Thank you. Greetings, friends. The book of Exodus chapter twelve and verse twelve. We have another instance where the Lord says, I am the Lord. This time in connection with judgment. Verse twelve says, God is speaking to Moses and he says, For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, this night. How close. 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 judgments. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye 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. This was to the children of Israel, this last verse, verse thirteen. Now, we hear, and rightly so, that God is the God of love. Certainly this is... is great characteristic. He loved the world of sinners' loss. The hymn writer put it, And ruined by the fall, Salvation full at highest cost, He offers free to all. He loved the world, the world of sinners. John three, verse sixteen, tells us this remarkable truth. For God, God of heaven, God Jehovah, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son. God loved God gained. God gave the greatest gift because of his great love. He gave his only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He loved the world, the people that are in it, although he didn't love their evil and wrongdoing. But he is also, what folk generally do not wish to hear, he is the God of judgment also. the God of love, to be sure. But love ferns, love rejected. And how can you reject the love of God? By rejecting, refusing to hear and to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, the gift of his love, refusing to hear, refusing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ the gift of God's love. Receive him as Savior. Believe in him that in his love for he died upon the cross of Calvary, nineteen hundred and forty odd years ago. Died for sinners. He died to pay the penalty for their sins in his own body. upon the cross at Calvary. So here is in the early days of the Bible, Exodus chapter twelve, we have brought forth clearly that God is also the God of judgment. And he says he will pass through the land of Egypt on this particular Passover night, and he says I will smite the firstborn, the eldest in every home of both man and of beast. Even the animal creation was affection, and the firstborn of man and beast would be slain at midnight that Passover night. And he says, and against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am... The Lord. My friends, there's no recourse here. We cannot deny this and escape because we have God to meet down at the end of life's highway. God says he is the God of judgment as well as the God of love. We spurn His love, refuse the Lord Jesus Christ to receive Him as our Savior, and then we will inevitably, and avoidably, we will come into the judgment of God. Eternal judgment. Here the Israelites escaped. The Egyptians did not. Now what was the difference? Was it because the Israelite was a better person? Was it because he did some good works and the Egyptians did bad? Was it because they were religious? Was it because they were the children of Israel, the chosen nation of God? Was that why they escaped? No, my friends. There was no escape on those grounds then. nor is there any escape on such grounds today. There is no way of being religious and buying your way to heaven with good works, with prayers, with Bible reading, with charity, with anything else under the sun, friends. You can't get saved that way. These are things that we should do. These are great things that we ought to do, but we must come as sinners. Here was the firstborn of this in Egypt, and they were under the sentence of death. And there's only one thing going to save them from the execution. The destroying angel was passing through the land at midnight, and he wasn't looking for good people. He wasn't looking for professional people. He wasn't looking for the elite and the educated people. He was looking for one thing only, and one thing only would spare the lives of an Israelite or an Egyptian alike. What was that? It was the blood of the lamb. The Israelites and others who were to take a lamb out of the flock on the tenth of day of the month, and it was to be a perfect lamb, no blemishes. keep it under the fourteenth day of the month, and then they were to slay it. If no blemish showed up, then it could be used as a Passover lamb, and it was slain. And God told them, through Moses, that they would attach the blood in the basin, and they would take the hyssop, the little branches of the hyssop that grew out of the wall, and use that as a brush. And they would put the blood... not on the inside, but on the outside of the door, on the two-side post, and over the lintel the top of the door. And then they were to be inside all of them, and they were to be eating the roast lamb inside. Now here's a great picture of salvation of redemption. And God says, When I see the blood, not when I see good people inside. Not when I see those who do the best of good works, no. When I see the blood, my friends, there was only one thing could save an Israelite, the eldest in the family. Only one thing could have saved an Egyptian, the eldest in the family. And that was the blood of the land. outside of their own efforts and ambitions and wishes and desires and everything else, outside that altogether. And this, my friends, is the only way you can be saved now. We come under condemnation of death, the same as the Issaite, who was the oldest in the family. That night he was scheduled to die and left sheltered by the blood applied outside. He could not make the blood. He could no wise generate the blood. He had to take it from the little innocent lamb, and it was sprinkled on the doorpost and the lintel of the door, and when God says, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Now the precious, typical of the precious blood of Christ that was shed on Calvary, and my friends, you can have every other virtue under God's heaven. And according to your Bible and mind, you'll be lost forever. If you don't know the cleansing power of the precious blood of Christ, the Lamb of God without blemish and without thought, and that blood was shed at the cross over nineteen hundred years ago. And Peter says, We're redeemed now, not with corruptible things of silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Oh, my friend, have you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who shed his blood to cleanse you? We could not do anything now to save ourselves, nor for our brother to give to God a ransom for him. We're all condemned to death. We're all condemned to die. And we can only be saved if we trust, if we receive, if we accept. the Lord Jesus Christ, and be sheltered by His precious blood, purchased with His precious blood, by our acceptation of them as the one who died on the cross just for me, just for me, cleansed by His precious blood. Father, we thank thee. There is salvation with the Savior. The one who loved us and gave himself for us. Shed His precious blood to pay the debt of our sins. when he died upon the cross, and all who trust in him, all who have received him, they will be saved forever and ever. We pray that many will, except from this day. We pray again, Lord, for our country. We believe in our country. We thank thee for our country. We pray for our president and all who are in authority. We ask thee, Lord, that it still might raise its head in righteousness among the nations of earth. We pray that blessing will flow, and the gospel still be preached from shore to shore, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.