The Passover

Man, shall we pray, Father, we thank you for the old old story of Jesus and his love. We thank you for the greatest story ever told, the most important, the most significant story that the world has ever heard, and the story that unfortunately too many have not heard. Grant by your grace that we might not only hear, but heed this story, and then we might love it. Before we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, as I mentioned this morning, I will have the privilege this year of preaching on over ten Sundays, and in the mornings we're looking at a series entitled The Way We Think the Whole idea of Biblical worldview and looking at key passages in Genesis one through eleven and how they contribute to the building of Biblical worldview. In the evenings, we'll be looking at One Big Story. And the idea of one Big Story is, although we don't have any recording, oh good, okay, the idea of the one Big story is connecting everything to redemptive history, connecting everything to the old story. And there are two. Things that come to mind that really brought this whole to me. One was a moment when my wife passed by my office years ago, and saw me in my office, and I was obviously distraught, and she came in and asked me what was wrong, and I told her that I had just gotten a letter from a Jewish woman who had somehow come across one of my sermons and just felt the need to write me and tell me how much the message had blessed her. And she said, well, that sounds like a good letter, a nice letter. I said, actually, it is a good letter, and it is a nice letter, but it shouldn't be. If a Jewish woman was able to listen to a sermon that I preached on an Old Testament text and not be convicted and scandalized by it, that means I didn't preach the gospel. And so often that's what we do when we get to the Old Testament. What we do is we just we preach the story. We preach it like Aesop's fables. And it's not just when we're preaching, it's when we're teaching it to our children. And so you hear the story and the Old Testament and it's David and Goliath, and all of a sudden, you know, we're telling our children that they just need to be brave and face the giants in their lives, and suddenly the Old Testament becomes moralism. In other words, the Old Testament is just there to tell you, whether you are Christian or not, if you just behave more like these people, you too can be a good person. Okay. If that's true, then the Gospel is meaningless. After this incident, I began to look more and more closely at the type of material that's being produced, for example, for Bible studies, for Sunday School, and the overwhelming majority of it when it comes to the Old Testament, is pure moralism. Here's the Old Testament's story. The character did this, and it was bad, so don't do that. The character did this and it was good, so do that again. All you have to do is try harder. That's why the Old Testament is there to tell you that all you need to do is try harder. Nothing could be further from the truth. And as the father of nine children, this was something that I just had to do something about. And so in our times of family worship, we began to concentrate on the Old Testament, Concentrate on connecting it to redemptive history, concentrate on doing anything other than tell these children, all you have to do is try harder. Because that's not true. There has to be good news. It doesn't matter how hard you try. Christ came to die for the ungodly because trying hard enough won't ever satisfy God. So the message cannot be just try harder. It must be something more. So, over the course of the ten Sundays that I will have, we'll look at some of the key stories in the Old Testament and how they connect to redemptive history. Some of the stories that we most commonly and by the way, some of these passages are passages that I preached before, and wish that I had a chance to go and unpreach in many of the places that I preached them. So what I want to do today is a couple of things. First, we were gonna start with Adam, where we're gonna look at Adam and then Know and then Abraham and so on and so forth, and eventually we would have gotten to Moses. But because it's the Lord's Supper tonight, we're going to look at Moses in Exodus twelve, and we're going to look at the Passover. It's one of the easier texts to do this with so that'll be helpful as well. But what I want to do before that is sort of give you the backdrop for the entire series. Look with me if you. Will in Luke chapter twenty four, Look twenty four, Look twenty four. This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible. I like those stories that make me laugh, and this is. One of them. Beginning in verse thirteen, This is after the resurrection Jesus on the road to Amaas. That very day, two of them were going to a village named Amaeas, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him, and he said to them, what is this conversation that you were holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopus, answered him, are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? Now? Just paused for a moment here, realize he's the only one in Jerusalem who actually does know what really happened over these last few days. There's no one else who knows what he knows about what happened over these few days. He said to them, what things. And he said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, And how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, And besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see. Now, I want you to note something here. Note that earlier in the discussion they were sad. Do you remember that they were sad? Why are you sad? We were sad because Jesus we thought, we thought he was the one. And then and then and then they killed him. And now it's been three days, and the ladies went to the tomb, and he not even in the tomb, and they said they saw an angel. And some other people went back, and they they let's read. And he said to them, Oh, foolish one and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. In other words, Christ preached Christ from the Old Testament and not moralism. He went back to the Old Testament and showed them, through Moses and the Prophets, all the things concerning himself. Folks, Jesus is the interpretive key that unlocks all of the Bible. Now here's what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that we need to allegorize every text in the Old Testament to where you know everything you know this becomes a picture of Christ, and this becomes a type of Christ. And that's not my point. We don't torture the text. I'm also not saying that the stories themselves don't matter. They matter, and all of the historical elements of them matter. But what I am saying is they are only significant to the degree that they are a part of the one big story of God redeeming his people through the person and work of Jesus Christ. With that in mind, let's turn to Exodus chapter twelve. Exodus chapter twelve, beginning in verse twenty one, and let's look at this night of redemption, this night that lay at the foundation of what it is that we are about to do in just a few moments, beginning verse between one. Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, by the way, let's back up at this point. There have been nine plagues Moses has been sent before Pharaoh. And by the way, if we had time, we could talk about those nine plagues, because they weren't just nine plagues. There were three sets of three plagues. Each set of plagues attacked a different area of the Egyptian worldview, and each set of three plagues went like this. They would come before Pharaoh at the water, they would come before him in his official capacity, probably you know, there before his throne. And then on the third plague, there would be no announcement. This happens in place one, two, and three. It happens again in Plague four, five and six, and it happens again in Plague seven. Eight and nine. There are three sets of three plagues. In the middle set of plagues, for example, they are all about setting apart Goshen from the rest of Egypt. In these plagues, specifically, God does things to the Egyptians that he spares his people from over in Goshen. So all of these plagues were designed to attack the theology and worldview of Egypt. Why because God was not just trying to get Israel out of Egypt. He was trying to get Egypt out of Israel. In other words, they had been there long enough for their worldview to have been corrupted. They believed that the gods of the Egyptians were superior. They believed that the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had forsaken them and was obviously not able to deliver them. God did not have to give ten plagues. They could have just woken up one morning and every Egyptian could have been dead and they walk out. But God did not do it that way. He did it in a specific and methodical way so that he delivered his people not just physically, but also theologically. They needed to be delivered from the oppression of the Egyptian theological system. They needed to be delivered from their belief that these gods in Egypt were anything other than idols. And so one by one by one, all of the idolatry of Egypt. Is destroyed. By the way, they still had problems with it later on, if you remember when they built the Golden Calf. But this last plague is not part of the pattern. This last plague is the plague of plagues, and this is the one where God says, get ready, because tonight you leave. Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the passover lamb. Take a bunch of hissip and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lentil and the two door posts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning, for the Lord will. Pass through to strike the Egyptians. And when he sees the blood on the lentil and on the two door posts. The Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your house to strike you. And so we see here first detailed instructions on this night of redemption. This night is marked by detailed instructions, so God's people know exactly what to do. He leaves nothing to chance. Specifically, this is what you are to do. And as we look at what Israel was to do, it does not take a rocket scientist to connect it to the message of the Gospel and the redemption that we have in Christ, because ultimately this passover is a foreshadowing of what Christ is going to do. Three very specific instructions that we need to remember tonight as we take the Lord's Supper. What are they? Number One, kill the lamb. Kill the lamb. There is no salvation if we don't kill the lamb. He doesn't say go into your house and pray hard enough. He doesn't say go into your house and hope you've done enough good. He says, kill the lamb. There is a substitute that must be offered. There is a death that will take place everywhere in their house. It will be the first born in your house. It will be the lamb who is the substitute. Kill the lamb, because without the death of the lamb, there is no deliverance of the people. Listen to this one Corinthians five seven and eight. Clear out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unloven bread of sincerity and truth. Christ is our passover Lamb. So as we gather before the Lord's table, we gather recognizing the fact that the lamb has been killed as a substitute, and that we are saved, we are rescued, we are redeemed, and we are delivered because God killed the lamb. Secondly, apply the blood. Don't just kill the lamb, but apply the blood. Notice that Moses says, you kill the lamb, and you use the hissip to apply the blood to the doorposts and to the lentils, because it is the blood of the lamb that will keep the death angel away. Peter chapter one, beginning in verse thirteen. Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you as holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it was written you shall be holy, for I am holy. And if you call on Him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways, inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb, without blemish or spot. We have redemption in his blood. How many times do we read that in the New Testament that we are. Saved through His blood. The lamb is sacrificed, and it is his blood that washes us clean. Over and over again we are reminded of the blood. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains, the blood of Christ, the sacrificial atoning death, the vicarious death of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Kill the lamb and apply the blood. If there is a final instruction, Moses says, stay inside, kill the lamb, apply the blood to the door, and stay inside. Don't go out killing. Daish in their commentary on this passage, writes, the reason for the command not to go out of the door of the house was that in this night of judgment there would be no safety anywhere except behind the blood stained door. You see. To leave your house on that night would be to say, as the death angel is passing by, I am afraid, and I believe I can find salvation somewhere out there. That's the only reason you'd leave the door. I'm afraid right now, and because I'm afraid, I want to be in the place that brings me security. But the moment you open the door and leave the house, you acknowledge the fact that you are not trusting by faith, and you leave and you die. Kill the lamb, apply the blood, and stay in side. Because the blood of the lamb is your only hope. There is salvation in no other It is Christ and Christ alone. There is no salvation anywhere else Where are you going to go? If you leave the blood stained door? Where will you run? Where will you hide? Where will you find safety and secure curity? Oh saints, stay inside. We are often tempted to look elsewhere. Stay inside. Things get difficult and you get scared, and all of a sudden you want to run back to what's familiar. That means you are not trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ. All of a sudden, things are not going according to plan, and you want to add what you used to believe to what you now believe. That means you're not trusting in Jesus Christ. He says, run away from Sodomon Gomorrah, And you look back and there's a pillar of salt to commemorate your lack of faith. You never believed that Christ was enough. The lamb has been slain, his blood has been applied, and all those who trust in him stay inside. Moses and the Israelites had no idea, none at all, of what it was they were foreshadowing. All they were thinking about is temporal salvation from Egypt all what they would have given saints to have the fuller picture that you and I have of being saved to the uttermost by the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God. Amen. Secondly, in addition to this. Detailed instruction, so that we know what to do, there is also this perpetual reminder, so that we never forget. Look beginning of verse twenty four, you shall observe this right as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service, you shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover. For he passed over the houses of the people of Israel, and for excuse me, in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses a perpetual reminder. Interestingly enough, there is encouragement here. Remember there have been nine plagues. Nine time the Israelites experienced something that, in their minds ought to have gotten them out of Egypt. Blood in the Nile. We're going home, y'all. Ah. No, No, we're not flies, gnats, boils, certainly, no, no, we're not. Ah, wait a minute, he said, we could go. Ah changed his mind over and over and over again. But on this night God tells them to make plans and preparations for a life outside of Egypt. You are not going to be here forever. You are going to be delivered, and this ritual was to be performed over and over and over again. Why every culture has its rituals, In fact, that's one of the things that distinguishes various cultures. And these rituals usually mark things that a culture cannot afford to forget. And for Israel, this was the ritual of rituals, the reminder of reminders. But why was this significant? Imagine something with me, if you will, imagine that Israel comes out of Egypt and there is no passover, and there is no ritual, and there is no sacrificial system. And suddenly, way off in the future, there is the god man Jesus who comes and he is crucified by the Romans. What does that mean? How is it significant? Why is it to stick in the forefront of our minds? I mean, there are thousands of men who were crucified by the Romans. Two more crucified with him on that day. Why would it have been significant. The reason it was significant is because year after year they celebrated the Passover, and year after year there was a lamb who was slain, and year after year there was a reminder of the blood that was applied and the people who were delivered. And on top of this was the sacrificial system. And year after year there's the High Holy Day and there's the scapegoat, and there are the hands that are placed on his head and he is sent into outer darkness, taking the sins of the people away. And another goat who is slain, who dies for the sins of the people, And year after year after year they're reminded of one thing. God is going to deal with your sin through the death of the lamb. And all of a sudden, Jesus shows up and John says, behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins. Of the world. And during this very same celebration where they are killing a lamb to remind themselves of their need of a savior, Christ dies for sin, once for all, the just, for the unjust. In order that he might bring us back to God. And in the consciousness of everyone who has experienced this. They know what this means. This is what God has been saying year after year. And day after day. I know what this means. A perpetual reminder, so that when God does what he was pointing to, you know exactly what it means. There is no doubt. It's not left up to interpretation. We're not left to wonder. We know what the death of Christ meant. Then there is the solemn obedience to suit the occasion. Twenty seven and twenty eight, and the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Then the people of Israel went and did so as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. So they did Why so solemn? Because it fit the occasion. It fit the occasion. You see what was about to happen. We read the Bible, and the way we tend to read the Bible, we read it, like I said, in black and white, as though they're good guys and bad guys, and these guys and those guys. And so when we read Exodus, what we tend to do is we tend to read Exodus like the Egyptians aren't human, Like every Egyptian walked around with a snarl on his face, like every Egyptian carried a whip, like every Egyptian was hateful, like every Egyptian had nothing but the worst intentions towards the Israelites. The reality wasn't like that. More likely, every Israelite had an Egyptian friend or two or three. The Israelite children probably ran around and played with little Egyptian children. He saw each other in the markets. And then. Verse twenty nine, at midnight, the Lord struck down all the first born in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne, to the first born of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first born of the live stock. 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 some one was not dead. The Israelites weren't celebrating that night. Can you imagine the lamb has been slain, the blood has been applied to the door. You go into your house, and as you sit there, midnight comes, and you hear the wailing and the groaning of mothers whose children are dying in their arms, mothers who you know, children who you know, and it's everywhere. You can't escape it, you can't get away from it. Yes, you want to be free, but nobody wants to experience this. Listen to this comment from James and Fosset and Brown. It is more easy to imagine than describe the confusion and terror of that people suddenly roused from sleep and enveloped in darkness. None could assist their neighbor. When the groans of the dying and the wild shrieks of mourners were heard everywhere around the hope of every family was destroyed at a stroke. This judgment terrible, though it was vice the equity of divine retribution. For eighty years, the Egyptians had caused the male children of the Israelites to be cast into the river, and now all their own first born fell under the stroke of the destroying Angel. They were made in the justice of God to feel something of what they had made his people feel. It was justice, but it was horrible, And finally that night brought absolute deliverence, so that God's people were saved thirty one and thirty two. Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, this is Pharaoh. Up, go up from among my people, both you and the people of Israel, and go serve the Lord as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds as you have said, and be gone. And bless me. Also. Their salvation was immediate. Up, go leave, leave now. It's why God told his people to be girded up. Salvation was comprehensive. He said, go all of you, all of you. It was unconditional. Go serve the Lord as you have said. And yet it was incomplete because we know that they had to leave, and there was a long journey ahead. They'd be in the desert, in the wilderness for forty years. We know that the path was treacherous. We know that the promise was still far off, and these people who are leaving were never really going to understand or realize the promise that God had made. Many of them would never make it. Moses wouldn't make it into the land of Promise. That's why it was so important that year after year after year, God's people remembered. And that's why it's so important for us. You say you become a Christian, and oftentimes we think, yes, we're following the Lord Jesus. And all will be well. And yet we still. Get sick, our friends and our family and our loved ones still die. We still have financial hardships, emotional hardships, marriage difficulties, pain with our children. And if we're not careful, what ends up happening is we forget. We forget, get the promise that has been made just because there's difficulty between the time it's made and the time it's realized. We forget. We forget that this is not our home. We forget that we are pilgrims in this land. We forget that we don't get it all here and now. Although the prosperity preachers will want to make us think that we forget that. And what happens, What happens when we forget. God calls us together as his people, and he reminds us as we break the bread, and as we drink the cup, he reminds us the lamb has been slain, the blood has been applied, And no matter what you're going through. Stay in side. She will be saved, You will get home, you will be delivered. Christ will have the fullness of the reward for which he died. This is my body, What is for you take eat. This is the blood of the new Covenant ship. For you you drink this. And as often as you eat the bread, and as often as you drink the cup, you remember. You remember, you remember, you remember. No matter what it is that you're going through, you remember, you remember. Whatever it is, it's not bigger than a dead Jesus. And the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will complete the work that he has begun in you. Just remember, stay inside. Let's pray, Oh God, how we need to be reminded. Oh how we thank you for reminding us again and again and again that you did not deliver us, You did not rescue us. You did not save us, to leave us and abandon us in the desert. And you, who've begun a good work in us, you are able and you will indeed see it through to its completion. Grant by your grace that we might stay inside, that we might hold on. Thank you for reminding us again and again that Christ is sufficient, that his atoning sacrifice is enough, and that there is nothing or no one else in whom we can trust or in whom we should father. I pray for those under the sound of my voice or languishing under the weight of hardship and difficulty, pain and suffering, and ask that, by your grace you would draw near and remind them of who you are and whose they are, and of your promise that will come to past. God, we thank you that you are the God who saves his people always. Amen. H What if