Exodus chapter 15. The Lord God has saved his people
Israel after 400 long years of hard, oppressive bondage in the
land of Egypt. He brought his chosen out of
Egypt by his high hand and stretched out arm. He saved Israel out
of Egypt by purpose, by promise, by blood and by power. That's
how God saves sinners. He saves his elect by the sovereign
purpose of his grace from eternity. He saves His elect by His covenant
promise made with Christ, with us in Christ, before the world
began. He saves His elect by blood atonement,
by special redemption, by a sacrifice made specifically for them. And
all those whom He has redeemed, He saves by the power of omnipotent
grace. We read in the last two verses
of the 14th chapter, Exodus 14 and verse 30. Thus the Lord saved
Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Israel
saw the Egyptians dead upon the shore. And Israel saw that great
work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians. And the people
feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses. Now in Exodus 15, Israel is standing
on the glory side of the Red Sea. They're standing on the
Canaan side of the Red Sea. And Moses leads the whole congregation
of Israel in the first song ever recorded anywhere. This is the
first hymn ever to be written out and recorded anywhere. And
Moses is leading a congregation of millions standing on the shore
of the Red Sea. Every time I read this, I try
to picture them. Just imagine a congregation. You know how
good it sounds at conference when this building's packed and
we're singing? Just imagine there's billions standing on the shore
singing. And Moses leads the congregation,
I presume, I just presume, much like the old folks used to lead
singing in days when people couldn't afford hymn books, they would
line out the songs. amazing grace, how sweet the
sound, and the congregation sang, and they'd line up the next line,
and then they'd sing, line up the next line, and Moses lines
out the song, and the whole congregation joins him in singing God's praise. Let's look at it. Exodus 15 verse
1, Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the
Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath
triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath
he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song. He has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare
him in habitation. My Father's God, and I will exalt
him. The Lord is a man of war. The
Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host
hath he cast into the sea. His chosen captains also are
drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them.
They sank into the bottom as a stone. Thy right hand, O Lord,
has become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath
dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine
excellency, thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee.
Thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble.
And with the blast of thy nostrils, the waters were gathered together.
The flood stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed
in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide
the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon
them. I will draw out my sword. My
hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind. The sea covered them. They sank
as lead into the mighty waters. Who is like unto thee, O Lord,
among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchest
out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. Thou, in thy
mercy, hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed. Thou
hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. The
people shall hear and be afraid. Sorrow shall take hold on the
inhabitants of Palestina. Then the dukes of Edom shall
be amazed. The mighty men of Moab trembling
shall take hold upon them. All the inhabitants of Canaan
shall melt away. Fear and dread shall fall upon
them. By the greatness of thine arm,
they shall be as still as a stone, till thy people pass over, O
Lord, till the people pass over which thou hast purchased. Thou
shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine
inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee
to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have
established. The Lord shall reign forever
and ever. For the horse of Pharaoh went
in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea. And
the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them. But the
children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea. Moses had finished leading the
congregation in the song, Miriam and the women of Zion took up
their tambourines and danced as they repeated the chorus.
Look at verse 20 and 21, And Miriam the prophetess, the sister
of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand. And all the women went
out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered
them, sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. Now parts
of this song found throughout the Old Testament Scripture.
Both David and Isaiah use some of the exact words of this song.
Obviously, it is the intent of God that we understand this song
of Moses singing about the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt in a physical
way. intended to give us spiritual
instruction with regard to our God and the wonders of His grace
performed on our behalf. In fact, this is the one song
of which we are told plainly in Revelation 15 that the saints
of God in the New Jerusalem will sing. They will sing the song
of Moses and of the Lamb. It appears to be God's intention
in giving us this song that all creation be made to see that
He is God alone." God's intention in what He did in bringing Israel
out of the Red Sea. God's intention in what He has
done in the saving of our souls. God's intention in everything
He performs for us is to make all men see and acknowledge that
He is God alone. I can't tell you how often I
have repeated portions of this song. in my own experience of
grace worshiping God when he delivered me graciously from
some hellish opposition from the fiend of hell or one of his
messengers. And I have been made to experience
the fact that the Lord God is my God. He is my salvation. He has triumphed gloriously.
The horse and his rider, he has cast into the sea. And as he
has done, so he shall yet do again. I want us to focus our
attention this evening on just one verse in this great song.
Look at verse 11. In this 11th verse, Moses calls
our attention to the fact that in saving his people, the Lord
God sets himself apart from all his creatures and shows himself
to be God alone. God alone doing wonders, wonders
of grace in the earth. Who is like unto thee, O Lord,
among the gods? Brother Lindsay has been stressing
the last several weeks in his studies in Exodus, that God's
judgments upon the Egyptians, the Lord announced over and over
again, were judgments upon their gods. And now their gods have
all been proved to be nothing but figments of man's imagination.
And Moses says, who is likened to thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is likened to thee, glorious
in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Our subject this
evening is the solitariness of God. I want to make seven simple,
plain statements that set before us God's solitariness as God. That is, seven statements that
demonstrate He who is our God, the God of this book, the God
we worship and serve, He alone is God. Now saying that seems,
I'm certain, to be a bit redundant. Everybody would acknowledge that.
I hope that folks who hear this message, you and others who will
hear it, understand when I make the statement that God, as he
set forth in this book, he alone is God, that means that any God
that men conjure up and imagine, that men and women pretend to
worship. Any God that is not as this God is but one of the
many idols that men have made over time. We know that God is
great in wisdom, wondrous in power, and abundant in mercy. But in these degenerate days
of religious perversity, most people know nothing about God's
being. They know nothing about his attributes. They know nothing about his character
as God. They know nothing about that
which sets him apart as God. Now, if you have any question
about that, just ask somebody, anybody, any religious person
you want to. Tell me about God. And listen
to what they say. Just hear what they say. They
will usually tell you exactly what they really think. They'll
usually tell you exactly what they really think. The fact is,
very few people understand that God is infinite, majestic, great
beyond imagination, and glorious. I want to do what I can to inspire
your heart and mine to trust, adore, and reverently worship
the Lord God showing you something about his solitary excellence
as God. I realize the subject is indescribably
too big for me to handle. So I will just simply make these
statements concerning him and show you that it is the solitary
excellence of God that inspires reverence for him. faith in him
and obedience to him. Our God is incomprehensibly great. Isaac Watts put it this way,
can creatures to perfection find the eternal uncreated mind or
can the largest stretch of thought measure and search his nature
out. Tis high as heaven, tis deep as hell, and what can mortals
know or tell? His glory spreads beyond the
sky, and all the shining worlds on high. Well, who is God? Number one, it must be stated
and stated emphatically that there is one God. only one God. Moses says in Deuteronomy 6,
4, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. We worship one
God and give no respect to any other. We worship one God and
bow before no other. We worship one God and acknowledge
no other. There is but one God, the Father
of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things, and we by Him. There is one God and
one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. God
Almighty is solitary in his being as God. There are many angels,
many men, many of all creatures, but God is one. There's just
one God. The Lord God is distinguished
in this. He only hath immortality, dwelling in light, which no man
can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom
be honor and power everlasting. Because God is one, we owe our
allegiance to him. We owe our affections to him. know, worship, and trust Him
are one body in Christ Jesus. We are one in Him who is the
one true and living God. Second, God is eternal. We use that word, Josh, all the
time. and we don't have a clue what it means. Eternal. Eternal. We give various statements
concerning it without beginning or end. That hardly says it. God is eternal. He had no beginning. He has no
end. He says, I am. He's eternal. God never, never, never, learned
anything. Everything with God is present. He says, I am he which is, which
was, and which is to come, the everlasting God. We can't begin
to comprehend anything concerning this. But that which we experience
in time is not time with God. There's no succession with God.
God is eternal. We're not eternal. Matter is
not eternal. God's eternal. In the beginning,
God. There was a time before time
when God lived alone. in his glorious, infinite, eternal
being, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. There was no earth to
be his footstool and need his care. There was no heaven in
which to set his throne. There were no creatures to be
tended over by him. God is the eternal God, incomprehensibly
eternal. He is the great eternal God who
says, I live forever. Thy throne is established of
old. Thou art from everlasting. He's the high and lofty one who
inhabits eternal. That means that God, God who
alone is eternal, he must be the beginning of all things,
the creator of all things. ruler of all things, the sustainer
of all things, the governor of all things, the disposer of all
things. He alone is eternal. Third, our
Lord is in John chapter 4 just been dealing with that Samaritan
woman who for whom the time of mercy and grace had come, and
he came to talk to this harlot. She had had five husbands, and
the fellow she had shacked up with then, they weren't married,
and the master comes to talk to her because the time of mercy
had come for her. And as they began to talk, that
harlot started to argue with the Son of God about religion.
argued about doctrine and theology. And he winds up the conversation
in John chapter four with these words. God is spirit. Our English translation reads
God is a spirit. That's not the way it reads.
God is spirit. God is spirit. And they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. As you
read the Bible, you can't help but to notice that never once
in this book, not even once, is anything physical compared
to God. Not even once. All the types
and pictures of the Old Testament, all those furnishings and all
those men involved in the priesthood and the service of the tabernacle
and the temple, all those things were typical of God's work. Typical
of God's accomplishment of redemption, none of them, none of them represented
God himself. Because nothing physical, nothing
you can see with your eye, nothing you can touch with your hand,
nothing you can hear with your ear can be compared to God. God is spirit. pure, essential,
incomprehensible, infinite Spirit. That means that you shall not
make unto you any graven image or any likeness of God. You're not to have any images
of God, anything to represent God, any crosses or crucifixes
or statues or pictures or stained glass windows or any of the idolatrous
nonsense men use by which they say, well, this helps us to feel
close to God. That's the reason not to have
it. That's the reason not to have it because it is just idolatry. If we would worship God, we must
worship God in spirit and in truth. We are the circumcision.
We're the circumcision who worship God in spirit and in truth. We worship God by his spirit. in the Spirit, by our own spirits,
in our souls, with our hearts, and we worship Him in truth,
with sincerity, according to the word of truth, having no
confidence in the flesh, but trusting Jesus Christ alone as
our God and our Savior. All true worship, then, heart
worship. It's spiritual. It's not sufficient
to come to God on bended knee with a prostrate body or with
words of praise. We must come to God with hearts
of worship. Here's the fourth thing. God
is triune, a triunity. Now I want you to turn to this
text. It's very familiar. I want you to have it burned
into your heart. First John chapter 5. I've said
this to you many, many times and I'm going to keep saying
it until somebody hears me. If you have a modern translation
of the Bible or even a modern reference Bible with notes in
it, all modern translations, every single one, no exceptions,
from the revised version in the middle 1800s when folks began
trying to make the Word of God say what they wanted it to say.
modern translations of our day. All of them omit one verse of
Scripture. All of them. They either omit
it or they'll put it in and they'll put a note beside it that says,
we ought not put this in here because it doesn't really belong here. Every
last one of them. That one verse that is omitted
is is the one verse of Scripture that states with emphatic clarity
the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the triunity
of the eternal Godhead. 1 John 5, verse 7. There are three that bear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these
three are one. We do not worship three gods,
we worship one God in the triunity of His holy being, three persons
in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Now, I have read
everything that I know worth reading on the subject of the
Trinity. Some of it's been pretty good,
but none of it has begun to be as clear as this statement here
in 1 John 5, 7. And I'll tell you when men began
to suggest that it ought to be omitted. It was back when Arius
first denounced the doctrine of the Trinity and said, no,
Jesus Christ is not God, and denounced the doctrine of the
Trinity. Folks started to say, well, we ought to leave this out. Never
before that, never till the 13th century did anyone have any idea
this passage ought to be left out of Scripture. the Scripture
stands and the doctrine stands. Well, Brother Don, you surely
don't base your doctrine on one verse of Scripture. Never, never,
never. Now that would be all right if
it was just stated once, that's enough. But everything taught
in Scripture is taught in multiple places. And this message with
regard to the Trinity is taught throughout the Old Testament
and the New. It is taught throughout the Old
Testament and the New. Thy throne, O God, God said to
our Savior, is forever and ever. And he said that back in the
Psalms before Christ ever came into this earth in human flesh.
Jesus Christ is God the Son, but we worship the triune God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And in all the works of grace,
In the covenant of grace, the Father assumes a role, and the
Spirit assumes a role, and the Son assumes a role in the economy
of grace, in the working out of salvation. But don't ever
get the idea that any of them work alone. For the three persons
of the triune God are involved constantly in all the works of
redemption and providence and grace. Read the first chapter
of Ephesians. The apostle tells us that we
were chosen by God the Father, redeemed by God the Son, and
called, regenerated, born again, given life and faith by God the
Holy Ghost. We're sent to baptize folks,
folks who believe the gospel, teaching them the gospel. When
a man or woman has been born of God, you baptize them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. When
our Lord Jesus was being baptized by John the Baptist, the fulfilling
of all righteousness symbolically, God spoke from heaven. This is
my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. God the Son is in the
River Jordan about to be immersed by John the Baptist. And God
the Holy Ghost descends from heaven in the form of a dove
and lights upon him and abides on him. God is Trinity, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost. From the very beginning, God
revealed that there are three persons in the Godhead, and it
is written as with a flame throughout the scriptures so that no one
can miss it except deliberately by missing it deliberately. Here's
the fifth thing, and I want to spend a little bit of time here.
God alone, is independent. Independent. We like independence. Americans
are known for their independence. And Southern Americans are especially
known for their independence. And rural Southern Americans,
they are so independent, everybody calls them rebels. It's independent. We like it. Well, the fact is,
none of us are independent. All creatures depend on God. And all creatures depend on other
creatures. We cannot exist on our own. God is independent. That means that God is utterly,
everlastingly self-sufficient. He needs nothing. He lacks nothing. He is benefited by nothing. God
is solitary in his being as the independent, self-sufficient
God. That means that God doesn't need
you and God doesn't need me. Back some years ago, Everywhere
you drove, they had church signs up, and folks, to this day, I
don't know who does it, I guess it's the preachers, they get
more and more ridiculous trying to invent things to put on church
signs on the marquees out in front. You see church signs every
little bit, said, we can't spell church without you. That sounds
so sweet. God was spelled in church 2,000
years before you came along. God doesn't need you, and God
doesn't need me. We contribute nothing to God,
we cannot oblige God, and we take nothing from God. God was
under no constraint or obligation or necessity to create the world.
He made all things according to the good pleasure of his will.
and God gains nothing from his creatures. Nehemiah said, stand
up and bless the Lord, your God forever and ever, and blessed
be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and
praise. The Lord God Almighty predestined
his elect to everlasting salvation, to the praise of the glory of
his grace, according to the good pleasure of his will. He chose
to save us, to show forth His glory, to reveal His glory in
us, but we contribute nothing to Him. We contribute nothing
to Him. Oh, my soul, thou hast said unto
the Lord, thou art my Lord, my goodness extendeth not unto thee. I want you to turn back to the
book of Job, Job chapter 35. God gains nothing from man. And
it is impossible for man to bring God under obligation to himself. People had the idea somehow if
you do this, you do that, you can constrain God to do something. Or if you gang up in prayer,
get on the phone, let's be prayer warriors. Let's gang up on God,
put him in a hammerlock, get God to do something. You can't
bring God into obligation. God's independent. Look at Job
35 verse seven. If thou be righteous, what givest
thou him? Or what receiveth he of thine
hand? Thy wickedness may hurt a man
as thou art, and thy righteousness may profit the Son of man. Look
at verse six of Job 35. God loses nothing by us just
as he gains nothing by us. If thou sinnest, what doest thou
against him? The pastor all sins against God.
It is man's revolt against God, but it doesn't touch him. It
doesn't reach him. Man attempts to rob God of his
glory, but you'll never rob God of his glory. Man attempts to
say, no, God will not be praised by me. Oh yes, he will. You're
not gonna rob God of anything. As man can add nothing to God's
glory, man can never diminish anything of God's glory. He made
all things to show forth His glory, and as we sang just a
little bit ago, all things shall praise Him. You mean everything,
preacher? I mean everything in heaven?
earth and in hell. Everything past, everything present,
everything to come shall redound to His glory. Read Revelation
chapter 4 verse 11. All creation shall give praise
to him and glorify him. All that we experience of his
grace and goodness, we experience because of his sovereign pleasure,
only because of his sovereign pleasure. If you're gods, you're
gods because he chose to make you his people. If you believe,
you believe because God gave you faith in his son. If you
walk with God, you walk with God. Because God Almighty has
made you His own by His own almighty free grace. But where does that
leave man? I'll tell you where it leaves
man. All the nations are as a drop of a bucket. That's insignificant. The drop
of a bucket. They are counted as the small
dust of the balance. Some of you still raise gardens.
Some of you do some farming. And you go out to the feed store
to pick up some corn. And I don't care whether you're
buying six ounces or you're buying 60 pounds, and they weigh it
out. I'll tell you what, I've never
seen anybody do. I've never seen anybody, and I've never done
it myself. I bought a good bit of corn over the years. I have
never said to them, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, be sure you
rake the dust out of that thing. They call somebody and have me
put in a paddy wagon. That man's lost his mind. Who can measure
that? The dust is nothing. Now you
understand what man is. Nothing but vanity, yea, less
than vanity before God. All nations before him are counted
as nothing. They're counted to him less than
nothing and vanity. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare
unto him? Here's the sixth thing. This
great solitary God, can only be known by revelation. I offer no arguments to prove
what God's existence because none can be given anywhere from
scripture to prove His existence. God's being is such a self-evident
truth of creation and providence that all men and women are without
excuse before Him. We're told so in Romans 1.20.
But no man can ever come to know the living God by the light of
nature. Job asked, Canst thou by searching
find out God? No, no. Here's a watch. If I If I should
travel sometime to New Guinea, visit Brother Lance down there,
and we're out in the jungles, that's not gonna happen, but,
cause I'm not gonna climb those mountains with him. But if I
should do so, and I drop my watch in one of the ditches on the
mountain, I probably wouldn't go back and try to find the thing,
not more than a couple of minutes. But, there it is. And there it
lays. And, oh, a year or two or 20
or 100 or 1,000, some, New Guinea savage comes along
and he picks that thing up and looks at it. And he can study
it, he can take it apart and study it under a microscope and
he can take all the things out of the back of it here, all the
parts and all the gears and he can take them apart and put it
back together. And he'll say, somebody made that. He might
be convinced that there's a watchmaker. but he could never come to know
the watchmaker by looking at the watch. All men know that
God is. Any who says no, I don't believe
that. He's lying to himself and lying to you. All men know that
God is, but no man can know God until God makes himself known. And no man can make him known. The only way you'll ever know
God is if God's pleased to make himself known to you and in you. God has revealed himself in his
son. He revealed himself in his word. He reveals himself by the preaching
of the gospel. We preach the gospel of Jesus
Christ, Paul said, hath been evidently set forth, crucified
before you. So he's, You folks who know him
say, well, if folks couldn't see before, now they can see.
No, they can't. No, they can't. Not until God
comes and makes himself known in you by the power of his grace. When God comes in saving power,
he causes the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ
to shine in your heart, and suddenly, you know God. Brother Donnie
Bell told the other day about his father-in-law. His father-in-law
is now 90 years old. Strong man, good health still.
He attended services down at Crossville for 25 years. I preached
to him a lot. He attended every Sunday morning,
every Sunday night. And after 25 years, they started dismissing
services one day, singing the last verse of Saul. And Brother
Donnie's father-in-law stood up and he said, Donnie, I heard
his voice today. That's what it takes for you
to know God. God must make himself known in
you, and nobody can do that but God. We don't try to play tricks
on men. We don't try to talk folks into
doing things. We just preach the gospel and wait for God to
work. Men and women are born again
by the Spirit of God, and the wind blows where it listeth. You hear the sound of it. You
don't know where it came from, you don't know where it's going.
So is everyone that is born of the Spirit of God. One last thing. Turn to Micah, chapter seven.
Micah, the seventh chapter. Oh, Lord God, that we might walk
worthy of the Lord to all pleasing, being fruitful in every good
work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Even as believers, we
need to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now here's the seventh thing. God alone forgives sin freely
without any reparations being made by the one forgiven. There's no God like this. Moses
said, Lord, show me your glory. Let me see who you are, Moses.
And the Lord said, all right, Moses, I'll tell you who I am.
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. Here is my absolute solitariness
as God. There's none like me. I'm absolutely
sovereign and I'm merciful and gracious. He who is our God,
he alone forgives sin freely, with no reparations to be made
by the one forgiven. We're justified freely, freely,
freely. What a wonderful word. By His
grace, through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. and I
somehow got to make up my past. No, you do that with, you do
that with the God down here or across over yonder, the God back
yonder. Not this God, not this God. He forgives sin with no
reparations made by the one forgiven. All the reparations were made
by the one who does the forgiving. All the reparations were made
by God himself. Look here at Micah chapter seven,
verse 18. Who is a God like unto thee? He's saying exactly the same
thing Moses said back in Exodus 15 verse 11. Who is a God like
unto, there's no other God but you, that pardoneth iniquity,
that passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage.
He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again. He will have
compassion on us. He will subdue our iniquities
and thou will cast their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou
will perform the truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, which thou
has sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. God, our God,
alone is God. He forgives sin freely. He does so in the beginning.
When first you come and confess your sin, He's faithful and just
to forgive your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. This is just unbelievable to
experience it. You can't believe it until you
experience it. When you come to God, you've
got to come to Him offering Him nothing. Nothing. Your sin and His son, that's
all. Nothing. And whenever we have difficulty,
our sin and ungodliness and unbelief, rebellion, our coldness, our
indifference, our neglect. We start trying to make reparations. But God forgives the sin, Mark,
with no reparations from you. He's the only one who does. He's
the only one who can. Imagine that. God forgives sin
freely. Oh, what a great God He who alone
is God is. God above all gods. Amen.