When I'm discouraged by some
pressing distress, cast down by the leanness of my soul, brought
low by Satan's assaults and the barrenness of my own heart, in
those circumstances, nothing is more refreshing to my soul
than the blessed assurance of God's covenant grace. I'm going
to be preaching to you in a minute from Exodus chapter 6, but turn
with me to 2 Samuel 23. David was on his deathbed, and
on his deathbed he spoke of God's covenant grace as that which
sustained his soul, gave him peace and joy. His house was
not as he had desired. His house was not as any man
would desire. And yet his soul was filled with
peace. 2 Samuel 23. Now these be the last words of
David. David, the son of Jesse, and
the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God
of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of
the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God
of Israel said, The rock of Israel spake to me. He that ruleth over
men must be just ruling in the fear of God. But he's not talking
just about David. He's talking about somebody else.
And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth,
even a morning without clouds. as the tender grass springing
out of the earth by a clear shining after the rain. He said, there
is one coming who is the rock of Israel, who is lifted up on
high. He shall spring up in his time
by whom all things shall be accomplished for me. Now watch what he says.
Although my house be not so with God, He hath made with me an
everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, a covenant
in every detail perfectly arranged, a covenant in every detail absolute
and sure. For this is all my salvation
and all my desire. Although he make it not to grow,
that is, although I can't see how he's accomplishing it, although
I haven't yet seen the fulfillment of it, although I haven't yet
seen everything performed, this covenant is all my salvation
and all my desire. Everything, now listen carefully,
everything in time is but the performing of this covenant. Everything in time is but the
performing of this covenant. Everything. Everything. I had
planned to preach to you tonight from Exodus chapter 7, but I
no sooner opened the scriptures and started to prepare a message
from that passage that I, for some reason, was referred back
here to Exodus chapter 6. And I believe God's given me
a message for you. Exodus chapter 6, verses 6, 7,
and 8. I want to preach to you tonight
on seven covenant promises. Exodus chapter 6, verse 6. Wherefore say unto the children
of Israel, I am the Lord. 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. And ye 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 you for inheritance. I am the Lord." Here the God
of heaven speaks to Moses and gives him a word for his people. identifying himself as the covenant
God of his people. He encourages us to rest our
souls upon him, to trust him implicitly in all circumstances,
in all experiences, both in the darkness and in the light, to
trust him implicitly And he encourages us to such trust by reminding
us of his sure covenant promises, assuring us that these things
that he has sworn of old, he is performing and he will perform. The covenant of grace so frequently
portrayed to us in the scriptures. is portrayed in covenants that
God made with his ancient people. Now this covenant is given in
various forms. You see it given to Abraham. You see it given to Noah. You
see it given to David. You see it given to the children
of Israel. It is most frequently referred to in the Old Testament
as a covenant that God made with Abraham, with Isaac, and with
Jacob. Those covenants were but pictures
of one great covenant. Those covenants were progressive
revelations of that covenant God made on our behalf and made
with us in Jesus Christ our Savior before the world began. Those
covenants portraying for us that which is now confirmed to us
by the blood of the everlasting covenant in the sacrifice of
our Savior and confirmed to us by the seal of his spirit in
the gift of life. Indeed, his spirit is spoken
of as the seal of the covenant. And that which the divine writer
of this blessed book said by his servant John applies to this
revelation. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may
know that you have eternal life. and that you may believe on the
name of the Son of God. As Robert Hawker stated, we can
never trust ourselves too little, and we can never trust our God
too much. We can never trust ourselves
too little, and we can never trust our God too much. All right,
let's look at this passage. The opening word of our text
is wherefore. Like the word therefore, it indicates
that everything which is to follow is connected directly with that
which has just been stated. And in the preceding verses,
the Lord God gives us four reasons why we should believe the promises
made here in verses 6, 7, and 8. Imagine that. God in his great
mercy stoops to our unbelief. to encourage us to believe. He
condescends to our weakness to strengthen us in faith and gives
us these reasons for believing him. In verse 3, he pens his
name to the covenant. He tells us that His promises
in verses 6, 7, and 8 are promises by which His name and His glory
are honored. He who is God the Almighty, El
Shaddai, Jehovah, the one and only God, is God our Savior and
Redeemer, and He has pinned His honor to the fulfilling of His
covenant. The long and short of that is
this. He's penned his honor to our everlasting salvation. Did
you get that? God has penned his honor to the
everlasting good of this man's soul. Then in verse 4, he declares,
I have established my covenant with them. As David put it, ordered
in all things and sure. Because it is God's covenant,
it's established. Established by His decree from
eternity. Established by the blood of His
own Son, whose blood ratified the covenant. And established
in our hearts by His grace in the blessed revelation of Jesus
Christ. Then in verse 5, He declares,
I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel. God our Father, our Savior, our
Comforter, the Triune God, His ear is never deaf to our cries. And I love the way He expresses
Himself here. I have heard the groaning of
my people. How often in great heaviness
When our hearts are most overcome, when we are most pressed, we
are utterly incapable of expressing that which we feel in the depths
of our souls. Utterly incapable of ordering
our calls before God. Utterly incapable of describing
what we feel, much less what we need, but the Lord God He
hears and understands the groaning of His people. He's written our
tears in a book to be remembered by Him. And as He hears the cry
of the young raven, hears the cry of the unclean bird, and
pities the crying raven, so He hears the groans of His children
and supplies our needs. Now look at the next line, verse
5. In the last line of verse five, the Lord Jehovah, our God,
the Almighty, the triune God declares, and I have remembered
my covenant. He's ever mindful of his covenant. We often forget it. He never
does. It is often clouded from our
view, never from his. We often fail to recognize and
remember that which God has sworn, and yet the Lord God declares,
I have remembered my covenant. Now, in the light of these four
facts, let's hear and believe these seven covenant promises.
And I want to refer you to a couple of other passages. Turn back
to Genesis 17. I want you to see what I said earlier is so.
The covenants God made with Israel, the covenants he made with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and with others throughout the Old Testament
history, were but a gradual unfolding of the covenant of grace. Now,
I don't pay as much attention to Bible numbers as some folks
do, but it is obvious that some numbers are used specifically
in the scriptures to refer to specific things. The number three
seems to definitely refer to God. The triune, three in one,
Jehovah. On the third day, God calls the
earth to bring forth life everywhere. And the triune God is himself
the giver of life. Indeed, he is life. The number
six is used repeatedly in reference to man. Reading for the first
time years ago, I'd heard so much about the number 666. Everybody's
scared to death of the number of the beast. William Hendrickson
wrote in his brief commentary on Revelation, he said, the number
six is the number of man, the number of frustration, failure,
and defeat. Nothing to be afraid of because
our Savior has caused the beast to fail, and He will prevail. Six is the day on which man was
created. And the cities of refuge created
for fallen man were six cities. So that number seems to refer
to man. The number seven speaks of redemption, grace, perfection,
completion, and rest. There were seven appointed feasts. which Israel was required to
keep every year in the worship of our God, in the celebration
of redemption that was yet to come. Every seven weeks of years,
that is the year following every 49th year, the Lord God gave
a law that would keep the year of jubilee, the blessed celebration
of liberty and restoration. And the number seven is the day
that portrays rest. The Sabbath day was on the seventh
day. On the seventh day, God rested
from all his works. So seven speaks clearly of grace. And the promises of the covenant
are repeatedly given to us as seven promises. Let me show you
two passages. Genesis 17. In Exodus 6, we're going to see
seven promises. Here in Genesis 17, which is
seven promises, and they are essentially the same promises.
In verse 6, the Lord God speaking to Abraham says, I will make
thee exceeding fruitful. Speaking of the promise of salvation
to his elect. In verse 6 again, I will make
nations of thee and kings shall come out of thee. In verse 7,
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, thy seed
after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant to
be of God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. Here's a fourth
promise down in verse 8. I will give unto thee and to
thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger,
and all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. Again
in verse 8, and I will be their God. And he says in verse 19,
I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant
and with his seed after him. Verse 21, my covenant will I
establish with Isaac, the child of promise. Now turn to Jeremiah
31, and it shows you the same thing. These promises are again
given in this 31st chapter of Jeremiah, which begins with that
statement, I have loved thee with everlasting love. He's describing
the new covenant. This new covenant that the Spirit
of God tells us in the book of Hebrews is his covenant of grace
by which we are saved. By which the blood of Christ
was offered up unto God. And again, makes seven promises. In verse 33, Jeremiah 31, 33. After those days, saith the Lord,
I will put my law in their inward parts. Again, and write it in
their hearts. And again in verse 33, and will
be their God. And then in verse 34, and they
shall teach, I'm sorry, verse 33 again, they shall be my people.
And in verse 34, they shall teach no more every man his neighbor,
and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall
all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them,
saith the Lord. Again in verse 34, I will forgive
their iniquity. And he says, I will remember
their sins no more. All right, now let's look at
our text. Exodus chapter six, verse six. These are God's promises
to his elect. They are sure certain promises
of free grace. Free grace in Jesus Christ. They
are promises that God is constantly performing in this world, everywhere,
all the time. Everything in time is but the
performing of these promises. I've often been asked, and I've
told you many times, what does it take to save God's elect?
Everything that has been. Everything that is. and everything
that shall be, everything, everything. The whole universe is the machinery
of God's providence by which he is accomplishing covenant
grace. Wherefore say unto the children
of Israel, I am the Lord. And the first thing he promises
is to deliver his people from their burden. He says, I will
bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. Now you may think there's nothing
in this promise to amount anything to me. That is if you know nothing
of Egypt's burdens. But to weary, heavy laden, guilty
sinners. Sinners crushed beneath the load
of guilt and shame. Better news can never be heard.
than the Lord God to say, I will take you out from under the burdens. If ever you're brought so low
before God that you're compelled to cry like Job in Job chapter
10, my soul is weary of my life. I will leave my complaint upon
myself. I will speak in the bitterness
of my soul. You'll rejoice to hear God say,
I will take away your burdens. Turn to Job chapter 16. Job chapter 16, verse 6. Job says, Though I speak, my
grief is not assuaged. For though I forbear, what am
I eased? But now he hath made me weary. Thou hast made desolate all my
company. Blessed is that soul whom God
makes weary. Blessed is that soul whom the
Lord God allures into the wilderness, making all His company desolate.
Look at verse 12. I was at ease. Me too. You too. Then one day God turned
our world upside down in our hearts. I was at ease. But he hath broken me asunder. He hath taken me by my neck,
and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. Verse
21, O that one might plead for a man with God, as man pleadeth
for his neighbor. Blessed be God, there is one
who does. He is our covenant surety, our
advocate to Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, this is the rest wherewith
ye may cause the weary to rest. God himself declares, I will
bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, the
burden of guilt, the burden of condemnation, the burden with
the sentence of death in your soul. I will bring you out from
under the burdens. Our Savior says, Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Back in our text, look at verse six again. The Lord God has promised
deliverance, and with that deliverance he promises to give the burdened
soul in bondage the blessed liberty of grace. I love the way he states
it. And I will rid you out of their
bondage. A complete riddance of bondage. A complete deliverance, so complete
that all the bondage, the heavy, oppressive bondage of Egypt has
become a matter no more to be remembered. God promised to rid
them of Egypt's bondage completely. And you and I, who by nature
are in bondage in Egypt, in cruel bondage under the heavy, oppressive
yoke of the law. have been given a complete riddance
of bondage. Pharaoh, you remember, required
Israel to make bricks, but it was an impossible task because
he required them to make bricks with no straw. It was a task
that could not be done. It was a task that only increased
and aggravated their bondage. It only increased and aggravated
the affliction they had in Egypt. And so it was with us all the
while we lived in the land of darkness and bondage, the law
of God demanded of us that which we could never produce and gave
us no aid and no assistance in any way to perform it. The law
demanded righteousness. It demanded obedience. So the
gardener and I were talking just before the service this evening.
Paul said in Romans 7, I believe it was verse 9, I was alive without
the law once, but the commandment came. And when the commandment
came, sin revived and I died. God gave his commandment. And we call you to see what the
law required, sin revives in you, stirring up rebellion, and
the commandment brings with it death and bondage. But blessed
be His name. Christ has given us a complete
riddance of bondage. Let me show it to you. Romans
chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. There is therefore Why? Because you're dead to the
law. Why? Because you're justified
with Christ. Why? Because you're saved by
God's free grace. There's therefore now, right
now, not tomorrow, right now, no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. What does that mean? Who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Those words are not
a further declaration of that person who has no condemnation.
You're in Christ, and then if you really live a good Christian
life and walk close to the Lord, then you're free from condemnation.
No, no, no, no. To be in Christ by faith is to
walk no more after the flesh, but after the Spirit. It is the
Spirit who gives life and gives faith. To walk before God, trusting
His Son, is to walk in the Spirit. Read verse 2. For the law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from
the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do,
it could never set me free, in that it was weak through the
flesh. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh
and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Now watch this. That
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, not
fulfilled by us. That's an impossibility, darling.
You ain't going to fulfill God's law. Every effort you make at
fulfilling God's law is but a further condemnation, a further declaration
of your guilt. But it's fulfilled in us. And what is the fulfilling of
the law? In us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
When Christ is revealed in us in the new birth. When we're
made new creatures in Jesus Christ, given faith in Jesus Christ,
we fulfill the law by faith. That is, by offering to God that
which God himself has performed and provided, Jesus Christ, our
obedient mediator. Now look at what it says in chapter
10, verse 4. Those who seek righteousness
by their obedience to the law, He tells us all the way through
the end of chapter 9 down to this fourth verse of chapter
10, those folks never obtain righteousness. Those who seek
to do something by which to make themselves righteous before God
never attain righteousness because they seek it not by faith. Now
look at verse 4. For Christ is the end. I wish somehow when you read
that you'd read it in bold, capital, blinking letters. Christ is the
finishing. Christ is the terminating point. Christ is the fulfillment. Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness. Every righteousness there is.
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. To who? To
everyone that believeth. In the light of that, the Apostle
Paul says, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke
of bondage. All right, look back at our text.
Again, in verse 6. This deliverance and liberty
comes to us freely. It is the free gift of free grace. Some of the old writers used
to speak of cheap grace. And they spoke reverently, cheap
to us. Absolutely free, but not cheap. It cost our Savior everything. It cost Him His life. It cost
Him His blood. It cost Him everything. It is
redemption by power and by justice. Look what it says, and I will
redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great judgments. We first experience redemption. We first experience redemption
by power, by God's stretched out arm. You hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and in sin. The Lord God Almighty
sends His Spirit, that same Spirit and power by which He raised
up Christ from the dead and gives life to dead sinners, and He
reveals His power in us, the power of His omnipotent grace
to deliver us out of darkness and death, out of bondage and
the curse and condemnation of the law. But that power, that
outstretched arm of deliverance could never come to us in the
experience of grace had it not been for the cost of our redemption
by which He redeemed us with judgments, with justice. Look one more time at Romans
chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. I can't say this often enough. I can't emphasize it fully enough. Grace cannot come except in a
way of justice. God will never show mercy except
in accordance with truth. Paul tells us in Romans 3.24
that we are justified freely, that is, without a cause in us,
by His grace, now watch this, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
That is the satisfaction of justice. That by which God's anger, wrath,
and fury is appeased and propitiated. That by which God's anger, wrath,
and fury is completely satisfied, so satisfied that he declares,
fury is not in me. He has set him forth to be a
propitiation. How did he set him forth? Through
faith in his blood. Our faith in his blood doesn't
make him a propitiation for sin. But our faith in his blood recognizes
and receives the propitiation that he has made. Read on. To
declare his righteousness. His righteousness? His righteousness? That's the reason he was set
forth. to declare God's righteousness for the remission of sins that
are passed through the forbearance of God. If a judge at court declares
a man not guilty when all evidence declares him guilty, If the judge
reverses the decision of a jury, a jury who, having weighed the
evidence, finds a man guilty, and all the evidence clearly
establishes him guilty, that judge demonstrates a disregard
for God's law in favor of some prejudice within himself, or
disregard for the law of the land. Now let me tell you something.
God will never declare a sinner not guilty who's not guilty. It won't happen. How can He declare
us not guilty? He took our guilt away, making
it His own, and satisfied all the justice of God on our behalf. Verse 26, to declare, I say at
this time, God's righteousness, that He might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Brother Don, that takes
the whole thing out of our hands. That's what it says in verse
27. Where is boasting then? It's excluded. By what law? Of works? Oh no. Nay, but by
the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a
man is justified by faith, watch this, without doing a blessed
thing. Without the deeds of the law.
Alright, now look at chapter 6 of Exodus, verse 7. Here's the fourth thing. God
promises. He promises to give his chosen
everlasting acceptance with him. I will take you to me for a people. But haven't we always been accepted
in the beloved? Yes, of course we have. Accepted
from eternity. Yet God promises to make each
of his own accepted. How can both be true? The fact
is, it is clearly revealed in scripture, we won't read them
again, Romans chapter 8, Ephesians chapter 1, that everything we
experience in grace was already accomplished for us in grace
before ever the world began. Accomplished for us in the person
of our surety, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
And in the fullness of time, we come to experience the blessedness
of this salvation. Knowing Jesus Christ as our Redeemer. So that while we were born, sinners,
depraved, corrupt, going forth from the womb, speaking lies,
we had over us the sentence of condemnation. No, we weren't
condemned. Christ had taken away our condemnation.
But we didn't know it. We were still in our own minds,
children of wrath, just like everybody else. We walked according
to the course of this world, hating God, and thought all the
while we were hated of God. Until one day, He revealed Christ
in us and declares that we are His. He redeemed to Himself a
peculiar people, zealous of good works. made us peculiarly his. Now, peculiar people, most religious
folks think that's talking about odd people. You know, folks who
talk funny and dress funny and act funny. And most of the time
religious folks do. Real odd and real funny. That's
not what we're talking about. We are the people of His distinct
grace, His special love, and His peculiar care, held in His
hand of omnipotent grace, encircled by God Himself, kept by Him,
His peculiar people. Now, look at verse 7 again. Next,
the Lord God promises that the experience of His grace This
knowledge of our acceptance with Him comes to us by the knowledge
of Him. And I will be to you a God, and
you shall know, now watch this, that I am the Lord. That's not
all he said, is it? Pharaoh came to know that he
was the Lord. At the end of the day, every knee shall bow to
Christ, and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord to the
glory of God the Father. That's not all He promises here.
Everybody is going to confess He's Lord. Everybody. But you
shall know that I am the Lord your God. Oh, wondrous grace. He declares that He is as truly
our possession as we are His. Your God distinctly. Some time ago I told you something
astonished me when I got to studying it. The one word used most often
in this book in direct connection with the word God is my or thy. He is the personal possession
of every heaven born soul. the personal property of every
believing sinner, and he makes himself such by the gift of His
grace. Salvation is not just factual
knowledge. Salvation is knowing Him. This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. And it's a light and knowledge
that comes only as he reveals himself to you and in you. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Only he who called light out
of darkness in the beginning of the world's history can cause
light to shine in the dark heart of people. And blessed be His
name, He promises that He will do it, giving us the knowledge
of this glorious fact that He is our God. Look back at our
text again, verse 7. The Lord promises to give His
chosen rest, sweet, sweet rest. You shall know that I am the
Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens
of the Egyptians. When the Lord grants faith in
Christ, he gives rest to the weary. This is the rest that
was portrayed in the legal Old Testament typical Sabbath. We
observe no physical carnal Sabbath day, not in any way at all. Learn
not to talk like the legalist religion in which you were raised.
Folks talk about tithing. Man, don't tithe. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't ever do it.
Don't ever do it. Give. There's a big difference. There's a big difference. Don't
talk about keeping a Sabbath day. Don't keep a Sabbath day.
No, no, no, no. Don't do it. We're forbidden
to do it in Colossians 2.16. We're forbidden to do it. How
come? Because we have A perpetual Sabbath in Jesus Christ our Lord. A perpetual Sabbath. We rest
in Him. And that's just exactly the way
He's described in Hebrews chapter 4. He is the rest reserved for
the people of God and given to the people of God. Coming to
Christ by faith, we cease from our works. We rest in Him. Did you ever notice God's law,
how strict it was concerning the matter of Sabbath keeping?
Rex, if your son was found picking up sticks on the Sabbath day,
you were required to stone him. Man, that's tough. Why? Why was it that God, when Uzzah
put his hand to the ark to steady it, looked like a good thing
he was doing, God killed him? Because when you start picking
up sticks on the Sabbath day, you've broken that blessed revelation
of grace, which promises rest in Christ alone, pretending that
you add something to the work of Christ. When Uzzah studied
the Ark, God killed him, because that Ark was a portrayal of redemption,
salvation in Jesus Christ, by Jesus Christ alone, without you
doing anything. And if you've got to steady it
with your hand, you've contributed something. The Sabbath rest,
he promises, is the rest of faith. So that we cease from our pleasure,
and we cease from our doing, and we cease from our thoughts,
and we call the Sabbath a delight, resting in Jesus Christ the Lord. Now one more thing. In verse
8, the Lord promises an inheritance, the inheritance typified by the
land of Canaan which he gave to Israel for heritage. I will
bring you into the land concerning the which I did swear to give
it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it
you for a heritage. I am the Lord. I got a letter
today. Somebody asked me about degrees
of reward in heaven. I have yet to answer. He asked
several questions. If it's a gift, it's not by degrees. This is an heritage of the Lord,
a gift of grace, possessed by pure, free grace, by every child
of God forever. And he will bring us into the
inheritance and cause us to possess it. So that though the Amalekites
and Shihon and Og all gather all their troops together against
us, though all hell be opposed to us, God Almighty will bring
His own into the land of promised rest according to His covenant
ordered in all things insure. to which He has penned His name
and His glory forever. Amen.