This is how you are to eat it: You must be fully dressed for travel, with your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. You are to eat in haste; it is the LORD's Passover. Sermons
I. THE MEANS OF SAFETY vers. 7-13). 1. They took the blood and struck it on the door posts and the lintel. We must appropriate Christ's atonement. We must say by faith, "he died for me." 2. They passed within the blood-stained portals. Christ's blood must stand between us and condemnation, between us and sin. Our safety lies in setting that between oar soul and them. The realising of Christ's death for our sins is, salvation. II. THE MEANS OF STRENGTH FOR THE ONWARD WAY. Feeding upon Christ. While Egypt was slumbering Israel was feasting. While the world is busy with its dreams we must feast upon the joy of eternity, and, comprehending with all saints the infinite love of Christ, be filled with all the fulness of God. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." III. HOW CHRIST MUST BE PARTAKEN OF. 1. With unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The old leaven of malice and wickedness must be put away, and the feasting on Christ's love must be accompanied with repentance and self denial. There may be now and again a momentary glimpse of Christ's love where sin is not parted with, but there can be no communion, no enduring vision. 2. Christ must be taken as God has set him before us, in the simplicity of the Gospel, with nothing of man's invention, addition, or diminution. The Gospel remedy avails only when taken in the Gospel way (vers. 9, 10). 3. He must b? partaken of in the union of love. The Passover is a social, a family feast. Those who refuse to seek church-fellowship are despising God's arrangements for their own salvation, and proving themselves devoid of the spirit which, loving him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him. 4. He must be partaken of with the pilgrim spirit and preparedness (ver. 11). They who will be saved by Jesus must take up their cross and follow him. - U.
The beginning of months. I. The idea of a new start is NATURALLY ATTRACTIVE TO ALL OF US. We are fatigued, we are dissatisfied, and justly so, with the time past of our lives. We long for a gift of amnesty and oblivion.II. THERE ARE SENSES IN WHICH THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. The continuity of life cannot be broken. There is a continuity, a unity, an identity, which annihilation only could destroy. III. "The beginning of months" is made so by an exodus. REDEMPTION IS THE GROUNDWORK OF THE NEW LIFE. If there is in any of us a real desire for change, we must plant our feet firmly on redemption. IV. When we get out of Egypt, we must remember THAT THERE IS STILL SINAI IN FRONT, WITH ITS THUNDERINGS AND VOICES. We have to be schooled by processes not joyous but grievous. These processes cannot be hurried, they must take time. Here we must expect everything that is changeful, and unresting, and unreposeful, within as without. But He who has promised will perform. He who has redeemed will save. He who took charge will also bring through. (Dean Vaughan.) II. THE FIRST MONTH OF THE YEAR IS EVENTFUL IN THE HISTORY OF INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE LIFE. How many souls, awakened by the circumstances of life, have been led to the Cross at this solemn period? What we are then, we are likely to remain throughout the year; we then get an impulse for good or evil which will affect our moral character to the end. The first month is the keynote of the year's moral life. It is the rough sketch of the soul's life for the year. We should therefore seek to observe it unto the Lord. III. THE FIRST MONTH OF THE YEAR IS IMPORTANT IN ITS RELATION TO THE COMMERCIAL PROSPECTS OF MEN. The new year may mark the advent of new energy, or it may witness the continuance of the old indolence. Lessons: 1. That the ordering of months and of years is of God. 2. That the first month must remind us of the advent of the Saviour. 3. That the first month must be consecrated by true devotion. 4. That the Church must pay some attention to the calendar of the Christian year. 5. That God usually by His ministers makes known His mind to His Church. (J. S. Exell, M. A.) I. First, then, let us DESCRIBE THIS REMARKABLE EVENT, which was henceforth to stand at the head of the Jewish year, and, indeed, at the commencement of all Israelitish chronology. 1. This event was an act of salvation by blood. The law demands death — "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Christ, my Lord, has died in my stead: as it is written, "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." Such a sacrifice is more than even the most rigorous law could demand. "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Therefore do we sit securely within doors, desiring no guard without to drive away the destroyer; for, when God sees the blood of Jesus He will pass over us. 2. Secondly, that night they received refreshment from the lamb. Being saved by its blood, the believing households sat down and fed upon the lamb. It was a solemn feast, a meal of mingled hope and mystery. Do you remember when first you fed upon Christ, when your hungry spirit enjoyed the first morsel of that food of the soul? It was dainty fare, was it not? 3. The third event was the purification of their houses from leaven, for that was to go in a most important way side by side with the sprinkling of the blood and the eating of the lamb. You cannot feed on Christ and at the same time hold a lie in your right hand by vain confidence in yourself, or by love of sin. Self and sin must go. This month is the beginning of months, the first month of the year to us, when the Spirit of truth purges out the spirit of falsehood. 4. A fourth point in the Passover is not to be forgotten. On the Passover night there came, as the result of the former things, a wonderful, glorious, and mighty deliverance. "This month," etc. II. Now, secondly, I want to MENTION THE VARIETIES OF ITS RECURRENCE among us at this day. 1. The first recurrense is of course on the personal salvation of each one of us. The whole of this chapter was transacted in your heart and mine when first we knew the Lord. 2. But then it happens again in a certain sense when the man's house is saved. Remember, this was a family business. A family begins to live in the highest sense when, as a family, without exception, it has all been redeemed, all sprinkled with the blood, all made to feed on Jesus, all purged from sin, and all set at liberty to go out of the domains of sin, bound for the kingdom. 3. Extend the thought — it was not only a family ordinance, but it was for all the tribes of Israel. There were many families, but in every house the passover was sacrificed. Would it not be a grand thing if you that employ large numbers of men should ever be able to gather all together and hopefully say, "I trust that all these understand the sprinkling of the blood, and all feed upon Christ." III. And now I come to SHOW IN WHAT LIGHT THIS DATE IS TO BE REGARDED, if it has occurred to us in the senses I have mentioned. Primarily, if it has occurred in the first sense to us personally: what about it then? 1. Why the day in which we first knew the Saviour as the Paschal Lamb should always be the most honourable day that has ever dawned upon us. Prize the work of grace beyond all the treasures of Egypt. 2. This date is to be regarded as the beginning of life. Let your conversion be the burial of the old existence, and as for that which follows after, take care that you make it real life, worthy of the grace which has quickened you. 3. Our life, beginning as it does at our spiritual passover, and at our feeding upon Christ, we ought always to regard our conversion as a festival and remember it with praise. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) If you have no such spiritual new year's day, now is a good time to secure one. Says old Thomas Fuller: "Lord, I do discover a fallacy, whereby I have long deceived myself, which is this: I have desired to begin my amendment from my birthday, or from the first day of the year, or from some eminent festival, that so my repentance might bear some remarkable date. But when those days were come, I have adjourned my amendment to some other time. Thus, whilst I could not agree with myself when to start, I have almost lost the running of the race. I am resolved thus to befool myself no longer. I see no day like to-day Grant, therefore, that to-day I may hear Thy voice. And if this day be remarkable in itself for nothing else, give me to make it memorable in my soul; thereupon, by Thy assistance, beginning the reformation of my life." Let this day be the beginning of months, the first month of the year to you.(H. C. Trumbull.) British Weekly. 1. Time gives birth to actions.2. God ordains that certain periods of life shall determine others (Luke 19:44). 3. There is an extension of man's trial. One chance more. 4. Procrastination ends destructively, Not only thief of time, but also hardener of men's hearts. 5. Time will end. 6. The issues of time will last for ever. (British Weekly.) Christian Age. The time has come for turning over a new leaf. As the town clock struck midnight of the last day of the old year divers and sundry resolutions which had lain dormant a long time, waiting for the New Year to ring its chimes, came forth into new life. They had long had an existence, these new resolutions had, for in reality they are not new at all, but quite venerable; for on the first of January of many a past year they have been brought to the surface. And so the new leaf has been turned over, and on its virgin pages these new resolutions have been written, and, alas! not inscribed for the first time. Were they not written on the new leaf on the first of January, just a year ago, and the New Year's day before that, and can you not go back, and back, and back, till you come to your childhood and the time when you first began to turn over a new leaf? These new leaves that we are always turning over — how they accuse us! We write on the newly turned page that we will do many duties which we have left undone — many duties in the home, the church — many duties to our friends, our neighbours, duties to God and to ourselves; and how long is it before there comes a little January gust and blows the leaf back again? and then all goes on pretty much as before. The trouble with this matter of leaf-turning, of making good resolutions only to break them, is twofold.1. The effort is not made in good faith — it is more a whim than a solemn purpose put into action, and so it is we have altogether too much regard to times and seasons, and too little to the imperative demand of to-day. Conscience is a court whose fiat is to be obeyed not on New Year's day, or Christmas, or on a birth. day, but now — on the instant. A man who defers to execute a right resolution till some particular day has arrived will be pretty sure not to carry it out at all. 2. Then the second difficulty is that we rely too much upon our own will and too little upon God's help. No man can change his own nature or reform himself. He can do much, if he but will, in the direction of carrying cut a good resolution; but the real efficient reliance must be God. (Christian Age.) People Aaron, Egyptians, Israelites, Moses, PharaohPlaces Egypt, Rameses, SuccothTopics Belt, Cloak, Dressed, Eat, Eaten, Girded, Hands, Haste, Haste-it, Journey, Loins, Lord's, Manner, Meal, Passover, Quickly, Sandals, Shoes, Staff, Sticks, Thus, Tucked, WaistOutline 1. The beginning of the year is changed3. The Passover is instituted 11. The import of the rite of the Passover 15. Unleavened bread 29. The firstborn are slain 31. The Israelites are driven out of the land 37. They come to Succoth 41. The time of their sojourning 43. The ordinance of the Passover Dictionary of Bible Themes Exodus 12:11 4512 staff 4530 unleavened bread Library The Passover: an Expiation and a Feast, a Memorial and a Prophecy'And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2. This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3. Speak ye 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 an house: 4. And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Exodus A Question for Communicants The Blood The Birthnight of Freedom Of the Practice of Piety in Holy Feasting. Of Preparation. The Reaction against Egypt The Typical Significance of the Scriptures Declare their Divine Authorship Preparation for Passover. Disciples Contend for Precedence. Bread and Wine Appendix xii. The Baptism of Proselytes The Johannine Writings Circumcision, Temple Service, and Naming of Jesus. Opposition to Messiah in Vain Sundry Exhortations. Peaceable Principles and True: Or, a Brief Answer to Mr. D'Anver's and Mr. Paul's Books against My Confession of Faith, and Differences in Judgment About Baptism no Bar to Communion. Solomon's Temple Spiritualized Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners: Jesus Living at Nazareth and visiting Jerusalem in his Twelfth Year. The Prophet Amos. The Scriptures Jesus, My Rock. Links Exodus 12:11 NIVExodus 12:11 NLT Exodus 12:11 ESV Exodus 12:11 NASB Exodus 12:11 KJV Exodus 12:11 Bible Apps Exodus 12:11 Parallel Exodus 12:11 Biblia Paralela Exodus 12:11 Chinese Bible Exodus 12:11 French Bible Exodus 12:11 German Bible Exodus 12:11 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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