Christ in The Passover
Exodus 12:1-23 (Audio Only)
It’s Passover week. We’re having the full Passover Seder celebration on Good Friday and then Resurrection Sunday on the heels of Passover, just like it was in that first Resurrection morning.
My prayer today is that you will grasp some of the key Bible texts that are laid at the foundation of the Passover and more importantly, absolutely build Christ into the foundation of the Passover. I really want you to have a clear Biblical understanding of what the meaning of the Passover is, and why God’s people were called to celebrate it every year. Mostly, I want you to see that Jesus Christ is woven in the fabric of the Passover.
Today, traditionally called Palm Sunday, we sometimes do a Palm Sunday message about the Triumphal Entry of Christ where Christ is proclaimed to Jerusalem as the Messiah. As the crowds line the street and they lay the palm branches down and they sing, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord.” But I want you to know that Jesus Christ was proclaimed prophetically to the people of God some 1,500 years before the Triumphal Entry. Actually, even longer ago than that. But we’re going to go back today, primarily, 1,500 years earlier to see the proclamation of Jesus Christ in the Passover in Exodus. This is a story telling teaching, and we’re going to be in Genesis and Exodus a lot.
We’ll start in Genesis Chapter 12. We go back to Father Abraham. Genesis 12:1.
Genesis 12:1-3 (ESV)
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
All the families of the earth shall be blessed through Abraham, and through the Nation that would be birthed through Abraham. And so, begins the journey of God’s chosen people. Abram lived in Ur of the Chaldeans; it was a very well-to-do city. It had everything. It was the high life there in Ur, and God called Abram out of the high life and said, now you’re going to be (in essence) a nomad, a nomadic shepherd, a wandering shepherd.
And so, God takes one family (in essence), out of the opulence of Ur and says out of you I will build a great nation. And then he sends him out wandering. He says I have given you that land, do you see at the end of verse 1? …To the land that I will show you.
God had already given Abraham the land, but he hadn’t quite showed it to him when he called him out of Ur. If we were to follow the Book of Genesis, you would see an incredible history of Abraham and God. And some wonderful stories that lead up ultimately to the birth of the promised child, Isaac. Abraham births Isaac, the son of the promise, and continues the seed of the nation.
And then Isaac, when he grows up, he has a son, Jacob. And so, the patriarchs are named, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
So then Jacob settles into Canaan, known as the Promised Land. On the way, Jacob wrestles with God, and God changes his name to Israel. And so, Israel, formerly known as Jacob, settles into Canaan, the Promised Land, and he has twelve sons. Ultimately, they become the twelve tribes of Israel.
And so, as Jacob settles into Canaan, known as the Promised Land, one of his sons has an issue with his brothers. His name is Joseph. And he gets thrown in a pit, and “saved” out of the pit and sold into slavery in Egypt.
So, Joseph ends up in Egypt. Then, a severe famine strikes the land, both in Egypt and in Canaan. A famine that God uses to raise up Joseph, this Hebrew, to second in charge in Egypt. And his family (the family of Israel), is starving in Canaan, the Promised Land. And so, through an incredible series of events, Joseph gets Jacob and all of his family to move to Egypt so that they would not die in the famine. And so, all of the Israelites, the family of Israel, come out of the Promised Land where they had already been settled, and they come into Egypt where Joseph is second in charge, and Joseph puts them in the best land there in Egypt, the Land of Goshen, the fertile land.
And so, even while Egypt is struggling under this tremendous famine, the Israelites (the family of Israel) are flourishing. They are growing exponentially. Two things happen.
First, during this period of time, the Israelites, the family of Israel, become so comfortable in Egypt, because things are easy. Everything happens easy for them in Egypt. And they’ve become so comfortable in Egypt, that they forget that they are not in the land, they are not living the life that God chose them for and called them to. Out of comfort and convenience, they settle in to the land of Egypt.
The second thing that happens to the Israelites (the family of Israel), is that there comes up, eventually, a Pharaoh who knows not Joseph and who becomes intimidated by the Hebrews, the Israelites. It’s because there are so many of them, they are prospering so much, that they become a threat to this Pharaoh.
We just did the entire Book of Genesis. Now we’re in Exodus Chapter 1. Let’s go to Exodus 1:5.
Exodus 1:5 (ESV)
5 All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt.
And so that’s how the Israelites, the family of Israel, the nation of Israel started in Egypt.
Exodus 1:6-12(a) (ESV)
6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
7 But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”
11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.
Let’s start making the New Testament connection. How did the New Testament church grow in the Book of Acts? By oppression. The New Testament church was persecuted and it grew and spread. The people of God in Egypt were persecuted and verse 12 says they multiplied and spread. Do you think God uses any other source for the spreading of the Gospel now? No. He uses oppression and he uses persecution.
Exodus 1:12(b)-14 (ESV)
12 …And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.
13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves
14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
And so, what has happened to the People of God? They came into the land of Egypt, they got comfortable, a land of plenty and convenience and then the land enslaved them. What they thought was easy and convenient and comfortable, became a taskmaster, a slavedriver.
And so, they find themselves in bitter slavery in the land that they first loved. The slavery wasn’t enough for this Pharaoh, and so he tries to get the Egyptian midwives to kill all the male Hebrew babies. God steps in, the Egyptian midwives say these Israelite women have babies before you can get there. So, the Pharaoh comes up with another plan to stop the growth of the Israelites in Egypt.
Exodus 1:22 (ESV)
22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
That is how Moses became Hebrew by birth and Egyptian by upbringing. Because when Moses was placed in the Nile who else was to rescue Moses but the daughter of the Pharaoh himself. Which means that his daughter wasn’t perfectly obedient to her dad, knowing that her dad wanted these babies killed. But seeing God’s miraculous hand, the daughter of the Pharaoh saves Moses from the water (the name Moses means “drawn from the water”). And then, just by chance, I’m sure, ends up asking Moses’ birthmother to take care of him. It almost seems like God had a plan. Yes, he did.
His plan was to get his people out of the bondage of slavery and back into the life and the land that he had planned for them and promised them. There was just one problem. God’s people were enslaved in the land of Egypt. Now listen carefully. Egypt is almost always a picture of sin, of living in sin. And when people of God were living in luxury and convenience and comfort in Egypt, it is a picture of God’s people living in the land of sin. And how many of you know, that what starts when we enter into the land of sin as comfort and convenience, ends up as enslavement? That’s how sin works. It’s attractive in the beginning. It’s easy in the beginning and it’s comfortable – and then it enslaves you.
So, the land of sin, Egypt, had become a wicked taskmaster, just like sin does. And the Israelites, the People of God, had gone from comfort and convenience to being enslaved in sin.
Here’s what’s worse. These people of God had been deemed God’s People. God deemed them. You are my People. And then sin, and them living in the land of sin, separated them from their God. And so, they needed to be redeemed to God. They needed to be saved from the sin that had enslaved them in Egypt. And they needed to be redeemed or restored to a right relationship with God. Am I talking about us or the Children of Israel? The answer is, yes.
For God to redeem his people, there was one thing that would have to happen. They would have to forsake the land of sin that they were enslaved in. And for them to forsake that land, there needed to be an exodus; an exodus from the land of sin into the Promised Land, the life that that God had prepared for his people. The name Exodus is not an arbitrary name. The People of God were enslaved in a life of sin and they needed to exit that life of sin into the life that God had for them.
God had chosen Moses for this task of the Exodus. Made him a Hebrew but he grew up as an Egyptian so that he would know both cultures. And Moses’ heart was right. But like others, his heart was right but initially his actions weren’t exactly how God would have them. He kills an Egyptian, and that was a mistake. God says, Moses, I have trained you up for this, I have a plan for you, and so I have a forty-year training plan for you. You are going to the backside of the desert, and in forty years your heart and your actions will be ready.
And so, after forty years of training and a meeting with God in the burning bush, Moses was ready to lead the people to be redeemed to God. So, Moses and his brother Aaron find themselves before Pharaoh to request the Pharaoh to release God’s People.
God says, let my People go, they told the Pharaoh. And the Pharaoh said, “No, no, no.”
So, God had to get involved. And God began to systematically judge the land of sin. We call this the ten plagues of Egypt. Let me review them for you.
1). He turns the Nile into blood. Possibly because the Egyptians worshipped the Nile as the giver of life, and God judged that.
2). He sent a plague of frogs. Possibly because the Egyptians believed that the frogs had divine power coming out of the Nile, the giver of life. God judged that.
3). He sent a plague of gnats or mosquitos. Possibly because the priests were to never touch an insect or any vermin. And God judged them.
4). He sent a plague of flies (more like a flying beetle is the word), because the Egyptians actually worshiped flying beetles. And so, God judged them.
5). He sent a plague of death on the livestock. He killed all the livestock of Egypt only. (Remember the Israelites had tremendous livestock and wealth and prosperity.) Possibly because they actually worshiped some of their livestock as some around the world still do.
6). He sent a plague of boils. Possibly because they believed there was a goddess of good health and they worshiped the goddess of health. And so, God judged that.
7). He sent a plague of hail. This plague actually judged three of the Egyptian gods.
8). He sent a plague of locusts. As if there hadn’t been enough, God sent a plague that devastated the economy of the land of sin. And God judged that.
9). He sent a plague of darkness just over the land of the Egyptians. The light still shined over the Israelite’s land. Possibly because the Egyptians worshiped the sun god. God judged them.
In nine plagues God showed his supreme omnipotence over every other god and systematically judges rightly and justly the sin of the land of sin of Egypt that God’s People were living among. Through all nine plagues, Moses is going to Pharaoh and saying the Lord says let my people go. The Pharaoh hardened his heart over and over until the end. His heart became hard towards God and toward God’s People until it was time for the tenth plague. God had shown his power over the land, over all the Egyptian gods, and now the tenth plague would bring real sorrow like never before or after. And the tenth plague would bring the release of God’s People from the land of sin. A release from their bondage to sin, to enable their exodus into the Promised Life and the Promised Land.
The Lord was going to bring judgment upon the people of Egypt, and he was going to make a way for his people to escape the judgment that must fall. It’s in Exodus 11:4.
Exodus 11:4-6 (ESV)
4 So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt,
5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.
6 There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.
The final judgment was to come upon the land of sin. But, for God’s people, a way of escape was to be made for them. So even though they may be in the midst of God’s judgment, they would be safe from it.
The directions are given very specifically and very carefully in Exodus 12, just as the directions to escape judgment in the New Testament are given very specifically and very directly. And like in the New Testament, God says his wrath must fall upon sin but there is a way of escape. God tells his people in Egypt wrath must fall upon sin, but I’ve made a way of escape.
Exodus 12:3-13 (ESV)
3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household.
…
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,
6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month…
Notice in verse 3, on the tenth day they get the lamb and they keep it until the fourteenth day.
6 … when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it
8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
…
11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover.
12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
13 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.
This is not the first Passover; this is THE Passover. This is the Passover. This night Israel was redeemed to God. The next morning, they began their exodus from a life in the land of sin to a life in the Promised Land. This night God’s People were saved from the judgment that had to fall if – and only if – they followed his instructions and were under the covering of the blood of the Passover lamb.
It was a night of severe judgment that had never come to this extent before and never would again. And in the midst of God’s severe judgment he taught his people a lesson that they must remember. That he made a way through the sacrifice of a perfect, spotless, innocent lamb for them to be covered and protected from the judgment that must fall and to be redeemed to him. It was meant to make a lasting, permanent impression on the People of God. So much of an impression was this night meant to make, that God instructed Israel to change their calendars based on this event. Look back up at Exodus 12:1.
Exodus 12:1 (ESV)
1The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.
Guys, the significance of the Passover event changed the calendar of Israel, the Jewish calendar. And the significance of the sacrifice of the true Passover Lamb changed the calendar of the world. B.C. and A.D. both refer to Jesus Christ. It means Before Christ and In The Year of Our Lord. The calendar of the world was changed when the true Passover Lamb was sacrificed. The Jewish calendar was changed on the night of the first sacrifice. This is not a coincidence.
God, out of his mercy, and because of the covenant that he had made with his People, he saved his People from the judgment that must fall. And he redeemed them to the life and the land that he had prepared for them.
But now, the redemption of God to bring his People back into fellowship with him needed to be seared into the hearts and minds of his People. There needed to be a way that they would never forget what it cost and what it took to redeem them back to himself. How did God do it? He said we will have an annual reenactment of the Passover so that you will pass on from generation to generation the significance of the events of what it took to redeem you back to myself and to give you an exodus from the life of sin. That’s the Passover celebration. And the Passover Celebration of the Jews, it is said, has been celebrated every year since the Passover at the Exodus.
Now, we do know that when Israel was in great spiritual decline which they were often, that there is no record of great Passover feasts. But every time Israel was revived to serving the Lord, under Hezekiah, under Josiah, under the godly kings and judges, the first thing they did is they reinstituted the Passover celebration, and said remember what it took for us to be redeemed from the land of sin and redeemed to God. That’s the Passover celebration.
So, let’s look at some of the significance.
The significance of the lessons of the Passover celebration.
1). The unleavened bread. Look back at Exodus 12:8.
Exodus 12:8 (ESV)
8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
The Children of Israel were to eat nothing with leaven in it with their Passover meal. In fact, they were to not eat anything with leaven in it for seven days after the Passover meal. In fact, they were to search to shine a light – they literally would carry a candle around the house looking for leaven to shine light on the leaven in the house – so that the leaven could be removed. Leaven is a picture of sin. It’s always a picture of sin and always has been a picture of sin. God says there is sacrifice coming that is going to redeem you to me, and in order for you to begin this journey into the Promised Life, you need to search with the light for leaven in your home. And you need to remove it. And you need to make a commitment to be separated from the leaven in your life, to move from the redemption brought to you under the covering of the Blood of the Lamb to the Promised Life. That’s the meaning of the unleavened bread. Jesus Christ spoke harshly of the leaven of the Pharisees.
1 Corinthians 5:6 Paul says,
1 Corinthians 5:6 (ESV)
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. (That’s your position.) For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
A great picture there of leaven as sin and our responsibility of removing that leaven from our lives.
Guys, leaven is interesting. It you put leaven in bread, it puffs up the bread, but it adds zero value. And so, you know that the sin of pride will puff up a Christian and really not just add zero value, but actually detracts value. Christians go below zero in value to God with the sin of pride. They go into negative value, which mean they draw value out of the Body of Christ. And so, leaven in the same way puffs up – no value. Sin of pride puffs up, no value.
Let me tell you something else about leaven. The Hebrews baked the sourdough bread method. And if you’ve ever been to Disneyland (this is where I learned it), you’ll know that they would make a lump of bread dough with leaven in it, and then right before cooking it they would take off a little piece called a starter piece. And then when they made their next lump of bread, they would add that piece that had the leaven in it into that bread and knead it into the next dough, so that the next generation of bread would have the same leaven in it. That’s how sin works. We have made sure that sin has transferred from generation to generation just like leaven is transferred from generation to generation in bread making.
That’s why Paul says here, Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Get rid of it. A great picture. That’s the purpose for the unleavened bread.
2). The bitter herbs
Again, back up to Exodus 12:8.
Exodus 12:8 (ESV)
8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
First, the bitter herbs would remind the Israelites of the hardship of being enslaved to sin. And I want you to know, that when we are saved from the darkest place of sin, there is always a little bitterness left. Not bitterness as in bitterness in your heart, but a taste of bitterness for what sin has done in our lives. And God uses that. The most difficult person that I have ever seen move from the world into ministry, is the person who has not been saved from a sinful past. The person that thinks they have something to offer to God, that person is very, very, very difficult for God to actually use.
But you take someone with the bitterness of sin still on their tongue, they know what it means, they know from where they’ve been saved, they know from where God has saved them, they say I’ve got nothing for God. It’s all Jesus – that’s all I have to offer – because I know where I’ve come from. That’s the bitterness that God wanted his people to remember. Remember from where you were saved. Remember the bitterness of the slavery of the land of sin, Egypt.
Also, bitterness is a symbol of death. Death is often to as the bitter taste of death. And so, there was a reminder in the bitter herbs for the Israelites that death had to take place for there to be life. That there was an exchange of lives in their redemption. That there had to be the death of the innocent in order for the sinful to live. That’s the bitterness that needs to be on our tongue as believers. We need to recognize that the perfect, spotless Son of God, Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, had to die so that we who deserve to die, could live. And we never look at him like, what have you done for me lately, if we keep the bitterness on our tongue, that he as the perfect Lamb of God had to die so that we who should have died get to live. We’re forever grateful to him and never demanding of him. Because we know it should have been us on the cross. It should have been us that went through the fire of God’s judgment. And it’s okay every once in a while, to remind yourself just how bad of a sinner you are and from where you’ve been saved. That’s the bitter herbs.
3). The Passover lamb
Exodus 12:21 (ESV)
21 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.
The focus of the entire Passover celebration was the Passover lamb. The family had to single out from their flock, the best looking, healthiest, most perfect yearling. Yearling lambs are cute and adorable. And they had to take the cutest, most perfect, adorable lamb and bring them into their home for four days. And care for the lamb and inspect them to see if there is any blemish or spot on them that made them not perfect. Do you think the children would be attached to this yearling lamb after four days of watching his every move? And the moms. And do you think the tough guy dad would be attached to it? Yes, he would.
And then the head of the household was required to take a knife and plunge it into this perfect, spotless, yearling lamb. And drain it of its lifeblood. And it was meant to impress upon the family the cost of their redemption. Do you think it worked? I promise you it did. As the family probably watched the head of the household kill the lamb, it made an impression. That was its point. Its point was that God’s judgment had to fall in death. That there must be judgment upon sin. But that God in his great love and in his great mercy had made a way for his judgment to fall on the innocent instead of the guilty. And then if we would receive that option, that God’s full judgment could fall on that innocent, spotless, Passover lamb, and under its blood we could be covered and protected from the judgment that was otherwise due us. New Testament teaching or Old Testament teaching? Both. Yes.
One lesson in the Bible. Jesus Christ. He is the Passover Lamb. He is the one who is willing to take the judgment that you deserve. The one who would be the full complete true Passover Lamb. To redeem us once and for all from the life of sin, into the life that God has for us.
Write this cross reference down.
1 Peter 1:18-19 (NLT)
18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value.
19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.
God chose him as your ransom long before the world began. But he has now revealed him to you in these last days. Do you think that the Jewish mind connected this when they heard the Apostles and Jesus himself teaching this? Do you think they saw the picture of that innocent lamb that they’d seen slain year after year at the Passover? I promise you they did. They saw this. It made an impression.
And guys, that lamb had to be put through the fire of judgment before that family could receive it. Fire is almost always a picture of judgment. And this lamb after it was slain was roasted in the fire. It passed through the fire before the family could receive it or consume it. And Jesus first had to pass through the fire of God’s judgment.
And when Jesus Christ hung on the cross, and he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was experiencing the fire of God’s judgment in my place and in your place. He was the Passover Lamb that didn’t deserve to die but instead was sacrificed, and sacrificed his life willingly and then passed through the fire of God’s judgment so that we could receive him unto life, God’s way. The Promised Life. Just like the Israelites received the Passover lamb after it had passed through the fire for strength to begin the exodus from their life of sin. Do you see the connection? I hope so.
That brings us to our fourth lesson.
4). The blood on the door
Exodus 12:21-22(a) (ESV)
21 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.
22 Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin…
The Egyptian word for “basin” can mean a trough or a trench that is dug at the threshold of the door of a home to prevent water and things to enter into the home. So, this basin is maybe not what we would consider a bowl, but it is a container or a trench at the threshold of the door.
Exodus 12:22-23 (ESV)
22 Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.
23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
Guys, is that an incredible picture of being safe in the midst of God’s judgment falling on sin? And how is it done? By being under or covered by the blood of the Passover lamb, made in what symbol? Let me act it out for you. They put the hyssop at the threshold of the door, at the trench, which means that the Passover lamb was probably sacrificed right at the front door of the home. They put hyssop in the blood in the trench of the door, and they bring it straight up the door, and they put it at the top where the crown of thorns was at the top of the lentil. And then they come down and they move it to one side where the nail was. And then they move it to the other side where the other nail was. And the People of God have just used the blood of the Passover lamb to form the sign of the cross on the door of their home. Coincidence? No. It’s the exact same thing we learn in the New Testament – the same exact thing.
And then, God tells them go through the door that is covered by the blood of the innocent Passover lamb, and as you pass through the door you will be safe from judgment. And what does Jesus say in John 10:9, in the Good Shepherd chapter? He says, I am the door. Do you think that meant something to the Jews?
John 10:9 (ESV)
9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved…
Guys, please, the Passover is the proclamation prophetically of THE Lamb of God. And it is THE instruction for us to be safe from the judgment of God that must fall upon sin. And so, as the people of God form the sign of the cross in the blood of the Passover lamb, and entered through the door, they were safe from God’s judgment. The next morning, they began their exodus from a life of sin into their life with God and the Promised Land.
How many of you know that the next morning after you’re saved that’s when your exodus begins? Do you know that? Don’t ever believe anybody that says if you raise your hand your exodus is done and when you open your eyes you’re going to be in the Promised Land. Your saved, but there’s an exodus required. And how many of you know it takes a “few days.” But the day after the redemption God started the exodus from sin into the Promised Land.
I pray that you have sealed the door of your life with the blood of the Passover Lamb. That God would see the sign of the cross on the door of your life, dipped in the blood of his only Son. I pray that you’ve been redeemed. Redeemed back to God from the land of sin and I pray that you’ve begun the exodus out of a life of sin and into the Promised Life.
My prayer today is that you will grasp some of the key Bible texts that are laid at the foundation of the Passover and more importantly, absolutely build Christ into the foundation of the Passover. I really want you to have a clear Biblical understanding of what the meaning of the Passover is, and why God’s people were called to celebrate it every year. Mostly, I want you to see that Jesus Christ is woven in the fabric of the Passover.
Today, traditionally called Palm Sunday, we sometimes do a Palm Sunday message about the Triumphal Entry of Christ where Christ is proclaimed to Jerusalem as the Messiah. As the crowds line the street and they lay the palm branches down and they sing, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord.” But I want you to know that Jesus Christ was proclaimed prophetically to the people of God some 1,500 years before the Triumphal Entry. Actually, even longer ago than that. But we’re going to go back today, primarily, 1,500 years earlier to see the proclamation of Jesus Christ in the Passover in Exodus. This is a story telling teaching, and we’re going to be in Genesis and Exodus a lot.
We’ll start in Genesis Chapter 12. We go back to Father Abraham. Genesis 12:1.
Genesis 12:1-3 (ESV)
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
All the families of the earth shall be blessed through Abraham, and through the Nation that would be birthed through Abraham. And so, begins the journey of God’s chosen people. Abram lived in Ur of the Chaldeans; it was a very well-to-do city. It had everything. It was the high life there in Ur, and God called Abram out of the high life and said, now you’re going to be (in essence) a nomad, a nomadic shepherd, a wandering shepherd.
And so, God takes one family (in essence), out of the opulence of Ur and says out of you I will build a great nation. And then he sends him out wandering. He says I have given you that land, do you see at the end of verse 1? …To the land that I will show you.
God had already given Abraham the land, but he hadn’t quite showed it to him when he called him out of Ur. If we were to follow the Book of Genesis, you would see an incredible history of Abraham and God. And some wonderful stories that lead up ultimately to the birth of the promised child, Isaac. Abraham births Isaac, the son of the promise, and continues the seed of the nation.
And then Isaac, when he grows up, he has a son, Jacob. And so, the patriarchs are named, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
So then Jacob settles into Canaan, known as the Promised Land. On the way, Jacob wrestles with God, and God changes his name to Israel. And so, Israel, formerly known as Jacob, settles into Canaan, the Promised Land, and he has twelve sons. Ultimately, they become the twelve tribes of Israel.
And so, as Jacob settles into Canaan, known as the Promised Land, one of his sons has an issue with his brothers. His name is Joseph. And he gets thrown in a pit, and “saved” out of the pit and sold into slavery in Egypt.
So, Joseph ends up in Egypt. Then, a severe famine strikes the land, both in Egypt and in Canaan. A famine that God uses to raise up Joseph, this Hebrew, to second in charge in Egypt. And his family (the family of Israel), is starving in Canaan, the Promised Land. And so, through an incredible series of events, Joseph gets Jacob and all of his family to move to Egypt so that they would not die in the famine. And so, all of the Israelites, the family of Israel, come out of the Promised Land where they had already been settled, and they come into Egypt where Joseph is second in charge, and Joseph puts them in the best land there in Egypt, the Land of Goshen, the fertile land.
And so, even while Egypt is struggling under this tremendous famine, the Israelites (the family of Israel) are flourishing. They are growing exponentially. Two things happen.
First, during this period of time, the Israelites, the family of Israel, become so comfortable in Egypt, because things are easy. Everything happens easy for them in Egypt. And they’ve become so comfortable in Egypt, that they forget that they are not in the land, they are not living the life that God chose them for and called them to. Out of comfort and convenience, they settle in to the land of Egypt.
The second thing that happens to the Israelites (the family of Israel), is that there comes up, eventually, a Pharaoh who knows not Joseph and who becomes intimidated by the Hebrews, the Israelites. It’s because there are so many of them, they are prospering so much, that they become a threat to this Pharaoh.
We just did the entire Book of Genesis. Now we’re in Exodus Chapter 1. Let’s go to Exodus 1:5.
Exodus 1:5 (ESV)
5 All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt.
And so that’s how the Israelites, the family of Israel, the nation of Israel started in Egypt.
Exodus 1:6-12(a) (ESV)
6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
7 But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”
11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.
Let’s start making the New Testament connection. How did the New Testament church grow in the Book of Acts? By oppression. The New Testament church was persecuted and it grew and spread. The people of God in Egypt were persecuted and verse 12 says they multiplied and spread. Do you think God uses any other source for the spreading of the Gospel now? No. He uses oppression and he uses persecution.
Exodus 1:12(b)-14 (ESV)
12 …And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.
13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves
14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
And so, what has happened to the People of God? They came into the land of Egypt, they got comfortable, a land of plenty and convenience and then the land enslaved them. What they thought was easy and convenient and comfortable, became a taskmaster, a slavedriver.
And so, they find themselves in bitter slavery in the land that they first loved. The slavery wasn’t enough for this Pharaoh, and so he tries to get the Egyptian midwives to kill all the male Hebrew babies. God steps in, the Egyptian midwives say these Israelite women have babies before you can get there. So, the Pharaoh comes up with another plan to stop the growth of the Israelites in Egypt.
Exodus 1:22 (ESV)
22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
That is how Moses became Hebrew by birth and Egyptian by upbringing. Because when Moses was placed in the Nile who else was to rescue Moses but the daughter of the Pharaoh himself. Which means that his daughter wasn’t perfectly obedient to her dad, knowing that her dad wanted these babies killed. But seeing God’s miraculous hand, the daughter of the Pharaoh saves Moses from the water (the name Moses means “drawn from the water”). And then, just by chance, I’m sure, ends up asking Moses’ birthmother to take care of him. It almost seems like God had a plan. Yes, he did.
His plan was to get his people out of the bondage of slavery and back into the life and the land that he had planned for them and promised them. There was just one problem. God’s people were enslaved in the land of Egypt. Now listen carefully. Egypt is almost always a picture of sin, of living in sin. And when people of God were living in luxury and convenience and comfort in Egypt, it is a picture of God’s people living in the land of sin. And how many of you know, that what starts when we enter into the land of sin as comfort and convenience, ends up as enslavement? That’s how sin works. It’s attractive in the beginning. It’s easy in the beginning and it’s comfortable – and then it enslaves you.
So, the land of sin, Egypt, had become a wicked taskmaster, just like sin does. And the Israelites, the People of God, had gone from comfort and convenience to being enslaved in sin.
Here’s what’s worse. These people of God had been deemed God’s People. God deemed them. You are my People. And then sin, and them living in the land of sin, separated them from their God. And so, they needed to be redeemed to God. They needed to be saved from the sin that had enslaved them in Egypt. And they needed to be redeemed or restored to a right relationship with God. Am I talking about us or the Children of Israel? The answer is, yes.
For God to redeem his people, there was one thing that would have to happen. They would have to forsake the land of sin that they were enslaved in. And for them to forsake that land, there needed to be an exodus; an exodus from the land of sin into the Promised Land, the life that that God had prepared for his people. The name Exodus is not an arbitrary name. The People of God were enslaved in a life of sin and they needed to exit that life of sin into the life that God had for them.
God had chosen Moses for this task of the Exodus. Made him a Hebrew but he grew up as an Egyptian so that he would know both cultures. And Moses’ heart was right. But like others, his heart was right but initially his actions weren’t exactly how God would have them. He kills an Egyptian, and that was a mistake. God says, Moses, I have trained you up for this, I have a plan for you, and so I have a forty-year training plan for you. You are going to the backside of the desert, and in forty years your heart and your actions will be ready.
And so, after forty years of training and a meeting with God in the burning bush, Moses was ready to lead the people to be redeemed to God. So, Moses and his brother Aaron find themselves before Pharaoh to request the Pharaoh to release God’s People.
God says, let my People go, they told the Pharaoh. And the Pharaoh said, “No, no, no.”
So, God had to get involved. And God began to systematically judge the land of sin. We call this the ten plagues of Egypt. Let me review them for you.
1). He turns the Nile into blood. Possibly because the Egyptians worshipped the Nile as the giver of life, and God judged that.
2). He sent a plague of frogs. Possibly because the Egyptians believed that the frogs had divine power coming out of the Nile, the giver of life. God judged that.
3). He sent a plague of gnats or mosquitos. Possibly because the priests were to never touch an insect or any vermin. And God judged them.
4). He sent a plague of flies (more like a flying beetle is the word), because the Egyptians actually worshiped flying beetles. And so, God judged them.
5). He sent a plague of death on the livestock. He killed all the livestock of Egypt only. (Remember the Israelites had tremendous livestock and wealth and prosperity.) Possibly because they actually worshiped some of their livestock as some around the world still do.
6). He sent a plague of boils. Possibly because they believed there was a goddess of good health and they worshiped the goddess of health. And so, God judged that.
7). He sent a plague of hail. This plague actually judged three of the Egyptian gods.
8). He sent a plague of locusts. As if there hadn’t been enough, God sent a plague that devastated the economy of the land of sin. And God judged that.
9). He sent a plague of darkness just over the land of the Egyptians. The light still shined over the Israelite’s land. Possibly because the Egyptians worshiped the sun god. God judged them.
In nine plagues God showed his supreme omnipotence over every other god and systematically judges rightly and justly the sin of the land of sin of Egypt that God’s People were living among. Through all nine plagues, Moses is going to Pharaoh and saying the Lord says let my people go. The Pharaoh hardened his heart over and over until the end. His heart became hard towards God and toward God’s People until it was time for the tenth plague. God had shown his power over the land, over all the Egyptian gods, and now the tenth plague would bring real sorrow like never before or after. And the tenth plague would bring the release of God’s People from the land of sin. A release from their bondage to sin, to enable their exodus into the Promised Life and the Promised Land.
The Lord was going to bring judgment upon the people of Egypt, and he was going to make a way for his people to escape the judgment that must fall. It’s in Exodus 11:4.
Exodus 11:4-6 (ESV)
4 So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt,
5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.
6 There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.
The final judgment was to come upon the land of sin. But, for God’s people, a way of escape was to be made for them. So even though they may be in the midst of God’s judgment, they would be safe from it.
The directions are given very specifically and very carefully in Exodus 12, just as the directions to escape judgment in the New Testament are given very specifically and very directly. And like in the New Testament, God says his wrath must fall upon sin but there is a way of escape. God tells his people in Egypt wrath must fall upon sin, but I’ve made a way of escape.
Exodus 12:3-13 (ESV)
3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household.
…
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,
6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month…
Notice in verse 3, on the tenth day they get the lamb and they keep it until the fourteenth day.
6 … when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it
8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
…
11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover.
12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
13 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.
This is not the first Passover; this is THE Passover. This is the Passover. This night Israel was redeemed to God. The next morning, they began their exodus from a life in the land of sin to a life in the Promised Land. This night God’s People were saved from the judgment that had to fall if – and only if – they followed his instructions and were under the covering of the blood of the Passover lamb.
It was a night of severe judgment that had never come to this extent before and never would again. And in the midst of God’s severe judgment he taught his people a lesson that they must remember. That he made a way through the sacrifice of a perfect, spotless, innocent lamb for them to be covered and protected from the judgment that must fall and to be redeemed to him. It was meant to make a lasting, permanent impression on the People of God. So much of an impression was this night meant to make, that God instructed Israel to change their calendars based on this event. Look back up at Exodus 12:1.
Exodus 12:1 (ESV)
1The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.
Guys, the significance of the Passover event changed the calendar of Israel, the Jewish calendar. And the significance of the sacrifice of the true Passover Lamb changed the calendar of the world. B.C. and A.D. both refer to Jesus Christ. It means Before Christ and In The Year of Our Lord. The calendar of the world was changed when the true Passover Lamb was sacrificed. The Jewish calendar was changed on the night of the first sacrifice. This is not a coincidence.
God, out of his mercy, and because of the covenant that he had made with his People, he saved his People from the judgment that must fall. And he redeemed them to the life and the land that he had prepared for them.
But now, the redemption of God to bring his People back into fellowship with him needed to be seared into the hearts and minds of his People. There needed to be a way that they would never forget what it cost and what it took to redeem them back to himself. How did God do it? He said we will have an annual reenactment of the Passover so that you will pass on from generation to generation the significance of the events of what it took to redeem you back to myself and to give you an exodus from the life of sin. That’s the Passover celebration. And the Passover Celebration of the Jews, it is said, has been celebrated every year since the Passover at the Exodus.
Now, we do know that when Israel was in great spiritual decline which they were often, that there is no record of great Passover feasts. But every time Israel was revived to serving the Lord, under Hezekiah, under Josiah, under the godly kings and judges, the first thing they did is they reinstituted the Passover celebration, and said remember what it took for us to be redeemed from the land of sin and redeemed to God. That’s the Passover celebration.
So, let’s look at some of the significance.
The significance of the lessons of the Passover celebration.
1). The unleavened bread. Look back at Exodus 12:8.
Exodus 12:8 (ESV)
8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
The Children of Israel were to eat nothing with leaven in it with their Passover meal. In fact, they were to not eat anything with leaven in it for seven days after the Passover meal. In fact, they were to search to shine a light – they literally would carry a candle around the house looking for leaven to shine light on the leaven in the house – so that the leaven could be removed. Leaven is a picture of sin. It’s always a picture of sin and always has been a picture of sin. God says there is sacrifice coming that is going to redeem you to me, and in order for you to begin this journey into the Promised Life, you need to search with the light for leaven in your home. And you need to remove it. And you need to make a commitment to be separated from the leaven in your life, to move from the redemption brought to you under the covering of the Blood of the Lamb to the Promised Life. That’s the meaning of the unleavened bread. Jesus Christ spoke harshly of the leaven of the Pharisees.
1 Corinthians 5:6 Paul says,
1 Corinthians 5:6 (ESV)
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. (That’s your position.) For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
A great picture there of leaven as sin and our responsibility of removing that leaven from our lives.
Guys, leaven is interesting. It you put leaven in bread, it puffs up the bread, but it adds zero value. And so, you know that the sin of pride will puff up a Christian and really not just add zero value, but actually detracts value. Christians go below zero in value to God with the sin of pride. They go into negative value, which mean they draw value out of the Body of Christ. And so, leaven in the same way puffs up – no value. Sin of pride puffs up, no value.
Let me tell you something else about leaven. The Hebrews baked the sourdough bread method. And if you’ve ever been to Disneyland (this is where I learned it), you’ll know that they would make a lump of bread dough with leaven in it, and then right before cooking it they would take off a little piece called a starter piece. And then when they made their next lump of bread, they would add that piece that had the leaven in it into that bread and knead it into the next dough, so that the next generation of bread would have the same leaven in it. That’s how sin works. We have made sure that sin has transferred from generation to generation just like leaven is transferred from generation to generation in bread making.
That’s why Paul says here, Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Get rid of it. A great picture. That’s the purpose for the unleavened bread.
2). The bitter herbs
Again, back up to Exodus 12:8.
Exodus 12:8 (ESV)
8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
First, the bitter herbs would remind the Israelites of the hardship of being enslaved to sin. And I want you to know, that when we are saved from the darkest place of sin, there is always a little bitterness left. Not bitterness as in bitterness in your heart, but a taste of bitterness for what sin has done in our lives. And God uses that. The most difficult person that I have ever seen move from the world into ministry, is the person who has not been saved from a sinful past. The person that thinks they have something to offer to God, that person is very, very, very difficult for God to actually use.
But you take someone with the bitterness of sin still on their tongue, they know what it means, they know from where they’ve been saved, they know from where God has saved them, they say I’ve got nothing for God. It’s all Jesus – that’s all I have to offer – because I know where I’ve come from. That’s the bitterness that God wanted his people to remember. Remember from where you were saved. Remember the bitterness of the slavery of the land of sin, Egypt.
Also, bitterness is a symbol of death. Death is often to as the bitter taste of death. And so, there was a reminder in the bitter herbs for the Israelites that death had to take place for there to be life. That there was an exchange of lives in their redemption. That there had to be the death of the innocent in order for the sinful to live. That’s the bitterness that needs to be on our tongue as believers. We need to recognize that the perfect, spotless Son of God, Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, had to die so that we who deserve to die, could live. And we never look at him like, what have you done for me lately, if we keep the bitterness on our tongue, that he as the perfect Lamb of God had to die so that we who should have died get to live. We’re forever grateful to him and never demanding of him. Because we know it should have been us on the cross. It should have been us that went through the fire of God’s judgment. And it’s okay every once in a while, to remind yourself just how bad of a sinner you are and from where you’ve been saved. That’s the bitter herbs.
3). The Passover lamb
Exodus 12:21 (ESV)
21 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.
The focus of the entire Passover celebration was the Passover lamb. The family had to single out from their flock, the best looking, healthiest, most perfect yearling. Yearling lambs are cute and adorable. And they had to take the cutest, most perfect, adorable lamb and bring them into their home for four days. And care for the lamb and inspect them to see if there is any blemish or spot on them that made them not perfect. Do you think the children would be attached to this yearling lamb after four days of watching his every move? And the moms. And do you think the tough guy dad would be attached to it? Yes, he would.
And then the head of the household was required to take a knife and plunge it into this perfect, spotless, yearling lamb. And drain it of its lifeblood. And it was meant to impress upon the family the cost of their redemption. Do you think it worked? I promise you it did. As the family probably watched the head of the household kill the lamb, it made an impression. That was its point. Its point was that God’s judgment had to fall in death. That there must be judgment upon sin. But that God in his great love and in his great mercy had made a way for his judgment to fall on the innocent instead of the guilty. And then if we would receive that option, that God’s full judgment could fall on that innocent, spotless, Passover lamb, and under its blood we could be covered and protected from the judgment that was otherwise due us. New Testament teaching or Old Testament teaching? Both. Yes.
One lesson in the Bible. Jesus Christ. He is the Passover Lamb. He is the one who is willing to take the judgment that you deserve. The one who would be the full complete true Passover Lamb. To redeem us once and for all from the life of sin, into the life that God has for us.
Write this cross reference down.
1 Peter 1:18-19 (NLT)
18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value.
19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.
God chose him as your ransom long before the world began. But he has now revealed him to you in these last days. Do you think that the Jewish mind connected this when they heard the Apostles and Jesus himself teaching this? Do you think they saw the picture of that innocent lamb that they’d seen slain year after year at the Passover? I promise you they did. They saw this. It made an impression.
And guys, that lamb had to be put through the fire of judgment before that family could receive it. Fire is almost always a picture of judgment. And this lamb after it was slain was roasted in the fire. It passed through the fire before the family could receive it or consume it. And Jesus first had to pass through the fire of God’s judgment.
And when Jesus Christ hung on the cross, and he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was experiencing the fire of God’s judgment in my place and in your place. He was the Passover Lamb that didn’t deserve to die but instead was sacrificed, and sacrificed his life willingly and then passed through the fire of God’s judgment so that we could receive him unto life, God’s way. The Promised Life. Just like the Israelites received the Passover lamb after it had passed through the fire for strength to begin the exodus from their life of sin. Do you see the connection? I hope so.
That brings us to our fourth lesson.
4). The blood on the door
Exodus 12:21-22(a) (ESV)
21 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.
22 Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin…
The Egyptian word for “basin” can mean a trough or a trench that is dug at the threshold of the door of a home to prevent water and things to enter into the home. So, this basin is maybe not what we would consider a bowl, but it is a container or a trench at the threshold of the door.
Exodus 12:22-23 (ESV)
22 Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.
23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
Guys, is that an incredible picture of being safe in the midst of God’s judgment falling on sin? And how is it done? By being under or covered by the blood of the Passover lamb, made in what symbol? Let me act it out for you. They put the hyssop at the threshold of the door, at the trench, which means that the Passover lamb was probably sacrificed right at the front door of the home. They put hyssop in the blood in the trench of the door, and they bring it straight up the door, and they put it at the top where the crown of thorns was at the top of the lentil. And then they come down and they move it to one side where the nail was. And then they move it to the other side where the other nail was. And the People of God have just used the blood of the Passover lamb to form the sign of the cross on the door of their home. Coincidence? No. It’s the exact same thing we learn in the New Testament – the same exact thing.
And then, God tells them go through the door that is covered by the blood of the innocent Passover lamb, and as you pass through the door you will be safe from judgment. And what does Jesus say in John 10:9, in the Good Shepherd chapter? He says, I am the door. Do you think that meant something to the Jews?
John 10:9 (ESV)
9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved…
Guys, please, the Passover is the proclamation prophetically of THE Lamb of God. And it is THE instruction for us to be safe from the judgment of God that must fall upon sin. And so, as the people of God form the sign of the cross in the blood of the Passover lamb, and entered through the door, they were safe from God’s judgment. The next morning, they began their exodus from a life of sin into their life with God and the Promised Land.
How many of you know that the next morning after you’re saved that’s when your exodus begins? Do you know that? Don’t ever believe anybody that says if you raise your hand your exodus is done and when you open your eyes you’re going to be in the Promised Land. Your saved, but there’s an exodus required. And how many of you know it takes a “few days.” But the day after the redemption God started the exodus from sin into the Promised Land.
I pray that you have sealed the door of your life with the blood of the Passover Lamb. That God would see the sign of the cross on the door of your life, dipped in the blood of his only Son. I pray that you’ve been redeemed. Redeemed back to God from the land of sin and I pray that you’ve begun the exodus out of a life of sin and into the Promised Life.