I've said so many times, that's
really all that a man needs to get hold of is to see the hand of God in
all things. And there he'll find rest and
peace and joy and comfort. My Father planned it all. Now, every effort is put forth
in the New Testament to show us that the Old Testament Scriptures
were written to reveal and testify of Christ the Lord. Preachers
find it a hard lesson to learn, and the people an even harder
lesson to learn, that the Old Testament Scriptures are Christ
in picture, in prophecy, and in promise. The New Testament
scriptures are Christ in person, revealed, manifested. But the
Old Testament was not given as a historical account of the Jewish
nation and people. It's given to show Christ. Now
let me show you that. Turn first of all to John chapter
5. I want you to look at several
passages of scripture. First of all, in John chapter
5, verse 39. is talking to the religious leaders,
to the Bible teachers of his day, to the Pharisees. And he
says in verse 39 of John 5, search the Scriptures. Now the correct
translation of that is you do search the Scriptures. Our Lord
said you do tithe, you do fast, you do these things, you do search
the Scriptures. He wasn't denied. These men were
not lazy men. They were not idle men. They
were men who did search the Scriptures. And he's saying that. You do
search the Scriptures, and that's talking about the writings of
Moses, the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, the writings of David.
You do search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life. And they are they which testify
of me, and you will not come to me that you might have life.
You don't come to the Scriptures for life, you come to Christ.
You come to Christ. The life is in Christ. Salvation's
in Christ. And the scriptures were written
to point me into Christ. I don't rejoice in election,
I rejoice in Christ, in whom I've been chosen. I don't rejoice
in the pardon, I rejoice in the partner. You see what I'm saying? I don't rejoice particularly
in the blessing, I rejoice in the one who's blessed me. He's
the source of all things. And these men were busy searching
the Scriptures, you know, and they were memorizing names and
dates and events and advents and all these other things, and
they were missing what it was all about. It was written to
point us to Christ. Let me show you another passage
over in Acts 10. Turn over to the 10th chapter
of Acts, verse 43. Now, when we talk about the prophets,
we're talking about the Old Testament prophets. That's who we're talking
about. God has put in the church prophets and evangelists and
pastors, teachers. The prophets were Old Testament
prophets. God, who at sundry times and
in diverse manners spake to our fathers by the prophets. Well,
when he spake to our fathers by the prophets, what did he
speak about? What was the message? Moses wrote
of me, Christ said. They said, we have Moses. He
said, you don't believe Moses. We have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That's the writings of Moses.
He said, you don't believe Moses. If you'd believe Moses, you'd
believe me. Moses wrote of me. Now look at Acts 10.43. To him,
to Christ, give all the prophets witness that through his name,
whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. That's
their message. That's what they're writing about,
that's what they're talking about. All right, turn to Luke 24. Now,
our Lord Jesus Christ, Luke 24, our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified,
buried, rose again, and He appeared to His disciples. He appeared
several different times. But here He appeared to some
of His disciples and He ate with them, talked with them, and then
it says in verse 44 of Luke 24, and He said unto them, Luke 24, verse 44. Now look at
it carefully. Mark it in your Bible. These
are the words which I have spake unto you while I was yet with
you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written
in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets, in the Psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the Scriptures. Now these men had
read the Scriptures. He talked to them about the Scriptures.
But you don't understand the scriptures. Now, you may be a
Bible whiz. You may be able to find any book
in the Bible in a hurry. You may be able to recite who
was the king, when the twelve tribes went one way and the two
tribes went the other way, and when they built the walls, and
how many years from the destruction of the walls to something else.
You may be a Bible whiz and scholar on those things and still not
understand the scriptures unless you know Christ. Now, that's
so. And that's what he said to these
Pharisees, you don't know the Scriptures, you think you do.
But there they was testifying of me. If you don't have the
key to the Scriptures, who is Christ, then you don't understand
the Scriptures. And so he told them how that
he was in the writings of Moses, and he opened their understanding
to understand the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians, turn over here
a moment, 1 Corinthians 10. What I'm saying is, all the way
through the New Testament, every effort is put forward to turn
our attention to this one supreme and important fact, that they
are they which testify of me, the Scriptures. It's Christ. The Old Testament is Christ,
in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 4. And they did all eat the same
spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed
them. And that rock was Christ. You remember when Moses took
the rod and smote the rock, and he gave forth water. And they
drank in the desert of that precious, life-giving stream. And then
when Moses later was to speak to the rock, and he struck it
and stared, and God pronounced judgment and so forth. But that
rock was Christ. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, that's Christ. That's Christ. You know, I wonder,
I was, you know how you, here I am 53 years old nearly, and
one of you nurses in the congregation or medical experts might be able
to tell me, but I was driving down the street the other day
and for the first time in my life I looked real closely at
a medical emblem. It's got a post with a snake
around it. Where'd they get that? Is that Moses lifting up the
serpent? I wonder. Somebody check on that. But that's
what Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, that's Christ. Our Lord referred to it over
in John 3.14, as Moses lifted up that serpent. So must the
Son of Man be lifted up. Jonah, three days and three nights
in the belly of the fish. And I hear people sitting around
arguing all the time about whether or not a fish could swallow a
man, and whether or not a man could survive in a fish's belly,
and whether or not God prepared a great fish, and one side argues
it didn't happen, it's just a story, and the other side, they're missing
the whole thing. That's a type, that's a picture.
As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth. Let's get away from Jonah and
get to Christ as quickly as you can. Talk about Jonah a little
while, then skedaddle to the cross, that's what it's all about.
To the grave, to the resurrection, that's what it's all about, that's
what it's for. 1 Corinthians 15, just two or three pages over. Read the Old Testament scriptures
to see the gospel. Christ the Lord. In 1 Corinthians
15, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached
unto you, which you received, wherein you stand, by which you
are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless
you believed in vain. For I deliver unto you first
of all that which I also received, now that Christ died for our
sins. Have you ever noticed those next four words? According to
the Scriptures. That's how he died for our sin,
according to the scriptures. He must be the serpent lifted
up. The Son of Man must be lifted
up. He must die as the Passover lamb,
we're going to get to that in a minute. He must be smitten
as that rock. He must be that tabernacle here
in human flesh. He must die according to the
scriptures. and that he was buried and that
he rose again according to the Scriptures. That's how we see
that he's the Messiah. Turn to Hebrews 10, verse 1 through
4. He's the fulfillment of all these
prophecies and promises and pictures and types and symbols. He's the
fulfillment of all of them. That's what I wish that the Jewish
people, I wish they'd look at their Scriptures. and see the
fulfillment of Christ in these things. But you know, while the
Pharisees or the wise men up there in Jerusalem were searching
the Scriptures about what manner of time or days the coming of
the Son of Man shall be, the coming of the Son of God or the
Messiah shall be, he was born down there in Bethlehem and they
missed him. And some angels came down to a bunch of shepherds
Unlearned men who were not wise in all of these intellectual,
theological things. A bunch of shepherds sitting
on the side of the hill. God sent a messenger down there
and said, your savior is born down in Bethlehem. Go down there
and you'll find him. wrapped in swaddling clothes,
lying in a manger. Here up there were all these smart fellows,
you know, looking through the Scriptures. Now, I say this,
the old fathers said this, you know, and that and the other.
They're trying to sharpen their intellectual razors, you know,
and here are these shepherds sitting there watching their
sheep, and God came and said, the Savior is born. We could
learn from things like that. We could learn. Hebrews 10. Verse
1, the law, having a shadow, a picture of things to come,
not the very image of the thing, can never, with those sacrifices
which they offer year by year, continually make the comers thereunto
perfect. For then would they not have
ceased to be offered? Because the worshippers, once purged,
would have no more conscience of sin. In other words, the evening
sacrifice, the morning sacrifice, all the different sacrifices.
If this blood of animals could put away sin, you just offer
one, that'd be it. Just cease to offer them because
once purged, there's no use in bringing another sacrifice. But
in those sacrifices, there's a remembrance. Again, made of
sins every year. It's not possible that the blood
of bulls and goats should take away sin. Then why offer that
sacrifice? A picture. A picture. A type. Something to teach us. Something to point to Christ.
And you'll find that the Scriptures, and here's the thing about God's
Word, the Scriptures enlarge as you enter into them. And the
more you study God's Word, the more you study the Scriptures,
then it seems that the less you know. You know why that is? Because when we first enter the
hallway, and I find this true of myself, and I find this true
of many new young Christians, they come into the church, they
come into a profession of faith, and they enter the hallway, and
they feel like they've got great understanding. They just study
and buy some little booklet all about the Bible by Dr. So-and-so,
you know, and they get a little a catechism or creed or doctrinal
position, and they study it real good, and they get real smart,
and they feel like they know everything. But as they walk
into the Scriptures, the great palace hall of God's wisdom,
brother, they look around, and there's so many areas they haven't
even imagined, let alone explored or experienced. And that's where
you find the Scriptures. Just take this story of the—turn
to Exodus 12. the Passover lamb, you know.
You can camp on any point here. Just camp there. You can stay
there for hours just exploring the things that God has revealed.
Let's look at some of them now. Israel had been down there in
Egypt. It had been down there about 400 years. They were under
terrible bondage and terrible slavery. And the Lord God, the
cry of God's elect had come up into God's ears. And God had
determined to deliver his people from Egypt. And Egypt's a picture
of the world. We could camp right there. how
that the slavery of sin has bowed down God's people, God's elect,
and how the heavy load of sin is upon us, and how we've worked
in the brick helms of sin all these years, and the cry goes
up to God, He's determined to deliver His people, but Pharaoh
would not let them go. And I guess Pharaoh would be
a picture there of the law and the justice of God. That's the
one to whom we're in bondage, not Satan, but to the law of
God, to the justice of God, to the righteousness of God. And
so God Almighty determined to deliver His people, and He sent
plague after plague upon Egypt. And Pharaoh would say, well,
you can go this way, and you can go that far out, or you can
go but don't take your children, or go but don't take your cattle,
or go but don't do something else. Finally, God came to Moses,
and He said, Moses, I'm going to visit Egypt. with terrible
judgment. I'm going to visit Egypt with
terrible judgment. At midnight on a certain day,
I'm coming through Egypt and I'm going to destroy the firstborn
in every home, even the cattle on the hillside. The firstborn
in every home of every family is going to die. Now you tell
the people to take a lamb According to the household, if the household
is too little for a lamb, then the folks next door can do it
together. But take a lamb and kill that
lamb and catch its blood in a basin and put the blood on the door.
And when I come through that particular night, when I see
the blood, I'll pass over you. Pass over. I'll pass over. And from that day forth, every
year, Israel kept the Passover feast. And even our Lord Jesus
Christ, the night He met with His disciples before He was crucified,
He met to keep with them the Passover, the Passover feast. But instead of a lamb roasted
and eaten in its bloodshed, our Lord took wine and He took unleavened
bread, pure wine and unleavened bread. And he stood before his
disciples and he broke that bread. And he said, this is my body,
broken, roasted, smitten for you. You take eat. This is my body. And then he
took the cup and he blessed it. And he said, this wine is my
blood of the new covenant which is shed for you. This do in remembrance
of me. And from that day forth, from
the time Christ died on the cross, We no longer, we're spiritual
Israel, we're the Israel of God. Call it what you want to, but
the nation Israel is a type of spiritual Israel, a type of the
church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as they kept the Passover,
which was a memorial feast of their deliverance out of Egypt,
they kept it every year. They celebrated the Passover
feast, which was a memorial, which was remembering the deliverance
of the Lord from the land of Egypt to Canaan. And Canaan is
a picture of rest, of heaven, of Christ, of our inheritance.
And they kept that Passover feast until Christ ended the Passover
feast by being our Passover. He was the Lamb sacrificed for
us. So we no longer keep a memorial Passover feast, but we keep the
Lord's table. We should remember it. We should
keep it more often. But we take the bread, the unleavened
bread, which represents His body, His body which was out without
sin. And I know there are a lot of
people who have some ideas about the unleavened bread, but I'll
tell you this, it's very easy to do things like God orders
them to be done. I know there are people who use
a glass of water to sprinkle people and call it baptism, but
that's not what the Lord ordered to be done. He ordered us to
go down into the water like you bury a man, buried with him in
baptism. And so I'd get a full tank of
water because it's just as easy to do what God says. There's
no reason for me sprinkling someone because of convenience. When
God went all the way through the New Testament, when men were
baptized, they went down into the water and came up straight
way out of the water, or at the Lord's table. I hear Mr. Barnhouse, who's dead, who said
years ago, I could take the Lord's table with a banana and a glass
of water. Well, I couldn't. And I wouldn't argue with you
five minutes. So don't come after the service to argue. Or I could
take it just as well with crackers and grape juice. I couldn't.
Unless that's all I had. But all I have to do is put forth
an effort to do what God says in His Word. Just like He told
those children of Israel, He said, take a lamb. Look at it,
verse 3. I'll get to this in a minute.
Verse 3, speaking to the children of Israel, saying, in the tenth
day of this month, you'll take every man a lamb. A lamb, that's
what he said. Now, you do what God says, take
a lamb. And the lamb represents Christ.
Why a lamb? Well, Christ our Lord is so gentle,
so mild, so meek, so harmless. He's led as a lamb to the slaughter,
as a sheep before her shearers is done. So he opened not his
mouth. John the Baptist said, Behold
the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Our Lord
was meek and lowly. Our Lord was not weak, He was
meek and humble. Though He was equal with God,
took upon Himself the form of a servant, was made in the likeness
of flesh, meekness. Our Lord Jesus' humility, His
submission, is pictured by the Lamb. And then He said, go on
a little further, and He said, Your Lamb, verse 5, shall be
without blemish. That is, without sin. without
spot, without sin. They went out there and they
just didn't pick any lamb. Any lamb won't do. They went
out there and picked a lamb without blemish, without spot. They didn't
get a lamb with a broken leg, or a lamb with a bent neck, or
a lamb with a disease, or a lamb... They got the best lamb, the spotless
lamb. And Jesus Christ our Lord without
sin. He knew no sin. In Him was no
sin. He was tempted and tried and
tested as we are yet without sin. Christ had no sin. He absolutely knew no sin. He
always did those things that pleased His Father. From His
virgin birth, which denotes the purity of His nature, all the
way to when He stood before Pilate and Pilate said, I find no fault
with Him. There was no sin, no stain, no spot in him. All right.
You say, why do you use unleavened bread, preacher? Because leaven
is a type of evil. It's a type of sin. And so we're
using the Lord's table, and it's easy to secure and to come by,
even if the women of the church had to bake it. No problem there. But we have a bread that stays
in there in the kitchen for four or five years. Bugs won't touch
it, roaches won't bother it, it will not mildew or mold, it
just lays in there. It's unleavened bread. Now you
can take any other kind of product and put it in there and a few
days later go in there and it's covered with mold. That couldn't
picture Christ's perfect holy nature. So here's what I'm saying,
why not use what God says use? Why not use that which pictures
Christ and the unleavened bread that He was without sin? Same
thing with the wine. The grape juice is full of whatever
makes it spoil, but not wine. It sits right in there. Nobody
bothers it. It doesn't mildew or mold or
anything else. It's there when we get ready
to use it again. Pure. And this is what I'm saying,
when God said, Israel, go get a land, somebody said, why be
so precise? Well, God's precise, especially
when it comes to His Son. And I was reading the other night
over here where Paul found, when I was studying for the message
this morning, where, turn to Acts 16 just a minute, let me
show you something, and this may be getting off the subject
a little bit, but I think these things help us to, let's go the
way God leads us, in Acts 16, verse 3. Verse 3, Paul found
Timothy, Timotheus. Verse 3, him would Paul have
to go forth with him. Paul took him and circumcised
him. Paul took Timothy and had him
circumcised. Why? Why did he do that? When he was the very one who
jumped on Peter, when Peter dissimulated and went over there with those
Jews over that same argument. The Jews said that the Gentiles
had to be circumcised to be Christians, and here Paul is having Timothy
circumcised. Why did it go on? Because of
the Jews which were in those quarters, for they knew his daddy
was a Greek. All right, here comes a man to
minister to the Jews. Timothy's going to preach to
the Gentiles, right, to the Jews and Gentiles, and they know he's
an uncircumcised Gentile, and they're not going to listen to
him. And Paul knew they wouldn't listen to him, Cecil. So he removed
that obstacle that would be a stumbling block to his people. That's why
he did it. He didn't do it as a, you know,
to put his sins away or to make him more acceptable to God or
make him more holy. He did it to remove a stumbling
block to keep from offending someone. Alright, to keep from
offending someone, I'll remove whatever I can. I'll become all
things to all men that by all means I might help some. But
when it comes to the person of Christ, I ain't going to compromise
with you. And that's all it is. Then God won't compromise. We'll
compromise on circumcision, we'll compromise on a few other things,
but when it comes to Christ, and the purity of His person,
and the purity of His blood, and the purity of His birth,
and the purity of His deity, and the purity of His sacrifice,
and the purity of His resurrection, and His intercessory work, can't
cut corners there. Just can't do it. We'll try to
be gentle, we'll try to be understanding, we'll try to be as best we can
to help men to understand. But this baptism represents the
death, burial, and resurrection of my Lord, and I can't compromise
with you. You see what I'm saying? This
Lord's table represents the broken body and shed blood of our Lord,
and we can't cut corners on this. And the same thing with these
Jews. He said, you take a lamb, Take one without blemish. Take
one of the male, look here, verse 5, a male of the first year.
Don't get an old lamb that may die of old age before you get
the sacrifice completed. Don't get a baby lamb that it
has no resistance anyway. Get one in full vigor. Get one
in full strength. Our Lord was 34 years old. In
the sharpness of his mind, in the sharpness of his strength,
in the sharpness of his energy, in the sharpness of his person.
And that's when he died. In the full strength of youth. And then he said down here, keep
him apart, verse 6, take that lamb without blemish of the first
year, that male, and put him in a pen and keep him there four
days. Keep him there under constant
inspection to be observed and subject to constant testing.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, for four years, and you can apply this
one of two ways, for four years, from the time He went into the
mountain of temptation and began to be tested of Satan, for four
years, our Lord was tried and tested. Our Lord was subject
to every constant inspection. Not only the eyes of Satan and
the eyes of the religious leaders, but the eyes of the people. And
they tried to trap him and ensnare him, and they did all these things,
the religious leaders, even the governor, finally wound up with
the governor. He'd gone before Satan, he'd
gone before the people, he'd gone before the Pharisees, the
high priests, and finally before the civil government itself.
And the man wound up washing his hands of the whole thing.
He said, I can't find any fault in him. And that's the way the
lamb was. I just imagine that lamb was
kept up there for four days, and this was an important thing. And old Uncle Zeke came to look
him over, you know, and somebody else, Grandpa came to look him
over, and Dad looked him over, and I'm sure Mother, you know,
came and looked him over. And he stayed there for four
days. And finally he was slain. And
finally he was slain. And his blood was shed, and he
caught his blood in a basin. And the father took the blood
and put it on the doorpost and the lintel. And that night God
came through and destroyed the firstborn in every home, but
he wasn't destroyed in that home. Now here's the question. And
here's something else. Look at Exodus 12, verse 46. Something else I want you to
look at. Exodus 12, verse 46, He is particular about this,
In one house shall it be eaten, and thou shalt not carry forth
off of the flesh abroad out of the house, neither shall you
break a bone thereof. This is awfully important. Not
a bone was to be broken. Our Lord hung on that cross,
and it was customary when a man was crucified, that the soldiers
came by and took a long spear or something and broke both legs
to hasten death, to get him out of their misery. And they just
did that. They came and broke the legs of the first thief and
broke the legs of the other one that came to Christ. No, sir,
the Scripture says, you read it, John 19. Let's pick it up
there and look at it. This is important. John 19, verse... Why do you think the Scriptures
keep pointing these things out? In John 19, verse 36, look at
it. It said, one of the soldiers,
verse 33, and when they came to Jesus and saw that he was
dead already, they break not his legs. But one of the soldiers
with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came forth blood
and water, and he that saw it bear record, and his record is
true. And he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.
For these things were done, that the scriptures should be fulfilled.
A bone of him shall not be broken." He's the Passover lamb. Don't
break a bone of the Passover lamb. Well, how does this become
mine? Well, let's look just briefly,
and I'll close. First of all, the Word of God
was believed. This father in the household,
when Moses spoke to the men of Israel, this father believed
what Moses said. That's where we start, like I
told you this morning. He said, judgment's coming. Judgment's
coming. God's going to visit. And I don't
know about this death angel thing. I keep hearing people say a death
angel passed over Egypt, but I can't find that. God said,
I will come to the land of Egypt. Maybe He uses an angel, I don't
know. But this is from God. This is a judgment of God. Don't
pass it to anybody else. God's going to judge this world.
The judgment of God is coming. The death is to come. And Moses
told them what to do. A lamb is to be slain. Its blood
is to be shed. It's to be applied. It's to be
eaten. And that's the first thing. They believed him. And that's
where you start believing this book, the record God had given.
Secondly, a Hebrew father took the lamb. He kept it up four
days. And I'm sure his sons and daughters came and asked him,
what's going on here? And he taught them what he was
doing. It's just like in Exodus 12, it tells us there that you
shall instruct your children. And it says, and you shall observe
this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons. And it
shall come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord shall
give you, you shall keep this service. And He shall come to
pass when your children shall say, what does this mean? That
you shall say it's the Lord's Passover who passed over the
houses of the children of Israel and Egypt when He smote the Egyptians
and He delivered us. You teach your children about
this. And so that father took that lamb finally on that fourth
day and he killed it. He cut its throat or wherever
they did and he caught the blood in the basin. And he sent one
of the boys, get some hyssop, that's a plant that grew in that
area, just an ordinary plant. And they took the hyssop with
its leaves and bound it together and he went to the front door
of the house and with his children watching him, he dipped that
hyssop in the blood and he put it up on the lintel and he put
it on the two posts. He applied the blood. He believed
God. And he applied the blood. And
that's what we do. We look to Christ. You know,
David said, Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Be reconciled
to me by the death of thy son. The blood of Christ puts away
our sins. It's the blood that makes atonement
for the soul. No need for me to point you to
your works or good deeds or church membership or decision or anything
else. If you can look to Christ and
if you can appropriate His blood by faith, And by faith, put it
on the doorpost of your heart. By faith, receive the blood of
Christ, drink the blood of Christ, plead the blood of Christ, pray
the blood of Christ, rest in the blood of Christ, trust in
the blood of Christ. That's what the father did. He dipped the
hyssop and put it there and took his family with the roasted lamb
and went in his house and shut the door. And the children were
scared. He said, now, boys and girls,
you can believe God. And you can just sit down and
rest and be happy because everything is going to be all right. And
that firstborn son was sitting there. And his daddy could look
at him with all the assurance and confidence in the world and
say, son, you're going to be all right. I'm not concerned
at all. Don't you be concerned because
God can't lie. And God said, when I see the
blood, son, it's out there. And that's all I can do is put
it there. That's what he said to do. And it's out there and
that's all. Let's just rest. Let's don't
doubt God. Let's don't question the Lord.
Let's don't be walking the floor. And you know what? They put their
clothes on and put their shoes on and roasted that lamb. That's
a picture of Christ suffering for those six hours on that cross
under that boiling sun for three of those hours, the agonizing. And they ate that body of that
lamb. Christ said, I'm the bread. Eat
my body and drink my blood." By faith, we receive Christ into
ourselves. And they ate that with their
clothes, with their staff in their hand, and their shoes on
their feet. What is that a picture of? This is not home, that is. We're on our way. We're on our
way. Nothing here. This is not it. The Passover lamb has delivered
us from the land of sin and the land of slavery, the land of
Egypt, and we're going home. We're going home. When I see
the blood, I'll pass over you. And you know, as I read that
over there, it says at midnight, verse 29, there went up a cry
all over the land of Egypt, a wail, a terrible wail in every home. But where the
blood was on the door, there was no cry. There was rejoicing. where the blood was on the door,
where the lamb was eaten, where the people had appropriated the
sacrifice, the Lord's Passover, and rested and trusted, there
was mercy. I want you to turn to the book
of Ezekiel a moment. In the book of Ezekiel, chapter
9, the land of Israel had committed
great idolatry against the Lord. And God said the six men from
the way of the higher gate was to come with their slaughter
weapon. There was a man to come clothed in linen. He was to come
with, verse 3, with an ink horn by his side. And he was to go
and put a mark on every man that feared God, every man that mourned
for righteousness, put a mark on them. And then God said to
the slayers, sweep through the city and destroy everything Slay
the old and the young, maids and little children, women, but
come not near any man upon whom is the mark. See verse 6, Ezekiel
9. Come not near any man upon whom
is the mark. Begin at the sanctuary. And then
begin at the ancient men which went before the house. And he
said unto them, defile the house, fill the courts with the slain,
go forth. And they went forth and slew
in the city. And it came to pass while they were slaying them,
I was left. I never saw that scripture before,
but I get a picture there of the same thing happening in Egypt.
God coming through in wrath and judgment, just slaying rebels
everywhere. And O Ezekiel stands there and
says, and as they fell all around me, I was left. I was left. And it's not because I deserve
to be left. It's not because I earned the
right to be left. It's not because God's obligated
in any way to see that I'm left, because I had a mark on me. And
what's that mark? It's the mark of blood, the blood
of the Lamb. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. That's the gospel, is to look
to Christ, to find in Him all I need. Our Father, bless the
word to our prophet tonight. We've entered somewhat, in a
measure, into this vast, vast palace hall of beauty, glory,
revelation, and there's so much that we want to know, but not
for the sake of knowing, but for the sake of growing in grace
and the knowledge of Christ. I want to know Christ and be
found in Him. I want to see Him on every page,
in every star, in the wind and the rain, in the Word of God,
in the hearts of my friends. I want to see Him in my life,
manifested in my conversation and attitude. I want to see Christ
and know Him and the power of His resurrected life, minister
to this congregation wherever this message is heard. For His
glory alone, I pray. Amen. Ronnie, you come and direct
us in a song, please. Let's sing 196. Let's stand, please. Blessed be the fountain of blood
To a world of sinners revealed Blessed be the dear Son of God,
Only by His stripes we are healed. Though I've wandered far from
His fold, Bringing to my heart pain and woe Wash me in the blood of the Lamb
And I shall be whiter than snow Whiter than the snow Whiter than
the snow Wash me in the blood of the Lamb and I shall be whiter
than snow.