Sermon Tone Analysis

Two guys became friends as they watched game 3 of the World series together at the local bar & grill.

The one who lived in the suburbs confided in his new-found friend, and exhibited a string tied around a finger.

"I don't dare to go home," he explained.

"There's something my wife told me to do, without fail, and to make sure I wouldn't forget, she tied that string around my finger.

But for the life of me I can't remember what the thing was I am to do.

And I don't dare to go home!"

A few days later the two men met again at the same restaurant - both of them there to watch game 4 of the series.

"Well," the one asked, "did you finally remember what that string was to remind you of?"

The other showed great gloom in his expression, as he replied:

      "I didn't go home until the next night, just because I was scared, and then my wife told me what the string was for all right--she certainly did!"

There was a note of pain in his voice.

"The string was to remind me to be sure to come home early."

One person has said, “the Christian life is like a combination of amnesia and déja vu, in which we keep learning what we keep forgetting.”

It is because we are so forgetful that God so often commands us to remember:

“Remember the Lord who is great and awesome” (Neh.

4:14).

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth” (Eccles.

12:1).

“Remember … I am God, and there is no other” (Isa.

46:9).

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead” (2 Tim.

2:8).

As we continue in our series called “Delivered,” today we come to a text that is all about how God would make sure that the Exodus Deliverance would never be forgotten.

Today’s message is entitled “Delivered with Illustrated Reminders.”

The God who created us knows how prone to forgetfulness we are.

So he gave his people something they could see, taste, touch and smell to remind them of how he rescued them from their bondage in Egypt.

Three times God told Moses that he wanted Passover to become a permanent addition to Israel’s calendar: “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance” (Exod.

12:14)

Why don’t we stand and read one of those three times together now.

Let’s pray.

8 ways that Exodus 12-13 reminds us about deliverance:

1) The preparation of the meal reminds us that there is unity amongst the delivered people of God.

First notice that it was a single animal - on which the whole family would feed.

Douglas Stuart: “The ultimate purpose of the Old Testament Passover instruction is to point forward to Christ, to the purpose of his death, memorialized in the ritual of the Lord’s Supper that now replaces the Passover, and also to the unity of those accepted by him as his people, his body.”

Partial consumption or fragments leftover do not properly symbolize unity we all have in Jesus.

2) The lamb without blemish reminds us that God has always required a perfect substitute for salvation.

Sorry to all of you vegetarians out there, but lamb tastes good whether it has spots or not… The reason for demanding perfection rested not in the quality of the meal but in the symbolic purpose: the animal served as a reminder of the eventual deliverance that a perfect God perfectly provided for his people as part of the process of making them holy like himself.

But second of all, let’s take note that throughout the Bible, God has always required a lamb...

Cain & Abel

Abraham & Isaac

First it was one lamb for one man

Now it’s one lamb for one family

Soon in Leviticus 16, God will require one lamb for the Covenant community on the Day of Atonement.

Until finally in the New Testament, John the Baptist will say:

Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

The lamb without blemish reminds us that God requires a perfect substitute - which was only fully and finally realized on the day of atonement when Jesus died as the spotless Lamb of God in the place of those who put their trust in him!

So Exodus 12 teaches us that the lamb must be spotless and the lamb is a substitute, but thirdly we observe that

3) The destroyer of the firstborn reminds us that everyone is a sinner, worthy of death.

The Israelites hadn’t had to do anything before during the plagues…

But in this plague they are at risk if they do not obey...

This is a demonstration of GRACE because the destroyer would come to every house.

The sad reality is that since the fall, every human has faced death.

In an all too visual way, God was going to illustrate that humans are worthy of death for their sinfulness.

And that’s what the destroyer reminds us from this text.

It would have universally killed everyone if the Israelites had not obedient to the Word.

But the next thing we see is that

4) The Feast of Unleavened Bread reminds us that we are delivered to be holy.

(and not the other way around)

While not explicit in Exodus 12, Jewish people have always understood yeast to represent the corrupting power of sin.

Jesus & Paul both referred to yeast as a symbol for sin.

And the point is obvious: When you leave Egypt, you leave all of its corrupting influences behind as well.

Deliverance isn’t only about escaping hell or bondage.

Christ has saved you to be holy.

We are being conformed into the image of his Son.

Be sure you carefully understand - the Israelites weren’t saved because they were holy, they were saved to be holy.

The removal of leaven was a week-long reminder that the sinful practices of Egypt were to be left in Egypt.

When’s the last time you’ve swept through your “spiritual house” and done inventory on where there’s yeast?

However small the sin may seem, sin never stays small - it always takes over the whole batch.

This was just another object lesson - an illustrated reminder that the Israelites were delivered to be holy.

The next visual reminder that we observe is that...

5) The blood on the doorposts reminds us that only faith in the blood of a substitute satisfies the wrath of God.

We read at the beginning in 12:22-23 about the physical act of painting the lamb’s blood on the doorposts.

That was a tangible step of faith required of all who would be delivered.

They had to take God at His word and believe that the blood would protect them from the wrath of the destroyer.

In other words, every Israelite properly instructed about the Passover should have been also partly prepared to expect a dying Messiah whose shed blood would provide a means of escape from death.

Paul tells us in Romans that Jesus satisfied God’s wrath by his blood for us.

Oh precious is the flow

That made me white as snow

No other fount I know

Nothing but the blood of Jesus

The blood was a visible reminder that a substitute had to shed its blood for our deliverance.

Praise God for Jesus’ blood.

6th, notice

6) The restrictions for participation remind us that the meal is for the community of faith.

These restrictions we just read required a visible/tangible aspect of faith - Circumcision.

And today, God’s covenant community is set off by the visible/tangible act of Baptism.

Just like circumcision didn’t create faith - it displayed it, baptism doesn’t save anyone, but it demonstrates a heart of faith - believing that you are united with Jesus in his death, burial and resurrection.

And that covenant community of faith had no distinction between slave or free, alien or Jew - it was all about identifying true believers who would share in a meal together.

That is why when we come to observe communion together, we do what former theologians have called “fencing” the table.

The Lord’s Supper is a meal for believers who have identified themselves as followers of Jesus through obedience in Baptism.

Like Passover, the Lord’s Supper is not for everyone.

It is only for those who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible teaches that “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.

A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor.

11:27–29).

In just a few moments we’ll get to participate in this meal together but before we do - let me show you two more visual object lessons from chapter 13 of Exodus...

Number 7:

7) The consecration of the firstborn reminds us that redemption always requires the payment of a ransom.

Ryken’s commentary helps us understand this concept of the firstborn better:

The firstborn represented all the offspring, including the girls as well as the rest of the boys.

The firstborn stood for the family as a part representing the whole—the way, for example, that a captain represents his team at the beginning of a football game or an executive represents his corporation at the bargaining table.

The same principle applied when the Israelites brought their firstfruits to the Feast of Harvest (Exod.

23:16, 19).

They offered their first and their best to show that the whole harvest belonged to God.

In the same way, the firstborn was the firstfruits of the family.

To consecrate him was to consecrate everyone else who came from his mother’s womb.