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During a cruel and bloody war, a commander took an oath that he would slaughter the entire population of a certain town, and in due course his violent troops were let loose on the defenseless people.
A fugitive seeking shelter spied a number of soldiers as they broke into a house and slaughtered its inhabitants. On leaving it, one of them dipped a cloth into a pool of blood and splashed it on the door, as a sign to any who might follow that everyone inside was dead.
Quick as he could, the fugitive ran to a large house in the center of the town, where a number of his friends were concealed, and breathlessly told them what he had seen. Immediately they knew what to do. A goat was in the yard. They killed it without delay and splashed its blood on the door. They closed the door just before soldiers rushed into their street. But when they came to the blood-marked door, they made no attempt to enter! The sword, so they thought, had already entered. While many around were slain, all within the blood-marked door were saved.
The First Passover
“The Lord spake unto Moses … Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying … they shall take to them every man a lamb. … Your lamb shall be without blemish … and the whole … congregation … shall kill it in the evening. … And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood … and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He seeth the blood … the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.
“And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt … and there was a great cry in Egypt: for there was not a house where there was not one dead” (Exodus 12).
The children of Israel, in the shelter of the blood, were perfectly safe, for the Lord had said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13).
And those same words apply in all their saving power. That first passover foreshadowed Christ our passover, the Lamb “without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19), who was “sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7) on the cross of Calvary. His shed blood has stopped the sword of divine judgment for everyone who by faith takes shelter in it. Have you by faith applied to yourself that precious blood? Have you put yourself under its shelter? It is the only place of safety from the judgment of God that will soon fall on this sinful, Christless world, “because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31). It is foolish to remain without Christ.
“Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold … but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18‑19).
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
“We may have boldness in the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17).
