Good morning. It's good to be
with you all again. If you would open your Bibles
to the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12. In a couple minutes, we'll read
some from Exodus chapter 12, which is the story of the Passover
lamb. When the Lord had his plagues
in Egypt, the 10th and final plague was the Passover. But
the title of my message comes from chapter 11, verse 7, and
we'll start in the middle of that verse. Chapter 11, verse
7 says that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference
between the Egyptians and Israel." The title of this message is,
The Difference is Christ. Now, I'm real big when I'm preaching
is I want you to know what I'm trying to say. I'm not smart
enough or good enough to try to There's so many things nowadays
with TV shows, movies, and life that everybody's trying to like,
you know, go down one way and then surprise you in the end,
or like pull off a trick, or just amaze you. The Gospel's
too clear, and it's too precise for us to do anything other than
to just proclaim what it is. This verse clearly tells us that
you may know, this is why all of this happened, that you may
know, you, the children of Israel, the child of God, that you may
know that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians Now first
off everything we are going to read in here realize that this
picture of Israel and Egypt this is the chosen people of God are
classified as Israel that is He refers to them. Even long
after this in the New Testament everything Israel are His people.
And Egypt represents those who are not His people. In Romans
8.28 it says, All things work together for good to them who
love God to them who are called according to His purpose. His
purpose. Now what is His purpose? His
purpose is the salvation of His people. And we misinterpret that
word purpose as someone's trying to do something. Because it's
God's purpose, it's done. If He purposes something, it
is already complete. So all these things we're talking
about in this picture in here, it's already done, it's already
sure. So this Passover, look at verse one of chapter 12. It
says, And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of
Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of
months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak
ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth
day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb,
according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. This is Moses and Aaron telling
the people what God has told them. In chapter 11, he says,
this is the 10th plague. There has been nine other plagues
and now we're going to have the 10th plague. And according to
his purpose, he says this in verse 1 of chapter 11. Let me
read it. And the Lord said unto Moses, yet will I bring one more
plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterwards, he will let
you go hence. Does anyone have a doubt here
that if the Lord wanted to he could have done one plague and
made the people go out. You know, he could have had no
plagues. He could have just laid it on Pharaoh's heart to let
the people go. But that wouldn't have been that good of a story,
would it? Because he had nine plagues first. All of them were
leading up to this plague. This is the plague. This plague of him saying, I
will go into the land of Egypt into Israel, and I will kill
the firstborn of every man, woman, and beast." He says, I'm going
to kill the firstborn, okay? That's what he says he's going
to do. Not just the firstborn child in the house, but if you
are the firstborn in your family, in your lineage, that's who's
going to die. And you know, that affects everyone. I always wondered
why that's what he chose. Every single person in here has
a close relationship to a firstborn. Either you are the firstborn
or you have an older sibling that is the firstborn. One of
your parents might be the firstborn. If you have children, you have
a firstborn. Every single person in all of
this land, every person in the world knows a firstborn if they're
not one themselves. His purpose was to have these
nine plagues all lead up, and we'll give more details in a
minute, all to this one plague. Now, what is this plague? Because
of what you have done, you must die. That's us. That's our situation. Because
we're sinners, that song we just sang, Only a sinner. Because
we're sinners, we have to die. That's the law. The wages of
sin is death. It's very clear in the Bible.
You cannot read this book without knowing, if I have sinned, blood
has to be shed. And in this picture, the Lord
gives the people, and I'm getting ahead of myself, but that's okay.
The Lord gives the people a way. He gives them the blood. Now,
if you were one of these people and you found out that the firstborn
was going to die, wouldn't the only thing be going through your
mind thinking, is there any way out of this? Well, that's what
we must think as sinners. Do we have any hope? Only a sinner. What's the next line? Saved by
grace. The difference is Christ. That's
the only hope we have. The Egyptians in Israel, the
child of God and those who are not. The only hope we have in
anything in salvation is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I'm going
to repeat that a lot. The phrase beat a dead horse
comes to mind. I'm going to just keep pounding
this. All right. So don't get tired of it. Just
remember, everything we say, the focus is the difference is
Christ. Look at verse 4. Pick up here in verse 12. And
if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his
neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number
of the souls. Every man according to his eating shall make your
count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish,
a male of the first year. Ye shall take it out from the
sheep or from the goats, and ye shall keep it up until the
fourteenth day of the same month. And the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they
shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and
on the upper door posts of the houses, wherein they shall eat
it. And they shall eat the flesh
in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread, and with
bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden
at all with water, but roast with fire, his head with his
legs and with the pertinence thereof. And ye shall let nothing
of it remain until the morning, and that which remaineth of it
until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye
eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and
your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste. It
is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land
of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the
land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgment. I am the Lord." and the blood
shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are. And
when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague
shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of
Egypt." The Lord preached to the Jews the whole doctrine of
the gospel in this picture. Thankfully, we have so many pictures
in this book to show us who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And this
is one of the most complete. This is such a great picture. This is a picture of someone
is going to die and their only hope is the blood. In this, he
teaches them the choice of the sacrifice. He teaches the characteristics
of the lamb, the death of the lamb and the sprinkling of the
blood, the eating of the lamb and the faith that they rested
in. The grand result of it, the people were delivered and God
was glorified. All this from this picture. Turn
with me to Hebrews chapter 9. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
9. Hebrews chapter 9. Look in verse
11 with me. But Christ being come and high
priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood,
he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and
of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean,
sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God. So a couple of things from this.
The first being this. Because of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the blood that was shed from these lands saved lives. Now, The lamb itself did not
have any significance. That lamb was not special. The
blood was not special. It was what the Lord did. It's
the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. These people, because
of this Passover, they had sacrifices, Lord-ordained sacrifices, and
they had daily, weekly, monthly, yearly sacrifices that they slew
lambs and goats all the time. But this passage tells us this,
for if the blood of bulls and of goats sanctify to the purifying
of the flesh, they're saying if those sacrifices benefited
you, think about how much more the actual blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ saves. This Passover shows us that the
Lord has the power to make a lamb being killed and the blood put
on a door to save the life of me and you. That actually happened,
that the Lord came through and was killing the firstborn of
every house, every single house. Only the people with the blood
of a lamb on the door survived. Now you want to talk about power?
Think about that. The angel comes through and kills
every firstborn, but just a lamb that the day before had no significance. Until they were told that, that
lay him in nothing. How much more then, because he has that
power, can we believe that him dying on the cross and shedding
his own blood for us actually saves our soul? Because if you
separate those things, it is very easy as a sinner to think
to yourself, who can do that? Like, we can't see God. We have
trouble believing, don't we? I'll come to this in a little
bit. You know, belief, faith, all these things. Oh my goodness.
Like, we doubt everything. But this shows us the Lord Jesus
Christ. If this is true, this picture
of Christ, the Passover, think about how much more it is that
the actual Lamb of God died and shed his blood for us. That's
what we're going to look at this morning as this Passover as a
picture and type of Christ. And what we're going to see,
and there's so many ways to look at this story, but what we're
going to do is compare what these people were told to do with this
actual lamb. How they were to choose it and
what type of lamb and what they did. Those as a picture of our
Lord Jesus Christ, our sacrifice. Now, I have 11 different things
to point out here. And I know as a child, that would
have scared me to death hearing a preacher say that. I have 11
points. Because I remember growing up,
a point usually, you know, will say five to seven minutes. And
so when a preacher would say three points or four points,
I'd do the math in my head and think, okay. And then I had a
preacher, I think it was Henry, who told me one time, he said,
if you have more than about three or four points, just don't tell
everybody. But I understand I have a lot of points, but all these
things that we can learn, and I'll go through quick, they'll
just be one or two minutes for most of them. But every little
piece of information that we can glean about the Lord Jesus
Christ is more valuable than anything else we could be doing.
You know, I struggle sitting in a pew sometimes, but all the
hours I spend all day long doing useless stuff, one more minute
of something about him is infinitely... that's so much better. OK, so
you don't have to turn back. You can stay in Hebrews 9 because
I'll read something from there in a minute. But the first thing
is this. The lamb was to be without blemish. The lamb was to be perfect,
sinless, just like our Lord Jesus Christ. Now it's a lamb. But
the point is it had to be perfect. a lamb that was, we'll see in
a second, the first born. But it had to be without blemish.
You couldn't take a lamb that had an issue. You couldn't take
that. We're sinners. We cannot be the
sacrifice for ourselves or for other sinners, right? You can't
say, I'm going to pay for your sins because I'm a sinner and
I don't have anything valuable to you. The transaction between
the Lord and His people is Him taking our sin in giving us,
placing on us His righteousness. So it has to be a righteous sacrifice. In 2 Corinthians it says, For
He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. He is the only sacrifice. He must be perfect. In order
to atone for our sin, He must have no sin of His own. Hebrews
says, For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted
like as we are yet without sin. This isn't just him just being
God, he was able to do this. No, he became a man and was tempted
like we are. He showed us that He is perfect. And in being righteous, He could
give us His righteousness. Secondly, first was the Lamb
was to be without blemish. Second, the Lamb was to be taken out
of the fold. Jesus Christ, our Lamb, was taken from among men. It had to be a man. It had to
be a man. Let me read you something out
of Deuteronomy. He was the seed of woman. This
is Deuteronomy 18. Let me read you a couple of verses. The Lord thy God will raise up
unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren
like unto thee, unto him ye shall hearken. You should listen to
him. According to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God
in Horeb, in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again
the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great
fire any more that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They
have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them
up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and
will put my words in his mouth. And he shall speak unto them
all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass that
whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak
in my name, I will require of him." He had to be taken out
of the fold. Jesus Christ, our Lamb, was taken
from among men, the seed of a woman, the seed of Abraham, and made
of the seed of David according to the flesh. Galatians says,
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not
into seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which
is Christ. This substitute, it had to be
from the fold. It had to be from the fold. It
wasn't they went out and got someone else's. They didn't go
somewhere else. It was something they had. He became a man. He
lived among men, lived among us. Thirdly, the lamb was to
be taken, was to be a year old and was to be killed, showing
that our Lord in his full strength of life should be put to death. The lamb had to die. When it
says the lamb was to be a year old, you know what I would have
done in this circumstance? If someone told me I needed to
sacrifice a lamb for something, I'd look among my sheep, my lamb,
and I'd be like, well, this one's about to kick the bucket. Let's
use that one. I'd pick the one that had the
least value because that's who I am. I'm selfish. This said
had to be a year old, the first year. And you had to actually
kill the lamb. You couldn't just get a little
blood from it. It had to be a sacrifice. If you're still in Hebrews 9,
look at verse 24. For Christ is not entered into the holy
places made with hands, which are the figures of the true,
but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God
for us. Nor yet that he should offer
himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place
every year with blood of others." Remember we talked about all
the sacrifices? He says, no, this is just once. He will enter
once. For then must he often have suffered
since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. And as it is appointed, unto
men once to die, but after this the judgment." We will die and
face judgment. So Christ was once offered to
bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall
he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." All the
lambs that were shed, all that were sacrificed, all of that
was a picture of that one perfect sacrifice that was to come. You
know that these people, I can't imagine them not being, they
had to be overwhelmed and almost tired of these sacrifices one
after another. But once you see what this sacrifice
represents, it's totally different. You know, they were doing this
because the Lord had not come. We don't have to sacrifice anymore
because he has already done it. We don't need a picture of Christ
that's coming. We have already seen the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's already come. He's already done this. He was
a perfect sacrifice and he was killed for us. He had to be killed. Fourthly, the lamb was to be
roasted with fire. The directions on how to prepare
it, how to kill it. The Lord Jesus Christ was crucified,
enduring the fire of God's wrath for our sins. It had to be burned. That's a
picture of the wrath of God. For someone who is holy and perfect,
sin is an abomination. It is awful. And we will never
understand that because that's who we are. We're sinners, right? Now, something that I'm very
guilty of is I find fault especially hard on people who do things
that I don't think I struggle with. Does that make sense? So
the things that I know I do really well, the bad things I do well,
however I say that, I know I lie all the time. So I have it a
little softer on people when they lie because I know I do
it. But if you do something that I don't think I do, I'm harder
on you. I judge you for those types of
things, which is ridiculous. But every single sin that we
commit is a sin against God. And think about the wrath. the
anger that God has towards every single sin. I don't know what
the numbers are. We could start today and I could
say since I've woken up I've got 10,000. I don't have a clue
what these numbers are. I might be very generous. It
might be billions at this point. Every single thing we do is a
sin. And the Lord Jesus Christ had
to bear the full wrath of God for every single sin of every
single one of his sheep. And He was perfect and righteous.
He willingly took that wrath, the fire of God's wrath for every
single sin. You know, growing up, I heard
preachers say, that no one has ever been punished like our Lord
was on the cross. No one has ever endured a death.
And, you know, I've seen movies before and I thought, well, you
know, it doesn't seem any worse than this or whatever. The point
of this is what he is willingly do as a holy savior, as a God,
that he would willingly take this punishment for us. That
is glorious to anyone Who knows they can't save themselves to
think that he's doing that willingly for me. I won't do anything for
somebody, even if I love them. And he would do that for me.
The lamb was to be roasted whole, the whole thing was to be burned,
all of it. And John, it says, for these
things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled, a bone of
him shall not be broken. The whole thing shall be burned. Our Lord Jesus Christ consumed
the wrath of God against his people. He paid the debt, the
life debt for every single one of his children. He did that
and he consumed it in doing so. This is not a vain sacrifice. His death took all the sin of
his children and bore it all perfectly. And in that transaction,
what do we get? The phrase, we come out smelling
like roses. We walk into this with our sin and we walk out
with His righteousness. But He had to be consumed. He
had to be sacrificed. Sixthly, the blood of the Lamb
must be sprinkled. It had to be sprinkled on the
lintel on the sides of the door of the Israelites as the blood
of Christ is applied by faith. Okay? The blood had to be applied
on the door. It did. It had to be. That's
what the Lord said. It had to be applied. There is no salvation
nor deliverance apart from faith. Now, this is a subject. that
if I'm being honest with you, I try my best to not have to
say from the pulpit. I know it's true. I'm 100% sure
of it, and the Bible says it constantly. But saying that there's
no salvation or deliverance apart from faith, belief. And listen
to these verses. John 3, 36 says, He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides in him. Hebrew
says, but without faith, it is impossible to please him for
he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder
of them that diligently. There's so many verses that say,
if you don't believe, you're not saved. If you don't have
faith, you can't come to God. And I shy away from that for
two reasons. The first one is I have a really
hard time standing up here and saying, believe, believe, have
faith, when it's all I do is struggle with belief and faith.
It's hard to tell somebody to do something or to be something
when you can't be it yourself. But secondly, and the real reason
is, the last thing I want is someone to walk away from me
preaching and to say to themselves, if I have faith, something I
do, if I believe on stuff, then I can have a part or save myself. That scares me because the scriptures
gives these verses and yet there are a lot of people who believe
that. They see this verse, he that
believeth on the sun hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not
the sun shall not see light. They say from that verse, they
say, OK, if I believe, I'm going to believe right here and I'm
going to save myself. That's what they think. And it couldn't be
further from the truth. So give me just a minute and
see if I can explain this from this story. OK, look at Exodus. Go back to Exodus with me here.
And I want to read you a couple of verses. And I hope through
these verses that you will understand, back to this title, the difference
is Christ. Okay? Because it's very clear
the Lord said the blood had to be put on the door. And who did
it? The people did it. They did it.
It says that very clearly. So Exodus 11 verse 6. 7. But against any of the children
of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue against man or beast,
that ye may know how the Lord doth put a difference between
the Egyptians and Israel. Look at chapter 12 verse 12. I'll make a point I've just got
three different things to read. And finally look at verse 26, And it shall come to pass when
your children shall say unto you, what mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, it is the
sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the house of
the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and
delivered our houses and the people bowed the head and worshiped.
And the children of Israel went away and did as the Lord had
commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they." Okay. So set this up. The Lord told
Moses and Aaron, this is what's going to happen. There's going
to be a 10th plague and I'm going to go through the land of Egypt,
which the Israelites are in Egypt. I'm going to go through the whole
land and I'm going to kill every single firstborn of men and women
and of beasts. That's what I'm going to do.
Then he tells them, but I'm not going to do anything to those
who have the blood on the door. These three verses we just read,
these three portions, all very clearly tell us this. Not a single
thing is going to happen to the people of Israel. It says in
the one that a dog won't wag its tongue. A dog is not going
to whimper or bark at one of you all, not any of you. It's
very clear. There's no way you can argue
that he says that three different times. Nothing is going to happen
to a single person, a single one of my sheep, not a single
one of Israel. All three of these things were said before he came
through. The first one was said before
anyone even knew what was going to happen. How can that be possible? We're talking about hundreds
of thousands of people. And He says the only way that
anyone is not going to die is if you kill a lamb, shed the
blood, do it all like this, put it on the door and all that stuff
before I come, then you'll be fine. How in the world do you
think that hundreds of thousands of people, isn't it a miracle
that they all did the exact same thing of their own will, their
own desire? No, he said before they even
knew about it, nothing's going to happen to you because I make
the difference. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, He made you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. If you
have any faith, any, an inkling, a huge amount, whatever, it's
because He made you believe. All these verses, when they tell
us this, it scares me to death to think that I have to do something. But in these verses we see, He
tells us, I'm going to kill all of these And none of these are
going to be harmed before it happens. And then for him to
say, the only way not to happen is to do it. You all know very
well, none of that could ever happen apart from the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the difference. He made
the difference. He elected a people. You know,
before he even had this 10th plague come, he determined who
would be on what side. Those without Christ, those with
Christ. That's the difference. There's
no bigger black and white in this world than those who are
in the Lord Jesus Christ and those who are not. OK, look at The blood on this door denotes
an outward confession. That's what it is. It's evidence
of heart faith. In all our going out and our
coming in, the blood of the Lamb is ever before us. In our Lord's
mercy, He gives us some belief and faith. Because wouldn't it
be miserable to read all this stuff and not believe on Him? We're sinners. We don't believe
well. We don't have good faith. Whatever you want to say this
stuff. But in His mercy, He gives us these things. Apart from the
Lord Jesus Christ and having a little bit of faith and hope
and belief in Him, what would we have? We'd have nothing apart
from that. Seventh, the Israelites were
to eat the flesh of the lamb. What does this signify? That
we must, by faith, feed upon Christ. He must be our sustenance. John 6 says, truly believing
on Christ and receiving Christ within us. This is eating His
flesh and drinking His blood. We must do that. We must Eat
all. We must consume and believe all
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything in this book, all
of it, we have to believe on Him. So many people, when I have
any conversation about religion, it's amazing how often it comes
down to a conversation where someone has something along the
lines of, well, I agree with that, but not that. Well, then
you don't agree. You know what I'm saying? If
you ever told someone something and they go, well, I agree with
you, but... And then they say, well, then you don't agree with
me. We have to believe everything that the Lord Jesus Christ says,
all of it. Then next it says they were to
eat the lamb with unleavened bread. Leaven in the Bible is
a picture of evil because leaven changes everything. Leaven changes
everything about bread. It changes the texture of it.
It changes the shape of it, the size of it. Leaven changes everything. They say a little leaven affects
the whole lump. It does all of it. Purge out
there for the old leaven. that ye may be a new lump, as
ye are unleavened, for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for
us." Christ endured the full wrath and judgment for our full
justification, and nothing is to be mixed, added, or joined
to Him. Nothing can. We have a perfect
sacrifice, a perfect Savior. We don't need to add anything
to it if we even had something to add. The next one is nothing
of the lamb was to remain. This one goes right along with
11. This says that the whole thing is to be received. All
of the Lord Jesus Christ must be received. It must be fed on
by faith. Christ in both his natures, divine
and human. Christ in all his offices, prophet,
priest and king. Christ in all his person and
work. All of it. We have to take all of it. Who
wouldn't want it all? But we have to take all of it.
Now, these two things, these two things, the unleavened bread
and nothing was to remain. Together, this is a picture is
the Lord Jesus Christ is a complete and perfect sacrifice. There
is nothing to be added. There is nothing to be taken
away. There's nothing to do. It's him. He did it all. The
difference is Christ. There's no comma there. There's
no and. There's no but. There's nothing
on to that. How often do we hear people say things in false religion
or even we mistakenly say things ourselves? We say things or hear
things like the Lord is my only hope and or like all these things. No, that's it. The Lord is our
only hope. That's it. Period. We get ourselves
into trouble and we keep talking. I do it all the time. I just
just proclaim the truth. That's it. We just need to praise
what he does. Shut our mouth. Give him all
the glory. We love glory, don't we? In every
form. It doesn't matter what it is.
It doesn't have to be true. Have you ever taken a compliment
from someone or credit for something that you didn't do? Of course
we do that stuff because I get the glory. We want just an inkling
of the glory. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
sacrifice. He is the Savior. He's our salvation. One hundred percent of it. He
is all of it. Every bit. All right. Tenthly, almost done. They were
to eat the Passover dressed and ready to move out of Egypt. I
love this. This is the Lord's Passover and
it effectually saves. He said, you be ready to get
out of Egypt. Remember, he comes at midnight.
These people are eating this sacrifice. He says, you be dressed
and ready. We're leaving. We're going to get out of here.
The world as Egypt to Israel is no longer our home. We are
pilgrims temporarily here, but awaiting his call to move out
and go home to Canaan. We should look at this earth
and our lives here as these people looked at Egypt. Let me give
you a quick little understanding of this. The people of Israel
for generations had been slaves. And this is the true meaning
of slave. You know, I know that kids, and
I remember, man, getting up for school was awful. Even to this
day, there are days, I don't want to get up for work. I don't
want this. And sometimes we think to ourselves, man, why does my
life, why is it like this? You know, why do I have to do
all these things? These people were in the fields at sunup until
sundown. doing what they were told to
do in brutal conditions, being beaten and whipped, only to know
that when they were released to go home, they walked home
and had to do it again the next morning. There's no Friday afternoon. We got the weekend coming. There's
no holidays coming. There's nothing. Every day of
their life was nothing but misery. That's all they had. That's all
they had. That's what we should look at
this life on the earth. We should see what's coming. We should see what the Lord has
done for us in the way that, you know, when these people were
told the Lord is going to get you out of here. Do you think
they were excited about that? Do you think they thought of
anything other than that? In that field, do you think the
day after they heard that, you think it was a little easier
to plow the field? You think it was a little easier to bear
with that heat, knowing that our Savior has told us He's going
to save us? That's what we need to be. Everything
we do needs to have that temperament on it, to think to ourselves,
something goes wrong. But the Lord has saved me for
all of eternity. Was that for 10,000 days we'll
yet to... I mean, to think after 10,000
days we will be no closer than we were at the start of that.
That's an amazing thought. Eternity. There will be a day
because of what He did on the cross that we will be with Him. We'll be without this body. We'll
be perfect. And I know that some are more than ready than others.
But we just don't know. My grandmother's doors just turned
101. But we don't know if that day
is today, if that day is 50 years from now. We don't know. Look
to that day. And why can we do that? Because
the Lord Jesus Christ is the difference. You know, death is
not something to fear because we have a Savior. Because we
have one. The Passover wouldn't have been
the same had it not been the 10th plague. Think about that
part of it. You guys realize that This event
had happened nine times that someone had gone to the people,
gone to Pharaoh and said, let my people go. He said, no. OK,
I'm going to bring a plague upon you. Brings the plague. Pharaoh
says, OK, OK, stop it. Stop it. I'll let him go. And
then everybody celebrates. You know, they celebrated that.
You think about a rumor or some news that spread fast. The Pharaoh
just said, OK, let him go. And that sucker just went through
everybody like that. And they were happy only to then
be denied. And that happened a second time.
And it happened a third time. And it happened a fourth time.
And it happened a fifth time. And it happened a sixth time.
And it happened a seventh time. And it happened an eighth time.
And it happened a ninth time. And I know what I just did is
like, OK, we get it. But that's the point. These people thought
the greatest moment of their lives had come nine times for
the rug to be just pulled right out from under them. Nine times
that had happened. All of that. Do you think that
this last plague, this tenth one, when these people left,
do you think it meant even more at that point? All of the trials,
all the tribulations, all of it led up to that moment. In
the same way that all of our lives, everything we go through,
all of it leads to one moment, standing in judgment before a
holy God and the Lord Jesus Christ standing in front of us, bearing
us, us being His bosom, under His wing. Whatever phrase you
want to use, in standing before a holy God, knowing that we are
guilty of everything we've claimed up, for Him to say, no, those
sins have been paid for. This one has my righteousness,
all of that. What a glorious day. All right,
lastly, 11th one. This phrase, the famous phrase
from this, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. I usually
don't enter in to what actually happened to these people, but
we just said how nine times this had all happened. Nine things
had gone through this and these people were going through it.
But because of all those things that happened, When the Lord
said it, if this were the first plague, OK, and the Lord came
to them and said, if you don't let the people go, I'm going
to kill the first born child. You know, no one would have believed
that, right? No, everyone like what? But because
he had said, I'm going to turn the river to blood and it happened
and he said, I'm going to have locusts come and it happened.
And he said, I'm going to have lice. And it happened. I'm going
to give you boils. And it happened. All these things
happened for nine times. Is there anybody who reasonably
on the 10th one could have thought to themselves, this is the one
he's not going to do. He's not going to do this. All
of that happened so that every single person in Egypt and in
Israel could not logically say he's not going to do this. The
Lord Jesus Christ has told us he is going to save his children. He will save them because he
said it. He will do it. It's a sure thing. A hundred percent. It's done.
It's been that way since he chose a people before the foundation
of the world. But you know, these people knew this. They knew it
without a shadow of a doubt. This last thing was going to
happen. Romans 8 says, There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. Ephesians 1 says, In whom we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of his grace. He did it all. He did it. And because of what he's done,
these people believed and he gave them the faith and belief.
Put the door on the post. Now, the last thing I'm going to say
about this to try to emphasize that Christ is the difference.
I want you to look back at Exodus 11 and I'm going to do the same
thing I did a minute ago. I'm going to do three different
little passages right here. And I want to try to drive this
point home one last time. I want us all to leave here thinking
the Lord Jesus Christ is the only difference in those who
are saved and those who are not. This story, those who had their
firstborn killed and those who did not, the blood of the Lamb
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only difference. That's what
we've got to know from this. So follow with me. Exodus 11 verse
5 says, And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die,
from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne,
even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the
mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. Now chapter 12 verse
12. pass through the land of Egypt
this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgment, I am the Lord." And verse 29, And
it came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn
in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat
on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the
dungeon, and all the firstborn of the cattle. These three verses. The first two before it happens
and the third after. They all tell us that every single
house of Egypt, the firstborn die. Every one of them. Now we
already read a few minutes ago the verses that told us not a
single firstborn in a house of those of Israel die. We're talking about, some people
say millions of people, okay? On these two sides of this, at
least hundreds of thousands of Israelites and hundreds of thousands
of Egyptians, you're telling me that not a single one of the
Israelites, as we talked about a minute ago, didn't put the
blood on the door? Well, first look at that one
and I'll put myself in it. There's no way that I wouldn't
find a way to mess that up. It's embarrassing to say, honestly,
in front of other people, the life of my first born child is
on the line, I would procrastinate and not do it. Or I'd say, you
know what, I could kill this bad lamb. I would, you just put
it on the top of the door, that's fine. I would find a way to mess
it up. Not a single one of those thousands
and thousands of households mess it up. And on the other side,
you mean to tell me there wasn't a mother in the Egyptian house
that had a firstborn child, a firstborn husband, two firstborn parents,
and they didn't put their blood on that? We're foolish to think
this, but I honestly think to myself, would I not have done
that? They had the plagues too. They saw the Lord make a proclamation
to them nine times, and all nine times it happened exactly like
He said. Why would you ever not believe
the tenth one was going to happen? And why would you not do what
he said? Because he didn't say in this proclamation that if
the people of Israel put it on the door, I'll save them. He
said anyone who puts the blood on the door. That's crazy. You know, I heard the gospel,
the truth hundreds of thousands of times before the Lord Jesus
Christ made me believe. The only difference. between
the people in Israel who all lost their firstborn child and
those who didn't was the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way that
we will not suffer eternal death is if we are under the blood
of Christ. That's all it is. There's nothing
else. There's nothing we can do. There's
nothing we can't do. Nothing. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the difference. It's all Him. And I pray because
what we said earlier in here, give me belief to believe that. Give me faith to trust in it.
Give me hope. in this. Make me feed off you,
Lord. Don't make my day go up and down
based on the whims of this world. Make me stay up because I know
that I feed on the Lord Jesus Christ, that no matter what happens
in this life, it is not even a glimmer compared to what he
has promised his children. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
difference. That's it. All right. May the Lord bless
his word.