Let's open our Bibles again this
morning to the book of Exodus. This time to Exodus chapter 12. Exodus the 12th chapter. Not too far from here, probably
175 miles, right down on the edge of western Kentucky, there's
a fellow who prints and publishes books the old-fashioned way. He doesn't use modern equipment,
but rather he sets the type style with each letter in a little
square thing, puts it on a grid, prints the books with a press
that you just press back and forth. And the books are very,
very well done. They're not usually published
in great quantity, so you've probably never heard tell of
any of them that is published, but they are done not with machines
and stuff like Our books are now, but the books are hand-stitched,
hand-sewn. They take pages, sew sections
together, then sew the whole book together, then put glue
on the back of it. You take your hymn book, if you
don't ever do this to a book, open it up, bend it back, you're
gonna break the spine on it. Not a hand-sewn book. The hand-sewn
books have thread running through them, binding everything together.
This book, is sewn together with a scarlet thread. Something that
runs through every page of the book. And that which binds everything
in the book together is the precious blood of God's dear son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. You see it from the beginning
of the book through the end of the book. The whole Word of God
speaks of the accomplishment of redemption by the shedding
of Christ's precious blood as the sinner's substitute upon
Mount Calvary. These 66 books have their coherence
with that one message. The book of God is all about
Jesus Christ and him crucified. If God is pleased to raise up
in this place, this gospel church, give you a pastor, gather you
together in the name of the Redeemer make it your one purpose from
the very outset your one purpose to declare to this generation
the glorious revelation of the triune God in the accomplishment
of redemption through the precious blood of his dear son the Lord
Jesus Christ turn if you will to Exodus chapter 12 and verse
13 Here is without question the
greatest promise God ever made to a man upon the earth. He said,
and the blood shall be to you for a token, a sign, a symbol,
a banner. 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. The scriptures,
I repeat, constantly talk about the blood. It is written in the
book of God, the life of the flesh is in the blood. God said
to Moses, the blood shall be to you for a token. He made this
promise. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. Our Lord Jesus instituted the
Lord's Supper and he instituted the Lord's Supper after the pattern
of that which we have in Exodus chapters 12 and 13 and 14 of
the Paschal Lamb being sacrificed on behalf of God's people. Our
Lord Jesus said this bread is my body. This wine is my blood
in the new covenant shed for many. And he speaks of that blood
representing the sacrifice of himself, the broken body, the
sacrifice of himself on our behalf. These days, you hear little about
the blood from churches, preachers, and theologians. You go to church
week after week after week and never hear anyone say anything
about the blood because it's considered out of date. It's
considered something good enough for folks generations ago. But
today we are too sophisticated to talk about blood. Everything
about the glory of God, the revelation of God's glory, everything in
the knowledge of God, Everything in salvation, the whole of it,
is wrapped up in and provided by and given to us through the
precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to talk to you,
if God will enable me, for just a little bit about the token
of the blood as it's set before us here in Exodus chapter 12.
The shedding of Christ's precious blood is absolutely essential
to the saving of our souls. Without the shedding of blood
is no remission. No sin can be forgiven. No iniquity
can be taken away. No transgression can be blotted
out except by the shedding of the precious blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The blood shall be for you, shall
be to you for a token upon the houses where you 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. What is God saying here? What's
he telling us? He's saying when I deal in judgment
with Egypt I'll deal in mercy with you. He's saying when I
deal in judgment with the world's sin When I come in wrath and
judgment and condemnation upon this world, I'll come to you
in grace. When I execute wrath for sin,
I'm going to extend mercy to you. When I see the blood, I
will pass over you. When this promise was given,
God was walking through the streets of Egypt. Someone put it this
way. God was sword drawn and sharpened
for conflict. was walking through the streets
of Egypt that midnight, slaying in every house on the right hand
and on the left. God came in judgment. God came
in wrath, God came in condemnation, falling upon Egypt, destroying
the pride of every house, the joy of every home, the delight
of every father, the firstborn in every house from the palace
of Pharaoh to the cattle in the barn and the cattle in the field.
The firstborn everywhere was slain that night. Will God destroy
all? Will he destroy all? Will he
have no mercy? Oh no. In wrath God remembers
mercy and he speaks in mercy with a voice of grace and says,
when I see the blood, I will pass over you. God in wrath is
dealing with sin, dealing with sin and judgment, dealing with
sin and justice. And yet he speaks to a few among
many, to a nation within the nation and says, when I see the
blood, I will pass over you. Now the first message of that
text of scripture is this. God's people are saved and safe. God's people are saved and safe. God chose us. The Lord God redeemed
us. The Lord God called us. And the
Lord God keeps us safe. And he says the plague of judgment,
the plague of my wrath will never touch you. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Why is it that God's elect are
safe? Always perfectly safe. Let me
give you a few reasons. God's people are safe because
we are in his heart. He said, I have loved you with
an everlasting love. Oh, wonder of wonders, God in
his excellent being, in his excellent glory, in his eternal righteousness,
holiness, and truth, set his heart upon us so that there was
never a time when God Almighty didn't love us. We're in his
heart, and being in the heart of the Almighty, all is well
all the time. All is well, all the time. Though
we fell in our father Adam, though we went astray from the womb,
speaking lies, the Lord God had us still in his heart and he
will never cease his own to cherish. As we're in his heart, we're
safe because we're in his hand. The hand of omnipotent mercy. The hand of infinite grace. The hand from which none can
pluck us. Safe in his heart, safe in his
hand, and none can take us out of our Savior's hand. And we're
safe because we're in his covenant. The Lord God said, they shall
be my people and I will be their God. The triune Godhead, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, before the world began, entered into a solemn
compact of grace, a covenant. It's revealed to us as a covenant
between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, with Christ,
our representative, the God-man, our mediator, in which the Lord
God swore to save us upon condition of Christ's obedience unto death,
that is, the shedding of his blood, for the satisfaction of
justice. for the bringing in of everlasting
righteousness and the Lord God says because of this covenant
because of the blood of the everlasting covenant you're saved and you're
safe and we're safe saved and safe because we are in God's
Son one with Christ one with Christ that subject had become
more and more precious to me every time I thought about it
these past 50 years. It's bigger and bigger every
time I think about it. We who are gods are one with
Christ. As really and truly one with
Jesus Christ our Lord, as the Son is one with the Father. So that all that Christ is, we
are in Him. All that Christ did, we did in
Him. All that Christ possesses, we
possess in Him. All things are yours, for ye
are Christ's and Christ is God's. The Lord God says, 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. Now watch this, this is the key.
God's people are safe because, only because, we are under the
blood. We are under the blood. When
I was 21 years old, the Lord God sent me to look out West
Virginia and I started pastoring at Lookout Baptist Church. And
I had a deacon, Brother Harold Martin. He was a faithful, faithful
man. And in a couple of years after
I went there, Brother Martin got cancer. And a year later
he was dying. He was in a hospital out in Washington,
D.C. And I flew out to spend some
time with him. We visited that day most of the day for, oh,
I guess three or four hours we visited together. Every time
we get a chance he'd come be conscious and I talked to him
a little bit or he's to me Let me tell you his last words his
last words He looked at me and said preacher It's good to come
here and know that everything is under the blood How good to
come to the end of life to come to meet God in judgment to come
into eternity knowing that everything is under the blood under the
blood of Jesus safe while the ages roll we're safe because
we're saved by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ God spared Israel on this fearful
night of judgment in Egypt God spared the firstborn of every
home in the Israelite nation because he said, when I see the
blood, I will pass over you. And so it is with us this day. When God shall judge the world,
when God judges the world in providence now, when God judges
men in providence today, and when God shall judge the world
in the end of time, The plague shall not come nigh you. No harm shall fall God's elect,
not in time, not to eternity, because the Lord God looks upon
us in His Son, under the blood of His dear Son. You may be familiar
with the name Adoniam Judson. For 30 years he was a missionary,
a Baptist missionary to Burma. And after preaching the gospel
in Burma for 30 years, he came back to the United States and
he was by this time a household word among Baptist people in
this country. And in one of the large cities,
a judge was scheduled to speak. And folks rented a large hall
and it was packed. People came from all over the
place to hear this famous missionary who'd been in Burma, this barbaric
country, for 30 years. And this is before the days of
email and telephones and television and rapid transportation and
all those things. This is back a long, long time
ago. And Judson got up to speak. And as he did, he told the congregation,
that vast, vast congregation, about the Son of God who came
into this world to save sinners. How that the Son of God lived
in this world in righteousness, establishing and bringing in
everlasting righteousness for his people. He told that congregation
how that the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane bowed with broken heart and sweat,
drops of blood as he anticipated being made sin for his people.
And it told them how that the Lord Jesus, when he was made
sin for us, endured all the pain and agony of his soul, of his
body, and his heart under the wrath of God as the sinner's
substitute. As God poured out the fury of
his wrath and justice upon him, and then they buried him. and
he was raised again the third day and ascended into heaven
and sat down on the right hand of majesty on high where he rules
and reigns the universe as our mediator king as our great high
priest always ruling the world for the people he loved and redeemed
with his blood and interceding for us at God's right hand when
the service was over things were quiet and there was a young man
who was escorting Mr. Judson back to wherever it was
he was staying in Judson recognized that the young man was bothered
by something. And he said to this young preacher who was escorting
him, he said, what's troubling you? He said, Mr. Judson, the people were disappointed
tonight. He said, disappointed, how so?
He said, the people, they expected to hear some great stories of
your adventures after 30 years in Burma as a missionary. He
said, stories? He said, I told the people the
greatest story that's ever been told. The story of redemption
by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He said, but they
wanted to hear something exciting, something stirring of your experiences. And he said, what could be more
stirring, more exciting, than that which is revealed in the
gospel of God's free grace. God said, when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. Oh God, let us never, never,
never take lightly the accomplishments of our Redeemer as our substitute
at Calvary and His precious blood. Let me wrap this up by giving
you two or three things here. First, the blood itself. This
blood was the blood of a lamb chosen, ordained specifically
by God. The lamb that God chose. The
lamb that God ordained. The Lord God said to these folks,
take each of you for your house a lamb. If you're too small to
have a lamb, go with your neighbor and the both of you get together
in one house and take this lamb. And you kill the lamb. And you
sprinkle his blood upon the two side posts of the house and upon
the lintel above the house. Sprinkle that blood as a separation
between you and all other men. Sprinkle that blood as that which
is between you and God Almighty. As you enter into the door, sprinkle
the blood. Shut the door behind you. And
eat the lamb. Roast with fire. Eat that lamb,
each of you, eat all of it, at one time, in one night. That
which is remaining in the morning, that's talking about the bones,
part of the lamb that couldn't be eaten. That should burn in
the morning. But everything about the lamb
could be eaten, eat it at one time, at one sitting, with your
staff in your hand, and your shoes on your feet, and your
loins hurt about, you're getting ready to go out of this place.
And the children of Israel ate the lamb. and they were delivered
by the blood. The blood by which we are redeemed
is the blood of God's own Lamb. Behold the Lamb of God. Jesus
Christ is presented for us typically in all the sacrifices in the
Old Testament Scriptures, particularly this Lamb. He is that lamb that
Isaac spoke about when he said, Father, we have the wood for
the burnt offering, but we have the wood and we have the fire,
but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said to
his son as they were going up Mount Moriah, he said, my son,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. He didn't
say God will provide for himself. He said God will provide himself
a lamb for a burnt offering prophesying of the coming of Jesus Christ
the Lamb of God who will be slain in our stands and having accomplished
our redemption the Lord Jesus stands as that one arising up
out of the midst of the throne in Revelation chapter 4 taking
the book in his hand opening the seals of the book, fulfilling
all the purpose of God, a Lamb that had been slain. Jesus Christ,
the Lamb of God. His blood is efficacious blood. The blood of this Lamb could
never take away sin. The blood of this Lamb was only
symbolic. All the sacrifices made in the Old Testament, though
made according to God's word and God's law by God's decree,
were but pictures of that one sacrifice to come which would
take away sin. These sacrifices could not put
away sin. What you and I do, what you and
I produce, be it ever so noble, ever so good, ever so costly,
cannot put away sin, not to any degree. But Jesus Christ, by
one offering, has perfected forever them that are sanctified. Perfected
forever all who are set apart by God to be His. The blood was
sprinkled on the doorpost in little, not on the threshold.
Because we don't dare trample underfoot the precious blood
of the Son of God. But it was sprinkled according
to God's command. And the blood sprinkled upon
our hearts. It's sprinkled upon our hearts
by God the Holy Spirit. And when God comes in saving
grace and gives you faith in Christ so that you eat that lamb. You eat the body and blood of
the Son of God, eat his flesh and blood, not symbolically in
the Lord's table, but by faith. You take the whole Christ with
the bitter herbs of repentance, confessing your sin, because
God has sprinkled the blood on your heart and your conscience,
purging the conscience from dead works. Did you ever wonder what
the scriptures mean when they refer to Enoch? Before he was
translated, he had this testimony that he pleased God. What's that
talking about? Most people have the idea that's
talking about Enoch lived such a good life, everybody looked
at him and said, boy, Enoch was a godly man. If there's anybody
going to heaven, Enoch would be the man. No, that's not what
it means. It means that God spoke to Enoch's heart and told him
he's accepted into the Lord. Justified, righteous, and free
from sin. pleasing God in Jesus Christ
the Lord. That's the testimony of God's
spirit in the heart, mind, and conscience of every believer.
He says to you who believe, your sins are taken away. What's this
blood a token of? It is a token of complete satisfaction. Justice is fully satisfied. God has accepted the sacrifice
of his son and accepts us in his son. Christ's sacrifice is
described in scripture as a sweet smelling savor to God. A sweet
smelling savor to God. You can't tell it by looking
at me, but I'm married to the best cook in the world. And when
she gets to fixing Chuck roasts with potatoes and onions and
mushrooms and gravy and carrots and all this stuff in there.
I walk in the door and know supper's about ready. I know exactly what
it's gonna be and it's gonna be good because the smell is
so acceptable. So delightful, especially if
I'm hungry. God Almighty says concerning
his son, his sacrifice is a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savor. God smells the sacrifice and
accepts us in his son and smiles on his people in his son all
the time. This is my beloved son, he says
concerning Don Fortner in whom I'm well pleased. Well, how can
you say that? Because God accepts me in his
son, one with his son. What is this blood a token of?
It is a token of free access to God. Listen to this. Paul says, now we have boldness. Boldness to enter into the holy
of holies by a new and living way. Boldness. The word is confidence. Freedom to come to God. Nobody
in the Old Testament would dare go in behind that veil except
David. and he only exactly according to God's prescription once a
year with the blood that God ordained at the day that God
ordained he'd go in and perform the work of the high priest but
nobody else dare go in there God by the sacrifice of his son
has opened up the way the veil ripped from top to bottom and
God says to sinners come and welcome come and welcome and
every sinner who comes to God by faith in Christ. Every sinner
who comes to God bringing what God requires and what God accepts,
bringing Jesus Christ, nothing else, just Christ, comes to Him,
listen now, with the full assurance of faith. With the full assurance
of faith. Doesn't matter how I feel, doesn't
matter how bad I've been, doesn't matter how empty my heart is
doesn't matter how cold and indifferent I may be I trust God's son and
God accepts me all the time in his son the blood is a token
of certain sure salvation we're under the blood no harm shall
befall God's elect ever in Jesus Christ the Lord. Shelby and I
don't get a chance to watch much television. We work long hours
at the office and usually come home about 8 o'clock or so and
have supper. After supper we'll watch a little bit of the evening
news if there's anything worth seeing. But we about always record gun
smoke and wagon train, like the old westerns. And a lot of times
those wagon trains traveling east to west will get caught
out in a prairie and have a huge fire in front of them. Huge fire. It's coming right at them. Coming
right at them. What are they going to do? They
go back a good ways back this way and burn a fire behind them. And then after that fire had
burned off they pull up there where all the brush had been
burned off. And they gather the wagons and
the animals and the people all together on that burnt ground.
And the fires go all around them. Go all around them. How come?
Because the fire won't burn on burnt ground. It can't burn it
twice. And in Christ God's people stand
safe and secure saved by the blood of the crucified one on
burnt ground and the wrath and judgment of God can't touch us. Complete atonement Christ has
made and to the utmost farthing paid all that his people owed. Payment God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding church's
hand and then again at mine. Come to God by faith in the crucified
Christ and go home rejoicing in free justification, complete
salvation, everlasting safety in Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.