The Passover Series

The Story of Moses : Exodus 12

Passover

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

06-01–2025

In Christ Alone

In 2013, the PCUSA (Presbyterian Church) was putting together a new hymnal and wanted to include “In Christ Alone.” But there was a problem. They didn’t like one of the lines of the song and asked Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend if they could change it.

What was the issue?

“On that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.” They wanted to change it to “on that cross as Jesus died, the love of God was magnified.”

Keith and Stuart refused to change the lyric and that denomination voted to not include the song in the new hymnbook.

Why? Because we are saved by God from God! By nature, we are objects of God’s wrath, (see Romans 9:22) but God makes a way for His wrath to be appeased.

How, through the perfect sacrifice of His Son on the cross. Moses wrote that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. (Hebrews 9:22)

Charles Spurgeon proclaimed:

“See how red your guilt is. Mark the scarlet stain. If you were to wash your soul in the Atlantic Ocean, you might make every wave red that washes all its shores, and yet the crimson spots of your transgression would still remain. But plunge into the “fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins,” and in an instant you are whiter than snow. Every speck, spot, and stain of sin is gone, and gone forever.”

Let’s sing that verse from Christ Alone together:

In Christ alone, who took on flesh / Fullness of God in helpless babe

This gift of love and righteousness / Scorned by the ones He came to save

'Til on that cross as Jesus died / The wrath of God was satisfied

For every sin on Him was laid /Here in the death of Christ I live, I live

Review

Over a period of nine months, the Egyptians had seen the Nile turn to blood, been inundated with frogs, been stung by gnats, been harassed by flies, lost their livestock to the plague, been infected with boils on their skin, endured the most violent hailstorm in the history of their country, watched a swarm of locust eat what was left of their food stores, and endured 72 hours of darkness so thick it could be felt.

They had cried out to their gods in vain. These three plagues would show them, once and for all, that God was the only God and He alone was worthy to be worshipped.

The people were terrified of what could come next. But Pharaoh didn’t care. His heart was hard as stone.

There is one more plague to come. It will cause Pharaoh to finally let you go and the people of Egypt will repay for 400 years of slavery.

The Israelites were God’s “first born,” and because Pharaoh wouldn’t let his first born go, the Egyptians will forfeit their first born.

This would be the most terrible of the plagues and cast an already distressed Egypt into deep mourning.

Please turn with me to Exodus 12.

Prayer

The Passover Commanded

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 

What was about to happen was so important that God literally reset the Jewish calendar! Their calendar would mark their deliverance from Egypt.

When we are born again, we get a new way to tell time. I’ll be 57 next month but spiritually I’m 35 years old spiritually.

“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. 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.  The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.”

On the tenth day of Nissan, (March/April), each family is to choose one year old lamb without defect, the best lamb of the flock. In Deuteronomy 17:1, Moses wrote that bringing a lamb that had blemishes was an abomination to God. The substitute had to be perfect.

If the family is too small, they would join with other families. In New Testament times, ten, and not more than 20, was the minimum number of people needed to celebrate this meal.

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. 

The lamb would be brought into the house for five days. Don’t you think that in those five days the children gave it a name? Maybe “Lammy?” They would feed it and it may have even slept at their feet for those five days.