Well, good evening to everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Exodus chapter two,
Exodus, the second chapter. And as you're turning, let me
tell you that it certainly is my honor and my privilege to
be here and meet with you and worship with you this evening.
I've looked forward to it. Trust the Lord will be pleased
to bless us. I titled the message this evening,
God's Sovereign Providence in Salvation. God's sovereign providence. You can't stress that subject,
if that's the word to call it. You can't stress it too much.
If Almighty God does not sovereignly purpose and ordain every event
in human history, there'll never be a Redeemer, never be a sacrifice
for you and me, and there'll be no way that any sinner will
ever be brought to Christ. apart from God's sovereign providence,
God's sovereign providence in salvation. Now, I want us to
be reminded about that tonight. You know, that's a plank of our
doctrine that all of us, you know, believe and stand on. But
I want us to really understand now that God sovereignly ordains
every single event in human history. Everything that has ever happened
in God's creation happened because God purposed for it to happen
from before time began. Now, human history is such a
big subject, it's hard for us to get our mind around that,
isn't it? So let's bring it down a little bit closer to something
that we can all at least understand a little bit. Almighty God sovereignly
ordains every event in our lives. in our lives. Brother Mark mentioned
some brothers and sisters are going through times of sorrow
and sickness. They're in deep waters. They're
in tough, tough places. Do you know, for the believer,
something that comforts our hearts, this isn't an accident. My father
purposed for this to happen for me. right now before he ever
said, let there be light. He purposed it for me. Everything
that happens to us is what our loving heavenly father ordained
to happen to us. Everything, everything. We've
had to call off service back home, all but I think two services
this year, this calendar year because of snow. And as I'm sitting
there depressed after I've canceled service, Janet reminds me, you
know, the Lord sent that snow. Everything, everything. And this is also equally true.
Everything that God does, he does for the glory of his son
and the salvation of his people. Now, sometimes. We think we can
see a little bit of that. Sometimes we can't really see
it because all the events that are going on around us are just
too large for us to grasp. But whether or not we understand
it or not, everything God's doing is he is doing to glorify his
son in the salvation of his elect people. And our text tonight
in Ephesians chapter two gives us a good illustration of that.
I think I've got three points. The first one is this. God's
providence is never laid out before us in a straight line. And the reason for that is this,
that God has ordained that we walk by faith, not by sight. We follow the Lord by faith. We have to, because we don't
know what he's doing. If we don't know what the Lord
is doing, if we're going to follow him, it has to be by faith. We
don't trust the Lord because we can see all the way down the
road and I can see here's, here's what God's doing. Here's how
this thing's going to end up. No faith means trusting what
you can't see. Faith is just believing what
God said. Even, or maybe a better way to
say it is especially when we don't understand what God's doing.
Now look here at Exodus two, beginning in verse five. And
the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river,
and her maidens walked along by the riverside. And when she
saw the ark, Moses' mother had prepared this ark and put the
child Moses in the ark. When she saw the ark among the
flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it,
she saw the child. And behold, the babe wept, and
she had compassion on him and said, this is one of the Hebrews'
children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, remember
Moses' sister was watching all this go on. She went up to Pharaoh's
daughter and she said, shall I go call to thee a nurse of
the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for thee? And
Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go. And the maid went and called
the child's mother. She went and just got Moses'
mother to come right back to nurse this child. And Pharaoh's
daughter said unto her, take this child away and nurse it
for me. and I'll give thee thy wages. And the woman took the
child and nursed it. And the child grew and she brought
him unto Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. And she called
his name Moses. And she said, because I drew
him out of the water. And it came to pass in those
days when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren
and looked on their burdens. And he spied an Egyptian smiting
in Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that
way. And when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian
and hit him in the sand. And when they went out the second
day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together. And he said
to them that did the wrong, why smitest thou thy fellow? And
he said, who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest
thou to kill me as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared
and said, surely this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard
this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the
face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian. And he sat
down by a well, and then you know the story how Moses met
his wife and the family of Jethro, his father-in-law. Now here's this situation. Israel
has been in captivity in Israel roughly 400 years. And they've
cried unto God in their bondage. And the Lord has heard the cries
of their people. And he remembered his covenant,
the promise that he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And because God always keeps
his promise, God sent the deliverer, who had come at this particular
time, who would lead God's people out of the land of Egypt, out
of their bondage. And the Lord even told Moses'
parents, this baby boy, This is the deliverer. They knew this
child was the deliverer. Just like Mary and Elizabeth
knew those children, this is the Lord. This is the forerunner
of Christ and this is the Savior. They knew that. Moses' mother
and father knew this baby is the deliverer. They knew that.
Can you imagine how excited they were? But now the Lord's not going
to deliver his people with the arm of the flesh. then or now,
it's going to be by faith. Moses' mother knew this child
was the deliverer, the long-promised deliverer. And things got so
bad. Remember, there was a Pharaoh
who made a law to kill all the boy babies. If you found a boy
baby of the children of Israel, you throw it in the Nile and
drown it, kill it. Moses' mother had to take a three-month-old
infant, put in an ark, a basket made of reeds and slime, and
put that baby in the Nile River and walk away. Now, as she was walking away,
I don't know what she thought, but it wouldn't surprise me to
find out she thought, can anybody tell me How my baby is going
to possibly survive being in the river Nile in a paper basket
and become the deliverer of Israel? How's that possible? I don't
see how this can be. But faith believes God simply
because of God's word. Not because I understand, not
because I see, but because God is going to accomplish his will. I know that. I believe that because
of who God is. Even if I can't see it from here,
I believe God. I believe He will keep His promise,
and that's the reason she left that baby in a paper sack, just
a paper ark in the Nile River. You see, it was God's purpose.
Moses is going to deliver Israel, isn't he? But in order to do
that, We have to see this is all God's purpose. This is not
the will of man coming to pass. This is God's purpose coming
to pass. Only God would cause that mother
to leave that child in a paper ark in the Nile River and have
Pharaoh's daughter find it. Have that child be raised in
Pharaoh's house. His mother, his person who acted
as his mother was Pharaoh's daughter. That makes Moses like Pharaoh's
grandson. Now, you know, they were worried
that baby, that boy growing up, he's under the influence of Pharaoh.
He's under the influence of the people in Pharaoh's court. They
had to worry he's going to become indoctrinated in their way of
thinking to hate the Jews, to want to keep the Jews in bondage. They spent a long time not knowing
what was going on with Moses behind them palace walls. But
they trusted the Lord. They trusted the Lord's going
to keep his promise. Then when Moses was grown, Moses
thought, now his mother had taught him when he was a little fella.
He knew he was the deliverer. His mother had taught him, taught
him who God was and how God's to be worshiped. And Moses has
grown and he thinks, Well, I'm the deliverer. I see an opportunity
here. Here's how I'm going to deliver
my people Israel. And he killed that Egyptian who'd
been beating one of those Israelites. And instead of delivering Israel
from bondage in Egypt, Moses got run out of town on a rail.
He ended up running across the desert, living on the backside
of a mountain for 40 years. 40 years. keeping his father-in-law's sheep.
They weren't even his sheep. This is his father-in-law's sheep.
Moses was alone with those sheep for so long, he forgot how to
speak to people. He knew how to whistle and cluck
or whatever it is you're doing, you know, when you're keeping
sheep, but he forgot how to speak to people. At one time, Moses
had the best education money could buy. He had all this military
training and diplomatic education that he received from Pharaoh.
And now Moses is 80 years old. 80 years old. People don't take up a new career
when they're 80 years old. People retire when they're 80
years old. And now that he's 80, Moses is going to walk back
across the desert and lead a bunch of slaves free from the greatest
nation, the most powerful nation on the face of this earth. This
80-year-old man with a walking stick is gonna do that? Really? I remember years ago, Brother
Henry was preaching. He talked about this, Moses being
80 years old, and Henry said, getting kind of old for that
kind of work, ain't you, Moses? 80, really? But that was the
providence of the Lord. You see, the Lord is never going
to accomplish his will by the power of the flesh, by the arm
of the flesh. Moses had to be whittled down
till he was nothing in his own eyes when he was 80 years old.
Now the Lord's ready to use him. It's always going to be whatever
God does for his people, it's always going to be by the power
of the Lord. Even though we don't understand
how God's going to accomplish his purpose, He's going to do
it, and I believe it. I believe He's going to do it.
That's what faith says. Even though God never lays out
before us what it is He's doing and where we're going to go from
here, we just keep following the Lord step by step by step,
following Him by faith. All right, number two. God's
providence is never what we expect. And what I mean by that is this.
The Lord is seldom doing what we think He's doing. God's purpose
is so vast, we can't begin to comprehend it. And since that's
true, we always ought to be careful about this. Just don't be too
quick to think that we know what the Lord is doing in any manner. Just hang on a minute and let's
wait and see. Let's wait till the Lord makes
it obvious. And I'll give you a few examples from our text.
Suppose you and I were living there at the time Moses, the
baby Moses was born, and we heard, word of this got around, you
know it did. The deliverer's been born, the deliverer. You
know that house, they just had a baby boy, and nobody's killing
that baby boy. That baby boy's gonna be our
deliverer. God promised this baby boy's gonna be our deliverer.
Well, we'd be so excited, and we'd think, I know how this is
gonna go. Nobody's killed that baby, and
they're going to hide that child in that house. Nobody's ever
going to find that boy, and they're going to teach him all the ways
of Israel. They're going to teach him who
God is, and those parents, they're going to teach him everything
he needs to know and raise him up to be the deliverer, and God
is going to sovereignly protect him. So the Egyptians will never
find him, and the Egyptians will never be able to lay a hand on
him. Why? His parents, they're going to
teach him to fight guerrilla warfare. And he's going to be
able to go through, fight guerrilla warfare and weaken Egypt, you
know? His parents are going to teach him. I mean, you can already
tell this kid, he's sharp. He's going to be able to win
friends and influence people, because everybody's just going
to love him. He's always going to know just what to say. And
people are going to follow him. And when he gets to be the right
age, he's going to lead a slave rebellion. And he's going to
set us free from this place. I just know it. I can see for
sure. I see what God's doing. Then we'd see that baby put in
a paper ark on the Nile River. And we'd think, what's going
on? This isn't the way I thought
it was gonna be. As it turns out, I didn't know what God's
doing. But then, we'd see Pharaoh's daughter find that baby Moses
and fall in love with him. And not only did Moses' own mother
get to raise him and teach him and things, Pharaoh paid her
to do it. He paid her to do it. We'd think,
Well, I was wrong before, but now I see what God's doing. It's
so clear. This has to be what God's doing.
Moses is going to be raised by his own mother. So she can teach
him who the Lord is. She's going to teach him to love
the Lord and tell him that he's the deliverer. She knows it's
so because God told her. And Moses is going to become
Pharaoh's grandson. And Pharaoh's going to love him.
He's going to teach him. He's going to educate him. And
this is just so obvious to me. One day Moses is going to take
Pharaoh's place. He's going to sit on the throne
of Egypt, just like Joseph did all those years ago. And Moses
is going to issue a decree that all of Israel could go free.
It's so obvious that's what the Lord's doing. I see it. Let's
just watch it happen. And then we'd see Moses get run
out of town on a rail by Pharaoh. And we'd wonder what on earth
is going on. What on earth is happening? And
then for 40 years, I can hardly remember 40 years ago. I just turned 60 this month. I can barely remember being 20.
I mean, just 40 years. We hadn't laid eyes on the man
in 40 years, and we'd wonder, why has God forgotten us? We're
so confused. And we're so confused because
we just knew what God was doing. And we didn't know what God was
doing at all, is it? The answer seemed obvious to
us, but it wasn't happening. And that's why we're confused.
And this is the problem with all of our ideas. All of our
ideas, we would solve problems by the arm of the flesh. And
the Lord never does things that way. One of our dear ladies at
Hurricane Road told me more than once over the course of my lifetime
that all the problems that have come up, she said, I've seen
the answer to every one of them. I've seen just how every one
of these problems ought to be solved. And she said, Frank,
the Lord had never used even one of my ideas, not one of them. Because the Lord is always executing
His sovereign purpose, which He purposed in Himself before
time began. In every situation, especially
where it deals right with the hearts of God's people. You want
me to tell you what the Lord's doing? He's removing all hope
in the flesh. That's what He's doing. And when
all hope in the flesh is gone, then the Lord's going to act. so that we'll know this is what
the Lord did. I didn't do this. The Lord did
this by His power. He did it by His will, and He
did it in His time. That's another thing that gets
us all confused, isn't it? The Lord never does things in
our time. The Lord always did it in His time. And if we're
honest, and we look back on it when it's over, especially if
this is concerning a trial or something that we're going through,
we'll always see the Lord did it best. It's hard to be comforted by
that when you're in pain and being gripped in the midst of
the trial. It's hard to be comforted by
it, but we know that it's so. And when we look back every single
time, we're gonna see the Lord did it the best way it possibly
could have been done. And the Lord does things this
way so that you and I can never get any glory, but that all the
glory goes to him. Because that's where it belongs.
Now, here's the third point. This is the main thing. God's
providence works together for this purpose, to accomplish the
redemption of his people. Now, we have such a beautiful
picture of that. Look here in Exodus 2 verses
4 and 5 again. And his sister stood afar off
to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh
came down to wash herself at the river. And her maidens walked
along by the riverside. And when she saw the ark among
the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it." Now, from what
I understand, people in Egypt at that time did not bathe every
day. But on this day, it just so happened
Pharaoh's daughter needed to take a bath on this particular
day. She didn't know why, but she
did. And of all the rivers in Egypt and of all the waters in
Egypt that she could have gone, she could have picked any place
in the world to take a bath, I reckon she could have had water
carried up to the palace if she'd wanted to. But for reasons unbeknownst
to her, she picked a particular spot on the Nile River. And it just so happened that
she arrived right after Moses' mother left him in that paper
ark in the Nile River. And it just so happened that
she found it. And when she opened up that ark,
she fell in love with that baby. Now, the last person in Egypt
that you would think would open up a basket and see a Hebrew
baby boy and fall in love with it. The last person you would
expect to do that is Pharaoh's daughter. Pharaoh, her daddy,
had issued the command every Hebrew boy is to be killed. She
sees this Hebrew baby boy and falls in love with it. And you men who are fathers of
daughters know how this goes. She brought that baby to her
daddy. She said, Daddy, I love him. And her daddy said, OK,
honey, you can raise him. And she raised the deliverer,
the destroyer of Egypt. Now, if you don't see God's sovereignty
in that, His sovereign purpose being worked together, one of
two things is true. You're either blind or you refuse
to see it. One of the two. But there's such
a beautiful picture, even a more beautiful picture of salvation
here. Just like Pharaoh's daughter,
at the time purposed from eternity by God the Father, God the Son
came down. He came down to where his people
were. He came down as an embryo in
a virgin's womb and was born as a helpless little baby. A
baby helpless to do anything for himself. And he came that
way because that's the way his people are born into this world.
And we're helpless. Not only were we helpless when
we were babies, friends, we're still helpless today. We're helpless. We're helpless to do anything
for ourselves. And certainly we're helpless
to do the biggest thing, to save ourselves from our sin. We are
defiled in our sin. We're natural born enemies of
God. But the Lord came to where his
people were. You know why? Because he loved them. He loved them. And when the Savior
got to where his people that he loved were, he found his people
under the curse of the law. The law demanded those people
must die for their sin. They must die. Where there is
sin, the soul that sinneth, it must die. Just like Pharaoh demanded
all the Hebrew baby boys die. You know, the Nile, that was
the source of judgment and death. That's what they were supposed
to do, these baby boys, is throw them in the Nile River and drown
them. The Nile River was the source of judgment and death.
And Pharaoh's daughter drew Moses out of it. The Savior came to
where his people are, and he drew them out of the waters of
judgment. His arm reached down to the very
bottom, scraping the very bottom of the barrel, and He lifted
His people out. He lifted them out of the curse
of the law, and He gave them life. And here's how He did it. This
is the story of stories. Here's how the Son of God gave
the people that He loves life. It's by dying in their place. All of our sin is against God. It's against the Son. It's against
Christ. We have sinned against Him. Yet in His unfathomable love
for His people, He died for all of that sin that was against
Him. The Lord Jesus Christ was born on this earth as a man,
born under the law, the law that demands our death. And he grew
up under that law. Unlike you and me, he obeyed
that law. He kept it in every jot, in every
tittle. He obeyed the law so perfectly,
the father said, he magnified it. He magnified it, made it
beautiful. Now Moses grew up as a picture
of that. Now in Egypt, there was one law,
it's Pharaoh. I mean, there's no questioning,
he's the law. And he's the one that demanded
death for every Hebrew boy. And Moses grew up under the rule
of that man. He grew up under the rule of
the law of Egypt, and Moses pleased Pharaoh. Just like the Lord Jesus
pleased his father by obeying the law, Moses pleased Pharaoh. I mean, I just have no question,
Pharaoh was sure Moses was gonna take his place one day. He pleased
him. But there came a day that Moses
displeased Pharaoh. Look at verse 11. And it came to pass in those
days when Moses was grown that he went out unto his brethren
and looked on their burdens. And he spied an Egyptian smiting
in Hebrew one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that
way. And when he saw there was no man, he slew the Egyptian
and he hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second
day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together, and he said
to them that did the wrong, why smitest thou thy fellow? And
he said, who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest
thou to kill me as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared
and said, surely this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard
this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the
face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian and sat down
by a well. See, now Moses had done the one
thing that would displease Pharaoh. He violated Pharaoh's law. He
violated Pharaoh's character, and what mattered to Pharaoh
the most, he tried to set Israel free. And Pharaoh wouldn't have
it. Pharaoh, who used to be so pleased with Moses, now was set
to kill him. Now that's a picture. of what
the Lord Jesus Christ willingly endured when he went to Calvary's
tree. He was made sin. He who knew
no sin, who did no sin, neither was any guile found in his mouth.
He wasn't even acquainted with any sin. He did everything that
pleased his father. But when the father made his
son sin for his people, the father demanded that he die. It was
the father who put the son to death. And Christ died not in
the way that we would have thought. See, our God is sovereign, so
he always is accomplishing his eternal will and purpose. God
often uses his enemies to accomplish his purpose. Often he does that. He uses people doing something
that's wrong to accomplish his purpose of good. Now I can't
explain that, that's just what God does. Pharaoh and his daughter
were God's enemies, weren't they? But God used them to raise up
the instrument of their own destruction and set his people free. The
Lord did the same thing with the Jews and the Romans at Calvary.
Remember when they took our Lord, after they had taken him through
this mock trial and condemned him to death and took him to
Pilate, And Pilate, he wanted to let the Lord go. He didn't
want to put this man to death. He did not want to do that. But
that's exactly what he did. Because it was God's purpose
for him to do it. You heard Pharaoh bragging about how he had the
power to release Jesus or to crucify him. But in reality,
Pilate didn't have that power, did he? The only thing that he
could do is have the Lord Jesus Christ crucified, because that
was God's will. The Lord used that wicked man
to offer the sacrifice for sin. That's our only hope for salvation. Isn't that something? And the
Jews, I mean, they had planned and planned and plotted. How
many times did they have a plan where they thought, we're gonna
take this Jesus of Nazareth and get rid of him, and they'd reach
out to lay hands on him, And he just walked through the midst
of it. They couldn't lay a hand on him, but now they got him.
And I mean, can you imagine their glee? They did everything their
wicked imagination could come up with to do. But when they
did everything that they wanted to do, you know all they did?
Fulfill God's eternal will and purpose. And just so that's not
left to some preacher's, you know, kind of powers of deduction,
the Lord wrote in the Old Testament exactly what would happen to
the Messiah. And these men who were so studied
in the scriptures didn't remember that a bit. But it's like they
took a script and a play and said, okay, we do this. And now
we do this, now you exit stage left, and now we do, they followed
the scriptures to a T. Because what were they doing?
Accomplishing God's eternal will and purpose, because that's what
always happens. And they did it so that there
would be a sacrifice for the sin of God's people. I remember being a little fella. And yet, I've always been an
American. I mean, democracy and apple pie
and a flag and just, oh, I love this country. I love our form
of government. And I was studying in school how
this all came from the Greeks and the Romans. I mean, I'm just
fascinated with this, you know? This is the seeds of our form
of government that I love so much. And one day in school,
Our teacher pointed out to us that it was the Romans that crucified
Jesus. I was devastated. In my little boy mind, there
was absolutely no connection between what I was studying in
school and Paul's epistle to the Romans. I mean, I just made
no connection to that whatsoever. And when the teacher pointed
out those were the same, I was crushed. I was crushed. And I went home and I told my
mother, I said, I just hated myself that I've been loving
these people that crucified the Lord. And she said, now, hang
on a minute. Hang on a minute. Yes, they did
wrong. But if they hadn't done everything
that they'd done, there'd be no sacrifice for sin. Oh, it's
like there was a light bulb went off there, you know. That's what's
happening here. That's what's happening here.
Christ must be slain and it can't be by being stoned. You know,
the Jews would stone a person to death, wouldn't they? But
they could not stone the Lord Jesus. He must be hanged on a
tree because cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. He
had to hang on the tree bearing our curse so we'd be delivered
from the curse of sin. That's God's will being carried
out that accomplished the salvation of his people. God even used
Satan to accomplish his eternal will and purpose. Now, Satan
is a real enemy, a powerful enemy. I strongly recommend you don't
go looking for him. He'll sift us like wheat, just
like he did Peter, but I wouldn't worry too much about him. The
Lord even used him to accomplish his will of the redemption of
his people. Satan laid it on the heart of Judas to betray
the Lord. Satan laid it on the hearts of those men so that they
would want to crucify the Lord of glory, and Satan had to think,
as the Son of God was hanging on the tree, he had won forever. He had to think that. But God
used what happened on that cross to destroy the power of Satan
forever. Christ's death on the cross sealed Satan's doom. just as surely as raising up
Moses sealed Pharaohs down. Just as surely. And when the
Lord Jesus Christ died and he gave up the ghost, the eternal
redemption of his people was accomplished. God's people were
eternally set free from bondage to sin and fear of the law. And almighty God accomplished
it in a way that would seem the most unlikely way to you and
me. I don't think we ever would have
come up with a way to put away sin through the death of the
substitute. But that's what God did, to save his people in justice. Then God tells his people about
what he's done for them in the most unlikely way. It's from us. hearing from another
sinful man, the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
through his obedience and through his sacrifice, he has saved his
people from their sin, washed them in his blood, washed them
white as snow. And through the preaching of
a man, a sinful man, The only audible sound you hear is his
voice. God the Holy Spirit speaks to
your heart and gives you faith in Christ through the preaching
of this word. Now to those that don't believe,
I've actually had people tell me, that's ridiculous. That's
ridiculous. No, you gotta make a decision.
Only God would do it that way. so that he'll get all the glory
for it. If Almighty God has given you faith in Christ, the only
thing you have to say about it is he gets all the glory for
it, because he did something for me I did not deserve. And I'm thankful, I'm thankful
to be able to preach a God who's sovereign, who always accomplishes
his will. I wouldn't preach otherwise.
I mean, I wouldn't. Because you know these fellows
that are preaching this God that wants to save and can't and depends
on you? You know what they are? They're salesmen. My brother's
in sales, and he says, they're salesmen and not good ones. They're
not even good ones. They don't follow all the right
rules. They're not good ones. I'm a horrible salesman. If my
family had to depend on me being a salesman, we'd starve to death.
but to preach a sovereign God who always accomplishes His will. Now you bow to Him. Oh, that's
a message I can preach. And I'm thankful to be able to
believe and rest in a God who always accomplishes His sovereign
will. I worship Him. I worship Him
and find rest and hope and peace and assurance of salvation in
Him. I pray you do too. I pray you
do too. All right, the Lord bless you.
Thank you for having me.