PASSOVER: The Lord Is The Lamb
Dr. Larry Petton
Text: Exodus 12
Series: Greatest Chapters of the Bible #5
Cross Pointe Community Church
Tontitown, Arkansas
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Holidays are not an American idea. It is a totally Jewish invention. God gave the people of Israel "holy-days" when He wanted to remind them of His blessings and also wanted to point to the coming Savior at the same time. He called these days, "feasts".
I. FEASTS REVEAL FOUR TRUTHS ABOUT GOD:
(1) Feasts reveal that God is a God of order.
(2) Feasts show that God is a God of celebration & remembrance.
(3) Feasts point to Christ.
(4) Feasts give us God’s plan for the ages.
The Hebrew word for feasts (moadim) appears in Scripture 223 times and means "appointed times.“ In other words, feasts were given that we might tell the time. Paul reminds believers in Christ in I Thessalonians 5 that we are not in darkness to the season of Christ's return. We don't know the day or hour of His return. But we can look around and sense the season. If you look out your window and see snow, you know the season. It is winter and you can't wait for Spring to come!
If you look at the condition of the world right now......
If you look at the condition of Israel right now....
If you look at the condition of the Church right now....
If you look at all of these things.....
You know that we are in the season of His return.
He may not come for a thousand years. He may come today! Time is irrelevant to Him. One day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day (II Peter 3:9-12).
However, as I look out of my theological window........I see that one season is about to end and another is about to sprout.
II. FEASTS IN THE BIBLE
There are seven feasts in the Bible and they help us to tell the time. Four were historically fulfilled in Christ's first coming. The other three will be fulfilled at Christ's second coming.
The First Coming of Christ:
The Passover Feast is a picture of the death of Christ, God's Lamb.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a picture of the burial of Christ.
The Feast of Firstfruits is a picture of Christ's resurrection, the first fruit from the dead.
The Feast of Pentecost was a celebration of the harvest and is a picture of the beginning of the Church at Pentecost.
The Second Coming of Christ:
The Feast of Trumpets is a picture of the Rapture of the Church, when the last trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ shall rise.
The Day of Atonement pictures the day of Judgment that is awaiting all who reject Christ.
The Feast of Tabernacles is a picture of the coming reign of Christ on earth where we tabernacle together in worship & fellowship.
III. THE FEAST OF PASSOVER
The Feast of Passover is the clearest picture of the Cross in the Old Testament. God commanded it. Israel celebrated it. Jesus fulfilled it. Notice the eight great parallels between the Passover Lamb and Christ, the Lamb of God:
1. THE LAMB MUST BE CHOSEN. Each Jewish family chose their very best lamb. Sometimes that lamb was actually a family pet. It was quite a sacrifice to bring the chosen lamb. Jesus is the Lamb who was chosen by God. When John the Baptist saw Christ for the first time, he declared, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).
2. THE CHOSEN LAMB MUST BE TESTED. God commanded the people of Israel to keep the lamb for four days and examine it (Exodus 12:5-6). God would not accept an injured lamb. God would not accept a sick lamb. God would not accept a lamb that was not the very best. God will likewise not accept anything into His Presence without perfection. No human could qualify for we have all been injured by the Fall of Adam (Romans 3:23). But, our Lord's life was under hostile scrutiny and testing which proved his holiness and worthiness (Luke 11:53-54). He passed every test.
3. THE LAMB MUST BE WITHOUT BLEMISH. Jesus was without any blemish. Paul said in II Corinthians 5:21, "For He who knew no sin, became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." The word for "knew" is epiginosko, meaning, "to experience". Christ did not experience any sin in his life. The writer of Hebrews says, "He was tempted in all points, yet without sin."
Have you been tempted with lust? So was Christ.
Have you been tempted with anger? So was Christ.
Have you been tempted with jealousy? So was Christ.
Have you been tempted with greed? So was Christ.
He was tempted in all points. He is a Savior who understands the heat of temptation.
4. THE LAMB MUST BE SLAIN AT TWILIGHT. For the Jews, "twilight" literally means in Hebrew, "between the evenings." Literally, that is the midway point between noon and evening. That would be 3:00 p.m. Check out Matthew 27:45. That is exactly when Christ was crucified. The exactness of the Word of God is amazing! And when He was slain exactly at 3 p.m., the Jewish priests were in Jerusalem in the Temple offering up the Passover Lamb at the same moment. Then God showed up for worship! He tore the veil in the Temple from the top to the bottom. It was not an earthquake. It was the hand of God. It showed forever that now anyone could have access to God through Christ!
5. THE BONES OF THE LAMB MUST NOT BE BROKEN (Exodus 12:46). The bones of Jesus were NOT BROKEN. Read John 19:32-36. The Romans came to break his bones, as they normally did for common criminals, but they walked away from Christ. Why? Because God declared in Psalm 34:20, "Not a bone of him shall be broken."
6. THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB MUST BE APPLIED. For an Israelite to be saved, he had to take the blood of the Lamb and personally put it over his door. The Jew placed the blood of the lamb on either side of the door and at the top of the door. Connect the dots together and you have a Cross! However, I can imagine some in Egypt who said, "That is ridiculous. I am intellectual. That is not even rational to put the blood of a lamb on a door to escape death. I'm not going to do that. It is beneath me and insults my intelligence!"
To every one who failed to place the blood on their doorpost, that household suffered the death of their firstborn. The Angel of death passed over Egypt and death was in the streets. Today, we must personally apply what Christ has done on the Cross to our heart by faith (John 1:12).
It is not enough to know that Jesus came to be our Savior.
It is not enough to know that Jesus is the Son of God.
It is not enough to know that Jesus died on the Cross and rose from the dead.
That is information. Even the Devil believes the right information (James 2).
But transformation comes when we personally apply what Christ has done on the Cross to our sin.
7. THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB WAS THE ONLY PROTECTION FROM DEATH AND JUDGMENT. God would accept nothing else but the blood of the lamb, regardless of how sincere a person might be. Sincerity is not enough to get a soul to Heaven. You must be protected by the blood of the lamb by faith in Jesus Christ. I John 5:12-13 says that we know that we have passed from death into life when we have believed on the Name of the Son of God.
Have you trusted Christ as your only hope for Heaven?
If you died and stood before God and He asked you, "Why should I allow you into my perfect Heaven?", what is your answer?
The only answer is in Christ.
He is not a Way.
He is not a Truth.
He is not a Life.
He is the Way, the Truth, the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6).
Normally, a lot of pastors and teachers stop right here.....give an invitation and ask people to walk down an aisle and come to Christ. That is exactly how I was raised in Dallas, Texas in an evangelistic church. I never heard the next point. For me, it was get saved and then get others saved. That was a summary of my Christian life. I wondered if faith in Christ meant anything more than fire insurance from Hell. But, one day......I read the rest of Exodus 12 and realized the final point.
8. ONCE THE LAMB WAS SACRIFICED, THE ISRAELITES ATE THE LAMB THAT HAD BEEN OFFERED. The Israelites chose the lamb. They tested the lamb. They sacrificed the lamb. They roasted the lamb and then they were commanded to eat the lamb. This food gave the Jews strength for the journey through the desert. It is an amazing picture of how we trust Christ for salvation, then we feed on Him for strength to live the Christian life.
We feed on Him through the Word (I Peter 2:1-2).
We feed on Him through Worship (Hebrews 10:25)
We feed on Him through meditation (Psalm 1).
We feed on Him by sharing Him in fellowship with other believers (Hebrews 10:25).
We feed on Him through prayer (John 15:1-7).
Are you feeding on the Lamb today? Are do you find yourself feeding on a diet of worldly values that leave your soul dry?
I really enjoy visiting Yellowstone. In fact, one of these days, when Jesus comes back, I’ve got dubs on Yellowstone! Come and visit me for a while!
Once when I was visiting the greatest national park in America, I heard a story about bears that was amazing. In the 1950’s and 60’s, tourists could drive right up to a bear, roll down their window and feed their McDonald’s hamburger to the hungry animal. He would gladly take the burger along with the hand of the tourist! The bears were changing their feeding habits and endangering visitors.
As a result, the National Park Service removed the bears and took them to higher country where God had already provided for them a natural diet of luscious berries. However, because the bears had changed their feeding patterns, many of them refused to eat the berries and some actually died.
This story is an incredible picture of the lives of many believers in Christ. Sadly, many of us have been delivered out of spiritual Egypt and bondage to sin, but we have not been brought into the Promised Land of victory. It is interesting that God told the Israelites to eat the roasted lamb they had sacrificed (Exodus 12). The Passover lamb is a picture of the death of Christ. But feeding on the lamb is a picture of how we grow in Christ once we have been saved.
What are you feeding on in your personal life? Are you spending time alone with Christ in the Word of God? Are you allowing the junk food of this world’s values to destroy your spiritual appetite for the Word of God? Feed on the Lamb of God and don’t allow the Enemy to feed you a lie.
Dr. Larry Petton
If I can talk to you about how to know Christ or how to grow in Christ......please contact.
You can find the audio of this message on our website: www.crosspointenwa.com.
