You know, a few of you might know the name Robert Murray McShane.
McShane was a pastor whom God used to bring a mighty revival to Scotland in the early 1800s. And McShane once wrote to a fellow pastor these words, and I quote, he said, We are ministers, but for a short time. At any moment, the master may summon us to retire into silence, or call us to the temple above. He went on to say, Make all your messages count for eternity. Speak now, when you can look back on with comfort, when you can speak no more. Speak as a dying man to dying men, end of quote.
Now friends, these are awesome and sobering words for all of us. And they apply perfectly to our subject for this morning, which is the blood of Jesus Christ. You know, it's important that we understand that true Christianity is a blood based religion. Remove the blood from Christianity and we do not have true biblical Christianity anymore. And yet today, many preachers, many church leaders, many seminary professors, many Christians in general have become strangely uncomfortable talking about the blood of Jesus Christ. They consider such talk to be primitive, to be gruesome, to be unsophisticated for our modern world. They refer to such preaching pejoratively as the gospel of gore and the cult of plasma. Well, friends, I'm here to tell you today that what the Bible says about the blood of Jesus Christ is not unsophisticated.
It is not primitive and it is not gruesome but rather it is the best news that the world has ever been given. And so today we want to talk about the blood of Jesus Christ because I want to speak to you about the tenth plague that happened in Egypt as our study of Moses continues today. And the tenth plague is all about the blood covering that God provides for sinful people like you and me. So if you brought a Bible today, I want you to open it to Exodus chapter 11 with me. If you did not bring a Bible, look under the armrests there next to you and you'll find a copy of the Bible. We're going to be on page 47. Page 47 and I'll copy Exodus 11 in your copy. And today we're going to talk about the tenth plague that God brought on Egypt.
So let me do just a little bit of review, okay? Because all summer now, right, we've not been away from Exodus, so let's review. You'll remember that Moses and Aaron went in to see Pharaoh and they said, God demands you let the Hebrews go. Pharaoh in response said, Exodus 5, 2, who is the Lord that I should obey him? And so God decided to answer Pharaoh's question and he did so by sending a series of supernatural plagues onto the land of Egypt.
We've already looked at nine of them. The Nile turned to blood. God flooded the land with frogs and gnats and flies and cattle disease. He sent boils on all the people and then hail and then locust plagues and finally darkness covered the land.
Folks, you think New Orleans was a mess after Katrina. You should have seen Egypt after the nine plagues. And yet still, Pharaoh said, I'm not letting the Israelites go.
Okay, that's where we've been. Now let's pick up chapter 11 verse one. Now the Lord said to Moses, I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt and after this, he will let you go. And when he does, tell the Hebrews to ask their Egyptian neighbors for silver and gold. God said, hey Moses, I'm going to bring out the heavy artillery now, son. I'm going to schwack Pharaoh so hard that he's going to beg you to leave Egypt when I'm done with him.
And because of what I'm about to do, the Egyptians are going to be willing to give you anything you want just to get you out of town. And when they make that offer, you tell the Israelites to take all the gold and silver that they can possibly carry with them. Now, why did God want the Israelites to amass all this gold and silver like this?
You say, Lon, I know why. It's because Joel Osteen is right. God wants us all to be rich.
No, no, that is not the answer. The answer is so that the Israelites would have it later, Exodus 35 out in the wilderness, to contribute it for the building of the Ark of the Covenant and the building of the Tabernacle. We'll get there in Exodus 35. Now, what was this last awful plague that God was going to send? Well, look at verse four. Thus says the Lord about midnight, I will go through Egypt and every firstborn son in Egypt will die from the firstborn son of Pharaoh who sits on the throne to the firstborn of the slave girl who sits at her mill.
Verse six. And there will be loud wailing throughout Egypt, worse than there has ever been before or ever will be again. But among the Israelites, a dog shall not even bark, for I will make a distinction between the Israelites and the Egyptians.
So you may know that I am the Lord. God tells Moses he's going to kill every firstborn son in Egypt. However, he's going to exempt the Israelites from this plague. And his reason is so that the Egyptians would know that the tenth plague was not just some act of nature, but rather that it was a supernatural act from the hand of the living God himself. Now, we said a moment ago that God decided he would exempt the Israelites from the tenth plague, but that statement is not entirely accurate. To be entirely accurate, we should say that God made a way of exemption, a way of deliverance from the tenth plague available to the Israelites and that every Israelite who appropriated that way of exemption, that way of deliverance was exempted from the tenth plague.
And that way of deliverance was centered around a blood covering. Look with me, chapter 12 of Exodus, verse three. God said to the Israelites, each one of you is to take a lamb.
Each lamb must be a male without defect. None of its bones are to be broken. And you are to slaughter it on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan. And you are to put its blood on the sides and top of the doorframe of your house, verse 12. And on that same night, I will go through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn in Egypt. But 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 plague will befall you when I strike the land of Egypt. Verse 14, and you shall commemorate this day for all generations to come and you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. Now, we know this festival today as the Jewish feast of Passover celebrated every year on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan.
Now please notice here in the tenth plague what the central issue was. It was the blood of the Passover lamb. God's promise was when I see the blood and you hiding behind it, I will pass over you. God's promise was not when I see that you're Israelites.
God's promise was not when I see that you're synagogue members or that you've been bar mitzvahed or that you're trying hard to be good people. God's way of deliverance from His judgment that night in Egypt had nothing to do with race, nationality, education, good works, religious activity, ancestry, socioeconomic condition or recycling. That fateful night in Egypt, God's way of deliverance, the issue was who was covered by the blood? Who was hiding behind the blood? The point, my friends, is that the events of the very first Passover were meant to teach you and me as human beings about the absolute centrality of a blood covering in God's plan of deliverance for the human race.
When God is judging sin, there is only one remedy for sinful people like you and me and that is to get behind the blood covering He provided because His promise is when I see the blood, I will pass over you in judgment. Now that's as far as we want to go in the passage today. We'll come back and finish it up next week because we want to stop now and ask the question, well, I'm not going to ask it.
You need to ask it. What's the question? Ready?
One, two, three. Yeah. You say, Lon, so what difference does this make to me? Okay.
I mean, how does this affect my life in the 21st century? Well, let me tell you. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul writes, 1 Corinthians 5, 7, for Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us. And the reason for calling Jesus our Passover lamb, that reason is clear when we look at the comparison between the Lord Jesus Christ and the original Passover lamb.
Look at this. The Lord Jesus was obviously male, just like the Passover lamb was. The Lord Jesus was also blemishless, perfect, without sin, just like the Passover lamb was. The Lord Jesus was killed on the 14th day of Nisan on the cross, the first day of Passover, just like the Passover lamb was. Not a bone in his body was broken.
You remember when the soldiers came to break his legs, he was already dead. And the Bible says this was to fulfill the scripture which says, not a bone in his body shall be broken. What scripture is that? It's the scripture talking about the Passover lamb. And finally, and most importantly, his blood shed on the cross provides a blood covering for us, just like the blood of the Passover lamb provided a blood covering for the people in Egypt 3500 years ago. Except it is the ultimate blood covering now.
It is the final blood covering now. To put it another way, when we as sinful people take refuge behind Jesus Christ's blood, when we hide behind it from the judgment of God, just as those Hebrews hid behind the Passover lamb's blood that night in Egypt so long ago, when we do this, we activate for ourselves the very promise that God gave these Israelites 3500 years ago. And that promise is when I see the blood and you hiding behind it, I will pass over you except that now the blood that we're hiding behind is no longer the blood of some literal Passover lamb.
It's the blood of the Messiah himself, the risen, living Lord Jesus Christ. Now friends, this concept of a blood covering for sinful people did not begin with the 10th plague. If we go all the way back to the beginning of the human race, we find that God was teaching this to the human race from the very beginning.
Go back to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve disobeyed God. And even there God began teaching them that they could still approach God, but they had to do it by way of a blood covering. This is why Abel, one of their sons, Adam and Eve's sons brought a blood offering to God, Genesis chapter four, and Cain, one of their other sons refused to. And it's why God accepted Abel's offering and rejected Cain's. Read in the Bible, Noah bought blood offerings to God.
So did Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Job. In fact, the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament practiced for centuries at the temple in Jerusalem centered around this concept of a blood covering. A worshiper, a Jewish worshiper would bring an animal to the temple. The priest would kill that animal and take its blood and put it on the altar. And in response, God would forgive that worshiper's sins.
Now you say, Lon, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. How in the world can the blood of oxen and bulls and lambs pay for people's sins? Well, the answer is it can't. Hebrews 10 four, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away people's sins. You see, friends, in the Old Testament, God accepted this animal blood as a temporary covering for people's sins, not as the final solution. It was the blood of the Lord Jesus shed on the cross, which would be the final solution, the permanent covering for people's sins. This is why Hebrews nine verse 12 says not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood. He, Jesus, entered into the Holy of Holies and obtained eternal redemption for us. The blood of these animal sacrifices enabled God to make peace with Old Testament sinners because that blood prefigured the blood of Christ. It pointed to the blood of Christ.
But it was like a promissory note that God accepted his payment for sin until the final day of settlement when the blood of the Lord Jesus redeemed every promissory note in the Old Testament God ever accepted. The point of all this is to say that the only way God has ever allowed sinful human people to approach him and be safe and secure in his presence is on the basis of a blood covering. You said, Lon, are you sure you're not reading too much into this 10th plague thing here? I mean, son, it seems to me like you're taking the 10th plague and trying to make it walk on all fours. You know what I'm saying? You sure you're not making too much of this?
No, I'm not. Listen to the Bible. First John one, seven, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Hebrews nine, 12, by his own blood, Jesus obtained eternal redemption for us.
First Peter chapter one, verse 18, for you were not redeemed from your empty way of life with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. Matthew 26, 28, Jesus said, this is my blood, which is poured out for many people for the forgiveness of sin. Colossians one 14, Paul says in Jesus Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Revelation five nine calls Jesus the one who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood. Romans five nine says we have been justified, made right in God's sight by Jesus's blood. Romans three 25, we get atonement for our sins through faith in and reliance on Jesus's blood. Finally, is it any wonder that John the Baptist pointed to the Lord Jesus and said, behold, the Passover lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
Friends, the Bible is airtight. There is only one basis on which God deals with sinful people like you and me. It's not good works, church membership or baptism. It's not being a nice person or trying to keep the Ten Commandments. It's not saying the rosary or doing our best or being as good as the next guy.
It's not rescuing dogs or driving the speed limit on the beltway. The basis that God deals with people like us is the blood covering that Jesus Christ provided on the cross. And listen to this.
Don't miss this. Salvation, getting eternal life, coming into relationship with Christ is simply a matter. Get this now of abandoning every other remedy imaginable to cover our sin before a holy God and taking refuge behind, hiding behind the blood of Christ in the same way these Israelites hid behind the blood of the Passover lamb in Egypt 3500 years ago. You say, but Lon, this is too easy. This is too simple. I mean, you know, to get eternal life, you got to do something harder than that. This is too easy.
Well friends, let me tell you to you, please do not be educated beyond your intelligence. Do not complicate something that God made simple. God wants this to be so easy that a child can do it and children do do it. Why would God want to make it hard? God wants every one of us to do this.
Every human being alive, God wants to do this. Why would He make it difficult? Well, the answer is He hasn't made it difficult.
It's easy if we want to do it. Let me close by saying this today. Hebrews 12 29 says that our God is a consuming fire. What this means is God's holiness is so awesome and so unfathomable that it can tolerate nothing unholy in its presence. I'm always amazed at people, you've met them, who say, well, you wait till I meet God. When I meet God, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. I'm going to straighten him out.
I'm going to tell him what I think about this or what that. You've met people like that, haven't you? I have to kind of just smile a little bit when I hear people say that because it's tragic. They don't understand who God is. They don't understand what God is like. My friends, the holiness of God is so awesome that it will devastate every unprotected, uncovered sinner that comes into its presence in the same way that a red hot burner vaporizes water when it touches it. And what this means is that you and me aren't going to tell God anything if we're facing him uncovered.
These people are not going to set God straight about anything. And it means that every single human being on this earth, you, me, every one of us, we better go into eternity with a protective covering before God that will work, that will stand the test of his holiness. McShane said, I quote, in ourselves, we can never stand righteous before Jehovah God in our nature, in our past life, in our breaking of his holy laws, in our neglect of Jesus, in our indwelling sin, God can see nothing in us, but what he must condemn. But McShane went on to say, our tears will not blot out our sin. The people in hell do nothing but weep, but that changes nothing. Instead, we must be covered with a spotless righteousness. And Jesus offers us this perfect righteousness in God's sight through his blood. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath this flood lose all their guilty stains.
You know the song? What can wipe away my sin? What? But the blood of Jesus, what can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. That's the way it goes folks. And so as we close, let me just say to you that the blood of Jesus is the spray and wash of heaven. You got what I'm saying?
You understand? And anybody who goes in to the presence of God, covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, looks white as snow to him in his judgment. And anybody who goes in not covered, well, it'll be a tragic day. And so I want to ask you as we close today, are you covered by the blood of Jesus or aren't you?
It's a simple question. If you are, and many of you are, then I'm here to tell you that every day you should spend rejoicing, because you've got a covering that all the forces of hell itself can't take away from you, that will protect you on the day you face Almighty God, and he will look at you and go, I pass over you. I pass over you. No judgment on you, because you're covered.
And now what a cool thing is that. That's why you can be in Lebanon with the bombs falling, and you can be calm as can be, because you know you're ready to stand before the holiness of God covered by the blood of Christ. Now if you're here and you're not covered, then friends, I'm here to tell you as your friend that you are in grave danger, because if any of us goes into eternity to meet a holy God hiding behind any covering other than the blood of Jesus, we are going to be doomed eternally.
Now I'm here to tell you that, as I say, as your friend, but the good news of the Bible is we can fix that right now. The good news of the Bible is that the blood of Jesus is free for the taking. The good news is if you want to give up everything else you've ever trusted and accept the blood of Christ as you're covering this morning, you can do it.
And we're going to give you the chance right now. Let's bow our heads together. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, if you're here today and you want to trade in everything else you've ever trusted in, your good works, your religious activity, being a nice person, whatever, and take the blood of Christ shed on the cross as you're covering before the holiness of God, then here's what we're going to do. We're going to have a little prayer. I'm going to pray out loud. You're going to pray silently, one phrase at a time, and we're going to make that switch right now.
So here we go. I'll pray out loud. You pray silently. Lord Jesus, I come to you today because I need to be covered from the awesome holiness of God. Lord, I'm a sinful person.
I admit that. But I want to stand before you and have you see me as white as snow. And I thank you that Jesus died on the cross and shed His blood to provide that opaque covering for me in your sight.
And so this morning, I consciously and deliberately abandoned every other covering and remedy that I've ever trusted to stand before you with. And I take the blood of Jesus as my covering and I hide behind it for the rest of eternity. Lord, forgive my sins and pass over me in judgment because you won't see me.
You'll see the blood of Jesus covering me. And I pray this in Jesus' name. And Father, I want to pray for the folks who prayed that prayer that you would confirm in their heart right now that a great transaction has taken place that as the Bible says, they have moved from death in your sight to eternal life and that they have taken on a covering that will never fail for all of eternity. Lord, thank you for dying on the cross and providing for us what we could not provide for ourselves. Help us rejoice in the blood covering the Lord Jesus gives us, which all the forces of hell itself can never take away.
And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.
