Exodus chapter 13. The title
of this message is this. Substitution. A lamb for an ass. Substitution. A lamb for an ass. I won't go through this chapter,
but if you'll look in verse 15, It came to pass, when Pharaoh
would hardly let us go, that the Lord threw all the firstborn
in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn
of beast. Therefore, I sacrificed to the
Lord all that opens the womb, being males, but all the firstborn
of my children I redeemed." That is, I redeemed them with the
lamb, but all the firstborn of the beast, they were sacrificed
to the Lord, but not the ass. It was an unclean animal. It
was never allowed to be sacrificed to the Lord. And so in order
for a man, for an Israelite, to keep the firstborn of an ass,
if he wanted to keep it, a lamb had to die. A lamb had to die. You and I are that ass. We are
that unclean ass, spoken of here, that a lamb was given for. All right, now, in this chapter,
we will see that all things belong to our God, all things. We will see substitution, a lamb
for an ass. The Word of God plainly teaches
us that salvation is to be had through a substitute, and we
know that that substitute is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb
of God. As John said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin, the uncleanness of the world. Now, in verses
1 and 2, look here. Look in verse 51 in the previous
chapter, chapter 12, last verse of that chapter. And it came
to pass, the selfsame day, that the Lord did bring the children
of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies. Now, they
have come out of Egypt, but they are not going to just wander
around in the wilderness wondering what to do next. The Lord is
going to give them in chapter 13 instructions. He's going to
start giving them some instructions. And here it says in verse 1,
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, sanctifying unto me all
the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of
Israel, both of man and of beast, it is mine." You tell them, it is mine. All that I have belongs to him,
belongs to my My God, my Father, it is mine. You sanctify, you set apart these
things, and you tell them, all these firstborn are mine. They're
mine. They're all mine. The scripture
teaches us that you have been bought with a price. You are
not your own. I want you to look over in 1
Corinthians chapter 6. See, this applies to us. In verse
20, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, for ye are bought with a price,
therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which
are God's. He owns, He owns me. I'm His. I'm free in Christ, yet I belong
to Christ. And I'm glad that it's so. Look
over in chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians verse 23. Ye are bought with
a price, be not ye the servants of men. You're mine. You're mine. And I tell you this,
every one, every sinner born of God is glad, is glad to give
everything over to Him. All that I have belongs to Him,
and I'm glad of it. I'm glad of it. I cannot think
of anyone better to have it than Him, than my Heavenly Father. And then he says here, and Moses
said unto the people, Remember this day in which you came out
from Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Do you think they
would forget that? Do you think they would forget? That night
when the firstborn died and the Passover lamb was given and the
firstborn of Israel lived and God brought them out with a mighty
hand, you think they would forget that? Read the next chapters. We'll
see this as we go along. They start murmuring, complaining. Why did you bring us out of Egypt?
I read through this last night. I read several chapters. Murmuring,
complaining. Why couldn't you just have left
us in Egypt? Let us die back there. It didn't take long. It did not
take long for them to forget it. When we take the Lord's supper,
what does it say? This do in remembrance of me. Yes, you would forget. Yes, we
can become dull of hearing. Sad, but so. Sad, but so. Our Lord said, This do in remembrance
of me. And Moses says to them, Remember
this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house
of bondage. Remember what you've been redeemed from. Never forget
what God has redeemed you from. Never become so self-righteous. I don't know any other word to
use. that you forget what you've been redeemed from. Never forget
that. Don't forget, he says, that you've
been redeemed, that God brought you out of the house of bondage
by strength of hand, by His power. The Lord brought you out from
this place. There shall no leavened bread
be eaten. This leavened bread comes up again here. But he says,
don't forget, don't forget what the Lord has done for you. Don't
forget it. Redemption is never to be forgotten. We are going to sing when this is all over. We are
going to sing, worthy is the Lamb who redeemed us by His blood. You know, I don't know, of course
I don't know, what that's going to be like in glory. And I know
that he said the former things will not be remembered. We're
not going to be in pain, no suffering, no tears, no heartaches. But
I don't believe we'll ever forget what we've been redeemed from
or how you're going to sing it. How can you sing it? How can
you sing worthy is the Lamb who has redeemed us if you forget
what you've been redeemed from? If you forget the bondage, we
won't feel the pain of it, but we will know the glory of being
redeemed from it. The pain of it we won't feel anymore and
the heartaches. So the things that go along with sin won't
touch us anymore. But we will remember what we've
been redeemed from. We'll remember that. And then
he says here, in verses four and five, he says, There shall no leavened
bread be eaten. This day came ye out in the month
Abed. And it shall be when the Lord
shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites,
and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swears
to thy fathers to give thee. He's a God of his word. He keeps
his word, it's a land full of milk and honey, that thou shalt
keep this service in this month. Just because you change places,
the worship of God does not change. If I have to move from here to
Mexico or to Africa, the worship of God does not change. We worship
God in Christ, whether it's here in Ashland, or Lexington, or
Africa, it doesn't matter. He says, when I bring you into
this land that I promised, you keep this service. The gospel
doesn't change with locations. The worship of God is always
the same in Christ. And Christ is always, always
the object of our worship. Always. Then he says here, in
verse 6, Verse 6 and 7, seven days thou shalt eat unleavened
bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord.
Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days, and we know that
the number seven is the number of completion. In Him you are
complete. And there shall no leavened bread
be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee
in all thy quarters. You remember when God instituted
this over in chapter 12. They were to go sweep the house.
There was not to be any leaven found anywhere in any way, shape,
or form. It was to be unleavened. Now,
we know this. We know that leaven represents
sin in the Word of God. We went over this once before,
but let me do a little refresher here. Look over in Luke chapter
12. In Luke chapter 12, And here's
what he's saying. It really has to do with mortifying
the deeds of the flesh. This unleavened bread. This right
here is our response to redemption. You see here in Luke 12, in verse
1. In the meantime, when there were
gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch
that they trove one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples,
first of all, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is Hypocrisy. Put that off. And I tell you
what, we put that off daily. You say, there's no hypocrisy
in me. Yeah, right. There's more of it in me than
I want. That's who I'm going to admit. In any of us. And we
have to fight it. That's why he's saying, you put
these things off. You put this unleavened bread, you put the
leaven out and you eat unleavened. This has to do with, this really
has to do with mortifying the deeds of the flesh. And then
he says, and turn to Matthew chapter 16. In Matthew chapter 16, look in verse,
I believe it's six. Yeah. Then Jesus said unto them,
Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees."
What is the leaven of the Sadducees? They didn't believe in spirit. They didn't believe in resurrection.
The Sadducees only believed what they could see, feel, touch,
rationalize, beware of intellectualism. He said, beware, put it off.
Paul said, we came not unto you with wisdom of words. Preach the gospel to you to the
simplicity of Christ. Put this off. Put this off. Then
look over in Mark 8. In Mark chapter 8, look in verse And he charged them saying, take
heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven
of Herod. And that has to do with worldliness,
a worldly spirit. Put that off. That's what he's
saying. It's more to find the deed of
the flesh. It has to do with his put away hypocrisy. You've
got to do it constantly. Put away this thing of intellectualism. Put away this matter of worldliness.
Purge these things out. That new man that's born of God. You say, how do you do this?
It's that new man that's born of God. That's how you do this.
That's how you purge these. The old man's not going to purge
it out. The old man's not going to do that. It's that new man.
That's who he's talking to. He's talking to this new man
that's born of God. He said, you purge these things,
you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you put them off, you
purge them out. And then look over in Galatians
chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. Let me see what verse here. Let's see if I wrote that down
right. Galatians, well I'm in Ephesians.
Never find it there. Chapter 5 in verse 9. A little leaven leaveneth the
whole lot. And he's talking here about a
spirit of works. the spirit of works. He said,
purge it out. And I'm telling you, this is
something that the new man, this is something that the new man
has to deal with on a daily basis. Because we're still in this flesh.
We've still got to wrestle with those things. Purge it out. Then, alright, now turn back
to Exodus chapter 13. Let me find my spot here. And then
he says here in verse 8, And thou shalt show thy son in that
day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto
me when I came forth out of Egypt. Let this message ring loud and
clear to your children how God saves sinners, how God redeems
sinners, how God brings us out of darkness, how he has brought
us out of darkness into his marvelous light by his Son, through redemption,
through the blood of the Lamb. That's how he's done it. And
he says here, you let your sons and daughters know this. You
tell them this. And he says this two or three times in this chapter.
He says, you let the children know this. You teach it to them.
It's our responsibility, mine here and yours at home. Teach
your children these things. Teach it to them. And it shall
be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for memorial
between thine eyes, that the Lord's law, his word, may be
in thy mouth. For with a strong hand, with
power, power, he says this I think about two or three different
times, about three different times here in this chapter. With
a strong hand, with power, As the Lord brought you out, if
you and I could grasp the power of God to save through the redemption
that's in the Lord Jesus Christ, I mean, it would just be mind-boggling. His power, God's power to save
us is in the lamb, in the blood, in the sacrifice of His That's
His power. God is bringing us out of this
world into His glorious presence by a strong hand. We're not barely
saved. We're not barely going to get
there. I'm in a strong hand. It's by the power of the blood
of the Lamb of God. That's how it is. Thou shalt
therefore keep this ordinance in His season from year to year. Don't stop it. From year to year. And it shall
be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites,
as he swearing to thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it
to thee, that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that
opens the matrix. And every firstling that cometh
of beast which thou hast, the males, shall be the Lord's. They
belong to him. They're His. Once again, He says,
they're Mine. He reinstates this. They are
Mine. The firstborn of beasts and the
firstborn of all the males, and all the firstborn that are males
among the beasts, they're Mine. They're Mine. And then He comes down here.
Now listen. After he makes his point clear again, the firstborn
is mine. We come to verse 13, and we see
that there is one beast, animal, that is considered
so unclean that he can't be sacrificed. God cannot, will not have him,
will not have the sacrifice of this ass. He won't have it. But there is
a way. There is a way for it to live.
There is a way for this unclean animal to live. And it's not
by reformation. It's not by making him look like
a horse or another or some other, you know, one of those clean
beasts. It's not by doing that. You can scrub him. You can put
a bow on his tail and you can scrub him and clean him and paint
his hooves. He's still an unclean beast.
And you can't sacrifice him because God said, I won't accept him. And that unclean ass is us. It's us. That's what it is. An ass was considered to be unclean. It was an unclean animal. No
matter what you did, you couldn't make it clean. You couldn't do
it. This ash represents fallen men.
We are unclean by nature. We cannot, we cannot clean ourselves
up in such a way, to such a point, to where God will accept us. We can't do it. Our nature is
unclean. Everything we touch is unclean. You know, it says that the moon
and stars are not clean in its sight. I said one time, that's
a prophecy that man's going to land on the moon. Because everything
we touch is unclean. We landed on the moon, now it's
unclean. Look at the waste that we create. Look at the waste that the human
race creates. Unbelievable amount of waste.
Having a very difficult time finding a place to put it. Trying to find landfills that
contain all of our waste. Are we going to go to heaven
like this? God's going to accept us like this? No way. It must be perfect to be accepted. I'm not perfect. You know that. And you're not perfect either. We are all together as an unclean
thing. All of our righteousness, so-called,
are filthy rags in God's sight. We don't, by nature, we don't
see things like, we don't see it that way. You know, we see,
now we see the guy, we see those who have, who, you know, out
there on the street and into drugs and all that, but we don't,
you know, we're not that way, but yes, we are. By nature, we
are. My heart, by nature, is as filthy
as any heart out there. That's what we are by nature. Scripture says there's none good,
no, not one. And we cannot, we cannot make
ourselves clean. We cannot change our nature. I was watching a program the
other, last night I think it was. This man had spent 20 years
in prison for a crime he had committed. And they said he,
you know, he was become a good, and they thought he had reformed
and they let him out. Shortly after they let him out,
he committed a crime again. They had to put him back in.
I was telling Jeremy, I said, the nature of the beast never
changes. The leopard can't change his
spot. The Ethiopian can't change his skin. Neither can you who
are accustomed to doing evil do good. Can't do it. God has to do it. God has to
give a new heart, a right spirit. He has to do that. He cannot accept that unclean
ass. He can't do it. And he won't
do it. He won't do it. Listen, an ass is a very stubborn
animal. Very obstinate. Just like men are by nature. Void of spiritual understanding. We don't have it. Rebellious. Defiant. Christ said, you will
not come to me that you might have life. How many people sit
and hear the gospel week in and week out and go home just as
lost as they came? You will not come to me that
you might have life. You're ostentatious. He called
Israel stiff-necked people. That's the way we are by nature. Look over in Job chapter 11. In Job chapter 11, look in verse 12. For vain man, empty
man, would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt. And that's the way man is born.
Stubborn, obstinate, and wild. You say, well, how's there people
not? We're pretty civilized in this country. Well, according
to our standards. We've got low standards, believe
me. Judge yourself on God's standards.
That's perfection. An ass is a beast of burden.
Look over in Genesis 22. Genesis chapter 22. Here in this chapter, in verse
3, Abraham rose up early in the morning, saddled his ass, that
is, he put all the burden of what he was carrying, was laid
on that ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac
his son, and claimed the wood for the burnt offering, and rose
up, went up, went unto the place of which God had told him. And
then on down here, it says in verse 8, let me find the scripture,
I have to read here for a minute. And Abraham said, My son, God,
let's see. Look in verse 4. Then on the
third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar
off. And Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here with
the axe. You can't go where I'm going. He's going up on that mount,
he's going to worship God. He go offer up Isaac. But you two
young men in that ass stay here and I'll be back. You cannot
worship God. You can't even enter into worship as you are by nature. As I am
by nature, we cannot worship God. We don't have the spirit. We don't have an attitude. We
don't have the love. You can't do it. It's not possible. It's
not possible to truly worship God as we are born into this
world. Because we won't do it. We won't
do it. We'd die and go to hell if we
give God glory due unto His name. We would. He says, you two young
men in that ass stay here. We're going to go up here and
worship. Go up here and worship. It's a car. Remember what he
said about Issachar? Issachar is a strong ass couching
down between two burdens. It's a beast of burden. It's
a beast of burden. But now listen. Listen. Our Lord
said this. Come unto me, all you that labor
and are heavily burdened, and I'll give you rest. You come
to me and I'll lighten that burden. I'll give you rest. And an ass
was not allowed to be buried in Jerusalem. Look in Jeremiah
22. Jeremiah 22. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
concerning Jehoiachin, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, they
shall not lament for him, saying, Ah, my brother, or Ah, sister. They shall not lament for him,
saying, Ah, Lord, or Ah, his glory. He shall be buried with
the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of
That unclean animal was not allowed to be buried within the gates
of Jerusalem. If you don't redeem it, God said
if you don't redeem it, break its neck. Don't offer it to me. Don't offer it to me. But thank
God, I'm telling you, thank God, there is a Lamb. There is a land that God has
accepted, and this asks to be saved, not perish, not have my neck
broke. Here is grace. Here is grace. You know, the Lord told them
what to do back here in chapter 13. He said, all that opens a
womb are mine. You offer them to me, the males.
They offer them to me, the man and beast. You know, they're
mine. They're mine. Now, you eat this
unleavened bread, and that's speaking to us, to mortify the
deeds of the flesh. That's something we do continually.
But now listen. Salvation does not rest upon
me mortifying the deeds of the flesh. It rests upon this lamb. This lamb As I read to you in
chapter 29, that was offered every morning and every evening. God's glory is wrapped up in
the salvation of his people, and the salvation of God's people
is all wrapped up in the lamb. A lamb was provided in the place
of the It says over in 1 Corinthians 5-7, Christ, our Passover, was
sacrificed for us. God commended his love toward
us that while we were yet sinners, the Lamb of God, Christ, died
for us. Look over in 1 Peter chapter
1. Verse 18, Forasmuch as you know
that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your
father, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish. and without spot. You've been
redeemed. You've been redeemed. Here is
redemption. Here is cleansing. Here is acceptance
in God's land. Now, he said two or three times
in this chapter. In verse 9, For with a strong
hand hath the Lord brought me out of Egypt. In verse 14, By
strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt. In verse 16,
for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt.
And this strength of hand, this power, has to do with redemption
that we have in Christ. I'll close with this. Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter
1. Look in verse 30. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption." There is the strength of hand. There is the
power of God to save. The redemption that we have in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. Substitution. A lamb for an ass. I'm glad of that. I am glad of
that. All right, Mike.