In Moses' reply to this last objection, we are furnished with a fine statement of the Lord's paramount claim upon His people and all pertaining to them. "And Moses said, 'Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with us; _there shall not a hoof be left behind_: for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither.'" (Ver. 25, 26.) It is only when the people of God take their stand, in simple childlike faith, upon that elevated ground on which death and resurrection set them, that they can have anything like an adequate sense of His claims upon them. "We know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither." That is, they had no knowledge of the divine claim, or their responsibility, until they had gone "three days' journey." These things could not be known amid the dense and polluted atmosphere of Egypt. Redemption must be known as an accomplished fact, ere there can be any just or full perception of responsibility. All this is perfect and beautiful. "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine." I must be up out of Egypt, in the power of death and resurrection, and then, but not until then, shall I know what the Lord's service really is. It is when we take our stand, by faith, in that "large room," that wealthy place into which the precious blood of Christ introduces us,--when we look around us and survey the rich, rare, and manifold results of redeeming love,--when we gaze upon the Person of Him who has brought us into this place, and endowed us with these riches, then we are constrained to say, in the language of one of our own poets,--
"Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my heart, my life, my all."
"There shall not a hoof be left behind." Noble words! Egypt is not the place for aught that pertains to God's redeemed. He is worthy of all--"body, soul, and spirit;" all we are and all we have belongs to Him. "We are not our own, we are bought with a price;" and it is our happy privilege to consecrate ourselves and all that we possess to Him whose we are, and Him whom we are called to serve. There is naught of a legal spirit in this. The words, "until we come thither," furnish a divine guard against this horrible evil. We have traveled the "three days' journey," ere a word concerning sacrifice can be heard or understood. We are put in full and undisputed possession of resurrection life and eternal righteousness. We have left that land of death and darkness; we have been brought to God Himself, so that we may enjoy Him, in the energy of that life with which we are endowed, and in the sphere of righteousness in which we are placed: thus it is our joy to serve. There is not an affection in the heart of which He is not worthy; there is not a sacrifice in all the flock too costly for His altar. The more closely we walk with Him, the more we shall esteem it to be our meat and drink to do His blessed will. The believer counts it his highest privilege to serve the Lord. He delights in every exercise and every manifestation of the divine nature. He does not move up and down with a grievous yoke upon his neck, or an intolerable weight upon his shoulder. The yoke is broken "because of the anointing," the burden has been forever removed by the blood of the cross, while he himself walks abroad, "redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled," in pursuance of those soul-stirring words, "LET MY PEOPLE GO."
_Note._--We shall consider the contents of chapter xi. in connection with the security of Israel, under the shelter of the blood of the paschal lamb.