THROUGH THE BIBLE - Exodus 1..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Exodus chapter 12, and this is the word of God. 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. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household. And 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. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male, a year old.

You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorspots and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roast it, its head with its legs and its inner parts.

And you shall let none of it remain until the morning. Anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this matter you shall eat it, with your belt fastened, and your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both men and beasts, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments.

I am the Lord." The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." Verse 14. This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations as a statue forever.

You shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses. For if anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut out from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, 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 by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your host out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a statue forever. In the first month, from the 14th day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses.

If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing unleavened. In all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread. 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 hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin and touch the lintel and the two doorsports 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 lintel and on the two door spots, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. You shall observe this right as a statue for you and 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 in Egypt, when He struck the Egyptians but spared our houses. 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.

At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all Egyptians. And there was a cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. Then he 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 ye have said. Take your flocks and your herds as ye have said, and be gone, and bless me also.

The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, we shall all be dead. So the people took their dough before it was leavened, before their kneading balls being bound up in their clogs on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. 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.

The people of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Saqqat, 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 herds. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves." The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the host of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

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 the generations. Verse 43, And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This is the statue of the Passover. No foreigner shall eat of it, but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. No foreigner or higher worker may eat of it.

It shall be eaten in one house. You shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. If a stranger 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.

He shall be as a native of the land, but not a circumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you." Well, the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. And on that very day, the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts. Amen.

The Word of God. Brothers and sisters, you might remember the last week when we were doing chapter 11. I said to you that in that chapter, the Lord was communicating through His prophet Moses, through His preacher Moses. He was announcing the coming judgment of the last plague. the death of the firstborn among the Egyptians and also among the animals.

Chapter 11 was the announcement. So Moses comes and he announced that this is going to be the judgment coming upon the Egyptians from the Lord God of Israel. And that judgment was that God himself or the Lord himself was going to send his angel or he himself was going to be in the midst of the land of Egypt and the firstborn of the humans of the Egyptians were going to die and also the firstborn of the beasts. But in that process of announcing, of bringing that exhortation, of that warning, Moses also says something very important. That when the Lord brings that judgment, the last of the plagues, the death of the firstborn, the Lord was also going to make a distinction.

He was going to make a distinction between the people of Israel, and also a distinction between the people of the Egyptians. That is, that the judgment that was going to come upon the Egyptian was not going to be applied on the people of Israel, that the Lord was going to pass over the people of Israel. And it's exactly what we have here in chapter 12. In chapter 12, we have the execution, the coming to happen of those two things. The judgment that was going to be executed upon the people of Egypt, because that's what the Lord had promised, that is the death of the firstborn of humans and animals.

But also, we have the passing over of the Lord over, over, over the people of Israel. Now, I want you to think about something very interesting here, because this is not going to be the first time that the Lord is making a distinction between the people of Israel and the people of Egypt. In the previous plagues, the Lord has, in a sense, passed over the people of Israel and has not applied the judgments of the previous plagues to the people of Israel. However, what we have in front of us in chapter 12 is just a little bit different, because the Lord is going to still pass over the people of Israel, but the way that He's going to do it is very different to the way that He has passed over in a different sense in the previous place. In this case, in this place that we have here in chapter 12, the Lord is going to pass over effectively over His people, but there is going to be a requirement.

the Lord is going to require something of the people of Israel for him to pass over the judgment that he's going to execute upon the people of Egypt. He had not requested anything from the people in the previous plagues, but on this one he's going to request something, a requirement of obedience to the people of Israel, and that is our famous Passover. The Passover, the institution of the Passover is the directions that the Lord is going to give through the mouth of Moses to the people of Israel on the things that they are supposed to do so that the judgment of God will not fall on the people of Israel. So then, in the first section of chapter 12, the author Moses is going to give us the directions of what are those things that the people of Israel were supposed to do so that the judgment of God will pass over them. This is the beginning of the first month and on the 10th day you are to separate a lamb without blemish, without spot.

On the 10th day you are to keep that lamb for four days and on the 14th day, in the evening, you are supposed to kill that lamb. Those are the instructions, the directions that were given to the people of Israel through the mouth of Moses. Once you kill that lamb, you're supposed to do two things. With the flesh, you are going to eat it all. You're going to rust it and you're going to eat it all through the night.

But with the blood, you are going to paint the door spots or the frame of the door. Why? Because when the Lord comes in the midst of the land of Egypt, when He sees that blood, He's going to pass over. Here we have the institution of the Passover, but the question that we need to ask ourselves, or at least the question that I asked myself when I was reading this is, why would the Lord require a particular portion or a particular obedience or a requirement of his people in this last plate? And I think that the answer is given to us in a couple of verses.

I'm going to give it to you first, and then we will see those two verses. The Lord requires obedience, or requires something to be performed, so that He will pass over the judgment that He's going to be executing, because... The Lord is not only executing judgment upon the people of Egypt, but also He's instituting the sign, a very important sign, of the covenant. So it's given to us in verse 13, there in chapter 12, He says that the blood, if you read it there, It says, the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

The blood was a sign given to the people of Israel so that when the Lord was going to come to execute judgment, He will pass over. But it's a sign that goes beyond that night. Because what it comes after this is that then a feast is going to be instituted out of this Passover. And then the people of Israel were supposed to do this throughout all their generations. Actually, two feasts are instituted here, the Unleavened Bread and the Passover.

But brothers and sisters, the institution of this covenantal sign tells us something very important of the promise that the Lord had given to His people. Go to verse 25 or 24 of the same chapter. He's now going to speak about the purpose, the purpose of this sign, the ongoing purpose that will go beyond that night. Verse 24, you shall observe this rite that is the Passover and the eating of the flesh and taking the blood and put it on the door spots and on the lintel. You shall observe this rite as a statue for you and for your sons forever.

Now pay attention to verse 25 and when it comes after until verse 28. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you as he has promised, you shall keep this service, speaking of the Passover. 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 Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but A glorious word comes there, spared or delivered or passed over our houses, delivered our houses. And the people, when they heard that, they bowed down their heads and worshiped.

Then the people of Israel went and did so as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. So they did, beloved brothers and sisters. The institution of the Passover is not only with the purpose of passing over the judgment of God for the people of Israel, but it's a covenantal sign that speaks of the nature of the promise that God had given to His people. Not only that temporary judgment was going to be passed over them that particular night, but that He was going to accomplish that what He had said to Moses in Exodus chapter 3. that he was going to come down to visit his people and that he was going to free them from the bondage of Egypt and that he was going to take them to the promised land.

Here it says in verse 25, written in verse 25, and when you come to the land that the Lord will give you as he has promised, you shall keep this service because the meaning of this So the meaning of this Passover is that when they reach the place where they are supposed to be, they've got performance among their people, and they may remember the glorious thing that the Lord did, that He was going to bring judgment upon everyone. But then he provided, as he says here, the sacrifice of the Lord, and God passed over, jumped over these people, not because of the obedience that they had done, because brothers and sisters, many of the people who performed this, Passover, that particular night will be destroyed then in the wilderness. But this is a sign given to these people that I am bringing you out of this land of slavery from Egypt and I will bring you until the end, until the land that I had promised to you. This is glorious. Because in the New Testament, we are told that Moses kept the Passover by faith.

This is Hebrews 11. And also, we are told that Jesus Christ is our Passover. That when judgment comes upon us, because the faith that we have in Jesus Christ, God passes over the judgment that we deserve. But not only that, it is also given to us, as I promised, that when we are in the land that He has promised, We will remember that the only reason why we are there is that because He passed us over, because of the person of Jesus Christ. Now, brothers and sisters, we are told in Deuteronomy chapter 5 that the people of Israel did not believe something.

We are told that they believed that God came down to visit them. They believed that. We are told that in Exodus chapter 4. We are told that they believed that the Lord was going to pass over them. We are told here that they worshiped and they bowed down and they believed.

But in Deuteronomy chapter 5 or Deuteronomy chapter 1, I think, 1, we are told that they did not believe that the Lord was going to take them through the wilderness. They became gramblers, complainers of many things that happened during the wilderness. So then Jude is speaking of these who did not believe. I want to remind you, though, you once knew this, that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward He destroyed those who did not believe. believe and he compares with Sodom and Gomorrah and with the angels that left their own abode.

His peaks of these people are devoid from the spirit. Brothers and sisters, every time that we see the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, every time that we partake of this table, the bread and the cup and we remember his body and then we remember his blood, it is not only that judgment has passed over us, or that judgment has jumped over us, but that Christ is so sufficient, not only to justify us, but also to take us and preserve us and keep us until the end. This is the glorious relationship of the Old Covenant with the New Covenant, that the New Covenant is a better covenant that has been established on the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So then, the lamb who was killed in the Passover was not sufficient for those who were there and believed it to take Him until the end. Many of them failed at Christ, at Passover.

He's sufficient for everything. Once the soul, by grace, is open, their eyes and the eyes of the heart and the eyes of the soul, once we see Christ as the Lamb who has been slain, then not only forgiveness of sin is given unto us, but also adoption through His blood. And the promise that He does no matter what happens through the wilderness is the same blood that redeemed us, that takes us and keeps us and protects us until glory. So it is not about the performance of those who believe initially, but it's about the sufficiency of the one who died upon the cross and whose grace has been given unto us like something that comes abounding from heaven that we do not deserve. Praise God.

Praise God. Amen.