Exodus chapter 34. Exodus chapter
34. Verse 19. The Lord God says, that openeth the matrix is mine. And every firstling among thy
cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male, but the firstling
of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou redeem him
not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy
sons thou shalt redeem, and none shall appear before me empty. None shall appear before me without
a sacrifice. All belong to me. And the ass,
the first thing of the ass, must be redeemed. But if you refuse
to redeem him, break his neck. Throughout the Mosaic dispensation,
every day in the nation of Israel began with the sacrifice of a
lamb, a morning sacrifice by which men and women came to God
and God met with his people. Every evening concluded the same
way, with a lamb. sacrificed at the door of God's
tabernacle by which many women came to God and God met with
his people. The lamb sacrificed was given
to the children of Israel as a token, a token both to the
one who brought the sacrifice and to the one who offered the
sacrifice, the priest in Israel. It was a token of the certain
thing God had promised from the beginning, the accomplishment
of redemption by Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who was slain
for our sins before the world began. All that's in the Old
Testament law, all the ceremonies, all the rituals, all the priesthood,
all the sacrifices, all the laws, all the commandments, all the
holy days, the tabernacle, the temple, all the furnishings of
the tabernacle and temple, all the priest, the high priest and
his garments, and the priest who served with him and their
garments. Everything in the law was given
by God to be a type, a picture, a shadow of that which was to
come. Turn over the book of Hebrews.
Hold your hands here in Exodus and look at Hebrews chapter 10.
Hebrews the 10th chapter. Very familiar text of scripture,
but one that needs to be clearly understood and remembered always
as we read the word of God. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1.
I recall years ago, someone said to Brother Charlie Payne, said,
I don't understand the book of Exodus, the book of Leviticus.
How can you possibly understand those books and all those laws
and ceremonies? Charlie said, read the book of
Hebrews. That's the explanation. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1.
You want to know what the law means, what the ceremonies were,
what the sacrifices implied. The law having a shadow of good
things to come. The law All the law was a shadow
of good things to come and not the very image of the things.
The shadow doesn't have any power. The shadow can't do anything. The shadow accomplishes nothing.
It's not the very image of those things and can never with those
sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make
the comers there unto perfect. The law could not accomplish
anything. Those morning and evening sacrifices
could not accomplish anything, but they pictured something.
that pictured redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ our Lord, by
which the Lord God says, this is where you can meet me, and
this is where I'll meet you. God meets sinners only in the
crucified Lamb of God, Christ, our Passover sacrifice for us. And sinners come to God only
by Christ Jesus, the crucified Lamb of God, Christ, our Passover,
sacrificed for us. You cannot come to God, and God
will not receive you any other way. You cannot come to God by
your merit, by your works, by your worth. You cannot come to
God by religious ceremonies and rituals. You cannot come to God
by coming to the front of a church or coming to the church house.
You cannot come to God by coming to a preacher or coming to a
priest. You cannot come to God by coming
to Mary or coming to Don. You can't come to God except
by Christ the Lord. God won't come to you any other
way God will not speak nor will he be spoken to by any man apart
from Jesus Christ the sinners substitute the Lord God speaks
plainly and tells us this is how He will dwell with his people
and how he will sanctify his people turn back to Exodus chapter
29 Exodus 29 verse 38 This is how God shows his glory
and sanctifies us by his glory. Exodus 29 verse 38. Now this
is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar. Two lambs of
the first year, day by day continually. The one lamb thou shalt offer
in the morning and the other lamb thou shalt offer at evening.
And with the one lamb, a tenth deal of flour mingled with the
fourth part of an hen of beaten oil, and the fourth part of an
hen of wine for a drink offering, verse 41. And the other lamb
thou shalt offer it even, and shalt do thereto according to
the meat offering of the morning, and according to the drink offering
thereof for a sweet savor, an offering made by fire unto the
Lord. This shall be a continual burnt
offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation before the Lord, where I will meet you and
speak there unto thee." Right here at the place of sacrifice,
I'll meet you. Right here at the place of sacrifice,
I'll speak to you. Verse 43, there will I meet with
the children of Israel, And the tabernacle shall be sanctified
by my glory. And I will sanctify the tabernacle
of the congregation and the altar. I will sanctify also both Aaron
and his sons to minister to me in the priest office. And I will
dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God, verse
46. And they shall know that I am
the Lord their God that brought them forth out of the land of
Egypt that I may dwell among them, I and the Lord their God. Now, don't miss this. According
to the typical revelation of the law given here in Exodus
29, sanctification was by the sacrifice of a lamb. And in verse
30, 43, we're told that God's glory is in the sacrifice of
a lamb. Does that ceremonial law, do
these morning and evening sacrifices mean that we should understand
that God's people are sanctified, made holy, saved all together
by Christ the Lamb of God? Does that mean that God's glory
is revealed made known and maintained only by Christ, the Lamb of God. That's exactly what it means.
Salvation is in the Lamb. God's glory is in the Lamb. And by the sacrifice of Christ
alone, men and women come to know God. By the sacrifice of
Christ alone in the experience of salvation, sinners come to
know the glory of God. Martin Luther referred to the
fall of Adam in the garden as a blessed fall. And Luther was
right. Had Adam never fallen in the
garden, we could never have known the glory of God in redemption. Brother Carol Poole told me the
other night he brought a message, a very good message on speechless
before the Lord. And he got done preaching with
chatting a little while outside the motel. He said, Brother Caldwell
used to say that we fell up. And that's a good way to put
it. We didn't fall to fall into hell. Oh, no. God's elect fell
with all being in Adam. But we fell up that we, by the
experience of the fall, might know the glory of God in the
saving of our souls. And this is all in the Lamb of
our God. Now, with that as the background,
let's look at our text, Exodus 34, 19 and 20. The title of my
message is, A Lamb for an Ass. A Lamb for an Ass. The Lord God
declared, sanctify unto me all the firstborn. Whatsoever openeth
the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast,
it is mine. God says, give me all the firstborn. I claim the firstborn as mine
of all men and of all beast. But what about the unclean? What
about the unclean? God says the firstborn of every
man and the firstborn of every beast is mine. It's mine. But God gave a strict prohibition. You were not allowed to bring
the unclean to God and sacrifice it on God's altar. That was strictly
forbidden in the law. In fact, the way the Jews altar
was marked in the days of their great persecution was the slaughter
of a hog and spreading swine's blood upon God's altar. The unclean
was a mockery of God's worship. God said the first fruits are
the first born. That's mine of every man and
of every animal. But he said the unclean, you
can't bring that to me. You can't bring that to me. Well,
how then can the firstborn of the unclean be brought to God,
offered to God, and accepted by God? How can the unclean be
brought to God, sacrificed to God, and accepted by God? God gives us the answer. Look
here at Exodus 34 verse 19. All that openeth the matrix is
mine. and every firstling among thy
cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. But the firstling
of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou redeem him
not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy
sons thou shalt redeem, and none shall appear before me empty. Let me show you four things from
these two verses of scripture, four things taught throughout
the scripture, but set before us plainly here in these two
verses. Number one, the ass being an
unclean thing could never be accepted by God. The ass being an unclean thing
could never be accepted by God. And fallen man, let's talk about
you and me. Fallen man being unclean can
never be accepted by God. The ass, according to God's law,
was unclean. In fact, according to the law,
any animal was considered unclean. that did not divide the hoof
and chew the cud. By that standard, the ceremonial
law, every man is unclean. But the Lord God sacrificed a
lamb, his own darling son, the Lord Jesus, for chosen sinners
and makes the unclean altogether clean. Oh, wondrous, wondrous
grace. Being redeemed by the precious
blood of Christ, we who are the sheep of God, the lambs of Christ's
flock, are made fit, far above all principalities and powers,
made to sit down in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Lost
and ruined by the fall. Utterly unclean we are by nature
without we are made in Christ Jesus to be without spot Without
blemish and completely clean through the blood of God's dear
son. I Just had to tell you that first, but let me get to this
point like the unclean ass Fallen man is incapable of acceptance
with God Listen to this. We are all as an unclean thing. And all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags before God. All our righteousnesses are filthy
rags before God. We're unclean. The plowing of
the wicked is an abomination to God. Everything the wicked
man does because he does it is an abomination to God. It is
that performed by a heart at enmity against God. It is that
performed by a man whose heart loathes and hates God and God
will not receive it. So that the unclean, everything
they touch, everything they do is unclean. You can't obey God's
law. You can't do it. Your heart's
corrupt. You can't obey God's law. Now people talk about living
by the law and people marching the streets in protest because
they want the Ten Commandments on the school room walls and
all those things so they can pretend to be good. But let me
tell you something, Bill Raleigh, you violate every commandment
of God every second you live. And you too. There are not any
of us who are capable of keeping God's law. Not any of us capable
of keeping God's law. Well, we do the best we can.
And you do the best you can to think you're good. You do the best you can and think
God's going to smother that? God doesn't require the best
you can do. He requires perfection. We can't
do anything in obedience to God's law. We can't do good. We can't therefore justify ourselves. We can't make ourselves clean.
But look at the image of our text. A man might take his jackass
and give it a good bath and make it smell good. But it's a jackass
still. He might separate his ass from
all the other animals of the earth and put it in a field all
by itself, but it's still an ass. He might take his jackass
and put it in a field full of sheep, so that that's the only
jackass in the whole field. Everybody else in that field's
sheep. But that jackass is still a jackass. You can't make him
clean by changing his company or changing his outward appearance. You might even, by some torturous
means, take the jackass and split his four hooves so that he has
a cloven hoof, and like the unclean, he now has the cloven hoof, but
he's still a jackass. All you've done is tortured the
animal. So it is with you and me. Man does much to make himself
appear clean, especially in his own eyes. Now it's important
to all of us that we appear clean to others, but we do much to
try to make ourselves appear clean in our own eyes, but it
can't be done. The only way the unclean ass
could be made clean and acceptable with God, the only way it could
ever be sanctified to the Lord, a lamb had to be slain in its
stead. So it is with fallen man. The
only way sinners can be clean with God is through the precious
blood of God's darling son. Do you understand that? You can't
be clean before God any other way, only by the sacrifice of
Christ, God's holy lamb. Salvation doesn't come any other
way. Now, men have been trying since Adam sowed fig leaves to
cover his nakedness in the garden. Men have been trying in every
age, in every place, in every generation to do something to
supplement God's work. People go to a priest. Some of you folks raise papers.
You go to a priest and you rub your rosary beads. And you've
been taught from infancy that's going to make it better. But
you know it doesn't. You're still tormented with guilt.
So others raised in badness churches like you were here and badness
churches most everywhere got altars in the front used to it
I don't want the guy anymore, but I've been in those places
a long time but you come to church and and you get feeling bad and
you go make a confession of faith and Somebody's well now now you're
now you're forgiven and they send you home telling you said
and you may as well rub your rosary beads it hadn't helped
a bit had nothing bit and after that you fall away and you want
to rededicate up so you come forward again and kneel at the
same altar again and rub your rosary beads some more, repeat
the same prayer and you, now everything's all right, and you
go home and you lay down at night and anticipate hell and you realize
nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. You see, your
fig leaves will never make you clean! And they'll never hide
you from God's eye of strict justice. It won't happen. All
right, first thing. The ass was unclean, and you
and I are unclean. Second, the Lord God would not
receive the ass. He refused to accept the ass
because it was unclean. Yet he would not relinquish his
claim upon the ass. Look what it says. All that openeth
the matrix is mine. It is mine. It belongs to me. Only to me. It's mine. Everything that comes
out of the room first, that's mine. You can't have it. You can't use it. It's mine. Only mine. Only mine. Sanctify
unto me all the firstborn. God claimed all the firstborn
of man and beast, clean and unclean, and it's a claim that he refused
to relinquish. Now you listen to me. I'm telling
you what this book teaches from beginning to end. You belong
to God. You belong to God. Rebel all you
will. Fuss all you will. Dislike it
all you will. Rebel against everything you
will, all you will. You still belong to God. The potter owns the clay, and
he can do with it what he will. The sinner can't be accepted
by God. The sinner can't serve God. But
God still holds his claim on the center, and he will not relinquish
the claim. Sanctify yourselves, therefore,
God says, and be ye holy, for I am holy. The Apostle Peter
quotes from that passage of Scripture and says, as he which hath called
you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because
it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy. Now people tell us
all the time, God will not require of a man something he can't do. Man can't be held responsible
for what he can't do. But that simply isn't true. As
the Lord God commanded Abraham, so he commands Don Ranieri. So
he commands Don Fortner. And so he commands you. Walk
before me and be perfect. It must be perfect to be accepted. Now being accepted and being
his is two different things. You belong to God, but he will
never accept you, except you be perfect before him. Your inability
to pay your debt doesn't remove your debt. Your inability to
obey God's law doesn't relieve you of the responsibility to
obey God's law. And I hasten to add this. Your
inability to trust Christ as your Savior and Lord doesn't
relieve you of the responsibility of doing so. God commandeth all
men everywhere to repent. That means, son, God commands
you to believe on his side. God commands you to believe. He that believeth not the Son
of God has made God a liar. Unbelief is not a matter of indifference. Unbelief is not something to
be looked at and say, well, that's just too bad he can't help himself. He doesn't believe. We understand. We understand faith is the gift
of God. And no man can believe God except
God work faith in him. But unbelief is the doing of
rebels and their deliberate doing, refusing to bow to God Almighty. Let's see if that's not how the
book presents it. Proverbs chapter one. Proverbs chapter one. Unbelief is not man's misfortune,
it's his sin. Therefore it is written, he that
believeth not shall be damned. He that persists in believing
not, he that continues to say no to God, He who sticks his
fingers in his ears and says, I won't hear God. He who covers
his eyes and says, I will not see. He who turns his back and
says, I will not walk that road. That man, that man is going to
meet with death. And justly so. Proverbs chapter
one, verse 23. Hear God speak. Hear God speak. Turn you at my reproof. Behold,
I will pour out my spirit upon you. What did he say? God said,
if you'll turn to me, I'll pour out my spirit on you. That's
what it sounded like, isn't it? That's what he said. I will make
known my words unto you because I have called and you refused.
I stretched out my hand and no man regarded. I'm preaching the
gospel to you now and we beseech you as God speaking by us. Be reconciled to God. That's
the language of scripture. And as God speaks through his
servant, God speaks to you. And he says, I stretched out
my hand and you refused. You did not regard. Verse twenty
three. But you said it not all my counsel
and would none of my reproof. I've been preaching some of you
all your life. And you come, and you're nice enough to me,
and you hear what God said, and you say, well, we'll set that
over there. Don't let that bother anything.
Don't let that interfere with my life. Don't let that disturb
anything. We'll just set his counsel aside.
God doesn't mean anything. God's word doesn't really mean
anything. Unbelief doesn't really mean anything. I'm good. Everybody
likes me. I'm getting along fine. Read
what it says. Verse 26. Since you've laughed at me, I'll
laugh at you. Since you've been mocking me,
I'll mock you. Since you said no to me, I'll say no to you.
I also will laugh at your calamity. I'll mock when your fear cometh.
When your fear cometh as a desolation and your destruction cometh as
a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you, then
shall they call upon me. But I will not answer. They shall seek me early, but
they shall not find me. For that they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of
my counsel. They despised all my reproof.
Therefore, now watch this. Watch this. If you go to hell,
it'll be your fault. Therefore, if you go to hell,
it'll be by your own hand. Therefore, if you go to hell,
it will be the result of what you choose. Therefore, therefore,
because they set aside all my counsel, they despised all my
reproof. Therefore, shall they eat the
fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices.
For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity
of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me,
whosoever believes God's word, whosoever bows to God's throne,
whosoever trusts God's self, shall be quiet, shall dwell safely,
and be quiet from the fear of evil. The wise man says he that
being often reproved and hardeneth his neck shall be shall suddenly
be destroyed, and that without remedy. The ass couldn't be accepted,
but it still belonged to God. And fallen man cannot be received
as he is, sinful, guilty, and unclean, but God won't relinquish
his claim. He says, redeem the ass, sacrifice
it to me, or break its neck. The Lord Jesus says this, every word that men, every idle
word that men speak, they shall give account thereof in the day
of judgment. The ass not redeemed, take a bat and break his neck. The sinner who will not believe,
take a bat and break his neck forever in hell. If you will
not be sanctified to him, he will condemn you. If you refuse
to trust Christ, he that believeth not is condemned already and
you shall be called a count in the day of judgment. Here's the
third thing. The Lord God met the difficulty by providing a substitute. The
unclean ass could be redeemed by a lamb. The unclean ass was redeemed
by a lamb. The unclean ass was brought to
God and accepted by God by the blood of a lamb. What a sweet
picture of redemption and grace by Christ Jesus. You see, you
and I are like the wild, unclean ass. Job says, vain man would be wise,
though man be born like a wild ass's coat. You and I, by nature,
are like the wild asses, Colt, foolish, senseless, stubborn,
given to every lust and debauchery, wild. That's our nature. As the
ass will not bear the yoke unless it's broken and tamed, so none
will ever bear the yoke of Christ until broken by him and tamed
by his grace. Man by nature is like a wild
ass used to the wilderness that snuffeth up wind at her pleasure. You put the yoke of Christ on
him and he kicks and bites and refuses. We see these pictures
of the donkeys and old men and old women riding them and you
think they're such cute little things and you'd like to have
one for a pet if you just had room. Well, they're not that
way. They're not that way. I haven't
been around them much, but I've been around them enough to know
this. They kick and they bite. They kick and they bite. You
try to get them to do something, if they can't do anything else,
they'll just sit down, stubborn. They kick and they bite and they're
stubborn. And you can do what you want
to. Get them in the house of God,
try to get them to worship God and serve God, and get them to
believe the gospel of God's grace. And they kick, and they bite,
and they sit down. They're stubborn. They're stubborn
until broken and tamed by the Savior, ridden by Him, like He
rode that wild ass's colt into Jerusalem on His inaugural day. I recall years ago when Brother
Bob Lips was alive and lived out here on Airport Road. And
they raised those purebred show horses. They didn't break them
the way you see them do it on television, in the Westerns. They didn't want to break the
spirit. They didn't want to break the spirit. They gentled them.
So that horse is still full of spunk, just full of himself. They gentle the horse. That's
the way they want them. Now, that may be a good way. to train
horses. And it may be a good way to train
men, but that's not how God saves sinners. The Lord Jesus puts
the bit and bridle in you and throws his saddle on you and
rides you down to the ground until it breaks you. And thereby
makes you willing to serve him. But the wild ass must be redeemed. Redeemed by blood and redeemed
by grace redeemed by the precious blood of the lamb and we who
are gods Had been bought with the price of Christ precious
blood the substitute There's an ass unclean Got two choices
you can kill him or redeem him You bring a lamb, a clean, innocent,
spotless, healthy, perfect lamb, and you bring it to the priest,
and the priest slits his throat, and you take the ass, and say,
it's the Lord's. Well, that's what Christ did
for us. God's holy lamb, the innocent, the righteous, the
pure, the perfect, the spotless. Willingly gave His life in our
womb instead and redeemed us to God with His own precious
blood. He died that we might live. He
was cursed that we might never be cursed. He was rejected that
we might be forever accepted. He was despised that we might
be forever approved. He was forsaken, that we might
never be forsaken. That's called substitution. Christ died for us. I remember years ago, Brother
Mahan and I were traveling together, and he told a story. He had met
a family and had dinner with them. We were preaching one time,
and a little girl, a young lady now, spoke so lovingly, so admirably
of her daddy. And Henry got her a load, and
he said to her, I've observed how you talk about your daddy.
Tell me about him. He must have been a special man.
She said, oh, brother of mine, he was. He said, my daddy wouldn't
help him. He said, He knew he couldn't
take any stress, physical stress of any kind. He had a bad heart.
And one day we were at the beach when I was a little girl, I was
five years old. And I got out in the water too far and my daddy
called me and I didn't hear him. And I got out a little further
and he hollered and I didn't hear him. And she said, my daddy
ran and dove in the water and swam to where I was and brought
me to shore and laid down across my legs and dropped dead with
a heart attack. She said, I'm here because my
daddy gave his life for me. I'm here because my savior gave
his life for me. That I might be God's. Accepted in the blood by the
blood of God's darling son in Christ my substitute. Brother
Don Howe, How can I know that Christ died for me? Believe Him. Right where you are, don't say a prayer, don't say
a word, don't move a muscle, don't come to the front, don't
bow your head, don't close your eyes. Right where you are, come
to God by faith in His Son. Come to God believing His Son. if you can, it's because he chose
to redeem you rather than break your neck. It's because he chose
to redeem you by the sacrifice of himself. Now, one last thing. The law declares if thou redeem
him not, then shalt thou break his neck. There's no alternative. Every firstling of an ass must
either be redeemed by a lamb or it must be slain at God's
altar. You must have Christ as your
substitute or justice demands you. You must have Christ bloodshed
for you or justice demands the everlasting letting of your soul's
blood under the wrath of God in hell. Calvary or hell, Christ
or damnation, forever clean or forever unclean, there's no alternative. Believe or be damned. Now, if you believe, if you believe on the Son of
God, You have everlasting life. You have been redeemed by the
sacrifice of God's Lamb. Oh, God help you to believe. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus, to them that believe on the Son
of God, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Well, preacher, not me. That's
good enough for you superstitious folks. That's good enough for
you folks who are weak enough to need a religion and need God
and need a savior. That's good enough for you folks
who are so wicked you think you've got to have something to appease
God and satisfy your own conscience. But not me! Not me. I won't have your God. I won't
have your savior. I won't believe on God's son.
On the judgment day, I'll say amen while God breaks your neck. And so will everybody else, yourself
included. Amen.