Keep sharing good news without ads.
Moses: Faith to Trust in the Blood (Hebrews 11:28)
♪ Come see the mournful grave where once a body lay ♪ ♪
Our God in human form by wrath and judgment torn ♪ ♪
But he's no longer here, his death has conquered death ♪ ♪
Our guilt has disappeared and his forgiveness ♪ ♪
Jesus, he has risen, he has risen, he has risen ♪ ♪
Jesus, he's alive, opened the gates of heaven ♪ ♪
His death has brought us life ♪ ♪
Come see what God has done for vile and wicked ones ♪ ♪
The innocent is judged on lovely ones I loved ♪ ♪
Our joy is now complete for death has lost its sting ♪ ♪
And we are called to live life in his victory ♪ ♪
Jesus, he has risen,
Jesus has done enough, our hope cannot be shaken ♪ ♪
Because God raised him up, we cannot be shaken ♪ ♪
He's forsaken, Jesus has done enough ♪ ♪
Our hope cannot be shaken because God raised him up ♪ ♪
Forsaken Jesus, he has risen,
Jesus, he's alive, opened the gates of heaven ♪ ♪ Jesus, he's risen, Jesus, he's alive, opened the gates of heaven ♪ ♪
Holy Spirit, my soul assured, relieve my fears that I no more may doubt the love of Christ for me ♪ ♪
My debt is paid, that I've been made free, oh come murder in me, the tempter speaks, be my faithful guide ♪ ♪
Show your promises for me, secure for the battle, be my heavenly sword ♪ ♪
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, my defiance is all mine, washed in his blood ♪ ♪
With the
Savior's light to dispel my thoughts in the blackest night, in darkest hour do my soul reveal the wounds which all my sorrows healed ♪ ♪
And prayer be praised when beholding Jesus face to face, blessed assurance,
Jesus is mine, salvation, purchase of the
Spirit ♪ ♪ Washed in his blood, this my story, this my song, born of Spirit, washed in blood, this my story, this my song, in my
Savior I belong ♪ ♪ This my story, this my song, born of Spirit, washed in blood, this my story, this my song, in my
Savior I belong ♪ ♪
Washed in his blood, I no longer fear the grave,
Christ has come, took the sting of death away, through his saving blood ♪ ♪
This hope I'll claim, Jesus lives, and so shall
I be, I'll be raised from the dead, I'll be raised from the dead,
Jesus lives, and so shall I be,
I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall
I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead Jesus lives, and so shall
I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall
I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall
I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead,
Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead,
Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead,
Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall
I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised from the dead, Jesus lives, and so shall I be, I'll be raised well good morning and welcome to Kootenai church it looks like everybody got over the sickness from last week so welcome back please stand if you will we're going to sing saved by the blood and praise to the
Son. Saved by the blood of the crucified one.
Saved, saved, my sins are all borne and my guilt is all gone.
Saved, saved, I'm saved by the blood of the crucified one.
Saved by the blood of the crucified one. The angels rejoicing because it is done.
Our child and the Father joined there with the Son. Saved by the blood of the crucified one.
Saved by the blood of the crucified one. The Father, He spake and His will it was done.
Great prize to my part in His own precious Son. Saved by the blood of the crucified one.
Saved by the blood of the crucified one. All hail to the
Spirit, the Great Three in One. Saved by the blood of the crucified one.
Come behold the
Jesus, robed in flesh as God.
Looked to Christ to condescend and took on flesh to ransom us.
Come behold the wondrous mystery in the perfect Son of Man.
In His living, in His suffering, never trace nor stain of sin.
See the true and better Adam come to save the hell -bound man.
Christ the great and sure fulfillment of the law in Him we stand.
Come behold the wondrous mystery,
Christ the Lord upon the tree. In the stead of ruined sinners, came to land in victory.
See the price of our redemption, see the
Father's plan unfold. Bringing many sons to glory, grace unmeasured, love untold.
Come behold the wondrous mystery, slain by death by God of life.
But no grave could ever restrain Him. Praise the
Lord, He is alive. What a foretaste of deliverance, how unwavering our hope.
Christ in power resurrected, as He will be when
He comes. What a foretaste of deliverance, how unwavering our hope.
He comes. Merciful Savior, precious
Redeemer and friend. Who would have thought that a
Lamb could rescue the souls of men?
Oh, you rescue the souls of men.
Counselor, Comforter, Keeper, Spirit we long to embrace.
You offer hope when our hearts have hopelessly lost the way.
Oh, we hopelessly lost the way.
You are the one that we praise.
You are the one we adore. You give the healing and grace our hearts always hunger for.
Oh, our hearts always hunger for.
Almighty Infinite Father, faithfully loving your own.
Here in our weakness you find us, falling before your throne.
Oh, we're falling before your throne.
You are the one that we praise. You are the one we adore.
You give the healing and grace our hearts always hunger for.
We just ask you to bring a salad or dessert, something that goes with that, like we normally would do for our church camp out every year.
And we're going to enjoy a time of fellowship and a meal together after our service next week. And then we have a baptism class coming up on August 14th.
And I think there's information about both of those in your bulletin, so just pay attention to that. And then one last thing, and there's nothing in your bulletin about this, but I just want you to put this on your calendar for later this fall.
We're going to have a Reformation conference the last weekend in October, October 28th and 29th.
That's a Friday and a Saturday, so it'll be a Friday evening and an all -day Saturday event, kind of like we did with Justin when he did his
Clouds Without Water seminar here back in January. This will be a free conference, and we're just going to take up an offering to cover the cost of some of the food that we have for lunch that day.
And our speaker is Don Kistler. Don Kistler runs Solo Deo Gloria Publications.
He has a ministry of republishing all of the old Puritan writings that have fallen out of print.
And so Don republishes those, and his brother Dan Kistler attends here, as well as Dan's wife,
Bernice. So Don is going to come and talk to us about the Puritans and the Reformation, why the Reformation was necessary, and the role of Reformation theology in the lives of the
Puritans and what the Puritans believed and what makes them significant. So mark that on your calendar,
October 28th and 29th. And we'll have a registration page up on the website.
This right now is the first that Josh is hearing about it, so we'll have a registration page up on the website soon.
This afternoon he'll have it up. I'll let you know when that's available for you to register so we know who is coming. Psalm 16.
I'm going to read together this entire psalm. I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my supplications.
Because he has inclined his ear to me. Therefore I shall call upon him as long as I live. The cords of death encompassed me and the terrors of Sheol came upon me.
I found distress and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the Lord. O Lord, I beseech you, save my life.
Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Yes, our God is compassionate. The Lord preserves the simple.
I was brought low and he saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
For you have rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before the
Lord in the land of the living. I believed when I said, I am greatly afflicted. I said in my alarm, all men are liars.
What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the
Lord. I shall pay my vows to the Lord. O may it be in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his godly ones. O Lord, surely I am your servant. I am your servant, the son of your handmaid.
You have loosed my bonds. To you I shall offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the
Lord. I shall pay my vows to the Lord. O may it be in the presence of all his people. In the courts of the
Lord's house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord. You stand with me as we pray. Let's bow our heads.
Our gracious God, we are thankful for your great mercy to us. Abundant as it is in Christ. Though our sins were great, your mercy is even greater.
Your loving kindness toward those who are yours, to whom you have shown compassion and mercy, is infinite and beyond measure.
We thank you for it. We thank you that we can trust in it and rejoice in it. And that you, by your grace, have lifted us up out of the mire and the pit of sin.
And have redeemed us for yourself. That we may give to you eternal praise and glory and honor. We begin in this life, even by worshiping you here this morning.
We pray for your blessing upon our worship. For you to energize our hearts, to serve you, to be inclined toward you.
That you would open our eyes, that you would open our hearts. And that out of us may flow freely worship and praise to you, our great and blessed triune
God. Thank you, Father, for choosing us. Thank you, O Lord Jesus, for dying in our stead. And thank you,
Holy Spirit, for applying the work of the Son to our behalf, to us. And regenerating us so that we may know the fullness of grace and of glory and of joy in Christ.
In his name we pray. O wash me in his precious blood.
Mine Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. Your gift of love they crucified.
They laughed and scorned him as he died. The humble king they named of God.
And sacrificed the Lamb of God. O Lamb of God, sweet little
God. I love the holy Lamb of God.
O wash me in his precious blood. Mine Jesus Christ, the
Lamb of God. So once I should have died.
But you have brought me to your side. To be led by your staff and God.
And to be called the Lamb of God. O Lamb of God, sweet Lamb of God.
I love the holy Lamb of God. O wash me in his precious blood.
Till I am just the Lamb of God. O wash me in his precious blood.
Till I am just the Lamb of God. In Romans 5 verses 6 to 9 it says,
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.
But God demonstrates his own love toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.
O to see the dawn of the darkness day.
Christ on the road to Calvary, beaten there to a cross of blood.
This the power of the cross.
Christ became sin for us.
Took the blame for the wrath we stand forgiven at the cross.
O to see the pain written on your face, bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Every bitter thought, every evil deed, grounding your bloodstained brow.
Now the daylight flees. Now the ground beneath quakes as its maker bows his head.
Curtain torn in two. Dead are raised to life.
Finish the victory cry.
O to see my name written in the wounds, for through your suffering
I am free. Death is crushed to death.
Life is mine to live. One through yourself there's love.
Son of God, slain for us.
What a love. What a cost we stand forgiven at the cross.
And now please turn to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11.
I'm going to start reading at verse 23. Read from verse 23 through verse 29.
By faith Moses when he was born, ...months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king's edict.
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who was unseen. By faith he kept the
Passover and the sprinkling of the blood so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them.
By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land, and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned.
Let's pray together. Our gracious God, we ask your blessing upon your word this morning, both the hearing of it, the preaching of it, and our reception of it.
We pray that as we place ourselves under your word that you would encourage us and edify us and equip us, train us in your word, that we may be righteous, and that you would unite our hearts in affection to you for what you have done for us in Christ, and that you would unite our hearts in affection and love and unity with one another, because we share this same sacrifice and this same blood.
We pray your blessing on this time to the end that we who are yours by your grace in Christ may give to you hearts of obedience and loving affection.
In Christ's name. Amen. The Old Testament contains numerous examples of God judging nations.
God's judgments are always righteous and they are always well -deserved. God judged the nations that occupied the land of Canaan, for instance, and he used the
Israelites to execute that judgment on multiple nations that were rebellious and idolatrous, immoral and wicked to a degree that is almost unimaginable.
God used Israel as an instrument of judgment sometimes, and then he turned around and turned the scope of his judgment against Israel at other times.
So, at some points in Israel's history, they were an instrument of judgment upon other nations, and at other points in Israel's history, they were the recipients of God's judgment at the hand of other nations.
And that was true not just for Israel, that was true for a number of Old Testament nations, Babylon, Nineveh, the
Medes, the Persians, the Edomites, the Midianites, all of them, at times, were used as instruments of God's judgment as well as they received
God's judgment. But of all the judgments of the Old Testament, the judgment of judgments that far surpasses all other judgments, in fact, the judgment that rings throughout the ages is
God's judgment upon the nation of Egypt when he delivered the children of Israel out of their bondage and their slavery under the leadership of Moses.
That judgment upon Egypt demonstrated God's power and His sovereignty. Those judgments showed that Yahweh is not like any of the other gods, that Yahweh is a lone
God, and He is God above all other gods, and that there is no God of the nations that is like Him.
He demonstrated His sovereignty and His mercy, and throughout the Old Testament, in many instances, there were judgments that were cataclysmic.
The flood, for instance, was a cataclysmic judgment, but it was not targeted at any one nation. It just wiped out all except for Noah and his family that were on the ark.
Then there were judgments that were cataclysmic in nature like Sodom and Gomorrah that destroyed the entire civilization, the entire city, and wiped them out.
But those judgments, though they were targeted, were not protracted. Egypt's judgment was unique in that it was targeted toward one nation.
It was protracted over a series of perhaps several months, and it was utterly cataclysmic in that it destroyed the entire economy, the agriculture, the political structure, and everything of the nation of Egypt.
The plagues on Egypt demonstrated God's sovereignty over His creation because He controlled elements like water and hail and light.
It demonstrated His sovereignty over creatures as He controlled frogs and gnats and locusts and flies, and it demonstrated
His sovereignty over individual health as people were struck with boils and cattle and livestock died.
And then in the final plague, that tenth plague, that penultimate plague, the death of the firstborn,
God demonstrated that He is the giver and the taker of life when He killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, showing that He is the sovereign over the life of men.
Those judgments upon Egypt also demonstrated that God's mercy and His protection are towards those who are
His, who belong to Him. God distinguished between the children of Israel and the people of Egypt by making sure that all of those plagues came upon, those judgments came upon the
Egyptians, and none of them ever touched the Israelites. And thus God made a distinction between those who were His and those who were not
His. And the judgments showed that all of Egypt's idols were powerless and that they were mute. Each plague that God unleashed upon the
Egyptians was intended to mock and hold up to scorn and ridicule one of the Egyptian gods.
So for instance, when God turned the water into blood in the Nile River, it demonstrated that the god of the
Nile, Api, was powerless to stop that judgment. The very deities that the
Egyptians trusted in to protect them from things like this, plagues, God gave those plagues specifically aimed against the gods of Egypt so as to show
His judgment upon their idolatry and the impotence of all of those gods to deliver them or to protect them.
Heket, the Egyptian goddess of birth, had a frog's head, so the plague of frogs was demonstrated as an attack against that god to show that that god that they worshipped that had a frog's head was unable to deliver them from the plague of the frogs.
They worshipped a goddess with a cow's head named Hathor, and the death of the livestock mocked that idol.
They had a sun god, so God struck them with darkness. They had a goddess who allegedly protected their crops, and so God sent locusts to eat up and destroy all of their crops.
Do you see the pattern? Do you see what God did? As if He took each one of these gods of Egypt and He just put them out to scorn them and to mock them and to judge them in plain sight as a demonstration that He alone is
God. And God's dealings with Egypt and with Pharaoh also served to show the sovereignty of God over His creatures in terms of Him showing mercy to some and hardening others.
This is a key thing to catch because Paul makes much of this in Romans 9 when he writes this,
What shall we say then? There's no injustice with God, is there? Stop for just a second. You think back upon God's dealings with Moses and Pharaoh, and one might be tempted to say if God is hardening
Pharaoh's heart then there must be some injustice with God. It's unjust for God to harden Pharaoh's heart just to judge him.
So Paul asks the question in Romans 9, Is there injustice with God? May it never be, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.
So then, he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills.
That's the object lesson that Paul draws from that. Does that bug you? That God has mercy on whom he wants, and that he hardens whom he wants?
Do you object to that? Neither Moses nor Pharaoh deserved mercy, neither one of them.
Moses was just as ill deserving of God's mercy as Pharaoh was. He was a son of Adam, born in rebellion, unregenerate at one point, and Moses was just as deserving of God's judgment in terms of his own sinfulness, as Pharaoh was, or as you are, or as I am.
He was just as deserving of that. He didn't deserve that mercy. He didn't deserve that grace. So would you take issue with that, object to God showing mercy to some, and hardening others?
If you would, Paul would say to you, you need to shut your hole and know your role, or here's how
Paul says it, Who are you? Who are you, oh man? To answer back to God.
And our response to that is to shut our mouths and say we can raise no objection against God's justice.
He has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills. Why does God elect some and not others?
Who are you, oh man? To question the ways of God. Pharaoh and Moses are an example that God is sovereign over the giving of His grace, always just in His judgments,
He is righteous altogether, dispensing of His mercy.
And to give mercy to any one individual is grace beyond what we can possibly imagine.
And the fact that He does so to countless millions from every tribe and kindred and tongue on the face of the planet, in drawing them to Him and choosing them and then saving them and paying the price for their redemption, that is a mercy that is beyond our ability to even comprehend.
So we cannot object to God in the dispensing of His mercy. God's judgment of Egypt becomes a parable throughout the entire
Old Testament that echoes all the way into the New Testament as time after time after time
God's deliverance of Israel out of Egypt and God's judgments upon the Egyptians become the story, the object lesson for God demonstrating grace to some and bringing them to salvation and delivering them as He has promised and God judging others who are very worthy of His judgment and His damnation.
And we find that here in Hebrews 11 the climactic act of God's judgment was this tenth and final plague the death of the firstborn that is mentioned and that is behind the mention of Moses' faith in verse 28.
By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them.
Now we've been looking at Moses' faith from verse 23 through 27. It is described in verse 24 through 26 as a faith that refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter and chose a spiritual affiliation with the people of God.
Then Moses by faith left Pharaoh and his wrath we looked at that last week back in Exodus and today we're looking at the act of faith in keeping the
Passover and sprinkling of the blood so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them, verse 28. I want to make a couple of general references to this verse and then we're going to jump back to the book of Exodus to see what is behind this and then
I'll be drawing your attention back to the things that you're seeing here. But keep your Bible open to Hebrews 11 here for just a moment because I want you to notice a couple of things.
This reference to the Passover is something that would have been instantly recognized by every Jewish Christian who read this in the first century.
Who read the book of Hebrews. They would have understood exactly what it is. They were intimately familiar with the Passover. The background of it.
The celebration of it. All the nuances of it. The meaning of it. He doesn't explain that here. He simply mentions it.
It is something that would have been common to their knowledge and to the authors. This example of Moses' faith in verse 28 fits chronologically with him leaving
Egypt in verse 27 of Hebrews 11. Not fearing the wrath of the king. Because the very next thing that is mentioned back in Exodus 11 and 12 is the institution of the
Passover. Notice two key things in verse 21. First, notice there is a distinction between the
Passover and the sprinkling of blood. Both are mentioned. Verse 28, by faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood.
Now if you are mildly familiar with your Old Testament at least, you will recognize that the sprinkling of the blood that he is referring to here was part of the
Passover celebration. So it raises for us the question, why is it that the author distinguishes between these two things?
The sprinkling of blood and the Passover. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood. Couldn't the author just simply have said by faith he kept the
Passover and left it at that? Why does he single out the sprinkling of blood? There is a reason that these two things are distinct in the mind of the author and why he separates them here.
Second, notice the reference in verse 28 to the destroyer. So that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them.
And now we have to ask the question, who is the destroyer? Who is he who destroyed? And these two things we are going to observe as we turn back.
Just to remind you, these two things are separate. Passover and sprinkling of blood. Why are they separated? And then second, who is the destroyer?
Now turn back if you will to Exodus chapter 11. Exodus chapter 11.
A little bit of context. Where we are going to pick it up is after the nine plagues that the Lord smote
Egypt with. The previous one at the end of chapter 10 is the darkness that fell over the land. In all of those plagues between Israel and Egypt, distinguishing between them by preserving his people.
And in all of those instances, all nine of those plagues, Israel didn't have to do anything to be preserved. They just had to exist.
They just stayed in Goshen and the plague didn't strike them. But with the Passover, something is different.
Israel did nothing to be preserved in the previous plagues, but in this tenth plague, Israel would have to do something to be sovereignly separate from the one who would destroy.
This final plague is the death of the firstborn. And this plague would be different than all the other plagues. It's more severe.
It is the ultimate. It is the climax of all of these ten plagues. It is the worst one. It does devastation to Egypt.
And it is the plague that ends up causing Pharaoh and the Egyptians to release Israel from their bondage.
So we pick it up where we left off last week. Not actually in chapter 11 yet, but in verse 27 of chapter 10.
This is what's referred to back in Hebrews 11. 27 says, By faith he left Egypt. But the Lord hardened them, not willing to let them go.
But Pharaoh said to him, Get away from me. Beware. Do not see my face again. For the day that you see my face, you shall die.
Moses said, You're right. I'll never see your face again. And there you see Pharaoh's heart is hardened as an act of God's judgment.
The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. And throughout the passage I mentioned, throughout the previous chapters I mentioned last week, there's references to Pharaoh hardening his own heart that describes his impenitent, incalcitrant disobedience to God's revealed will.
And then there are references to God hardening Pharaoh's heart which describes the act of God judging and pouring out upon Pharaoh the very thing that he wanted.
This is an act of God's judgment that's there in that passage. God hardening Pharaoh's heart. Now listen, apart from divine grace, this is how man responds to the truth every time truth is presented to him.
He hardens his own heart. Apart from divine grace, that is man's response to God. God judges the sin of the rebellious unbeliever by hardening the unbeliever's heart.
So that the unbeliever ends up getting exactly what it is that the unbeliever desires. Namely, an impenitence and an unwillingness to obey that truth.
So the act of God's judgment is something that Pharaoh deserved. Don't get in your mind that this is not something
Pharaoh deserved. If in your mind you think that Pharaoh was out stumbling through his moral darkness, seeking after the one true
God, just wandering around Egypt asking anybody and everybody, can you tell me if there's a God? If he exists and who is he?
I want to worship the one true and only God. That was not Pharaoh. Pharaoh was hard, he was impenitent, he was incalcitrant before Moses ever encountered him before the ten plagues.
And so Pharaoh here is just getting exactly what he deserved. He's not seeking to know God, and his rejection of the truth ends up hardening his own heart.
It results in God judging him and damning him by God hardening his heart. Now I ask you, listener, do any of you here sitting here like Pharaoh?
You sit here week after week, you hear the gracious appeals to turn to Christ for salvation, you hear of God's work in Christ so that your sins may be forgiven, and yet you respond to it week after week by refusing to embrace
God's provision in Christ and refusing to repent of your sin. If that is you,
I'm telling you right now you are doing what Pharaoh did, and that is you are working diligently to harden your own heart so that eventually repentance and penitence will be impossible for you.
And eventually God will stop calling you to repentance. Because every time you are confronted with the truth, you respond in disobedience and rejection, and your own prideful self -will, and your own excuses against the truth, and your own excuses to continue in your sin, and that response to the truth of God only serves to harden your heart even further, and that will happen time after time after time again because the truth of God's word always has one of two effects.
It either softens the heart toward repentance, or it hardens the heart toward damnation and judgment.
And if you sit here week after week hearing all of these gracious offers to trust Christ for salvation, you are working to harden your own heart, and I promise you that God's judgment upon you will be
Him hardening your heart, finally and fully, until the day of His wrath when His wrath pours out upon you and breaks you without mercy on that day.
Your only recourse is to turn in repentance and faith. Heed the example of Pharaoh.
You will find that if you reject truth until your dying day, that you have spent your entire life working hard to accomplish the hardening of your heart, and that God will have given you exactly what it is that you were working so hard for.
And you'll have no one to blame but yourself. You'll find that the hardness of the heart was not only the cause, but also the precursor to God's judgment.
God prepared to judge Pharaoh by hardening his heart. Exodus 11, verse 1. Now the Lord said to Moses, one more plague
I will bring on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out from here completely.
And notice that the Lord knew exactly how many judgments were necessary for Pharaoh. God wasn't sitting in heaven saying, let's try turning water into blood and see how that goes.
That didn't work. Let's try frogs. I wonder how many of these judgments it's going to take before Pharaoh catches on to something is amiss and lets my people go.
That was not God's intention at all. God knew that it would be ten plagues. He knew what each of those plagues would be.
And he knew the outcome of each one of those plagues upon Egypt. And he knew that at the tenth one, Pharaoh would not only let them go, he would drive them out.
He would insist upon their leaving. Now that's quite a change, isn't it? From before, Pharaoh's saying, maybe just go a couple miles out into the wilderness, then come right back.
I'll let you go, or I'm not going to let you go, or I promise to let you go, and then turn him back on that. This is quite a different response.
Not only will Pharaoh let you go, he will ask you to go. He will beg you to go. He will pay you to go. He will drive you out of here.
And he will insist on you going and being gone forever. Do I sound like Kamala Harris yet? You're going to go, and then when you're gone, you're going to go, and you're going to go to go.
The change would be entirely due to this tenth plague. Pharaoh would finally be a completely broken man.
Exodus chapter 11, verse 4. Thus says the Lord, about midnight I'm going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die.
From the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl, who is behind the millstones, all the firstborn of the cattle as well.
Moreover, there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been before, and such as shall never be again.
But against any of the sons of Israel, a dog will not even bark, whether against man or beast, that you may understand how the
Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. All these your servants will come down to me and bow themselves before me, saying,
Go out, you and all the people who follow you, and after that I will go out. And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger.
Now here's the judgment. Chapter 11, verse 9. Then the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that my wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt.
Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, yet the Lord hardened
Pharaoh's heart. There it is again, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of the land. Now here are the instructions for the tenth and final plague.
This one results in their deliverance, and this one would result in a ceremony that the children of Israel were commanded to obey annually, every year, as a reminder of what
God was about to do. Exodus 12, verses 1 through 3. Now this is what's behind Hebrews 11, verse 28.
Exodus 12, 1 through 3. Now the Lord said to Moses in the land of Egypt, This month shall be the beginning of months for you. It is to be the first month of the year to you.
Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month, they are to each one take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers' households, a lamb for each household.
Now notice that the Lord arranges their entire civic calendar around the celebration of this event. In the middle of their lives, the
Lord says, Stop right now. This becomes January 1st for you. You're going to begin a new year with the celebration of this feast.
So that as the new year would begin in Israel, they would be expecting and anticipating this massive celebration.
It was the best way for the Lord to demonstrate to them that this marked a brand new beginning. This is your liberation.
This is you being brought out in fulfillment of all of my promises. So this begins the year for you.
Verse 4. Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them, according to what each man should eat.
You are to divide the lamb. Your lamb shall be an unblemished male, a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.
Now these details are for the annual celebration that would come after this. It's not exactly how it unfolded on that night in Egypt.
Because all of this happens really quickly. There's no four day delay. But in the commemoration of this event afterwards, there would be this delay where they would set aside the lamb on the tenth of the month, keep it apart until the fourteenth of the month, and then they would slay it on the fourteenth of this first month.
Notice the description of the sacrifice that is involved. It was to be an unblemished male lamb, that is a lamb without any physical defect whatsoever.
They couldn't offer a lamb that had broken its leg. They couldn't offer a lamb that was missing an ear and that lamb that had his eyes gouged out because he got in a fight with somebody.
It couldn't be a lamb like that. It had to be unblemished, free from physical defect.
That is intended to picture freedom from a moral defect of another lamb who would fulfill this sacrifice.
They are to take it from amongst the flock and to set it apart and then kill it at twilight. Chapter 12, verse 7. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two -board doorpost and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, both its head and its legs, along with its entrails.
And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning you shall burn with fire.
Now you shall eat it in this manner, with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste.
It is the Lord's Passover. Now here's the reference in verse 7 to the blood of this lamb that was to be put on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they ate it.
And notice the reference to the lamb. They were to eat the lamb, the Passover lamb. That is, they weren't just to kill it and observe its murder, its death.
Sorry, murder's the wrong word. Observe its death. They were to take the flesh of that animal and appropriate it to themselves by consuming the sacrifice.
That was the point of that. And they were not to eat it raw and they were not to boil it with water, but they were to roast it with fire.
Why reference to the fire? Because fire in Scripture is a symbol of God's judgment. When fire falls, it's the fire of God that brings judgment, and so fire is a symbol for judgment.
This is to picture this lamb that is sacrificed and slain, and then in its entirety it is consumed.
Exodus 12, verse 12. For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike down 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. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live, and where I see the blood,
I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Notice in verse 12, the end of verse 12, this is a judgment against all the gods of Egypt.
I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. See, God's point is not just to execute judgment on the Egyptian people, but rather there is a theological, polemical issue at play here where He is going after all of their various gods.
And it has become obvious by this point that that is the case with the god of the
Nile mocked, and the god of the frogs mocked, and the god of the cow mocked, and the god of the sun mocked. Well, now what is being mocked is the god who supposedly protects the firstborn.
In Egypt, they worshipped a god called Min, who was the god of reproduction. They worshipped a goddess called
Heket, who was the goddess of childbirth. They had a god Isis, who was a goddess who protected children, and even
Pharaoh himself was viewed as a god. Pharaoh was worshipped as a god, and so his firstborn son then was also deemed to be god, since Pharaoh's firstborn son would eventually become
Pharaoh, inevitably, and he would be worshipped as god as well. So what happens when God kills all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, including
Pharaoh's son? What happens? He is going after all of the gods of Egypt who were supposed to protect the firstborn.
And God is actually killing an Egyptian god, so it's judgment executed against all the gods of Egypt.
The significance of the blood, by marking of the door, they secured the protection from death, and the judgment would be that the destroyer would go out through the land of Egypt and destroy the firstborn in every house, except in those houses where blood marked the doorposts and the lintel of the house.
Verses 14 through 20 of Exodus 12 establish a feast of unleavened bread, which came to be celebrated with the
Passover in conjunction with it. Skip down to verse 21. Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them,
Go, and take for yourselves lambs according to your families, and slay the Passover lamb. You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts, and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning.
For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts.
The Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to destroy you. Notice the reference there to the destroyer.
Moses is commanding here the children of Israel to observe the details of this Passover and what it is that they were to do to protect them and their household from the judgment of God that was going to fall on the
Egyptians. Now who is the destroyer? The Lord will pass over you. End of verse 23. The Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you.
We'll deal with that in just a moment. Verse 24 And you shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and your children forever.
When you enter the land which the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall observe this rite. And when your children say to you, what does this rite mean to you?
You shall say it is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when he smote the
Egyptians, but spared our homes. And the people bowed low and worshipped. Then the sons of Israel went and did so, just as the
Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. So they responded in faith, in obedience, believing what
God said, though again, according to our definition of faith, they had never seen anything like this unfold before, right?
They had never done anything like this before. But now they are going to observe by obedience exactly what it is that God gave them to do.
Verse 29. Now it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle.
Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no home when there was not someone dead.
It is difficult for us to imagine the destruction, the devastation, the weeping, the sorrow, and the utter ruin that this tenth and final plague would have unleashed in Egypt.
Keep in mind, every nation on the planet deserved this judgment then, and every nation on the planet deserves this judgment today.
So that God shows mercy to all of us by not giving us this kind of judgment, and then pours it out on one nation, just thank
God for his mercy in that case. Don't question his justice, because sometimes God lets his justice come out like a fire, and consume an adversary so that he may remind everybody else, like you've been spared, but don't think you've been spared because of your righteousness, you've been spared because God is gracious.
Verse 31, then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel, and go worship the
Lord as you've said. Take both your flocks and your herds as you've said, and go and bless me also. Pharaoh was ruined by this, he's a broken man.
Now before we turn back to Exodus, I asked you to observe two things, do you remember what they were? Number one, the fact that in Hebrews chapter 11, there seems to be a distinction that the author makes between the
Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, and second, who is the destroyer that we saw mentioned in the passage earlier?
Here's why there is a distinction between the sprinkling of blood and the Passover, though at this point in time,
Exodus chapter 12, these two things happen together, all of the details of the celebration of the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, they happened at the same night on the same occasion.
After that first event, there is no record that from then on, the children of Israel sprinkled blood on the doorposts and on the lentils.
Why is that? Because the Lord did not send the destroyer to kill the firstborn of the land on the 14th of every first month after that, every year.
So this is a one -time, the sprinkling of the blood is a one -time event, the establishment of the ceremony is the repeated event.
The ceremony was to be repeated, but not the sprinkling, though on that first Passover, both of them went together, because on that first Passover, the sprinkling of the blood saved them from the destroyer who would come and destroy the firstborn throughout all of the land, but after that time, that did not need to be observed.
They were to offer a sacrifice of a Passover lamb. Yes, he was to have all the qualities that we just mentioned.
Yes, they were to roast him with fire and consume him and eat it just in the way that was described here, but the application of the blood was not necessary because that one -time event where that blood saved them from destruction had already been accomplished.
So the author distinguishes between the one -time application of the blood that delivered the nation of Israel out of Egypt and preserved them from judgment, and the ceremony that was to be observed every single year, those are two separate and distinct things, though at the one point they happened together.
Do you see that? By faith, Moses had to do two things. By faith, first of all, he mentioned to the children of Israel that they would enter into the land, and in the future, their children would say, tell us what to do, and then they would answer to their children, on the night that the
Lord did this and smote the Egyptians, he passed over our houses and delivered us from his judgment, and that was the answer that they were to give to their children when they asked that in all of the years that was to come.
So here's the point. When Moses gave to them all of the instructions for celebrating the
Passover, the event that he told them that they would observe every year after this as an annual celebration, that event had not yet even happened.
So Moses laid out all the details for the celebration of a memorial of an event that had not even taken place.
That's faith. See, Moses is saying every year from here on out, this is what you're going to do, and you're going to remember this event.
What event, Moses? I know, it hasn't taken place yet, but tonight it's going to happen. See, that is an expression of faith.
Moses had never seen that before, and yet he is instituting for the children of Israel and giving all of the instructions for a celebration, a memorial of an event that he had not even seen.
Listen, because in Moses' mind, the judgment was a done deal. In Moses' mind, the judgment, it was as if it had happened last night.
He was so certain of what he had not yet seen that he gave the instructions for the annual celebration of an event that he was about to witness.
By faith, he what? He saw the substance of what was unseen, and he was convinced of what he just had merely hoped for.
So there's by faith he did that, by faith he also sprinkled the blood, that's the second thing, in obedience to that command.
There was no other judgment that fell upon Egypt that Israel had to do anything to protect themselves from, but this one they had to appropriate the blood.
They must offer the sacrifice and they must apply the blood in order to escape death. And their obedience to that was an expression of their faith.
Their belief that God would protect them from divine judgment because they painted the doorposts of their house and the lintel over the doorposts with blood, that is an expression of their faith.
They had to be convinced of at least two things. Number one, that God was going to smite everybody in the land of Egypt, the firstborn in all of the land of Egypt, that God was going to do that.
And second, they had to be convinced that if they took a lamb from their flock and slaughtered it and put the blood up around the doorpost, that that would save them.
And see, every Israelite there knew that there's nothing magical about just blood itself. There's nothing magical about that, but the application of the blood, the putting of the blood around the door was the expression of faith that if I do this and I trust in this, and I trust in a
God who says he will preserve me on this basis, that God will indeed preserve me on that basis. And so the children of Israel obeyed and did what the
Lord commanded them to do, doing so by faith, having never seen before anything of what they were warned about, but they applied the blood, not because they believed that the blood was magical, not because they believed that the blood was a potion or a magic formula or anything like that, but because they believed that if the blood was applied to their doorpost, that they would be safe.
And they just had to take that by faith. And while the people in Egypt were screaming and crying all night around them, all night all the way around them, they were thinking in their minds we have done what
God has commanded us to do, and because of that, we shall be safe. Now the destroyer.
This is the reason why those two things were separated, the Passover and the sprinkling of blood. Now who is the destroyer that is mentioned in Exodus 12 verse 23, read that again.
Verse 23, for the Lord will pass through, dismite the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the
Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you. This is the only reference to this destroyer in the entire narrative of Exodus 11, 12 and following.
Hebrews 11 28, remember, says by faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them.
Now who is the destroyer? There's three possibilities. First, that the destroyer is an evil fallen angel, a demon whom the
Lord used to execute judgment upon the Egyptians. Mostly because people can't imagine
God himself doing this because God is a God of love. I don't argue that God is a
God of love, but I do take issue with the sloppy, sentimental, slobbering idea that God's love precludes him from executing judgment upon his enemies.
People have a hard time embracing a God who would smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, and they think that because God is love, that he can't do anything like that.
The second possibility is that it is a holy angel, because holy angels were sometimes instruments of God's judgment in scripture.
2 Kings 19 35, then it happened that night that the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185 ,000 in the camp of the
Assyrians, and the men arose early in the morning. Behold, all of them were dead. Sometimes God's angels do execute people, and do execute
God's justice on his enemies as instruments of God. There's no problem with that, just because an angel does what
God wills them to do, even if it is killing people. It's entirely in keeping with God's nature and purposes and the role that angels might play.
But there is a third option, and this is what I think it is. It's not a reference to a fallen angel. It's not a reference to one of God's holy angels.
I believe this is a reference to the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord in the Old Testament.
Who is the angel of the Lord? This is the messenger of Yahweh. You see this throughout the Old Testament. Sometimes there are angels who show up, and sometimes there's the angel who shows up.
And the word angel just simply means messenger, or one who communicates, or one who reveals a message. Angels, holy angels, created beings, sometimes brought messages on behalf of God to a people in the
Old Testament and in the New Testament. And sometimes the angel shows up, the messenger of Yahweh. That messenger of Yahweh is sometimes called
Yahweh. He is sometimes described as having the attributes of Yahweh. He is sometimes worshipped as Yahweh.
Because that one, that angel of the Lord is Yahweh. In John chapter 1 when John says, no one has seen
God at any time. He is describing the essence of God and the Father. He says, but the only begotten
God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained or declared Him. That is to say that in all of the
Old Testament passages where people saw Yahweh, it was not the essence of the
Father and it was not the triune God they were seeing. They were seeing the manifestation of the pre -incarnate Christ.
The second person of the Trinity appearing in the Old Testament. You see this throughout the Old Testament when this angel of the
Lord shows up and he is called Yahweh. Where people have conversations with the angel of the Lord and they say, let's just build an altar right here because we're going to worship this one.
This was Yahweh that we saw. They understood that. So I don't think that this is an angel of the
Lord. I don't think it's an unholy angel. I think this is the angel of the Lord. This is the second person of the Trinity.
This is Yahweh himself before he is incarnated in Jesus Christ. So what is attributed here in the actions of this angel or this destroyer is actually attributed throughout the rest of the passages the actions of Yahweh himself.
I want you to look at it. Go back to Exodus chapter 11 verse 1. I'll give you a brief survey. Exodus 11 verse 1.
Now the Lord said to Moses, one more plague I will bring on Pharaoh and on Egypt. Who claims responsibility for it?
It's Yahweh. Chapter 11 verse 4. Moses said, thus says the Lord about midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt.
Verse 12. For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night and will strike down 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 Yahweh. Exodus 12 verse 13. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live and when
I see the blood I will pass over you and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
Verse 23. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians and when he sees the blood on the lintel on the two door posts the
Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you. Chapter 12 verse 27.
It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel and Egypt when he smote the Egyptians and spared our homes.
Verse 29. Now it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. And the firstborn of Pharaoh sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of cattle.
So who is the destroyer? Yahweh is the destroyer. And yet Yahweh keeps
Yahweh the destroyer from entering in and killing the firstborn. So Yahweh is doing something but Yahweh is keeping
Yahweh from doing something. How do you explain that? Only with a robust understanding of the doctrine of the
Trinity. That's how you explain that. You see we have other language like this in another judgment. Genesis chapter 19 verse 24.
The Lord or Yahweh rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh out of heaven.
The Lord Yahweh rains from Yahweh down on Sodom and Gomorrah. So you have one person called
Yahweh who is raining fire down from another person who is identified as Yahweh out of heaven.
Well here's the exact opposite. It's not the destroyer calling down fire out of heaven from Yahweh out of heaven upon a city or a people but instead it is
Yahweh himself, God who keeps God the destroyer from going in and executing judgment.
So the one who rains down destruction upon Sodom and Gomorrah is the same one who here executes judgment upon Egypt.
The second person of the Trinity or the second person of the triune godhead is the one who rains down fire out of heaven from Yahweh in Genesis and he is the same one whom
Yahweh restrains from going in and executing judgment upon the Egyptians. So who is the one who killed all the firstborn in Egypt?
Yahweh did it. God did it. He's the one who did it. And he's also the one who spared or kept himself from doing that because of the blood that was on the doorpost.
Now does that disturb you that the one who is incarnated in Jesus Christ would himself execute all the firstborn in the land of Egypt?
Does that disturb you? You're thinking Jim, I know better than to say yes to that because you set me up with the last one.
When you said know your role and shut your hole Jesus said in John 5 verse 22, not even the father judges anyone but he has given all judgment to the son.
Here's just a brief description of what that judgment is going to look like when he returns. Revelation 19 I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and him who sat upon it is called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and wages war his eyes are a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems and he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself he is clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is called the word of God and the armies which are in heaven clothed in fine linen white and clean were following him on white horses from his mouth comes a sharp sword so that with it he may strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron and he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the almighty and on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written king of kings and lord of lords then
I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried out with a loud voice saying to all the birds which fly in the midheaven come and assemble for the great supper of God so that you may eat the flesh of the kings and the flesh of the commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men both free men and slaves and small and great that's the judgment that is coming it should not disturb you if you understand who
Jesus Christ is as both judge and as savior that the same one who offers himself up for salvation is the one who himself will come and execute judgment upon all of his enemies and next time it will be only those who are under his blood as the lamb of God that are saved from that judgment this is the point that Jesus Christ is both the judge and he is the lamb who bears the judgment for any and all who will place their faith in him how will you escape that judgment that one
I just read about in Revelation 19 how will you escape that the only escape the only reprieve you have is in Jesus Christ when
God deals with sinners how will he deal with you are you still an enemy of God in your mind through wicked works impenitent unrepentant hardening your heart and being hardened by God as you continue to listen to the truth and refuse to repent and believe the good news of the gospel there are parallels between the work of Christ and this
Passover event parallels that are intended by God and I wish
I had a whole other sermon to go into this 1st Corinthians 5 verse 7 that says that Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us see that's the connection that the
New Testament makes to this event back in Exodus that the one who has been sacrificed for us is our
Passover lamb the prime example of God's judgment in the Old Testament was also an example of God redeeming and saving people through blood the blood of a
Passover lamb Christ is the judgment falling on the Egyptians and for us Christ is also the one who saves us from the judgment that would fall upon us here are a number of the parallels
Jesus John 1 29 John the Baptist said behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world the blood of Christ is called the blood of a lamb 1
Peter 1 18 and 19 you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless the blood of Christ Christ is the lamb who was taken from the flock he was among us he was a man he partook in flesh and blood just like you and I partake in flesh and blood he was set aside and sanctified and then at twilight on Passover day he was slaughtered he is the lamb who was without blemish you were not redeemed with perishable things from your futile way of life but unblemished and spotless blood of Christ he was the sinless one who did no sin who spoke no sin who knew no sin he never violated the law of God he never did what
God forbid he always did exactly what the father commanded him to do so he was morally perfect in every way unblemished
Peter says in 1 Peter 2 22 he committed no sin nor was any deceit found in his mouth he is the holy one the righteous one and he was the lamb who was sacrificed under judgment just as fire consumed the
Passover lamb so the judgment of God was completely absorbed by the Lord Jesus Christ and God's judgment the father's judgment fell upon him cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree scripture says
Hebrews 7 says that he does not need daily like those who offer up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people because he did once for all when he offered up himself and in Jesus Christ because of his sacrifice we are protected we are covered by his blood because he bore our sins and our iniquities in his own body on the cross
Isaiah 53 our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried we esteemed him stricken smitten of God and afflicted but he was pierced through for our transgressions and he was crushed for our iniquities the chastening for our well -being fell upon him and by his scourging we are healed all of us like sheep have gone astray each one of us has turned to his own way but the
Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon him and in Jesus Christ is probably one of the greatest examples of him fulfilling this
Passover sacrifice sacrifice not a bone of his was be broken even though listen it was customary for the
Romans to break the legs of crucifixion victims so that they could not relieve their suffering and extend their lives and that they would suffocate but not his legs they came to him and saw that he was already dead he had already said it is finished the price has been paid and they came to him and just thrust the spear into his side to ensure death but John in John 19 says that coming to Jesus they saw that he was already dead they did not break his legs but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out and he who has seen this has testified and his testimony is true and he knows that he's telling the truth so that you also may believe for these came about that these came to pass to fulfill the scripture quote not a bone of him shall be broken close quote what is that where's that from in scripture do you know it's not
Isaiah 53 it's not Psalm 22 you know where it comes from Exodus chapter 12 verse 46 where describes the
Passover lamb that in the sacrificing of the Passover lamb and in the eating of the Passover lamb not a single bone was to be broken
John quotes the Passover passage and said Jesus died without a broken bone to fulfill that passage because he is the
Passover lamb he's the sacrifice that fulfills that picture in the Old Testament and John points back to the
Passover passage and said Jesus was fulfilling this on the cross even that little detail was fulfilled and John sees the connection that Jesus is our
Passover lamb who's been sacrificed for us so his will his blood avail for you or not is his blood on your account or not there's only one way for you to escape the judgment that will fall upon all the impenitent and all the rebellious and all the wicked all the sinners and doers of iniquity there's only one way and it is through the blood of the
Passover lamb to be applied to your account there is no other protection for you none not your good deeds not your righteousness not your lineage not the fact you attend this church there is no nothing else that can avail for you there was nothing else that could avail for the children of Israel not their
Jewish lineage they couldn't trust in the fact that they were sons of Abraham they couldn't trust in the fact that they were looking forward to going into the land and seeing the fulfillment of the
Abrahamic promises they couldn't trust in their prayers their good deeds their fastings their piety or their lineage in fact if a firstborn child of Abraham that night had spent all night fasting and praying and asking and begging
God for deliverance but he did not apply the blood to the lintels and to the doorposts it would have done him no good he would have died along with all the rest of the firstborn of Egypt none of those other things would have done anything for him there was only one thing necessary and that was the application of the blood that merits to his doorpost so that he could be saved that was the only thing that could save him but here's the good news that was the only thing that was necessary didn't need to do anything else only one thing could do the trick and only one thing was necessary so if they applied the blood like that and were believing in the
Lord for the application of that and for the promise to be fulfilled which they had to have in order to apply the blood then it didn't matter how many firstborn around them were being struck on every side they would be safe because the blood was the only thing that could save them but the blood was the only thing that was necessary this is what
God has given to us in Jesus Christ there's only one thing you can get from your sin and here's the good news there's only one sacrifice that is necessary and it's his and after that nothing else is necessary not our good deeds nothing else is necessary your response to that good news is repentance and faith and if you will not turn and you will not believe the destroyer will destroy you here's the glory of the gospel the destroyer who will destroy you is the same one who bore the cost for sin and who himself invites you this day to come lest you be destroyed you're coming to the one who is both savior and destroyer he bears the burden and pays the price but then he will destroy the one who responds to that good news with impenitence and with unbelief is he your sacrifice has he borne your wrath do you know that you are redeemed have you responded with repentance and faith if not then the
Lord's table is not for you do not partake of the Lord's table do not partake of our communion with us today if you are not in Jesus Christ because to do so is to eat and to drink judgment to yourself and if you are a believer who refuses to repent of your sin and living in unrepentant sin you have every reason to question your salvation you have every reason to not have any assurance and you have no reason to partake of the
Lord's table unless you will turn from that sin confess it to the Lord and trust in his sacrifice and just as with my apologies
I'm still dealing with the tickle in my throat just as with the Passover sacrifice this this celebration of it this memorial of it does not save you right this just memorializes symbolizes causes us to remember the thing that actually does save us just as with the
Passover all the celebration of the offering of the Passover lamb and the eating it with the sandals and all of the stuff that they did annually after that reminded them of that one event the application of the blood which secured their deliverance when we observe the
Lord's supper we're not doing this for salvation we're not doing this for forgiveness we're doing this because we have been forgiven because we have been saved and we're remembering that one event the offering of the
Passover lamb for us in our stead that purchased our salvation so we'll have a time of confession and I will ask the ushers at this point to come forward and help serve the elements we'll have a few moments of silent prayer and then
I'll lead us in prayer let's bow our heads our father we have seen your perfect redemption in scripture in your son even things that happened thousands of years ago point forward to the fulfillment in his sacrifice and the perfect nature of his sacrifice which was offered in our stead we are so grateful for that provision and as your people we can simply humble ourselves and come to you and acknowledge our unworthiness the lack of ability that we have to please you and honor you in ourselves we confess to you our iniquity our transgression that we do those things that we ought not to do and we refuse and are negligent in doing those things which we ought to do which we are commanded to do we have sinned in multiple ways and in multiple times and we are just grateful that though we are in these bodies of flesh and we sin even daily we can continue to come to you for forgiveness and for cleansing we thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and for his righteousness that while we violated your law he never did and while we failed to do what was demanded by your law he did it perfectly in our stead and so we thank you not just for the forgiveness of our sins but the perfect beautiful, blameless and imputed righteousness of your son who lived in our place and then died in our place so that we may have life we thank you for this grace for your loving kindness for your mercy and for a salvation that we ought not to ignore and we do so to our own peril and we ask your blessing upon our communion and our fellowship here strengthen our hearts to this means of grace we pray in Christ's name