[8:00 a.m.] Christ, Our Passover (Exodus 12:1-13, 21-27)

we're looking at the Events of the Exodus in the Old Testament.

God, people delivered God, delivered.

His people out of Egypt, eventually brought them to the

promised land. We are now still in Egypt,

haven't left yet, but getting awful close, our story picks up

today in chapter 12 of Exodus and it's the story of the

beginning of the Passover and it's a lengthy text.

So I will try to be moving along with it, pay attention to a lot

of detail because will refer to a lot of that detail in a

moment. 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 tell

all the congregation of Israel, that on the tenth day of this

month, every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers

houses, a lamb for a household and if the household is too

small for a lamb, then he His nearest neighbor shall take,

according to the number of persons, according to what each

can eat, you shall make your count for the lamb.

Your lamb shall be without blemish.

A male a year old. You may take it from the sheep

or from the goats and you shall keep it until the 14th day of

the month. When the whole assembly of the

congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at Twilight.

Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two-door

post 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 it any of it, raw, or

boiling 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 all the

gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment.

I am the Lord, the blood shall be a sign for you on the house.

Just where you are. And when I see the blood, I will

pass over you. This day shall be for you and

Memorial Day and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord

throughout your Generations as a statute forever.

You shall keep it as a feast and now moving over towards the end

of the chapter or really the middle of the chapter.

Then the Lord 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.

Take the bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the

basin. And the lentil and the two-door

post with the blood that is in the Basin.

None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the

morning. For the Lord will pass through

to strike the Egyptians. And when he sees the blood on

the lintel, and on the two-door post, the Lord shall pass over

the door, and will not allow the Destroyer to enter the house to

strike you, you shall observe this as a statute for you, and

for your sons forever. And when you come to the land

that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you, you shall

keep this service. And when your children say to

you, what do you mean by this service?

You shall say? It is the sacrifice of the

Lord's Passover for. He passed over the houses of the

people of Israel and Egypt when he struck the Egyptians but he

spared our houses and the people bowed their heads and worshiped,

the word of the Lord, you may be seated.

I think this is a very familiar story to most of you.

This is the institution of the Passover.

The word Passover Pasha means in the original Hebrew Passover.

It means to pass over, and that's exactly what happened

when the death angel came to wreak judgment upon the house of

the Egyptians. If he saw Blood on the post of

the doors and the lentils, he would pass over that house and

go to the next one. And if he saw blood on that door

post, he would pass over that house and go to the next one and

all throughout the land, and where there was blood On the

doorpost, there was no death in the household. but where there

was no blood on the doorposts of the entrance of the houses, the

death angel came and took the firstborn of every household in

Egypt. This is the beginning in the

life of Israel of their sacrificial system.

Now, we know that sacrifice had been since the beginning.

The Lord himself had sacrificed animals in order to get their

skins in order to make a covering for Adam and Eve.

The Lord himself was the first priest performing this service

of covering cough are atoning for Adam and Eve.

We That Abel offered sacrifice, Seth offered sacrifice Enoch

offered sacrifice. Most, I mean, Noah offered

sacrifice coming all the way down to the days of the

Patriarchs Abraham. Offered sacrifices to the Lord.

So did Isaac and Jacob. So, this is not the beginning of

sacrifice in the Bible, the notion of sacrifice goes back to

the garden. It is ancient.

It is absolutely vital to understanding Redemptive

history. That is the story of how God

redeems his people. But now, God is going to be even

more specific. He's going to Institute for them

and constitute for them. A particular sacrificial

ceremony. That's going to have the

elements that he needs for all of the sacrifices that he'll

bring them out later. And finally the sacrifice of his

own son. One upon the cross.

So if we get it right on Passover will understand it

right. Concerning Christ, will

understand the gospel. Remember Paul said I delivered

unto you that which I also received how that Christ died

for our sins, according to the scriptures.

What? Scriptures starting with

Passover. We understand the death of

Christ, the cross. That Bloody ordeal that Christ.

Underwent as our representative and in our place, our substitute

dying for us. Taking that penalty that we

deserved. We understand that in terms of

the things we're going to learn from the Passover and the

sacrificial system in the Old Testament and the Passover is

the basic beginning of all that. In fact, they're still in Egypt,

they haven't left yet. Pharaoh hasn't let them go.

They're getting ready to go. This is the Night of their

departure and the Lord tells them the process that he wants

them to go through that evening there in the night of the

Passover. Now, a few things in the Bible

need to be followed through from the Passover once they get into

the Wilderness and the Lord gives his entire incomplete law,

he will expand the sacrificial in the blood rituals to a vast

array of different kinds of sacrifices, offerings, guilt

offerings, trespass offerings, offerings of grain, and all

sorts of things, it'll be very elaborate and very meaningful

because he's going to teach them the whole cow.

Sort of God through the expanded sacrificial system.

We're going to learn about the, the wave offering, which is the

first fruits, which is resurrection in addition to

death. We're going to learn about the

offering of the praise in the burning of the incent, which is

the incense, which is the prayers of the Saints.

Many many, many things will learn from the sacrificial

system as we go along climaxing, in one great day of sacrifice.

And that is the great day of a Atonement deal with that today,

but it is also a very thorough picture of the death.

That Christ died. Christ, died for our sins.

According to the scriptures. You need to understand three or

four slogans, I would recommend that these be on the tip of your

tongue for the rest of your life.

There are few things you need to know that set the stage for what

we understand in the sacrificial system of the Bible.

Otherwise, if you're not careful, you'll be adopted a

pagan view, or a secular. You may be just a cynical

postmodern view of the sacrifice that Christ made and you'll just

critique it around the edges. You'll talk about how primitive

it is, how Bloody it is. You'll talk about how

disgraceful it is. You'll even look at it carefully

and say, oh, this is terrible, that God would do this to his

own son. What kind of religion do you

have as one Episcopal, Bishop wrote a book and called it.

Cosmic child abuse, that God would sacrifice his own son and

give him up. Up for us, this poor Bishop

didn't understand the love of God.

God did not spare his son but gave him up for us because how

else would he redeem Lost Sinner's?

And this is the gospel of redemption, the gospel of

Ransom, the gospel of freedom and rescue, the gospel of God,

taking his people in a horrible place and putting them into a

kingdom of light. And this is a the flow of

Biblical, history, learn these slogans, let me just recite a

few of them, the soul that sins. It shall die.

You will die for your own sins. The wages of sin is death.

This is the prophet, Ezekiel summing up, the gospel message

on its side of our need. Our need is for a savior because

we have offended. God, we have violated his word,

we have trespassed against him and his law.

We have done that which is perverse that which is

iniquitous that which is crooked that which is out of bounds

that's which misses the mark. I just gave you a brief

definitions of a half, a dozen words for sin in both the Old

and the New Testament, we have committed acts of treachery and

Rebellion against our King and Creator and we all deserve to

die. I don't know what that does to

your self-esteem this morning and if that's all I had to tell

you, I would really be a preacher of hate.

I'm here to tell you that there's a remedy, there's a

Redemption. There's a ransom, there's a

restoration, there's a resurrection.

And that's the gospel message, and so, is the Lord lays this

Foundation. Historically taking his time,

taking many generations, many centuries to lay out this Gospel

of redemption. And the first thing we need to

know going back to Genesis 3 is the soul that sins.

It shall die. There's no exceptions to that.

Have you sinned? You will die and your death is a

punishment for your sins. It's not the end of the story

but that is the foundational beginning of the story.

If you don't think you're a sinner, then you don't need the

gospel. If you don't think you've

violated God, you don't need the gospel.

Or if you think God is going to, just let it slide.

And just sort of, ignore your sins.

You don't need the gospel, maybe you need a little gospel.

I can do pretty much on my own, what I need to do, but I'm not

perfect. I just need about that much more

and I'll make it and the Lord in his Wonderful Grace makes up

that little difference. And now I can make it to Heaven,

if that's your understanding. You won't listen to The Gospel.

But if you see yourself as you are before, God, not before your

neighbor yours goodies, your neighbor probably better than

your neighbor. I mean, honestly, most of us in

here better than our neighbors. That's self-righteousness will

also blind us to our need for the gospel, we're all at the

foot of the cross needy broken sinful, what do we have to do to

be condemned by God nothing, we were born in sin, we are shaped

in Antiquity. The Bible says, we come forth

from the from the womb speaking lies, there's no righteousness

in us. There's no goodness in us.

We're not even getting credit for our efforts.

There is none that seeketh after God.

I don't know why we have Seeker sensitive worship Services

there, nobody's seeking. After God, the only worship

Services. Those that worship Him in spirit

and Truth. The father seeketh, those To

worship him. And so, The soul that sins.

It shall die. The second slogan that you need

to remember is the life of the flesh is in the blood.

That's just a pretty obvious fact to us now in the scientific

age but it's been true. All along you drain out the

blood and the carcass doesn't live very long.

The life of the flesh is in the blood, it is, the shedding of

blood, is the taking of the blood out of the carcass out of

the body. That elicits, the death causes

the death, we do what we call now, soft bleed out, the life of

the flesh is in the blood. So when blood is shed on life is

forfeit in life is given a life is forsaken.

Third slogan, you need to remember is without the shedding

of blood. There is no remission of sin.

In other words, blood has to be shed.

A life has to be taken, something has to die in order

for sin to be remitted sin, to be canceled, the penalty of sin,

the Judgment of sin, the sentence of Sindh condemnation

of Sindh sting of sin and death. Something has to happen and that

is there has to be the shedding of blood and then the one

principle will see this morning very Quickly is the notion of

when I see the blood. I will pass over you.

God's looking for the blood, it's the blood.

That is the covering, it's the blood, that's the agent that

purges. And so, that's what we have in

this story. I asked you to pay attention to

some of the details and I'm going to review them for you.

Let's look just very quickly at a few of the details of this

Passover. On the first of the month on the

tenth day, they were to select a sacrificial lamb.

The selection of the sacrificial lamb was important, not just any

lamb would work it. Had to be a lamb.

That could be a lamb of the sheep or a lamb of the goats.

It could be a lamb or a kid but it was still the lamb a year old

a yearling. By the time they got to be two

years old, they were grown and they wanted a lamb that was a

year old about It had to be a lamb, a yearling.

It had to be the first sling of the flock because remember, we

talked last week about the first born, in the importance of the

first born, the first born is the one that receives the

blessing and dispenses the blessing all throughout

scripture. It was the attack upon the

firstborn that was a judgment on Egypt and it was also the

representation had to be the firstlings of the flock and it

had to be a male a male Well of the flock and it not only had to

be a whole who Ellie a whole lamb, but it had to be a Holy

Lamb. That is a lamb without spot and

without blemish it couldn't have any spots or blemishes upon its

exterior. It cannot have any shortcomings

missing a limb because the Temptation is to take a poor

little lamb that you look Ox. Not going to make it anyway or

one that's sick or That has a malady or month, may have been

maimed at Birth or recently been fighting off an attack from a

wolf, from his dead. Who knows what's been going on

in this? It'd be a perfect little lamb.

No, it had to be a perfect lamb a lamb without spot and a lamb

without blemish had to be pure and it had to be consecrated set

apart. He was not only should this lamb

be qualified as whole and holy but he had to be Ugh.

Nated to be the one. He had to be a designated one.

Are you hearing anything about Jesus Christ in this?

Let me go on talk a little bit more about the particular

Passover ceremony. You not only word, is it had to

be a select type of lamb who would meet all of this criteria,

who met the criteria to be our Lamb of God that takes away the

sin of the world. Holy undefiled separate from

Sinners. Pure righteous in every way.

Only the perfect Son of God, could be the Lamb of God that

takes away the sin of the world. And so, this is teaching us some

things about Christ when they took this little lamb.

Also, the ritual continued The you must kill it at Twilight.

When did Jesus die and said, it is finished and was taken down

off the cross. It was in that late late

afternoon before the sun began to set and it moved into the

darkness of the Sabbath. This particular Slaughter had to

take place, then you would in order to prepare it for

roasting, you would pierce it through with a Stave in order to

have some rotisserie to put over the fire.

Do you remember what happened to Christ just before they took him

off the cross the spear in his side.

Then also this particular lamb you had to had to have it cooked

in certain way he was to be roasted over the fire.

You were not to boil him or broil him or eat him raw.

He was to face the full Fury of the Like a fire.

Is this not our Christ, Our Savior, Who Bore the full brunt

of the wrath of God in his atoning, sacrifice for us on the

cross. The full Fury, and the anger and

the rage that the writer to Hebrew sums up our God is a

consuming fire. So the the lamb had to be

prepared in this way, but before they ate the lamb, they would

take the blood blood when they kill the lamb and draw it into a

basin into a bowl and they had to do something with that blood,

here's what they did with the blood they took The blood in the

Basin and they took a hyssop branch.

Which by the way if we talked about baptism, today, I would

talk to you about biblical baptism, we will know a little

bit about the hyssop branch. We're take a hyssop branch and

douse it into it. It's a ratchet was thick bushy

and spongy and what whole things that was what they used to put

the vinegar on with Christ when they pushed it to his lips.

When he said I thirst they take the hyssop branch and put it in

that Basin of the Lambs blood and then they would Splash it

upon The doorpost in two directions.

Vertically. Down the post of the doors.

Horizontally across the litten of their ceiling.

Across. Would make that pattern of blood

when I see the blood I will pass over you.

It's not just any old blood any old place.

It's the blood of the precious lamb of god without spot and

without blemish that's been strategically and deliberately

paste. Placed upon that pattern, that

is the sign of God's Redemptive work of all ages.

That is The Old Rugged Cross. And so this is a little bit

about what they should do. They were to now take all of the

the food and eat it, and they would eat it with unleavened

bread. And bitter vegetables, bitter

herbs and they were made better by being literally cooked and

doused in dipped in in vinegar. And there are a lot of detail

from this that we could extrapolate forward as we read

the Lord's Supper, in which he kept the Passover with his

disciples. That's what they were doing the

night before. Jesus was betrayed and then

crucified, the next day, they were eating together this

Passover meal, which the scriptures said in verse 14 of

our text, that it was a statute that was going to remain forever

and ever. And it still does Jesus ate it

with his disciples, Jesus executed in accordance.

Published it and everything that they didn't eat was to be burned

up, be the sacrifice was to be a one and done, they were no

leftovers. There was nothing else that was

to follow through. There was no residuals of this.

The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world Christ hung

on that cross. Once for all and finish the

entire work for the entirety of his people subbing in their

place. In this ritual.

There was profound, meaning, especially having to do with

Christ. The Apostle, Paul, says, when we

come to the table, he said, let us keep the feast, but Feast the

Lord said, keep the feast forever.

We're going to keep the feast forever.

Jesus kept it with his disciples after he'd been kept for

hundreds and hundreds of years, historically, and Israel.

Immediately, his disciples gathered.

And kept the feast following Jesus death and Resurrection.

The church kept the feast all through the years.

We've not stopped keeping the feast.

And the feast is going to be consummated when all of us

gather at that Celestial table at what is known as the great

feast, the great celebration of the great ceremony in the sky

that wraps up redemptions work, it's called the marriage supper

of the Lamb. Now this is Ascension Sunday and

we haven't said anything about Ascension.

Let me just say one thing about a cinch and what Ascension is is

the the exaltation and the going back to Heaven of Our Lord in

his Earthly days, and him being Seated on the right hand of the

father. Read the book of Revelation,

there's a scene in there several seeds, actually that depict

this, but one is very graphic. When you look up there, what do

you see in heaven? He's ascended.

There's a lamb upon the throne. There's a lamb upon the throne.