THROUGH THE BIBLE - Exodus 2..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. And this is the Word of God, Exodus chapter 23. You shall not spread a false report.

You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit. siding with the many as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it, you shall rescue it with him.

shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit. Keep far from a false charge and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yields. About the seventh year you shall let it rest and live, fellow, that the poor of your people may eat, and what they leave the beast of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard and with your olive orchard. Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant, woman, and the alien may be refreshed. Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abed. For Ened you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed.

You should keep the feast of the harvest of the first fruit of your labor of what you saw in the field. You should keep the feast of the in gathering at the end of the year when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning. The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.

You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. Behold, I sent an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and adversary to your adversaries.

When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, I blot them out. You shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them. nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. None shall miscarry or be barren in your land.

I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send my terror before you, and I will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you until you have increased and possessed the land, and I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines and from the wilderness of the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand.

and you shall drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. You shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, I will surely Be a snare to you. Amen, brothers and sisters.

This is the words of God. Chapter 23 is actually a very important chapter in the transition of what the author is trying to communicate to the people of Israel and, of course, to the people of God. The people who, by grace through faith, have been united in the promised and the come and the one who has promised that is going to come a second time, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. This chapter 23 that we have in front of us is somehow divided in three different sections. You might have it if you're reading from, I think all the ESVs are the same, but you might have different even titles in those sections.

There are three sections, one that comes from verse one through verse nine, in which the chapter is going to give us a summary of relationships that people have one with the other. That goes from verse one through verse nine in verse 10 from to verse 19, which is probably a title that you have in your Bible. That is another section in which the author is going to give us laws about the congregation and precisely about the Sabbath and about some feast. Three feasts are to be celebrated. In a year and then the last section the third section of this chapter 23 It starts in verse 20 and goes all the way until the end And in that section the author is going to give us I promise even the the name of the chapter or the section In your bibles might be that it is a promise of the conquest of the land that the lord had already promised and brothers and sisters chapter 23 is actually a very important chapter because it concludes a section that is called the covenant of the book of the covenant if you go back to exodus chapter 20 in the 10 commandments if you go to that point you will see that in chapter 20 when we read the 10 commandments after the 10 commandments were given in verse 22 you can see that it starts the verse saying and the lord said to moses And from that point onwards, everything that the Lord says to Moses or said to Moses is going to be quoted or cited.

And all of that is what we have in chapter 21, chapter 22, and then going into chapter 23. These are the things that the Lord said to Moses after the Ten Commandments were given. Even if you go to chapter 24, which by God's grace we might be doing next week, Then you can see that there is a cut in the section that says, then he said to Moses after he has said all of those things coming to for Chapter 20. These things that we have between Chapter 20 and Chapter 23, it is what is called in Chapter 24, verse 7, if you see it there. chapter 24 verse 7 it says then he took the book of the covenant and read it that book of the covenant were the 10 commandments given to moses in the mountain and then all the things that were given to him after the 10 commandments which incorporates the section that we have just read so what we have in chapter 23 is the final section of this book of the covenant Now, this is very important, brothers and sisters, because if you can outline the book of Exodus in your mind, if we could have like step back and outline the whole book of Exodus in our mind, we will find that there is five, at least four or five different important points that we have been and we will be studying as we go through the book.

Point number one is that Israel was in Egypt. You remember that Israel was in bondage and slavery in Egypt. After that, God came down and visited them and he liberated the people of Israel. This is the second section of the book. And then after that, we see Israel in the wilderness.

And then point number four, the section number four is the giving of the law. So then the next section that will come is the construction, if you want, of the tabernacle. all of those two things, all of those five things, are going to be the main message of the book of Exodus. And what we have here now is the giving of the law, and we are arriving to this pinnacle, this very important point, chapter 23 and 24, in which the covenant is given, and then in chapter 24, the covenant is going to be ratified with blood. This is what we are going to be studying next week but it's very important that you see these two elements the law that is now being given in chapter 20 to 23 and then the tabernacle that will be the abiding place in which God has come down to be among his people and this book of Exodus is going to end in a very interesting way because once the tabernacle is finished then the glory of God will enter into that tabernacle But Moses will not be able to enter into the tabernacle because the glory of God is dwelling in fullness and completeness in that tabernacle.

So, the role of the law, my beloved brothers and sisters, is very important in our understanding of the relationship between God and His people, especially in this section between chapter 20 and chapter 23. So before we address very shortly these three sections that I have just said to you, I want us to ask the question, what is the role? Why is it important, this law? And how are we supposed to understand it? And we don't have to answer that question with man-made wisdom, because the Apostle Paul gives us that answer in Galatians chapter 3, 4.

Galatians chapter 3. So if you go with me to Galatians chapter 3, In Galatians chapter 3, there are two things that is actually very important, brothers and sisters, that you remember from the law. This is going to become a New Testament standard of interpretation of the law that we read in the Old Testament. You're going to find yourself, it's in chapter three, you're going to find yourself many times reading many of the laws of the Old Testament, and sometimes you may not find in your mind how they make sense in the whole context of redemption. But the apostle has given us how or the standard that we should apply to Old Testament law so that we will understand its purpose.

This is found in Galatians chapter 3. There are two things that I pray that you remember when we are speaking about the law of the Old Testament. And that is that when the Apostle Paul, after he has spoken about the law and the promise, or the law and faith, or the law and the gospel, then he's going to ask himself a rhetorical question. Why was the law added? That is the question that is found in chapter 3 verse 19.

And this is an important answer that you should have in your mind. Why was the law that we have just read, and not only today, but in the previous weeks, in chapter 20, 21, 22, and 23, and actually this law is going to be expounded in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but why was the law given? This is a very important biblical question that we should have an answer always ready in our hearts and in our minds that is what is found in verse 19 this is the question why then the law it was added why then the law is the question sorry and then the answer is it was added or it was given this is the answer of the law because of transgressions until the offspring or seed should come to whom the promise had been made. Our brother explained to us a couple of weeks ago that that offspring is the Lord Jesus Christ. So brothers and sisters, every time that we ask ourselves what is the purpose of the law in the Old Testament, then the purpose of all of these regulations in the Old Testament, it is because of the transgression because of the sin of the people of Israel.

The law was given by God and from God to the people of Israel so that they would walk according to the standards of God in a different way to the rest of the nations of the world. So the people of Israel will be set apart, will be made holy as the people of God until the coming of the Messiah who will be born in the midst of the people of Israel. That is the purpose of the law. But then, when we are under the gospel or under the promise, we might be tempted to say, okay, then Jesus Christ has already come and he has already fulfilled the requirements of the law. And then the purpose of the law was just to set apart the people of Israel until the Messiah comes.

And we might be tempted to say, so then the law is not useful anymore but the apostle continues and then he gives us another clue very important item that it should be always present in your mind and in your heart he continues he says why then the law it was added because of transgressions until the offspring that is Christ should come to whom the promise had been made and And it was put in place through angels by an intermediary, which is something that is mentioned in the chapter that we have just read. Now, an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Now, pay attention to another rhetorical question in verse 21, which is another important thing that you have to remember, besides the thing that I have just said. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? That is, is then the law given to Moses contrary and opposite to the promise of salvation given to Abraham that it is found in Jesus Christ?

And the answer that the apostle gives to that possibility of a controversy between the law and the promise, he says, certainly not. certainly law, for if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." Now, in verse 23, he's going to tell us the role or the importance of the law. He says, Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law in prison until the coming faith would be revealed.

So then the law was our guardian until Jesus Christ came in order that we may be justified by faith, brothers and sisters. This is very important because every time, my beloved brothers and sisters, every time that we are going through the Old Testament and we are reading these laws that sometimes might be difficult for us to even put together in our mind or to comprehend in contemporary cultural context, These laws, according to the New Testament, first of all, were given so that the Messiah, the prophesied, the promised Messiah will come and will be born within the people of Israel, but second, The law is, in a sense, a servant of the gospel because the law points the soul of a person to the need of a salvation that cannot be obtained by works of the law because the law has been broken. So then the law will bring the person to conclude, I cannot be saved by my keeping of the law because I have already broken the law. So then the law will, and through the preaching of the gospel, point to the only solution that is the person of Jesus Christ. So the law always serves as brothers and sisters to keep the righteousness of God, the standard of God, but also has another element that is always pointing to the Messiah, either prophesied or come, or the one that is to come again.

The law, it is speaking to us of the future that it is to come. So when we read the things in Exodus 20, 21, 22, 23, and then in Leviticus, and then in Deuteronomy, when we read all of those things, brothers and sisters, The Bible is speaking of a law that was given to his people to preserve them and to keep them, to set them apart from all the nations, and also to speak about the Messiah that was going to come. And that is the three sections that we have in front of us. From verse 1 to verse 9, it is just speaking of relationships between people. That those relationships should be in truth.

It says in verse 1, you shall not spread a false report. That is, that relationships between people should be in truth. Or that those relationships should be done in justice. It says in verse 6, you shall not pervert the justice due to your poor. or that those relationships should be done in equality.

What is what we have in verse 9? You shall not oppress the sojourner. Why? Because you were a sojourner, as our brother explained last week to us. Israel was a sojourner in Egypt, so you shall not oppress them.

That is the law that was given to Israel that in their heart was Love your neighbor as you love yourself, which is the fulfillment of the law in the person of Jesus Christ that came and explained all of that law. Then in the section number two, brothers and sisters in the law of congregation, this chapter that we have, chapter 23, speaks of two things, the Sabbath and the three different feasts. The principle of the Sabbath that during six years are to work and on the seventh year is to rest, a similar principle of working in six days and resting on the seventh. And then we have these three feasts given to us from verse 14 through verse 20. Speaking of this unleavened bread or this feast of the harvest of the first fruit, which is Pentecost or the feast of the gathering.

It is Christ the one that according to Hebrews 4 is the rest of the soul of the believer. That is Christ the one that fulfilled all the requirements that attributed or provided righteousness under the old covenant. And in him, the one who by grace through faith is united into his body, he finds rest. And then as the Apostle Paul will say in Corinthians, is Christ the one who is our Passover. And all those feet are pointing towards the person of Jesus Christ to then follow into the last section of this chapter brothers and sisters from verse 20 in which the author is going to give us the promise of the conquest of the land and this promise is going to be very interesting because There is going to be a condition given to the people of Israel.

In verse 24 says, you shall not bow down to their gods. Speaking of the peoples that Israel was going to destroy, that it was going to conquer. He says, You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. Verse 25, You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your waters, and I will take the sickness away from among you. The conquest, brothers and sisters of the land, was contingent upon obedience.

He depended upon the obedience of the people of Israel. The entering into the land depended on sticking to the requirements of the covenant. Now, God is going to take the people into the promised land by virtue of the promise that was given to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. But the people who fail to keep the terms of the covenant, they are going to perish in the wilderness. And once the people made it into the promised land, even the abiding in the promised land dependent upon the obedience of the terms of the covenant.

That's why the remaining section of the chapter speaks on how they are supposed to conquer that land little by little. or be learning how to obey the requirements of God. Because the people of Israel, even this is what the Apostle Paul says in Galatians chapter 4, that before faith, not only the Israelites, but every single person was by nature a server of other gods. The same gods that the author of Exodus speaks here, these other gods do not follow these other gods. Paul in chapter 4, chapter 3 or 4, he says that before grace, before faith, Everyone is a server, a natural server of other gods, and that we incline naturally to other gods.

It's only until the arrival of Christ and the personal visitation of Christ to the believer, then that person is moved from under the law to be under grace. And in grace, when grace abounds, then there's union with Christ that empowers the person to see back to the law and say, and be filled with gratitude for Christ, and also have a desire that is rooted in love to keep that law, not unto righteousness, but unto Christlikeness and unto worship. Everything that we read, brothers and sisters, in the Old Testament, it is pointing towards the person of Jesus Christ and what he has accomplished on behalf of his people. Amen?