The Lord may graciously help
me. I'll turn your prayerful attention to a text you'll find
in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 13. Exodus 12 and verse 13. And the blood shall be to you
for a token upon the houses where ye are. And when I see the blood,
I will pass over you and the plague shall not be upon you
to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. That's Exodus 12 and verse 13. We have before us the last plague
of the 10 plagues, the last of the 10 plagues that God brought
upon Egypt with this intent that he said that he would let his
firstborn go through. Israel his firstborn in chapter
4 verse 22 we read, and thus shalt you say unto Pharaoh, thus
saith the Lord, Israel is my firstborn, my son, even my firstborn. And he wanted Israel to go free
and to be set at liberty. In the Word of God, the coming
out of the children of Israel out of Egypt is referred to very,
very many times. And as we read at the beginning
of chapter 12, this month shall be to you the beginning of months.
It was a time when they reset the calendar. This was Just like
when somebody's born, we set the calendar then and we measure
their life relative to that birthday, don't we? And we think of that
as the spiritual birthday, as it were, of Israel, that they
were born, there's a picture of them being born again and
coming out of that Egypt of bondage, of sin, and being liberated and
being set free. And this must have been a very
precious thing for Israel. And the prospects of them coming
out without the almighty power of God, it was impossible. Pharaoh
would never let them go. But God, was going to let them
go. God was going to make Pharaoh
let them go. And we think of that as Satan
holds us fast in his captive chains. He does not want to let
us go free. He doesn't want to leave us from
serving him, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. But
you see, God is greater than the enemy. And God ultimately
prevailed and will prevail for all his chosen people. Now, this is the 10th plague. There was nine, obviously, that
went before. And it's very interesting to
look at these plagues. It seems that the first three
plagues that came upon Egypt, which is the plague of blood,
the plague of frogs, and the plague of lice, those three plagues,
we don't read that Israel had any exemption from them. In other
words, Israel suffered, it would appear, as well as the Egyptians. But when we come to the fourth
plague, the swarm of flies, we're specifically told in verse 22
of Exodus 8, and I will sever in that day the land of Goshen,
in which my people dwell, that no swarm of flies shall be there. So Israel was protected from
these swarms of flies. The children of Israel in Egypt
were protected from those flies, although those flies went to
the rest of the Egyptians and caused such havoc. And really,
when all these plagues were coming, God was showing his supernatural
power. Just as in creation, in creation
God was using his great power to turn an earth that was form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and he
used that creative power to create everything as we know it, or
before the fall. Here he's using that power to
first of all bring to confusion those things in Egypt and then
at his command reverse that. And so showing his supernatural
power. And the first nine plagues all
involved natural things in a sense, plagues and darkness and the
flies and so on. They were natural creatures and
God controlled them to cause those plagues to happen. to the
people. But the last plague was different.
This was God himself. I shall go through the land.
This was God himself. There was something different
about the last plague. But as we've gone through these plagues
so far, we've noted that the swarms of flies, Israel was not
subjected to those. They were exempt. The next plague,
which was the fifth plague, was the plague of cattle, and this
is Exodus 9. And then again, we're told that
none of the cattle of Israel died. Israel was exempt. The next plague was the plague
of boils, but we're not told that Israel was exempt from them.
We're not told that. The next plague, the plague of
hail, the seventh one. We're told that Israel was exempt,
that there wasn't that hail in the land of Goshen where the
children of Israel were. Can you see that some of the
plagues, it seemed that God affected all of the people in Egypt, including
the Israelites, but others were just to the Egyptians. God was
showing his perfect ability to differentiate, even with things
like flies, and you think, well, they go everywhere, but no, God
could bring them in one area and make them not go into another
area, and so on. God was showing his great power. Well, the eighth plague was a
plague of locusts, and there we're not told that Israel was
exempt from that. And the ninth plague was the
plague of darkness. And in the plague of darkness,
we're told that, but all the children of Israel had light
in their dwelling. So again, God was differentiating
between Israel and between the Egyptians. God could tell them
apart. He knew them all intimately.
He could differentiate between those that were Israelites and
those that were not. His amazing knowledge and power And you come on to chapter 11
that we read together, and you might conclude that really this
last plague would be just like the plague of darkness, or the
plague of hail, or the plague of the cattle, or the plague
of the flies. That there would be a separation
between Israel and between the Egyptians in just the same way
as God had already done. And so we read that God tells
them that this is going to be the last plague and Pharaoh will
let you go. There is a certainty. You see,
God is ultimately in control. Satan is not ultimately in control,
but God is. I think of this in our pathways,
you see. The Lord blesses his people,
doesn't he, providentially sometimes in our lives. And you can think
of the earlier plagues in a sense of providential blessings. It
was a great providential blessing, wasn't it, to Israel not to be
engulfed with flies or with the hail. And the hail was one of
the plagues that did actually kill people. I don't think the
other, apart from of course the 10th plague, I don't think the
other plagues necessarily killed people, but they made life extremely
difficult for them. But of course the 10th plague
was the one that actually claimed the lives of all the first born
in Egypt. So we see here that, In the chapter
11 that we read, in verse 7 it says, but against any of the
children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against
man or beast, that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a
difference between the Egyptians and Israel. And you get right
to the end of chapter 11 and it would appear that this 10th
plague would be just the same as the other plagues where God
differentiated between Israel and the Egyptians. The Israelites
didn't have to do anything for the darkness. It just was light
in their dwellings. They didn't have to do anything
when the hail came. They just didn't have hail where
they were. God, as it were, providentially
cared for them and looked after them. And you see, it would appear,
I'm sure, after they heard what was said in chapter 11, they
would imagine that the 10th plague would take along similar lines,
that there would be this differentiation between the Egyptians and Israel,
as God has said, but it would just be done for them. But you
see, then we come to the 12th chapter, and here we have very
specific instructions of what Israel needed to do. God was
teaching Israel something. God was teaching Israel that,
yes, they were a favored nation. Yes, they were, God had those,
that they were chosen people. In Abraham, their father, he
had promised that they would come back out of the land of
Egypt. All that was true, but there was gonna be a way it would
be done. It would not just be done, it would be done in a certain
way. And there's much teaching here.
And of course, the way it had to be done was with the death
of a lamb. You see, What must, I think,
must have come as a bit of a shock to the Israelites, that God was
not just going to kill all the firstborn of Egypt, and Israel,
by the fact that they were the nation of Israel, by the fact
that they were descendants from Abraham and so on, that they
would be exempt. But God clearly shows in chapter
12 that that is not the case. I'm sure there's a lot of teaching
there for us. You see, the Jews in the New Testament, so much
this was the idea, they were the people, they were the people
which were descendants of Abraham, so they were safe. But, and Paul
goes in Romans and speaks so much about both Jews and Gentiles
were all come short of the glory of God. And this is what this
teaches very strongly in chapter 12 of Exodus. that though they
were a chosen people, though they were blessed, though they
had enjoyed many privileges and many providential blessings,
yet they themselves were also sinners. And I think that's something
you younger people For me, it was quite something for me to
really contemplate that as I grew up. You see, you can come to
the house of God, you come on the Lord's Day, and you meet
amongst the Lord's people, and you think, well, we know a lot
about the things of God. We're Christian people. We have
Christian parents, perhaps Christian grandparents. We are the people,
as it were. We've got many privileges. And
no, all those privileges are not to be despised, they're great
privileges. But in and of themselves, they're
not enough. And you see, Israel needed to
be shown in Exodus 12 that just because they were Israelites,
yes, it's not that God couldn't differentiate between who was
an Israelite and who wasn't. He had demonstrated in four plagues
earlier that he knew exactly how to do that. He knew exactly
how to differentiate between those which were Israelites.
In that sense, he didn't need blood on a doorpost to tell him
who was an Israelite and who wasn't. But this was pointing to something
so precious in the way of salvation that the way to be saved, yes,
they were a chosen people. Yes, they were going to come
out of Egypt, but there was a way. And there was something they
needed to take part in. They needed to put their trust
in this lamb and the blood and to realise that they needed to
do this. It was not enough to say, well,
I'm an Israelite. I'll be all right. No. It wasn't
all right. You see, they needed to come
to realize that they needed, forgive them, that they needed,
they were sinners themselves, and they needed forgiveness.
You see, if you go to the early chapters in Exodus 2, verse 23,
We read this, and it came to pass in the process of time that
the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by
reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up
unto God by reason of the bondage, and God heard their groaning,
and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and
with Jacob, and God looked upon the children of Israel, and God
had respect unto them. You see, and God heard their
cries, and they might think that they were the good people, and
it was just these Egyptians that were wicked people, but they
were basically good people. and they were in a bad situation,
and this is exactly what the Jews in Jesus' time thought. They were basically good people,
but unfortunately they were under the Roman rule, and they felt
that the Messiah, when the Messiah came, he would rid them from
this oppression of the Romans, and then these basically good
people who were Jews would be freed. and they would be able
to have all their power and they'd be able to have David's throne
back and be able to have all that control that they so much
longed for. That was their idea. But you
see, God was showing here that actually everyone in Egypt, by
nature of their sin, were vessels of wrath fitted
for destruction. I think that's something to come
to. You've grown up perhaps in a
God-fearing household, but you need to come to that. That's
quite somewhere to come to in your life, to realize that it's
not just those people out there that are sinners. We need it
too. And if we don't shelter under
this blood, We will be killed, just as the Egyptians. No, in
a sense, you see, it was a leveller, wasn't it? It wasn't, well, the
Israelites are up here and they're okay, but the Egyptians are down
there and they're in trouble. No, it was a leveller. Anybody
in Egypt, anybody who was in a house that did not have blood
on the doorposts would be the firstborn of that house. There
would be one dead at midnight. And here you see, This is the
great, this is picturing, you see, something, a judgment, which
was far greater. And you see, there was this lamb
involved. They were told on the 10th day
of the month, they were to reset the calendar on the first day
of the month, and then on the 10th day, they were to select
this lamb, take it out of the flock, and as it were, get to
know that lamb personally. They were to get to know that
lamb, and of course, often, lambs are used as pet lambs, aren't
they? Children particularly love pet lambs, and to look after
them, and to feed them, and to play with them, to have a relationship
with them, as it were, and to love them. And they would have
this lamb, it seems, in the house for four days, the 10th day to
the 14th day. They'd get to know this lamb,
they'd get to love this lamb. They get to play with it, they
get to appreciate it. But then you see the father of
the house would come on that 14th day and would say, well,
now I am going to kill this lamb. Surely the children would say,
no, don't do that, daddy. Don't kill this lamb. We love
this lamb. Well, what would the father have
to say? Well, it's either this lamb dies
or the eldest one in this family will die. It's as stark a contrast
as that. And you see, it was something
that meant something to them. They had lived with that lamb
for a little while, and it pictures, of course, the Lord Jesus came
from heaven to dwell amongst his people. He tabernacled with
them before he laid down his life for ransom for many. He
became one of them. He became loved by them. And
that was so true of the disciples, wasn't it? They loved him. And
that's why they were so sad when Calvary came, because they loved
him. They didn't want to lose their Messiah. They didn't want
to lose him. He was there. You see, Peter
knew that the Lord Jesus, thou art the Christ, the son of the
living God. He knew that very well. And Jesus said that his
father in heaven had taught him that. But when Jesus said that
he must go to Jerusalem and suffer and die, Peter totally rejected
that idea. In Matthew 16 verse 21, from
that time forth, began Jesus to show unto his disciples how
that we must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be
raised again the third day. Then Peter took him and began
to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall
not be unto thee." Peter didn't want the Lamb of God to do that. He didn't want that sort of a
Lamb of God. He didn't understand that that was necessary. And
so often, you see, we don't understand the exceeding sinfulness of sin. That the only way that we could
be saved was to want to stand in our place. You see, Israel
would have thought, well, they were God's people, they were,
as it were, had a better relationship with him. And yes, he would deal
with these naughty Egyptians, but they were basically good
people. But the Lord here in this Exodus 12 puts a complete
level on it and says, no, you're all by nature the children of
wrath, even as others. He says some very hard things
to the Jews, must have been very hard to take on board what he
said. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And then he says, what then?
Are we better than they? Are the Jews better than the
Gentiles? No, in no wise, for we have proved both Jews and
Gentiles that they are all under sin. And you see right back here,
God was teaching that yes, he would bring these people out
of Egyptian slavery, but it was not just that he separated with
them and the cost can be forgotten. There was a need for the death
of this lamb. And the death of this lamb was
that evidence that there would be a bringing out, that there
would be a life spared, you see, and the blood shall be to you
for a token upon the houses where you are. And when I see the blood,
the necessity, you see, this destroying angel, And the destroyer
was going to come around and I used to think that perhaps
they'd wake up in the morning and realize that some of their
people in their house had died. But when you read it carefully,
it seemed that when that destroyer came in the house, it was like
a as it were a murderer coming in your house at midnight, and
there's screaming going on, and a tremendous cry going on, and
the whole house waking up as it were, and a realization that
one had died, and one had been killed. And we read that it was
such a cry that it was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not
a house where there was not one dead. It was not a case of they
slept through the night nice and peacefully, and then in the
morning they noticed that one or two were dead, no. As soon
as the death took place, it seems that there was crying and there
was trouble. You see, this is the two sides to the
Lord Jesus Christ. You see, we read in the New Testament
of the wrath of the Lamb, the wrath of the Lamb. And in a sense,
that destroyer was like the wrath of the Lamb that was being poured
out on those firstborn of Egypt that were not under the blood.
And the other symbol, of course, the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world, is pictured by that Lamb without blemish
that was killed, had done nothing wrong, and that the blood was
put on the doorposts and the lintel, and that they were then
to roast this lamb in the flame. They were to roast it, not to
boil it, so they could see the whole lamb, and they would see
it being roast in the flames. And that signified, as it were,
the wrath of God that was going to fall upon his beloved son. But you see, there's a difference.
In the type, in a sense, we're thankful there is a difference,
but it needs pointing out, you see, the lamb was killed and
then roast. Not so with the Lord Jesus. The
Lord Jesus was killed. was dying for six hours. As it were, he was exposed to
the wrath of God while he was still alive. This lamb was dead. It didn't feel any pain when
it was being roast. It was dead, thankfully, in a
way, but not of the Lord Jesus. He spared not his own son, he
spared the lambs, but he didn't spare his beloved son. He was
roast. in the wrath of God, that Lamb
of God was roast in the flame of the wrath of God for the sin
of his people, so that they should be set free. And you see, this
is so, that would have been so precious to the Israelites. And
the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where
ye are. And when I see the blood, I will
pass over you. No, other qualification. And we're told that a mixed multitude
came out. We don't know whether there was
any Egyptians that possibly took part in this, but we are told
that, and a mixed, this is Exodus 12 verse 38, and a mixed multitude
went up out also with them and flocks and herds and very much
cattle. And we're told later on that there were strangers
and foreigners with them. and whether they could or could
not eat the Passover, there was some clarifications on that.
But so it was not, you didn't have to be an ethnic Israelite. The key was to be under the blood. And you see, as we think of the
young people, It's wonderful when you see the providence of
God working in your lives, providing a job, providing a house, providing
loved ones and different things in your pathway. These are very
precious things. And I think of those as perhaps
some of the earlier plagues that you've been saved from as these
providences in your pathway. But that in itself is not enough. You need to know that grace,
that unmerited favour of God. You need to be sheltering under
the precious blood of Christ. It's not enough, as it were,
like Ruth. gathering those hand fills of
purpose in Boaz's field, very nice, and she was getting to
know Boaz too. But at the end of all that gathering,
she was still a widow, she was still in negative equity, she
still did not have a redeemer. She needed to go and lay at his
feet and ask whether Boaz would be that redeemer for her. You
see, and nothing else, all these other things were precious in
their place, and they were signposts guiding her into the right direction,
but it was not sufficient, she was not satisfied, she was not
redeemed, until Balazs bought her, paid the price, and he became
her wife. Well, so, If we think of the
new birth pictured in the children of Israel coming out and the
Passover feast, and the lamb slain, and the blood put on the
doorpost, and they had to stay in that house, they weren't allowed
to go outside the house. You see, you have to be in Christ.
In Christ, the Lord's people are safe. Outside of Christ,
almighty power can do nothing but devour, and that's what you
saw. on the night of this, that they came out of Egypt. It devoured. And you see, it's a picture of
what's coming at the second judgment, the second coming of Christ.
There's going to be those that are sheltering in the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they will be safe. But this
will be much worse, because you see, it won't be just the firstborn
that die, it will be everyone. Not just the firstborn. and everyone
who is not found in that Lamb's Book of Life will be cut off. But we have this Passover and
then what's interesting that it's talked about here in Exodus,
we didn't read it, we didn't have time to read it, but it
talks about then the Feast of Unleavened Bread that should
take place for seven days. So for seven days it started
with the with the Passover lamb, and then there was seven days,
you see, of eating the feast of unleavened bread. And if we
think of how do the people of God come out of their bondage,
It's just, they're justified. You see, the blood of that lamb,
the payment had gone on the lamb, the death had occurred in the
lamb instead of in their firstborn. And so they were set free. That's
like justification. But then, you see, what follows
justification is sanctification. We did it in Sunday school. I
think those two things was taught recently to the children. After
justification, then there's sanctification. And what does that mean? Well,
it's clearing out all the... You see, justification brought
them out of Egypt. Sanctification brought Egypt
out of them. And that's the difference, you
see. Justification brought them out of the land of Egypt, but
they needed to then purge their hearts. They had Egypt in their
hearts, they had sin in their hearts, and that needed to be
got rid of, you see. And the whole idea of this Unleavened
bread, the idea was that it was bread without the yeast. The
yeast was a picture of sin, and how a little bit of yeast puffs
up the whole dough, and that is how a little bit of sin has
such a dramatic effect in our lives, and they had to purge
out the sin, you see. And that's what, when we have
been washed and cleansed, then it is, we need to, work out our
own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in
you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. But it starts,
you see, with a justification, and then it goes on to the sanctification. And each year they were to remember
this, to remember what power of God had brought them out of
Egypt. and how they needed to rededicate their lives to God,
year by year, as they kept that feast of leavened bread. Well, this is then a precious
account. And we see then that in the New
Testament, it picks up Paul speaking to the Corinthians, speaks about
these things. in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7, purge
out therefore the old leaven, the old sin, that ye may be a
new lump as ye are unleavened for even Christ our Passover
is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast,
that's the feast of unleavened bread, not with old leaven neither
with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth." So Israel had been set free from the slavery
of sin in Egypt. That's the picture. They'd been
liberated. And you see, it's a wonderful
liberation when we realize that the Lord has set us free from
the bondage of sin. We are no longer under, in Romans
8 it says, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus. What a liberation, the new birth. Nicodemus said, how can a man
be born again? Jesus said to him, you must be
born again. You need this new birth, Nicodemus.
It's not enough to be a Jew. It's not enough to be a Pharisee.
It's not enough to tick all the boxes. You must be born again. You must know the application
of this blood yourself. And of course, people like Peter,
who didn't want this way, who rejected this way of salvation
and said, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. You see, the Lord's
people are led. And then Peter writes in his
epistle about the precious blood of Christ. Peter came to realise
he needed such a saviour. And as we've sung in our hymn,
the middle hymn, of the feeling that the Lord's people come to
realise, you see, that their sinfulness. And not always do
they fully realise that early on. But as they go on, you see,
and the Lord shows them greater abominations than these, you
see they need to then come and wash again in this fountain.
They need to come again and realise what God has done for them in
bringing them in that new birth and giving liberty and life and
justification so that they should then continue to sanctify the
Lord God in their hearts. And the blood shall be to you
for a token upon the houses where ye are. And when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. And the plague shall not be upon
you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. Amen.