[Only One God] Exodus 11:1-12:30 | "The LORD's Passover"

[Exodus] Only One God • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago • Presented 3 years ago

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Sunday, April 17, 2022. Exodus 11:1-12:30 | "The LORD's Passover" Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! This Easter message leads us to Christ through Israel's preparation for the first Passover. We remember that Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed - and RAISED! So let's get ready - it's time to go! This message preaches from Exodus 11:1-12:30. The title of this sermon: "The LORD's Passover," preached on Easter Sunday 2022.

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This sermon is prepared to preach on Easter Sunday, 2022.

Prayer

Our Father in Heaven, will you give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to receive, believe and obey Your Word? We ask this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

I. The Reading

A reading from Exodus 12:21-27, reading from the English Standard Version translation of the Bible.

This is God’s Word:

Exodus 12:21 ESV

21 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.

Exodus 12:22 ESV

22 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.

Exodus 12:23 ESV

23 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.

Exodus 12:24 ESV

24 You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever.

Exodus 12:25 ESV

25 And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.

Exodus 12:26 ESV

26 And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’

Exodus 12:27 ESV

27 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.

Say Amen!

If you receive this word by faith as the word of God, not the word of men, would you say Amen? — Amen.

II. The Exhortation

I have read in our hearing verses 21-27. This is Moses’ speech to the elders of Israel concerning something that is about to take place called “the LORD’s Passover.”

“The LORD’s Passover” (12:11; 27)

Moses’ speech is preserved for us as a summary of instructions the LORD had given to him beforehand in greater detail for all the congregation of Israel.

Verses 1-20 preserve that detail. Verses 21-27 preserve the summary.

This chapter prepares the people for “The LORD’s Passover.”

“The Lord’s Passover” is connected with this last strike of the ten plagues that have been brought against Pharaoh and Egypt, as the LORD dhows that He alone is God — the only God — while Pharoah and all the deities of Egypt are not.

God makes His name known and shows forth His power as He works to save His people.

We’ve been warned through these plagues, that if we reject God’s prior witnesses, word, and worship in favor of knowing God only by His works, then we risk knowing God only as Pharoah did — as judge.

God will be known through His works, but through His works of judgment against us.

But for a people of faith, who receive God’s witnesses, God’s word and God’s worship, we also experience God’s working unto salvation, to save His people, as He saved His covenant people Israel out of harsh slavery and oppression from Pharoah and Egypt, just as He promised He would.

There have been nine plagues already, but this tenth plague will be the last. Exodus 11:1 —

Exodus 11:1 ESV

1 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.

“Yet one plague more” (11:1)

I think about how we say “one more time” but we don’t mean it.

I remember many band rehearsals when the director would have us rehearse a section of music: Do it again…Do it again…Do it again…One more time.

But it was never one more time.

“One more time” meant “three more times”...five more times…ten more times...” but it never meant just one more time.

So, we learned to write that phrase off as meaningless.

Parents say to their children “one more hour” but it becomes many more hours. “One more show” becomes two, or “one more dollar” becomes ten, or “one more day” becomes “one more year.”

We say this to ourselves — one more look. One more purchase. One more snooze of the alarm.

The point is, we develop this mindset of “more.”

There’s always more — There’s always another day. There’s always another opportunity. There’s always a second chance.

We don’t prepare. We procrastinate.

But God is not like us: God means what He says and God does what He says.

God says “yet one plague more” and God means it.

There will be a tenth, but there will not be an eleventh.

There will be one more, and then no more.

And we need to understand, that for every one of us the time will come when our limited selves will encounter the limitless God, and God will allow us to experience only “one more.”

One more breathe, one more heartbeat, one more opportunity to hear the Gospel and respond and then it’s done.

One more opportunity to repent, one more warning, one more chance to love, to forgive, to reconcile, to obey — and then done.

Whether we are ready or not.

God may not let us know ahead of time, as he did with Israel, when that “one more” will be.

So we are compelled to live with faith that prepares. We are to be a people who are always ready.

I bring this out in the text to highlight the need for God’s people to prepare — and to prepare by faith according to the Word of the Lord.

Are you prepared to meet the Lord?

Are you eagerly waiting for him to appear a second time — not to deal with sin, but to save? (Heb 9:28).

Are you ready for that glorious day?

Let’s prepare and be ready as we consider the LORD’s Passover.

III. The Teaching

The people of Israel have remained in the background throughout the nine plagues. We don’t read much about them at all.

But that changes here with this tenth and final plague. The LORD said to Moses —

Exodus 12:3 ESV

3 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.

“Tell all the congregation” (12:3)

All the congregation of Israel is to actively participate in preparing for the LORD’s Passover by obeying the LORD’s Word. This will be a test of the people’s faith.

Genuine faith obeys God’s Word.

Faith says —

“I believe God is who He says He is, so I will obey what He says to do.”

Failing to obey even one instruction of the LORD in this preparation, completely and exactly, would result in Israel suffering the same fate as the Egyptians.

So Israel was to pay attention, carefully to God’s Word.

The first Word of instruction for the LORD’s Passover was about —

SELECTION | 12:21 (1-6)

The selection of a lamb.

Look with me again at Exodus 12:21 —

Exodus 12:21 ESV

21 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.

Notice who this instruction is for —

It is not for Pharoah or the Egyptians.

Pharoah was to let Israel go to worship the LORD. That was Pharaoh’s instruction for obedience.

Pharoah needed first to repent, to turn and go the opposite direction from where he was heading with Israel, making himself god, and let them go to worship the LORD, the only true God.

But Pharoah refused. Pharoah rebelled. Pharaoh did not receive instructions for the LORD’s Passover.

Understand this —

As long as a person is running away from God, living for themselves, living for today, living by what they can see in the flesh and touch and understand in the natural realm — such a person cannot receive the Gospel message of salvation. It is not for them because it is not for those who live by the flesh.

The Gospel message of salvation is for all who first repent, who turn from self and turn to God for salvation by faith and live by faith in God’s Word.

It is to Israel that God gave His command for selection —

“Go and select lambs for yourselves” (12:21)

And why “select lambs for yourselves”?

God told them to “select lambs for yourselves” because the lamb would serve a purpose.

Here’s the word —

Substitution

The lamb would be substituted in the place of another — The life of the lamb in exchange for the life of Israel’s firstborn.

The lamb would die and the firstborn would live.

Substitution.

For this purpose, not just any lamb could be selected.

Exodus 12:5 ESV

5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,

This wasn’t a “throw-away” lamb. This wasn’t the smallest and weakest of the bunch.

This was the choicest. The select-lamb. The premium lamb. Meeting the highest standards. No defects.

This lamb was perfect. And this lamb would slaughtered — killed — so that Israel’s firstborn would live.

In selecting such a lamb, the people of Israel would be selecting a substitute provision — the life of an animal for the life of a human.

And with this instruction given to His people, God was making a distinction not just between the life of an animal and human, but also between Egypt and Israel (see 11:7).

God selected Israel of all the peoples in the world to be His holy people, His witnesses in all the earth — not because they were numerous or strong or wonderful, but because God had made a promise to their fathers — a covenant — and God is faithful to His Word.

Nevertheless, this instruction was given to Israel - and the selection of a lamb was to cover every household representing every person in that house. Why?

Because everyone needed a substitute — even God’s covenant people.

The LORD made provision for SELECTION, because the people needed —

PROTECTION | 12:22-23 (7-13)

Look with me at Exodus 12:22-23 —

Exodus 12:22 ESV

Exodus 12:23 ESV

God’s people needed protection! Who did they need protection from? -

God’s people needed protection from the LORD!

We’ve said it this way before — Everyone will meet the Lord, either as Savior or as Judge. How will you meet Him?

Don’t focus on God’s love and gentleness and patience and forget His righteousness, and holiness, and judgment.

Don’t focus on Heaven and forget there is a Hell — a lake of fire where the unrighteous will experience eternal anguish and torment and gnashing of teeth.

Too many people fashion their own, incomplete idol of God — and the believe in a version of God that doesn’t exist.

If your God would never pass through Egypt and strike dead every firstborn in Egypt — from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle (11:4-5) — then you have created an idol of God. A false God that contradicts God’s own revelation of himself.

God HIMSELF will do this! God HIMSELF will bring this plague upon Egypt.

And you say “Well that’s mean. That’s not right. That’s not just!”

What’s not right, what’s not just, friends, is that any one of us are allowed to take another breath and live another day.

We all have sinned against God and deserve immediate judgment for our sin.

Romans 3:23 ESV

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 6:23 ESV

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The question of this chapter is not “Why did the firstborn of Egypt die” but rather — “Why did God allow Israel to live...?”

We all need protection from sin.

And this is why the lamb is killed. Because of its blood.

Hebrews 9:22 ESV

22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Leviticus 17:11 explains why —

Leviticus 17:11 ESV

11 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.

The blood protects because the blood substitutes — a life for a life.

Because God is holy, because God is just, sin will be destroyed. Sin will lead to death.

The question is — will it lead to your death? Or will someone else take your place? Who will die for your sin?

The Lamb represented Substitution.

The Blood represents —

Sacrifice

The lamb would be sacrificed.

Not just for a meal, but for the blood.

The lamb’s blood in the basin would be spread upon the door posts and lintel of the house of all who had faith in the LORD’s Word.

And notice what the text says and doesn’t say in verse 23.

Exodus 12:23 ESV

It doesn’t say that when the LORD sees the name on the door of the house, or the good deeds of those in the house, or the children in the house —

it doesn’t even say that when the LORD sees it is a house of Israel that he will pass over.

What does it say?

When the LORD sees only one thing — the blood.

When the LORD sees the blood — the LORD will pass over the door.

There is only one provision for protection — it is the blood on the door.

And so it is that everyone needs to be forgiven of sin by blood.

Nothing else will forgive you and atone for your soul and make you right with God — than the blood.

As the Church, we believe in baptism, and church membership, and ministry and missions - and these are things we do out of obedience and love and worship of God. But even these things are powerless to save us from sin.

We all need the blood.

A name won’t save you. Service won’t save you. Your church won’t save you.

You need the blood.

Your money won’t save you. Your possessions won’t save you.

You need the blood.

Attending church this Easter won’t save you. Volunteering your time won’t save you. Saving animals won’t save you.

You need the blood.

Christians and non-Christians. Believers and unbelievers. We all need the blood!

EVEN ISRAEL — if they did not have the blood on the door, would suffer the death of their firstborn just like the Egyptians.

But —

God provided through His SELECTION of a lamb as a substitution for His people’s PROTECTION, which was a sacrifice of blood.

So that the blood may be applied by faith over the door of the household that had faith, in the LORD’s promised salvation.

SELECTION - PROTECTION - Another word for the LORD’s Passover is —

DIRECTION | 12:24-27 (14-20)

Look with me at Exodus 12:24-27 —

Exodus 12:24 ESV

24 You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever.

Exodus 12:25 ESV

25 And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.

Exodus 12:26 ESV

26 And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’

Exodus 12:27 ESV

In these verses, God reveals that his salvation has a purpose.

God saves his people for a purpose. And that purpose is wrapped up in this word.

Not substitution. Not sacrifice. But —

Service

The LORD’s Passover was a service of worship meant to lead the people in service to God!

We are saved to serve.

And just as the people depended on God to give them direction for how to be saved, the people would depend upon God for direction for where to go and how to worship Him.

Notice the uncertainties implied in this text.

Exodus 12:25 ESV

25 And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.

A time is not given. A description of the land is not given. The way to get there is not given. The people will need direction.

Look at verse 26 —

Exodus 12:26 ESV

26 And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’

The children, the future generations will observe this service of worship as the people keep the LORD’s Passover and they will have questions. They will ask what these things mean.

The children will need direction through instruction.

Already Moses in conversing with Pharoah said:

Exodus 10:26 ESV

26 Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.”

Israel needed direction on how to worship God and serve Him.

And as God provided a lamb for the substitution and the blood for the sacrifice, God also provides a Feast for service.

The LORD’s Passover would be a feast.

Exodus 12:14 ESV

14 “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.

The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

This was to be celebrated by those who were saved.

God’s protection was for the sinner, God’s direction is for the saved.

We are saved for service. A holy service. After God saves us, we are to pass on the faith for the future.

This feast was to be repeated forever, representing holy living and worship and service for ALL generations in remembrance of God’s salvation. And it was only for faithful members of the covenant.

Exodus 12:25 ESV

25 And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.

SELECTION, a substitution, a lamb. PROTECTION - a sacrifice, the blood. DIRECTION - for service, a feast.

And there is —

NO EXCEPTION | 12:28; 29-32

No one is excepted. Everyone is affected in some way by the LORD’s Passover. No one remain neutral.

Concerning Israel’s Obedience

There was no exception. Everyone obeyed.

Exodus 12:28 ESV

28 Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

“the people of Israel…did so”

This is even repeated to say “as the LORD had commanded…so they did.”

There was no exception to Israel’s obedience.

But also — there was no exception:

Concerning Egypt’s Consequence

The text goes on to tell us what happens:

Exodus 12:29 ESV

29 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.

Exodus 12:30 ESV

30 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.

“there was not a house where someone was not dead.”

Everyone, without exception, experienced death or life from this last plague.

And this brings us to —

The [Christ] Conclusion

For there is no exception with Jesus.

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

We either receive Jesus by faith and are saved unto eternal life, or we reject Jesus and remain in our flesh, damned to eternal Hell.

Jesus is OUR PASSOVER LAMB!

1 Corinthians 5:7 ESV

7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

1 Peter 1:18 ESV

18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,

1 Peter 1:19 ESV

19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Jesus was God’s selection, for the the sinner’s protection by His blood.

Jesus, the lamb of God, was sacrificed. He was killed on the cross where he bled and died.

Hebrews 9:12 ESV

12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

Hebrews 9:13 ESV

13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh,

Hebrews 9:14 ESV

14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Pay careful attention, everyone, to what may be your “one more” — your last opportunity to respond to God’s gift of gospel grace. To prepare for the Lord’s soon-coming again!

Later in the Bible, the apostle John is given a glimpse of heavenly glory.

John looks and sees in the hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll that is sealed.

A call is made in a loud voice for anyone who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals!

And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll and look into it.

And John begins to weep loudly until one of the elders says to him — “Weep no more — behold (that means, LOOK!) — the lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David has conquered so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.

And when John looks, this is what he sees —

Revelation 5:6 ESV

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

“a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain”

This Lamb had been slain. This Lamb is Jesus.

This Passover Lamb was slaughtered on the cross but now, he’s standing.

What does this mean?

It means this —

In Jesus, we behold:

God’s Selection

The Sinner’s Protection

The Saint’s Direction

There is No Exception!

Because God performed one final work. The sign of all signs. The wonder of all wonders. The miracle of all miracles.

What was it?

(say it with me) —

RESURRECTION!!! (Rev 5:6)

Pharoah rose up in the night to learn that all of his household was dead (Ex 12:30).

But as the women made their way to the tomb on that first resurrection morning, they learned something different had happened with Jesus. He was not there. He was not dead. Jesus had risen. Jesus is alive!

And what the Passover lamb could do for one night and one offering, Jesus has done for once for ALL.

So that all who —

Romans 10:9 ESV

9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

And all who are saved, are saved to serve as witnesses to the resurrected Lord until He comes to complete our salvation in Him.

Are you prepared? It’s time to go. It’s time for faith in God’s Word. Amen.

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