The Beginning of Months

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 1, 1882.

"And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
this month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the
first month of the year to you." Exodus 12:1,2.

In all probability up to that time the year had been supposed to begin
in the autumn. The question has been raised at what season of the year
did God create man and it has been decided by many that it must have
been in autumn, so that when Adam was placed in the garden he might at
once find fruits ripe and ready for his use. It has not seemed probable
that he would have begun his career while as yet all fruits were raw
and green–therefore many have concluded that the first year of human
history began in the time of harvest–when fruits were mellowed for
man's food. For this reason, perhaps, in the old times the new year
began when the feast of harvest had been celebrated.

Here, at the point of the Exodus, by a decree of God, the commencement
of the year was altered and, so far as Israel was concerned, the
opening of the year was fixed for the time of our spring–in the month
called Abib, or Nisan. We know that a little before the barley was in
the ear, (see Exodus 9:31), and on the Sabbath after the Passover, the
produce of the earth was so far advanced that the first fruits were
offered and a sheaf of new barley was waved before the Lord. Of course,
when I speak of spring and then of ears of barley, you must remember
the difference of climate, for in that warm region the seasons are far
in advance of ours.

You must pardon me if my ideas should become a little mixed–you can
correct them easily at your leisure. From the time when the Lord saved
His people from destruction by passing over them, the ecclesiastical
year began in the month of Abib, in which the Passover was celebrated.
The Jubilee Year was not altered, but began in the autumnal equinox.
The Jews seem to have had two or three beginnings of the year in
relation to different purposes, but the ecclesiastical year, the great
year by which Israel reckoned its existence, commenced, from then on,
in the month Abib, when the Lord brought His people out with a high
hand and an outstretched arm.

It is with God to change times and seasons as He pleases and He has
done so for great commemorative purposes. The change of the Sabbath is
on the same manner, for whereas the day of rest was formerly the
seventh, it is now merged in the Lord's Day, which is the first day of
the week. As Herbert says, "He did unhinge the day," and He set the
Sabbath on golden hinges by consecrating the day of His Resurrection.
To every man God makes such a change of times and seasons when He deals
with him in a way of Grace, for all things are become new within him
and, therefore, he begins a new chronology. Some of us used to think
our birthday fell at a certain time of the year, but now we regard with
much more delight another day as our true birthday, since on that
second natal day we began truly to live! Our calendar has been altered
and amended by a deed of divine Grace!

This morning I want to bring to your mind the fact that, just as the
people of Israel, when God gave them the Passover, had a complete
shifting and changing of all their dates and began their year on quite
a different day, so when God gives to His people to eat the spiritual
Passover, there takes place in their chronology a very wonderful
change. Saved men and women date from the dawn of their true life–not
from their first birthday–but from the day wherein they were born
again of the Spirit of God–and entered into the knowledge and
enjoyment of spiritual things.

The Passover is, as we all know, a type of the great work of our
redemption by the blood of Jesus, and it represents the personal
application of it to each Believer. When we perceive the Lord's act of
passing over us because of Christ's atoning Sacrifice, then it is that
we begin to live and from that day we date all future events. So this
morning we shall first describe the event. Secondly, mention varieties
of its recurrence and thirdly, consider in what light the day of this
grand event is to be regarded according to the Law of the Lord.

I. First, then, let us describe this remarkable event which was to
stand at the head of the Jewish year and, indeed, at the commencement
of all Israelite chronology. First, this event was an act of salvation
by blood. You know how the elders and heads of families, each one, took
the lamb and shut it up, that they might examine it carefully. Having
chosen a

lamb without blemish, in the prime of its life, they kept it by itself
as a separated and consecrated creature. And after four days they slew
it and caught its blood in a basin. When this was done, they took
hyssop, dipped it in the blood, and sprinkled the lintel and the two
side posts of their houses with it.

By this means the houses of Israel were preserved on that dark and
dreadful night when, with unsheathed sword, the Angel of Vengeance sped
through every street of Pharaoh's domain and slew the first-born of all
the land, both of men and of cattle. You will remember, dear Friends,
the time when you, yourselves, perceived that God's vengeance was out
against sin. You can even now remember your terror and your trembling!
Many of us can never forget the memorable time when we first discovered
that there was a way of deliverance from the wrath of God. Memory may
drop all else from her enfeebled grasp, but this is engraved on the
palms of her hands!

The mode of our deliverance is before us in the type as Moses describes
it. The angel could not be restrained; his wings could not be bound and
his sword could not be sheathed–he must go forth and he must kill. He
must kill us among the rest, for sin was upon us and there must be no
partiality–"the soul that sins, it shall die." But do you remember
when you discovered God's new way–His blessed ordinance by which,
without abrogating the destroying Law–He brought in a glorious saving
clause by which we were delivered? The clause was this–that if another
could be found who could and would suffer instead of us and, if there
could be clear evidence that this surety did so suffer–then the sight
of that evidence should be enough for our deliverance.

Do you remember your joy at that discovery? For, if so, you can enter
into the feelings of the Israelites when they understood that God would
accept an unblemished lamb in the place of their first-born! And if the
blood was displayed upon the door post as the clear evidence that a
sacrifice had died and a substitute had suffered, then the angel would
know that in that house his work was done–and he might, therefore,
pass over that habitation. The avenger was to demand a life, but the
life was already paid, for there was the blood-mark which proved it and
the exactor might go on his way! It was the night of God's Passover,
not because the execution of vengeance was left undone in the houses
passed over, but for a reason of the opposite kind–because in those
houses the death-blow had been struck, the victim had died–and, as the
penalty could not be exacted twice, that family was clear!

I do not know whether there is any truth in the statement of a
correspondent that whatever part of the earth the lightning once
strikes, it never strikes it again. But whether it is so or not, it is
certain that wherever the lightning of God's vengeance has once struck
the sinner's Substitute, it will not strike the sinner! The best
preservative for the Israelite's house was this–vengeance had struck
there and could not strike again! There was the insurance mark, the
blood-streak! Death had been there, no matter though it had fallen on a
harmless lamb–it had fallen on a victim of God's own appointment–and
in His esteem it had fallen upon His Christ, the Lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world!

Because the claims of retribution had been fully met there was no
further demand and Israel was secure. This is my eternal confidence and
here is my soul's sweet hymn–

" If You have my discharge procured,

And freely in my place endured

The whole of wrath Divine–

Payment God cannot twice demand,

First at my bleeding Surety's hands

And then, again, at mine!

Turn then, my Soul, unto your rest

The merits of your great High Priest

Have bought your liberty–

Trust in His efficacious blood,

Nor fear your banishment from God,

Since Jesus died for thee."

It was to me the beginning of my life, that day in which I discovered
that judgment was passed upon me in the Person of my Lord and that
there is, therefore, now no condemnation to me! The Law demands
death–"The soul that sins, it shall die." Lo, there is the death it
asks and more! Christ, my Lord, has died, died in my place–as it is
written, "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree."
Such a Sacrifice is more than even the most rigorous law could demand!

"Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." "Christ has redeemed us
from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us." Therefore do we
sit securely within doors, desiring no guard outside to drive away the
Destroyer, for, when God sees the blood of Jesus, He will pass over us!
"In His days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely: and
this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR
RIGHTEOUSNESS" (Jer. 23:6). I say again, it was the beginning of life
to me when I saw Jesus as dying in my place! I beheld the first sight
that was worth beholding, let all the rest be darkness and as the
shadow of death! Then did my soul rejoice when I understood and
accepted the substitutionary Sacrifice of the appointed Redeemer. That
is the first view of this event–the blood of sprinkling made Israel
secure.

Secondly, that night they received refreshment from the lamb. Being
saved by its blood, the believing households sat down and fed upon the
lamb. They never ate as they ate that night! Those who spiritually
understood the symbol must have partaken of every morsel with a
mysterious awe mingled with an unfathomable delight. I am sure there
must have been a singular seriousness about the table as they stood
there eating in haste–and especially if, every now and then, they were
startled with the shrieks that rose from every house in the land of
Egypt because of the slain of the Lord. It was a solemn feast, a meal
of mingled hope and mystery.

Do you remember, Brothers and Sisters, when first you fed upon Christ?
When your hungry spirit enjoyed the first morsel of that food of the
soul? It was dainty fare, was it not? It was better than angels' bread,
for–

"Never did angels taste above Redeeming Grace and dying love!"

I hope you have never risen from that table, but are daily feeding upon
Jesus. It is a very instructive fact that we do not go to our Lord's
Table, like Israel, to eat in haste, with a staff in our hand. We come
there to recline at ease with our heads on His bosom, reposing in His
love! Christ Jesus is the daily Bread of our spirits. Observe that the
refreshment which Israel ate that night was the lamb "roasted with
fire." The best refreshment to a troubled heart is the suffering
Savior–the Lamb roasted with fire.

A poor sinner, under a sense of sin, goes to a place of worship and he
hears Christ preached as an example. This may be useful to the saint,
but it is scant help to the poor sinner! He cries, "That is true. But
it rather condemns than comforts me." It is not food for him–he needs
the lamb roasted with fire–Christ, his Substitute, Christ suffering in
his place! We hear a great deal about the beauty of Christ's moral
Character and, assuredly, our blessed Lord deserves to be highly
exalted on that score. But that is not the aspect under which He is
food to a soul conscious of sin! The chief relish about our Lord Jesus
to a penitent sinner is His sin-bearing and His agonies in that
capacity.

We need the suffering Savior, the Christ of Gethsemane, the Christ of
Golgotha and Calvary! Christ shedding His blood in the sinner's place
and bearing for us the fire of God's wrath! Nothing short of this will
suffice to be meat for a hungry heart. Keep this back and you starve
the child of God. We are told in the chapter that they were not to eat
the lamb raw. Alas, there are some who try to do this with Christ, for
they preach a half-atoning Sacrifice! They would make Him in His Person
and in His Character to be meat for their souls, but they have small
liking for His Passion! And they cast His Atonement into the
background, or represent it to be an ineffectual expiation which does
not secure any soul from vengeance. What is this but to devour a raw
Christ?

I will not touch their half-roasted lamb! I will have nothing to do
with their half Substitution, their half-complete Redemption. No, no,
give me a Savior who has borne all my sins in His body and so has been
roasted with fire to the fullest! "It is finished," is the most
charming note in all Calvary's music! "It is finished," the fire has
passed upon the Lamb! He has borne the whole of the wrath that was due
to His people–this is the royal dish of the feast of love! What a
multitude of teachers there are who must necessarily have the Lamb
boiled with water, though the Scripture says, "Do not eat it raw, nor
boiled at all with water."

I have heard it said that a great number of sermons are about Christ
and about the Gospel, but yet neither Christ nor His Gospel are
preached in them! If so, the preachers present the lamb boiled in the
water of their own thoughts and speculations and notions. Now, the
mischief of this boiling process is that the water takes away a good
deal from the meat. Philosophical discourses upon the Lord Jesus take
away much of the essence and virtue of His Person, offices, work and
Glory. The real juice and vital nutriment of His glorious Word is
carried off by interpretations which do not explain, but explain away!

How many boil out the soul of the Gospel by their carnal wisdom! What
is worse, still, when meat is boiled, it is not only that the meat gets
into the water, but the water gets into the meat–and so, what Truth of
God these Gospel-boilers do hand out to us is boiled with error and you
receive from them dishes made up partly of God's Truth and partly of
men's imaginations! We hear in some measure solid Gospel, but in larger
measure mere watery reasoning! When certain divines preach the
Atonement, it is not Substitution pure and simple–one hardly knows
what it is! Their atonement is not the vicarious Sacrifice, but a
performance of something they are long in defining!

They have a theory which is like the relics of meat after months of
boiling, all strings and fibers. All manner of schemes are tried to
extract the marrow and fatness from the grand soul-satisfying doctrine
of Substitution, which, to my mind, is the choicest Truth of God that
can ever be brought forth for the food of souls. I cannot make out why
so many divines are afraid of the shedding of blood for the remission
of sin and must stew down the most important of all the Truths of
Revelation!

No, no! As the type could only be correct when the lamb was roasted
with fire, so the Gospel is not truly set forth unless we describe our
Lord Jesus in His sufferings for His people and those sufferings in the
place of sinners, presenting absolutely and literally a substitution
for them. I will have no dilution–it is substitution–"He bore our
sins." He was made sin for us. "The chastisement of our peace was upon
Him and by His stripes we are healed." We must have no mystifying of
this plain Truth of God–it must not be "boiled at all with water," but
we must have Christ in His sufferings fresh from the fire.

Now, this lamb they were to eat, and the whole of it. Not a morsel must
be left. Oh that you and I would never cut and divide Christ so as to
choose one part of Him and leave another! Let not a bone of Him be
broken, but let us take in a whole Christ up to the full measure of our
capacity. Prophet, Priest and King–Christ Divine and Christ human,
Christ loving and living, Christ dying, Christ risen, Christ ascended,
Christ coming again, Christ triumphant over all His foes–the whole
Lord Jesus Christ is ours! We must not reject a single particle of what
is revealed concerning Him, but must feed upon it all as we are able.

That night Israel had to feed upon the lamb then and there. They might
not put by a portion for tomorrow. They must consume the whole in some
way or other. Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, we need a whole Christ at
this very moment! Let us receive Him in His entirety. Oh for a splendid
appetite and fine powers of digestion so as to receive into my inmost
soul the Lord's Christ just as I find Him! May you and I never think
lightly of our Lord under any light or in any one of His offices. All
that you now know and all that you can find out concerning Christ you
should now believe, appreciate, feed upon and rejoice in. Make the most
of all that is in the Word concerning your Lord. Let Him enter into
your being to become part and parcel of yourself.

If you do this, the day in which you feed on Jesus will be the first
day of your life, its day of days, the day from which you date all that
follows! If once you have fed upon Christ Jesus, you will never forget
it in time or in eternity! That was the second event which was
celebrated in each succeeding Passover. The third event was the
purification of their houses from leaven, for that was to go in a most
important way, side by side, with the sprinkling of the blood and the
eating of the lamb. They were told that they must not eat leaven for
seven days, for whoever did partake of leaven should be cut off from
Israel. It shows the deep importance of this purification, that it is
put in equal position with the sprinkling of the blood. At any rate, it
might not be separated from it upon pain and penalty that he who
divided the two should, himself, be divided from the congregation of
Israel.

Now, it is always a pity when we are preaching Justification by Faith,
to bring in sanctification as to make it a part of justification–but
it is also a horrible error when you are preaching justification, to
preach it as to deny the absolute necessity of sanctification–for the
two are joined together by the Lord. There must be eating of the lamb
as well as the sprinkling of the blood. And there must be the purging
out of the old leaven, as well as the sprinkling of the blood and the
eating of the lamb. Very carefully, the Jewish householder looked into
every closet, corner, drawer and cupboard to sweep out every crumb of
stale bread–and if they had any bread in storage, even if it was new
and they intended to eat it, they must throw it all away–for there
must not be a particle of leaven in the same house with the lamb.

When you and I first came to Christ, what a sweep there was of the
leaven! I know I was clean delivered from the leaven of the Pharisees,
for all trust in my own good works went, even the last crumb of it. All
confidence in rites and ceremonies must go, too. I have not a crust
left of either of these two sour and corrupt confidences at the present
mo-

ment–and I wish never to taste that old leaven again! Some are always
chewing at that leaven, glorying in their own prayers, alms and
ceremonies. But when Christ comes in, this leaven all goes out.

Moreover, the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, must be
cleared out. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin
is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no guile." Guile must go, or guilt will
not go. The Lord sweeps the cunning out of His people, the craftiness,
the deceit–He makes them true before His face. They wish that they
were as clear of every sin as they are clear from insincerity. They
once tried to dwell before the Lord with double dealing, pretending to
be what they were not, but as soon as they ate of Christ and the blood
was sprinkled, then they humbled themselves in truth, laid bare their
sinnership and stood before God as they were–with their hypocrisy torn
away. Christ has not saved the man who still trusts in falsehood. You
cannot feed on Christ and at the same time hold a lie in your right
hand by vain confidence in yourself, or by love of sin. Self and sin
must go! But oh, what a day it is when the old leaven is put out–we
shall never forget it! This month is the beginning of months, the first
month of the year to us, when the Spirit of Truth purges out the spirit
of falsehood.

A fourth point in the Passover is not to be forgotten. On the Passover
night there came, as the result of the former things, a wonderful,
glorious and mighty deliverance! That night every Israelite received
promise of immediate emancipation and, as soon as the morning dawned,
he left the house in which he had sheltered during the night and
leaving his home, he left Egypt, too. He left forever the brick kilns!
He washed the brick-earth for the last time from his hands, looked down
on the yoke he used to carry when he worked amid the clay, and said, "I
have done with you." He looked at every Egyptian taskmaster, remembered
how often he had been struck with the stick, and he rejoiced that he
would never be struck again, for there he was, at his feet, begging him
to be gone lest all Egypt should die!

Oh what joy! They marched out with their unleavened bread still on
their backs, for they had some days in which they were still to eat it
and I think before the seventh day of unleavened bread was over they
had reached the Red Sea. Still eating unleavened bread they went down
into the depths of the Red Sea. And still with no flavor of leaven in
their mouths, they stood on its shore to sing unto the Lord the great
Hallelujah because He had triumphed gloriously and the horse and his
rider had been cast into the sea! Do you remember when the Lord purged
you from the love of sin, from trust in self and when He brought you
clean out and set you free and said, "Go on to the promised rest. Go on
to Canaan"?

Do you remember when you saw your sins drowned forever, never to rise
in judgment against you–not merely your destruction prevented, not
merely your soul fed with the finest food, not merely your heart and
your house cleansed of hypocrisy–but yourself delivered and
emancipated, the Lord's free man? Oh, if so, I am sure you will grant
the wisdom of the ordinance by which the Lord decreed–"this month
shall be unto you the beginning of months, it shall be the first month
of the year to you." Thus much, then, on describing the event.

II. Now, secondly, I want to mention the varieties of its recurrence
among us at this day. The first recurrence is, of course, on the
personal salvation of each one of us. The whole of this chapter was
transacted in your heart and mine when we first knew the Lord. Our
venerable Brother and Elder White, when I saw him the other night, said
to me, "Oh, Sir, it is very precious to read the Bible, but it is
infinitely more delightful to have it here in your own heart." Now, I
find it very profitable to read about the Passover, but oh, how sweet
to have a Passover transacted in your own soul by the work of the Holy
Spirit!

Moses wrote of something that happened thousands of years ago, but the
substance of it all has happened to me and to thousands who are
trusting in the Lord in all its details! Can we not read this story in
Exodus and say, "Yes, it is even so"? Every word of it is true, for it
has all occurred to me, every atom of it, even to the eating of the
bitter herbs, for I recollect right well that at the very moment when I
had the sweet flavor of my Lord's Atonement in my mouth, I felt the
bitterness of repentance on account of sin and the bitterness of
struggling against the temptation to sin again! Even the minute touches
of that typical festival are all correct, as thousands know who have
participated in its antitype. This Passover record is not a story of
olden times, alone–it is the record of your life and mine–I hope it
is. Thus by each separate saved man, the paschal feast is kept.

But then, it happens again in a certain sense when the man's house is
saved. Remember, this was a family business. The father and mother were
present when the lamb was slain. I dare say the eldest son helped to
bring the lamb to the slaughter; another held the knife; a third held
the basin and the little boy fetched the bunch of hyssop. And so they
all

united in the sacrifice. They all saw father strike the lintel and the
side posts. And they all ate of the lamb that night. Everyone that was
in the house–all that were really part of the family partook of the
meal–they were all protected by the blood! They were all refreshed by
the feast and they all started the next morning to go to Canaan.

Did you ever hold a family supper of that kind? "Oh," some fathers
might say, "it would be the beginning of family life to me if I might
eat bread in the Kingdom of God with all my sons and daughters! Oh that
every chick and child around my table truly belonged to Christ." A
family begins to live in the highest sense when, as a family, without
exception, it has all been redeemed, all sprinkled with the blood, all
made to feed on Jesus, all purged from sin and all set at liberty to go
out of the domains of sin, bound for the Kingdom. Joy! Joy! Joy! "I
have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the Truth of
God."

If any of you enjoy the privilege of family salvation, you may well set
up a monument of praise and make a generous offering to God, by whom
you are thus favored. Engrave it upon marble and set it up
forever–"This household is saved and the day of its salvation is the
beginning of its history in connection with the Lord's Israel." Extend
the thought–it was not only a family ordinance but it was for all the
tribes of Israel! There were many families, but in every house the
Passover was sacrificed. Would it not be a grand thing if you that
employ large numbers of men should ever be able to gather all together
and hopefully say, "I trust that all these understand the sprinkling of
the blood and all feed upon

Christ"?

Dear men and women that are placed in such responsible positions, you
might, indeed, say, "This shall be the beginning of months to us."
Labor for it, therefore, and make it your heart's desire! If you live
to see a district in which you labor permeated with the Gospel, what a
joy! If we shall live to see London with every house sprinkled with the
redeeming blood! If we should live to see all England feeding, not as
many do at Christmas to excess, on the delicacies of earth, but
feasting spiritually, where there can be no excess, upon Christ, oh,
what a beginning of years it would be to our happy island! What a
paradise it would be! If it should be so with France; if it should be
so in any country, what a day to be remembered! Commence a nation's
annals from its evangelization! Begin the chronicle of a people from
the day when they bow at the feet of Jesus!

There will come a day to this poor earth when all over it Jesus shall
reign! It may be far away, yet, but the day shall come when Christ
shall have dominion from sea to sea! The nations which are called
Christians, although they so little deserve the title, do already date
their chronology from the birth of Christ–and this is a sort of faint
foreshadowing of the way in which men shall one day date all things
from the reign of Jesus–for His unsuffering kingdom shall yet come.
God has decreed His triumph and on all the wings of time it hastens.
When He comes, that month shall be the beginning of months unto us! I
say no more.

III. And now, in the last place, I come to show in what light this date
is to be regarded if it has occurred to us in the senses I have
mentioned. Primarily, if it has occurred in the first sense to us
personally–what about it, then? Why, first, the day in which we first
knew the Savior as the Paschal Lamb should always be the most honorable
day that has ever dawned upon us! The Israelites placed the month Abib
in the first rank because it was the month of the Passover–put down
the date at which you knew the Lord as the premier day, the noblest
hour you have ever known! It eclipses your natural birthday, for then
you were born in sin! Then you were "born to trouble as the sparks fly
upward." But now you are born into spiritual life, born unto eternal
bliss!

It eclipses your marriage day, for union to Christ shall bring you
greater felicity than the happiest of conjugal bonds. If you have ever
known a day in which you received the honors of the State, or gained
distinction in learning, or attained to a position in society, or
arrived at a larger wealth–all these were but dim, cloudy, foggy days
compared with this "morning without clouds!" On that day your sun rose
never to go down again! The die was cast, your destiny for Glory was
openly declared! I pray you never in your thoughts degrade that blessed
day by thinking more of any pleasure, honor or advancement than you do
of the blessing of salvation by the blood of Jesus!

I am afraid that some are striving and struggling after other
distinctions and if they could once reach a certain event, then they
would be satisfied. Is not your salvation worth vastly more than this?
They would feel that they were made of life if a certain matter turned
out right. Brothers and Sisters, you were made for life when you were
made anew in Christ Jesus! You came to your estate when you came to
Christ! You were promoted when He received you to His friendship! You
gained all that you need desire when you found Christ, for a saint of
old said, "He is all my salvation and all my de-

sire." Do not, therefore, if the Queen should knight you, or the people
should send you to Parliament, think that the event would overshadow
your conversion and salvation!

Think of that act of Grace as the Lord thinks of it, for He says,
"Since you were precious in My sight, you have been honorable and I
have loved you." Unto you that believe, Jesus is honor–in Him you
boast and glory–and well you may! The blood-mark is a Believer's chief
adornment and decoration–and his being cleansed and set free by Grace
is his noblest distinction! Glory in Grace and in nothing else! Prize
the work of Grace beyond all the treasures of Egypt! This date is to be
regarded as the beginning of life! The Israelites reckoned that all
their former existence as a nation had been death. The brick kilns of
Egypt, the lying among the pots, the mixing up with idolaters, the
hearing of a language which they understood not–they looked on all
Egyptian experience as death–and the month which ended it was to them
the beginning of months. On the other hand, they looked upon all that
followed after as being life. The Passover was the beginning and only
the beginning–a beginning implies something to follow it.

Now then, Christian men and women, whenever you speak about your
existence before conversion, always do it with shamefacedness, as one
risen from the dead might speak of the morgue and the worm of
corruption. I feel grieved when I hear or read of people who can stand
up and talk about what they used to do, before they were converted,
very much in the way in which an old seafaring man talks of his voyages
and storms. No, no, be ashamed of your former lusts in your ignorance!
And if you must speak of them to the praise and Glory of Christ, speak
with bated breath and tears and sighs. Death, rottenness, corruption
are all most fitly left in silence, or, if they demand a voice, let it
be as solemn and mournful as a knell. Let your sin story be told in a
way which shall show that you wish it had never been true. Let your
conversion be the burial of the old existence and as for that which
follows after, take care that you make it real life, worthy of the
Grace which has quickened you.

Suppose these Israelites had loitered about in Egypt? Suppose one of
them had said, "Well, I did not finish that batch of bricks. I cannot
go out just yet. I should like to see them thoroughly well baked and
prepared for the pyra-mid"–what a foolish fellow he would have been!
No, but they left the bricks, the clay, the stuff behind and went
straight away–and they let Egypt take care of itself. Now, child of
God, quit the ways of sin with determination. Leave the world, leave
its pleasure, leave its cares and get right away to Jesus and His
leadership! You are now the Lord's free man–shall the blood be
sprinkled for nothing? Shall the lamb be eaten and mean nothing? Shall
the leavened bread be purged out in vain? Shall the Red Sea be crossed,
the Egyptians drowned and you remain a slave? The thought is abhorrent!

That was the mischief about the Israelites, that they had, still, a
hankering after the leeks and garlic of Egypt! These strong smelling
things had scented their garments and it is hard to get such vile odors
out of one's clothes. Alas, that Egyptian garlic clings to us–and the
smell of it is not always so abominable to us as it ought to be!
Besides, they pined for fish which they ate in Egypt in plenty, muddy
fish though it was. There were better fish for them in Jordan,
Genne-saret and the Great Sea, if they had gone ahead. And there were
sweeter herbs on Canaan's hills than ever grew in Egypt's mire. Because
of this evil lusting, they were kept dodging about for 40 years in the
wilderness. They might have marched into Canaan in 40 days if it had
not been for that stinking garlic of theirs and their Egyptian habits
and memories!

Oh, that God would cut us quite free and enable us to forget those
things of which we are now ashamed! I have nearly finished when I have
added this, that inasmuch as the Passover was now the beginning of the
year to them, it was the putting of all things right. I told you that
the year had formerly begun in autumn, according to most
traditions–was this really the best season to pitch upon? Upon second
thoughts, was autumn the best season in which to begin life, with
winter all before you and everything declining? By the institution of
the Passover, the year was made to begin in what is our spring. If I
judge from the condition of our land I should ask–When could the year
begin more fitly than in the springtide of early May? It seems to me
that it actually does begin in the spring.

I do not see that the year naturally begins today, though it does so
arbitrarily. We are in about the middle of winter and the year, as yet,
lies dead. When the birds sing and the flowers rise from their beds on
earth, then the year begins! It seems to me a strange supposition that
our first parents commenced life in autumn, amid lengthening nights and
declining forces. No, we say, by all means let the date be fixed in
spring, so that the salutations of the new year shall be sweet with
fragrant flowers and rich with joyous songs. Nor would the time of our
spring in the East be a season without supplies, for in April and May
the first ears of corn are ready and many other fruits are fit for
food. It was good for the Isra-

elites to have the feast of the first fruits in the month of Abib, to
bring the first ears to the Lord and not to wait till they were ripe
before they blessed the Giver of all good.

We ought to be grateful for green mercies and not tarry till everything
comes to ripeness. In some parts of the East there is fruit all the
year round and why not in Eden? In the delightful country where I have
sojourned, which bears a very close resemblance to the East, there are
fruits still ripening upon the trees and one tree or another will be
found to bear fruit every month all the year round, so that if Adam had
been created in the month of April there would have been food for him,
followed by a succession of fruits which would have supplied all his
needs. Then he would have had summer before him with all its ripening
beauties–and this is a more paradisiacal outlook than winter. It is
right that the year should begin with the first fruits and I am sure it
is quite right that the year should begin with you and with me when we
come to Christ and receive the first fruits of the Spirit.

Everything is out of joint till a man knows Christ! Everything is
disorderly and bottom upwards till the Gospel comes and turns him
upside down–and then the right side is up again! Man is all wrong till
the Gospel puts him all right. Though Grace is above nature, it is not
contrary to nature, but restores true nature. Our nature is never so
truly the nature of a man as when it is no longer man's sinful nature.
We become truly men, such as God meant men to be, when we cease to be
men such as sin has made men to be! Our life, beginning, as it does, at
our spiritual Passover, and at our feeding upon Christ, we ought always
to regard our conversion as a festival and remember it with praise.
Whenever we look back upon it, the memory of it should excite delight
in our hearts.

I wonder how long a man ought to thank God for forgiving his sins? Is
life long enough? Is time long enough? Is eternity too long? How long
ought a man to thank God for saving him from going down to Hell? Would
50 years suffice? Oh no, that would never do–the blessing is too great
to be all sung of in a millennium! Suppose you and I never had a single
mercy except this one, that we were made the children of God and
co-heirs with Christ Jesus? Suppose we had nothing else to enjoy? We
ought to sing about that, alone, forever and ever! Yes, if we were
sick, cast on the bed of pain with a hundred diseases–with our bones
sticking through our skin–yet since God's everlasting mercy will
sanctify every pain and every affliction, should we not still continue
to lift up happy Psalms to God and praise Him forever and ever?

Therefore, let that be your watchword all through the
year–"Hallelujah, praise the Lord!" The Israelite always closed the
Passover with a hymn of praise and, therefore, let us close our sermon
this morning with holy joy and continue our happy music till this year
ends, yes, till time shall be no more! Amen.
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Men Without Heart, Sight, or Hearing