In chapter 8, at least for one
more lesson, Exodus 8, verse 20, tonight. Exodus 8, 20, And the Lord said
unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before
Pharaoh, lo, he cometh forth to the water, and say unto him,
Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. else if thou will not let my
people go behold I will send swarms of flies upon thee and
upon thy servants and upon thy people and into thy houses and
the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies and
also the ground whereon they are and I will sever in that
day the land of Goshen in which my people dwell that no swarms
of flies shall be there to the end Thou mayest know that I am
the Lord in the midst of the earth, and I will put a division
between my people and thy people. Tomorrow shall this sign be.
And the Lord did so. And there came a grievous swarm
of flies into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants' houses
and into all the land of Egypt. And the land was corrupted. ruined
by reason of the swarm of flies. And Pharaoh called for Moses
and for Aaron and said, go ye, sacrifice to your God in the
land. And Moses said, it is not meet
so to do, for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians
to the Lord our God. Lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination
of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone
us? We will go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice
to the Lord our God as he shall command us. And Pharaoh said,
I will let you go that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God
in the wilderness, only you shall not go very far away and treat
for me. And Moses said, Behold, I go
out from thee and I will entreat the Lord that the swarms of flies
may depart from Pharaoh from his servants and from his people
tomorrow. But let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully anymore and
not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. And Moses
went out from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord. And the Lord did according
to the word of Moses. When he removed the swarms of
flies from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people,
there remained not one. And Pharaoh hardened his heart
at this time also. Neither would he let the people
go. Verse 23 speaks of God making
a division between his people and the Egyptians. A division. The word means redeem. If you look in your margin, if
you have marginal revenues, it means a sign of redemption. I'll
make a division. I'll make a sign of redemption.
The entire history of the Hebrews have to be viewed with this in
mind, that God has a distinct, peculiar people, and he makes
a difference between them and everyone else in this world.
God has a chosen people, elect, precious. He's made them to differ
from all the other peoples of this earth, not the earthly nation
of Israel, but his elect who are pictured by the earthly nation
of Israel. First, we saw this division between
God's people and the rest of the world. It began with the
covenant that God made with Abraham. He didn't make it with anyone
else. He made it with Abraham and his seed. He distinguished
them from everyone else. Not Abraham's earthly seed, but
Paul said the seed that's mentioned in that covenant that he made
with Abraham, that seed is Christ. And so the true sons of Abraham
are all those in Christ, all those chosen, elect people of
God, spiritual Israel in Christ. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ
walk through a massive throng of people? and go right up to
the tree that Zacchaeus was in, and say to him, Zacchaeus, make
haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house. Why
did he go to him in Luke 19 five? He gives the reason in the same
passage. In Luke 19 nine, it says, Jesus said unto him, this
day is salvation come to this house, for as much as he also
is a son of Abraham. He's a son of Abraham. There's
a difference between him and all these other people. Well,
wait, weren't they Jews? Yes, they were, but they weren't
sons of Abraham. Not in the spiritual sin, not
in the sense that the Lord, listen to what he said. He's a son of
Abraham. Salvation's come to this house because this man is
a son of Abraham for the son of man is come to seek and to
save that. that which was lost. Religion
loves to quote verse 10, but you don't hear much about verse
nine, the preaching of the reason why the Lord Jesus Christ came
to Zacchaeus' tree and said to Zacchaeus, you come down here,
I'm going home with you. Salvation has come to you because
you're one of my sons. You're a son of Abraham. Well,
wait a minute, Chris, didn't the Pharisees say we're sons
of Abraham? Yes, they did. And were they
not earthly sons of Abraham? Yes, they were. In John 8, 39,
though, the Lord Jesus answered and said unto the Pharisees,
they answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. We're
sons of Abraham. And the Lord Jesus saith unto
them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.
You'd believe on me. Abraham saw my day. And he was
glad. He didn't have the same reaction
you have. You're trying to kill me because
you don't believe on me. But Abraham saw my dad. He was
glad. You're not Abraham's children.
No, not in the true sense. Not in the spiritual sense. He
told them they're of their father the devil. You're the devil's
sons, not Abraham's sons. But Zacchaeus was the son of
Abraham. And Christ said, I've come to
save you. I've come to save you and everybody
like you. God makes a division between his people and everybody
else. Christ made a division even among
the earthly sons of Abraham. Why? Because the true division
is not between earthly Israel and the Gentile nations. He divided
even among the nation of Israel as we just saw. The true division
is between God's elect and everyone else in this world. I have made
a division, he said. Thank God that he has. Thank
God he didn't throw the whole lump in hell where we belong.
But he made one vessel under honor and another under dishonor.
He divided the clay out as he saw fit, as it pleased him, and
made some vessels of mercy to show forth the riches of his
glory. First of all, as we said already,
because of the covenant. There's a division because of
the covenant that God made with Abraham. God has made a covenant
with his elect that distinguishes between them and everybody else
in the world. And if folks were taught the
Bible instead of fairy tales in the so-called churches around
this world, it would put an end to all this talk about salvation
by free will decision. Folks would understand that God
has made just because it pleased Him to do it, just because He
wanted to, just because He loved some people. It pleased Him to
make an everlasting covenant with His Son and a chosen people
in His Son, in Christ, blessed in Christ, chosen in Christ,
loved in Christ, redeemed in Christ, and destined to be forever
with Christ and just like Christ. King David attributed all of
his salvation So this one thing, God made a covenant with me. That being the case, I'd find
out about that covenant if I were you. Instead of talking about
free will, I'd find out about the covenant of grace. This is
all my salvation. He called it an everlasting covenant. Ordered in all things, ensure. It doesn't need my stamp of approval.
It doesn't need my cooperation. It's ordered in all things and
it's certain. And he didn't say, I made a covenant
with God. He said, God made a covenant with me. And he said, God didn't do so
for my house, my family. He didn't do it. He didn't do
it. He wasn't pleased to do it. But he made one with me. Although my house be not so with
God. Yet he hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things, and sure. For this is all my
salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow." All my salvation. God made it
different. He made a division, didn't He?
He made a division between Jacob and Esau. Again, both earthly
sons of Abraham. But that's not the distinction. He made a division between them,
showing us that that which distinguishes his people from all the other
peoples of this world is his infinite, immutable, almighty,
boundless love. Jacob have I loved. He just made a division. There's
the division right there. And again, if people were taught
the Bible, instead of sentimental lies, it would put an end to
all this nonsense about God loving everybody. And people, sinners,
would seek the love of God where it is. Paul told us where it
is. He said concerning those whom
God has chosen and made a division and sought out and made a peculiar
elect people unto himself, precious. He said concerning them, nothing
shall be able to separate them from the love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The love of God is in Christ
and nowhere else. There is no love for sinners
outside of Christ. God's people, as seen in these
Hebrews, as they are a picture of the elect, the spiritual Israel
of God. We dwell in a sin-cursed world.
We're still in Egypt, aren't we? We're still in Egypt. Cursed. The plagues of God are
upon this place. Upon all the land. He sent blood
throughout all the land. We saw that. Why did he send
blood? There's blood because there's sin. That's why. The
first blood was shed. Why? Because of sin. God covered
the nakedness of his children, Adam and Eve, by shedding blood
and covering them with the coats of skins by the death and sacrifice
of an innocent victim. The wages of sin is death. And because there's sin, because
there's rebellion, as pictured by Pharaoh, because there's sin
and rebellion, there's blood throughout all the land. Christ
came into this world and shed his precious blood. Why? Because
of sin. He shed it for his elect, redeeming
them from their sin. That word, I will make a division.
It's redemption. Look it up. I'll make a redemption. That's what he said. And he does
that by his precious blood. This blood in Egypt pictures
that precious blood of Christ in that it resulted in Israel's
ultimate deliverance from bondage. But it was nothing but condemnation
upon the Egyptians. It was a curse to them, but it
was life to the people of God. Blood of Christ is throughout
all the land of Egypt, all of this world. It's upon every man,
either in condemnation as they cried, His blood be upon us and
upon our children. His blood is upon every man,
either in condemnation or in sin atoning mercy. Blood throughout
because of sin and rebellion. God, because of sin, And his
righteous condemnation against our rebellion, as pictured by
Pharaoh, in this world, Egypt, has released frogs upon the earth. We talked about that. They picture
the false prophets of Satan and what comes out of their mouths,
as we saw in Revelation 16, 13. This world is full of them. And they still got frogs coming
out of their mouths. And then we saw in the lice that
man himself is part of God's plague upon the earth. We are
a scourge upon the earth. We are a plague. We are like these lice, flesh
devouring, disease spreading, insidious and repulsive parasites. God showed us what the lice represent
clearly by making them out of the same stuff he made you out
of, the dust of the earth. And why is the land full of lice?
Because of sin, because of rebellion, because Pharaoh and all of the
six or seven billion other little Pharaohs running around this
world refuse to obey God. They have their free will and
will do as they please and they become parasites in God's earth.
Now, in our text tonight, we have another picture of this
plague. Man is pictured in another way. There's just one cause,
remember now, for all these plagues. This is God's curse upon man,
the world, Egypt, Pharaoh, the kings of this earth, everybody
who rebels against God and rebels against His authority. We've
set ourselves up as kings. And God's plague is upon sin. And they all have that one cause. All of these plagues are a result
of sin, simply a refusal to obey God, a refusal to submit to his
authority. That's what sin was in the garden.
Adam refused to submit to the authority of God, the established
authority of God, thou shalt not. Thou mayest freely eat,
but thou shalt not eat of this truth. And Adam refused to submit
to the authority of God. That's what sin was in the garden.
That's what sin was when Pharaoh brought these plagues upon the
land of Egypt. And that's what sin is tonight
as you're sitting there where you're sitting. It's rebellion
against clear revelation from God. And because man is sinful, the
land is full of flies. And when we examine what a fly
is for a little while, we'll realize that sure enough, the
earth is still full of them. Still full of them. And we know
what a fly is, don't we? It's a grown-up maggot. That's
what it is. And this is not the only place,
as you likely know, in the Word of God where man is referred
to in this way. These flies also are a picture
of mankind under the curse, the plague, the wrath of God, the
condemnation of God because of our rebellion. Job said in 25.4,
How then can man be justified with God? What a question. How can I stand before God not
guilty? Are you interested in that? Behold,
even to the moon it shineth not to God. Yea, the stars are not
pure in his sight, how much less man that is a worm. Not a fishing worm. Fishing worms
are cute compared to this kind of worm. A nasty, slimy maggot. That's what man is before God.
And the son of man, which is a worm. A maggot's son can only be a
maggot. And so the flies cover the land. Flies, of course, are also repulsive
and disgusting. If a fly lands on a perfectly
good donut, even I'll throw a donut in the trash. Because I know too much about
flies to eat it. They defile everything that they
touch. They spread disease everywhere
they go. They're obnoxious and infuriating. Have you ever gotten so mad at
a fly? that you wanted to kill every
fly in the world. Wherever they are, they provoke
the desire to kill them. I want every fly dead, don't
you? That's what I want. That's the
only thing for a fly. They ought to die. The world
would be a better place without them. What a picture of sinful
man outside of the grace of God in Christ. And there's not but one thing
for us, death. Death. And God's world will be
a better place. And I guarantee you, everybody
who's not washed in that precious blood, God's gonna get rid of
them one day. There won't be anything that entereth into his
heaven that speaketh a lie or that corrupteth in any way. There's
not gonna be any more flies, but now, The Apostle Paul said
concerning all of his religion, we won't take the time to look
at Philippians chapter 3 tonight, but you remember that passage
and you can read it at your leisure if you'd like to look at it again.
He talked about all of his religious heritage and all of his outward
morality and all of his self-righteousness. He had an impeccable degree.
His outward morality was flawless to himself and other men, blameless
in this world before man. He obeyed the letter of the law
and was highly respected in religion. And Paul, having believed on
the Lord Jesus Christ, looked back on all of that. And do you
remember what he said about it? I count it but dung that I may
win Christ. Do you know what a fly's favorite
thing in this world is? Dung. And that's what Paul is saying
here, that by nature I'm a fly. I love my religion, I delight
in my religious pedigree, and I land on my self-righteousness,
and I eat it, and I delight in it, and I glory in it, and then
one day God opened my eyes, and I saw the Lord Jesus Christ,
and I looked back on everything that I was, and everything that
I am in myself, everything that I'd done, And I said, God help
me, it's a pile of dung. What was I thinking? What was
I doing? I wouldn't have it not having
my own righteousness. It's nothing but a big stinky
pile of dung. Thank God for opening our eyes. One of the names of Satan in
the Word of God is Beelzebub. It's mentioned in several places. He was worshipped by the Philistines
by that name. And our Lord in Matthew 10, 35
said this, it's enough for the disciple that he be as his master
and the servant as his Lord. If they have called the master
of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of
his household? Do you know what Beelzebub means?
Lord of the flies. What does that make the flies? Subjects of the devil. Isn't
that what the Lord said to the Pharisee? You're of your father
the devil and your father's works you'll do. You just like it. He's the Lord of the flies and
you're his little subject flies. First comes the plague of the
frogs, the unclean spirits that come out of the mouth of Satan
and his prophets. And then there are flies. Because of the false gospel of
this religious world, the satanic religion of this world, flies
are produced. Servants of the devil. Antichrist. Servants of Satan. And what do
frogs eat? Flies. Flies eat dung and frogs eat
flies. And the devil is walking about
through this world seeking whom he may devour. You know who he
devours? Flies. But bless God, thank God
he's put a division between his people and the Egyptians. And you can't, you can't think
about that. You can't talk about that. You can't see that as Israel
is typical of God's people. You can't see their deliverance
from bondage without seeing the blood. Look back at Exodus chapter
eight, look at verse 25. Look at eight, 25 of Exodus.
And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron and said, go ye
sacrifice to your God in the land. There's the blood. That's what, that's what God
said. Let my people go that they may serve me. How do we serve
him? Well, we got to clean up our act. Obey the law. No. In Christ. God is worshiped and
served in Christ. The sacrifice. By offering the
sacrifice that God will accept. The only sacrifice that God will
accept. That's how God is served. Moses said, it is not meet to
do so for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians,
that which is abominable. The Egyptians, he said, if we
do that here in Egypt, the Egyptians will stone us because they hate
our God and they hate the offering that he accepts. They hate the
worship of God. They hate the people of God.
They hate the message of God. They hate God and everything
about him, the things of God. And he said, they'll kill us,
sure enough, if we sacrifice here. That which is precious.
Did you know that the true sacrifice that Christ crucified is an abomination
to this world? Oh, I know they're singing, oh,
how I love Jesus. And they talk about Jesus died
on a crop, but they're talking about another Jesus. They're
talking about somebody that did his best. And when He died on
the cross, He made salvation possible for everybody, but didn't
actually save anybody. That's not my sacrifice. Is that
yours? Is that your offering before
God? I hope not. I pray not. The true sacrifice,
Christ and Him crucified, that Lord Jesus Christ, the sovereign
Christ who made His soul an offering for sin and thereby redeemed
every one of His people with that precious blood. That effectual
atonement, that true sacrifice, that payment for our sin, the
one who obtained eternal redemption for his people, he's an abomination. That's the abomination of the
Egyptians. If they could get away with it,
they'll kill us too, for offering that sacrifice. Just like the
Egyptians, Moses said, they'll kill us. The only reason they
don't do it now, they can't get away with it. There's been times
when they were able to get away with it, And what'd they do?
They killed God's people. When they were able, when we
were able to get away with killing the son of God, that's what we
did. We will go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice
to the Lord our God, the sacrifice, all about the sacrifice. All through. That's the difference. That's the division between his
people and the Egyptians. It's made by the sacrifice. They're
ultimately delivered. How? By killing a lamb and putting
the blood on the door. And God said, I'll pass over
you and I'll smite the Egyptians. There's a difference. There's
a division. It's always been about the blood. What's the difference
between God's elect and everybody else in this world? The blood. The blood. Christ is the lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. It's that sacrifice. Turn to Psalm 22, verse one,
Psalm 22, one. We know who's speaking here.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That's the question
established at the outset. Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime,
but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not
silent, but thou art holy. There's the first part of the
answer to the question right there. Why have you forsaken
me? Why? The son cried from the cross. Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. You're holy. But isn't the Lord
holy also? Yes. There's another part to
the answer. O thou that inhabitest the praises
of Israel, you're holy. Our fathers trusted in thee,
they trusted in thou didst deliver them. This is still the question. They're still elaborating upon
that question. Why won't you deliver me? Why
have you turned your back, your face away from me? You delivered
our fathers. They cried unto thee and they
were delivered. They trusted in thee and they were not confounded.
Oh, verse six, but I am a worm. Thou art holy and I'm a worm. There's the answer to the question. I know man a reproach of men and despised of the people. My
Lord Jesus Christ became what I am, a fly, a worm, a maggot,
as a sacrifice for sin unto God for me and for all his people. He took our sins in his own body
on the tree. God laid upon him the iniquity
of us all. That's why he cried out, I'm
a worm. I'm a worm. Why did God forsake his son on
Calvary? Because God is holy. And because
his son bore my sins. Because his son became what I
am. Because he had made a division in electing love in eternity. And in that everlasting covenant
of grace, of which we've spoken, the Lord Jesus Christ agreed
to do this very thing for me to take my place to take the
place of a maggot, to bear the sins of a maggot, to bear the
penalty due unto a maggot. And in doing so, he made a division
between me and all the people of this world, between his people
and all other people. And he made that difference by
his redeeming, sin-cleansing blood. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. God has made with me, like he
did David, an everlasting covenant. And the blood of Christ, my Redeemer,
represented by that sacrifice that Moses said, we're going
to go three days from here. We're going to sacrifice unto
our God, just like he tells us to do, exactly as he instructs
us to do. And that everlasting covenant
was sealed with blood. The blood pictured by that sacrifice.
And the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, is the blood
of that everlasting covenant. Turn to Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13,
20. Hebrews 13, 20. Now the God of
peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that
great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting
covenant. Why is there blood? Because there's
sin. Why is there a covenant? Because
there's mercy. There's mercy with God. Because
God has made a division between his people and Egypt. Through the blood of the everlasting
covenant, may he make you perfect, Paul prayed. And every good work
to do his will, working in you. That's how you're going to do
every good work, Christ in you. Not I, but Christ. Working in
you that which is well pleasing in his sight. Oh, by God's grace,
I'm not shaking my fist in God's face anymore. I'm not sitting
on my little throne with my little puny scepter in my hand shaking
it at God anymore. By his grace, because of Christ
working in me, God is well pleased with me. in Christ, through Jesus
Christ. And then Paul got to thinking
about that, and he said, to whom be glory. Look what God's done for me and
his precious son. Let's glorify him. Let's glorify
him. Let all the angels, let every
creature glorify him. David said, let everything that
hath breath glorify him. Forever and ever. Amen.