Thank you, Brother James. Let's
go back to that passage in Exodus that I asked Joe to read for
us this evening. And actually, I'm going to back
up to the last verse of Exodus 12. And let me mention a few
things here. as this chapter goes into the
next one. It says here next is chapter
12, verse 51, and it came to pass the selfsame day that God
did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their
armies. It came to pass just like God
said it would. God said He was going to deliver
His people, and He did. Go back in chapter 12 to verse
40. Verse 40 says, Now the sojourning
of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was 430 years.
It came to pass at the end of the 430 years. You notice that again, it came
to pass. That's exactly what verse 51
says, it came to pass. At the end of 430 years, even
the self same day, it came to pass that all the hosts of the
Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night to be much
observed unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt
This is the night of the Lord to be observed of all the children
of Israel in their generations. God had said this was exactly
what he was going to do, and it all came to pass just as he
promised. The scripture there in the word
bring, bring in verse 42, bringing them out. Also in verse 51, bring,
the Lord did bring them. He forced them to go out. He was the reason they went out.
This wasn't of them. They didn't liberate themselves. They weren't able to do that. Egypt and Pharaoh's armies were
too great for them. They were in captivity. They
were in bondage. There's no way they could liberate
themselves. Only God could do that. Only
God had the ability to do that. As Joe read down through that
passage of scripture, did you notice how often it's talked
about the hand of the Lord? Look down in 13 verse three.
You might, there are three statements here, found in three different
verses. And Moses said unto the people,
remember this day in which ye came out of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage, What do you say? Strength of the hand of
the Lord. Wasn't yours strength? It's God's
strength. Look at verse 9. Verse 9, it
shall be for a sign unto thee, unto thine hand, and for a memorial
between thine eyes, that because they did these things with their
hands, they witnessed them with their eyes, what God did. And
he's one who delivered them that the Lord's word or his law may
be in thy mouth with a strong hand. The Lord brought thee out
of Egypt. And then look down, verse 16.
It shall be for a token upon thine hand, for frontlets between
thine eyes, for by strength of a hand. The Lord brought us forth
out of Egypt. Who did this? God did this. Is this not a testimony of the
fact that salvation is of the Lord? It's got to be of the Lord. Here were a people who had no
ability to liberate themselves. Here were a people who were in
bondage to Egypt. 430 years they'd been in Egypt. And yet God brought them out.
They had no ability to free themselves. They had no ability to get out
of the mess that they were in. And that's us, folks. We have
no ability to get out of the spiritual mess we're in. We're
slaves to sin and to Satan. We're held captive by Satan at
his will. We're not willing to come to
Christ for salvation, and we have no desire to come to Him. That's the reason the Savior
said, no man can come to me except the Father who sent me. Draw
him. Draw him. Bring him. Bring him forcibly unto me. And he said, of course, later,
him that cometh to me I'll in no wise cast out. So it all came
to pass just like God said it was. They were all brought out,
all of Israel was brought out of Egyptian bondage because of
a covenant God made with Abraham. And the reason all of God's elect
can be brought into the kingdom of grace, into the kingdom of
salvation, is because of a covenant God made with His darling Son
before He ever made the world. He covenanted the Divine Trinity,
covenanted together. for the redemption, the liberation,
the salvation of a numberless group of people. And it shall
all come to pass just like God said it was. Notice that they
all came out of Egypt as a result of one sacrifice. When God gave
instructions earlier in chapter 12 about the Passover lamb, he
never used the word lambs It was always Lamb, Lamb. A Lamb, The Lamb, Your Lamb. That's the progression of it.
A Lamb, The Lamb, Your Lamb. Never Lambs because each of those
all pictured Christ. The Lamb of God who took the
place of His people. We're redeemed by one sacrifice. Our Lord Jesus offered one sacrifice
forever, thereby we're sanctified under God. They all came out
of Egypt by one sacrifice. And I'll tell you something else,
they were all gorgeously arrayed. As they left Egypt, The Egyptians,
women and men, said, take whatever you want. Take our jewels, take
our money, take our gold, take our silver, whatever you want. Take our apparel, it's all yours.
Take what you want and leave. They were gorgeously appareled.
Here's the people who were slaves. Here's the people who, they didn't
have much to eat. There were people who were forced
to work. And as they come out of bondage,
you think, well, they're going to come out with rags on themselves
and just barely enough, probably not even enough to carry out
on a mule or on an ass or a donkey or anything else. Oh, you got
that wrong. God said, you go ahead and take
from the Egyptians because they're going to offer you everything.
And I'll tell you, our God has well supplied His people. We're
rich in grace. We're rich in the mercies of
God. And we're robed in the unusually
exquisite righteousness of the Lord Jesus. We have the garments
of God's salvation. That's the best God can give.
He's given us everything because he gave us Christ Jesus. And I'll tell you this, they
all came out and not one hoof was left behind. Pharaoh had said to Moses earlier
back in chapter 10, well you go ahead and all of you leave
and even take your little ones with you. Just leave your flocks
and your herds behind. Moses said, no, it's not gonna
be like that. Not gonna be one hoof left behind. We're all leaving this place.
And I tell you, the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, he bought
all of his people, not a hoof shall be left behind. Not one
of those that our Lord Jesus has paid the debt for shall ever
fall by the wayside. We'll all be liberated. We have
been liberated by his redemptive work and we're gonna find out
about it through the ministry of the Spirit of God who will
use the Word of God. So it all came to pass just like
God promised that it would. And so then we get into chapter
13 and God says to Moses, I want you in verse two, sanctify, set
apart, Unto me, all the firstborn, whatever openeth, whatever openeth
the womb among the children of Israel, doesn't matter whether
it's man or beast, it's mine. That's what God said, it's mine.
I want you to dedicate, set apart, consecrate, devote them to the
service of God. You notice, go down verse 12. He says this, that thou set apart
unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix and every firstling
that cometh of a beast which thou hast, the males, they shall
be the Lord's. The sanctification, the setting
apart of the firstborn male is intended to direct our attention
upon the gospel mercy The gospel grace that we have in the Lord
Jesus who is said to be the firstborn among many brethren. He was set
apart. He was sanctified. God sanctified
him before the foundation of the world. In John chapter 17
and verse 9, our Lord speaks of Him being sanctified or set
apart. He wasn't made holy, He was set
apart to be the Savior of sinners, to be our Redeemer. And we know
that He was set apart because ultimately He came and and lived
and died the sacrifice for the sins of God's people. Our Lord
Jesus is indeed the firstborn. We are his children, we are his
people. In fact, the church of the Lord
Jesus is called the church of the firstborn. He is the firstborn,
Romans chapter eight, among many brethren. We were set apart by
God for his purpose, just like Christ Jesus was set apart in
the purpose of God. Now look at verse three again. It says, and remember this day
in which ye came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
I want you to remember what I've done for you. I don't want you
to forget. For by strength of hand, the
Lord brought you out from this place. There shall no leaven
bread be eaten. Leaven's a type of sin. It's
also a type of hypocrisy. No leaven eaten. This day ye
came out in the month of Abib. And then he says this in verse
five. It shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into this land,
the land of Israel. the Canaanites, the Hittites,
the Amorites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, which he sware unto
thy fathers to give thee a land flowing milk and honey, that
thou should keep the service in this month." I want you to
keep on observing this. In other words, I want you to
keep a remembrance going. Don't forget what I did for you. Don't forget your misery. Don't
forget how you cried unto me with broken hearts. Don't forget
how you labored, you men labored in awful conditions. Don't forget
how the Egyptians treated you. Especially this Pharaoh, the
latest Pharaoh. He was awful to them. Don't ever
forget. Don't ever forget what the enemy
did to you and don't forget what I'm doing for you. I'm bringing
you out. And you know, you would think
that they wouldn't forget, but they did. They did. It wasn't long before they got
out in the wilderness, they began to murmur, they began to complain
and bellyache about how things were. Oh, we wish we were back
in Egypt, eating the melons and the cucumbers, the garlic and
all the rest. At least we wasn't starving to
death back then. God gave them manna. Well, things
were much better back in Egypt. We need water. We don't have
it. God gave them water. Oh, how quickly people forget.
The lessons that God taught these people, they didn't remember. And I'll tell you, there is a
tendency with all of Adam's fallen race to forget the mercies that
God has given to us. You know, even those of us who
are redeemed by the blood of the cross of Calvary, I think
we tend to forget, at least for short periods of time, that's
the reason the Lord gave us the Lord's Supper. He said, this
do in, what'd he say? Remembrance. Would we forget? We would forget if His grace
didn't keep it fresh in our minds and in our hearts. Where were you when God found
you? Were you seeking Him? Were you
longing for God? Did you want righteousness? Did
you want forgiveness? No! The things of God were the
furthest thing from your mind or else you were tangled up in
false religion. These things meant nothing to
you. Where were you when God found you? You were in the depths
of woe and sin and disgrace and rottenness and wretchedness and
depravity. The Lord found you and revealed
to you what Christ Jesus has already done for you. Remember
what I did for you. That's what God said. Don't you
forget. That's why I want you to keep the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, he said. So you'll remember. You'll remember
it. Keep it in your minds. Keep it
in your hearts. Your hands, your hands set apart
that lamb. In your eyes, you saw. You saw
what happened. You put the blood on the doorposts
and over the doorposts outside. And you heard the awful cries
of moms and dads whose firstborn died in Egypt. But you saw, you
saw your firstborn lived because of the blood. Don't forget, keep
it in front of you. Keep it in front of you. And
don't forget what I did for you. Leaven. He said, do away with
the leaven for seven days. What does leaven do? It works.
I don't know much about baking. I know something about eating
baked goods, but don't know much about baking. But I do know this
about leaven, it works. It's active. And God said you
eat unleavened bread, it doesn't have anything in it that's active.
There's nothing in it that's working. Because you see, salvation
doesn't involve our working That's why God said seven days. Don't
eat any leaven in your bread. Don't even have any leaven, He
said, in your house. Remove everything that would
indicate that which works. And I'll tell you, in the house
of grace, in the house of salvation, let's remove all leaven. Take
works out of everything. It's not by works. It's not by
works of righteousness, which we have done. But according to
his mercy, he has saved us. For by grace he is saved through
faith. And that not of yourselves, it's
a gift of God, not of works. Lest any man should boast. Don't
you bring leaven into it. Don't you bring your working
into it. Leave that out. Leave that out
as far as your acceptance with God is concerned. Indeed, we're
ordained to perform good works and we do those according to
the will of God. But those have nothing to do
with our relationship with the Lord. It's a matter of grace
and grace alone. Notice what he says in verse
eight then. He said, and thou shalt show thy son in that day,
saying, that is done, this is done, we're doing this, because
of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt.
Again, it's a remembrance. He says in verse 10, thou shalt
therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year. And I'll tell you what, when
you and I come into the place of worship, In every aspect of
our services, let's be wise and let's remember why we're here,
the reason we're here. We're here and we do this, we
do what we're doing tonight because of that which God has done for
us. That's the reason we gather together. This is not about honoring
you. It's not about recognizing those
who attend the worship service. It's not about me. It's about
the Lord. It's about honoring Him. We do
this because of what the Lord has done for us. He's done everything
for us. And we meet here not by law or
a statue that's written, but we meet here because we love
Him. And we want to worship Him. We
want to honor Him. I want to give to God the glory
that's due His name. I know we fall terribly short
of doing that. Because how can a sinful person
render glory to God? But we can't adore Him and magnify
Him and say, the Lord did this! The Lord's done this for me.
He saved me. He reconciled me. He made me
righteous. He made me alive. In old eternity,
He joined me to Jesus Christ and the Savior paid my sin debt
and the Spirit of God taught me the gospel. All that I am
and all that I hope to be is due to God. I give Him the glory. That's why we meet. Then he gets down to verse 11,
and that begins to talk about redeeming an ass with a lamb. Verse 11. And it shall be when
the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as
he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee,
that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the
matrix And every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou
hast, the male shall be the Lord. And every firstling of an ass,
thou shalt redeem with a lamb. An ass was not a clean animal,
unclean, correct? You know, the Lord said the only
animals that were qualified to be offered to him had to have
cloven hooves. a split hoof and chewed the cud. An ass wasn't one of those. Neither
were pigs. So those were filthy animals,
or as the scripture says, they were unclean. And then there
were animals that were cloven-footed. Those were the ones that were
okay to be offered to the Lord. So he says here, remembering
the Lord has already said, remember what he said over here in verse
two? Look at verse two, once again.
He said, I want you to sanctify unto me all the firstborn whatsoever
openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both the man and beast
is mine. So even the asses, even the firstborn
of the ass, though it wasn't a clean animal, But that belonged
to God too. Because he said the firstborn
of all men and of all beasts belongs to me. It's for my use. You consecrate it to me. But
wait a minute, Lord. You've said that an ass is an
unclean beast. And you won't use an unclean
beast. So it kind of presents a problem
here. A bit of a problem. Because on the one hand, the
Lord says, sanctify the firstborn of every beast. Doesn't matter
what beast it is, you sanctify, bring it to me, consecrate it
to me. But then he also says, don't
bring me an unclean beast. He wouldn't accept an unclean
beast. So here's the problem. How can every animal be brought
to the Lord if some of the animals God had already said were unclean? In other words, and I hope you
follow me, if the one is fulfilled, it would appear the other cannot
be fulfilled. If God says, bring me on the
one hand, the firstborn male of every beast, but as it says
in Leviticus, don't bring me an unclean beast. Yet on the
other hand, God says, unclean beasts are not acceptable
for sacrifice. How can these things go together? How can the firstborn be sanctified
to the Lord, and yet no unclean thing be offered unto him. Well,
the Lord answers the question. Here's the way. An ass, the firstborn
of an ass could be redeemed, could be made legally clean before
God by the sacrifice of a lamb. But that's the only way. A lamb
had to die. Here's a donkey, an ass. It's an unclean beast. Can't
be offered for a sacrifice. If you brought that for a sacrifice
to God, he'd reject it. And God says concerning the firstling
of an ass, now here's what you do. You give a lamb to die in
its stead, And then that ass, the firstling of an ass, lives.
Otherwise, break his neck. Redeem him or damn him. That's what it amounts to. Save him or destroy him. And I'll tell you who the choice
was. It was up to the owner. You want your ass to die? Okay,
you're not going to redeem him? You don't want to give up a lamb
for him? Break his neck? Yeah, but I want
to keep that donkey. I want to keep that ass. Our
family's kind of grown fond of it. All right, then here's what
it's going to cost you. A lamb's got to die. in his stead. My, what a marvelous gospel lesson. Let me give you a few things
here very briefly. Four things. Number one, the
ass being unclean was unacceptable to God, as is every sinner by
nature, because we're all unclean. And listen, according to the
law of God, Very important. No animal, no animal was considered
clean except that which divided the hoof and chewed the cut. By that standard, by the standard of the law, and
here's the shocking thing, every sinner is unclean before God. That's the standard. In fact,
isn't that exactly what the scripture says about us in Isaiah 64 and
verse 6? But we're all as a what? Unclean
thing. We're defiled, we're polluted,
we're not fit for God. Every man is unclean, impure,
absolutely contaminated, corrupt by sin. But the Lord has sacrificed
a lamb, the lamb, your lamb, his lamb, God's lamb, Christ
Jesus, his only begotten son. He was made unclean. He was declared to be unclean
because he bore our own sins. And those who are by nature unclean
He worked out a righteousness for us and we're declared to
be clean in God's sight. That's the only way it can happen.
That's the only way it can happen. We live because He died. We're righteous before God. We're
accepted by God because our Lord Jesus bore our sins. All the iniquities of all of
His people were made to meet upon His head. And by imputation,
he became unclean. He became unclean for the unclean
that the unclean might be made clean. And we are, because we're
made the righteousness of God in the Lord Jesus. You remember
when our Savior gathered his 12 disciples together, this is
before Judas left. before he left to go out and
betray him. This is in John chapter 13. Our Lord Jesus washed their
feet. And Peter objected. And the Lord said, if I don't
wash your feet, you don't have any part of me. And Peter said,
well, just give me a whole bath then. And Jesus said unto him,
John 13, 10, he that is washed needeth not to say, but to wash
his feet, but he is clean every whit. Who has pronounced us clean? God has. Because you see, we're,
and this is really degrading to us and humiliating to us. We're the ass. We're the ass
in the story. We're impure. We're thoroughly
defiled. We're corrupt. We're not fit
for God. An ass couldn't be used as a
sacrifice for God. It rejected. It's got to be a
bullock or a lamb or a goat or the turtledoves or pigeons, but
not an ass. And this is a picture of us.
Oh, how thoroughly defiled we are. And yet, God had the lamb die
for us. That's the only way we could
be clean. Don't you see that? This is why
the gospel is such a glorious message. We're made the very
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He took our place. If you stick with the image of
the passage of scripture, let's say here's a man who owns an
ass. The ass gives birth to a male,
the first born of that ass. And that ass is kind of precious
to his family, kind of becomes a family pet perhaps. How can that ass be considered
to be a clean animal? Well, he might try to wash it. He might tell his little boys,
go get a bucket of soapy water. We're going to wash that ass. That going to do any good? See,
that's what we try. That's what the natural man tries.
I'm going to get a bucket of water. I'm going to clean up
my life. I'm going to give myself a good scrubbing." You go ahead. It doesn't redeem you. It doesn't
redeem you. And he might even, through some
kind of torturous way, try to split the hoofs of the ass. That'd be awful. That's not going
to change anything either, because it's still an ass. And you see, that's you and me.
We can't keep the law. We can't do good. The scripture
says, but the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in
God's sight. And we can wash up and we can
kind of spray on us the perfume of good works or outward righteousness
like the Pharisees tried to do, but we're still an ass. Hadn't changed anything. That's
why Job says, if I justify myself, my own mouth condemns me. That's
what he said. My own mouth condemns me. Now, watch
this. Here's the second thing. Though
the ass was indeed unclean, yet it still belonged to God. Because the Lord said in the
second verse of all these animals, He said, it's mine. It's mine. I own it. Tell you something,
He's the owner of everybody. He owns everybody. And He can
do with us. according to his will. And I'll
get to that a little bit more in just a couple of minutes,
but here's the third thing. The only way an ass could live
was for its owner to kill a lamb in its stead. Our Lord Jesus is said to be
the Lamb of God without spot and without blemish. We're nothing
but spots and blemishes. You know, when God in Exodus
chapter 12 told Israel to choose a lamb, a family to choose a
lamb. If it was small families, one
lamb for two families. He said, it's got to be a male
of the first year without spot and without blemish. Put it up four days and inspect
it. Then it's gotta die. The Lord always keeps death in
front of us. Death for sin. Death for sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, God
killed the animals in order to robe them. He had to clothe them
with the skins of animals. Those animals had to die. Blood
was shed, and all through the Bible, it's just a river of blood
flows all through the Bible. Sacrifice after sacrifice after
sacrifice, and all pointed to the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus.
Because the only way we could live is for the Lamb, God's Lamb,
to die. And he was the Lamb without spot.
and without blemish. And he's the one who died for
us. Here's the clean. He took the place of the unclean. This is the greatest transaction
that ever took place. It's the most marvelous thing
that ever happened. The innocent one took the position
of the guilty one. And the guilty ones are given
the position of the innocent one. The defiled ones are redeemed
by the perfect one. And the defiled ones are then
given the reward for the perfections and the obedience of the perfect
one. And you see, that's what the
gospel is all about. Substitution, that's what this
is. and satisfaction. God said, you
got an ass, you have the first sling of an ass, a male, redeem
it or kill it. Redeem it or kill it. I read
a couple of messages on this. It's amazing
there that last part of verse 13. Or in the middle, really,
and if thou shalt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his
neck. Here's a choice. Here's a choice. Life or death. I read a couple of messages on
it, and both of them left the choice to the sinner. That's not who makes the choice.
That's not the determining factor. The ass had no voice in this. Isn't that right? The ass had
no voice in the choice. He's going to live or die according
to the word of his owner. And that's the way it is in salvation. Just like God said all of these
animals are mine, God also said all souls are mine. and we will
live or we will die according to his will. That's the way it
is. This is where the natural man,
this is where he chokes. But God says, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy. Redeem them with the lamb. And
whom I will, I hearten. You see, the issues of life and
death, contrary to what preachers all over this world are saying,
the issues of life and death and heaven and hell, they're
not in your hands. They're in the owner's hands.
God. And when we begin to understand
that, that's when we fall on our faces. and say, oh God, if
you will, you can show me mercy. But you don't have to. You don't
owe me anything. I'm just an ass. Just a dirty, unclean ass. That's all I am. I'm not fit
for your presence. I'm not worthy of glory. And
Lord, my life is in your hands. My eternity's in your hands. You see, he's the sovereign king.
People forget that if they ever knew it. And I tell you, in the
hand of the king is the authority and the power to say you live
or you die. See, in this country where we
vote on everything, we don't know anything about absolute
power like kings used to have. I'll tell you what, Israel knew
about that kind of authority. And they knew about countries
around them. They all were ruled by kings. One man, one man, he
decided everything. He'd say, you live or you die. That's the way it was. And I'll
tell you, our God's sovereign in all things. We live, we die at his command. Thankfully, he's redeemed a bunch
of asses with the lamb. But there's a lot of people he
breaks their neck. Now, he breaks their neck. He forces them to bow at the
judgment. He sends them to hell. The issues
of life and death belong to God. And what are you going to do?
I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to worship Him.
Aren't you, Ron? I'm going to bow before Him.
I'm going to say, Lord, whatever you do is right. Just help this
poor ass. I'm so unclean. I'm so impure. And then I'm reminding in the
Word of God that Christ Jesus came in the world to save sinners.
He came to take the place of sinners. Well, how do I know
I'm one of those who are going to live? Because He brings you
to trust Him. To rely on Him. And to see that
everything God demanded, Christ has satisfied fully. And He brings
you to see He's the only hope you've got. And you say, I forsake
all my works, all my tears, all my prayers, everything, I count
it all but done, I look to Christ alone for salvation.