remember him in your prayers.
She had a brain tumor that went away for a while, or at least
the effects of it went away for several years, but it came back.
When it did, it came back with a vengeance. She's going on to
be with the Lord, so we're thankful for her. I'm sad for Bruce. Been
married for a long time, about as long as me and Debbie, I guess,
maybe a little longer. Remember those others who requested
prayer, too. Seek the Lord's help for them.
Hymn number 205, Once For All. 205. ["Once For All"] from the law, oh happy condition. Jesus has fled and there is remission. Cursed by the law and bruised
by the fall, grace hath redeemed us once for all, once for all. Oh, sinner, receive it once for
all. Oh, brother, believe it. Cling to the cross. Our burden
will fall. Christ hath redeemed us once
for all. Now are we free. There's no condemnation. Jesus provides all perfect salvation. Come unto me, oh, hear His sweet
call. Come and He saves us once again. Once for all, O sinner, receive
it. Once for all, O brother, believe
it. Cling to the cross, the burden
will fall. of God, O glorious calling. Surely His grace will keep us
from falling. Passing from death to life at
His call, blessed salvation once for all. Once for all, O sinner,
receive it. Once for all, Into the cross our burden will
fall. Christ hath redeemed us once
for all. M485, revive us again. We praise Thee, O God, for the
Son of Thy love, for Jesus who died and is now gone above. Alleluia, Thine the glory, Alleluia,
Amen. Alleluia, Thine the glory, revive
us again. We praise thee, O God, for thy
Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our
night. Alleluia, thine the glory. Alleluia, amen. Alleluia, thine the glory, revive
us again. All glory and praise to the Lamb
that was slain, who has borne all our sins and hath cleansed
? Hallelujah, thine the glory ?
Hallelujah, amen ? Hallelujah, thine the glory ? Revive us again
? Revive us again ? Fill each heart with thy love ? Make soul
be rekindled with fire from above ? Hallelujah, thine the glory
? Hallelujah, amen ? Hallelujah, thine the glory ? Bye, boss,
again If you have your Bibles, turn to Exodus
chapter one. introduction to the book of Exodus
tonight and begin our study for the next while. We will read verses one through
seven. Now these are the names of the children of Israel which
came unto Egypt. Every man in his household came
with Jacob, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Issachar, Zebulun,
and Benjamin, Dan, and Neptali, Gad, and Asher. And all the souls
that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls, for
Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his
brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel were
fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceedingly
mighty. And the land was filled with
them. Let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, we bless you and thank you for
great grace for great sinners. We thank you that in the pages
of this book the truth of our wickedness and failure is clearly
set forth. Thankfully it's set over against
the glory and the majesty and perfection of our Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ. We are thankful that we can call
you our father. We know that it is through the
gospel, through the preaching of the gospel, your spirit has
taken the word of God and implanted it in the souls of your people
and given them new life, a new birth, a second birth. Adopted
them as your children and made them your family. Made Christ
to be under them wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. to become their all and in all have subdued their flesh and
given them a spirit the spirit of life in Christ Jesus we are thankful father that in
this book we see this portrayed time and time again our hearts are drawn to him as
we read this book And we know it's because you have taught
us what this book means. Father, we pray for those who
are sick. Pray for our shut-ins. We ask, Lord, that you be with
them and watch over them. Pray for Bruce Crabtree at the
loss of his wife, that you would be a comfort to him, for surely
his soul is hurting. Pray for the others who are on
our prayer list, for those who've lost loved ones, the family of
those who've lost a loved one. We ask for ourselves tonight,
Father, that you'd be pleased to open up the word to us. Teach
us your way. Cause us to walk in your statutes,
to rejoice in your judgments. For we know your doctrine shall
distill us to you and drop us a tender rain upon the tender
herb. and glorify your son in his judgment
and his truth. Help us now to worship you as we think on the things of
Christ. We pray in his precious name. Amen. Along with the book of Isaiah,
actually this is one of the most quoted books in the New Testament
because it is the story that it teaches and the many things
that it deals with throughout this book. This book is called
The Exodus, or Exodus, and that word means going out, and is
the account of the children of Israel, the twelve tribes that
came from the loins of Jacob, though two also came from the
loins of Joseph. The two main characters in this
book are God and Moses, and you couldn't find two better characters
in all of the Word of God. This is one of the five books
that Moses penned as God inspired him to do so. As is the entirety
of the Old Testament and the New Testament addressing a singular
subject, this book, too, is about Jesus Christ and His work and
His Church in this world. Our Lord, when addressing some
of the Pharisees, said that Moses wrote of Him because the Pharisees,
we love Moses. We love the law of Moses. Though
it was God's law that was handed down from Sinai throughout the
book, it's called the law of Moses because the law of Christ
is the law of life in Christ Jesus and the law of Moses is
death. When Paul talked about the letter
killing, he was talking about the law of Moses, that which
the Lord handed down to Moses on Sinai. Since Moses wrote of Christ according
to Christ Himself, this book is about salvation. It is a book
about salvation, and that salvation by the blood of the Lamb. the
substitute for sinners. And that being true, this book
covers the gamut of salvation from the slavery of sin to the
deliverance from sin, which was solely accomplished by the sovereign
God. You'll find no human fingerprints
on this. The only human fingerprints you
find in this book are prints of sin and wickedness and violence
as to what man has put his hand to. Now, being a sovereign act
of God, and that's what this book is about, God acting sovereignly,
every aspect of salvation must be attributed to Him, and all
the glory for the accomplishment of salvation belongs to Him alone. This is God's act. Israel is
in Egypt by God's ordination. Israel will be delivered from
Egypt by God's ordination. Now because of the anemic preaching
that is all throughout the world in this day, I read a very prominent
politician today or political activist say he can't understand
why people aren't going to church anymore. I know why they're not
going to church. They're not going to church because
they're not hearing anything from the pulpit. Men are not
preaching from the Bible. They're preaching self-help sermons
and ways to get rich and have a good, healthy life and all
this sort of thing, but nothing about the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Not long ago, one prominent TV
preacher said, We don't preach things like justification and
sanctification. We don't talk much about sin.
Robert Shuler said, Sin is anything that lowers your self-esteem.
That was his definition of sin. Sin is anything that gives you
self-esteem. That's the truth. But that's
what men are hearing today. Not the gospel of Jesus Christ
and not the clear declaration of who God is. Men have introduced
teachings of free will, which started some 170 years ago. Decisions. Aisle walking. Inviting God into your heart.
thing the other day, or actually Debbie showed it to me, it was
on Facebook, a woman said, the best thing I've ever done, or
the only right thing I've ever done, I think she said, was to
invite Jesus into my heart. If you knew anything about your
heart, which the Bible declares to be desperately wicked, and
no man can know it, and a deceitful thing that will deceive even
you, I can't imagine why Christ would want to take up lodging
in that mess. But men talk like that. That's
what's coming down from the pulpits of the world today. Giving people's
hearts to Jesus, praying through, and even the idiocy of accepting
Christ as your Savior, and that is idiocy. That's idiocy. For acceptance belongs to the
sovereignty of the acceptor. And if I'm going to accept someone,
I must deem them acceptable. That must be a judgment on my
part. And if you're going to accept
Jesus, you and I, who are worms of the dust and maggots on a
dunghill, we have the right, the warrant, and the privilege
to deem the King of Glory as to whether he's acceptable or
not? I think not. That's idiocy and blasphemy. None of these heretical prevarications
can fit on any level with the definition of salvation because
they are an all-out denial of what necessitates salvation. Salvation The CONCEPT of salvation
presupposes a CONDITION or an ESTATE of CAPTIVITY or IMPRISONMENT
or SLAVERY from which ESCAPE is IMPOSSIBLE. That's what salvation
presupposes. Our Lord said in Isaiah Chapter
61 and repeated it in Luke Chapter 4 But he said this about his coming
and why he came, why he would come in Isaiah 61 fulfilled as
he said in Luke chapter 4. He said, The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because
the Lord hath anointed me, and that word anointed is Christ
in the Greek, to preach good tidings, that's the Gospel, unto
the meek that's who those who know they have no place except
that which God gives them he has sent me to bind up the broken
hearted and to proclaim liberty to what the captives and the
opening of the prison to them that are bound now if you're
captive and in prison there is no possibility of you by making
a decision, freeing yourself from that situation. I don't
know how many, maybe I'm the only one here that's ever been
in jail, I don't know, but I guarantee you when the door slams shut
and I was in there with a bunch of other prisoners down in Atlanta,
Georgia, I guarantee you this, I could have willed all I wanted
to, but them doors were not gonna open. And I wanted out. And I was willing to be out.
But the jail wouldn't let me out. Salvation. If one can escape of his free
will or free himself by his will or his choice or his decision,
then the word salvation simply cannot apply. Maybe that's why
men aren't talking about salvation much anymore because nothing
they talk about applies to the concept of salvation. salvation
was by free will or decision then the prison doors of every
penitentiary would swing open and the felons would simply walk
out having exercised their free choice to do so employing their
simple plan of salvation. It would be laughable if it were
not for its eternally disastrous result. It's a sad condition
to believe that about salvation. Our Lord said you were born of
God. You were born of God. Now I don't
know how many here were born. I kind of figure all of you probably
were. And what I know about your birth,
I know this, you did not consult with your parents to be born,
nor did you exercise your will in being born. I was there when
my son Joshua was born into this world. And my wife just, her
body simply said, I've had enough of this nine month of nonsense
and shot him out into the world. He had nothing to do with it.
He was totally passive in the thing. Our Lord said, you are
born not of the will of man, not of bloods or ancestry, not
of the will of the flesh, but of God. That's how you're born. Of God, born from above. That's
John 1, 12 and 13. then in Romans chapter 9 our
Lord said it's not him that willeth nor him that runneth but God
that showeth mercy for the scripture says he will have mercy on whom
he will have mercy and whom he will he will pardon or whom he
will he will show grace to now that's taken from this book Exodus
chapter 33, Paul quotes Exodus chapter 33 and talks about Pharaoh
being lifted up for the purpose of being put down. For God is
the one who as the potter has the power over the clay to make
one vessel under honor and another under dishonor. And what if he
did that? What if God willing to show his
wrath and make his power known upon the vessels fitted to destruction
that he might show his glory to the vessels for whom glory
was prepared he will have mercy and he will be gracious but he'll
do it to whom he will and so people won't come up with their
own idea about how it happens he said not him that willeth
nor him that runneth but of God that showeth mercy Romans 9 15
and 16 salvation is of the Lord that's a quote from Jonah and
he spoke from the inside of a fish's belly when he said it now he
said several other things before he said that he said I'm gonna
pay my vows and he was still in the belly of the whale he
said I'm gonna pray and he was still in the belly of the whale
and finally he said If I get saved, God is going to have to
do it. Salvation is of the Lord, and
the fish spit them out on the dry land. Salvation is of the
Lord, and this impeccable truth involves all of what is named
salvation. Religion has reduced salvation
to walking down a aisle or making some type of profession of faith.
They say that's what it is to be saved. When you're talking
about being saved, you're talking about salvation. Moses told the
tribes of Israel as they stood on the borders of the promised
land that God had brought them out of Egypt to bring them in
to the land of milk and honey. But he also said something along
these lines concerning salvation. As Moses spoke to those, he was
talking about the sovereignty of God. God brought you out of
Egypt to bring you in. You didn't march out. You were
slaves in Egypt. It was God who redeemed you and
brought you in. You were captive. You were making
bricks with no straw. Your children were being killed.
You had nothing. You had no hope. You lived in
a mud hole along the Nile making bricks to build towers and pyramids
for Ramesses. That's what you were doing. You
had no hope and no help. God brought you to a place where
you cried out to Him, Lord save us. And God sent you a Savior
named Moses and his brother Aaron to bring you and deliver you
out of that land. He brought you out of Egypt.
He did that to bring you in to the land of milk and honey, and
that's the salvation story right there. But there's more to it,
you see, because God also spoke to another great patriarch, a
man named Abraham, and he spoke of Israel's ordained captivity. He told Abraham that he would
bring Israel into Egypt. in order to bring them out of
Egypt. So their slavery and their captivity
was ordained as well as their deliverance. This is God's salvation. This is the whole picture. God
spoke there also of His sovereignty and salvation. What is His sovereignty? He put His people in a CONDITION
where they HAD to cry out for mercy. That's His salvation. It's been
taught since the beginning. Salvation is the deliverance
from captivity, and since this is so, the captivity is as much
a part of salvation as the deliverance. It's all according to God's sovereignty. God's sovereignty. You see, God
is in control of everything, or He's in control of nothing. But think not that the fall of
Adam was an anomaly. To do so is to discount the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world, and it is to disallow
the necessity of Christ coming into this world to save sinners.
You see, there is no salvation. There IS no salvation where there
is no captivity. Both served to exalt the Lord
in all His glorious attributes. Had Adam not fallen, there could
never even be a need of a mention of that which most glorifies
God had He not fallen. His grace and His mercy, what
would they mean if Adam had not fallen? When Moses said, Show
me your glory, He said, I'll make my goodness pass before
you. I will name the name of the Lord before you. I will show
mercy on whom I will show mercy. And I'll be gracious unto whom
I will be gracious. This is God's doing. This is
His glory. Had Adam still been in his estate,
whatever his estate was, it wasn't a spiritual estate. You say,
well, he spoke to God. He was speaking to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the one with
hands, you see. He's the one that took the dirt
in his hands and blew the breath of life into the nostrils of
that dirt pile he turned into humanity. He was speaking with
Jesus Christ, who is the embodiment of God, the triune Godhead. What would it have been like
if Adam hadn't fallen? You'd have never known of grace. You'd never known a mercy. Bunyan
said that. He said that he didn't know what
life would be like if Adam hadn't fallen, but he wanted nothing
of life where he had no knowledge of God's grace and God's mercy
for sinners. If you've been touched by his
grace and tasted the sweetness of his grace, would you trade
it for a life to live forever without it? I wouldn't. the fall necessitated the coming
of Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ was already
the Lamb slain before man ever fell. You see, salvation is both
the captivity and the deliverance. Israel is doing well at the first
of this book. We just read in verse 7 that
they are doing fine. They've been there probably six
decades now. In the land of Goshen, they've
multiplied. They've become mighty. Now, not
in all of Egypt, just in the land of Goshen. But they've become
a mighty people. They're having babies like crazy.
They're prospering in what they do. Their cattle can't be touched. The dog cannot bark against them.
Everything's going good for them. But soon they'll be put into
captivity. Why? Because God said, I'm going
to deliver them. From what? The promise to Abraham
was, I'm going to deliver them with a mighty deliverance. From
what? Everything's going fine. Not for long it's not. They're
going to be down in the dumps. Exodus is a book about redemption.
Redemption by blood, which means redemption by death. The Paschal
Lamb was slain, and His blood struck on the doorposts of the
lentils of every house of God's elect. And when God saw the blood,
He said, I pass over you. He passed over that house that
saved those inside from death, and that became what feast? The
Passover feast. And Christ, according to Scripture,
started the Lord's table on the night of the Passover, taking
the elements of the Passover, the bread and the wine, And Scripture
says in 1 Corinthians 5, 7, Christ is our Passover slain for us. He's the Paschal Lamb. It's all
about blood. The Passover was where Christ
introduced the Lord's table, His body and His blood. The tabernacle
is in Exodus. What does tabernacle mean? It
means dwelling place. That's not what it means. What
did it say of Christ in John chapter 1 verse 14? And the word
was made flesh and tabernacle, that's the word, he dwelt among
us. We beheld him as the Son of God full of grace and truth. In this book of Exodus the law
enters because of transgression. God did not just say, Well, we're
going to make some laws here for y'all. He sent Moses up for
40 days to show what would happen when they were without their
leader, and down there they started making a golden calf and started
worshiping it, and He said, Because of the transgression, God, the
law entered that sin might abound. And what was the first law? Thou
shalt not make any graven image of anything. That's exactly what
they were doing right down at the bottom of the hill. You'll see that in this book.
You'll see that in this book. In this book, the law will enter
because of transgression and the ceremonies that followed
picture the remedy for transgression, the blood of several beasts,
the sacrifices, the offerings. In Exodus is the introduction
of the priesthood. There you find the priesthood
introduced. Aaron the first high priest,
the garments he wore, all were important. All were important. He wasn't a high priest of the
world, he was a high priest of Israel. On his breastplate were the names
of the twelve tribes of Israel. That's who he represented when
he went into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. Only
those. The rest of the world wasn't named, just the twelve
tribes of Israel. Christ is our great high priest, and our name's
engraved on his hands, Scripture says. The high priest is Christ,
the Holy of Holies. Christ, enter into the Holy of
Holies, not made with hands, and offered His own blood, and
obtained eternal redemption for us. Scripture says you have the
Ark of the Covenant, which was first pictured, I believe, in
Genesis chapter 3 and verse 24 at the east of Eden, that altar
where the two cherubim were facing each other before it was a shining
light, a flaming sword, but actually the word is Shekin, Shekinah.
It is the Shekinah glory of God. where Abel offered his sacrifice
and was accepted and Cain offered his sacrifice and was rejected.
The Ark of the Covenant wherein was the broken law, the bowl
of manna, and Aaron's rod that budded the high priest's garments,
the golden or the breastplate and inside was the urim and the
thummim which most people believe was a black and a white stone.
And the white meant yes, and the black meant no. And the whole
government of the people, when they asked a spiritual question,
was a yes or no question. They said, what does God mean
for us to do this? And he'd reach inside that blessed
place and draw out a stone. It was black, no. But that's
it. That's it. The burnt offering. the cloud and the pillar, all
those things we find in this book. Here also is the destruction
of the enemy. Pharaoh's army will end up at
the bottom of the Red Sea and the deliverance of the elect,
which is a common theme as we have studied in our Old Testament
studies. A common theme is God destroys the enemy when he saves
his people. He bruised the serpent's head
and the serpent bruised his heel when he saved his people. That's
the theme and song of scripture. Here also we see the absolute
necessity of grace and mercy. The kind of people that make
up this nation are a type of the kind of people that God saves
by His grace. We'll find them to be murmurs
and complainers and full of gripes and whines, weepers, we might call them snowflakes
today. I don't know, we may call them that. But in this book we'll find the
gospel pressed down and running over and full of glory, the glory
of God's sovereign grace. We'll find in this book, in our
studies, this is His story. the story of Jesus Christ, and
it's our story, the story of the kind of people that God saves. Father, bless us for understanding,
we pray in Christ's name, Amen.