Good morning. You guys have done a lot of work
since I was here last time. That basement, everything looks
so good. First time I saw it, you were down there just doing
anything you could to try to fix anything that you could fix.
If you would, turn your Bibles to Exodus chapter 12. Exodus
chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12. The title of my message this
morning is, The Difference is Christ. The difference is Christ. In this portion of Exodus, we
see the tenth plague, the Passover. The plague in which the Lord
said, I will come through in the night and I will kill the
firstborn of every man and every beast. And before we read part
of chapter 12, I just want to give a few things so that we
can have an understanding of what we're trying to see this
morning. In this title, The Difference is Christ, I want us to understand
that in everything, Christ is the difference. This picture,
the Passover, one in which in chapter 11, verse 7, the Lord
says, that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference
between the Egyptians and Israel. The Egyptians in this story signify
those who are lost. And Israel signifies those who
have been called by the Lord, His people, His sheep. And that's
so important that we see that. That we understand the difference
between those who are lost and those who are saved is entirely
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only difference. Though
we might have a lot of ideas of what separates those two groups
of people, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only difference. In Romans
8, 28, then it says, to them who are the called according
to His purpose. His purpose. You all know there's
only one purpose? It's the Lord's purpose, God's
purpose. Everything else all falls under
His purpose. Nothing happens without the Lord
purposing it. And that's true in these plagues.
This is the tenth plague. And in verse 1 of chapter 11,
And the Lord said unto Moses, Yet will I bring one more plague
upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt, and afterwards he will let you
go hence. The Lord didn't need ten plagues
so that Pharaoh would let his people go. He could have done
it in one. He could have done it in none.
He's the one who delivered his people to Pharaoh and the Egyptians.
But it's important that we see that all of these things, all
nine of these plagues leading up to this tenth one, were His
purpose. And what do they point to? They
point to the one thing that is the most needful, and that's
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The blood of the sacrifice. That's
the difference. That's the one thing. Look in
chapter 12, verse 1. Let's read a few verses here.
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months.
It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye under
all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the 10th day of this
month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to
the house of their fathers, a lamb foreign house. And if the household
be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto
his house take it according to the number of the souls. Every
man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You
shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats. And ye shall
keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the
whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the
evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on
the two side posts, and on the upper door post of the houses,
wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh,
and that night roast with fire, and unleaven bread, and with
bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden
at all with water, but roast with fire, his head with his
legs, and with the pertinence thereof. And ye shall let nothing
of it remain until the morning, and that which remaineth of it
until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye
eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and
your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste. It
is the Lord's Passover. 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 beast, and against all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And verse 13,
And the blood 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. The Lord tells
them, I am coming through and judgment will be cast. The firstborn
of every man and of every beast will die. The Lord preached to the Jews
in this picture, the whole doctrine of the gospel. There's so many
great pictures in this book, but this is one of the most complete
that we see the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this,
the Lord taught them the choice of the sacrifice. He taught them
the characteristics of the lamb. He taught the death of the lamb
and the sprinkling of the blood. He taught the eating of the lamb
and the faith that rested in it. And the grand result of this
sacrifice, the people who were delivered and how God was glorified.
Let me read to you a couple verses in Hebrews. In Hebrews 9, it
says this, But Christ, being come in high priest of good things
to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made
with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by
the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us." For if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes
of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of
flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through
the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" What that
tells us is, If that blood on the door saved all those people
from the wrath of God, how much more will actually the blood
of the living God save your soul? It was just a lamb, right? That's
all it was. It was the blood of the lamb.
But what that lamb pictured is what matters. The difference
is Christ. We want to look at the Passover
as a picture and a type of Christ. It's to look at the parallels
between the Passover and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Passover,
who is sacrificed for us. I'll get ahead of myself, but
what we want, we want when judgment comes, when that day comes and
we stand before a holy God, we want the blood of Christ on us
so that that judgment is assuaged, it passes over us. I don't know
about you, I do not want to stand in myself before a holy God. The scriptures very plainly tell
us the wages of sin is death. I've got a lot of sin, which
means I've got a lot of death coming my way. I do not want
that. What I want is the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the difference. So what
I'm going to do is we're going to compare the things that they
tell us about this lamb, this lamb that would be slain and
put on the door. I want us to look at the characteristics
they say of that lamb, and I want us to look at how that pictures
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there are a lot of different
things, but I want to look at 11 of them. And I'm telling you
that number because I want you to know, but I promise as a child,
I remember listening to messages and I would listen for someone
to say, now I've got three points or four points. And that was
always based off how much I thought how long that message was gonna
go. So I promise 11 points does not mean I'm gonna go for an
hour and a half here. But listen to me, because these are so important.
Each one shows us another little thing about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Another little thing. It's just such a glorious thing
to know the one who chose a people and died for them. So listen,
first one, the lamb was to be without blemish. The lamb was
to be absolutely perfect, sinless. That's our Lord. The only way
that sin, or the only way that we could not die is someone had
to satisfy the law. Now we can't do it. We can't
satisfy the human law, right? I can't not speed, I can't not
go through a stop sign, I can't, all these things that laws are
put in place, I can't do the human law, let alone God's law. I can't do that in the flesh
outwardly. You may not be able to prove
how often I'm lying to you. You may not be able to know all
those things about me, my envy, all those things. But if you
could see inside, boy, I just want to crawl under this carpet
and hide forever if you could see the truth about me. We have
so much of that. That's why we had to have a perfect
sacrifice. God became a man so that he could
satisfy the law. God is holy. So often people
look at religion and think that God dying was something other
than he had to satisfy God's law. He said that we did, sin
will be punished. So He satisfied the law as an
absolutely perfect man, a perfect substitute. In Corinthians it
says, For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. This transaction
where our sin, He took it, and His righteousness gave it to
us. It's a transaction that I look forward to one day being seen. When I'm not in this flesh anymore,
the Lord will show us that, because I sure don't understand it. I
don't understand, how could someone do that for me? To take all of
this guilty sin and be put to death, and take the righteousness,
His perfection, and make that exchange? But that's what had
to happen. That's why there had to be a
death sacrifice in order to atone for sin. He must have no sin
of his own. Hebrews says, This sacrifice
was able to do what we couldn't do. Secondly, the Lamb was to
be taken out of the fold. The Lord Jesus Christ had to
become a man. He had to be a man. In Deuteronomy, if you want to
turn with me you can, but in Deuteronomy chapter 18 it says
this, It says, The Lord thy God will
raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy
brethren like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. According to
all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the
day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice
of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more
that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They
have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them
up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee and will
put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all
that I shall command him." God became a man. There's another
thing. I feel like every single one
of these points I'm going to say at least one time. I sure don't understand
this, but I believe it. That's what the Scripture tells
us. God became a man. He was the seed of woman, the
seed of Abraham, and made of the seed of David according to
the flesh. Galatians says, Now to Abraham
and his seed were the promises made. The promises were made
to his seed. He saith not into seeds as of
many, but as of one into thy seed, which is Christ. All these
lambs that were sacrificed, they were pictures of him. But there's
only one eternal sacrifice. There's only one sacrifice that
can save sin. All right, number three. The
lamb was to be a year old and was to be killed. This shows
that our Lord in his full strength of life should be put to death. Now, in these sacrifices, they
did this over and over and over again. There were daily sacrifices,
weekly, monthly, ceremonially, annually. They had all these
different things that the Lord gave in these sacrifices. And
I used to think to myself, why did they do so many of these
things? Well, they did them because every single time they did it,
it was a picture of Christ. And it's just like us. If we
don't hear this truth over and over and over again, it just
escapes the mind. It just does. If I get caught
somewhere or I can't be at a service or something, I sure don't think
about what I'm missing. I'm just in the world. I'm just
gone from it. But this says that in the strength
of life, let me read you something else from Hebrews 9. This says,
"'For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands,
which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself,
now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer
himself often as the high priest entered into the holy place every
year with blood of others.'" He's saying he doesn't have to
do this over and over again. 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." His sacrifice put away the sin. 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. unto them that
look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto
salvation." Those that he died on the cross for their sins,
we can look to him the second time without sin unto salvation. How in the world can we do anything
without sin? Because he already paid the debt for our sin. I
don't know how a sin that I'm going to commit in 10 seconds
from now has already been paid for by the Lord. But that's what
it tells us. Every single sin of his sheep,
every single one of them. And, you know. I think I sure
would have done this. I totally would have done this. If I've got a, you know, animals
were very valuable to them. That was one of their prize commodities,
you could have an animal. And they had these sacrifices
over and over again. Well, when this time came for this sacrifice,
if I had a goat out there that looked like it was about to kick
the bucket, that seemed like a really good goat to sacrifice.
I mean, if it's going to die anyway, let's go ahead and do
that. But that's not a picture of our Lord. It had to be the
healthiest, the strongest, a picture of who our Lord was in the prime
of His life at that age, a willing sacrifice. All right, fourthly,
the lamb was to be roasted with fire. This was to picture how
our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, enduring the full wrath of God
for our sins. That's what we deserve. There
are multiple pictures in the scriptures of sin being punished
with fire, fire from heaven, fire to come down and just consume
all that sin. The Lord Jesus Christ on the
cross took the full wrath and fire of God. Now think about
it. In the scriptures it says sin
is punishable by death. It talks about sin singularly
and plural. I don't know how many sins I
have, but if we want to just start with maybe 10,000 this
morning, that I would deserve 10,000 deaths for just what I've
done this morning? Maybe that gives us a little
glimpse of what our Lord endured in the wrath of God for every
single sin for every one of his chosen people. It really was
the wrath of God. That's why we can say no one
has ever endured a death like he did on the cross. All right.
Fifthly, the lamb was to be roasted whole. John says, for these things
were done that the scripture should be fulfilled. A bone of
him shall not be broken. Our Lord went through a great
deal of travail over those weeks coming up to the cross. He was
beaten and mocked and smacked and spit on. All these things
happened to him, but nothing about him could be broken, both
physically and willfully. Our God, when He said, I'm set
my face like a flint, He was going to the cross to save His
people. And if you look more into it, and we don't have time,
but all the different tortures that they committed to Him, from
the beating Him in His back, and then beating Him up, and
then a spear in the side, you know, it's not very likely that
not a single bone of His would be even cracked. Nothing can
happen to our Lord. Nothing can happen to Him. No
man has any power over our Lord. Alright? The blood of the Lamb
must be sprinkled. It said it had to be put on the
door. It had to be put on the lintel on the sides of the door
of the Israelites as the blood of Christ is applied by faith.
There is no salvation nor deliverance apart from faith. Now, let me
read you a couple verses here. John 3, 36 says, "...he that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth in him."
I very much struggle when I'm preaching to discuss this part
of the Gospel. It said here, the point is that
the blood must be sprinkled. The people had to sprinkle the
blood. And that verse I just read said
that He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and
he that doesn't believe does not have everlasting life. Now,
a couple reasons why I struggle to talk about this. First off,
I really have a hard time looking at people and saying, you've
got to believe, you've got to have faith. When I know inside my
head I have the, I just hope I have an inkling of belief,
and just a shred of faith. I so hope I have those things.
And it's hard to preach to people, to tell them to do something
that I don't feel confident in myself that I can do. But secondly
and much more importantly, I have a great fear of telling people
these things and then walking out saying, that guy just told
me if I just believe I'll be saved. Thinking that they have
the ability or we have the ability to believe, we have the ability
to have faith, and we have the ability or some part in saving
ourselves. It couldn't be further from the
truth and we're going to get more into that in just a second.
But what about in Hebrews it says, God did not put the blood
on the door. The people put it there because
they believe God. So let me try to explain something
and show you something. We're going to look at three
verses right here in Exodus and I hope that through these three
verses we can understand this single point. So look at Exodus
11 verse 6 and 7 says, shall be a great cry throughout
all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall
be like it any more. But against any of the children
of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue against man or beast,
that ye may know how the Lord doth put a difference between
the Egyptians and Israel." Okay, look at chapter 12 verse 12. 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 beast. And against all the gods of Egypt,
I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood
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." All right, and last verse. Go to verse 26, Exodus 12, 26,
And it shall come to pass when your children shall say unto
you, What mean ye by this? Why did you do this? Why did
the Lord do this? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the
Lord's Passover who passed over the house of the children of
Israel in Egypt. when he smote the Egyptians and
delivered our houses, and the people bowed the head in worship,
and the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had
commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they." Okay, so the point
I'm trying to make here, it says that the people had to apply
the blood and do so by faith, by believing. But according to
the three verses I just read, the first of which, the people
did not even know what was coming. They had not even heard about
the Passover. The second of which, he hadn't come. All right? The Lord said very plainly, not
a single person in Israel, not even a dog will wag its tongue,
not even a dog will bark against the people of Israel. Nothing
will ever happen to them. How could he say that? when it
was determined that the people would put the blood on the door
before he would pass them over. It's because he had already determined
and gave faith and belief to those who would apply the blood.
It said all of the people of Israel. Now, you all know this. You can't take any group of people
and be convinced that all of those people will do something,
no matter what the consequence or what the price. But the Lord
very plainly said here, nothing will happen to a single one of
my people. If He says that before the people
even know they're supposed to apply the blood, who gets all
the glory in their faith? Who gets all the glory in our
belief? Do we come here this morning listening to this, believing
the Word based off how intelligent we are, how smart we are, how
strong-willed we are? No, we come here because the
Lord Jesus Christ chose us, He called us, and He gave us faith
to believe. It's all of Him. He did it. And
that's unbelievably comforting to know that something that I'm
required to do by the scriptures, I'm told to believe, I'm told
to have faith, that He's going to do that for me. If He knew
all of these people were going to apply the blood before He
even told them they had to apply the blood, then He had to be
the one who did it. It's all of Him. It's all of
the Lord. The blood on the door denotes an outward confession
and evidence of heart faith that came from Him. In all our going
out and all our coming in, the blood of the Lamb is ever before
us. We must give God all the glory in any belief or any faith,
no matter how weak it is. It's of Him. Okay, seventhly,
the Israelites were to eat the flesh of the lamb, and this signifies
that we must, by faith, feed upon Christ. We must feed upon
Him. We have to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and receive Christ within us. It's called eating
the flesh and drinking the blood. Listen to a couple verses in
John here. It says, for my flesh, this is the Lord, for my flesh
is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. As the living Father has sent
me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are
dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. This
is telling us that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only place we will
ever find food. The only place we will find sustenance.
The difference is Christ in everything. Without Him, we're empty. With
Him, we're full. Without Him, we're thirsty. With
Him, we're so satisfied. The Lord Jesus Christ is everything
to us. Everything. Purge out therefore,
listen number eight. Eight is they were to eat the
lamb with unleavened bread. Now if you've heard in here the
word leaven, it always signifies sin. Leaven is a picture of sin.
Leaven is something that we add in. Leaven shows evil. Leaven changes everything about
bread. If you put leaven in bread, it
changes the shape of it. It changes the size of it. It
changes the texture of it. It changes the whole thing. Purge out, therefore, the old
leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For
even Christ our Passover is sacrifice for us." Christ endured the full
wrath and judgment for our full justification, and nothing is
to be mixed with that. Nothing is to be added. Nothing
is to be joined to Him. We have a perfect sacrifice,
a perfect Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ did it
all. We just so desperately just want to interject something.
Just give me a little bit of it. Let the Lord have 99.9%,
but just give me a little something. We want to add something into
everything. If we add anything into it, then we don't have anything. It must be him alone. And ninthly
says, nothing of the lamb was to remain. This says that the
whole Christ is to be received and fed upon all of it by faith. We have to acknowledge Christ
in both his natures is defined in his human in all his offices,
prophets, prophet, priest and king in all his persons. And
in his work, we have to accept and believe everything of the
Lord. There are so many people who
take pieces of it. I remember someone talking about
the five points of Calvinism when I was a kid. And I remember
hearing someone tell someone else that I didn't know them,
but they were explaining this to my dad. And they were like,
well, we're really strong in three and a half points of this. And I remember that person looking
back at them and saying, well, how would your wife feel if you
came home to her on five of the seven nights of the week? We
can't pick and choose what we like about this. It doesn't work
that way. These two things about not adding
leaven and taking the whole thing is to show us that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the complete sacrifice. He gets all the glory in everything. We so often ruin things because
we just keep talking. I remember a wise man telling
me one time, he said, He said, everybody already thinks that
you're not very smart. But if you keep talking, you're
going to remove any doubt that you are. And that's us. There are so many things that
we say and I hear people say such as, you know, the Lord is
my only hope. You know, if I do this and I
do that, then I'm going to be. Well, then he's not your only
hope. Any qualifier we add on to anything of the Lord means
that we're not saved. If we think we have a part or
if we think something that He said is not true, we have nothing. We just need to praise what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done and shut our mouths. Give Him all
the glory. All of it. I don't know about
you all, one of my favorite things in this life is to be praised. I love when someone praises me. I don't care if it's worthy or
justified or not. Just the other night, we had
a bunch of people to our house and my wife cooked an amazing
dinner. She cleaned the whole house beforehand
and taking care of the activities for the kids to do, all this
stuff. And as soon as it ended, somebody walked up to me and
said, Luke, Man, that was so good. I am so thankful for all
this stuff. And I just looked back at them without even batting
an eye. I was like, yeah, we did a lot of stuff. We put everything
together. I'm just going to take every bit of glory they want
to give me even though I didn't do anything. That's the way we are by nature
in salvation. Even God's people have a tendency
to try to feel like We, apart from the grace of God, we would
not care anything about this. We'd have no faith. We'd have
no belief. We wouldn't know anything apart from Him doing it for us. And that's why He gets all the
glory. He did it all. Okay, just two more. They were to eat the
Passover, dressed and ready to move out of Egypt. I love this. This is the Lord's Passover and
it effectually saves You know, I understand these people. I really do. You know, think
about the fact that this was the 10th plague, okay? You know,
we're harsh on the people of Israel. You know, the moments
of just hearing, not very long after this, they're going to
come to the Red Sea. And they're going to bicker about, why did
he even bring us out of here to trap us in this water? And
then the Lord parts the water, and then they go into the water.
And this stuff just keeps happening. They're hungry. Why did the Lord
do this to us? And he gives them bread from heaven. They say they're
thirsty, and they give water from a rock. And he keeps doing
this. And they just keep murmuring. They keep complaining. But that's
who we are. That's what we would have done too. But in this example,
these people, this was the 10th plague, right? Think about what
had happened to them. The first plague came and Pharaoh
said, stop the plague, I'll let the people go. Can you imagine
the excitement those people had? Just to put a little perspective
on this, these people were slaves. They were in bondage. They woke
up before the sun came up and they were in the field doing
what someone else told them to do for someone else's gain. And
at the end of the day, whenever they were told they could go
home, they went home and came back the next morning. No days
off, no holidays. Can you imagine a life where
you don't get to do a single thing that you want to do? Not
one thing. And we might think things are
hard, but tell me that you don't have the option of just these
little victories all the time. Anybody ever had a snooze bar
for ten minutes? Anybody ever chosen to go somewhere
they wanted to go? Think to yourself, talking last
night about getting ice cream. It's pretty nice when you finish
dinner to think, you know, I'm going to go get something I want.
These people didn't have anything. So think about the moment that
Pharaoh said the people can go. And then when they were getting
ready to leave, he got hardened his heart. They did that not
once. Not twice. Three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine times. Now, I don't know how many it
would have taken me. It might have just taken once.
But after nine times of this, is there not a part of you that
thinks that by nature you wouldn't have been like, it's going to
be the same again? You know, why do we even need
to be ready? Why do we need to do it? Pharaoh's not going to
let us go. This tells us we must be ready. We don't know when the day of
judgment is coming. We just celebrated my grandmother's
101st birthday. We don't know if it's today or
we don't know if it's decades away from now. We must be ready. And the only way we'll be ready
is if the Lord give us faith to believe. In this picture,
the world, as Egypt is to Israel, is no longer our home. We're
pilgrims here temporarily, but awaiting his call to move out
and go home to Canaan. Now I know some of us are more
ready than others, but if the Lord shows us a glimpse of himself,
the idea of being with him is so much infinitely better than
anything we could hope for in this flesh and on this earth.
There will be a day because of what He did on the cross. There
is hope. There is something we can look
forward to because of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. In
the same way, these people could look at this plague and have
hope because of what He told them. This Passover would not
have been the same had it not been the 10th plague. These people
had gone through so many things. And tell me this, The last one
here, which we're gonna get to is, when I see the blood, I will
pass over you. Think about what these people
had gone through all nine times. Now, all nine times, Pharaoh
had had his heart hardened and didn't let them go. But what
happened all nine times? Exactly what the Lord said was
going to happen. So when he told them, I'm going
to kill the firstborn of every man and beast, do you think they
believed him? Now, apart from faith from God,
we wouldn't. I'm embarrassed to say that I
would find a way not to do this. I mean, it makes me get a little
emotional thinking about how much of a sinner I am that someone
could tell me that they were going to kill my firstborn child.
And that I know myself well enough to know that I might just think
that they were lying. Or I might think that I could
stop it myself. Or I might put it off until it was too late.
That's who I am. Think about the people of Egypt.
Hundreds of thousands of people. Estimated to be millions of people
in the land of Egypt. That the Lord said, I'm gonna
kill the firstborn of every single one of them. And by our nature,
we wouldn't do anything. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you." This is an event that actually happened. I was
talking to someone in Kingsport about this very thing, and he
is a firstborn child, his wife is a firstborn child, he has
a firstborn child, his dad is a firstborn child, and his mom
is a firstborn child. When this decree came out, His
parents, himself, his spouse, and his first child were all
gonna die. I don't think we have an ability to enter into that,
what these people were facing. Romans says, there is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the spirit. We have no hope apart
from the Lord Jesus Christ and his blood. This says the firstborn. But in eternal judgment, spiritual
judgment, standing before a holy God, every single person is guilty
in their sin. And apart from the blood of Christ,
everyone will die. I keep harping on this and I
don't know how many times I've already said it. The difference
is the Lord Jesus Christ. If we don't have Him, we have
nothing. We have absolutely nothing. In
Ephesians it says, In whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. By
God's grace, that's why we have what we have. Alright, last point
I want to make. to emphasize one last time that
Christ is the difference. I'm going to read to you three
verses in the same way that I did a few minutes ago about the Israelites,
but this time about the Egyptians. So chapter 11 verse 5 says, And
the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn
of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn
of the maidservant that is behind the mill, and all the firstborn
of beasts. The Lord here says, All the firstborn
in the land of Egypt shall die. And then in chapter 12 verse
12 it says, And finally listen to this verse. And it came to pass that at midnight
the Lord smote all the firstborn of the land of Egypt from the
firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn
of the captive that was in the dungeon and all the firstborn
of cattle." This tells us that the Lord smote all of the firstborn
of Egypt. And I read a little bit ago that
it said that not a hair would be touched on the head of the
people of Israel. Now, how can we reconcile when
we're talking about a huge number of people, hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of people, that every single person that fell
under the classification of an Egyptian would die? and every single one that fell
into the classification of Israel or the chosen people of God,
all of them would be spared. How can we reconcile that apart
from the Lord Jesus Christ is the difference? You could not
tell me anything that one of these two people did and one
didn't do because the Lord made this determination before the
event. The difference is Christ and
His will, His election, His choosing, His sacrifice and His ascending
into glory. It's all Him. And it says very plainly, God
will get all the glory. Now what's the only reason that
someone should get all the glory? If they did everything. The Lord
Jesus Christ is 100% all of salvation. It's Him in the choosing, it's
Him in the calling, it's Him in the saving. He did it all. May the Lord make us to see that.
I want him to give us all these things that we've looked through
here. I want him to give us a desire for him. I want him to give us
faith. I want him to give us belief. May he show us that the
difference is Christ. That's it. And if we get anything
out of anything that a man ever says in this pulpit, it's that
the Lord Jesus Christ is our everything. He's everything.
All right.