Bible Commentaries
Exodus 12

Verse 13

The Blood

December 12th, 1858 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Exodus 12:13 .

God's people are always safe. "All the saints are in his hand;" and the hand of God is a place for safety, as well as a place of honour. Nothing can hurt the man who has made his refuge God. "Thou hast given commandment to save me," said David; and every believing child of God may say the same. Plague, famine, war, tempest, all these have received commandment of God to save his people. Though the earth should rock beneath the feet of man, yet the Christian, may stand fast, and though the heavens should be rolled up, and the firmament should pass away like a scroll that is burned by fervent heat, yet need not a Christian fear; God's people shall be saved: if they cannot be saved under the heavens, they shall be saved in the heavens; if there be no safety for them in the time of trouble upon this solid earth, they shall be "caught up together with the Lord in the air, and so shall they be ever with the Lord," and ever safe. Now, at the time of which this Book of Exodus speaks, Egypt was exposed to a terrible peril. Jehovah himself was about to march through the streets of all the cities of Egypt. It was not merely a destroying angel, but Jehovah himself; for thus it is written, "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast." No one less than I AM, the great God, had vowed to "cut Rahab" with the sword of vengeance. Tremble, ye inhabitants of the earth, for God has come down among you, provoked, incensed, and at last awakened from his seeming sleep of patience. He has girded on his terrible sword, and he has come to smite you. Quake for fear, all ye that have sin within you, for when God walks through the streets, sword in hand, will he not smite you all? But hark! the voice of covenant mercy speaks, God's children are safe, even though an angry God be in the streets. As they are safe from the rod of the wicked, so are they safe from the sword of justice always and ever safe; for there was not a hair of the head of an Israelite that was so much as touched; Jehovah kept them safe beneath his wings. While he did rend his enemies like a lion, yet did he protect his children, every one of them. But, beloved, while this is always true, that God's people are safe, there is another fact that is equally true, namely, that God's people are only safe through the blood . The reason why God spares his people in the time of calamity is, because he sees the blood-mark on their brow. What is the basis of that great truth, that all things work together for good to them that love God? What is the cause that all things so produce good to them, but this, that they are bought with the precious blood of Christ? Therefore it is that nothing can hurt them, because the blood is upon them, and every evil thing must pass them by. It was so that night in Egypt. God himself was abroad with his sword; but he spared them, because he saw the blood-mark on the lintel and on the two sideposts. And so it is with us. In the day when God in his fierce anger shall come forth from his dwelling place, to affright the earth with terrors and to condemn the wicked, we shall be secure, if covered with the Saviour's righteousness, and sprinkled with his blood, we are found in him. Do I hear some one say, that I am now coming to an old subject? This thought struck me when I was preparing for preaching, that I should have to tell you an old story over again; and just as I was thinking of that, happening to turn over a book, I met with an anecdote of Judson the missionary to Burmah. He had passed through unheard-of hardships, and had performed dangerous exploits for his Master. He returned, after thirty years' absence, to America. "Announced to address an assembly in a provincial town, and a vast concourse having gathered from great distances to hear him, he rose at the close of the usual service, and, as all eyes were fixed and every year attent, he spoke for about fifteen minutes, with much pathos, of the precious Saviour, of what he had done for us, and of what we owed to him; and he sat down, visibly affected. "The people are very much disappointed," said a friend to him on their way home; "they wonder you did not talk of something else ." "Why what did they want?" he replied: "I presented, to the best of my ability, the most interesting subject in the world." "But they wanted something different a story" "Well, I am sure I gave them a story the most thrilling one that can be conceived of." "But they had beard it before. They wanted something new of a man who had just come from the antipodes." "Then I am glad they have it to say, that a man coming from the antipodes had nothing better to tell than the wondrous story of the dying love of Jesus. My business is to preach the gospel of Christ; and when I can speak at all, I dare not trifle with my commission. When I looked upon those people to-day, and remembering where I should next meet them, how could I stand up and furnish food to vain curiosity tickle their fancy with amusing stories, however decently strung together on a thread of religion? That is not what Christ meant by preaching the gospel. And then how could I hereafter meet the fearful charge, 'I gave you one opportunity to tell them of ME; you spent it in describing your own adventures!'" So I thought. Well, if Judson told the old story after he had been thirty years away, and could not find anything better, I will just go back to this old subject, which is always new and always fresh to us the precious blood of Christ , by which we are saved. First, then, the blood ; secondly, its efficacy ; thirdly, the one condition appended to it ; "When I see the blood;" and fourthly, the practical lesson . I. First, then, THE BLOOD ITSELF. In the case of the Israelites it was the blood of the Paschal Lamb. In our case, beloved, it is the blood of the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. 1. The blood of which I have solemnly to speak this morning, is, first of all, the blood of a divinely appointed victim . Jesus Christ did not come into this world unappointed. He was sent here by his Father. This indeed is one of the underlying ground-works of the Christian's hope. We can rely upon Jesus Christ's acceptance by his Father, because his Father ordained him to be our Saviour from before the foundation of the world. Sinner! when I preach to thee the blood of Christ this morning, I am preaching something that is well pleasing to God; for God himself did choose Christ to be the Redeemer; he himself set him apart from before the foundation of the world, and he himself, even Jehovah the Father, did lay upon him the iniquity of us all. The sacrifice of Christ is not brought to you without warrant; it is not a something which Christ did surreptitiously and in secret; it was written in the great decree from all eternity, that he was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. As he himself said, "Lo I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will O God." It is God's will that the blood of Jesus should be shed. Jesus is God's chosen Saviour for men; and here, when addressing the ungodly, here, I say, is one potent argument with them. Sinner! You may trust in Christ, that he is able to save you from the wrath of God, for God himself has appointed him to save. 2. Christ Jesus, too, like the lamb, was not only a divinely appointed victim, but he was spotless . Had there been one sin in Christ, he had not been capable of being our Saviour; but he was without spot or blemish without original sin, without any practical transgression. In him was no sin, though he was "tempted in all points like as we are." Here, again, is the reason why the blood is able to save, because it is the blood of an innocent victim, a victim the only reason for whose death lay in us, and not in himself. When the poor innocent lamb was put to death, by the head of the household of Egypt, I can imagine that thoughts like these ran through his mind. "Ah" he would say, as he struck the knife into the lamb, "This poor creature dies, not for any guilt that it has ever had, but to show me that I am guilty, and that I deserved to die like this." Turn, then, your eye to the cross, and see Jesus bleeding there and dying for you. Remember,

"For sins not his own, he died to atone;"

Sin had no foothold in him, never troubled him. The prince of this world came and looked, but he said, "I have nothing in Christ; there is no room for me to plant my foot no piece of corrupt ground, which I may call my own." O sinner, the blood of Jesus is able to save thee, because he was perfectly innocent himself, and "he died the just for the unjust, to bring us to God."

But some will say, "Whence has the blood of Christ such power to save?" My reply is, not only because God appointed that blood, and because it was the blood of an innocent and spotless being, but because Christ himself was God . If Christ were a mere man, my hearers, you could not be exhorted to trust him; were he ever so spotless and holy, there would be no efficacy in his blood to save; but Christ was "very God of very God;" the blood that Jesus shed was Godlike blood. It was the blood of man, for he was man like ourselves; but the divinity was so allied with the manhood, that the blood derived efficacy from it. Can you imagine what must be the value of the blood of God's own dear Son? No, you cannot put an estimate upon it that should so much as reach to a millionth part of its preciousness. I know you esteem that blood as beyond all price if you have been washed in it; but I know also that you do not esteem it enough. It was the wonder of angels that God should condescend to die; it will be the wonder of all wonders, the unceasing wonder of eternity, that God should become man to die. Oh! when we think that Christ was Creator of the world, and that on his all-sustaining shoulders did hang the universe, we cannot wonder that his death is mighty to redeem, and that his blood should cleanse from sin. Come hither saints and sinners; gather in and crowd around the cross, and see this man, overcome with weakness, fainting, groaning, bleeding, and dying. This man is also "God over all, blessed for ever," Is there not power to save? Is there not efficacy in blood like that? Can you imagine any stretch of sin which shall out-measure the power of divinity any height of iniquity that shall overtop the topless steeps of the divine? Can I conceive a depth of sin that shall be deeper than the infinite? or a breadth of iniquity that shall be broader than the Godhead? Because he is divine, he is "able to save to the uttermost, them that come unto God by him." Divinity appointed, spotless, and divine, his blood is the blood whereby ye may escape the anger and the wrath of God. 4. Once more; the blood of which we speak today, is blood once shed for many for the remission of sin. The paschal lamb was killed every year; but now Christ hath appeared to take away sin by the offering up of himself and there is now no more mention of sin, for Christ once for all hath put away sin, by the offering of himself. The Jew had the lamb every morning and every evening, for there was a continual mention of sin; the blood of the lamb could not take it away. The lamb availed for to-day, but there was the sin of to-morrow, what was to be done with that? Why, a fresh victim must bleed. But oh, my hearer, our greatest joy is, that the blood of Jesus has been once shed, and he has said, "It is finished." There is no more need of the blood of bulls or of goats, or of any other sacrifice; that one sacrifice hath "perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Trembling sinner! come to the cross again; thy sins are heavy, and many; but the atonement for them is completed by the death of Christ. Look then to Jesus, and remember that Christ needs nothing to supplement his blood. The road between God and man is finished and open; the robe to cover thy nakedness is complete, without a rag of thine; the bath in which thou art to be washed is full, full to the brim, and needs nothing to be added thereunto. "It is finished!" Let that ring in thy ears. There is nothing now that can hinder thy being saved, if God hath made thee willing now to believe in Jesus Christ. He is a complete Saviour, full of grace for an empty sinner. 5. And yet I must add one more thought, and then leave this point. The blood of Jesus Christ is blood that bath been accepted. Christ died he was buried; but neither heaven nor earth could tell whether God had accepted the ransom. There was wanted God's seal upon the great Magna Charta of man's salvation, and that seal was put, my hearer, in that hour when God summoned the angel, and bade him descend from heaven and roll away the stone. Christ was put in durance vile in the prison house of the grave, as a hostage for his people. Until God had signed the warrant for acquittal of all his people, Christ must abide in the bonds of death. He did not attempt to break his prison; be did not come out illegally, by wrenching down the bars of his dungeon; he waited: he wrapt up the napkin, folding it by itself: he laid the grave-clothes in a separate place; he waited, waited patiently; and at last down from the skies, like the flash of a meteor, the angel descended, touched the stone and rolled it away; and when Christ came out, rising from the dead in the glory of his Father's power, then was the seal put upon the great charta of our redemption. The blood was accepted, and sin was forgiven. And now, soul, it is not possible for God to reject thee, if thou comest this day to him, pleading the blood of Christ. God cannot and here we speak with reverence too the everlasting God cannot reject a sinner who pleads the blood of Christ: for if he did so, it were to deny himself, and to contradict all his former acts. He has accepted blood, and he will accept it; he never can revoke that divine acceptance of the resurrection; and if thou goest to God, my hearer, pleading simply and only the blood of him that did hang upon the tree, God must un-God himself before he can reject thee, or reject that blood. And yet I fear that I have not been able to make you think of the blood of Christ. I beseech you, then, just for a moment try to picture to yourself Christ on the cross. Let your imagination figure the motley crew assembled round about that little hill of Calvary. Lift now your eyes, and see the three crosses put upon that rising knoll. See in the centre the thorn-crowned brow of Christ. Do you see the hands that have always been full of blessing nailed fast to the accursed wood! See you his dear face, more marred than that of any other man? Do you see it now, as his head bows upon his bosom in the extreme agonies of death? He was a real man, remember. It was a real cross. Do not think of these things as figments, and fancies, and romances. There was such a being, and he died as I describe it. Let your imagination picture him, and then sit still a moment and think over this thought: "The blood of that man, whom now I behold dying in agony, must be my redemption; and if I would be saved, I must put my only trust in what he suffered for me, when he himself did 'bear our sins in his own body on the tree.'" If God the Holy Spirit should help you, you will then be in a right state to proceed to the second point. II. THE EFFICACY OF THIS BLOOD. "When I see the blood I will pass over you." 1. The blood of Christ hath such a divine power to save, that nothing but it can ever save the soul . If some foolish Israelite had despised the command of God, and had said, "I will sprinkle something else upon the doorposts," or, "I will adorn the lintel with jewels of gold and silver," he must have perished; nothing could save his household but the sprinkled blood. And now let us all remember, that "other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ," for "there is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved." My works, my prayers, my tears, cannot save me; the blood , the blood alone, has power to redeem. Sacraments, however well they may be attended to, cannot save me. Nothing but thy blood, O Jesus, can redeem me from the guilt of sin. Though I should give rivers of oil, and ten thousand of the fat of fed beasts; yea, though I should give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul, all would be useless. Nothing but the blood of Jesus has in it the slightest saving-power. Oh! you that are trusting in your infant baptism, your confirmation, and your Lord's Supper, you are trusting in a lie. Nothing but the blood of Jesus can save. I care not how right the ordinance, how true the form, how scriptural the practice, it is all a vanity to you if you rely in it. God forbid I should say a word against ordinances, or against holy things; but keep them in their places. If you make then the basis of your soul's salvation, they are lighter than a shadow, and when you need them most you shall find them fail you. There is not, I repeat it again, the slightest atom of saving-power anywhere but in the blood of Jesus. That blood has the only power to save, and aught else that you rely upon shall be a refuge of lies. This is the rock, and this is the work that is perfect; but all other things are day dreams; they must be swept away in the day when God shall come to try our work of what sort it is. THE BLOOD stands out in solitary majesty, the only rock of our salvation. 2. This blood is not simply the only thing that can save, but it must save alone . Put anything with the blood of Christ, and you are lost; trust to anything else with this and you perish. "It is true," says one, that the Sacrament cannot save me, but I will trust in that, and in Christ too." You are a lost man, then. So jealous is Christ of his honour, that anything you put with him, however good it is, becomes, from the fact of your putting it with him, an accursed thing. And what is it that thou wouldst put with Christ? Thy good works? What! wilt thou yoke a reptile with an angel yoke thyself to the chariot of salvation with Christ? What are thy good works? Thy righteousnesses are "as filthy rags;" and shall filthy rags be joined to the spotless celestial righteousness of Christ? It must not, and it shall not be. Rely on Jesus only, and thou canst not perish; but rely on anything with him, and thou art as surely damned as if thou shouldst rely upon thy sins. Jesus only Jesus only Jesus only this is the rock of our salvation. And here let me stop, and combat a few forms and shapes which our self-righteousness always takes. "Oh," says one, "I could trust in Christ if I felt my sins more ." Sir, that is a damning error. Is thy repentance, thy sense of sin, to be a part-Saviour? Sinner! the blood is to save thee, not thy tears, Christ's death, not thy repentance. Thou art bidden this day to trust in Christ; not in thy feelings, not in thy pangs on account of sin. Many a man has been brought into great soul distress, because he has looked more at his repentance than at the obedience of Christ

"Could thy tears for ever flow, Could thy zeal no respite know; All for sin could not atone, Christ must save and Christ alone ."

"Nay," says another, "but I feel that I do not value the blood of Christ as I ought, and therefore I am afraid to believe." My friend, that is another insiduous form of the same error. God does not say, "When I see your estimate of the blood of Christ, I will pass over you; no, but when I see the blood ." It is not your estimate of that blood, it is the blood that saves you. As I said before, that magnificent, solitary blood , must be alone. "Nay," says another, "but if I had more faith then I should have hope." That, too, is a very deadly shape of the same evil. You are not to be saved by the efficacy of your faith, but by the efficacy of the blood of Christ. It is not your believing, it is Christ's dying. I bid you believe, but I bid you not to look to your believing as the ground of your salvation. No man will go to heaven if he trusts to his own faith; you may as well trust to your own good works as trust to your faith. Your faith must deal with Christ not with itself. The world hangs on nothing; but faith cannot hang upon itself, it must hang on Christ. Sometimes, when my faith is vigorous, I catch myself doing this. There is joy flowing into my heart, and after awhile I begin to find that my joy suddenly departs. I ask the causes, and I find that the joy came because I was thinking of Christ ; but when I begin to think about my joy , then my joy fled. You must not think of your faith but of Christ. Faith comes from meditation upon Christ. Turn, then, your eye, not upon faith but upon Jesus. It is not your hold of Christ that saves you; it is his hold of you. It is not the efficacy of your believing in him; it is the efficacy of his blood applied to you through the Spirit. I do not know how sufficiently to follow Satan in all his windings into the human heart, but this, I know, he is alway strying to keep back this great truth the blood, and the blood alone has power to save. "Oh," says another, "if I had such-and-such an experience then I could trust." Friend, it is not thine experience, it is the blood. God did not say, "When I see your experience," but "When I see the blood of Christ ." "Nay," says one, "but if I had such-and-such graces, I could hope." Nay, but he did not say, "When I see your graces," but "When I see the blood ." Get grace, get as much as you can of faith, and love, and hope, but oh, do not put them where Christ's blood ought to be. The only pillar of your hope must be the Cross, and aught else that you put to buttress up the cross of Christ is obnoxious to God, and ceases to have any virtue in it, because it is an anti-Christ. The blood of Christ, then alone, saves; but anything with it, and it does not save. 3. Yet again we may say of the blood of Christ, it is all-sufficient . There is no case which the blood of Christ cannot met; there is no sin which it cannot wash away. There is no multiplicity of sin which it cannot cleanse, no aggravation of guilt which it cannot remove. Ye may be double-dyed like scarlet, ye may have lain in the lye of your sins these seventy years, but the blood of Christ can take out the stain. You may have blasphemed him almost as many times as you have breathed, you may have rejected him as often as you have heard his name; you may have broken his Sabbath, you may have denied his existence, you may have doubted his Godhead, you may have persecuted his servants, you may have trampled on his blood; but all this the blood can wash away. You may have committed whoredoms without number, nay, murder itself may have defiled your hands, but this fountain filled with blood can wash all the stains away. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. There is no sort of a man, there is no abortion of mankind, no demon in human shape that this blood cannot wash. Hell may have sought to make a paragon of iniquity, it may have striven to put sin, and sin, and sin together, till it has made a monster in the shape of man, a monster abhorred of mankind, but the blood of Christ can transform that monster. Magdalen's seven devils it can cast out, the madness of the demoniac it can ease, the deep-seated leprosy it can cure, the wound of the maimed, yea, the lost limb it can restore. There is no spiritual disease which the great Physician cannot heal. This is the great Catholicon, the medicine for all diseases. No case can exceed its virtue, be it never so black or vile; all-sufficient, all-sufficient blood. 4. But go further. The blood of Christ saves surely . Many people say, "Well, I hope I shall be saved through the blood of Christ;" and perhaps, says one here, who is believing in Christ, "Well, I hope it will save." My dear friend, that is a slur upon the honour of God. If any man gives you a promise, and you say, "Well, I hope he will fulfil it;" is it not implied that you have at least some small doubt as to whether he will or not. Now, I do not hope that the blood of Christ will wash away my sin. I know it is washed away by his blood; and that is true faith which does not hope about Christ's blood, but says, "I know it is so; that blood does cleanse. The moment it was applied to my conscience it did cleanse, and it does cleanse still." The Israelite, if he was true to his faith, did not go inside, and say, I hope the destroying angel will pass by me;" but he said, "I know he will; I know God cannot smite me; I know he will not. There is the blood-mark there, I am secure beyond a doubt; there is not the shadow of a risk of my perishing. I am, I must be saved." And so I preach a sure gospel this morning: "Whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life." "I give unto my sheep eternal life," said he, "and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." O, sinner, I have not the shadow of a doubt as to whether Christ will save you if you trust in his blood. O no, I know he will. I am certain his blood can save; and I beg you, in Christ's name, believe the same; believe that that blood is sure to cleanse, not only that it may cleanse, but that it must cleanse, "whereby we must be saved," says the Scripture. If we have that blood upon us we must be saved, or else we are to suppose a God unfaithful and a God unkind; in fact, a God transformed from everything that is God-like into everything that is base. 5. And yet again, he that hath this blood sprinkled upon him is saved completely . Not the hair of the head of an Israelite was disturbed by the destroying angel. They were completely saved; so he that believeth in the blood is saved from all things. I like the old translation of the chapter in the Romans. There was a martyr once summoned before Bonner; and after he had expressed his faith in Christ, Bonner said "You are a heretic and will be damned." "Nay" said he, quoting the old version, "There is therefore now no damnation to them that believe in Christ Jesus." And that brings a sweet thought before us; there is no damnation to the man who has the blood of Christ upon him; he cannot be condemned of God anyhow. It were impossible. There is no such a thing ; there can be no such thing. There is no damnation. He cannot be damned; for there is no damnation to him that is in Christ Jesus. Let the blood be applied to the lintel, and to the door-post, there is no destruction. There is a destroying angel for Egypt, but there is none for Israel. There is a hell for the wicked, but none for the righteous. And if there is none, they cannot be put there. If there is no damnation they cannot suffer it. Christ saves completely; every sin is washed, every blessing ensured, perfection is provided, and glory everlasting is the sure result. I think then, I have dwelt sufficiently long upon the efficacy of his blood; but no tongue of seraph can ever speak its worth. I must go home to my chamber, and weep because I am powerless to tell this story, and yet I have laboured to tell it simply, so that all can understand; and I pray, therefore, that God the Spirit may lead some of you to put your trust simply, wholly, and entirely, on the blood of Jesus Christ. III. This brings us to the third point, upon which I must be very brief, and the third point is THE ONE CONDITION. What says one "Do you preach a conditional salvation?" Yes I do, there is the one condition "Where I see the blood I will pass over you." What a blessed condition! it does not say, when you see the blood, but when I see it. Thine eye of faith may be so dim, that thou canst not see the blood of Christ. Ay, but God's eye is not dim: He can see it, yea he must see it; for Christ in heaven is always presenting his blood before his Father's face. The Israelite could not see the blood; he was inside the house; he could not see what was on the lintel and the doorpost; but God could see it; and this is the only condition of the sinner's salvation God's seeing the blood; not your seeing it. O how safe, then, is every one that trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not his faith that is the condition, not his assurance; it is the simple fact, that Calvary is set perpetually before the eyes of God in a risen and ascended Saviour. "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Fall on your knees then in prayer, ye doubting souls, and let this be your plea: "Lord, have mercy upon me for the blood's sake. I cannot see it as I could desire, but Lord thou seest it, and thou hast said, 'When I see it, I will pass over you.' Lord, thou seest it this day, pass over my sin, and forgive me for its dear sake alone." IV. And now, lastly, WHAT IS THE LESSON. The lesson of the text is to the Christian this. Christian, take care that thou dost always remember, that nothing but the blood of Christ can save thee. I preach to myself to-day what I preach to you. I often find myself like this: I have been praying that the Holy Spirit might rest in my heart and cleanse out an evil passion, and presently I find myself full of doubts and fears, and when I ask the reason, I find it is this: I have been looking to the Spirit's work until I put the Spirit's work where Christ's work ought to be. Now, it is a sin to put your own works where Christ's should be; but it is just as much a sin to put the Holy Spirit's work there. You must never make the Spirit of God an anti-Christ, and you virtually do that when you put the Spirit's work as the groundwork of your faith. Do you not often hear Christian men say, "I cannot believe in Christ to-day as I could yesterday, for yesterday I felt such sweet and blessed enjoyments." Now, what is that but putting your frames and feelings where Christ ought to be. Remember, Christ's blood is no more able to save you in a good frame than in a bad frame. Christ's blood must be your trust, as much when you are full of joy as when you are full of doubt. And here it is that your happiness will be in danger, by beginning to put your good frames and good feelings in the room of the blood of Christ. O, brethren, if we could always live with a single eye fixed on the Cross, we should always be happy; but when we get a little peace, and a little joy, we begin to prize the joy and peace so much, that we forget the source whence they come. As Mr. Brooks says, "A husband that loves his wife will, perhaps, often give her jewels and rings; but suppose she should sit down and begin to think of her jewels and rings so much that she should forget her husband, it would be a kind husband's business to take them away from her so that she might fix her affections entirely on him." And it is so with us. Jesus gives us jewels of faith and love, and we get trusting to them, and he takes them away in order that we may come again as guilty, helpless sinners, and put our trust in Christ. To quote a verse I often repeat I believe the spirit of a Christian should be, from his first hour to his last, the spirit of these two lines:

"Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling." That is the lesson to the saint.

But another minute; there is a lesson here to the sinner. Poor, trembling, guilty self-condemned sinner, I have a word from the Lord for thee. "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us," that is you and me, "cleanseth us from all sin." That "us" includes you, if now you are feeling your need of a Saviour. Now that blood is able to save you, and you are bidden simply to trust that blood, and you shall be saved. But I hear you say, "Sir," you said, "If I feel my need. Now I feel that I do not feel, I only wish I did feel my need enough." Well do not bring your feelings then, but trust only in the blood. If you can rely simply on the blood of Christ, whatever your feelings may be, or may not be, that blood is able to save. But you are saying, "How am I to be saved? What mush I do?" Well there is nothing that you can do. You must leave off doing altogether, in order to be saved. There must be a denial of all your doings. You must get Christ first, and then you may do as much as you like. But you must not trust in your doings. Your business is now to lift up your heart in prayer like this: "Lord, thou hast shown me something of myself, show me something of my Saviour." See the Saviour hanging on the cross, turn your eye to him, and say, "Lord, I trust thee I have nothing else to trust to, but I rely on thee; sink or swim, my Saviour, I trust thee." And as surely sinner, as thou canst put thy trust in Christ, thou art as safe as an apostle or prophet. Not death nor hell can slay that man whose firm reliance is at the foot of the cross. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned." He that believeth shall be saved, be his sins never so many; he that believeth not shall be damned, be his sins never so few, and be his virtues never so many. Trust in Jesus now! Sinner, trust in Jesus only.

"Not all the blood of beasts On Jewish altars slain Could give the guilty conscience peace, Or wash away the stain. But Christ, the heavenly Lamb, Takes all our sins away; A sacrifice of nobler name And richer blood than they."

Verse 26

A Question for Communicants

June 1st, 1890 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"What mean ye by this service?" Exodus 12:26 .

In a spiritual religion, everything must be understood. That which is not spiritual, but ritualistic, contents itself with the outward form. Under the Jewish dispensation, there was a very strong tendency in that direction; but it was kept to some extent in check. Under the Christian faith, this tendency must not be tolerated at all. We must know the meaning of what we do; otherwise we are not profited. We do not believe in the faith of the man who was asked what he believed, and who replied that he believe what the church believed. "But what does the church believe?" "The church believes what I believe." "Well, but what do you and the church believe?" "We both believe the same thing." He could not be got to explain himself any further. We look upon such expressions as the talk of ignorance, and not the language of faith. Faith knows what she believes, and can give a reason for the hope that is in her meekness and fear.

Concerning the Passover, the young people among the Jews were encouraged to ask their parents this question, "What means ye by this service?" Children should be encouraged now to ask such gracious questions. I am afraid they are not prompted to do so as they used to be in Puritan times. After the sermon always came the catechizing of the children when they were at home; and every father was bound to be attentive, because he had to ask the boys and girls in the evening what they had heard; and they were more attentive then than now, because they had to be prepared to answer any questions of their parents in return. Cultivate in your children a desire to understand everything connected with our holy faith.

In this chapter, from which I had culled my text, the parents are taught how to answer their children. If the parent be ignorant, a question from his child is inconvenient. He finds his ignorance exposed, and he perhaps is vexed with the child who has been the innocent means of unveiling him to himself. Be ready to tell your children what the ordinances of the gospel mean. Explain baptism to them, explain the Lord's supper to them; and above all, explain the gospel; and let them know as far as words can make it plain, what is that great mystery whereby we are saved, whereby sin is forgiven, and we are made the children of God.

I thought it would be profitable, if God gave me strength for the exercise, very briefly to answer the question supposed to be put by an intelligent youth, "What mean ye by this service?" this service that is called by some people "Holy Communion"; which is sometimes called the "Eucharist"; and among us is called "the Lord's supper", or "the breaking of bread." What does it mean?

It means many things; but chiefly five, of which I will speak now.

I. This supper is, first of all, A MEMORIAL.

If you want to keep something in mind from generation to generation, you may attempt it in many ways. You may erect a bronze column, or you may engrave a record of it upon brass in the church. The column will get sold for old bronze, and somebody will steal the brasses from the church; and the memorial will disappear. You may write it upon marble if you please; but in our climate, at any rate, the inscription is very apt to be obliterated; and the old stones, though they last long, may after a time be as dumb as the treasures of Nineveh and Egypt were for centuries. These monuments did preserve the records, but they were hidden under the sand, or buried beneath the ruins of cities; and though they have a tongue now, and are speaking forcibly, yet whatever had been entrusted to them would have been forgotten while they were lying under the sand of the desert, or in the débris of the palaces of Koyunjik. There are other ways of preserving memorials, such as writing in books; but books can be lost. Many valuable works of the ancients have entirely ceased, and no copies of them can be found. Some of the books mentioned in the Old Testament, which were not inspired books, but still were books which we should greatly value now, have quite passed out of existence.

It is found that, upon the whole, one of the best ways of remembering a fact is to have some ceremony connected with it, which shall be frequently performed, so as to keep the fact in memory. I suppose that Absalom will never be forgotten. He built himself a pillar in the king's dale; he knew his own infamous history, and he thought it might be forgotten. No one would care to remember it so he built himself a monument; and there it stands, or what is reputed to be that monument, to this day, and every Arab who passes by the spot throws a stone at it. Absalom will better be remembered by the ceremony of throwing stones at his tomb than by any record in marble.

To turn your thoughts to something infinitely higher, I cannot conceive of a surer and better method of keeping the death of Christ in mind than of meeting together, as we shall do to-night, for the breaking of bread, and the pouring out of the juice of the vine in memory of his death. Other facts may be forgotten; this one never can be. To-night, and every first day of the week, in ten thousand places of worship, believers meet together for the breaking of bread in remembrance of Christ's cross and passion, his precious death and burial. Those great facts can never pass out of mind. Jesus said to his disciples, "This do in remembrance of me." In obeying his command you are doing what if most effectual in keeping your Lord in remembrance. As I preach to-night, having no sort of reliance upon my own words, I want you to practise them as I go along; then you will be like the woman who said that, when she heard a sermon about light weights and short measures, thought she forgot what the preacher said, when she got home, she recollected to burn her bushel, which was short. So, if you can just practice the sermon as you hear it, it will be well.

Recollect, then, that you come to this table to-night to remember an absent Friend. Jesus has gone away. He who loved us better than any other ever loved us, has left us for a while. We sometimes take little parting gifts from friends, and they say to us

"When this you see, Remember me."

Probably, almost everybody here has, at some time or other, had certain tokens of remembrance by which they might be reminded of some dear one who is far away across the seas; out of sight, but not out of mind. You come to the communion-table, then, to remember your absent Friend.

You come, also, chiefly to remember his great deed of love. This supper is a memorial of what Jesus did for you when he was on the earth. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." He laid down his life for you; remember that to-night. "He loved me, and gave himself for me;" dwell on that fact. Let these words wake the echoes in your hearts, "Gethsemane!" "Gabbatha!" "Golgotha!" Can you forget all that Jesus suffered there on your behalf? If you have let these things slip in any degree from your heart's affections, come and write them down again. Come to the table, and there celebrate the memorial of his love, and wounds, and agonies, and death for you.

"In memory of the Saviour's love, We keep the sacred feast, Where every humble contrite heart Is made a welcome guest,

"By faith we take the bread of life, With which our souls are fed; And cup, in token of his blood That was for sinners shed."

You are also called upon to remember a dear Friend who, although he has gone away, has gone about your business. It was expedient for you that he should go away. He is doing you more good where he has gone than he could have done if he stayed here. He is pressing on your suit to-night. Your business would miscarry were it not for him; but within the veil that hides him from you, he is pleading for you. His power, his dignity, his merit, are al freely being employed for you. he is pleading the causes of your soul. Can you, will you, forget him? Will you not now forget everything else, and indulge the sweet memory of your faithful Lover, your dear Husband, who is married to you in ties of everlasting wedlock? Come, I pray you, keep the memorial of this dear Friend.

And you have to remember a Friend who will return very soon. He only tells you to do this till he comes. He is coming back to us. His own words are, "Behold, I come quickly!" That is not quite the meaning of what he said; it was, "Behold, I am coming quickly!" He is on his way, his chariot is hurrying towards us the axles of the wheels are hot with speed. He is coming as fast as he can. The long-suffering of God delays him, till sinners are brought in, till the full number of his elect shall be accomplished; but he is not delaying; he is not lingering; he is not slack, as some men count slackness; he is coming quickly. Will you not remember him? Soon will his hand be on the door; soon for you, at any rate, he may cry, "Arise, my love, my dove, my fair one, and come away;" and soon he may be here among us, and then we shall reign with him for ever and ever.

I charge my own heart to remember my dear Lord to-night; and I pray you, brothers and sisters, let not the feebleness of my reminder deprive you now of the happiness of thinking much of Christ your Lord. Sit you still, and let all other thoughts be gone, and think only of him who loved you and died for you. Let your thoughts go back to Calvary, as you sing, in mournful accents,

"O sacred head once wounded, With grief and pain weigh'd down, How scornfully surrounded With thorns, thine only crown! How pale art thou with anguish, With sore abuse and scorn! How does that visage languish, Which once was bright as morn!"

Oh, eyes full of tears! Oh, shoulders once beaten with the gory lash! Oh, hands once nailed to the cruel tree! Oh, feet once fastened to the bitter cross! Soon shall we behold the Christ who loved us, and died for us. Wherefore let us observe this sacred feast in remembrance of him.

II. But I must be briefer on my second point. The second meaning of the Lord's supper is that it is AN EXHIBITION.

"As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come." We are helped to remember it by the type, the emblem, the metaphor which is supplied to us by this supper. How is that? Is there any likeness to the death of Christ in this supper? I answer, there is a great likeness.

There is his broken body, represented by the bread which is broken, and intended for use. His dear body was broken, marred, sadly marred, given over to the hands of death, laid in the sepulchre, wrapped about with fine linen, left there, as his enemies thought, never to rise again. In that broken bread, broken that even believing children may eat their morsel, you see Christ's body given up for his people's sake.

But there stands a cup. It is full of the red juice of the grape. What means it? He himself shall explain it: "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." Now, the shedding of blood is the great token of death. One would not long talk of killing without speaking of blood-shedding; in fact, bloodshed usually means dying by a violent death; and so did he die. They pierced his hands and his feet; the soldier thrust his lance into his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. That stream of blood was the token that he really was dead. He hath poured out from his veins his precious life to purchase his redeemed. The broken bread, the cluster pressed into the cup, and leaving nothing but its blood-red juice, these two things symbolize Christ's death.

But, most of all, this is an exhibition of the two things separate, the bread and the cup. We have heard of some mixing the bread with the wine; that is not the Lord's supper. We have heard of others partaking of the wafer, as they call it, and leaving the cup; this is not taking the Lord's supper. They must be both there; the bread here, the wine-cup there; because the separation of the blood from the flesh is the surest token of death. "The blood is the life thereof;" and if the blood be drained away, there is death. Therefore the blood is represented by the cup, and the flesh is represented by the bread; these two separated are the great token and emblem of Christ's death.

We show, display, exhibit, symbolize, the death of our Lord at this table in this fashion; we partake of both symbols, eating of the bread, drinking of the cup, the whole ministering to the support of our life. At this table we say to all of you who do not know Christ, Christ's death is our life, and the remembrance of Christ's death is the food of our life. If any of you are spectators of the ordinance, this is the meaning of our little acted sermon, Christ has died. Christ's death is the support of our faith, the food of our souls; in token whereof we take this bread and this cup, and eat and drink. So this supper is a showing forth of Christ's death. How many here can say that Christ's death is their life? How many of you can say that you feed upon him? Dear friends, you must not come to the table unless you can say it; but if you can, come and welcome; and if you cannot, oh! may the Lord teach you the lesson that is so needful, the lesson that is so blessed, when it is once learnt, that Christ on the cross is the one hope of eternal glory.

You have thus had two meanings of the Lord's supper; first, it is a memorial; and next, an exhibition.

III. The Lord's supper is, next, A COMMUNION.

We must have this brought out prominently, or we shall miss a great deal. We are at the Lord's table; we eat of his bread, we drink out of his cup. This betokens friendship. When, in the East, a man has eaten of an Arab's salt, he is henceforth under his protecting care; and he who has spiritually eaten of Christ's bread, has come under Christ's protection; Christ will take care of him. All feuds are ended; an eternal peace is established between the two. It was a tender parable in which Nathan spoke of a man who had a little ewe lamb, which did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom. This is your privilege, to lie in Christ's bosom, to drink out of his cup, and to eat of his bread. This is a very sweet fellowship; enjoy it to-night to the full.

We go further than that, for we not only eat of his bread, but symbolically we feast upon him. His flesh is meat indeed; and his blood is drink indeed. Can I really feed upon Christ? Really, yes. Carnally, no. There is no such thing as the carnal eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood; that were a horrible thing; that were to make a man a cannibal; but the spiritual feeding upon the Incarnate God, this is what we mean. He gives us his flesh to eat, and we thus enter into a fellowship of the most intense and mysterious kind; not merely eating with him, but eating him; not merely receiving from him, but receiving him himself to be the life of our hearts. May you get to that point to-night! I believe in the real presence of Christ; I do not believe in the carnal presence of the Romanist. I believe in the real presence of the believer; but that reality is none the less real because it is spiritual; and only spiritual men can discern it.

Now, beloved, if we really come in the right spirit to this table, when we have eaten the bread, it becomes part of us; when the wine is sipped, the juice of the grape enters into our constitution; we cannot separate it from ourselves. Such is our fellowship with Christ. He is one with us, and we are one with him. "Quis separabit?" "Who shall separate us from the love of God?" We are one with Christ; partners with him; all that he has is ours; all that we have is his. He gives himself to us; we yield ourselves to him. It is Christ and Co., only the little "Co." drops its name to be swallowed up in him who is all in all. There is the meaning of the bread and the cup. We take Christ into ourselves, as he has taken us up into his greater self.

But communion also means that we are one with each other. I wish that you would catch that thought. I am afraid there are some members of the church here, who have never realized their union with all the rest of the members. "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." One is our Master, even Christ, and all we are brethren. There should be an intimate feeling of fellowship, a readiness to help and love one another. Rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep.

I cannot shake off from myself the idea that this makes up a large part of the meaning of the Lord's supper, the communion of saints with each other as well as the communion of the saints with Christ. May we enjoy it to-night! For my part, I like to feel, when I come to the table, that I am going to have communion, not only with this church, large as it is, not merely with the members of one denomination (I wish there were no denominations), not merely with the company of one body of Christians would to God, there were but one body of Christians throughout the world! but freely inviting all who belong to any part of the visible church; I delight to think that at this table to-night I shall have fellowship with the brethren in the Unites States, of all names, and sorts, and ages, and ranks. There cannot be two churches of Christ. There is but one Church, one Head, and one body. Though there are some very naughty children in the Lord's family, they must not be kept without their supper; there is some other way of chastening them; and as long as there is true living communion between one Christian and another, where God has given the thing signified, I dare not keep back the sign. If he gives them to have fellowship with Christ, who am I that shall say, "Thou shalt have not fellowship with me"? I dare not say it.

The meaning of this supper, then, is communion.

IV. But a fourth meaning of the Lord's supper is A COVENANTING.

Our Lord said to his disciples, "This cup is the new testament, or covenant, in my blood." We do well to sing,

"Thy body broken for my sake, My bread from heaven shall be; Thy testamental cup I take, And thus remember thee."

When we come to the Lord's table, we must be careful that we there take Christ to be our God in covenant. We take the one living God for ever and ever. He gives himself to us, and we take him, and we declare, "This God is our God for ever and ever; he shall be our Guide even unto death." Do you understand that covenant relationship, every one of you? Do you know what you are doing when you take the piece of bread, and eat it, and take the cup and drink of it? If you are truly a believer in Christ, God is in covenant with you through the body and the blood of Christ, and you recognize that blessed truth, and take him to be your God.

Now, the covenant runs thus, "They shall be my people, and I will be their God." When, therefore, we come to this covenanting table, we agree that we will be the Lord's people; henceforth, not the devil's, not the world's, not our own; but the Lord's. When the Lord's people are chastened, we expect to be chastened with them. When the Lord's people are persecuted, we expect to be persecuted with them. We must take them for better or worse, to have and to hold, and death itself must not part us from the Lord's people. That is the meaning of coming to this table, recognizing that, between you and God there is an agreement made that must not be broken, a covenant ordered in all things and sure, by which God becomes yours and you become his, so that you are for ever to be one of those that belong wholly to him.

Here, at the communion-table, God, the covenant God, seals his love to us. "Come hither, my child," saith the Lord, "I love thee, and I gave myself for thee, in token whereof put this bread into thy mouth, to remind thee of how I gave myself for thee. I love thee, so that thou art mine. I have called thee by my name, in token whereof I remind thee that I bought thee with my precious blood. Therefore, let that sip of the juice of the vine go into thy body, to remind thee that by my precious blood, which was shed for many, I have redeemed thee from going down into the pit." There are seals at that table, new seals of the covenant, new tokens, new love gifts from the Lord, to remind you of what he has done for you.

And you are to come here to-night to testify anew your love to God. Here you say, "My Master, let me eat with thee." If any of you have lost your first love, and have grown spiritually cold, the Saviour stands at the door, and knocks, and he says, "Open to me," and he also says that if we open to him, he will come in, and sup with us, and we with him. He said that to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, the church which was neither cold nor hot, which he threatened to spew out of his mouth. If thou art only fit to make Christ sick, yet if thou wilt open the door to him, he will come and feast with thee to-night, and all shall be well with thee. He testifies his love to you. Come and testify yours to him to-night. That is the meaning of this bread and this cup. Your covenant with death is broken, your agreement with hell is disannulled; and now you are in covenant with God, and he is in covenant with you, even in an everlasting covenant, which shall never be broken.

V. Lastly, and very briefly, this supper signifies A THANKSGIVING.

It is often called, by friends who love hard words, the "Eucharist." We have some friends who always carry a gold pencil, on purpose to put down every word that nobody understands, that they may use it next Sunday in their sermon. Such people call the Lord's supper the "Eucharist", which signifies "the giving of thanks." This is the thanksgiving service of the Church of God. It ought to be celebrated every Lord's-day. Every Sabbath should be a thanksgiving Sunday, for Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, and we ought to give thanks every time we celebrate his resurrection. Certainly we should do so when we celebrate his death. What are we going to do to-night by way of thanksgiving?

Well, we are coming to a festival, not a funeral. The choice festival of the Jewish faith was the Passover. The Lord's supper takes its place with higher joys; we come to this feast to testify our joy in Christ. There is bread, but there is also wine upon the table. This is to show that it is a festival for joy and delight, and you cannot praise Christ better, and give thanks to him better than by rejoicing in him. Praise him by your grateful joy. I think that we should always come to the Lord's table with a feeling of deep reverence; but that reverence should never tend to bondage. We want you not to come here quivering and shaking, as if you were slaves that came to eat a morsel of your master's bread, under fear of the lash. No, no; come, ye children; come, ye beloved ones of the Lord! Come, ye table companions of Christ, and sit at the festival he has prepared, and let your joy be full of thanksgiving!

We come to the table, next, actually to praise the Lord for giving Christ to us. When our Lord broke the bread, he gave thanks; so shall we to-night. Come ye, beloved, thankfully to praise the Father for the gift of Christ; and as you take the bread into your mouth, say in your heart, "Bless the Lord!" and as you drink of the cup, say in your spirit, "Blessed be his holy name! Blessed be the Father, for his eternal love to us; blessed be Jesus, for his love which has saved is to know all these precious things!"

One way in which we show our thanks to Christ is that we receive with gratitude the emblems of his death. Each one who communes with us will receive the bread, and eat it, and take the cup, and drink it. We do not hold it up, and look at it; we do not kneel down, and pay it homage; we receive it. We have done so now these many years. How long is it since we began this holy feast? Well, with some of us, it is over forty years since our first communion, and we do not want any better food. We desire to keep in memory the same Christ, to feed upon the same doctrine of the incarnation and atoning sacrifice; and if we should be spared, beloved, another forty years, which is far from likely, we shall have a sweeter tooth for Christ even than we have now. He will be more dear to us, more precious, more delightsome, even than he is to-night. So we come to the table to show our gratitude by receiving and receiving again.

Let me whisper in your ear, when this communion is over, and you shall leave this table, "Pray, beloved, that you may go away in the same spirit as your Lord and Master did, when after rising from supper, he went out to the garden, not there to have a sweet hour of lonely communion with God, but there to sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. He went there to be arrested, to be hurried off to the bar of Annas, and Caiaphas, and Pilate, and Herod, and the rest of them. He went there, in fact to die; but he went away singing." So I want you to go away from this communion singing praises to God. As my dear brother said in prayer, you must have your Gethsemanes, your Golgothas; but I want you to go away from this table singing. Whatever comes, high or low, bright or dark, heaven or another age in this dark wilderness, brethren, let us sing. We often say, "Let us pray;" but to-night, at the table, I say, "Let us sing." Let us sing unto the Lord because of his great gift to us, which we to-night remember, and set forth, and commune with, and covenant with. Let us sing unto the Lord as long as we live; for we can never sufficiently praise him for all that he has done for us.

"We'll praise our risen Lord, While at his feet we sit, His griefs a hallow'd theme afford For sweetest music fit."

Thus I have explained all about the Lord's supper; do you know anything about it? Some of you are going away. You are going away! Yes, and the day shall come when you will not have anywhere to go! When the great marriage supper is spread, and the feast of the gracious shall be held, and the whole universe shall be gathered, oh! where will you go? You will not be allowed to linger at the door, neither will you go home to wait till others shall return from the festival. You must be driven from God's presence if you come not by faith in Christ to that great feast. The fiery swords of the angel-guards shall be unsheathed, and they shall pursue you through the blackness of eternal darkness, down to infinite despair! The Lord have mercy upon you to-night, that he may have mercy upon you in that day, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

Verse 41

The Exodus December 9, 1855 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt."-Exodus 12:41 . It is our firm conviction and increasing belief, that the historical books of Scripture were intended to teach us by types and figures spiritual things. We believe that every portion of Scripture history is not only a faithful transcript of what did actually happen, but also a shadow of what happens spiritually in the dealings of God with his people, or in the dispensations of his grace towards the world at large. We do not look upon the historical books of Scripture as being mere rolls of history, such as profane authors might have written, but we regard them as being most true and infallible records of the past, and also most bright and glorious foreshadowings of the future, or else most wondrous metaphors and marvellous illustrations of things which are verily received among us, and most truly felt in the Christian heart. We may be wrong-we believe we are not; at any rate, the very error has given us instruction, and our mistake has afforded us comfort. We look upon the book of Exodus as being a book of types of the deliverances which God will give to his elect people: not only as a history of what he has done, in bringing them out of Egypt by smiting the first-born, leading them through the Red Sea, and guiding them through the wilderness, but also as a picture of his faithful dealings with all his people, whom by the blood of Christ he separates from the Egyptians, and by his strong and mighty hand takes out of the house of their bondage and out of the land of their slavery. Last Sabbath evening we had the type of the Passover-the Paschal Lamb; and we showed you then, how the sprinkled blood, and the eaten lamb, were types of the blood applied for our justification, and of the flesh received by inward communion with Jesus, the soul living and feeding upon him. We now take the Exodus, or the going of the children of Israel out of Egypt, as being a type and picture of the going out of all the vessels of mercy from the house of their bondage, and the deliverance of all the lawful captives from the chains of their cruel taskmasters, by sovereign and omnipotent grace, through the Passover of our Lord Jesus Christ. The land of Egypt is a picture of the house of bondage into which all God's covenant people will, sooner or later, be brought on account of their sin. All those whom God means to give an inheritance in Canaan, he will first take down into Egypt. Even Jesus Christ himself went into Egypt before he appeared publicly as a teacher before the world, that in his instance, as well as in that of every Christian, the prophecy might be fulfilled-"Out of Egypt have I called my Son." Every one who enjoys the liberty wherewith Christ doth make us free, must first feel the galling bondage of sin. Our wrists must be made to smart by the fetters of our iniquity, and our backs must be made to bleed by the lash of the law-the taskmaster which drives us to Jesus Christ. There is no true liberty which is not preceded by true bondage; there is no true deliverance from sin, unless we have first of all groaned and cried unto God, as did the people of Israel when in bondage in Egypt. We must all serve in the brick-kiln; we must all be wearied with toiling among the pots; or otherwise we could never realize that glorious verse-"Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." We must have bondage before liberty; before resurrection there must come death; before life there must come corruption; before we are brought out of the horrible pit and the miry clay we must be made to exclaim, "I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing;" and ere, like Jonah, we can be fetched out of the whale's belly, and delivered from our sin, we must have been taken down to the bottoms of the mountains, with the weeds wrapped about our heads, shuddering under a deep sense of our own nothingness and fearing that the earth with her bars was about us for ever. Taking this as key, you will see that the deliverance out of Egypt is a beautiful picture of the deliverance of all God's people from the bondage of the law and the slavery of their sins. I. First, consider THE MODE OF THEIR GOING OUT.

When the children of Israel went out of Egypt it is a remarkable thing that they were forced out by the Egyptians. Those Egyptians who had enriched themselves with their slavery, said, "Get ye hence, for we be all dead men;" they begged and entreated them to go; yea, they hurried them forth, gave them jewels that they might depart, and made them quit the land. And it is a striking thing, that the very sins which oppress the child of God in Egypt, are the very things that drive him to Jesus. Our sins makes slaves of us while we are in Egypt, and when God the Holy Spirit stirs them up against us, how do they beat us with cruel lashes, till our soul is worn with extreme bondage; but those very sins, by God's grace, are made the means of driving us to the Saviour. The dove fleeth not to its cote unless the eagle doth pursue it; so sins like eagles pursue the timid soul, making it fly into the clefts of the Rock Christ Jesus to hide itself. Once, beloved, our sins kept us from Christ; but now every sin drives us to him for pardon. I had not known Christ if I had not known sin; I had not known a deliverer, if I had not smarted under the Egyptians. The Holy Spirit drives us to Christ, just as the Egyptians drove the people out of Egypt. Again: the children of Israel went out of Egypt covered with jewels and arrayed in their best garments. The Jews have ever on their feast days been desirous of wearing jewels and all kinds of goodly apparel; and when they were too poor to possess them, they would borrow jewels for the purpose. So it was at this remarkable Passover. They had been so oppressed that they had kept no festival for many a year; but now they all arrayed themselves in their best garments, and at the command of God did borrow of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; "and the things as they required: and they spoiled the Egyptians." Let none say that this was robbery. It would have been, had it not been commanded of God; but as a king can set aside his own laws, so God is above his laws, and whatsoever he orders is right. Abraham would have been guilty of murder in taking up his knife to slay his son, had not God commanded him to do so; but the fact of God having commanded the action, made it justifiable and right. But, moreover, the word "borrowed" here is by the best translators said to mean nothing more than that the children of Israel asked them for their jewels, and had no intention whatever of returning them, and entered into no agreement to do so; and it was most just, that they should do this, because they had toiled for the Egyptians for years, without having had any remuneration. Sometimes necessity has no law: how much more shall that God who is above all necessities be the master of his own laws? The great Potentate, the only wise God, the King of kings, hath a right to make what laws he pleases; and let not vain man dare to question his Maker, when his Maker gives him a command. But the fact is very significant. The children of Israel did not go out of Egypt poorly clad; they went out with their best clothing on, and moreover, they had borrowed jewels of gold, and jewels of silver, and raiment; and they went gladly out of the land. Ah! beloved, that is just how a child of God comes out of Egypt. He does not come out of his bondage with his old garments of self-righteousness on: oh! no; as long as he wears those he will always keep in Egypt; but he marches out with the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ upon him, and adorned with the goodly graces of the Holy Spirit. Oh! beloved, if you could see a child of Israel coming out of the bondage of sin, you would say, "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness?" Is this the poor slave that was making bricks without straw? Is this the wretch who had nothing but rags and tatters on him? Is this the poor creature whose whole person was soiled with the mud of Egypt's river, and who laboured in Goshen's land without a wage or pay? Yes, it is he; and now he is arrayed like a king, and apparelled as a prince. Lo, each of these men of labour cometh like a bridegroom decked for his wedding, and their wives seem like royal brides clad in their bridal robes. Every child of God, when he comes out of Egypt, is arrayed in goodly apparel.

"Strangely, my soul, art thou arrayed, By the great sacred Three; In sweetest harmony of praise. Let all thy powers agree."

Note, moreover, that these people obtained their jewels from the Egyptians. God's people never lose anything by going to the house of bondage. They win their choicest jewels from the Egyptians. "Strangely true it is, sins do me good," said an old writer once, "because they drive me to the Saviour; and so I get good by them." Ask the humble Christian where he got his humility, and ten to one he will say that he got it in the furnace of deep sorrow on account of sin. See another who is tender in conscience: where did he get that jewel from? It cam from Egypt, I'll be bound. We get more by being in bondage, under conviction of sin, that we often do by liberty. That bondage state, under which thou art now labouring, thou poor way-worn child of sorrow, shall be good for thee; for when thou comest out of Egypt thou wilt steal jewels from the Egyptians; thou wilt have won pearls from thy very convictions. "Oh!" say some, "I have been for months and years toiling under a sense of sin, and cannot get deliverance." Well, I hope you will get it soon; but if you do not, you will have gained all the more jewels by stopping there, and when you come out, you will very likely make the best of Christians. What more noble preacher to sinners than John Bunyan? And who suffered more than he did? For years he was doubting and hesitating, sometimes thinking that Christ would save him, at other times thinking that he was never one of the elect, and continually bemoaning himself; but he got jewels while he was in bondage that he would never have obtained anywhere else. Who could have made a large collection of jewels like Pilgrim's Progress, if he had not lived in Egypt? It was because he tarried so long in Egypt that he gathered so many jewels. And oh! beloved, let us be content to stop a little while in distress; for the jewels that we shall win there will adorn us all our lives long, and we shall one night come out of Egypt, not with weeping, but with songs and crowns of rejoicing. We shall have "the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness;" the sackcloth shall be removed from our loins, and the ashes from our head, and we shall march forth decked with jewels, glittering with gold and silver. But there is one more thought concerning the way of their coming out; and that is, they came out in haste. I think a child of God, whenever he has the opportunity of coming out of bondage, will quickly avail himself of it. When a man comes to me, and says, "I am under deep conviction of sin," and so on, and seems to be very well content, talking about tomorrow, and tomorrow, and to-morrow, and saying, "I can repent when I please, and I can believe when I please," and always procrastinating!-Ah! I think to myself, that is not the Lord's deliverance, for when his people go forth out of Egypt, they are always in a hurry to get out. I never met with a poor sinner under a sense of sin, who was not in haste to get his burden off his back. No man has a broken heart, unless he wants to have it bound up directly. "To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart," says the Holy Ghost; he never say to-morrow; to-day is his continual cry, and every true-born Israelite will pant to get out of Egypt, whenever he has the opportunity. He will not stop to knead his dough, and make his bread to carry with him; but he will carry the unleavened bread on his shoulders, he will be in such a hurry to get away. He who hateth the noisomeness of the dungeon, longeth to hear the wards of the lock creak, that he may find liberty; he who hath been long in the pit hasteth to escape; he who hath suffered the task-master's whip fleeth like a dove unto his window, that he may find peace and deliverance in Christ Jesus. II. But having noticed three points of similarity in the emigration of the Israelites and the deliverance of God's people, we would lead your attention, secondly, to a remark concerning THE MAGNITUDE OF THIS DELIVERANCE.

Did it never strike you what a wonderful exodus of the people of Israel this was? Do you know how many people went out? According to the very lowest calculations, there must have been two millions and a half, all assembled together in one place, and all coming out of the country at one time. And then, besides these, there went out with them an exceeding great company-a mixed multitude. The number must have been so large that it is impossible to imagine it. Suppose the people of London should all go out at once to march through a wilderness; it would be a marvellous thing in history, such as we can hardly conceive of; but here were, to say the least, two millions of people, all at one time coming out from the midst of Egypt, and going forth from the country. "They journeyed," it is said, "from Rameses to Succoth." Rameses was where they were employed in building a city for the king. They stayed in Succoth, or booths. Because such an immense multitude could not find houses, they therefore made booths; and hence the children of Israel ever afterwards kept "the feast of tabernacles," to commemorate their building of the booths at Succoth, when they first of all came out of Egypt. What a mind Moses must have had, to direct so great an army; or rather what a spirit must that have been that rested on him, so that he could lead them all to one place, and then guide them all through the wilderness; if you bear in mind this mighty number, you will be astonished to think what a quantity of manna it must have required to feed them, and what a stream of water that must have been which followed them! Talk of the armies of Xerxes, or the host of the Persians; speak of the mighty armies that kings and potentates have assembled! Here was an army that outvied them all. But oh! beloved, how much grandeur is there in the thought of the multitudes Christ redeems with his blood. Christ did not die to save a few; "he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be abundantly satisfied." "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many." "A multitude which no man can number" shall stand before the throne of God and of the Lamb. Oh! wondrous the stars of heaven, nor the dust of the earth, nor the sand of the sea; but let us remember that God hath promised to Abraham-"As the sand upon the sea shore, even so shall thy seed be." "Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel?" They lick up the earth like water, and the land is utterly devoured before them. Oh! mighty God! how great is that deliverance which bringeth out a host of thine elect, more countless than the stars and as innumerable as the sands upon a thousand shores! all hail to thy power that doeth all this! You will have another idea of the greatness of this work, when you think of the different stations which the children of Israel must have occupied. I suppose they were not all equally destitute; they were not all toiling in the same brick-kilns, but some of them would be in one place, some in another-some working in the king's court, some for the meaner Egyptians-dispersed every where; but whatever they might be, they all came from hence. If Pharoah had slaves in his halls, they marched out the self-same day from his golden-gated palace, at Memphis or at Thebes. They all came forth that same day from their different situations, and guided by God they all came to one spot, where they built their booths, and called it Succoth. As when the autumn doth decline, and the winter approacheth, we have seen the chattering swallows gather upon the house-top, prepared for distant flights beyond the purple sea, where they might find another summer in another land, so did these Israelites from all their countries thus assemble, and stand together, about to take their flight across a trackless wilderness to that land of which God had told them saying, "Behold, I will bring you into a land that floweth with milk and honey." Oh! great and glorious works of God! "great are thy works, O Lord, and marvellous are thy doings; and that my soul knoweth right well." I would have you, beloved, particularly remember one thing; and that is, that great as this emigration was, and enormous as were the multitudes that quitted Egypt, it was only one Passover that set them all free. They did not want two celebrations of the supper; they did not need two angels to fly through Egypt; it was not necessary to have two deliverances: but all in one night, all by the Paschal Lamb, all by the Passover supper, they were saved. Look at yonder host above! See ye the blood-washed throng of souls, chosen of God and precious? Can you tell their number? Can you count the small dust of the beatified ones before the throne? Ah! no; but here is a thought for you. They did not want two Christs to save them; they did not require two Holy Spirits to deliver them; nor did it need two sacrifices to bring them there.

"Ask them whence their victory came, They with united breath Ascribe their victory to the Lamb, Their triumph in his death."

One agonizing sacrifice, one death on Calvary, one bloody sweat on Gethsemane, one shriek of "It is finished." consummated all the work of redemption. Oh! the precious blood of Christ! I love it when I think it saves one sinner; but oh! to think of the multitude of sinners that it saves! Beloved, we do not think enough of our Lord Jesus Christ; we have not half such an estimation of his precious person as we ought to have. We do not value his blood at the right price. Why, poor sinner, thou art saying this morning, "This blood cannot save me." What! not save thee, when it is engaged to save thousands upon thousands, and myriads of myriads? Shall the shepherd who gathereth the whole flock together, and leadeth them unto the pastures lose a single lamb? Thou sayest, perhaps, "I am so little." For that very reason then, thou dost not want so much of his power to take care of thee. "But," says one, "I am so great a sinner." Ay, then, so much the better, for he "came to save sinners, of whom I am chief," said Paul; and he came to save thee. Ah! do not fear, ye sons of God; he who brought the Israelites all out in one night can bring you all out, though you are in the veriest bondage. Perhaps there is one of you who not only has to make bricks without straw, but has to make twice as many bricks as any one else, you think, and your taskmaster has a whip which goes right round you, and cuts the flesh off you every time; you have worse bondage than any one, your slavery is more intense, your oven hotter, your pots harder to make. Very well, I am glad of it: how sweet liberty will be to thee! and I will tell you, you shall not be left in Egypt; for if you were, what would old Pharaoh say? "He said he would bring them all out, but he has not; there is one left;" and he would parade that poor Israelite through the streets, he would take him through Memphis and Thebes, and say, "There is one that God would not deliver; there is one I had so tight in my grasp that he could not get him out!" Ah! master devil! you shall not say that of one of the Lord's people; they shall all be there, the great and the small; this unworthy hand shall take the hand of the blessed St. Paul; they shall all be in heaven, shall all be redeemed, shall all be saved; but al, mark you, through one sacrifice, one covenant, one blood, one Passover. III. This bring us to speak more fully of THE COMPLETENESS OF THEIR DELIVERANCE.

Our text says,-"It came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." Our dear Arminian friends think that some of the Lord's people will not come out of Egypt, but will be lost at last. Ah! well, as good Hart says-"If one poor saint may fall away, If follows so may all;" and none of us are safe and secure. Therefore, we do not give way to that. But all the hosts came out of Egypt, every one of them; not a soul was left behind. There is a poor man that was lame. Ah! you see him throw away his crutches. There is a poor woman sick; ay, but she suddenly rises from her bed. There is another palsied, who can by no means lift himself up, but his frame in a moment becomes firm, "for there was not one feeble person in all their tribes."-Psalms 105:37 . There is a poor little babe who knows nothing about it; but still it leaves Egypt, carried by its mother. The old greyheaded sire tottered not on his staff. Though eighty years of age, yet he was a son of Israel, and out he came. There was a youth who had just begun to have his shoulders galled; but though he was young the time was come for him, and out he came. They all came out, every one of them; there was not one left behind. I do not suppose they had any hospitals there; but if they had, I am sure they did not leave any of them in the hospital, but all were healed in an instant. There was one Israelite who had rebelled against the government of Moses, and said, "Who made you a judge and a divider over us?" But they did not leave him behind; even he came out. All of them came out; nor do we find that there was some poor shrivelled creature whose arms and legs were almost useless, and who was half an idiot, whose brain was nearly gone, left behind. So beloved, if you are "the meanest lamb in Jesus' fold," you are "one in Jesus now;" though you have very little learning, and very little common sense, you will come out of Egypt. If the Lord has put you there in bondage, and you have been made to groan there, he will make you sing by-and-by, when you are redeemed from it. There is no fear of your being left behind; for if you were, Pharoah would say, "He delivered the strong ones, but he was not able to fetch out the weak;" and then there would be laughter in hell against the might and omnipotence of God. They all came out. But not only so; they all had their cattle with them. As Moses said, "Not a hoof shall be left behind." They were to have all their goods, as well as their persons. What does this teach us? Why, not only that all God's people shall be saved, but that all God's people ever had shall be restored. All that Jacob ever took down to Egypt shall be brought out again. Have I lost a perfect righteousness in Adam? I shall have a perfect righteousness in Christ. Have I lost happiness on earth in Adam? God will give me much happiness here below in Christ. Have I lost heaven in Adam? I shall have heaven in Christ; for Christ came not only to seek and to save the people that were lost, but that which was lost; that is, all the inheritance, as well as the people; all their property. Not the sheep merely, but the good pasture that the sheep had lost: not only the prodigal son, but all the prodigal son's estates. Everything was brought out of Egypt; not even Joseph's bones were left behind. The Egyptians could not say that they had a scrap of the Israelites' property-not even one of their kneading troughs, or one of their old garments. And when Christ shall have conquered all things to himself, the Christian shall not have lost one atom by the toils of Egypt, but shall be able to say, "O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" O hell, where is thy triumph? Thou has not a flag nor a pennon to show of thy victory; there is not a casque or a helmet left upon the battle-field; there is not a single trophy which thou mayest raise up in hell in scorn of Christ. He hath not only delivered his people, but they have gone out with flying colours, taking their shields with them. Stand and admire and love the Lord, who thus delivers all his people. IV. This brings us to notice, in the fourth place, THE TIME WHEN THE ISRAELITES CAME OUT OF EGYPT.

"It came to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." God had promised to Abraham that his people should be in bondage four hundred and thirty years, and they were not in bondage one day more. As soon as God's bond became due, though it had been drawn four hundred and thirty years before, he paid the bill; he required no more time to do it in, but he did it at once. Christopher Ness says, they had to tarry for the fulfillment of the promise till the night came; for though he fulfilled it the selfsame day, he made them stay to the end of it, to prove their faith. He was wrong there, because scripture days begin at night. "The evening and the morning were the second day." So that God did not make them wait, but paid them at once. As soon as the day came, beginning with our night, as the Jewish day does now, and the scriptural day always did-as soon as the clock struck-God paid his bond. We have heard of some landlords who come for their rent at twelve o-clock precisely. Well, we admire a man's honesty if he pays him exactly at that minute; but God is never behind hand in fulfilling his promises, not by the ticking of a clock. Though his promise seem to tarry, wait for it; you may be mistaken as to the date; if he has promised anything on a certain day, he will not keep you waiting till the morrow. The selfsame day that the Lord had promised, the Israelites came out. And so all the Lord's people shall come out of bondage at the predestined moment: and they cannot possibly come out of bondage before the appointed time. O thou poor distressed heir of heaven, groaning under sin, and seeking rest, but finding none, believe that it is the Lord's will that thou shouldst be a little longer where there is a smoking furnace. Wait a little he is doing thee good. Like Jesus of old, he is speaking hardly to thee, to try thy faith; he is telling thee now that thou art a dog, because he wants to hear thee say, "Truth, Lord, but the dogs eat of the crumbs." He would not keep thee waiting, if thine eagerness did not thereby get fresh vigour; he would not keep thee crying, if he did not mean to make it a sign of better grace to you for the future. Therefore wait; for you shall come out of Egypt, and have a joyous rescue in that day when they shall come with singing unto Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. But now, beloved, we must finish up in a very solemn manner, by reminding you of the companions that came out of Egypt with the children of Israel. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, there were certain persons in Egypt, dissatisfied with the king-very likely culprits, condemned persons, debtors, bankrupts, and such like persons, who were tired of their country, and who, as is wittily said of those who are transported, "left their country for their country's good." But though these people went with the children of Israel, mark you, they were not of them. They escaped, but the door was not opened to let them out; it was only opened to let out the children of Israel. It is said that the mixed multitude fell a lusting; it was the mixed multitude that taught them to worship the golden calf; it was the mixed multitude that always led them astray. And that mixed multitude have their representatives now. There are many men that came out of the land of Egypt who never were Israelites; and there are many that join with us in church fellowship, and eat that spiritual bread, and drink of that spiritual rock that followed them; and yet with many of them God is not well-pleased, just as there were many of old with whom he was not well-pleased, and who were overthrown in the wilderness. "Ah!" says one, "but I thought if they had been in Egypt, certainly if they came out they must have been Christians; for you have used the metaphors." Ay, yes, but mark how these people were in Egypt. This mixed multitude was never in bondage in Egypt. It was Israel that had to feel the task-master's whip, and to make the bricks without straw. But these fellows had nothing to do. They were Egyptians themselves-true-born Egyptians-"heirs of sin and children of wrath;" they never had any real bondage, and therefore they could not rejoice as the true Israelite did, when they were set free from the yoke of Pharaoh. These people are represented amongst us by certain persons, who will tell us, "Ah! I know I have been a sinner." That is as much as to say you have been an Egyptian, and that is all: "but I cannot say, I have felt my sin, and utterly abhored it and wept over it." They come and say, "I am a sinner," hear something about Jesus Christ, catch at it with a fancied faith-not with the faith that unites with the Lamb and brings us true salvation, but with a notional, pretended faith, and they get deliverance; and some of these people are marvellously happy; they do not have doubts and fears; they are at ease, like Moab; they have not been emptied from vessel to vessel. They can tell us about Egypt, of course; they know as much about it as the child of God. If the child of God describes the brick-kiln, and how they made bricks without straw, he has seen it, though he has not felt it; and he can talk about it, perhaps better than the poor Israelite; for the poor Israelite has sometimes been smitten on the mouth, it may be, so that he stammers, and cannot speak so well as the other, who never had a blow. He knows all about the bondage; perhaps he has invented some of it, in order to try the poor Israelite; and he can describe very accurately the going out of Egypt and the journey through the wilderness. But here is the difference, mark you, between the Israelites and the Egyptians. The Egyptians did not sprinkle the blood on the door-posts; and we do not read of the mixed multitude eating the paschal lamb, for it is written, "No stranger shall eat thereof." Some persons are continually saying, "I believe I am going to heaven;" but they have never sprinkled the blood, never eaten the paschal Lamb, never had fellowship with Christ, and never had vital union with him. O ye members of Christian churches! there are many of you who have a feigned experience and a feigned religion. How many there are of you who have the externals merely of godliness! ye are white-washed sepulchres, outwardly fair and beautiful, like the garnished gardens of a cemetery; but inwardly ye are full of dead men's bones and rottenness! Be persuaded, I beseech you, to get no deliverance any way except by the blood of the Lamb, and by really feasting on Christ. Many a man gets a deliverance by stifling his conscience. "Ah!" says one of these mixed multitude, "here am I in the prison; and this is the night when the children of Israel go out of Egypt; Oh! if I might go out!" What does he do? Why, the keeper is frightened; he has lost his eldest son, and the prisoner says, "Let me out!" and he bribes the keeper to let him go. And there is many a man that get out of Egypt by bribing his conscience. "There, master conscience," he says, "I will never get drunk any more; I will always go to church; there is my shop, that is always open on Sunday-I will put two shutters up, and that is almost as good as closing it entirely; and I will not do the business myself-I will get a servant to do it for me." And out he comes! But he had better remain in Egypt than get out like that. There are some again that get out by main force; the keeper falls down dead, and so they get out of prison. There are men who not only bribe, but kill their conscience; they go so far that their conscience is almost dead, and when he is in a fit one day they rush forth, and escape; and so they have "peace, peace, where there is no peace." They wrap themselves up in the folds of their own delusions, and invent for themselves refuges of lies, where they do place their trust. O ye mixed multitude! ye are the ruin of the churches; ye set us a lusting; the pure Israelite's blood is tainted by union with you; you sit as God's people sit, and yet you are not his people; you hear as God's people hear, and yet you are "in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity." You take the sacrament as sweetly as others, while you are eating and drinking damnation to yourself; you come to the church-meeting, and you sit in the private assembly of the saints; but even when you are there, you are nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing, entering the flock when you ought not to be there. My dear hearers, do try yourselves, to see whether you are real Israelites. Oh! could Christ say to you, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile." Have you the blood on your door-post? Have you eaten of Jesus? Do you live on him? Do you have fellowship with him? Has God the Holy Ghost brought you out of Egypt? or have you come out yourself? Have you found refuge in his dear cross and wounded side? If you have, rejoice, for Pharaoh himself cannot bring you back again; but if you have not, I pray my Master to dash your peace into atoms, fair and lovely as it may be; I beseech him to send the winds of conviction and the floods of his wrath, that your house may fall now, rather than it should stand to your death, and then, in the last solemn hour, the edifice of your own hands should totter. Mixed multitude! hear ye this! ye assembled gatherings of professors! "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your-own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" But if he be not in you, then are ye reprobates still, whom God abhorreth. The Lord bring all his people out of Egypt, and deliver all his children from the house of bondage.