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Text Sermons : ~Other Speakers M-R : G.W. North : A Lamb for a House

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When God of old moved Moses from the backside of the desert into Egypt, it was because the time had come for Him to redeem His people. Four hundred years before, though not in so many words, He had promised Abraham He would do so. At that time the fullness of the promise was unknown to men, but with God it was already an eternal oath involving an eventual blood covenant. Time and again He enlarged it, making further commitments to Abraham, until the day he at last made the great prophetic statement, 'God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering'. Abraham was the original patriarch, the founding father of the nation of Israel. Through him God best displayed the basic relationship of Father and Son in the Godhead, and revealed its fundamental purpose. Two fifths of a millennium passed into history before Abraham's seed had developed to race-like proportions, and by that time the children of Israel were prisoners in Egypt. So it came about that in fulfilment of His promise to Abraham, Moses was sent by God into Egypt. He was about to found a nation.

When the children of Israel went down into Egypt they were literally the family of Jacob, seventy souls in all, as yet only the beginnings of the tribes which later became the nation. But now they were a great and growing people whom God regarded as His house. How then could He leave them in the land of Egypt, 'the house of bondage'? He had determined to put into effect the eternal covenant of redemption and bring His people out of Egypt to the new homeland He had promised them through Abraham. This accomplished He would dwell in (the midst of) them and fulfil all He intended when He made that original promise to Abraham, then they would be His people and He would be their God.

God knew He could not found a house or take a nation to Himself except by the lamb, nor could He redeem them except by its blood. With this in mind He sent Moses down to Egypt and following some preliminary exchanges with Pharaoh judged and punished that nation with a series of plagues. All of this, miraculous and necessary as it was, led up to the point where He revealed redemption to Israel. He planned that this should be the basis of the last plague, as well as the substance of the last judgement He intended to mete out upon Egypt; He carefully instructed Moses in the divine method.

Unlike His form of procedure in the other nine plagues, the Lord did not move in the same way with the tenth. Until this last occasion He had sharply divided between Egypt and Israel, dealing with each as separate nations; now He was going to deal with them individually according to their families. Every household, whether they were Egyptians or Israelites, was to be dealt with in the same way. Whereas as far as the plagues had been visited upon Egyptians only, this last plague would be visited upon all without discrimination or exception unless they obeyed God. On the other hand everybody who obeyed Him would be saved quite irrespective of race. This was entirely new, so God gave His instructions very clearly.

He said that on a certain day every man was to take a lamb - a lamb for a house. It was to be without blemish, a young male; it was to be kept until a particular day and killed at a certain hour. Its blood must then be sprinkled upon the lintels and side posts of each house in which the lamb was to be eaten. God was precise about this; the lamb was to be eaten only by those within the house upon which its blood was sprinkled. God allowed only one exception to this commandment, namely, if the number of persons in the household were too few to eat the whole lamb it could be shared with a neighbouring household, providing the house was sprinkled with the blood of the same lamb whose flesh they ate. The whole lamb had to be devoured, God was adamant about that; He would allow nothing of it to remain in Egypt; if for any reason some of it remained uneaten, it must be burned before they fled. God was redeeming His house and the whole lamb was for that whole house and that alone. As none of His redeemed people were to be left in Egypt, so nothing of the redeeming lamb could be left; God's word was 'a lamb for a house'. The blood was not acceptable to Him unless it was sprinkled upon the house: only there was it acceptable to Him. It was to be a token of their faithfulness, declaring to Him that they were within eating the lamb. If they would not eat the lamb, God would not redeem them; it was all very clear.

So it happened according to God's word; God brought out His people from Egypt and founded His nation and His house on the slain lamb. Doing so He kept to His eternal plan and also broadened the revelation. In the beginning it was 'the lamb slain from the foundation of the world'; then in Canaan it was, 'God will provide Himself a lamb'; in Egypt it is 'a lamb for a house'. Until now no mention had been made of its blood: now the blood has been given a special function; only when God saw the blood did He pass over the house on which it was sprinkled; that house and only that house was safe. But this itself was only an indication, a further step towards a fuller revelation.





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