All right, so always fun to have David here. And it is fun how he exposes the word. We rejoice in the word that he gives us from God's word. I want to remind you that there will be an offering plate as you leave the auditorium today. Please be generous in your giving a beloved offering for our brother, Brother David. Good morning. I give honor to our great, our worthy God, who is deserving of all praise, and I magnify him this morning, the one eternal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the trinity of his blessed and sacred persons. I am grateful to him, my brothers and sisters, for the privilege to be with you once again, and so soon, two weeks. That's kind of a record after last year, so I'm glad for it, and we are grateful for God's goodness and for the opportunity to enjoy that worship. Pastor Paul, thank you for leading us in the consideration of his name. What a worthy name. Thank God for the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God for that name that is above every name. We are grateful for that. So glad to know the Lord blessed Pastor Rick with such a good time of ministry and teaching fellowship with God's people down in Ecuador and we rejoice in The privilege of seeing you, my brothers and sisters, again so soon after last year. But it is a new year, and I want us to focus on that somewhat this morning as we tried to do last hour in the Sunday school lesson as we looked at Psalm 1 and Matthew 4 in that time. I want to direct your attention this morning to the book of Exodus, please. And if you would turn with me to the eighth chapter. of the second book of the Bible, the book of Exodus. And I'd like for us to spend some time as we consider on this second Sunday of the new year, 2019, I'd like for us to consider together. Some things that took place in that struggle over the freedom of Israel from their slavery in the book of Exodus is recorded. And in that record, we see something that presents for us a spiritual truth, spiritual lessons for us in our own relationship to the Lord. as we look at what God did. As Moses went down with the mandate to Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, let my people go that they may serve me. By way of a title, I want to give you this, not a hoof left behind. Not a hoof left behind. I'll explain it at the end of the message if you wondered what we're talking about hoof. Brother Dan saw me writing the title on the CD for Brother Bill, and he asked me, does this have anything to do with a longhorn ceremony? I think that's fixed in Brother Dan's memory. But in any event, we want to think together about the compromises that Pharaoh offered to Moses to somehow keep the people of Israel in some measure subjugated in Egypt so that they would not enjoy the full liberty, the full freedom that would have been theirs in obeying Jehovah. And looking at that, what I want us to do is to consider in our own lives spiritually that reality. We're in a new year. Satan wants to offer to us all compromises, and they really run along the same lines, I believe, of what we see in Exodus 8 and Exodus chapter 10. So let's read beginning, please, at the words of... of a verse, why don't we start at verse 20 just to get a little bit of the flavor of the struggle that's going on in the plagues as Moses has delivered the mandate to Pharaoh. In Exodus 8 20 we read, and the Lord said unto Moses, rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh. Lo, he cometh forth to the water and saying to him, thus saith the Lord, let my people go that they may serve me. Else if thou will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses. And the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are. And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, to the end that thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. And I will put a division between my people and thy people. Tomorrow shall this sign be. And the Lord did so. And there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants' houses and into all the land of Egypt. The land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies. And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron and said, go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. And Moses said, it is not meat that is fit so to do, for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God. Lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? We will go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he shall command us. And Pharaoh said, I will let you go that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness, only you shall not go very far away and treat for me. And Moses said, behold, I go out from thee and will entreat the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people tomorrow. But let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully anymore in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. And Moses went out from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. And he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people. There remained not one. And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also. Neither would he let the people go. We wanna think together about these words, and then turn to Exodus 10, and again, consider from them, brothers and sisters, something in the way of the evil one's efforts to cause us to not lay out our all, to give our all to the Lord Jesus Christ. My mother, I remember in my young years, growing up singing a song, all for Jesus, all for Jesus, All my beings ransom powers. That's what God designs for us. As Paul says in Romans 12, two, I beseech you therefore, 12, one, excuse me. I beseech you therefore, brethren, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto him, which is your reasonable service. And then he says, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. God's design is that we live for Christ, but the evil one wants to see that somehow interrupted, somehow overthrown. and in what we see taking place in the struggle in Exodus, we see a spiritual picture. Exodus is indeed a great picture of the redemption we have in Christ, the Passover lamb that is slain in Exodus chapter 12. Paul speaks of it in 1 Corinthians 5 as he says, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. I want us to consider these things together this morning. We've read the word of God, though. May we just pray and ask our God's blessing. on his word. Father, we bow before you in the name of our worthy savior. And as we do, we ask of you that you, by your grace, would bless us as we look to your word this morning. Father, we pray that you would, by your spirit, do what you alone can do. Father, we own our own inability. Father, I acknowledge my own weakness and my own lack of what you must do to feed your people. And I pray, Father, you would do that. Hear us, we pray. Cleanse us afresh, fill us afresh. In the name of the Lord Jesus, amen. Well, as we look at these words where we've read in Exodus chapter eight, I want us to think of what I would like to present to you as the first compromise that Pharaoh offers to Moses as the land of Egypt is being hit by plague after plague, God's bearing down and pressure on Pharaoh and on the nation of Egypt in order to see the people of Israel freed. And as that happens, Pharaoh seeks to strike a bargain with Moses. He seeks somehow to get Moses to soften the terms of what God designs for the Israelites to go and worship him in the wilderness. And that first one is seen there in those words of verse 25. We read there, and Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. If I could sum up what Pharaoh's saying here is, basically he's asking Moses to accommodate the exclusivity of the religion of Jehovah. In other words, he's saying, You don't have to go out from us to worship your God. Worship him here in the land. We've got plenty of gods in Egypt. You can just fit Jehovah in alongside all the other gods. We've got Ra, we've got Osiris, we've got Isis. We've got plenty of gods. We can fit in one more. But Moses knew that that was not the terms on which Jehovah is worshiped. He knew that it's not a matter of fitting our God into the pantheon of the rest of the gods of this world. And so Moses answered Pharaoh with these words in Exodus chapter 8, he said, it is not meet, that is, it's not fit. It's not suitable, so to do, to do this. For we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God. Lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes? And will they not stone us? And then Moses lays it out. We'll go three days journey into the wilderness. Now I'm not sure how large that body of people could, that larger body of people could have traveled in three days, but they'd have gotten a good way from Egypt in doing so. But in the words that Pharaoh offers again, he says, listen, just fit your worship in here in Egypt. Accommodate that exclusivity that you demand for your God. And brothers and sisters, particularly in our land today, but throughout the world, that is the call that you and I are asked to hear and heed, the call to accommodate the exclusive claims of the gospel, the exclusive claims of the Bible for our God. We hear it. when people accuse Christians of being proud and arrogant, when they make statements like Jesus is the only way, or when they quote a scripture such as Brother Paul did. Pastor Paul, when he mentioned Acts 4.12, among those verses that talk about the name, and Peter said this, remember, to the Jewish chief priest in Acts 4.12. He said, neither is there salvation in any other. for there is none other name given among men under heaven whereby we must be saved. That's the name of Jesus and he will not be fit in with the gods of this world. And I tell you plainly, none of the other religious leaders of the world made the claims that Jesus Christ made. I remember years ago reading an article about a Russian Orthodox priest named Alexander Min, Alec I think was his nickname, Alexander Min. He was on the radio in Russia before the wall fell, and he was asked the question, why Christianity? over the other religions of the world. And this man later was assassinated by, it is believed, a group called Pamyat, an anti-Semitic group that put an ax through his skull. Some believe it was done in conjunction with the KGB. After you hear his answer to the question, you might understand why the KGB would have wanted him dead. This was over Russian radio before communism fell in Russia, as he was asked, why Christianity above the other religions? He answered, he said, well, Christianity does have fine morals, he said, but other religions have morality as well. Even Stalinism had some measure of reality. He said, we could answer the Bible, but he said, other religions have their holy books. If we answer the question, why Christianity, he said, uniquely it comes down to the issue of the person of Christ. He said, if we listen to the other leaders of the world, let's hear what they say. He went on to say, Buddha said, he could reach the state of absolute nothingness only by long and hard work. Can we believe him? He said, yes, he's a good man. He got what he worked hard for, absolute nothingness. You want to follow him there and be a nothing? Do so. I don't care to. He went on to say, Muhammad said, he was like a Allah just chose to reveal himself to him. He said, you want to follow Muhammad? Do so. I'd rather not follow a fly myself though. And he said, among the religious leaders of the world, there's only one who says, I am the door. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the resurrection. That's Christ, brothers and sisters. He made claims that no other religious leader made. No prophet, no teacher ever said what Jesus said. Why is that? Because he's unique in his person, and that's why his claims are exclusive. Even Robert Ingersoll, the infidel lecturer who traveled through the West in the 1800s, giving lectures of his unbelief. He recognized that any talk about fitting Jesus in with other religions just won't work. He was an unbeliever, but he saw enough of what Scripture says about Christ to realize there's no way to accommodate the exclusivity. I've actually gotten a little ahead of myself here, because I guess we should have given more treatment to what Moses taught and what Moses said to Pharaoh. For notice, as he speaks about the religious worship of Jehovah, I am the God of the Bible, the Creator God, as he speaks of that, he speaks in terms of sacrifice. Because at the heart of the religion of Scripture, from Genesis onward, is the reality of sacrifice. That is, I do not come to God on the basis of what I have done. I come to God on the basis of the innocent taking my place. I come to God on the basis of substitution, in other words. And when Moses says what he does to Pharaoh about sacrificing the abomination of the Egyptians, remember, the Hebrews, when they went down to Egypt in Genesis, they were shepherds. Now, what do shepherds keep? Sheep. Great. You passed the test with flying colors. You get a smiley face and a check plus on that. And sheep were the common animal that were offered by the Hebrews, but before them, before they became a nation in Abraham, they were the common animal used in sacrifice. Other animals too. We read of Noah when he came down the ark, he offered all the clean animals in worship. The first thing he did when he got off the ark was build an altar and worshiped Jehovah with sacrifice. Where did he get that though? Because that's what had marked sacrifice and worship from the beginning. And we see it in Abel and Cain in Genesis 4. When Cain went to God, he offered what? the fruit of the ground that God had cursed. When Abel went, he offered the first fruits, the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof, the Bible says. And God had respect to Abel and his offering. Now Hebrews 11 tells us in verse four that by faith, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Faith was part of it, but there was more than that. There was a better sacrifice. How did Abel know to offer an animal, not the fruit of a ground that God had cursed like Cain did? How did Abel know that? I believe, brothers and sisters, the answer is found in what took place when our first parents sinned. When Adam and Eve realized they were naked, Genesis 3 says, they put on fig leaves. Now, I may have told you before, but I'm gonna tell you again. I've never warned them. And I don't intend to. And if you see me walking around Schuylkill County with fig leaves on, as we say in the South, you can know I'm a little touched, mentally touched. I don't care if they're dry. I don't care if they're green. But oh, that's a good picture, brothers and sisters. Those fig leaves are us trying to dress ourself up in our nakedness before holy God. Mr. Toplin, he caught it well. Not the levers of my hands can fulfill thy lost demands. Could my zeal no longer know? Could my tears forever flow? These for sin could not atone. Thou must save, and thou alone. and then he went on to say, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling, naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace, foul I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die. And when God met with our parents in the garden and he gave to them something better than fig leaves, didn't he? He gave to them skins. He preached the gospel to them when he did that, because in order for them to have skins, there had to be the death of that animal from which the skins were taken. God was showing that the way to him is through the death of the innocent, the just, suffering for the unjust, as Peter said, 1 Peter 3.18, for Christ also has once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Christ in our place. God preached that to Adam and Eve when he gave them skins. After he proclaimed the good news of the coming seed of the woman, he crushed the head of the serpent. And they believed that message. And Adam called his wife's name Hava in Hebrew, living Eve, because he believed the promise by grace we understand. And when a person believes the promise, what happens? They're justified by faith. And how did God show that? By giving them skins. But think with me about that substitution. God had made it clear, the day you eat thereof, you'll surely die. And now, did man die? We say yes, he died spiritually. But I would submit to you that man died physically that day, but not in himself. He died physically in a substitute. And you and I, every son and daughter of Adam, we will pay for our sins either in our own person in hell, the wrath of God and the lake of fire, or we'll pay for our sins in a substitute. Christ or ourselves. I'm glad for the substitute. And that's what we see in Genesis and that thread runs through into Exodus and then into Leviticus and goes on through. One man called it the scarlet thread of redemption that runs through Holy Scripture. And brothers and sisters, there is in that an exclusivity, there is in that an exclusiveness that can't be compromised. I like the way it was put, I believe, by Dr. Harry Ironside. I may be wrong in the reference to the individual, but many preachers have said it, I'm sure. But on one occasion, Brother Ironside was talking about a man who was telling about how he was trusting to go to heaven because of his works, his good deeds. And Mr. Ironside looked at him and he said, oh, he said, your religion has two letters. I've got a different religion. Mine has four letters. The man looked at him quizzically, what do you mean? He said, oh, your religion, your religion has two letters, D-O, do. He says, my religion has four letters, D-O-N-E, done. And oh, that's the difference between Egypt's religion and the religion of Israel. The religion of scripture is a religion that tells we don't depend on what we've done, not what these hands have done. And Moses knew that religion of grace. And while we think of the law, brothers and sisters, so often in speaking of works, Moses knew that that law was given only to show sinners the promise to Abraham. In other words, The law was given to bring men back to the gospel, back to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the fact of a substitute, and God's only way of salvation in both testaments and throughout the world. Moses knew that. So Moses, when he was offered the opportunity to fit Jehovah, the I am God, Yahweh, in with the gods of Egypt, Moses said, I know that our religion's hateful, and it's still so. First Corinthians one says, the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness. He said, to the Jews it's a stumbling block, and to the Greeks it's foolishness, but unto them which are called, Jew and Greek, Christ the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God. Mr. Spurgeon, I may have told you before, but Mr. Spurgeon received a letter one time from one of his heroes, an anonymous letter. They said to him two things. One of them was, the word is covetous, not covetous. Mr. Spurgeon was mispronouncing it. The word, but the second thing was, we know your hands are empty. You don't have to keep telling us. And what they were referring to is, when Mr. Spurgeon preached, so often he'd refer to the words I quoted earlier, Brother Watts, nothing in my hand I bring. And Mr. Spurgeon said, on the first point, he would try to amend himself, say the word right. But on the second point, he had no intention of stopping. Because brothers and sisters, when I come to God, I come with the empty hand of faith. But I come, hallelujah, through the work of Christ, through the work of the substitute, with those empty hands. Faith receives a righteousness that God will accept. If I bring to God hands full of my own righteousness, I'll go to hell. because not what these hands have done can satisfy God. And Moses knew that. Moses would not, by end of the compromise, accommodate the exclusivity. Drop down with me, please, though, and notice the next one. Moses says clearly in verse 27, we will go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he shall command us. And Pharaoh said, I will let you go that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness. Only you shall not go very far away in treat for me. Now Moses had just said three days journey, but now Pharaoh says, go ahead, but don't get out of the reach of Egypt. Don't go too far. Don't go overboard about your religion and get away from the amenities and the benefits of Egypt. Moses had said three days journey. Now again, I don't know how long that would be. I would surmise it could easily have been three days journey. Even though they had a multitude, it could easily have been 50 to 60 miles. I know Dan, y'all did PT in Marine Corps. And I know y'all could run probably three miles. How much time, brother? 18 to 28 minutes. 18 to 28 minutes. These people would not have been running. They would not have been Marine Corps PT, physical training, right? But in their walking, I'm satisfied in three days journey, they could have gone 50 to 60 miles easily. Not easily. Not easily. OK. OK. Thank you. I wanted some backup here, and I got it. So you can revise that 40 miles if you want to say. A mile can be walked in 20 to 30 minutes, right? 15, all right. And that's if you're really aerobically working, right? So if we, you know, that's what I'm kind of going by. So they would have been a good way. And Pharaoh's next compromise is don't go very far away. Don't remove yourself that far from Egypt. And that's another of the things. If one will accept the gospel, if one will buy into the gospel, Pharaoh, Satan says, don't get carried away with it. Don't get foolish about this stuff. After all, half the people in the crazy house are religious people. Don't get too wild. Don't get fanatical. And you know what's funny to me is, What do we call a man who likes a sports team, a woman who likes a sports team? We call them fans. You know what fan is, though? That's a short form of fanatic. But if you get up, Now, I've been to Happy Valley, saw the scrimmage game one time. We had a man in the church that served in Duncannon that his son was on the team, and so we got tickets to the, I think they call it the blue-white game, is that right? The scrimmage game in the spring, and I remember, and I've seen pictures of Happy Valley, I've seen pictures of other football teams, and you've noticed how they do when their team scores, right? I want you to see me. When their team scores, they look at their neighbor and say, isn't that wonderful? Our team just scored a touchdown. Yes, I think that's so nice. That's not what they do, is it? Oh, they jump up and down. They spill their drink. They yell, they whoop, you know, all of that. And yet, the evil one tells you, don't go very too far away. Don't get too excited about Jesus. Oh, brothers and sisters, what can we say to that? He left the splendor of heaven knowing his destiny. was the lonely hill of Golgotha, there to lay down his life for me. Oh, even in death he remembered the thief hanging by his side. He spoke in love and compassion and took him to paradise. Oh, if he loved me like that, I'll tell you, that's worth getting overboard about for time and eternity. We should be able to say what Paul said. One aspiration fills my mind now, Philippians three, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. And I believe he means by that whether in life, being alive when the Lord returned, or in death, having gone the way of death and being resurrected. Brothers and sisters, it's ours to save. As we look at him, and I love the way Peter answered in John chapter six. Some of you remember when the disciples had heard Jesus preach in the synagogue at Capernaum. And he said, you must eat my blood and drink my, eat my flesh and drink my blood. And they said, this is a hard saying. Who can hear it? Of course, he was talking about substitution. And as many of his disciples no longer walked with him, Jesus turned to the 12 and said, will you also leave me? I love what Peter said. To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we know and are persuaded that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. That's what my soul realizes. Oh, I'm glad for kind and nice things in life, but brothers and sisters, I know this, I'm a sinner. I need a Savior, and there's only one qualified to be that Savior. and living for Him is what really matters in life. Laying my all out for the Lord Jesus Christ. The shame of my life is I don't live more for Him. The world says, Satan says to you, child of God, don't go too far away. Don't go overboard. But our response is to be Christ is all. Christ is our life. For me to live is Christ, to use the words of Philippians 121. To die is gain. That was the heart of the apostle. That must be our heart, not, brothers and sisters, to avoid the excess, to avoid what the world calls extremism. If a man who names the name of Allah is willing to take his life to kill a few infidels, While we do not subscribe to that, praise God, brothers and sisters, may our zeal for him, the Lord Jesus Christ, outshine that kind of zeal, misguided, false zeal, but may our zeal outshine that by the grace of God in 2019. That was the call, that was the second compromise. But if you would, drop over with me to chapter 10, please. And I want you to notice another of the things that is asked by Pharaoh of Moses. This time, the... locusts are going to come, that's the plague that is threatened in Exodus 10, those opening verses. And in the midst of the threat of those locusts, filling everything, the houses in Egypt, the pharaoh's servants, pharaoh's house itself, more locusts than they'd ever seen before in their history as a people. And in verse seven of Exodus 10, we read this, the response of Pharaoh's servants. And Pharaoh's servants said unto him, how long shall this man be a snare unto us? Let the men go that they may serve the Lord their God. Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh, and he said unto them, go, serve the Lord your God. But who are they that shall go? And Moses said, we will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go, for we must hold a feast unto the Lord. And he said unto them, let the Lord be so with you, as I will let you go and your little ones. Look to it, for evil is before you, not so. Go now, ye that are men, and serve the Lord. For that ye did desire, and they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. Here there's another compromise that's offered. Pharaoh calls him back. After the servants address him, they give Pharaoh a reality check. Don't you realize how bad off Egypt is? Let this man get out of here. And so he calls for Moses and Aaron. And as he does, he said, who's going? We'll go all of us, young and old, our little ones. Pharaoh says, no, y'all go right ahead, you and your little ones. And then he changes his tune. He's saying that, it seems, in sarcasm. And he says, no, not so. Go you that are men and serve Jehovah. But leave your children in Egypt. And I would say to you, brothers and sisters, that's another compromise that Satan offers to believers. You go ahead, serve the Lord yourself. But Egypt has excellent babysitting services. Leave your children in Egypt. Let us look after them. And I'm afraid in our country today, that compromise is one that has been accepted by many Christian parents. For in the midst of the affluence that marks our country, the prosperity we've seen, in the midst of that, many parents will be glad if their child has a college degree and is making a six-figure salary in their adult life, but oh, they never go to church, they never give evidence to the Lord. And somehow it seems to, They just don't think, but they're lost. What our Savior said in Mark 8, what shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose their soul? You and I can apply to this compromise to accept an exemption, that is to accept the exemption of our children from knowing him. What shall it profit our children if they gain the whole world and lose their soul? You see, when I was a young boy, some of you may have seen this in Pennsylvania when I was growing up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, one of the TV stations. Before the late news came on, there would be a commercial, just a brief, little brief public service announcement. It would have the clock showing 11 and it would say it's 11 o'clock, where are your children? Brothers and sisters, that's a good spiritual thing to apply to what Moses is asked here by Pharaoh, the compromise. Accept the exemption. Let your children be exempt from going and worshiping Jehovah with you. Ah, brothers and sisters, God's blessed my wife and me, Terri, with six children. And one of the greatest blessings I have, and I thank God for grace, and I realize God must do the work. But under God, we should do all we can to bring them up in a gospel way. to see them come to know him. One of the greatest joys I have is talking with my children about the things of God, hearing them pray, having the opportunity to ask them to leave, pray for me. God grant us that we wouldn't leave our children in Egypt. I am bound for the promised land, thank God, but oh, how much better will heaven's joys be if they're with me there? Oh, celebrating worthy as the Lamb, glorifying and honoring Him. This is something that Moses will not buy into. He will not accept this compromise. Leave your children here. Accept an exception in your departure. Accept an exemption. Leave your children here. You adults go worship. I want you to notice the final one, please. It's found there toward the end of chapter 10. If you would, notice it there in verses 24 and following. And by the way, you'll hear our title in these words. So I invite you to remember our title, not a hoof left behind. In verse 24 of Exodus 10, we read, and Pharaoh called unto Moses and said, go ye, serve the Lord. Only let your flocks and your herds be stayed. Let your little ones also go with you. And Moses said, thou must give us also sacrifices and burn offerings that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with us. There shall not an hoof be left behind. For thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God. And we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither. The final compromise, I would present it to you this way, to abandon the economy of life, the economy of our possessions, that is, our stewardship. Pharaoh offered that to Moses, and may I say to you, Satan offers that to us. Abandon the stewardship of your possessions and of your life on earth. Go ahead, go to Canaan, but back in Egypt, But brothers and sisters, I love the way Moses answers that. Leave your cattle here in Egypt. You go take your children too, but leave your possessions here in Egypt. And Moses' words point out the dedication of everything to Jehovah, the God of Israel. His words in verse 25 suggested, thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings. Thou may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Now notice he doesn't say, we're going out in the wilderness. We're gonna have to have some hamburger to eat. No, no, we're going out in the wilderness. We're gonna have to have something to sacrifice to our God. Why? God first. What does Deuteronomy six, four, and five say? Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, all thy might, all of it given over to him. And because of that, in the sphere of our possessions, he comes first. There's a stewardship, an economy of life that is mine, for what I have isn't given me for the honor of David Morris. Oh yes, it's given me for my use, but it's given me that I might glorify God. My monies, my house, my clothes, my food. For what does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 10 31? Whether therefore you eat, or you drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. And Moses is called that. Listen to how he goes on to express it in verse 26. Our cattle also shall go with us. There shall not an hoof be left behind, for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God. Notice in the middle of verse 26, that statement of Moses that is a philosophy of life, a philosophy of stewardship. for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God. In other words, our possessions are ours so that we can serve God with it. That's a view of life. Now, brothers and sisters, we aren't in the New Testament yet. We're in the second book of the Bible. But here is a philosophy, a perspective on stewardship of our possessions. What are they for? To serve the Lord. And that's something we as God's people, we must come to grips with. Though we live this side of the cross, we too must not accept that compromise that would say, abandon the economy, give up the stewardship of trying to give your possessions to God. No, may we have the heart, brothers and sisters, of a Miss Habergel. May we say, take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. Take my moments and my days. Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my silver and my gold. Not a mite would I withhold. Take my life and it shall be only always all for thee. All for Jesus. There's one of them. Take my love, my Lord, I pour at thy feet its treasure store. Brothers and sisters, those words of Ms. Havergill, I believe, well summarize what Moses' heart was toward Pharaoh's offers, bargain, compromise. May you and I as his people today, living this side of the cross, may we as his people, may we say all for Jesus, all for Jesus. May we say this year, 2019, with fresh surrender, fresh resolve, may we say in our lives, Oh, for Christ this year. May we love him like that. May we live for him like that. And brothers and sisters, what I preached to you this morning, let me remind you, I'm preaching to myself too. Oh, that my life would be more given over, dedicated in these areas and every area to the Lord Jesus Christ. For he is worthy. He is worth it. If today you've never come to see Christ as the exclusive Savior and you need to trust Him, I would say to you right now, run to Christ. Believe on His name. As a sinner, go to Him and realize that you can't save yourself by the works of your own hand, but that His work at the cross is absolutely able and sufficient and powerful to save. Go to Him. For us who know Him, may we as well continue to uphold that exclusive claim of our Lord, but also live for him in these areas. Let's pray. Father, we ask you now to bless your word. Father, I pray you'd challenge my brothers and sisters, you'd challenge my heart through your word that we may not, we would not, Father, we'd resolve not to be seduced, Father, by the world, by the evil one, by the Egypt of this world, the Pharaoh of this world, the God of this world, the Satan, the evil one. Father, may we say, I am resolved no longer to linger, charmed by the world's delight, things that are higher, things that are nobler, these have allured my sight. Hear us, Father, we pray. Help us, we ask. Give us grace to live for Him who died, who lives for us. In his name we ask, amen.