Exodus 12 and verse 21 tonight. Simple, beautiful, clear, wonderful picture of the gospel.
Verse 21, then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and
said unto them, draw out and take you a lamb according to
your families and kill the Passover. And you shall take a bunch of
hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike
the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the
basin. And none of you shall go out at the door of his house
until the morning, for the Lord will pass through to smite the
Egyptians. And when he seeeth the blood
upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass
over the door. It will not suffer the destroyer
to come in unto your houses to smite you. And you shall observe
this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons forever. And it shall come to pass when
you be come to the land which the Lord will give you, according
as he has promised, that you shall keep this service. And
it shall come to pass when your children say unto you, what mean
ye by this service, that you shall say, It is the sacrifice
of the Lord's Passover who passed over the houses of the children
of Israel in Egypt when he smoked 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. They did this gospel. They didn't just agree with it.
They didn't just say, oh, that sounds good. That's good instruction. They went and obeyed it. It's
called in the scripture the obedience of faith. It's God giving faith
to his people. This is a picture of it. It's
the supernatural faith that God gives to his people that causes
us to come to Christ when he comes. No man can come of himself
unless the father draws him. The way the father draws you
is by giving you faith in his son. He brings you. will obey
the gospel, the obedience of faith. They couldn't just agree
that that was the way, you know, they had to do what God said. And that's what they did here.
You saw in verse 22 that hyssop was to be used to apply the blood
with. You shall take a bunch of hyssop
and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, strike the lentil.
The lentil is just a, it's a beam, an overhead beam that's that's
above a door or a window, the structure of the door or window
over the top of it. So it was to be, the blood was
to be applied above the door and on the two side posts. But
the hyssop was used to apply the blood. And David makes reference
to hyssop in Psalm 51-7. You may have read this Psalm
or heard it. David said, purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean. What's so special about hyssop?
Well, it's not the hyssop itself which had any cleansing ability.
It's what God said, use it for. He said, purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean. Wash me. And I shall be whiter
than snow. Hyssop can't clean anything,
but the blood does. The hyssop is dipped in the blood,
and the blood is applied with the hyssop. The blood of the
spotless lamb is applied. And when David said, purge me
with hyssop, what he's saying there is, Lord, purge me with
the blood of your son, and I'll be clean. I'll be clean. Purge me with the blood of the
sacrificial lamb. the offering that you will accept,
that you've commanded be offered. And that's the blood of Christ.
In that beautiful ceremony of the cleansing of the leper in
Leviticus 14 where the Lord said if the leper is to be cleansed
you have to bring two live birds and you have to kill one of them
in a bowl with running water. And then you're to dip some things
in that bloody bowl and two of the things to be dipped in that
blood were the live bird and hyssop. And then the live bird,
after it was dipped in the blood, washed in the blood, immersed
in the blood, it was to be set free in the open field. And then
the lepers standing there watching all this, then the priest was
to dip the hyssop in the blood and splash it on that leper.
And then he was to go do some other things and he was clean.
He could come back into the camp and be part of God's people again
in the camp of Israel. And so that's a beautiful picture
of how hyssop was used and how it was applying the blood of
cleansing. Paul said in Hebrews 9, 19, when
Moses had spoken every precept to all the people, the congregation
would gather and Moses would read the word of God to all the
people according to the law. That's what God said to. He took
the blood of calves and of goats with water, and scarlet wool
and hyssop. And he sprinkled both the book
and all the people, saying, this is the blood of the testament,
the blood of the covenant, which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover,
he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels
of the ministry. And almost all things are by
the law purged with blood. Without the shedding of blood
is no remission. If it's something to do with
remission of sins, there's got to be blood. If it's sin that's
being cleansed, there's got to be blood. So you see why David
prayed, Lord, purge me with hyssop. Cleanse me with the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The word purge there in Hebrews
9 means to make clean, to purify. That's what we need before God,
isn't it? This is such simple truth, and we've got to be clean
before God. Who shall stand in His holy hill?
He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. The word purge
means cleanse and purify. If you're going to stand before
God, the blood's going to have to be applied. That's the only
way you can be purged, with blood, with hyssop. And this is what
the blood does and what was pictured in Exodus 12. It did the same
thing. It purified those inside that house. He said, don't come
out of the house until the morning. It's that blood that that's your
safety. It's your refuge under the blood
of Jesus safe. Don't come out from under the
blood. Well, what did the blood do? Well, let's ask this question
first. It was because of the blood that
God would not permit the destroyer to go in. So what does the blood
do? Well, let's ask this question
first. Why did the destroyer come at all? Why did God send
the destroyer to begin with? Because of sin and rebellion.
Pharaoh pictured it, but he just pictured all of us by nature.
He pictured every one of us and what we deserve from God. And
so the destroyer came because of sin and rebellion. So let's
ask again, why didn't the destroyer come in where the blood was. Was it because the Israelites
were not rebellious and sinful? No. God called them specifically
a stiff-necked and rebellious people. And it wasn't long after
this great deliverance that God wrought for them, delivering
them from the bondage of Egypt until we begin to see their great
sinfulness recorded in the scripture. It wasn't because they didn't
have any sin. They were just as sinful and rebellious as the
Egyptians. That's why there had to be blood.
So why did the destroyer not come in where there was blood?
Because the blood cleansed those inside that house of their sin. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission, no removal, no forgiveness, no doing away
with sin. All things are purged with blood,
and they're on those doorposts. It did the same thing for those
inside that house that it did for the leper in Leviticus 14.
The blood did the same thing on the door in Exodus 12 that
it did in Revelation 7, 13. You remember John, one of the
elders spoke to John, and John said, he said to me, what are
these which are arrayed in white robes, and where'd they come
from? And I said unto him, sir, thou knowest. And he said to
me, these are they that came out of great tribulation and
have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
lamb. How is it that the blood cleanses, purges, washes sin
away? How does it do that? What does
that mean? Well, the cleansing power of
the blood, first of all, is because of whose blood it is. First Peter
118, you know that you weren't redeemed with corruptible faith.
Do you think much about what you're redeemed with? Sometimes
I hear some of the men pray, Lord, thank you for that blood,
for that precious blood. We ought to thank him in our
hearts every day for the blood that was shed for our sin. Silver
and gold, that can't redeem a sinner. We're in a complete other league
from things like that. From vain conversation received
by tradition from your fathers, in other words, your religion.
You got to be redeemed from your religion, from your ignorance
of God, from your superstition. You were redeemed from all that
with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot. Just like that Passover lamb,
Paul's saying there. Just like that lamb without blemish
and spot, that was slain on Passover. Now you were redeemed with the
precious blood of Christ. You can't work off your sin debt.
Everything you do, if you're trying to work off your sin debt,
everything you do in order to work it off is just increasing
the debt. You owe it more, the more you do, the more you owe.
And me too. And everything valuable in this
world put together would not pay for one sin. Question is
asked in Micah 6, 6. Wherewith shall I come before
the Lord? How in the world am I going to appear before God?
How can I do that? How can I do that without him
banishing me from his presence forever and casting me in hell
where I belong? Wherewith shall I come before
the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before
him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the
Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? Maybe it's just the
quantity of blood. Now, with 10,000s of rivers of
oil, shall I give that which is precious and valuable and
priceless? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit
of my body for the sin of my soul? Would that be enough? There's
one thing that satisfies God for your sin and for my sin that's
worth enough for God to not only wipe out all of our sin debt,
but to say, I'm well pleased with you. You're clean. You're
so clean. I'm pleased. That's the precious
blood of his son, Jesus Christ, pictured so simply here. And
then the second thing about this, what is it about the blood, the
cleansing power? Well, it's his blood. And then
secondly, it's the vicarious nature of his blood. And this
is important now because religion talks about how he potentially
redeems sinners and how he makes redemption possible with his
blood, but there's There is what is called the vicarious nature
of the sacrifice of Christ. That just simply means done for
and in the place of someone else. Did he die for somebody? And
did he actually obtain redemption with that blood? Did something
happen for somebody when he died there? Or did he just die in
general in some potential way? This is the doctrine of substitution,
actual substitution. He actually died in the place
of, that's what vicarious means, done for or in the place of somebody
else. The destroyer did not come in
the houses where there was blood because the lamb had already
died there vicariously. The firstborn in that house is
not going to die because the lamb died vicariously in the
place of the sinner. for the sinner. As we've said
before, there was a death in every house in Egypt that night.
Every house. But there was weeping and sorrow
only in the houses of those which had no blood on the door. There
was joy in the houses where the blood was. There was death everywhere.
There was death everywhere. Either a lamb died or a man died. Every house. Did you notice the
language? There wasn't one house if you read the rest of chapter
12 there there wasn't one house where there wasn't a death and
Every sinner as is pictured by that must die Ezekiel 18 for
God makes the the universal unalterable Declaration the soul that sinneth
it shall die Is that you? That's me too. It got me. I'm
a sinner before God. And the only way that you will
not die in every sense of the word, not just stop breathing,
your heart stop beating, but the second death, spiritual death,
eternal death, death in every sense of the word, the only way
that you won't die under the wrath of God against your sin
and rebellion, your sin and rebellion. is if the Lamb of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ, died vicariously for you, instead of you, for
you. This is my body which is broken
for you. It's broken vicariously. It's
broken in your place, in place of you being punished by God. And this is my blood which is
shed for you, instead of, instead of. Now, we see this doctrine
in both the sacrifice and in the priest in the Old Testament.
In our text here in Exodus 12, there was no priest ordained
yet. That happens later when God gives
his law and he ordains the priesthood. But the head of the household
was priest at that time, up until then, and all through until the
Lord ordained the Levitical priesthood. And so he says that the elder
of every house do this, and that's what they did. But we see this
in picture in the Old Testament, this doctrine of in the stead
of, the vicarious nature of our Lord's sacrifice. We see it not
only in the sacrifice itself, but in the priest, the priesthood.
And as I said, the elder in our case tonight. But not only did
the animal die vicariously, But the priest offered the blood
before the Lord. The people of the congregation
would bring a lamb under the priesthood, and the priest would
slay the lamb for them and offer it before the Lord. And so the
animal died vicariously, and the priest offered the blood
vicariously. Our Lord Jesus Christ is both
sacrifice and priest, pictured in these things, under this Old
Testament covenant. Hebrews 2.17, wherefore in all
things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren that
he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining
to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. In the place of, he did it for,
he offered the blood, he shed the blood for us and he offered
the blood for us. That's what the priest did in
the Old Testament. He's our sacrifice. He's our sin offering. He's our
propitiation on the mercy seat before God, and he's our great
high priest. Our Lord Jesus Christ, sacrificially,
vicariously, and effectually died as God's lamb, the lamb
of God, which takes away the sin of his people in this world.
And he's our great high priest who went into that holy place,
not made with hands, with someone to offer his own precious blood. Now, we learned something also
here about what worship is in our text. Look back at Exodus
12, verse 24, Exodus 12, 24. And you shall observe this thing
for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons forever. And it shall
come to pass when ye be come to the land which the Lord will
give you, according as he has promised, that ye shall keep
this service. 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. It has
to do with sacrifice for sin. And here's the result. God passed
over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt. The slaying
of the Passover lamb had a direct result. If the blood was on the
door, the destroyer could not go in. Did you notice the language?
Let's read it. Look at it. When he seeth the blood upon
the lintel and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over
the door and will not suffer the destroyer. to come in under
your houses to smite you. You're a sinner before God now,
and the law, God's justice has got to be satisfied. You've got
to be satisfied. And there's one thing that will
keep the destroyer from coming in and killing you, is if there's
already been a death there, there's already been bloodshed, bloodshed
that God will accept, the bloodshed, the only sacrifice that God will
accept for sin. Otherwise, the destroyer is coming
in. But if Christ died for you, if
the blood is shed, if the Passover lamb is slain, if the blood is
on the door, then the destroyer can't come in. You see that?
The justice of God must punish me without the blood of Christ. But if Christ died for me, who
shall lay anything to my charge? What's the destroyer gonna destroy
me for? You see how it's not just a potential
redemption, it's an actual redemption. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. God's not gonna kill his son
for my sin and then let the destroyer come after me too. He will not
suffer him to come in. Why? Because of the blood of
the lamb. It's effectual blood. That's the difference now between
a false gospel and a true one. There are a lot of other differences,
but it's got to start right there, doesn't it? It got to start right
there. Can Christ save me or not? Is
your God able? The Christ of religion can't
get it done. He can do his best, but you're still gonna have to
supplement it somehow or another. My Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
my redemption. It's a finished work. I don't
add anything to it, and I can't take anything away from it. But
here, notice again now the word worshipped. We don't observe
a feast of the Passover. We don't have a seven-day feast
of unleavened bread. We don't observe that. We talked
about that last week, that the Lord Jesus Christ is our Passover. We don't need another Passover.
We don't need a feast. We don't need this observance of a feast.
Christ is our Passover and he instituted at the last Passover
that he ate with his disciples. He instituted the Lord's table,
what we call the Lord's table because Paul called it that in
one place. But the Lord instituted that
as a memorial to himself. You're not to have a memorial
about deliverance from bondage in Egypt anymore. Your memorial
is your deliverance from sin. by my broken body and precious
blood. You remember me when you, as
often as you do this. We're to remember and exalt and
to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Even in this, they worshiped
Christ. Even in this picture, this Old Testament picture, before
Christ had ever come. Faith and worship are to be seen
here as a perpetual way of life for the believer. This wasn't
just a one-time thing. He said you to do this as a memorial,
as an ordinance, every year. And this is a picture of what
Christ is to us always. He's our Passover throughout
life. We worship Him. We remember Him. And He said, tell your children
about it. They're going to ask you about it. They're going to
say, why in the world do we have to go to church? Aren't they? They say that. especially when
they're little. Why in the world do we have to
do that? What is this all about? Like
I said, we're not observing the Passover now, but we're still
remembering him in a different way now that he's come. We're
still worshiping him, what he did for us, who he is and what
he did for us, how he delivered us from the bondage of sin, how
he saved us from the destroyer. It's a memorial to us. Tell your
children, They're going to say, what do you mean by this service?
And you're going to say, we're doing this because God delivered
us from bondage by the blood of his son, and he's worthy of
our worship. We're going to go worship him.
You're saying that, or you're not saying that, aren't you?
One or the other. You're saying that, or you're
saying something else. You're saying he's worthy, or you're
saying he's not worthy. That's why, you know, preachers
always getting on everybody for not coming to church. It's not
about that. It's really not. It's really
not. It's probably because they love
you. You reckon? It might have something to do
with seeing people saying, as though they were shouting it
at the top of their lungs, saying to their children and family,
he's not worthy. And not wanting that to happen.
Not wanting you to do that. That's what it's about. That's
exactly what it's about. And it's not about anything.
It's not about numbers. Not going to count you tonight.
Don't care. But I love you. I love those that aren't here
tonight. And I'm going to keep telling you he's worthy. Tell
your children he's worthy. When you're not opening your
mouth at all, tell them he's worthy. This is a sacrifice of
the Lord's Passover. We're not saying that exactly
because that was old covenant. But what we're saying is the
same thing. In essence, we're saying the Lord delivered us
from bondage and he did it by killing his son. He did it. He redeemed us with the precious
blood of his son, and we're going to worship him. And as long as
you're with me, you're going to come with me. When they ask,
they're going to say, well, I'd rather be off playing with my
friend. Nope. We're going to worship the Lord.
It's a memorial, verse 14, we remember him. You see the, we
gather around the table, don't we? The ordinance that the Lord
instituted that we talked about last week. It's the simplest,
surely the simplest and truest form of worship, just to simply
take those, those two elements and to partake of them and to
say thereby, as he said, to show forth his death and to remember
him. to remember his broken body and
his shed blood as a family. And notice what else it is. In
verse 16, let's go back and get this. We missed this before.
I missed it. You didn't miss it. I missed
it. But in verse 16, it says in the first day, there shall
be a holy convocation. And in the seventh day, there
shall be a holy convocation to you. No manner of work shall
be done in them, save that which every man must eat and only may
be done of you. Now what in the world is a convocation?
And again, we're not observing this. We're not doing the Passo.
We're not having a seven-day feast and gather on day one and
gather on day seven. But this is a picture now. And
in the picture, there was a holy convocation. And that's exactly
what we're doing here tonight. You know what a convocation is?
It's a gathering of the people. It's an assembly. It's a sacred
calling together. Everything about this calling
together has to do with him too, doesn't it? It's the lamb, it's
the blood, it's the unleavened bread. It's all to do with his
deliverance of us from bondage. That's what we tell our children.
It's about Him and what He did. It's about the sacrifice. Key
word there, and when you're explaining it to your children, it's about
the sacrifice of the Lord. It's the sacrifice of His Passover. It's about Christ crucified.
Everything we do, the table is Christ crucified. The message
had better be Christ crucified. We even sing Christ crucified.
Everything about it pertains to Him when we have this convocation
were called together in his name, in Matthew 18, 20. If there's
two or three gathered in my name, and that's exactly what the word
means. It's literally, in the Old Testament there, in the Hebrew,
it is a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into
some public place and assembly. and assembly. That's exactly
what it is. That's the word church now. I told you that was the
word convocation. The word convocation means a gathering, a calling
together. The word church in the New Testament
means a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into
some public place and assembly. That's the word church in the
New Testament. Everywhere you find the word
church. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. He loved
That gathering of citizens, the citizens of heaven, the citizens,
God's citizens. You're a peculiar people. We
are his citizens of his kingdom. And we come out of our homes
and gather together in a public place. Why? It's the sacrifice
of the Lord's Passover. That's what. In picture now,
we're not. I want to stress that because,
you know, somebody will say we're Observing Old Testament feasts,
no. But every bit of that pictures
what we do now. God hadn't changed, we hadn't
changed, he's not less worthy. The way he's worshipped hadn't
really changed much, has it? There's still a holy convocation.
It's only to him. And he gathers, we come out of
our homes and we gather together. We assemble together. That's
the word church now. That's a New Testament word.
And what's it all about? Well, by faith, we've partaken
of and do partake of the lamb as our Passover. And by God's
grace, we partake of him with the bread, the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth. That's God-given faith. If it's
faith you worked up, you'll eat it with leavened bread. But if
God gives you faith, it's sincere and true. By faith, we put the
blood on the door. But he didn't say, if I see your
faith, I'll pass on it. He said, when I see the blood,
it's the blood that saves, it's Christ crucified that redeems.
Before God though, now we own him by faith as our vicarious
sin offering. We don't just agree with the
fact that he is the vicarious sin offering. We tell, we put
the blood on our door. He's my sin offering. He's my
deliverer. He's my savior. And by faith,
we eat his flesh and drink his blood. He said, my flesh is meat
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. The world doesn't understand
that. Many went back and walked no
more with him. He's teaching cannibalism. We can't understand
what he's talking about. Oh, what blessed are your ears,
for they hear. You know what he's talking about,
don't you? We partake of the lamb by faith, by God's grace. We partake of him, the whole
lamb, by faith. And that's what faith is, to
partake of that Passover lamb, to put the blood on the door
by his grace, the obedience of faith. And as partakers of him,
there's a holy convocation. We gather together and worship
him in memorial of and in exhibition of who he is. We exhibit him. Well, that doesn't sound right.
Well, that's exactly what he said when he said, you do show
my death. That's what he put on exhibit. You show my death,
who he is and what he's done for us. We remember and we declare,
we put on display, we herald him and what he did. When we
partake of the table, we show the Lord's death till he come.
And all that we do in the worship, when there's a gathering of the
people from their houses, everything we do shows him and his death.
Does it not? If it does, it's not worth doing.
It's just not worth doing. We don't sing every one of the
songs that are in this book here. Why not? Well, if it's about
you, I'm not going to sing it. If it's about what you need to
do or, you know, one day at a time, well, You take it however many
days at a time you want to. That's not what we're here for.
You can take them 10 at a time, as far as I'm concerned. I don't
care. We're not here about that. You know what I'm saying? These
religious songs that are meaningless, they're about man and what man
needs to do and what man does do and what I've done for the
Lord. Not worth singing. We're not here. We're here as
a memorial unto him, to worship him. It is the sacrifice. When the ordinances, as I said,
the Lord's table, but also baptism, when someone confesses Christ
before me, we do that by baptism, which shows his death and resurrection
and our identification with him in and what he did and bless
God by his grace. We don't preach. Paul said, my
gospel is not after man. I didn't receive it from man.
It's not after man. It's not about man. I'm not going
to have a series on how to overcome depression. That's not what this
is about. You know what I'm saying? We
honor the Lord Jesus Christ by His grace in everything that
we do. That holy convocation, that memorial
that they were to observe perpetually, it had everything to do with
the Lord Jesus Christ and His shed blood. It is the sacrifice
of the Lord's Passover. That's what we're doing. If anybody
asks, that's what we're doing. We pray even in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We don't dare pray without praying
in his name. We know that the only way to
come unto God is by him. In any sense of the word coming
unto God, the only way to do it is by him. So we pray, and
by his grace we learn of him. Our children ask, they're asking
a question. Let's teach them. And I'll tell
you this, every time there's a gathering, I learn something
too, don't you? My you know, the gospel is so
simple and yet You know, I've learned I've considered myself
to be fairly Have have a fair familiarity with some some things
in this world that I've applied myself to But the more you study
the Word of God the more you hear or read or learn of the
Lord Jesus and what he did for sinners. It just seems like you
realize how little you know. The minute somebody starts talking
about how much they know about the Bible, I know good and well
right then they have no idea what the Bible says. No way,
no how. The simple truth of God is so
deep and fathomless that we'll spend our lifetimes, Paul said,
the unsearchable riches of Christ, and I find them to be so also.
I don't know anything as I ought, but I learn a little bit every
time. Do you? Just about every time I say that.
Because sometimes I'm so stupid, I'm always stupid, but you know
what I'm saying. You can't say always about anything
with regard to this flesh. But the Lord's gracious. He gathers
us together and He teaches us. It's all about the simplicity,
just like it was then. What are you gathering for? What
is this all about? It's about Him and His sacrifice
and His deliverance of us from bondage by His grace. So we'll
just keep gathering by His grace and learning of Him and remembering
Him and worshiping Him. They bowed their head. They told
their children, this is what we're doing. And they bowed their
heads and they worshiped. May God give us grace to do that.