Episode Transcript
All right, so today is a big lesson today and it's a lesson on the Passover.
A lot of you, if you're not familiar, and I'm going to close the store behind me here,
if you're not familiar with, good morning Danny,
well I'm glad that you've been watching the playbacks, Kellyn, I'm glad you're here live with us.
If you're not raised in church and you're not real familiar with the Old Testament,
there's a time of the year you look on your calendar and it has the Passover on there.
And you think, "Oh, it's just something worth the Jews, have some meal or something together and do some ritual."
But the Passover is an amazing story. It is central to our belief as Christians.
So the Passover is very, very Christian.
Don't look at the Passover and think, "Oh, it's just a Jewish tradition." It's not.
It's a Christian experience.
So let's go ahead and look now. We're going to turn to the book of Exodus, which is where we left off last week.
Remember last week the Jews were slaves in Egypt.
They were in bondage to Egypt, in bondage to Pharaoh,
and Pharaoh sought to kill all the little baby boys.
And God turned, I believe, it's Exodus 12, if I remember right.
Actually, let's go back before that. Let's go to Exodus. Let me see here.
Let's go to Exodus 7. We'll be in 12 here before long today, God willing.
But remember, God had a deliverer that He prepared to deliver or save His people from their bondage to Egypt.
Anyone tell me, besides Jonathan, what the name of that deliverer was we studied last week?
Joseph? No, not Joseph. Joseph is already dead.
Moses. That's right. It's Moses.
Remember the word "Moses" means to draw out.
Remember Moses' mother had made a little arc of bull rushes and hit them there on the river's brink.
And so she raised him up, nursed him up.
He became Pharaoh's daughter because Pharaoh's daughter found him while she was bathing in the river.
And then Moses had to leave because he smoked an Egyptian who had smitten a Jew.
And the Jews rejected Moses. They didn't want Moses in their business.
Moses was trying to save them.
Moses left, remember, and then after he gained a Gentile bride, which was a picture of Jesus in the church being a Gentile bride for Christ right now,
the Bible calls the church the bride of Christ.
After this happened, God met with Moses and told Moses to go to Pharaoh.
And God said, "I've come down to deliver them. I'm going to deliver them."
And remember I told you that as God was going to deliver the Jews from their bondage to Pharaoh and the Egyptian system,
so God, through Christ, came down to deliver us from our bondage to sin and this world system.
As Pharaoh was the head of the Egyptian system, they kept God's people in bondage.
So the devil is the head of the world system that keeps us in bondage to sin, Satan, and death.
So we're all bound to sin. We all do. And we're all bound to die because of it.
And so now, this morning, we're going to see how God uses Moses to deliver his people from Egypt.
This is what we told you last week.
As Moses goes in and delivers God's people from their bondage to Pharaoh and Egypt,
it's going to be a picture, an illustration for us, of how God uses Christ to deliver us from our bondage to sin and death.
And so God goes to incredible lengths here to demonstrate for us in vivid detail,
would everyone in here agree with me that you are mostly a visual learner? Would everyone in here agree with that?
Yeah. Everyone says, "Well, I'm a visual learner." Well, everyone's a visual learner.
A picture is worth a thousand words. If you can see it, I mean, you give me instructions on how to assemble something together.
That's fine. I appreciate the instructions. But give me the pictures, you know?
I want to see where the bolt goes, how it looks when it's put together.
If you have that, I probably won't even need the instructions.
But you give me the instructions without the pictures, and it's kind of difficult for the mind to assemble that information together.
But what God does in the Old Testament, He gives us illustrations along with the instructions.
So as we're watching this story unfold, God, through His Word and through the experiences of His people, Israel,
the actual historical experiences that they lived out, they become vivid examples, illustrations for us of how we are saved from our sins.
So there's no need in wondering, "I wish I understood how salvation works. I wish I understood what it means to be born again."
There's no need to wonder because God has given us the pictures so we can take what we learned today and have a clear image in our mind of the Gospel.
Okay? So with that said, let's go ahead and look here now.
Let's go to Exodus 7, verse 1.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, 'See, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.'"
Now, is God making Moses God? No.
What does He mean when He says, "I've made you a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet?"
What does He mean by that, sir? He did make him superior. That's right.
But notice what's happening here.
Moses now represents, whoops, not Moses, that's not his name.
There we go.
God says, "I have made you a God to Pharaoh."
When Moses goes and stands before Pharaoh, it is a picture of a standoff between God and who's Pharaoh a picture of? The devil.
So this is a picture of a standoff between God and Satan, which really is exactly what it is.
Who is pulling Pharaoh's strings? The devil is.
Just like he did with that serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Who is speaking through Moses? God is.
Who is acting through Moses? God is. Who will be performing the miracles through Moses? God will be.
This is a contest between two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world, which is ruled by the devil.
So when God says, "I've made you a God to Pharaoh," Moses is now going in and he is the agent of God. Does that make sense? The agent of God.
All right, now let's go ahead and look here.
Verse 2, "Thou shalt speak all that I command thee," you see.
So who is speaking through Moses? God is. He is speaking God's word.
In fact, when the Savior came, when Jesus came, who was Jesus? He was God who came in the flesh.
And Jesus said, "The words that I speak, they are not my words, but the words of him that sent me."
Again, another picture of Jesus here with Moses. God in the flesh speaking God's words, doing God's work, coming in to deliver us from our sin.
All right, now watch. "Thou shalt speak," verse 2, "all that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of
his land."
In other words, they are to come to Pharaoh and say, "God says, 'Let my people go.'"
Now Pharaoh is not going to just say, "Oh, okay." Well, if that's what God wants.
Because Pharaoh doesn't recognize God's rule, his authority over him. Pharaoh is a rebel, just like the devil.
So what happens is, you know, we have people in this world who are rebels.
So if you create laws, you have a legislative branch. The legislative branch creates laws for society.
But because people are rebels at heart, you not only have to have a legislative branch, you have to have an executive branch.
Because those laws must be what? Enforced. And what's the root word of enforced? Force.
People have to be forced. If they're a rebel, they have to be forced to obey the law.
Otherwise, they're not going to obey it at all. Just going to have lawlessness.
And so Pharaoh is going to be told by Moses, told by Aaron, his brother, "Hey, let God's people go. This is what God says."
You know what Pharaoh is going to do? He's going to say, "I'm not going to do it."
And so what's God going to have to do? He's going to have to force the...use his power and force the people out of Egypt.
Okay? All right, now let's go ahead and look. Verse 3. God says, "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt and bring forth mine armies and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by
great judgments.
And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them."
"Oh, they're going to know I'm God when I do this. And I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart," God says.
In other words, Pharaoh...God's not going to make Pharaoh disobey him.
But God is going to put Pharaoh in a situation to where Pharaoh's pride, Pharaoh's flesh, Pharaoh's stubbornness and rebellion against God is going to become more and
more hardened.
His heart's going to be more and more hardened against God's will. Okay?
And if you could think of it this way. Yes, sir?
I was just saying, you know, it says several times that Pharaoh hardened his heart.
And then finally it says, "And God hardened his heart."
Yes.
A lot of people don't follow that. Maybe God hardened his heart.
Yes, sir. That's right. So there's an old saying that the same sun that softens the butter hardens the clay.
And so God is not making Pharaoh disobey. He's putting Pharaoh in a position to expose the heart that Pharaoh has.
I was trying to think of the correct word.
So by putting Pharaoh in these circumstances, it will be hardening Pharaoh's heart because he was a rebel at heart.
Okay? So let's see what happens here now.
In verse...go ahead and go down now to verse 10.
"And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did as the Lord had commanded.
And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent."
So he takes his rod, you know, like his walking stick.
He throws it down. Aaron throws it down. And it turns into a serpent.
And then verse 11, "Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers.
Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.
For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents.
But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods."
And so here's this contest. Pharaoh says, "Well, let me get in my magicians and my people and see if they can do this."
Well, they managed to turn a rod into a snake, whether it actually became a snake or whether it was through sleight of hand, the Bible doesn't say.
But they did this, and as Pharaoh looks at this, he says, "Ah, we can do the same thing."
And then Moses swallows theirs up, or Aaron's rod did swallows theirs up, and eats their snakes.
And the interesting thing is, every time God sends a judgment upon Pharaoh,
Pharaoh then comes back and tries to duplicate that judgment, which he does almost every time,
through his magicians, sorcerers, or whatever, on a smaller scale.
And the thing is, what they don't understand, and the foolishness of all this is,
as they are doing this, for example, let's say God causes frogs to come up,
or turn water into blood, or something like that, they're drinking water.
And then Pharaoh says, "Well, we can do that too." And he gets his magicians in, and they duplicate and turn water into blood.
All they could do was make their life more miserable for themselves.
All they could do was reinforce God's judgment upon them.
They weren't smart enough to realize that if they really wanted to show that they were as equally powerful or more powerful than the one true God,
they would turn blood back into water.
You know, they would make the flies go away.
But they couldn't. All they could do, again, was make matters worse.
Now they've lost their rods, then they're going to lose their water,
they're going to lose their sanity in the end, just about,
as God continues to put these plagues upon them, look now if you would in verse 14.
"In the Lord's son of Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go.
Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning. Lo, he goeth out unto the water,
and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come," or next where he's coming to.
"And the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand,
and thou shalt say unto him, 'The Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying,
Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness; and behold, hitherto thou wouldst not hear.'
Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord.
Behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river,
and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that is in the river shall die,
and the river shall stink, and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink the water of the river.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt,
upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water,
that they may become blood, and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt,
both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone. And Moses and Aaron did so, as the Lord commanded.
And he lifted up the rod and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh,
and in the sight of his servants, and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.
And the fish that was in the river died, and the rivers stank,
and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river, and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.
Watch this now, verse 22. And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments.
They got some water and turned it into blood. Of course, not on the same scale.
And Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them, as the Lord had said.
And so, verse 24, "And all the Egyptians digged, round about the river for water to drink,
for they could not drink of the water of the river."
And so, now they're having to dig, try to get some water next to the river that's floated off in there,
because all the normal places they would drink water was turned to blood.
And now, in chapter 8, you look here in verse 1, "And the Lord spake unto Moses,
Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs.
And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up, and come unto thine house,
and unto thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and unto the house of thy servants, and upon thy people,
and unto thy ovens, and unto thy kneading trawls, and the frogs shall be, I'm sorry,
shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants."
Man, could you imagine?
Now, here's what happens.
Every time God does a miracle in Judges, Egypt, Pharaoh's heart gets hardened.
Well, after a while, it gets so bad, Pharaoh finally says, "Man, I've had enough.
Moses, I'll let your people go. Just tell God, get rid of these frogs.
Give us some water back."
Or whatever the judgment is, just please get rid of them and I'll let your people go.
And so Moses goes back and tells the Lord, of course the Lord already knows,
and the Lord will take the plague away.
But as soon as the plague goes away, Pharaoh says, "No, I'm not changing my mind. I'm going to let them go."
All right?
So this contest back and forth between God and the devil is basically what's happening here.
And so verse 6, "And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt."
Why? Because Pharaoh wouldn't let them go.
"And the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt."
Here's this foolish magicians again, verse 7, "The magicians did so with their enchantments
and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt."
In other words, they just keep making it worse.
Verse 8, "Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, 'And treat the Lord that he may take away the frogs from me, from my people,
and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord.'"
And of course, they didn't.
I mean, God took the frogs away, but he would not let God's people go.
Verse 12, "And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried unto the Lord because of the frogs,
which he had brought against Pharaoh. And the Lord did, according to the word of Moses,
and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields,
and they gathered them together upon heaps, and the land stank.
But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite," in other words, when Pharaoh saw he got relief from the frogs,
"he hardened his heart and hearkened not unto them as the Lord had said."
All right? So again, it happens again.
So what happens next? God brings lice upon the land.
How would you like that, ladies? Lice.
See, he brings lice upon the land, and then he brings flack upon the land.
There are all kinds of terrible judgments upon the land.
If you look in chapter 8, look at verse 25, "And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron and said,
'Go ye, sacrifice for your God in the land.' And Moses said, 'It is not so to do,
for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians.'"
In other words, you go ahead and sacrifice, but do it here. Don't leave. I still need you as my slaves.
He goes, "I know. We're not going to do that."
Verse 27, "We will go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God,
as he shall command us." And Pharaoh said, "I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness.
Only you shall not go very far away."
Still, don't go too far now. And he says, "And treat for me."
In other words, pray to God and ask him to get rid of these flies, ask him to get rid of these things.
Please. Verse 30, "And Moses went out from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord,
and the Lord did according to the word of Moses. And he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh,
from his servants and from his people. They remained not one.
And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go."
Are you getting a picture of what's happening here?
None of these judgments have set God's people free.
That's the important thing to understand here.
The average person, if you were encountering this and you wake up and there's, you know,
you turn your sink on in the kitchen, the blood runs out of it.
And you've got frogs all over the place climbing in bed with you.
You've got lice in your hair. You've experienced all of these things.
You've got stench, no fresh air.
All of us would say, "Man, get those Israelites out of here.
And God, forgive me and help me to get right with you."
You know, you are the one true God.
But that's not happening here.
Everything that would seem reasonable to us is not getting these people set free.
Nothing's working, you see.
Look now with me, if you would, in verse 9.
Look with me in verse 13. By this time, God has already sent more plagues.
He sent boils on them.
Man, how would you like that boils breaking out in your skin?
Man, He has done so much to them, they still won't let His people go.
Verse 13, chapter 9, "And the Lord said unto Moses,
Rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say unto him,
Thus said the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go that they may serve me.
For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart,
and upon thy servants and upon thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none
like me in all the earth. For now I will stretch out my hand,
that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence,
and thou shalt be cut off from the earth.
And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up,
for to show in thee my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.
And yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go?
Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hell,
such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof, even until now.
Send therefore now and gather thy cattle in all that thou hast in the field.
For upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field,
and shall not be brought home, the hell shall come down upon them, and they shall die.
He that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh
made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses,
and he that regardeth not the word of the Lord, left his servants and his cattle in the field.
Well, the next day hell came down, and this was hell stones,
and with the hell there was fire. Burning hell stones came down.
Anyone out in the field, cattle, servants, workers, whatever, they were dead.
They got held to death by these burning hell stones.
I mean, we're talking about terrible, terrible plagues.
Chapter 10, "And the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh,
for I have hardened his heart in the heart of his servants, that I might show these my signs before him,
and that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son what things I have wrought in Egypt,
and my signs which I have done among them, that ye may know that I am the Lord.
And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him,
Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me?
Let my people go, that they may serve me."
You know what was going to happen? If they didn't this time, verse 4, "Elis, if thou refuse to let my people go,
behold, tomorrow will I bring the locust into thy coast."
We're going to have grasshoppers come all over the place and eat everything up. Everything.
He was hard-headed. Yeah. In the Bible it calls them "hardening their heart,"
but what Christ just said is true. Here in Texas we'd say "hard-headed."
Instead of "hard-hearted," but it's the same thing.
Just stubborn, hard-headed, refused to humble himself, and the same thing.
He sends in the locust. Pharaoh says, "Get rid of the locust." I'm sorry. Look in verse 16, chapter 10, verse 16.
"Then Pharaoh called from Moses and Aaron and hastened, and said, I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you.
Now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin, only this once, and entreat the Lord your God, that he may take away from me this death only."
Now, so you would think, "Well, Pharaoh's got religion now." He's admitted he's sinned.
He's asking them to pray the Lord, take the locust away. God takes the locust away. What happens?
Pharaoh says, "I'm not going to let him go." Not going to let him go.
God then brings in his reign. God brings in darkness upon the land after this. He wouldn't let the sun shine.
I mean, there's so many plagues God sent. None of them worked to get Pharaoh out.
I'm sorry to get Pharaoh to let the people go.
None of those plagues worked to set God's people free. That's important for us to understand.
And once again, when you look at this, you think, "Man, if that doesn't do it, what's going to do it?"
Finally, after none of these things work, God's going to finally do something that will set them free.
And by doing this last thing and setting his people free, he's going to show us that there's only one thing that can set us free from our bondage to sin and death.
You see? And here it is, Chapter 11, verse 1. After everything else failed,
"And the Lord said unto Moses, "Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt."
Afterwards, he will let you go, hence. When he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out, hence, all together.
If you have a pen or a highlighter, underscore, all together.
So here's what God's saying. God says, "Okay, none of that's worked to set my people free.
But Moses, I'm about to do something now that will set my people free."
In fact, when I do this, not only is it going to set my people free, not only is Pharaoh going to let them go free,
he is going to thrust my people out from Egypt all together.
In other words, there won't be a single one of my people left. There won't be anything left of my people.
He's going to make a total riddance of them from the land.
Absolute, perfect, permanent freedom from Egypt.
And what we're seeing here is this. As we look to see how God delivered them from Egypt in this thing that he's about to do, this Passover,
we will see how God delivers us from sin and death.
And the way God delivered them and set them free altogether, God delivers us as well spiritually from sin and death and sets us free altogether.
A complete deliverance. Does that make sense? Absolute deliverance.
Look here now in chapter 11.
Verse 2.
"Now speak in the ears of the people and let every man borrow of his neighbor and every woman of their neighbor jewels of silver and jewels of gold.
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.
And Moses said, 'Thus saith the Lord, about midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt.'
So God is saying that about midnight he'll go out into the land of Egypt."
Verse 5. "And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die."
"From the firstborn of Pharaoh that sits upon his throne, even into the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill,
and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it,
nor shall be like it anymore. But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move."
They won't even bark or growl. "So not a dog move his tongue against man or beast, that ye may know that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.
"And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee.
"And after that I will go out."
"And he went out from Pharaoh in great anger. And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.
"And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land."
Chapter 12. This is an important chapter.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you."
This is important. That's what happens now.
None of these plagues have worked.
Now God says, "I'll show you what will work. I'll show you what I do to set my people free. And when I set them free, they'll be free altogether."
First of all, you need to understand that when I set them free, starting tonight, because tonight is when you're going to go free.
Starting tonight you're going to be free.
And so now, starting today, this month is going to be the first month of the year to you. From now on, it's going to be the beginning of a new year.
See what's happening here?
Not only are they going to be free from their bondage, they're also going to be new.
They're going to be new creatures. You see how that works?
How God saves us in the New Testament. This is a picture. This is an illustration.
The Bible says, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new."
And so what God is showing here is the way he saves us, the way he delivers us from sin and death, not only sets us free, but it gives us a brand new beginning.
We're new creatures. The old is done. Our old identity is done.
Because from now on, they will not be identified as Pharaoh's servants. That's the old.
Now, after what God's about to do, they're going to be identified as God's servants.
A complete new identity is taking place here.
Watch this now. How is God going to make them new? How is God going to make them free?
Let's see. Chapter 12, verse 3, "Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, in the tenth day of this month,
they shall take to them every man a lamb according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house.
And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house,
take it according to the number of the souls or the people in the house.
Every man according to his eating shall make your account for the lamb.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year you shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats.
And you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month,
and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening."
So how are they going to be set free? Look what's going to happen.
The same way Adam and Eve was clothed, the same way Isaac was set free on the mountain,
an innocent substitute is going to die in their place.
And this is what's going to set them free.
This is what's going to make them new.
There we go. I just plugged it in. How about that?
This is what's going to... A lamb is going to die in their place. This is what's going to set them free.
This is what's going to make them new.
It's going to be a male. It's going to be without blemish.
Why? Because it's representing an innocent substitute, so no blemish.
All right? Watch this now. Verse 7.
"After they kill it," verse 7, "they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two sideposts
and on the upper doorpost of the houses wherein they shall eat it.
And they shall eat the flesh and that night roast with fire and unleavened bread,
and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Eat not of it raw nor sodden," that means don't boil it at all with water,
"but roast with fire his head with his legs and with the pertinence thereof."
You're going to roast this whole lamb.
"And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning,
and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.
And thus shall ye eat it with your loins girded,
your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand.
And ye shall eat it in haste, it is the Lord's Passover."
Why is it a Passover? God explains. Verse 12.
"For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night,"
the night that they've killed and eaten this animal,
"and will smite all the first born in the land of Egypt,
both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt,
that is the false gods, I will execute judgment.
I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a," what?
Say it with me. A what?
You all reading with me? Token. Thank you. Don't be bashful.
Huh? Symbol. And where's the last time we saw this token at?
Well, we learned about tokens in the previous lesson.
Not the last one, but many lessons ago.
Where did we learn to first learn about tokens?
What was the token? Huh? The rainbows. Exactly right.
Exactly right.
Once again, as the rainbow was a picture of how God delivered them,
now this blood is going to be a picture of their deliverance too.
And they put this blood, and look what God says to do.
He says in verse 13, "The blood shall be to you for a token upon the house,"
and this is where you are. Very important.
"And when I see the blood, I will pass over you.
And the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt."
So here's how it works.
Here's their door.
They kill this animal. The animal dies in their place.
They didn't take the animal's blood. They take a little hyssop bush.
They dip in the blood of the animal that died in their place.
And they smear the blood over the door frame.
God then tells them to go inside the door, close the door behind them, and eat that animal.
Why? It's a picture.
As we eat food, we are given life by the food we eat.
When Jesus came, he said, "I am the bread or the food of life.
Whoever eats me is going to live forever."
He also was called the Lamb of God.
This lamb that dies in their place is a picture of the coming Savior.
The lamb dies in their place that night.
They take the blood, smear it on the door, and then they go inside the house and shut the door,
and they wait as God goes to the land and kills all the firstborn in every house.
But when God came upon their door and he saw the blood of that lamb,
he said he would pass over that house.
We would say, "Skip over."
If it was us, we wouldn't say, "Oh, this is passive."
We'd say, "Oh, this is skip over."
It's the same thing.
So here's what happens. Here's God.
He goes to this house. There's no blood. Firstborn dies.
Goes to the next house. Firstborn dies.
Comes to this house.
"Oh, I've already got that one."
Firstborn's already died there, you see,
because there's a death of the firstborn's substitute.
Makes sense?
"I've already got that one. I'll skip over that one."
And then goes to the next house, the next house, the next house.
And so whoever had the animals slain and applied the blood to their door,
they were safe inside the house.
The firstborn did not die.
The Bible says in the New Testament that Christ, our Passover,
is sacrificed for us.
What would have happened, and we must hurry,
what would have happened had the animal died,
had the animal's blood been shed,
but the blood was never put on the door.
Firstborn would die.
Firstborn would die. That's exactly right.
In the same way,
just because Jesus died for everybody's sins,
I mean, He's the Passover for everybody,
but just because He died for everybody's sins
does not mean everybody is saved.
As there had to be an individual application of that lamb to that house,
there must also be the individual application of Christ's death to you and me.
Whoever put the blood on the door, there had to be a decision they made.
They had to believe what God said and trust in the salvation He provided.
Makes sense?
It's the same thing for me.
When I hear about Jesus dying on the cross for my sins and I believe that,
I think, "Hey, I accept that for me."
You make that personal application of saying,
"He died for me? I'll take that. Thank you very much."
There has to be that personal application.
But if someone says, "Ah, I don't want that."
It's a gift, but a gift is no good if the gift is not received, right?
No good if it's not received.
And so with that, I'm just going to show you,
why if instead of putting blood on there,
they would have put a prayer,
intact a prayer on the door with a nail,
and the prayer says, "Lord, please come into our house and save us."
What about that?
No. In the same way, people can go down to the front of a church and say,
"Lord, please come into my heart and save me."
That's not salvation.
The only thing God says is, "When I see the blood, I'll pass over you."
What you're trusting in for your salvation
is the same thing that you're putting on your door.
Does that make sense?
If you're trusting in a prayer you prayed, that's what God sees.
If you're trusting in good works that you're doing,
you're working hard for God, that's what God sees.
But God doesn't say, "When I see the works, I'll pass over you.
When I see the prayer, I'll pass over you.
When I see the baptism in the water, I'll pass over you.
When I see the blood, I will pass over you."
Because the only thing that can deliver us from our bondage
to sin, Satan, and death is the death of our innocent lamb that died in our place.
And that's it.
The good news is God has provided a lamb.
His name is Jesus.
And our response to that good news must be to individually, personally,
make the choice to accept that blood, not this, not that, not anything else,
but the death of Jesus Christ in our place as our hope for eternal life.
When they were inside that door, what were they doing?
They were trusting that the blood of that animal would be sufficient
to deliver them from the coming judgment.
And it was.
In my heart, if you could see my heart right now, you would see me doing the same thing.
I am trusting in the fact that Christ, my lamb, died in my place.
And that's what my hope is in.
And right now, I'm hiding behind the door.
You know how God told him to eat it?
Eat it with the staff in your hand, your shoes on your feet.
He says, "The Lord's Passover."
And in other words, get ready to go because I'm coming.
I'm going to take you out.
And so right now, Christians are people who are hiding behind the death of Jesus,
trusting in what he's done on the cross for them,
and they're dressed and ready to go waiting on Jesus to come.
That makes sense?
That's what this is a picture of.
With that, we better stop because I've got to get next door and start preaching.
So praise the Lord.
