Passover - Background and Intro
Passover
· Understanding the Passover means we have to go back all the way to Abraham.
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· God called Abraham to leave the great city of Ur and head to a land that he had never seen before.
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· Ur was a huge metropolis in its time. Covering over 4 square miles with around a half million residents.
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· It was a secure city with great walls and incredible architecture especially on the temples that had been erected to various gods.
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· For Abraham to leave this safe haven and head out into a land and become a nomad in the desert showed his great faith in God.
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· He knew that God had promised him a land and that God would not break His promise.
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· In fact we are told that it was merely because of Abraham’s faith in God that God declared Abraham righteous.
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· It was not because Abraham had proved himself. It was not because of anything that Abraham had done or not done. It was simply because Abraham believed God.
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· Salvation is no different today than it was back then. God has always operated on faith. Today as well, if you will just believe in His Son you will be counted as righteous just like Abraham!
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· Abraham left that city and God blessed him. His family increased as well as his livestock which was how they measured wealth in those days.
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· Abraham then has a child in his old age named Isaac as a direct fulfillment of God’s promises and then Jacob comes along, also called Israel.
· A great famine came across the land and Jacob was forced to send his sons to go to Egypt to basically beg for food.
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· It was through God’s providence that Joseph, one of Jacob’s sons, had been made the highest ruler in Egypt second only to pharoah.
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· Joseph, hated by his brothers because of his special relationship with his father, was sold as a slave and ended up serving pharaoh himself.
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· In one of the greatest stories of forgiveness that has ever been told Joseph is reunited with his brothers as they come to Egypt and beg for food.
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· With his brothers scared about what he is going to do to them he makes one of the greatest statements in all the Bible – “what you meant for evil – God meant for good”
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· My friends – do you know that even when someone wrongs you there is an opportunity for God to be glorified if nothing more than through your forgiveness to that person?
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· And because we have been forgiven – we have been called to forgive.
· Jacob and his family packed up all their belongings and moved to Alexandria Egypt.
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· There were held in high regard by the Egyptian people and because of Joseph’s position the Israelites were respected.
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· The Hebrews began to flourish and prosper in the land of Egypt. They began to multiply so rapidly that one pharaoh grew concerned that there were more Hebrews than Egyptians.
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· All throughout time no other nation on the planet has survived like the Israelites.
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· More nations have tried to destroy the Jews and they are hated more than any other people group. Like a jealous brother or sister who hates their sibling because their dad pays more attention to them.
· God has kept His promise to that group of people and loved them even in the midst of their rebellion and turning their backs on Him – just like He does for us.
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· Israel has never fully inhabited the land like God had promised to Abraham so that has to be something to happen in the future.
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· People would have scoffed at this possibility because just only 60 years ago the Jews were spread all across the planet. It was not until 1948 that they were declared a nation by the U.N. and Jews began to flock back to their homeland. The land that was promised to their father Abraham.
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· I do not believe that the church has replaced Israel as the recipients of God’s promise but every promise made to them will be fully fulfilled.
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· (Talk about the group ready to rebuild the temple – being able to trace their lineage – and red heifers etc.)
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· (Back to Egypt)
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· The Isrealites did what is so easy to do when things were going well for them - - they forgot about God and the covenant that He had made with them.
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· They were not supposed to be comfortable in the land of Egypt as God had promised them the land of Canaan.
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· They were also to set themselves apart from the rest of all people by being circumcised.
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· God in the very beginning knew that they were going to dwell among people that did not honor Him and to distinguish themselves as servants of Yahweh every male was to be circumcised.
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· The Hebrews had forgotten about this and many of them had neglected to be circumcised.
· It is so easy as we live in a world that does not love God to get easily entrapped in its system that leaves God out.
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· It is so easy to forget that God has called us out and that even though we live in the world we are not to be of the world.
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· That is what happened to the Hebrews and soon their luck was going to run out as the pharaoh who knew about Joseph was gone and a new pharaoh was in power and he did not think kindly of the Hebrews in his land.
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· After living in the land for about 400 years he began to persecute the Hebrews and force them to do slave labor.
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· In an effort to try to destroy the race of Hebrews pharaoh ordered that all their male children be killed.
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· It was at this time that the Hebrew people- the people that God had made a promise to through Abraham – began to call on their God.
· Sometimes God has to allow horrible circumstances in our lives so that we will turn to Him.
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· It is so easy while things are going so good to forget about God. For many of us it is only when we are on our faces – when all hope is gone – in absolute despair - that we call on our Father.
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· For some of you that is how you ended up right where you are right now.
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· And while it breaks God’s heart when we turn away from him - as any loving father hates to see his children suffer – God never forgot His promise to Abraham –
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· 2 Timothy 2.13 says - If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
· God could have destroyed pharaoh and all the Egyptians but instead He needed for the Israelites to get out of that land – and head to the land that they had been promised – and that leads us to the very first Passover.
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· This event was going to be so huge that the Hebrews would begin to count their time based on the event.
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· Just like we count time based on what happened on the cross with BC and AD they would begin their calendar on the month of Nisan – God wanted them to remember the great deliverance that He gave to His special people.
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· How many of you remember the day that you first came to believe in Christ? We can refer to our lives as BC and AD as well!
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· God chose Moses as the one who would lead His people out of the land of Egypt.
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· Moses – a Hebrew by birth but raised in all the royalty of the Egyptians - has been living in the wilderness for 40 years.
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· God chose Moses – who had fled Egypt because he was a murderer and who many scholars believe had a speech disorder to be His spokesperson in front of pharaoh and command pharaoh to “let God’s people go!”
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· God can use anybody and anyone to accomplish His purposes! (Like a crack head from Houston, TX!)
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· Do not think that you are too small or too insignificant for God. If he can use a murderer with a speech disorder to stand up before one of the most feared leaders of all time then he can use you to do even greater things!
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· Moses and his brother Aaron stood up before pharaoh but no matter how many times they requested pharaoh would not listen to their request.
· God inflicted a series of plagues on the Egyptians because of the hardness of pharaoh’s heart.
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· These plagues were a direct attack against all that the Egyptians worshipped and their false gods showing that He – Yahweh - is the one true God.
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· The pharaoh, we know from history, was Ramses the second - these are not fairly tales and made up stories – these are historical people.
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· God turned the river Nile into blood because the Egyptians viewed the river as their sustainer of life and had a god for the Nile named “Hapi”
· He darkened their sky as a direct “in your face” to their sun god named “Ra”
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· Even after inflicting horrible plagues on the land of Egypt including an infestation of frogs, locust and even boils on their skin pharaoh still would not honor God’s request to let His people go so the final plague brings us to our very first Passover.
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· Now before we get too critical of pharaoh for hardening his heart and not listening to God how many of us do the very same thing? I know that I hardened my heart against God for many years of my life.
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· God had called me out of my land of slavery and for many years I chose to ignore His call…. How about you… are you here today because God called you out of a land of slavery and wants you to inhabit His promised land but you kept chosing to be a slave in Egypt?
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· The good news is that that the great Passover Lamb has already been slain and we are all on a journey to the promised land and that we are no longer slaves – but free! In Christ!
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· In God’s final act to convince pharaoh to let His people go He has the Israelites take a lamb and on the 14th day of the month of Nisan he tells them to sacrifice the lamb and to place its blood on the door frames of their house.
· That night God would strike down the first born of every person and animal who did not have the blood on their door… If you had the blood on your door death would not come to your house and hence He would “pass…over”
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· A life for a life… God in His justice declares that because of pharaoh’s hardness that the firstborn of Egypt must die – but in His love he provides a way out for those who would trust in Him.
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· The same is true for us. As God is just and holy He must judge sin but because He is Love He has given us a means to escape His judgment by putting our faith in the final Passover Lamb.
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· The Hebrews were to chose a perfect lamb and for four days keep it close to make sure that it did not get any blemishes. According to Deuteronomy 15 no sacrifice can have any blemishes on it.
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· Moishe Rosen says it better than I ever could:
“God began His object lesson to Israel with the Passover lamb. First, the people had to single out from their flocks the handsomest, healthiest looking yearling. An animal of this age, just approaching the prime of its life, was frisky and winsome. Then the family had to watch it carefully for four days before the Passover to make sure it was perfect in every way. During this period of close observation, they fed and cared for the lamb and grew accustomed to having it around.
By the end of the fourth day, it must have won the affection of the entire household, especially the children. Now they all must avoid its big, innocent eyes as the head of the house prepared to plunge in the knife. While meat was a treat in ancient times, how could they enjoy eating their lamb’s flesh? The lesson was painful. God’s holiness demands that He judges sin, and the price is costly. But He also is merciful and provides a way of escape (redemption)”
· The New Testament refers to Christ as the Lamb of God over 30 times.
· 1 Peter 1:18-19 - … you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of …but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
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· I wonder what that night must have been like for the Hebrews? Sitting in their houses knowing that God was about to do something huge!
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· Was there absolute quiet in anticipation of their freedom? Or complete chaos as the Egyptians cried and lamented on the intense devastation of their loved ones and their livestock?
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· The next element in the Passover celebration are the bitter herbs. These were to remind the Israelites of the hardship they suffered because of their slavery.
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· Along with the roasted lamb they are to eat bread that is made without leaven. This was done to indicate the haste at which they had to leave Egypt and head back to Canaan. They did not have time to allow the bread to rise.
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· They were also to rid their houses of all leaven which has always been symbolic for sin.
The Passover is retold through the reading of the Haggadah. With its special foods, songs, and customs, the Seder, or meal, is the focal point of the Passover celebration.
Passover begins on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan. As the Jewish day begins at sundown the night before, for the year 2009, the first night of Passover will be April 08th.