Exodus 6, let's read the first
nine verses. Then the Lord said unto Moses,
now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong
hand shall he let them go. We've seen what Pharaoh did to
the Lord's people. Now God said, we're fixing to
see what I'm going to do to him. And with a strong hand shall
he drive them out of his land. And God spake unto Moses and
said unto him, I am the Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham,
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty. But by my name Jehovah was I
not known to them. And I have also established my
covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan. the land
of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. And I have
also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the
Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant.
Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and
I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,
and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you
with a stretched out arm and with great judgments. And I will
take you to me for a people. And I will be to you a God. That's
the title of the message tonight, to you a God. And you shall know that I am
the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens
of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto
the land concerning the which I did swear. to give it to Abraham,
to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you for an heritage.
I am the Lord. And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel.
But they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and for
cruel bondage. Now these first eight verses
are the exact same message that God spoke to Moses in chapter
3. I am. I am the Lord your God. I'm the God of Abraham and Isaac.
And Jacob and I have heard the cry of my people. The same message
exactly. And it's the same message that
Moses told Aaron chapter 4 verse 28. It says that Moses spoke
all of the words that the Lord spake unto him unto Aaron. And
then in chapter 4 verse 30 Aaron spoke all of the words of the
Lord that he received from Moses unto the children of Israel. And so now Moses is said to go
again to the children of Israel after the rejection by Pharaoh
of God's command. After the cruel reaction of Pharaoh
in punishing the people, because of the gospel, because of the
message, because of the truth, they were afflicted. And after
every outward evidence had indicated complete failure of God's purpose, God sends exactly the same message
to them. I'm your God, I've heard your
cry, and I will deliver you. The same gospel, same truth. The circumstances don't matter.
The gospel's the same because He is the same. Jesus Christ
is the gospel, and He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. It doesn't matter who you're
preaching to, whether it's Pharaoh sitting on his throne or some
little broken down woman making bricks out of stubble and mud.
It's the same message, the same truth that we all need, that
every sinner must hear. And some will reject, but by
God's grace, his people will believe. Look again at the message
itself, verse two. God spake unto Moses, and said
unto him, I am the Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham,
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty. But by my name Jehovah was I
not known to them. God reveals himself to all of
his people savingly. That word's probably not in the
dictionary, savingly. But it's an important word. Because
it means that he reveals himself in such a way that the truth
penetrates the heart of the sinner. When God reveals himself savingly,
he gives an understanding. It's the word of God that he
said to Timothy is able to make you wise unto salvation. He reveals
that to you, the truth, his word, his gospel. This is life eternal,
the Lord Jesus said, that they might know thee. And he reveals
himself to every one of his people that way. In so much that life
eternal is the gift that comes with that revelation. That's
what saving revelation is. But he also reveals more to some
than others. And over time, he reveals more
to all of his people over time. Do you know him better? Do you have more revelation,
more light than you did 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 30 years ago? I believe this is at least part
of what Paul meant in Romans 1, 16, and 17, where he said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. There's faith. All of his children
have saving faith. But there's faith, and then there's
faith, and then there's faith, and then there's faith. Faith is a lifetime of believing
on God. And the more he reveals, the
more we believe. We believe exactly what he reveals,
and nothing less, and nothing more. Because faith comes by
revelation from God, and no other way. Everything we do know right
now is because why? What did he say to Moses? I appeared
unto Abraham. What you know about God right
now, however much you know, however much faith you have, however
much knowledge of him you have, whatever understanding you have,
you have because he appeared unto you. He revealed it to you. Paul said in Galatians 1.15,
when it pleased God, He separated me from my mother's womb, called
me by His grace, and revealed His Son in me. He revealed His
Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen. You can't
preach somebody you don't know. How do you know Him? He revealed
Him in me when it pleased Him to do it. And that's how we know
anything, because he's pleased to reveal it. He reveals his
son in all of us when it pleases him to do it. But based on our
text tonight, let's pray this. May God reveal himself to us
more this year. In 2012, may he reveal himself to us in
a way that he has not as yet. Not a different way, but more
of himself as he is. And as he's revealed in his word,
in his gospel. Verse four, and I have also established
my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, to give
it to them. The gift of God is eternal life. God is the giver of all good
things. He said, I know how to give good
things to my children. He just gives it to you. We just
had Christmas time, you know. We understand what a gift is,
don't we? Just because I wanted to. Because
I love you. Because I want you to be happy.
I want to see the smile on your face when you open it. I have established to give them
the promised land. Canaan is typical of heaven's
glory, the very presence of God. To be with Christ, which is far
better, Paul said, in the land of their pilgrimage wherein they
were strangers. I have established, this word
means to fulfill, and it also has this interesting connotation
in the definition. It means to impose. We talked
about that recently, didn't we? God imposes his will upon the
sinner and some are incensed by that and others praise him
from now on for it. But he does impose his will,
his covenant, doesn't he? It means to fulfill to impose. Is not this covenant of grace
already fulfilled when He gives it? Of course it is. Is not Christ the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world? The one who declares the covenant
is the one who fulfills it. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking to Moses and He said, I have fulfilled my covenant
with my people. Be the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. And is not this covenant graciously
imposed upon his people? God said, I've established it.
Nowhere in here, ever anywhere in this language, is the will
of the people consulted or required. God said, I've established my
covenant. And I'm gonna take you to myself
as a people. And I'm gonna be to you a God.
That's imposing, that's gracious, omnipotent imposition that we'll
praise him for forever. Verse five, and I have also heard
the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians
keep in bondage. The world, the world's religion,
it's bondage. And I have remembered my covenant. Now think with me for a second.
This remembering of the covenant, it doesn't just mean that God
didn't forget about it. Obviously God didn't forget about
it and I'm thankful for that and that's obviously true. That's
gloriously and blessedly true. We don't overlook that because
He's not like I am in that regard. He's not like you are in that
regard. We make promises and we forget
them and not just that it went out of our mind. but also in
the other way that this remembrance means something more. This expresses
that his visitation of them now, his actions toward them now on
this day, when he declares, I'm your God and I've come to deliver
you. I've heard your cry and I'm here to deliver you. I'm
sending my servant to deliver you. That is his remembering
of them, of that covenant that he made with Abraham. It's not
just a remembering as a mental faculty, but it's
an active remembering. Learn this from that. Everything
God does with regard to his people is a remembering of his covenant.
Everything. all of his eternal decrees concerning
us and all that comes to pass in time in our experience, which
is perfectly according to those eternal decrees. Everything has
to do with that covenant, is according to that covenant of
grace, is a remembrance of that eternal covenant of unconditional
grace in Christ Jesus. When I was born, he remembered
his covenant. When I shook my fist in his face
and cursed him and hated him with all my heart, he remembered
his covenant. The day that he broke my heart
and revealed his son in me, he was remembering his covenant
that day. And as I stand here today, he
remembers his covenant that he established with me in Christ,
whose blood is the blood of that everlasting covenant before the world began. Verse six, wherefore say, God
has done some things Now say, that's what the gospel is, isn't
it? What great things the Lord has done for thee. Wherefore say unto the children
of Israel, I am the Lord. That's where it starts, isn't
it? Who he is. He said to Moses, I am the Lord. Now you go say to them, I am
the Lord. And that's what I'm here to do
tonight. We're still saying it, aren't we? He's the Lord. He's Jehovah. He's God almighty. He's the one who does as he pleases. Our God is in the heavens and
he does what he wants to do. He's the one that said, I've
come to save you. What I want to do is save you
and bless you and be with you forever. and rain my mercies
down upon you and pursue you all your days of your life with
my mercy. That's what I want to do. I'm
the God that does what he wants to do. That's what I want to
do. That's good news, isn't it? That's good news. What I want
to do is send my son to die in your place so that you might
live I'm gonna bring you out from
under the burdens. All you that labor and are heavy
laden, I'm gonna bring you to me, I'm gonna give you rest.
And I will rid you out of their bondage. Don't be entangled again
with the yoke of bondage, but stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath set you free. I've come to set you free. If
the sun shall make you free, you're plum free. And I'm going to redeem you.
How are you going to set us free, Lord? We're sinners and sinners
must perish. I'm going to redeem you with
my precious blood. That's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to die for you. You do it with a stretched out
arm. power of God. Unto the Jews a stumbling block,
and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called,
both Jew and Greek, Christ the power of God." That's God's stretched
out arm. It's His Son. It's the rod of
God. The power of His might. And with great judgments. That
which is already established in eternity, in other words,
will come to pass in time. I've already established my covenant
long ago, before there was ever a world. Now, according to that
covenant, I've remembered my covenant, and I'm going to redeem
you. I'm going to deliver you out
of bondage. I'm going to set you free. I'm going to take your
burden on myself so that you won't have to bear it. Christ will come in time. That is the remembrance of his
covenant, sending his son into this world in the likeness of
sinful flesh and for sins and condemning my sin in the flesh. Not just sin in general, but
my sin, your sin if you're here. Condemning his people's sin in
the flesh. He will come. He'll make a difference.
He'll separate us out. There's the world and there's
his people, and he came to deliver his people. He'll sanctify us,
he'll release us from bondage in actual experience, and he'll
redeem us with his precious blood. When his precious blood was shed
on the cross for me, the chains of my captivity were broken.
That's how he took my burden away and rid me of the bondage
by dying in my place. The chains were broken and cast
away. My body and soul were redeemed
by that precious blood. Not potentially, but actually.
He obtained eternal redemption. Peter said in first Peter chapter
one, you weren't redeemed with corruptible things such as silver
and gold, but you were redeemed. with the precious blood of Christ.
As of a lamb without blemish and without spot, you were redeemed. When Christ died, his people
were redeemed. He said, I'm going to do it,
and he came and did it, and said, it's finished. It's done. It's
perfect. With a stretched out arm, I'll
redeem you with a stretched out. There's power in the blood, isn't
there? Power in the blood. And with great judgments, how
great are the judgments of God in condemning his own son to
die in the stead of sinners like you and I. And in setting his
people free, sinful and vile though we are, how deserving
of hell we are. As we sit here tonight, how great
are his judgments. And in verse seven, and I will
take you to me. Well, I'll take Jesus to be my
Lord and Savior. Well, this is what I want to hear from
God. I will take you. I'll take you to me for a people. And I will be to you a God. And
you shall know. Do you see the gospel here? What are we going to know who
he is? I'm the Lord your God. Well, everybody knows that. Nobody
knows that. They think he's just like us.
We all think that by nature. He's just like us, you know,
tries and fails and wants to and can't. He's the Lord your
God. That's who he is. And you're
going to know that when He comes where you are. Which bringeth
you out. When you know Him, you'll say
what Jonah did. Salvations of the Lord. The Lord
brought me out. It's Him that brought me out.
Not I made a decision. I walked an hour. I got saved. You got condemned is what you
got. And the Lord said, but I brought you out. God doesn't throw out an invitation
to all mankind and then wait to see who will respond. He takes
to himself a people. He said, go out into the highways
and hedges and compel them to come in their mind. They're coming. Give up North, South, East, and
West. Give them up. They're coming.
They're mine. I'm taking them. In sovereign love and mercy and
power, he says to them, I'll be a God to you. Not a good luck
charm, not a well-wisher, a God. Notice what he said in this verse.
I will take you. I will be your God and you shall
know. I will, I will, you shall. That's the gospel message. You shall know. You shall know. John 6, 45, it is written in
the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. All people? Well, let's see who
all is. Every man, therefore, that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. That's the all he's talking about.
Everybody that comes to me. Why did they come to me and somebody
else didn't? Because they were taught of God,
that's why. They were taught of God. And
you shall know, you shall know. Well, I thought everybody was
taught of God and then some have good sense enough to believe
and others don't. That's what you get for thinking. That's
what people get for thinking, isn't it? That's what I get for
thinking when I think and don't see what God said. God said,
my thoughts are not your thoughts. We ain't got no business thinking
about anything without believing what God said. May God bring my thoughts into
conformance to His. We've got to quit saying, I thought,
and hearken unto what God said. All those who believe are those
only who are taught of God. Those who come to Christ are
those who are taught of God. And those who are taught of God,
He said, shall come to Me. They come. That's what God teaches
them to do. Come to Christ. This is my Son. Hear Him. honoring him. John said, we know that the son
of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may
know him that is true. How are you going to know him
that is true? God said, you shall know that I'm the Lord your God.
How are we going to know him that is true? The son of God
comes and gives an understanding. Nothing is clearer in God's word
than this. We are in him that is true in
his son even in his son Jesus Christ. This is the true God
The true God is the one that gives an understanding He takes
to himself a people and he says I'm gonna be your God and you're
gonna know me You're gonna know me This is the true God and eternal
life Eternal life 1st John 5 20 Verse 8 of our text, and I will
bring you in unto the land. He'll bring us all the way in. Deliver us from bondage, rid
us of the yoke of bondage, deliver us from the burden of our sins,
and redeem us out of the hands of our enemies, our sins, and
Satan, and our own will and way. and then he's gonna bring us
all the way, and we're kept by the power of God unto salvation,
all the way to the promised land. All the way, my Savior leads
me. All the way. That land concerning the which
I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I
will give it to you for an heritage. I am the Lord. He begins the message that way. Verse, what is it, verse two? I am the Lord. And then when he said what he
would say, he closes by saying, I am the Lord. The gospel is a message of who
God is and what God has done and what he shall do for his
people. Isn't that what we just saw?
Verse two, who is he? I am Jehovah. L-O-R-D, Jehovah. Verse three, I appeared unto
Abraham. I'm the gracious God who just
comes and has mercy on whom he will. Verse three, Verse four,
I have established my covenant. He's the covenant God. He makes
promises. He keeps them. He makes promises. He said, I've spoken it and I'll
bring it to pass. Verse five, I have heard my people
groaning. Also verse five, I have remembered
the covenant that I established. Verse six, I will bring you out. Verse six, also, I will rid you
of bondage. Verse six, also, I will redeem
you. Who I am, what I've done, what
I will do. Verse seven, I will take you
to me for a people. Verse seven, I will be to you
a God. Verse seven, and you shall know
me. And verse eight, I'll bring you
into the promised land. I am the Lord. Isn't that wonderful? That's what we say every time.
That's the gospel. Who God is and what he's done
for you and what he's going to do for you. It's not about you doing things.
If you ever hear who he is and what he's done and what he shall
do, you'll do something. But the gospel is not about you
doing something. It's just not. And may God give us grace, verse
nine, and Moses spake so. Don't you want to do that, D? Oh, there's nothing else I want
to do, like I want to do that. Speak so unto the people. In verse 9, Moses spake so unto
the children of Israel, but they hearkened not unto Moses for
anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. And they hearkened not. You remember
Exodus chapter 4 when this message was first preached to them by
Aaron? In verse 30, look at 4.30. It says, And Aaron spake all
the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did the
signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed. When
they had heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel,
and that He had looked upon their affliction, they bowed their
heads, and they worshipped in faith, believingly. They worshipped God because of
the good news of deliverance. And then in chapter six they
hearken not. What happened between chapter
four and chapter six? Time. And one other thing. Trouble. Promised deliverance was a wonderful
prospect at first. But then there was affliction.
Because of that message, there was affliction. The offense of the gospel cost
them something. Pharaoh was angry at the idea
of the children of Israel resting and worshiping God by blood sacrifice. In chapter 5, verse 8, that's
what made him mad. You're resting from your labors. He who hath entered into the
Lord's rest hath also seized from his own labor." Sure enough.
Sure enough. And he said, all you want to
do is go out and offer sacrifice instead of working. You got us there. That's what
we want to do. We don't want to try to work our way to heaven.
We want to honor the Lord Jesus Christ and his precious blood
as our righteousness, as our sin offering, as our way to God,
as our acceptance with God. He's all, Christ is all. And
the Pharaoh was angry, so he inflicted cruel bondage even
harder than before upon them. And as this affliction took its
toll upon the people, they began to doubt. Can you see yourself in them?
Well, Chris, we've never been whipped and beaten and had to
work out in the hot sun with no materials. You know, there are times when
a desk job can feel worse than the kind of bondage that the
Egyptians inflicted upon the Israelites. There's been times
in my life when I would have jumped ship to go make bricks
out of stubble. I'm not saying I'd have been
doing the right thing, but we all are there at times, aren't
we? When it seems like everyone and
everything is against you and everything's looking bad, Prospects
are not good for the future. You feel like these who were
required to make bricks without straw, your responsibilities
are more than your capabilities. Anybody? Or perhaps your discouragement
is more of a spiritual nature. How about both? Don't underestimate, believer,
the difficulties of a physical nature in this life because it's
the cares of this world that choked out the seed in our Lord's
parable of the sower. It's the responsibilities and
the worries and the concerns of this world that do that. But even more horrific are the
discouragements of spirit that we experience at times, there's
nothing worse, and you know this if you know him. There's nothing
worse in this world than the fear that God is not with you
and not for you. Job said in 1324, wherefore hidest
thou thy face and holiest me for thine enemy. Wherefore? And we see Job's perspective
and our perspective when God does that, when he does hide
his face. He said, you're counting me as
one of your enemies. That's Job's perspective. Now
listen to God's. perspective. Isaiah 54 8. He said, in a little wrath I
hid my face from thee for a moment. That word wrath is displeasure.
The Lord Jesus took the wrath of God for us. We never suffer
any wrath in the sense that we usually understand that word.
But the Lord was angry with Moses, wasn't he? He angry with you
at times too. Don't ever doubt it. In a little
wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting
kindness will I have mercy on thee? Saith
the Lord your Redeemer, your Redeemer says to you, with everlasting
kindness my mercy is always on you. Even when I hide my face in displeasure in time, how can
God have a little wrath? We're talking about God. How
can God have a little wrath? Well, you remember what we said
before about time and eternity? God has got to be understood
in his dealings with us in those two different ways, regard to
time and with regard to eternity. God in Exodus 4.14 was angry. His anger was kindled against
Moses because of his unbelief. But we also know that if God
is to ever accept us into his presence, we must be without
sin. There can never have been any
unbelief. In Christ, there has never been
any unbelief. And I'm in Christ. We have to
understand time and eternity, and we have to understand the
sinner in himself and the sinner in Christ. We talked about that. God is not unaware of any of
our sin. You understand that. And he's never happy with sin. He's always angry with it. with
us when we sin. And he's always unaware of all of
our sin and there's never been any. And let me be clear about something
while we're on the subject. God doesn't just pretend that
there's never been any sin in you. Because of who Christ is to me,
my relationship with Him and in Him, and because of what He
did for me, there has never been any sin in me. He considers me
in Christ in whom is no guile, no sin was found in Him. That's me in the sight of God,
where it counts. Never thought any, never spoken
any, never done any. Never. There is forgiveness because
of who we are in ourselves. There's sin to forgive, but there's
justification because of who and what we are in Christ. Justification
doesn't acknowledge that there ever has been any sin. In fact,
it declares specifically and positively that there never has
been. There's forgiveness and justification
in me and Christ. God in time is angry with us
at times and hides his face at times, like he did in the case
of Job. But even those times, from an
eternal perspective, or for our good. Notice the words in the
verse that I read, and jot this verse down and look at it later
if you would. Isaiah 54, eight, he said, in a little wrath, I
hid my face from thee for a moment, time, for a moment, but with
everlasting kindness, will I have mercy on you, time and eternity. With everlasting kindness will
I have mercy on you. His mercy been pursuing me all
the days of my life, even on those days when his anger was
kindled against me like it was Moses. So, at times like these Israelites,
we fear, don't we? We doubt. We don't hearken because
what we see and experience, we're unable to reconcile with what
has been promised. That was their case, wasn't it?
The promise was clear, wasn't it? Oh, but look at what they're
experiencing. And they hearken not because
of what they were experiencing. Lord, you said you'd give rest.
Why am I in such turmoil? All the time then, so that I
cry out with Paul, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? I don't do what I want to do,
and I do what I don't want to do. Where's the rest? We do rest, don't we? We do rest. We just don't experience it all
the time. I know, Lord, you said you'd
never leave me nor forsake me, but it looks like. Why do you
count me for your enemy? Why are the Egyptians treating
us this way? You said you were coming to deliver
us. David said in Psalm 77, eight, is his mercy clean gone forever?
Does his promise fail forevermore? Wait, is this the same David
who wrote Psalm 136? Where every verse, all 26 of
them, ends with this phrase, for his mercy endeareth forever. Is he the same David that said,
is his mercy clean gone forever? David, when he writes Psalm 77
and asks that question, is his mercy clean, gone forever? He
knows in his head that it's not. Don't we? We know that God doesn't withdraw
his mercy from those that he loves. His gifts and calling
are without repentance. He's not like us. But David's
experience causes him to cry out nonetheless. For anguish
of spirit and for cruel bondage, they hearkened not. Job and David,
for the same reasons that these Israelites did, they hearkened
not. They doubted and they feared.
And they're not alone in this. John the Baptist, from behind
the bars of a prison, with the prospect of his head
being cut off the next morning, which sure enough it was, and
delivered on a plate to his enemy. When he was in that prison, he
sent some men to the Lord to ask him a question. Are you he, or do we look for
another? And the Lord said to those fellows,
you go tell John that the lame walk and the deaf
hear and the dead are raised to life. And tell him this, blessed
is he who is not offended in me. What a lesson. What a lesson. And then in the
following verses, the Lord Jesus starts bragging on John. He said,
would you go out in the wilderness to see a reed shaking with the
wind? That's not what you saw. Did
you go out there to see a prophet? Oh, you saw a prophet indeed. There's never been a man born
of a woman greater than John. So the people hearken not But
God's message was exactly the same to them as it was before
when they received it with joy. It was the same message, the
same gospel, the same word of redemption and grace and covenant
mercy. Maybe you think, well, what a
waste of time. Moses delivered this wonderful message and nobody
heard it. The gospel's never a waste of time. He always causes us to triumph,
Paul said. It never returns unto him void.
He said, it'll accomplish the exact purpose that I sent it
to accomplish. It never returns void. It's always
the same. The message of covenant grace
and deliverance from bondage and redemption by the blood of
his son. It's a sure message. It's a message
devoid, utterly devoid of contingencies or potentialities. He said, I
have, and I will, and I'm God, and you shall. A message of sovereign, saving,
invincible grace. Paul said, therefore it is of
faith that it might be by grace to the end that the promise might
be sure. to all the seed, not to that
only which is of the law, the Jews, but to that also which
is of the faith of Abraham, everyone that believeth. Will you hearken
to the message tonight? Or will we, for anguish of spirit
and cruel bondage, hearken not? Remember this. Are your infirmities
such that you can't even rejoice in the glorious message of his
omnipotent grace? Remember this. Even when you're
sinning, which is all the time, even when you're afraid, even
when you have no faith, there's no evidence of any faith. He
said to his disciples, how is it that you have no faith? Even
when you're there, when He said that to them, He didn't forsake
them, did He? He delivered them. Even then, especially then, if
there can be an especially with regard to this, God remembers
His covenant. He doesn't ever leave or forsake
His people. He sees the blood of the everlasting
covenant. and he's well pleased with you
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Be encouraged. There is sorrow,
there is anguish, there is fear, there is doubt. We believe, may God help our
unbelief and reveal himself to us, comfort us with the truth
of his sovereign saving love in Christ. Let's bow in prayer.