10 and we might read again from verse 27. Exodus chapter 10 and verse 27, Moses was entreated by Pharaoh and at last Moses said, you can go but you can't take your cattle. And we read in verse 27, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart that he would not let them go. And Pharaoh said unto him, Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more, for in that day thou seest my face, thou shalt die. Moses said, Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face no more. Verse 28. Pharaoh said unto him, get thee from me, take heed to thyself, that thou seest my face no more, for in that day thou seest my face, thou shalt die. Pharaoh said, take heed to yourself. If we were summing up this verse and trying to sum up what Pharaoh actually said, we might say what he's saying is, I've had enough. I've had enough. Pharaoh had had enough of Moses and Moses' God, especially Moses' God, Jehovah, God over all, the one and only true God. Moses' God is a God of holiness, truth, and he demands honesty and upright lives from all men. Jehovah challenged the gods of Pharaoh and Pharaoh's people. These Egyptians worshipped many strange gods and God challenged each and every one of these gods in turn as to their intelligence and as to their strength. They had a river god. Jehovah turned the river into blood and their god could do nothing. They had a frog god, and God sent a plague of frogs that the frog god could not control. They had a god of insects, and Moses sent, or rather God sent, a plague of locusts. And the insect god had the intelligence or the wherewithal to keep the locusts in control. And so it went on. They had a God of flies and so on and so forth. Jehovah, the God of the whole earth, showed Pharaoh and his people that they were powerless before him, that their gods were absolutely hopeless. Jehovah, the God of the whole earth, showed that they had no intelligence, They had no power before the true God. And God challenged Pharaoh's hard heart and made it even harder. Pharaoh said that one time, okay, if that's the case, you can go, but you're not taking your cattle. He wanted it, he wanted them to go on his terms, and God said no. Pharaoh had no pity. Pharaoh had no compassion on this people who would be going out into the desert place. God challenged Pharaoh's seared conscience, but Pharaoh had no thought of the evil that he lived and the evil way in which he treated God's people. He had no tenderness for the children and for the mothers with child who would be sent out not knowing where they would go. Jehovah had said, let my people go or else I will destroy your firstborn. Jehovah is the one and only God who challenges all men everywhere. to reveal to them what is right, what is decent, what is good. And when nations and governments and powers will not take this challenge to heart, then He will turn them over more and more to their evil ways. Pharaoh said, I've had enough. And that's the cry of the world today. I've had enough of you Christians. I've had enough of your God. I've had enough of your Bible. I've had enough of your rules and regulations. I want to be free of all these rules and regulations. The world of unbelief, however, is still a very religious world. And it has even more than ten gods that the gods of the people of Egypt, Pharaoh and his people had. Gods of their own making. Money is one. I'm amazed that it costs so much to get into a football match. For a father, perhaps, to take his two sons to one of the really big matches. I'm amazed how much it costs. and men and women are willing to pay. And these football players, some of them, are earning millions and millions for playing a sport. Money of itself is good to buy and sell. One grows the grain and he sells it to the baker to make bread. There had been an in-between who made the flour. The baker makes the bread and he sells it and so on. But the world is making a God of money. The money God gets people to want more and more and more and more and they never have enough and they forget the poor. Our government Our members of Parliament in London and in Edinburgh and Wales and Ireland, they've never lacked a penny. But how many have been unemployed in this pandemic? Did they say, OK, we'll cut our salary in half? Not one of them. Not one. The God of the Bible challenges all gods. He challenges the God of science, who some, most in science, want to tell us that the earth began 46 million years ago with a great big bang and evolution has followed on. God of the Bible challenges all of this. But the world is saying more and more to us, I've had enough of you. I've had enough of your God. I've had enough of how and how you want me to live, and what laws and way of living you want me to follow. I've had enough of your God." And Pharaoh turned to Moses and said, take heed to yourself. Go. And the day I see your face, I will kill you. I will utterly destroy you. and your God will be utterly destroyed. I've had enough of the lies you tell you Christians. You tell me you believe the Bible's creation account that God made all things very good in six days and he rested the seven and that's how he wants us to live now. You know the communist world for a while went to a ten day week, nine days working and one off. They were in total confusion. It just did not work and they had to go back to the seven day week. You tell me the Bible stories from Adam and Eve are true and I'm telling you they are myths. You tell me that God says one man and one woman is a marriage, a true marriage. I don't believe that. I have other ways of thinking. I have other ways of acting. and I've had enough of your preaching not just your God and not just what you're trying to how you're trying to guide this world but I've had enough of your preaching give me moral teaching and I'll take it good and wrong and we'll debate what's wrong and we'll debate what's good and we'll come to no conclusion so everybody can do what they please And especially when you preach Christ as the Son of the Eternal God, that really makes me sure that I've had enough of you. And when you preach this Christ as the only Savior from sin, and the only one who can guide us in our living, I've had enough of you. And when you preach Christ and Him crucified as a blood atonement for our wrongdoing, Who do you think we are? Fools? I know whom I have believed. What a wonder to be able to say that. I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that what I have committed to Him, He will keep until He comes again. I've had enough of you Christians. take heed to yourself. And now I want us to skip over to Exodus 34. Exodus chapter 34 and verse 12. Exodus 34, verse 12. We might read from verse 11. God had said in verse 10, I will make a covenant before all the people, I will do marvels. Verse 11. Observe thou that which I command thee this day. Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, Canaanite, Hittite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite. And then verse 12, Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, whither thou goest, lest it be a snare in the midst of thee. Now God is taking up the same language to speak to his people. And God is saying to his people, not Pharaoh, not the gods of this world. God is saying to his people, take heed to thyself. I've made a covenant with thee, my people. Take heed to thyself. God has his take heeds. The first is that you do not join the world out of fear, out of thinking that if we join with the world then we can live in peace with the world. Take heed to thyself. The world cannot live in peace with the Christian unless through the power of the gospel. Gospel revival has swept through a land And then we discover that the gospel has such an effect, even on those that don't believe. And in the old days, you wouldn't find them washing their cars on the Lord's day. You wouldn't find them digging their gardens on the Lord's day. They may not have all been converted, but they were all so impressed with the gospel and the gospel living of God's people. Take heed. if you think of joining with the world. And take heed when the world appears to be speaking a bit of truth, or, as we might have said years ago, common sense. But today, there is not a sense that is common to all men. There are common senses, because different people have different sense about what is right, about what is wrong, about how we should live, Take heed if the world appears to speak a bit of truth. You see take heed to your eyes because we see some of the things that the world would bring before us and we think that would be worth following. Take heed with your ears what you hear because we can get used to things on our radio and television screens and think Well, yeah, I can suffer this bit of this film because of how it ends. No, you can't. God wouldn't have it in his eyes. God wouldn't have it in his ears. Take heed what you touch. Yes, because our fingers and our tongue would taste many good things that the world has to offer. And God says you watch it. Take care. Don't be fooled. And take heed when the world is very persuasive, a little can't hurt you. I remember a Christian girl telling me that when she was in university in Aberdeen, there were four or five girls in the flat, two of them professing faith, and the other three girls were going out for a night on the town. And the Christian girl out and out said, I'll come with you. And one of these unconverted girls turned to her and said, you will not. You are not coming with us. You are a Christian. And we can see that. And where we are going is no place for Christians. Never mind her. I'm talking to you. The world can be persuasive. They can touch and twist and make things so attractive. Take heed, stay out of ungodly unions. I don't need to say any more about that. And now let's turn to another scripture, Deuteronomy chapter 4 and first of all in verse 9. Chapter 4 and verse 9. And look at verse 7, For what nation is there so great, Who hath a God so nigh unto them? God is near to his people, as the Lord our God in all these things that we call upon him for. And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I have set before you this day? Only take heed to thyself. and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life, but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons, and so on. Take heed to thyself. Is there a God so near to his people as Jehovah? Is there a God so near to His people as the Lord Jesus Christ, God and man? Is there a God so near to His people, indwelling even their hearts, as God the Holy Spirit? Take heed to thyself and don't forget what your eyes have seen of God's things. of God's ways and learned of God's blessings in days gone by. You have seen God's people weep and heard their groans. And what a blessing that can be when they are weeping to God, weeping for their sins, weeping for their poverty, weeping that there's nothing in the house to put on the table. Can you imagine sitting for a meal and all that is there on your plate are lettuce leaves? There's not even a pepper pot or a salt shaker. Absolutely nothing else. And mum and dad and the three children are standing there pleased as punch because they've got something to give you. And you're eating their meal all to yourself. They didn't know that we had food in the car, but they gave out of their poverty. And I know that the mother weeps, was weeping at times because she had nothing for her little ones. Not a thing. And what she did have, the lettuce, she was giving to us. And you have seen God's people weep for sin, their own sin and the sin of the nation. You have seen God's people weep for their sins when they have believed and have gone back into sin and have turned away from God, have turned away from the church. And yet God has spoken to them and taught them how to take heed to themselves and they have turned to Him. And you have seen God's people in prayer And you have seen them grow in grace and understanding of the Word. You have seen them grow in their knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and how it has softened them and how it has rounded off the rough edges. And you have been so glad to see God's people taking heed of themselves. And you have seen them grow in love. and in tenderness, and in patience, love towards God and Christ and the Spirit, and love towards each other. And when they meet with genuine Christians from other denominations, other groups, you have seen Christ in them. And yes, as the Indians in our mission, that was part of our mission in India, when they were singing the Psalms, they couldn't help but sway. They couldn't help but move their bodies. They couldn't help but shuffle where they stood singing the Psalms of David. Were they wrong? Oh, we see God's people grow in grace and we see them teach their families, their children and their children's children. Thou wilt guide me by thine eye, said the psalmist. We cannot see God. What does it mean when God says, I will guide you with my eye? Well, the little fellow, I'm excusing the ladies tonight, but the little fellow is doing something that he shouldn't be doing. And dad comes quietly and sees him doing it, and the little fellow looks up to dad, and dad doesn't say a word. But the little fellow can see in his dad's eyes that what he's doing, he shouldn't be doing. or perhaps we will bring in the ladies and there's a little girl and she's trying to make something perhaps for a baby brother and she's striving and she's having to start from the beginning again and again and mum comes in and she looks at mum and her eyes are smiling and the little one thinks I'm on the right way at last You have seen God's people teach their children in so many different ways. Because when the child was asleep, the parent was weeping before God, give me my children. Give me my children for Christ. Well, there's a few others we might not get to all of them, but we'll have a go. And we'll turn to Deuteronomy chapter 12. and verse 13. Deuteronomy chapter 12 and verse 13. Now this is concerning the worship of God and the offering of sacrifices. And in verse 13 God says to his people, take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest. And every place that seems good to you is not good to me, because God says, I have set a place where you are to worship. This is congregational worship. This is a drawing together, as God has commanded, of God's people to worship together in the place that God has set, and to offer the sacrifice that God has said. not a sacrifice that we may want to give or imagine we should give, but the one that God has set before us. Take heed to thyself. Wherever you go, I have set up a place for my worship. That's where I want you to be. That's where I want you to come together in the public worship. Our eyes, minds, hearts, and bodies We'll have no difficulty in finding places that suit us. Oh, it'd be nice if just round the corner from Pinewood Place there was a church. Then we wouldn't need to get into the car and drive about 30 miles. It would be nice. Oh, there is a church there. Maybe I could go. No, they're offering strange sacrifices in that place. Jehovah, the true God, He has set places for his people to gather. Take heed, and in verse 19, take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest upon the earth. The Levite didn't have a piece of ground to cultivate for him and his family. He was dependent upon the gifts of God's people. as our own pastors, as our own ministers, as our missionaries. It is our duty to provide for them as long as we live. And take heed to do that gladly, laying aside as the Lord enables you. And look at the same chapter in verse 30, Or verse 29, When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whether thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land, take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them. After that they be destroyed from before thee, and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? Even so will I do likewise. Surely I can learn something from them." And God says, no way. No way. Take heed. Take heed as you are maturing, as you are growing in grace, coming to the river that we all must cross. Take heed in youth, middle age, old age. Take heed. Don't follow them. Don't follow their ways. Don't get trapped up into how they do things. Many, many are the things that other churches, other places would give us. That seems so enticing. take heed to thyself. And finally, over in 1 Samuel chapter 19, 1 Samuel chapter 19, and we'll read verse 1 and 2. And Saul speak to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David. And Jonathan told David, saying, Saul, my father seeketh to kill thee now. Now therefore, I pray thee, take heed to thyself until the morning, and abide in a secret place, and hide thyself. Take heed to thyself, I pray thee, until the morning, and abide in a secret place and hide thyself. Take heed to thyself, dearly beloved." Jonathan and David had a wonderful love for each other. It was a heart love. It was a heart that they would do anything at all for each other's safety and each other's well-being. Jonathan who might have been king, the world would say, Jonathan, you're the next king. You're in line. And Jonathan said, no. God has chosen another to replace my father. And I love him. And I'm happy that he will serve. Take heed to thyself, for the world is seeking to destroy in so many subtle ways And I love what Jonathan said, take heed until the morning, until the shadows flee away, until heaven in all its glory beams into your souls and the angels call for you. And as you have been clothed in the righteousness of Christ, your robes made white in the blood of the lamb. Take heed until the morning. That's all God is asking of us. Our day is a tale that is told. The grass grows, the grass withers, so are we. And God says, all I'm asking is that you take heed until the morning. until the morning glory, and take heed and abide in a secret place just until the morning. O my dove that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret place of the storm, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. In the rock of ages cleft for me. Let me hide myself in it? No. Let me hide myself in thee. In the wounds of his hands and side and feet. Let me hide in the cleft of the rocks. Let me hide in my Saviour who was so sore wounded just until the morning. That's all. That's not a long time to abide in Christ. A hundred lifetimes, twenty thousand lifetimes is not long to take heed to yourself and hide in Christ until the morning.