We have seen the amazing grace of God in coming down, in the person of the Son, to deliver the poor lost sinner whilst a slave of Satan and sin. We have seen the effect of this message being believed to lead the sinner to seek deliverance by works of law without strength, like Israel making bricks without straw. After the struggle, which almost ends in despair, the soul seeking deliverance by the promises, and then by the providences of God, yet still groaning for deliverance, still in the grip of Pharaoh.
Something altogether different must be done; a deep, unsettled question must be settled. The eyes of all Israel must be now fastened on a Lamb without blemish. Every man must have a lamb—a lamb for every house. “And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month.” For four days the lamb was thus before them. Has your eye ever been thus fixed on the Lamb of God? And mark, God not only sent the Lamb without blemish, but He must be lifted up—He must needs suffer. So the lamb for every man must not only be put up, but it must be killed. “And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” The deep question of sins must be settled. The Israelites were sinners as well as the Egyptians. You are a sinner as well as the wicked around. Sin must be judged, either in the Lamb without spot or blemish, or on every house in Egypt. “And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts, and on the upper door-posts, of the houses wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.”
The dreadful night of judgment on Egypt was come. “And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.” All this is a different matter from our law-keeping when guilty sinners—a different matter from even promises and providences. It is the Son of God set forth crucified before us. We beg the reader to answer this solemn question: Have you taken shelter from judgment beneath the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God? Have you learned the judgment of God on sin in the cross of Christ? And, whilst you take shelter beneath this precious blood, have you by faith fed on, received the whole Lamb as your salvation of God? Have you there seen the exceeding dreadfulness of sin? Have you had to do with it, with bitterness of soul—with bitter herbs? Do you believe God, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you?” All who trusted God’s testimony to that blood were saved from the judgment of that dreadful night. He passed over wherever He saw the blood.
Beware of trusting in anything else. There was no judgment on a single family that believed God about the blood. The death of the lamb—the blood—was the all-sufficient token, the all-sufficient shelter from divine judgment. Do you believe God? Can you say you have redemption through the blood of Jesus, even the forgiveness of sins? Egypt was smitten with judgment. Judgment also hangs over this doomed world. God hath appointed a day in which He will judge it. And there is no shelter from God’s judgment on sin but the blood of the Lamb. That one sacrifice, once offered, forever shelters—forever cleanses from all sin. God is satisfied. Divine wrath against sin is satisfied. And the love of God to the sinner is fully manifested in the death of Jesus. Yes, Jesus appeared once to put sin away by that one sacrifice. He bore the sins of many.
If you have, then, been brought, just as you are, to rest beneath the shelter of the blood of Jesus, you may now rise up, and turn your back forever on Egypt. Israel arose, and marched out of Egypt. But mark, not a step did they take before the lamb was killed. What a night to be remembered by them, and surely no less so by us, when we have learned the delivering power of the blood of Jesus. Thus they marched for four or five days. Some souls seem to never get beyond this. They have taken shelter beneath the cross, and may be they have taken a little march heavenwards; but they are still in Egypt, still in the world, and of it to a sad extent. Satan feels he has lost hold of them, but, whilst they are still in Egypt, they are within reach. Now must be learned the lesson of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. Up to this point we have only learned the blood of the Lamb shed for us; and, as to fact, we are still alive in these bodies in the world. At such a time we are very liable to look back. Now what did Israel see behind them? Pharaoh, and the whole power of Egypt, pursuing them, and dead against them. And what do they see before them? Death—the Red Sea. The inward thought of the heart is, Shall we now fall into the hands of Pharaoh, or perish in the sea? Terrible doubts beset the soul at Pi-hahiroth. “And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord.” Very bitter was their cry. Their case was now desperate—worse, they said, than if they had never left Egypt, There was the most powerful army, and greatest king, on earth close upon them, and the sea before them. Against such a force they were helpless.
How often is the case similar, when a soul finds himself without strength, helpless; Satan bringing the whole power of the world, its temptations and snares, and then the sins of a past life come rushing behind, like the armies of Egypt. Satan would then persuade the child of God that it would have been far better to have remained in the world, and have made no profession of leaving it.
Must not Israel fight now? Must we not now put forth all our energy and strength, in determined effort to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil? No; quite another lesson must be learned at Pi-hahiroth. “And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you this day: for the Egyptians which ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever.” Now, standing still is not fighting; no, “the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” No doubt this is foolishness to the natural man, but it was the power of God to salvation. What a display of that power, as to the Red Sea as a figure of death. That sea, that death, was their deliverance. All who had taken shelter beneath the blood, they and their households were now “baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” (1 Cor. 10:22And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; (1 Corinthians 10:2).) “And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon dry ground.” It is important to notice the difference between the Lord coming down in grace to Israel, when slaves in Egypt, and their being brought out in complete deliverance. We have seen that neither God’s intervention in love alone, in Exod. 3, their earnest desire to escape, and worship, and all the efforts to make bricks without straw of chapter 5, or all the promises of chapter 6, or all the special providences of chapters 7-11 were able to deliver. The lamb must be slain and its blood sprinkled, as the basis, by sheltering them from judgment, of their deliverance. Still another lesson had to be learned. The passage of the Red Sea—the figure of the death of Christ for us. That lesson also, not complete in itself. The lesson of the Jordan or our death, and resurrection with Christ. Then indeed Israel was not only out of Egypt but in the land.
The wilderness came in as a parenthesis to prove them, to show them what they were. From Egypt to Sinai all was pure grace. As the Lord said unto them, “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings and brought you unto myself.” (Exod. 19:44Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. (Exodus 19:4).) They then placed themselves under law, and, from that day, their proper wilderness experience commenced. These distinctions will be found to make the whole history extremely instructive.
We now turn to the glad tidings of God, and see how distinctly this past history of Israel’s deliverance helps us to understand the dealings of God with a soul.
In the New Testament epistles we find man is found morally in the very condition of Israel—a slave of Satan, dead in trespasses and sins, far from God in guilt and misery, without strength. (Eph. 2; Rom. 2, 3.) How truly an awakened sinner finds this to be so. He reads of the love of God, but it alone fails to give relief. He desires to worship, he is a slave of Satan. He tries to keep the law, he has no strength. He tries to get comfort from the promises, but he is filled with anguish at the fuller discovery of what he is in himself. He says, The promises cannot be for me. He seeks comfort from the providences of God; all fail to deliver and bring him from Satan to God.
Oh, how painful, and how blessed, when all fails, and the Lamb is brought before the soul! Jesus must needs suffer. He must be lifted up. Without shedding of blood there is no remission. The amazing truth is revealed to the soul also of the death of Jesus for us. He believes God that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, “Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.” Yes, the death of Jesus for us, as our substitute, is learned, bearing our sins, raised from the dead for our justification. Thus as Israel saw the Egyptians no more, so, as to our sins, what we have done, all are gone. We are justified from all things. Thus, as to sins, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. But having thus peace with God as to all we have done, there is then another question, not what we have done, but what we are, as children of the first Adam. Here the further lesson of the Jordan comes in. Not only the death of Christ for us, but our death with Him, and resurrection with Him. Dead to sin and alive to God, is now the position we are to reckon ourselves to be in. Do we so reckon? Have we accepted this wondrous place in Christ? Alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord, the deliverance from sin is complete. Not only justified by His blood from sins, what we have done, but when sin is taken up as it came in by Adam, how much more has grace abounded.
The wilderness came in by the bye, so to speak, a needed experience to prove them, and show them what was in their hearts. In like manner we must know, it may be by bitter experience, what we are. The apostle could say, “For I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” And this experience lies between the Red Sea and the Jordan, beginning at that very point, where we, like Israel, slip from grace to put ourselves on the principle of law as they did at Sinai. The moment it is the question of what we are to God, Rom. 7 describes our experience.
Have we practically learned these solemn lessons? When all else failed, have we taken shelter from deserved wrath beneath the blood of Jesus? Have we rejoiced in our justification from sins by His death for us? Have we learned the utter ruin of our old man? and that we are crucified with Christ, brought through death with Him, one with Him in resurrection, as He is, and loved as He is loved? How complete then is our deliverance. How great His glory? To Him be everlasting praise.