Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 24, 2021 | Exodus - Reboot Me, God

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January 24, 2021 | Exodus - Reboot Me, God · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've been a little bit transfixed by Egypt since I was a little boy.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: My brother Steve and I as kids were on a vacation with my dad in Idaho, staying in a log cabin.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: He was speaking at a camp.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And at night, we fell asleep each night that week with him reading to us the story of the discovery of King Touch II.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that it's interesting what uh what how how you can be influenced even at a young age by what your parents are interested in.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my father's love for archaeology.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the East has stayed with me.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we are in a series.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: If uh you're new to us today, this is the fourth week of our Exodus series entitled Breaking Us Out and Inviting Us In.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I uh I've asked all TBCers to accept the Exodus Challenge, which is to read this book, all 40 chapters, in 10 weeks, four daily devotionals on the four chapters on discoveredtbc.com.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: This next week, chapters 13 through 16.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: The chapters are really fun, at least uh this first half of the book.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So uh if uh you're a little behind, it should be easy to catch up.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you are still with us?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic, great, and I hope you're doing some of the devotions as well.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Our title today is Reboot Me, God.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's about asking God for a fresh start.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's about asking God for a new beginning.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you look back on your life, you remember uh certain days, and they're usually new beginnings.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: First day of school, becoming a teenager, your first date, your first kiss, graduation, uh, your wedding day, the day of giving birth to your child.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the new beginning, the greatest new beginning in the 4,000 years of Israel's history, is recorded in today's chapter, Exodus chapter 12, one of the ten great chapters in the Old Testament.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: You should open your Bible if you have it.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: If not, uh flick to it on your cell phone, because this is Israel's liberation day.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is their exodus from Egypt.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason that it's one of the ten greatest chapters in the Old Testament is that according to the Bible, Israel's new beginning is the one doorway that God has provided into a new beginning for every person who has lived since then.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Passover story.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: It comes to us in Exodus 12.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to follow along in your Bible, I'm gonna read 25 verses of this story, starting with the last two verses of chapter 10.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um it goes like this.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um Pharaoh said to Moses, this is after the ninth plague of darkness, leave me, make sure you never see my face again, for on the day you see my face, you will die.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: As you have said, Moses replied, I will never see your face again.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I take it that as he's heading out of the palace or out of the throne room in anger, he says, chapter 11, verse 4, so Moses says, This is what the Lord says about midnight.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I will go throughout Egypt, and every firstborn male in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, to the firstborn of the servant girl who is at the grindstones, as well as the firstborn, every firstborn of the livestock.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then there will be a great cry of anguish through all the land of Egypt, such as never was before or ever will be again.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: But against all the Israelites, whether people or animals, not even a dog will snarl.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the word used is stick out its tongue.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Not even a dog will pr uh stick its tongue out of its mouth, so that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: All these officials of yours will come to me and bow down before me, saying, Get out, you and all the people who follow you, and after that I will get out.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he went out from Pharaoh's presence, fiercely angry.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 12, verses 1 through 13.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month is to be the beginning of months for you.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is the first month of your year.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, they must each select an animal of the flock according to their father's families, one animal per family.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: If the household's too small for to eat a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: You should apportion the animal according to what each will eat.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: You must have an unblemished animal, a year old male.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: You may take it from either the sheep or the goats.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: That means keep it around your little hut there for four days.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at literally between the evenings, three o'clock in the afternoon.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Twilight, it says here.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: They are to eat the meat that night.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: They should eat it roasted over the fire, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roast it over fire, its head as well as its legs and inner organs.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: You must not leave any of it until morning.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Any part of it left until morning you must burn.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how you must eat it.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: You must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: You are to eat it in a hurry.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is the Lord's Passover.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both people and animals.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Christian Standard Bible.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it sounds different than what you're reading.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It says sign for you, probably in your translation.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a it's uh meaning a sign, a distinguishing mark that the destroyer will see when he goes over.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: No plague will be among you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 29.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: First 29 through 31.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now at midnight the Lord struck every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and every firstborn of the livestock.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: During the night Pharaoh got up, he along with all of his officials and all the Egyptians, and there was a loud wailing throughout Egypt because there wasn't a house without someone dead.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because they lived in huge, they lived in extended families.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you were a single couple, you still lived at home.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why there wasn't a house without someone dead.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: He summoned Moses and Aaron during the night.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't summon them because he'd told them he wouldn't see them again.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: The word uh in Hebrew is uh could be he sent word to them, he sent word to them uh during the night, and he said, Get out immediately from among my people, both you and the Israelites, and go.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Worship the Lord as you have said, take even your flocks and your herd and your herds as you ask, and leave.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And also, strangely, and bless me.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's very, very pitiful.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And verse 40 and 41, we conclude the time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was 430 years.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of 430 years on that same day, all the Lord's military divisions went out from the land of Egypt.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the Passover story.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds so weird in the world in which we live today.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: As I read those ancient words, this story, which once every school child in our country knew, but is now forgotten.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: The story seems so distant, so long ago, and so far away, so alien to the modern world that we live in.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Exodus story comes to us from the distant, dusty past of ancient Egypt.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a movie scene of a thousands of slaves, hand-forming brooks of clay underneath the hot sun, and hovering over that scene in the desert, you have a tyrant, mighty Yule Brenner, you know, who wears a tall double headdress for upper and lower Egypt and orders the slaughter of innocent children, while off in the distance there are giant granite gods in huge stone temples.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then the camera zooms in on two brothers, Moses, Aaron, who approach the tyrant, bow and scrape to the ground and say, God says, let my people go.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then they're driven out of the palace.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then the story turns scary with a series of catastrophic natural disasters that aren't really natural disasters at all, but supernatural plagues.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then when the story reaches its climax, as it does today, it turns bloody, with the throats of a thousand lambs being slit at the same time in the afternoon, and then their blood being smeared around doors, their meat sizzling on a thousand fires.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then late that night, a destroyer God striking death across the land, and the sound of loud wailing in the night, and then the sight of thousands upon thousands of people leaving the huts that they've called home all their life and grabbing their children and animals and their possessions and food, calling at each other to hurry, hurry, and then speed walking eastward to the border to get away forever.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you read that story and you say, at least I say, how does any of this relate to the world that I live in, the world of COVID and politics, a world that is secular, a world of money and beauty and success and power and sports and entertainment and sex and technology.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: What could that ancient world possibly have to do with our world?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a question that I've struggled with this month.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago, over the New Year's holiday, Melody and I and four of our friends took a quick vacation in South Florida.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: We were in busy airports, and then we were in modern Orlando and bustling Miami and romantic Key West.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: We walked the streets, we window shopped, we ate in the restaurants, and you know, there was nothing.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: There was not one thing in those five days that was remotely like anything that I was reading in these chapters just now.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So why is it that we bother with the Passover story that I read?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, the world around us has moved on.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: The world has moved on.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, uh, I think that's the connection right there.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Our world has moved on and moved on so far that it has circled around to where the world of Egypt and Pharaoh was before the story took place.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Ignorant, ignorant of the God in this story, the God Almighty of the ten plagues, the God Savior of the Exodus, ignorant of the unseen world that lies behind the world that we see and live in.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is where Egypt and her king were when the story started in Exodus 1, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: They had no idea who the real God was.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: They had in Egypt 80 gods that they worshiped: a beetle and a falcon and a ram and the Nile River and the sun.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're ignorant of the God who created the world and is supreme over the world and has a plan for our world and is supreme over all other gods, like the secular world around us today, the world of Pharaoh did not recognize the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that when Moses first meets Pharaoh and demands, in the name of Yahweh, for Pharaoh to let God's people go, Pharaoh answers, as we might expect many of today's secular, irreligious celebrities answer.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: In the name of who?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh scoffs, who is Yahweh that I should obey him and let Israel go?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we are quick to criticize.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're quick to say that pagan, awful man.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, even today, 35 centuries later, you and I take trips to Egypt to see the very things that inspired awe and worship in Pharaoh and the Egyptians, the great pyramids, the great sphinx, the mysterious sphinx, the magnificent temples, and we go, ooh, and ah! No wonder Pharaoh and his people worshiped here.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And moving on from that story, has the world we live in not circled around to the exact same place?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like them, are we not utterly surrounded today by thousands of images of beautiful, alluring gods?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the gods of our age are gods of sex and success and power and glory, celebrities that we wish desperately we could just touch, shiny things that we wish we could own, our world-famous educational system, an entertainment industry that just 100 years ago knew and spoke with reverence of the God of the Exodus, but has so changed in our lifetime that if confronted by Moses today would reply in disdain, exactly as Pharaoh did, who is the Lord that we should worship him?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And because the world that you and I live in, every single minute of every day is immersed in a secular reality and distant has moved on from the God of this book, the Almighty God of the plagues and the saving God of the Exodus.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Even you and I who have not forgotten this story can occasionally lose sight of who our God is and why this bizarre, ancient story of the Passover is so important.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to regain that before the book of Revelation becomes reality when many of these very same plagues in Exodus 1 through 11 crash down again, this time on the whole earth.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: But we can regain our footing because our advantage over Pharaoh is that we can learn from the story of his experience with God.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And here's where Pharaoh made the mistake that sealed his doom, because every time a plague fell on him, Pharaoh got another crash course in the supreme deity of Yahweh, and yet Pharaoh deliberately turned away.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: He deliberately refused the truth that kept knocking on his door.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: God turned the Nile river to blood, and second, multiplied frogs over the land, and then came lice or mosquitoes, one of those two, and then flies, and fifth, livestock disease crippled their economy.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Then came boils on all the Egyptians so that none of them could even stand up, the plagues getting worse.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Plague seven through nine are horrible tail that decimated every single thing outside, and then a plague of locusts that ate it all up, and then utter darkness for three days.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the ninth plague, the land of Egypt is utterly devastated.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: To get even an idea of what Egypt must have looked like at this point, we have to look back at pictures of the worst natural disasters in U.S.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: history.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: The single greatest natural disaster in U.S.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: history, we are told, was the Galveston, Texas hurricane on September the 8th, 1900, in which thousands perished.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: The second greatest natural disaster in U.S.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: history, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, killing thousands and devastating the land.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Number seven is one we're most familiar with, Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when we think of those, we can get a small picture of what the land of Egypt must have looked like in 1446 BC after the first nine plagues.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh's own people and his own advisors said, Pharaoh, our land is, quote, ruined.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's devastated.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Would you just let them go?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: But Pharaoh's heart was as hard as the devil's hangnail, and he said, no.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so now God tells Moses, there's one last plague.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And a verse, chapter 11, verse 1, God says to Moses, I will send one last plague.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to bring the ultimate weapon out, boy.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I am going to hit him so hard that Pharaoh's going to beg you to leave Egypt.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I've made the Egyptians favorably disposed to you.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is verses 1 through 3 of Exodus 11.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you ask him, they'll shower you with money and with clothes that you can wear for weeks and months and you're going to need in the wilderness.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses' last words to Pharaoh.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: As Pharaoh says, Don't ever come to me again, don't ever see my face again, or you're a dead man.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Moses wheels around and says, About midnight, every firstborn son in Egypt will die.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: He tells him what the tenth and deadliest plague will be, and then he stalks out.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And at this point, at the end of chapter 11, we're primed and ready for the plague.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: The story's steaming along.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: The train of destruction is rolling down the track.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's the original Death on the Nile story.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then we hit chapter 12.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly brakes on the train squeal, and the train slows down to a snail's pace.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And for most of the 51 verses of chapter 12, we read lengthy descriptions from God to Moses and then Moses to the people of how they are to observe the ritual, the annual ritual of the Passover.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're supposed to pick out a lamb, just the right kind of lamb, and do this and do that, and after four days kill it and smear its blood in your house, and then eat it in a really hurry with these very side dishes and wearing traveling clothes.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what is all this ritualistic mumbo jumbo about the Jewish Passover meal and the festival of unloving bread?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to read this stuff.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're ready for the plague.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: We want God crushing Pharaoh.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't all this Passover stuff be later in the book when we have all the other rituals?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it here interrupting the flow of a good story?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is that there are two very good reasons why this story of the Passover is stuck right here in the midst of a rollicking good story.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that is number one, that Moses, he tells us he put it here for the benefit of future children and grandchildren who aren't going to understand this annual Independence Day celebration.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it so important?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're supposed to celebrate this holiday of Passover every year.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Need to know why it's so important.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that he says you'll be able to tell your children this Passover lamb stuff, kids, this festival, this is the key part of our most famous story, the story of our Independence Day.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first reason.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Moses put it here for the kids and the grandkids.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the second reason is that God put it here for you and for me and for all non-Jewish people who would live thousands of years later so that we would stop and realize that this story of the death angel and the lamb and the slit throat and the blood, protection over the huts, that this isn't simply the story of Israelites way back there in the far ago and long, long ago and far away, but it's the story of Jesus and the story of Jesus' blood and how people can get saved today from death.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we have these verses in Exodus 12, 1 through 12, 1 through 7, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month is going to be the beginning of months for you.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first month of your year.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then as he goes down, he says, What I'm telling you to do is you need to pick out a lamb, and it needs to be a lamb in the prime of life, exactly one year old.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it needs to be a lamb without blemish.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And on the 14th, keep it around your house for four days.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And on the 14th, I want you to slit its throat.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then I want you to take a bunch of hyssop hyssop, which uh which is more like a paintbrush.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the blood's supposed to be in a bowl, and then you dip it in, and you put the blood on the lintel and on the doorposts of your house.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you need to do this because that night I'm going to pass through the land of Egypt and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: However, the blood will be a sign for you.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be this distinguishing mark on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I'll pass over you.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And no plague will come upon you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just to show you what kind of a strange home I grew up in.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I was, when we were very little, our parents required that we memorize one verse from every book in the Bible.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then as soon as we had done that, and the list was on a, you know, was on a window going out to our breakfast nook.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we did that, then there was a second verse from the book and so forth.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this was the second verse.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the first one was easy.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was like the Ten Commandments, first verse.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I am God, don't worship any other gods.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly we were given at age five, Exodus 12, 13, to memorize.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of dad I had.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Kendall, you had that kind of a dad.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Virgil, that was a great, great service for him.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was a wonderful man, reminded me of my father.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate that.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so uh this is a familiar verse to me for very strange reasons.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: But but but this turns out to be a key verse in the book.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: The blood will be a sign for you, and then I will pass over you, right?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then at midnight the Lord struck down.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, every firstborn male, he actually did it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And during the night, Pharaoh gets up and there's a cry, and he sends word and he says, literally three words, up, leave, and go.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then we conclude as we read, that was 430 years, and on one day all of the Israelites went out, and God said, You're my army.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're not much of an army, but they went out from the land of Egypt.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what this what this story is telling us is that this is not just their story.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the story of every single one of us.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the story of Jesus.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story of Jesus.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see that connection if you looked carefully with the Passover lamb and Jesus, it's it's hidden in there in verses 1 through 7.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, we're told that this is going to be a new start for you.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be a new beginning for you this month.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you need to know that every ancient civilization, Egyptian, and all of the ones who lived in the ancient East, always lived in an agricultural calendar, and so their years always began in the fall.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And just like the Jewish civil calendar begins in the fall now.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: So after all the harvest was in and so forth, then you begin the new year and so forth.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way it was.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what God's saying is, I'm going to change your calendar, give you a unique calendar.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Your calendar starts here.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be your new new year.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is the year of your beginning.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: It starts today, and this is going to be new.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And doesn't that remind us?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5.17.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, anyone who is a new cre in Christ is a new creation.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Old things have passed, the new has come.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And notice, by the way, in verse 5, that Passover lamb had to be without blemish, right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, 1 Peter 1.19, without blemish.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Firstborn, uh, it had to be the firstborn of the flock, had to be in the prime of life.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the firstborn of all creation, dies in the prime of life.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Dies at 3 p.m., verse 6, dies at 3 p.m., Jesus does.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Bones unbroken, verse 46 of this chapter, Jesus, bones unbroken.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: His blood covers, the blood of the lamb covers and saves.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: The blood covers of Jesus covers and saves.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so you begin to see this chapter 12, not just the story of Egypt.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: This has remarkable parallels, and every single writer in the New Testament points back to this story and this chapter and this Passover lamb as the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and how to be saved.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, somewhere along the line, you and I need to understand that Jesus is my Passover lamb.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the one who saves me from death, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: He is my Messiah.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: He is the Lamb, and his throat wasn't slit, he was hammered to a cross.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that blood of the Passover was the blood Jesus shed.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there are three words that you and I need to focus on in here because, well, at least the first one's really kind of weird, and the second one we don't hear much.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: But this is all about blood, and this is all about substitution, and this is all about faith.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's something about this chapter and something about sacrifice that freaks us out a little bit for good reason.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: When I was over in India once, I was in Calcutta, and we go to the temple of Kali, and there's a goat right there, sacrifice day, and all of the people are there.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: This cute little goat is there.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the priest comes out.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I grew up on a farm, so I know what it's like to kill animals.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us don't ever see the killing of animals, other than roadkill.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you like to shoot squirrels, I'll stop there.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: But but but you know, seeing seeing that seeing that priest cut the throat of that lamb, it's shocking.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's horrible.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: It seems horrible.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, critics read Exodus 12 and they say, This is a religion of gore that you have here.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: All of this stuff about blood.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it does turn people off.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell you, from time immemorial, every religion has understood that there is some great significance to blood.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the New Testament makes it clear, Hebrews 9.22, without the shedding of blood, the fact is there's no forgiveness of sin.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way God has made it.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 5, we've been justified by his blood.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 1.7, we have redemption through his blood.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 1.18, you're redeemed through the precious blood of Christ.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's blood splattered all over the story.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd ask you to allow it to stay there because that blood is what can get you eternal life.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: The second word here that's really significant is the word substitution.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because, of course, that lamb was the substitute for the firstborn who was inside the house.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And when the destroyer came over and he saw that blood, instead of striking down the firstborn, he passed over.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: That blood was the death of the lamb.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: That lamb substituted for the firstborn.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, our Passover lamb, died on the cross as our substitute.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: For all we like sheep have gone astray.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has struck on him, into him the iniquity of us all.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Our substitute, the Passover Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, or just to put it simply, this is not a great drawing by this teenager, but I like it.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a cross here, there's a picture of the blood over the door, there's the lamb bleeding, there's Jesus Christ.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: To be saved when the death angel comes, dear friends, we must be covered by the blood of the Lamb.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: You simply have to be covered the way the Israelites were by the blood of the Lamb.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that leads to the third point, belief.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, where does belief come in here?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: You have to say, Well, belief comes in here all over the place because in fact, later on we're told in the book of Hebrews that by faith, by faith, the Israelites took this lamb and killed the lamb and put the blood on the door.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: By faith, they left this country that they had lived in for 400 years.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: You'd say, well, for heaven's sake, why wouldn't they want to leave a country in which they're slaves?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: But then you realize that the country you know is always safer than the country you're going to.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that you and I, or that you had relatives who came over on the Mayflower 400 years ago this year, 1620.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: You had relatives, or is this 2021?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, last year.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: 401 years.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're getting close to Egypt and the Exodus.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And yet somehow you were told by God that you and all of your family needed to leave America now.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd say, well, uh no, I've been here for 400 years.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: You still wouldn't have been here as long as the Israelites were in Egypt.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: 430 years.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: And yet now they're being told to leave.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Only by faith would you listen to these two brothers, Moses and Aaron, and say, okay, we're really gonna leave.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have to get prepared to leave.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have to take a beautiful lamb, we have to kill it, we have to, you know, wear our traveling clothes, wear our tennis shoes, we have to eat it in a hurry.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: We can't even put leaven in our bread.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: We have to wrap it up, we have to get our luggage ready, we have to get ready.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's all gonna happen tonight.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is really gonna happen?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: That took faith, says the book of Hebrews.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it takes today.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Belief.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, your Passover lamb, and you'll be saved.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him has your Passover lamb will not perish, but have eternal life.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: So let me go back and summarize the story here and we'll wrap it up.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, he breaks us out from three things here.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Breaking us out and inviting us in really finds its climax in this chapter.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: God breaks us out from the old to the new.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: We all want a fresh start in life.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: We all want a new beginning.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says, this is the new beginning you want.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: You want the new beginning of me being your deliverer and redeemer and savior.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this month, the month of Abib, literally the month of new sprouts or new ears of grain.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: This spring month is to be the beginning of months for you.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be the first month of your year from now on.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you and I want.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you and I need.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: We need a new start, a fresh start.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Come to me in faith, and it'll be a fresh start.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: As we said, 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone's in Christ, he's a new creation.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: The old is gone, the new has come.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: The second of the three things that he does for us is that he breaks us out from bondage to freedom.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thirteen times in the Old Testament.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Egypt is called the house of bondage.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: You and I know what bondage is like.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not like our Christmas project, the kind of human trafficking that goes on in our world, but there's a kind of bondage that we all know.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: We know the bondage to our own addictions.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: We know the bondage to sin.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: We know bondage and slavery and change that bind us to things that we wish they didn't.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, I'm going to break you out from bondage to freedom.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he does.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And by his death, he broke the power of the one who holds the power of death, that is the devil, says Hebrews, and set free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the third thing that God does for us in this Passover story is he breaks us out from death to life.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's something something that we tend to forget, and that is that in this distinction between Israel and Egypt, the distinction was not what we think it was.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there was old to new and bondage to freedom and death to life, but the Israelites were also under a death sentence.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine that when Moses and Aaron told them, you need to do this, because the destroyer this time is not only going to fly over Egypt, he's going to fly over Israel.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he's looking for the blood or else.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine there had to be somebody who said to his neighbor, come on, get real.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: In all of the other plagues, God has spared us.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the hail came right up to our border, but it didn't touch us.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: The mad cow disease afflicted all the Egyptian cattle, but not one of our livestock.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: None of this stuff has happened to us.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're special to God.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're chosen by God.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't hurt us with any of the plagues.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he's asking us to go to all of this religious stuff and ritual and kill a lamb and eat it in a certain way and so forth, because he says the destroyer's going to fly over and he's going to kill our firstborn.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: No way he's going to kill our firstborn.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're special to him.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, as they said that, and they looked at Moses and Aaron and they talked to their neighbors who saw how serious they were, and maybe heard Moses and Aaron say, We too need a lamb.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to kill a Passover lamb ourselves.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then they realized, you know what?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is more than just about Egypt and Israel.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is about sin.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we're sinners too.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: You say, well, how were the Israelites sinners?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: We understand how the Egyptians were sinners.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're sinners in at least three ways.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, they disbelieved the word of God.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: You remember when Moses and Aaron had told them it was going to be this way, and then all of a sudden Pharaoh makes things worse for them.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: They cursed in chapter 5.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: They cursed Moses and Aaron.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Said, you've made things worse.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the way it should be.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't believe you anymore.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: They disbelieved the word of God.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: The second way the Israelites deserved the death sentence because of their sin is they were idolaters.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they didn't worship all of the gods of Egypt, but you know what happened?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: We know from later stories that many, many Israelites carried little Egyptian idols in their clothing and so forth out of the land of Egypt.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: So many that Joshua had to say, even when they were had entered into the promised land, he said, finally would you get rid of the gods of Egypt that you keep worshiping?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Even today, when archaeology is done in the land of Israel, they find these little, I bought one myself years ago in Israel at Shechem.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: A little Egyptian god that had brought been brought up from Egypt.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: They were always in love with Egypt.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they were I so they were idolaters, and so they deserved death for that reason too.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: But the main reason that the Israelites were under a death sentence is the reason that you and I are under a death sentence, and that is because they were under the universal guilt of sin, like everyone else in the world.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: They had sinned against God in their very nature.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, they too needed to put the blood over their lintel, or else they too would die.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: For God says, I'm gonna pass through the land of Egypt and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, but also in the land of Goshen, and you need that blood on your household too.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why you and I have to realize that it won't do simply to say, I grew up in a Christian home.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm special to God.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like one of the Israelites, I'm not like one of those pagan Egyptians, I'm not like Pharaoh.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Moses said, you guys need to put the blood over your household too, because if you're not covered by the blood, you're going to die.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: And every single person who has ever lived is either a Jew or a Gentile, either an Israelite or an Egyptian.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're the best person who's ever lived.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're like Moses and Aaron.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they too had to kill a lamb because the wages of sin, which all people have committed, is death.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is a famous bridge illustration.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you have seen this before?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Of course you've seen this before.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Our sin, the problem is sin, sin's penalty is death.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here's Christ's payment, here's eternal death.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: We can walk over, we can use the blood of our Passover lamb and walk over and receive God's promise of eternal life, no condemnation and pass from death unto life.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, and that's the story.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the Passover story is so significant.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not just back then, but to us today, right?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Millions of people around the world have uh have understood this, have understood that the blood of the Passover Lamb, who is Jesus, taken Jesus as their Passover lamb, trusted in his blood, realized that they are under a death sentence and that God must judge them for their sin.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they have come to Christ by faith.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: One of those people was Major League Baseball player Damian Easley, Easley was a player with the uh Los Angeles, with the Angels.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he was riding on an airplane when he heard some teammates, a few rows behind him on the airplane, and he heard one of them say, if this plane were to crash right now, he said to his neighbor, teammate, would you go to heaven?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this made Easley really uh uncomfortable.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because he thought if a plane crashed right now, I have no idea whether I would go to heaven or not.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: So he walks down the aisle and he slides into the row behind these two players, hoping to get some answers.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: But what they were saying was sort of over his head, so he interrupts them and he goes, What's this deal about God?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: What is this all about?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand this.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: Death and heaven.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time the plane had landed, the light had come on in his mind and heart for Damien easily, his mind understood, and his heart believed, but it all started with understanding that he was under a death sentence, a death sentence because of his sin, but that a provision of blood had been made at the cross, that Jesus had been his substitute, died in his place to give him life out of death, freedom out of bondage, and a brand new life.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Song we used to sing.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your sin?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: What can make me, what can make you whole again?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing can for sin atone.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing of good that I have done, surely.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is all my hope and peace.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is all my righteousness.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: So precious is the flow.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: That makes me white as snow.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: No other fountain I know.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you have come to the place where you have looked at Jesus and said, You are my Passover lamb.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, for a story from so long ago and so far away that seems to have shockingly such relevance to our time.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've moved on from this story.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've moved on from you, God.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we want a new beginning and we want freedom from bondage and we want life out of death.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we are reminded today that the way to get a new life and freedom.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Eternal life is to go all the way back to this story and to understand that it is blood and substitution that saves us from death just as it did.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: For everyone in Egypt back then.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Pray Lord for folks who've never accessed your blood, never in a sense taken hold of your son, their lamb.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Applied his blood to their lives.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: I want that alive.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.