Hope in our hearts to hear, to receive
the word, not only as instruction, but as
event.
Something that goes into our deeps and performs
a work there.
Thank you again, Lord, for this privileged time.
Enjoy yourself, Lord, take your liberty.
Receive our gratitude, inexpressible gratitude, Lord, in Jesus'
name.
And maybe look over the familiar text of
Exodus 12 together.
The Lord wants to open dimensions there that
we have not glimpsed before.
Because the word is always infinite and unlimited.
So, at any point where something stirs in
you, raise your hand.
And we welcome that, as we want to
draw out, exegete, draw out the meaning of
these verses.
Verse 1 of chapter 12, the Lord spoke
unto Moses and Aaron in the land of
Egypt.
I'm glad that Aaron was not excluded.
Because he's symbolic of what is prophetic as
Moses.
He's symbolic of what is apostolic.
And both need to hear and to express
what comes from God.
This month shall be unto you the beginning
of months.
It shall be the first month of the
year to you.
Speaking 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 a house.
Ten is a significant number.
Ten commandments.
Ten days in the upper room.
Ten has kind of a resonance of judgment.
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.
Every man according to his heeding shall make
account for the lamb.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male
of the first year.
You shall take it out from the sheep
or from the goats.
You shall keep it up until the fourteenth
day of the same month.
And the whole assembly of the congregation of
Israel shall kill it in the evening.
They shall take of the blood and strike
it on the two side posts and on
the upper door post of the houses wherein
they shall eat it.
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, no satin at
all with water, but roast with fire each
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 you eat it with your wounds
girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff
in your hands, and you shall eat it
in haste.
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 beat you for a
token upon the houses where you are.
When I see the blood, I will pass
over you, and the plague shall not be
upon me 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.
Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.
Even the first day you shall put away
leaven out of your houses.
For whosoever eats leavened bread from the first
day until the seventh day, that soul shall
be cut off from Israel.
And on the first day there shall be
a holy convocation, and on the seventh day
there shall be a holy convocation to you.
No manner of work shall be done in
them, except that which every man must eat,
that only may be done of you.
And you shall observe the feast of unleavened
bread.
For in the selfsame day have I brought
your armies out of the land of Egypt.
Therefore you shall observe this day in your
generations by an ordinance forever.
In the first month, on the fourteenth day
of the month at evening, you shall eat
unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of
the month at evening.
Seven days shall there be no leaven found
in your houses.
And whosoever eats that which is leavened, even
that soul shall be cut off from the
congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger
or born in the land.
You shall eat nothing leavened in all your
habitations, shall you eat unleavened bread.
And 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.
And you shall take a bunch of hyssop,
and dip it in the blood that is
in the basin, and strike the lintel in
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 his
mighty 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 into your
houses to smite you.
And you shall observe this thing for an
ordinance to be given to thy sons forever.
And it comes to pass when you are
in the land, which the Lord will give
you, as he has promised you shall keep
his service.
Verse 26, it comes to pass when your
children shall say unto you, what do you
mean by this service?
You shall say, it is the sacrifice of
the Lord's Passover, which passed over the houses
of the children of Israel and Egypt, when
he smote these Egyptians and delivered our houses,
and the people bowed their head and worshipped.
And the children of Israel went away and
did as the Lord commanded Moses, and Aaron
so did they.
Well, the door is a remarkable function, coming
in and going out.
Everything has to pass through.
So it implies the totality of life needs
to be under the protection of that blood.
Jews post their little mezuzah on the door
with a scrolled scripture, and touch it coming
in and going out is but a faint
reflection maybe of this early Advent.
Something begins with God that is totally unheralded
in human experience, and is even contrary to
human sensibility and rationality.
It's simply a provision and a requirement of
God, a lamb and blood.
But the unwillingness to defer to the foolish
requirement of God means death, and obedience and
submission to it means life.
So from the very Advent of the history
of the nation, there's an issue of God
and his sovereignty being expressed through Moses and
Aaron.
And we need to reflect upon and take
it to our own deeps of what is
represented here.
And not just any lamb, but a lamb
taken on a specific day in a specific
month, which will now be made the first
month under you, a whole change of your
calendar, and you keep that lamb on observation
until the fourteenth day.
Four days.
The public ministry of Jesus was three and
a half years, but in biblical reckoning, a
half counts for the whole.
So he was on observation, and when he
was apprehended, he would say to his accusers,
which of you can accuse me of sin?
Will you find blemish or fault?
For if you can, I forfeit my identity
as the lamb of God that takes away
the sin of the world.
So something was being established here from the
first that is so deep that we need
to look, before we go into any other
consideration, the Lord wants us to go back
to the beginnings of the sounding of this
very thing as a theme.
I can't get Beethoven's Fifth Symphony out of
my mind.
Something is sounded, and then it goes on.
It plays its way all the way through
until it ends on that same majestic, massive,
great notes.
So we have to have that reinserted.
The symphonic weight of God's wisdom and counsel
from the beginning with the blood of the
lamb out of the flock in the first
year, perfect, without blemish.
Hold it for four days, examine it, make
sure it has no defect, or it will
be a disqualified provision, and then on the
14th day, all the congregation of Israel will
slay it.
If you've never slain a lamb, I can
recommend it for you.
Because I've had that experience.
We had a Passover here, and the brothers
were dragging the lamb to be executed with
a rifle, and I was on the top
of my landing looking down, and, Arch, you
want to join us?
He says, not me.
I walked back in and the Lord said,
you go down, and you do it, not
with the rifle, with a knife.
I'm a kid who grew up in cellophane
wrapped meat.
Let alone that I should slay, and I
asked the brother for a knife, we hitched
that lamb up by its hind feet onto
a limb, and I slit its throat.
I watched that blood.
So all the nation was being instructed that
something must die for the nation and for
the world, and that without the death, the
life cannot issue, for the life of the
flesh is in the blood, and as we
said this morning, it's more than its biological
activity.
We know that the life expires when blood
subsides, but life is far more comprehensive than
its biological nature.
That this lamb, symbolized by the lamb slain,
that life was holy, and only the blood
of that holy life was a sufficient expiation
for the sins of the nation and of
all mankind, and only one could bring that,
and that was the Lord himself.
So there is a precedent of cutting and
bleeding and walking through the cut parts in
Genesis 15 and the establishing of covenant, and
later on in Sinai, Moses sprinkles the blood
of sacrifice upon the covenant Israel is making
with God upon the nation itself, and then
of course in the New Testament, Jesus said,
this is my blood shed for you in
the New Covenant.
So the theme of blood from the beginning,
that red theme runs all the way through,
even to the present hour.
So don't let the important, I'll call you
in just a moment Scott, before I escape
you, this is the issue of the primacy
of God.
The issue of God overlaps against the issue
of man.
What Israel might have done to effect its
own salvation is hard to imagine, to be
imagined, but only God could set in motion
the deliverance of the nationhood by the expediency
of the Lamb's blood, nothing that man could
ever have conceived.
So something is being inserted or asserted from
the very beginning about God as God over
as against man in presumption and human will
that needs to be deeply recognized, for that's
the principal issue even today.
Not only for Israel, but for the Church.
The primacy of God in what He chooses
and our deference, one statement of the degree
of the loss of this, I meet
any number of cases of homes that are
being deranged and ravished and I ask the
man, do you invoke the blood in your
morning prayer to cover your family and your
house?
And he looks at me wide-eyed like,
what am I supposed to do?
That has efficacy still.
And my own practice in the morning prayer
and evening prayer is to invoke the blood.
Upon anger, upon the children, upon the household,
upon the Ben Israel community, we have a
priestly function to perform much more than we
ought and leaving ourselves exposed to the ravages
of the enemy.
Not only does the Lord not see the
blood, but the enemy doesn't see the blood.
When he sees the blood, he's terrified and
flees, contrary, access to the blood
that your husband, erroneously
avoiding the prayer, and that it doesn't become
on the other side, by mindless frequency.
We're somewhere between a chant and we're invoking
a little mimic phrase that has lost currency.
And this is not easy to do.
So, struggle to keep the purity, the privacy
of the blood that's real and priestly and
see the difference in the way in which
we're spared is part
of the privilege of our so great atonement
that we're called to share.
So, don't allow yourself to be cheated because
of some kind of sense of embarrassment.
It's yours, not by any virtue of yours.
It's yours by gift, by impartation, by, in
fact, everything.
Wouldn't it change everything?
The mundane, everyday halo, the
ordinary, that enhances, that is a blessing, that
communicates authority, would be brought into the aspect.
So, Vassalia Schling, the royal priesthood, and she
cries out, where are the priests today?
The world is dying for the want of
blessing.
It's under judgment, but someone
has got to bend over to dip the
lowliest scrub as his brush.
Which, by the way, is
a natural color.
If it's all charged with remorse, and in
Psalm 51, David employs a scrub name, you
know, with hyssop, an analogy, if
we're unwilling for the humiliation of confession, the
blood has no efficacy at all.
It's only when we come clean, hyssop, when
we strip and put before the Lord, if
we hide, if we justify ourselves, we benefit
from the cleansing.
So, there are many applications.
Much has been lost, much needs to be
restored.
And if we don't restore this, where do
we go from this?
If we don't restore the priestly function, of
what else shall we be capable of?
If we forfeit this most basic identity, which
itself rests upon our own spiritual understanding and
appropriation of the blood.
If we have not been grounded here, the
blood, run into your very deeps, the blood,
the quintessence of your being, to fight against
sin.
The uttermost of the blood here, where we
know it in our own experience, in the
battle against sin, the blood, when we're talking
about more than just corpuscles, we're talking about
the uttermost dimension of being, of will, of
consciousness, of life, of being given over.
That's what Jesus gave.
And we're invited, equally, to give and live
out from the uttermost of our being.
But very few of us do.
We're not giving out from our blood.
We're giving out from our surface.
We're giving from the superficial aspect of our
life, that doesn't cost us that much.
Resisting, you've not tasted blood in the depth
of your intent.
Blood is a symbol, a statement of His
blood.
He was giving the uttermost of what He
is, both as God and as man.
That's why that sacrifice was acceptable and why
the quality of it is holy, holy, holy.
So we will not be giving out of
our uttermost until we comprehend.
While He was shedding blood at Calvary, great
clots of it had swept His disciples to
sleep.
The blood of Jesus began before it was
from within by the groaning in His soul
of the depths of what was before Him
that made blood to come out as clots
of it.
Here's the High Priest himself who is not
only the sacrifice but the groaning and travail
unto blood that is extra, of that impending
sacrifice.
To approach a Gethsemane in our own experience
was prostrating myself over the rock that
was twisted and inside the sanctuary was a
prostrated himself and extruded sweat that had dropped.
So I took myself over that place and
made a covenant with God.
The author of Isaiah who was given more
revelation on the suffering servant himself saw something
in the Lord high and lifted up that
evoked a cry that he saw something about
atonement.
He didn't just see the Lord but a
revelation that left him undone and showed that
he's a man of unclean lips for such
a cry to come from a prophet indicates
that he's seen a depth of blood and
its meaning about the human condition that he
had not previously understood.
And until we cry out I'm undone there's
no sending.
So we wait for a revelation that came
to him in the year that Uzziah died
for this very thing that except we see
it and receive it as revelation we do
not see it and receive it adequately at
all.
We just convert it into doctrine into acceptable
statements of faith and credo but it does
not quantify us to be sent.
The qualification was a deep cry that Isaiah
saw in a flash if this sacrifice now
that I'm glimpsing it was for the sins
of mankind of which I'm concluding how deep
is the depravity of our condition that requires
it.
I did not recognize that before but I'm
seeing it now and I'm undone.
So our appreciation for the blood is relative
to the consciousness of our need and if
we see ourselves as more or less circumspect
saints acceptable keeping our noses clean we'll give
to the blood a token appreciation but it
will not qualify us to be sent and
the object of being sent is to be
sent to Israel because the word that came
to them brought judgment made their ears thick
their hearts heavy they could not hear could
not believe could not understand but it waits
for another sending in which their ears will
be opened and that they can believe because
they're hearing the word from one who is
sent because he can be sent he has
seen the heart of the mystery of the
faith in a way that has registered in
the deeps of his own soul because it
says the pillars of the church move at
the cry of the seraphim holy, holy, holy
is the Lord of hosts the whole earth
is full of his glory and when I
preach it I say it was not only
the temple out of which the foundations were
moved it was in the life of the
prophet himself all of his pert and correct
categories of faith were moved out of joint
and who welcomes being upset like that and
having our foundations lurch and topple will it
ever come together again but that's the impact
of the revelation of the heart of this
mystery of blood of sacrifice of the lamb
it's the statement not only of God it's
the statement of the truth of man as
man and until that is registered our faith
in every category will suffer loss this has
got to be restored and we need to
pray for the revelation of it as it
came to Isaiah and raises the question why
did it happen in the year that King
Uzziah died was that death a critical key
for the release of the revelation did Isaiah
have some kind of umbilical attachment to this
king who had become leprous that would exclude
the deeper revelation a death had to go
first that freed him from attachments of a
soulless kind that he would be free to
receive the deeper revelation what is the Uzziah
in our life what needs to die in
some attachment that we have that is not
evil it might be good it might even
have served benevolent purposes previously in our life
but it's gone on too long we mustn't
fail to consider that the lamb is not
only the enablement the provision through blood but
the enablement for journeying to eat that lamb
entirely with the legs and the pertinences thereof
don't be fastidious and just pick about the
places that you like you need the whole
lamb and Paul boasted that I did not
withhold from you the whole counsel of so
it's remarkable first the blood to keep away
death and then the consuming of the sacrifice
to continue the life and the journey through
the wilderness and so if we are fastidious
eaters we're not eating adequately or at all
we'll perish in the wilderness stagger and fall
we need the whole lamb the sacrifice of
the blood and the whole totality of what
he is even in his appurtenances the kishkus
as we say in Yiddish the inward coils
intestines intestines the kinds of things that we
would like well
it shows that the eating in verse 11
is preparatory to the exodus and the remarkable
wilderness journey that's ahead for these people and
where does it say about eat of the
whole in verse 9 verse 8 roast with
fire and unleavened bread and bitter herbs they
shall eat it these are the essential ingredients
of today's Passover unleavened bread bitter herbs but
there's no lamb on the Jewish table but
the bitter herbs are not only the reminder
of the bitterness of our past and history
but most recent history and indeed there's a
bitterness of things that are yet to come
herbs are a reminder what do you make
of roast with fire not sodden or warm
it's got to be consumed nothing made disciples
to fear in that radical statement that Jesus
himself as the lamb still available and except
you eat of me what would
that mean now give us blood to have
the life of God which is not only
of energy but the sum and substance of
his divine life we can't fabricate this only
that life is sacrificial by its very nature
and anything less than other than that is
imitated explicated so forth the Lord is to
the degree in which his life is our
life it's become our life and we're living
by that life because we're being fed by
that life if
we have settled down where we have lost
our pilgrimage and we're not in the process
of attending or of making it's only of
value to those who are girded with staff
in hand we mustn't lose this aspect the
provision given in the very first statement for
what is given at the first a paradigm
of something that carries us to the end
and probably not only has there been neglect
of the appurtenances there's been the neglect of
the staff and of being girded that we
don't have a stomach for journeying we've settled
in to a charismatic mode of life that's
quite comfortable and we don't realize that we're
on a quest that's demanding that's ultimately demanding
and when those things have been restored we'll
receive the value we'll welcome
it all the way
both of which have suffered loss in our
time baptism ceremonial form baptized in
the cloud the baptism of the spirit even
by Pentecostals it shows that we're not following
the path what
is the journey to which we're what is
the thing to which we need to be
girded with staff in hand we're enabled by
the land and then we pass through water
of separation a true baptism and a true
baptism in the cloud to the taking of
the land and the establishing the neglect of
these great sacraments shows that we have moved
greatly away from the pattern of things given
as in Wales on my land churches involved
in the Welsh of the terrible neglect of
the gifts of the spirit and the baptism
of the descendants the Welsh descendants and their
passion was for the return of the privacy
of the Holy Spirit but will we have
it will we seek it unless we know
that we're in an earnest journey and we
need all of the provision that God has
established the neglect of these things is a
terrible statement that we have settled upon our
lease and we're not really journeying we want
to settle in the benefits we have the
conclusion of the age the
blood the land the baptism through water the
baptism in spirit covenant is a bond
it's not some light contract if you fail
in covenant there's a covenantal penalty or even
a curse it's death that's signified by the
animals that are cut up but Abraham didn't
walk through those parts only God himself if
the covenant is broken and the curse has
to be paid God himself will pay him
and his son to take upon the
covenant is solemn and there's a bond unto
death that the church has lost in significance
is the frequency of the covenantal respect
reverence of the belief of the God of
covenant to be a threefold court a third
cold court in however strange the relations be
God to bring that dimension that will save
an otherwise hopeless situation from divorce because he
hates so covenant needs to be restored I'll
read you a little bit here there's so
much loss that needs to be regained the
church is no longer covenant conscious we have
failed to grasp the importance of covenant theology
covenant thinking and covenant living so our part
to suffer divorce not only in marriage but
even from fellowship to find some other suitable
environment because where we are is difficult strained
and unhappy we don't want to eat the
the the the the the the the the
awaken our sense of gratitude to him and
invigorate our sense of responsibility toward the God
of Covenant, which is the issue of worship.
Worship is relative to the recognition of Covenant
and the God of Covenant and the God
who makes himself the sacrifice for the curse
of the Covenant and pays the penalty of
death and restores us with an everlasting covenant
in which he himself will be not a
lord giver but the lord fulfiller.
That this appreciation for God as the Covenant
-making and keeping of a
true note in our worship is proportionate to
the missing dimension, a
very serious omission.
So the covenant that is eternal, the whole
issue of eternity, we do not reckon that
we lose moments.
Eternity is not only a subject to be
reckoned on in our present.
It changes everything if you have an eternal
perspective and that comes in proportion to
the Covenant.