We're going to turn over to Exodus
chapter 21. Exodus 21. What we're about to read is the first
civil law that the Lord gave Israel. Exodus 21, we'll read
the first six verses. Now these are the judgments which
thou shalt set before them. This is the Lord speaking to
Moses. If thou by an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve, and
in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came
in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married,
then his wife shall go out with him. If his master hath given
him a wife, and she hath borne him sons or daughters, the wife
and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out
by himself. And if the servant shall plainly
say, I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go
out free. Then his master shall bring him
unto the judges. He shall also bring him to the
door or unto the doorpost. And his master shall bore his
ear through with an awl. And he shall serve him forever. Let's go to the Lord and pray. Our Father in heaven, Lord, we
come to you this day in the beautiful and the high and the holy name
of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask, Lord, that you would
show us him in this passage of scripture. Lord, we ask that
you would meet with us, and you would bless our time together,
and you would glorify your son in our midst. Lord, give us hearing
ears and attentive hearts. And Lord, we ask, above all else,
Lord, have mercy upon us. Save us from our many sins. We
ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. like I said this
is the first civil law that the Lord gave Israel. So if you're
interested in what the civil law actually means it was the
laws that governed how they were supposed to interact with one
another. This comes on the heels of Exodus chapter 20, which is
where the Lord gave the Ten Commandments out of Sinai. Now He's going
to give the civil law. And the very first civil law we have
here is this law of the Hebrew bond servant, bond slave. Now
there's two ways that you could have ended up being a Hebrew
slave. So what they do is you were a Hebrew, you'd get sold
to another Hebrew, another Jew. Two ways you could have ended
up like that. Number one, you had accrued a great debt and
you couldn't pay your debt. a bunch of money couldn't pay
it back, right? Or number two, you had stolen a man's livestock
and you couldn't pay the restitution for it, you couldn't make it
right. And in that this Hebrew bond slave, he's a great type
of the elect, we've racked up a great debt, a sin debt, it's
a debt we can't pay. also who is our sin against?
It's against God. We can't make it right with Him.
There's nothing we can do with God to make up for our sins.
It's impossible. So, this is a beautiful type
of the elect in all of this. We have to have an intercessor.
We have to have a mediator. We have to have a Savior to pay
the debt and make our peace with God. Now, this servant, this
Hebrew bond slave he would serve six years and And in the seventh,
he would go free. So on the first day of the seventh
year, he was free and he was free for nothing. He walked away
free. All his debts were considered
paid. What's interesting about this
is, it's not just that he was released and he didn't know anything
anymore, but he was still poor, right? So you think about this,
if you've been a slave for almost seven years, or seven years exactly,
right? You haven't earned anything. You haven't accumulated any possessions.
If you're just kicked out on the street, you're poor. You
don't have anything. Deuteronomy 15 gives us another account of
this law, and it gives us from the perspective of the Master.
And here's what it says, it says, if you have a Hebrew servant,
here's what you're supposed to do when you're the Master. When
that seventh year comes you are to furnish him liberally. out
of your flock, and out of your winepress. You make sure that
that servant, once he's free, he has everything he needs to
live. And you think about that in terms
of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. Not only did
He go to the cross and put away our sins, so we really have peace
with God. We're not just neutral though.
It's not just that we have a clean slate. He furnishes us liberally. with everything we need to live.
We have a true righteousness in Christ. We're furnished liberally
in the Holy Spirit with faith. We're brought to repentance,
given a heart that actually loves the Lord Jesus Christ, that beats
with love for his people. Everything we need to live before
God, we're furnished liberally with through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this thing of him being married. If he came in single, he went
out single. If he came in with a wife, After
those seven years were up, those six years were up in the seventh
year, he'd leave with his wife. But here's what happened. If
he came in single and his master gave him a wife and they had
children, once that seventh year came, that bond slave said, I
want to leave. They said, that's fine. But that
wife and those children were considered property of the master.
He couldn't leave with them. He could go, but his family had
to stay behind. In the end, The thing that made
this the servant forever, there were two qualities that made
a servant forever. It was this, there was willingness
and there was love. And so if this Hebrew bond slave
went to his master and he said, I love you, my master, and I
love my family, this wife and this children you gave me, I
love them both. I don't want to go free. I want to serve you
forever." He would go to the wall, to the judges, and he'd
put his ear against the doorpost and his master would take a spike
and he would drive that spike through his ear. And that was
the sign and that was the seal that he belonged to the master,
that he was the servant to the master forever. Now I want to
kind of cut to the chase here and tell you this. This preeminently
is the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the figure here. That's
the illustration what it's about. It is about Christ. I want to
give you the evidence of that. Turn over to Psalm chapter 40. Psalm chapter 40 and look at
verse 6. This is David speaking, but he speaks in the Messianic.
So these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 40 verse
6 says, "'Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire. Mine ears
hast thou opened.'" Now, I want the Lord to grant the hearing
ear here this morning. Only He can do that. I want Him
to open our ears that we might be able to hear the Gospel in
power. But that's not what this is talking
about. This is the Lord's declaration that I am that Hebrew bondservant. That first civil law I gave you,
that all speaks of me. I'm the one who said, I love
my master, my father. I'm the one who said, I love
my bride, I love my family, I love my church, my elect. I was the
one who willingly went against the door and said, I'm going
to be the servant to my father forever. I did everything that
was necessary Everything my father told me to do in that covenant
of grace, I completely and utterly saved my people. And the evidence
of that is this. Look at the marks in my hands and in my feet.
That's what that boring of the ear through against the doorpost
represents. So this is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I want to give you six parallels
this morning between the Lord Jesus Christ and this Hebrew
bond slave. Here's the first one. The Hebrew
bond slave had to be bought. Now, if you look at verse 2 of
your text, if you're back there, it starts with these words, it
says, if thou buy, in Hebrew, servant. I'll look up that word
buy, the root word there. It is used in an interesting
way the very first time it's used. And I'm going to read to
you how it's used. In Genesis 4, verse 1, it says this, and
Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bear Cain,
and said, I have gotten. man from the Lord." That word,
gotten, is the exact same word in the original text, by. Now,
this is what Eve believed. This boy Cain that she had from
the Lord, she believed he was the Messiah. She thought that
he was the fulfillment of the prophecy, but he wasn't. He was
just the first murderer. That was it. But she said, I've
gotten a man from the Lord. Now, speaks of is the Lord Jesus
Christ being the only begotten Son of His Father. And I want
to talk for a moment about what that means. Turn over to Psalm
chapter 2. In verse 7, Psalm chapter 2 it
says, I will declare the decree Lord hath said unto me, Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Now the wording here is
so important. He does not say, this day have
I created thee, because that would be inaccurate. The Lord
Jesus Christ is eternal. He never had a beginning. He
will never have an end. He exists self-sufficiently. He has life in himself. And He
doesn't say, this day I've acquired you, because that would be inaccurate,
because there has never been any separation in the Godhead. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit have always dwelled in a perfect union. What He says
is, this day I have begotten you. To be begotten, it simply
speaks of being coming from someone. The Lord Jesus Christ came from
His Father. And the point of this is this,
it's a very small but very powerful point. This man, Jesus of Nazareth,
lived some 2,000 years ago, he really did come in the flesh.
There really was a man who walked on this earth named Jesus of
Nazareth, and that man is God. Everything God is, Father, Son,
Holy Spirit, the triune God, it dwelled in a man who walked
on this earth, and his name is Jesus of Nazareth. Christ. Every attribute of God dwells
in that man, a real man that really lived and really lives
in Heaven right now. He's the Sovereign. He's the
Holy One who will only accept absolute perfection. He's omnipotent. He's all powerful. All the attributes
of God dwell in this man, Jesus Christ. And this will be the
only figure of the Godhead we will ever see and we will ever
know. When we get to glory we're never going to see the Father.
Spirit, He is invisible. We're never going to see the
Spirit. The Spirit doesn't speak of Himself. We are going to see one man,
a man who is in glory right now, Jesus Christ. He is God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit dwelling in a man. Now, if we want to
learn something about this man look up at verse 6 of Psalm 2.
says, yet have I set my king upon my holy hill Zion. Here's the first thing we need
to know about this God man, Jesus Christ. He's the king. He's the
absolute sovereign. He rules and he reigns and everything
that happens is according to his good purpose and will and
nothing happens outside of his will. He cannot be manipulated
by men. He only manipulates men. Now,
I'll give you an example of this. I've been reading through 1 Samuel,
the book of 1 Samuel. It's been great. In chapter 4,
Israelites learn something about the sovereignty of God and they
learn a very hard lesson. So, they go to war with the Philistines.
They go out to war and they think they are going to win but they
get beat. They lose about 4,000 men along
the way. And so they come back and they lick their wounds and
they say, we've got a great idea. We're going to go down to the Tabernacle
in Shiloh and we're going to go get the Ark of the Covenant.
And we're going to carry it up here. And we're going to carry
it into battle. And the Lord will have to grant us the victory
then. He didn't grant us the victory before, but we're going
to go get the ark. When we carry that ark into battle,
he'll have to do it now, right? Trying to manipulate God. Trying
to use the ark, that symbol of the presence of God, like a lucky
rabbit's foot. I want to come in here and now
God's going to do what I want Him to do because I've done this,
right? That's manipulating God. And they go into battle and they
lose big time this time. About 30,000 men are slaughtered.
That is a hard lesson to learn. God is not manipulated by man.
Man is manipulated by God. Look down at verse 8. We'll learn
something else about him. It says, shall give thee the
heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession." This only begotten Son of God, everything
He asks of His Father, He always gets. He has a perfect priesthood,
and He makes a perfect intercession for His people. Every time He
prays for His people, He comes into His Father's presence demanding
of His Father, save Him, mine elect. And the Father says, under
what grounds? And He simply says, my blood. That's it. Father always
grants that demand, that request because of what He has accomplished. Here's the last thing, verse
9, "'Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash
them in pieces like a potter's vessel. This only begotten Son
of God, He is all powerful. Not only does He have a will,
He has the power to ensure that His will always comes about.'"
But, I want you to think of it in these terms. He has this power.
He has the power to save even the chiefest of sinners with
absolutely no contribution from them at all. And he's never turned
one away. So next one. The Hebrew bond
slave was just that. He had to be just that. He had
to be a Hebrew. Scripture, this is John 1 verse 10, speaking
of Christ it says, He was in the world and the world was made
by Him and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own and
His own received Him not. The Lord Jesus Christ was born
into this world a Jew. He was born into the tribe of
Judah. He was born unto His own, the Jews. received him not."
They said, we will not have this man to rule over us. Now, before
we are too hard on the Jews, let's understand what they are.
They are simply a type and illustration of every man, woman, and child
that has been born in this world. They are the natural man. What
does the natural man want to do with God? He wants to get
away from Him. He simply just wants God out
of the picture. I want to live my life. I want
to go about my business. I want to do what I want to do.
And I just don't want God intervening with me. Just leave me alone. Now back to 1 Samuel again. The
Philistines take the ark, right? And they take the ark and they
put it down in their temple in Ashton. And the Lord curses that
whole town. He curses them with hemorrhoids
as a matter of fact. Tell me the Lord doesn't have a sense
of humor. Many people die from all this, right? The people of
Ashton come together. They go to the leaders of the
Philistines. They say, get this ark out of here. Just get it
out of here. So they take it, and they move on to the next
city. You know what happens? The exact same thing. And so
they remove it from that city. They take it to another city.
You know what happens? The exact same thing. Finally, they take
the ark, and they put it in the field, and they step back. They
say, what are we going to do? What are we going to do with
this thing? And finally, they come to this conclusion. Let's
just give it back. just give it back to Israel.
Send it back to His place. And all of chapter 6 is devoted
to them devising a plan to get the ark back. They are saying,
we just want to be away from this ark. I just want to be separated
from God. Just get Him out of my way. I
don't want to deal with Him. I don't want Him intervening
in my life. Just get Him out of here. Now, think about that
in terms of divine election. the world began God chose a people. He chose someone to salvation
and He chose to pass by just not intervene with others. The
natural man says that's not fair. It's unfair that He chose not
to intervene with some men. Why? What does man want by nature? Separation from God. Just leave
me alone. Leave me alone to live my life,
to go any way I want. Let me march myself through the
gates of hell, along that broad path, through that broad gate.
Just leave me alone. This is a good statement. The
Lord is going to give to every man exactly what he wants. If you want to be separated from
God, he'll do that. He's done that. If you want to
not be separated from God, If you greatly desire that he would
reach out with that arm of sovereignty and grab you by the neck and
drag you to himself, guess what? If that's your desire, he's already
done it. Just rest. Just believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's all over. That is unnatural
because the natural man, all he wants is to get away from
God. That's it. The Hebrew bond slave served
for six years. And in the seventh there was liberty. Now the number
six in Scripture, what does that represent? Man, exactly, very
good. So Revelation 13, 18 says this,
it says, Here is wisdom, let him that hath understanding count
the number of the beast first the number of a man. And his
number is 600, three score, and six. Everybody knows this. 666,
the mark of the beast, right? Everybody's terrified of that
number. Somebody gets changed back and it's $6.66, they say,
no, no, charge me extra. Do something different there.
I don't want that. What's the number six represent? Man. Six, failure. Six, failure. Six, failure. That's the number
of a man. Failure upon failure upon failure. That's it. Failure
to be able to meet the demands of God. Failure to perform the
acts of spiritual life. Failure in any way to be able
to please God through what we do and what we think and what
our motives are because it's all evil. It's all wicked. That's
man, right? How did we get in that mess?
Adam. upright and innocent man with one law, don't eat of the
fruit. And what did he do? He disobeyed God, he ate the
fruit, and he fell. And he took on that wicked, sinful,
evil nature. And all his posterity, all of
us, are born with the exact same wicked, evil nature. And before
we are too hard on Adam, please understand that he was a figurehead,
he was the first man, but we were all in Adam. It literally
was me who disobeyed God. The circumstances I'm born into
they are of my own doing. Here's the good news though,
If I can be condemned in a man, that means I can be exonerated
in another man. That's exactly what Romans 5.19
says, For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. How did that
work? Lord Jesus Christ was born into
this world a man. God actually became man, but
He was completely different than any other man. There was absolutely
no failure in Him. There was no sin. There was no
disobedience. There was no lack of power. He
simply obeyed His Father and honored His Father in all things. And through that He actually
established the righteousness for all the saints. How real
is that though? that his righteousness really
is mine. How real is that? When the Lord was going to be
baptized, he went to John the Baptist. He said, you're going to baptize
me. John said, no, I can't do that. Here's what the Lord said.
He said, suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness. He said, John, me and you are
one. Everything I do, that's what
you've done. That's the reality of the situation.
didn't stop there. He didn't just establish the
righteousness. He didn't just stoop once being made man, He stooped
again being made the sins of His people. actually burying
them in his body and suffering and dying. And this is the accomplishment
of that death. According to Hebrews 10.14, for
by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. That means everything that was
necessary for salvation for the elect was accomplished at Calvary
Street. That's exactly what happened.
Now, when was the Hebrew bond slave set free? year, seven the
number of perfection. By one offering He hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified." What happened after the Lord
Jesus Christ laid down His life for His people? Liberty. Hebrew
bond slave walked out free for nothing and well furnished. And that's what happened with
all God's people. After the Lord Jesus Christ laid down His life
we walked away free for nothing. We're at liberty. The law has
absolutely nothing to say to us. It's completely honored in
the Lord Jesus Christ. The justice of God has absolutely
nothing to say to us, completely honored in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We couldn't be any more pleasing to God. For the Hebrew bond slave, the
freedom came without cost. I preached this a couple weeks
ago at another place, and there was a guy who was coming through.
He talked to me at the end. He goes, one of my favorite statements
is that freedom is never free. It always costs somebody something.
That's true. For freedom for the elect, it
cost the Lord Jesus Christ everything, his death. He lost him separation
from his father for a time. It cost him all these things,
but for us, For His people, it costs us absolutely nothing. We have the very grace of God,
which means it's free. For every sinner, there is absolutely
nothing that separates you from the grace of God. Christ." That's
the call. Come, believe on Him, take hold
of eternal life. For every sinner who can't come
up with the goods, who can't please God in any way, shape,
or form. You just can't. This is the command,
come to Christ. It's free. It will cost you absolutely
nothing. And this is what every believer
does. They believe. That's how we can
identify them in this world. How can I tell if I'm elect?
How can I tell if the Lord Jesus Christ died for me? It's very
simple. I trust that He died for me. I trust that His act
of death, His death on the cross is the accomplishment of my salvation.
And I'm not trusting me in any way, shape, or form. The Hebrew bond slave could enter
into servitude alone or with his bride, but Christ has never
been without His bride. Now I want to, this is talking
about the beauty of union with the Lord Jesus Christ, but I
want to pose it from two different aspects. Number one, the mystery
of it. Now Paul in Ephesians chapter 5 he talks about the
mystery of marriage. He says, husbands love your wives
even Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it. And
he would go on to say that in this thing of marriage the two
become one flesh. And he says this is a great mystery
but I speak of Christ and His Church. This is the union that
exists between the Lord Jesus Christ and His people. This eternal
union that never had a beginning and never had an end. When the
two become one flesh in a marriage you know what happens? Everything
that is the wife's becomes the husband's. And everything that
becomes the husband's becomes the wife. And it's interesting,
at the police department, we have these issues come up from
time to time. We'll have somebody call and
say, hey, listen, this guy just wiped out my bank account. I
want a police report for it. Like, oh, OK. Well, how do you
know him? Well, he's my ex. Ex what? Well, we're married right now,
but we're separated. Are you legally married right now? Yes,
I'm sorry I can't help you. What's yours is his, and what's
his is yours. This is the union that exists
between Christ and his church. Everything he's done, I have. It's mine, I really have done
it. When he went to the cross, that's where I was punished,
that's where I died, in him. When he walked the paths of righteousness,
I walked them too, in him. Just the same, everything I was,
I am became His. All my sin, all my wickedness,
all my disobedience became His. That's the Blessed Union. This
is a great mystery. We speak of Christ and His Church.
And here is the beauty of all of it, the reality of it. Do
you remember when Abraham was coming back from the slaughter
of the kings he had rescued Lot, his nephew. He comes back and
the first person he comes in contact with is Melchizedek,
a great type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Very likely a pre-incarnate
version of him. And it says that Abraham paid
tithes to Melchizedek. And when you go on down there,
it starts talking about Levi. Levi is Abraham's son. Levi has
not yet been born, but what it says is, when Abraham paid tithes,
Levi paid tithes. He was in the loins of his father
when Abraham paid those tithes. It does not say that it was as
if Levi paid the tithes. doesn't say when Abraham paid
tithes it was counted to Levi's credit. That's not what it says.
It says when Abraham paid tithes Levi paid those too because he
was in the loins of his father. Everything Christ has done we
truly have done. Just as accepted with the Father
as He is right now. Just as loved. Every believer
has that in Christ. There is absolutely nothing to
worry about. There is absolutely nothing to do we just rest. Now, to be the servant forever
the Hebrew bond slave had to have two qualities, two, willingness
and love. Those are the two. This speaks
of Christ in these two respects. Number one, he loved his father.
He says, I do those things always that please my father. He does
them because he loves his father. What did his father charge him
to do? In the covenant of grace he said, you're going to come
into this world, bearing my people and everything I require of them
I'm going to look to you for." You're going to go, you're going
to live, you're going to die, you're going to put away their sin. And the
son said, I will. And he came to this world doing
always those things that pleased his father because he loved his
father. But the story doesn't end there. That's not where it
ends. He loved somebody else too. Remember to be the Hebrew
bond slave you had to say, I love my master. What's the next one?
I love my wife. I love my family. I will not
go out free. The Lord Jesus Christ loved his
bride, loved his elect so much that he came into this world
and he willingly laid down his life. He said, no man takes my
life from me. I lay it down. He willingly suffered
under the wrath of God because he loved you that much. I'm going to leave you there.