THE KING’S BUSINESS
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God, he was judicially handed over to the blinding and hardening influence of his chosen master. ‘The Lord hardened Phar aoh’s heart.’ There is no need whatever for any one to seek to avoid the full, plain sense of this most solemn statement. If a man resists the light of Divine testimony, he is Shut up to judicial blindness and hardness of heart, pod. leaves him to him self, and then Satan comes and carries him headlong to perdition.” Those that .re sist the light today afforded by this lesson may be so blind tomorrow that they can not see the light, and so hardened in heart that they would not walk in it if they could. II. T he S prinkled B lood . “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.” “The blood on the lintel secured Israel’s peace. ‘When I see the blood, I will pass over you.’ There was nothing more required in order to enjoy | settled peace, in reference to the destroy ing angel, than the application of the blood of sprinkling. . . , God’s claims and Is rael’s need were both met by the same thing, namely, the blood of the lamb. The blood outside proved that all Was perfectly settled, because Divinely settled; therefore perfect peace reigned within. . . . It is most needful to be simple and clear as to what constitutes the ground of a sinner’s peace, in the presence of God. So many things are mixed up with the finished work of Christ that souls are plunged into darkness and uncertainty, as to their acceptance. They do not see the absolutely-settled char acter of redemption through the blood of Christ, in its application to themselves. They seem not to be aware that full for giveness of sin rests upon the simple fact that a full atonement has been offered— a fact attested in the view of all created intelligences, by the resurrection of the sin ner’s surety from the dead." They know that there is no other way of being saved but by the blood of the cross;—but the devils know this yet it avails them naught.
What is so much needed is to know that we are saved. The Israelite not merely knew that there was safety in the blood; he,knew that he was safe. And why safe? Was it because of anything that he had done, or felt, or thought? By no means; but because God had said, ‘When I see the bipod I will pass over you.’ He rested upon God’s testimony. He believed what God said, because He said it.” III. T he N ew E poch . “This month shall be unto you the be ginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.” “Their pre vious history was to be regarded as a blank. Redemption was to constitute the first step in real life. . . . A man’s life is really of no account until he begins to walk with God, in the knowledge of full salvation and settled peace, through the precious blood of the Lamb. Previous to this he is, in the judgment of God, and the language of Scripture, ‘dead in tres passes and sins;’ ‘alienated from the life of God’ . , . All that which engages the attention of the man of this world, the honors, the riches, the pleasures, the attrac tions, of life so called—all, when exam ined in the light of the judgment of God, when weighed in the balances of the sanc tuary, must b^j accounted . . . unworthy of a-place in the records of the Holy Spirit. . . . How little men think of th is! They imagine that real life is at an end when a man becomes a Christian . . . whereas pod’s word teaches us that it is only then we can see life and taste true happiness. ‘He that hath the Son hath life’ (1 John 5:12) . . . a life which begins at the cross flows onward to an eternity of glory.” (The above extracts are from C. H. M., on Exodus 12 .) IV. E xplanatory N otes . 1-. (1) We were in bondage to sin and, like the Egyptians, appointed to death. “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor, 5:7). (2) By my believing He was sacrificed for me, and trusting God’s word that He therefore sees the blood of 'the
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