Môi-se và Ân Điển Đức Chúa Trời: Chiên Con Vượt Qua

In the summer months, in the evening service we’ve been going through the life of Moses. Tonight, we get to the famous Passover. Exodus 12:12–13 is really the nub of what happened, but what I’m going to do, just to give you the sweep, is I’m going to read to you from Exodus 12, all the way from verses 1–13.

We’re talking here about the night on which the Israelites, who were slaves in Egypt, were liberated. This is their Independence Day. This is their Fourth of July, so to speak. However, as great as it is to have seen one people group be liberated from oppression, the reason it’s recorded in the Old Testament, and Paul says in 1 Corinthians that all of the events of the Old Testament were written for us, for our encouragement upon whom the ends of the ages have come, is because they’re examples to us.

What you have here is you have a picture of the cosmic freedom, the cosmic liberation, that all people can take part in, and therefore, we need to read it and study it in that regard as well. We don’t just celebrate this particular exodus, but in Luke 9, when the transfiguration on the mountain occurs and Moses and Elijah appear around Jesus, Jesus turns to Moses and talks to him, it says in Luke 9, about the exodus that he is going to lead in Jerusalem.

He is the greater Moses. He is leading the great exodus. So when we read about this exodus, we’re looking beyond it to what freedom really means. Do you know what the answer is? Freedom means the Lamb. This is about the Lamb. Let me read you these first 13 verses and then we’ll take a look at the story of the lamb, the history of the lamb, and the meaning of the lamb.

1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.

5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast.

9 Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord‘s Passover.

12 On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”

This is God’s Word

As I just said, let me tell you the story of the lamb, then the history of the lamb, and then we’ll talk about what it means to behold the Lamb of God.

1. The story of the lamb

Just to give you some background, though we’ve been following it along if you’ve been coming in the evening services, Israel was an ethnic minority in the land of Egypt and it had grown so large that the Egyptians, in particular Pharaoh, were afraid of their growing possible political power, so they oppressed them into slavery. At certain points, they actually killed them. At certain points, they went and tried to exterminate their young males as they were being born, and so on.

God sends Moses to Pharaoh to tell him, “Let my people go. Let them go. Let them be free. Let them go where they can have a nation where they can go to a place where they can worship me and abide by me and submit to me and not you.” Pharaoh hardens his heart. Pharaoh will not let them go. God sends a number of plagues, and he shows he’s really there. He’s really the Lord. Pharaoh hardens his heart.

Finally, God comes up with a very, very final stroke. When he announces it, it just chills the blood. He says in Exodus 11:5 what he will do, “Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt …”

The Pharaoh had been murdering the children of Israel to try to wipe them out, and now justice has come back. Justice very often isn’t poetic, but in this case, it is. That’s the thing. The final plague. The destruction of the firstborn. We’re told here in Exodus 12:12 what is going to happen. He says (and we just read it), “On that night, I will pass through Egypt. I will strike down every firstborn, but if you take shelter under the blood of a slain lamb, I will pass over you.”

They’re told to take a lamb, to slay the lamb, to eat it in the way prescribed, to put it on the door lintels, and in a sense to take shelter underneath that blood, and the judgment that comes on the rest will not fall on you if you do that with your household. Now what happens? We didn’t read it, but I can read it to you.

Further on in the chapter, in verse 29, we read, “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.” Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron and says, “Up and go!”

Now what a bizarre story. What a strange story. What a weird story. Kind of exciting, but kind of bizarre. It will be bizarre and it will be inexplicable to you unless you understand the subject of the lamb was actually the subject of a conversation God had been having with his people over the years. This isn’t the first time the people of Israel have been told about the lamb.

2. The history of the lamb

The lamb is a mysterious figure. Unless you understand a number of episodes … The Bible is all about the lamb in a sense, and there are a number of chapters in this story. Unless you see those chapters, unless you see those various episodes, unless you see the whole history of the lamb, you won’t really be able to understand any one episode unless you see the whole. Let me tell you about that. Let me go back.

The first place and the first episode in which God begins to speak to his people about the lamb was with Abraham. Abraham only had one son by his wife Sarah. He had a firstborn. He had an heir. All he has was going to go to this one. His name was Isaac. One night, God comes to Abraham and says, “Take thy son, thine only son whom thou lovest and offer him up as a burnt offering to me.”

Now what does Abraham do? Abraham, of course, goes crazy. He goes ballistic, but not for the reasons we often think. This is worth exploration, so come explore with me. Almost always, when people hear about the story of Abraham and that incredible command, whenever it’s depicted, even in my favorite places … I mean, I’ve seen it depicted in movies, in theatre. Wherever it’s depicted, it’s almost impossible for somebody outside of mature Christian faith to get inside of Abraham’s worldview.

Abraham’s struggle was not with the justice of God. He was struggling. He was struggling with something, and I’ll get to that in a second, but it wasn’t with the justice of God. Why not? Here’s why. The one thing the people of Israel had always known was the lives of all their firstborn sons were forfeit.

This is a theme, a strange and mysterious theme. You can read about it in a number of places. In Exodus 22, in Numbers 3, God says to the children of Israel, “Oh now, don’t forget this. The lives of all of your firstborn sons are forfeit. They belong to me. Their lives are forfeit, but you can redeem them. You can keep them alive if you’ll pay me five shekels a year.”

Actually, it was a way in which the children of Israel gave money to the tabernacle to support the tabernacle and the temple, but God says, “This isn’t just out of the goodness of your heart. The lives of your firstborn sons are forfeit. You owe them to me, but I will not judge them. You can redeem them.”

What was the symbolism? Well, the way to understand the symbolism, it’s a little hard for us, and you have to be a little bit objective on this. God was speaking to them in a way they understand. In the Near East and in ancient times, the firstborn son got all of the wealth of the family. This is an agrarian society, a society based on livestock and a society based on land.

When a family got to a certain position in the community, a certain position of wealth and status and class and always had a number of children, if all the children equally got the wealth, the family’s status would go down. It was just understood that in order for the family to keep its name, one child and only one child could get it. So the firstborn son got it.

Now the Bible is not enshrining the justice of that, and I’m not enshrining the justice of that either, but here’s what we’re saying. In that culture, therefore, the firstborn son was the federal head of the family. That means the firstborn son represented the family. The firstborn son was the family. Legally was the whole family. The whole family was legally, and actually emotionally, in the son. All of their hopes rode on this son. All of the family’s name rode on that child.

When God says, “The lives of your firstborn sons are forfeit,” what he’s really saying is, “They’re representative of you and because you’re sinners you all deserve to die. Your children, as your representative, their lives are forfeit, but I will redeem them.” This was God’s way of coming and telling the people of Israel, and he had been teaching them for years, “All human beings, even though I created you, you live as if you created you. Even though I created you and I should be your King, you live as if you created yourself and you can be king. As a result, the wages of sin, of that kind of cosmic treason, is death.”

Abraham knew this, and when God comes to him, he doesn’t just say to Abraham, “Go into the tent and stab Isaac.” He doesn’t do that. That would be murder. He doesn’t just say, “Go in and stab Isaac.” No, no. He says, “Take your son, your only son whom you love, and offer him up as a burnt offering.” Abraham knew God was calling in his chips.

Abraham, and all the great saints of old, knew something, and that is God does not owe us a safe and easy life. This is the thing that anybody, any writer, any producer, any director who ever tries to depict Abraham’s struggle that night can never understand. There’s an assumption we have, and that assumption is so deep that we never get it out and examine it. It’s a given. It’s just part of our mental and spiritual furniture.

That assumption is that God owes us, almost all of us, except for the occasional Hitler and Jack the Ripper, a safe and comfortable life. We read the world through that. It’s a grid. It’s an assumption. In other words, we examine the world through that assumption. We never get the assumption out and examine it … never. Because if you get it out, it’s not very defensible. Who says God owes us a great life? Who says it?

What people do is they have that assumption and when bad things happen, when God calls his chips in, when awful things happen, when tragedies happen, when genocide happens, when terrible things happen, we read it and turn around and say, “How could God have ever done that or allowed that?”

But the Abrahams and the Moseses and the great saints, the people who understand the reality of things, the people who’ve examined their assumptions, they look out at the world, and they say, “The real issue, the real amazing thing is why, considering how we treat God and how we treat each other, how we continually trample underfoot the Golden Rule, we trample underfoot everything we know about from God, why does God allow so little judgment? Why does God give us as good a life as we have? Why does God give us as comfortable a life as we have?” That’s the issue, of course.

Abraham and Moses always look out and say, “The world and our lives are far better than we deserve.” But people who don’t understand that and people who have never examined their assumptions, they look out at the world, and they say, “We don’t get nearly as good a life as we deserve.” They imagine that what Abraham was upset about was justice. They thought Abraham was there saying, “How unjust! How terrible! This is my son. How can you do this?”

Now Abraham knows his life is forfeit, Isaac’s life is forfeit, all of our lives are forfeit. God owes us nothing. God does not let his judgment fall on us the way it deserves to, and so when it does fall, the Abrahams and the Moseses and the Habakkuks and the Isaiahs and the Jeremiahs, the great saints of old, they never sit there and say, “How dare you?” Never. That’s not the problem. Do you understand that? Do you understand so far? That’s not the problem.

The problem is not, “O God, you’re not being just.” The problem is, “O God,” says Abraham that night, “I know you’re just and you have a right to be just. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? But I thought you were merciful too.” Abraham had the promise. Abraham had been told many years before.

God had come and said, “Yes, I’m a just God and yes, you all deserve judgment, but I am going to provide mercy for the world. I’m going to give you a son, and that son is not only going to give you children and grandchildren, but he’s going to make you a great nation, and out of that great nation will come salvation for the whole world. In you, Abraham, through Isaac, through your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.”

Now this was something Abraham had built his whole life on, the fact he was going to see his son grow up, which is a great mercy to an old man, the fact he was going to have grandchildren and the fact that out of the seed of Isaac somehow the world was going to be blessed. The reason he was struggling that night was not, “O Lord, how in the world can you be so unjust.” Oh no. The real question is, “How, O Lord, can a just God, which is what you are, be also merciful? Isn’t there any way you can be merciful too? How can you be both just and the keeper of your promises?”

Or this is the problem Abraham had, “How, O Lord, can you be just and the justifier of those who believe? I know you’re just, but can’t you be merciful too? Isn’t there a way? You showed me your mercy. You showed me a word of mercy. You gave me these promises. How can you be just and still keep those promises? How can you be just and still be a merciful God? Isn’t there any way? Isn’t there any mercy here?” But heaven was silent, because the last thing heaven had said was, “Take thy son, thy only son whom thou lovest and offer him up as a burnt offering.”

Abraham wrestled. Abraham was in agony. Abraham was not questioning his justice; he was questioning his mercy. He says, “Isn’t there any way you can be just and merciful? Isn’t there any way we can somehow do this? I thought you were. I thought it was. I thought, ‘How? How?’ ” God tells him nothing.

So the next day he gets up and he starts to walk with his son. You know the story, and I can’t tell you the whole story because the story is not only about Abraham, but let me just complete it. On the way up the mountain, he has told Isaac he is going to offer a sacrifice. Isaac says to Abraham, “Father.” Smart kid, by the way. He says, “Father, here’s the fire. Here’s the wood. Where’s the sacrifice?”

At that point, you have to imagine Abraham’s heart is in absolute agony. Everything about him is in agony, because he looks at his son and he’s in agony over his son, but he’s also in agony over God. He’s saying, “How in the world could God be just and the justifier of those who believe? How can we have a God who is just and merciful? How can a God who not only is a God of the command but also the God of the promise? How?” He doesn’t know. He doesn’t see any way.

When Isaac asks him the question, “Where is the sacrifice?” it all comes together. In that moment, suddenly Abraham gets a revelation. Abraham says something without which the history of Israel is inexplicable, without which the whole Bible is inexplicable, without which my life is inexplicable. Suddenly he gets a revelation. It comes out of the blue. There is no other reference in the text about it. There’s no other reference in the story.

Abraham suddenly looks to Isaac and says, “Wait.” Something comes to him and he says literally in the Hebrew, “God will see us a lamb for a sacrifice,” which means, “Isaac, God will show us a lamb.” Where does he get this idea, because later on no lamb ever shows up, by the way? Where does he get this idea? It’s almost as if God at that moment gave him a vision far off on the horizon and suddenly, in some vague way, Abraham gets it.

God never gives him anymore than that, but it suddenly dawns on him, and he says, “Isaac, Isaac, my little lamb. Isaac. Oh! If God would provide his little Lamb, my little lamb wouldn’t have to die. God will provide a lamb. God will.” He gets up there, he puts Isaac out, he raises the dagger, which means he goes past the point of no return, and then God all of a sudden says, “Stay thy hand. Do not slay the lad, for now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom thou lovest from me.” God does provide a ram, caught in a thicket, and Abraham puts him up there.

Now let me just tell you something. That story, that whole story about God’s coming, about the conversation up the hill, and about Abraham’s understanding, his revelation of a lamb, somehow the answer to how God can both be just and justifier is the lamb. That story was told forever. That story was passed on down to all the Israelites. They all told it to each other. Why not? It’s a great story. It’s an incredible story.

Even though John Huston, the director of the movie The Bible, in the last part of that movie has George C. Scott playing Abraham and tells the story, he can’t get inside Abraham’s mind. John Huston cannot understand the faith paradigm, and yet it just wipes me away every time I see it. It just wipes me away.

The very last shot of it is taken from far away. The last camera shot is from far away looking down on the mountain, and all you can see is this fire going up, the sacrifice, and off to the left are two little figures, an old man and a little boy, holding each other’s hands and whirling around in a dance of joy. It just wipes me out every time.

It’s an incredible story, but I’ll tell you something. It raises a lot more questions than it answers, because first of all, the problem going up the mountain was won, but going down the mountain there’s still a problem. You see that problem unless you have that unbelief paradigm, that belief that of course, sure, God owes us all a good life.

On the way up the mountain, the real question is … How in the world could a just God still be merciful. But on the way down the mountain, the question is … How in the world could a merciful God still be just? On the way down the mountain, the question is … Who paid? The ram?

God doesn’t even allow a lamb to show up, because God has told us in this very far away, through Abraham, and very incomplete and very vague way, and that’s all the Israelites knew up to that point, that the way that a just God could be merciful and the way a merciful God could be just is that there is a little Lamb, God’s little Lamb, and if it dies, your little lambs don’t have to.

Now comes Passover. God comes and says, “You’re under threat of death, but I’ll tell you what. My judgment is going to come down, and when that judgment comes down, your only hope will be a lamb.” A lamb! See, they’ve already known about this. They say, “This lamb again! What does it mean?” In a way, we still don’t know, but we know more.

First of all, this Passover story tells us something very intriguing. When you first hear about it, on the surface it looks like God’s judgment is a racist thing, doesn’t it? God says, “I’m going to come down, and because of those hard-hearted Egyptians, I’m going to smite the Egyptians, but you Jews, you’re okay.” Is that right?

Is he smiting the Egyptians because they’re Egyptians and is he taking care of the Jews because they’re Jews? Not at all. Do you know why? There’s one little verse in this chapter that is extremely important, and that little verse is the place where God says in all these directions … He says, “Put the blood over the door lintel and eat the lamb in this way and all that,” but there’s one place in 12:22 where he says, “Okay now, eat it and put the blood up there.” Then he says to all the Jews, “And listen, don’t go out from your house until morning.”

What does that mean? Don’t go out from under the blood of the lamb. Why not? Don’t you see? God is not coming down to judge the Egyptians; he’s coming down to judge sin. The hardness of Pharaoh’s heart is not the cause of his judgment; it’s only the occasion. There’s a big difference. It’s the trigger.

But remember what we said? What Abraham knows, what all people know who really are thinking straight about who God is and who we are and what he owes us, the real grace of existence is that the judgment of God seldom comes down like it should, and when it does come down, nobody has the right to question. Down it comes. But it’s not coming down just on the Egyptians. Not a bit.

See, when he says, “Don’t go out tonight,” what he’s saying is, “Just because you’re a Jew will not help you. I’m not judging the Egyptians because they’re Egyptians and I’m not saving you because you’re Jews. Oh no. Listen, you can’t take shelter under your Jewishness tonight. I don’t care how good a Jew you are. That won’t save you if you meet the Judge outside on the street. Your morality won’t save you. Sorry, it’s not your Jewishness. It’s not your morality.”

He doesn’t say, “Listen, those of you who have really not been living a very good life, breaking the Ten Commandments lately, you’d better not go out, but the rest of you, you’re okay.” Oh no. It’s not your Jewishness that saves you that night from the judgment of God. It’s not your pedigree. It’s not your family. It doesn’t matter. Here are people over here who are living very good lives and over here people living terrible lives. They’re in the same situation.

It’s not your pedigree. It’s not your culture. The only way you can be saved is through the sheer grace of God, the blood of the lamb. Because the little lambs have died, your little lambs will not. There’s a whole lot here that tells us something, and that is that the little lamb is a substitute for us. The little lamb is judged instead of us, and we can be saved only if we take shelter under the blood of the lamb. Then we are saved not by our good works, not by our culture, not by our pedigree, not by our record, not by religiosity at all! It has nothing to do.

Here’s a religious Jewish person. Here’s an unreligious Jewish person. I mean, there are thousands of Jewish people who were supposed to be taking shelter under the blood of the lamb. Some of them were believers in the God of Israel, and you know some of them weren’t. Some of them were obedient to the rules and some of them you know they weren’t. It doesn’t matter! It’s not their Jewishness. It’s not their non-Jewishness. It’s not their record. It’s not their morality. One thing only … the blood of the lamb.

But still the question is … Why would the death of these little …? You know, this time at least a lamb shows up in the story. But why? Why does that pay? It doesn’t answer it. Then you have to move on to the book of Isaiah. In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah is preaching a sermon, and in it he says something we all know. He says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way …” He’s talking about sin. But then suddenly he says, “… and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Then he says, “My servant, like a lamb who is dumb before the shearers, on him the iniquity of us all.” So Isaiah says it’s a human being. It’s a human being of incredible value whose death will be of such value that will pay for us all.

3. Behold the Lamb of God

Now only if you realize there’s been conversation going on for years will you understand that wonderful day in which John the Baptist, who was the great bridge between the Old and the New Testament … He was the last in a sense of the old Jewish prophets.

One day, he saw Jesus Christ walking along with his disciples. He’d known a lot about Jesus and he’d heard about Jesus and he’d certainly studied the Scriptures. All of a sudden one day, he got it. Do you know what he said? “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

What is he saying? He’s saying, “I get it! Not a lamb of God; this is the Lamb of God. We’re not saved because of the death of some wooly little animals. Our firstborn, our little lambs, are only saved because God has given us his little Lamb. We’re all under the threat of the angel of death, but this is the Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world.”

Jesus Christ could never have made that more clear than on the night of the Lord’s Supper. When did he do this? On the Passover night, when all the other Jews were celebrating the substitutionary death of the lamb, Jesus gets his disciples together and hands them the bread and says, “This is my body. This is my body they’re eating.”

Then on the same night that all the other Jews are commemorating the smearing of blood over the door lintels, he gives them the wine and he says, “That’s my blood.” Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. Oh my. God’s little Lamb died.

You see, God walked up the mountain. In fact, do you know the mountain where Abraham took Isaac up was in the very area of Jerusalem? So God, one day, walked up into those same mountains with his Son, Jesus Christ, and he laid him out, and he raised his hand, and just like Isaac, Jesus cried out to his Father, but unlike Isaac, his Father said nothing back.

If Abraham could’ve been there or if Moses could’ve been there or if Isaiah could’ve been there on Calvary’s hill, what they would’ve said is the same thing in a sense that John the Baptist said. Do you know what they’d say? They would say, “Now we know you love us, for you did not withhold your Son, your only Son, from us.”

Now what does this mean? Behold the Lamb of God. What does it mean to us? There’s a great story, a true story. Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers of the nineteenth century, he was a British Baptist preacher, had a tremendous voice. At one point, his own church was being remodeled and they had to rent a huge music hall (I think the Surrey Music Hall that seated 10,000 people).

He went into it one Saturday to test out the acoustics. He got up on the platform, and the way he practiced was he boomed out at the top of lungs with all the feeling he could muster, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Behold the Lamb of God …” Way up in the rafters working far away from the platform, unable to see the platform, was a carpenter, a workman. He heard this incredible call, and he dropped his tool and he came under deep conviction of sin, and he thought, “Jesus, the Lamb of God.”

He went home and he prayed. He thought. He went into great agony of soul and came through a dramatic conversion and a few weeks later presented himself for baptism at Spurgeon’s church and told him the whole story, because there’s something about beholding the Lamb of God. Here’s what it means to behold the Lamb of God practically.

1. Beholding the Lamb of God means now and only now do we see how God can be both just and merciful

The Lamb of God is the answer. Because he had to give his own little Lamb shows he’s a God of justice and he can’t overlook sin, but because he wanted to offer his little Lamb shows he’s a God of love.

Up the mountain, down the mountain. On the way up the mountain, “How in the world could a just God be merciful?” On the way down the mountain, “How could this merciful God be just?” But the point is the Lamb! I’ll tell you this.

2. Only by beholding the Lamb of God will you become a lamb at heart,

because until you behold the Lamb of God, there will be a restlessness in your soul. I’ll tell you why. Because you can believe in a God of love or you can believe in a God of fury, but you can’t believe in a God of love and fury unless you behold the Lamb of God.

You will have a God who is very demanding and who always makes you feel like you can never please him. You’ll always be running from him. You’ll be trying to please him and you never will be able to. You’re always feeling guilty. If that’s the way you see religion, if that’s the way you see God, if that’s the effect of God on you, you may have all the right theology in the world, but you haven’t gotten it. You have not beheld the Lamb of God.

But on the other hand, people who say, “Well, I have to be free to be me. I have to be me. I have to be me. I’m sure God will understand. I have to do what’s right for me,” you haven’t beheld the Lamb of God. Why in the world would God ever do something so extraordinary, so extreme unless sin was of utter seriousness, unless sin was absolute poison for you, unless sin was your death?

Parents who just let their kids do anything, no standards, that’s like child neglect. Those kids grow up not knowing which end is up, not feeling like they have parents, because they don’t. Parents without standards. But kids who grow up with parents who are very demanding and completely controlling, they also grow up not being …

There’s no peace in your soul if you have a God of fury but not love or a God of love but not fury. Only in the Lamb of God, only if you behold the Lamb of God will all that go away, will all that restlessness in your heart be calmed. The only way you’ll ever become a lamb at heart is to behold the Lamb of God.

The only way you’re ever going to be able to overcome your own past and your own record is to realize it’s not your culture, it’s not your record; it’s just the blood of the Lamb. Listen, if you’d gotten an Israelite and just grabbed one as they were walking through the wilderness on their way to Canaan and said, “Who are you and who are all these people?” do you know what he or she would have said if you’d grabbed one?

The Israelite would say, “Well, I was a slave in Egypt. I was under penalty of death, but I took shelter under the blood of the lamb, and now God is in our midst and he’s taking me to the Promised Land. That’s who we are and that’s what we’re about.” If you ask a Christian that question, “Who are you and what you’re about?” the Christian will say the very same thing.

“I was a slave. I was under penalty of death. I didn’t even understand what made me so confused. Now I see it’s not my goodness, it’s not my badness, it’s not my culture, it’s not my pedigree, it’s not my class, it’s not my achievements, it’s not my profession. I took shelter under the blood of the Lamb, and now he has led me out and he’s dwelling within me and he’s taking me to the Promised Land. Right now, this doesn’t look so good around here. It’s kind of a wilderness, but he’s taking me. I know he is.” That’s what a Christian says too.

3. Beholding the Lamb of God not only makes you a lamb at heart, but it makes you a lion at heart

Oh yeah, it does. The one thing I can’t stand is people who look at the Old Testament text and who say, “We really can’t believe in a God who is a judge. We can’t believe in a God of wrath. We can’t believe in a God who rains down judgment on people. We can’t believe in that anymore. If there is a God, he’s sort of in everything. He is sort of a God of everything.

However, we love to read the Old Testament account of the liberation of the Israelites from the oppression of Egypt because that is a model for how we should be also working for the liberation of oppressed people.” That does not compute. My dear friends, if there isn’t a God, if there aren’t any objective moral absolutes, if everything is relative, what’s so bad about oppression? Don’t you see?

But if you have beheld the Lamb of God, you know there is a just God but a merciful God. That gives you a basis for working against oppression here, and it gives you utter confidence that his right and his goodness will triumph in the world. I tell you something. Beholding the Lamb of God doesn’t just make you a lamb at heart; it makes you a lion at heart. It gives you a basis for fighting. It gives you an ability to fight. It gives you a hope for fighting.

I’ll just end with this, but it’s an extremely funny but at the same time absolutely penetrating statement by G.K. Chesterton. G.K. Chesterton said there are a lot of people who want to say, “Well, I don’t really believe in a God, but I think we need to work for the oppression of people.” He says, “Listen, if you’re skeptical about justice of God and a judgment day in eternity and all that, if you think everything is relative, you’re no revolutionary.”

He says, “But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it.”

Now listen. “As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself.

The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines.

In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything. […] There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.”

Now what is he saying? He says, “Behold the Lamb of God.” If you know there is a God who is a judge but who has liberated you, that gives you a basis for revolution, and it gives you a hope and confidence for revolution. If you say, “Ah, we don’t need a Lamb of God. We don’t believe in a God like that, of sacrifice and all. We don’t believe in a God of justice,” in that case, what basis do you have to revolt against anything? Who says oppression is wrong? Survival of the fittest!

Behold the Lamb of God to make yourself a lamb at heart and to calm that restlessness. But behold the Lamb of God to make yourself a lion at heart. Be ready to take on anything, to liberate oppressed people just like God did. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Let’s pray.

Thank you, Father, for giving us this great story, and it’s a true story. We thank you for the way in which you unveiled it to us over the years. We thank you for the great revelation you first gave Abraham and then the further revelation you gave to the children of Israel on that night, that night of nights and then that you gave to Isaiah and then eventually you gave to us through your Son, the Lamb of God.

Father, we will never stop looking forward to the day when we will get to that place, and they sang a new song, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise. For you were slain and with your blood you redeemed a people from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation, and you have made them to be a kingdom of priests to serve our God, and they will reign upon the earth.”

We look to that day when we can say, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” Help us to behold the Lamb of God. We pray it in Jesus’ name, amen.