Alright, brethren, let's turn in our Bibles to Deuteronomy 32. It's always good to... The Lord gives us another day to come into His house and assemble with His people and hear the person of our Redeemer declared. Hear all of His works declared. That is a blessed day. Blessed day. We'll give the brethren some time to get settled. Deuteronomy 32. This is the second to the last sermon that Moses preached to the children of Israel. second to the last sermon. They had come to the end of their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. And Moses here declares the Gospel to them. He preached the works of the Lord. He preached God's person, His Son, and he preached His works, what He did for the children of Israel. He warned them. He declared that Jeshurun had waxed fat, kicked, They turned, that word Cheshren means upright one. And it was a term, a name God gave some in the children of Israel who esteemed themselves upright and they ended up turning from trusting the Lord and worshipping idols. And, but it's only those who can do that, that will do that. Those in whom the Lord's working effectively, He won't permit to turn from Him. And that's what we see in our text here this morning. I want you to just look at this one verse. There were some true elect among Israel, Moses and Aaron and Miriam and Caleb and Joshua and And this is what the Lord worked in His true people. There were probably many more, but this is what He worked in His elect in Israel. This is what He did for them. Deuteronomy 32, verse 10. He found Him in a desert land, speaking of His elect as Jacob. He found Him in a desert land, in the waste, howling wilderness. He led Him about. He instructed Him. He kept Him as the apple of His eye. This one verse declares what our Lord does for every sinner who He saves. This is what He does for every sinner He saves. I want to just take each part of this and we'll just look at this one verse. First, the Lord finds each sinner that He saves. he finds each sinner he saves. It says there he found him. The Lord found him. They were in Egypt. They were in bondage, unable to free themselves. That's where they would have remained. But the Lord found his people. The Lord came to his people. The Lord Jesus gave three parables to illustrate this. He gave the parable of the lost sheep who the shepherd seeks and finds. That shepherd is Christ. He finds His lost sheep. He gave an illustration of the lost coin who the woman found. Christ Jesus will find His child. They are His treasure. He says there in verse 11, I'm sorry, in verse 9, the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. They're his treasure, like that lost coin, and he will find each one of his people. He gave the parable of the prodigal son. who came to himself. Why does God's child come to ourselves? Because the Lord makes us come to ourselves. He speaks life and He corrects and chastens and makes us come to ourselves. And the Father saw him afar off. And our Lord sees His child afar off. His eyes always upon His people. Always upon His people. And the Lord's point in those parables is this, Christ is the one who seeks and finds the lost. He's the one that seeks and finds His lost elect child. Our Lord Jesus does. You think of how many people in this world in religion make the boast that they sought God and they found God. How many people make that boast? But this is what the Lord says. The Lord says in Romans 3.11, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. That's everybody on this earth, everybody born of Adam. None seek God. If you seek Him, It's because He first sought you. Because He first sought you. He seeks and He saves. He finds some when they're young, in the young age. He finds some in middle age. He finds some in old age. The thief on the cross was just moments from going into eternity when the Lord found him. He set the time. It's called the season of His love when He'll come to His people and He will find His child and reveal Himself in His child. He seeks and finds us. You can tell a lot by what a sinner believes concerning the Lord by how he began in the faith. Who sought who? Who sought who? The Lord seeks His people. And His people, to tell you plainly, He sought me. I wasn't seeking Him, He sought me and He found me. Where does the Lord find us when He seeks us? It says there the Lord found him in a desert land, in a waste howling wilderness. A desert land and in a waste howling wilderness. We saw this Thursday and it needs to be repeated often. The desert and the wasteland wilderness is you and me dead in our sins. That's where he finds us, dead in our sins. In scripture, life is often described as water, as water. But without the Spirit of God, without Christ our life, we're as dry and dead as the desert sand. We're dead, spiritually dead without any understanding whatsoever. Look over at Isaiah 35. Isaiah 35. He's talking about his people right here. Isaiah 35 and verse 6. He's talking about when he comes to his people and calls his people out, he says, Then shall the lame man leap as a heart, And the tongue of the dumb sing, For in the wilderness shall waters break out. and streams in the desert, and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. Remember what the Lord said on that day when He stood up and said, If any man thirsts, let him come unto Me. He said, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters. Christ is that living water, the Spirit of our Lord. Our God is life and He is the life in His people. The Spirit is life. Out of His belly shall flow rivers of living waters. But our sin nature is the waste places. Our sin nature is the desert. It's the waste howling wilderness. Wasted in sin by Adam. Wasted in sin by being born of his corruption. Listen to Isaiah 51, verse 3. The Lord shall comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places. That's every sinner he saves. He'll comfort all her waste places. He'll make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. That's what the Lord Jesus does. He said in Isaiah 52, In verse 9, break forth in his joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem. For the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. That's what he does. Isaiah 52 is where he said that in that day they'll know it's I that speak. They'll hear my voice, they'll know it's me. And he speaks the word and that word creates life where there was just a wasted wilderness. Just a dry, dead desert, He speaks life. And He is that life. He is that life. Now what does the Lord do when He finds us and He creates life in us, He brings us to faith, He brings us to trust Christ, what does He do for us? He says there in our text in Deuteronomy 32.10, He led them about, He instructed them. He led them about and He instructed them. When the Lord came to Israel in bondage, the way He delivered them out was through the Passover lamb. He said, take this Passover lamb. Who was it that slew the lamb? It was the head of the house. Who applied the blood to the doorpost? The head of the house. Christ is the head of the house. He's the lamb. He's the one who laid down His life in place of His people. And he's the one that applies the blood in our heart as the head of his house. And what he makes you to behold is that night everybody, all the firstborn died. Even the firstborn in the houses of Israel, the difference was those in the houses of Israel died in the Lamb. They died in the Passover Lamb. And that's what the Lord Jesus makes us see when He calls you and gives you faith. He makes you to see that Christ came to where we are, took our place, bore our sin and our judgment, and He died in our place. He died the death we owe. And by His death, He justified us from all our sins. This is why the waters break out in the desert. This is the life. This is where you, when you see Christ Jesus is righteousness. Righteousness and life are synonymous. Sin entered and death by sin. Where righteousness is, there's life. And Christ is that righteousness. And when He enters in and gives you faith to lay hold of Him and rest in Him, He makes you know you've been made perfectly righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ. Perfectly righteous in Him. But we don't know Him as we shall as He leads us and He instructs us. He leads us and He instructs us throughout the desert to teach us. He didn't take them into Canaan. He could have taken them directly into Canaan. He didn't. Why? He shows us what we are. He brought them to Canaan and they wouldn't go in because of unbelief. And He led them about in the wilderness for 40 years. And that whole time He led them about in the wilderness, He was instructing His true people amongst them. He was leading them and growing them and teaching them more of who He is. And that's what He's doing for you and me. He's leading us the whole way and He's instructing us. He's bringing us to submit to the Lord Jesus in faith. and trust Him in all things that He brings to pass in our life. They had been in Egypt, they had been worshipping idols, they could see. The children of Israel adopted those idols that Egypt had, and they started worshipping those idols. They could see those idols. And here God takes them out into the wilderness now, and they're going to have to walk by faith. And so that's what the Lord's teaching you and me. He's teaching us to walk by faith. To walk by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And He's increasing our faith in Him the whole way. He's increasing our faith. So, what did He do after He delivered them through the Lamb? And what I want you to see as we review these. I know we've looked at these. But I want you to think about how every one of these, they were all in the scripture, they're all called trials. They were all given to prove Israel. And they taught Israel two things. They taught them they were sinners, and they taught them that the Lord is salvation. Every one of these trials pictures the Lord Jesus Christ. and they were turned to the Lord Jesus Christ. In everything the Lord is doing in our life, and mine and yours, what he is teaching us is those two things. Over and over again, he's teaching you and me, we're the sinner. We are the desert, waste, howling wilderness in our sin nature. But he's teaching us also, he is salvation. He is salvation, and he's bringing us to trust him and submit to him more and more in everything, in everything. So first thing he did is he takes them to the Red Sea. He told Moses right where to go. The Lord knew right where they were headed. He took them to the Red Sea. There's an idol god on one side, a big mountain. There's a mountain on the other side. There's the Red Sea in the middle. And then the Lord took his hand off of Pharaoh and let Pharaoh and his army pursue them. And there's Israel now hemmed in on all sides, unable to save themselves, and there they are. And that was a test. That was to prove the Lord knew what they were. He knows what we are. But it was a test to show them what they are. And what did they do? They began to murmur against Moses. They began to murmur against Moses. And the Lord gave the message to Moses. And Moses was no different than them. Moses was scared too. Moses was afraid too. He was crying out to God. And God gave him the message to preach. And he told him to stand still, see the salvation of the Lord, hold your peace, and see the glory of the Lord. And the Lord split that Red Sea and took them across on dry ground and then he, when Pharaoh and his army went in after him, he's destroyed them in that Red Sea. Who did that? The Lord did it. What was the spiritual lesson they were taught and that we're taught? Salvations of the Lord. We can't save ourselves. Salvations of the Lord. Well, he let them out three days into the wilderness and think about this now. All these hundred thousands of people, I can't remember exactly how many there were, but they had no water. It was over a million because he just counts the men and there were women and children with them. And he lived three days and there was no water. And that's a test to prove them. What happened? They started murmuring again against Moses. And the Lord leads them to some water and they see some water and they think this is going to be good water to drink. Can't you just picture how excited they were? And they get to that water and it's bitter and they can't drink it. And they began to murmur. He showed them their sin again. that they were the only sinners, they're the waste, howling wilderness, and then what did he do? He told Moses to take a branch and put it in the water, and it made the water sweet. That branch being thrown in that water is a type of Christ and Him crucified. It's this gospel of Christ and Him crucified, the good news of Christ and Him crucified that God gives in every single trial we go through that makes the bitter waters sweet. And what did the Lord declare to them there? He declared to them, I am the Lord that healeth thee. I am Jehovah Nissi, the Lord that healeth thee. That's what we're learning every single trial we go through. Our flesh is just sinful. He is the Lord that healed us every wit at Calvary's cross by laying down His life in our room instead. Well, two and a half months after they come out of Egypt, the Lord led them into the wilderness of sin again to prove them. And they got hungry. And again, they began to murmur against Moses. Again, they began to sin. They began to sin. And that's when Moses, the Lord gave Moses this word to speak to them in Exodus 16, 3. The children of Israel said unto them, unto Moses and Aaron, they said, would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. When we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full, for you've brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. And Moses said to them, this murmuring's not against me and Aaron, it's against God. The Lord led us here. the Lord led us here. Every complaint that we have in Providence, wherever the Lord has put us, is a complaint against God. He brought us here. Why does he teach us that? Why does he bring us into bitter trials where we become hungry and thirsty and start pining after what we had? And you think of that. Them pining away after what they had in Egypt. They were slaves in Egypt. Every bit of that is our sin, brethren. That's our sin. That's showing us we're sinners. Showing us we're sinners. And what did the Lord do? He rained down bread from heaven. He gave them bread from heaven. He's leading us and instructing us. That bread from heaven is Christ. He said that in John 6. He said, I'm the true bread. I'm the bread which my Father has given you. He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall never hunger and thirst. And spiritually, we're never going to hunger and thirst. The righteous, that He's made righteous, will never be begging for spiritual bread. He'll show us that in our flesh dwells no good thing. He'll show us we're not going to find anything in this world that's going to appease our hunger. But in the Spirit, He will continually give us the bread from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He told them, He proved them by the bread. And this is Christ is proving us by Himself. He told them, He told them just gather enough bread for the day. Just enough bread for the day. And then he told them on the sixth day gather enough for two days so that on the seventh day they could rest from all their works and from all their labors. He's teaching us by that brethren just what he said when he said the Gentiles, the men of this world, they're going after the things of this world. And he says to us don't Don't go after the things of this world. Your Father knows you have needed these things. Don't worry about it. Don't be anxious about it. Seek ye the kingdom of God and His righteousness. These other things shall be provided. Don't worry about yesterday. Don't worry about tomorrow. He said He'll give you grace for today. That's what He was teaching them. I'll give you bread for today. But did they believe Him? You know what they did? What you and me would have done, exactly. They went out there and saw that bread on the ground and they said, we better get all we can right now while we can. They might not be here tomorrow. But God said it would, but it might not. And they gathered up more than they needed for the day. And what happened? The Lord made it breed worms and stink. Why? To show us He's our life. It's not our gathering. It's not our... Everything that comes in our life where He opens the door for you to have something that He's given. He gave it. He gave it. Everything. And if it's taken away, He took it away. And what's He teaching us in all of that? That He's our life. He's our bread. And that's what he was teaching them, instructing them, leading them, teaching them the whole way, the whole way. Then he led them to refit them, again to prove them. And there was no water to drink, no water to drink. Now, they saw him make the bitter water sweet. They saw him destroy Pharaoh and his army. They saw him rain down bread from heaven. He gave them quails to eat too. They saw the Lord do all of these mighty, wonderful works. And they get there in Rephidim and there's no water. What do they do again? They murmur against Moses. That's us, brethren. This sin nature is not going to change. It's with us. And when we we could be taught this gospel today and by this afternoon you let something, some providence come across your path that troubles you and you'll find out real fast you're still a sinner. You're still a sinner. What was the Lord's answer? In all these trials the answer was the same. It's Christ. He told Moses, you go and stand on a rock And he said, and you smite that rock and out of that rock came gushed forth water from it. That rock is Christ. That one who went to the cross and was smitten in the room instead of his people under divine justice from whom all our life flows. That's what was pictured in the smitten rock. And it says there, they tempted the Lord saying, after all of that, this is what they said, when they got there before he smote the rock, this is what they said, it says, they tempted the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not? After all they'd seen, is the Lord among us or not? Our shepherds gonna teach us. This same lesson over and over and over. Our murmuring is not against man. Our murmuring is not against just the circumstances. Our complaining is against God. He's ruling everything that comes to pass in our life. Not even a leaf falls off the tree without Him. Everything is tempting the Lord. It's tempting the Lord. And by Him continuing to save us when we do this over and over, and we do this over and over, don't we? And by Him continuing to show us mercy and show us Christ and teach us and instruct us and lead us, what's He teaching us? Salvation is all of grace. It's all of grace. We certainly are not meriting His favor, are we? We don't merit His mercy to us. That shows you it's all of grace. It's all of grace. He commanded that rock be smitten and that water gushed out, and that rock followed them wherever they went. He was with them. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10, 4, they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. That rock was Christ. He teaches us our need of this gospel. This is how He's going to teach us this. It's through the preaching of the Word. It pleased God to save through the foolishness of preaching. He's going to have His sheep together, and He's going to teach us this through the gospel to keep us together. And so He showed them their need of the gospel. He leads them forth, and in Exodus 17, 8, the Lord permitted Amalek to come up against them. He attacked him from behind. Well, Moses, as long as he held up the rod of God, Israel prevailed. But when his hands would grow heavy and he would let down the rod, Amalek would prevail. That rod of God is a picture of the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord provided Aaron and her, and they set Moses on a rock, and one got on one side, one on the other, and they held his hands up. And that rod of God being lifted up, Joshua, on the battlefield, defeated and conquered the enemy. And the Lord, by the Spirit of God, He will use brethren to strengthen his preacher, to hold his hands up, to keep preaching Christ and him crucified, to set him on the rock, Christ Jesus, to keep him lifting up this banner, preaching Christ crucified, and it's through the preaching of the gospel that Christ enters our heart. Our heart's where the battlefield is, in us, between the flesh and the spirit. Our flesh is Amalek, and our new man is where the spirit of the Lord dwells. And He's gonna, as long as this gospel's held up, He's going to speak into our heart, and He's gonna strengthen you in the heart, and He's gonna make you see He's conquered every enemy. He already has conquered them. The warfare's accomplished. And He'll make you more than conquerors through Him that loved us by this word of this gospel. That's what he's teaching us through that. And so Moses built an altar and he called the name of it. I said Jehovah Nisi a while ago. He called the name of it Jehovah Nisi, which is the Lord, our banner. The Lord, our banner. What's the Lord that healeth thee? Is that Jehovah Repha? The Lord that healeth thee. Jehovah Nisi, the Lord, our banner. Let me show you something. Go to Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59. Listen to this good news, Isaiah 59 verse 19. It's talking about His people when He draws us to Him, teaches us through the Gospel. It says, so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and His glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against them. That's a banner. That's what Moses called that place Jehovah Nisi, the Lord, our banner. He's going to lift up Christ in the preaching of the gospel just like He lifted Him up on the cross. He's going to make you see Him there on that cross dying in the room instead of His people and by that He's going to conquer the enemy of our flesh and show us He's conquered all our enemies and that's how He's going to keep saving us through the preaching of this word. Christ has redeemed His people. He's justified His people. His justice demands He save His people. So He finds them And then He leads us and He instructs us. And I want you to see this next thing right here, this last thing. The whole way Christ is keeping each one of His people as the member of His own body. Look here in verse Deuteronomy 32.10, it says, And he kept him as the apple of his eye. The apple of the eye is the pupil. And it's the weakest, most tenderest part of the body. The apple of the eye. You know how you protect your eye. Well, the strongest in the faith, the strongest child of God, is as weak and frail as the apple of your eye, as the pupil. It's just a weak and frail member, the strongest in the faith. But notice here, it says Christ keeps us as the apple of His eye. He's keeping you as the member of His own body. He's keeping you just like you would keep your The pupil of your eye, He's keeping you like you're the apple of His eye. That's how He's keeping you who are His. The word there in the Hebrew is, He encircled them. He encircled them. His child, everyone born of His Spirit, we're one with Christ. We are really and truly members of His flesh and of His bone. We are members with Christ. His church is His body and each believer is a member in particular of His body. And He's keeping every member of His body as the apple of His eye, as the apple of His eye preserved in Christ Jesus. No enemy shall prevail no weapon shall injure us. We're counted as sheep for the slaughter by this world. That's what they consider us, but we're more than conquerors through Christ that loves us. We're kept, Peter said, by the power of God through faith unto salvation. We have an eternal inheritance ready to be revealed. And here's, you know, when you want to be assured, just always The reason we always go to the cross is because that's where you see the righteousness of God. And everything God does, He does in righteousness. It is righteous for God to show you mercy because He justified His people at Calvary. He fulfilled His law at Calvary. It's just for Him to show us mercy. And because He justified us at Calvary, that same righteousness demands that he not lose one of his sheep, and he won't lose one of his sheep. He will keep us as the apple of his eye. It's just, brethren, for you and me to be merciful to one another. We see here in every trial The true elect children of God murmured. If you go back and you read those trials, Moses had his fair share of sin in it too. Aaron did. Miriam did. The true elect child of God is a sinner still. And the just thing for me and you to do knowing it's God that justifieth, knowing it's Christ that died, that's risen again, that's seated at God's right hand interceding for us, and knowing that every one of His people died in Him and rose in Him and are seated there with Him, that He's interceding for every one of His people, that He found His child, He's leading His child, He's instructing His child, The best thing and the right thing, the just thing for you and me to do when we sin, when your brother or your sister sin, is to be merciful to them and forgive them. And the unjust thing is not to be merciful and forgive them. Well, I just don't know if they'll believe it. That is not your and my business. That's not our business. If we're not careful, we cross the line and start trying to crawl into the judgment seat. Judgment belongs to the Lord. If a person professes to believe Christ, you take them at their word. You don't know their heart. I don't know their heart. You believe them. Don't you want your brethren to treat you that way? And because if they are his, and you always give the benefit of the doubt, if they are his, to condemn them and judge them is to judge Christ. And James said that's not doing the law, that's being a judge of the law. There's one lawgiver. the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is able to save. He's able to make His people stand. He's keeping every one of His people as the apple of His eye. Sometimes we can do some foolish things, real foolish things, and sometimes we can continue in them a long time. But He will not fail to keep His people as the apple of His eye. He delivered every one of them every one of them into the promised land, His people. And He's going to deliver all His elect into that promised glory with Him and there won't be one lost. This is true. This is the believing sinner's path right here. He found Him in a desert, in a desert land, in a wasteland wilderness. He led Him about He instructed him and he kept him as the apple of his eye. That will be said of every one of the children of God. And you know what was said of Abraham at the end of all his days? After everything Abraham went through, the ups, the downs, the crooked, the straight, everything he went through at the end of his life, it was said, and the Lord blessed him in all things. That's what will be said of you. You trust him. You look to him. Amen. Father, we thank you for this word. Lord, we thank you that beginning to end, you are the salvation of your people. Thank you for the trials, Lord, that you teach us by. Thank you for the gospel whereby you instruct us. We thank you, Lord, that you're our teacher, that you keep us as the apple of your eye. Lord, how thankful we are that you do it all in the person of your son, for his sake, according to his righteousness, or keep us looking to Him. Keep us knowing Him. Grow us in the grace of knowledge of our Lord Jesus. It's in His name we ask it. Amen.