Exodus And Redemption
Exodus 1-12
Message #4
In our last message, we saw the Scarlet Thread of Redemption drawn from Noah to Abraham. Today we see it drawn from Abraham, literally to Moses.
God chose Abraham - Made Unilateral Covenant with him
To Make a Great Nation out of him
To Place this Nation in the Promised Land – and
To Bless all the Earth through Abraham (Jesus Christ)
And in Genesis 17:17-18, God made a personal, relational, everlasting covenant promise to Abraham and his descendants, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” Today, we will see more of what that means. We will see how important that is that he is our God too, as we are “grafted in” (Romans says) to the family, the descendants of Abraham by faith.
Today, we look at the largest act of redemption this world has ever seen, and second only to the Cross of Jesus Christ. The redemption of the Nation of Israel in Exodus and the Cross of Jesus Christ are so clearly tied together in God’s plan of redemption that it would seem almost impossible to miss it.
We ended last week by briefly introducing the patriarchs of Israel: Abraham, his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob, and after an incredible wrestling match with God in Genesis 32, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel. And Israel (Abraham’s son) went on to have twelve sons, and those twelve sons became the Twelve Tribes of Israel. And from Genesis Chapter 37-50, we see the story of Israel’s “favorite” son, Joseph. And that “favorite son” thing got Josepha sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, and God used that and many other un-just circumstances to ultimately put Joseph second in command in Egypt. And when famine hit the Promised Land of Canaan, Joseph brought the sons of Israel together and their families into Egypt to survive the famine. Joseph placed them in a lush land in Egypt called Goshen, and they multiplied like rabbits.
Exodus 1:7 (ESV)
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.
In fact, Israel became so filled with Israelites that a subsequent King of Egypt, who did not know Joseph, became extremely intimidated by these “multiplying Israelites.”
Exodus 1:8–14 (ESV)
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 . . .
11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens . . .
12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. 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.
Wait a minute; I thought we were going to see that God was the Israelite’s God, and they were his people. How could he allow anything to be hard or painful for his people? Isn’t God supposed to make our lives better and easier?
Guys, what God has promised is to be with you in your trials and tribulations. Not to remove them from you, but to carry you through them until the day he frees you from this fallen world.
And that day is coming for Israel, but first, more tribulation. In Exodus 1:15-21, the Pharaoh commands the midwives to kill all male babies of the Israelites, but they refuse out of the fear of God. But then we read in verse 22,
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.”
And it’s actually from this very command that we meet Moses. When Moses was born, his mother put him in a basket and placed him in the river, hoping against hope, he would survive. Downriver, the Pharaoh’s own daughter saw the basket and drew Moses out of the river, just as God would draw Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Moses’ name means (coincidentally) “to draw out.” And then the Pharaoh’s daughter randomly picks an Israelite to care for the baby, and it happens to be Moses’ own mother. And so, Moses was raised in the house of the Pharaoh of Egypt. But God kept Moses’ heart connected to his people, Israel.
One day (still in Exodus 2), Moses tried to defend an Israelite who was being beaten, and Moses ended up killing the Egyptian. But instead of becoming a hero, the Israelites questioned Moses’ motives. Pharaoh found out about it all, and Moses fled to the wilderness. And it was there, on the backside of the desert for forty years as a shepherd, Moses learned how to lead God’s people. For forty years, alone in the desert tending sheep, God prepared Moses to lead the greatest act of redemption ever seen (up to this point in history).
It had been four hundred and thirty years since the twelve sons of Israel came into Egypt to avoid the famine in the Promised Land. They’d experienced incredible hardship, extreme slavery, and death. They had given up all hope. They had relegated themselves to being slaves to Egypt, then dying.
But God was still keeping his promise, contrary to everything his people could see. And if you belong to God today, God is still keeping his promise to you, contrary to everything you can see. Your circumstances do not determine God’s promise to you. They don’t determine God’s love for you. They do not – God is faithful, and he is true. He is unconditionally loving you no matter what your circumstances look like.
In fact, God had already told Abraham this was exactly how it was going to work out. Back in Genesis 15, verse 13, God told Abraham his descendants would be slaves in a foreign land for four hundred years. But then, in the very next verse,
Genesis 15:14 (ESV)
14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
Which is exactly what is going to happen. Guys, this act of redemption that we’re about to see is second only to our redemption in the Cross of Christ, and this miraculous act of redemption in Exodus is probably the most perfect picture we have in the Old Testament of the miraculous act of redemption we have in Jesus Christ.
In the Bible, Egypt is always a picture (type) of the world, and Israel’s bondage in Egypt is a picture of our bondage in sin.
Just as we are enslaved to the sin, God’s people had become enslaved to the symbol of sin in Egypt. They had no hope, and they had no way to redeem themselves. And it’s critical we see the connection between Israel’s bondage in the slavery of Egypt to our bondage in the slavery of sin.
It’s important we see it – Israel had no hope in themselves to be redeemed from their bondage in Egypt, just as we have no hope in ourselves to be redeemed from our bondage to sin.
BUT GOD… No matter what you look at, no matter what you see, feel, or think. No matter what the condition of your life is, you can say, “But God… God knows, God sees, I’m his, and he is mine, and he is going to redeem me from the sin of this world. And he’s going to overcome these circumstances at some point.” But God has a single plan of redemption. It’s going to free Israel from their bondage in Egypt, and it frees us from our bondage to sin.
Exodus 2:23–25 (ESV)
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
The people of Israel groaned in their slavery. They had no way out. They had no hope, and as they cried out for rescue, God saw, and God knew. And if you are in bondage to the sin of this world today, cry out to God for him to rescue you because God sees and God knows.
What God is about to do is a critical part of the unbroken Thread of Redemption that runs from Genesis to Jesus Christ.
And just as God did with Abraham, again God chooses to usher in this phase of his plan with a single man, and another unlikely man at that – Moses! Moses was literally hiding on the backside of the desert for forty years. At least he thought he was hiding. God was actually training him to be a deliverer. In Exodus, Chapter 3 is God’s incredible “calling” of Moses. Would you please give that chapter a careful read? There’s so much in Exodus Chapter 3 about who God is and how God relates to his people. This is the Burning Bush chapter. Moses is minding his own sheep, and suddenly he is standing on holy ground talking to God. Three times in this chapter, God identifies himself as “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Exodus 3:7–8 (ESV)
7 Then the Lord said (to Moses), “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings,
8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey . . .
And then God says to Moses, “Oh, and by the way, I’m going to use you to do it.”
Francis Chan points out a very concise summary of this text.
At this point in Exodus 3 Moses asks two questions to God:
1). Who am I? that you would use me (3:11)
2). Who are you? Meaning how do I define you? (3:13)
And there’s an incredible connection here from Moses to us because these are the two critical questions for each of us. In the first question, Moses is rightly questioning his own abilities – who am I that you would use me? And in Exodus 3, verse 12, God simply says, “I will be with you.”
Please listen carefully. We (as Christians) are not defined by what God does for us. We (as Christians) are defined by the fact that God is with us. We did not receive a genie to make our lives exactly how we want them. We were adopted by the God of Creation, who promised to never leave us nor forsake us. And we are marked not by what God does for us but by the fact that God is with us. AND he has promised us ultimate redemption and victory over this fallen world. When God says to us, “I am with you,” my prayer is we would see that as the highest defining characteristic of what it means to be a Christian – God is with us!
And then the second question from Moses to God is even bigger. Moses’ second question to God is, Who are you? And God’s answer is as big as it gets. In verse 14, we read,
Exodus 3:14 (ESV)
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
There are entire books written on this verse. How can we define God? How can God convey to our pea-sized brains who he is? God cannot define himself by pointing to anything in creation because he created it all. God defines creation – nothing in creation can define God. And so, God’s answer to Moses is, “I AM.” It means “I EXIST” “I AM the Existing One – the Eternal One.” “I AM WHO I AM.” Tell Israel, “I AM has sent you.”
And there’s more! This name becomes the personal name for God. This name becomes God’s “covenant-making” name. I don’t have time to adequately develop this. So let me just give you two definitions.
DICTIONARY OF BIBLICAL LANGUAGES
[This is] a title of God with a focus on presence, care, concern, and relationship
That is defining the personal, covenant-making name of God.
VINES EXPOSITORY DICTIONARY
[This] is more than a simple statement of identity: “I am that I am”; it is a declaration of divine control of all things
That is defining God’s “unilateral ability” to bring his covenant promises to pass.
And finally, the personal, covenant-making name for the Lord (used over 6,000 times in the Old Testament) comes from this name I AM, and that name is JEHOVAH or YAHWEH.
But now, we must return quickly to our storyline. But please mark Exodus Chapter 3 because that is a huge chapter.
So, after a little more “preparing” of Moses, God sends him with his brother Aaron to the Pharaoh with a message.
Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Whoa, Whoa, Let my people go! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And what followed was nothing short of a deity showdown. The Pharaoh was considered by the Egyptians to be a god. The representation of the sun god – RE (RA). But the Egyptians had many gods along with the Pharaoh, and so what followed was a showdown between all the gods of Egypt and the single God of Creation.
Ten plagues followed command to Pharaoh to set God’s people free. You can read all about it in Exodus Chapters 5-10, and it is really good reading. (Try the NLT.) For the first nine plagues, Pharaoh denied God’s command to let his people go. And it was the tenth plague that won the redemption of Israel from the bondage and slavery of Egypt. AND the tenth plague is a picture of how God has won redemption for you and I from the bondage of sin. And to this day, the People of Israel celebrate the results of this tenth plague. The tenth plague is what we call the Passover.
It is God’s redemption of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt and a picture of God’s redemption of us out of the bondage of sin.
Read about the tenth plague that won redemption for the People of God in Exodus Chapters 11-12 (the Passover). Each family was to bring a spotless, one-year-old lamb into their home just long enough to begin to love the lamb. The kids would feed it, care for it, play with it. And then the lamb was to be killed, draining its blood. And they were to take the blood of the innocent lamb and put the blood on the top and on the sides of the door of their homes.
Exodus 12:21–22 (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, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin . . .
The blood of an innocent lamb was put on the door of each home in the sign of the Cross (top and sides). And then,
Exodus 12:23 (ESV)
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.
In every house that was not covered by the blood of the Lamb, the Angel of Death would kill the firstborn. BUT any home that had the covering of the Blood of the Lamb, the Angel of Death would Pass Over that home.
Imagine the impact on God’s People, when a firstborn child asked his father, “Dad, why did the lamb have to die?” and the father replied, “Son, the Lamb died in your place. He died so that you would not have to.”
The only way to escape this judgment of God was to trust, by faith, in the covering of the Blood of the Lamb.
Now, let me ask you, do you think God’s plan of redemption through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is a New Testament idea? The only way Israel could be spared from God’s judgment was to completely trust God’s plan that was finalized in the covering of the blood of a spotless Lamb.
And Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, celebrated the Passover with his Disciples (with one difference). Jesus explained to his Disciples at that Passover that he was actually the true Passover Lamb, and that the Passover celebration had always been looking forward to HIS final sacrifice on the Cross. And he explained to them that on the next day, his life would be substituted for theirs. He would die so that they would not have to. He would be the final Passover Lamb to redeem all who would put their trust and faith in him.
As Paul says,
1 Corinthians 5:7 (ESV)
7 . . . For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Faith in the blood of the Passover Lamb secured Israel’s redemption from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. And faith in the blood of Jesus Christ – the final Passover Lamb – secures our redemption from the bondage of sin and judgment.
Hebrews 9:12 (ESV)
12 [Jesus] entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
In the Book of Exodus, Israel was redeemed from their bondage to slavery in Egypt. At the Cross, you and I can be redeemed from our bondage to sin.
The night after that initial Passover, God won the redemption of his People, and they walked out of Egypt with their heads held high and free from the chains of their bondage. And the plan God used to redeem Israel is the same plan he uses to redeem us.
Judgment must come upon the sin of this world, and only those under the covering of the Blood of the Lamb will be spared. Not because they deserve it. Not because they’ve earned it. But because they have put their faith in God’s single plan of redemption. If you have not yet done that, please do it today – do it right now!
We’re about to take communion, and on the heels of this message, I pray it would be significant to you. But please, do not take communion without first getting right with God.
God chose Abraham - Made Unilateral Covenant with him
To Make a Great Nation out of him
To Place this Nation in the Promised Land – and
To Bless all the Earth through Abraham (Jesus Christ)
And in Genesis 17:17-18, God made a personal, relational, everlasting covenant promise to Abraham and his descendants, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” Today, we will see more of what that means. We will see how important that is that he is our God too, as we are “grafted in” (Romans says) to the family, the descendants of Abraham by faith.
Today, we look at the largest act of redemption this world has ever seen, and second only to the Cross of Jesus Christ. The redemption of the Nation of Israel in Exodus and the Cross of Jesus Christ are so clearly tied together in God’s plan of redemption that it would seem almost impossible to miss it.
We ended last week by briefly introducing the patriarchs of Israel: Abraham, his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob, and after an incredible wrestling match with God in Genesis 32, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel. And Israel (Abraham’s son) went on to have twelve sons, and those twelve sons became the Twelve Tribes of Israel. And from Genesis Chapter 37-50, we see the story of Israel’s “favorite” son, Joseph. And that “favorite son” thing got Josepha sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, and God used that and many other un-just circumstances to ultimately put Joseph second in command in Egypt. And when famine hit the Promised Land of Canaan, Joseph brought the sons of Israel together and their families into Egypt to survive the famine. Joseph placed them in a lush land in Egypt called Goshen, and they multiplied like rabbits.
Exodus 1:7 (ESV)
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.
In fact, Israel became so filled with Israelites that a subsequent King of Egypt, who did not know Joseph, became extremely intimidated by these “multiplying Israelites.”
Exodus 1:8–14 (ESV)
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 . . .
11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens . . .
12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. 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.
Wait a minute; I thought we were going to see that God was the Israelite’s God, and they were his people. How could he allow anything to be hard or painful for his people? Isn’t God supposed to make our lives better and easier?
Guys, what God has promised is to be with you in your trials and tribulations. Not to remove them from you, but to carry you through them until the day he frees you from this fallen world.
And that day is coming for Israel, but first, more tribulation. In Exodus 1:15-21, the Pharaoh commands the midwives to kill all male babies of the Israelites, but they refuse out of the fear of God. But then we read in verse 22,
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.”
And it’s actually from this very command that we meet Moses. When Moses was born, his mother put him in a basket and placed him in the river, hoping against hope, he would survive. Downriver, the Pharaoh’s own daughter saw the basket and drew Moses out of the river, just as God would draw Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Moses’ name means (coincidentally) “to draw out.” And then the Pharaoh’s daughter randomly picks an Israelite to care for the baby, and it happens to be Moses’ own mother. And so, Moses was raised in the house of the Pharaoh of Egypt. But God kept Moses’ heart connected to his people, Israel.
One day (still in Exodus 2), Moses tried to defend an Israelite who was being beaten, and Moses ended up killing the Egyptian. But instead of becoming a hero, the Israelites questioned Moses’ motives. Pharaoh found out about it all, and Moses fled to the wilderness. And it was there, on the backside of the desert for forty years as a shepherd, Moses learned how to lead God’s people. For forty years, alone in the desert tending sheep, God prepared Moses to lead the greatest act of redemption ever seen (up to this point in history).
It had been four hundred and thirty years since the twelve sons of Israel came into Egypt to avoid the famine in the Promised Land. They’d experienced incredible hardship, extreme slavery, and death. They had given up all hope. They had relegated themselves to being slaves to Egypt, then dying.
But God was still keeping his promise, contrary to everything his people could see. And if you belong to God today, God is still keeping his promise to you, contrary to everything you can see. Your circumstances do not determine God’s promise to you. They don’t determine God’s love for you. They do not – God is faithful, and he is true. He is unconditionally loving you no matter what your circumstances look like.
In fact, God had already told Abraham this was exactly how it was going to work out. Back in Genesis 15, verse 13, God told Abraham his descendants would be slaves in a foreign land for four hundred years. But then, in the very next verse,
Genesis 15:14 (ESV)
14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
Which is exactly what is going to happen. Guys, this act of redemption that we’re about to see is second only to our redemption in the Cross of Christ, and this miraculous act of redemption in Exodus is probably the most perfect picture we have in the Old Testament of the miraculous act of redemption we have in Jesus Christ.
In the Bible, Egypt is always a picture (type) of the world, and Israel’s bondage in Egypt is a picture of our bondage in sin.
Just as we are enslaved to the sin, God’s people had become enslaved to the symbol of sin in Egypt. They had no hope, and they had no way to redeem themselves. And it’s critical we see the connection between Israel’s bondage in the slavery of Egypt to our bondage in the slavery of sin.
It’s important we see it – Israel had no hope in themselves to be redeemed from their bondage in Egypt, just as we have no hope in ourselves to be redeemed from our bondage to sin.
BUT GOD… No matter what you look at, no matter what you see, feel, or think. No matter what the condition of your life is, you can say, “But God… God knows, God sees, I’m his, and he is mine, and he is going to redeem me from the sin of this world. And he’s going to overcome these circumstances at some point.” But God has a single plan of redemption. It’s going to free Israel from their bondage in Egypt, and it frees us from our bondage to sin.
Exodus 2:23–25 (ESV)
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
The people of Israel groaned in their slavery. They had no way out. They had no hope, and as they cried out for rescue, God saw, and God knew. And if you are in bondage to the sin of this world today, cry out to God for him to rescue you because God sees and God knows.
What God is about to do is a critical part of the unbroken Thread of Redemption that runs from Genesis to Jesus Christ.
And just as God did with Abraham, again God chooses to usher in this phase of his plan with a single man, and another unlikely man at that – Moses! Moses was literally hiding on the backside of the desert for forty years. At least he thought he was hiding. God was actually training him to be a deliverer. In Exodus, Chapter 3 is God’s incredible “calling” of Moses. Would you please give that chapter a careful read? There’s so much in Exodus Chapter 3 about who God is and how God relates to his people. This is the Burning Bush chapter. Moses is minding his own sheep, and suddenly he is standing on holy ground talking to God. Three times in this chapter, God identifies himself as “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Exodus 3:7–8 (ESV)
7 Then the Lord said (to Moses), “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings,
8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey . . .
And then God says to Moses, “Oh, and by the way, I’m going to use you to do it.”
Francis Chan points out a very concise summary of this text.
At this point in Exodus 3 Moses asks two questions to God:
1). Who am I? that you would use me (3:11)
2). Who are you? Meaning how do I define you? (3:13)
And there’s an incredible connection here from Moses to us because these are the two critical questions for each of us. In the first question, Moses is rightly questioning his own abilities – who am I that you would use me? And in Exodus 3, verse 12, God simply says, “I will be with you.”
Please listen carefully. We (as Christians) are not defined by what God does for us. We (as Christians) are defined by the fact that God is with us. We did not receive a genie to make our lives exactly how we want them. We were adopted by the God of Creation, who promised to never leave us nor forsake us. And we are marked not by what God does for us but by the fact that God is with us. AND he has promised us ultimate redemption and victory over this fallen world. When God says to us, “I am with you,” my prayer is we would see that as the highest defining characteristic of what it means to be a Christian – God is with us!
And then the second question from Moses to God is even bigger. Moses’ second question to God is, Who are you? And God’s answer is as big as it gets. In verse 14, we read,
Exodus 3:14 (ESV)
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
There are entire books written on this verse. How can we define God? How can God convey to our pea-sized brains who he is? God cannot define himself by pointing to anything in creation because he created it all. God defines creation – nothing in creation can define God. And so, God’s answer to Moses is, “I AM.” It means “I EXIST” “I AM the Existing One – the Eternal One.” “I AM WHO I AM.” Tell Israel, “I AM has sent you.”
And there’s more! This name becomes the personal name for God. This name becomes God’s “covenant-making” name. I don’t have time to adequately develop this. So let me just give you two definitions.
DICTIONARY OF BIBLICAL LANGUAGES
[This is] a title of God with a focus on presence, care, concern, and relationship
That is defining the personal, covenant-making name of God.
VINES EXPOSITORY DICTIONARY
[This] is more than a simple statement of identity: “I am that I am”; it is a declaration of divine control of all things
That is defining God’s “unilateral ability” to bring his covenant promises to pass.
And finally, the personal, covenant-making name for the Lord (used over 6,000 times in the Old Testament) comes from this name I AM, and that name is JEHOVAH or YAHWEH.
But now, we must return quickly to our storyline. But please mark Exodus Chapter 3 because that is a huge chapter.
So, after a little more “preparing” of Moses, God sends him with his brother Aaron to the Pharaoh with a message.
Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Whoa, Whoa, Let my people go! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And what followed was nothing short of a deity showdown. The Pharaoh was considered by the Egyptians to be a god. The representation of the sun god – RE (RA). But the Egyptians had many gods along with the Pharaoh, and so what followed was a showdown between all the gods of Egypt and the single God of Creation.
Ten plagues followed command to Pharaoh to set God’s people free. You can read all about it in Exodus Chapters 5-10, and it is really good reading. (Try the NLT.) For the first nine plagues, Pharaoh denied God’s command to let his people go. And it was the tenth plague that won the redemption of Israel from the bondage and slavery of Egypt. AND the tenth plague is a picture of how God has won redemption for you and I from the bondage of sin. And to this day, the People of Israel celebrate the results of this tenth plague. The tenth plague is what we call the Passover.
It is God’s redemption of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt and a picture of God’s redemption of us out of the bondage of sin.
Read about the tenth plague that won redemption for the People of God in Exodus Chapters 11-12 (the Passover). Each family was to bring a spotless, one-year-old lamb into their home just long enough to begin to love the lamb. The kids would feed it, care for it, play with it. And then the lamb was to be killed, draining its blood. And they were to take the blood of the innocent lamb and put the blood on the top and on the sides of the door of their homes.
Exodus 12:21–22 (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, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin . . .
The blood of an innocent lamb was put on the door of each home in the sign of the Cross (top and sides). And then,
Exodus 12:23 (ESV)
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.
In every house that was not covered by the blood of the Lamb, the Angel of Death would kill the firstborn. BUT any home that had the covering of the Blood of the Lamb, the Angel of Death would Pass Over that home.
Imagine the impact on God’s People, when a firstborn child asked his father, “Dad, why did the lamb have to die?” and the father replied, “Son, the Lamb died in your place. He died so that you would not have to.”
The only way to escape this judgment of God was to trust, by faith, in the covering of the Blood of the Lamb.
Now, let me ask you, do you think God’s plan of redemption through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is a New Testament idea? The only way Israel could be spared from God’s judgment was to completely trust God’s plan that was finalized in the covering of the blood of a spotless Lamb.
And Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, celebrated the Passover with his Disciples (with one difference). Jesus explained to his Disciples at that Passover that he was actually the true Passover Lamb, and that the Passover celebration had always been looking forward to HIS final sacrifice on the Cross. And he explained to them that on the next day, his life would be substituted for theirs. He would die so that they would not have to. He would be the final Passover Lamb to redeem all who would put their trust and faith in him.
As Paul says,
1 Corinthians 5:7 (ESV)
7 . . . For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Faith in the blood of the Passover Lamb secured Israel’s redemption from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. And faith in the blood of Jesus Christ – the final Passover Lamb – secures our redemption from the bondage of sin and judgment.
Hebrews 9:12 (ESV)
12 [Jesus] entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
In the Book of Exodus, Israel was redeemed from their bondage to slavery in Egypt. At the Cross, you and I can be redeemed from our bondage to sin.
The night after that initial Passover, God won the redemption of his People, and they walked out of Egypt with their heads held high and free from the chains of their bondage. And the plan God used to redeem Israel is the same plan he uses to redeem us.
Judgment must come upon the sin of this world, and only those under the covering of the Blood of the Lamb will be spared. Not because they deserve it. Not because they’ve earned it. But because they have put their faith in God’s single plan of redemption. If you have not yet done that, please do it today – do it right now!
We’re about to take communion, and on the heels of this message, I pray it would be significant to you. But please, do not take communion without first getting right with God.