Part 53
strongest telescope, when he can see beyond death–and see beyond the Judgment Seat and see right into Heaven and there behold the Lamb leading His glorified flock to the living fountains of waters, and the saints, with tearless eyes, forever bowing before the Throne of God and the Lamb! God is not ashamed to be called the God of the people who can do this! God is ashamed to be called the God of you blind people, whose eyes have never been opened. But when He opens your eyes, then He becomes your God and He is not ashamed to be so called, for He it is that gives us this blessed power to see! Until spiritual sight is thus bestowed upon us, we are blind. But when God has given us sight, then He is not ashamed to acknowledge us as His children, nor is He ashamed to acknowledge that He, Himself, is our God!
I appeal to you whom I am now addressing and ask whether you can see God's promises afar off? There are some who say, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Yes, it may be so with the poor birds that sing here, but, for my part, I am willing to wait till I can have the one in the bush if it is in the bush that burned with fire because God was there! You may have the bird in the hand, if you will. You will soon pluck off its feathers, it will speedily die in your hand and there will come an end to it. But there are other birds which, as yet, we cannot reach, but which are really ours, and if we cannot at present grasp them, we are willing to wait God's time– because we can see that they will be in our hands in the future, we can already see them "afar off." Unhappy is the man who sees nothing but what he calls, "the main chance," or who sees nothing but that which is within a few feet of him. Wretched, indeed, is he who lives only to get money, or to gain honor–whose whole life is spent in the pursuit of personal comfort, but who never had his eyes opened enough to see the eternal things, and who never was able to set a value upon anything but what could be paid for with pounds, shillings and pence. Beloved, have you seen the promises afar off?
Has the Lord opened your eyes to see eternal things? Then it is written concerning you, also, "Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God."
Now pass on to the next sentence, for every word is fruitful with meaning–"and were persuaded of them, and embraced them." They were people who rejoiced in things unseen. You will find that, in the Revised Version, the words,"persuaded of them," are left out, and very properly so, for there is no doubt whatever that they were not in the original, but were added by somebody who wished to explain the meaning to us. The Greek is properly rendered, "but having seen them afar off, greeted them," but I like, even better, the translation, "embraced them." It means that as for the things which are promised to us, if we are Believers, like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we have, from afar, seen those promised things and we have welcomed them. Or, to use our Authorized Version, we have "embraced them." We have pressed them to our bosom, we have hugged them to our heart, we have loved them in our very soul, we have rejoiced in them! They have filled our spiritual nature full of music and all the bells of our being are ringing merry peals because of the blessed promises of our God. Now, when a man is of that mind, God is not ashamed to be called his God!
Let me ask you then, dear Friend–What is it that you are embracing? Is it some earthly thing? Does your heart love and cling to that which you can see, and touch and handle? Is that your chief delight? Then God is ashamed to be called your God because you are an idolater! You are worshipping some created thing. But if you can say of Christ, "He is all my salvation and all my desire," then God is not ashamed to be called your God. Remember what David said–"Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart," for God is able to give to a man his desires when all his heart is delighting in his God–and God is not ashamed to be called his God. The Lord's love is not set upon merely material objects. The infinite heart of God loves truth, righteousness, purity and everything that is holy and glorious. And if your heart does the same, God is not ashamed to be called your God. But if you do not love these things, you have neither part nor lot in God–you are a stranger to Him and, though I speak this solemn Truth of God in gentle language, I pray that it may drop like lye upon your spirit and burn its way into your very soul! What an awful thing it must be to be without God–to have no part nor lot in Him–never to be able to say, "My God, my Father," but only to speak of Him as a God–an unknown God, another man's God, but no God to you! May it not be so with you, my Friends! If you can say that you have seen the promises from afar and have, by faith, embraced them, then God is not ashamed to be called your God.
Pass on to the next sentence–"and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." They acknowledged that they were not at home here. Abraham never built a house! Isaac never lived anywhere but in a tent and, though Jacob tried to dwell in a settled habitation, he got into trouble through it and he was bound, still, to be a tentdweller. The reason why they lived in tents was because they wanted to show to all around them that they did not belong to that country. There were great cities with walls which, as men said, reached to Heaven, but they did not go to dwell in those cities. You remember that Lot did, yet he was glad enough to get out again–"saved, yet so as by fire." But Abraham, Isaac and Jacob kept away from other men, for they were commanded to dwell alone and not to be numbered among the nations. Nor were they– they kept themselves apart from other people as strangers and sojourners here below, so, for that very reason, God is not ashamed to be called their God!
Remember how David said to the Lord, "I am a stranger with You, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." That is a very amazing expression–"a stranger with You"–blessed be God, not "a stranger to with You." That is to say, God is a stranger here–it is His own world and He made it, but when Christ, who is the Son of God, and the Creator of the world, came into it, "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." And they soon made Him feel that the only treatment which He would receive at their hands was this–"This is the Heir. Come, let us kill Him, that the inheritance may be ours." There was no man who ever lived who was a truer Man than was Christ the Lord. But there was never a Man who was more unlike the rest of men. He was a homely Man, a home-loving Man to the last degree, yet He was never at home.
This world was not His rest. He had nowhere to lay His head and what was true, naturally, was also true spiritually. This world offered Christ no rest whatever.
Now, dear Friends, how is it with us? Do we belong to this world, or to the unseen? How do you feel about this matter? Do you feel at home here? I think that we are often compelled to cry with the Psalmist, "Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" We wish to do good to others as far as we can. We are men of peace, but when we speak, they are for war and we realize the truth of our Lord's words, "A man's foes shall be they of his own household." The more a man comes right straight out for God, the more opposition he is sure to meet with! Be half-asleep and nobody will say much against you. But wake up and be active for God and for His Christ and you will soon discover that the seed of the serpent still has the serpent's venom in it–and it hates the Seed of the woman as much as it ever did! It must be so and, therefore, always feel that you are only a stranger here and that your business is to go through this world as a traveler passes through a foreign country. He does not speak the language of the people. He does not follow their customs. He is not one of the citizens of the land. He is just a temporary dweller here below and he is on his journey home. If that is the kind of man you are, God is not ashamed to be called your God.
But He is not the God of the earthworms that only want to burrow down into the soil. He is not the God of those who build their nests and say, "Here would we live forever." He is not the God of the man who can say, "Give me a knife and fork, and plenty to eat and drink. Give me suitable clothes to wear in the day and a nice soft bed to sleep on at night. Give me wealth, give me fame–that is all I need–and I will let Heaven go to anyone who wants it!" Jehovah is not the God of Esau, who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage, but He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob who have a heritage that they cannot see, and who count the land in which they dwell to be a place of strangers and of sojourners–and they think of themselves as only strangers and sojourners in it.
Now read on a little further. "For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." The word translated, "country," might, I think be better rendered, "fatherland." "They who say that they are strangers here declare plainly that they seek a fatherland."
The word is sometimes translated, "their own country." "A Prophet is not without honor, save in his own country." It is the same word here in the Greek. It signifies that they sought their owncountry– their fatherland. Therefore God, who is the Father of all His people, and whose Heaven is their fatherland, is not ashamed to be called their God. Now, dear Friends, are you seeking a fatherland? I put the question to every hearer here–Are you looking for a fatherland?
Sir Walter Scott wrote– "Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself has said,
'This is my own, my native land'?
Whose heart has ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he has turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?"
So said the patriot poet and we have said it, too, for we are patriots! But yet I venture to say that this is not my home, this is not my fatherland–"I'm but a stranger here!Heaven is my home."My fatherland lies out of sight, beyond the everlasting hills, where God dwells and where Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. Now, the men who, by Grace, have been brought to say this, "We are out of our own country, we are seeking a fatherland," these are the people of whom it is written, "Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God."
Paul goes on to say, "And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from where they came, they might have had opportunity to have returned." Brothers and Sisters, this is another characteristic of Believers–we have left the worldas our home, and joy, and comfort, to seek a better country, but we may go back if we like.
There is no compulsion to keep a man a Christian but the compulsion of love. He who is enlisted in the army of Christ may desert if he pleases, but the blessed Grace of God will hold us so that we shall do no such thing! We have plenty of opportunities to return. Oh, how many invite us to turn back! I know how they beckon some of you who have lately come out on the Lord's side.
Sometimes it is a female voice that would charm you and there is a great fascination about it, and you have to mind what you are doing lest you become unequally yoked together. Sometimes it is the voice of the world promising you wealth–offering you a better situation, perhaps, if you will go back. But, like Moses, you esteem "the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt."
You have plenty of opportunities to return. There are back entrances to Satan's Kingdom–he does not require you to come in at the front door–he lets you sneak in, again, by the back gate. If you want to go into slavery, again, there are many opportunities of returning! But if you are made by Christ to be, in this respect, like
God, immutable, so that you say, "I cannot turn. I cannot change. I must be what Christ has made me. I must stand fast for truth and for holiness, and stand fast as long as I live, so help me, my God"– if you are able to talk like that, then God is not ashamed to be called your God! Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you can get back to the old country whenever you like. But they never will go back–the deep dividing river rolls between them and that land, even as, today, there rolls between some of us and the world the stream in which we have been buried with Christ and, by God's Grace, we shall never cross it again! And, because of that holy determination, God is not ashamed to be called our God.
I finish up my remarks upon the word, "therefore," which is very full of matter, by noticing how the Apostle says, "But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly." That is to say, instead of going back, we are pressing forwardtowards heavenly things. "God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." "The Father seeks such to worship Him." That is, those who are spiritual, who are seeking after heavenly things with all theirheart. These are they whom God loves, for God is spiritual.
God is heavenly and when He has made us spiritual and made us pant after heavenly things, then He is not ashamed to be called our God.
I have put these points before you as briefly as I could, wishing every moment to be examining myself, and asking you to examine yourselves. Have you a life within you which makes you pant and pine after heavenly things? Whatever you have in this world, do you hold it with a loose hand? Do you feel that it is not your real riches–it is not your true treasure? You know that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were all rich men. God blessed them and gave them a great increase to all that they had, but, still, they did not live simply to gather riches! They did not make that their chief delight. If you had asked them, they would have told you that they were inheritors of a mysterious Covenant by which God had bound Himself to be their God, and the God of their seed. And in that Covenant was included the promise that Christ Himself should come out of their loins–and for Him they waited–He was the hope of their spirit.
Now, dear Friends, if that is the case with you, also, you can understand the meaning of my text, "Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God."
II. I must give but a few minutes to the second part of the text, yet it needs a good deal of thought, for it says, "for He has prepared a city for them." The second pivot word is, "for."
Now go back again to the text in Exodus, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Yet Paul says, "These all died," and we know that our Lord said to the Sadducees, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Is He not ashamed to be called the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, seeing that they all died? No, because they are not dead, though they died, "for He has prepared for them a city." These men, though they lived and died,and passed out of the world without having received the heritage, are not dead! There is the glory of the matter. When they lay a-dying, the devil might have come and said to them, "Now, what have you got by your Covenant with God?
You left father, mother and everything that you had, and went and lived the separated life–and now you are dying out here–what have you got? Nothing but some little holes in the Cave of Machpelah into which they will push your bodies! That is all that you have!"
Oh, but the devil does not know! Or if he does, he is a liar, for they gained everything by that life of faith, for theystill live and God has prepared a city for them. And now they have entered that city! Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are at the very head of the celestial company, for our Lord said, "Many shall come from the east, and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven." And, by-and-by, Machpelah shall yield up her dead and Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Jacob shall live, again, in the fullest sense, for their bodies as well as their souls shall live again! And Joseph's bones, which he would not allow to lie in Egypt–for he would not let the Egyptians have a scrap of him–shall live, and thus, in their flesh, shall they see God and shall rejoice before Him. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called the God of these people who all died in faith because they are still living–and they shall continue to live forever and ever!
Somebody may, perhaps, say that these people did not receive the promises. Well, they did not literally receive thefulfillment of them.
They did not see Christ. They did not witness the descent of the Holy Spirit. They did not hear the Gospel preached. They did not see those wonders that they looked for–so is not God ashamed to be called the God of people who, after all, did not receive the promises? No, because "He has prepared for them a city." They have receivedthe promises now and they shall receive them yet more and more! God will yet cause the Believer's life to be all blessing. Do not be afraid of the consequences of trusting in Christ–you may have the rough side of the road, here, but what we sang, just now, is quite true– "Afflictions may press me, they cannot destroy, One glimpse of His love turns them all into joy!
And the bitterest tears, if He smiles but on them, Like dew in the sunshine, grow diamond and gem!
Let doubt, then, and danger my progress oppose– They only make Heaven more sweet at the close.
Come joy or come sorrow, whate'er may befall, An hour with my God will make up for them all!"
If God gave to His children gall and wormwood to drink here– yes, if they never had anything but aches and pains from the moment of their conversion till they died–yet they would have the best of the bargain, after all, for there is an eternity of bliss in the Heaven which is prepared for them!
But, further, these people were a sort of gypsies, always moving about and living in tents, different from everybody else. Yes, they were strangers among the people where they dwelt. And men often say of us, now, that we cannot be content to go on as other people do. Those Patriarchs were strangers, odd folk, peculiar people. Is not God ashamed to be called their God? No, because they have now gone where they are all right, for their manners and customs are exactly suitable to the place. A very dear old woman, whom I visited when she was dying, said to me, "One thing comforts me, Sir, I do not think that God will ever send me among the wicked, for I never could get on in their company. The best times I have ever had were when I could sit with a few of the Lord's people and hear them talk about Him. And though I could not always be sure that I was, myself, a Christian, yet I was very much like them and I was very happy when I was with them. I think I shall go to my own company, Sir." Yes, dear Soul, and so she did! And if we are strangers here, we are going to that company where we shall not be strangers! They will understand our language when once we get across the river into the King's own country. "Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God" because they speak the language which He speaks, the language of His own courts–and He is not ashamed to say, "These are My people, and I acknowledge them before you all."
Notice, yet again, that these people were seekers and desirers all their lives. "They seek a country." "They desire abetter country." Is this a right state of heart for a Christian–to always be seeking and always desiring? Well, Brothers and Sisters, that is the state in which I often am and I wish, still, to stay in that condition–always seeking, always desiring. Whenever God gives me any spiritual blessing, I always seek more. And if He gives me more, I seek for still more! And if He gives me my heart's desire, I pray Him to enlarge my heart that I may desire some greater gift. For, in spiritual things, we may be as covetous as we like! We may say, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended. But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." And God is not ashamed to be called the God of those who are thus seeking and desiring because He has laid up for them all that they seek! And He has prepared for them all that they desire! I would be ashamed to set a poor person desiring if I could not gratify the desire. I would be ashamed to set a man seeking if I knew that he could not get what he sought after. But because God has prepared a city for these seekers and desirers, He is not ashamed to be called their God!
As I stood, this evening, by the bedside of the dear Brother whom I mentioned to you a little while ago, I could not help saying, "Here is a poor soul covered with boils and blisters, but God is not ashamed to be called his God." And there may be a child of God who is very poor, indeed, with hardly sufficient garments to cover him, but God is not ashamed to be called his God, either. Perhaps his own brother is ashamed to be called his brother. I have even known cases where men have been so wicked as to be ashamed of their own parents because they were not so well off as themselves.
But God is never ashamed of His poor people. Yes, and if God's people are persecuted, and ill-used. If they are covered with mud from head to foot, or if they are cast into prison, God is not ashamed to be called their God. In those days when God permitted
His people to be fastened up to the cross, or when others were taken to the stake and burnt, and everybody hissed at them, and cast out their name as evil, and said that they were the offscouring of all things–God was not ashamed to be called their God!
I am almost ashamed to say what I am going to say. I really feel my very heart blush that I should have to say it. I have known some professors who have been ashamed to call God their God! Is it not strange that the glorious God of Heaven and earth should call a worm His own, and take mean wretches such as we are, and say, "I am not ashamed to be called their God," and yet that some of these creatures should be so miserably cowardly that they are ashamed to be called the people of God? Oh, write His name on your foreheads! Never be ashamed of it! Ashamed of God? Ashamed of Jesus? Ashamed of the Truth? Ashamed of righteousness? I do not wonder that there is such a text as this–"The fearful"–that is the cowardly–"and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
If you really do love the Lord, come out and show yourself on His side! And if He is not ashamed of you and if your prayer is, "Lord, remember me when you come into Your Kingdom," acknowledge
Him as your Lord and Savior now! You who are not members of any Christian Church–you who have believed in Christ, or think you have–and yet have never confessed Him. You who are hiding like rats behind the wall–come out and confess Christ! What are you doing? How can you be soldiers of the Cross and followers of the Lamb if you fear to acknowledge His cause and blush to speak
His name? Come out of your hiding places! May God the Holy
Spirit draw or drive you out at once! If anything could do it, surely, it should be such a blessed fact as this–that you are numbered among those of whom it is said that "God is not ashamed to be called their God."
God bless you, dear Friends, for Jesus' sake! Amen. HYMNS
FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–854, 847, 848.–
Ex 4:22-23; 6:1 • The Great Emancipator
ERMON 1440
The Great Emancipator
"And you shall say unto Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, even My firstborn: and I say unto you, Let My son go, that he may serve Me."
Exodus 4:22, 23
GOD had a people in Egypt. They were His own, the people of His choice. Although they had been grievously oppressed and had sunk into ignominious slavery, His interest in their welfare had in no degree lessened. The Lord's purpose in sending Moses down into Egypt was that He might fetch out that people from among the nations to make them a separate people to Himself that He might give them an inheritance, even the land which flowed with milk and honey and that they might dwell there as witnesses of His Covenant and keep His Testimonies. Now precisely what God was doing towards His people, Israel, in the land of Ham, He is doing towards His own chosen ones throughout the whole world.
From one point of view the object of the Gospel is to gather out from among the nations a people whom He did foreknow, whom He did predestinate, whom He has redeemed unto Himself to be His peculiar heritage. These are to be fetched out from among others. They are to be made a separate people to be brought into a distinct position and to have a distinct experience. "The people shall dwell alone; they shall not be reckoned among the nations" and they are ultimately to be brought to a prepared place for which they are to be especially prepared that they may abide there and that the Lord may verify the thing that He has predicted of them, "They shall be Mine in that day when I make up My jewels."
The work of rescuing perishing sinners out of the present evil world is as worthy of God as the work of delivering Israel out of Egypt. The same right hand of Jehovah, glorious in power, which released the sons of Jacob from the thralldom of Pharaoh, is now stretched out to ransom us from the dominion of Satan! The song of praise to Jesus Christ our Redeemer shall be more exultant than that which Miriam and the daughters of Israel lifted up by the Red
Sea when they said, "Come let us sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously." Indeed, we shall sing at the last, the song of Moses, the servant of God and the song of the Lamb, clearly indicating that the redemption out of Egypt was always meant to be a leading type of the redemption of God's people from out of the midst of the world, for Christ has a people whom He has redeemed from among men, and there is a Church of which it is written, "Christ loved His Church and gave Himself for it."
Now, in the process of bringing out these people of God from among the mass of mankind, God sometimes uses instrumentality just as He did in the former case. He may employ an instrument that is apparently as little adapted for the work as Moses felt himself to be. Yet the work is done and to God belongs the honor of accomplishing it. As for those of us whom He uses, we are more than content to yield the honor to Him. We rejoice in His excellency while we feel that we cannot take to ourselves any credit whatever–for we are less than nothing in His sight–and even in our own sight we are weak and worthless, so that unto God, alone, shall the glory redound when redemption's work is finished and complete!
I invite you to think, first of all, upon the voice of God. According to our text, it is, "Thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, even My firstborn: and I say unto you, Let My son go, that he may serve
Me." When we have dilated a little upon that, we shall need to have a few words upon the voice of man. This was to be the voice of man, "You shall say unto Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord." What God had spoken was to be repeated by His servant, Moses. Then we shall close by noticing, in the third place, the power which was to go with this voice of man. "I will be with your mouth and you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh."
Let us endeavor, then, at the outset, to fix our thoughts upon THE VOICE OF GOD which was a real power to bring up His people out of Egypt. That voice was threefold–asserting His proprietorship in them, demanding their freedom and ordaining their destiny. With imperial authority He claims the people as His own. "Thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, even My firstborn." The Lord knows them that are His and the Lord declared them to be His own with a jealousy of His inalienable right to their allegiance and an assertion of His unfailing interest in their welfare. The children of Israel were, at that time, in a very sordid condition. They were up to their necks in clay, making bricks. They were a band of slaves, degraded, brought down to the lowest condition. They were so spiritless that they submitted to any exaction of the tyrant and when the day of deliverance dawned on them, they could not think emancipation possible, or welcome the joyful change in their prospects.
They had, as a nation, lost the very thought of liberty! It was trodden out. The people seemed as if they must lose their nationality or only retain it as a nation of slaves. Yet all begrimed and beslaved as they came to be, they were still beloved. The Lord loved them! He said, "Israel is My son, even My firstborn." Surely
Pharaoh might have said in his heart, "This is a fine son! What must the God be who says of these brick makers, this abject race, 'This is My son'?" Yes, and these ill-conditioned, unkempt serfs– these debased men and women, He says of them–"Even My firstborn, My son and heir." A man is naturally proud of his son and heir, yet here is the mighty God speaking after the language of mortal men, acknowledging these cheerless, crestfallen, despised and dispirited people and saying, "Israel is My son, even My firstborn."
He was acknowledging them, too, in the teeth of proud Pharaoh, whose firstborn was saluted as a prince of the blood royal when he rode through the land, before whom every knee bowed and to whom, as the son of the great king, homage was constantly rendered. "Israel is My son," says God, "even My firstborn." He is not ashamed of His people! He acknowledged His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sin, just as He loved His people Israel when they were still in bondage and in degradation. "He loved my soul out of the Pit," said one of old. He loved us when we were lying in our blood like an infant cast out unswaddled and unwashed. When no eye pitied us in the day of our nativity and we were cast out in the open field, He passed by and it was a time of love. And He said unto us, "Live."
Oh, wondrous Grace of God, that He acknowledges His son when that son is still an Egyptian slave!
Moreover, God acknowledged His people when they did not acknowledge Him, for His name, "Jehovah," was scarcely known to them. Although Moses presented himself to them with evident credentials, they were ready enough to reject him. We are informed in other parts of the Scripture that they had gone aside to false gods. During their sojourn in Egypt the Israelites fell into the prevailing superstition of the country and they forsook the Lord.
Some little light still lingered among them. Some traditions were treasured and transmitted from sire to son in solemn trust.
Doubtless there was a remnant of pious souls, faithful to the God of Abraham. The bones of Joseph, preserved in Goshen as a memorial of the oath that he took of their tribes, subsequently were carried through all their devious wanderings in the wilderness and ultimately buried in Sechem, as you read in the last chapter of the book of Joshua and they, I say, vouch for a fidelity we cannot wantonly forget.
But the bulk of the people had fallen into the snares which surrounded them and conformed to the fashions of those among whom their fortunes were cast–whose many gods and lords were superstitiously served in secret. They were not a people who could have scraped together so much as a molehill of merit if they had tried! They were a vain and vicious people, prone to supplant, yet utterly supplanted. They were especially sinful because their marked proclivities which might have developed on the side of virtue were perverted into stains and stigmas on their reputation.
Yet Jehovah says, "Israel is My son, even My firstborn." And does the Lord acknowledge His people when they know Him not? Ah, blessed be His name, He does, or else they would never come to know Him! We love Him, now, because He first loved us and if there had not been that antecedent knowledge of us–and love towards us–we had not now been what we now are.
Oh, the freeness and spontaneity of the Grace of God that He should know His people and call them His own even when, as yet, they know Him not! He acknowledged this people by affirming His Covenant. "Israel is My son." He was referring to the Covenant which He had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of old. And the Lord knows His people and shows favor to them, not because of anything personal to recommend them, for there is no superiority in their nature, no brightness in their intellect, no beauty in their disposition that can be pleasing in His sight! The only title to Grace in His eyes is that ancient Covenant ordered in all things and sure which He has made, not with Abraham, but with our Lord Jesus, who stands as our Covenant Head!
We do not sufficiently reflect upon the Covenant as the great deep that lies under the fountain of many waters out of which all the wells of salvation continue to be filled with the living waters of
Grace–
"Never had you felt the guilt of sin,
Or sweets of pardoning love,
Unless your worthless name had been
Enrolled to life above."
If you had not an interest in that Covenant which He made in the eternal council chamber long before the earth was most assuredly in hapless, hopeless obscurity, you would have lived and died! This was the reason why He called Israel His son! An ancient Covenant had made Israel to be so regarded. How sweet it is that He does not merely speak about the people as being His people, but He says, "Israel is My son." There is a love between father and son which cannot be found elsewhere. Blood is thicker than water.
Relationship has ties that cannot be relaxed.
"Yes, but," says one, "Does God ever call His people, in any place, His sons before they are regenerate?" Well, there is a text that says, "Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, whereby you cry, Abba, Father." It is because, in the purpose of God, His people are really His sons before they know anything at all about it, that in due time He sends the Spirit of His Son to give them the nature of children that they may enjoy the adoption of children and say, "Abba, Father." O
Beloved, it is delightful to think that the Lord should look upon us before we are born–before we are born again–with a love that cannot be measured and cannot be broken! The gist of this affirming was thus–"Israel is My son. You, Pharaoh, may call him your slave, but he is My child. He was Mine before he was yours.
Israel is My son. You say, 'No, he is my serf.' I say, though he has fallen under your yoke, I will maintain My right to him as My firstborn. He is a prince and to that estate he shall be raised."
The Lord has a claim upon His people–a claim which all the claims of Law and all the clamors of sin and death and Hell shall never be able to deny. And though they basely submit to the claims of the Wicked One and make a covenant with Death and a league with Hell, yet shall Jehovah's claim upon them stand, for thus says the Lord, "Your league with Death is broken and your covenant with Hell is disannulled." The Lord Jesus will not suffer those whom He has made to be His own people and ransomed by the bloody purchase upon the Cross to remain the slaves of sin and Satan! They are His. His Father gave them to Him. They are His!
He bought them. They are His! Their names are written on His hands and engraved on His side. They are His! He will not suffer so much as one of them to remain in bondage to the adversary.
By thus acknowledging His people, He puts in a positive claim which puts all other claims on one side. With the bare assertion of absolute right He demands their unconditional freedom. "Thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, even My firstborn: and I say unto you, let My son go." What a grand verse that is! What an imperial edict it contains! As in the narrative of the Cosmos, God said, "Light be, and light was," so in the history of the exodus, short words are launched with Sovereign force–"Let My son go." Well might the proud heart of Pharaoh have quailed before the Almighty, whose lips asserted a right which His arm was instantly able to enforce.
How aptly those tones apply to our deliverance from under the Law! The Law includes all mankind under its curse–the god of this world claims the whole human race as his subjects. In due time our Redeemer appears.
The Lord Jesus comes, identifies Himself with the enslaved family, bears the curse, fulfils the Law and then on the ground of simple justice demands for them full and perfect liberty, having fulfilled for them the precept and for them endured the penalty!
"Let My son go." On what pretext could the Law, unless it were lawless and unjust, put in a claim which has been discharged, or urge a right which has already been fulfilled? No, from under the Law the people of God go free and their joy is that they are not under the Law but under Grace! And how gloriously do those tones sound when they come with force and power to rescue us from the tyranny of sin and Satan! The Prince of the power of the air holds men in subjection. He prejudices them and so stops their ears against the Gospel. He seals their eyes against the Eternal Light, but thus says the Lord, "Let My son go," and immediately the prejudice vanishes, the ears are opened, Eternal Truth shines into the heart, scales drop from the eyes and the soul beholds the Heaven-born Light and begins to rejoice!
Satan will tie a soul down, sometimes, in very heavy bondage. I have known him fasten a soul down with steel chains and eternal life. But, "Thus says the Lord, let My son go." The iron bands have snapped in a moment and the man has risen to hope and liberty, for the Lord's voice breaks the chains! Fast bound by fearful habits which seemed impossible to give up–having plunged into one sin after another–the man has been shut in by one iron gate and then by another and another and was enclosed in the innermost ward of the prison. But at midnight he has been struck on the side when he was asleep in his senseless carelessness.
Around him has shone a great light–the Covenant Angel has come to him and led him through gate after gate! The iron gates have opened of their own accord and the man has found himself free and scarcely knew whether it was true or not! He knew not that it was true, but thought he saw a vision. The thing has been scarcely done before he has found himself to be alive and delivered from the bonds of sin, filled with astonishment at himself and saying, "How can this be?" His tongue has been filled with singing and his mouth with laughter and he has said, "The Lord has done great things for me, of which I am glad."
Well, Beloved, the tones of that august voice which said, "Let My son go" will continue to echo as long as you and I are here below!
We shall continue to be let go! This glorious liberty shall be made more manifest to us daily. Are we not as creatures made subject to vanity and compassed with infirmity? By-and-by we shall be liberated from the bondage of the flesh! Our bodies shall go down into the grave and lie there for a while in the prison of the tomb, but that voice which quickened us into spiritual life will resuscitate our bodies and cause them to enter into the resurrection-life of Christ! Through the dark, dismal vaults will sound the loud, cheerful voice "Let My son go," and there shall not a bone of a Believer be left.
As it was said of old, "not a hoof shall be left behind," so nothing that belongs to redeemed man shall be left in the grave. "Of all that You have given Me I have lost nothing," says Christ, and truly, of person and of things–of all the people and of all that shall belong to the people to make up their manhood–there shall nothing be lost– the Lord shall have His own and His Grace shall triumph! This voice of God is an acknowledgment of His people and a claim for their deliverance–but no less is it an ordaining of their destiny. "Let
My son go, that he may serve Me." Oh yes, Beloved, we are no sooner set free from serving Pharaoh than we begin to serve
Jehovah! "Let My son go, that he may serve Me."
And in what capacity did Israel serve God? It was in the loftiest capacity possible! Israel became Jehovah's priest. It was in Israel that the sacrifice was offered. In Israel the incense was burnt. From Israel went up the sacred Psalm. Israel stood before the Lord in that high position of sacred privilege. So, likewise, is it that as soon as a man is brought out of the bondage of sin, he presents unto the Lord the sacrifice of Christ by faith and afterwards goes on to present himself a living sacrifice. Thus his thanksgivings and his broken and contrite heart are perpetual oblations and offerings of a sweet smelling savor, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Israel became the servant of God by way of preserving the Testimony. His were the Oracles. Israel kept the knowledge of the one God. Israel kept the Revelation of the Most High. While all the world outside was dark, Israel preserved the Light.
To this end, in like manner, Brothers and Sisters, you and I are called of God. If He has brought us up out of the Egypt of sin, we are to present daily sacrifice. We are to bear daily testimony to the Truth of God. And oh, if we do not–should we begin to stagger through unbelief, or speak with bated breath of the Truth that has been surely made known to us. Should the fear of man, or the fashion of the age so beguile our hearts, becloud our eyes, belie our good profession and utterly befool our common sense that we shall blush to bear our testimony–what shame must cover us! What confusion must take hold upon us! But, blessed be His name, He will keep His own true to His Word. If it were possible, the freethinkers and the false teachers in these days would deceive the very elect–but that is out of the question–it is beyond the range of possibility!
All God's children shall be taught of the Lord and they shall hold
His Truth and bear witness to it, even to the world's end! Israel was to be God's servant to serve Him by walking by faith. What a wonderful 40 years' walk that was in the wilderness! They did not live up to it but still, the spirit of that march of mystery was very wonderful. Without sowing or reaping they were fed! They were supplied with water without fountain, reservoir, or watercourse.
They were guided without a compass and without one sign of track way over shifting sand! Yet they were always well-fed, wellhoused and, what was still more marvelous, their camps were well shaded by day and well lit by night! They had a choice experience of having nothing and yet possessing everything! With no fertile fields or fruitful trees, yet Israel was made to live upon the fat of the kidneys of wheat and to ride upon the high places of the earth. She had all things and she abounded. The Lord was her Shepherd and she did not want!
We are often called upon to serve God and that very conspicuously, though we may be little conscious of it when we are required to walk by faith. This is the work of God, the grandest work a man can do–to believe on Him whom He has sent. The godlike work, the work of works is this–to walk by faith, living upon the unseen God! Israel was to be God's servant by continually dwelling in happy fellowship with God and waiting upon Him with holy worship. Nowhere else, in all the world, was a Passover or a feast of tabernacles kept to do Him homage–and nowhere else was the Sabbath hallowed and observed. With them, alone, Jehovah dwelt and among them Jehovah shone forth. And so, Beloved, if you and I have been called out of bondage, it is that we may serve the Lord!
Are we all alive to our obligation? Are we faithful to our higher calling? Are we doing our sworn, sacred duty? If anyone here is rescued this night from the grip of the Destroyer, delivered from the bondage of this evil world, saved from the damning power of sin–know that when you leave one corps, you must enlist into another corps! You come in fresh from the enemy's camp, not to be treated as a prisoner, but as a recruit! You must enlist to assail the powers and passions you once defended. God would have you become His servant that you may serve Him with joy and gladness all your days. Thus, then, I have opened up the voice of God as far as my time or strength or knowledge has permitted.
II. Now, secondly, here was THE VOICE OF MAN. What a comedown it seems to be. "You shall say unto Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, Let My son go." Why did not the Lord say it Himself?
Why did He need to pick up a Moses and send him to say it? Well, dear Friends, had the Lord said it Himself to Pharaoh, it would have been very startling and Pharaoh must have yielded ultimately to the Divine fiat–but don't you see the deeper marvel in the milder proceeding–when Jehovah, as it were, hides His power and cloaks it in weakness?
Instead of appealing to Pharaoh with that Voice which breaks the cedars of Lebanon and makes the hinds to calve, He speaks to him by one who was slow of speech and of a stammering tongue! Now, if God's voice can vanquish Pharaoh when it masks itself behind the feebleness of a stuttering, stammering Moses, it will be more glorious than it would have been if it had used no instrumentality whatever! Why does not the Lord speak to every sinner directly and bring him out and save him? Well–He might do so. He might do it if He would–but when He condescends, instead, to take us poor mortals who have tasted of His love and says to us, "Now you go and be My voice: you go and speak for Me," oh, then His Grace and power are not less conspicuous, but they are far more admirable! In using such ill-adapted tools for the accomplishment of His great designs, He shows His own transcendent power!
That famous well-cover at Antwerp, just opposite the cathedral– one of the finest pieces of worked iron that was ever known–is said to have been made by Quintyn Matsys with nothing but a hammer and a file, his fellow workmen having taken away his tools. If it is so, the more praise is due to his consummate skill. All the works of God redound to His Glory–but when the tools He uses appear to be totally inadequate to the results He achieves–our reverence is excited, while our reason is abashed and we marvel at a power we cannot understand! This comes home to some of us very closely.
Let us put it to ourselves. Does the Lord take you, my Brother, or has He taken me–and does He speak words of eternal power through our poor little tongues–through these unruly members that are prone to do so much mischief?
If He really wins souls through them, or pulls down the pride of Pharaoh through them, then shall it ring through eternity that the Lord has done marvelous things! He has taken the worm and made him to be a sharp thrashing instrument, having teeth–and made him to thrash the mountains! He has chosen the weak things of the world to confuse the things which are mighty! Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings has He ordained strength because of His enemies, that He might still the enemy and the avenger. Unto His name be Glory forever and ever!
The feebleness of the human voice has never appeared more palpable than when it has attempted to repeat the sentences which have been uttered by the mouth of the Lord. Moses seems to think that there must be some mistake! Can it be that God means to bring
Israel out of Egypt by him? Whenever God designs to make His servants eminently useful, He lets them know their frailty. The more treasure there is in the vessel, the less will its comeliness be vaunted. It is mere common ware, an earthen vessel that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us! But when Moses found that he really was employed of God, how fearless he was of ridicule! He went in unto Pharaoh and delivered his Master's message.
The interview with Moses and Aaron must have seemed supremely ridiculous to Pharaoh. It put him into a great rage. These two Israelites, wretched slaves, coming to tell the great king of Egypt that he must let Israel go! How absurd! Even to the Israelites it must have appeared preposterous, for two persons such as these to go in before the king. Why, with a word he could have said, "Take off the dogs' heads," and so have ended all the business directly! Yet they went and bearded him in his royal palace and delivered what he might think a vain menace, but what they knew to be a veritable message from God! Insignificant as we, of ourselves, may be, the very fact that God instructs us to speak might suffice to quell our fears. We must go and speak the Lord's message and must not be afraid of being thought infatuated.
When I have sometimes bid a sinner live and believe in Christ, I have heard a mutter, "What is the good of telling a dead man to live?" Some wise Brother has said, "You might as well shake a pocket handkerchief over a grave." Yes, Brother, it is true–quite true. So might Moses as well have shaken a pocket handkerchief outside Pharaoh's palace but, when God bid him to go and tell
Pharaoh to let His people go, he went and did it. And when the Lord bids any of us go to a sinner and say, "Believe," we cannot make the sinner believe–neither can he make himself believe–but the preacher sent of God is an echo of God's voice! God speaks through him! With authority he is commissioned to say to the sinner, "Turn you, turn you; why will you die? Repent and be baptized, every one of you."
We are bid to speak peremptorily, as ambassadors of the King–not because of any prerogative we assume–but as we commend ourselves to every man's conscience, there is power in our message. The voice that speaks by stammering Moses is Divine, notwithstanding the ridicule that may be heaped upon it. Moses, having such a command to go and speak, must be undeterred by refusal. "I know not the Lord," said Pharaoh, "neither will I let His people go." Now, dear Brother, you cannot win souls unless you are prepared to meet with strong rebuffs. Yes, but some are heartbroken if any resistance is offered them! You may expect it.
Old human nature does not know the Lord.
You remember how Melancthon thought he was going to convert any number of people when he began to preach, but when he found out his mistake, he said, "Old Adam is too strong for young
Melancthon." So he is. You will come across a bit of grit every now and then which will break your knife. Be not dismayed, the Lord will sharpen you and make you stronger and stronger yet, for even that Pharaoh who said, "I will not let the people go," will be down on his knees presently begging the people to depart! We must be prepared for opposition and neither flinch nor quail, but brace ourselves up for the struggle.
So, too, the man whom God sends ought to be assured of success.
I am persuaded that Moses, after he got over his first little difficulties with the people and recovered from his own diffidence, parleyed not with doubt, but was strong in faith. There he stood with the wondrous rod, turning waters into blood and slaying all their fish; covering the heavens with blackness; turning the dust into living creatures; bringing hail and grievous murrain and doing it all as calmly and quietly as he should do who feels that he is the voice of God! How steadily he kept at his work! With what diligence he persevered in it, till at last the 10 th plague found Moses unmoved, ready to conduct the people away to the Red Sea and to bring them out into the wilderness!
O servants of God, be calm and confident! Go on preaching the Gospel! Go on teaching in the Sunday school! Go on giving away tracts! Go on with steady perseverance! Be sure of this–you shall not labor in vain or spend your strength for nothing! Do you still stutter? Are you still slow of speech? Nevertheless, go on! Have you been rebuked and rebuffed? Have you had little else but defeat? This is the way to success! You shall pave the road with the rough flints of your failure! Toil on and believe on! Be steadfast in your confidence, for with an high hand and an outstretched arm the Lord will fetch out His elect and He will fetch some of them out by you! Only trust in the Lord and hold on the even tenor of your way!
III. Our last word is upon THE POWER OF GOD. Without the power of God the voice of man would have been an utter failure.
What effect was produced by the voice of Moses? Went there not forth with it a power which plagued Pharaoh? It filled the sinful land of Egypt with plagues! So men that preach God's Gospel with God's power fill the world with plagues. "I know that," a man says.
"I wish I had never listened to that fellow. I could not sleep last night." No, the frogs were his bedchamber! The true preacher finds his hearer sometimes saying, "I will never go again. Wherever I am, I seem to be haunted and tormented with the Truth of God that man has spoken so badly and so boldly. The commands he enforces run counter to the prejudices I cherish! They alarm my conscience and worry me incessantly."
Yes, he has made a simple sermon bring forth all manner of flies– thoughts that will sting a man wherever he goes and he cannot escape from them! He still kicks and strives against the Gospel– rebels against it, won't have it–gets angry; goes to the theater one night; joins in a little social revelry another night, but to no purpose. He does not enjoy anything! He scarcely knows why.
Soon a thick darkness comes over the whole scene of life, as the darkness came over all the land of Egypt. All that was beautiful and brilliant is now obscured. All that was pleasant and joyous is now eclipsed. The man finds that he does not even enjoy the ordinary comforts of life! He does not know why. He does not intend to yield to the Gospel, yet his very bread seems sour and the water he draws from the well is brackish and bitter.
His troubles multiply and follow one another in quick succession.
Now a hail storm that leaves desolation behind! Then a grievous disease among the cattle. The hand of the Lord is not confined to the farm. It will visit your home. His terrible judgment reaches your family, your fondest love, your firstborn son. As of old there was a cry going up in the land of Egypt so that it was intolerable to stay there, so God lays bare His arm in the exceedingly great plagues which His terrible Law brings upon a man! When He means to fetch him out and bring him to Himself, God's servants become the harbingers of plagues! Jesus Himself said, "I came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword."
That sword is unsheathed and families are divided against each other with the grand intent that Israel should be brought out and peace established by the Redemption which Jehovah has provided.
What will occur, by-and-by? Why, the oppressor will be glad to part with his bondmen. It sometimes happens that the ungodly become very glad to get rid of God's chosen people whom they are prone to persecute. "Their melancholy ill agrees with our liveliness," so they say. They did all they could to invite them to their parties and get them into their frivolities again–they laid traps for them to keep them away from hearing the Gospel–but now the Lord has begun to deal with them!
Their old companions say, "Now we must leave him." "I have tried all I could to get our old comrade back to our old parties," says one, "but, really, he said such things that he quite poisoned all our pleasures. We could not enjoy ourselves! I say, let us get rid of him. Do not let him be in our company any more." Yes, it is a grand thing when the preaching of the Gospel makes the ungodly want to keep the converts away from their cliques–when they say, "Oh, go off to the Tabernacle! We do not want you here. You have pestered us enough with your religion, your prayers, your crying, your tears, your talk about being lost and your needing to find a Savior! You are bad company and you had better be gone."
A lady who joined this Church some years ago, moving in the higher circles of society, said to me, "I was quite willing to continue my acquaintance with my friends, but I found they gave me the cold shoulder and did not want me." Just so. It is a great mercy when the Egyptians say, "Get you gone," and when they are ready to give you jewels of silver and jewels of gold to get rid of you! The Lord wants His people to come right out and to be separate! He knows how to, by the simple utterance of the Gospel, put such a division between His people and those who are not His people, that even the ungodly shall begin to say, "Get you gone!
We want to have nothing further to do with you!" Glory be to God when such a thing as that happens!
And the Lord knows how to make all opposition cease, for it is written that when Israel came out of Egypt, not so much as a dog moved his tongue against the children of Israel. Before, they were such slaves that if a cur barked at them they dared not turn against it, for fear it should be the dog of an Egyptian who would be surely down upon them for meddling with his dog. How dare a slave do that? Everybody was against them. But when the Lord brought them out, there was not a dog that dared bark that night! The Egyptians were all anxious that they should be gone and willing that they should go. And Pharaoh, too, must have astonished his subjects with his sudden zeal to see this strange people gone. Do you know what that means?
Oh, what fights and battles; what wars and strife there were in my soul when I was trying to find Christ! My old sins came up against me! My memory unearthed buried trespasses–faults and failings gathered in force like a flood and threatened to overwhelm me.
Everything in my constant studies and in my daily experiences seemed to drive me back from Christ. But on that memorable
Sabbath morning when I heard the word, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth," I did look and lo, against me not a dog did move his tongue! My sins did not complain! They were drowned in the Red Sea of Jesus' blood! My old corruptions–I did not know at the time that I had any–they were so very quiet!
Temptations ceased to trouble me!
For that little while, at any rate, the warrior seemed to sheathe his sword and the brick maker laid down his clay to go out of Egypt with jewels of silver and jewels of gold! I could sing unto the Lord, for He had triumphed gloriously! I have met some of these old
Egyptians since then–a good number of them–and I have had some hard dealings with them. But, at that time, all was still and quiet, happy and blessed–
"Happy day, happy day,
When Jesus washed my sins away!"
With the Paschal Lamb in our mouths nobody dares to challenge us. The blood on the door is an unanswerable answer to every accuser, caviler, or adversary! Glory be to God, then, who thus can fetch out His people and deliver them from their sins, their lusts, their habits, their passions–deliver them from death–deliver them from going down into the Pit and so deliver them that none shall lay anything to their charge, since God has justified them and Christ has absolved them!
May the Lord grant us Grace to be used as His instruments as Moses was. And may we, each one of us, cry unto the Lord if we are in bondage, just as Israel did in Egypt! May the Lord in mercy send forth concerning every poor sinner here just such a message as He sent concerning His people in the house of bondage–"Thus says the Lord, Let My son go, that he may serve Me." If He will thus work among us as in the olden times, to Him shall be the glory now at this present, yes, and forevermore. Amen!
Ex 6:9 • To the Saddest of the Sad
ERMON 2026
To The Saddest Of The Sad
"And Moses spoke so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage."
Exodus 6:9
LITTLE words often contain great meanings. It is often the case with that monosyllable "so." In the present instance we must lay stress upon it and read the text thus–"Moses spoke so unto the children of Israel." That is, he said what God told him to say. He did not invent his message. He did not think out the Gospel that he had to carry to the people. He was simply a repeater of the Divine message. As he received it, so he spoke it. "Moses spoke so unto the children of Israel." If he had not done so, the responsibility must have rested upon himself, whether the nation was moved by his words or not. But when he was simply God's ambassador, saying only what God would have him say, his responsibility was limited.
If he delivered the Lord's own Word and it failed to win the heart of Israel, he could not be blamed. Although it was a great sadness of heart to him that the people did not and even could not receive the Divine message, yet as far as he was concerned, his conscience was clear. It is ever so with the preacher of the Gospel–if he declares the Word of the Lord as he has received it, whether men will hear or whether they will not, he is clear before God, whatever his hearers may do or may not do.
I often wonder what those preachers do who feel called to make up their message as they go on. For if they fail, their failure must be attributed in great measure to their want of ability to make up a moving tale. They have to spread their sails to the breeze of the age and to pick up a Gospel that comes floating down to them on the stream of time, altering every week in the year. And they must have an endless task to catch this new idea, or, as they put it, to keep abreast of the age. Unless, indeed, like chameleons, they have a natural aptitude to change color, they must have a worrying time of it and a horrible amount of shifting to get through.
When they have done their best to preach this gospel of their own, then they are accountable for having made that gospel. For every bit of its teaching they are accountable because they were the manufacturers of it and it came forth from their foundry, bearing their stamp. If they take this yoke upon them and so refuse to learn of Christ, they will find no rest for their souls. To me the preaching of the Lord's own Gospel is a joy and a privilege. Concern for your souls loads me with the burden of the Lord–it is His burden and not one which I have selected for myself. I often feel on a Sabbath night when I go home weary–"I know that I have preached what I believe to be God's Gospel."
I have not said anything–I have not intended to say anything that was my own. I have not left out, at least I have not intended to leave out, anything that was in the text, nor anything which I believe to be the teaching of the Gospel of Christ. And then if you do not receive it, that is a sorrowful business, but it is no concern of mine so that I shall have to answer for it at the Last Great Day.
When a man-servant goes to the door with a message from his master, if you do not like what he tells you, do not be angry with him. What has he to do with it? Has he said what his master told