All right. What did they find
anything. They did find some spots on his
brain. OK. But they didn't see the signs
of a stroke or anything. OK. Yeah. What's it wasn't. Yeah. What
was her name. Vincent rescinded and the boy
that died? Nathaniel Rose. He was a young man. Handsome
young man. Remember that Susan rescinded. Remember her in your prayers
if you will and the others who requested prayer also. Let's
begin our worship service tonight with hymn number 514. Marching
to Zion. Come we that love the Lord and
let our joys be known. Join in a song with sweet accord. Join in a song with sweet accord. And thus surround the throne
And thus surround the throne We're marching to Zion Beautiful,
beautiful Zion We're marching upward to Zion The beautiful
city of God Let those But children of the heavenly
King But children of the heavenly King Joys abroad may speak their joys
abroad. We're marching to Zion, beautiful,
beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. a thousand sacred sweets before
we reach the heavenly fields, before we reach the heavenly
? Walk the golden streets ? ? Oh, walk the golden streets ? ? We're
marching to Zion ? ? Beautiful, beautiful Zion ? ? We're marching
upward to Zion ? ? The beautiful city of God ? Then let our songs
abound and every tear be dry We're marching through Emmanuel's
ground We're marching through Emmanuel's ground To fairer worlds
on high To fairer worlds on high We're marching to Zion, beautiful,
beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. Hymn number 61. Oh, the deep,
deep love of Jesus. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus,
vast, unmeasured, boundless. Rolling as a mighty ocean in
its fullness over me. Underneath me, all around me,
is the courage of the love leading onward. Sing homeward to my glorious
rest above. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus
spread his praise from shore to shore. How he watches o'er his loved
ones, and to call them all his own. How for them he intercedeth,
watcheth o'er them from the throne. Love of Jesus, love of Avery,
love the best desire. of rest. Oh, the deep, deep love
of Jesus, it is a heaven of heavens to me, and it lifts me up to
glory. We looked at last time in Exodus
when Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh and asked for the children
of Israel to be let go and to go out of the wilderness to worship
the Lord. Three days journey out of the wilderness. He refused
to let them go and we saw that Egypt was a picture of fallen,
useless, Christless religion. and we're going to jump around
a little bit tonight because we're going to deal with some
of the things Pharaoh said in the 8th and 9th and 10th chapter
leading along the same lines of what he said in the previous
part of chapter 5. If you have your Bible turn with
me to Exodus chapter 8 and we'll just read one verse of scripture After great plagues had come
upon Egypt, Pharaoh relents in chapter 8 and verse 25. It says,
Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, Go ye, sacrifice
to your God in the land. Go ye, sacrifice to your God
in the land. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we come in the name of Jesus
Christ our Lord, the King of kings and Lord of lords. the
perfect sacrifice for our sins because it satisfied you and
your justice and your law. Put away our sins by that sacrifice,
forgave us of our sins, and advocates with us before
the Father every day, the Lord our righteousness. We thank you,
Father, that we have the knowledge and understanding because you
have given us faith we can never understand what you've done.
Never truly grasp it in our hearts and embrace it and rely upon
it and lean upon it and rest in it. Had you not given us faith
to see what you have declared in your word. We thank you for
that. We thank you, Father, for new
mercies every day, grace upon grace, for ruined and wretched
sinners without hope and without help except for that grace. We
thank you for the access we have into the grace wherein we stand.
And we have peace through the blood of the cross when Jesus
Christ has reconciled us unto you by that blood. As we look
at the passage of scripture tonight, these passages of scripture,
let us do so with an understanding and appreciation of what you
teach in your word. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Now because Israel had demanded
to be set free to worship God outside of Egypt, three days
journey outside of Egypt, Pharaoh, which pictured false religion
as we saw in Revelation, when Babylon, the great whore religion,
is called Egypt and Sodom, he added works and burdens upon
the people when they asked to go out and worship the Lord,
and he called them idle. because they would have to leave
their work to go out and worship the Lord, and he didn't want
them to do that. And he called their demands to be vain or empty
words. This is the way of religion without
Christ. The people of God, however, were
resolute, and they said, Let my people go. Now when religion
sees that it's lost its influence, represented by the response of
the plagues of frogs and flies, There are too many F's in that
sentence. When he saw that it did not touch
God's people, it only affected Egypt, it only affected Egyptians.
We see that in chapter 8, verse 22, and God says this, He said,
I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, that's where
the children of Israel were. Now, the land of Goshen was part
of Egypt, it was part of Egypt, but somehow along the border
of that land, God raised a shield that all the plagues that landed
in Egypt could not cross that line. He said, I will sever in
that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, and
no swarms of flies shall be there, to the end that thou mayest know
that I am the Lord in the midst of thee, and I will put a division
between my people and thy people, tomorrow shall this sign be.'
And the Lord did so. And there were a grievous swarm
of flies into the house of Pharaoh and all his servants' house and
all the land of Egypt. And the land was corrupted by
reason of the swarm of flies." Now not one fly crossed that
invisible border in the Goshen and landed on an Israelite. Why?
Because God controls all things. You know, people say, well, I've
got, I heard somebody say, animals have a free will. No, they don't.
You don't have one either. God controls things. If He can
tell a fly not to land on your head, He controls all things
and He did that. Pharaoh, after this had happened,
this swarm of flies came and it corrupted Egypt. He relented,
but he didn't do it absolutely. To lose such a labor force was
unheard of. He would lose his numbers. That's
a pretty important thing in religion if you don't believe so. When
people talk to you about the church you go to, one of the
first things they ask you is how many you got. How many people
go there? And what I like Paul Laverne
used to say, she said, everybody's supposed to. I said, how many
go there? Everybody's supposed to go there.
And he couldn't abide that. So religion and Pharaoh sought
a compromise to diminish this radical idea of leaving altogether. Let my people go. He wanted to
come up with an idea. Religion wants you to stay. religion
wants you to stay and is willing to forego certain things in order
to get you to do so. Many times I've been told that
I don't need to be so narrow and that the folks believed I
was a Christian too and they wanted me to stay with them but
just don't bring up the differences between what we're saying. I
actually had relatives say to me one time We know you're a
child of God, and we are too, and just don't mention it, what
you believe when you're among us. Don't talk about that. But
they felt completely free to talk about what they believed,
but I couldn't talk about it because the minute I talked about it,
they heard something altogether different than what I was saying.
They said they would think that I was saying that they weren't
a child of God. I never said that to anybody. Never told anybody
they wasn't saved. But when I tell them the truth
about how God saves sinners, most of them think, well, you're
saying I'm not saved. If that's what you're hearing, maybe that's
the way it is. Just don't tell what you believe
and we'll all get along. It's not going to happen. It's
not going to happen. But this is the tactic of Pharaoh.
Look at verse 25. in chapter 8. Pharaoh called
for Moses and for Aaron and said, Go ye sacrifice to the Lord in
the land, not outside the land, not three days outside the land,
but let's do it inside the land. Pharaoh concedes that he's fighting
a losing battle and these narrow-minded people are going to leave if
he doesn't act fast. So he comes up with a compromise.
He tells Moses that he can sacrifice or worship his God with the blessing
of Egypt But why go out into the wilderness? Just stay here
in the land and worship to your heart's content. And Moses says,
that's not going to happen. In verse 26, Moses said, this
is not meet or suitable so to do, for we shall sacrifice the
abomination uh... of the egyptians to the
lord our god lo shall we sacrifice the abomination of the egyptian
for their eyes and they will not stone us and will they not
stone us we will go three days journey into the wilderness and
sacrificing to the lord our god and as he hath commanded us moses
is not calling the egyptian deities and their gods their multiple
gods their pantheon and abomination though they clearly were he declares
that the sacrifice of israel if offered in Egypt in that land
would be an abomination to the Egyptians and such action could
cost the Israelites their very lives. If we do it here, if we
go out and worship, if we worship the Lord here, if we hold together
our hands together and go in a circle and dance and be free,
because that's what worshiping God is, is being free. If we
do that, We do that, it's going to be an abomination to Israel. This is true understanding. The
sacrifice of Christ, which fully and totally accomplished the
salvation of the elect, without any contribution of the elect,
is an abomination to religion. That's why I've been asked to
leave several places I've preached before. Some folks don't want
to hear me anymore. The believer worships God in Christ, and in
Christ alone, and he does that condition solely the believer
solely upon the SUCCESSFUL substitution of Jesus Christ by which He saved
His people from their sins, those for whom He died. He saved them,
He redeemed them. That price was paid to God. It
wasn't paid to men. It was paid to God. The sacrifice
was made to God. The Jesus who died that men talk
about and actually saved no one or only made salvation possible
is a false deity and cannot factually bear the name of Savior because
in actuality He didn't save nobody. He just made it possible for
them to be saved. That is a false Jesus. That's
not the Jesus of Scripture. The Jesus of Scripture got His
very name of Jesus, Joshua, the Savior. because he shall save
his people from their sins. And when faced with this tenacious
attitude of the people of God, Pharaoh relents and seeks another
compromise. In verse 28 of chapter 8, he
says, Well, I'll let you go, that you may sacrifice unto the
Lord in the wilderness, only you shall not go very far away.
You can go, but just don't go so far away. Okay, you can leave
the land and sacrifice to God, but don't go too far. Let's keep
the lines of communication open and see if in the end we cannot
teach some doctrine of practice or reach some doctrine of practice,
some compromise that we can agree on. We're all religious folks. We're all going to the same place
and surely you don't have to totally break with us. That's
what he said. The people of God leave the house
of Belial. The house of Belial sees that
action as a declaration that they are not saved. This has
happened to me. Why did you leave our church?
Because the truth wasn't being preached. Well, you're saying
I'm not saved. I'm not saying that, but that's what they're
hearing. That's what they're hearing. they're saying, no,
don't do that, we're all religious folks, just don't go too far.
If false religion were true, there would be no reason to depart.
People have said, why are you so narrow on the doctrine of
God's grace? Because I believe that's how
God saves people, that's what he says in his book. Why can't you just give a little?
You can't give a little on that. If false religion were true,
there would be no reason to separate. Simple as that. I'd still be
in false religion if it was true, but it's not. Light cannot have
fellowship with darkness. It cannot. Lest darkness be considered
to contain some light, which it does not. Oh, they say, well
they have some truth. I've heard that said so many
times it makes me sick. But some truth, let me tell you,
some truth is not the truth. That's the whole big difference.
And if you put a dram of strychnine in a cup of tea, it is no longer
tea, it's poison and it'll kill you. That's a fact. Any partial truth, listen very
carefully, any partial truth is an entire lie. and is at his heart deceitful
dealing. In verse 29 it says, And Moses
said, Behold, I go out from thee, and will entreat the Lord that
the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh and thy servants,
and from his people tomorrow. But let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully,
deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to
sacrifice. Though Pharaoh hardened his heart,
after more plagues came, he again relented and came up with yet
another compromise. in between chapter 8 and chapter
10 he gets tough again putting more labor on the people, working
them harder so God sends some more plagues. In chapter 10 verses
8 through 11 it says that Moses and Aaron were brought again
unto Pharaoh and he said to them, go serve the Lord your God. Now
this is after he was hard. But who are they that will go?
And Moses said, we will go with our young and our old and our
sons and our daughters, we're going to take everybody. And
our flocks and with our herds we will go, for we must hold
a feast unto the Lord. So he's not only going to have
the old folks go out and worship, he's going to have everybody
go out, even the flocks, the herds, because they can't have
sacrifices without the herds being with them. and he said
unto them, Let the Lord be so with you as I will let you go,
and your little ones look to it, and your little ones look
to it, for evil is before you. Not so, go now ye that are men, and serve
the Lord, for that ye desire. And they that were driven out
from Pharaoh's presence. Now this is The subtlety of religion. You
can go and worship God, he says, but the wilderness is a dangerous
place. Leave your children in our care.
He said, you old grown-ups, y'all go on and worship, but leave
your children with us. Leave your children with us.
Now, no doubt, that's an attack on the family. There's no doubt
about that, but nonetheless, he said, we will give them a
faith-based education. and prepare them for life. Just
leave your children with us. We'll take care of your children.
It disturbs me to no end when some who declare that they believe
the truth of the word of God will give their children over
to false religion to get them educated. That has bothered me
since the beginning. Now when these church schools
started, and I'm not saying all of them are bad, but when church
schools started, they started for one reason. They started
for one reason because of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.
That's why they started. I remember it as clear as a bell
because I went through it. And I remember as soon as they
started to allow black children in white schools, the churches
started having their own schools. I mean, it was just almost, it
was like that. It was like that. But most of these church schools
teach a false god. They teach a false god. Now,
this is not giving credence to public education, for of late,
it's not very credible either, to tell you the truth. But putting
your children in the hands of false religion is having them
learn of a false god, I can't imagine. false religion can live
with you believing the truth if they can be the ones who train
up your children." Pharaoh said, you can go, but leave us the
babies. Leave us your children. And the
believer says, no way. Everybody's going up, young,
old, herds, babies, boys, girls, the whole shooting match is going
to go. The kids are coming with us and when we worship God, they're
going to see how it's done. later in this same book after
they've offered up the paschal lamb the blood that was put on
the doorpost and the lentils and they started what is called
the Passover Feast God said when your children ask you what you're
doing they're going to be asking what you're doing why do you
do this tell them we were servants and slaves in Egypt but God delivered
us by the blood of the lamb you tell them that you tell them
that and that's where we get the Lord's table from Finally,
the truth comes out. Though Pharaoh relents again,
his final compromise reveals the true nature of false religion.
In verse 24 of chapter 10, Pharaoh called in a motive and said,
Go ye, serve the Lord, only let your flocks and your herds be
stayed. Let your little ones also go with you. You can take
your little ones, but let your flocks and your herds be stayed. You
can go. You can leave. You can take your
little ones. believe you heard what she said
he said leave us the sacrifice leave with us the sacrifice religion
will go to any measure compromise any principle if they can still
retain the name of christian you know just look what's going
on today you tell them that that's not what god would say well we're
christians too religion says do what you must
leave us if you must take your children if you must but don't
say that we're not christians we want to keep the sacrifice
leave us the sacrifice the fact is when the believer leaves false
religion the sacrifice goes with him christ goes with him and
what's left in the verse is religion without christ now that don't
mean religion don't work religion is big business and business
is good More money spent on religion
in America than on anything else in the music field. Did you know
that? Classic music, country music, rock and roll, and blues
sell a lot of music. So-called Christian music outsells
all four combined. And most of what's called Christian
music ain't nothing but junk. Ain't nothing but junk, but it's
big business. I remember years ago, Rex Humbard's wife. Y'all
might not remember Rex Humbard and the Cathedral of Tomorrow,
but that might date me, but he was a big dog on TV and had all
these crusades and was big wheel, you know, big business. And if
they ask his wife about why he calls his place the Cathedral
of Tomorrow and why they go through all this women in chiffon dresses
singing and all this big production. She said religion is big business
and if you're going to make it in this business, you've got
to have a better line of balloons than a church down the street.
A better line of balloons. That's what she said. Religion
is big business and as long as you don't say they're lost, as
long as you don't say they're unbelievers, they're okay with
you. The believer worships God. He
worships God as God has revealed Himself in this book, and as
God has commanded, and that is by giving glory to God for the
salvation of His people by the blood of Jesus Christ alone.
And He renounces any work or labor of His own, and trusts
Christ alone for His salvation and all His righteousness. He
dare not twist the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. and there is no place for compromise.
When Joshua left and crossed over, he told the people that
stayed on the other side of Jordan, you can worship those gods all
you want to. He didn't say you can worship mine because over
there outside of Canaan, outside of Canaan land, you ain't going
to worship God. He says you can't worship God. But you can worship
if you want to. As for me and my house, we're
going to serve the Lord. we're going to serve the Lord
that's how this works this is what Moses and Aaron were saying
and Pharaoh simply represents all the efforts that religion
makes to keep people in their hold and in their control you
can leave but don't go far you can leave but don't take your
children you can leave but don't take the sacrifice don't take
the sacrifice. False religion is a powerful thing and for God's
people it's simply this. I'm sorry, we gotta leave. We gotta leave. Father bless
us to understand and pray in Christ's name. Amen.