Gooding, David: 5 - Decision to Quit

We begin our study this evening by reading from the book of Exodus and chapter twelve. The book of Exodus and chapter twelve. And should it be that you wish to do some preparatory reading for Monday's session in the will of God, then you might be advised to read the second half of chapter twelve and the most of chapter thirteen. But tonight we begin in chapter twelve and verse one. 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 you 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 their fathers' houses, a lamb for an household. And if the household be too little for a lamb, then shall he and his neighbor next unto his house take one according to the number of the soul. According to every man's eating, you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month. The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at even. And they shall take of the blood and put it on the two side posts and on the lintel upon the houses wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire and unleavened bread. With bitter herbs shall they eat it. Eat not of it raw, not sodden at all with water, but roast with fire, its head with its legs and with the inwards thereof. And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, but that which remaineth of it until the morning you 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 go through the land of Egypt in that 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 wherein you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall be no plague upon you to destroy you. 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. Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread, even the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses. For whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. And in the first day there shall be to you an holy convocation, and in the seventh day an holy convocation. No manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you. Then let us take time to read a New Testament commentary upon that, found in the first epistle by Paul to the Corinthians and chapter five. First Corinthians and chapter five. Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ. Wherefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. God give us true discernment of the meaning of his word. I suppose it is altogether probable that from time to time some of the Israelites must have dreamed. In the hours of darkness and their exhausted slumber, or fretful in their beds by their wounds and the lashes on their back, they must have dreamed. Dreamed of days when life would be better. Dreamed of freedom. Dreamed of a little cottage of their own, a place on the earth that they could call theirs. Dreamed of a paradise. Don't we all? And I dare say that from the time when Moses came and began to preach to them his gospel, even though some of them, by the bitterness of their experiences, refused to believe it in the daylight hours. Yet at night, I suspect the gospel message that Moses brought got all mixed up with their dreams, and perhaps they dreamed they were free, and for a while it was a comfort to them. Comfort that nonetheless dissolved as the gray light of morning dissipated their dreams, and they woke to face stern realities once more. Some of us dream. When life becomes more than usually unsatisfactory. When we feel that our own lives are perhaps disordered and unsatisfying, we too dream. Sometimes in daylight hours we indulge a little bit of wishful thinking. We imagine ourselves in a better house, in a better job, and God forbid, with a better wife and with more obedient children and easier circumstances. We kind of dream that we will be better husbands and better fathers and better scholars and better workmen. And we comfort ourselves and cushion ourselves against the realities sometimes by giving free play to our imaginations and build our moral and spiritual and sometimes material castles in the future. It is not a bad thing to be content with the present and let the imagination roam a little bit as to what could be, but this much is certain, that dream as they might, none of the Israelites would ever have come to anything better than what Egypt gave them. Not one of the Israelites would ever have set foot in that land flowing with milk and honey and known of reality the blessings that God held out to them, had they not been prepared to do more than dream. Had they not been prepared to take themselves securely by their shoulders and shake themselves, and determined to come to decision and to make up their minds, and actually to obey God and keep the Passover that he provided. And tonight we are going to think together of that great decision that the Israelite nation took in Egypt, that decision that stood at the beginning of their pilgrimage journey, that decision with which there would have never have been a journey, that decision without which there would never have been a journey, and therefore there would never have been an arriving in the Promised Land. Decision to quit Israel, to quit Egypt, and to stretch out for the Promised Land. In that one major decision to keep the Passover as God ordained it, we shall discover that there were other decisions implied. And in them all, the greater and the less, we shall find practical examples for ourselves. There is indeed an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven. And it is no dre- daydream. It is as real as God himself is real. But we shall never reach it by daydreaming. We shall never reach it simply by feeling discontent with life as we know it. If we would reach that glorious inheritance, we must start out on the journey, on the pilgrimage that leads thither. And we shall not set out on that journey unless we too take, definitely and deliberately take, that prime decision that lies at the beginning of the journey, that is the decision that t- puts our feet upon the path. In Israel's day, we are told that God commanded them then to keep the Passover, that Passover, the beginning of their pilgrimage. We have just read from the New Testament that Christ performs for us precisely what that Passover performed for the Israelites, only at a higher level. For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. We are redeemed not with corruptible things as silver and gold. We are indeed redeemed from our empty way of life received by tradition from our fathers. We are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. We shall find then many a practical lesson staring us in the face, quite obvious for our learning, as we consider together this great decision that the Israelites took. And the first thing that they would have to decide if they were to keep the Passover as God commanded them was this: they had to come to agree with God and with Moses that Egypt stood under the wrath of God. They had to agree that Egypt stood now under the wrath of God. Of course, Egypt for a long time had been an uncomfortable place, there was no denying that. And I suspect the Israelites grushed and grumbled and complained and said hard words about their taskmasters, as sometimes we say hard words about our income tax inspectors. Israel would have agreed with you, every man and woman in the nation would have agreed with you. That Egypt wasn't right, it wasn't all that you could wish, it left a lot of room for improvement, but all those grouses and grumblings would never have got them out of Israel, out of Egypt. The thing that first set their feet upon the path that would leave Egypt forever and set them on the road to their inheritance was their decision that Moses' word was true. Egypt stood under the sentence of God's wrath, and therefore something radical was to be done about Egypt. There was now no question of seeing what movements they could start for the improvement of Egypt, for the making of the manacles and the cuff, the the the handcuffs more comfortable than they had been hitherto, for lightening their working hours, for making the taskmasters more tender-hearted. None of those measures now would suffice, and all of them together might have left them simply in Egypt where they started. Something more radical had to be decided, that Egypt was not only wrong and uncomfortable, it stood now under the sentence of the wrath of God. There was nothing for it, but that they must come out of Egypt and leave it behind, or else suffer under the wrath of God themselves. They must stand clear. The prince of Egypt had defied God. Now God was to proceed in his wrath to deal with the prince of Egypt and all who remained under his dominion. Similarly, is it true of us? And we shall be asked by the New Testament apostles to come precisely to that same decision. That this world, using now that term in the biblical sense, this world and its prince stand likewise under the sentence of the wrath and judgment of God. You will remember that our blessed Lord Jesus, in those hours before he proceeded to Calvary, spoke thus, now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out. The cross of Christ is the eloquent speaking of the sentence of God. God's judgment sentence has gone forth upon this world and its friends. In consequence, we must face the radical decision upon whose side shall we stand? Shall we continue to stand where we were born, members of this world subject to its prince, or recognizing that that prince and his world system are under God's wrath, shall we decide to stand clear and to quit? There can be no middle path. On times, of course, that is more evident and easily to be seen than at others. But you will remember that this was the message that Peter, on the day of Pentecost, preached to his fellow Jews. He pointed out to them that in the crucifixion of Christ, they had crucified God's Son and Israel's Messiah. No greater challenge to the authority of God could have been issued than deliberately to take his son, his Messiah, and nail him to a cross. If ever the gauntlet was flung down before Almighty God by Satan and his world, 'twas when the princes of this world, Pilate and Herod and the Jews, inspired of Satan, cast out God's son. On that day of Pentecost, we are told that the Holy Spirit came down from heaven in all his plenitude to witness to men that men had made a ghastly mistake in crucifying God's own son. Many in that nation were pricked in the heart, we read. As convicted by God's Holy Spirit, they came to see the enormity of their crime. And they came running around Peter, and they said, please tell us, what shall we do? What shall we do? Our nation has murdered God's son, has defied God. And Peter said, what will you do? Why, you will be baptized, that's what you'll do. And you will be baptized in the name of Jesus unto remission of sins. Some evangelicals, with their theories of how a man is saved, have under their breath whispered their tut tut to such theology spoken by Peter. They have said that surely Peter didn't mean that, did he? What did he say just now? Be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus unto remission of sins. No, he couldn't have meant that. He simply meant believe in the name of the Lord Jesus. But he didn't say so, not to these Jews. For these were the men whose hands were reddened with the blood of Christ and the guilt of his murder. Here were men who, some days before, had stood in that city and publicly had said, his blood be on us and on our children. We take personal responsibility for the murder of Jesus of Nazareth. Now they said they repented. Very good, says Peter. You publicly denied him, and you say you've changed your mind? Very good if you have really changed your mind, you will as publicly confess you have changed your mind. You publicly denied him, you will publicly confess him. What do you suppose Saint Peter would have said had some Jew or other come along to him and said, Peter, just a word with you in private, if you wouldn't mind. I wouldn't like to be seen talking to you too publicly because, you know, I'm well connected in this city. You know, Peter, I'm really convinced in my heart of hearts that, uh, yes, uh, Jesus is the Messiah, and I'm sorry for what we did. I'm sorry that I shouted so loudly on that fateful day and called down the sentence of death upon him. Look, Peter, I've really changed my mind, but you, you'll understand, won't you, that I couldn't possibly get baptized, not me holding the position I do in this city, you see. It would be a terrible embarrassment. Now, I, I have changed in my heart, Peter. But you see, being a member of the council, I couldn't possibly get baptized publicly. And what do you suppose Saint Peter would have said? We're not left to suppose. When they came around him saying, what shall we do? He said, this is what you will do. You will separate yourself from this untoward generation. That's what you'll do. You cannot continue to stand with the murderers of Christ and say you've repented of his murder. God won't listen to you. Like John the Baptist before him, Peter demanded a thoroughgoing, radical repentance, and a repentance that was not a repentance merely of word only, but a repentance that gave evidence that it was genuine, by issuing in works. You say then you have repented of the murder of Jesus Christ, God's son. You will publicly confess it. You will be baptized in the name of Jesus. You will save yourself from that untoward generation. You will stand clear of the murderers of Christ, and you will come and stand with the people of God. And thus says our New Testament, and it remains obligatory upon us all. We live in a world stained by the murder of God's son, murder engineered by the prince of this world and by men who, with eyes open or with eyes blinded, prove to be the tools of that dastardly deed. We make our first step on the Christian pathway when we come to see that the world now stands under the declared sentence of the wrath of God, and we repent, and we stand clear. We stand with God and his people. Oh God, help us not to compromise. To suppose we can hunt with the hounds and run with the hare simultaneously. But then they had to come to a ne- another decision. Let us ponder decision number two. They had to come to this, for them, even more solemn decision, that if the Egyptian system stood under the sentence of the wrath of God, then every Israelite likewise stood under the wrath of God as well. You may perceive that is so because, when the destroying angel was about to stalk through the land of Egypt, then the, the Israelites were told that if they would be saved from that judgment of God, they must slay the Passover lamb and sprinkle its blood upon their doors and shelter behind that blood. That was no empty ceremony. It was p- commanded because it was so necessary without that shedding of blood. Were they found not sheltering behind that blood-stained door? And Israel must have perished under the sword of the angel of justice, equally as the Egyptian firstborn. This then is the decision they made that night when they decided to take that Passover. This is the decision that started them on the great pilgrimage home to Canaan. That they too, as fallen and guilty men and women, stood under the sentence of God's judgment, deserving of his punishment. We too must come there. We shall not be content, shall we, with dishing out criticisms to the right or to the left. Can you see the capitalists are wrong, and you say so? Can you see that the left wing are wrong, and you say so? Can you see that Mrs. Smith is wrong and Mr. Brown as well? Yes, and you may be right. But merely thus dishing out our criticisms to right and left will not of itself set our feet upon the pathway that shall lead to the bright inheritance. We shall not start even, till in the presence of God we have now forgotten all others and our criticisms of them, and have faced ourselves. We stand as unregenerate men and women under the wrath of God. It is so easy not to see this, isn't it? Many a man and woman would honestly confess, well, I'm not the person I ought to be. As a mother, I get irritable. As a father, sometimes I'm hard and cruel. As a businessman, I haven't always played fair. It's a difficult world, you know, and I'm not really what I should be. Come, that's not radical enough. Many of us imagine that our way to bliss would be this, that we are here and there infected with a bad habit, with a little corrupt bit of sin, maybe. But we think it not too desperately bad. Suppose only, like an apple with a speck in it, we could get the speck removed, then wouldn't the rest of the apple be very pleasant? And we set about improving ourselves, laboring to get rid of that nasty little corrupt spot in the apple that so disfigures its otherwise rosy countenance. And we labor at it, imagining that if we could get rid of the speck, we should have arrived at a millennial peace and bliss. It doesn't happen that way. We shall need to face ourselves far more seriously and radically. As fallen men and women, members of a fallen race, we stand under the declared sentence of the wrath of God. Here the apostles sum up God's charge. We know, says he, that whatsoever the law things the law says, it says to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world be brought under, guilty, subject to the wrath of God. Thus must we come. How difficult it is, is it not, to come there? I do remember, at one stage, having a conversation with an intelligent and very sincere religious young lady, who was of the opinion much held by many that the way to God's heaven is by doing the very best we can to keep God's holy law and thus improve ourselves. And she was keen, sincerely keen, to prove to me that my doctrine of salvation was wrong and hers was right. My doctrine of salvation was this, that a man is saved, is justified by the grace of God without works. And I had often quoted her Holy Scripture to that effect. By grace are you saved through faith, and not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast. And she came back at me finally saying, but you know, it must be by works, because the Bible says, doesn't it, that now is the axe laid to the tree, and every tree that doesn't bring forth good fruit shall be hewn down. There, said she triumphantly. You'll see. You're going to be judged by your fruit, my good man, and it will all depend on how good your works are, whether in the end God accepts you or no. I said what you would have said, I hope. I said, my dear good woman. You don't suppose I'm going to wait, do you, till the final judgment to know what God thinks of my tree and its fruit? I know that already. She looked perplexed. I said, and you know it already too, if only you would think, madam, just a moment. You know what God thinks of my tree and its fruit. I said, you will remember, will you not, that Holy Scripture tells us that when Christ our Lord died upon the cross, he was made a curse for us. Tell me, I said, when the curse of God's law came upon Christ, was that God's verdict upon Christ's own personal life? I said, you know it wasn't. Surely you know it wasn't. His life was sinless, but then he was made a curse. It was the verdict of God upon somebody's life, if not upon Christ's life personally, on whose life? I said, you know right well, my good woman, it was God's verdict on my life. If righteousness could have come by the law, then Christ need not have died. The fact he died cursed under the curse of God's holy law is God's plain verdict, easy to be read upon my life. And I said, my woman, I've long since acknowledged that and confessed it. This is some, not some lurid exaggeration upon God's part. It is God's sober assessment of my life, the true sentence of his law, that I have broken that law and merited its curse. I have accepted that. I said, I tell you what, that when I accepted it and acknowledged myself a sinner under the curse of God's broken law and meriting his wrath. I found the Savior directly by my side, willing to take that curse for me and bear it in my place, and I have trusted him. And I go free and bore the curse that the blessing of God might come upon me, a Gentile. They are my grounds and hopes of salvation. And the dear woman thought a moment. Know you what she said next? No, she said, no. I will never say it. I was baptized as an infant, and never have I done since that day, anything worthy of God's curse. Very good. Very good, I said, my dear good woman. I'm sorry indeed to hear you say so, but what you are now saying is that you have no need of Christ. Christ avails you nothing. Oh come, if we would set our feet on that path that leads at length to God's glorious inheritance, we shall have to face ourselves and this solemn fact that as sinful men and women, we stand under sentence of the wrath of God. Oh, if only we do. Then forthwith and immediately will God's Holy Spirit show us what God has provided that we need not perish, that we may be saved from the wrath of God. That glorious provision of our Passover Lamb, even Jesus Christ himself. So it came about that Israel then had to take another decision. They had to come to decide that the provision that Moses described to them was indeed the provision of God to save them from the wrath of the destroying angel. Maybe you think that is easy, because to you Moses is a time-honored figure. You have read of him in the Bible. But pray consider what he was to them. There wasn't any Bible then, as far as we know, and here was Moses come from out of the desert somewhere. And he was saying that he had come from God, but they had never seen God. Then he said there was going to come this judgment. Well, it did seem perhaps as though he had some special powers. He had done signs and wonders and miracles among them. Yes, but now this was something fundamental. That's all right for Moses there to stand and strike his rod, and a few lice appear now and again. But this was something fundamental going down to the very heart and to their estimate of themselves. Here was this Moses saying that they were such sinners that they must perish under the wrath of God, and the wrath of God was coming, and that the way of escape was this. Should they believe him? Nothing like it was heard before. Must they take his word for it? And if they took his word for it, could they be sure it was true? Why, if there was any truth in the first part that the destroying angel was about to come, they needed to be ten times as sure that thus this provision of a lamb was indeed God's provision. And similarly, we. We could not decide a greater question as far as ourselves are concerned, could we? If there be a wrath of God against sin, then we are sinners. And conscience and moral judgment unite with the witness of the prophets, with the witness of the apostles, with the witness of Jesus Christ himself, that we are sinners and God is holy. Ah, but how shall I know? How shall I know this great Passover lamb proclaimed by the New Testament is indeed the provision of God? How can I be sure of it? To answer that question would take us beyond the bounds of our limited time here this evening. The New Testament indeed brims over with evidence of all kinds and sorts that Jesus is indeed God's son and the appointed lamb. I have time merely to ask you to come and stand again around the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord in company with the fourth evangelist. To watch finally the spear put through his side, to see the blood and water come forth, and to observe how that no bone of him was broken. As he writes his message and gives us his description of that great event, the writer is exceedingly conscious of the importance of what he describes. He that saw it bear record, he says, and his record is true. And God knows that he says true. He is aware that you'll want to question him. He is aware that as you love your soul and you have an eternity to stake upon something, that nothing less than utter truth will suffice you. I saw it, he said, and I burn record, and as I search my conscience, I know I speak the truth, and I appeal to God. God knows I speak true. But when they pierced his side, there came forth blood and water. For this is he that came by water and by blood. Not by water only, but by the wa- blood and the water. He came that way, didn't he? Not merely he went that way, he came that way. And if you will have it and turn to the first chapter of that same gospel by John, you will hear in what manner our Lord Jesus came officially and publicly into this world. At the age of thirty, he stepped onto the stage of public history. There was John the Baptist, his forerunner, to proclaim him, and he proclaimed him how? As a great moral reformer come with new political ideals to set the people free from the oppression of men. Indeed not. He proclaimed him thus, behold, said he, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. That's how he came. The one man in all history who, coming into our world, had it announced that his major purpose for coming was that he came to die for the sins of the world. It wasn't that he was crucified when his preaching of morality got him in disfavor with the Jews, and then his apostles made up some story that he was a sacrifice, a scapegoat. It was that when he came, he came announcing it, and many a time did even his closest apostles hear him speak, and they were bewildered and and confounded and didn't understand it. He came saying he had come to die. What do you think of this Jesus Christ? Have you made up your mind? This is at least true. You'll never have to make it up many times because there isn't anyone in competition with him here. Oh, there have come many prophets and leaders of religion. They come by the score, I fancy, and of them there are one or two that are reputable in the sense that they have offered us very si- serious systems of morality, and they come alongside me and adjure me and lecture me and hector me and preach to me and cajole me and exhort me, and they say, Gooding, be good man. As if I could. You seem not to know the trouble that torments me. It is this, I haven't been good. And if there's a God who cares for righteousness, I am a sinner and I am lost, and I stand under his wrath. What use telling me to be good? I pass them all by, not because I despise their moral systems. They are helpful in their way. They have no answer to my need. I find the one man in all history that ever began to put his finger on my need as a sinner guilty before God. He came, he said, the Lamb of God, to bear away the sin of the world. He came that way, and true to that prophecy, at length he hung upon a cross. And his devoted disciple said those words I earlier repeated. Soldier with a spear pierced his side and forthwith there came blood and water. I saw it, says he. God knows I'm telling you the truth as to the fact. Ponder it a moment. How it was that his side came to be pierced with a spear. And what is more, how none of his bones were broken. Because, you see, it is an interesting thing that in this ceremony of the Passover, it was laid down that no bone of the Passover sacrifice should be broken. And John the Evangelist records for us that the Romans came to break his legs. And then, curiously, they changed their mind. Nor was it the only thing that day over which the Romans changed their minds. Let me recall them to your memory. When our Lord had been sentenced to death and they had nailed him to a tree, we read how that the high priests came to Pilate and they said, look what you've gone and written over that cross. Stupid man that you are, you've gone and written upon his cross, this is Jesus, the king of the Jews. Now please, Pilate. Change that do. Change it to this, he said he was the king of the Jews. Change it. Don't go and tell the world he is the king of the Jews. I saw it, says he. God knows I'm telling you the truth as to the fact. Ponder it a moment. How it was that his side came to be pierced with a spear. And what is more, how none of his bones were broken. Because, you see, it is an interesting thing that in this ceremony of the Passover, it was laid down that no bone of the Passover sacrifice should be broken. And John the Evangelist records for us that the Romans came to break his legs. And then, curiously, they changed their minds. Nor that the only thing that day over which the Romans changed their minds, let me recall them to your memory. When our Lord had been sentenced to death and they had nailed him to a tree, we read how that the high priests came to Pilate, and they said, look what you've gone and written over that cross. Stupid man that you are, you've gone and written upon his cross, this is Jesus, the king of the Jews. Now please, Pilate, change that do. Change it to this, he said he was the king of the Jews. Change it. Don't go and tell the world he is the king of the Jews. Put there that he merely said he was. But Pilate had enough of these Jews. They twisted his arm and they threatened him with blackmail. They said, we have no king but Caesar, and Pilate was tired of them. Said he, looking them straight in the face, what I have written, I have written. I change it for nobody. And the writing of Pilate went unchanged that day. And then the soldiers who crucified him, they took his garments, and they divided them in four parts, and his cloak as well. Can you see them? Those humble, honest, I suppose, a little bit crude men. They parted his garments and his coat as well. And in his vivid way, John pictures them with the thing already in their hands, and you, you watch them going to tear it, to divide it into four parts because it was expensive material. And then they didn't. And they changed their mind. What made them change their mind? Ah, says John, I will explain it to you. A writing said, a scripture, a writing said that they shouldn't rent that. They should cast lots. And I say, John, but what did those ignorant Roman soldiers know about that Old Testament writing, written some hundreds of years before? What did they know about it? They knew nothing about it. Now come see. He who dies on that center cross is the one who had it penned. This is God incarnate, come as a sacrifice for men's sin, and ages ago he had it written through his inspired psalmies. That they should cast lots, not rend that particular part of his raiment. Though nailed hand and foot to a cross that day, he made those Romans change their minds, that his writing be fulfilled. As he suffered there in his agony, fulfilling scripture after scripture as had been prophesied, he came to the point where every scripture, every writing had now been fulfilled that the Old Testament had predicted, save one. That one writing said that in his thirst they should give him vinegar to drink. There they were, ignorant soldiers around the cross, and hostile Jews that would have done nothing for him. But he simply said, I thirst, and I ran. And they took a sponge and they filled it with vinegar. And he had that second writing. And now he was dead. And the Jews, alive and on two feet, hadn't been able to get Pilate to change his writing. Jesus our Lord was dead, his head bowed on a cross, and the soldiers came from Pilate at the suggestion of the Jews, and they came with their great mallets to break his legs. And they break the legs of the first that was crucified, and they break the legs of the second that was crucified, and they came to Jesus, and the man got his hammer up to swipe his legs. And he stopped. Go on, we say, man, break his legs. The governor has ordered you to break his legs. But he lay his mallet down, and he didn't break his legs. Why not? He himself knew not why, save that he was dead already. But he had another thought, and taking his spear, he plunged it through his side. As John, you will remember, way back in Exodus chapter twelve, when God instituted the Passover as a prototype, that men by its help might see God's provision is indeed God's prophesied and ordained provision. God had said they should not break a bone of that Passover sacrifice. There was a writing to that effect. Christ made the soldier change his mind, and they break not his legs. The soldier had an idea and lifted his spear. Yes, of course he did. For another scripture, another writing had said, they shall look on me, whom they pierced. To John it was given that tremendous privilege to stand by when that great deed was done. With a mind filled with those ancient promises and prophecies, the signposts in the map of God. He says, I saw it happen in front of my very eyes. I tell you, I'm speaking the truth that you may believe. Forthwith, there came forth blood and water. Oh, marvelous, this is he that came by water and blood. How shall I know he is God's son? How shall I know this is God's provision? As a man knows bread is good because it feeds him. I, a man under the wrath of God and guilty before God, find one and one only who ever had any gospel to preach to me. Something that will take away my sin. Oh, what shall wash away my stain? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What shall make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And I too say with top lady, and I hope you say it too, let that water and the blood from thy riven side which flowed be of sin the double cure. Save me from its guilt and And power. power. Oh, consider how safe they were when they came to trust God's word on that fateful night in Egypt. The sacrifice slain, its blood put upon lintel and doorpost, and they sheltered behind that blood. Ah, more than that. Said God, when I see that blood, I will myself pass over them. Like a mother bird hovers over her nest and passes over the chicks when she sees the bird of prey coming to seize them. Oh, God that night passed over those doors. Twixt the destroying angel of his judgment and they who had trusted him and his sacrifice, the very person of God, was interposed. Our friend, whether could you else fly for safety and refuge? But standing there, you may be utterly unafraid, hiding in Christ, with God himself interposed forever between you and judgment. They had to take another decision, did they not? They had to decide to obey God's word, not in part, but in whole. Not merely to slay that sacrifice and shelter be- behind its blood, but to eat the sacrifice. And to eat it not raw, but roast. And not only to eat it roast, but to eat it with their shoes on their feet and their loins girded and their staff in their hand. Thus had they to eat it. It tells me in a word that they were now to be identified with that Passover lamb, not merely sheltering behind its blood, but identified with its very body. And our blessed Lord used words that have shocked many, not only his own contemporaries, by their vividness. Metaphorical they are indeed, I know that. But said he to his, uh, Jewish compatriots on the occasion when a Passover was near, he said, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. It was a shocking metaphor to use to Jews, but how else would you have got it across to them that this matter of salvation is not merely giving intellectual assent to a theological proposition. It is a receiving of a person, even the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not now literally, of course, as the Jews ate the literal flesh of that ancient lamb. Our Lord makes it abundantly clear, for in that same context he goes on to say, it is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. And were it possible for any man or woman to eat nowadays the literal body of Jesus Christ, it would do him no good. We have our Lord's own words for it. The flesh profiteth nothing. It is the spirit that quickeneth. Yet nonetheless, for that, that vivid metaphor is needful to stir up my understanding. I say again, it is not a matter of consenting to some proposition, it is a matter of receiving Christ. So he becomes part of me. I'm joined to him, and he is in me. Thus to be my savior. Eat not of it, uh, raw, but roast. Why, if I come for salvation from the wrath of God, it is not the life of Jesus before his death that shall save me. It is the savior who died that meets my need. No use you're exhorting me to follow Jesus as an example, until you have first pointed me to him as a sacrifice offered and received and accepted of God for my sin. Identified with him. Eat not of it just anyhow. Eat it with your shoes on, your loins girded, your staff in your hand. Why so? Why it's the Lord's Passover? Because, my dear man, tonight two things are happening, and you cannot separate the one from the other. Tonight, all who would be saved from the wrath of the, of God must eat that Passover lamb, and all who eat it must go forth and depart. Then put your shoes on, put your staff in hand, gird up the loins, and be ready to move for the very night you begin the journey towards the inheritance. Shall we get that clear in our minds, that those two parts of the scheme were inextricably linked together? There was no gospel that said the main thing was to escape the wrath of God. Imagine the unlikelihood, if you can, the impossibility, if you will, of Moses coming to preach such a gospel. Now look, my, my fellow Israelites, you know, the main thing is to get, uh, yourself saved from the wrath of God. Then, in addition, if you could care, if you would be interested, there is a, a further course, you know, for advanced people that might be interested. Once out of Egypt, you could consider taking it, perhaps. Uh, the second course is that you leave Egypt behind and you begin the journey to the Promised Land. Of course, if you're not interested in that, well, all right, but the main thing, of course, is to, is to escape from the wrath of God in Egypt. No, indeed not. Moses didn't preach that for the good reason there is no such gospel. There never was, there never is. The gospel is one thing that God has come down to deliver them and to bring them into that land flowing with milk and honey, and between it lies a journey. If you take the one bit, you take the other. There is no having the one without the other. The very moment I take Christ to sacrifice for my sin, that moment I declare that I leave my Egypt and I begin my journey. And thus Peter spoke, did he not, to the believers of his day, exhorting them to see the implications of being redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. He says, I beseech you, my dear brethren, gird up the loins of your mind. Take your jacket off and do some thoroughgoing thinking for once, and logically work out what are the implications of trusting Christ as your great Passover Lamb. For you have a journey before you, and all who are redeemed must start that journey. Thus our Lord preached, did he not, to his contemporaries, and John chapter six tells us about it. It reminds us that when our Lord Jesus had talked to them at Passover time, it was, about their need to eat his flesh and drink his blood. It tells us how some of the Jews were offended in him. And they said, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? This is plain nonsense. It is gruesome. It is objectionable, they said. As well as being nonsense. Said our Lord then, if you find that nonsense and you find that difficult, what if you should see the Son of Man ascend up where he were- was? You know the flesh profiteth nothing, it is the Spirit that quickeneth. Gentlemen, let me remind you what this Passover business is all about. Your fathers, they ate the Passover. They ate it with shoes on foot and girt their loins and staff in hand. Why? Because they believed that to eat the Passover was to set forward on a journey that should take them to another land. That's history, gentlemen. Facing you is the ultimate decision of the significance of life on this planet. I'm telling you that I came down from heaven, said Christ. There is another world, I came from it, and I have come onto your temporary planet to redeem you from the wrath of God, to set you free from the bondage to sin. And I'm going. Going back where I was before. Are you not coming? And even as he speaks those words, there opens before us an immense and indescribable thing. Say, is it true? He came not merely to redeem me from my sin and bring me forgiveness. Is it true? This world is not all. There is another realm. He came from it, he said, and has gone back to it now and urges me to follow whither he went. Oh come, what is the way? How long that journey? How uncharted those spaces that lie between our world and that heaven. How big is the gap that lies between me as I now am with all my faults, though I am a pardoned sinner. How big the gap between me now and what I one day hope to be. Long as those journeys may be. Tonight again, I hear him call me. This is his gospel. Deliverance from the bondage that kept me here. Here. I will be ready to start out with him, staff in hand, to that other world. Oh no, said the Jews. No, no, no, no. No, that's nonsense. You know he does, he is an extremist, isn't he? He, he, he, he talks some pretty parables sometimes, and sometimes you think there's something in it, uh, but then you see how extreme he is. No, no, no man should take religion to that length. I mean, we've got the Passover at Jerusalem, haven't we? And don't you think last time Caiaphas intoned it very well? Always thought Annas was good at it. And then let me see now, what show is on at the theatre after the Passover? Yes, I thought so. Look, come, this chap is getting ridiculous with all these notions of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and all this, uh, airy fairy stuff of a world beyond the blue sky. Oh, come on, they said. And from that hour, many of his disciples turned round, walked no more with him. Oh, they ate their Passover, and they had a staff in their hand and shoes on their feet. But it was just a game. It left them as much a part of this world system as ever they had been, and I'm afraid it left them under God's wrath. How about us? Are these things real? Said our Lord Jesus, as he turned to the few that were left. Surely, you're not going away too, are you? And Peter, spokesman for the rest, replied, but Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Holy One of God. God work that blessed certainty in our hearts, for his name's sake. Amen. And so, our blessed God, in response to thy word and to thy love, we sing to thee, and sing the praise of Jesus Christ our Lord and his sacrifice. As surely as tonight we have sung thy praise here, we who have trusted thy son hope and expect and are sure to sing his praise more worthily, along with all the redeemed in heaven. Now, until that glad day comes, help us, we do beseech thee, manfully and deliberately to gird on the sandals on our feet, to gird up the loins of our mind and take our pilgrim staff in hand. Walk deliberately the pathway that leads from here to home above. O God, could it, if it should be that some here before thee have not yet started, for whom these things have been but empty hopes and pious intentions, as yet unfulfilled. Use thy holy word, we beseech thee, to convict them, to move them, tonight may see them as best they know how, determining and making up their mind and taking these great decisions, coming to Christ and receiving him to be saved. Hear us then and bless thy word to this end, through Jesus Christ our Lord.