In this sermon, the preacher discusses the significance of the Passover lamb in the Bible. He draws parallels between the lamb sacrificed by the Israelites during the Passover and Jesus Christ, who was crucified on the cross. The preacher emphasizes that God's redemption and deliverance are not based on confessing sin, but on His great love for His people. He encourages listeners to embrace the service of serving God and partaking in the redemption offered through Jesus Christ.

Let's come to the word then, shall we? You will remember that last night we got to the end of chapter 11 of the book of Exodus, and I suppose you have already decided, as I have, that Moses' life is inextricably mixed up, purposely, of course, with the children of Israel. Through him, we may say, of course, that great phrase in Scripture has been brought into reality, that the nation was born in a day. Until the day that they came out of Egypt, Israel was not a nation. They became a nation through the Passover and through the Red Sea. Until then, they were not. You may also remember, I hope remember is the word, that as it says in chapter 12, the Lord spoke 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. Just as with the Lord Jesus Christ, who in his death and resurrection brought a spiritual nation to birth, so also in his life, death and resurrection, the Lord changed time. We call it B.C. and A.D. So did Moses. I don't know whether you realize that. That until then, the Jewish calendar or the Israelitish calendar did not exist. That time, and that is life, began at this point for Israel in their history. Now that's a tremendous thing. Here then, is the greatness of this man Moses, whom God raised up to bring total changes into the world. Now, you will remember that it's really through him we got this book. Now I know he didn't write all of it, but it wasn't begun until Moses began it. And that in itself is a mighty thing. I hope you are beginning to get this man into true spiritual focus, so that you can see his greatness. Jesus, of course, was greater than he. And his greatness was only that he was chosen of God to be, as it were, a forerunner. Not as John Baptist, not as directly as John Baptist that is, but he was a forerunner and type of the Lord Jesus Christ. We shan't be able to take him in all the fullness of the life of Jesus that he typified. But tonight, we have come to one of the great turning points of all history. Now, also, we come to the final dealings of God with Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And hitherto, that is mostly last night, we were considering the terrors that took place under Moses' hand in Egypt. And we were seeing how that in those ten plagues, or the nine that we looked at last night, we're to see the tenth and final one tonight. God showed what hell is like. Not in all its intensity, but gave us a picture of the misery, and of the torment, and of the terror, and of the death. And terrors, and darkness, and torments, and everything, death itself on the cross for us. That we might know hell, not even its beginnings, or if you like, its foreshadowings on the earth. Now that's a very, very great and wonderful thing. Also, we saw, if you remember, we finished up on this note last evening, that here was the final word of Moses. In chapter 10, Pharaoh, verse 24, called unto Moses and said, Go ye, serve the Lord, only let your flocks and your herds be stayed. Let your little ones also go with you. And Moses said, Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with us. There shall not an hoof be left behind. And so we see, that the greatness of the redemption, that is revealed to us in chapter 12, with the beginnings of new life, and the birth of a complete people of God. They include, and it includes, now let's everyone get this into our hearts, unless we miss the point. It includes that you come out of the world, and out from the devil's bondages, and all his territory completely. Well, that's what it's about. If you miss that, you may think it might take the Lord ten years after you say you're saved, which you'll never persuade anybody that knows is true. If it takes ten years after that, and still the world hasn't gone out of your system, and the worldliness out of your homes, and out of your relationships, and all that. Don't attempt to, you see, it's the Bible that shows it all up to be a mockery. It isn't that people judge you, or anything like that, it's what we have the Bible for. It gives us eyes to see. It puts everything in perspective. It's not left to the judgments or estimates of one man, thinking about another's possessions, or positions, or anything. The Bible tells us, for you will remember, that when they went out of Egypt, they never went out with much. You do realize that, don't you? And it shows what redemption is all about. For you're told this. God says in verse 11 of chapter 12, Thus shall ye eat it, that is the Passover. Remember, let's get this into our hearts, beloved, in case we miss it. The Passover has to be eaten, not just believed in. The Passover was not just about sprinkling blood. It was about eating the lamb. The lamb was the Passover, not its blood. Now, we're going to see this very clearly, and we're going to understand the truth. Of course, the blood was involved. Of course. But the lamb was the Passover, and this is the way they do eat it. They had to eat it with their loins girded, with their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand. That's how they would eat it. They weren't to be carrying their grand pianos around with them. They weren't to be carting out all this, that, and the other. They weren't to have magnificence and marvelous something else. All their hard-earned homes and furnitures, that they'd put their life savings and works into, had to be left behind. Hope you've got this very clear, so that you understand what it is God engages to save and redeem. The rest you can load yourself with, and load yourself down into carnality. Now God has got to make this very, very clear, because we're loath to believe it, because we like the comforts that the world supplies. We love them very much. I myself too, like a warm bed. Now here is the thing that we've got to get hold of, and get hold of completely, so that we don't live lives of mockery. It was prayed, Lord we're going after godliness in our ears tonight. All right. The scripture says that godliness with contentment is great gain. How true that is as well. Now in this twelfth chapter, we're going to look at it in some detail in a moment. And we're going to see God's further dealings with Pharaoh. And not only in this twelfth chapter, but in the fourteenth chapter too, where we shall see these great words of Pharaoh's. Verse three. It's God telling Moses what Pharaoh's going to say. And what Pharaoh's going to do. Here it is. Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, they are entangled in the land. The wilderness has shut them in. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them. And I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, that the Egyptians may know that I am Jehovah. And they did so. Now let's all get this deep into our hearts as well, shall we beloved? That God is determined to be honoured with all his enemies. He's going to be honoured in the end. Whether it be Satan, or anybody else who sets themselves up constitutionally to move against God, against his will, and against his people. God is going to be honoured upon them. And this is the final phase of God's dealings with Pharaoh. As we read through this twelfth chapter, and we're going to see its truth, and I am reminded, I have been all day, that I believe I preached upon this about two cliffs ago. So if any of you were there, I won't apologise to you. I will say that if I'm preaching over the same ground, my good friend who's now in bed, tells me I always preach it differently whenever I do it. So that's that. So I hope you won't be too bored. You notice he stayed in bed. And you must remember this. It's about God dealing with Pharaoh on the terms that he explained in the beginning. He sent Moses to Pharaoh, and he said, Pharaoh, Israel is my firstborn. Let my firstborn go. If you don't, I'll slay your firstborn. Pharaoh understood plainly what it was all about. Right from the beginning. The trouble with Pharaoh is that like so many people, many of them who call themselves Christians, didn't know the day of his visitation. What a terrible tragedy it was. So that when God visits, you remember that you must come right up and answer God. And we sang, I'll say yes, Lord. I'll say yes, Lord. What to? If you'd have been in Egypt in those days, I wonder if you would have said yes, yes, yes. For, as I pointed out last night, every plague except this last one was a plague that God visited blanket-wise upon Egypt. It didn't happen in Goshen, the land where the Israelites were. They didn't have the frogs. They didn't have the blood. They didn't have the locusts, the scarabs or flies or whatever it were. They didn't have these things. But when it comes to the Passover, God never gave them blanket exemption, the Israelites. It was a very individual thing. And unless every Israelite had confined, had conformed to what God said, also in their houses there would have been the death of the firstborn. Now, when you come to this tremendous thing, remember this. In verse 30 of chapter 12, where we're told that Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, it says, there was not a house where there was not one dead. Now, do not think that meant that every house only had one dead. For instance, if there was in a house an old, grey-headed, grey-bearded man, and he had been his parents' firstborn, he would have died. But he might have been the grandfather in the family, which would have meant that his firstborn would have died too, and the son's firstborn, they could have had three dead in a home. It says this, there wasn't one home, but there was one dead. Now, keep that. This is absolutely devastating. I hope you let it grip your soul, so that you understand what it is when God really moves. Now, he only moved like this because of their grim refusal to do what God said. Now, let no one be afraid on this issue, but nevertheless, we must face the thing very, very clearly. Now then, this great Passover, of which we are going to read, and may I say, I hope that every one of us knows at least something of the story, it is the wonderful time when A. Moses identified himself, if I may put it this way, perhaps that's too strong a word, associated himself with the Lamb and redemption. For he went into the Israelites, or gathered them together, or however he got the information over to them, I do not know, and he told them these words in these opening verses. When God said in verse 2, this month shall be unto you the beginning of months, it shall be the first month of the year to you, he spoke, and these are the things he said at God's command, speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, in the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house, and if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls, and every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb, it's good isn't it, in verse 3 you see it is a lamb, in verse 4 you see it is the lamb, and in verse 5 it is your lamb, shall be without blemish, a male of the first year, ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs, no that's not what it says is it, it says kill it, and so our attention is being drawn to one lamb, because every household had to have one lamb, we've seen many lambs, but God is drawing our attention to one lamb, for that household it was one lamb, now when God is speaking here he's drawing our attention to his household, and for his household he supplied one lamb, and only one lamb, and that's why it doesn't read kill their lambs, all the lambs were to be regarded as one, listen, they were all to be chosen on one day of the month, verse 3, they were all to be slain on another one day of the month, they all had to be slain at one time, all the lambs had to be treated the same, we shall have directions about it in a moment, and they were regarded as one people doing one thing all at the same time, now that's a tremendous thing, now when this happened was a wonderful occasion, the tenth day on which God told them to take the lamb must have been the day of the great plague of locusts, do you know that locusts came in like a cloud, I'll show you how I work that out in a moment, the locusts came in like a cloud, and remember last evening we were thinking this together, they absolutely finished off everything, there was no hope for Egypt after they had come, they cleared everything, they never left anything green growing, nothing, it was a tremendous thing, and that was the day, that was the tenth day on which God told them to take the lamb, three days of darkness, you will remember and then on the next day the lamb was slain, the lambs were slain, on the fourteenth day, what a tremendous and glorious truth it is for us to see, the Egyptians may I say were in total darkness, the Israelites were in absolute blazing light, this was the great marvel of it, that God put a distinction between the Israelites and the Egyptians as in all the other previous plagues, and so it was that on the next day as the sun went down, the lambs were slain, the blood was caught in the bowls, and the blood was sprinkled on the side posts and on the lintels by the responsible people, the lambs were roasted, let's have a look at what it says shall we, verse eight, they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire and unleavened bread and with bitter herbs shall they eat it, now this as we know was a feast of the Lord, they ate the lamb, the lamb was not burned on any altar, neither was it handled by priests, there were no Levitical priests then, Aaron had not yet been elected, the law had not been given, directions for the tabernacle had not been shown and declared unto Moses, in other words, it was the great thing that Peter says, let's have a look and see what Peter does say, shall we, in his first letter and the first chapter, where he tells, I'm sorry, the second chapter, where he says in verse nine, you and remember, he's talking to newborn babes in verse two, one Peter two verse two verse nine, talking to newborn babes, you are a chosen generation, you are a royal priesthood and holy nation and a peculiar people, that you should show forth the virtues or praises, things that should be praised, virtues, of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light, now that's what happened, that was the chosen generation that God redeemed way back in Israel, they were the royal priesthood, every man was his own priest, every man slew his lamb, that was a tremendous thing, every man handled the blood, this great blood of sprinkling, you will know that Peter talks about that in the first chapter, chapter one, verse two, that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, this is exactly what he is talking about, the Father had chosen them, they were going to be the great nation, they were going to be called out of the darkness of Egypt into God's marvellous light, they were called to show forth his virtues and his praises, you get that in chapter fifteen, you remember that, we read it on Sunday morning, when they all got out and Moses sang his marvellous song and Miriam and the ladies followed afterwards. Well, there you have it you see, these great writers of the New Testament were absolutely saturated in the knowledge of the old, and they could apply its truth for what God did through Jesus Christ, he set out in pattern and type in the children of Israel, especially through their great men, as we are seeing tonight in Moses. Now, if I'm going too fast or too hard for you to take it in, shout out and we'll stop. Here then is the great and glorious truth that I have come to love. Now, let everybody to get hold of this truth, or let it grip your heart, especially if you're a person that has some difficulties on all kinds of levels, perhaps, I don't know. Remember this, that in this chapter God is not dealing with sin. The sin he's dealing with is the sin of the devil. He's not dealing with sin in his people. Let everybody get this deep, be into their heart, that he was dealing in this chapter with redemption. It was his great love for Israel that made him come to them and just redeemed them utterly. There was no talk about confessing sin. There was no talk about anything like this. He was going to deal with that later. The whole glorious truth is this. God wants us to get it into our hearts. He says this, Israel is my first ball. They're mine. And I'm going to have them. And that's it. And the lamb was slain, and the blood was shed, so that God could have his people. Spirit, soul, and body, or as we say, lock, stock, and barrel. This was God's great intention. That's wonderful. Know this, if the devil's been getting at you, if things have all been going wrong, know this, that the foundation of all salvation is this fact, that God loves us completely, and is determined to have us. Let's get that right into our hearts. Let our hearts rest there. You see, as we saw in Peter, that we're called unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood. It's to be obedience in relationship to the sacrifice of Calvary. It's to be obedience in relationship to the truth, that God shed the blood of His Son to have us. Amen. So that He can say, you're mine, you're mine. Now that's what He wants. He wants you to know that you are His. Now that is the desire of true love. He's not making big demands on you, and not at the moment, He brought in all His system later. He educated them at Sinai into what He wanted. But here, He's just saying, look, I'm going to get you first. I'm coming in and I'm going to get you, and I'm going to teach you about it all afterwards. That's glorious, isn't it? Because so many people are trying to get their heads in first, get their head full of teaching, and they know all this, and all that, and all the other, and all they succeed in doing is getting themselves into a terrible mess and a maze in their mind that's just like a wilderness, barrenness, and everything. Why? Listen, let the story come into your heart again. See this, in verse three, they're told that on this tenth day of the month, they're to take every man a lamb according to Father's house. Did you see that? I slightly changed the wording, but that's what it is. It's the lamb for Father's house. Amen. It's something between the Father and the lamb, or the Father and the Son, as we understand it. And, that lamb, of course, God's house, and God's lamb, it's all a tremendous large thing. You know that God called Israel His house. The children of Israel were the house of Israel. They were God's house. Glory. Where God lived, that's what He's really talking about. Now, for His own house, God has provided the lamb. What a tremendous thing it is. They were to keep it up for four days. Well, you will know that from the day of the Lord's anointing in Jordan, until He went to the cross, was almost four days, or if you like it, three and a half years, a year for a day. You know that's the Bible system. If you are students, especially of prophecy, the day year truth. And so, you have this reference to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, that He was slain in the fourth day, or the fourth year of His glorious ministry among men. Now, isn't that sweet? You see, it's all written down here. If these people had only read and understood their Bibles properly, it would be so tremendous. It was on this issue that the Lord Jesus said to a man, He said, Aren't thou the teacher of Israel? And you don't know these things, Nicodemus. He should have known, because all that Jesus was talking about was this Passover, when He dealt with Nicodemus on the truth of new birth. That's what He was dealing with. You should have known this. It's written into your Scriptures. I think, you know, that the Lord's going to hold us all responsible too, for what's written into our Scriptures. That is, more particularly, the New Testament. I think He is. Don't you? Especially if we profess to be teachers, or preachers. We are to know, and glory be to God, we can. Let's go on. In the sixth verse, we were told that the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel was to kill it in the evening. You see, it's between the two evenings. If you have a good Bible, it will give you that in the margin. In that, the Hebrew, or the day out there, used to start in the evening. The evening and the morning were the first day, you remember, in Genesis. God started always in the evening. In other words, it, for us, if we'd have been Jews, it would now be Thursday, and not Wednesday. Our Thursday would have started at our sundown, when the sun dipped down somewhere about half past five, I guess, over there, behind Blackwood. It gets around a bit further as the sun goes, at least from, as the days get longer, at least from our point of view. But, that's when Thursday would have started, if we'd have been Israelites. You always got to bear this out when you're calculating the three days that Jesus lay in the tomb. What a tremendous thing it is, because we're going to see, I hope, before we're through tonight, perhaps that's why I'm travelling a bit faster tonight, that when they came up through the Red Sea, it was on what we call Easter Sunday, the three days. You can get that, by calculating the truth from Numbers 33. Write that down. We're not, we may not have time to look at it, but it will explain it all there. Moses carefully put it all down. I don't think he had any writing paper. He certainly didn't have biros, but he got it down all right. This is a wonderful truth. Now, don't spend the rest of the evening gazing in there, in case I give you some questions, and then you won't have heard a little bit what I've been saying. You've got the chapter, that's sufficient for you, Numbers chapter 33. We may have time to go there, but, all right. And they shall take of the blood, verse 7, chapter 12, and strike it on the two side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs, they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire, his head with his legs, and with the pertinence thereof. And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, and that which remaineth of it until the morning, you shall burn with fire. Thus shall ye eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this 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 where ye are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. And 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. Now I want you to see that the Lord gave the blood of the land to Israel for a token. It shall be a token. A token from me to you, says God. Don't worship the blood. Don't drink the blood. Don't waste the blood. Put it on the lintels, on the side posts, and on the lintels. I'm giving it to you for a token. You put it on your houses for a token. It's a token to you that I will have mercy upon you, and pass over you if, and only if, that you haven't come out through that blood-sprinkled doorway into the world. You're to stop in there, shut away from the world, so completely out of the world. And you are to stay in there, and the token of the blood from you to me. I'm giving it to you for a token. You use it for a token of your faithfulness, that you are promising me that you are inside there with your loins girt, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You're ready to go. You're aching to go. You're going to get out. You're waiting for the moment to go. You've got to the pitch. You've got to the place where it's got to be. And the token that you are in there eating the lamb. That's it. If you don't eat the lamb, the blood is not available for you. The blood was only available for the people that wanted the lamb, and were going to eat the lamb with the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs. The roast lamb, which speaks of the lamb's exposure to fire. Bitter herbs, which speaks of the bitterness of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The unleavened bread, which speaks of His sinlessness. I am the bread of life. Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, says Jesus. Moses gave them unleavened bread. You know, He gave it at the command of God. My Father gives you the true bread from heaven, He says, except you eat my flesh. You see, He's never away. He never is away from the truth that has been put into the Old Testament Scriptures. You must eat your flesh, my flesh. You must drink my blood, or else you have no life in you. Now, this was what the blood was all about. This is what the Passover was all about. It was the Passover lamb. And nobody has been Passover by God, that is, their sins entirely forgiven, unless they are eating the Passover lamb. That was the thing that God was saying. Are you inside eating my lamb? You remember, the lamb was only taken, and only to be taken. As you look in verse 4, according to the number of the souls, every man according to his eating, not his feeling, not his believing, but according to his eating. That's right. What a tremendous thing. If you don't want to eat the lamb, if you don't want Jesus inside you, if you don't want to feed on Jesus, you can't be redeemed. That's what we're being told. Redemption is not merely to save us from hell. It's not merely to save us from death. Redemption is to bring us into fellowship with God feeding on the lamb. That's what it's all about. And unless you've seen this, you'll never get right. I've said it isn't about believing more and more in these days. I am coming to the point where I'm telling people to stop believing. You say, well I've never heard that in all my life. Aren't preachers supposed to tell people to believe? No, they're not. This is the real trouble. What we're told, what you're to be told, is that you are to receive. People are struggling to believe. They're struggling to believe about this, believe this, believe something else. And I say to people, now come off this line, you're out on a limb. You've been chasing this one long enough, trying to believe this way, you've been believing for years, now stop it. It isn't a matter of you trying to believe, that's where the devil gets people. They can't, things go on in their minds, contradictions flash up, and the devil says, ooh, this is a merry game, this one, got them all going on, they're trying to believe this, they're trying to believe that, they're trying to believe the other. Listen, all you've got to do is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and eat him. That's it, you've got to receive him. Simple, it's as simple as that. Stop trying to believe for this and believe for the other, and believe for something else, the devil's nearly driven you crazy on trying to believe. Blessed be the name of the Lord, hope I can get this right deep into your hearts tonight. Of course you can't get there if you're a blaspheming atheist, we know that, there's got to be a conversion from that, but when it comes to the point of wanting to be what God wants you to be, stop trying to believe and start receiving. If you don't know how to do that, come and see me afterwards. Alright? Yeah, the devil knows you know how to receive, but he's blinded you to it, you see. But he knows you can't believe, you've been brought up struggling with beliefs about this, that and the other, all the lies and one thing and the other so he says, go on, keep on believing and somebody else comes, come, try and believe this and trying to believe that and trying to believe the other, listen, receive, enter in and come to rest and let your poor old mind stop all the nonsense. Amen. I've often preached to you, or if not to you, to people, that hell is going to be full of believers, there won't be one unbeliever in hell, you know that don't you? Even the devil for whom the hell was prepared as a believer, you do understand that, he believes so will everybody else, they won't be able to avoid believing when they see the Lord and have to drop down at his feet and acknowledge he's the Lord, how can they help believing? But, believing then won't save them from hell, hell's going to be full up with believers, it's the receivers that God's after, hallelujah. Now, once you get this into your mind, you'll stop giving the devil chance to keep condemning you, you see, in other words, it's whether you've really got an appetite for him, it's really if you've got an appetite and you haven't had any food for about a week, you make a beeline for every bit of food you can see. Now, don't you? That is, of course, unless you're on a long fast, pointedly, but here is the tremendous thing, isn't it? I think God's very sensible. Well, he made us and so he knows. And his appeal in the gospel is to that. What's you going to eat, man, woman, what are you going to eat? Here, I've got some lamb for you. Do you want him? That's what it's all about. He was exposed to the fire of God's wrath and judgment for you. He took the bitterness of death and sin for you, you see. He is the unleavened bread, the gift of God from heaven. Now, just eat him. Eat him. Go on, go for him. Hallelujah. Embrace him. Love him in. Lord, I, glory. If you don't know how to do it, I don't know how you don't know how to do it. But if you don't, you'll come and see me afterwards. What a glorious truth this is, beloved, that God is dealing with. If you stopped worrying about the state of your mind and got down to the business of your basic primitive appetites, you'd get somewhere. Now, this is what God is talking about. Hallelujah. Alright. The blood is the token. The blood is the token. And then, well, well, I suppose we could, we could really go on. But, perhaps we ought to just a little more here in this same chapter or at this point. You remember in verse 14 that God said this was to be for a memorial and that they were to keep this as a feast unto the Lord. I like this idea of feasting unto the Lord, don't you? Instead of complaining to Him or all this business. I like this business of feasting unto the Lord. God wants you to have a real good feast on Jesus Christ. He'll love that. You can do it unto Him. You haven't got to be thinking about anything. You can really, according to you, just keep on eating and do that unto the Lord. You say, really? Yes. Wonderful. This is real. This is the way you get fat. Well, you know what I mean. This is the way you get muscle on you. This is the way you grow. This is what God wants. You don't think He's stupid, do you? Perhaps it's you that's stupid. It's so simple, so basic. It's all slanted to our basic appetites. All or a lot of it. What we primitively are, not what we are by education, even biblical education. It's a marvellous truth. And then He says this. It's got to be done forever, in verse 14, and He says, seven days you'll eat unleavened bread, even the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses, for whosoever eateth leaven, you've got leavened bread, but I think you'll find, especially if you're using a new bread, it's just leaven, whoso eateth leaven from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. Now, here is something I want you to see, beloved, and see very closely, for there are two deaths here. There was the death of the firstborn, but there's also the death of the people that won't eat, keep the feast of unleavened bread. Now, you keep that clear in your mind. They weren't to keep on eating the lamb, that was for one night only. If any remains for the morning, it had to be consumed in fire if they couldn't eat it, which should give you some clue that you should be wanting to eat the lamb with all the fire of your inward appetite. And what you don't want that way, had to be burned in the fire. I want to tell you the lamb is for the fire. You've got to desire the Lord with all your inward love, and feed on him, unless there's nothing much doing. If you only want to use him as a way of escape, you haven't got your sights right yet. Don't you know, he wants to be loved? He was roasted for you on the cross. Did you know that? The fire of God's anger against sin was all unleashed upon him there. He loves you. Glorious, isn't it? He should be sweet to you. But you should come to an understanding of the bitterness of the herbs that garnished the dish on the night they ate the lamb. Oh, it was a terribly bitter occasion for God. The Lord said, well, keep it like this. Eat the unleavened bread. This pure, lovely Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that is to be your pure food for the next seven days. And if you don't, you're going to be killed. So don't think just because you're firstborn isn't killed tonight that that's all there is in it. You're going to be cut off. Absolutely. In other words, your life that's going to commence tonight has got to be continued. That's what he's saying. What a marvelous thing. Well, look at verse 16. Every verse, it seems, is filled with point and meaning. The first day there should be an holy convocation. That's the first day of this week of eating. The feast of unleavened bread. In the seventh day there should be an holy convocation to you. No manner of work shall be done in them, save only whichever man, look at your next word, not may eat, must eat. I want to lay that on your heart, beloved. Must. Must. Hmm. They all had to eat it. Didn't matter if the kid said, oh, I want Weetabix, you see. Oh, poor little dear, let him have what he wants. You eat unleavened bread. By the way, some of you should bring your children. It's you that don't. You can have rice crispies, corn flakes, Weetabix porridge. You can have nice peanut butter, you can have this, you can have chocolate if you don't want that. If you don't want milk, you can have corn, you'll love it. What? God started them right. Why don't you? You'll pay for it if you don't. I'm telling you, but you won't be told, will you? All right. And God said, that's what they're to have, you see. Do you know my wife gave me permission to leave some of my lunch today because she'd given me too much. And she was, she could see I was struggling with it and I thought to myself, what an idiot I am. Do you know why I would have eaten everything? Because when I was young, I was told, your mother cooked that and it's good and you're to eat it. And I wasn't allowed to leave it. And it's in me now. You train up a child, the scripture says so, and you're training your children, you're training them, they're running rings round you. But they're such lovely little duckies, aren't they? But God didn't know anything, you know it all. Let's go on, let's go on, shall we? You know what God was doing? Getting them used to a pilgrim life. This is the first day of the year to you. First month of the year unto you. What a tremendous beginning. If it can be a month of having your eyes open on the proper way to treat your children, you will have benefited from coming to this meeting tonight. Oh God, I see truth. Do you? I see a spirit moving. I see a way of God. What do you see? Just words on the paper. Now may the Lord take us on. And he says this, you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies. Now notice this, this is why they were put on army rations, armies. They weren't being brought out pushed in perambulators. That's right, shoes on your feet. You got any babies? Strap them on your back. That's right, get going. Do you really mean to get out of the devil's territory? Do you really mean to get out of this world? Do you really mean it? Not if we can help it. Now here is the truth, I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt, therefore you shall observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever. Oh dear, armies. Does this mean fighting? We're going to be thrust straight into the battle. Oh no, God is very concerned. Look at it this way. Are you ready? It says this in verse 17 of chapter 13, it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near, for God said, lest peradventure the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt. But God led the people about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea, and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt. Went up harnessed, harnessed. Praise the name of the Lord. Glory be to the name of the Lord. No, he didn't thrust them straight into warfare. Why, everybody that's really redeemed of the Lord rejoices in this, don't they? You know, you seem to get really redeemed by the Lord and all your wars cease. I think this is great. If you've never been brought to a place where all the warfare ceases, then something's gone wrong. Yeah. That's what old Wesley has us singing. You know, wars, fighting, cease. Hallelujah. God said, no, we won't take them that way. Don't want them to get thinking, oh dear, we'd better return to Egypt. They're out of Egypt and they're not going back there under any pretense. I accept no excuses. This is what God is saying. It's lovely to come up against a real God, isn't it? And know the truth. But my, he's worth trusting. All right. Let's go on, shall we? We could go down the chapter and we could see Moses passing on these instructions to the children of Israel. Verse 25. It shall come to pass, when you be come to the land which the Lord will give you, according as he hath promised, that you shall keep this service. Notice, it is a service. Will you note that? Say, service, service. That's right. When you come to the real redemption, you are serving God. It's a service to the Lord. A service that all the children of men ought to be delighting in. Wonderful service. You'll serve me best, says the Lord, by eating my lamb. That's right. That's what he's talking about. Forget everything else. If you're worried and flurried about rushing here, doing that, something else, or the other, if you're not eating the lamb, you're wasting your time. The first service God wants you to do Him is eat His Son. Amen. Eat the bitter herbs. Eat the unleavened bread. If you haven't got an appetite for that, you can't ever get strong enough to serve Him, although people may call you a servant of the Lord. It shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That you shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses, and the people bowed their heads and worshipped. And the children of Israel went away and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. So did they. I want you to notice something, will you? That deliverance comes in redemption. You get totally redeemed, you'll be completely delivered. Amen. This is what we're talking about. God had said this in the 6th chapter. I've come, well He said it in the 3rd chapter, I've come down to deliver my people. How are you going to deliver them? Take that Pharaoh, take that Pharaoh, take that Pharaoh, take that, nine, ten great plagues and pestilences. But that didn't deliver Egypt, that didn't deliver Israel. The deliverance of Israel was by the redemption. Total redemption is total deliverance. Glory be to the name of the Lord. This is what we're seeing in this great contest. God is destroying all the gods of Egypt. In this great contest God is dealing in this with the young Pharaoh God, the firstborn that was heir to the throne. Killed him. He was a god that was being worshipped like the present Pharaoh on the throne then. And he dealt with all the other gods of the Nile and these scarabs and all these things that they used to worship. He smoked them. That's it. Finished them. And when you come to this glorious redemption beloved, know this, that those things all preceded the redemption. God dealt with all those on the cross before he died in total redemption. Jesus dealt with them there. All of them. Amen. Oh, what a tremendous thing this is to get into our hearts. It's lovely to know that we're redeemed by God. Well, do you know you're redeemed by the Lord? The people worshipped. Well, that was great. And we read a little. Verse 33. God went right through the land. Pharaoh rises up. Verse 31. And he goes to Moses and there he says, come on, get up and get out. That's wonderful, isn't it? And take your flocks, be gone. Bless me also, he says. And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people that they might send them out of the land in haste. For they said, we'd be all dead. We'd be all dead men. And the Egyptian people took their gold before it was leavened. Their needing troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders. And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses. And they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment. And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians. So that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians. And the children of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Saketh. About six hundred thousand on foot that were men beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them. And flocks and herds. Even very much cattle. A great multitude. Probably near a million went. For there were six hundred thousand men. You know that the women are never mentioned here. Cheer up you ladies. Don't worry about that. It isn't because you're not important. It's simply this. This is the reason. In case when you read the New Testament you get on this women's lib a little bit. Even if you say no I don't believe in that. But inside you see. Now God sees those. You understand don't you? They're done and escaped God. He knows whether you're a rebel at heart or whether you aren't. Now there's no need to get rebellious. This is simply because when God said in the beginning let them be entwined become one flesh. When he counted the men he counted the women as well. They were only one. That's why. Simple isn't it? Now back up them. Cheer up them. And don't see. There were some single ladies. Not many. They were married. That was their career. That was a tremendous thing. And beside all the children you see that went up how many of those there were we don't know. Then this great mixed multitude that went up too. This is when God speaks like this he's just being true to what he says. If he counted the women separate you'd say oh it seems we've broken the principle here. When you began to understand what the Bible's all about and how God is talking about instead of saying mm mm mm now because you're not counted you see. Here then is the glorious truth that God is talking about. The very mixed multitude went up out of Egypt. You say I wonder who this mixed multitude were. I think we can put our finger on who this mixed multitude were. Go back a little into chapter nine. It's good to make the Bible the commentary on the Bible. Often the other commentaries miss lots of truth. But when the Bible is the commentary on the Bible it all becomes wonderfully clear. It's concerning the great plague of the pestilence that came down in terrible rain and grievous hail and also fire ran along the ground. Verse 24. Alright. But I want you to read verse 19. Send therefore now and gather thy cattle here is Moses speaking and all that thou hast in the field for every man and beast which shall be found in the field and shall not be brought home the hail shall come down upon them and they shall die. He that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses and he that regarded not the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field and you know what happened to them. This mixed multitude undoubtedly contained these. Those that had heard and feared the word of the Lord and they did to the best of their ability obey the word of the That's what they did. It was a completely mixed multitude. It may even have been, though I wouldn't know this, that some of the Egyptians and the Israelites had intermarried. I don't really know and that can only be a suggestion. But up they go. Now this is what God says. Verse 43. The Lord says to Moses and Aaron. This is the ordinance of the Passover. There shall no stranger eat thereof. It's foreigner. That word stranger. But I'm in chapter 12 of course. Every man's servant that is bought for money when thou has circumcised him then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof. In one house shall it be eaten. Thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house, neither shall you break a bone thereof. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it and when a stranger shall sojourn with thee and will keep the Passover to the Lord let all his males be circumcised and then let him come near and keep it and he shall be as one that is born in the land for no uncircumcised shall eat thereof. One law shall be to him that is home born and under the hand of that sojourneth among you. None but those who belong to Israel. The sign of belonging to Israel was not necessarily that they were children of Abraham. If they had Egyptian servants they could be brought into the Passover covenant and blessing if they were circumcised. A hired servant could not be brought in. If he didn't want to belong to Israel, if he didn't want to take on the covenant, he was cut off. That's right. Just an interested passer-by, a stranger visiting, they couldn't partake of the Passover that is in the years to follow. It was only for those who were the true children, either by birth or by circumcision. For if they had been born Israelites and still were uncircumcised, remember what God did to Moses on his way down to Egypt, they would not belong to Israel. Belonging to Israel did not stand in a birthright. It stood in circumcision. Now, let that go right deep into your heart. Now, let's understand this. There were many in that mixed multitude, they were still foreigners. A man ceased to be a foreigner when he was circumcised. What a tremendous thing that is, when you know the circumcision of the cross. Until then, when you are a stranger, you feel you don't belong, you are not in, you are out on the limb. But when this takes place, you are in. Hallelujah, you belong. Maybe the explanation of why you feel out, unwanted, not belonging, maybe, you ought to find out. You ought to ask the Lord about it, not run into a ferrari of trying to persuade yourself in your own mind. You have got to know, because otherwise, by God's command, you are excluded. It is God that is excluding you. It isn't Israel. What a glorious truth this is, that God is revealing to our hearts. Amen. Listen, I want to tell you something. I am in. I belong. I am right in. Amen. Are you? I belong. Glory be to the name of the Lord. I don't have any mental aberrations and conflicts and I don't feel this, that and the other. I am right in wherever I go. I wrote a letter to America today. I might as well tell you one or two asides. Why should I stick right down on the exegesis all the time? I don't want to drive you right off to sleep. I wrote a letter today to an invitation to go to America, I was answering. And I said, I don't know you. I just knew this one man whom I met recently from America and God blessed him and so on, usual way it all goes on. And I said, I don't know these brethren that are inviting me, but I know that when I come over I shall know their spirit, you see, and I know that I shall be in fellowship with all the true children of God. Anywhere, anytime, the true children of God, bye, you're in, it's one family, only one land, only one house, it's fathers, only one blood, glory, only one food, come on, come in and put your feet under father's table, no, well, yes, I mean, put your sandals on first, get ready to start the pilgrimage, stop tarrying around in the world, stop bucketing about out there, we're moving for God. Oh, dear, we've come to the end of the 13th, of the 12th chapter and it's quarter past nine and we'll soon stop. I think, I hoped to have got through the Red Sea tonight but I haven't. I thought when you were all singing that hymn Bring Us Safe Through Jordan, I thought we ought to substitute Red Sea for that. Anyway, I won't comment on the other side of it, but here is the, the glorious truth. Let's go right down and finish this 12th chapter and just slip into the 13th. Verse 49 One law shall be to him that's home-born and unto the stranger that is sojourneth among you. Thus did all the children of Israel as the Lord commanded them and so did they. They didn't say, oh well, you know, you're very nice and you keep coming along and we like you and you could do this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this this is why I've lapsed right into the 13th And the LORD spoke unto Moses saying, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast. It is mine. I'm going to leave it there tonight. So I want you to see that in redemption there is not only uttermost deliverance, but uttermost sanctification. Amen. It is mine. That's the great root of the truth of sanctification, beloved. God saying, you're mine. You're mine, you're mine, you're mine. Glory. He does love us, you know. He likes to put his arms around us and say, you're mine, you're mine, you're mine. God wants to own you, wants to possess you. You're mine, you're mine. That's why God said to them on the very night when Moses was leading them out, He said, you say this to the children of Israel, sanctify unto me all that openeth the world, man and beast. It's mine, it's mine. The firstborn, you see. You are a firstborn nation unto me. I've slain Aaron's first, Pharaoh's firstborn, all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I've slain them. You are now my firstborn nation. I want to keep it all clear. God had never given birth to a nation before. He gave birth to the nation on this great day. They all came out as his. It was his firstborn nation. Hallelujah. I want you to keep this fixed in your life, in the center of your thinking, and therefore every firstborn male of any man or woman or any beast, you ought to give that to me. That's right. It was all token again, you see. Token. The blood was a token. Now the gift of the firstborn, another token. A token of what? Well, God grant us the ability, we'll come together next week and look a little into that. May he open all our eyes unto the truth of it. What I want to ask you tonight is, are you one of these redeemed? Now stop trying to wrestle with it and know that redemption is intended by God to relieve your brain. And give you rest from thinking. To know that it means that God has bought you completely. And all he wants you to do is to acknowledge that and fly to his arms. Now that's what he wants. I've shown you, it's mine. You're mine. That's it. He's thrilled about that. Got a people for himself. Glory, glory, glory. Isn't that wonderful? All the rest he's going to deal with, as we shall see. But that's the basis of it. Until you acknowledge that, and come out of theory land, and fairy land, and thinking land, and believing land, you see. Well, you've been trying that for 50 years, perhaps 40, 30, 20, I don't know. Or even less than that. Just see this. Lord, glory. I give up. I'm yours, Lord. Amen. Amen. That's the foundation of one of the devil's strong positions. Glory. Can you look up and say, Lord, I'm yours. This was the chorus that we sang. I am mine no more. Jesus, I am thine. Amen. That's right. Now say yes to that. You said you would. Or you sang you would. Now say yes, Lord. Yes. Yes. Praise the name of the Lord. And what do you do, Lord? Oh, I'll take care of the devil. I'll take care of all these other, these pharaohs and, and I don't know what. You leave all that to me. Just come and be mine. It has never dawned on you what it's all about. The devil's been deceiving so many people. He gets them in the plagues. He gets them in the pestilences. He gets them in all sorts of dreads and fears and worked-up emotions and way-out thinking. Now listen. It's just a matter of utter simplicity. Yeah, that's what it is. Amen. Do you believe that? Well, go on, act on it. Amen. Amen. Lord, it's so wonderful. And thou hast made it so simple for us, so natural. We realise that thou art bringing us into thy naturalness, Lord. Our naturalness, our natural states, being so queer and so messed up, Lord, and so vitiated. Lord, thank you for bringing us into thy reasoning, into thy ways, Lord. That we don't have to think anything out at all. We just, well, it's just done. Hallelujah. We love you, Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen. Glory. So glad you ever wanted this, Lord. Amen. Lord, we love you. We love this, Lord. We thank thee for redemption, Father. We're not trying to get tied up with atonement and justification, Father. It's redemption, Lord. It all starts there. Blessed be thy name. Thou disclaim us on the basis of the slain lamb and the shed blood. Hallelujah. That's good enough for thee. Then we take it, Father, as well. Glory to thy name. We say to everything else, clear off and get out. We don't believe thee. We don't trust in this or that. We don't trust in ourselves. Hallelujah. Lord, let the revelation come to every heart and mind as lightning from heaven, Father. Let light come, O blessed Lord. Father, we rejoice in thee. Amen. Amen. Amen. Glory to thy name, Father. Praise God. Jesus. Jesus. Redeemed. Redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed. His child and forever I am. Redeemed. Redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed. His child and forever I am. His child and forever I tell. I know that the light of his presence with me doth continually dwell.