won't come near us because
when he sees the blood, this is what the father knows. There's
already been death here. There's no need for another.
The substitute has died. And he passes over in justice. It's right for him to do it.
Justice has been satisfied in the death of the substitute.
That's how and why God delivers his people. It's because of the
sacrifice of Christ, our substitute. All right, here's the third thing. I want you to look at this in
Exodus chapter 12. I want you to get this, take
it home with you. When God delivers his people,
he delivers all, all of his people. Exodus 12 verse 41. And it came to pass at the end
of 430 years, even the self same day, it came to pass that all
the host of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. All the
host of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt. There's not
one left behind. There's not one person left behind.
There's not one animal left behind. Every dog, every cat, every cow,
every sheep, every goat, every whatever, all left Egypt. There wasn't a thread of clothes.
Somebody didn't forget a change of clothes. They all were delivered. All of God's people were delivered.
And this is a picture now of God's deliverance. The scriptures
know nothing of a God who wants to and can't. You can't find
that anywhere in this book. You can't find anywhere in this
book a God who wants to save, but can't. A God who wants to
do something, but his arm's too short to do it. The scriptures
know nothing of that. The scriptures declare God who
does as he pleases. And when he pleases, he'll deliver
his people. And he's gonna deliver all his
people. All of them. Not one will be
left. Every single soul, a number that
no man can number, every single soul, the father gave to the
son in divine election was redeemed by the blood of Christ. And every
last one of them shall be delivered. They all will be delivered. And
when they're delivered, they're going to be delivered richly.
Look back in our text, verse 37. He brought them forth also silver
and gold. And there was not one feeble
person among their tribes. Egypt was glad when they departed
for the fear of them fell upon them. And the children of Israel
spoiled the Egyptians even more than a conquering army would
have come in and spoiled them. And you know, when you come in
an army would come in to spoil the land. They just take everything
of any value, leave and take it with them. The children of
Israel spoiled the Egyptians because the Egyptians were just
giving them. everything of any value to get
them out of there even faster. See, when God delivers His people,
He does it richly. He makes them rich. He makes
them sons and daughters of God. He makes them rich in righteousness
so that they are perfect without sin before Him. He makes them
rich in love, all of his love, the love that cannot be measured,
the height or depth or width or breadth of it can't be measured,
but his people have it all. He makes them rich in mercy and
rich in grace. He makes them rich in life so
that they have eternal life. And he's so rich, he gives the
exact same rich blessing to everyone who can do it. And he will deliver
all of his people. Now you might come to a few spots
you think are kind of scary. You might think you're coming
to a few tight squeezes. Just like in a couple of days
after they started leaving Egypt, they came to the Red Sea, didn't
they? And they thought, oh, we're doomed. Oh, they trusted God just a few
days ago, didn't they? And now they say, we're doomed.
God brought us out here to kill us. And Moses said, no, you stand
still and see the salvation of our God. And they walked across
that thing on dry ground. And Pharaoh and his army tried
to do the same thing. Every one of them were killed.
Every one of them were killed. And not one child of Israel,
not one of them. God delivered them all. All right,
here's the last thing. God delivers his people. and
leads them all the way to glory. God does not deliver his people
and then leave it up to their own devices to get to heaven.
God leads his people himself. Just like he led the children
of Israel all the way from Egypt to the promised land. I was in
Lexington a few weeks ago talking to a very good friend of mine,
David Wright. David had a little boy, his little
ones. Not even two, is he? Is he two? He's a little guy,
I don't know. And David was holding him, but he wanted his mama. He didn't want to be there, he
wanted his mama. He needed her, you could just tell, you know? So David looks around, he finds
Elizabeth, and he holds this little kid up. And he said, okay,
see her? You see her? And the kid said,
yeah. And he said, all right, go to her. And I thought, well,
I wonder how this is going to go. And he started wandering
down the aisle, and he went down this aisle, and he went down
this aisle. I couldn't find her. He just wanted his mama so bad. He just didn't know what. And
I said, David, you're going to have to go take him to his mama.
By the time I said this kid, he's Mark, he stood up on the
pew, and he couldn't find her. And he just yelled at the top
of his lungs, Mama! Guess who came and got him? He
had to be led, didn't he? He couldn't see the way. That's
you and me. God's never gonna hold us up
and say, all right, see the prize? Oh, the prize of Christ. See
Him there in glory? All right, now go to Him. If
He did that, we'd be gone. No, Christ Himself leads His
people all the way to glory. Verse 39. He spread a cloud for
a covering and fire to give light in the night. The people asked
and he brought quails and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock and the waters gushed out and they ran in the
dry places like a river. See, God gives his people his
presence to lead them and to guide them. He gives the cloudy
pillar of his presence in the day. He gives the fiery pillar
of his presence in the night That fire, both to give light
to his people, to keep them warm and to protect them from the
enemies that can't come through. He leads his people and he provides
for them all the way to glory. He redeemed them by Christ, the
smitten rock. And he sustains them with Christ,
the smitten rock. Water coming from that rock,
freely given to his people. He feeds them, sustains them
with Christ, the bread of life, that's what the man is a picture
of. God leads and guides his people and he always provides
for them. That's what God's gonna do for
every last one of his children. You know how I'm so sure he's
gonna do it? Because here's the reason God
does this for his people. It's for his glory. Verse 42,
four, here's why he did all this, four. He remembered his holy
promise and Abraham his servant. And he brought forth his people
with joy and his chosen with gladness. And he gave them the
lands of the heathen. And they inherited the labor
of the people that they might observe his statutes and keep
his laws. Praise ye the Lord. God kept
his promise to Abraham. So that the name of the Lord
would be glorified. See if God promised to give that
land to Abraham, didn't give it to him, what are the heathen
going to say? Oh, God wasn't powerful enough
to do it. God wasn't faithful enough to do it. No, God always
keeps His promises for this reason, so that He will be known as the
true and faithful God, the God His people can fully trust. And
God's people who have been delivered, they observe and keep His statutes.
Now, what's that mean? Well, it doesn't mean they keep
the Ten Commandments. Doesn't mean they keep the mosaic law.
This is God's commandment that you believe on the name of his
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's his commandment. And God's
people keep his commandment. They believe Christ because God's
given them faith to believe Christ. And they keep believing Christ
because the faith that God gives won't quit. And that's how God
delivers his people from their sin. Let's bow together. Our Father, we thank you for
your word. We thank you for the glorious
deliverer, Christ our Savior, and the glorious deliverance
from our sin and death in Adam and in him to life and righteousness
and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I pray that you give
each one of us here tonight this faith that we believe Christ,
that you reveal Christ the light to our hearts, Leave us in our
darkness, but give us the light of life, the light to see, believe,
rest in and be thrilled in the presence of Christ our Savior. Father, we pray that you would
do this for our good, but especially, Father, for your glory. Would
you get glory to your name, saving your people, delivering us from
our sin here tonight. It's in the precious name of
our Lord Jesus Christ we pray and give thanks.