January 1927
B u s i n é s s
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K i n d ’ s
T h e
How to Begin the N ew Year B y J ames H . B rookes Exodus 12.
T HE seventh month had been reached in the progress of the year, when Jehovah laid hold of it and moved it to the front. He “spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be, unto you the beginning of months : it shall be the first month of the year to you.” Not ohly did it become by divine proclama tion the first in order, but the first in importance, because it was identified with the redemption of His people, , Up to that momentous period in the history of the soul, time is counted as nothing in God’s estimation. One may have lived thirty, forty, or fifty years according to human chronology, but until sheltered beneath the blood of Christj we do not live at all in His sight. Hence the reader is earnestly besought at the threshold of another year to consider with intense solicitude whether he is alive or dead, or in other /words, whether that pre cious blood has been applied, wfiich was so aptly set forth in the blood of the passover lamb. It will be observed that it was a lamb without blemish, selected on the tenth day of the month and kept until the evening of the four teenth, suggesting the period from the day John the Bap tist introduced the Lord Jesus as thè “Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,” to the day of the cru cifixion, thus embracing four years according to the Jew ish mode of reckoning time. Ten is the scriptural number of responsibility to God ; and for thirty years, the average length of a generation then, He had been thoroughly tested; and had perfectly discharged all of man’s respon sibility in every particular. No H ope W ithout th e L amb Every man was to take a lamb,, “according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house; and if the house hold be too little for the lamb,” the nearest neighbors were to be joined together ; “and the whole assembly of the con gregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” There is no hint that the lamb might be too little for the household, and so far as the record goes, there was but one assembly and one lamb, for God would seek to impress upon His people the unity of the Spirit founded upon the one accepted and all sufficient sacrifice of His Son. The Israelites, who were not a whit better than the Egyptians lying under sentence of death, were commanded to take a bunch of hyssop, and, having dipped it in the blood of the slain lamb, to strike that blood on the two side posts, and on the upper door post, of their houses, not beneath to be trampled under foot, but protecting them on either side, and overhead. Then God said, “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, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.” But if the blood had not been sprink led as commanded, the destroyer would most certainly have entered the houses, and the stroke of death would have been inflicted. It was not enough that the lamb was slain; the blood must be sprinkled. It is not enough that Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed, but He must be personally received. His death in itself considered will not save a single accountable soul, apart from faith in Himself.
A re W e T rusting in th e B lood ? It is absolutely essential, therefore, at the outset to ask ourselves whether we are trusting in the blood alone, or partly at least in our faith, our feelings, our repentance, our résolutions, our baptism, our union with, the church, our good works. God did not say,, “When I see these things,” , buth“'When L see the blood.” Nor did He say, “When you see the blood,” but “When I see it.” He was satisfied with the blood outside, and we must be satisfied with His Word inside. The blood alone makes us safe ; the Word alone makes us sure. There was no doubt great variety in the age, moral character, past history, and degree of confidence on the part of the hundreds of thou sands within those blood-sprinkled houses; but they were equally safe, for the LORD saw, the blood, and passed over the door, and stood beside it to bar it, as if with the stability of His throne, as if with the length of eternity, against the entrance of the destroyer. Until, He dies, not one sheltered beneath the blood can perish. But, mark it well, those who were saved by sovereign grace through sprinkled blood, were to eat the lamb in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread, and bitter herbs. Eire is the symbol of God’s holiness burning against sin, but it had fed upon the appointed substitute, and was satisfied. Leaven is the symbol of evil, and hence it was said to the Israelites, “Ye shall put away leaven out of your houses : for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” The first word here, rend ered “leaven” means “leaving, or remainder,” that is, “old leaven,” and the second word rendered “leavened” means “sourness,” that is, open sin, recalling the striking exhor tation of the Holy Ghost, “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us There fore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness ; but with the unleav ened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5 :7, 8). T h e C hristian ’ s P ilgrim C haracter Moreover, the redeemed were to eat the lamb with girded loins, with shoes on their feet, with staff in hand, and in haste. This clearly betokened their pilgrim char acter. From that eventful night they were done with Egypt forever, and they were to be in the attitude of strangers, about to take their march for the promised land, not knowing what moment the summons might come, but always ready, and watching and waiting. But, alas ! “a mixed multitude went up also with them,” and these afterwards became the fruitful source of their unbelief, and weakness, and failure, and apostasy, and ruin. So it is in the Church today, and hence the only hope of a happy, prosperous, progressive, and useful Christian experience during the coming year is to keep aloof from all entangling alliances with the world and worldly minded professors of religion. “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21).
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