Passover

[0:00] Exodus 12.13, the Lord says, And the blood shall be for you for a token upon the houses where ye are, and when I see the blood I will pass over you.

[0:14] And the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. The great escape, that's what it is, it's the great escape.

[0:25] Godless Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let God's people go. He held them as slaves in Egypt. God sent ten plagues. Turned the Nile to blood.

[0:38] The land was filled with frogs, gnats, flies, hail, locusts, darkness. Now the ultimate plague, God sends a final devastation upon Egypt.

[0:49] Every firstborn of every household would be destroyed. Passover commemorates this event and what happened. We look at three truths we can learn from the Passover.

[1:01] Number one, you're separated. The children of Israel were separated from the people of Egypt. You are separated because of the blood.

[1:13] The Jews relive this Passover feast, this cleansing ritual. The wife thoroughly cleansed the house to get rid of all the leaven. And she deliberately leaves ten small pieces in the house for the children to take a candle and find them.

[1:30] And they carefully rid the house, even the smallest breadcrumbs and specks of dirt. The night before the Passover, they take the candle and seek out any unnoticed leaven.

[1:44] And the next morning, they burn them. Friends, the church, likewise, God's people, we're separated. And there's a cleansing that happens. As we search our hearts, God brings a cleansing.

[1:58] God's church is called a spiritual house. A temple of God. And we know leaven is symbolic of sin. As God's people, we're separated from sin.

[2:09] Our Lord wants us to rid our hearts of sin. And at this soul-searching time, as we gather as God's people, the Bible says, examine your hearts.

[2:23] Have that searching out of pride, of vanity, of bitterness, of whatever God wants to deal with. Let God search it out. And rid your heart of it.

[2:35] As the commemoration cleanses out the pictures of sin, the leaven from the house, so too, we search out our own hearts before God today, don't we?

[2:47] At all times, but even more especially at this time. We take the candle, as it were, which can represent the Word of God, the light of God's Word. Search out every corner.

[2:59] Let God identify sin and deal with it. And of course, the ultimate separation and the only separation is by the blood. Unless we're covered by the blood, unless we have the application of Christ's blood shed for us over our life, then we are facing judgment.

[3:22] But thank God we're separated. Secondly, we're safe. This awful plague fell. The death fell on the land.

[3:33] God's terrifying judgment. The firstborn of every household was to die. But you that are saved are safe. You are safe. Just like the folk in Egypt, the children of Israel there.

[3:46] God, in His grace, gave the way out. An unblemished lamb. One lamb. A one-year-old lamb for every house.

[3:58] And that lamb shed was the safekeeping. Was the safety. And those in the house where the blood of the lamb was put on the entry, they were safe.

[4:10] It says the lamb was killed between the evenings. Verse 6 of Exodus 12. It refers to the ninth hour of the day. 3pm. Exactly the moment Christ died.

[4:22] As we heard last Sunday night. And to be safe, the believers had to smear the blood on the doorposts and the lintel. So the top and the sides. And you can picture a bleeding of the blood shed.

[4:36] Of Christ's hand bleeding. Of His hands bleeding. Of His feet bleeding. Of His side bleeding. Because He is the ultimate lamb. And likewise, you that believe.

[4:48] As the Israelites were safe, you are safe. You're separated. You're safe. Thirdly, you're set free. The Passover, as we know, it is a remembrance of how God delivered Egypt from that bondage of Israel.

[5:04] From the bondage of Egypt. From the authority of Pharaoh. And delivered them out. Set them free. The lamb killed. The blood applied.

[5:16] Those that trusted in that. Were set free. Egypt is a picture of the world. The ruler of Egypt, Pharaoh, a picture of Satan.

[5:29] And it represents sin, slavery and bondage. You that trust Christ today. You that know Him. You're set free. You're set free.

[5:39] No longer held as bondsmen. As slaves in the captivity to Satan and the world. The doorpost on the homes of the Israelites.

[5:54] The door represents your heart. And when you trust Christ, you receive Him by faith as Savior. It's as if you've applied His precious shed blood over the doorpost of your own heart.

[6:08] And it's trusting in that shed blood that makes all the difference. Friends, you're separated. We're separated. We're different from the world.

[6:19] We're a new people. We're a new nation. We're separated. We are safe. In that whatever judgment of God is to fall, we're sheltered by the blood.

[6:33] We're safe in Christ. Forever. And we're set free. We're set free just as the people of Israel were saved from slavery and bondage.

[6:44] The blood of Jesus redeems us. Sets us free. And Passover celebrates your freedom. At Passover, the people recline while eating.

[6:55] You know, we can't really manufacture that. Maybe we should. That would be interesting. If we were to recline on our sides on little pillows or something in one big circle or something.

[7:07] That might be the more picture of it. But the picture of the way that they sat was a reclining while eating. And it indicates freedom. It indicates royalty.

[7:21] And it's as if we are part of God's royal family. Which we are. It's got that sense. We're no longer slaves. We are sons of God. We are kings and queens, in a sense.

[7:35] Unto our God.