Let us turn in our Bibles today
to the book of Exodus. I'll introduce the message this
morning with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, the words
which he spoke to the Jewish religious leaders when he was
here in the flesh. And these are recorded in John
chapter five. And they had accused him of blasphemy
because they said, you being a man, make yourself equal with
God. And the Lord Jesus gave them
three witnesses to his deity, his work, the miracles which
he wrought, the father's voice, which they had not heard, but
God spoke from heaven at his baptism, declaring, this is my
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. And then the scriptures,
which he told them, in them you think you have eternal life,
but they are they which testify of me. Now these men, the Apostle
Paul refers to them as the princes of the world, that is the Jewish
religious leaders of that day, the priest and the Sanhedrin,
the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all of those men. And they claim to be Moses' disciples. They said they were his disciples. And our Lord said, they sat in
the seat of Moses. But he also told them at that
time, if you had believed Moses, you claim to be his disciples. But had you believed Moses, you
would have believed me, because he wrote of me. And we know that
God used Moses in writing the first five books of the Bible.
about 1,500 years before the Lord Jesus came into this world
as a man. Last week, I brought a message
from the book of Genesis, and it was difficult to decide upon
a particular passage of scripture in Genesis for one message speaking
about Christ, but it became doubly difficult in looking at the book
of Exodus. I thought about the burning bush.
He appeared in the bush that burned under Moses and confessed
his name as I am. And remember throughout the gospel
of John, how many times did he say, I am, I am the way, I am
the truth, I am the life. I am the light of the world. I am the resurrection and the
life. But I passed over that, and then
I thought about the manna, the manna that God rained down from
heaven, a picture of the true bread of life, the Lord Jesus
Christ. I thought about that rock that
was smitten, and out of it flowed the water And we know that Christ
is that rock and out of him flows the water of life. I thought
about the tabernacle because here in the book of Exodus, God
gives instructions to Moses concerning the tabernacle and all of the
furniture and everything that went with it and how all of that
pictured Christ. Moses wrote of Christ. And I
thought about the Hebrew servant, one of my favorites. The Hebrew
servant who could go out free. The day came when he could go
out free. And I know the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of
a servant. the Hebrew servant who declared,
rather than to go free, I love my master. I love my wife. And the church is his wife, his
bride. He loved the church and gave
himself for it. I love my children. And we, the
believers, are the seed of Christ. There's so many pictures. You
know, the theme of the book of Exodus is redemption. And Christ
is our Redeemer. There's so many ways in the book
of Exodus that Moses wrote of Christ. But I settled on chapter
12. If you will turn with me here
to chapter 12, where we have the instructions concerning the
Passover and The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 and verse
7 said, for even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. The Passover. And we will look
at Moses' words concerning the Passover and see how that here
he wrote of Christ. He wrote of him in type, in picture. And we recognize that when I
say that Moses wrote of Christ, that he was a human author. He
was a man that God inspired, but the Word of God is the Word
of God. It is the Word which is inspired
by God the Holy Spirit. He used man to write so that
what they wrote is the very Word of God. You have in your possession
a treasure, my friends, that is worth more than all the silver
and all the gold in this world. The Word of God. God's Word. And God's Word to you and God's
Word to me. And this Word is the Word of
Christ. It speaks of Him. Whom to know
is life eternal. And if a man has everything,
if he owned the whole world and misses Christ, he's missed everything. So as we look at this law concerning
the Passover, the instructions that God gave to Moses and he
copied for us, I want to divide my message into two parts. First, Moses wrote of Christ
when he wrote of the Passover lamb. Let's look at that. Moses wrote of Christ when he
wrote of the Passover lamb. The first thing that we see here,
well let's read verses one and two. And the Lord spake unto
Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall
be unto you the beginning of months. And this is just a sidebar
here, but When a person comes to know Christ, his life begins. His eternal life begins. If any
man be in Christ, he is a new creation. All things are passed
away. Behold, all things are become
new. This was to be a beginning for
the nation of Israel. And oh, what a beginning it is
when the Lord saves a person. And we begin to live. live under
him, live with him, live for him, and expect one day to live
with him eternally in heaven. This month shall be unto you
the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of
the year to you. First, take a lamb, verse three. 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. Can you visualize a lamb? In your mind, can you visualize
just now a lamb? What do you see? What do you
see? You see the meekest of animals,
an emblem of patience and meekness, kindness, if that can be attributed
to an irrational creature. The prophet Isaiah wrote of him
in this way. In that wonderful 53rd chapter,
he said, he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep
before her shears is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. The Lord Jesus Christ confessed
himself to be meek and lowly in heart. A picture that comes
to our mind as we think of a lamb. And isn't it amazing, isn't it
amazing to think of the one described in Hebrews chapter one as the
brightness, the brightness, of the Father's glory, the brightness
of God's glory being made flesh and living the life of a servant
among men. Yet more amazing than that, Him
coming into this world and living the life of a servant is Him
submitting to death, and that's the death of the cross. You think
about what he went through that evening and that day when men
spit upon him. That's, in most societies, the
lowest form of disgrace that you could ever place upon another
individual, to spit on him. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb,
meek and lowly, the Lamb. how he allowed men to spit upon
him. The very man who were spitting
upon him, think of this. He, as the son of God, gave them
power. They lived, they moved, they
had their being in him. And yet they were spitting upon
him. And when he was reviled, the
apostle tells us he reviled not again. Think how blind, spiritual
blindness is, my friends, that these leaders, these priests
and leaders of the nation of Israel, that they were looking
for a messiah. They'd been taught and they taught
this to look for a messiah who would establish his kingdom by
shedding the blood of others, by taking up arms and defeating
men and bringing them under subjection to himself. How blind they were when you
read through the Old Testament to think that the Messiah would
be like that. When all through the scriptures
he's pictured as a lamb, a meek and lowly animal. He despises shame. That's what
the writer of Hebrews tells us, despising the shame. But yet
nothing could deter him from suffering as a lamb to redeem
his covenant people. One old writer said, he was content
for a while to be the sport of devils, that he might be the
spring of salvation to men. He received our sins upon his
shoulders to confer His divine benefits upon our hearts. So first of all, in this ordinance
of the Passover, take a lamb. Moses wrote of Christ. John pointed
him out. Behold, the lamb of God which
taketh away the sins of the world. Now the second thing we see in
verse five, the lamb must be without blemish. Your lamb shall
be without blemish. The lamb was observed, as you
read through this passage, you will see, the lamb was observed
for four days. The lamb was taken into their
houses. We think of animals outside,
but, and maybe some of them were, but many of these lambs were
actually taken into their homes and tied to their bedstead. that
for four days they could observe that lamb to make sure it had
no blemishes, it was not deformed, it was not sick, it had no scales. There was nothing impure that
you could see on the outside of this lamb. It had to be a
lamb without blemish, without spot. We think of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the lamb of God who was the holy, holy son of God. Remember the angel told Mary,
that holy thing which shall be born of thee. He was holy from
his conception and all through his life he was that holy one
of God. Even the demons confessed and
said, we know who thou art, the holy one of God. And he looked
at his accusers and said, which of you convinces me of sin? And
even when they paid men to lie, And to accuse him, they could
not agree among themselves. He had no sin, he did no sin,
he knew no sin. He is the eternal son of God,
our high priest, who was holy, harmless, and undefiled. He was
without blemish, just like the lamb, the Passover lamb. Take
a lamb! and it must be a lamb without
blemish. It's going to be a picture of
the Holy One, the Holy Son of God, Moses. Our Lord Moses wrote
of me. And third, The lamb was slain
in the evening on the fourth day. Notice that, if you will,
in verse six. And you shall keep it up until
the 14th day of the same month. Now they took the lamb on the
10th day of the month, and they keep him for four days. And the
lamb is then slain in the evening of the 14th day of the month. Moses wrote of Christ. We think
of this, the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was baptized of
John the Baptist when he was 30 years of age. That was the
age that a man entered to the priesthood. He was set apart. And then in the fourth year,
the fourth year after that, he was crucified. What a picture
here of, of Christ and this lamb being kept up for four days. a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ
for those three and a half years, not days, but years, when He
could be observed and was observed by men who hated Him, men who
just, who was looking for every word to catch Him, to ensnare
Him in some way that they could accuse Him before the law of
God. Remember when they brought the The question to him, is it
lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? They thought, this is a question
here, no matter how he answers it, we can accuse him. We can
either accuse him to breaking the law of Moses or breaking
the civil law of the Romans. We see his wisdom. Show me a
piece of the money. Whose image is on this money? Well, Caesar's, well, render
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things
that are God's. We see him being observed for
these four years. In the case of the lamb, it was
four days. And then we're told the lamb
was to be slain in the evening. In the evening. The Lord Jesus
Christ was slain in the end of the world. You say, well, preacher,
There's been 2,000 years passed and the world hasn't come to
an end yet. No, but the Jewish world came
to an end. In Hebrews chapter 9 and verse
26, the apostle said, now once in the end of the world, hath
he appeared to put away the sin, put away sin rather by the sacrifice
of himself in the evening of the Jewish world. Their world
came to an end, and we should be so thankful that it did, because
when it did, the gospel has been spread out to the Gentiles like
you and I. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. And I want you to notice this
in verse 6, if you have your Bible open there. And you shall
keep them up. Is that the way your Bible reads?
That's not the way my Bible reads. You shall keep them up. There
were 600,000 adults that came out of Egypt. How many lambs
do you think were slain? Thousands. Thousands. Every man was to take a lamb
for his family. And yet, in this verse of scripture,
it's singular. It's not plural. It's not, you
shall take the lambs. Oh no, it's it. And you shall keep it, singular,
up until the 14th day of the same month. And the whole assembly
of the congregation of Israel shall kill it, the one lamb,
even though there were thousands of lambs slain. But my friends,
the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin. It cannot
take away sin. And all the blood that was shed
that day and the blood that was put on the lentils and the doorpost
of the house could not remove any sin. It was a picture, it
was a time. Moses wrote of Christ. And then
the fifth thing. The fourth thing, I'm sorry,
the fourth thing. The lamb was to be roasted with fire. Notice
that in verse nine. It was to be roasted with fire.
They were to eat this lamb, eat not of it raw, nor sodden at
all with water. Don't put it in a pot of water
and boil it. No, no. But roast it. It must be roasted with fire. And it must be the whole lamb,
the whole lamb that was roasted. The purity or holiness of God
in the scripture is spoken of under the symbol of a consuming
fire. But our God is a consuming fire. Now we know that's just a picture,
isn't it, of His holiness, the holiness of God. But the Lamb
of God had to be roasted with fire apart from water, picturing
the wrath of God that the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God
had to endure in saving his people. The physical sufferings of Christ
were awful, awful, unimaginable. But he had to suffer the fire
of God's wrath in his soul. The death that he tasted for
his people was not only physical death. Yes, he saves us from
physical death, but he saves us from that death that men fear. A lot of men don't fear physical
death. They look forward to it. But
I tell you, there is a death that men fear. And that is eternal
death. That is when the soul is separated
from God Almighty throughout eternity. Rich man, our Lord spoke about
in Luke chapter 16, in hell, asked for just a drop of water
from Lazarus' finger to ease the torment which he was suffering
there in those flames of hell. The Lord Jesus Christ went through
that, that is hell, while he was there on the cross suffering,
roasted with fire, the fire of God, and for all the hells that
all of his people would experience and should have experienced.
You won't go to hell if you know Christ is your Lord and Savior,
but he suffered your hell for you, and that's the only reason. And this lamb was to be roasted
whole, and we are to feast upon a whole Christ. You know, some
people, they say, well, I'd like to have, I'd like to have Christ
as my Savior, yes. But my friends, before He is
your Savior, He must first be your Lord. It's always that way
in the scripture, Lord and Savior. We feast on a whole lamb. He's both our Lord and our Christ. God hath made Him both Lord and
Christ. And as Brother Ralph Barnard
used to say, don't tell me who your Savior is, tell me who your
Lord is. Who's your Lord? Who's your King? Are you still King of your life? Do you still sit upon the throne
and reign? You're great. I, I, I will do
my will. I will live the way I want to
live. I will think the way I want to
think, or as Christ your Lord, as He your King, now is no longer
I but Him. We feast upon a whole lamb. We take Him as our prophet. to
reveal God unto us. We take Him as our priest to
reconcile us unto God. And yes, we must also feed and
take Him as our King to reign, to rule over us. Moses wrote
of Christ. And notice this last thing down
in verse 46. Verse 46. In one house shall it be eaten,
that is the Passover lamb. Thou shall not carry forth out
of the flesh abroad out of the house. Now notice this, neither
shall you break a bone thereof. Not a bone of his body was to
be broken. Do you thank those Roman soldiers?
Pilate said, Break their bones. Break their legs. Speed up their
death. There's three men out there on
crosses. Break their bones. We want them
off the crosses before the Sabbath day. Break their bones. Do you
think they had read this passage and they came to the first man,
they came to a thief and wham! And broke his legs? so that he
fell down and his lungs couldn't breathe any longer to speed up
his death. And they went over maybe to the
other one on that other cross and wham, broke his legs. And then they said, you know,
we're not to break this man's legs. It's written of him, not
a bone shall be broken. Do you think those Roman soldiers
had read the scripture and knew this? Of course not. But we know
there was a secret providence of God, a hand, an invisible
hand that man could not see. God was superintending and directing
everything that went on that day at the cross. when he gave
his son to be an offering for our sins. I read the other day
of a man, a preacher rather, a man's son had died, and the
preacher went to try to comfort him, and the man said, preacher,
where was God when my son died? And the preacher very kindly
said, God was upon the throne where he was when his son died. That's where he was. Now, the second part of the message,
briefly, Moses wrote of Christ when he wrote of what the Passover
lamb accomplished. First of all, look in verses
12 and 13. The first thing, there's three things I'll point out to
us that the Passover lamb accomplished, his death. Verses 12 and 13. For I will pass through the land
of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the
land of Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt,
I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood
shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are. And
when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague
shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of
Egypt." The first thing that the blood of the Passover lamb
accomplished was it saved the firstborn in the houses where
that blood was applied. The blood of the lamb of God
saves all those upon whom it is sprinkled and it saves us
from eternal death and preserves us to eternal life. Consider these several things
that we're told about the blood of Christ. When we talk about
the blood of Christ, we're talking about the death of Christ, of
course. But did you know the scripture says that we are justified
through his blood, declared righteous before God by his blood. We have redemption. We've been
redeemed. We have redemption through his
blood. We're not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver
and gold received by tradition from your fathers, but with the
precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot. We're cleansed from all sin through
his blood. What a blessed truth that is.
whiter than snow, cleansed from every sin. The second thing that the Passover
lamb, his death accomplished, look down in verse 30 and 31.
Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all
the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt. Can you
imagine that? Can you imagine The cry that
went up that night in Egypt, when in every house the firstborn
was slain, where the blood was not applied. And let me back
up just a minute. God said, when I see the blood.
We've known some dear friends who, as they've grown older,
and they don't have the mind they once had, and they can't
recall, Remembered. Do you know those Israelites? They
couldn't see the blood. It was outside. They were inside
the house. God saw the blood. And that's
where it's all important, isn't it? And the day may come for
any of us or all of us when we can't even remember our name. The important thing is God. He sees the blood. saves from death, and then it
liberates. When Pharaoh rose up in the night,
he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, there was a great
cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one
dead. And he called for Moses and Aaron
by night and said, rise up and get you forth from among my people,
both ye and the children of Israel, and go serve the Lord as you
have said. The work of the Passover lamb
sets the captives free. There had been slaves there in
Egypt for over 400 years, but now through the Passover lamb,
the work of the Passover lamb and the blood, get out! You're
free! There's only one thing, my friend,
that will deliver you or me or any other son of Adam from the
servitude, the slavery of sin, and the penalty of sin. And that
is the blood of Jesus Christ. The last thing, if you look down
to verse 41, the victory that came through
the Passover lamb, man, these Israelites began their journey
toward Canaan. Came to pass at the end of the
430 years, just like God had said, just like God had told
Abraham. The end of 430 years. Even the selfsame day, God's
always on time, always. Not your time, not my time, His
time. The selfsame day it came to pass
that all the hosts, all the armies of Israel, those that the Passover
lamb had redeemed, they all started their march toward Canaan, the
land that flowed with milk and honey. So this morning, God's
spiritual Israel, we begin our journey to the Father's house,
the Father's house, which he has prepared for us, a place
for us. And I like the words of Isaac
Watts when he wrote, we're marching to Zion. Beautiful, beautiful
Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. And that's you and I today, we're
marching to Zion. We've been set free, if we know
Christ today, by the blood of the Passover lamb. Moses wrote
of me. We're going to sing a hymn. I
believe the first line speaks of this redemption. Number 232,
if you will. Let's turn. Number 232. And let's
stand. And let me say this before we
sing. Let me encourage you now. I know
we like to visit. And I've noticed in weeks gone
by, the longer we visit, the closer we get. It might be wise for us to go
outside today to visit. Fresh air is good for it, sunshine,
number 232. Let's stand as we sing. Christ our Redeemer, died on
the cross, died for us.