“WHEN I SEE THE BLOOD”
Ex. 12:6-13
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: COMPLAINING EVEN IN HAPPY TIMES
1. A lady entered a department store and was startled when a band began to play. Then a company executive pinned an orchid on her dress and handed her a crisp $100 bill. She was the store’s 1 millionth customer.
2. Television crews filmed her reactions. One reporter approached her and said, “Congratulations Ma’am! Can you tell what brought you to the store today?”
3. She hesitated a moment, and then said, “Well actually I’m on my way to the complaint department!”
B. TEXT
3:7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. 20 So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go.
12:6 [on] the fourteenth day of the month…slaughter [the Passover Lamb] at twilight. 7 Then…take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where [you] eat the lambs. 12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. Ex. 3:7-8,19; 12:6-7,12-13. “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” 1 Cor. 5:7B.
C. THESIS
1. Be careful what you sow, for a day of reaping will come! The Egyptians had enslaved the Israelites for 300 years. The terrible brutality and infanticide they had perpetrated had incensed the Holy God.
2. So God sent nine plagues on them – the Nile was turned to blood, then came frogs, the lice, the flies, their cattle died of disease; then came boils, hail, locusts, and then darkness.
3. But Pharaoh refused to free the Israelites from their cruel bondage, so God pronounced a final judgment on them – the death of the firstborn.
4. Imagine yourself there that night. The tenth plague was more frightening than all the others: Death was being loosed into the streets; no firstborn in the land of Egypt would survive the night; every house would have a dead person in it! No bolted door or barred window could keep that Death out. All trembled, for every family would lose someone tonight!
5. Wait! The voice of God’s Mercy spoke: “There is a reprieve, an exception: all who take refuge under the blood of God’s sacrificial Lamb would be spared!”
I. HOW IMPORTANCE WAS THE BLOOD THAT NIGHT? It was the Most Important thing in the world!
A. WAS MADE AS CONSPICUOUS AS POSSIBLE
1. It became the distinguishing Mark. You could tell an Israelite from an Egyptian – NOT by clothing or by language, but by the Blood on the doorway.
2. There were no “secret believers” that day! What you believed was emblazoned in red on the front of your house.
3. You had to disregard your friend’s opinions, your social standing, your sophistication, your wealth.
4. Both rich and poor had to disfigure the fronts of their houses with grotesque swaths of blood.
5. There was NO COMPROMISE POSTION: Either you had the Blood on your house, or you didn’t! There wasn’t a nice, polite way to do it.
6. The Lord’s people couldn’t be ashamed of Jesus that day and live! They had to choose.
B. THE BLOOD WAS THE SAVING TOKEN
1. Every house in Egypt had a dead person in it.
2. Only the blood separated the living from the dead.
3. When the walls of Jericho fell, only one house (in the wall) was left standing – the one with the Scarlet Cord in the window!
C. THEY TRUSTED IN IT COMPLETELY
1. They put the Blood on the door, then they shut it and didn’t open it until morning.
2. For God commanded, “None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning” Ex. 12:22.
3. They were busy inside – roasting, preparing, and eating the Lamb. They prayed and sang hymns.
4. Outside, they could hear the shrieks and cries getting closer and closer. “Will death come to our house?” the children might ask.
5. The parents answered, “Don’t be afraid. The Blood will keep us safe!” They trusted in that blood!
D. ILLUS.: BLOOD UNDER THE DOOR
1. On the corner of the square in Rotterdam, Holland, there once stood a house known as the “House of Terrors.” The name comes from the 16th century when King Philip II of Spain, an arch-Roman Catholic, came against the Protestants of Holland, sending the Duke of Alva to slaughter them.
2. Spanish troops went house to house throughout Rotterdam, searching out Protestants and killing them. In this one particular house a handful of men, women, and children heard the soldiers approaching. The heard the pounding of doors, the screams of victims, and the marching feet coming toward them. Terror gripped their hearts.
3. But a young man suddenly got an idea. He took a goat they had in the courtyard, killed it, and swept its blood under the front door out onto the street. When the soldiers reached the house, they saw the blood flowing from under the door, and assumed their compatriots had already taken care of the job in that house, so they went on.
4. The blood of the innocent victim saved their lives; so Jesus’ blood saves us from future judgment. [Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illus., p. 78.]
E. IT BROKE THE HOLD OF EGYPT
1. Until that night they put the blood on their doors, Pharaoh had steadfastly refused to let them go.
2. But this final judgment, sealed with the blood of the sacrifice, broke the hold of Egypt over God’s people. Then Pharaoh commanded them to leave.
F. HUMOR: OUR DEBT OF GRACE
1. Western on TV. Two groups of men were in a saloon having a gun fight, from opposite sides of the saloon. The saloon doors burst open and in marched a little man, seemingly completely unafraid. He walked through the middle of the firing, which momentarily paused, and then he took his place at the bar.
2. A man sitting next to him looked at him with amazement; “Partner, it took real courage to walk thru the middle of that gun battle without looking to the right or left!” “Not at all”, he said, “I owe money to everyone in this place.” How many of you know we owe a great debt today?
II. WHERE DID THE BLOOD GET ITS POWER?
A. DERIVED FROM THE SACRIFICE HIMSELF
1. The Blood that saves us is from GOD’S APPOINTED SUBSTITUTE for us, Jesus Christ. No other substitute would be accepted.
2. HE WAS SPOTLESS – WITHOUT SIN. If there had been any sin in the life of Jesus, He would not have been eligible to be our Substitute/ Savior.
3. Because CHRIST HIMSELF WAS GOD. His blood was the blood of God (Acts 20:28). No mere man could atone for us; only the infinite, holy God could!
4. PROOF: HIS SACRIFICE WAS ACCEPTED BY FATHER. Peter and Paul pointed out that Christ’s resurrection was proof that His sacrifice for our sins had been received by the Father (Rom. 1:4).
5. Since the Father was fully satisfied, no amount of sin on our part can outstrip the efficacy of the Sacrifice.
B. IT WAS UNIQUE, UNEQUALED
1. Nothing but the Blood can ever save the soul. If a foolish Israelite said, “I will sprinkle my doorposts with diamonds; I will paint them with gold & silver…” he would have perished. Only the Blood can save (Acts 4:12)!
2. IT MUST SAVE ALONE!
a. You can’t add anything to it.
b. Good works, education, ordinances, human moral perfection, etc. – nothing else can save.
3. ILLUS.: POWER NEEDED
a. A young man from Glasgow, England fell into bad company, became a drunk, and ended up in prison. His depraved life grieved his godly mother. After he served his sentence he went again to his mother’s home.
b. She asked him to sign a pledge that he would leave his old life. He said, “Mother, I am not going to sign another pledge! I need a power that can change me on the inside to do that!”
c. Growing desperate, his mother took a knife and opened one of her veins, dipping the pen in her flowing blood. “Son, sign it in your mother’s blood! That may help you!” she sobbed.
d. Later the young man stood in church and testified, “What the blood of my mother could not do, the blood of Jesus Christ accomplished!” And that young man became a minister of the Gospel. [Walter Knight, Master Book of New Illus., p. 154].
C. IT AVERTS GOD’S GAZE FROM OUR SIN
1. “When I see the Blood, I will pass over you,”
2. “But I can’t see it. How do I know it will save me?” It doesn’t matter whether YOU see it or not; it’s God whose the One who sees it!
3. Think of the Holy Eye of God passing over the world in judgment. When His eye falls upon the Blood, He no longer sees you or your sin, but He sees His precious Son, who takes away the sin of the world!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. A man had a dream in which he saw Jesus tied to a whipping post, and a Roman soldier was beating him with a long leather whip with pieces of metal and bone tied into its many thongs. He was savagely injuring the back of Jesus.
2. As the soldier brought the whip down on the bare back of Jesus again, the dreamer shuddered as he saw the lacerations and pouring blood it left behind.
3. As the soldier again raised his arm to strike, the dreamer rushed forward to stop him. As he did so, the soldier turned around and the dreamer recognized himself! We ourselves are responsible for the suffering of Jesus! [Paul Lee Tan, 7,700 Illus., #486].
B. THE CALL
1. There’s only one thing that can get you or I into heaven; that’s repentance and faith in Jesus and His blood shed on the cross. There’s no better time than now to get right with God.
2. Let’s bow our heads. How many here this morning would like God to save and forgive you for your sins? Join me in the Sinner’s Prayer.
3. LORD’S SUPPER
