May it please God to bless us
together this morning as we consider his word. Let us turn to the
book of Exodus and the 12th chapter and we'll read verse 22. The
book of Exodus chapter 12 and reading verse 22. And ye shall take a bunch of
hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin and strike
the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the
basin and none of you should go out at the door of his house
until the morning. The Word of God is very instructive
to us and it gives us a lot of instruction and a very useful
comment we read in the 26th verse and you children might just listen
to this because this is what the Bible says that the children
of Israel were to come and ask questions and it was told us
and it shall come to pass when your children shall say unto
you what mean ye by this service it's good therefore for you children
if you don't understand things to ask questions you should not
be afraid to ask questions you even remember that the Lord Jesus
himself when he was 12 years old he was found in the temple
and he was asking questions and never be embarrassed to ask a
question always desire to know what the truth is however obvious
it may seem and never be embarrassed but ask questions and as they
come and ask questions to parents or grandparents. Never turn questions
away. Always endeavour to answer the
questions and never pretend to know the answers. if you don't
know the answers. Just be honest and say that you
don't know and that you will come and try and find out the
answer so that at times these things will be profitable not
only for those that ask but also for those that find the answer.
Well, we have set before us in this chapter a most wonderful
account of a very important situation which was so necessary. And just
remember that before these books were written, Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, there was no Bible. There was
nothing for the people to read. There may have been some things
written down perhaps by Adam, perhaps by some of those before
the flood, but we don't have any real evidence of that. And therefore, for some two and
a half thousand years, there was no actual written Bible. And so today, how thankful we
should be that we have the Bible that we are able to read and
it gives us so much detail right from the very beginning of creation
right up until the time when John the Apostle was on the isle
of Patmos when he was some 90 years of age. We have a wonderful
record of everything which occurred right through that period. But
coming more specifically then to this account here this morning
and it speaks of the time when Israel was delivered from the
time of difficulty and perplexity perhaps for them when they were
in Egypt for those 400 years. What a long time that was and
yet God's promise was They would be there for those 400 years,
and they would be delivered, and so it came to pass. And we
can be sure that God's promises do come to pass. And if you just
think of this deliverance, well, however would Israel there in
that time have thought of the deliverance in the wonderful
way that it came about? But it came about in a most remarkable
way, in a most important way, to set before Israel and the
Church of God the way of deliverance. They were in bondage. And God's people are in bondage. You may say, well, what does
that mean? Well, it means that we are bound by sin. And we are unable to free ourselves
from that situation. And the Israelites were unable
to come out of Egypt themselves. They were not able to deliver
themselves. And it's the same today. As we
may feel and know and realise the effect of sin upon us, which
brings us into a condition of captivity, that we're not free,
we're bound, we're not able to do the things that we desire,
and we cannot see perhaps any way out of it. Well, the Lord
had a wonderful plan for Israel. And God has a wonderful plan
for his people today, to bring them out of that condition of
sinfulness and to bring them into the great and glorious light
of the everlasting gospel. And this account here speaks
to us of the wonderful way of salvation, the wonderful way
of redemption, And it's so important that we are able to understand
the great truths that are contained in this account. And the position
was set before Moses, who brought it before Israel in a very clear
and a very particular and a very detailed way. And there was no
alternative. There was only one way that the
Israelites were to be freed. And to understand that, at the
time, no doubt was mysterious to them. They wouldn't have appreciated
really what was being done, what was necessary. But what a wonderful
picture it was set before them. And what a wonderful picture
it sets before us today. And the significance very simply
was that there was a lamb that had to be taken for a family. And it had to be a pure lamb
without any defect. And it only had to be a year
old. And it had to be slain. And the blood was not allowed
to just fall upon the ground. It was put into a basin. It was taken care of. The blood
signified that the lamb had been killed. It had been slain. And the blood in the basin very
clearly indicated that fact. And then we see the blood was
not to be left in the basin. It was to be taken and it was
to be placed upon the doorpost and the lintel and it was to
be sprinkled indeed upon the people. It was not to just fall
upon the ground, it was not to be trampled under feet, it was
to be used in a very specific way. And without this blood,
without this blood being placed upon the lentils and the doorposts,
there would not have been the deliverance. because the avenging
angel would therefore have come and slain the firstborn in those
Israelitish houses. But there was this ordained sign
by Almighty God And it was indeed taken. The blood was taken using
a bunch of hyssop and we're not quite sure what hyssop was. The
Hebrew word has various views and it's not clear to be positive
but nonetheless it was a plant, a very simple plant that was
able to take of the blood and to be used to place the blood
on the lintels and on the doorposts. And that was the sign that was
used by God so that when the evangel angel came, and if those
Egyptians were inside the house, they'd gone in under the blood,
they were safe. and that was the only place of
safety. And we should realise that today,
many, many years after, the blood is not placed, as it were, physically
on the doorposts and the lintels. But nonetheless, it is necessary
that we are found today with that blood taken indeed from
the basin and sprinkled upon us, so that that blood is that
which redeems us. It's that blood which saves us
from eternal destruction and eternal situation in hell. It's only through the shed blood
of the Saviour Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this picture
that the Israelites had here of this Lamb of God directed
them and us to none other than the true Lamb of God. and John the Baptist speaks of
him in this way, and he tells the people, the Word of God tells
us what a blessed thing it is if we hear those words, to behold
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. The Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it was his shed blood that
was shed to take away the sins of all his people, to take away
your sins and my sins. So if we are, as it were, in
bondage today, under the power and influence of sin which separates
us from God, we need to know that we are blessed and are under
the blood. The blood has been shed for us. The Lord Jesus Christ has died,
that we are set free. There was no going back into
Egypt. The Israelites came out. They
were free from that Egyptian bondage. And when the Church of God come
out of that situation of bondage, of sin, through the shed blood
of the Saviour, there's no going back, because they are free. And the Lord Jesus Himself said
those glorious words, if the Son therefore shall make you
free, You are free indeed. And how essential it is for every
one of us to know that we are free, that the blood of Jesus
Christ has set us free. It's the only way that you and
I will be saved. There's no other way. We need
to have the evidence of it. We need to have the application
of the blood of Christ. The blood of this lamb was taken
from the basin and it was sprinkled on and put upon the doorposts
and the lintels. There was the action of that.
It had to be done. It had to be applied to the doorposts
and the lintels. And today the Living Church of
God need the blood to be applied to our hearts. So it's not just a mere fact,
it is a great and glorious application by the Holy Spirit to our hearts,
to know therefore that we are freed. It's only that freedom
when we know the effect of that blood upon our hearts and so
today as we think of this wonderful account remembering that Israel
were to remember the Passover they were not to forget it every
year they were to remember it because of the wonderful deliverance
it brought about and then as we move on some 1,500 years to
that time when the Lord Jesus Christ partook of that last Passover. I know the Jewish people still
carry out the ceremony of the Passover but in actual fact it's
a totally empty ceremony because it's been superseded You children
and young people, do you know what the Passover has been superseded
by? It's been superseded by what
we term the Lord's Supper. The Lord Jesus Christ instituted
the Lord's Supper, which followed on from the Passover. There was no more need of the
Passover. no more need of a lamb to be slain because the Lamb
of God was slain, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a wonderful
and a very gloriously simple ceremony that the Lord instituted
for his people to partake of. And it's a great and glorious
privilege if we've been set free If we have the evidence that
Lord Jesus Christ has died for us, that he shed his blood for
us, then you see we have the wonderful testimony of the Lord
himself to remember him, remember his dying love in the ordinance
of the Lord's Supper. And we see there, set before
us, his broken body. Remember? The Lamb slain on the
Passover night, the bones were not broken. He was slain, the
bones were not broken. And the same with the glorious
Saviour. His bones were not broken. But the Lamb's blood was shed,
and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ was shed. And how thankful
we should be today that it was so. And thankful that we are
able to hear the words of the Saviour. Know that the words
of the Saviour might always enter into our hearts. What does He
say? Do this in remembrance of Me. What a humbling thought it is
to realise the Lord Himself instituted this Supper of Remembrance so
that we might remember the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, it is so, so important
to have the evidence that you and I are indeed under the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the Apostle Paul
gave us a wonderful view of this in the epistle to the Hebrews
and in the ninth chapter of the Hebrews he tells us referring
to Moses for when Moses has spoken every precept to all the people
according to the law he took the blood of calves and of goats
and water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both
the book and all the people, saying, this is the blood of
the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover,
he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels
of the ministry, and almost all things are by the law purged
with blood. And then he says, and without
shedding of blood, there is no remission. That means there's
no forgiveness. There's no forgiveness for your
sin and my sin, unless we are blessed with this sprinkling
of blood upon our conscience. And he says, therefore, it was
therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens
should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves
with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into
the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the
true, like the Passover, like the tabernacle, like the temple,
but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God
for us. What a wonderful privilege it
is to realise that we have the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour
appearing for us in heaven's high court above. And He is there
because of His shed blood. And the Apostle goes on and says,
Nor yet that He should offer Himself often as the High Priest
entereth into the holy place every year. with the blood of
others, that was the blood of the animals. For then must he
often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but
now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him,
shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. So today is our hope. And I trust we have a hope. And if we don't have a hope,
may we pray for a hope, a hope of eternal life. And that hope
of eternal life can only come about through the conscious realization
of the application by faith of the blood of Christ upon our
conscience to cleanse us from all sin. Well, may we bless God
today if we have been given that faith to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ, to believe the great truths which are contained
in the Word of God and the 11th chapter of the Hebrews, which
I'm sure you may remember, gives us wonderful examples of the
faith of many godly people who've gone before. But you and I need
the same faith today to be blessed with this wonderful privilege
of knowing that we are under the blood. And so the apostle
tells us, through faith, he kept the Passover. You see, through
faith today, we keep the Lord's Supper. Through faith he kept
the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed
the firstborn should touch them." Well, Moses was blessed with
living faith to look beyond the sacrifice of the lamb and the
shed blood there, given faith to look beyond to the great and
glorious sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. And how necessary
it is for you and me today to look beyond the mere things recorded
in the word of God, to be blessed with living faith in the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ and to pray for his revelation and
pray for his mercy toward us. The book of Leviticus, which
again is an instructive book to us in so many, many ways,
and it directs us again to the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the necessity of this blood. It tells us in the 17th chapter,
11th verse, for the life of the flesh is in the blood. No blood, no life. bloodshed,
life taken. For the life of the flesh is
in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make
an atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh
an atonement for the soul. It's the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ that brings us to God, makes us at one with Him. We are alienated from God without
this shed blood. Our sins separate between us
and our God. There's no communion. There's
no union. There's no blessing, but what
a glorious truth it is that the blood of Christ does bring about
this wonderful atonement. You see the necessity that you
and I today are blessed with receiving this shed blood, just
like it was here in these days The blood that is in the basin.
The blood of Christ was not spilt upon the ground. It was precious
blood. Precious blood for the living
Church of God and what a mercy it is. If you and I today know
something of the great truth of these things, you know, we're
here in the very early books of the Word of God, or we can
go right to the very end of the Word of God to the book of the
Revelation where the Apostle John remember on the Isle of
Patmos when he was blessed with the view of these glorious truths
and he tells us he says John to the seven churches which are
in Asia grace be unto you and peace from him which is and which
was and which is to come and from the seven spirits which
are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful
witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of
the kings of the earth, unto him that loved us, and washed
us from our sins in his own blood. Oh, what a great and glorious
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful blessing it
is then to receive such favour and such mercy. And it is only
because of his love. Just you ponder that. The love
of God The love of God the Father, the love of God the Son, the
love of God the Holy Spirit was so much, so great, that we were redeemed. And the plan of that redemption
was the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, the Holy Son of
God and the gaining Revelation, the Apostle directs us to these
great truths and he comes and he says in the seventh chapter,
and all the angels stood round about the throne and about the
elders And the four beasts fell down
on the throne and their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Blessing,
and Glory, and Honor, and Wisdom, and Thanksgiving, and Power and
Might be unto our God for ever and ever." What a blessing it
is to realize these truths and the elders' answers saying, What
are these which are arrayed in white robes, and whence came
they? And the answer was, Sir, thou
knowest. And he said to me, These are
they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed
their robes. and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb. There's no other way of being
cleansed. This is the only way, the only
blessing. What a favour it is to know then
that you and I are cleansed, are washed in the blood of the
Lamb. Or the Apostle Paul when he wrote
to the Corinthians and spoke to them and told them about the
wretchedness and the sinfulness of the people and how bad they'd
been. And yet, you see, he directed
them to the wonderful blessing and the wonderful favor that
was theirs. And that's a great truth to know.
And the Lord does deal with his people in this way. He says,
and ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are cleansed. glorified. Isn't it a great truth
when he says these things? Such were some of you. None of
us can get away from the condition of sin that we're in, but to
think that although we are such sinners, but ye are washed, but
ye are sanctified, but ye are justified. How? Only one way,
blessed way, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit
of our God. Well, it's a great blessing,
is it not, then, to know that this beautiful picture that we
have in Exodus follows right through and how thankful we should
be for it and bless God indeed for it. The Apostle Peter knew
what it was, didn't he? He knew the need of it. Dear
old Peter, how he was sinful and how the devil was able to
get in and caused him to deny his Lord and Master but what
regret there was and how he went out and wept bitterly and how
thankful he was for the blood of Christ and so he tells us
in the first chapter of the first epistle and he's speaking to
the Church of God and he tells them elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Christ, of Jesus Christ, grace
unto you and peace be multiplied. Then he moves on in this chapter
down to the seventh verse, or perhaps the sixth verse, where
he says, wherein ye greatly rejoice. And it's reason to greatly rejoice,
to know that we are freed from that condemnation of sin through
the blood of Christ, wherein ye greatly rejoice. Though now
for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold
temptations. And I'm sure there are many temptations. And the devil's very keen on
tempting us to believe that there's no hope for us, that we're not
free, that we're bound, we never will be freed. Well, the Apostle
tells us the benefit of this, that the trine of your faith,
being much more precious than a gold perisher, though it be
trine with fire, might be found unto praise and honour at the
appearing of Jesus Christ. You see, there we have really
the wonderful secret. And so may we be so thankful
for such a truth as the Apostle then goes on in his chapter describing
the truth when he says, for as much as ye know. What a blessing of the Holy Spirit
has revealed this to us. that we know that we're not redeemed
with corruptible things. That means we can't pay for our
salvation. We can't earn our salvation.
No way can that happen. As silver and gold from your
vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ. as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot. That's the only way that you
and I can be redeemed, can be freed, can be washed through
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the only way
that Israel were to be freed from Egypt when they were found
to be under the blood. And it's the same today. For
us, in our age, only one place, only one way of freedom, what
a mercy it is if we have the evidence of the work of the blessed
Spirit of God. And the Apostle John speaks of
the same truths as he writes. And again, in the first chapter
of his epistle, he tells us, if we say that we have fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, We lie and do not the truth,
but if we walk in the light, and this is how the light comes,
through the shed blood of the Saviour, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship, one with another, and the blood of Jesus
Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. You see, it's total. There's no lack. It cleanses
from all sin. The whole Church of God is cleansed,
made clean, washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Oh, it's a great blessing if
you and I are brought to such a situation and we can thank
God. that we have the complete Word
of God that leads us from that Passover right through the Old
Testament, right into the New Testament, and through the New
Testament into that place of glory, to realize that this is
the only way of our salvation. Well, the Apostle Paul, when
he wrote to the Romans, he spoke about reconciliation by Christ
as now the way of reconciliation for you and me, what a blessing
it is. He tells us, for when we were
yet without strength, that means when we were still in darkness
and sin, no strength at all. When we were yet without strength,
in due time Christ died for the ungodly, for scarcity, for a
righteous man will one die, yet for a good man some would even
dare to die, but God commended his love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us much more than being now
justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. He just goes on, for if when
we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son,
much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life and
not only so but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ
by whom we have now received the atonement. What joy there
is when the Spirit of God comes to us and confirms to our heart
that we are a child of God. And it's only through the shed
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So ponder these great truths
and realise what a blessed word it is to think that this is the
way that Israel were freed from Egypt, and this is the way the
Church of God are freed from their sins through the blood
of the Redeemer. And you shall take a bunch of
hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, strike
the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the
basin, and none of you shall go out of the door of his house
until the morning. Remember, safety in Christ, eternal
safety in Christ. Amen.