I invite you to turn in your
Bibles this morning to the book of Exodus, chapter 12. The book of Exodus, chapter 12. I would like to read the first
14 verses and then skip over to verse 21 and read through
verse 27. The first 14 verses of Exodus
chapter 12. 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. 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. you shall
take it out from the sheep or from the goats, and you 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 post
of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the
flesh in that night, roast with fire an unleavened bread, and
with bitter herbs shall they 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 you 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. And this day shall be unto you
for a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout
your generations. You shall keep it a feast by
an ordinance forever. 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 in 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 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 unto your house to
smite you. And ye shall observe this thing
for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever. And it
shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Lord
will give you, according as he hath 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, 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
worshipped." How many of you were born before
1950? How many of you? Well, I see one, two, and
of course three, four, five. Five or six. In 1950, in the spring of 1950,
I preached from this text, the first sermon that I ever preached
inside of a church building. I preached from this text here
in Exodus chapter 12. My brother took me out to Greenfield,
Indiana where I was to fill in for a preacher there. And so
I, being in my 17th year of life, did not at that time have my
driver's license. so that I could drive and so
my brother he took me out and that was in the early spring
of 1952 and I still have the notes to my sermon right there
they are on that little card and you can see that they're
quite faded by now but those are the notes and that's all
the notes I had on that particular day and I told a story that morning
And I recall I have a kind of a memory that I can't forget
anything hardly. And sometimes that's a blessing
and sometimes it can be a curse, I guess, to a fellow. But nevertheless,
I told the story about the preacher that got up and he's looking
in his pockets and feeling in all his pockets and he said,
he said, well, he said, I see that I went off and left my notes
at home. And he said, we'll have to trust
the Lord this morning. He said, tonight we'll come better
prepared. And so I remember telling that
story that morning. But anyway, to Exodus chapter
12, I want to speak this morning on the subject, the blood. The
subject of the blood. I'd remind you at the very outset
of our message that in 1 Corinthians 5, 7b, The Apostle Paul says,
for even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Now beloved,
let me establish that at the outset that God's people are
always safe. They're always safe. They're
safe in this world regardless of what happens. They're safe
in the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ. All the saints, believers
that is, are in His hand. And the hand of God is a place
of safety as well as a place of honor. The Lord Jesus said
in John 10 and 28, And I give unto them eternal life, and they
shall never perish, Neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. And I and my Father," he says,
are one. That's verse 30. Thou hast given
commandment to save me, David said. And I believe that every
believer can say the same. Thou hast given commandment to
save me. Now God's elect shall be saved.
Matthew 1.21 says, Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins. They shall be saved, my friend,
if they cannot be kept safe in this world, they'll be saved
in the heavens, they'll be safe there. If there be no security
to be found for them in the time of trouble upon this earth, they
shall be caught up together with the Lord in the air, and so shall
they ever be with the Lord, and forever they'll be safe. I believe
in safety and security for the Lord's own people. Now the time
which this book of Exodus speaks, Egypt was exposed to a terrible
terrible peril. The Lord himself was about ready
to march through the streets of all the cities of Egypt. Notice verse 12. For I, God says,
will pass through the land of Egypt this night. For I will
pass through the land of Egypt this night. Now, it was not merely
a destroying angel, but Jehovah Lord God Himself, for it is written,
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. Tremble, O inhabitants of the
earth, for God has come down among you. He is provoked, He
is incensed and awakened from His seeming sleep of patience. Have you not been astounded at
the long-suffering of God toward a sinful and rebellious world? Have you not been awestruck with
the fact that God is today silent? It appears that He's silent,
that He's silent to this our generation. Very few preachers
are preaching with any unction from the Lord. God is not saying
much, but all He is, as it were, He is being patient. But the
time is coming when the long patience of God, the long suffering
of God, will wear out. He has, as it were, come forth
to judgment. He says, I am the Lord. In the
book of Exodus here, chapter 12, the Lord has come forth unto
judgment. So my friend, The hour is coming
when he shall come forth for judgment in this world. We're
told in Acts 17 that he's appointed a day wherein he will judge the
world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereby
he hath given assurance unto all men in that he raise thee
one that will be the judge from the dead. Jesus has been raised
from the dead and he will be the one that does the judging. So quake for fear. All you who
live in rebellion, all you who are yet in your sins, for when
God walks through the streets, sword in hand, will any be able
to escape his judgment? Is any stronger than he? Can
any overcome the Lord? But we hasten to say that God's
children are safe, even though an angry God be in the streets. God's people are safe, always
and ever safe. There was not a hair of the head
of an Israelite that was touched on this night spoken of in our
text. But I am to remind you that while
this is always true, that God's people are safe, there is another
fact that is equally true, and that is that God's people are
only safe through the blood. Only safe through the blood.
Hebrews chapter 9, the chapter that our brother read to us this
morning, verse 22, the latter part of that verse says, and
without shedding of blood is no remission. Without the shedding
of blood, there is no sin cancelled. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no sin that is blotted out. There is no sin that is
put away without the shedding of blood, the anger and the fear. A judgment of God is turned away
only by the shedding of blood. And without the shedding of blood,
the anger of God rests, the wrath of God rests upon the world of
the ungodly. The reason why God spares His
people is because of the blood mark which is upon them. They are bought not with corruptible
things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ. And nothing can hurt them because
the blood is upon them. And it was so that night in Egypt
that God's people were spared because of the blood that was
on the two doorposts and on the lintel. God himself was in the
street with his sword, but he spared them, because he saw the
blood. Now, so on the day of judgment,
when an angry God comes forth to condemn the wicked, we shall
be secure if our sins have been put under the blood. If our sins
are under the blood of Jesus, we shall be secure. Under the
blood of Jesus, the Old Course says, safe while the ages roll. God's people will be safe if
their sins are under the blood. Now, we often say that we want
a token for good. And I want to point this out
to you this morning because I believe that is very important. We often
say, Lord, give us a token for good. Well, we read here in this
13th verse, and the blood shall be to you for a token. It shall
be to you. It was to the Israelites for
a token. Well, beloved, the blood shall
be to us for a token. The blood of Jesus, God's Son,
that was shed on Calvary to redeem us from our sin, to make that
atonement with God, to reconcile us unto God, to bring us into
favor with God, to justify us because we have been justified
through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Romans chapter
5 verse 8 says, but God commendeth His love toward us that in while
we were yet sinners Christ died for us. much more than verse
9, much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him. justified by his blood, we shall
be saved from wrath through him. And so, beloved, what more can
we desire? God has given us a token, and
that is a token for good. Now, beloved, if all the angels
and all the angelic hosts which is above would come down from
heaven, each one having a personal message for us, they could not
give us more courage, more encouragement, and more assurance than what
we have through the token of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Think of it. What has God said when he has
given us the token of the blood? The best of all evidences of
the divine love is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now
listen to what I'm saying. You want evidence that God loves
you? You want evidence that God loves sinners? Oh man, what is
man that thou art mindful of him, the son of man, that you
should visit him? What is man? Well, my friend,
we know Him to be a cesspool of sin. We know Him to be depraved. We know Him to be lost. We know
Him to be unconcerned. We know Him that He's not a seeker
after God. We know Him that He would not
come to God unless God lays hold of Him and draws Him unto Himself. But what is the best evidence?
What is the token that is here expressed? Well, it is that the
best evidences of the divine love is the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ. 1 John 3 and 16 says, Hereby
perceive we the love of God, because hereby perceive we the
love of God because He laid down His life for us. That's how you
see the love of God. This is a token for good. This
shows us that God is in love with our souls because He laid
down His life for us. 1 John 4 and verse 9 says, And
this was manifested, the love of God toward us, because God
sent He is only begotten Son into the world that we might
live, that we might live through Him. And 1 John chapter 4 and
verse 10 says, here it is loved. Not that we love God, but that
God loved us and gave His Son to be a satisfaction for our
sins. And so this, my friend, is a
token of good. The cross tells us that we are
loved of God. That is, if God has given us
faith to lay hold of the message of the cross and the Christ of
the cross, if God has given us faith to lay hold of it, We have
wonderful, blessed token of good. The best token of the grace of
God that a soul can see by faith is the blood of Jesus sprinkled
on the mercy seat that provides eternal redemption for us. Hebrews
9 and verse 12. The blood shall be to you for
a token, the Lord said to these Israelites. And by an appropriating
faith, That is a faith of which God is the author. He's the author
and the finisher of all true, saving faith. Faith, the Bible
tells us in Ephesians 2, is a gift of God. It's not of works, lest
any man should boast. Faith cometh, and cometh by hearing,
but faith, my friend, is a gift of God. God must give it to us.
But faith is appropriating faith, the faith of God's elect. We
must take Christ to be ours and elect their chosen of God and
they choose Him in return. We must, in a word, believe in
the atonement which He made. He made the atonement. He reconciled us to God when
we were estranged from God, when we were enemies of God, when
we had no fellowship with God. He brought us to be at one with
the Father through his sacrificial death on the cross. It was made
to save and spare us from the wrath to come, the atonement
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The poet said, Complete atonement
thou hast made, and to the utmost farthing paid, whate'er thy people
owed, nor can his wrath on me take place if sheltered in thy
righteousness and sprinkled with thy blood. First then, the blood
shall be a distinguishing token. I want you to see this. The blood
shall be a, we said it would be a token for good, and surely
it is, and surely we have shown that. So the blood shall be a
distinguishing token. I mean by that, you could tell
where the Israelites live, could you not? You could tell. How
could you tell? You could tell by the blood.
For the blood was there that night. And you could also tell
were the Egyptians. Well, for he did not have that
token for good. No blood. No blood upon the doorpost
and the lintel of the Egyptians. Nothing so truly distinguishes
a believer from a non-believer as the blood of Jesus Christ. My friend, if the blood has not
been applied to you, you are in that class which the Bible
calls goats. You are in that class, you're
non-believers. You have no faith and no life,
no spiritual life. You're yet in a state of spiritual
death, being in Adam. Now, my friend, the life of the
flesh, the Bible says, is in the blood. And the life of the
believer's spiritual life is in the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. A bloodless gospel is a lifeless
gospel. If the atonement is denied, or
if it be frittered away, or put into a secondary place, or obscured,
in that proportion, the life and the power has gone out of
our message. Keep that atonement and that
blood in its proper place. Nobody is a Christian without
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ having been shed. I read it. I tried to read it with emphasis. Here in verse 6 where it said,
the congregation of Israel shall kill it. in the evening, they
shall kill it. It was necessary that this animal,
that this animal that was a male lamb, that was spotless, that
was without blemish, like our Lord Jesus Christ, spotless,
without blemish. There was no sin to be found
in him. He was made to be sinned, but he was without sin, the Lord
Jesus. And so this spotless lamb, perfect
health, it was killed. It had to be killed. It had to
suffer death. Now, so my friend, the blood
of this lamb had to be shed and it had to be taken and it had
to be applied to the doorpost and to the little. I say, if the atonement is denied
or fritted away or put into a secondary place or obscured in that proportion,
the life and power is gone out of our message. Christ had to
die. So, brother, sister, we bear
this distinguishing mark, the mark of the blood. There are many objections to
our gospel from the world, even ridicule from carnal minds, for
we believe that our sin And this is what this tells me when I
look at this blood applied to the doorpost. This is what this
tells me, that our sin is deserving of the death penalty. It is deserving
of the death penalty. Let me explain. We do not look
on sin as a trifle or a mere misdemeanor, but as a capital
offense deserving the death penalty. When the Lord says, The soul
that sinneth, our conscience says, Amen unto God. We know it to be true. The blood
on the doorpost meant that those who lived there confessed that
they deserve to die as much as others and would have done so
had it not been for the death of the paschal lamb. They would
have suffered death if it had not been for the death of that
one that had died in their place. So every believer feels that
his sin is great. Every believer feels that his
sin is grievous. Every believer feels that his
sin is terrible. and that it's overwhelming, and
he does not try to mitigate the penalty and endeavor to make
the guilt appear to be small. We do not call sin just a mistake,
or a failure, or a lapse of our minds for a short time. In the world, and especially
in the religious world, we often hear sin thus described. We hear preachers talking about
sin like that it was just Oh, so-and-so just stumbled. Oh,
is that all it was, was just a stumble? Well, surely men are
told that God will not be so harsh as to punish their mistakes,
punish their stumbling, punish their memory for a short time
wherein they found themselves caught up into some open and
outward sin. Surely, God is not a God that
is so harsh that He will punish men everlastingly for their mistakes. Well, such talk has no charm
for us. We own the heinousness and the
criminality of sin and the justice of the awful sentence the Word
of God places upon sin when it says the wages of sin is death. It is death. Now, justice My
friend must come forth and justice will be satisfied and God will
execute judgment upon sinners. God is just. The Bible says,
and will not at all acquit the wicked. Will not at all acquit
the wicked. Somebody is going to pay for
sin. Somebody must die because the
sinner has broken God's law. He's transgressed the law of
God, and God will be honored. This is the Lord that we're dealing
with. It is the Lord. He says, I am
the Lord. I'm Jehovah. I'm the Almighty
God. And my peculiar work is to bring
judgment. Now, if you were to read the
first chapter of the book of Romans, and go through that catalog
of sin, and come to the last verse, as you come down to the
last verse, Verse 32, and you stop and look at that verse,
you listen to what it says. And you should look at that catalog
of sins there. And the last verse says, who
knowing the judgment of God, who knowing that God is righteous,
that God is holy, that God will punish sin, that God will bring
his vengeance to bear upon sinners. He says, who knowing the judgment
of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death. They're worthy of death. Not
only do the same, but they have pleasure in them that do them. Now this world don't feel that
way about sin. It does not feel that way. This
world does not believe that these sinners deserve to die and that
we deserve to die. We're hell deserving. We would
suffer eternal death. The death that will never die
if it had not been for the death of the Paschal Lamb. We would
have suffered it. And these Israelites, all of
them, the death angel, would not have distinguished between
them and the Egyptians if it had not been for that blood on
the doorpost and on the little. The God who smote all the firstborn
of Egypt. and overthrew Pharaoh in the
Red Sea is the God whom we adore. And as we today bow before Him
in our hearts and minds, we own that He might have righteously
smitten us also and have utterly destroyed us. For the blood mark
is virtually an acknowledgment that we have the sentence of
death in ourselves and dare not trust in ourselves. We dare not
trust in ourselves that there's anything that we can do that's
going to get us out of this awful fix. Only the blood of Jesus
Christ can deliver us and save us from our sin. Now then, the
point that I was making was that we have the sentence of death
upon us, and that this blood mark tells me that we would have
died if it hadn't have been there. We had to have the blood mark
upon us. Now the next thing this blood
suggests to me is substitution. There's that ugly word that this
generation of Baptists don't know anything about. And most
people, most religion in the world, they don't know a thing
on earth about substitution. But put simply, the blood upon
the lintel and the doorpost said, now hear it. Hear what it says. The Lord Jesus Christ hanging
on the cross, bleeding and dying, the blood upon the lint on the
doorpost, which is typical of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
means this, it says this, that someone has died here instead
of us. Get that. When you go to that
door and you see that blood, it says somebody has died here
instead of us. And when you get to Calvary and
you stand there at Calvary and you weep and you mourn and you
rejoice in your heart, your heart is full of spiritual joy and
laughter, my friend, it's because another has died in your place. Another has died instead of you.
We hold and rest in this truth that Christ died for the unjust
to bring us to God. And beloved, it matters not how
blessed was his ministry, it matters not how great was his
miracles, it matters not how heavenly was his teaching, it
matters not how holy was his life, had he not died the just
for the unjust, had he not died the just for the unjust, There
would never be a son of Adam that could possibly be saved. None. He had to die in the stead. The just one for the unjust. Now don't you see then that as
you look, if you say, I have the faith of Christ, I have the
faith of the gospel, can't you see that what you're saying is
that somebody else has died here instead of me? I deserve to die. I deserve to go to hell. I deserve
to have the lash of God on my back for all eternity. I deserve
to suffer separation from God. But another has suffered separation
for me. Another had the lash of God on
his back. Another bled out his life's blood
in order that I be reconciled to God, and me and God now are
friends. Me and God, enmity is gone, and
God and I are reconciled, and it's because another has died
here instead of me. That's the reason we believe
that it was made a curse for us. As it is written, cursed
is everyone that hangeth on a tree. We do not subscribe Listen to
me, we do not subscribe to the mistaken theology which teaches
that the Lord Jesus did something or other which in some way or
other is in some degree or other connected with the salvation
of sinners. Now we don't subscribe to that
around here. Let me give it to you again.
We do not subscribe to the mistaken theology, and it is mistaken. The doctrine of general atonement
is mistaken theology, and we do not subscribe to it around
here. It teaches that the Lord Jesus did something or other,
which in some way or other is in some degree or other connected
with the salvation of men. We hold as vital truth that he
stood in his people's stead and for them endured a death which
honored the justice of God and satisfied his righteous laws
on the behalf of his people. I firmly believe that he bore
the penalty due my sin. I firmly believe that. That he
who saved me, he who saved me had to die. Do you believe that? He who saves the sinner, he had
to die. Why was that? Substitution. Because He was standing in for
us. He was in our place, standing
before God, representing us before God. We stand to the literal
substitution of Jesus Christ in the place of His people and
His real endurance of suffering and death in their stead. And
from this, we will be moved in Him. We will not be moved an
inch. We believe in the literal substitution. Our sin laid on Him. Him treated
like we ought to have been treated, that we might be treated like
He ought to have been treated. That's what we believe. That's
exactly what we believe. And my friend, this is exactly
what happened here with these Israelites. That Paschal Lamb
bled and died. That Paschal Lamb is what saved
these Israelites from utter destruction. The term, the blood, we're going
to use it. We're going to use it. The Lamb
of God died. He suffered death. We're under
the blood and rejoice that Jesus for us poured out his soul into
death. And when he bore the sin of many,
poured out his soul unto death. Listen to me, we believe that
we, we'll go one step further, we believe that we died in Jesus. That's what we believe. We believe
we were at Calvary. Somebody said that took place
a long time before you ever was thought of preaching. That's
true. As far as men are concerned, But I think we were thought of
in the mind of God in all eternity. The brother mentioned it in his
prayer this morning. The covenant of election took
place before the foundation of the world according as He had
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be
holy and without blame before Him in love. God thought about
us. Back yonder in the Council Halls of Eternity when He entered
into eternal contract, agreement, covenant with our representative,
the Lord Jesus Christ. We were chosen in reference to
Him and God no longer looked to us. He looked to our representative
and that, my friend, must be forever settled as sound theology
in our hearts if we're ever going to be able to have the assurance
that we ought to have. That God looks to our representative
and He has looked to him ever since. He chose us in Him with
reference to Him and not any longer reference to anything
we would do. Reference to him and to him only
what he did what he did what Jesus did Jesus Jesus only now
the Israelites knew that when the angel went through Egypt
He meant to exact a life at every house. Do you believe that? He
meant to exact a life at every house and so the Israelite exhibited
the blood as much as to say the firstborn is dead here. The firstborn is dead here. The
lamb has died instead of the firstborn and there's no cause
for smiting because the smiting has been done. Does that not suggest that judgment
is struck at Calvary? Our heaven had been smiting at
Calvary. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered death at Calvary. The
Lamb had died. No need to stop Him. One has
already died here. We died in Christ. And Jesus
Christ hung on the cross. Judgment struck at Calvary. There's
where the wrath of God came down. There's where the sword of the
vengeance of God was plunged into our shepherd, the great
shepherd of the sheep. There's where the blood and the
water gushed out. The Lord Jesus Christ, the five
bleeding wounds received on Calvary. There's where it was received
on Calvary. It reminds me of that little
story and I'm sure you've heard it before and I've probably told
it myself about when a wagon train was coming out west and
there was a prairie fire and the people in the wagon train
become very very much alarmed because they could see this fire
being blown by the wind toward them and so they were surprised
when one of the men lit a fire right near where they were and
it burned out a huge place and here's the fire raging toward
them And so he said, the little boy said, Daddy, is this fire
going to burn us? He said, no, son, no, son. We're going to
stand where the fire's already burned. And so they drove all
the wagons and everything into this area where the fire had
already burned. And that's a picture. We stand
where the judgment's already fell. We already died in him. Already. We've already suffered
death in Christ. So when Jesus died, His chosen
died in Him. Their sins received the vengeance.
Do them in that day when on the accursed tree He yielded up His
life, a ransom for us. Our sins, do you believe they
were paid for in full? Jesus paid it all. All the debt
I owe, do you believe He did? Absolutely, I believe with all
my heart he did. And I wouldn't have an ounce
of hope if I didn't believe the judgment had already fell there.
Somebody's gonna have to die in order for me to live. And
Jesus, Jesus has died. How can we die the eternal death
seeing that we're dead in Him already and have, by virtue of
our union with His blessed person, been buried and raised with Him
to be seated in heavenly places with him already. Now how do
you like that? Isn't that the gospel? That's
the gospel as far as I know it. This is the most precious truth.
And those who hold to it are thereby distinguished from the
rest of mankind. The blood mark. Do you believe
what this blood is saying? Believing this, and we do, we
come to the conclusion that we're safe only in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ was safe in him. When the Hebrew had struck
the doorpost of his house, and you listen to what I'm saying,
when the Hebrew had struck the doorpost of his house with the
blood and put it on the little, he went in to feast and not to
fret. Went in to feast. God said you
put that on there, Moses went ahead and reiterated it. to the
children of Israel, said you put that on there and you go
in and you eat the lamb from which the blood was taken. You
eat it. You feast. Don't go in and fret. He said
well I don't know whether I'm saved or not. I don't know whether
that, I don't reckon we didn't get the blood on good enough.
I mean, do you reckon we should have done this or done that or
there's something, is this all there is to do? Is put the blood
on? Is that all that's got to be
done? Just the blood, the blood? Is that all? I can just hear
some of them Israelitish women browbeating their husbands. Is
that all you did? How do you know we're going to
be saved? Well, it's what God said. It's what God said. And
then some of those fussing, murmuring men said, well, this seems like
to me a very, very sorry way to keep the death angel from
coming to our house. Looks to me like we ought to
be bolting some doors and putting up some extra window coverings
and so on and so forth. My friend, they went in to feast
and not to fret. So when you begin to fret, about
how can I possibly be saved by the doings and dyings of another?
How can I possibly be saved? My whole eternity hinges upon
that which another has done. Oh, my friend, it does. Your
whole eternity. You say, well, I've been trying
to add to it. You, my friend, on the verge of falling from
grace. My friend, We will not, we will
not in any way slander the Lord Jesus Christ by suggesting that
we can add anything to the situation of our salvation. My friend,
it's complete in the Lord Jesus. Well, he went into the house
to eat the lamb whose blood had been sprinkled to stand at the
table with his loins girt about. Isn't that what it says? Expecting
not to die. Expecting not to die, but to
go forth deliberate to a land which the Lord his God would
give to him. Going to go out of Egypt. I'm
going to be in the bush. I'm going out. I'm going out. The Lord's going to bring me
out to bring me in. I'm going out. I don't expect
to die. The angel's going through. God
Almighty is going to walk the streets. and he's going to kill
the firstborn of all the Egyptians, man and beast. But I don't expect
to die. Why? Because of the blood. Because
of the blood. This is the mark of a Christian.
He knows himself to be saved and therefore he keeps the feast
rejoicing in the Lord. Don't you come to the Lord's
table? Don't you rejoice to see the bread and the wine passed
about? Don't you rejoice to be able
to spiritually partake of the Lord Jesus Christ? And we are
partaking of Him. He said, my body is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. And spiritually, we partake of
the Lord Jesus Christ. We keep the feast, rejoicing
and expecting soon to be called away into the land which the
Lord our God has given to us, that we may inherit and dwell
there forevermore. We expect to do that. So the
Lord is going to give us that which He promised to us. But
it all comes, you see, as we see the picture and as we're
able to believe in this blood. Others are not saved, nor dare
they profess to be. Because, you know, they have
a great deal more to do before they will ever be saved or safe,
they say. Oh, we got a great deal more
to do. Well, don't you know that salvation is by doing, and salvation
is by keeping this law or that law? Salvation is by our being
involved in this work or that work? They dare not profess to
be safe, present salvation, they know nothing about it! Nothing
about it! Because they're involved with
this, you see. They think them and Jesus has
got a good thing going. And what they've got to contribute,
that is important. But actually, it's not important
at all. The Israelite needed nothing
but the blood. And he was perfectly satisfied
with that. And so is the believer. Oh, to
ever look. my friend, to the finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John chapter 17,
He said, He said, listen to it, He said, I have finished the
work which thou gavest me to do. Finished it. God give him
work. He said, I finished it. Dare
you, dare any soul say that the work is not finished because
the work is finished. My Lord said it is Finished! That's what he said. And I believe
with all my heart, my faith is built on nothing less than Jesus'
blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. But I want you
to notice something here, if you will, the one condition of
it all. There is a condition here. Someone
may ask, do you preach a conditional salvation preaching? Yes, we
do. Here it is. Here it is. Notice
this in verse 13. And he says, and when I see the
blood, I will pass over you. What a blessed condition. Now
it does not say when you see the blood. Now I want you to
get this. I don't want to mislead you by
what I just said about preaching a conditional salvation. It is
true, but I want you to notice upon whom the condition is placed.
Notice, your eye of faith may be so dim that you cannot see
the blood of Christ. Once the blood was applied, the
Israelites went inside the house, they couldn't see the blood.
They couldn't see it, they were inside the house. But look at
this, your faith, you say, I'm of little faith, do you think
little faith will save? Well, If you've got God-given
faith, it'll save. If the Lord's the author of it,
it'll save. If God has given it to you, it
will save, even though the eye of faith be dim. Now listen,
you say, well, I can't see the blood. Well, He must see the
blood, because Christ is always presenting the blood before His
Father's face, and the condition is that he must see the blood. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. So when I see it, God says, I
got to see the blood. I got to see that the blood was
shed on your behalf. I must see the blood in order
that I be reconciled to you. I must take that blood of this
one who was appointed to die by me. I sent him into the world
and he's appointed and I sent him. Therefore, you don't have
to worry about the fact whether God's going to accept what he
did or not. God sent him into the world and appointed him to
be the Savior. Even give him his name. Thou
shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sin. So it's when I see the blood. God's eye is not dim. He that
made the eye can he not see? He that made the ear can he not
hear? Certainly he can see the blood. He can see the blood. He must see it. For Christ in
heaven, as we said, is always presenting the blood before His
Father's face. And this is the only condition
of the sinner's salvation. God seeing the blood, not your
seeing it. And this is one of the strongest
arguments for the doctrine of limited atonement that can be
found anywhere, I think, in all the Word of God. God must see
the blood. He must see it. And He only sees
that blood for whom His Eternal Son offered up Himself. Now,
I do not know who are God's elect. I do not know who are God's chosen. And I do know that they come
to faith. I do know that they come to Christ. They are led
to Christ. They are taught to Christ. And
I do know that they believe in His finished work for their salvation. I do know that. But I do know
that from eternity the Father could see the blood. He said
Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
And there was a cross always in the heart of God from the
beginning, from the very beginning. And you tell me when that was?
I don't know when that was. All I know it was back before
the morning, before the song of the first angel ever broke
the solemnity of silence. It was back yonder before the
morning stars sang together. It was way back, yonder in eternity,
further back than we can say. And I want you to know it was
in ancient times But the Lord saw the blood. He saw the blood. He sees the blood on the behalf
of every one of the elect. He sees the blood on their behalf. Now then, it is a simple fact
that Calvary is set perpetually before the eyes of God in a risen
and ascended Savior. The Lord Jesus, I said that He
was the Lamb slain, but now He is the Lamb that was slain, He
that was alive is dead, and now is alive forevermore. And He's
at the right hand of God, and the only thing that we can tell
as we look at Him as He's seated at the right hand of God, received
from men and from His journey into this world, is the five
bleeding wounds. There they are. The wounds are
there. The wounds that he suffered when
he died, when he shed his blood for me, they're there! And the
Father looks perpetually upon the dying, risen, and ascended
Savior. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. And my prayer is, pass over my
sin. Forgive me, dear Lord, for the
Passover lamb has bled and died for me. Lord, you see it. Lord,
you see it. And by thy grace, I believe it. I believe that that blood was
shed for me. Oh, my friend, I take note here
that there was a blood, there was a lamb. It says here that
every man a lamb, every man a lamb. Oh, that every man here, and
it's according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house.
Every man and lamb. I would to God that all the men
here were under the blood. I would to God that all your
house was under the blood. Under the blood of the innocent
victim. Under the blood! Under the blood of that innocent
one who died. And then it even mentions the
neighbors. Oh, you know there may be some neighbors that you
need to be talking to about the blood. And there need to be under
the blood. There need to come under. Come
under. Come under. Don't be ashamed
to talk about coming under the blood. If you're not under the
blood, you're lost. If you're not under the blood,
you'll die and go to hell. If you're not under the blood,
your sin will yet be charged to you and you will have to pay
for those sins yourself. Are they under the blood? Lord,
you see it. You see the blood. Oh, may we
all be under the blood. May all the things we've got
to do with every human relationship, every situation, may it all be
under the blood. May this church be under the
blood. Bring it under the blood! The blood of the innocent one.
Under the blood of Jesus! Are you under that blood today? What is the lesson to be learned
today? Well, that nothing but the blood can save us. That's
the simple lesson. Nothing but the blood can save
us. Christ's work alone can save us. Somebody said, well, what
about the Spirit's work? Well, the Spirit's work is not
the ground of our salvation. Christ's work is the ground of
our salvation. I know the Spirit of God teaches
us to Christ. I know all of that. I know the
Spirit of God can give us precious assurance and precious joy. And the Spirit of God can bring
faith to our hearts. But the grounds of our salvation
is the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ's blood
must be your trust as much. You say, well, there's some days
that I'm happy and that I can really trust the blood. But my
friend, your blood must be your trust as much as when you're
in doubt, as when you're full of joy and full of assurance. Brother, sister, if we could
live with our eyes on the cross, we would have assurance, I believe,
and we would have joy. But when we get a little peace
and when we get a little joy, we begin to prize the joy and
the peace so much that we forget the source from which they came.
Thomas Brooks said something that I thought was very good.
Let me share it with you. Thomas Brooks says a husband
that loves his wife perhaps will give her gifts, jewels maybe,
and rings if he can afford them, but I suppose But suppose, he
says, that she should sit down and begin to think of her jewels
and rings so much that she should forget her husband. It would
then be a kind husband's business to take them away from her so
that she might fix her affections entirely on him. And it is so
with us. Jesus gives us jewels of faith
and love and assurance. and we get to trusting in them. And he takes them away in order
that we may come again as guilty, helpless sinners and put our
trust wholly in the crucified Christ. I believe the spirit
of a Christian should be