Series:
Exodus
Title:
Total Redemption, Total Consecration
Text:
Exodus 10: 7-26
Date:
March 25, 2018
Place:
SGBC, New Jersey
God warns
Pharaoh he was about to send locusts to finish destroying all crops in Egypt: Exodus 10: 7: And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him, How long shall this man
be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God:
knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? 8: And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he
said unto them, Go, serve the LORD your God: but who are they
that shall go? 9: And Moses
said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our
daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold
a feast unto the LORD. 10: And
he said unto them, Let the LORD be so with you, as I will let you go, and [as
for] your little ones: look; for evil is
before you. 11: Not so: go now
ye that are men, and serve the LORD; for that ye did desire. [Pharaoh
said men could go but not little ones.] And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s
presence. [then the LORD brought the locusts. Pharaoh pretended repentance.
God removed the locusts. Then God sent darkness.] 24: And Pharaoh called unto Moses, and said, Go ye, serve the LORD; only
let your flocks and your herds be stayed: let your little ones also go with
you. 25: And Moses said, Thou
must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto
the LORD our God. 26: Our cattle
also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must
we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not with what we must serve the
LORD, until we come thither.
There are two things I want to show us from
this text: Total
Redemption, Total Consecration
Proposition: All God’s elect have been totally redeemed by Christ and
all shall be brought to be totally consecrated to him.
TOTAL REDEMPTION
Exodos 10: 9: [Moses said] We will go with
our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our
flocks and with our herds will we go…v26: there shall not an hoof be left
behind;
Christ
redeemed all his elect. It is what we see represented by the fact that no one
and no thing in Israel would be left in Egypt, all would be brought out by
Moses.
The
children of Israel are a picture of God’s elect, the Israel of God. Just as the children of Israel were in
bondage, all God’s elect fell into bondage when Adam willingly sinned against
God in the garden. We come into this world in bondage under the law, bondage to
our fallen sin-nature, bondage to the devil—pictured by Pharaoh and in bondage
to this sin-cursed world.
Moses is
a picture of Christ our Redeemer, our Deliverer—Acts 7: 35: This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler
and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of
the angel which appeared to him in the bush. Just as Moses was sent by Christ to deliver
the children of Israel out of the bondage of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, Christ
was sent of God to deliver his elect out of all our bondage.
But just
as Moses was only sent to deliver the
children of Israel and no other nation, so Christ was sent to redeem his elect
only. God has many elect. God the Father
elected a multitude out of every nation,
and kindred, and tongue and people under heaven—a number no man can number,
more than the stars of heaven or the sand of the sea. But God did not send Christ to redeem all
men. Just as Moses declared that he would redeem all that God sent him to
redeem, so Christ redeemed all those
the Father gave to him by divine election. Christ said, “I lay down my life for the sheep.” (Jn 10: 15) But proving he did
not die for all men, Christ said to Pharisees, “ye are not of my sheep.” (Jn 10: 26) God said, “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.”
It is important
to declare that Christ died only for his elect so that we give Christ the glory
due unto him for accomplishing our redemption.
Let’s say
I was willing to pay off someone’s mortgage debt. How could I do so unless I first
choose for whom I will pay? It is impossible to pay a price owed and redeem
from bondage without doing it for a particular person.
The very
meaning of the word declares this is true.
Redemption is “buying again”; “purchasing something by paying the price
demanded.” Scripture calls Christ’s
people his “purchased possession.” (Eph 1: 14) To his people he says, “ye are not your own, for ye are bought with
a price.” (1 Cor 6: 19-20)
On the
cross, Christ was redeeming a particular people by paying the debt that each of
his particular people owed. And what did we owe? What was the price? God’s elect broke God’s law in Adam so we owed
the law of God justice, which is death.—“the
soul that sinneth it shall die.” (Eze 18: 4) The price God’s justice demanded, in order for
Christ to pay the debt his people owed, was Christ’s own life, his blood.
Leviticus 17:11: For the life of the flesh is in the
blood:
It is
amazing that God declared this in the Levitical law and it was more than 3000
years later in 1628 that an English physician, Dr. William Harvey, discovered
scientifically that life is in the blood.
Leviticus 17:11: For the life of the flesh is in the
blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your
souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
Listen carefully
to what God is saying. God says “it is
blood that maketh atonement for the soul.” By Christ shedding his blood for
the life of another, he made atonement for the soul of those for whom his blood
was shed. That totally annihilates the doctrine of universal atonement; it
destroys the lie that says the sinner makes Christ’s blood to make atonement
for him personally when he believes. Not so!
“It is the blood that maketh an
atonement for the soul.”
This is
why it behooved Christ in all points to be made like unto his brethren, that his blood might make atonement for the
soul of each of his elect. He was:
·
Made flesh like his brethren so he would have blood in which is life and be able to pour
it out so that his blood might make atonement for the souls of his people.
·
Made under the law like his brethren so that he could be made a debtor to fulfill the whole
law and do so by shedding his blood to make atonement for the souls of his
people.
·
Our sinless Substitute was made sin for his brethren to manifest God’s strict
righteousness in sparing not his own Son but delivering him up for all his
elect that he might shed his blood to make atonement for the souls of his
people.
·
Made a curse for his brethren that he might redeem us from the curse of the law by condemning
sin in the flesh by shedding his
blood to make atonement for the souls of his people.
So when
he said, “It is finished”—his blood had made full atonement for the
soul of each of his elect—Christ had obtained eternal redemption for us
having paid all the debt of all his particular people.
Hebrews 9:12: Neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained
eternal redemption for us.
1 Thessalonians 1:10…who delivered us from the wrath to
come.
Rom 6: 6-7:…our old man is crucified with [Christ] that
the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve [or be
slaves] of sin. For he that is dead is freed [justified, redeemed] from sin.
Since God
is just, his justice demands that all who Christ redeemed—Exodus 10: 9:…must hold a feast unto the LORD. We must be given life and faith so we can
hold this gospel feast in worship and praise of God our Father and his Son, our
Redeemer. How are we given life?
Christ is
the Mediator of the new testament to both accomplish redemption by his blood on
the cross and to sprinkle his blood purging our conscience in regeneration.
Hebrews 9: 15: And for this cause he is the mediator of
the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the
transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might
receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
Just as
he sent Moses into Egypt to declare his word, Christ sends his preacher with
his gospel. And by the Spirit, he quickens us and through his blood purges our
conscience from dead works to serve the true and living God.
Remember,
how Christ took the wine and said this is picture of the new testament in my
blood? When that old covenant was
dedicated “Moses spoke every precept to
all the people according to the law.” Then he took the blood of bulls and
goats and sprinkled the blood on everything that was sanctified for God’s use,
including the priests, “Saying, This is
the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.” Well, the law came by Moses but grace and
truth by Christ Jesus. Christ sends the gospel to each child he redeemed and he
speaks every doctrine of the gospel effectually into our hearts and he
sprinkles his child with his own blood, saying, “This is the blood of the new covenant of grace which God hath enjoined
unto you.” When he does this: “How much more shall the blood of
Christ…purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” (Heb 9: 18-22; 14)
Giving us
faith to rest in him, Christ brings us to sing this song together with our
brethren:
Free from the law—oh, happy condition!
Jesus hath bled, and there is remission;
Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall,
Christ hath redeemed us once for all.
Now we are free—there’s no condemnation
Jesus provides a perfect salvation!
This is
why Moses said, all shall go out—“We will
go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with
our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the
LORD.” Christ said,
John 6: 37:
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I
will in no wise cast out. 38:
For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me. 39: And this is the Father’s
will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose
nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
John 10: 27:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28: And I give unto them eternal life;
and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand. 29: My Father, which gave them
me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father’s hand. 30: I and my
Father are one.
TOTAL CONSECRATION
We see in
Moses’ refusal to compromise with Pharaoh that Christ brings his people to be
totally consecrated to him. Four times,
Pharaoh offered compromise.
The first
time, he told Moses, Exodus 8: 25: “Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.”
Moses said, “We will offer the sacrifice
of abomination before the Egyptians and they will stone us.” Christ will not allow his people to
compromise his doctrine with men of this world nor the way we worship him. This world hates the true God of the Bible
and his Christ, along with the doctrine of his particular redemption of his
elect. If they could they would crucify us like they did our Savior. He says, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be
ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will
receive you.” (2 Cor 6: 17)
Then
Pharaoh compromised saying, “I will let
you go into the wilderness only ye shall not go very far away.” (Ex 8: 28) Christ will not permit his child to compromise
by being the friend of God and the friend of the world. This world must be as
dead to us and we to this world. We must say with Paul, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
(Gal 6: 14)
The third
time Pharaoh compromised is our text, “Leave
your little ones behind and ye that are men go.” Moses said, “No, we will all go!” Satan got Adam to turn his back on God using
Adam’s wife. Our dearest loved ones are
often used by the devil to tempt us to depart from Christ, his gospel and his
people. I knew a man who professed to
believe the truth of particular redemption, sovereign election, and
irresistible grace. But he compromised with men who preach universal atonement for
one reason: his father and mother believed that lie. Most of the time, when someone denies some doctrine
clearly taught in God’s word it is because father or mother, husband or wife,
son or daughter does. Our Redeemer will not
allow even those we love to come between us and him. He said, “He
that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that
loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Mt 10: 37) It is
painful when loved ones oppose us. But a cross always is. Christ says, “And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not
worthy of me.” (Mt 10: 38) Stand with Christ and Christ will honor it!
Pharaoh’s
last compromise is in verse 24, “And
Pharaoh called unto Moses, and said, Go ye, serve the LORD; only let your
flocks and your herds be stayed: let your little ones also go with you.” Their flocks and herds were what they
must sacrifice to the LORD. First, they
represent Christ himself. We cannot come
to God except through faith in Christ. We must let no one take Christ from
us. Secondly, the flocks and herds were
their possessions. Christ requires us to
sacrificially devote our possessions to his service. Listen to Moses declare we must sacrifice and serve God with our
possessions, “And Moses said, Thou must
give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the
LORD our God. Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left
behind; for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not
with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither.” (Ex 10: 25-26) This is not law but grace. Moses was
willing to do this and the law had not been given yet. That is why he said, “we know not.” The law was not given. But
God’s grace makes his people willing to sacrificially serve him, with no
compromise!
TAKE THIS HOME
Let’s
remember our Redeemer has accomplished total redemption for his people. Since Christ accomplished the redemption of
each and every one of God’s elect, not one will be left behind in this world. Every single man, woman and
child of Israel came out of Egypt with full provision made by God. And every
sinner for whom Christ died has been redeemed and shall be brought out — “There
shall not an hoof be left behind! If you
have not yet believed on Christ, do so without delay. We have a successful, triumphant
Redeemer! All who believe on him shall
be saved.
Brethren,
as we pass through this life remember, we cannot compromise: not in doctrine,
not with this world, not with our dearest loved ones and not with our possessions. Everything we possess is given us by God
including doctrine, this world, our dearest loved ones and our possessions. God
has made us stewards of his goods. So constrained by Christ’s love for us let
us stand with Christ without wavering and let us use our money and possessions
to sacrificially serve the Lord, promoting his gospel, providing for his people
and trusting the Lord to provide for us—thus we honor the LORD.
Proverbs 3: 9:
Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine
increase: 10: So shall thy barns
be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
Amen!