Pastor Nate continues our study through the Bible in the book of Exodus.
[00:00:00] Here we are in Exodus chapter 12 and there is tension now in the text. God has unleashed His wrath upon the Egyptians. Playg after plague has come down upon Pharaoh and His people and Pharaoh's heart has
[00:00:16] been hardened and God has part of that process but Pharaoh himself has hardened his heart as well. But God had declared in the 11th chapter that in the final plague, the Pharaoh would tell the people of Israel to go. He would let his gods people go.
[00:00:37] And the reason that Pharaoh would let the people go is because God had promised that in this final plague every firstborn son in Egypt would die. This is a catastrophic plague that God is going to bring upon the Egyptian people.
[00:00:57] Now what we're going to discover is that the people of Israel are saved from this plague and really anyone could be saved from this plague by taking the blood of a sacrificial
[00:01:11] lamb who dwelt in the home for 14 days and sacrificing that animal and cooking it as a meal eating it but placing its blood upon the doorpost of the home. The people of Israel will be delivered so to speak by the Passover lamb.
[00:01:31] You might remember way back in our study in Genesis, there came a moment where Abraham was greatly tested by God. Asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, God said, take your son, you're only son Isaac whom
[00:01:45] you love and offer him on the mount that I show you for a sacrifice. And as they ascended that horrible mountain in that terrible moment Isaac asked, Father, I see the wood, I see the fire but where is the sacrifice?
[00:02:03] And Abraham said, son don't worry, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son. And of course, God did not want Abraham to go all the way through with that act of sacrifice.
[00:02:21] Though Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead to fulfill his promises instead causing a ram to come in the thicket and be sacrificed instead. The ram was not the ultimate fulfillment. The lamb of God would come to take away the sin of the world.
[00:02:38] God would provide himself as the lamb so to speak. So here in the Passover which we're going to read about, part of that fulfillment has come. God has provided a lamb to the people of Israel to protect them and to guard them so that
[00:02:56] they might be set free. Now here in this chapter, chapter 12 we're going to see two speeches separated by some days by Moses. In the first speech he's going to declare how to keep the Passover and in the second
[00:03:13] speech he's going to exhort them on the day of the actual Passover. So he prepares them and then he'll tell them, all right now is the time. Both of these speeches and by him explaining that they will commemorate the Passover forever. They'll commemorate it in a Passover meal.
[00:03:34] They'll also commemorate it in a feast of unleavened bread that lasts for seven days around the feast of the Passover. And they will celebrate it or remember it by consecrating future firstborn's sons to the Lord. And so we'll read about that in this passage.
[00:03:55] Now of course like I said, this Passover speaks much of Christ. Jesus was betrayed after eating a last supper with His disciples which was a Passover meal. He is, as I already quoted, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world according
[00:04:14] to John the Baptist. And he died John 1936, records for us that he died with no broken bones. This is some important because Jesus was the perfect Lamb and the Lamb that was sacrificed on the Passover had to be without blemish. Jesus had no blemish, no broken bones.
[00:04:37] And frankly and straight forwardly, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5, 7, Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed. So who is our Passover Lamb? Well it's Jesus Christ. And I'm saying all of these things because as we pass through this chapter, I'm going
[00:04:54] to point out various elements of the original Passover that have application to us because Jesus is our current Passover Lamb. Unless you think that I'm overly spiritualizing the text, I want you to see that the New Testament makes it clear that Jesus is our Passover Lamb.
[00:05:14] Alright with that let's read the first verse. 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.
[00:05:32] So here what we learned at the outset of the chapters that God is rearranging the Israelite calendar. This event, this Passover event is going to be now for them the marker of the beginning of their years, the beginning of months for them.
[00:05:50] It was going to indicate a new age in the history of Israel. It's likely that for them they celebrated a new year not that they would do it to play that we do it in our modern era but that they would have thought of the year having
[00:06:07] begun, likely sometime in the fall. But now the Passover which would occur sometime in our March April timeframe is going to be the new marker of the beginning of the Israelite calendar. The Passover was indicative of a new start, a new beginning for God's people.
[00:06:31] And of course for us when we think about Jesus, we understand that the blood of Jesus our Passover lamb offers each and every one of us a brand new beginning. Jesus said there in the final Passover heat took on this side of eternity in Luke 22 verse
[00:06:52] 20, he said, this is the cup that is poured out for you of the new covenant in my blood. His blood brings something new, a new freshness, a new relationship with God where God
[00:07:05] comes to live inside of us and he begins to write his law upon the tablets of our hearts. So he's changing us from within that is a new relationship with God. Of course we know from 2 Corinthians 5, 17 in other places throughout the New Testament
[00:07:24] that we are new creatures in Christ Jesus. So if you've believed in Jesus, you become a new creation. The same God that spoke the worlds into existence, spoke your salvation into existence as you place your faith and your trust in Him, your new creature in Him.
[00:07:46] First John 1, verse 7 tells us that as we walk in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us from all sin. And so there's a perpetual newness, so to speak.
[00:08:03] As we constantly are walking in the light, we are being cleansed practically speaking of the sin within our lives. Yes, positionally when you come to Christ, your sin is separated from you as far as the east is from the west, but we still sin.
[00:08:20] We still have weaknesses and temptations. As we walk with the Lord, the blood of Jesus is continuing to work in us, the full propitiation or atonement has already occurred, but His blood is still cleansing and making
[00:08:35] us new, not positionally that's been said and done by faith in Christ, but practically speaking as we walk with Him. His blood growing us, shaping us, giving us the victory. So it's good for us to remember that the blood of Jesus, the ultimate Passover lamb,
[00:08:54] makes all things new and that's pictured here in the beginning of months, a new calendar having begun with the first Passover. Verse 3, God continues, tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of
[00:09:11] this month every man shall take a lamb, according to their father's house, houses, a lamb for a household. Here God tells Moses to speak to all the congregation of Israel. By the way, this is the first time that the Old Testament refers to the people of Israel
[00:09:35] this way, as a congregation or as an assembly of people. Again, this also suggests a new beginning. This is a community that God is going to purchase with the blood of the Passover lamb.
[00:09:53] Just as when you go to church, you are gathering together with brothers and sisters in Christ who have been bought by the blood of Jesus. So this congregation is real, is being purchased by the blood of the lamb.
[00:10:09] And what Moses has to tell them to do is that every man, it says in verse 3, it's supposed to take a lamb according to their father's house. They would choose a lamb that they would eventually sacrifice unto God.
[00:10:27] This lamb was chosen before it was slain, much as Jesus was foreknown first Peter 1, verse 20, before the foundation of the world but made manifest in the last times for the sake of us.
[00:10:43] In other words, the father chose the Son, the Son agreed to the plans within the triunity of God to be the one who would atone for the sin of the world. Now Moses also was to tell them that it was one lamb per household.
[00:11:02] Now this is beautiful because the net of salvation is getting wider, able in Genesis chapter 4 offered a lamb for himself. Here we see a lamb offered for a household in Exodus 29 when they finally begin celebrating the Passover.
[00:11:22] They will offer a lamb for the nation and of course as I've already quoted from John the Baptist in the Gospel of John chapter 1, Jesus is the lamb who was slain for the world, the sins of the world.
[00:11:38] So the net of salvation is growing here in this passage. Now it's beautiful to consider that this feast, whatever it was going to be, it celebrated in the home by the household. Only later was the Levitical priesthood installed to mediate the sacrifices between Israel to God.
[00:12:03] But originally, each family was meant to serve God in a priestly way. This really is one of the main emphasis of the Old Testament. God looking for the people of Israel to be Exodus 19 verse 6, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
[00:12:24] He was merely looking for one tribe to be priestly but for all of his people to be interacting with him. And of course in the church age we are living this out. We are a kingdom of priests before God, the blood of Jesus giving us that access to
[00:12:41] him. But I think it's beautiful to see that the home was the centerpiece of this relationship with God at that time. And I say that because our homes desperately need the application of the blood of Christ. There must be grace, the grace of Christ in our homes.
[00:13:00] There must be the consciousness of our need for a Savior, for the gospel itself within our homes. That kind of humility breeds health in relationships. And so marriages and parents we require the blood of Jesus.
[00:13:20] So many of us have pasts that were not proud of and things that we have done even within our marriage covenants, that we need the blood of Jesus to wash us for. And so we must remember the home and hear it began in the home.
[00:13:39] God went on though and verse 4 and said, in 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.
[00:13:56] Your lamb verse 5 shall be without blemish, a male, a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now again we see another clear picture of Jesus and that these lamb's or goats had to be without blemish in verse 5.
[00:14:16] The lamb was to be without blemish. 1 Peter 1, 19 says that we have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spa. There was no sin in Jesus.
[00:14:34] He was perfect and pure and he was the one who laid himself down for us. He goes on though and verse 6 and says, and you shall keep it that lamb or goat until the 14th day of this month when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel
[00:14:54] shall kill their lambs at twilight. So for 14 days this lamb would live within the home. It was enough time to make sure that the lamb was satisfactory that there was no blemish inside of it.
[00:15:14] Jesus of course was also slain on this same day ultimately the 14th day of the month, just at the time when the Passover lamb were also being offered to God. Notice there in verse 6 it says that the congregation of Israel would kill their lambs at twilight.
[00:15:35] At the beginning of this chapter it said they have to pick a lamb, then they have to interact with the lamb and now here in verse 5 and 6 it's your lamb and their lambs. There's an ownership of this lamb that will be sacrificed just as Jesus must become personal
[00:15:58] to you and you must receive personally the offer of salvation that he has offered so the lamb had to be applied to the family owner himself and then they would go out it says their verse 6 and kill their lambs at twilight.
[00:16:19] God had designed it so that a living lamb could not save. The lamb had to die, blood had to be shed, blood was required. Adam and Eve required skins to cover their nakedness and so animals died that they might be clothed.
[00:16:47] Bella was delivered through great pains of death in the human world. The Passover required the blood of the lamb, the sacrificial system itself in Israel in later years cried out of death, atoning and covering.
[00:17:08] Ultimately all of this pointed forward to the death of Jesus on the cross, his blood was required. I say this because many think that Jesus is example is what saves, that he came as the perfect
[00:17:24] man to show us how to live but his example does not save, his death saves, laid down his life so that we might have life. Then verse 7, God told Moses, then they shall take some of the blood and put it on
[00:17:43] the two door posts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat. They were to take the blood and they were to apply it on the door posts of the house. Obviously this points to the substitutionary death of Jesus, perhaps even the shape of the blood
[00:18:03] in the shape of the cross itself, on the sides and above the home, the door posts of the home. This lamb of course was the substitute for the firstborn son. The firstborn son would live inside the home if the lamb's blood had been applied.
[00:18:25] The idea here is of substitutionary death and Jesus himself is our substitutionary sacrifice. He died so that we might live, so he is the blood applied to your life. You can only imagine how the Egyptians felt when the Israelites began behaving in this way,
[00:18:46] bringing young lambs into their homes, dwelling with them for 14 days, ultimately sacrificing them, taking the hiss about and applying blood on the door post of the home. It likely stood out as absolutanist and superstition to the Ephesians.
[00:19:07] You know, the reality is that even the cross of Christ is folly to those who are perishing first Corinthians 1 verse 18, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
[00:19:23] It might be nonsensical to someone else, but for believers in Jesus Christ we understand and know that the folly, or as it is perceived in the world, is actually God's power to deliver us from our sin.
[00:19:40] So they would put the blood on the two door posts to protect their home and in verse 8 they shall eat the flesh of that night, roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall eat it.
[00:19:54] That very night they would actually eat the sacrifice that they had roasted with fire. They'd have unleavened bread to go along with that sacrifice. You know, the purging of leavened meaning to reinforce the idea of separation. They were different. We're want to be without sin.
[00:20:13] And so they'd take the unleavened bread, bitter herbs and the Passover lamb, and they would eat these things together. That very night they would need nourishment for the journey that they were about to go on as God's people.
[00:20:26] Do not verse 9, eat any of it raw or boiled and water but roasted. It's head with its legs and its inner parts. You shall let none of it remain until the morning, anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.
[00:20:39] In this manner you shall eat it with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. You shall eat it and haste. It is the Lord's Passover. Now in the eating of this Passover meal, Moses learns and communicates that they were
[00:20:58] to let none of it remain until the morning, no leftovers whatsoever. And as they ate it they were to eat it with their belt fastened, their sandals on their feet and their staff in their hands. This was meant to communicate as they ate the meal.
[00:21:17] They were expecting that they would soon depart from Egypt. They had faith that their moment of deliverance was about to come. I believe this speaks to us on a number of levels. First of all, I believe that modern believers, modern Christians are called to live as
[00:21:37] pilgrims in this world. I don't know if you've noticed but the things that we think, the stuff we believe, the practices that we engage in as God's people, they are different from the system of the world in which we live.
[00:21:56] We are aliens, so to speak, on the planet that we occupy. Peter said in 1 Peter 2, verse 11, that he would urge us as so-journers and exciles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which are waging war against our souls.
[00:22:17] First Corinthians 11, verse 26, tells us, as often as we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. We're proclaiming that we don't really fully belong here until Jesus comes and makes this place his own. All of this would indicate a soon departure.
[00:22:43] So I think in a sense the way they dressed that night is meant to help modern believers envision the attitude with which we are to live lives today. Just understanding that our ultimate fulfillment is not going to come in this world.
[00:23:00] There are ultimate fulfillment is in another kingdom and that we are pilgrims and exciles here on earth. I think there is also something beautiful here that applies to the expectation of victory that we should have in our personal walks with Jesus.
[00:23:17] Now, they were with their belts fastened, their sandals on their feet and the staff in their hand. Why did they have that? The expectation was whatever happens tonight, we are confident that Pharaoh is going to release us. That God is going to win for us, our freedom.
[00:23:34] When I find many times in the Christian life, a believer will see a repeated sand or an area of personal failure that they feel is stuck in their lives. There's no chance of victory and they'll begin to believe that Christ cannot win that victory in their lives.
[00:23:55] What do you have here? You have an expectation that God will deliver them and that they will be set free. I think we need to retain that expectation as God's people, that we can gain victory. That God can set us free in Him.
[00:24:14] Let's move on in the text, verse 12. He says, 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.
[00:24:28] I am the Lord. The blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you and no plague will be following you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
[00:24:43] Here we are reminded that all of these plagues were God's judgment upon the gods of Egypt. I mean, really at the end of the day, Pharaoh's firstborn son was his successor and supposedly to the Egyptian mine had divine properties.
[00:25:09] And so God who has judged all the other gods in Egypt through the various plagues is now going to judge the final ultimate God, Pharaoh himself or the future Pharaoh himself. You God announces to Israel when I see the blood on the doorpost of your home, I will
[00:25:29] pass over you. Brothers and sisters in Christ, I know that even reading a passage like this is difficult for us to see and vision or imagine. We think about a holy and righteous God who was going to require the life of the first born sons all throughout Egypt.
[00:25:51] But the reality is that God is holy and just, and that God is good. And that as he looks upon the sin of humanity, his wrath exists and one day there will be an ultimate and final reckoning.
[00:26:08] And in moments like these in Exodus chapter 12 we are getting a glimpse of the ultimate and overall judgment of God breaking forth. But what secures a man? What saves a woman from the wrath, the coming judgment with a blood?
[00:26:28] Says in Romans 5 verse 9, therefore we have now been justified by his blood and much more we would be saved by him from the wrath of God. That's who we are as God's children. We are protected and watched over by the Lord preserved by his blood.
[00:26:47] Listen, if you're a believer in Christ, Jesus, your position is great in Christ. God goes on to say this day, shall be for you verse 14, a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations.
[00:27:02] As a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days, you shall eat on Levin bread. On the first day, you shall remove Levin out of your houses. For if anyone eats what is Levin from the first day until the seventh day, that person
[00:27:16] 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 for you.
[00:27:34] So for seven days, they would celebrate this beautiful feast of unleavened bread. This is conjoined with the Passover feast and they would celebrate this year after year, seven days remembering commemorating the moment that they came out of Egypt and that God set them free.
[00:27:56] And partly what we need to recognize is that these were the feasts that Pharaoh was so worried about it. At the very beginning when Moses told Pharaoh, thus says, God let my people go that they
[00:28:07] may serve me, these were the types of things God wanted was for them to come out and have a holy celebration before the Lord. Seven days of no work and worship instead before God.
[00:28:21] And so they were there for seven days to have this time where they removed all Levin from their homes in the future to celebrate what God was going to do. So this is just a beautiful concept partly because as we think of it in our modern
[00:28:39] time, we think about Jesus, his blood being shed receiving Jesus. And then what follows the Passover seven days of no Levin in the home and Levin throughout the Bible is a picture of sin because it gets into the substance, gets into the dough,
[00:28:57] into the bread and spreads everywhere. That's what sin is prone to do. We should be merciless toward sin. But so many people instead have an attitude that when they receive Jesus, then they are set free to pursue more sin.
[00:29:17] That's not the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus. That's anti-nominism. That's someone who doesn't understand what grace truly is. No Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7 that we should cleanse out the old Levin.
[00:29:36] That you may be a new lump as you are really on Levin for Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed. So don't celebrate with the old Levin of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Paul writes.
[00:29:54] So we gotta keep growing, walking with the Lord, allowing him to purify our lives. God goes on and says, and you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt.
[00:30:09] Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a statute forever. In the first month from the 14th day of the month of the evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month at evening.
[00:30:22] For seven days, no Levin is to be found in your house. Is if anyone eats what is Levin, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel whether he's a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing Levin in all your dwelling places.
[00:30:38] You shall eat unleavened bread. And so here God again is preparing them for the future when they would celebrate the feast of unleavened bread. Once they were set free, obviously this would be something that they would rejoice in and they years to come.
[00:30:56] The first Passover it's going to be a hectic moving out kind of experience on eating unleavened bread will be forced on them because of the speed of this event. But in the future it would be a decision they would make to celebrate this, to commemorate this before God.
[00:31:12] It's like change there is in verse 19 where we learn that sojourners or natives of the land could also either join in or be separated if they refused to partake in the right way. Then Moses, verse 21, called all the elders of Israel and said to them, go and select
[00:31:33] lambs for yourselves according to your clans and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of his up and dip it in the blood that is in the basin and touch the lintel and the two door posts with the blood that is in the basin.
[00:31:46] None of you should 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 door posts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not
[00:31:59] allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. On this movement we have Moses actually declaring what they are to do to the elders. He is basically repeating the directions that God has given.
[00:32:19] God is in favor of repetition, we must repeat the word of God, Paul told Timothy until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and to teaching when we must repeatedly be in the word of God.
[00:32:38] There are two new items included here in this speech of Moses. One is that the blood would be applied by taking a bunch of his up, a plant and dipping it into a basin of blood and also that no one was to leave their house until the morning
[00:32:56] time. Today indoors because the angel of death or the destroyer was lurking about Egypt doing his work. That is an intense phrase, don't you think? The destroyer that the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer
[00:33:17] to enter your houses to strike you as what he says in verse 23. Now who is this destroyer? One thing that this destroyer is a group of angels, Psalm 78 verse 49 says that God let loose on Egypt his burning anger, wrath, indignation and distress, a company of destroying angels.
[00:33:48] Some though think that this is the angel of the Lord. Hebrews 11 28 says by faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. Perhaps this destroyer is the Christ, the angel of the Lord.
[00:34:08] The destroyer was not a demonic power that rivaled God, probably an angel who expedited God's will. This angel will be with the people of Israel through their wilderness wanderings. But this destroyer was now coming upon Egypt.
[00:34:29] You shall observe verse 24 this right as a statute for you and for your sons forever. When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he is promised, you shall keep this service. When your children say to you what do you mean by this service?
[00:34:44] You shall say it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, free 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.
[00:34:58] Then the people of Israel went and did so as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. So they did. So they prepared themselves for the Passover. They went and did as the Lord had commanded them to do.
[00:35:11] You might want to mark that in your Bible because it is one of the rare moments where God tells the people of Israel what to do and they do exactly what he told them to do. At midnight after carrying out God's directions verse 29, at midnight the Lord struck
[00:35:29] 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. All the firstborn of the livestock and Pharaoh rose up in the night he and all his servants
[00:35:44] and all the Egyptians and there was a great cry in Egypt for there was not a house where someone was not dead. This is again an ominous moment. The Lord struck down. He is depicted as being personally engaged and responsible with this judgment.
[00:36:06] And other plagues the natural elements were involved. God, of course, manipulating them but flies or frogs, nats, darkness. But here God himself directly touches every family without the blood, every family in Egypt. It was an ominous moment that midnight, all the firstborn, a great cry in Egypt.
[00:36:39] Of the time of it, the extent of it and the effect of it morning in Egypt. The point here is that every Egyptian home was grieving that night but it was also true
[00:36:56] in a more absolute sense that every home there in the land knew a death, either knew the death of a firstborn or the death of a lamb. A lamb, a Passover lamb that had spared them from wrath.
[00:37:13] The only thing that averted the judgment of God was a bloody substitutionary sacrifice, available to everyone that day. Then God summoned Moses, verse 31 and Aaron by night and said, up, go out or excuse me,
[00:37:33] Pharaoh 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 hers as you have said and be gone and bless me also.
[00:37:48] Pharaoh came to the point where he finally had enough and was ready to release the people of Israel. Remember, God had said that he will release you with a strong hand. Here he calls for them somehow and rather than giving them partial permission to depart.
[00:38:07] He forces them to go. You've got to get out of here. All of you with your flocks and your herds get out of here, get away from my people and then the key he says and bless me also.
[00:38:22] This was Pharaoh's way of saying, your God is greater than me and I need the blessing of your God, the God man, Pharaoh now asked for a blessing from the true God. He wanted to live under God's blessing rather than under God's wrath or God's curse.
[00:38:43] And so this brings us back to a real theme of this whole section and Exodus. God had said, by this, you shall know that I am the Lord. And remember what Pharaoh had asked you had asked at the very beginning, who is the Lord?
[00:39:01] Now he knows, God is holy and righteous and certainly more powerful than Pharaoh. Now the Egyptians verse 33 were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste for they said, we shall all be dead.
[00:39:15] So the people took their dough before it was eleven, their needing bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing.
[00:39:29] 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. Everything just happened so quickly. The Egyptians wanted the people of Israel to depart so quickly that the Israelites took their
[00:39:47] dough and they just departed with their dough, the food that they'd eat in the future over the next few days before it was eleven. Look at in their hands, they're needing bowls bound them up in their cloaks and on their shoulders and they departed.
[00:39:59] And Moses had told them in advance, hey, ask the people of Egypt for their stuff and they asked and the people gladly gave, they wanted to fund this departure so that the people of Israel would never return.
[00:40:13] God had given them favor in the sight of the Egyptian people. On the people of Israel, verse 37, journeyed from Ramsey's to Sucketh about 600,000 men on foot besides women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them and very much livestock both flocks and
[00:40:32] herds and they baked on eleven cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt for it was not eleven because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait. Nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.
[00:40:47] Moses that, just such a rapid movement freedom has come. The Exodus has occurred at least in part and they began journeying. And really this is the point where the wilderness episodes are beginning, the wilderness itinerary actually begins right here in this little movement.
[00:41:11] Now we learned a verse 37 that there were 600 or about 600,000 men on foot is what it tells us. Numbers chapter one tells us that it was 633,550 men at that time. And so you would guess that with women and children you're probably talking about a population
[00:41:35] of two to three million people at this point. It seems reasonable to accept the number that's given here. So the people of Israel have grown to be an expansive number. We also have to point out in verse 38 that a mixed multitude also went up with the people
[00:41:55] of Israel. There were also non-Israelites who went with them of an undesignated number. So these people were probably other people groups who had been enslaved with the Hebrews. Maybe some Egyptians who had grown impressed with the power of Yahweh.
[00:42:19] Maybe some of them were legitimate converts to the faith of Israel, but it was a mixed multitude together. Later in the book of Numbers, some of these people at least are going to be called the rabble that are among the Israelites.
[00:42:37] People who are trying to influence Israel back towards Egypt. The part of them that wants to return back to Egypt. And for me, in my own life I found that there's the part of me that is in Christ, pure, pursuing the Lord then.
[00:43:00] There's also the rabble inside of me that part of me that wants to go back to the old life, that part of me that is attracted by the attempted by the things of sin.
[00:43:11] And the Christian life is an experience of pursuing the new part of who we are. The part that has been set free and ignoring the rabble so to speak and turning the rabble into devoted parts of us that are following Christ.
[00:43:30] Now the time that the people of Israel verse 40s lived in Egypt was 430 years. The end of 430 years on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.
[00:43:43] 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.
[00:43:56] Now saying that it was 430 years of slavery or life in Egypt is a historical notation there by Moses and a little reminder of God's faithfulness to the people of Israel. You know, God has been faithful to us for these 430 years. We didn't always live here.
[00:44:23] We had come here and God had a purpose for us here. And now our purpose is concluded and it is time for us to move on. Now some of you might know that in Genesis 15, it God told Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved and ill-treated for 400 years.
[00:44:45] So obviously the 400 years had passed and went all the way to 430 years. Perhaps it was 30 years of peace and 400 years of slavery, perhaps. He the 30 years at the beginning were just kind of the formulating of God's people coming
[00:45:03] but or just a round number that God gave to Abraham. But the 400 years had been completed when all the way up Moses says to 430 years. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in verse 43, this is the statute of the Passover, no foreigner shall eat it.
[00:45:24] 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.
[00:45:38] And you shall not break any of its bones. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it of his strangers 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.
[00:45:52] He shall be as a native of the land but no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. For their shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you. And all the people of Israel verse 50 did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.
[00:46:08] And on that very day, the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts. And so here we have the Passover regulations. Regurgitate a respoken redelivered because they would partake of the Passover again in the future.
[00:46:24] So they have the directions given to them once again. And it won't be the last time that Passover regulations are listed out for the people of Israel. And of course, like I said earlier, the Passover is prominent around the life and death of Jesus.
[00:46:40] But here the statutes are given once again. And really the big emphasis of this paragraph that we just read is on the sojourner who might like to partake of the Passover. They had to go through a conversion of sorts.
[00:46:55] They needed to go through the right of circumcision that God had given to Abraham as an outward emblem of the internal covenant. That God had made with Abraham. So this outward act was saying that we believe in the God of Abraham,
[00:47:11] we want to partake of the promises that God gave to Abraham. We want to worship the God of Abraham. And so this helps us understand that you've got to be born into God's family, foreigners and slaves from the outside. We're not able to eat of this meal.
[00:47:28] They had to be converted into it. And that's how we come into God's family. We are born into God's family. We are adopted into God's family. But it's something that's given to us by grace. We cannot earn it. We've got to receive it by grace and by faith.
[00:47:49] Now chapter 13 begins with the Lord reiterating to Moses and saying to Moses, consecrate to me all the first born. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both man and of beast is mine.
[00:48:08] Now here in this chapter we're going to have another brief address about the Passover itself. But first we have this little instruction about the first born. He's going to talk more about it though in a few verses,
[00:48:24] but just kind of gets out there that the first born belongs to the Lord. That God required them, that they belong to Him. You know, as way to memorialize what happened at the Passover,
[00:48:42] God spared the first born children amongst the Israelites who had the blood upon their doorposts. So in the future, the first borns were meant to be the ones that served the Lord. Later when the golden calf was built by Aaron, spoiler alert,
[00:48:59] the Levi-tribe responded well to that episode they resisted. And so the tribe of Levi became eventually the ones who produced the priesthood. And they would be the ones who fulfilled the first born requirement for the people of Israel.
[00:49:20] And they would offer a sacrifice when they had a first born to sort of free themselves from this obligation to be priest, because Galibites fulfilled that obligation for them. But nonetheless, that's the requirement of God here at this point.
[00:49:36] They'd have to give their first born to the service of God. Then Moses said to the people in verse 3, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt out of the house of slavery. For by a strong hand, the Lord brought you out from this place.
[00:49:51] No, Levin bread shall be eaten. Today in the month of a bebe you're going out. And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hibites and the Jebysites, which he swore to your fathers to give you.
[00:50:04] A land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month. Seven days, you shall eat on Levin bread and on the seven day there should be a feast to the Lord. On Levin bread shall be eaten for seven days.
[00:50:19] No Levin bread shall be seen with you. And no Levin shall be seen with you in all your territory. You shall tell your son on that day it is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.
[00:50:31] And it shall be to use a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth for with a strong hand the Lord has brought you
[00:50:41] out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year. Now here Moses again is preparing them for the future Passover and the future Feast of Unleavened Bread that they would partake of before God every single year.
[00:51:02] You remind them of the importance of that day, the importance of their deliverance from the land of slavery by God's mighty hand into the land of promise. This was to be remembered every single year in the Passover and in the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
[00:51:25] In modern times the church actually has a celebration quite similar to this. Though we aren't commanded in the New Testament to celebrate Easter like we're prone to do, we do celebrate right there at the time of the Passover because Jesus died on the Passover and
[00:51:43] rose from the dead on the third day. We celebrate what Christ has done. So really the church right at the same time that the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread still occur. We celebrate the death in burial and resurrection of Jesus. That the bread of life
[00:52:02] who's without sin has come and is satisfying us. And so in a sense we have a similar celebration today. But in Old Testament era it was greatly delineated and laid out for the people of Israel.
[00:52:19] This is what you will do in the future. All this was done and he says in verse 5, when the Lord brings you into the land of promise, the land flowing with milk and honey.
[00:52:30] So this is to be something that again once God gave them the victory and they went into the land of promise. They would actually partake of this meal together. And they were to do all of this verse 8 and 9
[00:52:44] so that they could tell their children on that day in the land of promise. This is what God did for us in the past. In a sense I think this speaks to us of the importance of talking about what Christ has
[00:53:00] done for us. I'm not merely talking about the provision that he's given to you or the new job that he's given to you or the praise report that you have. But when I'm talking about it is your testimony
[00:53:14] of how he saved you, how he reached into your life, how you found him so to speak and more accurately, how he found you. What was that process? What was it like to declare this to others to talk about the
[00:53:29] day that you were set free to tell others to tell your children? It's a beautiful thing to be able to do. Now God says all this, you know, this feast needs to happen, this festival needs to happen.
[00:53:45] You need to tell your children so that it will be a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes. In other words this feast was a sign on their hand like a sign on their hand or forehead
[00:53:59] a continual reminder for them of God's mighty deliverance from Egypt. Isn't it interesting that we need reminders? I don't know what kind of person you are, I don't know how easily you remember things but
[00:54:14] I know for me if I don't write something down and have a reminder system in place I forget almost everything. I've got to be reminded and here this feast every year was meant to
[00:54:27] remind them of God's power and the way that he delivered them from their captivity. Now some in that era and even in our modern time orthodox Jews believed that God meant this literally that they
[00:54:45] should write the reminders on their wrists or on their foreheads and so they actually have created things called falacters which are boxes which hold scripture inside of them. Jesus accused the Pharisees and scribes of making their falacters broad, making big boxes to hold scripture so that
[00:55:03] they might appear more holy. But I don't think that's what God intended for them. God intended that what he has done would be continually in front of them on their minds, on their lips,
[00:55:17] in their hands. And I urge you, brother and sister in Christ, pick up your Bible with your hands every day of your life. Read your Bible with your eyes every day of your life.
[00:55:32] Say the Word of God back to God, pray the promises of God to Him every day of your life. Don't let a year go by where it's not on your mind, it's not on your heart, it's not on your lips.
[00:55:46] Let the word be present. As Proverbs 621 says, bind them on your heart always tie the word around your neck. Now Moses, remember, had been told by God that the firstborn son
[00:56:03] would be given to God and now God comes back to that and expands on those directions in verse 11 of chapter 13. He says, when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, is He swore to you and your fathers
[00:56:15] and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord's every firstborn of a
[00:56:26] donkey, you shall redeem with a land. Or if you do not redeem it, you shall break its neck, every firstborn of man among your sons, you shall redeem. And when in time to come, your son asks
[00:56:38] you, what does this mean? You shall say to him, by a strong hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. For when the Pharaohs, for when Pharaohs, stubbornly refused to let
[00:56:49] us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, but the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb,
[00:57:00] but all the firstborn of my sons, I redeem. It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes for by a strong hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt. So here he tells them again,
[00:57:16] you have to set up all the first that opened the womb. But now he adds a couple of modifications. For firstborn humans that open the womb, obviously God did not want them to be sacrificed,
[00:57:31] but they would be redeemed. In other words, bought back a price, so a price sacrifice, or a money sacrifice given for every firstborn son. And then Donkeys were also not meant to be sacrificed. They were to be bought back or redeemed. Donkeys eventually were declared as
[00:57:50] unclean animals, so that might be part of it that they weren't to be sacrificed. To God, there also be subburden that perhaps were more required for just utility and infrastructure and the economy in Israel, and so God mercifully allowed all of them to live, but they be bought
[00:58:08] back with a price. But all the firstborn of the animals that were males were sacrificed to God. And partly because if you think about it, the animals were spared originally, the blood even saved
[00:58:23] them. And so the implication here is that it impacts everyone and so God is expectant of this sacrifice. And when verse 17, Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the
[00:58:40] Philistines, although that was near. For God said, less the people changed their minds when they see war and returned to Egypt. But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward
[00:58:51] the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battles. So here they are set free. They've got their directions for the future about the firstborn sons
[00:59:02] that will be sacrificed and given to God or redeemed if they're a human or a donkey. And they've got the directions about the Feast of 11 Bread in the Passover in the future,
[00:59:12] and God begins now to let or to lead his people. Pharaoh has let the Israelites go and God begins to lead them. An interesting thing is that God first made a decision not to lead them by the way
[00:59:27] of the Philistines directly to the land of promise. There was a direct straight route right along the coast of the Mediterranean that would have taken them to the Promised Land in a very short
[00:59:43] amount of time. But it was also the military road of the Egyptians and perhaps the Philistines were loaded and ready for war themselves. And so God looked at the people of Israel and determined
[01:00:02] they're not ready for war. And so he took them another route so that they could avoid war. In fact, that's exactly what it says, less the people change their minds when they see war
[01:00:14] and return to Egypt. So rather than take a 10 day journey, which is you know, they traveled fairly slowly. It probably would have taken them about 10 days to make it from Egypt to the Promised Land. They instead took a one year journey and stopped at seven separate campsites all
[01:00:37] in the wilderness area. And what was God doing during that time? Well, I think that it was a chance for God to purge Egypt out of his people. He'd taken them out of Egypt but Egypt was still
[01:00:51] inside of them. And you know, when the Lord looks at our lives, he knows exactly what we must experience in order to cleanse and purify and sanctify our lives. He knows what trials will need,
[01:01:05] what tests will need, what difficulties will need. He knows the route that we need to take in order to purify and to grow us. And it seems that God thought that if they went straight there,
[01:01:19] what was happening inside of them was not ready for what would happen on the outside of them. They needed preparation and so the Lord took them on a different route in order to prepare
[01:01:30] their lives. Took them by the way of the wilderness, it says in verse 18, to toward the Red Sea. Now people debate about what this means and there are I think four different popular routes that
[01:01:44] scholars think they might have taken to get down into that Sinai Peninsula wilderness area. But as they went, it says in verse 18 that they were equipped for battle. This is interesting, you know, they weren't ready for war, God said, but they were marching as if they were ready
[01:02:07] for war, but really their maturity was not up to snuff with what they looked like on the outside. Now Moses, verse 19, took the bones of Joseph with him. For Joseph had made the sons of Israel
[01:02:21] solemnly swear saying, God will surely visit you and you shall carry out my bones with you from here. And they moved on from Sukothin and camped at Ethan on the edge of the wilderness. Now think about
[01:02:34] how encouraging this would have been. Moses takes the bones of Joseph with him who had died around 400 years earlier and takes these bones with him to the Promised Land. That's where Joseph
[01:02:53] ultimately wanted to be buried. He felt that he was a pilgrim there in Egypt that he did not really belong there and he wanted to be buried in the land of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
[01:03:07] But this would have been an encouraging thing to the people of Israel because it would have helped them recognize and see, you know, God, he's got a future for us. We don't belong in Egypt,
[01:03:19] we belong elsewhere. And this is exactly what Joseph had asked for when he died in Genesis 50 verse 25. He said, God will visit us and you will carry up my bones with you from here. And so there they are
[01:03:35] being prepared to take the land and they see here Joseph, you know, the faith of Joseph. You know, he had gone to a land that he did not know about but God was faithful to him.
[01:03:48] And so here they are, their faith should be built up. We're going to the Promised Land. It's a land we don't know about but God just as he was faithful to Joseph,
[01:03:57] he can be faithful to us. And the Lord verse 21 went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light that they might
[01:04:10] travel by day and by night the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people. Now we finally learned at the end of the chapter how God was
[01:04:23] leading the people of Israel. All through this chapter we've seen that he is leading them but now we learn how he was leading them. He was leading them by a pillar which during the day was a cloud
[01:04:36] and at night was fire, likely meaning that during the day he provided shade and at night he provided warmth. But this cloud or this pillar of fire represent God's presence he was there with them,
[01:04:52] assuring them of his protection, his care, his guidance in their lives and so there they were protected and led by the Lord and may God protect and lead our lives as well. Sometimes through the
[01:05:06] shade sometimes through the fire, the Lord is guiding and leading and watching over each one of our lives today by the spirit that he's placed within us, the Word that he's given to us,
[01:05:18] by the presence of Christ's inner seeds for us and our good, good Father in heaven who is leading and loving our lives.