Lord may graciously help me I
would turn your prayerful attention to Exodus chapter 12 and verse
23. Exodus chapter 12 and verse 23. For the Lord will pass through
to smite the Egyptians and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel
and on the two side posts the Lord will pass over the door
and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to
smite you. Exodus chapter 12 and verse 23. We've read together this morning
of a very critical time in the life of Israel. Israel had been
in Egyptian bondage for many years, and we read that it was
430 years on that day when they were brought out of the land
of Egypt. It was a time of new beginnings
for the Israelites. They had been under the yoke
of Pharaoh, under the slavery of being slaves to Pharaoh for
so many years. He had dictated what they did.
They had to do what Pharaoh told them to do. They were his slaves,
and he was not doing it for their benefit. He was doing it for
his benefit, but for their ruin. And we have here, you see, the
way that the Lord graciously brought Israel out of this state
of bondage. The Sunday School children will
remember that their text, their memory text, is found in Corinthians. If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. And we have really a new stage
in the life of Israel set before us in this Passover. And you'll
notice at the beginning of the chapter that this is spoken of
in verse 2. Exodus 12 verse 2. This month
shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first
month of the year to you. The calendar was reset. This was not normally the first
month in the year, but this became the first month, this abib, this
April as we would call it today, this month of the year that became
the beginning of months. And here we see something of
when you become, in Christ, you're a new creature. There's a new
beginning. Old things are passed away. They were not to be any
longer servants and slaves to Pharaoh. There was to be a newness
of life. that, as it were, came as a result
of the end of this Passover occurrence. There was to be a liberation
from that state of bondage. They were not to carry on serving
Pharaoh, but we can think of that spiritually as serving sin,
serving the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life. No, you
see, there was to be a break. They were not to continue in
that way. They were to be liberated. This shall be the beginning of
months. There should be a new start, as it were, when one comes
to see the emptiness of the things of this life, because we read
that they were crying by reason of their bondage. They came to
hate their bondage. They came to cry to God to deliver
them from their bondage. God raised up Moses, who was
used by God to guide them, as it were, out of their bondage.
But it was, you see, this Passover event, this tenth plague that
was used, as it were, to break Pharaoh. to break the Egyptians
and to bring them out into liberation. But you see, the point was here,
that in the picture there was judgement on Egypt. It was not
judgement on the Egyptians only, it was judgement on all of Egypt. And you see, there were some
plagues that, for example, the darkness. There was darkness
over the land of Egypt, but there was light in the dwellings of
the Israelites. But this plague, as it were,
there was this specific work that the Israelites had to be
involved with if there was going to be a separation between Israel
and the Egyptians. And this great work was the work
of the Passover, you see. There was to be this lamb. So
if we go through what the Israelites were told in verse 3 of this
chapter, So there was a specific time which this lamb should be
taken. out of the goats or out of the
sheep we read, but this one had to be taken at a specific time. A lamb according to the house
of their fathers, a lamb for a house. And if the household
be too little for a lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto
his house take it according to the number of the souls. So there
had to be a suitability of the size of the lamb for, you see,
those who were to eat of it. It was to be a suitable, as it
were, sacrifice, a suitable food and nourishment for those who
were to eat it. It was not to be wasted. It was
not to be, as it were, all these lambs provided and then never
eaten. There was to be a suitability
of this lamb for those who were going to eat it. But then in
verse 5 we have, your lamb. It started off with a lamb and
then became the lamb and then your lamb. Your lamb shall be
without blemish. And here we see that it was not
any lamb that would do. This is pointing to the Lamb
of God, who John said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world. Your lamb shall be without blemish. A male of the first year in the
prime, ye shall take it from the sheep. or from the goats.
So there was to be this unblemished lamb. No, nothing wrong with
it. A meek, as it were, creature
that was sinless, as it were, pointing to Christ in his righteousness. And you shall keep it until the
14th day of the same month. So they were to keep it with
them. They were to get to know that lamb. They were to, as it
were, affiliate with that lamb. It was to live with them for
those four days. They were to, as it were, get to know this
lamb as their lamb. And he shall keep it until the
14th day of the same month and the whole assembly of the congregation
of Israel shall kill it in the evening. This lamb, this spotless
lamb, this lamb without blemish was to be killed by divine appointment. on this 14th day of the month.
And this was by God's appointment. As we think of the Lamb of God,
he was to be killed. His time, he had a certain time
to come. And many times he said earlier
in his life, my time is not yet. But then, you see, there was
a time, there was a set time when by appointment, divine appointment,
he was to be, as it were, killed at Calvary. But there we have,
there was this time when the whole of Israel, the whole congregation
of Israel shall kill this lamb in the evening, their respective
lamb in each household. So this was portraying the work
of Christ, you see, this lamb was to die in the place, as it
were, of the firstborn in each household. Each household, we
read, each household in Egypt, whether they were Egyptians or
Israelites, each one was going to lose a firstborn, except that
there was this lamb that had been slain in that household. So in a sense there was death
in every house, either it was the death, a human death as it
were, of the first born, or it was the death of a lamb on behalf
of that one. And here we see so much pointing
to the need of the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to pay that
price, who came to stand in our wretched place, to stand where
we could never stand. So we have the lamb being killed
at a certain point in time and we think of the Lord Jesus you
see. When the scribes and the Pharisees
gathered together, we read at one point in the New Testament,
and they had their gathering together and they decided what
they would do. And the only thing they came to the conclusion was
that they would not take him on the day of the feast. That
was the only conclusion they came to. Well, it was appointed
that he would be taken at the day of the feast and he was.
You see, God's hand overruled it all. And there was this time,
Jesus died at exactly this same time, respectively, in those
many, many years later. So this Lamb was pointing to
our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who would be the Lamb of God. But you see, this killing of
the Lamb was not the end of the event. And the death of Christ
as it were, it is vital and is necessary, but this was not the
end of the Passover, was it? The Passover didn't end with
the Lamb being killed. Salvation was accomplished in
the death of Christ, but salvation then needs to be applied. And that's vital. It was not
enough to kill a lamb. The lamb then, there was other
things that needed to be done after the killing of this lamb,
which would then, as it were, apply the death of that lamb
to those in the household. And this is so vital in the preaching
of the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ came and
stood in the place of sinners. He came at that appointed time.
He died at Calvary. That salvation accomplished. But today, in our experiences,
in our walk of faith, in our life, and if we are going to
have this new beginning, if it is going to be a beginning of
days with us, if there is going to be this new life, if there
is going to be that all things becoming new, there needs to
be an application of what took place at Calvary to us, to our
hearts today. You see, so the killing was not
the end. The killing was vital. The killing took place, all Israel
doing it in the evening. But in verse 7 we say, and they
shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and
on the upper door posts of the houses. wherein they shall eat
it. So there needed to be an application
of that blood, a sprinkling of that blood, we read later on
in the chapter, that they were to use this bunch of hyssop,
that they were to use this plant that was like a sponge, as it
were, and painted, as it were, on the doorposts and on the lintel. There was to be an application. You see the blood, our blood
naturally, We cannot live without our blood. If you drained any
one of our blood, drained us of blood, we would die. Our body
may be perfect in every other aspect, but if it has no blood,
we die. And you see, so the blood was
an indication of life being forfeited. So the blood of the lamb was
an indication of the death of that lamb. And so when they were
sprinkling the blood on the doorposts, It was an indication that a lamb
had been slain. And it was an indication that,
as it were, those people were trusting in what that death of
the lamb, pointing forward to Christ, would be their salvation. They are to take the blood and
strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door posts of
the houses wherein ye shall eat it. So this lamb that was selected
out of the flock, it was brought in, they had to live with it
for these four days, and at this appointed time it was to be killed. The appointed time, as it were,
it was to have the death applied to it. It was killed. And then we read, and they shall
eat the flesh in that night. roast with fire and unleavened
bread. So they were not to eat the flesh,
we read, raw. They were to cook it. But they
were not to put it in boiling water and boil it. They were
to cook it by roasting it directly in the flame, we read. They were to roast it in the
fire. And here we see a picture of what took place at Calvary. The Lord Jesus, you see, was
roast. as it were, in the flame of the wrath of God against sin. He was in that place of great
sufferings. He was, as it were, exposed to
the wrath of God. It was to be roast in the fire.
And there was to be this unleavened bread. Now there's much in this
chapter about leavened bread. Now leaven is like the yeast
that we put in bread. And if you think about how you
make bread, you get the dough, and then you put in the yeast,
and that very small amount, relative to the size of the dough, a very
small amount of yeast, when it's living, it produces that gas,
which then makes the whole of the dough swell to many times
its original size. And so the yeast has such a huge
effect and even though itself is so small. And that's how we
use that today to make bread rice. But you see, in the Bible,
yeast, sometimes, often, it is is spoken of, or typified, or
likened to, sin. You see, a little sin, as it
were, can affect the whole lump. Only a little, you say, only
a small thing, but it can affect and have an effect upon the whole,
the dough, and change its shape massively. Well, they were to
have unleavened bread. In other words, they were not
to use this yeast. So it would have been very solid
bread. It wouldn't have had air in it,
as it were, gas in it, which makes it go to a bigger size
and makes it, as it were, easier to eat. But they were to have
unleavened bread. And you see the leaven is spoken
of in the Bible of wickedness. There was to be a cleansing of
all sin. They were not to, as it were,
have sin that was to be cleansed out. With bitter herbs shall
they eat it. So they were to eat this lamb
with unleavened bread and bitter herbs and they were to eat it
in that way. and let none of it, and we read
that it was to be not boiled, but let none of it remain, this
is verse 10, until the morning. And that which remaineth of it
until the morning ye shall burn with fire. They were to partake
of it. So there was these two aspects,
wasn't there? After the death of the lamb,
the blood needed to be taken in a basin applied with his hyssop
plant onto the side posts and the lintel of the door. And this was, we later read,
the reason for that was so that when the angel, the avenging
angel, the wrath of God would come and see each of the houses
in Egypt, there was to be a separation between the houses that he visited
with vengeance and death. was all to do with what was on
the doorpost and this blood that's typified the death of the lamb. So that was one of the aspects,
was taking and striking the blood. But the other was that they were
to eat. It was to be eaten. Again, there was an application. It was not enough, as it were,
to have the sacrifice happen. It was not enough for the lamb
to be killed. The lamb then also needed to
be eaten. They needed to be nourished by
it. It needed to give them strength. They needed to have nutrition
and blessing, as it were, from this lamb that was roast in the
fire. And that is so with us today,
isn't it? It's not enough to say, well, Calvary took place
nearly 2,000 years ago. But we need to feed on Calvary. We need to feed on what was accomplished
at Calvary. What Moses was speaking of at
that Mount of Transfiguration, that which would be accomplished
at Calvary, that needs to become precious to us today. Let nothing
of it remain unto the morning. They were to eat of it completely.
They were not to eat half of it. And we see here that we need
all of Christ. One of our hymn writers says,
in every office he sustains, in every victory he gains, in
every counsel of his will, he's precious to his people still. You see they needed all of Christ
and we need this Lamb of God. We need to feed on all the aspects,
prophet, priest and king. All the aspects of Christ to
his people are to be for their nourishment. They are to eat
of it. They are to declare it as it
were. There needs to be a declaration of the death of Christ in this
blood on the doorposts and on the lintel. And verse 11, and thus shall
you eat of it with your loins girded and your shoes on your
feet. Now this was not the way they'd
eat an evening meal. They'd normally eat an evening
meal as it were, ready as it were to relax. But this was not
to be eaten in a relaxed way. They were on a commencement of
a journey. And you see we If we think of
this as typifying, really, when we come to know the Lord Jesus,
savingly for ourselves. We're on a journey. We're travelling
from the city of destruction to the city of Canaan. We're
travelling out of Egypt to Canaan. We're on a journey. This is not
our rest. It is polluted. They were to
eat in haste. They were as travellers through
the land. They were not to settle down.
It was not to be a great feast where they could relax and take
it easy. They were commencing a great
journey. This was a great turning point
in the history of Israel. They'd been these slaves for
so long, but now they were going to be liberated. Now they were
going to be set free. Now they were not going to be
following the dictates of the slaves that they were. They were
not going to be following the dictates of their taskmasters. They were going to have, as it
were, God as their God and to worship Him and to serve Him.
They were to go in haste. They were to go away. But in
verse 12 we read, For I will pass through the land of Egypt
this night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, both man and beasts, and against the gods of Egypt I will
execute judgment. I am the Lord." So here we see
this aspect of the judgment. And we could see this in two
ways really. If we think of this as the beginning of their Christian
life in the sense as it's typified, because the Old Testament is
typical of the Christian life as it were. This being in bondage
in Egypt, being liberated. Well you see, when we come to
flee to Christ, the judgment day becomes a reality to us. Maybe we could have lived and
heard about these things and cared nothing for them for many
years, but when the judgment day becomes a reality to us,
when we realize that we must be saved, that we must either
be covered with the blood of Christ, have the merits of his
death applied to us, or we shall perish. then you see that judgment
day became a reality to these Egyptians and to these Israelites. But then in another sense we
see this picture as a little, as it were, type of the end of
the world. When the final day of judgment
shall come, there would be this separation between those that
are in Christ and those that are outside of Christ. Those
that are covered with, as it were, the blood on the doorpost
signifying the death of Christ, and not just the fact that he
died, but the fact that their faith rests in the finished work
of Christ. You see, it doesn't say that
as the Sorry, I haven't got that far,
but it's talking about he was going to execute judgment against
all the land of Israel. Judgment was coming. Of course,
judgment, we know, as it were, is over us all. It is appointed
unto man once to die, and after death the judgment, this coming
day of judgment. And as it was appointed at a
certain date and time in Israel's time, so it will be for us. There is an appointed time. And
there is a necessity to be found sheltering in Christ. But verse
13, And the blood shall be for you for a token upon the houses
where ye are. And when I see the blood, I will
pass over you. When I see the blood, nothing
else. This was the vital thing he was
looking for. He didn't look to see whether
the family had a good family pedigree that happened to be
living in that house or whether they were well-to-do people or
poor people or whatever they were. There was one criteria
that the angel was looking for and the criteria was this. Were
they, was that household trusting in the finished work of Christ? Had they applied the blood to
the doorpost? Or were they being disobedient? You see, you could say, well,
some of Israel might have said, well, I don't think we're bothered
doing all these instructions of Moses, all these instructions. We won't bother with that. Well,
it would have been death, wouldn't it? The Israelites would then
have been left exposed to the wrath of God. But there was that
obedience of faith, you see, and we have to obey God. He has said, as it were, that
Israel was told to do these things, to take the lamb, to slay the
lamb as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. But then they were told
to take that blood, to strike it on the doorposts, and to eat
of it. They were commands. And, well,
it would have been death had they not followed them. And the
blood shall be to you for a token upon your 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. We're then coming on to our text,
which is very similar to verse 13. Verse 23, For the Lord will
pass through to smite the Egyptians. The wrath of God was on its way,
and it was going to travel through each house. You could say that God would
know who was the Egyptians and who was the Israelites. Yes,
he would. But in this appointed time of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, it was only those who had that
token of the blood on the doorposts that were safe. It was only those. For the Lord will pass through
to smite the Egyptians. and when he seeth the blood upon
the lintel and on the two side posts the Lord will pass over
the door and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto
your houses to smite you. In this verse 23 we have some
picture of the activity of God to prevent the anger of God causing
death in the houses of those that had blood on the doorposts.
God was actively involved, you see, in stopping this angel of
God from ruining and killing those in Egypt. And we have that
as a picture, we think of that, the anger of God against sin,
His righteous anger against sin, but it's the Lord Jesus Christ
who we can shelter in. We shelter in Christ. In a sense, we shelter in God
from God. We shelter in Christ, in his
finished work, and in sheltering in Christ, in sheltering in Christ
who was God, we are then free from the curse and righteous
anger of God against sin. For the Lord will pass through
to smite the Egyptians. There was a certainty. There
was a certainty to the judgment that was coming. It was going
to happen. And there was one major issue
that he was looking for, and that was the application of the
merits of Christ. And as we think of this as a
picture of the beginnings of the Christian life, Yes, there
was those, first of all, those crying out to God under the bondage
of sin. But here we have a picture, as
it were, of the Lord Jesus making himself precious to souls. And those souls trusting in the
Lord Jesus, the putting on the blood on the doorposts, and sprinkling
it on the doorposts, is showing us that we should have that application,
that we should apply what Christ has done. We need that applied
to our souls, so that we are no longer exposed to God's wrath,
however many good works we may claim to think that we have.
No, we need the blood. We need that cleansing of the
blood of Christ upon us, that we may be set free from the bondage
of sin. You see, the law condemns But
the Lord is able to take that handwriting which was against
us. And the death applied to the
Lamb instead of to those people in Israel. Now we read later
that a mixed multitude came out of Israel. We do not know whether
there were perhaps some Egyptians that heard of what needed to
be done and as it were laid hold of the same thing. The vital thing was, and for
us today, is we need to be trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and
we need him to come and sweetly apply the merits of Christ to
us so that we are no longer exposed, no longer standing in our own
righteousness, no longer trying to make ends meet on our own.
but that we are looking to what Christ has accomplished. His
death, this lamb without blemish, this one that had no fault, no
spot, no blemish in it, this one who could, as it were, stand
in their place. And so we have, you see, in this
type in the Old Testament, such a picture of redemption, such
a picture of how the Lord Jesus would come, and stand in the
place for his people. And you see, soon after, we have
the actual event told of what actually happened. The Lord did
pass through Egypt. He did cause the death of all
those who did not have blood on the doorposts. And every house
then, we read, the people came out obviously in great distress. They'd lost their loved ones.
We read in verse 30, And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and
all his servants, and all the Egyptians. And there was a great
cry in Egypt, and there was not a home wherein there was not
one dead. It was devastation for all those,
as it were, that were not sheltering in Christ. It was devastation.
And yet, at the same time, it must have been such a mixture,
wasn't it? This morning, which was a morning of great Weeping
for Pharaoh and his people was the same mourning which was a
mourning of great joy for the Israelites. This was a day of
liberation. This was a day when they would
be set free. This was a day when they would borrow jewels from
all their neighbours and they would spoil the Egyptians. They
would go out with a high hand and they would be liberated from
their slavery for one reason, because they were looking to
the Lamb. And all the Old Testament you
see with all its, we read without the shedding of blood is no remission.
There was, there needed to be the shedding of blood. There
needed to be, that means there needed to be the death of one
to pay for our death as it were, to stand in our place. So then
we have then this great event. For the Lord will pass through
and smite the Egyptians. And when he seeth the blood upon
the lintel, this is the only thing that he was looking for
as it were, and on the side post, the Lord will pass over the door
and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses.
He will not allow the destroyer to destroy you. He will not allow
the wrath of God to be poured upon you because it was poured
upon his son. You see, if he poured it upon
you and upon his son, then God would be unjust and God would
be unfaithful. And you see here in this picture,
this story, we see the need for obedience of the Israelites. They needed to obey what Moses
told them to do. They needed to trust that as
they went through that night and at midnight, you think of
it, if you knew that in midnight, In this area, everyone, every
house would have a death in it. A solemn thing. Will we be safe? Will we be free from this great
judgment? Well, they needed to trust on
what God had told them. What God had told them to do,
the simplicity of it. They did not have to barricade
the door. They did not have to make great
concrete bunkers to make them safe. No, they were to do one
thing. They were to strike the blood
on the lintel. This was a declaration. Not that we can be strong against
the avenging angel by our own cleverness and our own concrete
bunkers. No. There was one way to be safe
and that was to be trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. This was
the way of safety. And of course then they were
to walk in newness of life. And you see if you look it back
in verse 14, and this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and
you shall keep it a feast unto the Lord throughout your generations.
You shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. Seven
days shall you eat unleavened bread. They were to continue
casting out the sin. They were not to live in sin.
They were to live the rest of their lives, as it were, in newness
of life, walking in His ways, delighting in His statutes. This
was to be a great beginning. This was a great day in the life
of Israel. This was a day when they were
separated from Egyptian bondage. They were not left, as it were,
they would not anymore have to be servants to Pharaoh. And you see, coming back to that
memory text, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things have become new. There is that newness of life,
you see. Walking under a new master. liberated from sin by
what Christ has done. The handwriting that was written
against us, the law you see but condemn. Last time I was here
we were speaking of the lepers and how that the law could do
nothing but condemn the leper for his leprosy, condemn him
in the sense of saying that he should be outside the camp, he
should be away from the people. And today as we see this, the
disease and the scare or the concern, the great concern that
there is about this Ebola virus and the devastation that it does
to those that catch it, and how much there is a need, as it were,
for separation. from those who have it, from
those who don't, because of the great contamination. And so it
was with leprosy in those days. But you see, the Lord was able
to take that law that was separating, and the law separates. The law
condemns sin. And we're sinners, so we're condemned.
It's as simple as that. the Lord is able to take that
handwriting against us, to bear the punishment for it, so that
we're no longer cleansed as it were, we're set free to walk
in newness of life. And the law then, as it were,
as we're cleansed, no longer can criticise us in that sense,
because if we're walking, as it were, in the ways of the Lord,
then, as it were, we're free from that. and the law has nothing
to say because it has spent itself on the substitute. Well then,
this Passover was a great event. It was something to be remembered.
It was not just a one-off, you see. The actual event was a one-off,
but they were then to keep it a feast for years to come, forever
we read. They were to keep this as an
ordinance forever in their generations. They were to remember, and we're
to remember, you see, and we're to come back. If we're Christians,
we're to remember what, how we became Christians. how we are
where we are. We are to remember that it was
the finished work of Christ that snatched us as branches from
the burning, that took us out of nature's darkness, made us
trust in the finished work of Christ and all that he accomplished,
satisfying the law, making it honourable, standing in our place,
dying on our behalf, bearing the punishment of sin. Yes, we
are to look to what he has done. and to realise that He has done
this, and we're to remember what He has done, and to remember
how we became cleansed. They were not to then go away
and think that they were cleansed by their own works. They were
not then to, as it were, praise themselves for their deliverance.
They were to look to the Lord, and to look what He accomplished,
because that night, we read, was a night much to be. They were to remember it. They
were not to forget. And we are not to forget what
the Lord has done for us. If we are in Christ, we are a
new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become
new. Now that does not mean that we
then cease to have any trouble with sin any more. As you know,
Israel, they did at times, sadly, fall badly backwards. And yet
they were never, as it were, under Pharaoh again. They were
freed from that. And we need to be freed from
that slavery of sin, to walk in God's ways, to purge out all
the corruption that is in us and in our houses and in our
lives, and to walk, as it were, in newness of life, seeking to
live to God's honour and glory, seeking to focus on the finished
work of Christ. and all that he has accomplished.
Well, may the Lord bless us then with this living faith to lay
hold upon the hope set before us in the Gospel, to look to
the Lord Jesus who alone can cleanse us from all sin, the
one who alone can, as it were, cover us from the angel of death. the angel of eternal death, the
angel of eternal destruction, as it were, the anger of God
against sin. He is the only one that can interpose
his precious blood. Well, may we find Christ then
to be precious, that we may not, as it were, continue to live
content in Egypt, continue to be unconcerned about the coming
judgment that you see when we come in our lives to true conversion. Judgement becomes real. Eternity
becomes real. A need for a saviour becomes
real. The need for showing that Christ
is our all becomes a reality. And we flee to Christ, and He
is able to set us free from the bondage of sin, so that we can
serve Him in newness of life. May the Lord, at His blessing,
Amen.