032716 The Passover Text: Exodus 12:1-14 While Christians here in the United States are worried about what they are going to wear on Easter or who s coming to Easter lunch, Christians in the Middle East are consumed with this thought, Am I going to be alive on Monday morning? That thought should give the celebration of Easter a little more significance. Easter Sunday. The world has watered it down. Christians take it for granted. Overall, most simply do not understand its significance. That s why we must start in the Old Testament if we are to get a proper understanding of what we celebrate today. God had commanded, Let My people go! (Exodus 5:1) Yet Pharaoh, and by extension the entire nation of Egypt, rejected God and refused. Pharaoh even said, Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice? (Exodus 5:2) Through a series of 9 plagues, Pharaoh consistently hardened his heart toward God, rejecting God and refusing to yield to God. God s justice and righteousness had to be satisfied. God would accomplish that through the 10 th plague the killing of the firstborn. Pharaoh would yield. He would let God s people go. However, the Bible, in 2 Peter 3:9 tells us that the Lord is, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God, in the midst of pouring His wrath out upon those who had rejected Him, still showed mercy by providing individuals the opportunity to escape the judgement that was coming. How? Through the most unlikely of means an innocent lamb must die and its blood applied. 1. The First Passover in Exodus Chapter 12 a. A lamb without blemish was chosen. (vs. 5) Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: b. This lamb, to assure that it was without blemish, was kept and watched for 4 days. (vs. 6) And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month... c. This lamb was then killed and its blood applied. (vs. 6-7) and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.
d. The individuals within the home ate the lamb. They had to choose to participate. (vs. 8) And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. e. God s wrath His judgement was coming. (vs. 12) For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. f. The good news, though, was that God made a way for them to escape the wrath to come. when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. (vs. 13) g. However, there was more bad news. i. This Passover was imperfect. It was not complete. The lamb was killed, it was eaten, and the remainder was burnt with fire. It didn t finish the work. Hence, the Passover had to be observed every year! And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. (vs. 10) And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. (vs. 14) ii. Jews today still celebrate the Passover but it still has the same effect as it did thousands of years ago; it s merely a picture. It was a picture of 2. The Last Passover Jesus Christ! a. While the Old Testament Passover was simply a picture it was never intended to be the once and for all. It was simply a picture of that which was to come Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Passover Lamb. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. John 1:29 b. Jesus was spotless. For over 30 years Jesus lived a life without sin a life in which there was no blemish.
And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none. For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together. Mark 14:55-56 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. John 19:4 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 1 Peter 1:18-19 c. Jesus Christ, the perfect lamb of God, was crucified; His blood was shed. The Passover was complete in Him. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him Matthew 27:33-35a When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. John 19:30-34 d. But unlike the Passover lamb in Exodus chapter 12, Jesus Christ rose again the third day! Through His death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus Christ defeated death and hell! This is what makes this day Resurrection Sunday so significant. We do not serve a dead man. We serve a risen Savior! And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. Matthew 28:5-6
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:55-57 e. Even so, why should you should the events of this day be important to you? i. Just as God, in the book of Exodus, unleased his wrath and judgement upon the nation of Egypt, one day God s wrath is coming upon all of mankind. God s wrath is coming because of the sin of mankind. But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition [destruction] of ungodly men. 2 Peter 3:7 ii. All of us are sinners. The wrath of God abides upon every one of us. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23 For the wages of sin is death Romans 6:23 "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3:36 f. In Exodus chapter 12, the blood had to be applied. Individually the Passover lamb had to be eaten. So, today, for an individual to escape the wrath of God, Christ s blood must be applied. A person must, by faith, be partakers of Christ s death, burial and resurrection. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10:9-13 Closing: William Cowper (Cooper) was a man that suffered from such severe bouts of depression that it drove him to attempt suicide on multiple occasions. On one occasion he attempted to poison himself, drown himself, stab himself, and hang himself all to no avail. A conviction of sin and a sense of God s wrath hung over him with seemingly no means of escape. He was committed to a mental institution and placed under the care of a Christian, Dr.
Nathaniel Cotton, who made sure that he had access to God s Word. Upon opening the Bible, he read Romans 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; About that incident, he wrote, Immediately I received the strength to believe it, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon sealed in His blood, and all the fullness and completeness of His justification. In a moment I believed, and received the gospel... http://www.stempublishing.com/hymns/biographies/cowper.html Cowper after that, wrote the words to a hymn that we often sing There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.