If you'll turn back now to Exodus
8, Israel in Egypt and the deliverance by God of Israel out of bondage
and out of oppression is the spiritual figure of our deliverance
from this world and from the presence of Satan, from his power, and from the effects of sin.
And every part of this deliverance that we read and study about
way back here in Exodus has a direct connection to that deliverance,
that spiritual deliverance in our conversion and in the conversion
of all sinners. And this truth as it's revealed
to chosen sinners has to do with a lot of different things. When you talk about conversion,
it's not that cut and dry. When you talk about the revelation
of grace, it's not that cut and dry. There's a lot of things
that take place in your life. There's a lot of different things
that must be revealed. I'm just going to give you a
few of them. Who God is, number one. You don't get that all at
once. That comes little by little,
who God is. And the truth about man, that's
another thing that don't come all at once. You've got to be
made known, you have to be made known who you are. God has to
reveal to you who you are and what you are and why you are
the way you are. And the truth about false religion,
that's another thing you're going to come to see or else you ain't
going to leave it. If you don't see any danger in it, you're
not going to leave it. You're not going to avoid it.
If you don't see any danger in it, you're going to listen to
what they say. You're going to follow their instructions. You're
going to ask them for their advice. You come to see what it is, you're
not going to go down here to a false prophet somewhere for
information about God if you understand that this is a false
prophet. These are all things that have to do with the revelation
of grace. This world under the curse of
sin, and Satan's real place in the world and how he works, and
man's absolute helplessness against his power and influence. And
then God's eternal purpose of grace. God has a purpose in this
whole thing. God saves men on purpose. I don't
know how many times, People come to me and they say, well, let
me give you a situation. Just keep the situation. God
does things. He saves men on purpose. There
is no circumstance. There is no time or place or anything that's
going to happen that's outside the purpose of God. God's purpose
takes in all these things. And you can just go on and on
and on with these revelations. These things that we're reading
and studying about back here all have these things in figure
and picture if you just look at them. And I'll tell you how
you see these things. You see them through a revelation
and experience of grace in your own heart. That's how you see
them. And you know immediately when you look at them, you'll
know. You'll know if I'm just making things up or just talking
about things or if this thing really does look like that. Does
this thing really represent that? Conversion is the life story
of the believer. And down here in Egypt, we can
see these things in their beginning. And we can see them in figure
as they transpired under the preaching of God's ambassadors,
Moses and Aaron. Now, last Wednesday, we talked
about the flies that God sent into Egypt. And these flies are
a picture of religious men and women who are under the spell
of Satan and his ministers. It's the false convert. They're
religious but lost. And these people are those who,
like the Pharisees, they believe that they're serving God. They
believe that. They're just like the Pharisees,
and they believe that they know God. They believe that God loves
them. They believe that they love God.
And they do love their God, but not the God of the Baptist. But
in truth, they're the children of Satan. Ain't that what our
Lord told them? They said, we have God, our Father. He said,
if God was your Father, you'd love me. You'd come to me. You'd listen to me. You'd bow
to me because I come forth from the Father. You don't have any
light from the Father but me. I'm the bread. You don't drink
of my blood nor eat of my flesh. I have no part in you. Remember? Oh, they said, we'd be not born
of fornication. They believed they served God. But he said, you are of your
father the devil, and the lust of your father you will do. The
fly is the perfect symbol of the false combird. He begins
as a wiggling maggot, born in corruption, and feeds there until
he's full, until the fullness of his time has come. Then in
amazing transformation, he undergoes a change. And everything outwardly
changes. It all changes. His whole outward
appearance, his whole habits, his whole ways, everything changes.
But he never loses his appetite and he never changes in his nature.
His nature is still the same. He still loves that rotting carcass
of the beast. He still swarms and feeds on
the dung. It is first by the plague of
the flies that God sets a distinction, as we've been studying these
plagues. When we come to the fly, God set a distinction right
there, made a distinction between His people, and He did it with
these flies. And He does it today the same
way. He makes a distinction in this world between those religious
flies and His people. And those swarms of flies don't
come where His people gather. They want to come in every now
and then. But they don't swarm here and they don't feed here
because there's nothing here they like. Nothing here that
feeds that corrupt nature that they have. A man will come in
here for a while. You watch him. Every now and
then we'll have somebody come. And they'll come for a little
while. And they said, well, you know, surely eventually he's
going to get on to something. He's going to tell us something.
And like one old fellow said, he listened for a little while
and then he said, all right, I get it, now let's move on.
And the preacher said, no, you don't get it. You don't get it
at all or you wouldn't want to move on. There's nowhere else
to move except in Christ. So it's first by this plague
of flies that God sets a distinction. And by the hand of sovereign
grace, God gathers His elect in Goshen, and He will not allow
these swarms, none of the swarms of flies of this plague to enter
where He has gathered them. And as God did in Egypt, so He
is doing in our day. He is gathering His elect out
of the heathen nations, just as He did here in Egypt. He is
gathering His people out of these heathen nations. He's gathering
His people out of every tribe, tongue, nation, and people under
heaven. Wherever it is, He's gathering
them out. One or two, three or four, whatever it is, gathering
them out to give them that promised inheritance that He covenanted
with Abraham. And it's in the contrast of these
plagues that God reveals the truth to His elect. If you'll
read these accounts carefully, You're going to find three things
to be true. You read through these plagues.
First of all, you're going to find that God's mercy and grace
was never intended for the Egyptians. God was clear as a bell about
that in the beginning, wasn't he? He didn't give Moses any
hope for these Egyptians. He didn't give them any hope
for Pharaoh. He didn't give them any hope
that that nation was going to be turned around. I hear preachers
all the time talking about turning America around. You're not going
to turn America around. God's calling His elect out of
this heathen nation. When He calls His people out
and finishes the work, He's going to destroy this nation just like
He is all the rest of the heathen nation. We want to make America
special, and it's special. It's my home. It's special in
that respect. But I'm telling you, not in the eyes of God.
It's as heathen as any other nation in this world. and say,
well, we ain't got any witch doctors. You need to turn your
TV on. They've got everything but the bone in the nose, and
they'll have that pretty soon. God's mercy and grace, He reveals
this to Moses, and He shows us all the way through. It was never
intended for Egypt. And then secondly, you'll find
that no spiritual blessing was ever bestowed on the Egyptians.
Never was. Never was. And in the end, all
their wealth and glory, it left with Israel. All that wealth
and glory, it all walked out the door to Israel. And that
glorious nation lay shattered in the ruins. All their leaders,
all their magnificent wise men, all their powerful generals,
they were all laying buried in the sea. Every one of them. That
nation lay in ruins. And thirdly, in the end, Israel
lost nothing in all these plagues of Egypt. Israel didn't lose
anything. Not one bit. Read through there
and see. Not a hoof nor a hair was left
behind. Ain't that what Don said? Not
a hoof nor a hair left behind. And then another thing I labor
to point out as we've been going through these is that Egypt continued
to be plagued under the curse of God, and so is this world. It continues. So long as God's
elect is in this world, He's going to continue to send plague
after plague after plague. Now, I saw a few things here
the other day, and I've talked to different ones here in the
church about it. toward the end of Exodus chapter 8, and I want
to kind of stop on the plagues tonight, and I think these things
are important enough to look at and call your attention to. Now this first thing, it's not
necessarily found in the last part of Exodus, but since we're
going to talk about these things, I thought I'd start out with
that. And that's how Israel appeared in Egypt. I want you to see that,
how they appeared. Because there's a lot of talk
about that. When we minister to men and women, they look at
us how we appear in this world, don't they? Y'all go, where's
the church? Way over there. What's over there? What's going on over there? Israel always had the advantage. They always did. Why? Because God chose Israel. There
was never a time when they appeared to be underdogs, but they never
was underdogs. Never was. God chose them. They always had the vengeance.
There was never a time when they did not have the blessings of
God or the upper hand over Egypt. Those Egyptians worshipped them
frogs. You remember I told you what
that frog was? He was the god of fertility. He was supposed to bless those
Egyptians where they had lots of children. But the Egyptians
couldn't have many children. And Israel was just having children. They were just going on and on
and on with their numbers until Pharaoh decided he was going
to start killing them. There never was a time when they
didn't have the blessings of God or the upper hand. God sealed
them in a covenant with Abraham according to his eternal purpose
of grace. But as they appeared in the eyes
of men, that's what I want you to see because these things all
have a spiritual application and that's what we've been looking
at in these things. As they appeared in the eyes of natural men and
natural reasoning, it seems that the opposite might be true. Now
let's just suppose you don't know the things that you know,
and you're just a bystander here, and you're looking at the things
going on. You're one of these neighboring countries over here,
and you're looking at what's going on down here in Egypt,
and here's these fellas down there, Moses saying these are
the elect of God, and they're all huddled up over here in a
corner somewhere, and Egypt's over here with all this massive
army and wealth and glory and long-standing and all those things. Egypt had the power. Isn't it? They had the power. Egypt had
the glory. His Pharaoh running around claiming
to be God, they had all the glory. Egypt had long been established
and made their mark in the world. Egypt seemed to be the reason
why the rest of these nations survived the famine. These other
nations looked at them and said, well, they've got favor with
God. Whoever their gods are, they've got favor with them because
they're the whole reason why our nation survived this great
drought. And Egypt had the wealth, they
had the means, and they had the resources. Outwardly, it appears
as though Egypt was the elect and Israel was the condemned,
if you look at it that way. Israel was at the disposal of
Egypt. They served them. Egypt didn't
serve them. They served Egypt. Israel had
no influence over anybody. Israel wasn't even recognized
yet as a people. Are we? Huh? We're not recognized yet. Huh? He's still gathering us in Goshen.
But there's going to be a time. There'll be a time when we leave
this world with Him. And we'll be declared. He'll
establish us as a people. I'm asked all the time, well,
what denomination do you all belong to? And I say, well, we
don't belong to any of them. Oh. Oh. That's the answer I get almost
every time. Oh. Oh. Well, then you're not even
recognized. You see what I'm saying? The
Israelites down here, Moses saying these are the children of God.
Pharaoh saying, oh. Really? Really? You see what
I'm saying? How we appear in this world. That makes a lot of difference,
Glenn, when you're trying to talk to somebody about the Lord
and they're looking at you. Just remember that. Don't get
upset with them or angry with them because they just don't
side up with you. I mean, just try to look through their eyes
for a little bit and see how we appear in this world. Israel was held under the rule
of Pharaoh. Now you spiritually compare what
I just said to the grace churches of our day. I preach to men who
have no spiritual vision. They see us in the way we appear
in this world. And even if they don't ask that
question, they're thinking it. Sometimes they're polite and
don't ask it. But here's the question. Do you really believe
in the light of the glory of this world and its massive, organized,
long-established religion? that they are the idolaters and
you are the elect. Do you really believe that? Huh? Do you really believe that? Said
this church. I was up there and saw that national
cathedral. I don't know why on earth this
country would have a national cathedral. put this big Catholic
cathedral up in Washington, D.C. called the National Cathedral.
It's the biggest. You can see it from anywhere
in Washington, D.C. You can see the steeple on this
thing. We had to back up a block and
a half to get the thing in a photograph. It was huge. Now, you take this
building right here in a snapshot and take it up there and stick
it right up beside there and you say, that's the idolaters
and where the elect have gone. And take a poll. Huh? Do you really believe that? And
I'm telling you, I didn't drop in a bucket compared to how religion,
the masses and glory and wealth and all that stuff influence
of religion in this world. You really believe this humble
little group gathered here and there throughout the world are
God's church and these great masses of traditional religion
are all deceived? You really believe that? Well,
it sure don't appear that way by natural reasoning and outward
evidence. No, sir, it don't. Not till God
gathers you in Goshen and lets you see the plagues. Now, you
see where I'm going? He has to set you aside, protect
you, and give you eyes to see the plagues. Eyes to see the
plagues. Alright? The second thing I want
to call your attention to is that being disturbed by the plagues
of God, Pharaoh now suggests a compromise. A compromise. Now remember what our last study
was. We're talking about the man who's deceived. We're talking
about the fly. The professor of faith. The false
religionist. He has no true change of nature. He's the fly. Satan's convinced
him of this, and he's made this false profession, and he's made
all these outward changes and things. When God begins His work of deliverance
in the heart, Satan always suggests a compromise. Look here in Exodus
8, verse 25. Now this is after the fly. After
the fly had already been manifested. It's after. Pharaoh called for
Moses and Aaron, and they came in. And Pharaoh, and he said,
Go ye sacrifice to your God in the land, in this land, is what
he's saying. You go ahead and sacrifice. You
go ahead and worship God. But do it here in Egypt. Now picture the sinner. He's down here somewhere. His
whole family are Nazarenes. Every one of them. Granddaddy
was a Nazarene. Your daddy was a Nazarene. Might
go back a generation more than that. They're all Nazarene. All
of his brothers and sisters are Nazarene. And God calls this man out of
false religion. Gathers him over. Sets him aside.
reveals to him that he's made a false profession of faith and
shows him that these outward changes is not that change which
God needs to do. It's not that necessary change
of heart and nature. Now, he can't go back to this
deception anymore. What does Satan do now? He suggests a compromise, don't
he? Now he said, go ahead and worship.
Just go ahead and worship. But don't leave. Ain't that what
he said? Don't go nowhere. Just stay here. Worship your God. Go ahead and
offer your sacrifice. Whatever it is you need to do,
you just do it. But just stay here. Now let's
don't get radical. Let's don't get radical. Let's
not talk about permanent divisions here. Let's not talk about dividing
the kingdom. Half of Egypt was Israel. Let's
don't talk about dividing the kingdom. Let's don't destroy
the nation. Let's disagree to disagree and
you worship your way and we'll worship ours and you just stay
right here where you're at. Stay right here. After all, we're all just Egyptians,
aren't we? We're all just Egyptians. Just
stay put and serve your God and serve Egypt at the same time. I'm going to tell you something.
God didn't send his preacher into Egypt to effect some kind
of a compromise. Moses wouldn't have it. He wouldn't
have it. He sent Him down there to deliver
His people out of Egypt, out of their influence and power,
and out of their vain religion and idolatry, and out of their
vain reasoning and logic, and out of their evil motives and
goals. He's not going to leave them down in Egypt. God's not
going to teach His elect how to worship at the First Baptist
Church in Egypt. He ain't going to do it. He's
not going to do it. He's going to lead them into
a barren wilderness. He's going to get them way, way,
way apart from Egypt before He ever begins to teach them how
to worship. He's going to separate them by
a strong hand. He's going to separate them by
revelation of plagues until He delivers them out. And then He's
going to split that sea, that impassable sea, and He's going
to carry them across. And then he's going to lead them
into the wilderness, and out there in that barren wilderness
of sin, he's going to teach them again from ground one, he's going
to teach them how to worship God. And every man whose heart
stays in Egypt, now you wait and see as we go through the
book of Exodus, I'm not telling you the truth. Every man's heart
who stayed in Egypt died in the wilderness. Every last one of
them. Every last one of them. So Moses
immediately replies to Pharaoh in Exodus 8, verse 26, and he
said, ìIt 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?î Everything in the worship of
God is an abomination to this world. Everything we do in this
place is an abomination in their eyes. Watch them when they come
in to visit. They'll go, when you do that.
One fella went out and said all they do up there, they got two
songs and a sermon. That's all they got. It's an
abomination, everything we do here, everything we say. Everything in the worship of
God is an abomination to this world. The preaching of the gospel
is an abomination to them. You preach these things. No recognition
of the flesh. Let them come in and listen to
that. You're not going to recognize anything in this flesh. Nothing.
Not even a potential that you can't see. No potential. Nothing
in this flesh. No favor, acceptance apart from
the blood of Christ. No life apart from regeneration. That's an abomination to this
world. Everything they believe has to do with this flesh. Everything
they hope in has to do with its free will and its ability to
do these things. In Acts chapter 24, Paul was
falsely accused of many things. And here's what he told them
when he stood up before Phoebus. He said, after the way they call
heresy, heresy, rank heresy, that's how I worship God. That's how I worship the God
of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the
Law and the Prophets. The basis of all true worship
is substitution, a chosen sacrifice to be offered up in the place
of the sinner. The one point of distinction
that God will set before this world when He declares His glory
in the Gospel is His righteousness, that He might be just and justifier
of all them that believe. That's that point of distinction
right there. God is going to be just. And every other way
of salvation doesn't leave God just. It leaves God with a compromise. True worship is what sets the
believer apart from this world, and it's how God identifies His
elect. He said, we are the circumcision
which worship God in spirit. Now that's Philippians chapter
3, and if you look that word up, that word spirit, it's got
a little s. You remember what I told you
that means? It means spiritual understanding. Spiritual understanding. We are the circumcision which
worship God with spiritual understanding. Understanding of the heart. And
they rejoice in Christ Jesus. That's our substitutionary sacrifice,
and we've got no confidence in the flesh. Now watch this. Here's the third thing. Here's
the next compromise Satan offers. Verse 27. Moses said, ìWeíll
go three daysí journey into the wilderness.î Now God never told
him that. Godís going to deliver them out
of Egypt altogether and Heís going to bury Pharaoh in the
sea. This ainít about going three daysí journey. But Moses is talking
here and weíll give him the benefit of the doubt. He said, ìWeíll
go three daysí journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the
Lord our God as Heís commanded us.î And Pharaoh said, I'll let
you go that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God into the
wilderness, only don't go very far. Don't go very far. I'm going to tell you something.
Satan don't care how close you come to being saved so long as
you ain't. He don't care. Satan don't care if you adhere
to election or if you don't. He'll care, as long as you miss
Christ. Satan don't care if you give
mental assent to God's absolute sovereignty. He don't care if
you do or don't, as long as you miss Christ. And Satan don't
care if you're a five-point Calvinist, as long as you never leave sight
of Egypt, as long as you're still in his control. Satan can corrupt
any doctrine you hold, and he can do it so subtly that you'll
never even know it's being corrupted. In Matthew chapter 24 verse 24
it says, For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets,
and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that if it
were possible they should deceive the very elect. I'm going to
tell you something, free will, Arminian religion is never going
to deceive God's elect. It ain't even close to coming
to deceive God's elect. And legalism and ceremonialism
is no challenge against true faith. That's not going to deceive
that man of true faith. But there's other religions and
gospels in our day that are so subtle, they're so close in doctrine
that only God's elect are able to spot the difference. I listened
to a tape not long ago and I thought, well, that's a pretty good tape.
Pretty good tape. Until I listened to it again.
I listened to it the second time. The man's absolutely denying
regeneration. Totally. I mean, he's right on
the button with everything else. But totally denies the necessity
of regeneration. There are those who have made
the compromise and they went off for a distance, but they
still dwell in the land. There are ministers right now
that are affecting people who are under the sound of my voice.
They hear these tapes on the Internet and so on, and they
are drawing men and women away with their lies and deception
and splitting and dividing these little groups with all kinds
of heresy. And that is what it is, heresy.
Call it what it is. They're causing controversy and
division everywhere they preach. And then they try to compare
those divisions and controversies to the ministry of the apostle.
Well, they had divisions and things too. Yeah, but they didn't
have them over them issues. And I fear they went out a little
ways, but they've never been buried in the sea. Just go out
and make a show. Show your disagreement. That's
what he's telling them. Go on out there. Make your heavy
way. You've made your point. Now go
on out there a little piece. Just go out there a little piece. Show your disagreement with us.
Show your disagreement against Egypt. Show yourself different
and separated. Oh, but just go a little ways.
I'm going to tell you something. If you go a little ways, you're
still in Egypt. You've got to go a long ways to get to Canaan,
not a little ways. I wonder how many who hear this
lesson have went out just a little ways, just a little space, made
a profession of faith and talk about trusting Christ and talk
about being God's elect and talk about serving Christ. They still
have their citizenship in Egypt. Old Satan will let you go a little
ways, just far enough to get rid of the plague of the fly.
You know what that is? That's when you begin to get
under the conviction that that false profession of faith is
a false profession of faith. And you begin to see it as a
plague, and you want to get rid of it. That's when Satan comes
with a compromise. Okay, he said, I'm going to let
you go, but just go a little piece. Just go a little piece. Just far enough to think that
false profession of faith couldn't be talking about you. I mean,
after all, I worship every now and then. Sure I do. I come every now and then. And
I give a pretty good offering and I read my Bible sometimes.
And I pray every now and then. And I fellowship believers with
believers when I come to church. Brethren, I challenge you to
read the 11th chapter of Hebrews and show me any man in the 11th
chapter of Hebrews. I don't know how many hundred
he names in there, but you go through the 11th chapter of Hebrews
and see if you can find anybody there who went a little piece.
Huh? They went all the way. They went
all the way. The very first man that he names,
Abel. laid down his life for what he
believed, didn't he? The second one committed his
soul to God. He was translated out of this
world and had nothing to recommend him to God except what? The righteousness of faith. That's
all he had. He believed God. He had the righteousness
of Christ. What about Noah? The whole rest
of the earth was sitting over here laughing and mocking and
poking fun, and Noah and his family entered into the ark,
didn't they? You can go on and on. Abraham
left his father's house. Where's he going? He didn't know.
God said, I'll let you know when you get there. And he left his
father's house, packed up and left. Everything he knew. You
can go on and on and on through that chapter. None of them went
out a little piece. They all went all the way. And
it was a far country. A far country. Egypt is Egypt. It's got no part in the Kingdom
of God. And God will have all His elect
to know that Canaan is their destiny, not Egypt's wilderness. And I say this to you and I say
it to myself. Don't bite on Satan's compromise. Don't bite on it. Give yourself
to this thing. Give yourself to Christ. Don't
bite on this thing. I'm just going to be real conservative
with it. You better not be. You better give yourself. I tell
you, people tell me all the time, I don't have no communion. I
don't have no fellowship with God. He said, you'll find me
when you seek for me with all your heart. You ain't going to
find Him until then. You ain't going to find Him.
You'll find religion and you'll find compromise, but you won't
find Him until you sail out. When you sail out, you'll find
Him. God gathered His elect in Goshen,
and when He's fully demonstrated His deliverance to them and all
the plagues, He'll lead them out across an impassable sea
and a barren wilderness of sin. And then by His invisible hand,
He'll defeat their enemies and bring them into their promised
inheritance. And they'll all sing, grace,
grace, grace. They'll look back and they'll
say, you know, we didn't do anything. God did it all. He did it all. May God help us as we go through
here to see these things. And not just the plagues and
the spiritual benefits of these things, but let's talk about
these compromises and let's talk about these warnings of God that
He gives us along the way. Our Father, we thank You. Thank
You for Your Word. Thank You for Your Spirit that
allows us to see these things and that has gathered us and
put us in a place where we can see And watch our God as He pulls
out His plagues on this world and saves His elect out of it.
Teach us these things for Christ's sake. Amen.