All right, would you now open
your Bibles again to Exodus chapter 12? Friday I was doing some reading
in the histories because I had been, in my studies, kind of
brought up short regarding something I'd been wrong about
for many years, been saying, and it wasn't exactly as I thought
it had been. It's one of those things that
seems to be such a small detail, that you never even check on
it. You think you know what the answer is, and you go with it.
It just had to do with tribal allotments and stuff. Like I
said, it wasn't a real significant thing, but I thought, I better
go back and search this out and get it right in my mind. And
in my searching around, as is common with me, I searched in
a lot of other things, too, just out of curiosity. And I came
on some remarks regarding the Passover. Now this was stuff
I was reading online. And I thought I'm going to go
back and read about that again. And as I read about it, I noticed
some things in this story I had not noticed before. Now I've
entitled this message, Egyptian Christianity. And that may sound
unusual, but that's why I called it that, because we do post these
up on Sermon Audio. And I thought that might be a
title that grabs someone's attention. Now, it's not entirely a useless
title. You'll see what it means, but
it might get someone to listen because I believe that what we're
going to see from this account of Passover and Pharaoh's response
to it and God's works in it are going to teach us to make some
clear distinctions between worldly religion and the true religion
of God, and that's important for us. Now, the stories that
we read in the Old Testament are not merely to inform us of
things that happened thousands of years ago. We didn't need
a history lesson. Man's problem is not that he
doesn't know what happened as a matter of historical events.
And so God did not write us the several hundred pages of Jewish
history in order that we might simply know how the Jews got
to where they are today. Rather, these stories are told
to us to illustrate what God is doing, what he has done, is
doing, and shall do for his spiritual people. That people that goes
all the way at least as far back as Abel, who by faith offered
a more excellent sacrifice according to the scriptures, we know at
least that Abel was a believer. Whether Adam and Eve were, we
don't know, but Abel was. That group that starts at least
as far back as Him and goes all the way to the last human being
that shall call upon the name of the Lord and find His salvation,
that whole group of people is the spiritual people of God,
the spiritual Israel, if you wish. And all that happened to
national Israel, is for our instruction to understand what God has done,
is doing, and shall do with his spiritual Israel, all those whose
confidence is in Christ. Now, I've called this Egyptian
Christianity because there is a sort of religion that Pharaoh
was willing for the Jews to practice, but it was not the sort of religion
that God intended for them to practice. Pharaoh made a claim. He says, and let's read it over
here in verse 31 of Exodus chapter 12. Now this is on the night
of Passover and God has gone, he's passed through Egypt, but
he's passed over everybody on whose house was the blood of
the sacrificial land. And that means when he got to
Pharaoh's house, it didn't matter that Pharaoh was Pharaoh. It
didn't matter that quite possibly he was the most powerful man
in the world in that day. There was no blood upon the house
of Pharaoh, and therefore God's avenging angel, which was really
God himself, he passed through Egypt, he passed through the
house of Pharaoh, and he took the life of Pharaoh's oldest
son. Needless to say, this got Pharaoh's
attention, unlike any of the previous nine plagues had arrested
the attention of Pharaoh. And so it says in verse 31, during
the night, Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, up, leave
my people, you and the Israelites, go worship the Lord as you have
requested. Take your flocks and herds as
you have said, and go. and also bless me. And then in
chapter 14, beginning in verse five, when the king of Egypt,
that's Pharaoh, was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh
and his officials changed their minds about them and said, what
have we done? We have let the Israelites go
and have lost their service. Now, I am going to use Abraham's
two declarations here as an illustration of what I call Egyptian Christianity. Now, you and I do probably, well,
probably we don't need a great deal of instruction and exhortation
about avoiding the gross idols that, you know, actually, you
know, four-footed beasts and things like that. I mean, I don't
know of anywhere in the United States where that sort of idolatry
is going on, though there is in some religions some kind of image worship, yet you don't
see a whole lot of that going on. And you and I are not likely
to fall for that, are we? I mean, I doubt anybody here,
if someone left this church, it's been actually the experience
here, most people that left this church left this church to go
to nothing. They didn't go from here to some
other version of Christianity. So we're not going or worried about somebody
leaving here and going to worship in Zeus or one of the other gods
of mythology. I'm not really concerned that
anyone here would leave this congregation and or be distracted
from this congregation by some pagan religion. But here is what
the Apostle Paul taught us in the book of Galatians. This is
what we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have to be very
careful about, that we are not drawn away by some false version
of Christianity. He spoke in the book of Galatians
that there was another gospel being preached. He said, it's
not the gospel we preach to you. There's another gospel being
preached. And he said, in all reality,
it's not another gospel. See, the gospel means good news.
And what was being brought into the Galatian church wasn't good
news because there were those coming into the Galatian church
trying to put a burden, a form of bondage on the free-born sons
of God. And that's not good news, is
it? I mean, have you ever heard of someone saying, wow, it's
so good, I get to be a slave? No. Oddly enough, though, we
have this inborn tendency towards spiritual slavery. You say, well, what makes you
say that? Because the largest churches in the world are the
ones who have the most for the people to do. Bondage is, spiritual
bondage is natural to us. Working for our blessings is
natural to us. And people will go through the
Bible and try to find all the rules they can there, and they'll
make up even some more, or make some of the rules of Scripture
even more severe than they are, hoping that by doing that, they'll
please God ever so much more, and therefore they will get ever
so much more in blessing. And all of this can be packaged
in some really fine language. They can even use the word grace,
can't they? And somehow or another they're
saying grace, and people are saying, we believe grace, and
at our church we believe grace. But if you sit down and listen,
when it's all said and done, it's works. Because all of God's
works of grace, they say, depend and rest upon something you do.
And friends, if the works of God depend on what you do, we're
back to your works, aren't we? And Pharaoh, what he did here,
in giving the Jews permission to go out into the wilderness
and worship, he was acting like a lot of religion, and a lot
of what goes by the name Christian religion, because he extended
a kind of freedom to the Jews and then later called it back.
He said, you can go, no wait, come back. You're free, no you're
not, you're slaves. And so that's what I'm referring
to is Egyptian Christianity, the kind of Christianity that
follows the form of what Pharaoh did to the Jews, as opposed to
what God did for and with the Jews. And let's look at some
comparisons now then. And each of us, and I ask you
to search your own hearts on this matter. This is not for
me to decide for you. I can't, I can't look at your
hearts. I don't know what you believe. I know what you say,
but I don't know what you believe. This is for you to look in your
own heart and you will see by these contrasts whether you're
following what I have called Egyptian Christianity or you
are following that form of Christianity, that gospel which God himself
designed and performed for his people. First of all, Egyptian
Christianity is, yes, And then no. Now we have read these two
statements by Pharaoh. And what did he say to them?
Well, God had finally kind of got him in a wrestling hole from
which he could not release himself, so he relented to let the Jews
go. He said there in verse 31 of
chapter 12, up, leave my people, go worship the Lord just like
you asked. And off they went. However, and
we don't know how long this was, we don't know how long it took
the Jews to get there to the Red Sea. But after that amount
of time, we read in verse 14, when the king of Egypt was told
that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their
minds about them and said, what have we done? What have we done? We have let the Israelites go
and have lost their services. And so what did Moses, excuse
me, what was Pharaoh saying to the Jews? You're free. No, you're
not. Go, come back. Leave your tools and your labors
behind. No, come back, pick them up again. There's more for you
to do. Serve us. It was one day, yes, you're free.
Another day, no, you're not free. One day, I promise you, you may
worship the Lord. You may go out of Egypt. The
next day, he retracts his promise. But now, I want you to turn over
to 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 1. beginning in verse 17. Paul is actually defending himself
against a charge that he had made a promise to come to the
Corinthians and then had reneged on his promise. But as is common
with the Apostle Paul, he takes every occasion he can to take
the situation at hand and use it to teach the gospel. So he
says, when I planned this, that is, when I planned coming to
you, did I do it lightly? Or do I make my plans in a worldly
manner so that in the same breath I say yes, yes, and no, no? But as surely as God is faithful,
our message to you is not yes and no. For the Son of God, Jesus
Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy,
was not yes and then no, but in him it has always been yes.
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in
Christ, and through him the amen, that is the affirmation, the
so be it, is spoken to us to the glory of God. Now, what is
Paul saying in this? He said, well, I told you I intended
to come to you. That was my plan. My plans didn't
happen. But you know, that happens to
us a lot, doesn't it? We make a plan in all good faith. But
things come up we couldn't foresee. And so our plans don't work out.
Now, they were accusing Paul of being careless or uncaring
about them. Because that's not what it was. He said, I don't make plans like
that. He said, however. Even though
his failure to appear as he claimed he intended to, he would say,
I'm really innocent in the matter, it was issues beyond my control. But he takes that situation and
he said, but understand this, God is faithful. God is faithful. And our message to you, our gospel,
is not, yes, But later something came up, so it's no. It's not God says, he that hath
the Son hath everlasting life. And then later says, well, maybe
not. Maybe I need to add something to that. God does not say, whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And then
some poor sinner come to him, call upon his name. And the Lord
said, didn't think you were coming. I'm going to have to retract
the promise for you. The Lord did not send out his
apostle to say, for by grace are you saved through faith,
and that's not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, it's not
of works, lest any man should boast. He did not send Paul out
to say that, and then send Paul to turn around and say, you know,
really, yeah, there are some works. It is not yes and then no. God never says, you are sons
of God through Jesus Christ and then turns back around and says,
no, you're slaves again. Never. The promises of God can be relied
upon completely and fully and without reservation. There are those who make a virtue
out of saying things like, I believe the gospel, but I don't know
if God saved me. That is a horribly insulting statement of unbelief.
For you have said you believe God's promise, but you think
maybe that with regard to you, he first said yes, and now he
says no. That makes God like Pharaoh,
who said first to the Jews, yes, you can go, and then said no.
you've got to come back. In fact, so untrustworthy are
the promises of Egyptian Christianity that once the fruit of their
promises matures, we find that there was no real promise to
begin with. And actually, that's what attracted
me to this particular scripture for today. I was reading, and
we can turn back there to Exodus chapter 12, and there we read
in verse 31 that Pharaoh sent them away. And then we read in
chapter 14, verse 5, it certainly appears that when Pharaoh finds
out that the Jews did indeed go, that he was surprised. I was reading that and it says,
when the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, well
wait a minute, why did he have to be told about this? He's the
one that sent them away. I'll tell you why, and this is,
like I said, this is what brought me to this scripture. Pharaoh
never intended that they leave for good. You see, when this
whole thing started, when Moses and Aaron first began speaking
to Pharaoh about letting God's people go, they were saying,
let us go three days journey out into the wilderness that
we may sacrifice to our God. And Pharaoh said, who is Jehovah
that I should listen to him? And over a period of nine plagues
and disasters, God let Pharaoh know who he is. And several times
during that whole business, Pharaoh said, okay, okay, you can go,
you can go. But then the Lord would lift
the plague and Pharaoh would change his mind. And finally,
the Lord brings this last plague, the plague on the firstborn,
and that breaks Pharaoh for a while. But notice this, notice what
he says the Jews can do. He says, verse 32 of chapter
12, excuse me, 31, the last part, go worship the Lord as you have
requested. Take your flocks and herds as
you have said and go. All that Pharaoh intended that
they do was go out, have them a Bible conference and come back.
That's all he expected out of him. That's all the permission
he would grant them. What he was saying was, you can
have a vacation from your labors, but you may not be free of them.
You can go out into the wilderness and catch a little rest. You've
been working hard, I recognize that. So you go out and you,
by way of your religion, so to speak, you prop up your feet,
you have a few days relaxation. He intended they come back, but
then he found out they had no intention of coming back. And immediately he calls together
his military officers, all his chariots and horses and all those
guys. And he says, we're going to go
get them and bring them back. Because we never intended for
them to be free. Let me ask you this question.
The gospel you believe, has it set you free? Or did it merely
give you a vacation? Have you actually entered into
God's rest as the scriptures speak of in Hebrews chapter 4?
Or did you just get a little break from your work? I was raised in a religion that
would say salvation is by grace. And here's how you get it. You
pray this prayer. When we sing an invitation hymn,
you come down front and we'll have a personal worker take you
into the room over here, and they call it an inquiry room.
And they'll talk with you. And what that personal worker
will do will get you to admit to some things. Are you a sinner?
Yeah, I realize I've sinned. Okay, pray this prayer. Do you
want to be saved? Yes, I want to be saved. Okay,
pray this prayer after me. And like a set of wedding vows,
they would give them a few words at a time to say. And the person
would say them back. And then the personal worker
would say, okay, you're saved. You're free. Your sins are gone. And the person might go away
rejoicing. And they come back next week to church. And you
know what the message is? Yep, you got into heaven free.
But if you really want the good stuff, you gotta work more. If you want some crowns that
you can wear around heaven, so that you can show everybody else
you are a better Christian than others. Now, understand, they
never said it in those words. They didn't dare. But that's
what it came down to. Will there be any stars in my
crown? There's a song called that. Will
there be any stars in my crown? So I guess if you did a certain
amount of good work, you got the crown. If you did a little
more, they put a little ruby or something in there, look like
a star. And this is what they said. Salvation's by grace. You
can get in the door. This is what it boiled down to.
You can get in the door by grace, but then it's back to work. Do
you want to have blessing in this life? You gotta act right. You ever hear something like
that? Here's how they put it in this area. Salvation's by
grace, but after we're saved, we must show our gratitude by
keeping the law. Once again, they may not say
it in so many words, but that's what it comes down to. And what
they do is put a burden of obedient gratitude. Now it is certain. And you know, the people who
originally wrote those words probably had something good in mind. Friends,
if God has delivered you from all your sins, how could you not be grateful
to him? And how could you not want to
obey him? That's true. But if you're not grateful for
what he has done, well, I'll tell you this, if you're not
grateful for what God has done for you, it's because he hasn't done anything
for you. There's no such thing as an ungrateful saved man. But
that, if it's the obedience of gratitude that is called for,
I guarantee you, if God saved you, you're grateful, and that
gratitude will express itself in obedience, and nobody has
to tell you to. But when they have to tell you
about it and give you a list of things to do, which are supposedly
going to be your expression of gratitude to God, all they've
done is say, you can go out and worship a while, but when you're
done, you got to come back. We're putting the chains back
on. You're going to start making bricks all over again. That is, I remember our brother,
brother Todd Nyberg calling it, yay nay salvation. Yes, you're
free. No, you're not. Your sins are gone. Well, they're
back. Secondly, Egyptian Christianity
gives us more room, but never gives us freedom. Now, the Jews
were pretty tightly enclosed. They had a certain area they
were allowed to live in. And whatever they did, that's where
they had to stay. That's where they worked. That's
where they lived. All of it. All that Pharaoh did was give
them permission to go a little ways beyond that boundary out
into the wilderness to worship the Lord. He never did grant them freedom. And religion will give you more
room, but it will never set you free. Paul said in the book of Galatians,
it is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Therefore,
do not allow yourself to be entangled once again with the yoke of bondage. Christ did not set you free from
one bondage so you could simply put on a different set of chains. Slaves may be sold from one master
to another. They often were, weren't they? The thing is, you might be sold
from a really mean master to a nice master, but you know what?
You're still a slave. You are still in chains. You
are still under obligation. You still have to work for your
food and your place to live. You still have to please the
master or risk suffering his disfavor and the punishment that
comes with it. But if you're ever set free,
you're free. You aren't just given lighter
labor, you're free. And the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, brothers and sisters, it has set us free. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus. That's the freedom. Condemnation
brings us into bondage. But there is no condemnation
to those that are in Christ Jesus and there never will be. Do you
really believe that? It's not, there is therefore
now no condemnation to those who pray this prayer after me.
But you know, once you're done, if you step out of the way, condemnation's
coming back. No brethren, it is no condemnation
now, it's no condemnation tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or
in the eternal ages to come. For everyone in Christ Jesus
is utterly and completely free from every sin and every obligation
to God. You say, that just sounds crazy.
People are free from obligation to God. Well, let me ask you
this. If you had an obligation to God,
would you be able to fulfill it? Well, no, not really. I can never
do anything good enough for God. Okay, so if you have an obligation
to God and cannot fulfill it, what's gonna happen to you? You're
gonna have to pay for your failure to fulfill your obligations.
But this is what the gospel says is that Jesus Christ came and
he took on himself all of our obligations and he fulfilled
them. And when obligations are fulfilled,
what's the result? There are no more obligations. None. There are no more duties to fulfill
in order for me to obtain eternal life. There are no more works
for me to do in order for me to receive the full portion of
the blessings of God in Christ Jesus. Not one thing. There's not one thing to do.
There's not one thing for me to avoid. You say, you mean I
can just go out and live like I want? Sin like I want? Well,
I think the best answer ever given to that was given by Brother
Walter Groover, the missionary down in Mexico. He was preaching
the free grace of God, and someone came up and said, if I believed
that, I'd sin all I want to. And Brother Walter said, I already
sin more than I want to. Brother Groover does not consider
himself under an obligation of debt. But God's grace in him, just
like this is true of every believer, has caused him to hate his sin.
At the same time, it has caused him, and every believer in the
Lord Jesus Christ, to with boldness go into the most holy place.
This is the way it's described in the book of Hebrews. Go into
the most holy place by the blood of Jesus. And there appear in
the presence of God with full confidence of being accepted. I imagine that every one of us
has things in our history that we think if people knew this
about me, they'd curl their hair. If people knew this about me,
if they knew what I wanted to do or what I actually have done,
they wouldn't want me in their company. And you know something?
You might be right. You might be right. I know it's
true of me. But you know something, for all
that wickedness which is in me and has been done by me, not
the least of it appears in the presence of God. because it appeared
in the presence of God long ago, having been laid upon the Lord
Jesus Christ, and he, as my high priest, went into the presence
of God, bearing my sin upon himself, and there offered himself, without
any spot of his own, to God, and God accepted his sacrifice,
and in so doing, God cleared away every last one of my sins."
You say, well, yeah, he clears your past sins, but not your
future ones. When he cleared them, they were all future sins.
I was future at that time. That's 2,000 years ago, he put
my sins away. They were all future. Egyptian Christianity will give
you more room, but it will never actually set you free. It will
never make you, as Hebrew says, perfect as pertains to conscience. What does that mean? Well, not
that you'll never have that nagging feeling that you've done something
wrong. It's talking about our conscience before God. I remember many years ago feeling
pretty bad about some things I'd done. And we've all got those things. It seems we just keep doing them.
And it's so bothersome, because we want to quit, and we can't.
We do good for a while and then we fall again or whatever. Anyway,
I remember I was going through and this was back teenage years,
early twenties. I can't remember somewhere in
there, but I remember coming before the Lord and saying, I've
done it again. And I don't believe in hearing
voices in the night, but I do believe that the Lord can control
our thoughts to bring to mind spiritual truths he's taught
in his word. as though He spoke them to us
just at that moment. And I said, I did it again. He
said, you did what again? Sins are gone, brethren. There
is no more again to them from the viewpoint of God. And I say
this with great reverence, and yet I say it with boldness. So
far as God is concerned, God my judge is concerned, I have
never sinned. Do you believe that? You say, I know you, I know you've
sinned. Yeah, and that's why I'm glad
you're not my judge. You know, God says there's sins
and iniquities I will remember no more. Do you believe that?
Or are you of the Pharaoh type, the Egyptian Christian? And think
that God says, your sins and iniquities I'll remember no more
unless you do it again. And then I'm bringing it up.
Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more so long as you
try as hard as you can. No, God's promise, it's absolute. Their sins and iniquities I will
remember no more. And that word remember doesn't
simply mean that God is unaware of it. There's nothing that God
is not aware of. He's talking about bringing things
to mind. You ever had someone, maybe you've
offended them and you really felt bad about it, you realized
you did wrong, and so you go to them and you apologize. They
say, okay, I forgive you. But then later, you do something
dumb again. Maybe you repeat the same thing, and you go back
and you apologize again, and they go, you know, that's the
second time. Well, they may have forgave you the first time, but
they didn't forget it, did they? and they brought it up the next
time you did it. God says their sins and iniquities,
I'm not gonna bring them up anymore. It's not gonna enter into the
equation of my relationship with them anymore. Now that's how
forgiving God is. And if we come to him with this
confession on our part, I've done it again. Well, so far as
God is concerned at that point, you've never done it. This can't
be an again. You see what I mean? With God,
it's always yes. With God, it's always freedom. In Egyptian Christianity, God
says go. But in true Christianity, God
says come. What did Pharaoh say to these
people? Up, leave my people, go worship. And that is typical human religion. And I have to say this, there's
some wisdom in it. There's some wisdom. You dare
not approach God in your sin. Do you remember when God, and
this is gonna happen just a little bit after these events in Exodus
chapter 12, but God meets with him on Sinai to reveal his covenant
to them. And he comes down in a display
of his holiness and glory. And what did the Jews say to
Moses when they saw that? They said, Moses, you go talk
to him. We're going to back up. We don't
want to come close to him. He's too big for us. He's too
holy for us. It would terrify us to go into
his presence. And you know something? In their
condition, they were right, because at that point, they had no sacrifice.
At that point, there was nothing. to mediate for them, nothing
to put away their sins. They dare not come in the presence
of a holy God like that while they are yet in their sin. Here's the thing. God has provided
Himself the Lamb for sacrifice. The Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, even our Lord Jesus Christ. And God in all His glorious
holiness can be approached by people like us And yeah, he calls
us to when he came here and remember our Lord Jesus Christ is our
God. And when he came here, what did
he say? Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and
I will give you rest. Pharaoh said, go and then come
back and I'll give you work. Our Lord said, come, I'll give
you rest, everlasting rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, he said, for I'm meek and lowly of heart and you'll
find rest for your souls. In the book of Song of Solomon,
the man who's the preeminent figure in that book, he says
to the woman he loves, and this is how our Lord speaks to his
church, he says, come away with me, my love. Come away with me. We seem to think that We honor
God when we come crawling into his presence. I'm talking about
people who have called upon the name of the Lord and claim to
have found his salvation. But we, and we feel this tremendous
guilt of our sin and we come crawling in before him as, as
ones that really have no right to expect that God will receive
them anymore. Do you know how God speaks to
his people? Come away with me, my love. Come away from all this
that's bothering you. Come away from the world and
its bondage that it lays upon you. Come away from your own
guilty conscience. Come away with me. Come. The only time I know of
that I could think of is I was studying for this when our Lord
said, go. was when he said to the apostles, go into all the
world and preach the gospel. And you know what he said right
after that? And lo, I'm with you always. So what was the Lord
saying? Come with me, let's preach the
gospel. Let's preach the gospel. Egyptian Christianity says, go,
you're not good enough for me. God says, come, I'm good enough
for you. I'm good enough that I can even
tolerate a sinner like you. I'm good enough that my righteousness
can put away your sin. I'm good enough that my blood
can cleanse you of your blood red sins. And here may be the most important
point, and I could go a lot longer, but then you know that, don't
you? But I'll try to wrap it up here in five or six minutes.
Egyptian Christianity has no regard for the blood of Christ,
only for its own suffering. Why did Pharaoh say to them,
go? Did he see the blood on their
doors? Did he see the blood of the Passover lamb on their door
and say, I've got to honor that. You may go. You know what moved
Pharaoh? The death of his son. His own
suffering moved him, not the suffering of Christ. And I'm giving this so that you'll
understand the comparisons I'm making. So many of them come
from my own experience. The church I was raised in had a visitation
minister, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.
It is a big church, there are a lot of people to tend to, and
there's nothing wrong with having someone who can devote himself
to calling on people, calling on the sick and everything. But
here's what I heard so often. Someone would say, my husband,
who's an unbeliever, He's in the hospital. Go talk to him. His heart might be tender to
God right now. No. If disaster, if difficulty, if
sorrow made someone's heart tender toward God, there'd be a revival
going on in hell. But what do they do there? They
curse him. They curse him for his just judgment.
Yes, you can go into the hospital room or visit someone when they're
under distress and you can deliver religion to them and they will
be open to it. Because they are looking for
a way out of their immediate distress. And there's plenty
of Egyptian Christianity that will give them things to do. But there's only one thing. moves
God and that same thing will move the sinner if God wills
it and that's the blood of Christ it's the only thing that has
any power do you remember we read there at the opening of
this worship service God said the blood shall beat a token
for you and when I see the blood I'll
pass over you know what he noticed some things he didn't say when
I see you confident inside those houses, full of faith, filled
with zeal for me, I will pass over you. He said, when I see
the blood. That was the only thing that
could make God pass over a house. It didn't matter whether it was
a Jew or Egyptian inside, no blood, death was coming on that
house. And it didn't matter who was inside that house, if there
was blood, no death was coming to that house. Because it was
not who was inside that made the difference, it's whose blood
was on the outside. That's what made the difference.
It said the blood shall be a token for you. You know why I preach
the gospel and set forth the blood of Christ so much? Because
you who trust in it need to see the token, because it brings
comfort to your soul. You know, according to the way
Passover was set up, the one who put the blood on the door
is not the one who is protected by the blood. I heard people
say, put the blood of Christ on the door of your heart. You
can't do that. No, the father was the priest of every house.
He put the blood on the door. Who was saved by the blood? Firstborn
son. That's who was saved by it, because
that's who the judgment was going to fall on. And so they would
gather inside the house and you can imagine, there's dad and
there's mom and there's all these brothers and sisters. They got
nothing to worry about, do they? Because no judgment's been pronounced
on them, but there's that firstborn son. And you can imagine, he's
saying, oh, dad said that God's coming through Egypt and he's
gonna kill the firstborn in every house. Except where there's blood. I can't see how blood's gonna
make a difference. Why would God pass over a house just because
there's blood on the front of it? Because the blood was a token
that judgment had already passed on that house. And God never
passes judgment on the same place twice. And yet that boy you can imagine. Is it really out there? Remember,
he's inside. He can't see it. Dad, I'm scared. It's getting close to midnight.
God's about to pass through Egypt. I don't want to die. Don't worry,
son. The blood's on the door. And when our sins weigh heavy
on us, and we think of the judgment of God, and we go to our Father,
and we say, I'm scared. I'm scared. My sins. Surely they will drag me down
to hell. Surely the judgment of God must
fall on one like me. And our father says, don't worry,
son, the blood's on the door. The blood's on the door and it's
on there right. You know why? Because I'm not the one who put
it there. I'm glad God didn't tell me to
put the blood on the door. I'd have got it wrong somehow.
I'd have put it on the two sides and down on the threshold and
forgot it's supposed to be on the side and on the top. I'd
have done something wrong. I'd have used the wrong kind
of blood. If it were lazy on me, I'd put it off until the
last minute and all at once I wouldn't have time to do it. God didn't
leave that to me. Of God are you in Christ Jesus. He put the blood on the door
and put me inside the house. And that blood, the testimony
of it, preached in the gospel, is the token to me that my sins,
though they may be many, are all washed away. And when God
passes through this world in judgment, he will pass over me. Pharaoh, Egyptian Christianity,
didn't care about the blood, has no regard for it. God put
the blood on the door, or had them put the blood on the door
there, and he passed over them, and therefore they went free.
God set them free. Pharaoh didn't. Pharaoh thought
he was setting them free. God set them free by the blood.
But Pharaoh had no regard for the blood, and so he sets them
free, or so he thinks. But he has no regard for the
blood, therefore he sets them free and then thinks to bring
them back. Wait a minute. This is the everlasting
or the blood of the everlasting covenant. This isn't blood splashed
on one night and then it's gone. It is ever in the presence of
God to testify to him that our sins have been paid for. It says that the Jews went out
boldly. Why? They didn't sneak out of
Egypt. They went out, it said, you know,
boldly. Why? Because it was the blood
that set them free, not Pharaoh. Yeah, they had an experience
there by the Red Sea, and just like us, they got afraid when
they had no need to be afraid. You know something? Pharaoh's
armies cannot catch you if you've been set free by the blood. Egyptian
Christianity cannot bind you again if you've been set free
by the blood. Egyptian Christianity will pursue
you. It will lay guilt upon you. It
will tell you, come back. You're not allowed to leave.
You gotta do what we say. You gotta perform the works that
we come up with. Don't worry about them. They may have you
backed up to a sea, like the Red Sea. Don't worry, the Lord's
gonna make a path. He can do that. He can make a path right
through the sea. And he'll take you safe through the path and
you'll get away. And you know what? Those Egyptian Christians
will try to go the same path of grace that you went through.
And you know what's going to happen? It says when Egyptians
tried to go through there, their chariots got stuck in the mud.
Now somehow the Jews went through dry shod. As soon as the, excuse
me, the Israelites went through dry shod. No mud, no water. They could wear tennis shoes.
They didn't have to wear galoshes or nothing. And they got across.
As soon as the Egyptians tried to use that same path of God's
grace, what happened to them? They got bogged down in it. Have
you ever seen a person of works try to use grace? It just won't
work. I've seen some of them try to preach grace when they
believe work, and it just seemed like a whole lot of work. Their
chariot wheels came off, they got stuck in the mud, and you
know what happened? Those waters came in over top of them and
killed them. The same God that made a path through the sea for
his people to escape, used that same sea to destroy the ones
who pursued them. Now, are you an Egyptian Christian
or a Jewish Christian? You don't understand what I mean
by those terms. Are you making your way through the sea dry
shod? Or does that path of grace just
bog you down, give you a hard time? I don't know. This business of a really free
salvation, that just doesn't seem right to me. Be careful. The water is about to close in
on you. Believe God's word. Trust the blood of Christ. It
sets you free.