First Presbyterian Church of Inglewood
100 North Hillcrest Ave
Inglewood, California 90301
Telephone numbers: (310) 677-5133 Fax (310) 330-8342
Electronic mail: PRESBYTS@SBCGLOBAL.NET
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Rev. Dr. Harold E. Kidd
World Communion Sunday
COVERED BY THE BLOOD
“And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. … Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” Exodus 12: 7, 13
Exodus chapter twelve is the instructions of God given to Moses, the servant of God, in which God prepares his people for one final plague upon the land of Egypt before their deliverance. You recall the story. Moses and Aaron had announced to Pharaoh the plagues that God would send upon the land if Pharaoh refused to let God’s people go after four hundred years of Egyptian captivity. The message however, only made Pharaoh all the more stubborn, and he hardened his heart against the Lord.
And so God sent plagues upon the land. Through the first six plagues -- the plagues of blood, frogs, lice, flies, dead livestock, and boils -- Pharaoh’s heart only became more hardened. Lord have mercy! When God speaks to us we ought to listen and take heed. Because God didn’t force Pharaoh to reject Him, rather, He gave Pharaoh every opportunity through these plagues to change his mind.
In Ezekiel 33:11 God says, ”I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” Because it is God’s desire that none should perish. But as Pharaoh continued to harden his heart, God sent more plagues. The Lord God sent hail, then locusts, then darkness upon Egypt for 3 days. Finally God determined to send death itself, to every firstborn male of Egypt. Then said God to Moses, “I will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh and Egypt; after that, he will let you go.”
And so here in Exodus 12, God institutes the Passover. Which became and yet remains a High and Holy Jewish Holiday even up to this present age, in which Jews celebrate and remember their deliverance from Egyptian slavery by God. Christians celebrate Good Friday and the Institution of the Lord’s Supper, Jews celebrate the Passover. For the Jews to be spared from the death angel who would pass through Egypt; God instructed them to take an unblemished lamb with no defects, to kill it and place its blood upon the door frames of their homes. Sound familiar? “This is my blood of the New Testament, or Covenant shed for the remission of sins.” Mt. 26:28
The significance of the lamb was that in killing the lamb, Israel had shed innocent blood. The lamb was a sacrifice, a substitute for the person who would have died in the plague. From this night on, Israel would forever be reminded that an innocent life had to be sacrificed in their place.
What God instituted in Exodus 12, The Passover, was a forecast of what God was going to do in giving his Son, our Lord Jesus, on the Cross at Calvary for our sins. It is by his stripes that we are healed. It is by his shed blood that spiritual death has passed over us. God placed upon Jesus, as the Lamb of God, the sins of us all. Through His shed blood, our sins have been washed away.
Now, rather than an unblemished lamb slain on an altar, and its blood washed on the doorposts of our home, the perfect lamb of God has been slain on a cross whose blood can make the vilest clean and whose blood has set us free!
At the blood of Jesus demons tremble, because they are reminded that in the blood of Jesus they have no power, because His shed blood has freed us from the power of hell, death, and the grave. His blood has delivered every believer from the power and dominion of the devil, who is a type of Pharaoh. I wish I knew how to make it plain.
Yes, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And when you and I come right down to it, good works cannot wash away our sins. Burnt offerings cannot wash away our sins. The White House, as powerful as it is, cannot wash away our sins. But the blood of Jesus -- some don’t like to talk about the blood of Jesus, saying it’s too gory, too gruesome -- but the blood of Jesus is the lifeline of the church!
“The blood that Jesus shed for me way back on Calvary, The blood that gives me strength from day to day, it will never lose its power. It reaches from the highest mountain; and it flows to the lowest valley, The blood that gives me strength from day to day, it will never lose its power.”
“There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins, And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”
“There is power, power, wonder-working power; in the blood of the lamb, there is power; power, wonder-working power in the blood of the lamb.”
“I am redeemed, bought with a price. Jesus has changed my whole life. If anybody asks you, ... just say who I am, tell them I am redeemed.”
Yes, no matter what we might be going through today, we are covered by the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus covers us from the power of the devil and demons. The blood of Jesus covers us in grace and mercy. The blood of Jesus marks us as the redeemed of the Lord. The blood of Jesus is the purchase price for our redemption. God did not buy us back with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus!
Like Pharaoh, the devil didn’t want to let us go, but when God put up the blood, the devil could only hang his head and weep. Defeated he is through the blood of Jesus. The very word redemption means to buy back. Hallelujah! What it costs God to buy us back was the blood of Jesus. “For our sake, He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God.”
Covered … by the blood!