Amminadab and the Passover
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
For the last four months we’ve been looking into the stories of many of the ancestors of Jesus that we find mentioned in Luke chapter 3. These stories have shown us God’s plan to save us, helped us learn to know and trust in His promises, and given us advice about how to live a good life.
Last time we considered the personal testimony of Judah, a man who was running from deep family hurt and who finally discovered that trusting in God’s promises is the only way to a good and fulling life.
The good life...
Most people, no matter their religious persuasion, are wondering how they can have a good life. They want
Financial security.
Relational fulfillment.
Internal peace.
Purpose and meaning.
Mental and physical health.
And joy.
Ultimately, Judah realized that he needed to Trust in the Lord with all his heart, and lean not on his own understanding. But the reality of life is more… complicated. Trusting in God doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have no problems. People of faith experience sickness, financial difficulties, broken relationships, emotional turmoil, abuse and mental health problems. So, if trusting God doesn’t give you a good life free from trouble, then what?
Amminadab — a man born to trouble
Amminadab — a man born to trouble
Let’s turn to Exodus 6 and consider the story of a man who we know almost nothing about as an individual but whose circumstances are very familiar to us—a man named Amminadab.
In Exodus 6:23 the Bible tells us: “Aaron took as his wife Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab and the sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.” That’s pretty much all we know about Amminadab—he was the father of Elisheba and Nahshon. While we don’t know a lot about him as a person, we do know what his life was like, and some of the significant impacts his family had on the world.
Amminadab lived during a period of slavery when Israel was forced into hard labor for the Egyptians. He saw babies who were thrown into the nile river or fed to crocodiles in order to thin out the Israelite population. He witnessed the erosion of the Israelite’s faith in God as they faced the seemingly interminable might of Egypt. And then one of their own, a baby destined for the river, ended up in the palace as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. The princes named him Moses, which means, out of the river.
40 years went by as Moses gained influence in the palace, and then in an instant the hope that Israel had in Moses vanished when he killed an Egyptian guard and was forced to flee for his life. During the next 40 years Israel faced even harsher treatment by Egypt, and they cried out to God for help.
This is what we know about Amminadab’s life. It wasn’t what we would classically call a “good life.” And yet, God would make great good come from this horrible situation.
Since you already know the story of the Exodus, we won’t recount the whole story here, but I do want to highlight several critical moments.
The first encounter Amminadab likely had with God’s power to save was when Moses and Aaron called a meeting of the people in Goshen. Aaron told of how God had came to him and told him to go meet Moses in the wilderness. Then he recounted how God had met Moses on the mountain and together he and Moses showed them the signs God had told Moses to perform — the leprous hand, the rod turning into a snake. And, Amminadab believed, along with the rest of the people who heard the story. It was incredible. God was finally going to deliver them! Hurrah! Amminadab and all the people who had gathered to listen to Aaron and Moses bowed their heads and worshipped God. (Exodus 4:31)
It was during this conversation that Moses and Aaron must have talked to the people about their faith in God. Over the years they had allowed their faith to waiver and their worship to erode. The people had mostly stopped offering sacrifice and observing the sabbath. They still believed in the God of their father, Jacob, but their beliefs had slowly begun to incorporate the religion of the Egyptians. Aaron called them back to faithfulness and asked them to keep the Sabbath. That is probably why Pharoah complained,
But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.”
and then he told the foremen of the Israelite slaves:
“Do not supply any more straw for making bricks. Make the people get it themselves! But still require them to make the same number of bricks as before. Don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy. That’s why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifices to our God.’ Load them down with more work. Make them sweat! That will teach them to listen to lies!”
One thing we know about Amminadab is that his son Nahshon became the “prince” of the tribe of judah when they were in the wilderness. This would suggest that Amminadab was one of the elders of Israel who came to Moses and Aaron to complain:
and they said to them, “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”
Even Moses felt like something was wrong.
Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”
This is one of the first things we learn about God’s plans for Amminadab’s story:
Our current pain may be part of a bigger plan for God to bring deliverance.
If the people had been content to be slaves, then their situation would have been better off before Moses. But they wanted deliverance, and that process would cost them before it blessed them.
If you’ve ever dealt with an addiction you can understand this principle that deliverance costs something.
There are some addictions that seem like they have extra long tentacles; it might take days of cold sweats and feeling like you’re going to die, weeks of battling thoughts of temptation, months of realigning your life according to new values, and years of faithful struggle to keep your heart surrendered to your new path.
This is somewhat the experience of the Israelites as they began walking their path of faithful trust in the God of Heaven.
Amminadab and the other leaders struggled through those days of harder labor, trying to quell the complaints of the people as they blamed Moses and Aaron for their added trouble.
Then, Moses and Aaron went to Pharoah and, predictably he refused to let them go. In response, Moses turned all the water in the land to blood. In the heat of the desert no one had water to drink or cook or bathe in—not even the Israelites. And it stank as fish and other animals died and started to decompose. It was miserable!
Pharoah asked for a reprieve and the water turned back to normal again.
Again he refused to let them go and again Moses called for a plague from God—frogs this time. They were everywhere—in people’s beds, in their food, on their floors and tables and chairs, in their kneading bowls and on their cooking utensils.
Pharoah asked Moses to send the frogs away, and he did. All the frogs in the land died, except those that were in the river. It was a sticky, icky, stinky mess!
Again Pharoah said they couldn’t leave, and again Moses called for a plague. This time the dust of the land turned into tiny, flying, swarming, gnats. They infested the entire land, covering the animals and all the people.
“This is the finger of God!” Pharaoh’s magicians cried out.
And it was.
God had told Moses that He had a plan:
But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”
The Lord’s plan was deliverance for Israel, and to make known to Egypt that He is God.
While the experiences hurt them, none of those first three plagues were deadly. But their extreme annoyance provided the Israelites with a potent reminder that their God—the God of Abraham and Isaac and their father Israel—is the only true God. For all of Amminadab’s family who questioned if God was real, or wondered if the gods of Egypt were more powerful, they now had no reason to believe in any other God than the Lord.
time after time Pharoah agreed to let them go and then reversed his decision, and one plague after another came crashing down on the economy and people of Egypt.
biting flies
the horrible death of many of the animals
Boils on the people of Egypt
Burning lightning and massive hailstones
Swarming locusts
And darkness.
Not one of these 6 plagues hit Israel. It was as if the first plagues reminded Israel that the Lord is God, and the next 6 were brought as punishments on Egypt for their harsh and inhumane treatment of the Israelites.
Passover
Passover
Pharoah relented after the darkness, and said the people could leave, but then as soon as the light came back he changed his mind again.
The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people.
Moses told Pharoah God’s plan and then said,
And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger.
The Lord hardened Pharoah’s heart and he would not let Israel leave the country.
After giving Pharoah fair warning, Moses left his palace and gathered the people of Israel together in the land of Goshen. This is what he said:
“From now on, this month will be the first month of the year for you. Announce to the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each family must choose a lamb or a young goat for a sacrifice, one animal for each household. If a family is too small to eat a whole animal, let them share with another family in the neighborhood. Divide the animal according to the size of each family and how much they can eat. The animal you select must be a one-year-old male, either a sheep or a goat, with no defects.
“Take special care of this chosen animal until the evening of the fourteenth day of this first month. Then the whole assembly of the community of Israel must slaughter their lamb or young goat at twilight. They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the sides and top of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the animal. That same night they must roast the meat over a fire and eat it along with bitter salad greens and bread made without yeast. Do not eat any of the meat raw or boiled in water. The whole animal—including the head, legs, and internal organs—must be roasted over a fire. Do not leave any of it until the next morning. Burn whatever is not eaten before morning.
“These are your instructions for eating this meal: Be fully dressed, wear your sandals, and carry your walking stick in your hand. Eat the meal with urgency, for this is the Lord’s Passover.
This last act of God would respond directly to the infanticide of Egypt in throwing the baby boys of the Israelites into the river. It would reach into every home of every family who did not trust in the Lord. This death decree applied to everyone who didn’t put the lamb’s blood on their doorposts. And everyone who did put the blood on their doorposts was saved from this plague.
I want you to notice how different this plague was. Unlike the plagues that impacted only the Egyptians, the people who were saved from this plague were those who trusted in God and exercised faith. It wasn’t about their nationality or which family they were born into. Their deliverance was their faith in God.
As Moses told the elders about this plague and God’s solution for Israel, Amminadab and the rest of the people believed. Notice how Moses describes this judgment night in verses 12 and 13:
For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
You probably know the rest of the story. The people sacrificed the lambs, they prepared themselves to leave, the Egyptians wailed as their firstborn sons died, including in the palace of Pharoah. They begged the Israelites to leave, and early that next morning over a million Israelites marched into the desert.
There was the pillar of fire at the red sea, and then the sea parted so they could cross on dry land.
There was the water that poured out of a rock and manna that fell from heaven.
At Sinai God himself spoke to them from a cloud above the mountain, and Moses came down with God’s covenant written on stone.
The people messed up and worshipped an idol.
Aaron and Amminadab’s grandsons were made to be priests in a new sanctuary that God told Moses to build.
They ended up at the border of the promised land but failed to believe God’s promise to help them and so they had to wander for 40 years before coming back to the promised land again.
In the promised land they had judges and then kings.
There were faithful leaders and wicked idolaters.
The promise of God endured, and eventually, Immanuel was born—God with us.
The Passover Lamb / conclusion
The Passover Lamb / conclusion
There is a reason that God commanded the passover to be celebrated every year.
First, God never wanted them to forget that it was He who brought them out of Egypt with His mighty hand. In later years God would ask the people, “is my hand shortened that it cannot save?!” The passover was to remind them of the power and great mercy of God.
Second, every time they sacrificed that lamb they were to remember that it had taken the place of their sons. The only reason they didn’t experience death by the destroying angel was because the lamb had taken their place.
The third reason was to remind themselves of the promise to Eve that one day one of her descendant would crush the serpent. Much more than the nation of Egypt, the world has been impacted by Satan’s war against God. One day God would crush Satan in much the same way he brought the Egyptians to their knees. He would undo the power of Satan and ultimately destroy evil and sin and death. the Passover was a continual reminder of Gods covenant faithfulness.
And lastly, God wanted to remind them on a regular basis that they were not saved from destruction because they were the children of Jacob or Abraham, but because they believed in the God of salvation and obeyed Him in faith.
When Jesus, the one who was called “Immanuel,” “God with us,” was about 33 years old he brought the disciples into an upper room to eat the last passover the world would ever need. During that meal of roasted lamb and unleavened bread, Jesus took the unleavened bread, tore it and gave it to His disciples saying, “this is my body which is given for you.” Then he gave them a cup of grape juice and said, “this is the new covenant of my blood.” they would No longer need a Passover lamb.
The next day Jesus was hung on a cross and gave up his life, and then Sunday morning he rose from the grave.
Paul later explained the communion service by saying, “Christ is our passover lamb.”
No longer do we look back to God’s powerful deliverance from Egypt, but instead we look back on Jesus’ powerful deliverance from sin. We no longer look forward to the Messiah’s sacrifice, we look forward to the second coming of Jesus where He will put an end to this brokenness.
And maybe that’s the whole point of Amminadab’s story.
It’s valuable to notice that when Israel trusted in God they lived much better lives, and when they abandoned God to serve idols they experienced hardship and trouble. This isn’t a perfect equation—faithful people still experience hardship—but it is a good rule of thumb: you will reap what you sow. If you live in harmony with God’s plans, then you will generally experience better health, a more stable financial situation, loving relationships, and a heart filled with peace and joy.
As far as we know, Amminadab lived inside God’s will and believed in God’s deliverance, and yet he experienced significant hardship. Towards the end of his life, Amminadab’s hope became a reality when God delivered the people from Egypt, marched them on dry land through the red sea and provided them food and water in the desert. Amminadab may even have seen the border of the promised land.
Like Amminadab looking forward to the land flowing with milk and honey, we look forward to the good life that Jesus will bring at his 2nd coming. Until then, even when our life is relatively peaceful and enjoyable, we are still living in the midst of brokenness, sickness, and evil.
Hope. That is the mainstay of the gospel message.
Because God created,
because He rescued Noah from the flood,
because he made a covenant with Abram,
because He delivered Israel from Egypt,
because Jesus died in our place,
and because Jesus promised to return to bring us back home with Him…
We have hope.
In the mean time, God invites us to faithful trust and a hope-filled obedience. Instead of a lambs blood on our doorposts we lay our sins at the foot of the cross and trust in Jesus’ promise to forgive and cleanse.
No, your life might not be as good as you’d like, but be of good cheer, Jesus has overcome the world and soon He’ll take us home with Him to live the real good life.