Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

Free Grace Media

Of Princeton, New Jersey

 

AuthorClay Curtis
TitleAdding Sin to Sin
Bible TextExodus 9:8-12
Synopsis When sinners continue offering vain sacrifices to God, refusing to repent and believe on Christ, God hardens them using their own self-righteous religion. It is because by their vain sacrifices sinners add sin to sin. Listen
Date17-Dec-2017
Series Exodus 2016
Article Type Sermon Notes
PDF Format pdf
Word Format doc
Audio HI-FI Listen: Adding Sin to Sin (32 kbps)
Audio CD Quality Listen: Adding Sin to Sin (128 kbps)
Length 29 min.
 

Series: Exodus

Title: Adding Sin to Sin

Text: Exodus 9: 8-12

Date: December 10, 2017

Place: SGBC, New Jersey

 

We come now to the fourth plague in Exodus 9.  At the end of this plague in verse 12 we read, “And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh.”  In this plague, God used the ashes from the Egyptians sacrifices to cause boils upon the people and their beasts. By all this, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh.

 

Proposition: When sinners continue offering vain sacrifices to God, refusing to repent and believe on Christ, God hardens them using their own self-righteous religion. It is because by their vain sacrifices sinners add sin to sin.

 

Subject: Adding Sin to Sin

 

THE SINNER’S SACRIFICES

 

Exodus 9: 8: And the LORD said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. 9: And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.

 

God will not receive the sinner’s sacrifices.  This was not a furnace for heat. It was a place where the Egyptians burned their religious sacrifices to propitiate, to satisfy, what they thought was the true god or gods of heaven.

 

Spiritually dead sinners, naturally, have some knowledge that God must be satisfied, though it is a corrupt and defiled understanding.  Without being taught of God, men know they owe God something to reconcile them to God. Without having a word from God to do so, the Egyptians offered up burnt offerings to appease their god.  In the deepest jungles, where men have never read the scriptures, you will find sinners offering sacrifices. Sinners have a polluted understanding that they are sinners and that God must be appeased.  But men will not come to God with the one sacrifice God is pleased with.

 

Notice, where God commanded Moses to sprinkle the ashes and then notice what God did—“Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.”  God commanded they sprinkle the dust of their sacrifices toward him, toward heaven.  Then God showed that he rejects the sacrifices of sinners. Though spiritually dead sinners have some understanding that God must be propitiated, they do not understand that no sacrifice of the sinner can make satisfaction to God—God rejects them.  Yet men go on offering sacrifices to God in vain.

 

Hebrews 12: 11: And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:

 

The same is true of any sacrifice a sinner makes be they self-sacrifices trying to keep the law, self-sacrifices trying to put away their sins by moral living or self-sacrifices doing religious deeds they really do not want to do. Proof that a sinner cannot make satisfaction is in his own conscience. The sinner must keep offering sacrifices daily. But if the sinner’s sacrifice really made satisfaction to God then God would purge the sinner’s conscience and he would cease offering them. But they never cease.

 

Hebrews 10: 1: For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. 2: For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. 3: But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

 

As soon as Adam fell, Adam covered his nakedness with fig leaves. But did it purge his conscience? No, when he heard God’s voice, he knew his fig leaves were not enough. So he did more. He hid himself from the Voice of the Lord.

 

You and I are sinners. Therefore, nothing you and I sacrifice to God can make eternal satisfaction to God, put away our sin and make us righteous before God. Satisfaction and salvation is “Not by works of righteousness which we have done.” (Titus 3: 5)

 

Malachi 1:10: Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

 

ADDING SIN TO SIN

 

Exodus 9: 10: And they took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast. 11: And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils; for the boil was upon the magicians, and upon all the Egyptians. 12: And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had spoken unto Moses.

 

Not only does the sinner’s sacrifice not satisfy God, the sinner’s sacrifices actually add sin to the sinner.  We have seen how sin is often compared to leprosy in scripture. That is the picture here. The picture is of men being covered in more sin by the sacrifices they make to take away their sins.  The ashes of the very sacrifices they offered to God to heal them, God made to break out in boils and blisters upon man.

 

Notice, the beasts broke out in boils and blisters. These were the beasts they worked with and sacrificed. All their works, all their sacrifices were sin.  So the men who offered these sacrifices to cover their sins, only covered themselves in more sin by their sacrifices. They added sin to sin upon themselves by their sacrifices and further destroyed themselves.

 

Isaiah 30: 1: Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin:

 

Adding sin to sin by more and more vain religious sacrifices is what God referred to when he said,

 

Isaiah 1:5: Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more:

 

Legalists, by whipping and judging sinners for their sins, by trying to make them outwardly obedient, are only adding to themselves sin to sin:

 

Romans 2: 5: But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God…

 

At all man’s sacrifices, God’s holy law says sin, sin, sin; guilty, guilty, guilty.  “The magicians could not stand before Moses [type of the law of God] because of the boils. [because of sin]”

 

Proverbs 15:8: The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

 

Isaiah 1:13: Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

 

Luke 16:15: And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.

 

This is so of all men from the pulpit to the pew—“for the boil was upon the magicians, and upon all the Egyptians.”

 

THE WARNING

 

Exodus 9: 12: And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had spoken unto Moses.

 

Here is the urgent warning in our text. If a man will not repent from his vain works, God will harden his heart leaving him to think he walks in light when he really is in darkness.

 

Up till now, “Pharaoh hardened his own heart.” Now we read, “the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh.”  Before, Pharaoh would not repent from his vain sacrifices and believe the gospel, now the LORD hardened his heart so that he would not and could not ever repent and believe.

 

Yet, though a man’s reprobation is his own fault, God’s purpose is not frustrated because it comes to pass exactly as God said from the beginning—“as the LORD had spoken unto Moses.” Someone might say, “I cannot reconcile how reprobation is the sinner’s fault yet it is according to the eternal purpose of God.”  God does not call on us to reconcile it, simply to believe the word of God.

 

But heed the warning. Pharaoh was left thinking in his own mind that his vain religion was true religion. Christ said,

 

Matthew 6:23: “If…the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

 

What should I do? Peter said, “Make your calling and election sure.”  How can I do so?  How can I be sure God has saved me?  By the sacrifice you are resting in.  There is one sacrifice which satisfied God—the Lord Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son. Christ said to God his Father,

 

Hebrews 10: 8: Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; 9: Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. 10: By [Christ’s] will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all [eternity]…12: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 13: From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. 14: For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.  15: Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: [not by our works of righteousness but by the grace of Christ] for after that he had said before, 16: This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17: And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. 18: Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. 19: Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20: By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21: And having an high priest over the house of God; 22: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. 23: Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) 24: And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: 25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. 26  For if we sin willfully [if we cease assembling rejecting Christ] after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27: But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

 

This how we make our calling and election sure. Is Christ All your salvation? Are you resting in Christ to have perfected you forever by his one offering? Do you have to hear his word and be with his saints? If not, cease adding sin to sin—repent from your works today and cast all your care on Christ. If so, continue assembling to hear his gospel and never turn from Christ! There is no other sacrifice or offering necessary but Christ!

 

Amen!