Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1988
“Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the basin; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when He sees the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you. And you shall observe this thing for an ordinance to you and to your sons forever And it shall come to pass, when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, according as He has promised, that you shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean you by this service? that you shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passo ver, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.” Exodus 12:21-27.
I WANTED, dear Friends, earnestly wanted, to continue the subject of last Lord’s-Day morning, for I felt it important that we should bear again and again our witness to the doctrine of the vicarious Sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord. But, at the same time, I promised that I would endeavor to keep “the feast of the children” and have a sermon which should be specially addressed to Sunday school teachers. I could not preach a school sermon at the appointed time, so as to open your children’s week, but thought a discourse might come in, none the less suitably, if I brought up the rear by closing your meetings. How am I to fulfill both my purposes? I think the subject before us will enable me to do so. We shall preach of the sprinkled blood and of Jesus, the great Sacrifice for sin—and then we shall press upon all who know the value of the great Redemption that they teach the young in their earliest days what is meant by the death of Jesus and salvation through His blood.
The Paschal lamb was a special type of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are not left to gather this from the general fact that all the ancient sacrifices were shadows of the one true and real Substance—we are assured in the New Testament that “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor 5:7). As the Paschal lamb must be without blemish, so was our Lord, and its killing and roasting with fire were typical of His death and sufferings. Even as to time our Lord fulfilled the type, for the time of His Crucifixion was the Passover. As the impression answers to the seal, so does the Sacrifice of our Lord correspond with all the items of the ceremonial Passover. We see Him “drawn out” from among men and led as a lamb to the slaughter. We see His blood shed and sprinkled. We see Him roasted in the fire of anguish. By faith we eat of Him and flavor the feast with the bitter herbs of penitence. We see Jesus and salvation where the carnal eye sees only a slaughtered lamb and a people saved from death.
The Spirit of God in the ceremonial Passover lays special emphasis upon the sprinkling of the blood. That which men so greatly oppose, He as diligently sets forth as the head and front of Revelation. The blood of the chosen lamb was caught in a basin and not spilled upon the ground in wastefulness, for the blood of Christ is most precious. Into this bowl of blood a bunch of hyssop was dipped. The sprays of that little shrub would hold the crimson drops, so that they could be easily sprinkled. Then the father of the family went outside and struck with this hyssop the lintel and the two side posts of the door—and so the house was marked with three crimson streaks. No blood was put upon the threshold. Woe
unto the man that tramples upon the blood of Christ and treats it as an unholy thing! Alas, I fear that many are doing so at this hour, not only among the outside world, but among those who profess and call themselves Christians.
I shall endeavor to bring forward two things. First, the importance attached to the sprinkled blood and, secondly, the institution connected with it, namely, that the children should be instructed in the meaning of sacrifice, so that they also may teach their children and keep afire the memory of the Lord’s great deliverance.
I. First—THE IMPORTANCE ATTACHED TO THE BLOOD OF SACRIFICE is here made very plain. Pains are taken to make the sacrifice observable, yes, to force it upon the notice of all the people!
I note, first, that it became and remained the national mark. If you had traversed the streets of Memphis or Rameses on the night of the Passover, you could have told who were Israelites and who were Egyptians by one conspicuous token. There was no need to listen under the window to hear the speech of the people within the house, nor to wait till any came into the street so that you could observe their attire. This one thing, alone, would be a sufficient guide—the Israelite had the blood mark upon his doorway—the Egyptian had it not. Mark you, this is still the great point of difference between the children of God and the children of the Wicked One. There are, in truth, but two denominations upon this earth— the Church and the world—those who are justified in Christ Jesus and those who are condemned in their sins. This shall stand for a never-failing sign of the “Israelite, indeed.” He has come to the blood of sprinkling, which speaks better things than that of Abel. He that believes in the Son of God as the one accepted Sacrifice for sin, has salvation and he that believes not in Him will die in his sins.