Well, it's good to see you all
out and seeing you. Remember those who requested prayer. Fred's neck has gone
down some, which is good. So maybe the medicine will start
working on that part and a portion of his body now. We're thankful
for that. Remember Melvin, he had a problem with his blood
pressure spiking the last couple of days and been in the hospital
two times. They don't know what the problem
is. They think it might possibly be an abscessed tooth, but several
things can cause high blood pressure. Diabetes being one of them. But
remember him in your prayers. Seek the Lord's help for him.
Any others who've requested prayer? Julie's going Friday to work
on the other side of her brain, to stop the tremors on the other
side of the body. And so remember her as she travels
also. Who? Sherry? She was married to Kent. Oh, that was Kent's wife? Yeah,
she had a kidney replacement. Oh, did she? Yeah. She's doing good. She's had heart
problems and her blood pressure just dropped. Yeah, yeah. Well, that kidney's
control of blood pressure a great deal, so that, my brother, when
he had to have a stent put in his kidney, and he was watching
the meter, they had his blood pressure on there, and he was
way high, and they put that stent in, and it dropped down to normal
just as soon as they put the stent in. Dropped down to normal,
so blood pressure, that can be a problem. I'm glad she's got
the replacement. Hope it goes well for her. Sherry Huskey. Remember her in your prayers
also. Let's begin our worship service with hymn number 272.
272, Christ the Salad Rock. ♪ My hope is built on nothing less
♪ ♪ Than Jesus' blood and righteousness ♪ ♪ I dare not trust the sweetest
frame ♪ ♪ But wholly lean on Jesus' name ♪ ♪ On Christ, the
solid rock I stand on ♪ ♪ Darkness veils his lovely face
♪ ♪ I rest on his unchanging grace ♪ ♪ In every high and stormy
gale ♪ ♪ My anchor holds within the veil ♪ ♪ On Christ's solid
rock I stand on other ground ♪ The ground is sinking Christ the solid rock I stand,
all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. ♪ He shall come with trumpet sound
♪ Oh may I then in him be found ♪ Dressed in his righteousness
alone ♪ All blest to stand before the throne ♪ On Christ the solid
rock I stand all other ground is sinking sad. Hymn number 46, Oh for a Thousand
Tongues to Sing, my great Redeemer's praise. Oh for a thousand tongues to
sing, ♪ My great Redeemer's praise ♪ ♪ The glories of my God and
King ♪ ♪ The triumph of His grace ♪ ♪ My gracious Master and my
God ♪ ♪ Assist me to proclaim to spread through all the earth
♪ ♪ The honors of thy name ♪ Jesus, the name that charms our fears
♪ And beads our sorrows cease ♪ Tis music in the sinner's ears
♪ Tis life and health and peace ♪ He breaks the power of canceled
sins His blood can make the foulest
clean, His blood availed for me. Hear Him ye deaf, His praise
ye dumb, Your lucent tongues employ, Ye blind, behold your
Savior come. ♪ And leave me lame for joy ♪
Glory to God and praise and love be ever, ever given ♪ My saints
below and saints above the church in earth and heaven If you have your Bibles, turn
to Exodus chapter 21. I want to read verses 7 through
11. The title of my message tonight
is Selling a Daughter. Exodus 21, verse 7, And if a
man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants
do. If she please not her master,
who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed. To sell her unto a strange nation
he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with
her. And if he hath betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal
with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another
wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall
he not diminish. And if ye do not these things
unto her, then shall she go out free without money. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank
you for your word, which is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto
our path, the entrance of which gives understanding to the simple.
We thank you for faith and spiritual life, that we can understand
this book and appreciate what is before us. We know that this
is your word for your children. What has been revealed is what
we have and nothing else. We are not to add to the word
nor take from it, but through faith believe what you have said.
And where we fail in our own weak and frail minds to understand,
we do bow in thanksgiving, knowing that we are faced with the truth
the truth that comes from heaven. Father, we pray for those who
are sick. Pray for Brother Fred, that he's doing better. We pray
that you continue to minister to him. Pray for Melvin, for
Julie. She's prepared for this new procedure.
Miss Husky, as she's received this kidney, we pray you'd be
with her and strengthen her. All the others who requested
prayer, Lord, we ask your help for them. Those who've lost loved
ones, those who are going through troubles in their minds and hearts,
We ask your help for them. Father, for ourselves tonight,
we've gathered here. You have gathered us. We pray
that you would, by your grace, teach us your word. Fix our hearts
upon Jesus Christ and give us thankful hearts and loving hearts. Cause us to love one another
and love you supremely. We pray in Christ's precious
name and for his glory. Amen. Now what follows in this chapter
as we get into it in the weeks to come are a great series of
laws that deal with various crimes and their subsequent punishments. Some of it as we look at it may
seem trivial, but our Lord deals specifically with a great amount
of things. They were given to establish a civil nation a single
nation from the concept of tribal life while maintaining tribal
identity, which has proven over the years to be a failure, for
the Jews don't know what tribe they're from today and have no
tribal identity at all. Many nations have tried to do
this, tried to bring tribes together under one king or one nation
or one law. It rarely ever works. been tried
many times, no other effort to abolish tribal thinking and culture
can ever be said to have been successful in the history of
humanity. Today it is virtually impossible
for a Jew to know the tribe from which he originated, and the
laws that our Lord gives here deal with punishments for wrongdoings
committed And much of what is spoken of does not enter into
our thinking because we've evolved as a nation, and laws that served
a purpose many years ago mean nothing today. Our laws are established
by national, state, and local authorities, and often are the
product, usually are the product of political persuasion or cultural
persuasion, or even religious interests make men come up with
laws. For instance, on the law books
still today, there is a $2 bounty on the tongue of a Rhode Islander. A $2.00 bounty paid by the people
of Massachusetts because Roger Williams left the Massachusetts
Bay Colony and went to Rhode Island and established a Baptist
church there. And because he differed with
them greatly in doctrine, they put a bounty on all Rhode Islanders'
tongues. I guess this was so they couldn't
speak their doctrine. You'd pluck out their tongue
and Massachusetts would pay you two bucks. The law is still on the books. Prohibition, Volstead Act, became
law because of religious zeal against drunkenness. I mean,
it was all a religious zeal. It didn't last very long because
you're not going to take people's wine from them. And it didn't
stop people from drinking. They just made it a law to sell
liquor, so they made it on their own, and they had speakeasies
and such. But that was because of religion.
Religious zeal made people come up with a law. Now the laws mentioned
in this book are not the laws of men. That is important to
understand. These laws were not given by
legislatures or governments of men. These laws here in Exodus
were given from Heaven, and it reveals just how involved God
was in the life of His people. It is an amazing thing. He is
not a God of stone that sits mute and uninvolved. He is in
the very details of the lives of His people and in fact He
rules and regulates and manipulates all things that is involved in
the life of all His creatures and especially His people, the
household of faith. That is so He can say and we
can know we can know that all things work together for good
to them that love god to them with a call according to his
purpose we know that why because it's god is doing it god is involved
this nation as far as the uh... the nation was established was
that there were some christians that wrote the declaration of
independence and the constitution but a lot of men called deists
somewhere somewhere uh... didn't believe in God at all,
but some were deists. And a deist believed that God
set things, started things. He created and created man and
he set it up and gave him everything he needed and backed off and
that's it. And the world is clicking down like a clock and finally
it will end, but God's not really been involved at all these years.
But that's not what the Bible says. If we'll look at these
laws, I mean, one of the laws, if a guy knocks out a guy's tooth,
he's to repay it. Well, he's handed down from heaven. God is involved with his people.
He's in the midst of his people. Scripture says in him we live
and move and have our being. We're thankful that God has counted
us in that number that he has saved. Now the passage we just
read concerns the selling of a daughter into indentured servitude
and is tied to the previous verses we looked at last week about
buying a male Hebrew servant and bringing him into servitude.
The reason for this situation is poverty. The man has reached
a state of poverty and has lost all that he has. If that is the
case, under Hebrew law, the law that the Lord gives, he could
sell his daughter as a maidservant. Now, that does not wash in our
thinking, Try to come up with some analogy to the way we live
today. But this was part of the thinking
back then. Servitude, slavery and such was
common. So if he's lost all he has, he
can sell his daughter to be a maidservant. Now the time allotted for her
servitude was the same as the male. Six years of servitude
and the seventh year she was to go free. Now her situation
differed from the male, however. When a daughter was sold into
servitude, it was on the promise of something. When a male was
sold into servitude, he was sold into servitude because of poverty,
or as we looked at, because of theft last week. And then it
was him who decided, at the end of his servitude, if he loved
his master, and loved his wife and children, and wanted to stay
with his master, he was bored in his ear, and he became what
is called a bondservant, and would serve his master. as long
as he lived, or to the fiftieth year of the Jubilee. Now, this servitude this woman
had was under the promise that the master or the master's son
would marry her. This was the promise that she
was to receive. She did not, as the manservant,
pledge love for the master and then was bored in the year and
became a servant for him forever. she was to become part of the
family. So if she was sold into servitude, it was under the promise
that she would become the master's wife or the master's son's wife. So that was the promise that
was made. Now, there were stipulations here. Certain exceptions were
made to this law. If the daughter proved churlish
or mean or unreasonable and didn't get along with the family, she
could be redeemed. And what does that mean? That
means she could be bought back. out of the servitude. She could
be bought out of the servitude according to the years she had
served. In other words, this applies if she had not served
the full six years, the redemption was made for the years that she
had not served. The concept of redemption is
clearly set forth here. It has to do with buying someone
out of slavery, and we know that is a picture of our redemption
that is in Jesus Christ. Hosea is a picture of that as
he went and bought Gomer off the slave market after she had
been used up as a harlot. She had given herself to men
and sold herself for years and had nothing to offer him. It
could do him no good, but he loved her. So he went to the
slave market and he picked her out and brought her home and
married her. He redeemed her with the price that was necessary
to redeem. This applies of course to our
understanding of what redemption is. Scripture says we are bought
with a price. We are bought. We are not our
own, we are bought. We have been bought and paid
for by the price that God has required for our redemption. The concept of redemption is
clearly set forth in the picture of redemption of the elect by
Jesus Christ, His payment being His death or His blood. You see,
the elect, as we are born into this world, are enslaved to sin. Nothing about us, of us, or from
us is valuable. It's all worthless and will soon
pass away. I know people think that somehow
if a person has certain talents and gifts, that if that person
was saved somehow, he'd be a wonderful witness for Jesus or something.
No, he'd never use any of that stuff he's born with. All that
intelligence, he'll keep. All his talent and singing he
may keep, but that's not gonna be used that way. It's gonna
be used, all that's done for his own glory. I don't know what
kind of change takes place when God creates that new creature,
but suddenly everything He does is not going to be for His glory,
it's going to be for the glory of God. It's going to be for
the glory of God. Redeemed. The elect are enslaved
to sin. What does that mean? They can't
escape. They don't have a free will. They don't have power to
get themselves out of their troubles. Paul said of himself in Romans
chapter 7, I was sold under sin. Sold under sin. They cannot be
set free unless they are redeemed from slavery. A picture of that
is set forth in type in Exodus chapter 34 at the redemption of an ass. Our Lord says in verse 19 of
Exodus 34, ìAll that open the matrix,î that is the womb, ìis
mine.î So everything belongs to God that is born in this world.
All that opens is mine. And every firstling among the
cattle, whether ox, sheep, that is male, that belongs to him. But the firstling of an ass,
now he separates the ass particularly, which is a beast of burden, and
also set forth as kind of a rebellious creature. We just looked at that
in Jeremiah, when I was studying Jeremiah. Firstling of an ass,
thou shalt redeem with a lamb. Seems like quite a switch, doesn't
it? A mule or an ass, a rebellious creature for a tender and sweet
little lamb, that's the exchange. And if thou redeem him not, thou
shalt break his neck. So there has to be a redemption.
If there's not redemption, there's death. That's the only other
course to it. Thou shalt break the neck. All
the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem, and none shall
appear before me empty, and the only way not to be empty is to
be redeemed. So that is what He is saying.
There must be redemption in order for a person to live eternally. Without redemption, he must die.
And the price required for our freedom is the price God required
for sin. What was that price? The soul
that sinneth, it shall die. The wages of sin is death. The
gift of God is eternal life. Death is the price. I think it
was Shakespeare who said, ìWe all owe God one death. We owe
Him that. We owe Him that. Thatís the debt
we owe.î So thatís the price. The three words used for redemption
in Scripture, ìEk agarazoî and ìluatroî in the Greek, These
all mean, first, agorazo means to go to the marketplace, the
slave market actually, to purchase. To go to the slave market to
purchase. We get our word agoraphobia,
someone afraid of the marketplace, from the word agorazo. Then you
have the second word used for redemption, which is Echagoraza,
which means to go to the marketplace to buy, purchase, and take OUT
of the marketplace, to actually take POSSESSION of what you have
purchased. Now, when you see the word Peculiar People in the
Word of God, that word is PURCHASED. It says in Acts 20, 28 that God's
people were PURCHASED with His own BLOOD. with his own blood. That's the purchase price of
our redemption. So you have him going to the
marketplace to buy, going to the marketplace to buy, and buying,
and purchasing, and taking out. And the third is, the word is
luatro, which means he goes to the marketplace, he buys it,
he purchases it, and he never puts it on the marketplace again.
Never to be put. It's always his, it belongs to
him, and never to be put. That's our redemption. So when
Christ came to this world, this marketplace, this agora, He came
to this place and found us. He didn't look at us and say,
Well, there's the best one. Now, if someone had been SELLING
us, probably, we wouldn't have been on the market at all. We'd
have probably been on the giveaway thing, you know, here, take one,
they're free, they ain't worth nothing. But if somebody had
been selling, they would be looking for the best, the brightest,
the strongest, and the best. Christ didn't choose those. Not
many wise, not many noble. He didn't choose those. He came
to the marketplace and he looked and saw the worst of humanity. The vilest of all. And said,
that's the one I want. And that one, and that one, and
that's mine. And he paid the price for them and they were
saved by his grace. They're never put on the slave
market again. This aligns with the fact that the Word declares
here that this woman could not be sold to a strange nation. She must be kept, she must be
treated as a daughter. If the Son has made you free,
Scripture says, you're free, you're free indeed. you have
the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free. Now if the
master or son to whom the maidservant is betrothed takes instead another
wife to himself, it says, it does not free him from meeting
the requirements of releasing the maidservant, who has been
considered a daughter because she was betrothed to him or his
son. She is to be treated as a daughter
and cared for thusly. So just like the former servant,
if he went out free, He did not go out broke. You remember that,
that when the male servant, if he did not wish to say what his
master, and he was set free after six years, he did not go out
broke. He went out with great substance.
Master was to make sure that he had enough to start life all
over again in good standing. This is the same thing also.
It says in verse nine and 10, and if he be betrothed to his
son, he shall deal with her after the manner of his daughter. If
he take him another wife, her raiment, that is the daughter,
her duty and her duty of marriage shall not diminish. And if he
do not these things unto her, then shall she go out free without
money. She goes out free with substance.
If Martha follows these things, she all will be well. And within
this passage, the laws involved is a picture and an ANTITYPE
of the betrothal of YOU, the Church, to the Lord Jesus Christ
as His Bride. In purpose, the Church was redeemed
from the foundation of the world. Now we know the actual redemption
took place when Jesus Christ died on the cross and offered
Himself to God, the perfect sacrifice to God, and that is the price
that was paid. We know that was the time. But
this happened in purpose before the world began. That is the
language of Scripture in Revelation 13.8. He is the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. Why was He slain? He did not
do anything wrong. He was without sin, never did
anything but that which was right toward men and women and toward
God. Why was He slain? Before the world was. Why was
He slain? For redemption. There's no other
reason. That's what it says in Revelation
5.10, and He redeemed us. Worthy is the Lamb, because He's
redeemed us by His blood out of every kindred nation tongue,
and people made us unto our God kings and priests. And by the
way, that's the only way that anything, that the tribal idea
can be overcome in the sense that people who are of different
tribes can actually love one another. They can't do it tribally,
because that has to do with culture. They can do it through grace.
through the grace of God. Grace trumps race in every situation. Grace becomes culture. And generally
race is not an issue with people, it's culture. It's how people
live. And you know, white men don't
really have a culture, that's the problem. They just sort of
do what they want to do. But different races in the world
have cultures that they abide by, and that separates them.
Grace settles that. Grace makes people who are not
alike love one another. love one another. Our Lord was
redeemed His people by His blood out of every kindred, every nation,
every tribe, every tongue, and every people upon the face of
this earth. Join them together in the Lord Jesus Christ. This
Bride was given to Christ before the world began. He had already
paid the redemption price in purpose. She was given to Him,
and He became her surety before the world began. He took upon
Himself the debt that she owed before she ever even existed.
So when she came into the world, she was not yet fully understanding
that she was His bride. She did not know the Gospel.
She did not know anything about Jesus Christ, but He knew her. He knew her from the foundation
of the world, and He loved her from the foundation of the and
God had given her to Him, had given this church to Him. That's
why He says things like, All that the Father giveth me shall
come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast
out. All that the Father giveth me. And when He talks about the
security of the believer who comes to Him, I see, hear my
voice, and follow me. And I give to them eternal life,
my Father which gave them is greater than all, and no man
is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." We were given
to Christ, betrothed to Him, but there was no possibility
of us ever being a churlish bride. When He brought us to Himself,
He gave us love for Him. We love Him because He first
loved us. She was redeemed before the world
began. She was given to Christ by the Father. He came to this
world. Died in her room instead to pay her sin debt. And of all
the Fathers giving Him, He has said, I have lost nothing. I
have lost nothing. When He died, when He died, that
assured that you never will. When He paid your sin debt, that
assured that you will never be called to account for that debt.
justice, cannot twice demand, payment at my bleeding surety's
hand, and then again at mine. Christ has never lost any one
member of his body. All his beloved are free in a
world that is more and more tightening the grip on humanity, bringing away the natural freedoms
that men have, and it is happening on a daily basis. You know who
is going to be free in the end? Free here, free here. The people
of God. They are His free people. They
are called the Lord's free man. You see, all have been redeemed.
All His people have been redeemed at Calvary. An example of that,
and our Lord actually quoted Himself as being written of the
Lord, is when He came to be arrested. the chief priests and the scribes,
the lawyers all came with swords and weapons. They're going to
arrest Jesus. They're going to arrest God.
They don't know He's God. They're going to arrest Him. All He does
is speak, and they fall down when He speaks, and He lets them
get up again, and He gives Himself to them. He says, You can have
Me. He said, But you can't have My disciples.
You can't have both. You can have Me, but these have
to go free. Because as the Scripture said,
of all that the Lord has given me, I should lose nothing. I should lose nothing. Nobody
for whom Christ Jesus died will ever perish in Hell. Nobody! Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you.