Exodus 15 and verse 22. We'll
look at this last passage, these last several verses again. So
Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into
the wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the
wilderness and found no water. And when they came to Marah,
they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter.
Therefore the name of it was called Marah, And the people
murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried
unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which, when he had
cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made
for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and
said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord
thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt
give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I
will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought
upon the Egyptians. For I am the Lord that healeth
thee. And they came to Elam, where
were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees,
and they encamped there by the waters. In this passage of scripture,
there are two great teachings. We saw the first last Wednesday
night. If you remember the title of
the message a week ago was he showed him a tree. We talked
about how that the Lord Jesus Christ and his crosswork is the
remedy to our problem, our vital, urgent problem. And we saw in
this text how that Christ crucified is all of our hope spiritually
and all that we need. He's our supply of every need,
our very life, spiritually speaking. Christ who is our life, Paul
said. The simplest and best way to
say all of this is the way that God inspired Paul to do so in
Colossians 3.11. He said, Christ is all and in
all. And we saw the doctrine of the
all sufficient effectual atonement of Christ. He showed him a tree. It's by the tree that he redeemed
us. Galatians 3 13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of
the law being made a curse for us for it is written Curse it
is everyone that hangeth upon a tree He showed him a tree and
if God ever shows you the tree Then you'll drink you'll be able
to drink Christ hung on a tree being made
a curse for us, but that tree Christ dying on that tree is
the solution to our urgent, vital problem. Just as the tree being
cast into the water in Exodus 15 saved those people's lives,
saved the lives of God's people. Only it was our eternal souls
that were saved by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Him
dying on that tree. By making his soul an offering
for sin there on the cross at Calvary. He redeemed us from
the curse of the law that we were under because of our sin.
So the first thing to see here is doctrinally that Christ is
all. We believe in the effectual, all-sufficient, sin-atoning blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. What theologians call effectual
atonement. You can call it whatever you
want to. But what it is, the truth of it is, is that when
Christ died on Calvary, he shed his precious blood for a specific
people, for his sheep. He said, I lay down my life for
my sheep. And he redeemed every one of them when he did. He saved
us. He came into this world to save
sinners, Paul said. And having done so, he said,
it's finished. So doctrinally, we see in this
passage that Christ is all. The second thing to see is that
in our very experience, Christ is all. Notice these words in
verse 25, and it's the title of the message tonight. And there
he proved them. And think about this in these
two terms. We believe, don't we, the truth,
the doctrine of Christ, it's called in the scripture. The
effectual atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe the
doctrine of Christ as it's set forth in the scriptures. That
Christ is the sovereign effectual redeemer. But the second thing we see here
is that Christ is not just all in our minds. He's not just all on paper. We've
experienced that he's all. There He proved them. It's one
thing to say, I believe that Christ is all. It's one thing to sing, as we
do, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and His
righteousness. We sing that, don't we? And then some little something
in this world happens to us that doesn't amount to a hill of beans,
and we lose hope. The Israelites sang a wonderful
song, didn't they, on the banks of the Red Sea as their enemies
washed up around them. But when God proved them, they
sang a different tune. It went something like this.
What in the world are we going to drink? Have you brought us
out here to die? We should have just stayed in
Egypt. They sang this song more than once. They sang the murmuring
song. Instead of, the Lord hath triumphed
gloriously, they sang, what are we gonna drink? They murmured,
it says. The word murmur means to grumble
and complain. Have you ever done that? Sound
doctrine's a good start. Isn't it? That's a good start.
I rejoice to hear that somebody believes in the doctrine of grace. Don't you? In the total, truly
believes now in the total depravity of man. that man's ruined from
head to toe, and can't do good, never will do good, and we're
utterly dependent upon the mercy of God. We're depraved, we're
vile in God's sight, and can't do a stinking thing about it.
And then that God, in eternity, in the covenant of grace, has
elected a people. It's rare to find that, really,
in this generation, isn't it? That somebody that believes that?
You run across them every day? Folks that believe in what we've
been talking about already, the limited atonement of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that Christ's atonement was limited to his people. That
he died for his people. He laid down his life for his
sheep. He said, I pray not for the world. He didn't intercede
for them, and he didn't die for them. But he laid down his life
for those that the Father elected in the covenant of grace. And
the Son agreed then in eternity to do that. and did so and accomplished
their redemption with the shedding of his precious blood. And we
believe in the irresistible grace of God. We believe that God chose
you, he'll have you. You're not going to resist him,
Waddle. You're going to resist him just as long as he lets you.
And then he's going to bring you down. He's going to bring
you down. The spirit blows where he will,
and he quickens whom he will. And we believe, of course, in
the preservation of God's saints and their perseverance because
they're preserved. That's a good start. I rejoice
to hear someone espouse those truths. You can't follow somebody
you don't know, can you? If you're following and serving
the impotent, failed Jesus of religion, then you're not following
and serving the sovereign, victorious Christ of the Bible. There are
many false Christs, as John said there would be. Even in his day,
he said, even now, they're saying, lo, here is Christ, and there
is Christ. But it's not the Christ of the
scripture. He's the sovereign. He's the one who quickens whom
he will. He's the one whose blood is sufficient to redeem. There's
the Christ of holy scripture, one true Lord, Jesus Christ. And so the first thing that's
important is to hear of, to learn of, to come to know the true
Christ. and what he accomplished for
sinners and why he did it, for whom he did it. That's important. It's got to start there. You
don't have to hear the truth. Faith cometh by hearing, and
then faith works. The gospel, you must at least
believe in your head the truth as it is in Jesus. But know this,
God will prove your doctrine. If you say Christ is all, we'll
find out whether you truly believe that or not. He'll prove it.
Now, you've heard it put this way, I'm sure. It's one thing
to believe in your head and another to believe in your heart. You've
heard that way of describing this. And that's not a bad distinction,
but it needs, I think, some clarification. To believe in your head is to
acknowledge facts, good facts. And there's nothing wrong with
that. We acknowledge the word of God and agree with it. But
to believe in your heart is to be sold out to the one that you
say you know. It's to love Him and to desire
nothing more than you desire to honor Him. And when I say
that, I have to wonder about myself. But I know this is right. I see God's people in the Word,
and I see those who honor Him in this world, God having proven
their faith. It's to love Him, it's to be
committed to Him, sold out, and it's to trust Him. And do you
see this in our text? I'm not just going off on a rant
tonight. This is right here in our text.
Do you see why the Israelites, generally speaking, and there
may have been a few among these millions of people who were waiting
on the Lord. I'm sure there were. But generally
speaking, they failed this test. And do you see why? We talked
about what it is to believe in your heart. You confess it with
your mouth, that's good. But do you believe in your heart?
We'll find out, won't we? We'll find out. It's to be committed
to Him. It's to love Him. It's to trust
Him. You see why these Israelites failed? If they loved Christ,
would they have murmured against Him? Well, they didn't murmur
against Christ, they murmured against Moses. Same thing. God called them on that, didn't
He? He said, it's me. It's me they got a problem with.
Moses is just God's servant. He's just doing what God told
him to do. So they murmured against God. If you loved him, would
you do that? If you loved him, let me put it this way to give
us some hope. If you loved him like he deserved to be loved,
would you murmur? If they trusted him, if they
had trusted him, would they have asked this question? What are
we going to drink? If I asked you tonight, do you
trust the Lord Jesus Christ? Let me ask you this. Have you
ever said, what am I going to drink? What am I going to eat? How am I going to pay my bills
this month? What am I going to do? Do you trust him or don't
you? I'm talking to myself, of course. If you had asked them as they
sat there singing of the great triumph and power of the Lord
on the bank of the Red Sea, if you had asked Moses and all these
people then, can the God who saved you from the Egyptians
provide water for you in the desert? What do you think they
would have said? They would have said, of course
he can, he can do anything. So their doctrine was sound,
wasn't it? But God's going to prove your doctrine sooner or
later now in his time. Many times he'll prove you if
you're his. And he'll prove me. You remember
Genesis 22, he proved Abraham, tested him. He said, you take
your son, your only son whom you love, you offer him to me
and not only did not make any sense because God had already
told him that through that promised child his son was going to come
into the world so not only that this is not something that Abraham
wanted to do left to himself this is the last thing that would
have ever entered his mind to do was kill his own son that's
the one thing God said you go do it and then he bound his son
and laid him on that altar. And in verse 12 of Genesis 22,
God said, lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
unto him. Not only don't stab him to death,
don't do anything to him. Why? Because there's a substitute.
Neither do thou anything unto him, for now I know that you
fear God. Seeing. You see, he didn't just
ask him, Abraham, do you fear God? Abraham would have said,
yeah, I fear you. But God did this and then said,
now I know you fear me. And God knew before that he feared
him. But now it's known by experience. Seeing thou hast not withheld
thy son, thine only son, from me. That's exactly what is being
taught in our text. God proved them there. They sang that beautiful song,
but let's find out how much of that they really meant. You reckon? God's gonna make it known whether
we're just spouting off or whether we truly love him. Peter, do
you love me? then just say so. No, feed my
sheep. Show me. Show me. The word proved in our text there
in Exodus 15 means to test. You might have guessed that,
but this is an instructive word. They were given a test and this
helps us understand because we've all taken tests, haven't we?
When you go to school, there are some things, some concepts,
some facts that you are presented with, and you're expected to
learn them. And then what happens? What happens when you, Amber,
Claire, Becca, you're expected to learn some things in school,
aren't you? And what happens after that? The teacher just
sits you down and says, now, have you listened all year, and
have you learned everything I said? Oh, yes, ma'am. OK, then you
can go to the next grade. That's not what happens, is it?
It doesn't work like that. There's going to be a test. We're
going to have to find out if you were listening, if you really
know what you say you know, what you're expected to know. And
that's a test. You're responsible to learn.
And now the spiritual lesson here pertaining to spiritual
things, what are we supposed to have learned? Well, look at
verse 26 in our text. What are we expected to know?
What are we responsible before God to know in our hearts? Not
just be able to recite some facts, but God's going to find out if
we know these things, if we embrace them, if we live them. He said,
if you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord, your
God, man shall not live by bread alone. But every time God says
something, you better hearken up. That's what he said. You're
going to listen to me now. They apparently hadn't been listening
or they wouldn't have murmured against him and failed to trust
him. Is that us? Do we hearken to
God? We just play in church. And we'll
do that which is right in his sight. Be ye doers of the word
and not hearers only. If you believe him, you'll act
like him. And we'll give ear to his commandments and keep
all his statutes. I will put none of these diseases
upon you, which I have brought upon the Egyptians. For I am
the Lord that healeth thee. And we've talked about doctrine.
The word doctrine is teaching. And that's what he's talking
about here. My statutes, my commandments, my voice, hearken to my voice. God has taught His people, what
are we taught? His word, everything that he
says, every word that proceeded from the mouth of God, everything
that he reveals in his book. God taught the Hebrews, did he
not? In this experience in Egypt,
did he teach them that he's the almighty God? That the great
Pharaoh, the authority of the earth was a peanut. compared
to God Almighty, that He's sovereign, that He does what He will with
whom He will. He raised Pharaoh up that He
might make His power known. You reckon He made His power
known to them? We look at it thousands of years later and
say, look at the power of God. What if you'd have been there?
And that He had come to save, that He revealed to them, I've
come to save you, I've heard your cry, I'm gonna come save
you. But based upon this test in our text, did they learn these
things? All of God's Word, Old Testament and New Testament,
teaches that there are two kinds of faith. Two kinds of faith. And that's what God does when
He proves us. It's made known, it's revealed
what kind of faith we have. And this is familiar to you too,
but in James 2, turn over there with me. The Israelites sang
a good song, but boy, when they were tried, we found out what
they were made of and what we're made of. James 2.14. Now listen
to this. And this is the way we learn.
Now, you know this. We've seen this passage of Scripture.
We've taught through the book of James. But when you start
in another complete context of Scripture, and then you read
this in light of that, now, that's when more light, the Lord begins
to shed more light. What does this have to do with
what happened to the Israelites after they escaped Egypt? Well,
we're fixing to find out. Verse 14. What doth it profit,
my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? And here's
the thing. Can that kind of faith save him?
We know that saving faith saves him. That's why we call it saving
faith. Because the Lord said to some people, your faith has
saved you. I'd say that's saving faith,
wouldn't you? Some object to that term, but if the Lord says,
your faith saved you, I'd say there's such thing as saving
faith. I don't know about what they say, but I know what Christ
said. He said, your faith saved you. That's saving faith. All
right. But can this kind of faith that
doesn't, that says, I believe, but does something else. That's
what these Israelites did now. Can that faith save him? If a
brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and
one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, and be ye warmed and
filled, notwithstanding you give them not those things which are
needful to the body, what good does that do? You see how he's
illustrating it here? What you say doesn't amount to
much unless it affects your actions. Your actions don't save you,
but the kind of faith that God gives, saving faith, affects
your actions. If faith works, if faith worketh
by love, Paul said. All right. If you really care,
you say, oh, I love my brother. I sure do hope he's warm and
filled. We're fixing to find out if you
love him or not. It ain't going to be because it came out of
your mouth. It's going to be because you gave him a coat and
something to eat. You see how he illustrated pretty
clear. All right. Even so, faith, if it hath not
works, is dead. Even so, if you say you love
God, but you don't obey Him, you don't follow Him, you don't
thank Him, you don't worship Him, you don't serve Him. Oh, I know we don't do any of
that right. We don't do any of it meritoriously. But faith works. The faith that doesn't work is
dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, thou hast
faith and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy
works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest
that there is one God. Thou doest well. The devils also
believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man,
that faith without works is dead? Was not our Father Abraham our
father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son
upon the altar. Seest thou how, now notice this,
this is the one part that I've never seen in my life that applies
the most to what we're saying in Exodus. Seest thou how faith
wrought with his works, faith wrought. Faith wrought, not just
faith talked about, but faith wrought with his works, and by
works was faith made complete. That's what that word is there.
Faith was shown to be true faith. All right, and look at verse
23. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed
God. And it was imputed unto him for
righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Now, particularly
notice verse 23. It was not by works that Abraham
was saved, but by faith. The scripture was fulfilled that
Abraham believed God, and God said, you're righteous. That's
salvation. God says, you're righteous. That's
salvation. And he didn't say, look at what you've done and
how you've kept my law perfectly. No, he saw faith and said, you're
righteous. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Christ said, Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced. Now,
as Paul said, we're justified by faith without the deeds of
the law. That's what happened here. By
faith. And also, Paul said that it's
by grace through faith. In Ephesians 2, he says, we have
that gift of faith by the free grace of God. And so that's how
faith comes. It's not something that we work
up. By the grace of God, the free sovereign grace of God,
he gave us faith, not because we earned it, not because we
deserve it, or even desired it until God gave it. But Abraham,
by that faith that God gave him, believed God and God counted
him righteous. But that saying was fulfilled.
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Paul said that truth was fulfilled
when Abraham lived the faith that God gave him. You see that? It was true before. It was true
before, and he was already righteous in the sight of God before he
ever did a work. But the work fulfilled him. It
showed, it revealed that he sure enough believed God. The faith
that God counted for right, the faith in Christ that was in him,
it was revealed to be true faith. It wasn't just something that
he professed. God said, now I know, now I know. We also are not saved by anything
that we do, but when God saves a sinner, he gives that sinner
faith in his son. John 3.36, he that believeth
on the son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
God gives faith in his Son. Faith is the gift of God, not
of works, lest any man should boast. The fruit of the Spirit
is faith, not the fruit of the flesh. You're not going to work
it up. It is the Spirit that quickeneth
the flesh, profiteth nothing. Christ, Paul said, is the author
and finisher of our faith. Scripture's clear about that
now. And when God gives faith, when Christ authors faith in
us, that by which, that one by whom something comes to be, that's
what that word means, our faith came to be by the Lord Jesus
Christ. He authored our faith. And when
he does, he tries it, he tests it, he proves it. Not to find
out if it's true saving faith. He knows whether he gave you
faith or not. Or whether it's just something worthless that
you worked up. He knows that. But to make it
manifest. You want to make it manifest.
Christ, the one who tries faith. Now, you think about this. The
one who makes manifest true faith and false faith said to his disciples
in Matthew 720, by their fruits, you'll know them. First Peter
one, turn over there with me. First Peter one, let's look at
just first five. Let's start with five who are
kept, you're kept by the power of God. God has given, he's blessed,
let's look at verse three. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and
that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
at the last time. You see all the mercy hope, inheritance,
kept by the power of God. But there's one more thing here,
wherein you greatly rejoice, though now, verse six, for a
season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations,
that the trial of your faith, this is part of salvation too,
part of salvation now. Salvation is an eternal work
that God brings to pass in time that we experience in this world. The trial of your faith, being
much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be
tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory
at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom, having not seen, ye love,
in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of
your faith, even the salvation of your souls." You see, all
of that has to do with salvation. the salvation of your soul. Part
of it is Him giving you faith, an inheritance, having mercy
on you, all of that, through the blood of Jesus Christ, verse
two. I'm telling you, the God who
saved you by His Son's precious blood and gave you faith in Him
who died for you, He tries that faith. And the trial of your
faith is precious to Him. And it's precious, He'll make
it precious to you, too. Now, that word trial in verse
seven there, It means that by which something is tried or proved,
a test. God's giving you a test now. Can we think about that as we
walk through this world? I can never remember it, and
I think I've lost it somewhere. I think Jimmy and Sarah have
this printed out, that article that Scott Richardson wrote,
that says in effect, don't ever pass up an opportunity To honor
and glorify Christ in trouble. When you're in trouble. You may
not ever be in trouble again. This may be the one opportunity
that God gives you. To honor his son in trouble. In trouble. He'll test us now. You know, I think to some degree
or another we're tested every day. Don't you imagine? Don't
you think that's right? Every day your faith is tested.
To some degree or another. Some tests are more revealing
than others. But God spoke to these Israelites
back in Exodus 15, 26, having just tested them. And he clearly
implies in that verse, verse 26, that what they deserve is
what the Egyptians got. He said, now, if you obey me,
if you hear me, hearken to me and do what I say is right, not
what you think is right. What I say is right. I won't send any of the diseases
upon you that I did the Egyptians." Do you hear the implication in
that? He said to them, what you deserve is the same thing they
deserve. But if you believe me, trust me, follow me, serve me,
I won't give you what you deserve. Now you think about that. He
will not deal with them according to their iniquities, but he admonishes
them concerning what had just happened. Clearly they failed
that test. And he said, now, from now on,
you should have seen then, now, that I could give you water anytime
I want to. You should have asked me, do
you see anywhere in the text there in Exodus 15, in all those
three days when they didn't have any water, where they just stopped
and said, you know, let's pray. Let's ask God to give us some
of his water. You didn't see it, did you? Do you think I'd be in there
if they'd have done that? Pretty sure that would have been
recorded. Pretty sure it wouldn't have happened the way it did.
And you may think I'm crazy talking about what would have happened,
what could have happened. But the Bible speaks that way. And
the Lord said, Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented. Didn't he?
Didn't he say, I could call more than 12 legions of angels. You
think we can learn from this? I mean, if we ever go three days
without water, and you know how many endless equivalents to that
there are in this life. Everything that we murmur and
complain about is a three day without water event. You think
we can learn from this just to stop and say, God, help me. Instead
of trying to dig your way out of your own pit that you dug
yourself into to begin with. And every time you try to dig
your way out, you're just getting deeper. Just stop and say, God,
help me, help me. We're not any better than they
are, I know that. The written Mosaic law had not yet even been
given, but God is simply saying here, do what I say. Believe
me, trust me, and I won't give you what you deserve. Now, is
that our hope? God said, you trust me, you believe
me, and I won't send my plagues upon you. Oh, well, good. Oh,
we got hope. Not in that we don't. No, absolutely
not. Well, what have you been talking
about all night, Chris? Listen to me. God tries our faith, and
I pray that God will give us grace to honor him when we're
tested. But whether you do or don't honor him when you're tested
is not your hope before God. It's just not. What God has given
them here in this text is the old covenant. You honor me, you
trust me, you do what I say, you follow me and serve me, and
I won't put my plagues on you. I'll bless you. That's the old
covenant. We don't have any hope under
the old covenant. If you will, I will. That was
the old covenant. The new covenant is I will and
you shall. Well, you're undoing everything
you said already, Chris. No. When God tries your faith,
honor him. Bow to Him. Serve Him. But don't trust your obedience.
Don't trust your work. Don't trust your passing of the
test. Because we failed just like they
failed. Even if we honor Him, we're not
going to honor Him like He's worthy of being. We're going
to fall short of His glory every time. We always have and we're
always going to. That is not our hope. He said,
if you hearken, I will bless. Look at it again with me. I know
we've looked at it a million times in Hebrews 8. You remember
how the new covenant's different from the old one? He said, the
new covenant that I give you, Hebrews 8, 7, it's not going
to be like the old one. How's it going to be different,
Lord? They didn't hearken unto me in that old covenant, and
you won't either. You broke it. And that's what
sinners do, they break it. Look at it with me, Hebrews.
And while we're turning over there, let me say this, be clear
about this now. Just like these Hebrews in Exodus
15, we are tried and tested often, daily. Sometimes we don't even
know we've been tested. The Lord tests us and we fail
it and don't even realize maybe we failed it until maybe sometime
later. And like these Israelites, we
fail. Sometimes the Lord enables us
to honor Him in trial, and I want to do that, don't you? And our
actions will show whether or not we truly believe. They will.
God will prove whether you've got good faith, His faith, saving
faith, the gift of God, or whether you worked something up and just
made a profession and are playing, playing games with God. That'll
be revealed by it, but I'll tell you what won't happen by it.
your response to the trial, you're not going to be saved by it.
It's not going to be meritorious before God. That's not going
to happen. We fail. We never, never measure
up to what God requires. Never. Never have, never do,
never will. Now look at Hebrews 8. Here's
our hope. Hebrews 8, 7. For if that first covenant had
been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the
second? If they would have done what God said, there wouldn't
have been any need for a new covenant. And God, when he gave
the first one, he wasn't waiting to see what was gonna happen.
He didn't give that first one to see what was gonna happen.
He didn't give the first covenant as a means whereby they might
please him. Let's see if they can do. No,
he gave his law as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, to declare
us guilty, to show us that we're guilty before him. For finding
fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah. I believe it was in Jeremiah
that he said that. And it's not going to be, verse nine, like
the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when
I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.
Exactly where we are in the book of Exodus. How come it's not
going to be like that? Well, just give us another shot.
We just need another chance. No. They're not going to be like
that one because they continued not in my covenant and I regarded
them not, saith the Lord. We can't keep a covenant like
that. If anything depends upon us, we're goners. If it's contingent
upon our performance, we're goners. And that's why this new and not
like the old one, because we failed and we always will. Adam
failed, the Israelites failed. He came into this world unto
his own and they received him not. That's what sinners do,
they sin. And even our righteousnesses
are filthy rags. Even when to some extent we honor
him in the test, we're still failures in ourselves. This is
the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, saith the Lord. Here's the new covenant. I'm
not gonna write my my law on tables of stone and say if you
do this now I'll bless you. I'm going to write it in their
mind and I'm going to write it in their hearts and I'm going
to be to them a God and they're going to be to me a people. If,
no, there's no if in there. I'm going to be. I'm going to be their God and
they're going to be my people. And they shall not teach every
man his neighbor and every man his brother saying no to the
Lord. We've been through this, I know, a bunch of times. But
listen carefully again, because we need to know this. I need
to know this. It's not that they're not going to teach their children.
He instructed them and us. We are to teach our children.
We're to teach whoever we can. We're to be witnesses of him.
But that's not how they're going to know. That's not how they're
going to know. We're going to teach. We're going
to preach. He sent us to teach. He said,
teach all nations. But that's not how they're going
to know. It's not going to be up to them hearing us and saying,
oh, you know, he's pretty persuasive. He did a good job preaching.
I believe, you know, for all shall know me. The way they're
going to find out is he said, I'm going to be their God and
they're going to be my people. They all are going to know me.
Whoever he's talking about here, it's not going to be some preacher
going to get up and then whoever's smart enough to respond correctly
is going to be saved. they're all going to know me.
Whoever has an interest in this covenant of grace, this new covenant,
every one of them are going to know me, he said, from the least
to the greatest. How? If it's not going to be
by the persuasive powers of the preacher, if it's not going to
be because of outward means, although he uses them clearly
and obviously, and we're not to neglect But it's not going
to happen that way. Then how are they going to know?
I'm going to be merciful to them. I'm going to have mercy on them.
That's how. I'll be merciful to their unrighteousness. And
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Like
these Hebrews. We're tried, aren't we? We're
tested. But that's not our hope. I want to honor them in the trials. And I pray that you do too and
that you will. But this new covenant is our hope before God. If we
had time tonight to read and study the entire book of Hebrews
we would see that the way God can be merciful in the New Covenant
is that Christ our High Priest has fulfilled the Old One. We
didn't. We continued not, but He did.
He fulfilled the Old One. Under the Old Covenant a priest
had to offer blood and we have a High Priest. Our eternal High
Priest has offered that precious blood which was only pictured
in the old covenant, and said as he went to shed that precious
blood, as he's prepared to go to the cross and he eats that
last Passover with his disciples, he said to them, this cup is
the new covenant in my blood. This is how God can be merciful
to your transgressions and how he can say your sins and your
iniquities will I remember no more, this cup. The blood that
this represents, that's how. The tree. He showed him a tree. And then in our text, we have
a picture of us in Christ, the last verse there. The people's
problem was that they didn't have any water, which pictures
our sin problem. Christ crucified is pictured
by the tree. And then look at verse 26. They
came to Elim, where were 12 wells of water and three score and
10 palm trees, and they encamped there. by the water, no more
problem. Problem solved. How? He showed him a tree. That's
how. Beautiful for situation. Because of Christ and what he
did for me, I'm camping in the shade of 70 palm trees tonight
and camping by the waters of 12 wells. Thank God for the new
covenant. He said, you obey me, you hearken
to me, and I won't send my plagues upon you. And they failed and
failed and failed and failed. Just like Adam failed, they failed,
and we failed. Thank God for the new covenant
and his precious blood that was shed for me. Let's bow in prayer.