The Statue of Liberty

We read the word of God from Exodus chapter 12, from verse 1 to verse 15. And those of you who are Bible students will recognize this as the account of the Passover.

Exodus chapter 12, 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. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house.

And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls. Every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year.

You shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door posts of the houses wherein they shall eat it.

And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire and unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs shall they eat it. Eat not of it raw nor boiled at all with water, but roast with fire its head, with its legs, and with the inward parts thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.

And thus shall ye eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

And against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon your houses wherein ye are.

And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. Ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever.

Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread. Even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses. For whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

Thomas Jefferson was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant men who ever occupied the White House, and during his life he did many great things. But at the close of his life, Thomas Jefferson made it known that he wanted to be remembered for three accomplishments only. And these were to be on his epitaph.

Number three, the founder of the University of Virginia. Number two, the author of the Statute for Religious Liberty in Virginia. Number one, the author of the Declaration of Independence.

Interestingly enough, he did not want to be remembered as the President of the United States. Thomas Jefferson was very proud of the fact that he had been providently chosen to write the Declaration of Independence. I think those words that are in the Declaration of Independence are very meaningful to us.

I sat down and re-read them the other day. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Actually you could have read those words on Passover night when God was going to free the people of Israel.

You see, what Independence Day is to us as citizens of the United States, Passover is to the people of Israel. Passover was their Declaration of Independence. And you could have stood there at the Red Sea and read these words to these Jewish people.

That among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Because that's what Passover was all about. It interests me to hear people occasionally criticize us for talking about blood.

They say, now Pastor Weresby, why don't you get Moody Church into the 20th century? We don't believe in that butcher house religion anymore, this business of singing about blood and talking about blood. You couldn't have said that to a Jewish person on Passover night, because it was the blood that made the difference. By the way, liberty does not come free.

What they experienced that night in Egypt was because the lambs had died. The liberty that you and I experience today we have because somebody died. I think we ought to take these three blessings that are named life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and apply them to our Jewish friends at Passover and apply them to our own hearts.

You see, it was the lamb that accomplished the whole thing. These past several Sunday mornings we've been talking about pictures of the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament, and one picture that keeps repeating itself over and over again is that of the lamb. When Abraham and Isaac were going up to Mount Moriah, where Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, the young man said, Father, behold, here is the wood and here is the fire, but where is the lamb? That was the whole question for the Old Testament era.

Where is the lamb? On Passover night they killed the lamb and applied the blood to the doorpost, and the angel of judgment passed over them. You get to Isaiah chapter 53, and the lamb is dying for the nation of Israel. He is brought as a lamb, as a sheep before her shearers is done, so he opens not his mouth.

But that question keeps echoing through the Old Testament scriptures. Where is the lamb for the sacrifice? Not all the blood of bulls and goats on Jewish altars flame, says the hymn. Could ever wash away the sin of man? Could ever purge the conscience? And year after year and decade after decade, sacrifices were made, and yet the question kept coming.

Where is the lamb? One day John the Baptist showed up on the shores of the Jordan River, and he points to a young man and says, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. There is the answer. There is the lamb.

And he took that lamb and they killed him. And he arose from the dead the third day, and he went back to heaven. And I read in the book of Revelation that the hosts of glory are singing, Worthy is the lamb that was slain.

And so from Genesis to Revelation, wherever you look, you find the lamb. Oh, I would that people understood that the little lamb slain at Passover is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of the death of Jesus Christ, you and I have these blessings spiritually.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'm not talking about political now. I'm talking about spiritual.

That's the most important. Let's take the first of these blessings, the blessing of life. Because Jesus Christ, God's lamb, has died for you, you can have the blessing of life.

You see, Egypt was under an edict of death. Moses said, Yet one plague more is God going to send upon the nation of Egypt. God had been speaking to Pharaoh and to his officers through his word.

Moses and Aaron had proclaimed the word, and Egypt wouldn't listen. And God said, All right, if they won't listen to my power, they'll have to look at my power. And one by one, these tragic, terrible plagues came upon the nation of Egypt, devastating that great nation.

And they still wouldn't listen. And there comes that ominous announcement from heaven, One plague more, the death of the firstborn. Now, we should understand that these historical events are spiritual lessons.

I think that no one here today will think I'm stretching the scriptures when I apply it this way, because the Bible does this for us. You see, Egypt is a picture of this world system. In the word of God, whenever a Jew went to Egypt, he always went down.

Whenever he went to Canaan land, he always went up. And this geography is inspired. You go to Egypt, you go to the world, and you go down.

When Abraham went down into Egypt, he got into trouble. When the nation tried to depend upon Egypt, they got into trouble. Isaiah the prophet said, why are you leaning upon that broken reed of Egypt? Egypt is a picture of this world system all around us.

When Moses was delivering his farewell address in Deuteronomy, you must remember that he was not going to go over into Canaan land. Because he had disobeyed the Lord, he forfeited that privilege. Joshua is going to lead the people into Canaan.

But Moses is making the farewell address. And Moses is preparing the people for Canaan. And he says this to them, the land that you're going into is not like the land of Egypt.

In the land of Egypt, you had monotony. You had these bare stretches of desert, miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. But he says, the land that you're going to go into, that God's going to give to you, is a land of hills and valleys.

There's no monotony in the Christian life. There are days when we're on the mountaintop and we shout hallelujah. There are days when we're down in the valley, we can still shout hallelujah.

Because the same God is a God of the mountains and a God of the valleys. He says, back in Egypt, it was such a dry place. And regularly, the Nile River would belt up the silt.

And they would come out and they would cut their irrigation ditches. And they would raise their cucumbers and their garlic and their leeks and their onions. He says, the land of Canaan is not like that.

It doesn't depend upon the sewage being belched up. It depends upon the reign of God from heaven. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.

And so there's a contrast in the Bible between the life of God's people in their land and the life of people in Egypt. Egypt's a picture of this world. Monotonous and dry and worshiping false gods.

I think you realize that when these various plagues came to Egypt, God was showing how weak and foolish were the gods of Egypt. He had declared war against this pantheon of imaginary deities that they were worshiping in Egypt, including Pharaoh, including the Nile River, including bugs and cows and all these other things. And he says, one plague more is coming.

This world is just like Egypt, dry and monotonous and worshiping false gods. I speak to some people now who may be worshiping a god of gold or steel or brick or mortar. Pharaoh is a picture of the god of this world, Satan, an absolute dictator.

At Pharaoh's word, people were killed. Pharaoh was rebelling against the word of God and against the servant of God. And so here you have the world system headed by a world ruler who was a god.

And God says, I'm going to come in and the firstborn are going to die. Now, death, the shadow of death was over the land of Egypt. But it was not over the people of Israel because through the blood of the Lamb, they had life.

And here they were in their little houses and fathers and mothers had gathered their families together. And I imagine the firstborn were very close to mother and father that night because the firstborn, unless they were protected by the blood, were going to die. And that night they had life.

Wherever else you would look in the land of Egypt, you'd find death. Death to the firstborn of the cattle and death to the firstborn of the servant and death to the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat upon the throne. There was death, but not so in the houses of Israel.

It was life. Now, of course, we're talking here about physical life, but all this is a picture of spiritual life. You see, all of the firstborn, even today, are dead.

You say, Pastor, what do you mean by that? God rejects our first birth. Throughout the word of God, he rejects the first birth and accepts the second birth. When I was born the first time, I was born into this world system, born a sinner, born under the condemnation of God, born under the wrath of God.

When I got old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, I deliberately chose the wrong, and so did you. And consequently, because of our first birth, because we are firstborn, we're under the condemnation of death. When you can become secondborn, twice born, you're no longer under the condemnation of death.

Now, all of this was brought about by the Lamb. The little girls and boys came running up and they said, Daddy, how can we escape death? The death angel is coming tonight. How do we escape death? That's a good question.

How do you escape eternal death? And the answer is the Lamb. Now, the Lamb was chosen on the tenth day and examined until the fourteenth day. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

They watched the Lamb to make sure everything about the Lamb was perfect. Take a picture of the Lord Jesus. He's the chosen of God.

This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. Go ahead, examine him. And they did.

His enemies examined him and they had to confess they found no fault in him. Pilate said, I find no fault in this man. Judas said, I've betrayed innocent blood.

Thomas said, my Lord and my God. Even the demons from hell had to say, we know who you are, the Son of God. He was examined, not for five days, but for over thirty years his life was washed.

At the end of that time, they had to hire liars to bear false witness at his trial before they could condemn him. My friends, you can examine this preacher and you'll be disappointed. You can examine this church and you'll be disappointed.

You can examine Jesus Christ all you want to and you'll never be disappointed. He's the perfect Lamb. Now it's not the Lamb living that's saved from death, it's the Lamb dying.

The Lamb was chosen, the Lamb was examined, and the Lamb was slain. I meet these super pious people who say, please don't talk about the death of Jesus. Talk about the life of Jesus.

Well, we do both, but the life of Jesus is meaningless apart from the death of Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ did not come to be an example. He came to be an execution.

He came to be a sacrifice. He came to take my place. They took the little knife and they cut the Lamb's throat and that cute little creature trembled and then died.

And they caught the blood in the basin. And the Father says to the firstborn, this would be your blood except that the Lamb has died. Now my friend, you may say I admire Jesus the teacher.

You say I appreciate Jesus Christ the moral leader and that's wonderful. But have you ever come to the cross of Jesus Christ where the Lamb shed his blood? The life comes from the shedding of the blood. The life of the flesh is in the blood.

And when the blood is shed, life is given. And if life is given for you, you don't have to die. That's the good news of the gospel.

That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. The Lamb was slain. May I say a word to those of you who do not like this idea of blood? We have today people who say, well, it's the ethics of Jesus or the morality of Jesus.

Or they talk to us about the death of Jesus. Would you say that to some mother who perhaps still has a gold star hanging on the wall? You say, now you talk to me about what the soldiers and the sailors and the marines did. But don't talk about anybody dying.

We have liberty today because somebody died. Liberty is not cheap. Liberty costs something.

A great man like Winston Churchill can stand up and say, I have nothing to offer you but blood and sweat and tears. And people applaud. He talked about blood, and they applaud.

The founding fathers can say, The tree of liberty must be watered by the blood of the martyrs. And people say, that's great. But let's just say the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from sin.

People say, don't talk about that. I say people are very inconsistent. If you enjoy political liberty, it's because somebody died.

Died for you. If you're going to enjoy spiritual liberty, it's because somebody died for you. Jesus, the Savior, the Lamb shed his blood.

And the blood had to be applied. Have you applied the blood? Have you experienced life? It takes little imagination to see this Jewish family in their little house and midnight arrives and the death angel is going to pass over Egypt. And the little boy looks up and says, Daddy, is it all right? He says, Son, it's all right.

Mother, is it all right? It's all right. How do you know it's all right? The blood has been applied. And when the angel feeds the blood.

You see, they had life because of the death of the Lamb. Now, I offer to you today spiritual life through Jesus Christ. This is what the Moody Church is all about.

This is not an evangelical country club where we get together and amuse each other. The Moody Church is concerned about telling people around the world that there's life through Jesus Christ. And my dear friend here today, without the Lord Jesus Christ, you are under the sentence of death.

Now, the sentence has not been executed yet, but it will be. It's appointed unto men once to die and after that the judgment. The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

The wages of sin is death. And the most tragic thing is not just physical death, it's that eternal death. That eternal darkness and separation from God.

I say to you today through Jesus Christ, God's Lamb, you can have life. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

He that believeth on him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And Jesus said, except ye believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

Through the death of the Lamb, we have life and we have liberty. Now, the Jewish people had been in bondage. Generation after generation in bondage, carrying burdens.

In the early chapters of Exodus, when God speaks to Moses, he said, I have looked upon the afflictions of the children of Israel. I see the burdens that they're bearing. What they were experiencing physically, multitudes today experience spiritually.

Oh, my friend, the greatest burdens that people are carrying today are these back-breaking burdens of sin. There's an interesting statement over in Psalm 38, verse 4. In Psalm 38, verse 4, the psalmist says, My sins have gone over my head like a burden I'm carrying them. The burden of sin.

We sing in one of our gospel songs, Would you be free from the burden of sin? There's power in the blood, power in the blood. It's the blood of the Lamb that gives us liberty. Now, people today are carrying many different kinds of burdens.

There is, as I've mentioned, the burden of sin. Somebody listening to me just now says, Pastor, there's sin in my life. I wake up in the morning and I realize I'm going to carry that load of sin.

My conscience is dirty. I feel guilty. I feel afraid.

What can I do about it? Well, the answer is Jesus Christ. When you come to the Lamb, he takes away the burden of sin. In Bunhill Field in London, right across from Wesley Chapel, is a cemetery.

In this cemetery, many of the great patriots and Puritans are buried. And John Bunyan's grave is there. John Bunyan, you remember, wrote The Children's Progress, a book that probably seconds only to the Bible in terms of spiritual influence.

You remember in Pilgrim's Progress, Pilgrim is carrying this awful burden. He tries every way to get rid of this burden. He tries to climb the hill of legality, but the law can't take away his burden.

And it keeps getting heavier and heavier. And finally, Evangelist says to him, do you see that wicked gate over there? You go through that little narrow gate and see what happens. And he goes through the gate and he sees the cross.

And the burden rolls off of his back and into the empty tomb. It's gone forever. As you walk into Bunhill Field, you see the tomb of John Bunyan.

On one side in the grave is Pilgrim carrying this awful burden. You can almost feel it. When you go to the other side of the grave, the burden has rolled off and Pilgrim stands there in liberty.

Now, that can happen to you. There are some people listening to me just now who don't have the burden of some awful kind of sin. Maybe your burden is yourself.

Job says in Job 7, verse 20, I am a burden to myself. Now, I can appreciate that with Job because he was sick and rejected and suffering. But I speak to some people right now who say, Pastor, you've touched my knee.

I'm a burden to myself. I hate myself. Oh, I do things I wish I didn't do and I don't do things I ought to do and I'm a burden to myself.

Can I be changed? Of course you can. That's what salvation's all about. He brings you life and he brings you liberty.

He can free you from this awful burden of self. Jesus said one day, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

I meet people who are burdened not by sin and not by self, but by religion. You see, when Jesus made that statement, he was looking out across the marketplace at Capernaum. And here were people trying to keep up with the religion of their day.

He said, Oh, that religion that they've given to you is such a burden. God never meant it to be a burden. The Pharisees had taken the simplicity of the word of God and turned it into the complexity of a machine that was grinding out people and grinding on people.

I say to you, my friend, if whatever religion you're practicing is a burden, it's not from God. God never meant it to be that way. He meant it to be a blessing.

And Jesus said, Come to me, you who are burdened down with the cares of this world, with the cares of religion, and get rid of that burden. And take my yoke on you. My yoke is easy.

His commandments are not grievous. And my burden is light. And when you give your burden to me and I give myself to you, together we're going to go through life rejoicing in victory.

That Passover night was a night that brought to them life and it brought to them liberty. It's tragic that people today don't have the liberty that Jesus wants them to have. Jesus said one day, If the Son, S-O-N, shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

He said, You can't be made free by religion. You can't be made free by your own good works. I can make you free.

How did he do it? He said, He shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. In other words, Jesus Christ, who is the truth, uses the truth of his word to set us free. The thing that has got people into bondage is lying.

Lying always means bondage. And people are believing the devil's lies. Jesus came to this earth.

He said, God is a father. God is not a hateful judge who wants to make your life miserable. God is a father who wants to bless you.

And they crucified him for that. He says, God wants to forgive your sins. If you'll just trust, he'll forgive.

And they crucified him for that. He said, God wants to move into your life and change you. And they crucified him for that.

You see, my friend, when the truth comes, you either accept the truth and it changes you, or you fight the truth and it destroys you. They tried to destroy Jesus Christ, but you can't keep the truth down. On the third day, he arose from the dead and he's alive today.

And he wants to give you liberty. Paul wrote to the Galatians and said, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. And be not entangled again with that yoke of bondage.

Please don't come and sell your religion to me. I have Jesus Christ. I don't need religion.

Please don't come and give me your code of ethics. I don't need that. I have Jesus Christ.

And he has given to us this marvelous liberty, this spiritual freedom. If you're not enjoying this, I feel sorry for you. You say, How do I get this liberty? By taking his yoke.

But you say, That's not liberty. Yes, it is. You become free by being bound.

You find liberty by taking his yoke. You find fulfillment by following him. The third blessing that we receive from the death of the Lamb, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Now, Israel had no future in Egypt. None. Fathers and sons would toil out there building cities and building pyramids and building grain pits.

And another generation would come along and pick up where they left off and start moving the stones and building. They had no future in Egypt, and you have no future in this world. The only future that anybody can have is through Jesus Christ.

You see, the unsaved person's life is controlled by the past. You are shackled to the past. The Christian's life is controlled by the future.

In Philippians chapter 3, Paul says, Forgetting those things which are behind, my sins have been washed away. All of those mistakes and those awful things, they're gone. Forgetting those things which are behind, I'm reaching forth to the things which are before.

I'm pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. I'm looking for him and pressing toward him. The Christian's life has a great future ahead of it.

And so when the Lamb was slain for the Jewish people, not only did it bring to them life, they didn't die that night. It brought to them liberty. They were set free from the bondage of Egypt, and it brought to them the pursuit of happiness.

In order to make them know that God had a great future, he said, Let's have a feast. Can you imagine having a feast on a night when people were dying all around you? They were having funerals in the Egyptian homes. They were feasting in the Jewish homes.

The same Lamb that gave them life and liberty sustained them and satisfied them. They fed on the Lamb. By the way, do you feed on the Lamb? You say, How do you feed on the Lamb? Through the Word of God.

As you and I get into the Word of God and meditate on it and pray over it and appropriate it, we're feeding on the Lamb. Someone says, Pastor, I'd like to become a Christian. I'm afraid I can't hold out.

Don't you worry about that. The same Lamb who dies for you sustains you. And Moses said, You feed on this roasted Lamb.

Jesus went through the fire for you. Today we're going to be observing the Lord's Supper, a reminder of what he did for us. And that Lamb was roasted in the fire.

And Jesus went through the fires of judgment for you and me. And now we feed upon him. Having trusted him as our Savior, we feed upon him as our spiritual sustenance.

And so here's the Jewish family with their unleavened bread, with their bitter herb. Have you forgotten how bitter it was when you lived in the world? I trust that nobody here is like a few Jews at the Exodus who said, Let's go back. Let's go back.

Oh, let's go back to Egypt. Moses said, When you observe Passover, have some bitter herbs there. You dip that bread in the bitter herbs and eat it.

Remind yourself of how bitter it was to be in bondage in Egypt. Oh, dear Christian friends, have you forgotten how bitter it was when you were living in sin? Have you forgotten the hangovers? Have you forgotten the headaches? I hope you haven't. There's one sense in which we forget the sins of the past.

There's another sense in which we remember that we were once bondsmen in the land of Egypt and God came and delivered us by his great power. The pursuit of happiness. Moses said, Now you're going to eat this meal like you've never eaten any other meal.

Put your shoes on. Get a hold of your staff. You're going someplace.

This is just the beginning. When you trust the Lamb, that's not the end. It's just the beginning.

God's going to open the way for you. God's going to lead you a step at a time. And it's going to be one happy experience after another.

Oh, you say what those Jews went through. Yes, this is true. God brings us into times of testing and God brings us into times of difficulty.

But we don't mind it because he's with us and he's preparing us and he's blessing us and the best is yet to come. And we keep moving more and more toward what he has for us. The pursuit of happiness.

Now, happiness is not something you go out and buy. Happiness is not something you manufacture. Happiness is a byproduct.

Happiness comes to you when you're in the will of God. If you have Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have life, spiritual life. Now, if you don't have this life, I plead with you, come today to receive him.

You have liberty. He sets you free from law. He sets you free from the power of sin.

Through faith in him, we can live in liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The path of the just is the shining light that shines more and more under the perfect day. It just keeps getting better and better and better.

Someone says, oh, pastor, my way is getting darker and darker. Just wait, God has something for you. The burdens are so heavy, lean upon the Lord, roll them upon the Lord.

I would rather be carrying burdens following the Lord than be carrying burdens in the land of Egypt. I would rather be one of God's free men serving him than serving sin and Satan. This is what Passover is all about.

It means life. It means liberty. And it means the pursuit of happiness.

It means feasting and feeding and following and God opening the way and God providing every need. Now, you and I were born into liberty. When I was born as a citizen of this great country, I was born into liberty.

But that's not true spiritually. When you and I were born into this world, we were born into bondage. Bondage to the world and to the flesh and to sin.

When you're born again through faith in the Lamb who died for you, then you experience life. And then you experience liberty. And then you have this wonderful, joyful, Christian walk in the pursuit of happiness.

But there's one thing you have to do. You have to make it personal. You have to make it personal.

So how do you do that? In Exodus chapter 12, I'm noticing verses 3 and 4. There's a sequence here. A Lamb, the Lamb, your Lamb. You see that? A Lamb.

Oh, you say, Jesus Christ is a Lamb. He's one of many great spiritual leaders. That'll never save you.

The Lamb. Oh, you say, I believe He is the Lamb of God. That'll never save you.

You've got to be able to say, He's my Lamb. Moses said, your Lamb. Is He your Lamb? You say, yes, I have trusted Him.

Then enjoy the life. Enjoy the liberty. Enjoy the happiness that He brings.

You say, no, He's not my Lamb. Why not? Well, I've never trusted Him. Then trust Him.

Say with us today, Oh, Lamb of God, I come. By faith, apply the blood to your own heart. And you too will experience because of Him, life, eternal life. Abundant life. Heavenly life. Liberty. And a pursuit of happiness.

Gracious Father, our prayer is that many hearing this message will respond by faith and trust Christ as their Savior. It's nothing we can do of ourselves, oh God, you must do it through your Holy Spirit.

So speak to hearts now. And may those who have never trusted the Savior trust him now. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.