Please, to the Old Testament,
the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 32. Now this is primarily designed
as a reading passage that has a lot to do with our text which
is found in the New Testament this morning, just in case you're
unfamiliar with Deuteronomy 32. It's one of the most wonderful
yet awful declarations in all of our Bibles. It is entitled,
The Song of Moses. Therefore, Moses in this hymn
is expressing wonderful gospel truths to the children of Israel. We're going to read verses 1
through 39, so I can't stop very much, but I'll have
to pause a time or two, I'm sure. Verse 1, Give ear, O ye heavens,
and I will speak. And hear, O earth, the words
of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the
rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain
upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass."
Watch carefully what comes next. Verse 3. Notice the punctuation
at the end of verse 2. What is the doctrine of Moses? He's promised us that that's
what this is about. What is Moses' doctrine? Here
it is. Because I will publish the name
of the Lord. the character, the being of the
Lord. Ascribe you greatness unto our
God. Now here are the details. Deuteronomy
32, begin now in verse 4. Here is the theme of this song
of Moses and it is language suited to none but Christ. He is the
rock. Christ is the rock. His work is perfect. Not one single flaw. What He came to do, He did, and
He did it perfectly. If He came to redeem, redemption
is perfectly accomplished in everything else that He came
to do. His work is perfect. For all his ways are judgment,
just and right, a God of truth and without iniquity, and right,
always right, is he. They have corrupted themselves.
Their root is not the spot of his children, of God's children. They are a perverse and crooked
generation. Do you thus requite the Lord? Is this how we express our gratitude
to God? Do you thus requite the Lord,
O foolish people and unwise? Is not He your Father that has
bought you, bought you from the bondage of Egypt and the slavery
of the devil? Is not He your Father that has
bought you? Has He not made you our Creator
and established you? Remember the days of old. Consider
the years of many generations. Ask the Father and He'll show
you. Ask your elders and they'll tell
you. When the Most High boast high God, divided to the nations
their inheritance. When God purposed to put people
in certain places on the face of this globe before this globe
was ever made, when God separated the sons of Adam, the descendants
of Adam, He set the bounds of the people. Now watch this blessed
statement. God put everybody that's ever
been on this globe or ever will be in certain places for one
reason, for the good, the benefit, and the blessing of His people.
But I thought God had to be the same toward everybody. That's
what we think, but that ain't right. God doesn't think that
way, which means our thinking needs to change, not His. What's
this now? He set the bounds of the people
according to the number of the children of Israel. Don't you
ever for one moment think that all this is talking about is
national Israel. That is not so. If you divide
your Bible into statements that belong to Israel and then those
that belong to those in Christ, you ain't got much Bible left.
So it is foolish. Ignorance on our part to try
to divide this book up. How much of this Bible belongs
to the children of God? Every last single word from Genesis
to Revelation. Verse 9, why does the Lord have
so much consideration for his children? Here it is. For the
Lord's portion is his people. He says, my people are my portion. But that ought to puzzle you.
It ought to make us feel, well, we are certainly a sorry portion
if we're God's portion. If I'm what He's got, I don't
see how He could say this. The Lord's portion is His people. And of all characters, Jacob
is the lot of His inheritance. Speaking of Jacob, verse 10,
he found him in a desert land and in the waste, howling wilderness. He led him about, he instructed
him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirs
up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings,
takes them and bears them on her wings, so the Lord alone
did lead him, that is, Jacob and all the other Jacobs, which
is every child of God. And there was no stranger with
him. God made him ride on the high
places of the earth that he might eat the increase of the fields.
He made him to suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the
flinty rock, butter of cattle and milk of sheep and fat of
lambs and rams of the breed of Bashan and goats with the fat
of kidneys of wheat. And you did drink the pure blood
of the grape. My, what wonderful, glorious
provision. And be sure to understand that
every description here of food or any other benefit or grace
that God gives us is simply another way of describing Christ to His
people. But alas, verse 15 declares,
but Jeshurun, a name for the children of God, We can't just
enjoy God's blessings. This says that we waxed fat and
kicked. You are waxed and fat. You are
grown thick. You are covered with fatness.
Now these are not compliments, by the way. Then he forsook God. Jacob, or Jeshurun, forsook God. But if you want a name in there
that really counts, just put yours. Let me put mine. We forsook God which made us
lightly esteemed, the rock of God's salvation. They provoked
Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked
Him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils,
not to God, to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came
newly up whom your fathers feared not. In contrast to that, Verse
18, of the rock that begat us, we are unmindful and have forgotten
God that formed us. And when the Lord saw it, he
abhorred them because of the provoking of his sons and of
his daughters. And he said, I'll hide my face
from them. I'll see what their end shall
be. For they are of a very forward generation, children in whom
is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy
with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger
with their vanities, and I'll move them to jealousy with those
which are not a people. I'll provoke them to anger with
a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in my anger
and shall burn unto the lowest hell and shall consume the earth
with her increase and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I'll keep mischiefs upon them. I'll spend my eras upon them. They shall be burned with hunger
and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction.
I'll also send the teeth of beasts upon them. with the poison of
serpents of the dust. The sword without and terror
within shall destroy both the young men and the virgin, the
suckling and also with the man of gray hairs. I said I would
scatter them into corners. I would make the remembrance
of them to cease from among men. But alas, the Lord tempers His
anger? Here's the reason. God never,
ever loses one of His sheep. If we're born again, bought with
the blood of Christ, you can never be lost. But I'll tell you one thing.
We can sure be miserable. Maybe even wish we could be lost. But here's why. Here's why God's
mercy, in order to honor and exalt and magnify Himself, cannot
ever be anything but eternal mercy. God's love can never be
anything except eternal love. And you have to understand some
statements. We're down to verse 27, but you
have to understand that some statements in our Bibles are
written in such a way that God is often described using human
characteristics, which are not strictly true. God is God. But here, the Lord is describing
Himself as fearing the wrath of the enemy. So understand that
the reason that's put in that kind of language is so people
like us can understand what He's saying. that I feared the wrath of the
enemy." What would he do? He would cause his people to
cease from among men. But alas, he hasn't. Why not? Lest our adversaries
should behave themselves strangely, that is, gloat and congratulate
themselves that they can beat God. lest they should say, Our
hand is high, and the Lord has not done this." In other words,
if the Lord allowed His people to just be utterly gone, our
human nature, which is devilish, wants to take credit for what
God has done to His children. Therefore, he tells us that he
has not done this and will not do it. Verse 28, for they are
a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in
them. Oh, that they were wise, that
they understood this, that they would consider their latter end.
Now verse 30, here's another one of those glorious statements
about Christ Iraq. How should one chase a thousand
and two put ten thousand to flight? And you can let that refer to
the enemies of Israel or you can let that refer to Israel.
It works either way. How do you explain that one person
could defeat a thousand? It took more than a man. It was
God's doing. How could two put ten thousand
to flight? It's a simple answer. We just
find it hard to say, God. Now, to use the language of our
chapter and to fill in another blank about Christ, our rock,
here it says, how could these things happen except their rock
had sold them and the Lord had shut them up? Now, this selling of them, If
you've ever read the Old Testament, you know that the children of
Israel went into captivity, I don't know how many times, a few times,
both when they were Judah as well as Israel. Here's how that
happened. God in Christ sold them into
slavery, not permanently, to accomplish His purpose. One of
those captivities, the one of which Daniel speaks in I forget
the chapter, but it's like 70 years. Their rock had sold them
and the Lord had shut them. Now I call your attention to
verse 31. You know what this statement
means. You like what it says. You ain't normal. In all the
previous mentions of the rock, which is Christ, it has a capital
R to begin with. But in verse 31, we have a capital
R rock and a rock that is all lowercase letters described in
their connection with each other. And if you cannot make this distinction,
you're in trouble, real trouble. Because if your God is not God,
I mean really God. And this other God that people
preach and teach and speak about and worship is spelled with all
lowercase letters. Because that God can't do anything
unless we let Him. He needs our help. He needs this,
that, and the other. That ain't God. Here it is, verse
31. is not as or like our rock, even
our enemies themselves being witnesses. If you don't believe
this, ask them. Tell them who your God is and
ask them if that's their God and you'll find out it ain't.
I'll never forget in this exact spot, the winter of 1982, I was doing a funeral. The family
had asked that another preacher be allowed to take place. Well,
I didn't even, I couldn't even say when to turn the lights on
back then, you know, or turn them off or turn the heat up
or down or whatever. So I gave him the most innocent
part in the funeral that I could. Some of you have heard this before,
by the way. I gave him scripture reading and prayer. So to begin
the service, I introduced it by saying to those who were grieving,
to the rest of us who were here, Job said, the Lord gives and
the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And this character doesn't even
get up here good before he says, my God doesn't take, he only
gives. That was a bitter lesson for
me. I thank God for it because it taught me this truth that
we ain't worshiping the same God. I don't care if he calls
himself a Baptist and if he's got a Doctor of Theology, that
doesn't make any difference. I'm telling you God is God and
anybody who says he isn't does not know him. Their rock is not
like our rock, if you don't believe it, ask them. For their vine
is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah. Their
grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. Their wine
is the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps or snakes. Is not this laid up in store
with me and sealed up among my treasures? Do these things not
belong to God? To me belongs vengeance and recompense. Their foot shall slide in due
time, for the day of their calamity is at hand. And the things that
shall come upon them make haste, for the Lord shall judge His
people and repent Himself for His servants when He sees that
their power is gone and there is none shut up or left. He'll
say, where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted? Where are they? Which did eat
of the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink
offerings. Let them rise up and help you
and be your protection. All right, one more verse, verse
39. See now that I, even I, am He. There is no God with me. God is one God by the purpose
of His grace to reveal Himself in three persons. But there ain't
but one God who's God. This God describes Himself in
these words. I read them carefully not to
move or change any one of them. I kill and I make alive. This is true physically. Praise
God, it's also true spiritually. If he doesn't kill our vain false
hope, which is part in ourselves and part in somebody we call
God, we'll perish. Thank the Lord he does. He does. I kill and I make alive. This is the blessed work of the
gospel, to slay proud sinners and raise them to life in Christ.
God alone can do this. I wound and I heal. Neither is
there any that can deliver out of my hand. Now if you'd turn
with me in the New Testament to 1 Corinthians chapter 10.
1 Corinthians 10. Most everybody
I think is acquainted with the fact that during the wilderness
wanderings of the children of Israel from Egypt to the land
of Canaan, the land of promise to become the land of the children
of Israel, that numerous events and things took place on that
journey, some of which are wonderful and some of which are awful.
But one thing is for certain, the Lord Jesus guided, guarded,
kept, and brought His people on that 40-year journey, which
was simply going in circles a good deal of the time. But Christ
revealed Himself to His people in several ways, only two of
which I'm concerned about at the moment, and that is through
the manna and through the rock. that was struck, rivers of water
gushed out, and not only satisfied the thirst of the children of
Israel at that time, but the Scripture uses this expression,
those rivers of water followed them through the wilderness.
That rock, which is a type and picture of Christ, and in 1 Corinthians
chapter 10, it cannot be made any plainer that this was the
case. Alright, time won't permit us
now to do another reading. I was going to read you a good
portion of this chapter, but instead I'm going to read you
a couple of verses. 1 Corinthians 10, verses 3 and
4, speaking of the children of Israel, for that matter speaking
of God's spiritual Israel, and did all eat the same spiritual
meat. Christ is that manna, that bread,
the bread of life. Verse 4, And did all drink the
same spiritual drink? For they drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. That rock was Christ. Now here
he's called spiritual meat or food and spiritual, just how
can that be? Here's how it is. This is still
how it is. In the Old Testament, God required
the worship of Christ to be done through what were called types
and pictures, I mean word pictures, illustrations. And only those
people in the Old Testament who when they offered a sacrifice,
when they attended the Passover feast, or any number of things,
or when the manna fell from heaven and the water gushed out of that
rock, only those people who were able to see God in Christ in
those things, could be said to have drunk spiritually and eaten
spiritually. And that's how it is now. If
we look at everything around us and look in this book from
one end to the other, if you do not find Christ, something
is terribly wrong, terribly wrong. Don't you know that the day that
God opened your eyes in what is called the new birth or regeneration,
that most of us had one of these books before that. And I'll guarantee
you, the day that God saved you, this became a different book.
And none of us would confess to know very much about it even
now. But I'm telling you, it changed
because we were changed. And unless we can see Christ
in all of these wonderful things in our Bibles from start to finish,
something's terribly amiss. Perhaps we've never been born
again. And you can only be born again
once. That'll be sufficient. All right, let's look at a few
scriptures now. Here's what I want to do right quick in just the
short time that we have. Who are these people? that can
fit this description in the third and fourth verses of 1 Corinthians
10. More importantly, is this me
and you? Let's pray and ask some help
from above to address that. Lord, we are grateful, not nearly
enough. Whatever in us is like it should
be, we owe it all to Thee. It is of your mercy and of your
grace in your dear Son and our blessed Savior that enables us
to know our right hand from our left, to know the true God from
the God of our imaginations. Lord, we plead with you this
morning as we come to your holy word again together. As we've
read that blessed and wonderful chapter, Deuteronomy 32, Oh,
that You would take the blinders off our eyes, reveal these things
to us as only You can do. Cause us, make us to truly lay
hold of the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting only in Him, laying
hold of His blood as well as His righteousness that He might
be all of our salvation. Lord, help us this day. We pray
for Christ's sake, Amen. Now this morning we're not interested
in making high sounding statements and lengthy explanations as to
who believers are. Sometimes I think there's only
one answer and it's very short. Simply this, I believe Him. I believe Christ. He's everything. He's our all in all. But let's
approach it this morning from this direction, from these two
statements, 1 Corinthians 10, 3 and 4. And did all eat the
same spiritual food? And did all drink the same spiritual
drink? For they drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them, and that rock was All right, I need
you to turn with me to a few scriptures this morning and see
if we can draw some conclusions as to who these people are. The
first one is in Ephesians chapter 1. It's just over to your right,
just a short distance. Go past 2 Corinthians and Galatians
and you'll be at the book of Ephesians. So I'm just going
to content myself this morning with answering these things with
biblical answers. like them or hate them, but you
can't escape the fact that God said this. It's not my opinion. It's not even John Calvin's opinion. His matter is just as much as
yours and mine, which is nothing. But if I say it's God's opinion,
that changes everything. Did you find Ephesians chapter
1 verse 4? as God has chosen us in Christ
before the foundation of the world that we should be holy
and without blame before Him in love. Here's the first thing. People who see Christ as He's
revealed in this book and who love Him as they discover Him
through the pages of this book are those very same people that
God chose to be in Christ before the foundation of the world.
If we are believers, it is an absolute incontestable evidence. If it is so, if it is true, if
we're believers, it is absolute evidence that we've been chosen
in old eternity in the covenant of grace When the Father chose
a people and gave those people to Christ and our Savior agreed
to be our surety, our federal head and our representative,
and He came into this world to live and earn a perfect righteousness
and to die, shed His blood on the cross in order to remove
our sin. Here these people are now. Here's
the first thing. Chosen of God. Chosen of God. All right. One more scripture.
Just keep going to your right until you get to the letters
of Timothy, and it's 2 Timothy 1. Just take one verse. 2 Timothy
1. 9. Referring to the gospel and
the power of God, verse 9 declares, here's a description of these
people. Whom? Who? has saved us, God
who has saved us, which God are we talking about? There ain't
but one. If you want the language of the Bible, it'd be Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. God who has saved us and called
us. We have two things here. One
is saving and the other is calling. But don't you think they're out
of order? This is God's order. Now if you want to talk about
the believer's experience, then we'll have to use a statement
like you find in somewhere, 2 Peter 1.10, make your calling and election
sure. But here it's the other way around.
And both statements are right. But for us to seek to know whether
we truly have a saving interest in Christ, we must go to Peter's
statement and begin with our calling, as God called us by
the irresistible power of His grace, to love and trust and
worship His Son, the Lord Jesus. Well, if He did, and I believe
He has in many cases, if He has, here is the original order. these
things. We see it from man's perspective. Here it is as God declares it
to be. Look at it again. Who has saved
us and then called us? Well, when did He save us? You
mean He saves us one day and calls us the next? No. No. When did He save us? Here it
is now. God saved all His people at one
time, all of them. And the first time He did that
was in that covenant of grace in old eternity. The second time
God saved us was on Calvary's tree when our Lord died in our
room, place, and stead. The third time He saves us is
when we experience it. We find out He's called us by
the power of His grace. and that by virtue of his having
called me, I am to learn and believe that God elected me. Because election precedes calling
in reality, though in our experience it might come to us a different
way. Now these people referred to in 1 Corinthians 10 as eating
spiritual meat and drinking spiritual drink. All of them, the persons
meeting this description now, not all of the children of Israel
that came out of Egypt can this be said, but it must be said
about some that they have been delivered not only from literal
Egypt, but from spiritual Egypt. Do you not know that An untold
number of persons came out of Egypt when the children of Israel
left. And the scripture says that a mixed multitude were among
them that weren't even Israelites. And even among the Israelites,
all of them did not prove to be genuine believers in our Lord
Jesus Christ, but thought they were, professed to be, enjoyed
all the outward rights of the tabernacle and its worship. But
literally, it was not true that all of them had. So it had to
be those who were not only delivered from Egypt literally, but delivered
from spiritual bondage and spiritual slavery. So what are we going
to do with that? You can change your location,
but that doesn't change a person. We could live 200 years ago or
200 in the future if there turns out to be such a thing, but that
won't change us. We might look different, smell
different, dress different, and all that kind of stuff, but that's
not it. That's not it. Here it is, plain
and simple. And did all eat the same spiritual
meat? And did all drink the same spiritual
drink? They drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. Christ. Christ. And let me remind you of this.
When these people came out of Egypt, they didn't go to a palace. They went to a wilderness. And
spiritually speaking, that's where God's children live in
this world, in a wilderness. We're pilgrims, we're just passing
through. The only people who can see Christ
in the manna, in the rock, in anything else, in the gospel,
in the Bible, the only people that can see this is God's true
spiritual Israel. Let's look at just One more Scripture,
right quick. Back to your left, Romans chapter
9, right after Acts and right before Corinthians. Two verses, first of all, near
the beginning of chapter 9. Romans chapter 9, did I give
you the chapter? Romans 9, verses 6, 7, and 8. The subject being addressed in
Romans 9, as you can see previous to these verses, is who is God's
Israel? That's the question addressed
in this chapter. Here it is, verse 6. Not as though
the word of God had taken none effect, for they are not all
Israel which are of Israel. Do you understand that now? They're
not all Israel that are Israelites. You can be a Jew, but that don't
make you a Christian. Right? Neither because they are
the seed of Abraham. Are they all children? But in
Isaac, in Christ, shall your seed be called. That is, they
which are of the children of the flesh, these are not the
children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for
the seed." The seed, the offspring of our Savior. Jump down to verse
30 in Romans chapter 9. What shall we say then? That
the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have
attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of
faith? Or to express it different, the righteousness which is of
Christ? That is, Christ is their righteousness.
Verse 31, But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? because they
sought it not by faith, sought it not by Christ, but as it were
by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling
stone." That stumbling stone is Christ. As it is written,
Behold, I lay in Zion, a stumbling stone and rock of offense. Whosoever believes on him Shall
not be ashamed. Do we believe on him? And are
we ashamed?