So let's turn to Judges chapter
2. Judges chapter 2. Let's read the first five verses
here. And an angel of the Lord came
up from Gilgal to Bokom and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt,
and I have brought you unto the land which I swear unto your
fathers. And I said, I will never break
my covenant with you and ye shall make no league with the inhabitants
of this land. You shall throw down their altars,
but you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Wherefore,
I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but
they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be
a snare unto you. And it came to pass, when the
angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of
Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept, and
they called the name of that place, Bokom, and they sacrificed
there unto the Lord. Now the thing I want us to see
here tonight is that Christ Jesus the Lord, the Son of God, has,
is, and shall save His people from our sins. He has saved us,
He is saving us, and He shall save us from our sins. That's what the Apostle Paul
said. He said He delivered us from so great a death and doth
deliver and we trust he shall yet deliver us. Now Christ here
is the angel of the covenant. That's who is come up and speaking
to these to these children of Israel. And we know that because
we see what he said to him. He told them For I delivered
you. And Christ is the only one who
delivers his people. This is Christ speaking. There's
one mediator between God and men. It's the man Christ Jesus. And that's who we have speaking
here in our text. Now, first notice where the Lord
found his people. Verse one says, And the angel
of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochum. His people had left
Gilgal and they went up to this place called Bochum. Gilgal,
you remember, is where the Lord appeared to Joshua. It's where
He appeared and said, I will be with you and I will deliver
you. But now they had gone up from there and they had come
to this place called Bochum. And the picture here is of a
believer who has become puffed up. trusting themselves, looking
to their will, to their wisdom, and think we've gone up. But anytime that we think we've
gone up by our will or our wisdom or apart from Christ, we haven't
gone up. And it's from that place that
Christ must save us. And He does this continually.
Now, notice here, they didn't go down to Gilgal. Christ came to where they were.
to bring them back down. And that's what has to happen.
Christ gets the glory. He's the one who comes to us
and He's the one who brings His people down and gives us a contrite
heart and brings us down to His feet where we need to be. He
does this and He gets the glory for doing it. Now the second
thing is we see here is how He does it. The message He uses
to do it. I read a lot of commentaries
and some said this was. One of God's preachers preaching
this to them and some said it was Christ, but even if he was
using a preacher. It's not the preacher who's going
to do this. It's Christ speaking through
his earthen vessel that's going to make this work effectual.
And this is the gospel that Christ preaches through His messenger.
It's the message of the redemption accomplished by Christ. He says,
verse 1, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and I have brought
you unto the land which I swear unto your fathers. You think
about those children of Israel when they were down there under
Pharaoh. They couldn't deliver themselves.
They were slaves. They were under the power of
Pharaoh. They were slaves under his taskmasters and there was
absolutely no way they could free themselves from that bondage.
And there was no way we could free ourselves from our bondage.
We were under the bondage of sin in our flesh, We couldn't
make ourselves repent, believe on Christ. We still can't do
it if He left us to ourselves. And we were under the power and
dominion of the curse and condemnation of the law because of our sin.
We were under the power of death. We could not free ourselves.
You think about it, sin, the law says the soul that sinneth
must die. That's the only way we could
deliver, be delivered, is to die. How are we going to die
and yet live? That's impossible for us. It's
impossible for us. But Christ did it. Christ did
it. That's the message we preach.
Christ redeemed His people. He didn't try. He successfully
did it. Look over at Romans chapter 6
with me. Romans chapter 6. We're buried with Him by baptism
into death. Verse 4. We're buried with Him
by baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. That's what our baptism is picturing.
Now listen to this. For if we have been planted together
in the likeness of Christ's death, we shall be also in the likeness
of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed. That henceforth we should not
serve sin, not henceforth be the slaves of sin. Now get what
he is saying there. This is not an as if, this is
reality. Whenever the Lord Jesus Christ
took the sin of His people and He was made to be His child. He was made to be us on that
cross. And when Christ laid down His
life and when He was buried, our old man of sin went into
that tomb. And is dead and is buried. That's
the old man of sin of all God's elect. Dead and buried in Christ. Now read on right here, verse
7. He that's dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ,
we believe we shall also live with Him. There was a second
thing. When Christ died, we died. But when He came out of that
grave, we came out of that grave. There's God satisfying justice
and being merciful. in one person on the tree. Look
here, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, He dies
no more, death has no more dominion over Him. This is what we're
talking about, being freed from this dominion of sin and death.
Death has no more dominion over Christ, for in that He died,
He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto
God. Likewise, Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Look down at verse 14. Sin shall
not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but
under grace. So He freed us from that dominion
of sin. And not only this, our text,
He says, and I delivered you into the land that I promised
your fathers. Now look at Colossians 1. Christ
not only delivered us, justified us, delivered us from our sins,
He has already, brethren, delivered us into the land that God promised
us. Look here at Colossians 1.12. We give thanks unto the Father
which hath made us meet." Now, notice it doesn't say He's going
to make us fit, it says He has. He hath made us fit for what? To be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light. You mean, The believer, when
he is born of the Holy Spirit of God, he is so sanctified,
so made holy by Christ His sanctification dwelling in him that he is fit
to enter into God's presence with the saints in light right
then. Right then. Right then. He is righteous and
he is holy. Look at this. who hath delivered
us." It's done. He hath delivered us from the
power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. When you read over there
in Peter when it says He's made us partakers of the divine nature,
it says that we might escape the pollutions of this world
through lust. That means when He makes you
a partaker of the divine nature with Christ in you, Christ your
holiness in you, Christ your righteousness in you, brethren,
you've been delivered. You've been delivered. He that
hath the Son hath life. We look forward to the day when
we're going to be redeemed in body, soul, and spirit to be
with the Lord forever, be perfectly conformed to His image. In that
sense, we say with Paul, I've not attained. I've pressed toward
the mark. But we rejoice in this at the
same time. We are delivered. He hath delivered
us. He hath delivered us. Now that,
brethren, is a joyful, joyous message. And that's not all.
Look, when He makes this new man within you, He makes a promise,
an everlasting covenant of grace to us. Look at verse 1 in our
text, Judges 2.1. And He said, I will never break
my covenant with you. Now, the children of Israel wander
a covenant of works. God said to them, I will, if
you will. If you will do this and this
and this, then I will. And what Christ is telling them
here is, I will not break my side of the covenant. And He
won't. He won't. But now when He makes
a covenant in the heart of His child, because Christ has redeemed
all His people and delivered us, the covenant He makes with
us is not an I will, if you will. It is I will and they shall. Or where we are now, it's I have
and you shall. Now listen to Hebrews 10. Let's
turn there. Hebrews chapter 10. You see,
this is the good news. God didn't put anything in our
hands, brethren. You see, He put it in the hands
of His Son, and He's the God-Man. He represented God in this covenant
and He fulfills all God's promises in this covenant and He represented
all God's elect who are men in this covenant so that He fulfills
all our side of it too. It's all fulfilled in the God-man,
in Christ Jesus. He's the fulfiller of this. That's
how come when God makes this covenant promise to us, it's
ordered in all things. And sure, because He hadn't left
anything in the sinner's hand to do. Now look at Hebrews 10,
6. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure.
God's never going to be satisfied with any offering you and I make. But look at this. Then said I. Here's Christ. I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book it's
written of me. I come to do thy will, O God.
Now look down at verse 10. By the witch will, we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all
time. Look back at the end of verse
9 there. He takes away. Who does? Christ does. He taketh
away the first, that first covenant of works. that He may establish
the second, that Christ may establish the second. How did He do that?
Verse 14, for by one offering He hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. That's Christ's work. So then
God makes a covenant with us that's everlasting. He not only
says, I'll not break my side of the covenant, He says, I'll
not break my side of the covenant and you won't break yours either.
Because my Son has fulfilled it. As the one perfect believer
serving God on behalf of His people. And so look at Hebrews
8, 8. Finding fault with them. He said,
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a
new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of
Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers
in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of
the land of Egypt. You see, that's what he's talking about in our
text to the children of Israel. He said, But that's not the covenant
I'm going to make with my people. Watch this. Because they continued
not in my covenant. And I regard them not, saith
the Lord, for this is the covenant I will make with the house of
Israel after those days, after Christ has redeemed my people.
I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their
hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me
a people." What are these laws He puts in our heart? What did
we say? What are we looking at here?
He does this through the gospel of Christ. I've delivered you
out of Egypt. I've delivered you into the land,
I swear to your fathers. I've made with you an everlasting
covenant." It's the words of His gospel He puts in our hearts.
That's what constrains us to rest in Christ and to follow
Christ and to believe on Christ is when He reveals to you the
truth of the gospel. That's what's going to make us
bow and follow Him. And look at this, He said, I'll
be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they'll
not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the
greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. And
in that he saith a new covenant, he made that first one old. All
that law that the Jews were under, he's done away with. The volume
of that book was talking about Christ anyway, and it's done
away with by Christ now. He didn't just do away with it,
he fulfilled it. He said, I must, and he did.
So it's fulfilled for us brethren. Now that's the message by which
Christ brings us to His feet and the message by which He keeps
us at His feet. It's the message by which He
turns us from any vain thoughts of our wisdom and our will and
our works and keeps us trusting Him alone. If that's the message
by which Christ brings us, and you know, even people who will
preach the truth and then later on bring people under the law,
They'll admit that it's the gospel of Christ by which sinners are
brought to Christ. Well, why don't they just stick
with that message? If that's what brings you to Him, that's
what's going to keep you there. That's what's going to keep you
coming to Him. Is that good news? And that's
what keeps us. Now look here. Here's the next
thing. Thirdly, we see what we have to be saved from. Now look
here at Judges 2 and verse 2. And when He made this covenant
with them, He said, and you shall make no league with the inhabitants
of this land. You shall throw down their altars,
but you have not obeyed My voice, He said. Why have you done this? Now God was crystal clear. The
children of Israel were not to enter into any sort of agreement
with the inhabitants of that land. Christ's side of the covenant
was, I redeemed you out of Egypt, I delivered you into the land
I promised your fathers. Now, you don't make any leagues
with them when you go into that land. Now we see here from the
children of Israel, that if God left it in our hands, we'd see
exactly what we'd do. They went in there, and when
they got in there, they thought it was more merciful, they thought
it was more loving, They thought it was more wise and definitely
more profitable for them to bring the inhabitants of that land
under a tribute, make them pay taxes to them, rather than break
down their altars and drive them out of the land. That's what
they thought. That was their wisdom. They had
the word of God that said, now you drive them out. But their
wisdom was, well, let's don't drive them out. Let's just let
them stay here, but they've got to pay us taxes. Well, that's
not love, brethren. Anytime that we compromise the
gospel and make sinners who are worshipping
a false god feel like they're worshipping a true and living
God, that's not love. That's not mercy. True love and
true mercy is to declare the truth of the gospel. That's how
we... God's not sending us forth to
go out and burn people's church buildings down and break their
false gods up. He sends us forth to preach the
gospel. That's how He's going to break their altars down. The
altars that they have set up by giving them a new heart to
worship Him. That's how He's going to do it
through this gospel. But we see here what they did.
They went forth and compromised. And we can't compromise. We can't
compromise the truth of the total depravity of man, or God's unconditional
election of His people, or Christ's particular redemption of His
people, or the necessity of the Holy Spirit regenerating His
people, or the necessity of the preservation of His people so
that we persevere in faith. We can't compromise those things
because Christ gets the glory and is glorified in the Gospel
in everything we preach and teach. And if you compromise these things,
then Christ is not going to get all the glory. So that's why
we don't... It's not just that we try to
make people believe the doctrine we believe. Who cares about that? What I'm interested in is that
you bow to Christ and see Christ and worship Christ and give Christ
the glory due to Him. If you do that, you'll believe
the doctrine. So that's the reason. But these
inhabitants of Canaan, they represent all our sin and everything that
would come between us and Christ. Now concerning false religion,
that's one thing they represent. Christ is crystal clear. When
He makes this covenant in the heart and He sanctifies us, He
says, how can believers and unbelievers have any fellowship with one
another? How can those who worship the true and living God have
fellowship with Belial? How can you worship Christ and
the devil, is what He said. It's an impossibility. And he
says, you are the temple of the living God. And I listen to this
in first second Corinthians six. He says. I will dwell in them,
and I will walk in them, and I'll be their God, and they shall
be my people. Wherefore, because this is so,
come out from among them, and be you separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean, and I'll receive you, and I'll be
a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith
the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises,
not having a law, not having a legal whip, motivating you,
not having any kind of coercive force, having these promises. That's what separates the Lord's
people, is having these promises. We got these promises written
on our hearts. And so there's one thing he shows,
we can't compromise with false religion. And here's another
thing, these enemies represent the sins that are in us, in our
old man of flesh. In Colossians 3, he says this,
he says, you are risen, you're dead, he says, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. And he says, and when Christ,
who is our life, shall appear, then shall you appear with him
in glory. And he says, mortify therefore your members. You see
what I'm getting at here is it's always through these promises.
It's always this gospel of what Christ has accomplished for us
that he says now, therefore, mortify these members. cast these,
drive out these inhabitants, break down their altars. And
we have, you know, we have enough false religion and enough sin
and rebellion in us. We're a self-righteous Pharisee
and a common hearted all in one in our flesh. And we got enough
in us to send us to hell a thousand times over. But it's through
this gospel that he says, Treat this flesh like it's dead. Don't
let it turn you from Christ. Don't let it give you any confidence. Don't let it disappoint you and
bring you down. If it's dead, and God says it's
dead, it's dead. Treat it like it's dead, mortified.
But he says, but let the Word of God dwell in you richly. And
he says, and admonish one another in psalms and in hymns and in
spiritual songs. And he says, in whatever you
do, Do it as unto the Lord Jesus Christ, whatever you do. Now
that's our motive, you see. You notice there, Christ told
them, and this is important, Christ told them in our text,
I brought you up. And then once He brought them
up to that land, then they went on up themselves, and that's
where they got in trouble. What He's teaching you is, if
He's redeemed us, and He's made us righteous and holy, then we
can be sure He's already delivered us from our enemies and He shall
deliver us from every enemy we face. So He's saying, I brought
you up this far, I'm gonna bring you up the rest of the way. If
He's brought us up to where we can enter into the holiest of
holies, into God's presence, We can be sure that God with
Christ shall also give us all things freely, give us all things.
There's nothing He's not going to provide for His people. You
remember whenever Joseph was given the power over Potiphar's
house? The scripture says, from then
on, for Joseph's sake, the Lord blessed Potiphar in his house
and in the field. And for Christ's sake, the Lord's
going to bless His people in His house and in the field. In
all things He's providing. So see here, what we have to
be saved from, brethren, is us. It's us. That's what we have
to be saved from. And the result of us turning from
Christ in any way, and we do it. We do it. We turn from Christ
continually. And the result is always compromise
with this world and it's sin turning to sin that's in our
flesh. But here's the difference between us and them. When they
did this, the Lord said, therefore, I'm not going to deliver these
enemies out of your land. Well, the difference between
that and His people, we're going to always have these enemies in our flesh.
We're going to always be in this world until He delivers us out.
But the difference between those under grace and those under works
is Christ will hedge His people about and keep His people separated
and keep us turned to Him so that we aren't taken up and fall
away into this world. That He will do. He will not
let sin have dominion over His people and He will not let us
become ensnared by our enemies. He will not, because it's not
left in our hands. He's the one ruling and reigning
for His people. Now look, He will chasten his
people. Look at verse 3 of our text.
He said, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall
be as thorns in your sides, and their God shall be a snare unto
you. Now what I found fascinating
by this is the sin, those very people who represented their
sins, was what became the thorn. And you know, when God chastens
us, the chastening thing that He uses to chasten us is our
own sin. He doesn't have to. I mean, that's
punishment enough, you know, chastening enough. It's the sin
itself. And that's what he'll use. But
like I said, he's not going to leave his children to ourselves.
But this is what we should learn from this. We ought to always
be judging ourselves. And this is what I mean. Is this
honoring to Christ? Am I going to Bochum? Am I leaving Gilgal? Am I being
puffed up? Because this is what the Scriptures
say. If we would judge ourselves, we wouldn't be judged. But He
says, when we are judged, we're chastened of the Lord for a reason. That we should not be condemned
with the world. He won't let us be condemned
with this world. He said in Hebrews, Whom the
Lord loveth, He chasteneth for our profit, so that we might
be partakers of His holiness. And that's what Christ, we have
to have Christ our holiness to enter into His presence. And
without which we'll never enter His presence to see the Lord.
So He's going to keep you separated from being condemned with this
world so that you have Christ your holiness. That's what He's
going to do. Now here's the last thing. Here's
the last thing. When He works this work, and
you know, this is what the world right now does not seem to believe. The world of religion. is that
Christ really is, and He must work this work. He's the head
of the church. He said, I have to fulfill all
scripture. Well, He said, I'll provide you
pastors in the Old Testament. He's got to fulfill that scripture. It's given to Him to do it. He
said, I will give you a new heart. It's given to him to do it. And
he's the head of his church. He's going to do this for his
people. So he's really ruling in the midst of his church, in
the midst of his people, working these things in our midst, just
as real as when he walked this earth. You believe that? That's so. That's so. He's doing this now in our midst. That's what Paul was trying to
convey to them in Philippians when he said, it's God which
worketh in you. He's in your midst, doing both
the will and the do of His good pleasure. Therefore, do everything
without murmurings and disputings. Would we murmur and dispute if
we knew Christ was standing right there, right now? Well, He is. He is. Now here's what he, when he works
this work, he effectually always gives his child repentance. He always turns this from us
back to him. Look here, verse four, it came
to pass. When the angel of the Lord spake
these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted
up their voice and wept. And they called the name of that
place Bokom, and they sacrificed there unto the Lord." Now, I'm
not certain if this was true repentance in the children of
Israel. Some people say it wasn't, some say it was. I don't know.
But I do know this. This is certain. Number one,
Christ comes to where we are to bring us down. And He always
succeeds at it. He comes to that exalted place
of weeping where we are, or that exalted place where we've come
to, and He makes it a place of weeping. That's what this word
boka means. I know this, Christ does this
work through the preaching of the gospel of His accomplished
redemption, of His accomplished sanctifying work of His people.
There were two things that came out of His side, water and blood.
That's righteousness and holiness. That's who Christ is. Three,
I know this, Christ has, He is, and He shall save us from our
sins. It's our sins we've got to be
saved from. Sin's not in stuff. Sin's us. We've got to be saved
from us. And I know this, Christ effectually
grants His child repentance and turns us. Scripture said, no
chastening for the present. Right now, it's not pleasant.
It's not. It's grievous. But afterward,
it might, no, it shall yield peaceable fruit of righteousness. We're going to be brought...
You know what that peaceable fruit of righteousness is? Who's
our righteousness? Christ is. And that peaceable
fruit of righteousness is to be brought to Christ, to be one
with Christ in submitting to Him by faith, in being constrained
by His love, in following Him and trusting Him to take me all
the way to God's glory. That's that peaceable fruit of
righteousness. That's what God's going to work in His people.
Now that's how, brethren, we're called, delivered, continue to
be delivered and shall be delivered. This is how Christ preserves
us so that one day he gonna present us without fault and without
blame before his presence. Aren't you glad he didn't leave
it in our hand? I'm thankful for that. OK. We We thank you, first of all, let
me say that. Thank you very much for helping
us. It's just proven to be so encouraging
to our brethren. It's just been to know that there's
so many churches that are thinking about us and praying for us. That's just a great, great comfort. And the Lord made His will known
on this thing. That building has sat there on
and off for two years and there's not been a single offer made
on it. And the day we made an offer on it, somebody else made
an offer on it. And we had to have all kinds of contingencies
in our offer because the township was going to require us to, you
know, jump through a bunch of hoops to get parking and all
this stuff. And so we had all these contingencies. It was going to take us about
six months to get all the permits we had to get. And so naturally,
he went with the folks that didn't have all those contingencies.
So I'm pretty sure it's a done deal that somebody else bought
it. And the real estate agent tried to assure me that it might
fall through, but it seems like it's pretty much done. And we're
thankful for that. We know the Lord's will in it
now, and we would rather see that up front than get invested
in it down the road and then find out that he wasn't going
to open this door. But we trust that just like he
closed this door, he can open another one when he's pleased
in his time. And so we're just trusting he'll
do that. And thankfully, thanks to you and to other churches
that helped us, next time, we won't have to wait so long. We'll
be able to move on it very quickly. So we're actively looking, we've
got our real estate agent looking for us, and our folks are so
eager to get out of that firehouse. And it's been a nice place to
meet, you know, and the firefighters have been as nice as they can
be to us, but it's just the element of not knowing when you're going
to have a distraction. It just weighs on you, especially
if you're preaching. You know, you have something
so weighty fixing to preach and you get there and the doors are
open and you see the fire trucks, you know, firefighters coming
and going and you just think, oh no. So we're looking forward
to getting out of it. Pray for us and we thank you.
We really thank you. I sent you a letter telling you
all this. I was hoping I'd have, you know,
some better news to tell you. That's why I waited. But I beat
the letter down here. So you'll be getting that next
day or two. So it says everything I just
said to you. Thank you all so much. All right,
Brother Frank.