Well, good evening. It is certainly
an honor, a privilege, and a delight for me to be able to be here
with you. I appreciate the invitation to
come and preach and worship our God together. If you would open
your Bibles with me to Exodus chapter 32. Exodus 32, this is the day after the Lord has come
down from the mountain and saw the children of Israel worshiping
the golden calf. And my title is the question
that Moses asked in verse 26. And Moses stood in the gate of
the camp and said, who is on the Lord's side? And that's the
title of the message tonight, who is on the Lord's side? My
title made me think of a statement one of my heroes made a long,
long time ago. It is reported that during the
Civil War, someone asked President Lincoln if God was on his side.
And the president wisely replied, sir, my concern is not whether
God is on our side. My greatest concern is to be
on God's side, for God is always right. And I agree strongly with
President Lincoln. I want to know, am I on God's
side? I want you to know by the time
you leave here tonight if you're on God's side. Because this question
that Moses asked when he came down from the mountain, we'll
see this in a moment, was a very serious question, had very serious
consequences. We'll see it's a matter of life
or death that day. And the consequences are just
as important this evening. Who is on the Lord's side? I'll
show you how important this is from a couple of scriptures.
Matthew 12, verse 30, the Lord said, he that is not with me
is against me. If I'm not on the Lord's side,
I'm against God Almighty, and that's never gonna prosper, is
it? Romans 8, verse 31, Paul said, if God be for us, who can
be against us? Isn't that a comforting verse
for God's people If God be for me, nobody can be against me. But you know, the opposite of
that is also true. If God be against us, who can
be for us? No one. No one. There's no one
to help. If you hold your place there,
look over the book of Joshua. Joshua chapter 24. Here's Joshua speaking to the
whole nation, Joshua 24, verse 14. He says, now therefore fear
the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the
gods which your father served on the other side of the flood
and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto
you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve. whether the gods which your father
served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods
of the Amorites and whose lands you dwell. But as for me and
my house, we will serve the Lord. Now Joshua knew whose side he
was on, didn't he? Joshua knew he was on the Lord's
side. I want to be that confident.
I want you to be that confident. How can I tell if I'm on the
Lord's side or not? From our text, I wanna give you
three marks of those who are on the Lord's side, and then
I wanna leave you with a word of comfort and assurance. Number
one is this. If you're on the Lord's side,
you know what it is to be naked. Verse 25 of Exodus chapter 32.
And when Moses saw that the people were naked, for Aaron had made
them naked under their shame among their enemies. Aaron had
made the people take off their clothes and expose their nakedness
after this matter of making the golden calf and worshipping it.
Now this is just a story we read. But this really happened to real
people. Can you imagine how embarrassing
that was? I mean, they were naked in front
of their friends and their family, their neighbors. If any of their
enemies happened to be around looking down at the camp, they
were naked in front of their enemies. I mean, it would just
be humiliating, wouldn't it? Well, now try to imagine how
humiliating it would be to appear before God naked, to appear before
God in your sin without a righteousness. If you and I appear before God
in judgment, in our nakedness, without a perfect righteousness,
if there's any spot at all in our righteousness, we will be
damned. That's how serious this matter
is. You know nobody wants to be naked in public. We all try
to cover ourselves, don't we? And the same thing is true spiritually.
Nobody wants to be spiritually naked. Everybody wants to have,
they know they need, and they want to have some sort of righteous
covering before God. We know we need one, and we know
we don't have one. God's put that in the conscience
of every man. So what do we do? We try to make our own, don't
we? We try to make our own righteous covering by doing some good works,
obeying some of God's law. We know we can't obey it all,
but we try to pick out some key ones. It's always funny to me,
those ones that we think are key, those are the ones I think
I can keep. We pick out some of those, we
try to keep God's law. We try to appear better than
our friends and neighbors. And all we can produce are rags. Filthy rags, rags that are defiled
with sin. We cannot, it's impossible for
us by our sinful actions to produce a clean spotless robe of righteousness. So here's what the Lord does
for his people. First thing he does is he shows us our sin. He shows us that we're naked. He exposes our shame before him. Now, if you're on the Lord's
side, the Lord has made you to feel the shame of your sin, and
He's made you to feel your need of Christ. That's what made you
come to Christ in the first place, wasn't it? The Lord showed you
your need. He showed you your shame, so
that you'd come to Christ, the Savior of sinners. And here we
are by nature, just frantically working, trying to weave our
own robe of righteousness, trying and failing. And what does the
Lord say to his people? Come unto me. I'll give you rest. Come to me, the Lord says. And
you can quit trying in vain to weave you a robe of righteousness.
Come to me and rest from all your works. I'll give you my
righteousness. I'll cover you in my righteousness. I'll hide you in me. So you'll
have no shame. And you come running. Why do
you come running to the Lord? Because of your need of Christ. But the Lord had to first show
you your need, didn't He? And everybody who's on the Lord's
side comes to Christ because we need Him. Do you need Christ? That's the first mark of those
who are on the Lord's side. I need Him. I need Him to be
everything for me. I don't need Him to do the part
that I can't do. I can do some and He'll pick up the slack.
I need Him to do it all. I need Him to be everything for
me. That's the mark of those on the
Lord's side. Part number two, if you're on the Lord's side,
you need Christ to be your great high priest. Look at verse 26. And Moses stood at the gate of
the camp and said, who's on the Lord's side? Let him come unto
me. And all the sons of Levi gathered
themselves together unto him. Now Moses said, who's on the
Lord's side? Moses drew a line of saints. Who's on the Lord's
side? Across this line stand by me. The people who came and
stood by Moses were the Levites. The Levites are the priestly
tribe. The high priest was always a member of the tribe of Levi.
And the function of the high priest is to offer sacrifices. God can only be worshipped through
a blood sacrifice. That is the only way God can
be worshipped. It's still true today. The only way God can be
worshipped is through a blood sacrifice. Now at that time,
it was the job of the priest to offer animal sacrifices, because
this is the way God gave his people to worship him, worshipping
him with a picture, a picture of Christ sacrificed for us.
Those priests offered animal sacrifices as pictures of Christ.
That's how God was worshipped. And it's the only way God could
be worshipped. All those other different ites that lived around
the children of Israel, They all had their gods, they all
had their modes of worship, but none of them were worshiping
God. This is the only way God could be worshiped, through a
blood sacrifice, and he only gave the priesthood to Israel.
Now at that time, the Lord required animal sacrifices and animal
blood. Those animal sacrifices, this
is how God was worshipped, but they were only pictures. Those
sacrifices never put away sin. They never cleansed the conscience.
They were just pictures of Christ who would come to be the lamb
slain for the sacrifice of the sin of his people. And here's
the big difference between animal sacrifices and Christ. Those
animal sacrifices had to be offered over and over and over and over
again. Because a lot of bulls and goats
can never take away sin. Matter of fact, the way they
worshipped God at that time, not only did that not put away
any sin, it reminded people every year, my sin still hasn't been
put away. Every year on the Day of Atonement,
the high priest had to go through a whole ceremony, offering all
those sacrifices, going into the Holy of Holies and sprinkling
the blood with his finger upon the mercy seat. And when next
year came around, he had to do the same thing all over again.
You know why? Last year's ceremony didn't put a waist in. It's just
a ceremony. It's just a picture. But when
Christ came, He offered one sacrifice, once for all, once for all. He offered one sacrifice for
sins forever, and after he did that, you know what he did? He
sat down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty on
high. You know why he sat down? The job's done. He went tired
and needed a break. The job was done. The one sacrifice
of Christ, when he offered himself as a sacrifice for sin, for the
sin of his people, was all it took to put away the sin of his
people and satisfy the Father's justice. For by one offering,
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Now today,
we don't have a man offering animal sacrifices. We don't have
an altar offering these animal sacrifices and things. Christ
has come. He's already been sacrificed
for sin. But you know, we do still need sacrifice. We need
a sacrifice that will atone for sin. And what we need is the
blood of Christ. We need the atonement of Christ. If you look over at verse 30,
It came to pass on the morrow that Moses said unto the people,
you sinned a great sin, and now I'll go up to the Lord, perventure,
I shall make an atonement for your sin. This is what everybody
knew, there must be an atonement for sin. And the atonement is
in blood. It can only be in blood. And
that's pictured beginning in verse 27. These Levites came
and gathered themselves unto Moses. He said unto them, Thus
saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his
side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp,
and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion,
and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did
according to the word of Moses. And there fell to the people
that day about three thousand men. From Moses it said, consecrate
yourselves today to the Lord, even every man upon his son,
upon his brother, that he may bestow upon you a blessing this
day. Now doesn't that sound brutal? Just so brutal? If God's gonna
bestow a blessing on you this day, the priest had to go kill
their own family members, their own friends, their own brothers,
their own cousins. You have people in all these
different tribes, that's their cousins. They all come from Jacob. I tell
you what that is, as brutal as that sounds, I tell you what
this is. It's a picture of the sword of God's justice. When the son was made sin for
his people, the father is the one who unsheathed his sword,
and the father plunged the sword of justice into the heart of
his own son. The father's holy. When the son
was made sin, the father slaughtered his son. Oh, I know the Jews
and the Romans, what they did to his body, but the sacrifice
was what was going on in his heart. He made his soul an offering
for sin. The father slaughtered his son,
and that bloody death of Christ made full atonement for all of
the sin of all God's elect. Now this is what I know I need.
I need the blood of Christ to pay for my sin. So I don't have
that shame of my sin before God anymore. And the only way that
shame can be taken away is the blood of Christ. I need the blood
of Christ to pay my sin debt. And if Christ died for me, I
have no shame. because Christ took away what
causes my shame. He took away my sin by His precious
blood. If Christ shed His blood for
me, I have no shame before God. And I need to be clothed. I need
my sin to be paid for, and I need to be clothed in Christ's righteousness
so I don't stand naked before God's throne. Well, Christ made
an atonement for me. He made a propitiation. He made
a covering for my sin. So I'm not naked anymore. You
know that show, I see it, the show Naked and Afraid. Well,
that's what we'd be if we appeared before God like we are, naked
and afraid. Not in Christ, you're not. You
have no reason to fear. You have no reason to fear if
you're covered in the blood of Christ, clothed in His righteousness. Now remember, the Old Testament
is given to us not as interesting stories, Bible stories for children
or something, or maybe stories like Aesop's Fables or some sort
of moral to it. These things are all pictures
of Christ. And Christ our great high priest is so much better
than the Levites. Christ is better than the sacrifices
that the Levites offered, and he's a better priest than the
Levites were. Those Levites, they had to go
get an animal. They had to get a lamb or they
had to get a bull or a goat. Maybe they had to get a turtle
dove. You know, if you're real poor, you can't afford a goat or a
sheep or something, you bring two turtle doves. And the Levite
had to go get those animals, and he had to offer that animal
sacrifice. He had to kill the animal, he
had to shed its blood, knowing that animal's blood, that sacrifice
that he was performing could never take away sin. The best
thing that high priest could ever do would be a picture of
Christ, but his work would never take away any sin. Christ our
great high priest, he's the high priest who offered the sacrifice,
and the sacrifice is himself. He didn't go get an animal. He
didn't go get another man. He didn't go get somebody else.
When it came time to put away the sin of his people, Christ
offered himself as a sacrifice for sin. He's the priest who
offers a sacrifice. He's the sacrifice that was offered,
and he's the altar upon which the sacrifice was offered. He's
so much better. Look over to Hebrews chapter
nine. I'm gonna say, what happened when Christ offered himself as
a sacrifice for the sin of his people? Hebrews chapter nine, verse 22. And almost all things are by
the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is
no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of
things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the
heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands
which are figures of the truth, but into heaven itself now to
appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he shall
offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy
place every year with the blood of others. For then must he often
have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now, once,
in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by
the sacrifice of himself. When the Lord Jesus Christ offered
himself as a sacrifice for sin, all of the sin of all of his
people was put away forever. If I'm on the Lord's side, the
only hope that I have and the only hope that I want is Christ
shed His blood to put my sin away. Is that your only hope? Is that your only hope is to
stand before the Father accepted? If so, you're on the Lord's side.
Now thirdly, if you're on the Lord's side, you've come to Christ
And there's a public confession of being identified with Christ.
Look back in our text, Exodus 32, verse 26. Moses stood in
the gate of the camp and said, who's on the Lord's side? Let
him come unto me, and all the sons of Levi gathered themselves
together unto him. Now Moses said, who's on the
Lord's side? It was the Levites. They stepped away from everybody
else, and they stood behind Moses. That's a public confession. They're
letting everybody know, this is where I stand. This is what
I believe. Now the only reason you and I
can say, truthfully, that we're on the Lord's side, is the Lord
has saved us by His grace. That's the only way we can be
on the Lord's side. This is not a decision we made. This is something
the Lord's done for us. And if the Lord saved you, sooner
or later, you'll confess him publicly. You'll meet some preacher
begging you to come make a public confession, begging you to be
baptized. Sooner or later, you're gonna confess Christ because
you can't help it. You just can't help it. It's
the nature that God's given you when he saved you. If you're
on the Lord's side, you've been saved by God's grace. You've
been saved by the death of Christ, the death, burial, resurrection
of Christ. You will confess the Lord in believers' baptism. You
will. The Lord's commandment to his
people is to confess him in believers' baptism. Well, if you're on the
Lord's side, you'll be obedient. You're confessing in believers'
baptism. And listen, it's not gonna be
a thing somebody twists your arm and gets you to do it, or
begs you to do it, or put a guilt trip on you to do it. You'll
want to confess Christ publicly. You'll want to. And more than
likely, after that, you'll say, I wish I'd done that. I wish
I'd done that a long time ago. I mean, I said that, I get to
hear many people I've heard say that. I wish I'd done that so
long. You did it when the Lord brought you to it. But you know,
there is not a more beautiful way to confess salvation than
believers baptism. It's just a special, special
time. Believer's baptism is a public
confession. The only way I could be saved.
I am so sinful. I am so vile. I am such a hopeless
case. The only way I could be saved.
is by the death, the burial, and the resurrection of the Son
of God in human flesh. That's what it takes to save
me. And isn't that so beautiful? I mean, it's simple, isn't it?
It's so simple, there's no big ceremony to it, it's so simple,
but it's so beautiful. If the Lord has saved you, you'll
want to confess the Lord that way. But you know what? A believer
doesn't just get to confess the Lord one time. You can't say,
oh, I wish I could be baptized again. So I have an opportunity
to confess the Lord. Oh, yeah, yes you do. We don't
just identify with Christ once. You know, we also confess our
need of Christ publicly every time we gather together and attend
the public worship service. Every Tuesday night, the eye
come appear in the anvil, you all are here. You know what that
tells me? You need Christ. You need to
hear of Him. You need His gospel. You need
to feed on His gospel. That's a public confession of
Christ. I need Him. I need Him. If the Lord has saved
me by His grace, I need to hear of Him, and I need to hear from
Him, from Him. And you know the way I hear from
God? It's by hearing public preaching in public worship services. That's
how God speaks to His people. Then, if I'm on the Lord's side,
I also need to meet together publicly and worship the Lord
with other people that the Lord saved by His grace. If I'm on
the Lord's side, I love the Lord, and I need to worship Him, and
I need to worship Him with other people that love Him, too. This world we live in hates our
God. I was talking with a young woman
recently who had been with some extended family, and it's something
she already knew, but yet seeing it firsthand just utterly broke
her heart. People that I love hate my God. It just broke her heart. The
world we live in hates our God. Our Savior said, don't be surprised
when the Lord adjudicates me first. I need to worship together publicly
with other people who love the Lord, with other people who depend
on His grace and love Him. That's confessing Christ. Then I also confess Christ by
the way I live my life. Y'all want to live honestly in
the world. Y'all want to live a life of
faith in Christ, not trusting no words. And I want to live
a life of grace. And by living a life of grace,
this is what I mean. If I truly believe God has saved
me by His grace, He chose me by His grace, Christ died for
me by His grace, Christ called me by His grace, He gave me faith
because He's given His grace to me, He keeps me by His grace,
if I really believe that, then I'm gonna be a gracious person.
I'm not gonna be so judgmental. I'm gonna be, but I'm gonna try
not to be so judgmental about unbelievers who still hate God
and love their false religion. Because this is what I know.
They need grace just like I do. And you know, nobody should be
able to understand an unbeliever like a believer. I used to be
one. And I would still be one if it
wasn't for God's grace. You know, just being a, giving
people a break, being kind and tenderhearted and gracious, that's
confessing Christ, isn't it? Because that doesn't come naturally
from this world. You're not being taught that
in the world. And the believer also makes a public confession
of Christ by their commitment to Christ, commitment to Him. I'll tell you what a commitment
to Christ is. It's a refusal to believe on anything other
than Christ. My flesh tries to get me to believe
on something other than Christ every day. Commitment to Christ
is refusing to trust anything other than Christ alone. Now,
if the Lord has saved you, those three things are true of you.
The Lord's taught you something of your sin, and you see your
need of Christ. You know you need Him. If you're
on the Lord's side, God saved you. The only hope of eternal
life you have is Christ made an atonement for your sin. He
died at your place as your substitute. You've come to Christ. and you're
committed to the end. You're committed to trusting
Christ, not your worst. You're committed to his gospel.
You're committed to his cause. You identify with Christ and
with his people, and you are fully satisfied in trusting Christ
alone. In verse 29, when Moses said,
consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, that word consecrate
means to be full and to be satisfied. If you're on the Lord's side,
you're full, aren't you? You're full of Christ. He's all
you need. So you don't want any other hope
other than Christ's own. You're fully satisfied. If you're
on the Lord's side, Christ has been made to you everything you
need. He's your wisdom, your righteousness,
your sanctification, your redemption. He's your prophet, he's your
priest, he's your king, and you're completely satisfied with trusting
him alone. Now, the three true statements. But if I end this message right
now, I'm going to send us home with some doubts. If I end the
message now, I'm going to go home doubting, because I feel
the shame of my sin, but not like I should. If I end the message
now, I'm going to doubt, because I do. I do trust Christ. I do. But I don't trust Him, and I
don't trust His sacrifice as much as I should. If I did, I'd
never struggle with wanting to trust my own words. If I really
trusted Christ as much as I should, I'd never one time think, you
know, God's gonna be happy with me if I do this. I wouldn't struggle
with that. I have confessed Christ. But
I haven't confessed him like I should. I'm committed to him,
I'm just, I'm committed to him. not like I should be. And when
I think about that, that's gonna make me doubt. Well, here's a
word of comfort and assurance I'm gonna leave you with this
evening. Here's my word of comfort to
you. Look to Christ. Looking to Christ will cure whatever
ails you. Looking to Christ, that's the
cure for our sin sick souls. Look and live. Look to Him. Look to Him. Salvation's in Christ.
Now look to Him. Looking to Christ is the cure
for all my doubts and all my fears. I'm telling you, it's
easy for me to warp myself up into a lather, fearing what is
going to happen with this generation. But you know, I'm not afraid
of anything if I'm looking to Christ and I'm depending upon
Him. I'm full of doubt, but I start
looking at myself and what I can do. I ought to fear upon looking
at what I can do, depending upon what I can do. But if I'm looking
at Christ, nothing to fear. The cure for every fear. If I'm on the Lord's side, like
I said to you, I feel my shame is seen, but not like I should.
That's what makes me run to Christ. Now, I'm not as ashamed of it
as I ought to be. If I was, I wouldn't sin as much as I do. Well, here's
the believer's comfort and assurance of salvation. It's look to Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ, he took
the nakedness. He took the shame of the sin
of his people so that he could clothe them with his righteousness. And he did it very publicly. He hung on a cross between heaven
and earth naked. physically naked in front of
men and spiritually naked without a righteousness before his father
because he was made sin for his people. And I assure you of this,
the holy son of God felt the full shame of that sin. Now he never committed any sin,
but he became guilty of it and he felt the shame of it. That's
why he said, I'm not able to look up. But you know what? He's not ashamed anymore, is
he? He's sitting on the right hand of the majesty, he's not
ashamed anymore. Do you know why he's not ashamed
anymore? His blood put away all of that
sin that caused that shame, and it's gone. It's gone. If Christ died for me, I do not
stand before God ashamed. Because salvation, is not in
the strength of my faith. Salvation is in the power of
the blood of Christ to put my sin away. Now, if I'm trusting
his precious blood, his perfect, precious person, his precious
blood, I will have no doubts and no fears. Now that makes
me want to run to him, doesn't it? If I'm on the Lord's side, I
need Christ to be my great high priest. I need him to offer the
sacrifice that will atone for my sin, and I do trust him to
get the job done. I trust him. But not nearly as fully as I
should. If you find yourself in that
situation, here is a word of comfort. It's not the strength
of faith that saves. It's the object of our faith
that saves. When the Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed
himself for my sin, he got the job done. That's what the word
of God says, then it's so. Now, there's no excuse for weak
faith. You understand that. I'm not
condoning weak faith in any stretch of the imagination. I hate that
in myself as much as I hate anything. But if the Lord has saved me,
If my salvation is in Christ now, I'm just as saved when my
faith is weak as I am when it's strong. Because salvation is
not in the strength of my faith. It's not dependent upon me in
any way. Salvation is completely in Christ. All of the responsibility
is on Him. And He got the job that He cannot
fail. That makes me wanna run to Him,
don't you? And then if I'm on the Lord's side, I've confessed
Him. I have, and I'm committed to Him. But not nearly as much
as I should be. Well, when that's true, here's
the assurance of our salvation. I haven't confessed Christ perfectly.
Not nearly like I should have. But He's confessed me perfectly.
Look at Hebrews chapter two. Yeah, we might find ourselves
like Peter and find ourselves ashamed of Christ. Now, you know
Peter trusted Christ. He knew who he was, he trusted
him, yet Peter found himself ashamed. But the Savior will
never be ashamed of his people and cast them out. Hebrews 2,
verse 10. For it became him for whom are
all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons
unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one. For which cause he
is not ashamed to call them brethren. You consider the person of Christ
our Savior. There's never reason for us to
be ashamed of him, is there? Look at yourself for two seconds
and you'll find a million and one reasons for Christ to be
ashamed of you. He says here, he's not ashamed to call them
brethren. I'll tell you, that makes me
want to confess him more perfectly. Makes me want to cling to him
more perfectly. And we may find ourselves not
as committed to Christ Not as committed to his cause as we
should. But here's our comfort. Our Savior
is always perfectly committed to his people. Look at Hebrews
chapter 13. Hebrews 13, verse five. Let your conversation, your conduct,
be without covetousness. And be content with such things
as you have. Whatever you have that God's given you, be content
with what God's given you. For he has said, I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, the
Lord is my helper. I will not fear what man shall
do unto me. The Savior says, don't fear. I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. Christ's commitment to me, that
makes me want to be more committed to him, doesn't it? His promise,
I will never leave you nor forsake you. Doesn't that comfort your
heart? Doesn't it give you assurance
and peace of heart? That makes me want to run to
him all over again. I told this story before, but I'll tell it
again in closing. Shelby, you'll understand this.
Driving home from services, I'll be real quiet. And we'll be driving
down the road. Jan said, what you thinking?
I said, well, I'm thinking. I sure hope somebody
came to Christ today." Because that message. And invariably
she tells me somebody did. She said, I did. I don't care
whether you've... Peter said, to whom coming. That
makes me want to come to him again and again and again and
again. And every time God's people come
to him, He says, come on in. But every
time. All right. That's a word of peace
and comfort and assurance, isn't it? All right. I'm going to bless
that to you. I appreciate you all having me. Appreciate your
attention.