HE’S GOT YOU COVERED
Exodus 12.1-51
S: Change
C: Salvation
Th: Movin’ On Up!
Pr: Enjoy the salvation that God provides.
Type: Inductive
I. FRESH START
II. PROTECTION
III. OBEDIENCE
IV. JUDGMENT
V. FREEDOM
VI. BLESSING
PA: How is the change to be observed?
• Receive the fresh start God wants you to have.
• Receive the protection Jesus offers as the sacrificial lamb.
• Enjoy the salvation that God provides through Jesus.
Version: ESV
RMBC 16 March 08 AM
INTRODUCTION:
When we come to the context of our passage today, let us start off by saying…
1. Salvation is needed!
Back in the book of Genesis, the family of Jacob came to Egypt because of a famine, and then stayed.
For a while they enjoyed favor because Jacob’s son, Joseph, was the number one man behind the pharaoh in the Egyptian government.
But after Joseph’s death and generations came to pass one, a new Pharaoh took over who did not know Joseph and who didn’t like the Hebrew people.
So, he made them slaves.
It was his way to stop the children of Israel from being a political force, but keep them as an economic force.
God heard the cries of His people and moved, in His own time, to relieve them of their bondage.
Onto the scene comes Moses, for…
2. Moses is God’s messenger of judgment and deliverance.
Moses, as an infant, was saved from pharaoh’s death sentence by his own daughter and was raised in Pharaoh’s court.
But when he was 40, he ran from Egypt when he killed an Egyptian overseer for punishing and beating some of his own Hebrew brothers.
Then, at the age of 80, God calls Moses to return and rescue the people.
Last week in our study, God used nine plagues to wrestle Israel from the grip of pharaoh.
They were natural disasters that took on an increasingly personal and deadly form: the Nile turning to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, boils, livestock death, hail, locusts, and then darkness.
The plagues also got more discriminatory - at first everyone suffered, then God spared the children of Israel living in Goshen.
The subject of judgment is one that is so misunderstood.
It was less than seven years ago, that we as a nation wrestled with that on 9/11.
ILL Judgment (S)
On September 13, 2001 in an interview with the press the daughter of Billy Graham, Ann Graham Lotz, was asked by the Early Show’s Jane Clayson to offer some comfort to the families of the victims of the terrorist attack. During this interview Jane Clayson asked: “I’ve heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, if God is good, how could God let this happen? To that, you say?”
Anne Graham Lotz replied saying: “I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we’re sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it.”
(From transcript of Early Morning Show - CBC interview)
Whether we realize it or not, God has blessed the United States.
And whether pharaoh realized it or not, God had blessed Egypt.
Because Egypt had at one time blessed the people of Israel, had welcomed them and allowed them to flourish.
Egypt has become a world power because God has given it to them.
But in time, it has changed.
Now the blessing will turn into judgment, and we find out that…
3. Pharaoh is one stiff-necked rebel.
God had sent Moses to pharaoh with the demand, “Let my people go.”
Pharaoh with great arrogance replied, “Who is the LORD that I should obey his voice to let the children of Israel go?”
Instead of obedience, pharaoh hardened his heart and refused.
God now forced the issue and a series of nine plagues had devastated Egypt.
It will take one more horrific plague, the death of the firstborn, to convince pharaoh.
And the text changes its language.
It is not a plague, but a stroke, more disastrous than other nine.
God is going to strike the firstborn, for this is the only thing that will loosen the pharaoh’s evil grip.
OUR STUDY:
The text begins with a promise of a…
I. FRESH START (1-2)
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.”
4. Something new is coming.
There has been a temporary rest after the ninth plague, but now something was about to happen.
God’s final act against Egypt is about to begin, and it is so important, so catastrophic, that their sense of time will now be measured against it.
God’s final stroke of judgment is going to come, and even the children of Israel will need to protect themselves against it.
For those who will hear it, here are the instructions to receive protection.
II. PROTECTION (7-13)
“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. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 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. 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. 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.”
You see, the children of Israel needed to take advantage of the protection God was offering because…
5. No one is good enough to escape God’s judgment.
I want you to note that right now, because that applies to you and me as well.
God does not save people because they are inherently good.
He saves them because they are not!
So note that the children of Israel need God’s salvation from the angel of death because they too are guilty.
They too are guilty of worshipping false gods.
And the principle that is throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, is brought out into full bloom at this point.
It is this…
6. Blood needs to be applied.
The Hebrews were not delivered just because they were Hebrews.
And neither were the Egyptian firstborn sons killed because they were Egyptians.
The line of delineation was the applied blood.
In other words, the opportunity was available to all, but only those that applied it by faith were delivered.
You see, ultimately it was a matter of…
III. OBEDIENCE (28)
Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
7. Deliverance comes through faith.
The writer of Hebrews describes it like this (11:28)…
By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.
We need to remember as we read those instructions that the Hebrews had never done anything like this before.
They had never roasted a lamb in this specific way.
They had never slain a lamb and used the blood in this way.
What logical reason was there for doing this with the blood?
ILL Obedience (S)
“It seemed so utterly extraordinary for such a thing to be, as the deliverance of his people, because blood happened to be sprinkled on the outside of their doors. There was no precedent, no apparent reason to justify such a thing to ordinary common sense, no likelihood of obedience having any connection with deliverance.”
[F.B. Meyer. The Life of Moses: The Servant of God. (Lynnwood, Washington : Emerald Books, 1996).p. 72]
But those that obeyed…
Anybody who heeded the warnings…
Regardless of their race…
The ones that heard and believed, and acted on their faith, these were saved from…
IV. JUDGMENT (29-30)
As we noted last week, this is war.
This is a battle between El Shaddai and the gods of Egypt.
And God has said, “I am the Lord!”
The highest court has spoken.
No appeal can be made.
No greater authority can be cited.
The time of patience is past.
Pharaoh has dared Yahweh to act, and act He will.
At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.
You see…
8. It is terrifying to oppose God.
To where the blood was not applied, there was suffering.
From the great to the small…
It was useless to summon a priest, physician, or magician.
For they were suffering too.
The people of Egypt discovered, once and for all, that there gods were incapable and unresponsive in the face of Yahweh, the great I AM.
Even their Crown Prince, pharaoh’s son, destined to become the divine ruler after his father, received the catastrophic blow.
And with that, pharaoh’s hard heart…finally…gave in.
He surrendered.
And now there was…
V. FREEDOM (31-32)
Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”
9. The wait was finally over!
“Get out!”
“Sayanora, aloha, au revoir, arrivederci, adios, peace-out!”
“Everybody, everything…out of here!”
“Out of my sight, forever!”
And with an ironic twist, pharaoh asks Moses for a blessing.
VI. BLESSING (35-36)
The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.
The ironic twists continue for…
10. The children of Israel were not leaving empty handed.
In just one day, they become rich beyond their wildest dreams.
Whatever they ask for, their Egyptian neighbors give them.
They allow them to take whatever they want.
They just want them to leave before anything more happens to them.
CHALLENGE:
Here is the point we cannot miss this morning.
What we have been studying since the beginning of February – these studies of Moses and the Hebrews and the Egyptians – “Movin’ On Up” to the Promised Land – this study of…
11. Exodus is about Jesus.
We come today, celebrating Palm Sunday.
It is the day that Jesus is welcomed into Jerusalem as the Messiah.
The people along the way understood the significance of riding a colt – it was the fulfillment of prophecy found in Zechariah.
So, as He entered into the city, the people cried, “Hosanna!”
“Save us!”
It was the welcome due to a king.
But…
But in five days, this same Jesus, this One welcomed as King and Messiah, will be arrested, condemned to death in a mock trial and will be cruelly crucified on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
But how does this connect to Exodus?
Well, there are two key events in the Old Testament and we arrived at them in our study of Exodus today – the Passover and the literal Exodus.
These are the events that define Israel as a nation.
It is now they find that God is intervening in their lives, saving them from bondage, evil, and certain death.
He is providing an escape, not because they deserved it, but because He is a compassionate God – gracious and merciful.
God is providing a physical deliverance, via the Passover and the Exodus, that points to an even more significant deliverance.
A salvation that is spiritual in nature, that is reflected in a life of faith.
The Old Testament man and woman of faith looked back at these events and saw them as proof that God was worthy of trust, that whatever they were facing in their present they could get through because, ultimately, they served a faithful God.
Not only that, these events helped them to look forward.
For God continued to communicate to them that more salvation was coming.
God was sending a Messiah to save them, and that He would be Immanuel, God with us, and the salvation would be much more than what was expected.
This Jesus – He is the One that was promised.
And spiritually, He does the Passover in us.
Why?
Because God wants us to have the opportunity to escape the sin and the evil in our lives that has put us in bondage.
He offers us a new beginning.
So…
12. Receive the fresh start God wants you to have.
There are parallels that we are to see in the Passover and the Exodus, that are repeated in Jesus.
For when we become followers of Jesus, we recognize that we are like Israel.
We both are a people that have been delivered from bondage.
Theirs was physical slavery.
Ours was spiritual enslavement to satan.
God sent Moses to Israel, as their Deliverer.
He led the people out of their bondage and on to the Promised Land.
God came down, and delivered us through Jesus.
He does not leave us to remain despairingly trapped in our sin.
Jesus frees us.
He delivers us from darkness, so that we can walk in His marvelous light, and experience the Promised Land of heaven.
If this is new news to you today, know this…
God wants to give you a fresh start today.
So…
13. Receive the protection Jesus offers as the sacrificial lamb.
Just as the Israelites were protected by the innocent blood of the lamb that was painted over the doorframes, so are we protected by the innocent blood of Jesus when He went to the cross.
The testimony of Scripture is that sin deserves death.
So, when Jesus died on the cross, His blood protects us.
His blood is painted over the doorframes of our heart and God passes over us.
Instead of receiving what we deserve, we are protected, and we receive life.
We do not get what sin deserves.
We do not get death, because Jesus already paid that penalty.
God did it for us.
Not because we deserved it.
But because He is a compassionate God – gracious and merciful.
Note how the apostle Paul describes this transaction in II Corinthians 5.21 (NIV).
Read this with me!
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Isn’t that powerful?
God brings spiritual freedom to us – His righteousness – through Jesus.
This means then, that we are to…
14. Enjoy the salvation that God provides through Jesus.
ILL Joy (S)
As we rolled five-year-old Mary into the MRI room, I tried to imagine what she must be feeling. She had suffered a stroke that left half of her body paralyzed, had been hospitalized for treatment of a brain tumor, and had recently lost her father, her mother and her home. We all wondered how Mary would react.
She went into the MRI machine without the slightest protest, and we began the exam. At that time, each imaging sequence required the patient to remain perfectly still for about five minutes. This would have been difficult for anyone – and certainly for a five-year-old who had suffered so much. We were taking an image of her head, so any movement of her face, including talking, would result in image distortion.
About two minutes into the first sequence, we noticed on the video monitor that Mary’s mouth was moving. We even heard a muted voice over the intercom. We halted the exam and gently reminded Mary not to talk. She was smiling and promised not to talk.
We reset the machine and started over. Once again we saw her facial movement and heard her voice faintly. What she was saying wasn’t clear. Everyone was becoming a little impatient, with a busy schedule that had been put on hold to perform an emergency MRI on Mary.
We went back in and slid Mary out of the machine. Once again, she looked at us with her crooked smile and wasn’t upset in the least. The technologist, perhaps a bit gruffly, said, “Mary, you were talking again, and that causes blurry pictures.”
Mary’s smile remained as she replied, “I wasn’t talking. I was singing. You said no talking.” We looked at each other, feeling a little silly.
“What were you singing?” someone asked.
“Jesus Loves Me,” came the barely perceptible reply. “I always sing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ when I’m happy.”
Everyone in the room was speechless. Happy? How could this little girl be happy? The technologist and I had to leave the room for a moment to regain our composure as tears began to fall.
By James C. Brown, M.D. from A 5th Portion of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Copyright 1998 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
You see, God offers the same kind of riches to you and me.
They are not the riches of the world.
They are a joy that is so deep, so profound, so intense – that no sickness, no pain, no suffering, no depression, no temptation – can ultimately defeat.
It is a joy that says, “God is good – all the time,” and “All the time – God is good.”
It is a joy that sings, “Jesus loves me” in the face of gravest of times.
It is a joy that God wants you to have by submitting to Him as your Savior and Lord.
As we bow our heads, I want to give anyone that desires it, the opportunity to make a decision to receive the salvation (deliverance) that God offers to each one of us.
To do so, silently where you are, you can talk to God in prayer.
Say something like this:
Dear God,
I thank You for your grace and compassion and mercy that reaches to the very place I sit this day.
I admit that I have not followed You, but I want to receive the salvation that You freely offer us through Your Son Jesus on the cross.
Come into my heart, so that I might follow and love You and enjoy You forever.
Amen.
With heads still bowed, if you prayed a prayer similar to that just now, will you just raise your hand, to identify to yourself, to God and to me that decision?
Thank you.
Prayer…
For Further Study: Genesis 22.8; Psalm 105; Isaiah 53; John 1.29; Romans 5.6-11; I Corinthians 5.7; II Corinthians 5.21; Ephesians 1.7; Hebrews 9.22, 11.28; Revelation 13.8
BENEDICTION:
If you prayed that prayer today, after the postlude is concluded, I would like to ask you to make your way down to the front to see me. I want to know who you are and how we can help you in your next steps as a follower of Jesus.
To those of you who are believers, I want to encourage you with these words…
Enjoy God today…
Enjoy the salvation that God has provided for Jesus…
Enjoy it so much that you must tell others!!!
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
RESOURCES:
SermonCentral:
Fuller, Tom The Passover
Hamby, John Facing the Judgment of God
Landry, Bruce God’s Passover
Morine, Matthew The Story of God: The Exodus/Christ Event
Moss, Danny What God Wanted His People to Remember on Their First New Year’s Day
Vasicek, Ed Don’t Pass on the Passover
_____ The Midnight Death
Books:
Briscoe, Jill. "Here Am I -- Send Aaron!" Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1978.
Gispen, Willem H. Exodus. Translated by Ed M. van der Maas. Bible Student’s Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1982.
Pink, A. W. Gleanings in Exodus. Chicago: Moody Press, 1981.
Ramm, Bernard. His Way Out: A Fresh Look at Exodus. Glendale, CA: Regal Books, 1975.
Swindoll, Charles R. Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication. Great Lives from God’s Word, vol. 4. Nashville: Word Publishing, 1999.
