Let's turn together to Exodus
chapter 23. Exodus chapter 23. In our text, here in Exodus 23,
the Lord God calls for us to remember what we are by nature, what we were and where we were
when he saved us by his grace. And he uses this which he calls
us to remember as a basis, a motivation for obedience to him. Exodus
23 verse 9. Also thou shalt not oppress a
stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt. And six years thou shalt sow
thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof. But the seventh
year thou shalt let it rest, and lie still, that the poor
of thy people may eat, and what they leave the beast of the field
shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal
with thy vineyard and with thy olive yard. Six days thou shalt
do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest, and thine
and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the
stranger may be refreshed. And in all things that I have
said unto you, be circumspect, and make no mention of the name
of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth. The Lord God says, The heart
of a stranger. The heart of a stranger you know. The heart of a stranger. That's my subject. Our God here
commands us neither to vex nor oppress the stranger. In verse
21 of chapter 22, he uses the word vex. He says, vex not a
stranger. To vex is to suppress, to mistreat,
to act violently toward. He says don't suppress or mistreat
or act violently toward a stranger. The Lord commands us in our text
not to oppress a stranger. The word oppress is a heavier
word, a little stronger word. It means afflict, crush beneath
you, force down, hold down or thrust yourself upon. Don't crush
the stranger beneath your feet. Now look at the reasons he gives
for this command. These reasons he gives as motivation. teaching us to graciously treat
those people, we are most naturally apt to treat with cruelty. He gives us three motives for
being gracious and kind to the stranger. First, in verse 9,
he says, for ye know the heart of a stranger. Then he says,
seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. And then in verse
12, he says, and the stranger may be refreshed. Let's look
at these three admonitions of God's grace. First, the heart
of a stranger. If we are truly his, if you and
I have indeed tasted that the Lord is gracious, he declares,
ye know the heart of a stranger. Do we? Do you and I know in the
experience of His grace the heart of a stranger? Do we know what
it is to grope about in darkness as a stranger in Egypt? If so, we above all people ought
to pity the stranger. Oh yes, I know the heart of a
stranger in a strange land and you do too if you know God's
grace. We know the heart of the stranger
well and it will be profitable to our souls to look back and
again to call to our remembrance what we are by nature. God help
us never to forget. Child of God, ever consider thyself
as Haggai urged us. Believer seek grace from God
the Holy Spirit ever to live in the relentless awareness of
that which Solomon describes as the plague of your own heart. Never was mercy more needed and
yet not sought. More seasonable and yet unexpected. greatly needed and yet unanticipated
that when the Lord bestowed mercy upon me, when he passed by me,
spread his skirt over me and called me to live. And he says
to me, ye know the heart of a stranger. Let me talk to you about it. What is the heart of a stranger?
Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8 verse 7 that it is a heart
of enmity against God. The heart of the stranger. He's
not here talking merely about one who is physically a stranger. That becomes obvious as we look
at the way this word is used in the scripture. He's talking
about one who is physically a stranger as Israel was physically a stranger
in the land of Egypt. But they grew to be strangers
in that land as they were afflicted and brought down, heavily oppressed
and vexed by the hand of Pharaoh and brought into bondage. And
these Israelites in Egypt were full of oppression, being constantly
pushed down, constantly crushed beneath the feet of their oppressors.
As he speaks then of knowing the heart of a stranger, he's
talking about knowing something represented by those people who
were strangers in Egypt. You and I are by nature God-hating
human beings, but the trouble comes when we begin to be made
aware of our hatred for God. I lived in rebellion to God all
my life and never dreamed that I hated Him. I never dreamed that I hated
Him. I heard men talk about men hating
God, but I never dreamed that I hated Him. I cussed Him. I used his name in vanity, blaspheming
his name every day that I lived and never had a clue that I hated
him. But one day, when God began to
crush me under his feet, my heart's hatred for God erupted like a
volcano. Suddenly, I found myself hating
God. I found my heart burning with
hatred for God Almighty. And that disturbed me horribly. That terrified me greatly. The heart of the stranger is
a heart without the slightest knowledge of the triune God. No knowledge of God the Father
and His grace. No knowledge of God the Son and
His incarnation and His work of redemption. No knowledge of
God the Holy Spirit and His mighty operations of grace. Oh, perhaps
men may have great intellectual knowledge of those things. They
may have them memorized from their youth up. They may have
them memorized and taught well as they were taught catechism
and taught in Sunday school and taught by preachers, but have
no knowledge of God, His Son, and His Spirit. No knowledge.
Utterly ignorant of anything like spiritual knowledge. Utterly
ignorant of anything like an experimental knowledge. The heart. Utterly ignorant. blind, senseless,
unconscious of sin, and unconscious of danger, suddenly is awakened
to a sense of sin and danger that's terrifying. When the commandment
came, sin revived and I died, Paul said. The heart of a stranger
is the heart of sin. corruption, base, and vile beyond
degree. Hold your hands here and turn
to Isaiah 51. Isaiah 51. The Lord God says, hearken to
me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that pursue righteousness,
ye that seek the Lord, look unto the rock whence ye are hewn,
and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. We were hewn from
the rock of human depravity by the hammer of God's omnipotent
grace. We didn't break ourselves off
from the rock, God broke us from it. We didn't fall off the rock. We were hewn from it. God, we
didn't gradually evolve from the rock. We were hewn from it
with the violence of omnipotent grace. We were dug from the pit
of human corruption, death, and degradation, dug by the hand
of irresistible, immaculate mercy. God saw the wickedness of man
was great in the earth. and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. You know the heart of a stranger?
It is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Your
heart and mine by nature is as black as the heart of Judas.
Whatever sin there is, has been or shall be in this world, is
in your heart and in mine by nature. For from within, our
Savior said, out of the heart of men. I wonder why he said
heart singular rather than hearts plural. Out of the heart of men. He said it that way because the
heart of all men is exactly the same. Our heart is the heart
of our father Adam in his fallen depravity and corruption. Out
of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications,
murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness,
an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these things
come from within. And these are the things that
defile a man. The heart by nature is corrupt. I don't know why that's so hard
for us to believe except that man is dead in trespasses and
in sins and ignorant of all things spiritual in any true sense of
the word knowledge. The history of our race, if we
could read it honestly, is a history of corruption and depravity. War. We like to think that there was
something good about them, something noble about them. They're about
all fought for greed. About all of them. Fought for
power and possessions. We persecute one another. It's
our nature. It's our nature, men persecuting
men, men constantly oppressing and vexing men because we are
ambitious and greedy. The world is a world history
written in debauchery and corruption. All the things that we think
of today and we see them and we think, oh, how horrible things
have become. They're exactly the same as they've
always been. They're exactly the same as they've
always been. Well, things weren't this bad
when I was growing up. Let me tell you something. Things were every bit this bad
when I was growing up. We didn't have mass communication
like we have now. We didn't sit on 24-hour day
news like we sit now. Things were every bit as corrupt
and vile when I was growing up as they are now. I can take you
and show you. The debauchery is no worse today
than it was 50 years ago or than it was 2,000 years ago. It's
exactly the same. Humanity is just corruption. That's all. Things haven't changed
today. In this day of enlightenment
and education and reason, oh, we're so smart, so well-educated,
we're so enlightened. But if you want to see just how
far we've advanced above the cannibalistic barbarians of New
Guinea, pick up a newspaper and read it. Just pick it up any
day of any week in any town. Just pick it up and read it.
The politicians and the preachers today, like yesterday, are self-serving,
self-seeking, ambitious men. The newspaper is full of adultery,
fornication, and rape. It's all you see on television,
and much as we hate to admit it, we like to think otherwise,
we like to be proud and arrogant, and we say, well, they just,
they invent things that aren't true. I'm guilty as you are,
but the fact is, What you see on television, when you turn
the thing on, is but a reflection of what's going on in the houses
of people around the world every day. Rioting, murder, abortion,
homosexuality, pedophilia, cannibalism even. These reprobate practices,
men and women want to protect and promote by law because that's
what we are. That's what you are and that's
what I am. Thou knowest the heart of the
stranger. Know it. Yes, my God, I know
it. For I know the present corruption
of my heart. There is in me what I wish I
could deny and be honest. There is, Larry, an affinity
in my heart by nature with everything I've just spoken of. Yours too. Yours too. This evil heart of mine, the
heart of Adam, from which proceed all these evils that defile a
man. That's called depravity. Depravity. We fix it up, we paint
it up, we dress it up, we make it look good on the outside,
we pretend it's not so, we pretend that it's not so and deny it
and deny it and deny it and all the while we know it's not true
concerning anybody else anymore than it is concerning ourselves.
Corruption is the heart of the stranger. Thank God for forgiveness. Thank God for righteousness imputed
to us. Thank God for sin put away by
the blood of Christ. Thank God for grace and righteousness
imparted to us in the new birth, but we dare not deny that heart
of evil that's in us. The flesh lusting against the
spirit. Is that how this book describes
it? The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against
the flesh, so that you cannot do the things that you would. David saw this and he said, God, my steps were
almost gone. My feet had well nigh slipped.
He said, I was as a beast before thee. A beast. More like some horrid monster
than a man. Oh, yes. We know the heart of
a stranger. That ought to make us merciful
to strangers. But the Lord gives us another
reason why we should be merciful to strangers. He says, thou shalt
not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger,
seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. We should never
oppress, abuse, hold down, afflict, or thrust ourselves upon any
poor sinner. any stranger because you and
I were strangers in Egypt. Hold your hands in Exodus 23
again and turn to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. Look at verse 11. The Spirit of God has just described
for us the wondrous works of God's grace Tells us we are His
workmanship, His masterpieces created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. He told us what God's done in
us. Before that He told us what God's done for us. In Christ
Jesus the Lord told us even what He's done for us from eternity.
Now look what it says in verse 11, Ephesians 2. Wherefore remember
that ye being in time past Gentiles, Gentiles. Who were Gentiles? You read Greek mythology? Those
are Gentiles. You read about the hot and tots
in Africa and New Guinea and India and other places of cruel
barbarism in days gone by? Those are Gentiles. You read
about the ancient Romans? Those are Gentiles. Who are Gentiles? Gentiles is who we are by nature,
a cursed, idolatrous people running fast as we can from God, inventing
idols every day, worshipping ourselves and worshipping every
creeping thing on the earth rather than God Almighty. Gentiles in
the flesh. Gentiles in the flesh. The distinction
is made clear. So that God put a fleshly distinction
between Jew and Gentile. And that fleshly distinction
in itself is meaningless. But you were Gentiles, corrupt,
that's the meaning. Cursed, that's the meaning. Condemned,
that's the meaning. Read on. Gentiles in the flesh
who were called uncircumcised, called unclean, filthy. unfit, unacceptable by that which
is called the circumcision. You're called unclean by those
who are called clean, called circumcision in the flesh made
by hands. At that time, at that time, you
were without Christ, without atonement, without righteousness,
without redemption, without grace, being aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel. Aliens. Aliens are folks who
have no rights. Aliens are folks who have no
claim upon anything in the land. Aliens are folks who come from
somewhere else with no privileges of the citizens of the land.
Aliens. Aliens from all the blessings
God promised to Israel. He said, I'll bless you when
you get up in the morning. I'll bless you when you go out the
door. I bless you in your field. I bless you in the store. I bless
you when you come in in the evening. I bless you when you lay down
at night. He said, you're aliens to that. Aliens to that. Strangers from the covenants
of promise. Oh, you read the covenants in
the scriptures. People say, just claim the promise. You can't
claim it if it wasn't made to you. You can't claim it if it wasn't
made to you. Strangers from the covenants of promise having no
hope. You were strangers, no hope,
no hope, no hope without God. Godless. ungodly, without God
in the world, in this dark, doomed, damned, cursed world, strangers
in the land. But now, oh what wondrous grace, but now,
in Christ Jesus, You who sometimes were far off, you who were strangers
are made nigh. Made what? You're made circumcised. You're made clean. You're made
to be in Christ. You're made to be citizens of
the land. You're made to be heirs of the
promise. You're made to be beneficiaries
of the covenant. You have God. You have Christ.
You have hope in Christ Jesus. You who sometimes were far off
are made nigh. by blood atonement, by the precious
blood of Jesus Christ. We were strangers, strangers to the Lord Jesus. We didn't know him, we didn't
want him, but he knew us and he wanted us and he came seeking
us. We were dead in trespasses and
in sins, exposed to all the horrors of this present evil world, exposed
constantly to the second death where we would have forever suffered
the utter abandonment of God in hell, except he called us
by his grace. What deep, deep impressions this
ought to make on our hearts. We ought to be broken. humbled
contrite before God. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? And if you did receive it, why
do you glory as if you hadn't received it? Oh, pride. God, forgive my pride. Mr. Spurgeon told a story of
a young pastor that went to have lunch with one of the older men
in his congregation who was a wealthy businessman. And the man showed
him around his house and they were talking. And he saw one
room after another, the well-appointed, well-decorated, lavishly furnished
rooms of a wealthy man, a man's large estate. Found this, came to this one
room and it was just unstained, raw, rough, furniture in the
room, dirt floor, unpainted walls. And the preacher couldn't help
but ask, what's this? And the fellow said, this is
my remembrance room. He said, I come here real often
and remember where I came from, children of God, Keep the remembrance
room open all the time. You were strangers in the land
of Egypt. Yes, we know the heart of a stranger
and we were strangers in the land of Egypt, but there's a
third thing in our text that's precious beyond words. Read the
text with me again and understand that the Lord God specifically
tells us in this place that the reason he gave the law of the
Sabbath, and remember he's in this context giving the law,
and here he's specifically talking about the law of the Sabbath,
and specifically he tells us that the reason he gave the law
of the Sabbath, there are other reasons given elsewhere, I'm
not suggesting this is the only reason, this is pretty close
to the only reason, but it's not quite the only one, but the
reason he gave it, was that the stranger might be refreshed. Look at it. Verse 9, Exodus 23. Also thou shalt not oppress a
stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt. Then he begins to talk about
Sabbath. Doesn't that strike you as a little strange? He says,
don't oppress a stranger. Then he says, now, work six days,
work the land six years, sow. Read on. He said, six years thou
shalt sow thy land and shalt gather in the fruits thereof.
But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still. And the poor of thy people, or
that the poor of thy people may eat. And what they leave, the
beast of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal
with thy vineyard and with thy olive yard. Six days thou shalt
do thy work. And on the seventh day thou shalt
rest, that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of
thy handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed. I'm finding more and more often
all the time that it is just real smart to look up the meaning
of words. Words that you think you've got
to know what they mean. Hold your hand here again, Exodus
23, and turn to Ezekiel chapter 37. I want you to see how this
word is used again. Ezekiel is commanded to prophesy
to the valley of dry bones, and he prophesied. And he said bone
came together to his bone, bone to his bone. But there was no
breath in them. Verse 9, then said he unto me,
prophesy unto the wind. Prophesy, son of man, and say
to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds,
O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. Guess what the word is. and refresh these slain that
they may live. Very same word. What does the word mean? It means
calls to breathe passively. It means breathe upon. It means renew by a breath of
air. are renewed by a gust of wind. He made the Sabbath that the
stranger who has been oppressed and vexed, who's been afflicted
and crushed down and held down and suppressed and thrust upon,
that the stranger may be renewed with life. the Lord Jesus fulfilled the
law and in the room instead of chosen sinners he died upon the
cursed tree as the surety for strangers that the strangers
might be breathed upon and refreshed by the spirit of his grace in
regeneration. This happened when he was made
sin for us and made to be a stranger. He said, Psalm 69 verse 8, I
am become a stranger unto my brethren and an alien to my mother's
children. When he took our iniquities on
himself, and suffered the fury of God's holy law, he became
what we were, a stranger, to make us the sons of God in everlasting
grace. Turn to Proverbs chapter 6. Proverbs
chapter 6. My son, if thou be surety, for
thy friend. If thou hast stricken thy hand
with or for a stranger, thou art snared with the words of
thy mouth. Thou art taken with the words
of thy mouth. If you are an honest man and
you stand to surety for another, you put yourself in a trap. Do
this now, my son, and deliver thyself when thou art come into
the hand of thy friend. Go, humble thyself, and make
sure thy friend. Give not sleep to thine eyes,
nor slumber to thine eyelids. Deliver thyself as a roe from
the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Make certain that you do what you have sworn you will do. The Lord Jesus Christ, God's
darling son, stood forth as a surety for we who were by nature his
enemies, whom he calls his friends. And he has delivered himself
with haste. He said, I have a baptism to
be baptized with. I have a cup to drink. I have
bread to eat that you know not of. He said, I'm straightened.
until it all be accomplished. Look in chapter 27 of Proverbs,
verse 13. Take his garment that is surety
for a stranger, and take the pledge of him for a strange woman. He that blesseth his friend with
a loud voice rising early in the morning, it shall be counted
a curse for him. Solomon cried unto God when he
built the temple and begged God to have mercy upon those who
would cry out for his mercy looking toward the mercy seat. And he
said particularly for the stranger, for the stranger that calleth
upon thee. Let me turn to one more passage,
you look at it, Luke chapter 17. Let us who know the heart of
a stranger, we who were strangers in the land of Egypt, for whom
Christ accomplished his engagements as our surety, giving us rest
that the stranger might be renewed. Let us be humbled in the dust
before our God. Ascribe all mercy and praise
to him for saving our souls by his grace. And let us not be
like these lepers who were healed and came not
back to give God the glory. but rather like this one stranger. Luke chapter 17, verse 17. Jesus answering said, we're not
ten cleansed, but where are the nine? There are not found that
return to give glory to God save this stranger. God, make me like that stranger,
ever considering myself and ever graciously compelled to return
to you the praise and the honor and the glory. Not unto us, O
Lord, not unto us. Unto thy name be glory, praise,
honor, and power, and dominion. for thy mercy and for thy truth's
sake. Amen.