Well, it's good to see you all
out this evening. These folks have been added to the prayer
list. Delilah Davis has a preemie baby, one and a half pounds,
I think it is, that's in the hospital. Herbie Lossie, who
has a tumor on the brain and a tumor in the lungs, he's at
Duke. Rain and Sharon French, Rain is having some We don't
know what it is. They don't know what it is. His
arm gone numb and his fist a draw up. For some reason, the hospital
just sent him to PT, and he can't do the exercise. The kids can't
do anything, but Sharon's going tomorrow, and hopefully they'll
do some x-rays to see if they can find something going on inside.
And also remember Sarah and Chris. Sarah's in the hospital. She's
having some difficulties. So remember her in your prayers
with Chris and the boys, too. So remember them if you will. Seek the Lord's help for them.
Call their name out to the Lord. All right. Let's get a hymn. We'll sing hymn number 51. Praise
the Savior, ye who know him. Praise the Savior, ye who know
him. Who can tell how much we owe
him? Gladly let us surrender to him. Jesus is the name that charms
us He for conflict fits and arms us Nothing moves and nothing
harms us While we trust in Him ♪ Trust in him, ye saints forever
♪ He is faithful, changing never ♪ Neither force nor God can sever
♪ Those he loves from him ♪ Keep us, Lord, oh, keep us cleaving
to thyself and still be with us Till the hour of our receiving
promise joys with thee. Then we shall be where we would
be. Then we shall be what we should
be. Things that are not now nor could
be soon shall be. M number 228, my faith has found
a resting place. My faith has found a resting
place, not in device nor creed. I trust the ever living one,
his wounds for me I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died me. Enough for me that Jesus
saves, this is my fear and doubt. A simple soul, I come to Him,
He'll never cast me out. out. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that My heart is leaning on the Word,
the written Word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name. Salvation through His blood. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. is enough that Jesus died and
that he died for me. My great physician is the sick,
the lost, he came to save. For me, his precious, bloody
ship his life he gave. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that he died for me. If you have your Bibles, turn
to Exodus chapter four. We'll read verse 27 through the
first nine verses of chapter five. The title of my message tonight
is Three Days Journey. Verse 27, And the Lord said to
Aaron, Go into the wilderness and meet Moses. And he went,
and he met him in the mount of God and kissed him. Moses told
Aaron all the words of the Lord, who had sent him, and all the
signs which he had commanded him. Moses and Aaron went and
gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel. And
Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses,
and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people
believed. And when they heard that the
Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked
upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped. And afterward, Moses and Aaron
went in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the
Lord, that I should obey his voice, or let Israel go? I know
not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. And they said, The
God of Hebrews hath met with us, let us go, We pray thee three
days journey into the desert and sacrifice unto the Lord our
God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword. The king of Egypt said unto them,
Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works
get you into your burdens? Pharaoh said, Behold, the people
of the land are now many, and ye make them rest from their
burdens. Pharaoh commanded the same day
the taskmasters of the people, and the officers, saying, Ye
shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore
let them go and gather straw for themselves, and the tale
of bricks which they did make hitherfore ye shall lay upon
them. Ye shall not diminish aught thereof, for they be idle. Therefore they cry, saying, Let
us go and sacrifice unto the Lord. Let there more work be
laid upon the men that they may labor therein, and let them not
regard vain words. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven,
our great God and heavenly Father, you are holy and just and good. You do your will in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
your hand, even ask you what you're doing. You, Father, have been full of
grace and mercy and tenderness towards your children. We pray
tonight for those who are sick. Remember these who have been
mentioned in prayer, especially Sharon and Rain. I ask, Lord,
you to intervene in that situation. For Sarah and Chris and the boys,
we ask your help to strengthen these times. Pray for Dee Parks
as he's continuing treatment for his cancer that you be with
him and Christy and their children. Help us, Lord, tonight as we've
gathered in that you might be pleased to meet with us in the
presence of your spirit to take the things of Christ and reveal
them unto us. Help us to love you, love each other. Grant us
peace in Jesus Christ as we look to the blood of the cross. Help
us tonight, we pray, in Christ's name, amen. Now in the latter portion of
verse four that I just read, the Lord fulfills the promise
that He made to Moses. He meets up with Aaron, and the
reunion is sweet. He greets him with a kiss, and
Aaron goes on to speak the words that the Lord gives to Moses,
and the people believe the words of the Lord as if the Lord Himself
had spoken them. That's what happens when a child
of God hears the words of the Lord. Over in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 2, After Paul preached to Thessalonians,
he said this in chapter 2 and verse 13, ìFor this cause also,
thank we God, without ceasing, because when you received the
word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the
word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which
effectually work also in you that believe.î God had promised Moses that the
people would hear his word and would hearken unto him, and now
they have. We just read it here. The result
of hearing the word of God and having been given faith to believe
it, they worshiped the Lord because he had visited them and seen
their affliction. The confrontation of Israel and
Egypt is about to begin, and it will prove to picture the
conflict of true religion with false religion throughout this
entire book. Egypt is representative of the
religion of the world in opposition to the truth of salvation by
grace. When John was given the vision
of the mystery of Babylon, the great whore, that religion of
the world, the Lord referred to that false religion in a specific
way over in Revelation 11 and verse 8. Here is how he refers to the
religion of the world, to Babylon. It says in verse 8, And their
bodies shall be lying in the streets, speaking of the two
witnesses, and of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom
and Egypt. where also the Lord was crucified.
He's talking about Jerusalem, but it's called Sodom and Egypt. And in other places it's called
the synagogue of Satan. But here he says that this religion
of the world, this Babylon, this great religion, is Sodom and
Egypt. And Egypt is representative of
the religion of the world in opposition to the truth of salvation
by grace. This reference envelops any and
all religion that embraces the works of man, the will of man,
or the deeds of the law for righteousness. Such religion lives and thrives
on its ability to enslave and control the lives and minds of
men by controlling their behavior. Whether by the threat of wrath
or censure or by the promise of reward, the idea is to govern
men control men and women rather than to set them free or let
them go. And such religion disdains freedom,
it hates, indeed it fears freedom, and rather opts for that which
enslaves and incites and engenders bondage. That's the whole thing.
If you read Isaiah chapter 58 verses 1 through 7, he speaks
of that religion of men that They are religious men. They
call for justice. They call for peace. They call
for the Lord to do it, to work. But what they do in their religion
is they strike with the fists of wrath. They pray and fast
for strife to get people to pay attention to them and to cause
a division among the people. And they lay heavy burdens on
men. This is what they do. And the Lord said, this is not
a fast that I have ordained. The fast that I have ordained
is to set men free, to take off the shackles of sin, to take
off the burdens that are upon them and set them free, to feed
them and clothe them and send them on their way. Like the Lord
said to the people when He brought Lazarus out of the grave, He
said, Loose him and let him go. loose him. This is what we say
when we preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul,
when he wrote to Galatians, said the same thing, that men do what
they do to make a fair show in the flesh. They constrain men
to be under the law. They constrain men to be circumcised. They do that so they can control
them and so they can be proud of themselves for doing so. This
is the religion that is Egypt and Sodom. This is FALSE RELIGION! And the fact is clearly seen
in Pharaoh's reaction to the Word of God from Moses. We see
it very clearly in these first nine verses. The first reaction
of Pharaoh is always the first reaction to the knowledge that
the people of God will not worship God in a strange religion. This
is what the people said. We've got to leave Egypt now.
Our people got to go out of this place and think about it now.
They've been enslaved for quite some time now. They've been doing
the work that the Egyptians didn't want to do. They've been making
bricks to build the temples and so forth. And they are slaves. And here comes Moses and Aaron
and said, let my people go out into the desert three days. We
need to worship and to sacrifice the Lord, unto the Lord. And that's true of the child
of God. You can't worship in a strange
religion. People have said to me often,
well, should I go to church if they don't preach the gospel?
I said, no. Don't go somewhere where they don't preach the gospel.
You can't worship God in a strange land. There can never be and
never will be an amalgamation of the false and the truth of
the people of God. Throughout this Old Testament
that we've studied for so long, we've found that there is never
allowed a mixture at all. They must leave the confines
of false religion in order to give praise and thanks to God.
And such an idea is always received and translated and heard to mean
that the religion of the world is false, useless, and no value.
I can't tell you how many times when I told people in religion
the truth about salvation, the truth about God, and the truth
about themselves. You know what they said to me
many times? Never said this to anybody. But they said, this
is what you're saying. You're saying I'm not saved.
That's what they hear. And this is what Pharaoh hears.
This is what Pharaoh hears. He said, you're saying your religion
is something and mine's not. Mine's not. Religion cannot tolerate
this and will immediately respond that God is not their God. I
can't tell you how many people told me that. That's not my God. My God's not that way. And that's
what Pharaoh says in verse two. Pharaoh said, who is the Lord?
And he uses the word Jehovah. Who is Jehovah that I should
obey his voice and let Israel go? I know not the Lord. Neither will I let thy people
go." Part and parcel with their reaction is that they cannot
understand the concept of thanksgiving and praise for something that
they have no part in. This is what the child of God
does. He praises and thanks God for something he has no part
in. He didn't do anything. He didn't earn anything. He didn't
even ask for anything. God saved him by his grace and
by his mercy and he is ever thankful for that, but religion don't
get that. Religion never can. Egypt can't get it. And this
word feast, he said we must go into the desert and have a feast
before the Lord. It's an interesting little word
in the original. It literally means to dance and
to sing and to reel to and fro. Now you think, He says to the
pharaoh, we want to go out in the desert and worship the Lord. We're going to dance, and we're
going to sing, and we're going to reel to and fro, to and fro. All these things suggest something
about true religion, and that is that it suggests unbridled
joy in the Lord. rejoicing in Him, a concept that
is foreign to religion. When Moses and Aaron said again
that they must go into the wilderness to worship or to sacrifice because
God had commanded them, they worshipped because of the sacrifice
of Christ, pictured in the burnt offering and the peace offering.
The burnt offering showed the success of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that He had actually accomplished salvation. The entire offering
was consumed by fire from above. And the peace offering was an
offering where the brother offered his lamb to thank God for what
he has done. God had made peace through the
blood of the cross, and so they said, ìWe have to go worship
the Lord.î First he said, ìWe go have a feast,î and then he
said, ìWe got to worship the Lord. They worshiped God in the
sacrifice of Christ. They added that if Pharaoh forbade
them that God who had commanded it would send pestilence and
sword upon Egypt and upon them also. They said we got to go.
We got to go out and worship. The notion that joy and worship
without work and labor and guilt is anathema to false religion.
This is clearly seen in the words of Pharaoh. I don't know your
God. I don't know your God. False religion cannot worship
that which does not involve work and burden. False religion must
have work and it must have burden. Look at verse 4. Here's what
the king said, and the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore
do you and Moses and Aaron let the people from their works?
get you to your burdens. You've got to have the works
and you've got to have the burdens. That's what false religion teaches.
The gospel doesn't say that. The gospel says cease you from
labor and lay your burdens down. Worship the Lord. Lay your burdens
down. False religion cannot imagine
the concept of rest. of rest in Christ. We must work
till Jesus comes. We must work. We must work. Religion
is multitasking. It is multitasking, but not the
child of God. The child of God does something
that is so against anybody's idea of what ought to be if they
do not know Christ, and that is they rest in the finished
work. It's done. Salvation's done. The great transaction's done.
I am the Lord's and He is mine. I'll rest in Him. This is the
language of scripture. And false religion cannot imagine
that. But the gospel declares that
the work is finished and all that is left is rest. What does
our Lord say? Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Quit that being labored and heavy
laden. Come unto me and ye shall find rest for your soul. you shall find rest for your
soul. In Hebrews chapter 4 it speaks of that rest that Christ
won and the child of God enters into that rest. He enters into that rest. In Isaiah 28, the message of
the gospel was, He said, To whom shall I preach sound doctrine
with stammering lips and none that tongue? And I said to them,
Enter into the rest wherein you find sweet rest and refreshing.
But of course, Israel would not. And he goes on to say that they
are false altogether. false religion sees the rest
that belongs to the people of God, the worship of God who has
finished the work, as idleness. As idleness, that's what he says
in verse 8. And the tale of bricks which
they did make thereto, ye shall lay upon them, ye shall not diminish
aught thereof, for they be idle. Now these people have been making
bricks for a long time. They've been slaves in Egypt for a long
time. But if they go out and worship God, that's idle. That's
not doing anything. That's not making anything. That's not progressing in sanctification
or holiness. That's not any of those things.
That's just being idle. Going out and worshipping the
Lord. Therefore they cry saying, let us go and sacrifice our Lord.
They want to be idle. That's why they say let us go
sacrifice to the Lord. That's why they say let's go
worship the Lord. But this is the highest and greatest
thing that any child of God will ever do when he walks the face
of this earth, is to gather together with the people of God and worship
God. Give honor and glory to Him to whom it is due. Their
answer to such foolishness is add more work, increase more
labor. Add burden to them. Isn't that what the Pharisees
did? Isn't that what the Lord said to the Pharisees who were
hypocrites and vipers? In Matthew chapter 23 it says,
They laid burdens on men, but will not lift a finger to help
them. They got the burden. Get you
to your burdens, he said, but the people of God, the true church,
don't act that way. Religion views this burden, this
labor, this work as discipline for their persuasion that true
worship is resting without burdens. Unbridled joy without labor and
dancing and rejoicing in the finished work of Christ is anathema
to religion. It is. Oh, but you have rest. You have a rest wherein you find
sweet rest and refreshing because you can look at the face of religion
and say, I'm sorry, I'm just going to lay down if you don't
mind. I'm going to rest. Why? Because the work's done.
It's finished. Taken care of. There's nothing
left to do. Nothing left for me to do. Nothing
for me to do at all. The people of God, the true church,
the true Israel, will not be dissuaded from the worship of
God outside the purview and restraints of false religion. We've got
to go outside. Old Donnie Beal used to say, a man will give
you anything. he'll give you his wife, he'll give you his
car, he'll give you his house. But he won't give you that old
profession. He won't give up that old religion. I've run into
several people like that. Two men in particular whom I
had some confidence in and left the church after years. They
weren't here for years, they were only here for six, eight
weeks at a time, but they left because they wouldn't let go
of that old thing. They couldn't leave Egypt. to
go out in the desert and sacrifice to the Lord. They had to hold
on to that old mess that they had all their life. And I've
talked to them overnight, you know, talked to them on the phone,
and it's the same story. Well, I know I saved back there
on that. You were? Well, was the Christ
that was being preached, was he the Christ of the Bible? Was
he the one spoken of in this book, or was he that guy who
can't do anything unless you let him? That's not the Christ
of the Bible. The Christ of the Bible is the
sovereign Lord. He's Lord over all. He does as He pleases. He
sits in heaven reigning and ruling over all things. The people of
God, the true church, the true Israel will not be dissuaded
from the worship of God and it must be outside the purview of
false religion. Let my people go. The people
must go. They cannot abide or pretend
fellowship with that which is false. Salvation is not changing
religions or converting from one false faith system to another.
Salvation is changing gods, flat out. It's just that way. If I'm
going to introduce you to the true God, I'm going to have to
kill yours. I'm going to have to kill your God if I'm going
to tell you who the true one is. I remember Maurice Montgomery's
son who was a captain in the Rangers, I think. He was a pretty
important fellow. Led the charge there in Desert
Storm. He was stationed somewhere over
there and he met this really pretty Muslim girl. And they
got to talking and became friends. He'd read the Bible to her and
she'd read the Koran to him. But they fell in love. one day she says i'm on convert
christianity he said wait a minute you can't they know convert christianity
something you do is something god does you keep reading that
well they got married come back to the united states and she
sat under maurice's ministry for quite a while one day she
was going somewhere in maurice with maurice and he had her in
the car with her moore's just looks over and she's he said
what do you think jesus christ she said i'm not worthy to speak
his name marcia now you get it she's still a believer today
still believer today and leave that false religion leave it
all behind yet change gods that day from the god almighty When folks tell me that we're
all going to the same place, I usually just say, describe
your father to me. Describe your father to me. And
I know who my father was, Bill James. He was six foot two, ex-policeman,
tough on the nail. I saw him drop more than one
guy with a short right hook, drop him flat out and leave him
not speaking for about five minutes, laying asleep on the ground.
He was a tough fella, a stern fella. The Lord saved him, he
was still stern and tough about the gospel. Didn't back up, didn't
move an inch. I was never afraid when my dad
was around. When I was a little boy, if my
dad walked down the street, my dad, I wasn't afraid of nobody.
I knew my daddy. When somebody told me that God
was sovereign, I understood the principle completely. Because
I'd lived in a house where a man was sovereign for a long time.
I understood the principle. So I say, describe your father. And if someone says, well, I
know Bill James. He's about five, six, and kind of skinny, and
kind of cowardly. I know. No, that's not him. That's
not my father. I know my father. And if your father that you say
saved your soul couldn't do it unless you let him, if your father's
hands were tied until you untied them, your father's will couldn't
save you and only your will could save you let me tell you flat
out that is not my father my father has done whatsoever he
hath pleased in heaven and earth and all the deep places he does
according to his will in the armies of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, and none
can say unto him, What doest thou yet, dominion over all things? Absolute. Describe your father.
Describe your father. If your father's hands are tied,
if he wants to save you but can't unless you let him, if he's dependent
on your will to save you, then we have different fathers. We
worship different gods, and I don't want to have anything to do with
such a sad and puny and feckless fellow that you call your father.
I don't want anything to do with him. The believer has to go out. He's got to go out clean out
of Egypt. There can be no true worship
if he doesn't. We must go out three days journey and have a
feast and dance and sing and reel to, fro, to and fro and
worship God in the sacrifice. David put it this way in the
Psalms. Psalm 137. He said, By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat down. Yea, we wept when we remembered
Zion. We hanged our harps upon the
willows in the midst thereof. For there they had carried us
away captive, and required of us a song. And they that wasted
us required us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's
song in a strange land? How shall we sing the Lord's
song in a strange land? Father, bless us through understanding
we pray in Christ's name. Amen.