A Profound Deliverance Series

This week is a time of celebration. Wednesday evening began a celebration of the Passover. This morning is a celebration of the resurrection. These historical events are awesome demonstrations of God’s love and provision for His people.

In this message I want to focus on the Passover deliverance, then tie it into the Lord’s resurrection. Our primary text will be Exodus 12.

To set that passage in its context let’s briefly review the events surrounding the Passover night.

Ch. 1: Book of Exodus opens with the Hebrew people suffering cruel oppression as slaves in Egypt.

Ch. 2: Moses is born. He grows up in Pharaoh’s palace; feels the call of God on his life; attempts to fulfill that call in his own strength; kills an Egyptian; and flees to the dessert. He spends 40 years there with his wife, Zipporah, and his father-in-law, Jethro.

Ch. 3: Moses has his Burning Bush experience in which God sends him back to Egypt for the deliverance of the Hebrew people.

Ch. 4: Moses connects with Aaron and returns to Egypt.

Ch. 5: Moses begins his confrontation with Pharaoh. Circumstances get worse for the Hebrew slaves. They blame Moses and Aaron for making their lives harder.

Ch. 6-10: Nine of the ten plagues are executed.

Ch. 11: The last plague is introduced: the death of the firstborn.

Ch. 12: (Our text) God instructs His people on how to keep the Passover and be safe during the plague. In response to this last plague, Pharaoh lets the Hebrews go.

Ch. 13: The Hebrews leave Egypt.

Ch. 14: Pharaoh changes his mind and pursues the Hebrews. God parts the Red Sea, rescuing them from destruction. Pharaoh tries to chase them down. God uses the Red Sea to destroy Pharaoh’s army.

Ch. 15: Israel celebrates their deliverance.

Follow with me as we read Exodus 12:1-13.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover. 12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.i

We will process these events by pondering four questions.

1. WHO INITIATED THIS WHOLE SERIES OF EVENTS?

Was it the devil? Was it Pharaoh and the Egyptians? Was it Moses or the Hebrew slaves? A study of God’s message to Moses at the Burning Bush leaves no ambiguity about the answer to that question. God was the master strategist behind it all. Moses didn’t initiate this. At the burning bush he initially resisted the idea. The Hebrew people didn’t understand what God was doing. They opposed Moses when Pharaoh made them gather their own straw in response to Moses’s first confrontation with him. All the Hebrews could see was the immediate difficulty they were experiencing. The devil was active in his influence on Pharaoh. The order to kill the male Hebrew infants was diabolical. The Egyptian pursuit of the Hebrews at the Red Sea was satanically inspired. But Satan’s activity was only secondary. It is clearly not the focus of the biblical story. The focus is God’s plans and purposes. The focus was God’s deliverance of His people. In any crisis our first point of focus must be on God and what He is doing. That positions us to cooperate with Him.