December 14, 2006

• Exodus 12:1-11

  First of all, thank you so much for your prayers and well wishes. Neat to know I was so close to some of you, but it was a whirlwind trip, drive 9 hours, get dressed, go to company Christmas Party, come back to hotel and fall asleep, get up and drive 9 hours to get back in time to attend my son’s orchestra concert. There would have been no time to visit. I wish we could have meandered back but three teenagers home alone, sigh.

  Exodus 12, God speaks to Moses and Aaron, telling them in verse 2 This month shall be your beginning of months, it shall be the first month of the year to you.

  Wow, God will turn the Israelites’ calendar around radically. The month of Abib will now be Nisan, Nisan is the holy name of the month. I have to think about the time I finally accepted Christ into my life, for me that would be my Nisan. We all have that new beginning, when true liberty comes to us with the forgiveness of sins and a new life. The Israelites were going to gain true liberty, but liberty comes at a price, the death of an innocent lamb or Lamb.

  On this time, at the precise moment that the lamb of the passover is sacrificed during the Jewish Passover, another Lamb, Jesus, will be sacrificed for our sins. He is the perfect Lamb of God, no spot, no blemish, and an ultimate love for us, that He would die once for all, so that we can have a permanently restored relationship with Our Father.

  In the end days, we will see the antichrist also trying to change time, to imitate what God did. Daniel 7:25 He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law. Then the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time. But this will not last, the antichrist’s kingdom and satan’s kingdom are destined for destruction. They will try to take down any and all that they can with them.

  Exodus 12:3-4 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of persons; according to each man’s need, you shall make your count for the lamb.

  I love God’s economy. The first Passover was a lamb for each family (unless the family was too small, then it was a lamb for two neighboring families- the reason being that the passover lamb had to be completely consumed – no half salvations). Then the nation Israel will be offering once a year, a lamb for a whole nation on the Day of Atonement. The we have the Lamb for the whole World, Jesus, who died for the sins of all. Hopefully all will come to the realization of His sacrifice and not reject this great gift.

  One other thought that struck me is that God is speaking the nation Israel into a congregation. At that time it was a rag tag nation. They were slaves of the Egyptians, and God would take them on an adventure that will toughen them up, pull them together as a nation, and then allow them to reclaim the land that God gave them hundreds of years previously. But even now, God calls them a “congregation.”

  We will later see that the Israelites will be eating unleavened bread. Leavening is a symbol of sin, and Paul will talk about purging ourselves of leaven in 1 Corinthians 5:6-7 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.

  Exodus 12:5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

  We know that our Lamb, Jesus, was perfect, without blemish. He was without sin, and therefore His sacrifice covered sin completely. The sacrifice of a lamb was not a total covering for sin, it only lasted a short time. But Jesus, being the perfect sacrifice, who rose from the dead, His sacrifice is eternal.

  I had not realized that the “lamb” could be from sheep or goats – which I find interesting because later Jesus will speak a parable of dividing the sheep from the goats, the sheep will stay with Him, the goats won’t. Now, the criterion of sheep is that they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, goats will not. But here both sheep and goats are included – as I am certain God wanted it to be, that none would be lost. But at some point, there will be a division of the sheep and the goats, with deadly results for the goats.

  Exodus 12:6 Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.

  So the lamb was brought into the house on the 10th day. It was a first year lamb, which would mean that it was still too young to mate. It would be examined for three days, and then sacrificed. But for those three days, this lamb would live with the family, become part of the family, and I am certain there will be a bonding. The lamb would be found to be spotless, pure. Jesus lived an active ministry (some say one year because the events of his active ministry occur from Passover to Passover) others say three years of active ministry – whichever He was still examined and found spotless and without blemish. They had to fabricate a reason to have Him crucified, and even the Romans who examined him could not find anything wrong with him. Notice that the lamb would be killed at twilight – the new day for the Israelites began at twilight. So it was a new day for them, as it is a new day for us when we accept Christ as our savior.

  I know that, before I got saved, I used to think of all the times that people mentioned blood and was repulsed at that mention. You are under the blood, the shed blood of Jesus, the bloody sacrifice, and then all those poor, innocent lambs that were sacrificed. But you know what, sin does kill, it is death to those who persist in committing sinful acts. The death may not be so apparent at the beginning, but later as time goes on there is a deadening and a reckoning and it is a bloody mess that we make of our lives with sin.

  When these families had to offer the lamb, to sacrifice it, they did it with their own hands and their hands would  be covered by the lamb’s blood. It would be a very tangible reminder of the deadly nature of their sins. We want to whitewash sin in our lives – to think of those little white lies. That our private sins won’t hurt anyone else. That what people don’t know won’t hurt them. That all will not have to suffer repercussion for their sins and their rejection of Jesus. That somehow all will be well. That is a fool’s paradise, for there will be repercussions. And the statistics are grim, 100% of all people die. We will face the repercussions of what we do and believe here on earth. There will be a judgment, and I for one am grateful to Jesus for His sacrifice for me. On my own I would never be able to pass judgment, only with His shed blood will I be saved.

  Exodus 12:7 And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.

  Imagine that in your mind. The lintel top of the door (the blood would drip down), then the left and right doorposts – that is the sign of the cross.

  Exodus 12:8-10 Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire–its head with its legs and its entrails. you shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.

  Well, here is another picture of Jesus, during his ministry, he told people that if they did not eat of His flesh they would have no part of Him (communion). Why fire? This is the burnt offering, a sweet savor to God. We will see that God will judge the earth with fire in the end days. The fire burns off the dross – and fire purifies. And you cannot boil in water, which quenches fire – and the bones of the lamb shall not be broken. Psalm 34:20 He guards all his bones; not one of them is broken.” And the bitter herbs help us to remember the bitterness of the sins that we have committed.

  I find it interesting that all the lamb had to be totally consumed, even the parts that to our rational mind would seem repulsive – head and entrails. This is a graphic reminder to us that we need to accept all the truth of the Bible, not just some, not just the laws and rules we think make sense to us, when we accept salvation, we accept the Whole Truth of Christ.

  Exodus 12:11 And thus you shall eat it with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover.

  The Passover was a preparation for moving on. When we get saved, we don’t just rest in our salvation, we move forward with it, sandals on feet (In Ephesians 6 they talk about the whole armor of God. The waist is girded with Truth, and your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. The staff could be likened to the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.) These people would no longer remain in bondage, they had to take that step of faith to start their new life in liberty. When we are saved, we too move forward, we do not stay the same as we were – God has changed us, but in order to keep that change, we must move forward. What if the Israelites had not left Egypt, they would have remained slaves and their life would have been worse. They had to eat hastily and move on, following God who would lead them miraculously.

  When we accept our life in Christ, we too must move on, following Him.

  Have a blessed day!

  Heather

  • 8:27 am
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