be turning, if you will, to Exodus
chapter 5, Exodus the fifth chapter. In the political world, compromise,
I am told, is necessary. If so, it is a necessary evil.
Our politicians get elected by promising that they will stand
for something, either good or bad, and then they get together
and butt heads a little bit and fuss and argue, and they compromise. A compromise is a mutually agreed
concession. I think perhaps when they take
their votes on the Senate floor or the House of Congress, they
may decide, I'm just guessing, well today you get to act like
you're a man so you can stand for something so you can vote
against it. We've got enough votes. And next time I'll stand
for something and keep pace a little bit. The compromise is the way
everything operates. In the business world, corporations
are run by compromise, and again, I'm told that's necessary. And
again, if it's necessary, it's necessary evil, because compromise
in reality means I'm willing to give up what I know is right
for something, because that's what I want. What a serious charge. These things may be necessary
in the political world, and they may be necessary in the business
world, but in the Church of God, in the kingdom of God, with regard
to all things spiritual, with regard to everything revealed
in this book, compromise is deadly, deadly. I chose my words deliberately. Let's turn to Exodus chapter
5. We'll begin in verse 1. But really, my message is going
to be taken from chapters 5 through chapter 10. In these six chapters,
Remember, Pharaoh stands before us as an instructive type and
picture of Satan, the god of this world. And as we see him
in these texts that we're going to look at, he proposes compromises
to God's servant Moses. Again, and again, and again,
he offers a compromise. A compromise which makes it appear
that he's willing to give something in order to get something, but
in reality, He's offering nothing to get everything. And Moses
steadfastly refuses his subtle ploys. In chapter 5 and verse
1, we read God's command to Pharaoh. Here Moses and Aaron are standing
before Pharaoh. They're standing before this
mighty king of Egypt. And they have only one business
there. Only one thing to do. Only one thing to say. Now, commentators
and preachers talking about this passage speak of Pharaoh and
Moses going in and making requests to God. Well, if you mean by
the word request, or to Pharaoh, if you mean by the word request,
demands, or even commands, that's all right. But they weren't begging
Pharaoh for anything. They stood before him as God's
ambassadors with backbones as wide as the street and as rigid
as steel. And this is what they said, Exodus
chapter 5 verse 1, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast
unto me in the wilderness. That's God's command. What a
volume of instruction those words contain. It's given in plain,
forcible, clear, unmistakable language. It sets before us that
which God Almighty revealed to be His purpose concerning the
nation of Israel, and by type, his purpose concerning all his
elect, the whole church of God. He demands that they come out
of Egypt totally, lock, stock, and barrel. Nothing could satisfy
him except the complete freedom, emancipation, and deliverance
of his people from the land of bondage and darkness. Not just
that they come out from the physical nation, but that they be delivered
from the altars and the rites and the gods and the ways and
the customs and the traditions and the religion and the philosophy
that had been part of their lives for 400 years. God said to Pharaoh,
let my people go. Now hear me. God Almighty demands
and will have the complete sanctification, the complete separation of his
chosen unto himself. He will settle for nothing less.
We read in the Proverbs, my son, give me thine heart. What is it that a woman wants
from her husband? His heart. What is it a man wants from his
wife? Her heart. Because if I get your heart,
I've got everything. Give me your heart. He will settle
for nothing less. He will accept nothing less.
Now, often we talk about separation or sanctification in terms of
physical things. With regard to Israel leaving
Egypt, it was a physical deliverance. But their physical deliverance
portrayed something far, far more significant. It portrayed
the spiritual deliverance, the spiritual sanctification of God's
elect. Our separation from the world
is not a physical thing. Now, please don't misunderstand
me. It may involve physically separating from people in various
aspects of life. It may involve that. But you
can separate yourself and go live like a hermit in the woods
and Swiss out somewhere and never see anybody else the rest of
your life and still be in this world and not separated under
God. Several years ago, I was preaching
up in Alamont, Michigan, the first time I went up there. And
somebody had gotten a hold of some of my tapes somewhere up
in the backwoods in the mountains in Canada and brought his family
down there. And he told me where he lived. And then he told me his nearest
neighbor was a hundred miles from him, a hundred miles. I said, why on earth did you
move your family up there? He said, I wanted to be separated
from the world. And we had a set too. You take
yourself or your sons and daughters and lock them up in a closet.
So they never see anything on television, never hear another
human being speak except you, read the Bible to them 24 hours
a day, they never hear anything except religious talk, and they
still are a raging beast inside. That's not the kind of separation
we're talking about. People think separation involves dressing
funny. We have folks who call themselves
the simple people, but in case you can't hear them, Simple people,
that means we dress funny, look funny, so folks will know we're
religious. The show of religion, I don't
care how you show it, is nothing but Pharisaic hypocrisy. I want people to know I worship
God, then worship him. I want people to know that I
belong to Christ, then live unto Christ. But trying to show people
your religion doesn't show Christ anywhere, it just shows you in
your worst condition. For false religion is the worst
condition man can be in. What is this separation? It is
a separation of our entire being to our Redeemer. It is a separation
forced upon us by grace that we rejoice to commit. It is a separation to which we
must be compelled, or a separation we will never give. And yet,
being compelled by grace, we delight to live unto God. It involves the totality of our
lives. God demands, let my people go,
and they must go. Pharaoh's response to this command
is, who is God to make such a command? Who is the Lord? Who is the Lord
that demands me to love him alone and hate my mother, my father,
my brother, my sister, my son, my daughter, my wife, and my
life? Who is this God? It's Jesus Christ
who loved me and gave himself for me. And you can't follow
me, he said, except you love me singularly. Love me alone. Well, what does that mean? Hate
your husband, your wife, son, your own life? Give it no consideration. Don't allow any thought for anything
to stand between you and me. Nothing. Brother Don, I thought
I'd made that separation a long time ago, but this morning something
got in the way. It does every day. and he commands
a continual, constant, deliberate separation to him. Pharaoh said,
these are vain words, empty, meaningless words. Oh, my soul,
don't ever imagine that which God demands is vain, meaningless. Our Lord said, take up your cross
and follow me daily, and he meant it. Our Lord said, come unto
me. and let the dead bury their dead. Forget other things, just come
unto me and dement it." When Pharaoh heard these words from
God, he just increased the burdens of the children of Israel. And
that's pretty well the way Satan does things. You recall how the
Apostle Paul described his former days as a fair state persecutor? He said, I laid burdens on the
people. I laid burdens on them, do this,
do that, work this, work that, things that were impossible,
and thereby seek to keep them in bondage. All right? Understand,
then, that Satan doesn't give up his captives willingly. The
only way he will ever give them up is if God Almighty, by the
omnipotent arm of his sovereign grace, forces Satan to give up,
forces him to let go his people. And blessed be his name, he does. Let's look at the first compromise.
Exodus chapter 8, verse 25. By the time we get here, the
Lord God has turned the water into blood. But Pharaoh's heart
was hardened. He sent frogs upon the land. Frogs everywhere. Everywhere. In every house. Everywhere. Over all the land of Egypt. But
Pharaoh's heart was hardened. The Lord filled the whole land
of Egypt with lice. You couldn't pick lice off your
baby because you're covered with it. Covered with lice, everything. But Pharaoh hardened his heart.
Then he sent swarms of flies. Perhaps, I might have said, he
sent a swarm of flies that covered the whole land of Egypt. But Pharaoh hardened his heart.
Now we come to verse 25. And Pharaoh called for Moses
and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the
land. Well, that sounds good. Pharaoh's
beginning to bend a little. He's being a little compliant.
No, he's being crafty, subtle, cunning. He chose his words deliberately. Go ye, and sacrifice to your
God in the land. Moses might have plausibly argued,
oh, we're going to save ourselves a lot of trouble. I thought this
was going to be tough. But Pharaoh is yielding. This
is uncommonly generous as a proposal from this great king. He's willing
for us to worship the Lord our God. He's willing for us to worship
God right here in the land of Egypt among the Egyptians. There's
no need to proceed any further. But he couldn't do so. He couldn't
allow himself to reason like that. To do so would be to betray
God's glory, betray the commission God had put in his hands, the
trust given him to bring Israel out of the land of Egypt, and
to betray the people of God, for they would still be in the
land. Look at his answer, verse 26. And Moses said, it is not
meet, so to do. It's not right. No, I can't do
that. For we shall sacrifice the abomination
of the Egyptians to the Lord our God. Now, back in Genesis
chapter 46, we read these words. Every shepherd is an abomination
unto the Egyptians. Every shepherd. told his daddy,
he said, we're going to put you over the land of Goshen. Be sure
you tell Pharaoh that you're shepherds by trade, because the
Egyptians consider every shepherd an abomination. And Pharaoh said,
you go worship your God in the land. And Moses said, we can't
go, because we're going to go worship an abomination to you. An abomination? An abomination? How can he speak so? We don't.
Lo, we shall sacrifice. the abomination of the Egyptians
before their eyes. And will they not stone us while
they kill us? We will go three days' journey
into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he shall
command us." What's the significance of that? From back in the book
of Genesis, running all the way through the scriptures, three
represents resurrection. represents the eternal Godhead.
Three represents resurrection life. Moses said, no, Pharaoh,
we've got to go out yonder three days or we can't worship our
God. You see, the Lord God cannot
be worshiped by any man by nature. It won't happen. It can't happen. You cannot call upon the name
of the Lord as you are in your natural state. The only way anyone
can ever worship God is by a resurrection life, by a new nature put in
them. This is what we confess in baptism,
is it not? We're buried with him in baptism
and raised in the likeness of his resurrection that we should
walk in newness of life. We worship God as new preachers. We worship God in spirit and
in truth, being made new in Jesus Christ the Lord, being delivered
from this present evil world by the hand of God's spirit.
Not only that, we worship the abomination of the Egyptians. We worship him whose name is
called the Lord our shepherd. who identifies himself with these
words, the shepherd of Israel. And we worship Him by sacrificing
to Him that which is an abomination to the Egyptians. Sacrificing
to Him a lamb. That's how Moses and Aaron lead
the children of Israel out three days in resurrection land to
worship God by the sacrifice of a lamb. A lamb portraying
Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God slain for our sins. Our Passover
through His sacrifice for us. What's that got to do with anything?
If we go out here in the middle of Egypt and we proclaim to the
Egyptians that we're worshiping God, our shepherd, and we're
worshiping him by the blood of a slain lamb, why, they will
be enraged. They'll stone us to death. Well,
Brother Don, that doesn't apply to us. It doesn't. Why don't
you stand up sometime and tell somebody that the only way any
sinner can ever come to God is by the blood of Jesus Christ,
the Lamb of God. That the only way you can come
to Him is by the crucified Lamb of God, because you are guilty
before God. And you can't change your condition
before God. You can't put away your sin.
You can't make yourself righteous. You can't in any way turn God
toward you favorably. You must stand before Him only
upon the ground of Christ the Sacrifice Lamb and watch them
as they are enraged. Because the crucified Christ
is to them that perish not just foolishness, but an abominable
foolishness. You can't say things like that.
Why, that leaves us nothing but sin and sinners. That leaves
us totally without any will of our own before God. That leaves
us totally in the hands of God Himself. That's exactly right.
Moses said we will go three days into the wilderness, and there
we will worship our God. He gives another reason. why
he couldn't comply with Pharaoh's compromise. Look at verse 27.
We'll go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice
to the Lord our God, now watch this, as he commandeth. God's made himself clear, hasn't
he? He's given us his word. He's shown us not only that he
alone must be worshipped, And that he alone must be worshiped
by the sacrifice of his son. There's no other way to draw
nigh to God but by the blood of Christ. No other way but by
trusting his son. And he's shown us how we are
to worship him. Oh, would to God. Everybody I
influence in any way could hear what I'm telling you. We dare
not even consider. making concessions with the things
of God. Not for anybody. Not for any
reason. People compromise. Preachers
compromise all the time. Compromise all the time. Men
who know what truth is refuse to proclaim truth, at least in
certain places, lest it cause trouble. I've had preachers tell
me, if I preach what you did, it'd tear my church to pieces.
I said, the church need be tore to pieces. Just need be tore
to pieces. That's exactly right. That fellow
asked me years ago, what would you do if you went to a church
where they served grape juice instead of wine in the Lord's
Supper? I said, first time we went to the Lord's Supper, we'd
have wine. But a lot of folks didn't like it. They could just
not like it. That's all. Do not like it. We're not going
to compromise. We're not going to compromise.
God helping us, we're not going to. Why would you? Why would you ever consider compromising
any point of divine revelation in the worship of God Almighty.
Is it for God's glory? I don't think that can be so.
Is it going to help anyone? No. Well, there can't be but
one other reason. Selfish. Self-interest. Make things easier for the one
compromising. Make things less costly. Our
rule in all things is this book, this book, this book. I can show
you in this book the reason for everything we preach and practice
as a local church, and I can show you the reason why we do
it in just the way we do. We do not consider what other
men believe, practice, or do. That's of no significance. We
do not give consideration to what men approve of or disapprove
of. That is of no consideration.
We do not give consideration to that which is successful or
that which is looked upon as being outdated. We give it no
consideration. Years ago, a fellow in school
with us, raised in the same town where Shelby was, saw me standing
in the bookstore across from where I was working. I was on
my lunch break and looking at books. He pulled out a book and
said, you ought to read that. I said, I didn't bring you up to date. I looked at him
and said, I've been out of date all my life, and I can't stay
that way. I had no interest, no interest in updating anything.
That's so passe, not in the house of God these things are. We're
not going to compromise our message, not for anybody. We preach that
which God Almighty has inscribed on our hearts with the finger
of his spirit, free grace, free grace alone, through Jesus Christ
our substitute, our all-glorious, effectual redeemer, by whose
blood we stand before God, holy, righteous, accepted, and the
condition is unchangeable. We won't compromise our methods.
This will work, this will do this, this will get people in.
If ever a preacher could learn, and ever the people sitting in
the pews could learn, it is not our responsibility to build up
God's church. It's not our responsibility to
get folks saved. It is not our responsibility
to get folks into the church. That's not our responsibility.
If ever you view it as your responsibility, you will compromise the message
to get results and compromise the method to get results. Our
object is the glory of God. That's it. That's it. And we
won't compromise that. God help us. Everybody else is
doing this. I don't care what they're doing.
I don't care what they're doing. Brother Lindsey takes great care
selecting proper music. The other day somebody asked
me what kind of music we have. I don't know if we have contemporary
worship services. The word contemporary comes right
before the word contemptible in your dictionary. And what
men call contemporary worship services, Please hear me. Everybody is contemptible before
God and ought to be before you. Have nothing to do with it. But
people love it. I told you that doesn't matter.
That doesn't matter. And we're not going to compromise
our method of ministry. Not going to do it. Our preaching's
out of date. It won't be out of date in the
church of God as long as time shall stand. But we want to discuss
things. I know that's the reason we don't. That makes me feel good to tell
you what I think I know. I'm not here ever. I don't go
anywhere ever to offer an opinion to be discussed by anyone. Oh,
you think you know everything? No, but God does. And I come
to you with a message from God Almighty for you to believe,
bow to, accept, and rejoice in, or perish. There are no other
options. No other options. We believe
Christ or we perish. We worship Christ or we perish. We trust Christ as he is revealed
in this book or we perish. I mentioned a little bit ago
ordinances, Lord's Supper, baptism. Why do you have to baptize folks
that way? It's not very convenient. What if there's not plenty of
water around? We can go fetch some. And if
we don't ever get any, we're not going to change. because
the baptism signifies the death, burial, and resurrection of our
Redeemer. The baptism is the outward, visible testimony of
the gospel we believe. We died with Christ, James. We
rose with him. We're seated with him. We live
forever with him. That's what's portrayed. And
to change that is to deny the gospel, just as much as Uzzah
reaching out and putting his hand on the ark. Not worshiping
God after due order. The Lord's Supper? Every Sunday
night we come together and take the wine. Why wine? Because it represents the blood
of Christ. It can have nothing unclean. And unleavened bread. Why unleavened
bread and not soda crackers? Because it represents the body
of our Redeemer crushed for us. No. We will worship God as He
commands us. Look at Exodus 8.28. Here's Pharaoh's
second objection. a whole lot like his first ones.
I won't spend much time here. He couldn't succeed in keeping
Israel in Egypt, so he tried to keep them as close as possible.
Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to
the Lord your God in the wilderness, only ye shall not go very far. God saved me just before I was
17 years old. I had lived for 11 years beside a man, Mr. Ed Sturges. Good, upright, moral
man. He was a government agent, government
agent. And he knew how I had lived. I spent a fairly good portion
of time at his house. We lived right beside each other.
Went in his house a few times, but in his yard we'd sit and
talk, discuss things. And I learned a great deal from
him. Shortly after God saved me, he called me over. to give
me some counsel. The only time in those 11 years
he ever suggested that I not do something. The only time.
The only time in 11 years. I mean, I've been living beside
him since I was 6 years old. Not one time he didn't see me
out back smoking. He never said anything about
it. He even saw me getting my daddy's alcohol and taking a
snort. Didn't say nothing about it. Didn't say a thing about
it. Thought it worked. Go home, skipping school. Not
a word. Not a word. But just as soon
as he found out that I had professed faith in Christ and had actually
preached some, he called me over and these were his words. Now
Don, it's a good thing that you got religion. It's a good thing.
But you don't want to go overboard. You don't want to become narrow-minded. You don't want to, as they say,
get to be so heavenly minded that you're of no earthly good.
And I didn't have words with which to answer him. I was shocked. I was shocked, equally shocked
by it today. Don't go too far. Don't go too
far. Folks are scared to death of
that thing called narrow mindedness. Surest way to get your attention.
Oh, you're so narrow minded, you bigot. Do you know what that
word bigot is? It comes from two words, by God. I believe I'll take that all
right. I'll take that all right. You can call me whatever you
wish. Just include by God with it. It'll be okay. It'll be okay. We believe what we do by God's
command. We act as we do by God's word. We go where we go by God's spirit. Oh, children of God, go the full
three days. Get just as far away from the
thinking and the philosophy and the religion of this world as
you possibly can. Put every thought, every thought
of religion as perceived by the world out of your mind. Every
thought the world has of God. Every thought the world has of
Christ. I don't care what they think.
It just doesn't matter. I know Him. I know Him. Somebody come up to me and try
to describe God Almighty, in some way other than His sovereign,
glorious grace, try some way to limit the God I know. Try some way to put constraints
on the Christ we worship. Try some way to bind the spirit
of truth. It'd be like a fellow who's never
seen my wife, never met her, trying to tell me what my wife
is like. When I am most calm, I would
ignore him. When I'm behaving as I really
ought to, I just ignore him. Other consequences might follow
if I wasn't as nice as I normally am. But I wouldn't pay any attention
to him. He doesn't know her. So his opinion
doesn't count. And the opinions of men about
God and Christ and salvation and grace don't count. They just don't count. I have
a dear friend. I have never met her. be corresponding
with about a year in Elton, Canada. She'll know what I'm talking
about when she gets this tape. She wrote to me a while back,
she'd been reading some trash. I mean, just, I don't know why
people read trash when there's good stuff to read. I don't know
why on earth you'll sift through garbage and get a piece of bread
when you could just go where the feast is spread. I don't
understand that. Why do it? Pay no attention to
the nonsense that you read or hear in this world. Hear what
God says in His Word. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on this earth. Paul said he gloried in
the cross because by it I am crucified unto this world and
the world is crucified to me. He said the world counts me a
dead man. A dead man. The world not the
least bit interested in what I think about anything. The world
counts me a dead man. The world is not concerned about
my opinion about anything. Not about anything. If they pretend
to be, it's fake. It's just as fake as it can be.
They're not interested. But that's all right, because
that's the way I look at them. Dead. I'm crucified to the world,
and the world's crucified to me. It's a dead thing. It's a
dead thing. It doesn't count. It just doesn't
count. Now, look at chapter 10. Here's
the third compromise. And Moses said, We will go with
our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters,
with our flocks and with our herds, where we go, for we must
hold a feast unto the Lord. And he said to them, Let the
Lord be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones,
look, look, leave off the words too much, they'll throw you,
look, for evil is before you. Those two words, to it, are added
by the translators. Pharaoh said, you don't want
to take your little ones out in the wilderness. Man, that's
a dangerous place to go. That's a dangerous place to go.
Evil is before you. Not so now. Ye men, ye that are
men, ye men, and serve the Lord. For that ye did desire. You leave your little ones here
with me. I'll take care of them. They'll be protected here by
my side. And you that are me and you go and serve the Lord.
That's what you asked me to start with. And they were driven out
from Pharaoh's presence. Oh, I could preach a good while
on that. I'll say just two things. Number
one, worship God with that which is dearest to you. That which
is most tenderly affecting your heart. Give no consideration
to anything but your Redeemer. Worship Him. How is this going
to affect my daughter? I just have one, so I don't qualify
for speaking as a parent with any authority. I tell folks all
the time, the Lord just gave me one child and he was a girl,
so I can't talk with any authority. She's easy to raise. But let
me tell you something, in the years of our family, It's just
been policy, and she knows it to this day. Nothing interferes
with the worship of our God. Nothing. Nothing. Not in this
house. As for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord. But what if her friends don't
understand? That's too bad. What if she doesn't understand?
That's too bad. That's just too bad. Nothing. Nothing. And don't
fear they're going to lose anything. Don't fear they're going to lose
anything. How are you going to be happy if you forsake everything? How can you be content if you
give up everything? I haven't forsaken anything.
Have you? What is it you gave up that you
want back? What is it you've lost? What
is it you've lacked? What is it? Let me tell you what
I've gained. Christ. That's all. What else is there?
Christ. And all things are yours for
ye are Christ's. Christ is God's. One more compromise
Pharaoh tempted. Verse 24. Pharaoh called to Moses
and said, Go ye. Serve the Lord only. Let your
flocks and your herds be stayed. Let your little ones also go
with you. I'll give in. You take your children and be
all right. Just leave your flocks and your herds here. In other
words, you're going out there into the wilderness, go your
three days, all you men, all you women, all your children,
going out there, but you ain't going to sacrifice to God. I'm
going to keep your flocks and herds. You're not going to worship
the abomination of the Egyptians. Moses said, I love this. I love
it. This man who 40 years earlier,
was scared to death, ran from Pharaoh. He stands before him
now as an old man. He said, Pharaoh, thou must give
us also sacrifices and burnt offerings. That's what you call genuine
meekness. Thou must give us sacrifices
and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. You can say what you want to,
but our cattle shall go with us. Now watch this. There shall
not an hoof be left behind, for thereof must we take to serve
the Lord our God, and we know not with what we must serve him
until we come thither. We don't know what he's going
to require. He requires it. Not a hoof shall be left behind.
Two things. We're going out of here and we're
going to worship God in the totality of our lives. To worship God
in spirit is to worship God with your heart in the totality of
your life. And we're going to worship God
the way God requires in truth. We're going to take the sacrifice
and worship Him. And one other thing, all of this,
he said, did Moses know all of this? I'm convinced Moses will
heap sight more than I know he knew. Moses was saying, Pharaoh,
we're going out yonder to worship Jehovah, the triune God. And we're going to worship him
out of Jesus Christ, the Passover lamb, slain for us before the
world began. And every soul redeemed by his
blood, not a hoof shall be left behind. Oh God, teach us now
to worship you and serve you with no consideration of compromise
ever with anyone, most of all with my own flesh. Amen.