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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!
day, for me, with what is going to go wrong? I realized in my ministry several years ago, I have been doing more teaching about the Bible than actually teaching the Bible. And there are a lot of people who have been teaching for 50 years, but really don't know anything about the scriptures. I wonder if I were to bring the spiritual leaders of our church one by one to the purpose this morning and ask you to take five or six hours and tell us everything you know about the book of Deuteronomy, for example, how we would fail. One man this morning said, I can tell you everything I know about it in one year. Nothing. And so because of the importance of the scriptures, the word of God in our lives, I learned several years ago in my former pastor that I would preach through the Bible in Genesis to Revelation. I planned a 20 -year preaching program for myself, knowing that Jesus would come and certainly interrupt God. But after I had spent two years and ten months and was only 11 years of Exodus, I wish that I had done it a little bit differently. And I said, Lord, I wish I had this to do again. It would take about six or eight months and study Genesis as a good background. Morning, night, and Wednesday, just survey a book each of the Old Testament, and then spend about 10 or 12 years, as Jesus says, preaching verse by verse in depth through the New Testament. And you know, it was not, I guess, a week or two until the committee contacted me and I began thinking about coming down here. And the real reason that I came was I was stuck in Exodus and wanted to start over. And the whole thing I was thinking to be able to preach some old revival sermons and hopefully see revival start and the folks begin to move and get excited. I did that for about six months. And then we surveyed the book of Genesis over a period of seven or eight months. And now morning, night, and Wednesday for the next 13 summer weeks, before I start the entire New Testament this fall, we shall survey at a sermon each a book of the Old Testament. Now during these 39 sermons, 38 sermons, throughout the summer months, with vacation and so forth, I will probably be out a total of four or five of those 38 services. Someone who preaches in my absence will preach that book. And so you will hear the entire Old Testament. I say before God that I believe that if you'll stay with me and come morning and night and Wednesday, that you can learn more about the Bible in the next 90 days than perhaps you have in all of your life. It will be very, very important. And don't miss a single book. For example, the great book of Judges will be preached on a Wednesday night. Psalms will be on a Wednesday night. If you do not come, you will miss what may be the grandest opportunity of your life to learn the Word of God. In the American Baptist Convention years ago, they took a survey in the state of Indiana and asked thousands of teenagers, what would you most like to hear your preacher do? Just take a sermon or a topic and preach or go straight through the New Testament or a book and verse by verse explain what it means. And out of those thousands, 100 % said, teach us the scripture. Explain to us the word of God. And I say plainly to you that I promise you before God that the first Baptist church from this Sunday on is going to be the Bible teaching and Bible preaching center of Houston. And no place where the word of God be taught or loved or interpreted more consistently than here. But you're going to have to come or you will miss something very, very important. Now I want you to turn with me to the book of Exodus. This morning we begin the first part of Genesis of the book by book study throughout the summer months of the Old Testament. And to get these 38 books in order, in sequence, as God has given to us, I repeat, is more, is unspeakably important. More so than I could ever say. And I urge you to be consistent. Now I want to read to you one verse of scripture only. And then I want you to read it with me. It is in the 15th chapter of Exodus. There will be, of course, a key verse in every book. And here in the 15th chapter, from the 13th verse, we find the key verse to the book of Exodus. Exodus 15, verse number 13. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in thy strength and to thy holy habitation. Now let's read that together. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in thy strength and to thy holy habitation. You will recall by way of review that historically considered, the book of Genesis is the book of beginnings. We have seen the beginning of man, the beginning of the earth, the beginning of time. Eternity had no such beginning. The beginning of the home, the beginning of democracy, the beginning of sin and salvation. The first murder is committed. The first sin is paid for. The first transgression is recorded. The beginning of the church is found in the book of Genesis. However, theologically considered or doctrinally considered, the book of Genesis dealt primarily with the matter of election. It is God working out his purposes. It is God choosing. Moses was chosen. We find Abraham was chosen. We find from the children of Jacob, the sons of Joseph, Jacob being chosen to be exalted. There was the exaltation of Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau. Moses was selected. Him from the sons of Noah was chosen. Exodus, however, while it deals primarily with, geographically, the release of the people of God from Egyptian bondage into the promised land, it deals adaptionally with the matter of redemption. Exodus is a book about redemption. To redeem means to get back. It means to get late. It means to rescue, to get free, to atone, to deliver. The entire book of Exodus is a beautiful panorama of life. The life of the believer. The life of the Christian. Exodus deals with man's release and purchase in redemption from bondage into freedom. We are bound universally in the despot of sin. Down in the land of Gerson, the children of God, the Israelites, were bound in the despot of Egyptian control. There they had risen from a small clan to a tribe of a million and a half people. They were very poor people and they were slaves. They were in bondage to the world. Egypt representing the world. Now the Bible says, love not the world. Neither the things that are in the world. For if the love of the world is in a man, then the love of the father is not in him. This does not mean that a man ought not to love an automobile or a fine meal or a television set or a night home. It literally means love not this present world system. The system of the world, the basic tendency of the world, which is anti -God and God -opposed. Did not our Lord Jesus Christ himself speak and say that this world is the domain of the devil and he called him the prince and the power of the earth? And so we have Moses representing the Savior. The world is represented by Egypt. Pharaoh represents the devil. And the children of Israel, the children of God. We find, among other things, that God goes to great difficulty to relieve his people. No price is too high. We find that God is more powerful than the devil and that Satan does not easily let his people go. The book of Exodus covers approximately 210 years. The time, about 1700 through 1490. The principal characters are Moses and Aaron. In the book of Exodus, the story of the Exodus would normally cut straight across the northeast by the great Mediterranean Sea, along the coast to the promised land. But we find that God does not lead his children the shortest way. He does not lead them the easiest way. They go east. They go toward the promised land for but a small period of time. And then God takes them another way. As they leave, they go down the west bank of the Suez Canal, what is now the Suez Gulf. And in the wilderness of Paran and through Mount Sanias, the Kadesh Barnea, to the land of the Edomites, the Moabites, and the Amorites, hence to the promised land. But let it be clearly understood that through the mountains and the fire, through the waters of adversity, God, while he does not always take the easiest route, and the most direct route with his children, leads his dear children alone. Geographically, there are three basic divisions in Exodus. In chapters 1 and 15, the children of Israel, a million and a half strong, are now in Egyptian bondage in the land of Gatum. Chapters 16 through 18, they are led out of the bondage and are having crossed the road through in the base of Mount Sanias. In chapters 19 through 40, they remain at Mount Sanias where the rest of the book is completed. But then, the basic message of Exodus is the message of redemption. Everything else is an amplification and a magnification of that one fact, how God, in control of things, buys back his people, gains their relief, gets their freedom out of bondage to the world. Now, God doesn't always work in a hurry. God left them there until the time was right. And God leads his people in the conditions that he finds are necessary for God to be able to do what he is trying to accomplish with them until he is ready to release them. They were not ready to go. The leader was not ready. Things were not right until the time came, and God's time was his time. It is the purpose of Exodus to picture man universally bound in sin, his salvation from sin, and the provisions that God makes for him after he has been released from sin, but still continues to sin. Doctrinally, Exodus might be divided thusly. It is a book of separation from God, salvation by God, and a sustaining fellowship with God. Let me say again to you that it is a picture of Jesus Christ in being in his arms. Genesis had a hundred, I believe, and in some, pictures of Jesus Christ. Again we find Exodus to be a book about Jesus Christ. Leviticus is about Jesus Christ. And Numbers and Deuteronomy and Joshua and Judges and Ruth are books about Jesus Christ. The Bible, if it is anything, is a bloody book, and it is a chisper -chisper book. It is a book about Jesus, God's provision, through blood, for the salvation of men. It is the story of rebellion, of men lost, being shot by the Savior, and the ultimate and final victory of Jesus Christ over the devil. Nowhere is the ultimate story of redemption pictured more concisely than in the book of Exodus. Man is fallen into sin. He is in bondage. The sigh for the peace. The sigh for deliverance. The longing for salvation and redemption and freedom from Egyptian bondage where they were slaved to their wicked Egyptian past masters is heard again and again. Now, Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us in Hebrews, was our great high priest, and Moses and Aaron foreshadows and types of us. Our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, is the heart of the book of Exodus. I want us to notice that since Exodus is a book about redemption, how God took us back and paid the price to gain relief and freedom from his people in bondage, the same way that Jesus does for us, makes provision and leads us along, since the Exodus is a book about redemption, there must of necessity be a Redeemer, and Jesus is that Redeemer. Five things I would say briefly to you that are characterized about Exodus. Remember, Pharaoh is a picture of the devil, Egypt of the world, the Ithilites of God's people, and Moses of Jesus Christ. Five sections, five lessons are to be learned here in the book of Exodus. First of all, chapters 1 through 6 reveal the need for redemption. Jacob's family had been made into a great nation. A new king arose with Neumat Joseph. Exodus 1 .14. He puts them in slavery and makes bondage of them. Now, they were afraid that there was going to be an increase, and this people, these Israelites, would become so much more powerful than they that they would take over the Egyptians. And so, Pharaoh sends out a decree that all of the male babies are to be slain. When the mother of Moses gives birth to him, he hides him in the Burkis. The Bible tells us, however, that God overrules, and Pharaoh's own daughter finds the beautiful baby, takes him into security, and raises him. He is educated and trained and strengthened and taught. Now, when he comes to the time to make his own choice, he chooses that he will serve the Lord. Seizing rather to serve God and suffer affliction for a season for life in the places of sin or a season. Well, it is said that he would rather be a doorkeeper as well as to David in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. Somebody said at first Baptist Church, I would rather be an elevator operator in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. Well, he is selected. He is chosen. He is called by God. On the plain of Midian, where he is keeping the flock of his father, Jethro, God shoots to Moses and says, You are appointed to go down and bring my people out of bondage. You are the chosen one. He makes three objections. First of all, he says that he has tried once before and failed. And indeed he did. When in his own strength, he attempted to slay an Egyptian. But it was not God's strength and he failed at the job. Then he objects because he says, They will not believe me. And he further objects, I cuddle and cannot talk. God overrules all of them by saying, I am not depending on your ability. I am depending on what I can do through you. And so, he is chosen. He responds and the stage is set. Number two, consider, we have considered the need for redemption. Chapter 7 through 11 deals with the might of the Redeemer. We find two things. Number one, that God in Egypt, Aaron and Moses, first of all, go before Pharaoh and ask for redemption. Now, what? The progression that intensifies as God deals in attempting to get people to break from sin and come to God. First of all, Pharaoh, the Savior, goes and asks. He is refused. Secondly, he takes the rod, which becomes a serpent, and he attempts to use a little bit more force. Finally, so it seems again, the mighty plagues come. There were ten plagues as God progressively intensifies the power with which he will attempt to gain the freedom of God's people. There was water that came to blood. The plagues of the frogs, the lights, the flies, an infectious disease of cattle, a murine, a murine disease, which infested them and infected them. There were boils, there was hail and locusts and dustless. And it lost the plight of the death angel that came and the destruction, the taking of the life of the firstborn. Now, God is increasing in his might and power the attempt to break the fear -told that Satan has on God's people. He refuses. But ultimately, redemption is precious. Chapters 12 through 18 deal fairly with the character of redemption. We have found that they are precious by blood and emancipated by power. Notice, the character of redemption is first of all, precious by blood and secondly, emancipated by power. Now, the tenth plague that came was the death angel. Moses said, God has told me I'm going to send the death angel which will come and will strike death to the firstborn of every home and every cattle and every horse and every sheep in all of the land. But God says younger to his own people, If you will slay a land perfect and without limit and respect it on the knuckles of the place, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And again, we find foreshadowing in the Old Testament that men are saved exclusively by being under the shed blood of Christ. And it was because that the innocent line was slain that men were protected by being beneath that blood. And the principle of salvation found the basis of the death of the innocent and the guilty is the exclusive basis on which God has forgiven sin and on which he will eternally forgive sin. No one is ever saved except that someone in innocence has died for his good. They are emancipated by power. They are joined with a mixed multitude and leave the bondage. But Pharaoh's armies start after them. I want you to notice that while Pharaoh gave them trouble while they were in Egypt, they didn't ever see anything like the trouble they got when they left Egypt. Now sometimes it's harder to be a Christian than it is to be lost. You see, when you're a dead duck, the bad hounds of hell are not going to pursue you. If you take this time for Christ, you leave the world, you leave sin, and you start to follow Christ. And the devil's philosophy is, if I didn't get your soul, I'm going to get your influence so you won't win anybody else's soul. And the devil sets loose after them. A pillar of fire by night, a card of the, a card by day, protects them. And they are ensured against the armed coming armies. They come to the waters at the Red Sea. They split. Are there those liberal theologians who believe? They cast at one marty -style part of the Red Sea, which they walked across. I do not agree with them. I prefer to believe the Bible. For it says that a mighty man blew, and there was a wall of fire, which God sustained and divided all day, and all three these nights. And they walked across on dry land. Once, in the water, they were, they were seen released, and safe on the other side. There was armies for sea, and are covered, and slain. In the wilderness, there are three preliminaries, but significant events that happened. First of all, there is no water. The waters are more of bitter waters, and God cuts down a tree, and saves them over, and casts it into the water, and it will come sweet. So it is that the waters of life, bitter and unsavory, have been sweetened for many a yearly travelers, because they came in contact with the tree, the path upon which Jesus Christ died. They were hungry. They needed food as well as drink. God provides manna from heaven, a form of angel food, and prayer are given miraculously. They are again out of water. God smacked the rock, and miraculously through the hand of Moses, water again comes. Again, the smitten rock of ages. Christ is broken in the New Testament, that we through his death might find the healing of the nations. The fourth word is the beauty of the redeemed. God is leading his children along. This is chapter 19 through 24. He speaks to us of the obedience of God except for his people. He has redeemed them. He has led them through safety. He has protected them. And 19 through 24 chapters speak to us of God's retirement of his people, and that is that they obey him. My Lord knows the way through the wordiness, says the little truth. All I have to do is follow. Change for today is mine all the way, and all that I need for tomorrow. My Lord knows the ways through the wordiness. All I have to do is follow. The people of God, like Christians today, have learned a hard lesson that obedience is required of Almighty God. In the willingness journey, several things happen. First of all, they are given the commandments. They are told what they are to do and what they are not to do. Go back to the millenniums and to the venerable past, precisely 3 ,000 years ago. Down in the sandy plateau, which is 4 ,000 feet above the Mediterranean, a plane two miles long and a half mile wide, abruptly towering from 2 ,200 feet above the plateau is my sunny eye. It is isolated. It is perceptual. It is pictured all the same. It is the motion of Jehovah's law. There on this mountain the commandments will be given. There Moses had kept the flap of his father -in -law, the priest of Midian. Here he fasted forty days and nights, two different times. Here on this plane, Elijah would find refuge from the rock of Jezebel. Here Paul, when God was pleased to reveal his son to him, he spent three years in preparation for his majestical calling. Listen, if God speaks, the august congregation itself in words saying, I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any grave in any. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor thy mother and thy father. Thou shalt be no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not fear. Thou shalt bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not commit thy neighbor's wife, or thy neighbor's child, or thy neighbor's man -servant, nor his maid -servant, nor his aunt, or aunt, or anything that is thy neighbor. vس. Obedient, the command of the Law of God. Here when Moses comes down from the mountain, where God has given him the mountain, has given him the Poisings. He finds that already the children of God are in disobedience. They have made a goldenince. Round the golden cross there is music and dancing and singing in the cross. It is not that of deity and joy and brightness and spontaneity of worship. It is not that of rebellion, for they shall to God have forsaken them. And reverting again, as you are so prone to be, to the links and valleys of Egypt, they long to go back yonder into Egyptian bondage and have the security of the world. How awful it is for a man to be devoid of God and to find a worldly security. And so they make themselves a golden calf and idol to worship as they did and had seen done in Egypt. Moses throws down a commandment and chastises them. Later he melts the golden calf and shatters the ashes and the waters and makes them to drink it. A terrific impact of spiritual food that the chickens sent home to eat. And what men saw they do also eat. Again, he goes to the mountain. This time he prays. His face shines with the glory of God. And the last division of the book is in chapter 25 through 30 where we find God's provision for the sins of the redeemed. Under the supervision of Bezalel and Aholib and with materials of linen and brass and gold and silver, dedicated and donated to the conception of the tabernacle, the tabernacle is built. And from that moment on through Jude's history, the tabernacle was to be an emblem of the presence of God in his people. I understand. He had bound them in bondage. By his mighty power, by judgment, and by blood, he had purchased their freedom. He had loved them for safety. He had defended against their enemies. What a beautiful picture of the Christian life. He had loved them miraculously. He had given them food and water and testament. He had demanded obedience. He had given law. Now they had broken it, and the climax of the chapter is God giving man provision by which they may read and faith themselves with God when they sin. The book of Leviticus. The men, the Levites. Isis meaning book or Isis. Levi, Isis. The book of the Levites. The instructions of God for the people who were to bring the people to God. In other words, God does not leave his people unattended. He is with them. The idealism is not a democracy, but a theocracy in which God is in the midst of people. In which God is in the midst of his people. And that is the climax God has been made for these people in the book of Exodus. And it is characterized in the tabernacle in the wilderness. Many chapters are spent in the precise details telling how it is to be built. Let me crystallize it briefly for you. The tabernacle itself stood in the center of a rectangular space enclosed by a substantial print wall 150 feet long and 75 feet wide. The entrance into the tabernacle of the east, since the satanic glory stone, where the presence of God was symbolized and was indeed a reality, was 45 feet long and 15 feet wide. It was divided into two parts. On the east, or front, was the holy place. On the west end, the holy of holies. The holy place was 15 feet wide, 15 feet high, and 30 feet long. This room contained golden lap, the golden lap, a candlestick, the table of showbread, the altar of the incense, and oh, I wish I had time to preach a week on each of those. The holy of holies. The holy of holies was a perfect cube, 15 feet in the mansion, and was separated from the holy place by a beautiful and expensive wall. It was kept in perfect darkness and was entered once a year on the day of atonement by the high priest himself who made atonement for the sins of the people. The room represented the presence of God. It contained nothing but the arch of the covenant, a church made of the finest essential wood, overlaid inside and out with fine gold, and the chest contained the tablets of stone, which was the Ten Commandments. Now you will recall that this dividing wall between the secret place into which the high priest could only go once a year, divided the people from God. But it was this same wall that gave up access to them. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, the veil of the temple was worked, was put in half, because Jesus Christ, our high priest, once and for all, eternally, entered the presence of the Father, eternally, to make intercession for our sins, perpetually fleeting his own blood, the basis upon which we come to God through Jesus Christ. Is there any other way to God? Oh, through the Old Testament, blood is shed, offering given, atonement made, that on the basis of that shed blood, as the sins of the guilty are placed by faith transferred to the forehead of the substitute, men are explicitly admitted into the presence of God. And that Christ was consummated, when he became our high priest, the veil was left, and now eternally admitted to the presence of God, and as Paul says, he has broken down the middle wall of the kitchen, which was the kingdom, and now we have cursed the fellowship of God, and cursed the access of God through the eternal blood, shared by the Lord Jesus Christ. You will remember, you will remember, that the admission that was made by the prince, and the lamb that was slain, and by the blood, was a picture of our offerings eternally, of whom John said in John chapter 1, pointing to the Lord Jesus in verse 29, Behold, there is the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Now let me finish with this, there is a dispensational truth here of war, that one day I'll have to each other doing something of it, and in like manner there is going to be a holy exodus out of this old sinful world, when he was caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall he ever be with the Lord. And the awful plagues and tribulations that are a counterpart of those in Exodus, the awful tribulation that shall come, and the enemies of God are impeachable. Thank God through his blood, we who were far, are now brought now through what he has done for us. The message of Exodus is this, God's people, in bondage in the world, to a high taskmaster, who would not let them go, but by judgment and by blood, he released them, he saved, he blew them out, he brought back his arms, has made provision in fellowship for them, provision in their sin, and will one day lead us on a terminal Exodus out of this old sinful world into the presence of God. God, that and this more is the message of the book of Exodus, and it is salvation by faith through the good blood of Jesus Christ. You will hear me say more about blood in the months and years than ever in the past. There are those who reject and ridicule the preaching of the blood of Christ, but it is the exclusive avenue by which guilty men can find their sin forgiven and be given an eternal access into the heavens by which the one who ever liveth to make an exception, having poured his own blood and cut down forever at the right hand of the Father, died and made access available. Now remember one closing word, the Bible says, he ever liveth to make intercession. The error is tense of the verb when the Bible says the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin, means keeps on cleansing and keeps on cleansing and keeps on cleansing and keeps on cleansing, and if I ever stopped saying that I would not give you the true meaning of the great word. God, because it is endless, because it is endless, because it is endless, they had to come again over and over and over, but once for all, we are redeemed by a blessed redeemer who died with whoever liveth to receive his blood. And under his cleansing power, and under his cleansing power, we have access and salvation and relationship and fellowship with God through the blood of Jesus Christ. So we stand and pray together. Our Father, it is with great gladness that we sing the song of the redeemed. Thank you that you have led us from our exodus of sin into the presence of God through judgment and force and power, all in the eternal marriage of the basis of the blood. Thank you, Lord, that all the blood shed on Jesus also slain should never attain for one sin, for it was but a symbol of man's accepting grace for guilt. And what a picture. Oh, Lord, as we sing amazing grace, as we sing blessed redeemer, as we sing up tall his mouth, as we sing nothing but the blood, thank thee, that 3 ,300 years ago, and then some, it was foreshadowed for us in the scriptures. The word of God, that we are saved through his blood. Thank thee, blessed redeemer, for that provision. In the master's name, amen.