The Exodus

“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 marvelous 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.” Everyone 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 forever. 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 make 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 appareled 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 came 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 to-morrow, and to-morrow, 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 marvelous
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 everywhere; but whatever they might be, they all came from
hence. If Pharaoh 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 marvelous 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 anyone 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 all, 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, It 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.”—Psalm 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 shriveled 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, Pharaoh 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 seems 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 abhorred 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 marvelously 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 anymore; 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.