The accusation is frequently
made that we who maintain worship services such as we do, carry
on the ministry in the way that we do, have a one-man show and
a one-man ministry. I hope you never entertain such
a thought. The work God has given us is
our work. I don't have a ministry. we have
a ministry. God has graciously given us the
privilege of having a ministry in this generation for which
we are responsible, preaching the gospel of Christ to perishing
man in this generation. Our message is the message of
God's free, sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. redemption by His
blood, regeneration by His Spirit, salvation by His grace. And the message never varies. And God helping us, it will not
vary. The message is nothing new, and
we're looking for nothing new. Look at the gospel like David
did the sword with which he slew Goliath. Give me it, there's
none like it. This is our message. We're looking
for nothing else. As our message does not vary,
no matter what people want, no matter what they expect, our
methods will not vary. They're not going to change. There's not going to be any changes
in this place. so long as I am here and God gives me grace and
wisdom to serve you and him faithfully. Not going to be any changes.
Well, y'all need to keep up with the times. No, we need to keep
up with the book. God's method for saving his people,
God's method by which he ministers to his people, God's method by
which he comforts and edifies his people has never changed. It is the preaching of the gospel. And it's not going to change
tomorrow. It's not going to change. I know folks go to church and
they have feel-good experiences when they have gospel singing
or when they have a movie or some entertainment or some dialogue
or interaction and so forth. Religion will make you feel good
and excited. But it's not going to affect
your heart, not going to affect your soul. The means by which
God Almighty ministers to you is the preaching of the gospel.
You say, but Brother Don, don't you think it's needful to read
and study the Bible on our own at home? By all means. But you're
not going to learn anything at home except through the preaching
of the gospel here. God instructs his people by the
preaching of the gospel. And we have just a little short
while in which to serve Him. I have been compelled, and I
try to make myself every day, to think of the brevity of life,
applying my heart to Christ, who is our wisdom. I recognize
that at best, I'm 56 years old, at best, I have 5, 10, maybe
15 years of productive labor in which to serve my master,
your souls, and his cause in this generation. Knowing that,
I pray for grace that I may squeeze into every day as much as I possibly
can for the good of men, for your good, for the saving of
God's elect, for the glory of our Redeemer. And the means by
which we preach this gospel is every means at our disposal,
whether it's the written word, videotapes, audiotapes. Talking
to some of the men back here just a little bit ago, I sent
you who have email a note today. Brother Tom Harding sent out
a notice. Brother Mahan's message is just in the last, what, six
months, there have been over seventy-nine thousand people
around the world. More than 79,000 downloads of
those messages. I was talking to Brother Henry
in the midst of some difficulties. He said to me, he said, maybe
after all this is God's way of getting this message preached
to all nations. Maybe it is. We have the responsibility
to use every means at our disposal for this business of preaching
the gospel. There's no other reason for the
existence of any gospel church except to be a sounding board
for the gospel. And I ask you to join me continually
and relentlessly in devoting ourselves to this labor. Now,
with those things in mind, I want to preach to you tonight, if
God will allow me, about God's prophet, a man sent to deliver. I'm going to be talking to you
about one man. But as I talk about this one
man, I'm talking about every man who is sent of God. And as
I talk about the man who is sent of God to be the voice, the messenger
of His grace in any generation, I'm talking to you. That labor
which God's trusted to me is our labor. that work which God
uses me, that word he uses me to proclaim, we proclaim in this
generation. Our text is Exodus chapter 3,
verses 10, 11, and 12. Now while you're turning, listen
very carefully to this one statement. Like the prophets of old, gospel
preachers, all gospel preachers, every gospel preacher is a man
chosen called, gifted, and sent of God to deliver his people. Every gospel preacher is a man
chosen, called, gifted, that is equipped, and sent of God
to save his people. Oh, you can't say that. Preachers
aren't saviors. I think you understand that,
don't you? No, the preacher has no ability to deliver anybody
from anything. The preacher has no ability to
save anyone in any way. And yet they are sent to deliver
and save God's people. Because this is the means by
which God delivers and saves His people. Now I want to show
you something about this great work and the men God uses for
it. Exodus chapter 3 verse 10. The Lord Jesus is speaking to
his servant Moses. Come now therefore and I will
send thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth my people.
God's going to be the one bringing them forth, but he said, Moses,
you're going to bring them forth. Thou mayest bring forth my people,
the children of Israel, out of Egypt. And Moses said unto God,
Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring
forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly
I will be with thee, and this shall be a token unto thee, that
I have sent thee. When thou hast brought forth
the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. Now God the Holy Spirit gives
us the best possible commentary on this passage of Scripture.
Hold your hands here and turn to Acts chapter 7. Stephen is
describing the history of Israel as he confesses Christ just before
he is stoned to death. Acts chapter 7 and verse 35.
He says, This Moses whom they refused, whom the Jews refused,
saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? The same did God
send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel, that
is, the angel of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, which appeared
to him in the bush. He brought them out. After that,
he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the
Red Sea and in the wilderness forty years. All right, now go
back to Exodus 3. We've got to begin by looking
at the context in which our text is found. That man who is called
of God is one who has learned and has experienced the things
God taught Moses in this chapter. No man, no man is called of God
to the work of the gospel. who has not learned the things
Moses was taught by God in this chapter. No man is sent of God
to preach the gospel until he has at least experienced that
which Moses experienced here. In the first five verses, we
see that Moses is a man to whom the Lord Jesus had revealed himself. He came to Moses in the burning
bush. And when he came to Moses in
the burning bush, he revealed himself in his glorious holiness. He revealed himself in his sovereign
character, and he revealed himself in his goodwill. Moses describes
it later as the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush. That
is, he revealed to Moses his absolute purpose, graciously
to save his people, as was typified in the deliverance of Israel.
And I'm declaring that no man is called and sent of God to
preach the gospel except that man to whom and in whom Jesus
Christ is revealed in his glorious divinity, in his absolute holiness,
and in his determined purpose of grace to save his people.
In verses 6, 7, and 8, we see that God reminded Moses of his
covenant relationship with his elect. That is to say that this
man who is called and sent of God, the man who speaks for God,
is one who knows God's purpose of grace. I do not mean that
he is necessarily a well-educated man, the one talking to you isn't. I don't mean that he is a brilliant
man, the one talking to you isn't. I am declaring that he is a man
who knows the gospel and knows the revelation of God in covenant
mercy. He understands that God will
save his people. Look at verse 6. Moreover, the
Lord said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. That is to say, I am God
who made a covenant. A covenant which brought my people
down into bondage, and a covenant that will bring them out of bondage.
A covenant which rules the universe for the saving of my people.
And that man who is called of God knows something about the
infinite love and tender care of God and his great wisdom for
his people. Look at verse 7. God told Moses,
I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which are in Egypt,
and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters. For I know
their sorrows." The prophet Isaiah said, in all their afflictions,
he was afflicted. The man who would speak for God,
the man sent with a message from God, knows something of the Savior's
love for his people. And knowing something of the
Savior's love for his people, he deals with them faithfully
as people loved of God, as people under the tender care of our
sympathizing high priest. And that man who God sends to
preach the gospel knows that the Lord will assuredly save
his people. Look at verse 8. God said, I
am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians
and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land, unto a
large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place
of the Cainites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites
and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Moses was sent on an errand of
mercy to deliver the children of Israel. And he is here assured
of the absolute success of his labor. No matter what comes up
after this, no matter what he has to face after this, no matter
how terrible, how great, how ferocious the enemies are who
opposes him, the Lord God says, Moses, I'm going to use you to
bring up my people out of Egypt. Word to God, we can get some
grasp of this. Our God says, behold, I will
save my people. The Lord Jesus Christ shall save
his people from their sins. He says, I am come down to deliver
them. Now Isaiah 55 verse 11, this
is what God says. You may sometimes wonder, is
there any use in really, utterly, completely giving ourselves to
this business. We see so little outwardly accomplished,
see so little positive response to what we're doing. Is there
any need for us to continue? Why should we be inspired to
do so? This is what God says. So shall
my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. This word, the gospel of His
grace we preach. And it doesn't matter whether
it's Brother Lindsey standing here teaching the Bible class
on Sunday morning, or you taking this tape and handing it to your
neighbor, or taking a bulletin or article and handing it to
a friend, or sitting down with Grace for Today or one of the
books, reading a chapter to your children. God says, this word
that goes forth out of my mouth, It shall not. That's pretty positive language,
isn't it? It shall not. Just cast your
bread on the waters. Spread the seed. It shall not
return unto me void. But it shall accomplish that
which I please. And it shall prosper in the thing
whereto I sent it. I try, I try, in preparing to
preach, and in preaching the gospel, whether to a handful
meeting in a living room, or whether to the fellow I meet
on the street, or whether to a large group in an assembly
at a conference, I try to bear in mind that as God is pleased
to speak through this worthless, empty, dirty, vile, broken vessel,
if God will speak through these lips, His Word will bring forth
exactly what He purposed it to bring forth. Now, in this eighth
verse again, what I'm telling you is this, that man who is
called and sent of God to deliver his people, is a man who knows
who Christ is, knows why he came into this world, and knows what
he accomplished. No guesswork about this. This
was clearly revealed to Moses as the Lord sends him forth in
this chapter to deliver Israel, sends him down to Pharaoh, and
sends him to Israel with a message of deliverance. Moses is here
assured by divine revelation, prophetic vision, if you will,
of that which Jesus Christ would do, why he would come into this
world, and what he would accomplish by it. Look at it. I don't have
any idea why anyone could fail to understand that this is a
clear, prophetic picture of our blessed Savior. Verse 8, the
one speaking to Moses we've seen repeatedly is Christ himself. He says, I am come down to deliver
them. It is an often repeated prophecy,
an often repeated promise. The Lord Jesus said, I come down
to deliver my people. And 1500 years later, Jehovah
Jesus stepped into this world in human flesh. You know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that though he was rich,
yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty
might be made rich. He came down here to save his
people. John Gill commented on this verse,
Christ in our nature came down from heaven to earth to save
his spiritual Israel out of the hands of all their enemies. And
that's exactly what he says. I came down to deliver, to deliver
his people and bring them up out of the land. He came to seek
and to save that which was lost. He came to seek and to save his
sheep, and to bring every one of those sheep, given into his
hands before the world was, at last into his heavenly fold in
everlasting glory. To bring us up by resurrection
power. by a spiritual resurrection in
the new birth, and at last by the resurrection of our bodies
in the last day, to bring us up into that land called Canaan,
the heavenly Canaan, where there is an abundance of everything
required to satisfy our souls forever. And then, in verse 10,
the Lord Jesus sends Moses to deliver his people. And that
man who is used of God, is one who has been sent of God. Before
we read this 10th verse again, turn to Romans 10. Let me show
you. Romans 10. Paul has declared that the The
gospel says don't say who shall do this, who shall do that, who
shall come down from heaven, who shall descend into the deep,
who shall ascend back to heaven again. The gospel says it's all
done. Christ has finished the work.
Now, he says in verse 13, whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord, whosoever shall worship the name of the Lord shall be
saved. Verse 14, how then shall they call on him in whom they
have not believed? And how shall they believe in
Him of whom they've not heard? It's impossible to worship Him
until you believe Him. And it's impossible to believe
Him until you've heard of Him. And how shall they hear without
a preacher? It's impossible to hear of Him
except somebody tell you about Him. Verse 15. And how shall
they preach except they be sent? I beg of you, I beg of you, pray
for your pastor for your own soul's sake. Every time you come
to this place, Lord God, send him to me tonight with a message
to my heart. Send the messenger with a message
to me. How shall they preach except
they be sent? Look back in our text, Exodus
chapter 3, verse 10. The Lord says, Come now therefore,
and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth
my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." Moses is here
commissioned by God to be his prophet, a man sent for the salvation
of Israel, those people who were typical of God's true Israel. He is sent to deliver them from
physical bondage, typical of the bondage we are in by nature.
And so it is that our Lord Jesus commissions gospel preachers
to be His messengers for the salvation of His people, His
Israel, His elect, to deliver His people out of their bondage.
The Lord Jesus said, Go ye therefore and teach all nations. He said,
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Our Savior breathed out His Spirit
upon His disciples and sent them forth to preach the word. He
sent Moses specifically to deliver Israel, only Israel. at the risk of being misunderstood,
but I generally risk that. It doesn't bother me too much.
Moses wasn't sent to deliver anybody else. And there is good
evidence that there were a good many people who were slaves in
Egypt at the same time. But God did not send Moses to
the Egyptians or to any of the other slaves. He sent Moses into
Egypt to deliver Israel. Now understand this, children
of God. Our business is not the salvation of all people. That
is not our business. Our concern is not to get everybody
saved. That ain't going to happen. Our
business is not the moral reformation of the world. Our business is
the salvation of God's elect. Now, God's elect are scattered
through all the earth. in bondage with all other men,
scattered among the sons and daughters of Adam throughout
the world. And therefore God's servants
are sent to preach the gospel to all men, not knowing who God's
elect are until the Lord's pleased to call them by His grace. Someone
said to Spurgeon one time, said, if I believed what you do, I'd
just preach to the elect. Then Spurgeon's response was,
well, if you'll paint a yellow stripe down their back, I'll
go around and lift up their shirt tails and see who they are, and
I'll preach just to them. And that's exactly our business.
We are preaching to all men for the salvation of God's elect. And God saves His people by this
means. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. It pleads God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. We are born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God which lives
and abides forever, and this is the Word which by the gospel
is preached unto you. I've been asked when I go to
England in the spring to bring a message on the fact that the
gospel is the whole counsel of God. It is all the counsel of
God. Christ crucified is the message of this book. This is
the word, this whole book, which by the gospel is preached unto
you. And except the gospel is preached
to you, except Christ crucified is preached to you, the word
of God has not been faithfully and truthfully declared. No matter
where the text is, no matter who's doing the preaching. The
Lord uses instruments like these. Imagine that. God uses such things
as we are for the saving of his people. The typified In the picture
we have in Isaiah, you remember Isaiah saw the Lord high and
lifted up. Same thing John saw in Revelation
4 and 5. The same thing that's portrayed
in the tabernacle and in the temple in the holy place. He
saw the Lord Jesus exalted as our Redeemer, having finished
His work, having taken His seat upon the mercy seat, the throne
of God's free grace. And we know that's what he saw
because John tells us so in John chapter 11 verse 41. This is
what Isaiah saw when he saw the Lord in His glory. And when he
saw Him, he cried, Woe is me! Then, one of those seraphs that
Isaiah had seen on each end of the mercy seat, looking down
constantly on the mercy seat. What a picture of what every
preacher ought to be. A man whose heart and mind is
constantly focused on blood atonement. constantly focused on the crucified
Son of God. As soon as Isaiah cried, woe
is me, I'm undone, he said one of the Saris came and took a
live coal with tongs from off the altar, and he brought God's
sacrifice and touched my lips and said, your iniquities purged.
That's what gospel preaching is. It is the messenger bringing
the message of redemption accomplished. And God, the Holy Spirit, effectually
applies it to whom he will. Our Savior sent Moses to the
place where his people were, in the place of their bondage.
He said, I will send you to Pharaoh. And so he sends his servants
to the place where his people are, in bondage and in captivity,
to set the captive free. And he sends them providentially to that specific place where
his chosen are in the time of mercy and love. The Lord arranged to send Paul
down to Philippi because the time of love had come for a gal
named Lydia. The time of grace had come for
a jailer at Philippi. He sent Paul down to Rome because
the time of mercy had come for a fellow by the name of Unisimus.
The Lord Jesus sent Moses to deliver his people from oppression
and to deliver his people from oppression by overthrowing the
oppressors. You can't deliver captives except
you overthrow those who hold them in captivity. And so by
the power of the gospel we preach, the strongholds of captivity
are torn down by the power of God's Spirit. And the Lord Promise
Moses, read the rest of the chapter, you'll see God said to Moses,
I'm sending you, you, unfit though you are, incapable though you
are, weak though you are, I'm sending you. And when I get done,
Israel is coming out of Egypt. Pharaoh and the Egyptians shall
be spoiled by you. And so it is our Savior sends
his servants to preach the gospel. of God's boundless free grace
assuring us, assuring us that he will foil our foes before
us. Turn to 2 Timothy, 1 Timothy.
Let me show you something. 1 Timothy. This is a remarkable
passage, a remarkable passage. I acknowledge that it applies
more to me than anyone here. I pray God will make it effectual
to me. Paul writes to Timothy and he
says in chapter 4 verse 11, these things command and teach, these
things I've taught you. Let no man despise thy youth. Timothy was obviously a young
man and he wasn't saying that Timothy don't let anybody despise
you because you're a young man. That's not what he's saying.
He's saying Timothy don't act like a young fool. If you don't
act like a boy, folks won't treat you like a boy. If you don't
act like a frivolous Ne'er do well. Folks won't treat you like
a frivolous. Ne'er do well. Act like a man. You've got a
man's work to do. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou
an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity,
in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attendance
to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine. Separate yourself
wholly to the gospel. Give yourself relentlessly to
reading the word, studying the doctrine, and exhorting the people
of God. Make it your life's business
to study, to know the things of God, and to proclaim the gospel
of God's grace. Make that your business. Let
nothing interfere. Let nothing come between you
and this. Addict yourselves to the word of God, he says. Neglect
not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy
with the laying on of the hands of the Presbyterian. Meditate
on these things. Look at it. Give thyself wholly
to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed to thyself
and to the doctrine. Continue in them. Now watch this. For in doing this thou shalt
both save thyself and them that hear them. Stay with it, God
will honor you. Stay with it, God will make it
effectual. Stay with it, God will save his
own. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in
vain in the Lord. There is a day coming when God
shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. according to
my gospel. According to the gospel that
we preach in this generation, God will judge men. Those who
hear and receive and embrace and believe the gospel, trusting
Jesus Christ, in that day shall be saved forever. And those who
refuse to believe, those who believe not, in that day shall
be forever damned, according to this gospel. And there's no
middle ground. Paul constantly holds this before
us, encouraging us to be faithful to the truth of God and faithful
to the souls of men. But I look back at our text again.
I don't want you to miss this. Don't miss this real important
word. Sometimes the most important things in any passage are those
most likely to be overlooked. The Lord Jesus says to Moses,
come now. Come now. and I will send thee." Do you remember 40 years earlier,
Moses became impatient. He decided that it was time for
God to deliver his people. And he decided he was the right
man to do it. He just It's time to come, boys. It's obvious the
Lord's in this because he saw an Egyptian striving with an
Israelite and he killed that Egyptian and hid his body in
the sand. And he said, now's the time! God's with us! And
he wound up fleeing for his life. Fleeing for his life because
he presumed too much. He was indeed the man God had
chosen for this work. He was indeed the man God would
send for this work. But the time had not yet come,
and he had not yet been sent. And until the man is sent, he
cannot go, not with any benefit to the souls of men. Now the
Lord says, Moses, come on this time. It had been 400 years since God promised to deliver
His people. And we can't wait just a few
minutes. We want to rush things all the
time. We want to get the job done.
And it leads to compromise every time. Every time. It leads to
use of means that God won't honor. Use of means that won't help
folks. Well, God's not saving folks. We'll get them saved anyhow.
No you won't. No you won't. At God's appointed
time, when the time of deliverance has come, God sends His servants
with His message to His people. and delivers them. And when he
sends them, he sends them with a word of tremendous instruction. But notice in verse 11 how Moses
responds. He's 80 years old now, not 40.
And I just presume that 80 years in that day wasn't quite the
same as 80 years in our day. Those fathers lived a little
longer than we do. But Moses wasn't quite so eager. He said
to the Lord God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? Who am
I that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? Who am I, oh my God, that I should
dare stand before eternity bound many women and speak in your
name. Who am I? Who are you? Who am I? Who are
we that God Almighty should trust to our hands such a work as this? I want to tell you something. That's always the response of
a man who is called of God to preach the gospel. When men decide
they're going to be preachers, when men decide they're going
to do something for God, when men decide to put themselves
in the ministry, oh man, they're cocky and confident and ready
to go, ready to go. You may have observed, I make
it a point not to encourage anybody to do anything who's just real
sure he can do it. Not in spiritual things. Not
in spiritual things. I recall some years ago, Brother
Mahan and I were preaching together. Brother Henry wasn't feeling
good. A fellow came up and sat down
on the front row, right where Henry was sitting, getting ready
to preach. He said, Brother Mahan, if you
don't feel like preaching, I'm ready to go. I can take care
of it for you. Henry got up and Preached, if
he would have died, try it. But a man who has seen Christ
in his glory and knows something of this awesome work, this great work, responds like
David did, Lord, who am I? Like Paul did, who is sufficient
for these things? And yet at the same time, he
understands that our sufficiency is of God, who has made us able
ministers of the new covenant. Our sufficiency, David, to do
the work God Almighty has put in the hands of this assembly
to do. Our sufficiency to take care
of whatever is needed to do this work is And He'll do it. He'll do it. And if He doesn't, it's because
He hasn't called us to do it. It's just that simple. It's just
that simple. Look what the Lord said to Moses
in verse 12. Certainly, I will be with thee. Is that what the Master said? Lord,
I am with you always. I haven't sent you to do anything.
I've just sent you to tell folks what I'm doing. I'm with you. And when I get done, and you
have delivered your message, this is the token that you will
have that I sent you, this people coming out of Egypt shall serve
God right here on this mountain. I sit here and I'll be with you and I'll
make your work effectual for the glory of my name. Oh, I can't
tell you How encouraging that word from God to me has been
today. And I trust it will be to you.
Lindsay, let's sing The Time is Short in our Songs of Grace
book, number 53. Number 53. Number 53.