Latest / Scripture Central / Exodus 7-13 I Come Follow Me I Handmaidens, Harems and Heroines I Lynne Hilton Wilson
Transcript
- 0:00This is the whole meaning of the law.
- 0:02He's referring to the law of Moses.
- 0:04Every wit points to that great and last sacrifice.
- 0:08That great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God.
- 0:11Yay, infinite and eternal. Now, how many of these Hebrew
- 0:15mothers understood that as they are preparing their Paschal
- 0:18lambs for their families that night, as they are carefully
- 0:22taking the blood and keeping it sacred, I don't know.
- 0:30Hello, welcome back to Scripture Central.
- 0:32I'm Lynn Hilton Wilson, here to talk about the handmaidens and
- 0:36the harems and heroines that we who are seeking their Messiah,
- 0:40finding their Messiah. And in the context of Easter, we
- 0:44are so blessed to have an opportunity to talk about the
- 0:48Passover. I feel like these two lessons
- 0:51from Easter last week and Passover this week should always
- 0:54be side by side in order to fully appreciate both of them
- 0:59because they both speak of that. As we look specifically at ways
- 1:04to strengthen testimony and faith in Jesus Christ, I am
- 1:08thrilled to look at these great children of Israel, these women
- 1:13and daughters, along with their family members of the Hebrew
- 1:18nation that saw God's hand in their life and that recorded
- 1:22these stories and that kept them going.
- 1:25We learn about the Egyptian women and families receiving
- 1:28these plagues. We learn about the Hebrew women
- 1:31who are spared from at least six of the plagues, and then the
- 1:35Hebrew women who borrow the silver and gold from their
- 1:38Egyptian neighbors as well as their husbands.
- 1:40But I want to step back and just look at the timeline here for a
- 1:43minute. We're very fortunate in the
- 1:45Scriptures, Exodus chapter 12, verse 40 and 41 to actually say
- 1:51how many years this has been going on here.
- 1:54And so if we are going to use the approximate date of Abraham
- 1:57at about 2000 BC and they've now been in Egypt for about 430
- 2:03years and it was between Abraham and and Jacob coming down to
- 2:07Egypt, we have approximately 215 years because we know Abraham
- 2:11lived 175 years and you know, Isaac lives to be 180.
- 2:15So that really is helpful to put all these pieces together in my
- 2:18hand that I have all the sources for these.
- 2:20That would make it approximately A1350 BCI.
- 2:26Don't know for sure, give or take a century, it's in the
- 2:30Bronze Age. But if you look at the
- 2:33Scriptures from Genesis 15 where the Lord prophecies to Abraham,
- 2:37your descendants will be strangers in a country not their
- 2:41own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years.
- 2:48And then in Exodus 12, the verses we just read, they were
- 2:52living in Egypt for 430 years before they returned to Cana.
- 2:57And then in First Kings chapter 6, it says that the Exodus
- 3:02occurred 480 years before King Solomon's fourth year of his
- 3:06reign. So all of these give us a little
- 3:09bit of a different date. Judges 11, Exodus 1, you know,
- 3:13each one gives us some historical information.
- 3:17So give or take 100 years or so, we're just about in that time
- 3:21period when God sends the plagues.
- 3:24The women and children and family members are all part of
- 3:28this, even though their names are not mentioned.
- 3:30But I just want to remind you that it's the mothers and the
- 3:33daughters who are trying to take care of the people with the
- 3:36boils, who are trying to shoo out the flies, who are doing the
- 3:39hard work. This was excruciatingly painful
- 3:43on these families especially. I'm thinking of babies receiving
- 3:46this kind of mistreatment when they don't have any water to
- 3:49drink because it's all been turned to blood.
- 3:51Learned that the first plagues are just sort of a nuisance, you
- 3:55know they're Exodus 7 through 9, but the 6th plague actually
- 3:59attacks the humans. Also interesting as we look at
- 4:01these plagues, the first 3 the Israelites were not removed
- 4:07from, they had them as well. You know when you're talking
- 4:10about the the Nile turning to blood and the frogs and the
- 4:14lice, those are across everyone. It's not until we get to the
- 4:19flies that they are not in the land of Goshen.
- 4:22I was interested to just take a little study to look at Moses's
- 4:2610 plagues and the Book of Revelations 7 plagues before the
- 4:30last days and see how many of them overlapped.
- 4:33The water source is polluted, the sea will be plagued, and the
- 4:36water is going to be bitter according to the Book of
- 4:38Revelation. And then we're going to have
- 4:40Moses's 6th plague with this fine dust that turns into these
- 4:44festering boils in the time of Revelation.
- 4:46It talks about having a hard time breathing through the smoke
- 4:49and the brimstone. And then we've got the hail and
- 4:52the fire. In both the 7th plague of Exodus
- 4:54and the first plague of Revelation, the sun being
- 4:57darkened is the 9th plague. And then of course, the 10th
- 5:01plague, the plague of death of the first born for Moses is
- 5:07going to be the bottomless pit, the 5th plague of the death that
- 5:12will come in the Book of Revelation.
- 5:14So I think these things are types and shadows, but the
- 5:18Hebrew women were blessed to not have to endure the last few, but
- 5:23they also had to endure the frogs and the gnats.
- 5:28Moving on, in our text to Exodus chapter 3, I'd like to read from
- 5:32the English standard version. It talks about how every man and
- 5:36every woman is going to be borrowing from their neighbors
- 5:40silver and gold jewelry. I looked up all these words in
- 5:43the in the Hebrew and it could be jewelry, it could be other
- 5:47things, but it sounds like that they are commanded to go and and
- 5:53take these things from their neighbors as if they were going
- 5:57to be returning them. But the truth is they have been
- 6:00underpaid for probably generations, and these things
- 6:04probably should be owed to them. But God is commanding it, and I
- 6:08believe these are the things that are going to be used to
- 6:11build the Tabernacle. I don't know for sure the
- 6:14Egyptians are being wasted. I'd like to spend most of our
- 6:17time on preparing for the Passover, the last plague, where
- 6:22Moses is giving it specific instructions because this is
- 6:25where the women would have been so highly involved.
- 6:28Let's open up to Exodus chapter 12 and in the verses 3 through
- 6:336, we Start learning about their preparations for the Passover
- 6:37and it's their spring month. They're going to start the
- 6:40calendar now on this month. This is going to now be the
- 6:43first of their months, the Israelites, including the time
- 6:47of of Lehigh. When they leave.
- 6:50Their first month is the month of Passover and the 10th day of
- 6:55this month. Every male must select a lamb
- 6:59for his family, one per household.
- 7:01And you have to have at least 10 people eating it.
- 7:03And if you don't have at least 10 people, you got to bring in
- 7:05some neighbors. You got to share so we don't
- 7:07have anything wasted. I love the BSB translation here.
- 7:11Your lamb must be unblemished, a year old male, and you may take
- 7:16it from the sheep or the goats, and you keep that with you.
- 7:21On that 10th day you choose it, and on the 14th day it will be
- 7:25slaughtered, because the night of the 14th night is when the
- 7:28Passover begins. Now, just as a reminder, the
- 7:31Hebrews start their day at sundown, because at the creation
- 7:35it was darkness before light. So in their minds the day begins
- 7:40in darkness. So we have that Passover being
- 7:45slaughtered right before sunset, and it became traditionally done
- 7:49at 3:00 in the afternoon. As we look at each of these
- 7:52symbols without blemish, male at the prime of its life of the
- 7:57sheep or the goats, and then kept within its own people, with
- 8:02its own people from the 10th to the 14th, we see a lot of
- 8:05parallels to the Lamb of God, this beautiful image of our
- 8:10Savior. And if we're using John's Gospel
- 8:14and going back to the 10th day, we find that is Palm Sunday.
- 8:21And we have records in both John's Gospel and Matthew's
- 8:24Gospel about how the chief priests and the scribes saw
- 8:28these wonderful things that he did and the children crying out
- 8:32in the temple Hosanna to the Son of David.
- 8:35And they were indignant in John 12/19.
- 8:41The Pharisees then said, skipping ahead a little bit, you
- 8:44see that you could do nothing. Look, the world has gone after
- 8:48him. I believe this is significant in
- 8:53the timing, as now the lamb has been chosen.
- 8:56Now they've been plotting to kill him for months, if not
- 8:59years. But at this point, the 10th of
- 9:03Nissan, which we celebrate as Christians as Palm Sunday, Jesus
- 9:08is going to stay in his city. He is going to stay with his
- 9:11people. And just as that lamb became
- 9:13very beloved to the family, Jesus was beloved to his
- 9:19disciples. And we're told as we look at
- 9:23even the text from the book of Alma, Alma 34, verse 14, this is
- 9:30the whole meaning of the law. He's referring to the Law of
- 9:33Moses. Every whit points to that great
- 9:36and last sacrifice. That great and last sacrifice
- 9:39will be the Son of God. Yay, infinite and eternal.
- 9:43Now how many of these Hebrew mothers understood that as they
- 9:46are preparing their paschal lambs for their families that
- 9:49night, as they are carefully taking the blood and keeping it
- 9:53sacred, I don't know. Now later on when the Torah is
- 9:58written, Exodus 12/6, it says the whole assembly of the
- 10:01congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
- 10:05And they all did. But they don't all have to come
- 10:07to the Tabernacle because this is this is before the temple was
- 10:12built. This is before that time period.
- 10:14There's no Tabernacle built right now.
- 10:16They're doing it in their homes and they take the blood and they
- 10:19put it on their side posts and the upper post of their houses.
- 10:23So the entering in will be covered by the blood.
- 10:26And remember, the word for atone is to cover.
- 10:31These are all beautiful symbols of the covering of your coming
- 10:35in and you're out. I see this as the temple
- 10:38doorway. I see this as a veil of the
- 10:39temple. Before you enter into the
- 10:41presence of the Lord. You will be blessed by the blood
- 10:44of the Lord. You will be able to go through
- 10:46the atoning sacrifice before we are taken there.
- 10:50So that night in the Egyptian homes, the women lost their
- 10:55children, lost their spouses. Anyone who was a first born was
- 11:00slain unless you had the blood of the lamb covering your
- 11:04doorpost. But those Hebrew women that
- 11:08night were protected if they had put the blood on their doorpost
- 11:14as a symbol as a sign of the way back to the tree of life of the
- 11:19way through our saviors atoning sacrifice.
- 11:23These symbols are so powerful and the way they even have to
- 11:26cook the meat. It says make sure you you burn
- 11:29it. Fire is an element of
- 11:31purification. The women had to make sure that
- 11:33it was roasted with fire and they are the ones who are making
- 11:39the unleavened bread with their bitter herbs.
- 11:41And the symbols may not have been clear to them that night,
- 11:45but it became clear over time. These women would soon learn,
- 11:51whether in this life or the next, of the important symbols
- 11:55that they were creating as they followed God with exactness.
- 11:59They have no leaven in their houses and they ate the entire
- 12:03lamb. Nothing was left.
- 12:05They had to eat all of it. Just like everything we do has
- 12:09to be completely fulfilling the law of our Savior.
- 12:13There is no salvation. Impartial truths.
- 12:16I appreciate the Doctrine Covenants reiteration of this in
- 12:19the section where we talk about the law of consecration and what
- 12:22the church is expected to be living.
- 12:24It says in Section 42, verse 29, if thou lovest me, thou shalt
- 12:29serve me and keep all my commandments.
- 12:33So prioritize the things of God, accept your callings, do your
- 12:37ministering, and prioritize the things of God.
- 12:40Going back to the book of Exodus in chapter 12, we're told that
- 12:44they are to keep this feast throughout their generations.
- 12:48And I for one, have loved keeping this feast as part of my
- 12:51Christian Easter celebration. I love keeping the feast with
- 12:56the symbols of our lamb, our sacrificial lamb, and the
- 13:01haroset representing the mortar that they was used in Egypt to
- 13:05make the cities of Ramses, and the bitter herbs of their
- 13:10bitterness and the salted water for the tears that were shed by
- 13:13the women. Passover symbols are so
- 13:16beautiful as we tie them into the Last Supper.
- 13:19The synoptic gospel say it the the Last Supper was a Passover
- 13:22feast, but John says no, the Savior is dying on as the
- 13:27Passover lamb. This is the day before, and as
- 13:31we look at these stories, I want you to realize that women were
- 13:36so important to these stories and their sacrifices of time,
- 13:42talents, and energy to follow the Lord for exactness are a
- 13:45type of Christ who becomes our sacrifice.
- 13:50And I'll close with the words that Paul uses for him in First
- 13:54Corinthians chapter 5, verse 7. For even Christ, our Passover is
- 14:00sacrificed for us. As you read these beautiful
- 14:04chapters this week in Exodus, may you see types of Christ.
- 14:10And can you step back in history and enter into that little
- 14:15ghetto town of Goshen in Egypt and walk into those little rooms
- 14:21and see the women preparing that bread?
- 14:24And make this a tradition in your family where you actually
- 14:29can re enact A seder as if it were filled with all the
- 14:33Christians types and symbols from the Book of Mormon, the
- 14:37Doctrine Covenants, and the New Testament.
- 14:40I am so grateful to know that the blood of the Lamb has been
- 14:44shed for us, and that He will Passover us, and that we can be
- 14:49forgiven of our sins great and small, as we strive to live all
- 14:54that He has commanded us. And as I daily repent, I pray
- 15:00that I, as a daughter of God, can draw into His presence more
- 15:06closely, more regularly, to be a better servant for Him.
- 15:10And I hope your prayers are likewise answered in the name of
- 15:15our Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.