Exodus 7. We didn't deal fully
with the last several verses here. We just touched on them,
so we're going to go through them carefully. Read verses 20
and 21 with me. Exodus 7. Exodus 7, verses 20
and 21. The Lord told Moses and Aaron
to do this, and they did. Moses and Aaron did so as the
Lord commanded. He lifted up the rod and smoked
the waters that were in the river in the sight of Pharaoh and in
the sight of his servants. And all the waters that were
in the river were turned to blood. And the fish that was in the
river died, and the river stank. And the Egyptians could not drink
of the water of the river. And there was blood throughout
all the land of Egypt. That's the story. That's the
theme. That's the title. That's the
message. Blood throughout the land. I don't want this to be gory,
but gospel. The gospel is gory to the world,
but it's glorious to God's people. The Lord promised, He said, I
will be known by my judgments, didn't He? Over in verse 5, He
said, the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord by these judgments
that I sent. God of the Bible is the judge
of all the earth. Unlike what men say about him,
that he just loves everybody and doesn't judge anybody. The
opposite is true. Malachi 2, the Lord said, you've
wearied me with your words. Let me read it to you so I don't
misquote it. He said, you've wearied the Lord
with your words, and they say, how have we wearied you? And
he said, when you say, everyone that doeth evil is good in the
sight of the Lord. And he delighteth in them. And they said, where
is the God of judgment? That's a good question to ask
in these days, isn't it? We know Him. We know Him. We
fear Him. And we love Him, too, at the
same time. But this generation, like so many in the past, is
willy-nilly ignorant of the true God, the God of the Bible. And
it will be so as in the days of Noah. Our Lord said so as
in the days of Noah. They knew not. They knew not
God until the flood came and took them all away. And then
they know. All know. All know. Mankind,
in spite of all the judgments, and Romans says the wrath of
God revealed from heaven, refuses to acknowledge their Creator
and their God. refuses to bow, refuses to thank
Him, refuses to repent unto Him, refuses to believe His Son, refuses
to believe that He needs blood to pay for His sins. So God says,
they shall all know, and the whole world's going to be full
of blood. But God, now here in the end
when the Son of God came, the last day, the Son of God came,
God sent his blessed son and Christ told this, he told how
he sent prophet after prophet after prophet, servant after
servant and they killed all of them, shed their blood, alright. Then the king says, I'll send
my son, they'll receive him. They killed him too. And when
our Lord Jesus Christ came, God's Son came to this earth, Jew and
Gentile were gathered around his cross, screaming and crying
for his death. Crucify, crucify. It was Pilate,
I think, who said, shall I crucify your king? And they said, no.
And he said, yes, crucify. And they all said collectively,
let His blood be upon us and our children. That's what they
said. And so it is. So it is. So it is. But God, the same God,
rich in mercy, For his great love wherewith he loved some,
many, not all, shouldn't love any. They all cried for his son's
death. They all said, let his blood,
we were responsible for his blood. God in great mercy and love and
grace and power causes some of those Christ-haters to cry out
from their heart, let his blood be on me. and my children. This room is full of people that
cry unto God that constantly. Let the blood be perpetuation
on the mercy seat for my soul and the soul of my children.
Don't we? We see it is the blood that maketh atonement for the
soul. And like the water of the Red Sea, the water of the Red
Sea was death to the Egyptians. It was salvation to God's people. They all drowned, the Egyptians
all drowned in a sea of blood, a red sea, but God's people crossed
over on dry land. Blood everywhere, this is what
our Lord said, blood everywhere. In this they shall know, verse
17, in this they shall know that I am. See that? I will smite
with a rod, and the waters and the river, they shall be turned
to blood throughout the land. Blood everywhere, in everything,
in their rivers, in their lakes, in their streams, in their ponds,
in their vessels of wood, of stone, they couldn't get away
from it. It was everywhere. Every day, day in and day out,
the Egyptians were forced to see and taste blood. Now, the life of the flesh, God
in His wonderful, creative wisdom, and glory created man and he's
made flesh and blood. Flesh and blood. Amazing, marvelous
creation of God is the substance of life, isn't it? Blood. There's
nothing like it. I wish one of these nurses could
stand up and tell us something about the blood and all that's
in the blood. It's amazing, isn't it? Amazing. God puts things in it to heal
us. Things that cause, when we're
wounded, to close the clot and close up the wound. Just amazing. David said, I'm fearful and wonderfully
made. And perhaps the most amazing
thing of all is this fluid, this substance that flows through
our body. Think of all the capillaries
and the little veins and all. Zillions of these little touching
every part of our body, blood, throughout the body, life-giving
substance. God is. Is there any doubt? God is. We just barely prick
our finger, blood. That's a reminder that God is. Blood. It's precious, isn't it?
Blood is a precious substance. And when this precious substance
in our bodies, or the bodies of someone we know and love,
is shed, when it starts to flow, fear, horror, shock, death. When that blood flows freely
now, death. Our Lord said blood is throughout
the land. Everybody is going to see it always. It starts with
the blood of man. By man sin came into this world
and death, bloodshed. The first human blood was shed
by a man, Cain. He shed the blood of his brother.
What was it over? The truth. Who God is. And how God accepts sinners.
That was what the first blood of man was shed over. Brother
against brother. And it has continued from then
until now. This brother of Abel, he hated
the truth. He hated God. Oh, it's too strong
a language. He killed his brother over the
truth. Because he couldn't get to God. His brother pleaded with
him. Cain, brother, don't you... If
we do well, we'll be accepted. If we bring the blood, we'll
be accepted. Cain, you heard dad and mom tell us this. I'm not that. I like my works. What
I do is good enough. But Cain, that's not good enough.
Yes, it is. When Christ came, God's holy
and just will by no means clear the guilty. One way for sinners
to live, and that's for them to die. The soul that sins shall
surely die. That's the God of the Bible.
Now either we die or somebody dies in our place. That's the
God of the Bible. Oh, I don't like that. God's
not like that, and I'm not that bad. God's not that holy, and
I'm not that bad. I like my works. Let's do away
with this blood. Like young Isaac said to his
father, he said, here's the wood and here's the fire, where's
the lamb? We can't come to God without
the lamb, without the blood. So the blood of man has freely
flowed. from the beginning, from the
first man who died at the hands of his brother. Oceans and rivers
and lakes and streams and vessels of all kinds have literally been
filled with blood. Haven't they? Everywhere throughout
the land. And most because of religion. Wars and rumors of
war. Throughout the scriptures, all
the battles We're over religion. All of them. I told you, 120,000 people died
in one battle, the Valley of Salt. There's never been a battle
in our modern day like that. One day. Rivers of blood, oceans
of blood. Stay with me. What this proves
is, man shedding man's blood, is man is evil. Man is violent. Man loves death. Man loves to
shed blood. He loves to shed blood. This
is what our Lord said in Proverbs 8. He says, those that hate me
love death. Now, before the flood, And don't
you know when God destroyed the whole world that that world was
full of blood? I mean that water was full of
blood, of mankind. Only eight people. Only eight people, their blood
was not shed. The waters were full of sharks. So blood was
in that water all throughout the land. And our Lord said before
the flood, He said the whole earth is full of Violence, didn't
it? Violence. And the righteous Lord,
Scripture says, hateth him that loveth violence. That's what Psalm 7 says. And all the world has been bloodshed
everywhere. Wars and rumors of war, and it
will continue till the end. And there's never been a more
bloody society than the one we live in right now. Our Lord said this would happen.
There's blood everywhere, and he made it to happen. And how
it started was Pharaoh threw all the babies in the river. And as I said,
there's sharks in that Nile River. And the water was full of the
blood of innocent children, the blood of the Hebrews, the Hebrews'
babies. The water was full of blood.
So God said, okay. And then what of all the whippings
and the beatings and the lashings that the hard taskmasters of
Pharaoh unleashed on the Hebrew slaves? What of all the blood
that they shed with the whip? So God said, okay, you're going
to drink blood. You shed it, I'm going to make
you drink it. He's just. God's just. As I said, this is one of the
bloodiest generations. Heathen societies like the one
we live in, heathen societies make sport of bloodshed. Scripture
talks a great deal about bloody men. David knew something about
bloody men. David said, I'm for peace, they're
for war. David didn't start wars. David
was a man of peace, a man after God's own heart. But, buddy,
when people came after his people, he shed some blood, didn't he? David did. You can just imagine, Mike, how
many battles he went through hand-to-hand with swords and
knives and fists and all that. He came home from work, he was
covered with blood. Like our Lord, like the Son of
David. After the work he did, he was
covered in his own blood. What did that do? Saved us. Gory? Glory. Let's not talk about that. No, let's do. Let's never not
talk about it. Never. Man is a bloodthirsty
creature. It's hard, you know, here's the
irony, profound irony of it, is people that don't like this
bloody religion, they say, yours is a bloody religion, we don't
want to hear that. Yet love blood sports, I bet they watch mixed
martial arts all the time. I bet they read novel after novel
after novel about gore and bloodshed. It's hard to find a book today
or a movie or something that doesn't have murder in it. It
won't sell unless its blood is shed in murder. Isn't that right?
Think about it. Man is such a hypocrite. But
don't talk about the blood of the Lamb now. Don't talk about
the blood of Christ. Now, we're above that. We're
civilized. No, we are beasts. And the only way you're going
to be civilized is by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the blood, our Lord said,
that maketh atonement for the soul. So blood was shed, the blood
of man, and continues to be shed since that first man's blood
was shed. And then, secondly, we have,
down through history, the blood of sacrifices. Throughout the
Bible, the Book of Life, The blood of sacrifices were shed,
offered unto God. Atonement, it's called. Propitiation, expiation, that's
what it's called. Beginning in the garden, it was
God really that shed the first blood, wasn't it? The Lord Jesus
Christ is the one who came into the garden and shed the first
blood. It was the blood of an innocent
lamb. Why? They do that. You know that Adam and Eve looked
upon that in horror as the Lord laid hold of that lamb and bound
it before their eyes. What are you doing? Little lamb
running free and happy and, you know, just innocent and never
harmless and holy and undefiled. And Lord Jesus Christ came walking
and said, You've sinned. Look what you've done. Now I'm
going to have to do this. And he took before their eyes
that little lamb, maybe a pet that Eve had, loved that pet
so much. and bound it, and put it on a
stone altar, and slit its throats. And they saw that red substance,
life-giving substance, flowing freely. They didn't know what
it was. They'd never seen it before. He said, that's blood. That's the life of the flesh.
And they watched that lamb shiver and shake, and it stayed still,
dead. And the Lord said, you did this. because what you did. And this
is a picture he said, I'm going to come back someday, made of
a woman, flesh and blood. And I'm going to take the sins
of all of God's people, be bound, led away as a sheep to the slaughter,
as a lamb before a sheep before shears is done, as a lamb to
the slaughter. And they will take me and bind me, but I'm
going to be put on the altar of God and offer my blood to
Him as a sacrifice, a substitute, a sin payment, a covering for
your sin. And down through history, these
lambs have been slain, and bullocks, and lambs, and bullocks, and
goats, and dove, nearly every clean, every clean animal was
sacrificed. The world's seen it. The Jewish
world especially, they've seen it, bloodshed, throughout the
land. All of which represents every
single lamb, bullock, turtledove, goat that blood was shed, rivers
of blood, oceans of blood. Dan Parks one time calculated
how many sacrifices that high priest made in a year. Millions. And it all points, every one
of them, all that blood points to one sacrifice for sin forever
that will end all the bloodshed. The blood of Jesus Christ. Look
with me at Hebrews 9, Hebrews chapter 9. The blood of God's
Son, Jesus Christ, God's Son, is the sin paper. Hebrews 9. There's no book except Exodus
and Leviticus that has more blood in it than Hebrews. Throughout
the whole book. Genesis to Revelation is full
of blood. In Hebrews 9, oh, this is the
gospel in it, verse 12, blood of goats and calves, that is,
Christ came, and not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his
own blood. Peter says precious blood. He
entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. Having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, was payment. Redemption paid the price. I
just happened to tune into the radio right before that. woman
finished, and the last thing I heard her say was, Jesus Christ
redeemed you. He shed his blood and he redeemed
you. Well, then, we're redeemed. If the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, was shed for the redemption of my soul, then I am redeemed. Sins are paid for, right? That's
what she said. If he did that for every single
human being, then every single human being is redeemed. But
no, she went on to say this blasphemous statement, which made the blood
of no effect. Just what Billy Graham says,
it's what the average Southern Baptist preacher says. You've
got to accept that blood. In other words, the blood didn't
pay for your sins, your acceptance of it did. There's nothing more
blasphemous. Nothing more blasphemous. It's
not the blood of Christ that God received, but it's your faith,
your acceptance of Him, that you were so kind to God, so good,
that you let Jesus save you. There's nothing more blessed
than this. I'm not splitting theological
hairs here. It's not doctrine. Our only hope is if Christ's
blood was shed for me, I'm saved. It's blasphemy. What if the high priest
went in to the Holy of Holies with the blood of a lamb? Once
a year he made that great... The high priest, okay, went in.
Who's he offering that blood to? Did he take it out there,
the blood, and say, won't you all accept this? Did he? Did he go out beyond the courtyard
to where all those heathen people in Egypt and the world say, won't
somebody please accept this? Did he? If he had done that, God would
have killed him right there. All right? He went into the Holy
of Holies with this blood of a lamb, had names on his shoulders
and on his breastplate, the 12 tribes of Israel. He sent his
buddies for Israel to atone for their sin, not Egypt, Israel. Okay? God went in there, or the
high priest went in there into the presence of God, hoping,
praying, that God would accept the blood. You understand? And he had bells on his hem of
his garment and they're ringing and the people are listening
for the ringing of the bell. What's the ringing of the bell?
Blood! Atonement! Got to make this or
we're going to die. And they're listening for these
bells. And he went in there and put the blood on the mercy seat,
covering the broken law. Buddy, if the broken law is covered,
it's covered. God can't punish, God can't kill
a man for the same crime. If Christ died for it, crime's
paid. Alright? He went into that Holy
of Holies and poured that blood on the mercy seat. And the people
are listening. The bells are still ringing.
He's alive. The high priest is alive. He's
making this atonement for our soul. And then it came out. It
came out of the veil, John. And the people, you know, they
lit up a cheer. He's not dead! He's alive! God accepted the blood from His
hands. That's our hope. That's the Gospel. The Hebrews goes on to say that
those high priests could never Those lambs of bulls and goats,
blood of lambs and bulls could never put away sin, sacrifice. But Christ, when he came, the
great high priest, offered up himself, his own precious blood. Who did he offer that blood to?
Who killed him on Calvary's tree? Who really shed the blood of
the lamb on Calvary's tree? It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. For the transgression of my people was he stricken." God
smote the lamb on that day and shed his blood for God's people.
And his blood paid for their sin. Well, look at our text. It says in Exodus 7, oh my, we're
on the subject of subjects, aren't we? The subject of the whole
Bible. He said in verse 17 that the
waters in the river were turned to blood, and the fish died,
and the river stank, and the Egyptians were loathed to drink
it. They loathed to drink it. Well, you know what our Lord
said? Listen to what our Lord said in John chapter 6. Listen to this very carefully.
And there was a crowd of people all around Him when He said this.
He said, Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal
life, and I will raise him up at the last day. My flesh is
meat indeed, my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh
and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. And the
people said, This is a hard saying. Bunch of people everywhere. This
is hard. They claim to be his disciples,
John. This is hard saying. How can this man give us his
blood to drink? We don't like this. This is awful. And it says, from that time,
many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
They loathed to hear about that. Oh, that's awful. Drink his blood. And Simon Peter said, this is
the words of life. Words of his death and his bloodshed,
words of life to a sinner. He says, to a sinner, the world
loathes it. God's people love it. The world
loathes it. God's people live by it. They
drink it in. They drink this gospel in constantly
and never tire of it. It doesn't stink to them. It's
a sweet-smelling savor. Sweet-smelling savor. The blood
of Jesus Christ, God's Son. And all the world, throughout
the world, the blood of Christ, Christ crucified, the gospel's
been heard. It's seen, it's known, it's spoken
of. You can't escape it. Man can't escape it. Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. The gospel's been everywhere.
Hasn't it not been heard, Paul said? Yes, barely. Throughout
the land, the gospel of the shedding of Christ's blood has been heard. All mankind, it can't get away
from it. Can't get away from it. But most say we loathe this,
this bloody religion, all this talk of a holy just God and wrath
and blood. We hate your God. We loathe your
Gospel. And yet they love the Mass. God's not mocked. Man mocks himself. Tries to mock God. God can't
be mocked. Millions of people attend what's called the Mass.
And you know what they say about that wine in that cup? It turns
into the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what they say. Transubstantiation
is a big word for it. Many died over that, didn't they?
Sister Jenea. Many martyrs died standing up
before those Catholic priests and saying, you're not a priest
and that's not the blood of Christ. that Christ offered one sacrifice
forever for the sins of God's people. He's the only way I prayed,
and it's only His blood. That's not your offering Christ
all over again. It's not in our hands to offer.
It's in Christ's hands to offer to God, and He did it. And many
were burned at the stake for saying that. Would you stand
up? Would you be burned at the stake for contending for that?
I hope we will. Millions take the Mass. Is it
a harmless, innocent thing? No, it's not. It's saying, it's
not the blood of Christ. It's our drinking it, our accepting
it. It's the priests, these false
priests turn it into the blood. They do their little blessed
hocus pocus all over the wine. It turns into the blood and then
they put it into the mouth of the people. And our Lord, our Lord's the
one who took the cup, remember? And He said, drink it. He's the
one who took the bread and broke it and said, eat it. He's the
one that gave it. It was His blood that was shed,
and His people were the ones He shed it for. And He gave them
this gospel, and they love it. And they dare not drink the cup
of devils. That's what that is. It's a cup
of devils. Well, look at this in our text.
The magicians. The magicians, verse 22, did
so with their enchantments. They produced blood. They produced
some blood. Magicians, sorcerers, deceivers,
tricksters. That's what magicians are. They're
deceiving you into seeing something, showing you something, a sign,
a wonder, a miracle, a sign to make you believe that they've
really done something real. Right? That's a magician. And
the Scriptures calls these false prophets, sorcerers. Calls them
deceivers and tricksters. Deceiving and being deceived.
In the last days it will get worse and worse. And they produce
a lot of blood, here and there. When challenged. See Moses and
Aaron came in and said, blood. Blood is going to be everywhere.
Typical of the blood of the Lamb. Okay. And these magicians were
challenged with this, and so they conjured up some blood.
They made some blood and vessels and so forth. And they deceived
many. They deceived Pharaoh, and they
deceived many of his servants. And it says Pharaoh, look at
verse 22, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken
unto Moses and Aaron. Not one blood, and Pharaoh turned
and went into his house. He did not set his heart to this. So when men are challenged, these
false preachers, they produce some blood, they say blood. You
know, Southern Baptists were always fond of saying the blood,
the book, and the blessed hope. Now, my dad came out of Southern
Baptist, and many of you did too. They did not mean that actually,
they believed that your acceptance of the blood. You were in it,
weren't you John? You were in it, and it's not,
wasn't the blood of Christ that put away your sin, it's your
faith in it. Right? That's what you believe.
The blood of the book, what about the book? Well, you read the
Bible, and you know, live according to the Bible, and you'll be saved.
That's not my hope. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus Christ's blood and righteousness. My hope is that He lived according
to the book, that the Word was made flesh and established a
righteousness for me and imputed it to my account. Well, you better
keep those Ten Commandments. I'd like to. I can't. But here's
my hope. He did. The blood, the book, and the
blessed hope. What is the hope? A person. But
these Southern Baptists, the blood, the book, and the blessed
hope, that sounds good, doesn't it? And it deceived many. Oh,
he preaches the Bible. Does he? They preach the blood. Do they now? A blood that actually
atones? Do they now? Particular, effectual,
eternal redemption? Is that what they preach? No.
Then it's false gospel. It's trickery. And you're deceiving
the people. Pharaoh, it says, went to his
house. He saw all this blood. God said, you're going to see
it. You're going to drink it. It's everywhere. And he turned
from that and went into his house. Look at verse 24 and 25 now.
It says the Egyptians dig. So they start digging around
about the river for water to drink. They dug their own wells. They dug their own cisterns trying
to get their own water in supply. Seven days fulfilled. This is
the perfect Word of God, isn't it? Concerning the perfect sacrifice
of Christ. Seven days, it's all going to
be over. But I want you to turn in closing to Hebrews 10. Hebrews
10 says that Pharaoh turned, and his servants turned, and
this blood made no effect on them whatsoever. They went home
without the blood making any effect upon their hearts. You hear that? And so many do
it today. Look at Hebrews 10 verse 28. He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer
punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath
trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood
of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing?
He despised the Spirit of God. Trodden underfoot. It's a common
thing. It's shared for everybody. You
know, that's what happens when men talk about the love of God.
Men stand up and tell everybody without exception, God loves
you. Well, good. And they go on their way. That's blasphemy. There's no
fear. There's no love, no appreciation. Love of God means nothing to
me. I'm going to go buy a house. God loves me. I'm okay. Jesus
died for you. He shed his precious blood on
Calvary's tree to redeem your hope. And he said, go home. Well,
that's good. It means nothing to him. It cheapens
the blood of God. Cry out to the love of God. Despise
it. Boy, God's people esteem it highly. It's their life, it's their salvation,
the blood. Bless the Lord for His precious
blood. OK.