The Passover (Exodus): Very few things formed the identity of ancient Israel more than the story of the Lord’s Passover. God brought divine judgment against Egypt and its gods in an unmistakable tenth plague. However, God also graciously made a way for salvation through the blood of a sacrificial lamb. Yahweh had done it. The Israelites were finally free. Recorded on Oct 27, 2024, on Exodus 12:1-13, 29-42 by Pastor David Parks.
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This message is part of our Exodus series called Journey to Freedom. Exodus is a story of liberation — of God working to rescue and redeem a people for himself, freeing them from slavery and leading them to the land he promised to the family of Abraham and Sarah. Exodus is also a picture of the gospel and the Christian life. In Christ, we, too, are freed from captivity to sin and death and led through the wilderness of life by God’s Word and Presence as we make our way to the Promised Land of the world to come. Join us as we make this journey to find true and lasting freedom.
Sermon Transcript
We’re working through the book of Exodus in a sermon series called Journey to Freedom. And we’ve said that Exodus is a story of liberation, of God rescuing and redeeming a people for himself. The people God rescued were the ancient Israelites who suffered greatly as slaves in Egypt about 3,200-3,300 years ago. Egypt was the most powerful kingdom in the world. Despite the brutality of their situation, Yahweh, the God of their ancestors (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), had allowed them to grow in slavery from seventy people as an extended family to be large enough to be a nation within a nation. But the more they grew, the more the Pharaohs were threatened by them and oppressed them all the more. The Israelites cried out to the Lord, and Yahweh sent Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, just as he had promised Abraham 430 years earlier. Moses was a Hebrew but was adopted by the royal household of Egypt before spending 40 years in exile in Midian. So Moses and his brother Aaron went back to Pharaoh with miraculous signs and wonders, but Pharaoh didn’t believe in Yahweh and stubbornly refused to listen to his message. Last week, in chapters 7-11 in Exodus, we saw that Yahweh gave Pharaoh chance after chance to repent by sending a series of escalating plagues. But after the first five plagues, when Pharaoh only hardened his heart in response to each plague, the Lord, to quote Paul, “…gave [him] over in the sinful desires of [his] heart…” (Ro 1:24). So, as Yahweh sent five more plagues, he hardened Pharaoh’s heart to execute divine judgment in a way the world hadn’t seen since the flood. Moses warned Pharaoh that the tenth and final plague would bring the destruction of every firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt — from the greatest to the least, including Pharaoh’s own son. Would the Lord do such a thing? Would Pharaoh finally repent? Would this be the start of the Exodus and the liberation of the Israelites from captivity in Egypt? We’ll see. But this chapter and the story of the Lord’s Passover is one of the most important chapters in the whole of the Old Testament scriptures. Very few things served to form the identity of Israel more than the Passover. But for us today, few things serve to explain and point forward to the work of Jesus Christ more than the Passover. If you have your Bible/app, please open it to Exodus 12:1.
Exodus 12:1–13 (NIV), “1 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.” In this text, we have Yahweh’s instructions through Moses and Aaron to the Hebrew people for the first Passover. Or, to put it another way, this was how they could survive the tenth and final plague. This was going to be such a defining moment for Israel that it would change even how they measured time. The month they were freed from Egypt — the month of Aviv — would mark the start of their year (between March and April for us today). But the people were to arrange themselves according to their households and maybe include some neighbors so they had enough people to share one Passover lamb or goat. The sacrificial lamb or goat was to be a one-year-old and without defects, meaning they were to represent a pure/holy offering. No one was to gorge themselves alone; they needed to share it and burn any leftovers. They had several days to arrange all this, but the whole idea was to “Eat it in haste.” Roasting the meat was the fastest way to cook it. Bitter herbs and unleavened bread were the fastest ways to prepare bread and vegetables. Eating with your cloak, sandals, and staff meant eating like you were ready to run. All this was a sign of how soon the Lord would deliver his people. He said he would free them from being slaves in Egypt, and if they believed Yahweh, they needed to be ready to leave everything they’d ever known. This was a huge act of faith. Egypt was where their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had all lived. The Israelites had spent 430 years in Egypt. The United States has been a country for only 248 years. Imagine if, in another almost 200 years, God told our ancestors to get ready to leave for another country that none of us had ever seen. If this happened today, God might tell us to pack the car and leave it running while we ate the Passover meal. The whole point was to be immediately ready to go. Judgment was coming, but salvation was coming, too, and God would do it soon. v. 12 makes it clear that the primary focus of Yahweh in the Ten Plagues was to demonstrate the utter lifeless, useless power of the gods of Egypt to save. Every Egyptian household, from the greatest to the least, was going to experience a temporary act of divine judgment, revealing to them the absolute authority of Yahweh God, the one true and living God who is sovereign over life/death, nations, kings, and idols. How would they respond? Would the Israelites finally be set free? Let’s jump down to v. 29 to continue with the first Passover story.
Exodus 12:29–42 (NIV), “29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead. 31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.” 33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” 34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. 35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians. 37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 With the dough the Israelites had brought from Egypt, they baked loaves of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves. 40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. 41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt. 42 Because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the Lord for the generations to come.” This is God’s word. Some passages of Scripture are like a wedding; they’re a celebration bringing love/hope/joy. Others are more like a funeral; they might cause us grief/remorse/conviction. But some, like this one, might leave us thinking, “Woah. Is this who God is?” Now, the start of the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt should be a celebration! After hundreds of years of suffering and brutal abuse as slaves, they were finally free! And not only were they freed, but the Egyptians gave them so many valuables and clothing that it would provide for their needs during the whole time in the wilderness. They defeated and plundered the greatest kingdom on earth without a single sword or spear. The Israelites obeyed God and took shelter from divine judgment under the blood of the Passover lamb. So God saved/delivered/freed them and provided for their needs in one night. Yahweh had done it; he kept his word. God’s people sang psalms of praise for what God did here for generations after this. Now, when we think about the Passover from the perspective of the Israelites, it’s clearly a victory worthy of celebrating. But if you’re like me, you might also be wondering about the tenth and final plague of death. How are we supposed to celebrate in the presence of all this death and destruction? The first thing to see in the text is that the Egyptians weren’t confused about what happened. They knew this was an act of divine judgment. They didn’t think this was unfair. Yahweh had given Pharaoh and the people of Egypt repeated chances to repent and believe. But they refused. Yahweh said his judgment was primarily aimed at the pantheon of gods and goddesses that were worshipped in Egypt. But they understood completely that the death of every firstborn was a judgment against every single household. They were in the wrong. They had failed to worship and serve the one true God. The Egyptians saw that if they continued on this path, they would all die. As horrible as this final plague was, it was a merciful warning. This is why the Pharaoh asked for a blessing when he finally relented and let the Hebrews leave. They understood the message. But I suspect the problem many modern people have with this story is not whether or not God effectively communicated his message of judgment to the Egyptians or that he freed the people of Israel in this incredible way — but that God exercised his right to divine judgment. I’m not sure if it was different in different times and places, but we people hate the idea of judgment today. Even when we’re wrong, we don’t like to be told we’re wrong. We love the idea of justice, but we hate judgment. As a result, many people reject the idea of a God who is a judge and who can condemn us. Can a God who judges us be a loving God?
Well, there are far too many things to say about this for any one sermon. But I’d like to close today by reminding you of what the Bible says is the real problem with the world (sin) and what God has done about it that is the basis for the good news of the gospel. Now, everyone has moral standards — things they believe to be right and wrong. And I think most people believe they’re basically decent people, at least most of the time. But I bet if you saw a transcript of your thoughts for a week (maybe even a day!), you’d see that you don’t even meet your own standards, much less God’s standards! Well, according to the Bible, this is a sin problem, and the problem goes all the way down to our core. We have a heart problem. Jesus taught this in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. The seed of murder is found in the dismissive anger of the heart (Mt 5:22). The seed of adultery is found in the lust of the heart (Mt 5:28). Or later, in Mt 12 when he said that the mouth speaks what the heart is full of (Mt 12:34). All our other problems, emotional/relational/economic/education/political problems are, first, heart problems. Ever since the fall of Genesis 3, even when we know what is right, we fail to do what is right and often long to do what we know is wrong! Even our secular people know this is true; there’s a problem within us. My social media feed is full of supposed cures, ranging from meditation to psychedelics to diet/exercise. No one really believes that nothing’s wrong with us. However, the problem is worse than most people think because sin is enslaving. Our sins master/control us. As John Stott wrote in Basic Christianity, “Sin not only alienates; it enslaves. It separates us from God and it also brings us into captivity…It is more than the wrong things we do; it is a deep-seated inner sickness. In fact, the sins we commit are merely the external and visible indications of this internal and invisible illness, the symptoms of a moral disease.” (Stott, John R. W. . Basic Christianity (p. 74). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.). Like the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, so we are slaves in our sins. Now, try as we might, we can’t break the chains or free ourselves from this bondage just as Israel couldn’t free themselves. A good God couldn’t overlook sin and be just. But what could he do? If God were to simply snap his fingers and eliminate all the sin from the world, he’d have to eliminate every human being, including you and me. Because, as we’ve seen, the problem is both out there and in here. This was the significance of the blood of the lamb. Without it, the Israelites would’ve been no different than the Egyptians. But because of his great love, God made a way for people to be forgiven and freed from the power of sin and no longer under the penalty of sin, which is death. This is the basic message of the gospel. As sinners by nature and by choice, we need the saving grace of God. We need a savior! Sin enslaves, but Jesus saves. In the gospel, we see who God is, what he saved us from, and how he did it through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything about the Passover is a big sign pointing forward to Jesus. The Last Supper of Jesus was a Passover meal because Jesus was the true Lamb of God. He would die on the cross as a sacrifice in our place to make atonement for the sins of the world. During the first Passover, the people took refuge under the blood of the lamb and were saved by grace through faith in God and obedience to his word. In Jesus, there is an invitation for all people to find the same refuge today. It doesn’t matter how good you’ve been. It doesn’t matter who or what you’ve worshipped in the past. There is still safety, life, love, joy, and peace for all who take shelter from divine judgment under the blood of the Passover lamb. God is patient and kind; he doesn’t want anyone to perish. So, there is a way of salvation for all who call on the name of Jesus. Today, would you put your faith and trust in him? Would you give your life to Jesus? Would you trust him for the forgiveness of your sins? “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Gal 5:1a). Would you find your freedom in Jesus? A text like this may make us think that the main message of the Bible is one of judgment and condemnation. But, friends, when you step back and you see the good news of the gospel, you’ll see the main plotline of the Bible is one of rescue, not judgment. Let us pray.
