Exodus 12:21-23 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said to them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families… I. The first thing is this, that SALVATION THEN AND NOW IS FREEDOM FROM IMPENDING DOOM. Let us revive that essential idea of our most holy faith in all our hearts and minds. The times greatly need it. As there hung over Egypt that night the awful threat of God's descending wrath, so let my soul and yours never forget there hangs over this city the threat of impending vengeance. And just because of that, a motive which worked that night upon the hearts of Israelites, and ought to work upon our hearts now, was, and should be, the element and moving principle of fear. Let me reassert this: let me iterate and reiterate it — that fear is a legitimate motive in salvation. Perhaps the Israelites on that occasion were immediately drawn by loving obedience to obey what God had spoken. If so, they were different from you and me. I rather think that while some temperaments would just quietly and unquestioningly yield whenever Moses declared the mind and heart of God, as to what was coming of doom, and as to how salvation was to be secured, others would question; others would be reluctant; others would be very like ourselves. But we do hope that, no matter how they felt "rubbed the wrong way" (if you will allow the familiar expression), they had sense enough, whether drawn by love or driven by fear, to sprinkle that blood and get in under its shelter in time, and stay there. Ah, yes, it is said to be unphilosophical, that if you do not draw men with love, you will never drive them by fear. Men are moved by fear every day. Why did you go and insure your house last week? Was it not through fear? Why did you insure your life last week, even though the doctor told you that there was nothing wrong with you? Was it not from fear? Grand men, large broad-brewed men, are men who are moved by fear. Methinks Noah was a grand, broad-brewed man, and "Noah, moved by fear, prepared him an ark for the saving of his house." It was fear as well as love that clenched every bolt in it. So never go away and boast, my friend, that you have such a big intellect that fear will not move you. This is a real legitimate element in salvation. God works upon it. He plays upon that heart-string by His Word and by His Spirit. He did it then in that night in Egypt. II. Now, I should like to say, further, re-stating some simple but essential elements of gospel revelation regarding sin and salvation, that SALVATION WAS OF GOD'S DEVISING. It was altogether a matter of revelation. Nothing was left to man but bare obedience of mind and hand and foot. Mark that I do not say that God spoke irrationally; I do not say that God simply came and overmastered them with despotic tyrannical power, but I do say that God came forth out of His secret place that memorable night, and Himself devised the plan of salvation. God Himself devised such a plan that no soul needed to be lost if that soul simply believed and obeyed. It was all of God, it was all of grace; so still. III. I wish to say, further, that on this night of this divinely appointed salvation, when it was received and obeyed, there were one or two THINGS WHICH WOULD SURELY STRIKE THE RECIPIENTS, AND THOSE WHO WERE OBEDIENT TO THIS HEAVENLY REVELATION. "Draw out a lamb," says Moses, speaking for God, "draw out a lamb and kill it, and take its blood and sprinkle it on the lintel and on the two side posts." Every Israelitish father who killed the lamb, not simply with a knife and with his hand, but whose mind and heart were working behind the knife, must surely have had this thought borne upon him — "If I am not to die, something is to die." .Substitution. Oh, let me ring it out! "For me, for me," yeas bound to ring in his ears with every gurgling of that lapping blood. That again is the heart of salvation, for you and for me. If I am to go free, this innocent thing has to part with its very life's blood. "By His stripes we are healed." Bless God for this substitutionary salvation. Then this salvation on that night in Egypt, and this night for you and me, was not only substitutionary, but another very simple idea I would like to revive in your hearts and minds, and it is this: it was after all a matter of simple obedience. "Take the blood." It was not enough that it was sprinkled by every Israelitish father or head of a household who represented them all. Every Israelitish father had to take that bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood, and strike it on the lintel and pass in, he and his household, just as he was told. And there is an element, therefore, in salvation that is illustrated there. What is faith? It is a simple literal bowing of the soul in abject obedience. And, again, it comes out, contrariwise, that the very essence of unbelief now is not a want of understanding, but a want of obedience. There is a moral taint in unbelief. Now, come away to another evening away down the stream of time for centuries; and again it is becoming dark, and there is a darkness deeper than the darkness of the darkening sky. The darkness and blackness of sin, and of all time, are gathering round about that hill called Calvary. Now, watch that Saviour Christ. See that innocent holy Man, holy as a lamb, without blemish and without spot. See the soldier as he thrusts that spear into His side, and out there come blood and water. And, remember this: there is the last blood that shall ever be shed for human sins. "There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversaries." "Take you a bunch of hyssop, and strike the lintel and the two side posts." God actually condescending to tell a man how to sprinkle the blood! He left no loop-hole by which a man might be lost if he wanted to be saved himself, and to save his wife and his children. If lost, you will be inexcusable. What was the hyssop? Well, so far as I can gather from Scripture, it was a very common plant. You remember that when the range of Solomon's botanical knowledge is being indicated, it is said that Solomon spoke of trees from the hyssop that grows out of the wall to the cedar that is in Lebanon. What a poor salvation if God had said, "Take a sprig of cedar." What an easy salvation it was when He said, "Take a bunch of hyssop" — that kind of coarse grass, I suppose, that would grow out of any dyke-back — just like the grass that grew out of the thatch of your mother's house away in the country long ago — a thing so simple; do you not see that everybody could get at it? Instinctively the father's hand went for it, and used it. There is a something in the powers of your soul and mine that is common and handy, and is continually in use in this work-a-day life of ours. It is continually in use like the bunch of hyssop. And what is that? It is faith. Believe me, faith is as common as the hyssop that sprang out of the wall. With all the rack and ruin that sin has made it is here. Now, what you have to do is this. Take that faith, that confidence that you are exercising in brother-man and sister-woman every day — it is the very cement of society — society would tumble into chaos without it — take that faith of yours and give it a new direction. Give it an operation which it never had before. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Faith is common, natural, reasonable, sublime. You put it to its highest power, its loftiest use, when it is turned to trust God in the word that He has spoken, and in the love that He has displayed on Calvary. IV. And the last word I have to say is this-the last word in the text, "TAKE THE BUNCH OF HYSSOP, AND DIP IT IN THE BLOOD, AND LET NONE OF YOU GO OUT OF THE DOOR OF HIS HOUSE UNTIL THE MORNING." I hear to-day, and so do you, about "development," and "growth"; and what we hear about them gets wearisome, does it not? There was very little development that night. "Let none of you go out of the door of his house until the morning." Go in, and stay in, if you would be saved. That is to say, there was to be no advance, and absolutely no development from the simplicity of faith. That which they had begun to do saved them only as they kept it up. Human nature is the same all the world over, whether you are in Egypt or in London; and I can imagine a young Israelite, a young fellow just like ourselves, full of flesh and blood, full of natural go and glow and enthusiasm, feeling it a little irksome as the evening wore on, and as the night darkened down; and feeling that it was rather an ignoble, inglorious position to be huddled in there like sheep, with that word over them, "Let none of you go out of the door of his house until the morning." And to be saved in this simple way by the blood-red mark which they did not see, but which, being outside, could be seen by the Destroying Angel as He passed. And I should not wonder, as the Israelites and the Egyptians were not separated one from another, if the Egyptians were all round about the Israelites; and I should not wonder if some young Egyptians came round about these blood-streaked houses and cried, with scoffs and jokes, "Come out! Come out!" and laughed and said, "What are you doing in there? There is no judgment. There was never such a fine night in Egypt. Come out! Come out!" Was not that hard to bear? Is not that taunt in our ears yet — "Come out, yon stupid believers!" And I can imagine a young Israelite chafing and getting restless as the night wore on, and there came no sign of this doom, and no sign of this judgment; I can imagine him shaking himself, and saying, "I will assert my manhood. This may do for the old people"; and he is going over to the door, but his father rises, and with a voice like thunder says, "Unhand that door! Back for your life!" And he was right if he did. He was right. The Egyptians might laugh that night, and the young, restless, hot-headed Israelites might have a little trouble, but nobody laughed in the morning. And you and I, children of faith, believers in God and in God's Christ who died for sin, just for a little while have to stand the laugh, and I admit that it is against our pride. By the grace of God, and in the obedience of faith, let me charge you, hold on, my brother, as you began. Let us keep together, we who belong to "the household of faith." How that expression receives its illustration from this story. Let us keep together. Let us encourage ourselves to stay in doors until the morning. Some of you, God bless you, will not have long to wait. God bless all white and whitening heads in this assembly; you will not have long to wait. "Now is the time of your salvation nearer than when you believed." For you the morning cometh. (J. McNeill.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover. |
    |