"When I See The Blood”

“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.