I'll read that third verse, and
I'm going to talk about that a little bit. spake unto Moses, and he said,
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this
month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to
the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. All of you are familiar with
this particular passage here and what precedes this particular
verse that the children of Israel were down in Egypt and were slaves
to Pharaoh. raised up Moses as their Deliverer. And Moses, in that sense, is
the type of the Lord Jesus, the Great Deliverer. And God has one way that he appoints to deliver
his people this one way. And this was God's appointed
means of salvation in a night of destruction. Every man take a lamb. And he
goes on to tell us that The flesh of the lamb was to
be eaten. They were to feed upon the flesh
of the lamb in their huts. And they were to take the blood
of the lamb and put that on their doorposts. And when the death
angel came over, And he seen this sign or this token of blood
on the lentils and the doorposts of the houses or the huts in
which the Israelites were in. The death angel would pass over
that house. That was the appointed means. of God's deliverance or God's
salvation. That was the appointed means.
And in His appointed means, there is a display of the sovereignty
of God and the obedience of faith. And I trust that the Lord will
enable us here this evening to avow to the one, that's the sovereignty
of God, and learn more and more of the other, which is the obedience
of faith. First off, I want you to consider
the severity, or see the sovereignty of God
in the severity upon the enemies of God who were the Egyptians. And then I want you to see the
goodness of God to his people, the Israelites. Now, he destroyed
the firstborn of all the Egyptians. How many Egyptians he killed
that night, I don't know. But I do know Egypt was a great
nation and a large nation, and they had a lot of first-born
children in that nation. And when God passed over that
night, that death angel, when he passed over, and there was
no signs or token upon the doors of those Egyptians, He slew the
firstborn of all those in the land. He destroyed the firstborn of
all the Egyptians, and he preserved every one of the firstborn of
the children of Israel. So we see here the sovereignty
of God. And I read to you from that Psalm.
that God does as He pleases in the heaven, in the earth, and
in the seas. That's the sovereignty of God.
He's in charge. He runs this show. He's in control. He controls all things. He's the maker of all things,
creator of all things, sustainer of all things. Our Lord, He's
a sovereign God. He cannot be manipulated. And He's appointed one way of
salvation. He appointed one way in type
here in the twelfth chapter of the book of Exodus for the firstborn
of the Israelites to be secured and safe and saved from destruction
one way, destroyed the firstborn of Egypt, preserved every one
of the others. And this, if you don't remember anything
else that I say, remember this. This was, in a way, appointed
by His sovereign mercy. He did it. It was his plan. He conceived this idea. God and
God alone. He took no one in to counsel
him. He did it alone. So this was,
in a way, appointed to and appointed by God himself. and His sovereign
mercy. And let me add to that by saying
that there is no mercy from God to any sinner but in the way
God has appointed. No mercy from God to any sinner
but in the way He appoints. And this way was in the Lamb. Take a lamb, and that lamb is
a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus Christ is referred
to as a lamb at least thirty times, and other times in the
Bible. But the particular one, that
I call your attention to is when John the Baptist, that
great prophet of God, when he came as a forerunner to Christ,
he announced to this great crowd that gathered
there at the river while he was baptized. He said, Behold the Lamb of God! to take away the sin of the world.
That's God's appointed way to take away the sin of the world.
That's God's appointed way to take our sins away in the person
of that Lamb. Behold the Lamb of God! That's
what John cried. There's a Lamb. And here he says that every man,
They shall take to them every man and lamb. His flesh was to
be their food, and his blood was to be their salvation. You might ask, would not taking the flesh and
blood of any other creature answer the same end? Couldn't you have taken a heifer or a turtle dove or some
other animal, caught that animal up and drained the blood from his
body and put that on the doorpost? Would that not work? No, it would
not answer the same end. And if anyone attempted to do
so, it was a direct act of unbelief of the Word of God and certainly
disobedience to the will of God. And those that would attempt
such mockery as that would be under swift destruction. So we see here, the obedience
of faith. Not one Israelite was destroyed. All the children, the firstborn
of the Egyptians were destroyed. Not one of the Israelites were
destroyed. Why? Because they believed the
word of God spoken to Moses. They believed the Word of God
and they obeyed the Word of God. God has one appointed way for
the safety of the firstborn of the children of Israel, and that
was for every man to take a lamb and kill the lamb and catch the
blood in a basin and paint it on the doorpost. And he said,
when I pass over and see the blood, I will pass over you,
God's appointed way. He has no other way. He will
not show mercy to any sinner now or in the world to come apart
from his appointed way. You cannot gain favor with God
any other way, only by the blood of the Lamb, the blood of the
blessed Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who knew no sin,
but was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. Now, they did not dare. to reply against God and say,
Well, why are you doing this? Is it just? Is this justice to
destroy so many souls of the Egyptians in one night? Why not give them a chance of
salvation? Oh, my soul! The power of true
faith kills such arrogant questions as that. The power of faith,
obedient faith to believe God and to trust the Word of God
and to trust in the blood of the Lamb. This power of faith
brings peace to the conscience and brings love to the heart. and certainly takes away all
arguments. It feeds on the flesh and trusts
alone in the blood of the Lamb who taketh away the sin of the
believer. This is God's appointed way. God says, Take this Lamb as my
free gift to you for your whole, complete, and perfect salvation. Now I want you to turn with me
from this twelfth chapter over to the first chapter of the book
of Mark. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Turn to the first chapter of
Mark. I'll read to you verses 40 41 and 42. And it says here that there came a leper
to him, to the Lord Jesus, beseeching him, begging him, and kneeling
down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, Thou canst
make me clean, this leper. This leper's faith, obedient
faith, this leper's faith was strong enough to make him believe
that he could be healed of this hideous and terrible disease. this leper's faith, true faith. Without faith, a man cannot please
God. Faith is a gift of God. Repentance is a gift of God. The leper's faith here was strong
enough to make him believe that the Lord Jesus Christ could heal
him of this horrible, terrible, disease. He was a leper. And if a man's a leper, his hair
falls out from his head. He loses his hair. He loses his eyebrows. They fall out. The nails on his fingers and
on his toes decay and rotten and fall away, and the flesh
begins to fall away from the bones. The gums of his mouth disappear. They dissipate. His teeth fall out, and his nose
and his eyes and his tongue slowly are consumed by this terrible,
terrible disease. The disease turns a man into
a mass of corruption. This leper here that had this
leprosy, real leprosy, this leper before us had this experience. He was like that. He was so dreadful
and so full of rottenness that the stench and decay of his dying
flesh and it was so contagious that he was asked not to come
into town where healthy people lived. but to stay out on the
outskirts of town where they burn their trash. Stay out there. And if he could find him some
tar paper shack that he might shelter himself from the weather
and the storms, it's all right to build that. But if anyone
come near him, he must put his hand over his mouth. and cry
in a muffled tone the best way he could, with no teeth, no lips,
unclean, unclean, unclean. And those that heard the warning
would steer clear of him. He had this experience of real
leprosy. Yet, in spite of that, in spite
of his condition and situation, He believed that the Lord Jesus
Christ was here. There was no case of a man being cured of real
leprosy by any medical means or surgical treatment at this
particular time. And this is what makes the cure
of Naaman. You remember Naaman the Syrian? The Lord told him to go into
the River Jordan, or Elijah the prophet told him to go to the
River Jordan and dip in it three times. And that proud Syrian
refused, was haughty, and walked his way, but finally he submitted
It was God's appointed way. He would be a leper till the
day he died. If he had not trusted in God's
appointed way, he began to reason with himself, say, in this muddy
Jordan River, while now we've got real clean mountain water
in Syria, why should I go to And that servant of Naaman prevailed
upon him and he obeyed. And the Bible says that his flesh
was like a baby's when he came up out of that water. So there
was no medical means or surgical treatments up until this point
apart from the case of Naaman, which makes it very noticeable
in the Bible. Many, many lepers in Israel and
in Syria at that time, but God only healed one of them. That's
his sovereignty. That's sovereign mercy. God does
what he wants to. You cannot make no proposition
to God and say, well, I'll do this, therefore you have to do
that. God cannot be bargained with. He has appointed one way whereby
a man might gain his favor, and that's in this Lamb, the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Our Lord, up to
this point and in this chapter, In this first chapter, I believe
it is, it says, they went unto Capernaum, in verse 21, and straightway
on the Sabbath day our Lord entered into the synagogue, and he taught. And they were astonished at his
doctrine. They were amazed at his teachings,
for he taught them as one that had authority. It was evidenced
in what he said and in the manner in which he said it. They said
this man's got authority, not as the scribes. And there
was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, had an
evil spirit. And he cried out, saying, Let
us alone. What have we to do with thee,
thou Jesus of Nazareth? Isn't that strange that an evil
spirit knew who he was? But the good so-called people
of Israel, the scribes and the Pharisees, didn't know who he
was. But the unclean spirit knew who
this Jesus was. He said, What do we have to do
with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? They recognized his power and
his authority. They knew who he was. Have you
come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art. An evil spirit said this. I know
who you are. Thou art the Holy One of God. Oh, I would, God, that all of
us would have that understanding of who He is, the Holy One of
God. And when the unclean spirit had
torn this man, hurt him, he cried with a loud voice and he came
out of him. Our Lord had dealings with unclean
spirits, and he made them leave. He had dealings with them, but
he had no dealings at this time with leprosy. He hadn't been
confronted yet with a man that had real leprosy, but he had
been confronted with evil spirits, and he was the conqueror and
the victor there. And they were amazed, these people,
insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What
thing is this? What new doctrine is this? I've been places when I've preached
on the sovereignty of God and the doctrine of election, and
someone invariably gets the word out that that's a new doctrine.
I've never heard that before. It must be a new doctrine. No,
it's as old as eternity. Before the foundation of the
world, God chose unto himself some of Adam's fallen race. Now listen, what is this thing,
new doctrine? For with authority, they said,
commandeth he even unclean spirits. and they do obey him. And immediately
his fame spread abroad throughout all the region, round about Galilee. And forthwith, when they were
come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon
and Andrew, that is, Simon Peter, and Andrew with James and John,
and Peter's wife's mother, Simon Peter's mother-in-law, lay sick
of a fever, and Anon they tell him of her. And he came and took
her by the hand, and lifted her up, and immediately the fever
left, and she ministered unto them. And that even when the
sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and
them that were possessed with devils, and all the city was
gathered together at the door. And he healed many that were
sick of different diseases, and cast out many deafens, and suffered
the devils not to speak, because they knew him. And in the morning,
rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed
into a solitary place, and there he prayed. And Simon, And they
that were with him followed after him. And when they found him,
they said unto him, All men seek for thee. And he said unto them,
Let us go into the next town, that I may preach there also. Therefore came I forth. This
is the reason I come. That's my business. And he preached
in their synagogue throughout all Galilee, and he cast out
devils, and then there came a leper. He had cast out devils, cured
the fevers, but now he's confronted with
a man with leprosy. Confronted face to face. This leper man, this man that
was rotten to the core with pollution and corruption, this man, this
leper, putting this and that together, bits and pieces of
that which he had heard, and he had some understanding,
something of the nature and the character of the Lord Jesus. Maybe he overheard some things
that were said prior to this, that they said that the evil
spirit sinned. He said, We know who you are,
the Holy One of God. He just had some bits and pieces
and he put them together. And he believed that this one
here, this man here, could cure him of this horrible disease. That's great faith, isn't it? Well, you see, it's one thing
to trust the doctor when you're well, when you're not sick. When it's your scheduled time
to go to the doctor, you have an appointment every three months. June the 1st is my appointment
to the doctor. But you're well, you feel good,
you're just going for a checkup. You can trust the doctor when
you're well, but it's another thing to trust the doctor and
confide in the doctor when your body is rotting away, when the
cancer has ate out your liver, when the cancer is starting to
work on your lungs. That's another thing for you
to trust in the doctor, you see. for a real conscious sinner. I mean a sinner that knows he's
a sinner. I don't mean a play-like sinner. I don't mean one who says, well,
I'm not as bad as the other fellow. He's done some things that I
haven't done. I don't necessarily think I'm
that bad. He's playing play-like a sinner. I'm talking about a
sinner who knows whose conscience is pierced and stabbed, who is
conscious of his vileness, consciousness of his sins, consciousness of
his Saviour, consciousness of his rebellion. That's the kind
I'm talking about, a real sinner. You see, for a real conscious
sinner, To trust the Lord Jesus Christ is no easy thing. It's not easy. Why? I'll tell you why. Because most
people feel like there is some good in them that they might
trade off that goodness in them for favor with God. Oh no, but to be conscious of
our total ruin, as this man was. He was conscious of the rottenness
of his body. He was conscious that there was
no help for him nowhere, but his only hope that he had was
in this man. He didn't know it at the time,
but this man is God's appointed way of cleansing and salvation. No other way. Man's got to be
confronted with the Lord Jesus Christ here in time, or face
to face at the judgment bar of God. There's no getting out from
under that. You've got to do business with
Almighty God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you've
got to do business with Him here in time, or you'll do business
with Him in eternity when it's too late. That's what I'm saying. Oh, to trust Him, to save Him
and to cleanse Him, and for a real conscious sinner, to trust the
Lord Jesus Christ to save him while he's still defiled with
sin? I'll tell you, that's saving
faith for a man to do that. This man was full of leprosy.
He had as much poison in him as one poor body could hold. He couldn't get any more poison. His flesh had already dropped
off of his fingers. His face was deformed. He couldn't
look upon him. He had a big cloth that he wrapped
around his head and he put it over his face so people couldn't
see him. And his muffled cries went through
that infected, crusted, polluted cloth that was on his mouth.
Leper, leper, stay away, stay away. Though he had this corruption
and poison in him, as one poor, hopeless, helpless
sinner could have, yet he believed that Jesus could cleanse him. That's something, isn't it? He believed it. I wish I could
find some sinners who believe what I'm saying. I'm saying. Oh, it's never, the
message has never been drove home to their conscience. If
it's ever drove home to their conscience and they see themselves
as they are, dried up, polluted and corrupted, not one thing
in them that's worthy of the least attention of God. not anything
that they can bring to gain favor with God. They've got nothing.
Their righteousness is as guilty by it. And the only thing they
can do is fall down before God and say, God have mercy on my
soul. Now listen, he is full of leprosy,
yet he believed that Jesus would save him. And I believe, brethren,
it was just this quick. Just this quick. Let me see what
it says. And Jesus moved with compassion. Compassion in his heart, seeing
that poor fellow. He was moved by what he seen. He was moved by what he said.
He was moved with compassion. Our Lord put forth his hand and
he touched him. You couldn't touch a leopard.
Our Lord touched him. Our Lord put His clean hand upon
that rotten flesh. And what happened? "...put forth
his hand, and touched him, and said unto him, I will." Remember
He said up here in the line up above in verse
40? This is what the leper said.
He said, "...if thou wilt." That is, if you will. He didn't strike
a bargain with him and say, you have to. He said, if you will,
if you will, thou canst make me clean. Now the Lord said,
I will be thou clean. It happened that quick. In a
moment, in a second, He's clean. Once I was blind, but now I see. Once I was dead, but now I'm
alive. It happened that quick. You see
it in a second. Our God can impart a new life
and start a new character in a poor, helpless, hopeless, doomed,
damned sinner. Just that quick. Be thou clean. I will, he said. New life, new
character. Oh, this old leper wanted that rottenness. which had eaten up his body to
be gone, and he wanted his health to be restored. And he said,
If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. You know what he meant when he
said that? He was saying, I know. I know that you're the sovereign
two kings. I know all power and authority
is yours. I know that you can kill and
make I know that you have the right
to distribute these great favors as you please. I know you have
that right. I have no claim on thee. That's
what he's saying. I don't say that you're bound
to help me. You're not bound to do anything
for me, but if thou wilt, I appeal to your pity. I appeal to your mercy. I appeal
to your favor. You can if you will. He said, I will. I will. He wanted to be clean. Not just
his leprosy gone, but he wanted to have a clean mind, a clean
body, He wanted to have a clean slate before God. And when a man comes as he is,
as a poor sinner, no hope in himself, given up on himself,
laying hold of the Lord Jesus, the Lord clothes him in his righteousness. He puts on his wedding garment
and he is fit. to be a guest at the king's table. The Lord has made him clean.
This man had never read this verse of Scripture that I'll
quote to you. It says, It is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. He never read that Scripture
because that Scripture had not been written at that time. Yet he understood the spirit
and the truth of that Scripture. It's not of him that willeth
or him that runneth. It's of God that shall be mercy. I hope you see That's what I'm
talking about. Let's stand with them.