Exodus (Lesson 43)

Welcome to the Preaching on the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W.

Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of Delant, Florida.

Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs will bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior.

Now here's your host, Pastor James W.

Knox.

I'm Brother James, and I greet you one more time in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

This is the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast.

We are very glad that you've tuned into the program today.

We hope and pray that you will be as well.

We are just taking the Bible verse by verse, line upon line, precept upon precept, trying our very best to study every word of its perfect words and learn God's truth.

No greater way to occupy one's time than to search the scriptures.

Jesus said they testify of Him, and that in them one might find eternal life.

And so, as we read through the Bible together today, we come to the 23rd chapter of Exodus.

Exodus 23.

If you've not been with us for several broadcasts now, we have been reading through these laws that God gave to the Hebrew people to govern their life in their land.

They are not the laws of the New Testament church.

They are not the laws of the United States of America or whatever land you might be living in.

These laws were given to govern one people, the Hebrew people, in one land, the land of Palestine given by God to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Some called them Jews, some called them Israelites, some called them Hebrews.

And yet these words reveal the incredible wisdom of God, which if God's ways, God's wisdom, God's word were followed, any nation would be better off than the condition which it finds itself by following the words of man.

Exodus 23, verse 8 will be our starting place today.

Exodus 23:8

The Bible says that thou shalt take no gift, for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous.

Bribery has always been a sin engaged in by mankind, and it's a very hurtful sin.

It hurts the individual that is bribed, it hurts those who are affected as the uh because the outcome of the bribe, and it hurts society as a whole.

God says if you take, if you take bribes, you'll be you'll be blinded thereby.

You might have wisdom, but you'll lose your ability to see clearly right and wrong, truth and error, because of that gift that you have taken, and it will turn words of men who once were righteous men and make their words perverted.

Don't do it.

Do not allow someone to gain power or control over you through the use of bribery.

Many a pastor, many a preacher of the word, has sold out the truth of the Bible, sold out his conscience, and entered into some sort of hurtful compromise because he became beholden to the people who gave him money.

Here's a little money here, here's a little dinner there, here's a little automobile over here, here's a little vacation trip over there, and before long that man is no longer doing God's bidding according to God's word, but doing the bidding of some rich man or some rich woman who made him a blind man and a perverted man.

God said, Don't let that happen.

Verse number nine.

Also, thou shalt not oppress a stranger.

For ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing you are strangers in the land of Egypt.

Don't forget, don't forget.

When you get to the top, don't forget what it was like to be on the bottom.

When things start going well for you, don't forget what it was like when things weren't going well for you.

Some people, some people suffer, and then as soon as their suffering is over, they become careless or indifferent to the sufferings of others.

God wants us to learn from and to benefit from the hard times and the dreadful times in our life, and use them to create in us a spirit of mercy and kindness toward those who are in difficult circumstances.

And verse 10, six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shall gather in the fruits thereof, but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still, that the poor thy people may eat, and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat.

In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard and with thy olive yard.

Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest, that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed.

Now, uh some time ago we covered this matter of the Sabbath law and Sabbath keeping, and would certainly not repeat all of that on the program today.

However, here's an added little uh note or idea on that seventh year.

You know, that Sabbath when you don't work for an entire year, those of you that uh uh attend a Sabbatharian church or believe that you believe yourselves to be uh completed Jews or messianic Jews or some other sort of uh nonscriptural uh confusion, and you believe that somehow you're a little bit more right with God because you keep the Sabbath, uh which you don't keep.

Well, we we meet on Saturday.

Yeah, do you uh do you forbear working one year out of seven?

Well, some of you do.

Some of you forbear working seven years out of seven, but anyway, uh he says, uh, what I want you to do, I want you to leave those fields alone, and whatever comes up of itself in that seventh year, the poor may go out there and gather it.

Whatever grows on those trees the seventh year, without your uh working those uh orchards and and cultivating them, the poor may go out there and gather them.

So the rich and the and the well-to-do need to keep in mind that every seventh year the poor of the land are entitled to feed upon this excess which God has so abundantly bestowed upon his people.

And then the poor of the land need to understand that it's uh it's their responsibility to get off their couch and out in front of their TV more than once a month when they go to the mailbox to get their check, and they need to go out to the fields and gather for themselves.

Uh it's there for you, but you need to go get it.

All right, uh let's move on, verse number 13.

And in all things that I have said unto you, be circumspect, a circumference, a circle, a circuit, uh speck to inspect.

He says, I want you to be looking round about you in all directions.

Keep your eyes wide open.

Don't let the devil sneak up on you.

Don't let sin get a hold of you.

Don't miss an opportunity to do good, to do right, to be a help and be a blessing to someone else.

Ephesians says it this way, Ephesians 5, verse 15.

Ephesians 5:15

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

So keep your eyes wide open, look all round about you.

Then he says, and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.

Why would you waste time speaking about gods that don't exist, like Allah or uh hundreds of thousands of uh people who died in Mormonism and thought they went out and became gods and had their own planet and fathered a bunch of babies and all why would you pay any?

Why would you even talk about that?

When you could talk about the true, living, real God, his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, I am, that I am.

That's that's the God, that's the God to talk about.

Why talk about any other?

When you have exhausted all the praise, and when you've exhausted all the thanksgiving, and when you've exhausted exhausted all the exaltation, and when you've exhausted all the magnification that belongs to the one true God, then maybe, maybe you might find time to talk about another one.

Bible says in Hosea 2, 17, for I will take away the names of Balaam out of her mouth, and they should no more be remembered by their name.

That's future day, that's the coming kingdom.

That'll be a blessed thing.

God says, I'm not gonna hear, ever hear the name of another God again.

Everything that has breath will praise the Lord.

Verse 14.

Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.

Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread.

Parentheses, thou should eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib, for in it thou camest out from Egypt, and none shall appear before me empty.

So that's the Passover feast that we discussed at length earlier in our study, and the feast of harvest, the first fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in the field, and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labors out of the field.

So when it's evident that there will be a crop, you worship the Lord.

And when you have gathered in all of the crop, then you worship the Lord.

That's the way it ought to be.

We'd have nothing if God didn't give it to us.

God didn't send the rain, God didn't make the seed to sprout, God didn't make the soil to nourish, God didn't make the fruit and the grain to grow, we would all die of starvation.

So before every meal we should bow our heads and thank God for what we're about to receive.

It wouldn't hurt to bow our heads after every meal and thank God for that which we have just enjoyed.

Three times in the year, all thy males shall appear before the Lord God.

Thou should not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, neither shall the fat of thy sacr of my sacrifice remain till the morning.

The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God.

So, starting place.

Where do you start?

You start with worshiping God.

Now, what does the Lord say about worshiping him?

Verse 14 uh it's a feast.

It's not a fast.

God doesn't prescribe a fast, he prescribes a feast.

We are rejoicing in God's provision.

We are celebrating what God has done for us.

We are glad to experience life more abundant because of God's kindness and his grace and the gifts that he sends our way.

Secondly, secondly, we need to keep in mind that we are in verse 17, we are appearing before the Lord God.

We're not having a holiday so we can watch football.

We're not having a holiday so we can drink beer.

We're not having a holiday so we can shoot off fireworks.

We are setting aside our labors.

We are setting aside our duties and responsibilities for a period of time so that we can enjoy fellowship with God, so we can enjoy being in the company of God.

Hallelujah.

And then what do we do?

We bring sacrifice to the Lord.

Look, we're free.

Let's give him the first part of our lives, the best part of our lives.

Look, we have plenty of food.

Let's offer our meat and drink, the first of it, unto the Lord.

Put him first, keep him first.

Then the rest of verse 19 says, Thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk.

I know it just brings you to a halt, doesn't it?

It just, we're going along, keep the Sabbath and observe the feasts and offer these sacrifices, and then right in the middle of it, God says, Don't see the kid in his mother's milk.

Exodus 34, 26, Exodus 34, 26 says, Thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk.

Deuteronomy 14, 21 says, Deuteronomy chapter 14, verse number 21 says, Ye should not eat of anything dieteth itself.

Deuteronomy 14 · chapter mention

And the end of the verse, thou should not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 22, I think it is, says this.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

Abstain from all appearance of evil.

So what do those two verses have in common?

I'll tell you what they have in common.

You ready?

Now, what you're wanting is you're wanting me to explain to you why God gave a commandment against seething a kid in his mother's milk.

I'm not going to give you that information.

And the reason I'm going to give you give you that information is I have absolutely no idea why God would consider that a crime against his person or his holiness.

I have no idea.

Oh, I've read some comments and I've seen some things, but I I I don't know that anybody has any idea.

You say, well, it's excessively cruel, and really?

Really?

So you're telling me that if I take a baby goat, I take a little goat, and I kill that little goat, and I butcher that little goat, and I begin to seethe that little goat in its mother's milk, that that nanny goat is going to walk over to me and say, you know something?

I was I was okay with it when you killed my kid, and I was okay with it when you butchered my kid.

And I'm really not even all that opposed to you barbecuing my kid, but now that you've seethed it in my milk, I am really unhappy with you.

I I'm not buying that.

I'm not buying that.

That it's excessively cruel.

Or or you know that now some have said what that means is that uh you're supposed to uh let that uh kid grow to a certain age before you consume it, and if it's still nursing, then you don't but that's that's not what it says.

That's not what seething uh means.

So, anyway, let's say this.

Let's suppose nobody knows why God gave this commandment.

Let's suppose nobody has a good answer for the why.

Now here's what's important, and this is why I read you abstain from all all appearance of evil.

Listen carefully.

If you were to read Exodus 21, 22, 23, as we've done together, and you said, Well, that's right, thou shalt not kill.

God said that, and I'm all for it.

I I I am all for it.

It is wrong to kill.

Then you said, then you said, Oh, well, well, look at there.

We are to keep the uh this law that if a man steals another man's property, he has to make restitution, has to pay that back.

I man, I'm all for that.

That that is that is absolutely right.

And then you read, uh, we're to keep the Passover and that feast of unleavened bread.

Well, yes, of course, after God brought us out of Egypt, I'm all for that.

That's absolutely right.

And then, right in the middle of it, God said, Don't see the kid in its mother's milk.

Some might be tempted to say, Well, that's not such a big deal.

Some might be tempted to say, well, that's not near as important as those others.

Some might be tempted to say, Well, I don't see, I don't see why we got to pay any attention to that.

And and honestly, in my mind, the reason this commandment shows up in a verse to which it has no real connection, in a paragraph to which it has no real connection, in a context in which it has no real connection, is because there is a connection.

Here's the connection.

The connection is not the goat, it's not the kid, it's not the milk, it's not the seething.

The connection is God commanded it.

If God said, thou shalt not bear false witness, and if God said, Thou shalt not commit adultery, and if God said, Don't see the kid in its mother's milk, guess how many of those commandments are important?

Of them.

Guess which of those commandments can be neglected?

None of them.

You get the principle?

You understand what we're saying?

It's not up to me as a fallen man to determine whether or not something God commanded is important enough to obey.

It's not up to me as a as a speck of dust on one little tiny planet in God's vast creation to decide whether or not I think something God said is valid.

We obey the words and commandments of the Lord because they are the words and commandments of the Lord.

That's the lesson.

I believe that's the vital lesson to be drawn from that curious commandment.

Verse 20 Behold, I send an angel with a capital A, curious, before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

Beware of him and obey his voice.

Provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him.

But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies and an adversary unto thine adversaries, for mine angel shall go before thee and bring thee in unto the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebuzites, and I will cut them off.

Now, this angel with a capital A is most probably, most likely, I'm just short of saying most certainly, the Lord Jesus.

This is clear from number one, God's name is in him.

Verse 21.

He doesn't use God's name or take God's name.

God's name is in him.

I and my father won.

Philippians 2, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

Secondly, the expression angel of the Lord is used 25 times by Moses, clearly identifying the person as part of the Godhead.

You can see this in Genesis 16:7, Genesis 21, 17 and 18, Genesis 22, 11 through 17, Genesis 31, 11 to 13, Genesis 48, 16, Moses to Moses.

Genesis 16:7

He called himself the I am to Balaam.

He called himself the Lord.

Thirdly, if you compare his appearing to Joshua and Moses in Joshua 5 and Exodus 3, it's pretty clear in those cases that it must be the Lord.

Number four, such phrases appear in the New Testament as well.

If you compare 2 Chronicles 29:11 with 1 Corinthians 11:3, you'll see that both are talking about the Lord.

2 Chronicles 29:11 1 Corinthians 11:3

In Hebrews 1:1-3, compare that with Isaiah 63, 9, you get the same truth borne out there.

Hebrews 1:1–3

And then number five, Paul told us plainly, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the rock that followed them, that is, the Israelites in the wilderness, was Christ.

So there's no reason to believe that God the Son, who existed from well, I started to say from the beginning of time.

He existed before there was time.

God the Son, the creator of all things, there's no reason not to believe that he appeared many times in many forms throughout Old Testament history, only becoming manifest in the flesh in Bethlehem's manger.

But uh that wasn't the start of Jesus.

Uh they called his name Jesus.

Uh the one they called Jesus, he'd been around uh from everlasting to everlasting.

And then 24, thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them their gods, nor do after their works the works of their gods.

But thou shalt utterly overthrow them and quite break down their images.

And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread and thy water, and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

Okay, so it's quite clear.

Say it again.

We'll just keep saying it and keep saying it and keep saying it, and hopefully it'll get uh hidden way deep down in your heart, and you'll never forget it.

Israel is not the church, the church is not Israel.

God gave commandments to an earthly people, the nation of Israel, to rid the earth, other nations, of the worship of other gods.

This longstanding practice on the part of the Hebrews who came to be known as the Israelites, eventually came to be known as the Jews, of destroying the gods of other nations, is a huge factor in the hatred that other nations have for the Jews.

Now, the New Testament church, we preach against other gods.

We warn people of the folly of trusting other gods.

We plead with men and women to understand that there's only one true God, and then they need to forsake and abandon all other gods and put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the Christian church is never commanded, never sanctioned, never encouraged.

It is never even suggested that we should ever wage physical war against anyone, and we should never destroy the idols, images, statues, houses of worship, temples, pagodas, shrines, and so forth of blind heathen, pagan people on their way to hell.

If I break your Mary statue, but you don't come to know Jesus, I haven't accomplished mission number one.

If I destroy your uh porcelain image of a woman with sixteen arms and and uh all that business, but I don't win you to saving faith in Jesus Christ, I have not accomplished job number one.

So it's the duty of God's church to, yes, tear down false beliefs, but not physically, rather spiritually, through the preaching of the word, that men from their hearts, in their hearts, might turn from these vain idols to serve the living God.

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