July 1932
T h e K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
309
They were to eat the Passover with staff in hand (Ex. 12 : 1 ) . The staff is the symbol o f a pilgrim. It was a witness to the people that they had been re deemed by blood that they might go out of the land and take up their journey as pilgrims who sought another coun try God had promised to them. This is our place and position as Christians. “ Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pil grims” (1 Pet. 2:11). We are on a journey to another and a heavenly coun try, to a city that hath foundations (Heb. 11:16). The expression, “ strangers and pilgrims,” means liter ally, “ persons dwelling in a foreign land, actually not citi zens.” As Christians, we have been taken out of the world in respect to our standing and are passing through it as for eigners to our home. We are going forward to enter upon a citizenship in another country (Phil. 3:20). E ating in H aste The children of Israel were to eat the Passover in haste (Ex. 12:11). They were to eat it in haste because they expected any moment the Lord might come and pass over them; any moment they might be called to arise and go out of the land o f bondage. They expected the imminent coming of the Lord. That is to say, because the coming of the Lord was imminent, they expected it. Scripture does not teach the coming of the Lord for His church is immediate. That would be to fix the date and the hour. Our Lord says we do not know the date nor the hour. Because we do not know the day nor the hour, because the day and the hour have not been fixed by revelation in the calendar of the church, the coming of the Lord for the church is always imminent, it is always the one event and the one hope on the hori zon of time. Because the coming of
The next morning after the Passover, there was one first-born dead in every house in Egypt. “ And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his ser vants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead” (Ex. 12:29, 30). But mark the difference between the first-born dead in the houses of the Egyptians and the first-born dead in the houses of the Israelites. In the houses of the Egyptians the dead was the first born of an Egyptian, son or daughter. In the houses of the Israelites the one dead was— the first-born lamb, the spotless substitute provided of God. As the Israelites looked upon the dead lamb, beheld their own first-born alive, and heard the cry o f anguish throughout Egypt, they saw clearly enough that they had been saved by the sacrificial death of a substitute. They saw that the difference between them and the Egyptians was not the difference of character, but the dif ference made by the blood. Those who. were under the shelter o f the blood were saved—and mark this well—never forget it—they were saved no matter what had been their personal character. And mark this also well: Those who were not under the shelter of the blood died,—no matter how good had been their personad char acter. The issue is plain enough. It is either your death for your sins and you lost forever, or the death of Christ for your sins and you saved forever. Which shall it be ? The difference between those who are saved and those who are lost today is simply the difference of blood. Those who are under the shelter of the blood are saved. Those who are not under the shelter of the blood are lost. Those who enter heaven and the presence of the Lord do so only by virtue and title of the blood (Rev. 7:13-15). H ave you A pplied the B lood ? Th is is the supreme question. There is none like it, none having so preeminent ly the right o f way. The real question is not
the Lord for the church is imminent, the church is called upon always to take the attitude of expectancy (Mk. 13:35-37). The Apostle Paul de clares the attitude of the church at Thessalonica (the model church of the New Testament) is the true atti tude of the church today: “ To wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). The last utterance of our Lord from heaven is that His coming is always imminent. “ Surely I come quickly” (Rev. 22:20). T he M orning after the P assover
whether you have houses and lands, it is not whether you are rich or prosperous, whether you will be rich and prosperous, whether you jvill attain the goal of your earth ly ambitions, whether you are sick or well, whether you have friends few or foes many— no, there is only one ques tion that is and should be supreme and all-persistent to you, and that is— have you applied the blood? I f not, you are in mor tal danger every moment. The fact that Christ died and went through the hell o f the cross to make it possible for you to be saved ought to speak with the voice of thunder in
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