The Risen Passover Lamb
Notes
Transcript
ME: Intro - Why Did Jesus Come?
ME: Intro - Why Did Jesus Come?
Today we are celebrating the empty tomb!
Which represents the glorious resurrection of Jesus!
In order for Jesus to rise from the dead,
It first required Him to die.
Which He did,
On a cross,
As a sacrifice,
For our sins.
In order for Jesus to die,
It first required Him to live.
Which He did,
For over 30 years,
Perfectly,
Faithfully obeying the Father’s will,
Never once sinning.
In order for Jesus to live,
It first required Him to be born.
Which He was,
Miraculously,
Born of a virgin,
Humbly taking on flesh.
Unlike every other human being,
Jesus’s existence did not begin when He was born.
He has always existed,
Because He is God.
And He willingly came to earth,
To miraculously be born of a virgin,
To live a perfectly obedient and sinless life,
To die on a cross as a sacrifice for our sins,
And to rise from the dead.
Why did Jesus come to earth?
Because He is the only Substitutionary Atonement.
My hope over the next 14 weeks is to show how the Bible clearly teaches this idea of substitutionary atonement.
What I mean by this is simply that Jesus stands in as our substitute,
Atoning for the penalty that is due to us who actually deserve it.
In other words, the death Jesus died on the cross,
Was for the wrath of God,
And Jesus took it in our place.
This biblically founded truth seems to be gradually becoming less accepted among non-Christians,
And less celebrated among Christians.
The idea of Christ sacrificing Himself because we sin is viewed as primitive,
Something to be reconsidered,
Overly focused on blood,
Inhumane, lacking peace and goodwill to all.
Mark Dever summarizes this shift;
“Indeed human society has now largely evolved out of such superstition altogether. Belief in sacrifice fades with belief in God, which in turn fades into simple belief in ourselves. And that, people think, is the way of truth.”
We should not be surprised to hear this from unbelievers.
But it should alarm us when people profess to be Christian yet express discomfort with the idea that our sin deserves the death penalty.
And that is why Jesus had to die.
Now, do not misunderstand me,
I am not arguing that we must look at Jesus and the cross and only see Him as our substitutionary atonement.
The Bible uses a multitude of glorious images by which we see Jesus and the cross.
Jesus redeems our freedom out of slavery to sin.
He heals us from the ailment of our sin disease.
He wins the victory over the grave for us.
And He dies as a ransom for many.
He Who knew no sin, became sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.
He is our Redeemer, our Healer, our Victor,
And He is also our Substitute.
To acknowledge Him as such,
Is to acknowledge the rich biblical truth about what He accomplished in our place on Calvary.
To begin our understanding of Jesus as the Substitutionary Atonement,
This resurrection morning,
We start all the way back in the book of Exodus.
To set the stage for our passage this morning,
The first four chapters of Exodus begin with the birth of Moses and God calling Moses.
Then, starting in ch. 5, Moses obeys God, confronts the Pharaoh of Egypt,
And demands Pharaoh to let Moses’ people, the nation of Israel, go.
During this confrontation,
Moses declares God’s judgment on Pharaoh,
For his arrogance in refusing to obey God and letting the Israelites go.
This judgment is in the form of a series of plagues on the land of Egypt,
Culminating in a tenth and final plague that results in the surrender of Pharaoh to God’s demand.
The Dreamworks cartoon, The Prince of Egypt, from the late 90s,
Overall, is a relatively good portrayal of these events,
If you are interested in seeing more regarding what we are studying this morning.
Exodus chapter 12 recounts this climactic final plague.
As we do a quick overview through this chapter this morning,
We will be looking to answer three overarching questions;
What is the Passover? (vs. 1-28)
Why Do You Need a Substitute? (vs. 29-42)
How Do You Remember the Passover? (vs. 43-51)
Ch. 12 is interspersed with long sections of instruction,
And short descriptions of events.
The passover was a new beginning for the Israelites and drew them together as a nation.
It was God’s work of liberating His people from bondage into a new life.
This work of redemption is the same work God continues to do through Jesus Christ.
He frees us from slavery to sin.
The blood of Jesus as the Lamb should immediately make us think of Israel’s deliverance during the passover.
WE: What is the Passover (Ex. 12:1-28)
WE: What is the Passover (Ex. 12:1-28)
Let us turn our attention to this first question,
What is the Passover?
The short answer is that the Passover is exactly what it sounds like,
It is God passing over someone as His judgment is poured out.
But His passing over is a blessing provided through a substitute.
Exodus 12:1-28 outlines God’s instructions for the first passover,
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 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. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.” 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 shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
(vs. 1-2) We see the first two verses begin with the Lord appearing to establish a new religious calendar.
Historically, the Hebrew year has begun with the month of Abib.
Which is this time of year, late March to early April.
It is why Easter does not fall on the same day every year.
Because Passover is based off the Hebrew calendar,
Not our calendar.
Now the setting of these events is Ancient Egypt.
Egypt was a flourishing and settled monarchy,
Dating back to the time of Abraham.
Back in Exodus 11:5, the Lord threatened this final plague on Egypt;
and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.
The instructions God gives at the start of ch. 12,
Emphasize His people’s need for a substitute to die in their place.
(vs. 3-6) Beginning in vs. 3-6 of ch. 12,
God commands Moses to tell the community of Israel that a lamb would be needed,
This lamb will be sacrificed in place of their firstborn.
And the lamb will be a meal for everyone with no waste leftover.
By having them pick out the lamb four days in advance,
They are given the opportunity to inspect for defects,
Because this lamb is to be a lamb without defect.
What does this unblemished lamb make you think of?
Perhaps 1 Peter 1:18-19? Which says;
knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
The idea of substitution is already evident in our opening verses.
The events here foreshadow the sacrificial death of Jesus.
In John 1:29 and 36, John the Baptist proclaimed,
“Behold! The Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world!”
Back in Revelation 5:6, the Apostle John saw “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.”
These are all clearly reflecting the Passover.
There is no doubt that Jesus is an unblemished Lamb.
The Father declared at Jesus’ baptism in Matt. 3:17,
“This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
However, His enemies questioned Him repeatedly,
Hoping to catch Him and disprove Him as the perfect Passover Lamb.
He was interrogated and put on trial,
Yet, as Pontious Pilate pronounced in John 18:38, no guilt could be found in Him.
He knew no sin, He committed no sin, there is no sin in Him.
Yet, like the passover lamb in Exodus, Jesus was killed at twilight.
This is the instruction God gave at the first passover in vs. 6.
This event marked the beginning of the Passover, as was later made official in Deut. 16:6;
Vs. 7 instructs them to take blood from the lamb and spread it on the doorposts and the lintel of the house.
Leviticus 17:11 explains the significance of this act;
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.
So, this means the blood symbolizes both the life of the sacrifice,
And the life of the person it was substituted for.
Peeking ahead to vs. 22,
The elders would use hyssop to spread the blood on the doors.
Hyssop was a multi-textured branch that was great at holding liquid to use almost as a brush.
Therefore, it was a common branch used for purification rituals.
For example Num. 9:18 and Psalm 51:7 show other ritual uses for hyssop.
After spreading the lifeblood of their sacrifice outside the door of their house,
Vs. 8-11 continue with instructions for the Passover meal.
It begins with the meat of the lamb being roasted and eaten immediately,
Along with the meat was unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Bitter herbs are included as a remembrance of the bitter suffering of slavery in Egypt.
Exodus 1:13-14 explicitly describes the ruthless slavery in Egypt as making the Israelites lives bitter.
And the meat cannot be eaten raw or boiled,
Only roasted whole,
This would certainly be an uncomfortable reminder that they were dependent upon this sacrifice being slaughtered in their place.
This special meal could not be treated like normal food.
There are to be no leftovers,
Anything left is thrown into the fire to be burnt.
Only those who took the Lord’s commands seriously obeyed these instructions.
They would be the ones who were ready.
Because they would be the ones eating in their travel clothes.
As vs. 11 says, this meal has to be eaten in a hurry.
They had to eat in trembling anticipation,
Their salvation was at hand!
It is their 4th of July!
Central to this entire event, is the unblemished substitutionary lamb.
This is the Lord’s Passover.
This declaration reinforces the truth that the passover is about revealing God to us.
The observance of Passover is the oldest of all the Jewish festivals,
As we saw earlier, it is celebrated at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month,
And it lasts the seven days after.
Later in the history of Israel,
The celebrants would dress themselves in their travel clothes to celebrate the hasty exit from Egypt.
Vs. 26-27 shows children asking what the passover ceremony means,
And the father answering that it is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover.
The celebration of Passover includes a tradition where the youngest child would ask this question,
And the father would then recite this story from Exodus to his children,
Explaining how God passed over the houses of the Israelites while striking the firstborns in the land of Egypt.
The significance of the firstborn is not as prominent in our culture today.
In Ancient Egypt, all a family’s hope was invested in their firstborn.
It was the firstborn who would inherit and continue everything from his parents.
There was no natural disaster or freak accident that could strike all the firstborns in this way.
This was clearly the work of the One True God.
Absolutely, God intended the Passover lamb to preview Christ.
We need to be delivered from our slavery to sin,
Which results in God’s judgment.
That comes only through the blood of Christ, our Passover Lamb.
The Lamb of God is the substitute for sinners.
The Passover teaches that God saved His people by a substitute.
Vs. 12 ends showing that God is executing His judgment on all the gods of Egypt.
The Egyptian religion was a somewhat confusing mixture of pantheism and animal worship.
Their gods were adored in the form of animals,
Many believing animals were an incarnation of the gods.
God revealed how impotent the false Egyptian gods were.
They could protect neither the land of Egypt, nor the people.
If the animals were incarnations of the gods,
The death of the firstborn animals further proved the greatness of the One True God,
Who vividly displayed the inability of these false gods,
Whom the Egyptians placed their hope it.
Their false gods could not protect them.
As God strikes the firstborn and judges the Egyptian gods,
Vs. 13 shows that any house where he sees blood,
He literally passes over,
And no plague strikes those households.
The blood symbolized salvation for the nation of Israel.
Or more specifically, the Israelites who obeyed God by spreading the blood outside their house.
Mark Dever explains well;
“God does not say the Israelites were exempt from judgment just because they were Israelites, or because they lived better lives than the Egyptians...If they would be saved...it would be because when God saw the blood on the doorframes, the blood of the sacrificial substitute, he would in grace pass over that house as he judged…the blood of the lamb symbolically covered those within whose own blood rightfully should have been shed in penalty for their sins.”
Do you see what is happening here?
The Bible is teaching us that the Israelites were equally deserving of God’s wrath as the Egyptians.
But the lamb became the substitute for them,
And the blood was their salvation.
The lamb bears the punishment for their sins,
And it is those marked by the lamb’s blood who are delivered from the penalty they deserve.
By the passover lamb,
God was laying down the basic framework by which we understand the death of Jesus, the Lamb of God!
In vs. 14-20, God outlined the way Israel is to remember that God delivered them by the blood of a substitute.
He told them to eat unleavened bread for seven days,
This would serve as a reminder of their need to hastily depart Egypt.
There was no time to wait for a leavening agent to make the bread rise.
But leaven, or what might more commonly refer to it as, yeast,
Is also a symbol of corruption or impurity or sin.
You see, like sin, yeast is hidden in the dough.
It looks the same as dough without yeast.
But within that dough,
Yeast will work silently and secretly,
It is invasive, spreading to, and polluting the entire batch.
And, it causes the dough to become puffed up.
Sin works in us the same way.
It works silently and secretly in the dark corners of our hearts,
But it is pervasive, spreading to, and polluting our entire being.
And, the result is that we become puffed up.
This symbol was not just an OT imagery.
Both Jesus and the Apostle Paul warned that false teaching, hypocrisy, and sinful living
So, not only were they instructed to leave leaven out of the bread,
But they were instructed to not even have it in their houses.
Anyone who eats leaven was showing disdain for what God did for Israel.
Therefore, anyone who eats leaven will be cut off from Israel.
At first glance this seems like a harsh punishment for an insignificant act.
But the purpose was to prevent a slow fade.
You forget to do this act of remembrance,
Then you slowly forget what God has done,
Then you slowly stop worshipping God,
Then you are blaspheming God because you are denying Him.
That is why the punishment is so severe.
God is providing a way to ensure we remember how He has delivered us from our slavery to sin.
God continues in vs. 16 that there shall be holy assemblies on the first and seventh day of the feast,
With no work being done except for whatever is needed to eat.
God titles this feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
Again telling His people to observe the Feast on the day He brought His people out of Egypt.
So, Moses gathers the elders of Israel together in vs. 21-22,
He tells them about the passover, about the substitute, about the merciful deliverance of God, and the need to remember.
This was then passed on generation after generation.
The NT establishes a direct redemptive connection between the Passover,
And the sacrificial death of Jesus.
Jesus is the supreme Passover Lamb!
The Apostle Paul, in 1 Cor. 5:7, explicitly calls Christ our Passover Lamb.
We know that this celebration of remembrance continued through the generations,
Because Jesus participated in this with His disciples.
By doing so, He instituted another rite called the Lord’s Table.
This was one of two rites, or more specifically, sacraments that Jesus instituted.
The other is baptism.
Baptism is the initial sacrament.
But the Lord’s Table is an ongoing sacrament that we do to remember Christ.
This is also taught in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.
Jesus has given us these sacraments to remind us that He has delivered us from our sins,
And delivered us from the penalty we deserve.
Other parts of the worlds may refer to these sacraments as mysteries or ordinances.
There really is no technical term given for them in the Bible,
So any term is appropriate.
But, we use the term sacrament from the Latin word for sacred.
And the formal definition for sacrament is;
“A ritual action instituted by Christ in which signs perceived by the senses present to us the grace of God in Christ and the blessings of His covenant.”
In other words,
The sacraments both communicate and confirm these gracious blessings from Christ to believers.
When we participate in these sacraments as believers,
We are both receiving the grace of God while declaring our faith in Him.
The Westminster Confession says;
“[The sacraments] put a visible difference between those that belong unto the Church and the rest of the world…[they] engage [Christians] to the service of God in Christ, according to His Word.”
Sadly, when looking back over church history,
Other rites have been exalted by certain denominations as equal sacraments,
Things like confirmation, penance, marriage, ordination, and extreme unction
Were lifted up as if they were seals of one’s covenant relationship with God.
We can flat-out deny these rites as sacraments because they were not instituted by Christ,
And they do not include any God ordained sign or ceremony being made visible.
You see, baptism and the Lord’s Table are channels of God’s grace.
He uses them to strength our faith,
To increase our confidence in His promises,
To draw us out to do other acts of faith,
Starting with the act of receiving what is signified by these good gifts.
The effectiveness of these sacraments is not based upon our virtue,
But it is based upon the faithfulness of God.
He is the One Who has given these signs,
And He is pleased to have us observe them.
I love how R.C. Sproul summarizes them;
“As the preaching of the Word makes the gospel audible, so the sacraments make it visible.”
Baptism and the Lord’s Table strengthens our faith by correlating our beliefs with our senses.
The Heidelberg Catechism gives a wonderful answer to the sacraments in their answer to question 75;
“Christ has commanded me…to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in memory of Him, and therewith has given assurance: first, that His body was…broken on the cross for me, and His blood shed for me, as sure as I see with my eyes the bread…broken for me and the cup communicated to me; and, further, that with His crucified body and shed blood He Himself feeds and nourished my soul to eternal life, as sure as I take and taste the bread and cup…which are given me as sure tokens of the body and blood of Christ.”
This is what God instructed His people in Ex. 12:24.
Today, we obey these commands to remember Christ as one way of passing down the gospel generation after generation.
In order for these sacraments to make sense,
The gospel must be explained.
So, obey.
Continue to show how the Lamb of God was slain for the sins of all who would trust in Him.
Vs. 27-28 end by showing that the people obeyed.
They sacrificed the lamb, they had the meal, they marked their doors,
And they waited ready for the Lord’s deliverance.
They were confident in God’s promise,
That their substitutionary sacrifice would result in God passing over them.
They demonstrated that their faith was in the Lord.
If, I could speak to anyone here or online who is not a Christian,
God is likewise calling you to trust Him,
To believe that Jesus sacrificed Himself to pay your penalty for sin,
To bear your burden of suffering,
To save you from your slavery to sin.
That is the message Passover has for us.
The Bible teaches that God made us in His image,
Yet we all deserve to be judged because we rebel against Him.
But God loves you so much that He poured the punishment on Christ in your place.
And Jesus, Who equally loves you,
Willingly laid down His life for you.
All you must do, is trust in Him,
The Bible calls this repenting,
Meaning you confess that you have sinned,
That you have rebelled against God,
And that Jesus Christ, the Passover Lamb,
Is the substitutionary sacrifice for all who believe in Him.
John Stott says it well;
“The concept of substitution lies at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.”
Yes, Jesus lived an exemplary life that we strive to imitate.
But we are lost and hopeless if we were to only try and imitate His life.
We need Him as our substitute.
Jesus did not simply come to tell us how to live.
He came to give us life.
Praise Christ that He substituted Himself to atone for our sins.
Perhaps you are here or joining online,
And you are thinking you don’t need a substitute.
Questioning if this is even fair.
Maybe you believe you have everything you need from your own internal moral compass.
Or you have been religious enough to get what you need.
Dear friend, the good news of the gospel does not give us what we think we need,
Or even what we want.
Christianity is more than a framework for morality,
More than order for a chaotic world,
More than a spiritual pick-me-up.
It is so much better than that.
God does not give you what you want or what you think you need.
God meets you in a much deeper and greater way than you have ever known.
The gospel is centered on God, not man.
That is what Exodus 12 introduces us to.
God delivers us,
Not because of what we have done,
Or because of any inherent goodness in us,
He delivers us only because of Christ being the substitutionary atonement for us.
GOD: Why do You Need A Substitute? (Ex. 12:29-42)
GOD: Why do You Need A Substitute? (Ex. 12:29-42)
And why do you need a substitute?
Because when you have no substitute you are not passed over.
This is what Exodus 12:29-42 teaches.
At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.” So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves. The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It was a night of watching by the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations.
(vs. 29-32) Do you see what happened?
These verses include the legend of what happened the night of the Lord’s Passover,
Followed up with a brief anecdote.
The Egyptians were judged while God’s people were delivered.
This was not a division based on the goodness of Israel,
Nor were they delivered because of their ethnicity.
The Lord passed over them because their was a sacrificed substitute in their placed.
After the passover feast,
God revealed His power.
In the middle of the night,
Pharaoh woke up and all of Egypt was wailing loudly.
God’s judgment is thorough and all-encompassing.
The firstborn from Pharaoh’s own household to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon were all dead.
Every Egyptian home was visited by death,
Not one of their homes were spared.
Warren Wiersbe helps us to understand;
“The lesson here is obvious: unless you’re protected by the blood of Christ, when death comes, you’ll be completely unprepared.”
And here is why this is so important;
“You don’t know when death is coming.”
Pharaoh knew this was no natural disaster.
He was grieved because he knew this was God’s judgment.
The moment he awoke to the wails of his people,
He summons Moses and Aaron,
And you can feel the emotion of his words as he commands them to get up and get out!
You and all of Israel, go!
Go worship the Lord, just as you have asked!
Take your flocks, your herds, all your animals and just get out of here!
He acknowledges that he has been defeated by the God of the universe.
He grants them an unconditional release.
And he feels a sense of urgency to get them out of Egypt.
In fact, he concludes this command by asking them to bless him.
Now he could simply be asking them to bless him by leaving Egypt.
Or He could be asking a specific blessing to counteract the horrific curse that Egypt has experienced.
Either understanding reveals Pharaoh has been humbled in this moment.
Now here is the time where we are confronted with uncomfortable truths.
The judgment of Egypt is a preview of the judgment that awaits us all.
Because God is perfect,
He judges rebellion.
His judgment reinforces Him as the Holy Lord,
And it leaves us in need of saving.
Do you recognize that?
How it is His perfect nature that requires Him to judge our imperfect nature?
I pray God would make this clear to you if it is not.
You see, being convicted of our sins,
Though unpleasant,
Is the greatest thing God could show us,
Because it becomes the starting point for a new, reconciled relationship with Him.
It is crazy to think,
At the time of this Exodus, Egypt was pretty much the most powerful empire,
Yet that was not enough to protect them from God’s judgment.
Jonathan Edwards once preached that;
“death serves all alike; as he deals with the poor, so he deals with the rich: is not awed at the appearance of a proud palace, a numerous attendance, or a majestic countenance…Death is as rude with emperors as with beggars, and handles one with as much gentleness as the other.”
You need a substitute because when you do,
Instead of being judged, you are passed over.
(vs. 33-42) Like Pharaoh, all the Egyptians pressured the Israelites to get out quickly!
They all feared they were going to die as long as the Israelites remained in Egypt.
Vs. 35-36 follow by showing the people of God had been given favor,
Just as Exodus 11:3 suggested they would.
So, vs. 37 shows after they were passed over because of their substitute,
They were blessed with a quick exit!
We see the historical account of the exodus,
It is where the book of Exodus gets its title.
They marched boldly out of Egypt,
From Rameses to Succoth.
Rameses is the modern village of Qantir.
Succoth has not been as easily located,
It is believed to have been in the eastern Delta,
So, that could be modern day Wadi el Tumilat.
It would be about an 8 hour walk nonstop.
Exodus 13:17 explains how God had His people take this route instead of the coastal route,
Because the Philistines guarded the direct route.
What this means is God’s people had to travel about 8 hours out of the way,
Just so they could eventually travel to their actual destination.
It would be like wanting to travel to Albany,
But having to go down to Scranton first,
Because enemies between here and Albany won’t allow you to pass through directly.
But now imagine you are doing that entire trip on foot,
Through the desert,
With six hundred thousand other men and their families.
Exodus 1:7 says;
But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
The number of Israelites making the trip here in Exodus 12 show that after four centuries in Egypt,
The people of Israel were in fact fruitful!
Some commentators have tried to estimate this number could have been upward into two million people.
But vs. 38 shows it was not just Israelites.
There we a mixed crowd with them.
Perhaps this refers to other persecuted minorities or slaves in Egypt who saw this as an opportunity to escape Egypt.
It could possibly be Egyptians who had inter-married with Hebrews,
Or even Egyptians that feared Yahweh.
God includes provisions for non-Israelites travelling with the Israelites later in vs. 48.
Warren Wiersbe offers a helpful suggestion regarding the mixed multitude;
“This ‘mixed multitude’ represents those in this world who outwardly identify with God’s people but inwardly are not truly the children of God. They might be church members and even religious leaders, but their attitudes and appetites are radically different from those who truly belong to the Lord.”
Jesus reinforces this idea in Matt. 7:21 when He said;
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
When God makes a promise,
It is guaranteed to happen in His perfect timing.
We see this in vs. 40 where it states that the Israelites lived as slaves in Egypt for 430 years.
God promised this back in Gen. 15:13-14;
Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
The first Christian martyr, Stephen, taught about this in Acts 7:6.
The liberation of Israel from Egypt was a result of the Lord’s Passover.
So, what was the point of it all?
It is a great display of the Lord’s character.
Throughout the rest of the Bible,
Until we get to the cross,
This is God’s greatest act of salvation for His people, the exodus!
Mark Dever pleads well with us;
“Oh, my friend, pray that you understand something of the greatness of being delivered from the service of sin and from God’s just charges against you…Brothers and sisters, let us no longer live as those who have not been delivered. Let us marvel at our salvation and thank God for it.”
When we celebrate God delivering us from our sin,
It would be ridiculous for us to pat ourselves on the back,
Lifting up our religious works.
No, we delight in the unbelievable grace that God would save us.
We rejoice and celebrate and praise God for what He has done!
YOU: How Do You Remember the Passover? (Ex. 12:43-51)
YOU: How Do You Remember the Passover? (Ex. 12:43-51)
How do we remember the passover?
Exodus 12:43-51 sheds light on this question;
And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the statute of the Passover: no foreigner shall eat of it, but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. No foreigner or hired worker may eat of it. It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.” All the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. And on that very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.
God concludes this chapter with further instruction.
These verses give an added explanation of Passover regulations.
How we are to remember that we are passed over only by a substitute.
The focus is on the restriction of the meal to God’s covenantal community.
Meaning, the covenantal people of God were expected to celebrate.
Anyone with this covenantal community,
Whether by birth or affiliation, were included in the expectation.
God is greatly concerned about this,
This is why He communicates it in exaggerated ways.
For example, He says the meal shall be eaten in one house,
It cannot even be taken out of the house because that is where non-covenant members are.
But more importantly, at the end of that same verse,
God says that no bones of the passover lamb are to be broken.
As we saw earlier, the whole lamb was to be presented on the table for the meal as a reminder of the substitute that had to give its life.
But this becomes extremely important because of our Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ.
He did not have any of His bones broken,
Which was very uncommon during Roman crucifixions.
John includes this important detail in John 19:36;
For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.”
This reveals how the restriction against breaking bones foreshadows Jesus as the supreme Passover Lamb.
God provides the way to be included among His covenantal people.
In Exodus, the meal included all who trusted in God and His promises.
The meal is not about physical hunger.
It is a meal that joins together a community of people who repent and believe in the substitute that has been sacrificed in our place.
This community is meant to display God’s character to all people.
So, what do you do to remember God has delivered you?
Do you actively remember His deliverance?
Do you ever spend time reading His Word and recognizing His goodness to you?
Do you seek out His mercy in your life?
Do you observe His mercy in the lives of others?
Do you reflect on your life and capture His amazing grace to you?
Do you share those experiences with others?
Or, sadly, do you tend to forget?
To neglect the gifts God has given you?
Spurgeon gave a great exhortation we would be wise to to embrace;
“Do not pass away from this earth with all those pleasant memories of God’s lovingkindness to be buried with you in your coffin; but let your children, and your children’s children, know what the everlasting God did for you.”
Here at FBC, we must be faithful to remember God’s greatness in our lives.
We must be faithful to tell others about His goodness.
We must be known for that.
We must be an exclusive place in the sense that we are community of those who know God’s love through Christ.
But we must also be inclusive to beckon as many as we can to this blessed community.
We cannot be a community defined by anything but repentance, faith, and gratitude.
WE: The Substitute is Alive!
WE: The Substitute is Alive!
And why are we grateful?
Today especially, we are grateful because we are remembering our substitute,
Our Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ.
In Luke 22:7-8, we see the Jesus telling Peter and John to prepare the Passover meal;
In the verses that follow, Jesus institutes the Lord’s Table,
Which we talked about earlier.
By the end of ch. 22, Jesus is betrayed and arrested.
Then, ch. 23 details the death of Jesus on the cross and His burial.
Why was Jesus executed?
In his book, The Changing Faces of Jesus, Professor Geza Vermes answers;
“Had he not been responsible for the fracas in the Temple of Jerusalem at Passover time when Jewish tradition expected the Messiah to reveal himself, very likely Jesus would have escaped with his life. Doing the wrong thing in the wrong place and in the wrong season resulted in the tragic death of Jesus on the Roman cross.”
I laugh at the irony of this explanation.
Jesus came and presented Himself as the substitute to lay His life down as a ransom,
A payment, an atonement.
And He did this at the time of the Passover.
So, was this the wrong thing at the coincidental wrong time?
Not likely.
This declaration of Christ is deliberate.
He is the substitutionary atonement.
He is our passover lamb!
But why are we grateful?
Because He is the risen passover lamb!
After His burial at the end of Luke 23,
I am going to close this morning reading Luke 24:1-12;
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.
Amen, let us pray.