The Passover event in Exodus 12 illustrates salvation through Christ, beginning with a new start for Israel, symbolizing regeneration in believers. The sermon emphasizes that salvation is not based on personal merit but on a perfect substitute, the spotless Lamb of God, whose sacrifice and sprinkled blood provide redemption. God himself acts as the personal Savior, offering protection and a new life to those who trust in Christ's atoning work, urging listeners to accept this salvation for a life of true success.
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We are going to be reading in the 12th chapter of the book of Exodus, you should be referring to that. I know it's difficult for you to see our chart clearly, but the light's on be a little bit easier and we actually haven't gotten to the part where we need to draw your attention to it very definitely. But you will see over here on this side, in the part Egypt that we have been considering in all of our studies thus far, you will see what represents a house there. With attention particularly being drawn to the door, and that is what we're going to be concentrating on this morning, the bloodthane door.
Now the subject of Exodus chapter 12 is the Passover. And I was pointing out on Wednesday night that that expression, that term, is used of three different things in the chapter. It's used of the lamb that was sacrificed. So you read about killing the Passover. That was the animal that was slain. Then you read about the whole event, the sparing of the firstborn. that was sheltered by the blood that is spoken of as the Passover. And then you read of eating the Passover.
And that refers to the feast, the supper that was instituted on that occasion. Now we're looking at that feast on Wednesday night. It is of such importance I expect to bring at least one more study in it. But this morning we are going to look at the the Passover in general that is the the event itself which led to the sparing of the firstborn so we're going to pick out a few verses on this lengthy but very beautiful and instructive chapter which has been called an early edition of the gospel of Christ and it certainly is one of the loveliest pictures and the simplest pictures that we have in our Bible of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We're going to begin that reading at verse 1. Exodus chapter 12 verse 1. And the Lord spake on the boat as a man in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of month. 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 an house. And if the house will be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto him, or his house, take it according to the number of the soul.
Every man, according to his eating, shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be of blemish, a male of the first year. He shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats, and he 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 of it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses wherein they shall eat it. Now verse 12. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and was might 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 ye are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to smite the land of Egypt. Now 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 Hesop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and 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 Egyptian, and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side bolts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you. Now, that's all I read in this chapter, because this gives us the main event in this momentous occasion. for Israel to help you to grasp what we have here think of four things there's a start a new start I want to emphasize that a new start then there's a substitute and that's a perfect substitute meeting the need perfectly then there is a Savior and that That is a personal Savior, God himself.
Then there's a supper, and that is a new supper, something quite different, although composed of very ordinary elements. We have been looking at previous studies at the tragic condition of Israel in Egypt. There they were in bitter bondage, ground in... to the dust as it were, under the heel of Pharaoh and his taskmasters. But God had promised that they would be delivered. And while their conditions seemed to worsen, even after Moses brought the message of deliverance, the hour is now struck in God's eternal time table for them to be delivered.
All of the opposition that Pharaoh has presented has been crushed. We're looking at the Passover in one of our recent studies as the tenth plague that God sent on this stubborn man and monarch Pharaoh. I suggest that that was the knockout blow. And when it fell, all of Pharaoh's resistance was completely broken, and he was not only ready to let them leave this nation of slaves, leave the land, but he was urgent that they get out immediately.
He couldn't seem to wait until he saw the last of them. Now that was God's working, and that's the way, typically, that he prepares for salvation. we're looking at salvation itself. I hope you will listen very carefully this morning, for as I said, to me this is the clearest picture in the entire Bible as to just how and why a person is saved. There's no other way of salvation than that which is illustrated in this great chapter. Now I said it begins with a new start.
You'll notice God said, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. So this was a new day dawning for Israel. The bondage, the misery is going to be ended, and they're going in a new and wonderful way to become God's people. worship and serve us for Him. Instead of being slaves, they are going to be pilgrims on their way to the land that God has promised to give them as a national home, the land of Canaan or Palestine, Israel, as we know it today.
Now, it begins, I repeat, with a new start. and that is God's way of beginning. He's going to redeem them. The blood is going to be shed. It's going to be sprinkled. But He's also going to make it a new beginning for them. Now when you are saved, you are redeemed. The precious blood of Christ delivers you from the bondage of sin that you were in, and it delivers you from the penalty of sin that you had incurred. That and much more the blood of Christ stops.
But when you are redeemed, when you accept Christ as your Savior, you are regenerated. It's a new beginning altogether. Now that was one of the things that bothered me before I was saved. I knew how to be saved, where I had the great privilege of being re-evalued. in a Christian home. And I sat under clear, sound preaching. And I knew I was a sinner. I knew I needed to be saved. And I fully intended someday to be saved. But the thing that troubled me most probably was, well now I know myself.
I know my weaknesses. I know what I've already succumbed to. In my teenage life, I was always big for my age, and that brought me into the snare of always traveling with people that were older than me. I ran with men and women that were much older than I, and that's not a healthy situation for a teenager. But knowing myself, I used to think something like this. know my weakness. I know how I love liquor, and I love a lot of other things.
Now, how can I hold up? Have I got the moral strength to be able to say no when they come and offer me a drink next week? Well, what I didn't understand, I should have, because I've been taught it and told it many times, that it wasn't going to be the old McKay that was going to have You see, I was going to become a new creature in Christ Jesus, and I'd have new desires, and new appetites, and new strength, and new courage, and everything would be new. That's regeneration. If any man being Christ, he's a new creature, all things are passed away through all things will become new.
Now I still had the old nature in me, and I still got it today. But I had a new nature that the Spirit of God could operate on and through and give me an entirely new concept of life, which He did, so that it was with very little difficulty that I was able to say no to my old companions and to my old habits. You see, this that God is talking about here as being the first month, it was actually the seventh month.
Six months had ruled their course. Now that's why the Jewish nation has a civil calendar and a religious calendar. We only have one calendar. That's a civil calendar. but the Jewish nation ever since the Passover has had two calendars one begins six months before the other but the religious calendar begins on this day so what God was doing you see he was wanting out the baths and he was giving them a new start this month shall be unto you the beginning of months it shall be the first month of the near to you.
But what about the past six months long? Well, I'm blotting that out. Because you were in the bondage of Pharaoh, and that went for nothing. You were slaves. You couldn't do what I commanded you to. So I'm blotting that out. We're starting all over again. You know, that's one of the wonderful things about salvation. I have read many years ago about a preacher who was asked to go and visit a man who was quite sick stranger to the preacher but he went to him to his bedside and after one or two casual remarks he said is there anything I could do for you my friend and the sick man looked at him and shook he said no preacher I don't think there's anything you could do for me but say, can you undo something?
Couldn't you often go out like that? Aren't there a lot of things in your life you just wish you could undo? Well, you can't. And nobody can undo them for you. But God can. And God blotted out my wicked life up to the night I got saved. God blotted that up. Now, McKay, this night is going to be the beginning of nights for you. It'll be the first night of your life, really. And that's a wonderful thing. And everything becomes new.
When you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, then what a relief to know the past is that God. Blought it out. There's only one thing I know that the Bible says God forgets. And that's my sins. And I'm so thankful for that. It says their sins in chapter 10 of the epistles of the Hebrews, their sins and their iniquities, will I remember no more. I remember as a young Christian when I came across that verse, oh, I'm sure I must have heard it before that, but when it really seemed a leap out of the page to me, Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
And I've been trying to forget them too. You know, I don't like to go back to my life. Pass that night when as a young man I accepted Christ as my Savior, I like to stop right there. Because God says, now I've forgotten at rest. You forget it too. And so those sins and iniquities that lay in those years, God has forgotten them as well as forgiven them. And God will give you a new start this morning. Now, how is this going to be brought about? It's going to be brought about by a substitute.
You see, God just can't wink at sin. God just can't close the book and say, well, it's all right, we just forget about it. Don't bother about it. You're a sinner, but so is everybody else. No, no, no. That isn't the way God works. But God forgives you a debt. It's because they're paid for. And I have said thousands of times, particularly when I was actively engaged in evangelistic work in my younger years, I've said thousands of times, I'm going to heaven because every one of my sins have been paid for. Now, that's the only basis on which you'll ever get to heaven.
Your works, your prayers, your tears, your church membership, your everything and anything goes for nothing. Your sins must be paid for. Now that's where you have a perfect substitute here. There's so much I'd like to talk about this substitute that'll be impossible in the time, but I'll just give you seven things about it. And then whatever time we have, we'll link a few thoughts on each one. the first you'll notice it was selected they were to take a land now the nation of Israel they were shepherds before they came into Egypt after they came into Egypt they were shepherds they had large flocks that's why they were given the land of Goshen during the time of Goshen But each family had to go and select a lamb.
No doubt the head of the house, the father would go and select out of his flock a lamb. And he selected on this basis. It had to be, first of all, spotless. There had to be no spot or blemish in it. They were to keep it up for four days, and the tenth to the fourteenth day. They were to keep it up and scrutinize it, make sure there was no blemish in it whatsoever. Now, you see, they had to be very careful in this election.
Because if there had been a blemish, they wouldn't have been able to get another one. You had to give up four days. carelessly going out and taking any lamb and put it in the pan. And then on the 13th day discovered to their horror, why there's a blemish in this lamb. What would that have meant? They couldn't have offered that to God on the 14th day. Now you see, there is only one lamb that's without spot and blemish, and that is the lamb of God. Peter writing of him in his first letter, chapter 1, and verse 19 speaks of him without spot and without blemish.
And our Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who was spotless and sinless, and thus the only one who could be our Savior. It's not only ridiculous. It's blasphemy to place the great religious leaders of the past or present on the same level as Jesus Christ. Muhammad, you name of any of the originators of the religion of the world. They all were sinners. They all had the spot of sin on them. They were all blemish my thing, but Jesus of Nazareth was the eternal son of God, and he alone was spotless.
Now, the second thing about the land that they selected, it had to be spotless. So you can see the shepherd looking through his flock and picking out a spotless land. It had to be suitable. You'll notice in verses 3 and 4, that you have the word according three times. Verse 3, according to the house of their fathers. Then in verse 4, according to the number of the souls. Then again, according to his eating.
It had to be suitable, you see, to meet the need of that household. every household had to get its own lamb they reckoned the number that was in that household and they had to get a lamb that would provide sufficiently for every member of that household to eat and it was to be according to their eating according to their need some families wouldn't have as large appetites as others, and their need would not be as great.
But it had to be not only selected and spotless, it had to be suited or suitable to meet the need of each family. I think there's a very interesting thing in connection with this that it turns in verse 4. little from the lamb. Can you imagine Mr. and Mrs. McKay's senior eating a whole lamb? Well, if you can, I can. I have a job getting through a good-sized lamb chop now, although they're one of my favorite meats. There was a time when I could have eaten the chop, I think the bone too, and any other chops I could have got hold of.
But you see, some household would have, parents would still have good healthy after that. Five or six children in those days was not uncommon, maybe more than that. And you know how children can devour. So they were, but it says of the household be too little. Now it doesn't suggest that the household is too large. Here's a man, God blessed him with ten or twelve children. Now we'll have to get too large. Oh, no, you won't. No, you won't. one. One lamb will meet your need. You see, God wants to impress on us, there's only one lamb.
Now, suppose the household is too little for the lamb. They just can't eat it all. Well, they could go with their neighbor. Neither the neighbor and they could share in the lamb. But the thought is, the household could be too little. But it could never be too large. And you know, friend, it doesn't matter how big a sinner you are. I've had some men through the years that have tried to turn away the thrust of the gospel by telling me that they were just too big a sinner to be saved. Now, I've been knocking around too long to be deceived by any talk like that.
They just tried to get rid of the arrows of the gospel. And generally I've told such, listen, my friend, you don't know how big a sinner you are. If you knew how big a sinner you were in the sight of God, you'd likely drop in a dead faint right there. From the top of your head to the sole of your foot, you're nothing but utter absolute corruption in the sight of God. That's how big a sinner you are. I've told them, if I took a pin and tried to put us on a spot in you that wasn't touched by sin, I couldn't put that pin anywhere. Yes. But thank God, no matter how big a sinner, a man or woman may be, the lamb is bigger sick.
Away with this Calvinistic doctrine that the death of Jesus Christ only covered a little handful comparatively. My friend, where there are 10 million, million more sinners on the face of God's earth than there are, ever have been, the blood of my Savior could save the whole life if they'd only trust him. Yes, the lamb's big enough. He'll meet every need, and thus he's suitable. But that isn't all. Oh, no, you could have a spotless lamb. The lamb could be suitable.
The lamb could be spotless. It could have been selected of great care. But it had to be sacrificed. That's the fourth thing. It had to be sacrificed. They were to kill the Passover. That's the fifth thing. They must sacrifice the lamb. It must be slain. And very interesting, look at that verse 6. It says, The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. Does that mean they all killed the one lamb? No. There must have been thousands of land. You see, one for a household.
But it's always spoken of in the singular. I'll emphasize that in a minute or two. But the whole assembly of the Congregation of Israel kills it in the evening. What's that? It means when the time came, they all killed it at the same time. Because remember, God is giving us a picture of the death. of Christ on the cross of Calvary. And that took place once and for all. And when Christ died, he died for the whole world. It was for the whole congregation, as it were, the whole assembly, the one, when the moment came, the sacrificial knives fell, and the blood of the Lamb flowed.
But then, It had to be next sprinkled. Wasn't enough just to be selected. Wasn't enough to be sacrificed. The blood had to be sprinkled. And they were told how to do it. They were to take a bunch of hyssop. And they were to dip it in the blood. The blood was caught in a basin. As the lamb slain, they took a bunch of hyssop. Gifts it in the blood, sprinkle it on the window, the two-side post like that. Remember I told you before how I said to the guide in Israel, Now I want to see Hitzel, if there is any.
And you remember how he told me after I explained him what I was talking about, I told him that Solomon said it sprang out of the wall, growing in the cracks of the wall. And remember I told you that he told me about the western wall where you can see on the photos the green of that which is growing out from the cracks between those great stone wall, those great stones that the wall is composed of. Now he told me that that was hyssop. And you can see it was a very common thing, just like one of our weeds, and drawing of the cracks of the wall.
And so you could see it wouldn't cost them anything. It'd be within the reach of all. They could easily get a handful of hyssop, a bunch of them. He didn't speak of some high-priced thing they'd have to buy that only a few would be able to afford, but he spoke of a common weed that was available to all of them. Take the hyssop, dip it in the blood. sprinkle it now, and then get in behind. Now that's the gospel, my friend. God selected the Lamb. Christ was sacrificed on Calvary. Now it's up to you.
You've got to sprinkle the blood. How do you sprinkle it? By something that is common and ordinary, and within the reach of all. A person could be paralyzed, they couldn't work. They could be dumb, they couldn't pray. But every man, woman, boy, and girl that's mental enough to be responsible before God can believe. There's one thing that's common to all mankind, that is faith.
Now the reason A lot of people aren't saved if they put the hyssop in the wrong thing. Some might say, oh, I don't go for this blood business. I'll get some expensive perfume from Arabia, and I'll show God how much I think of him. I'll spend all I've got and buy a bowl of expensive perfume, and I'll dip the hyssop in that and put it up there, and I believe God will be pleased with that. He won't. He won't. You put your faith in anything but the blood of Christ, and I stand here behind the Bible to tell you, you'll be lost forever, my name.
Lost forever. God said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Not when I see what you've done and what you intend to do, who you are, what you belong to. When I see the blood, and as God looks at you this morning, you're either sheltered under the blood of Christ, or you're exposed to the judgment of God. I want to close on this. God said, now when you sprinkle that blood, I will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto you.
I will pass over you over the door I am referring to verse 23 the Lord will pass over the door and will not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you this is the personal savior you see and I want you to get this right it wasn't the lamb that saved them that little lamb we all have intelligence enough to know it that the blood of a lamb could never save you. But you see that blood sprinkled on the door was a visible evidence of their faith in what God said.
Now God said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Now it doesn't say I'll pass by you, because that's what he didn't do. The word pass over here, pass over, the verse, can literally be described as sort of fluttering. It's use of a bird, fluttering over its nest, protecting. That's what God says. Now, when I see the blood on the door, I'll be there, God says. Let me put as simply as I can. God says, no, I'll be there, and I'll not suffer the destroyer.
to come in unto you. Here's a destroyer. Now you can think of that as a destroying angel or any way you want to, but here's a destroyer. He comes to a door that's marked with a blood, but God's there before. And he says, no, you can't come in here. You can't come in here. People behind this door have obeyed my word and they're depending on the blood. You come in here and touch the verse more. That's the personal Savior. Isn't that a wonderful thing? When we accept Christ as our Savior, when we take shelter beneath his blood, God himself becomes our Savior.
I think this becomes more precious to you the older you get. As you mature a little in the things of God, the personality of God, becomes so real and precious to you, I'm enjoying it now in my 60s, much more than I did in my 20s or 30s, those first years, first decades of my Christian life. It's the fact that God himself against whom I had sinned has become my Savior. Now I'm quite sure that that was the experience of Apostle Paul. You read the last letters that he wrote by inspiration.
First Timothy, Titus, and Second Timothy, those are the three last letters in that order that the Apostle Paul wrote by inspiration. And you'll find in those three letters, reference again again to God our Savior. He's rejoicing in the fact that God is His Savior, and all because of the blood. My friend, are you this morning sheltered under the blood of Christ? Oh, I would say, God, there was something that the Lord would lead me to say right in the last moment of this message that would lead you to put your trust in the precious blood of Christ.
Remember, nothing else will do. A good life won't do. Baptism won't do. The church won't do. Nothing will do. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. And God will blot out the path. God himself will become your Savior. It will be the beginning of all things new to you. And I can tell you, my friends, after almost 50 years of experience, and grandest thing that could ever happen to you this morning, if it never happens, for you to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Right where you sit, open your heart, let the Savior come in, and then my friend live for him, and your life will do its success. I don't care whether you end your life with a million dollars in the bank or without a bank account at all your life will be a success if you accept Jesus Christ and live for him I'm convinced of it if I had my life to live over again the only thing I would do would be to accept Christ earlier in life I'd only been saved as a boy instead of a 19 year older.
Oh, there'd have been so many scars that wouldn't have been in my life. You know, the father, every time there was one way to teach his boys what was wrong and something of the effect of doing wrong, every time when the boys was caught doing something wrong, he drove a nail into a boy with a boy's name on. And when the boy did what was right, he He pulled a nail out. And the day came when all the nails were pulled out of the one boy's boy. And he said, the boy, instead of being happy about his crying, and his father said, son, what's the matter?
The nails are all gone. He said, yes, daddy, but the holes are still there. The holes are still there, yeah?