My message tonight is Behold
the Blood. Our text will be Exodus chapter
24. Exodus chapter 24. This 24th chapter of Exodus opens
with an expression of the law's strictness and severity. A divine prohibition is given. A wall of separation is set up
between God and man. Look at verse 1, And the Lord
God said to Moses, Come up unto the mount unto the Lord. Thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu,
and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship ye afar off. And Moses alone shall come near
the Lord, but they shall not come nigh. Neither shall the
people go up with him. The Lord God commanded the 70
elders and the children of Israel to worship him afar off. He says, they shall not come
nigh. And throughout the legal dispensation,
under all the types and shadows of the law, the people were never
allowed to draw nigh to God. Those two precious words, draw
nigh, could not be heard from Sinai's fiery mount. The law
says, stay away. The law says, keep back. The
law, you remember when God called Moses up to the Mount Sinai to
give the law, he said, if so much as the hand of a beast touched
the mount, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart.
Those sweet words draw nigh, could not be heard at heavens,
at earth's side. of things, but only when on heaven's
side of eternity the Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the dead
as our Redeemer and opens a door into heaven, a door of access
by which sinners may draw nigh unto God. And now the blood of
Jesus Christ, that new and living way, says, Come nigh. Bless God,
there is a door opened in heaven, a door opened for sinners, and
written in blood across that door, God Almighty says, come
in, draw nigh, the way is open for sinners. And that's what
we have set before us in Exodus 24. It is at the same time a
declaration and revelation of God's holy law and the wall separating
man from God, that partition wall of the law. And it is a
blessed, wondrous picture of redemption accomplished by Jesus
Christ the Lord. It introduces us to a scene without
parallel in all the Old Testament scriptures. Here we have What
I believe it was Arthur Pink suggested is the Old Testament
Mount of Transfiguration. Here the glory of God is revealed
in the accomplishment of redemption symbolically given by that which
is here revealed in the mount as Moses and Nadab and Abihu
and Joshua and the 70 elders of Israel go up to the mount. Why is there an exception made
for Moses? The Lord God called Moses up
to the mount. And Moses was allowed to come
near to God. Aaron could not. Nadab and Abihu,
his two sons, were commanded to stay far away. The children
of Israel, even the elders of Israel, were commanded not to
come nigh. But Moses came nigh. And we notice
in verse 13 that he brought with him Joshua. Moses and his servant
Joshua together went nigh unto the Lord, but only these two
were allowed access to God. Why? because the Lord God is
giving us here by divine inspiration a beautiful and clear picture,
a type representing the accomplishment of redemption by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Moses and Joshua were clearly
types of our Lord Jesus. You'll remember Moses tells us
in Deuteronomy chapter 8 that the Lord God promised he would
raise up a prophet like me whom you would hear and Jesus Christ
is that prophet. Moses is also a picture and a
type of Christ in the accomplishment of redemption in as much as He
brought Israel out of Egypt. But He could not bring Israel
into the land of promise. He must have Joshua to do that.
It takes both Moses and Joshua to portray redemption accomplished
by Christ Jesus. And so we see Moses and Joshua
here representing our Lord Jesus in His mediatorial accomplishments.
Turn to Psalm 106 for a moment. Moses represents justice satisfied,
and justice satisfied demands release. Joshua, you know, means
Jesus, or Jehovah saves. How often the Lord God would
have destroyed the children of Israel in the wilderness had
not Moses stood between God and his people and made intercession
for them. Look at Psalm 106, verse 21.
We see this numerous times in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. But
the psalmist here sings about it. They forget God, their Savior,
which had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the
land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea. Therefore he
said that he would destroy them had not Moses his chosen stood
before him in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he should
destroy them. That's what Christ does for us. He stands in the breach to turn
away God's wrath. How is it that Moses does so?
How can Moses possibly represent the turning away of God's wrath
when Moses represents the law? Moses not only represents the
law, he represents the law satisfied. And by the turning away of God's
wrath from us, Jesus Christ obtains redemption for us. Moses speaks
then of both the law and the justice of God, and represents
our Lord Jesus, our Savior, by whom the law and justice of God
are satisfied. Moses and Joshua together represented
the perfect mediation of Christ. His acceptance with God and our
acceptance with God in him. And now we, by our Redeemer,
draw nigh unto God. And then our text speaks of an
altar and sacrifices. Look at verse 3. And Moses came
and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments
And all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words
which the Lord hath said will we do. Now the words of the Lord
clearly refer to the Ten Commandments given in Exodus chapter 20. The
judgments of the Lord refer to those statutes, those civil statutes
and those ceremonial statutes that were given in Exodus 20,
21, chapter 21, 22, and 23. The children of Israel, when
they heard again the words of the Lord, just as they had at
Sinai in Exodus 20, they heard the words of the Lord and said,
well, we'll do that. And now they hear them again. They hear
the words of the Ten Commandments. Those words requiring absolute,
perfect obedience. And they hear the words of all
the ceremonial law, all the civil judgments God gave in those chapters,
Exodus 21 through 23. And they said, piece of cake,
we'll do that. Presumptuously, arrogantly, haughtily,
they declare their confidence in themselves that they would
do this. Oh, what fools we are to presume
that we can obey and please and satisfy God. All the words which
the Lord said, we will do. And Moses knew better. He knew better. He had already
experienced enough to know that wasn't about to happen. He had
already seen them murmur and grumble. He had already seen
them forget the Lord. And so Moses builds an altar. Look at the next verse, verse
four. Moses wrote all the words of the Lord and rose up early
in the morning and built an altar under the hill and 12 pillars
according to the 12 tribes of Israel. And he sent young men
of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings and sacrificed
peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. The altar, no doubt,
without question, was built exactly according to the precepts that
God had given back in Exodus 20, as a clear picture of our
Redeemer. The Lord God said, if you build
an altar to me, make sure it's an altar of earth. If you make
an altar of stone, make sure it is not an altar of hewn stone,
because if you lift up your tool upon it, you've polluted it,
you've defiled it. It must be an altar of my making,
and no steps on this altar, no steps by which you gradually
approach to me. This altar must represent Jesus
Christ, who is our altar. The writer of Hebrews says, we
have an altar. We have an altar whereof they
have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. Those who have
a carnal earthly material altar, those who still seek to worship
God by carnal means and carnal effort have no right to eat of
this altar and they cannot. You must give up your works and
your approach to God and come by Christ Jesus the Lord or you
cannot come. They have no right to eat who
serve in the tabernacle, who serve at a physical altar. This
altar is our Redeemer. And we don't come to God gradually
by steps to Christ. You're so sick and tired of hearing
religious fools talk about steps toward salvation. The first step
is this, and the next step is that you come all at once to
the Savior. If you come by degrees, and attain
Him by degrees, and attain acceptance by degrees, all you do is show
your nakedness. Your religious perfectionism
is but the revelation of your corruption, your depraved nature,
and your sin. Near this altar, Moses sets twelve
pillars. Twelve pillars according to the
twelve tribes of Israel. 12 pillars representing the whole
of God's elect, the whole of God's chosen, the 12 tribes of
Israel. So the altar is for the children
of Israel. And the sacrifices on the altar
are for the children of Israel. These things are highly significant. These young men who make the
sacrifices, in all probability, were the firstborn of the children
of Israel. They were the ones out of whom later the Lord God
would select the Levites to be his priest. But the burnt offerings
and the peace offerings, those offerings they sacrificed upon
the altar to the Lord were sacrifices of thanksgiving. But why sacrifices
of thanksgiving here? Why sacrifices of thanksgiving
here? This is the giving of the law.
This is the display of God's glorious holiness as a consuming
and devouring fire. Why sacrifices of thanksgiving
here? Because of everything symbolized
not only in the giving of the law, but in the altar and the
sacrifices that God accepted. The law reveals God's holy character. It reveals God's holiness and
thereby exposes our sin. The law shows our corruption
and our desperate need before God. The law shows our helplessness
and the fact that we must have a substitute. The law's fulfillment
suggested by the sacrifice and the altar. There could be no
altar of approach to God. There could be no drawing nigh
to God but by the fulfilling of the law, fulfilling its righteousness
and fulfilling its justice. This law then, being fulfilled
by a mediator, by a representative man, is reason for thanksgiving
and God's acceptance of his people by that man. God's acceptance
of his people by Christ Jesus the Lord through the altar and
the sacrifice he has made and he has provided is a matter of
thanksgiving and joy. Now, let's look at the blood. Everything we have from God is
by the blood. Every approach of God to man
in mercy is by the blood. Even every approach of God to
man in justice, in the execution of his wrath, is by the blood
and the mediator, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. He will bring man
into judgment according to Christ Jesus, our mediator. And every
approach to God, to us in mercy, is by that blood. Every approach
we make to God, by which we have acceptance with Him, by which
He looks upon us in favor, and we obtain mercy, is by the blood. We cannot draw nigh to God but
by the blood of His Son. The Word of God puts special
sanctions on blood, even the blood of beasts. God put special
commandments even regarding the blood of beasts as well as the
blood of men. Why? Because the life of the
flesh is in the blood. And God's purpose in this book
is to reveal life, life in Christ, life by Christ, Christ who is
our life, life that we obtain only by His blood. The life of
the flesh is in the blood and you who sometimes were far off
are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Look at Exodus 24 verse
6. And Moses took half of the blood
and put it in basins. Took half of it and put it in
bowls. And half of the blood he sprinkled
on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant
and read in the audience of the people. And they said, here it
is again, all that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient. And Moses took the blood and
sprinkled it on the people and said, behold the blood of the
covenant which the Lord hath made concerning all these words. Behold the blood of the covenant. Those words uttered by Moses,
as he sprinkled the people with the crimson lifestream, forcibly
remind us of the words of another prophet, the last prophet, John
the Baptist, who cried, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world. A covenant, this is called the
blood of God's covenant, a covenant is an agreement. an agreement
between two or more people concerning a matter. In the Scriptures,
it is a testament. It is a revealed will, much like
we speak about the last will in Testament. The Scriptures
describe God's covenant just that way. In fact, the word covenant
and the word testament in the Scriptures is exactly the same
word. The same word is translated covenant, that's translated testament.
We have the Old Testament, or the Old Covenant, and the New
Testament, or the New Covenant. Brother Rex read back in the
office just a little bit ago, Hebrews chapter 8. If you want
to see the sum of this thing, read the 8th chapter of Hebrews.
All the covenants God made with men in the Old Testament. were
in one way or another pictures of God's covenant made with the
man, Christ Jesus our Mediator, the everlasting covenant of grace
in which God declares by the sacrifice of His Son their sins
and iniquities, I will remember no more. I will give them My
Spirit. I'll put My Spirit within you
and write My laws upon your heart. Now this is the blood that's
represented here. the blood of the covenant, this
covenant that is God's sovereign disposition of grace, this covenant
that is God's pledge of mercy, this covenant that is God's perpetual
bond by which he brings sinners into union with himself and pours
out his blessedness upon us. The covenant is beautifully expressed
in Revelation 12 and the blood of the covenant is. The Lord
God said then, when he calls the children of Israel to sacrifice
that paschal lamb and sprinkle the blood on the doorpost and
the lentil, he said, the blood shall be to you for a token. Not to me. Not to anyone else. The blood shall be to you for
a token. You see, you and I are the ones
who need the token of mercy. I have a ring here. Most of you
have one similar. It was given to me 39 years ago
come June. And I hardly ever take it off. It's a token of something far
more significant than just the gold in that ring. It's a token
of my wife's undying love for me. It's a token. When I'm away
from home, I often look at it and remember it. Driving down
the road, I look at it and remember it. Sitting in the office, I
look at it and remember it. Sometimes when she's sitting
right beside me, I look at it and remember it. It's a token. The blood of Christ. Oh, the
precious blood of Christ. The token of His everlasting,
undying love for us. The blood sprinkled on our hearts,
the blood graciously applied to us by the Spirit of God, the
blood by which we now live and by which we believe is the token
of God's covenant and of God's love for us. The Lord God says,
when I see the blood, now that's where our safety is and our security. It's a token to us of God's mercy. It is a token by which we have
sweet assurance of His goodness. But the safety and security of
our souls is God Himself beholding the blood. It was the covenant
blood that Israel was called to behold. And such is the blood
of our Redeemer's cross. We have been reconciled to God
through the death of His Son. When our Lord Jesus instituted
the Lord's Supper, you remember he took the cup and he said,
this cup is the New Testament in my blood, the new covenant
in my blood, the whole covenant in my blood, shed for many for
the remission of sins. Drink ye all of it. Now notice when this blood was
shed. Remember we're looking at a picture.
We're not just looking at the giving of the law that's beginning
here in Exodus 24 and going through chapter 30. The Lord God gives
us a picture of redemption accomplished in all the service of the tabernacle. And here the picture begins and
the picture is given as a whole right here in this 24th chapter.
When was the blood shed? As with the death of Christ,
so with this sacrifice. The blood was shed after God
had been manifestly honored. In verse 1, the Lord says, come
up unto the Lord and worship. Before our Lord Jesus was nailed
to the cursed tree, he had this testimony. He pleased God. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased, hear ye him. He pleased his father. And Moses
came near to the Lord, while others worshipped afar off. So
the Lord Jesus was transfigured upon the mount, just as Moses
is here, called up to the mount, called up to God before the people,
as if to indicate God's acceptance of him, symbolically. God's acceptance of him in what
he represents, as if to indicate God's acceptance of his son and
of his people in his son. The blood was shed after God
was manifestly honored, and the blood was shed after the Word
of God was revealed. Moses, we're told in verse 4,
told the people all the words of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ
came here and we're told that He is the Word, the Word made
flesh. No man has seen God at any time
except He that is in the bosom of the Father. He hath declared
Him. He's shown Him to you. The word that is often used when
we talk about expounding Scripture is exegete, or exegesis. A man who is a good interpreter
of Scripture, a man who rightly understands the Word of God,
studies a passage. He studies it carefully, and
he looks into the Word, and he brings out what's written in
the Word so you can clearly see it. It's called exegesis. That's the very word that's used
in John 118 with regard to our Savior. He hath declared the
Father. He's opened up God to you. He's
shown God to you. So that Jesus Christ comes the
fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophets, of all the Old Testament
types, of all the Old Testament law, and by all His obedience,
He shows God to you. He sets forth all the will and
purpose and glory of God. He says, I've given them the
words which thou gavest me. The ways made plain and then
the Lord went to glory. The blood was shed also after
an altar had been built. Moses built an altar and then
the sacrifices were made. Christ Jesus must himself be
our altar. We cannot approach God without
a priest, a sacrifice, and an altar. And Christ is all three. He is our high priest. He is
our sacrifice. He is our altar. But He cannot
be our sacrifice, He cannot be our altar, and He cannot be our
priest, except first He be made flesh. Then He said when He came
into the world, a body hast thou prepared made. body hast thou
prepared me a body in which God Almighty fulfills his own law
satisfies his own justice and makes intercession for his people
with as one who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities
what does the blood signify this blood that is shed and Moses
says behold the blood the blood of the covenant the blood of
signifies sin. Were there no sin, there'd be
no need for the sacrifice. Were there no guilt, there'd
be no curse. But bless God, the blood shed
signifies much more than sin. It signifies sin put away, sin
taken away, sin washed away in the crimson tide. The blood suggests
substitution. the removal of sin by a divinely
accepted substitute, Jesus Christ our Lord. He suffered for us,
the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Darwin
read it just a little bit ago. He hath made him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. In him who his own self bear
our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins
should live into righteousness by whose stripes we are healed. And the blood shed and accepted
by God declares salvation accomplished. When Abraham took Isaac up on
the mount and sacrificed that ram caught in the thicket in
the stead of Isaac. Isaac was saved. Isaac got up
off the altar. Isaac was freed. Isaac had no reason to fear. That's what bloodshed means.
Salvation accomplished. Redemption done. Freedom obtained. We are redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ. Behold the blood again, and see
where this blood was sprinkled. It was sprinkled on the altar.
We're told in verse 6, Moses took half the blood and sprinkled
it on the altar. That represents the claims of
God's holiness and justice. Before the people could be blessed,
justice must be satisfied. Before the sinner can be saved,
Christ must offer himself without spot to God. But there was a
halving of the blood. Moses took half the blood and
caught it in bowls, in basins. He caught it in basins to sprinkle
it upon the people, these sacrifices that were slain. Half of the
blood he sprinkles on this altar that he made right at the foot
of the hill of the mount, and half the blood he saves in basins. to sprinkle it on the children
of Israel, to sprinkle it upon those people for whom the blood
was shed, those people represented in all the sacrifice. You see,
our Lord Jesus not only fulfilled the law by His blood, but by
His blood He makes peace. And that blood sprinkled, as
it's described in Hebrews chapter 9, that blood sprinkled in heaven
by which he obtained eternal redemption for us. And that blood
sprinkled on our conscience now gives us peace. That blood sprinkled
on the conscience assures us a pardon. That blood sprinkled
on the conscience declares justification. That blood sprinkled on the conscience
takes away our enmity against God. Oh, that men would praise
the Lord for His goodness. This blood sprinkled upon us,
this blood applied to us, doesn't in any way add to the finished
work of the Redeemer. It is that by which we know the
finished work of the Redeemer. The blood sprinkled is the token
of life bestowed. God comes in the power and grace
of His Spirit, and He somehow, in an inexplainable, wondrous
work of grace, not only brings us into contact with the life
that was poured out in the blood, but He makes that life ours. infuses life in us, causing us
to live by His Son, to live with His Son, and to live in His Son,
and His Son to live in us. The blood sprinkled again speaks
of reconciliation. It declares to us that we're
reconciled to God, and that reconciles us in our hearts to God. The
blood sprinkled is that which brings faith. Now, I want you
to see this. Back in chapter 24 of Exodus. Remember, we have a picture here. I do not suggest that the children
of Israel implied everything the Spirit of God implies in
the picture. But the picture is clear. When Israel heard the
law, heard God give the law, twice they said, we'll do that.
in arrogant presumption, in utter self-righteousness, that same
self-righteousness that keeps all men by nature from trusting
the Son of God. But now, Moses, he just, I think
it's marvelous how that as we read the chapter, Moses just,
he just ignored what they said. He didn't say a word to them.
It's as though, well, I expected you to say that. He didn't say
a word to them. He just goes about his work,
builds this altar, calls on the young men, the Levites, to make
sacrifices to God, and he catches the blood and divides it in half. And he sprinkles it on the altar. And he sprinkles it on the people.
And now, he speaks the words of God again. And the children
of Israel, He said, we'll keep his words and we will be obedient
and speak here representatively of the obedience of faith. You
see, the believer with the blood sprinkled on his heart, is now
caused to believe by the blood sprinkled on his heart. And believing,
he offers to God that obedience, symbolized in Moses and Joshua,
accepted in the mount of God by the blood which was shed,
and that represents Christ the Redeemer accepted, and you and
I accepted in Him by the blood that was shed, the blood sprinkled. unites redeemed sinners to the
Lord God. Now let me see if I can be good
on that. Look at verse 9, Exodus 24. The blood sprinkled unites
redeemed sinners to the Lord our God. Then went up Moses and
Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel, and
they saw the God of Israel. They saw Him in His law, well,
yeah, sorta. They saw the God of Israel in
His glory, seeing Him through the blood sprinkled. And there
was under His feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone. A paved work. Y'all remember
all those years We drove up the driveway out here with gravel
on it. You remember the dust and the
washouts and filling in with more gravel? And the dust and
the washouts and filling in with more gravel? All those years,
you know what it looked like? Unfinished. You know why? Because it was unfinished. And
then a few years ago, we got the pavement done. and it's finished. The children of Israel saw the
God of Israel and under his feet, as it were, a paved work of precious
stones, a finished work of great worth, a finished work of great
value, all the finished work of redemption, and as it were,
the body of heaven in its clearness. All the fullness of providence
accomplished in the redemptive work of Christ in the saving
of his people. And upon the nobles of the children
of Israel he laid not his hand. Also they saw God and they were terrified. Every other picture, Lindsay,
in the law, where they saw God, they were terrified. Every other
picture. But here, there's a distinct
reason for the symbolism. They saw redemption accomplished,
saw God in His glory, and here they eat and drink. The Lord God laid not His hand upon them. the blood-sprinkled nation, representing
a holy nation, a peculiar people, redeemed by Christ's precious
blood. When I read this this morning,
I thought of Revelation chapter 7. You don't need to turn there. Verse 14, I said unto him, Sir,
thou knowest. He said to me, These are they
which came out of great tribulation. and have washed their robes,
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are
before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his
temple. And he that sitteth on the throne
shall dwell among them. Now, let me read the rest of
the chapter to you. That's all I can do. Verse 12. The Lord said to Moses, Come
up unto me. into the mount and be there. Christ finished his work and
he called up to heaven seated with his father on his throne.
He said, I'll give thee tables of stone and the law and commandments
which I have written that thou mayest teach them. And Moses
rose up And his minister Joshua and Moses went up to the mount
of God. And he said unto the elders,
tarry ye here for us until we come again. Until we come again
unto you. Oh, bless God soon, he's coming
again to you. And behold, Aaron and her are
with you. My servants, my ministers are
with you. If any man have any matters to do, let him come to
them. And Moses went up into the mount,
and a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the Lord abode
upon Mount Sinai. And the cloud covered it six
days. And the seventh day, he called
unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Six days of labor
finished and the seventh day he calls Moses out of the cloud
and the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire
on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.
And Moses went up into the midst of the cloud and got him up into
the mount and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights. And during those 40 days and
40 nights, as we'll see in the next few chapters of this book,
the Lord God showed Moses a pattern, a pattern of things in the heavens.
You just read about it. A pattern of things in the heavens.
What's that pattern? What is that pattern? That pattern
is Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. He showed Moses that man who
would come and accomplish redemption for us. And he said, now you
make my altar, and you make the ark, and you make the mercy seat,
and you make the golden lamp stand, and you make the table
of showbread, and you make the tabernacle, and you make the
garments of my priest, and you make the breastplate of the priest,
and you make all things after the pattern For the pattern is,
redemption is done by the sacrifice of my son. Amen. Let's sing hymn.