Kosin, Fred: Studies In Exodus-2002-2003-10 ~ Ex 12

Thank you very much. Each of those hymns reminded us of the guidance that God offers and gives. And of course, the children of Israel, as they moved from Egypt to Canaan, one of the primary issues was guidance. We will learn some lessons about guidance as we continue to migrate with the children of Israel from Egypt to Canaan. So those are certainly suitable and reasonable songs and hymns that encourage us in our pilgrimage from earth to glory and from self-likeness to Christ-likeness. In August of last year, I asked you to pray for Alison Barkley. She's the deputy- deputy, uh, ambassador from the United States to the country of United Arab Emirates. And during the time we were there, she trusted the Lord as her savior. If you remember my reminding you of her, of her trust in the Lord and, uh, her growth. We got an email from her this week, and she continues to grow. Amazing sensitivity to the Word of God and to the Spirit of God and the fellowship of believers that she is enjoying in the United Arab Emirates. So I would like to encourage you to know that her prayer, your prayers are being answered for her growth and development and for her sensitivity in spiritual things. And I would encourage you to continue to pray for her as she develops and grows as a believer. She's a member of the family of God, and we can pray for our brothers and sisters, uh, in the family. She faces, uh, important responsibilities, uh, particularly with the Gulf War looming, uh, as a deputy, um, deputy ambassador for our country, and being just across the water from where the war would take place, you can pray for her, um, governmental responsibilities and her spiritual involvement in those activities. Cam- uh, Allison Barclay, pray for her and for her ministry. Exodus chapter twelve. This morning we are reading one of the key chapters in the Old Testament. When we think of what God is doing in bringing the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt and how he did it, Exodus chapter twelve stands as probably the most important chapter. Uh, everything that, uh, comes from chapter twelve of Genesis to Exodus chapter twelve leads up to what takes place in chapter twelve. Everything that proceeds from Exodus chapter twelve through the end of the Old Testament points again to the importance of this chapter. There is no more important chapter than Exodus chapter twelve regarding the salvation of the nation of Israel and the savi- salvation of individuals in the nation of Israel. In the same way that Matthew chapter one through to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, everything leads up to the work of the cross, and everything from the end of each of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, where the cross has taken place, everything that follows it proceeds from the cross and from the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ. John explains that by saying in his first chapter, behold the Lamb of God that bears away the sin of the world. And there is an enormous amount of truth, both in the old Testament and in the New, that helps us understand the correlation between the Passover in Exodus chapter twelve and the cross work of the Lord Jesus in the ending chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If we miss that parallel, we will miss an enormous amount of truth that proceeds from Exodus chapter twelve. and so I want to read this morning from Exodus chapter twelve. and if you have, uh, time to do your assignment, you can read chapter eleven and twelve and thirteen over the course of today and in the next few, next few days, at least, as we keep going through Exodus. I hope you're keeping up with some reading, knowing that, uh, what is ahead is what we'll be studying. I would like to take a month in Exodus chapter twelve, but it would weary you, I am sure, and so we will at least take today in chapter twelve and perhaps a few other thoughts over the course of our study. The Lord, or Jehovah, spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months, and it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month shall, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house. And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls. Every man according to his eating shall make your count for these. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. Ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats. And ye shall keep it unto the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it, shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper doorpost of the houses wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire and unleavened bread and with bitter herbs shall, they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire his head and his legs and the puritans or the insides thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning. And that which remaineth of it until the morning, ye shall burn with fire. Thus shall ye eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and shall smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, every man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. Will you join me in thanksgiving for the lamb? Our gracious God, our loving God, our merciful God, we come to thank you for the lamb that bore away the sins of the world. We thank you for the antiquity of this message and for the adequacy of that sacrifice. And we come this morning again to hear your voice, to listen to your word. We pray that our hearts will be drawn to see in this lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, to see in the people of Israel the salvation that was made available to the whole world. We thank you that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ was adequate and sufficient because he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. We thank you that he came as our Savior in order that you might be just and the justifier of everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that as we examine this great work of salvation, that it reminds us in this lesson that he came as a sacrifice for the unjust, he that was just. Thank you for meeting with us. By your Holy Spirit, speaking to us, drawing our eyes away from ourselves, and drawing us to view your lovely Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. We come to thank you and offer our praise and our worship in the name of our exalted Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we give thanks. Amen. The Passover is one of, if not the most important event in the history of the nation of Israel. From ex- from Genesis chapter twelve, everything that takes place leads up to the redemption of the children of Israel from Egypt and the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, in order that they might direct their hearts and their feet to live in the land of Canaan. Everything that proceeds from Exodus chapter twelve proceeds from God's redemption, his redemptive work, and all that he provides for Israel. All of their blessings proceed from this event. And the exactness with which God pictures our salvation in Exodus chapter twelve is just amazing and astonishing. Our hearts should dwell in this chapter and in every word of this chapter to see the exactness of the parallel. That which you find in the epistles explaining our salvation, which is not found in Exodus chapter twelve and the surrounding chapters, is a distortion of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So exact is what God is doing in Israel that we have absolute liberty to follow the leading of the scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit to find in the New Testament, almost word for word, in our salvation, what God was doing in the salvation of Israel. We do no disservice to what God was doing in Israel by looking at this and saying, don't we have a wonderful salvation? Isn't our lamb perfect in every way, examined as this lamb was? And the report of our lamb is, I find no fault in him. Just as their lamb had to be without blemish, so our lamb has been declared. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. I find no fault in him. God found no fault in our lamb. Israel could find no blemish in him, and obviously we don't find any blemish in him either. He is a glorious savior. He is a wonderful redeemer, and this chapter is all important in explaining to us and to Israel all that God was doing for them and for us. Obviously, the salvation is the same. The salvation of Israel was through the Lamb temporarily, but the salvation of Israel eternally is in the same Savior that we worship and we glory in. It is not two different salvations. One is the type of the other. The lamb in Exodus is a picture of the lamb in John, and all that took place here is a picture, is a type, is a figure, is a shadow, is a reminder, is a metaphor of all that we have in Christ. I'm not suggesting Israel had a different salvation than we have, but what God was doing for Israel here is a picture for us of what God did for the world, because the Lord Jesus, as the Lamb of God, is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. The name Passover comes from verse thirteen: I will pass over you. God is dealing in chapter twelve with the tenth plague, and the tenth plague is a judgment against Pharaoh, against Pharaoh's firstborn, against every god of Egypt. And the Passover was God's means of bringing a just judgment on Egypt, and at the same time bringing salvation for Israel. The work of the cross is a demonstration of God's just judgment and the salvation made available to the world. The parallel is exact. God chose to judge the world by the plague of the death angel passing through the land of Egypt, and where blood was not on the doorpost and on the lintel, the firstborn would die of man and of animals. The Lord Jesus Christ was and is that Passover lamb. Is? Because he is described in Revelation as, behold, the lion? No, the lamb. I looked, and behold, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And we, by faith, have taken that blood from the Lamb, not literally, but by faith, and we have placed that blood on the doorposts of our heart. And the death angel passes over us, and we are redeemed, we are regenerated through the work of Christ, and we are delivered from slavery and set free into the glorious liberty of the children of God. It is the work of God in providing salvation that was adequate for all of Egypt. Had any Egyptian, and some did, taken the word of God from Moses and obeyed the message, killed the lamb, put the blood on the doorpost and on the lintel, the death angel would have passed over that Egyptian home. And in a few chapters, we will find when the Israel left, a mixed multitude went up with them. Why? Because they believed the word of God. And they left Egypt by faith and through obedience in the same way that the children of Israel did as well. The Old Testament is God's picture book. We reminded ourselves of that when we began this study. And the picture book on many occasions is perfectly clear. Every detail is revealed with absolute clarity. Others, other pictures in the book are not so clear. We don't have all that we would like to have, and they are called shadows. They're called pictures and metaphors, and every detail cannot be pushed home. For instance, under his wings shall you come to rest, suggesting that God has wings and feathers. He doesn't. But that picture, that metaphor, is to help us understand that God is like a mother hen, and he cares for his little ones. But in Exodus chapter twelve, we have the freedom and the biblical authority to take every detail and say, yes, Christ, our Passover, is slain for us. And the faith of the Israelite or the Egyptian to put the blood on the doorpost and on the lintel meant salvation. And I would like for us, in the course of our study of this chapter, to see how clear God's picture book is, how exact the details are. And so God's picture book of truth in the Old Testament radiates and reflects the glorious truth that you and I enjoy and appreciate in the New Testament. The Passover marks the migration of the children of Israel as possible, and it marks it as the beginning. If it were not for the Passover, Israel could not have left. At the end of the Passover, Israel was ejected from Egypt. Get out! Take your family and take your herds and take your flocks and don't leave a hoof behind. And so the migration of the children of Israel begins from this point. Everything up to this point has been preparatory. But now, in chapter twelve, the first events take place so that Israel can begin that migration. That is exactly true in our lives today. If we are going to take that migration practically and spiritually from Egypt to Canaan today, it must begin with an encounter with the Lamb of God, which bears away the sin of the world. There is no way we can enjoy and experience the guidance that was revealed in those hymns unless we have trusted the Lamb of God, we have been born again by the Spirit of God, we have been redeemed by the Redeemer of God, and the sacrifice of Christ as the Lamb of God has been adequate and satisfactory to God. We cannot begin the migration in our Christian experience until we have trusted the Lamb of God, which was revealed to do away with the works of the devil and to set us free into the glorious liberty of the children of God. How thrilling it is that God has given us this chapter and all that proceeds from it reveals the growth and development, maturity, the temptations and problems that these children of Israel had. The same thing is true in the New Testament. We have f- four books that lead up to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the rest of the New Testament in the book of Acts, Romans, Corinthians, and all of them had to do with the direction and problems and difficulties and trials and growth and maturity as we make our way from self-likeness to Christ-likeness. The parallel is exact, and we do well to understand that if we're going to interpret the word of God correctly, because the experience of the children of Israel in the midst of the wilderness is not of somebody who is lost, somebody who is in bondage. It's not somebody who is connected to and loyal to the world, the flesh, and the devil, but somebody who has been redeemed by the blood of the lamb and set free to follow God's guidance. So it is with us. We cannot take lessons out of the epistles and say this refers to people who are lost. It's not the case. The lessons in the epistles are for those who have trusted the Lamb of God and have begun that great migration from Egypt to Canaan. And if you have trusted Christ as your savior, and you've been born again by the Spirit of God, you have received his redemption, you have experienced his forgiveness, you have received his regeneration, you have begun at that moment a new chapter in your life, and that new chapter will continue until you see Christ face to face. And so, in the end of chapter twelve, Israel is again asked to leave, or Israel is asked to leave, to get out. You and I, as we trust Jesus Christ as our Savior, our world and the enemy will force us out. Our life will be so changed and so transformed that they will not want have anything to do with us. The parallel is exact. So the tenth plague is a just judgment and means salvation for any and for all who would put the blood on the doorpost and on the lintel of their house. The difference, differences that existed between the Egyptians and Israel is now gone. Provision is made for escape, and the provision that is made for escape is for all. And God offers that lesson to us in the New Testament as well as the Old. Now, our chapter opens with a remarkable intervention of God. Notice what verse two says. This month, which is the seventh month of the Jewish calendar, this month shall be unto you the beginning of months. The first thing God did when he chose to reveal his plan of redemption, was to say, I'm changing the calendar. What was the seventh month is now going to be the first month. That is amazing, isn't it? And from that day until this, the Jewish calendar has been based upon this specific event. And if you read the Jewish calendar, it's, I think, five thousand seven hundred or eight hundred and something or other. It dates back from the change that God brought about here. And the seventh month, God said, is now the first. What a beautiful spiritual lesson we have there. The moment you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior, God changes your calendar. And he says to you, from this day on, this is the beginning of months in your life. Now you celebrate a birthday, and so do I. We can't help it. That is physically. But what about spiritually? How many of you know your spiritual birthday? Some of you do, some of us don't. But this was the spiritual birthday of the nation. And it was the beginning of a whole new slate. God said, I am forgetting all you have done. I am giving to you a glorious opportunity to start a new calendar, a new day. This is the first day of the rest of your life. And God does that for us in our salvation, doesn't he? When he forgives our sins, redeems us out of bondage, we accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior. We receive him as our Savior, and God said, here is a new beginning. Your sins and your iniquities I will remember no more. And you have a new slate. Everything is forgotten, and God says to you, you have a new life. What kind of life is it? Well, the New Testament describes it as everlasting life and as eternal life. I think I told you what I thought the difference was between these two wor- two words. Everlasting life and eternal life. Eternal life is a life that has no beginning and no ending. It's like a circle. Where did the circle start? Well, it doesn't start anywhere because it's always been a circle. It always has been like that, and there is no beginning and no ending. The life of God is eternal life. It has no beginning, it has no ending. And when you receive Jesus Christ as your savior, you receive eternal life. You receive the life of God. God dwells in you. And Israel received eternal life. Because the nation of Israel collectively were God's people, and the covenants God gave to Israel in Abraham, in David, in the New Covenant are eternal covenants, and Israel will exist as an eternal nation. It is because God has chosen them, and God is in them. Sure, he has set them aside for a time, but they are still his people. That's eternal life. It is the life of God dwelling in us. And then there is everlasting life. If eternal life, or since eternal life is a life which has no beginning and no ending, then everlasting life is a life that has a beginning, but no ending. So when did Israel begin their everlasting life? What does God say? I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. What does that mean? There will be someone sitting on the throne of David forever, but it started with David. And so it is with our salvation. The moment you receive Jesus Christ as your savior, you begin to live. You are taken out of death into life. You began to live. God changed your calendar. And this was the beginning of a new life. And that life is everlasting life. And it's a gift that we receive from God. It is part of God's great salvation. And so the beginning for the nation of Israel and their migration is marked by the departure from Egypt, which is the result of salvation through the Lamb. But the issue, the primary issue that changed the calendar was the Passover, not going across the Red Sea, not entering into the land of Canaan, but the night which the Passover lamb was killed is the fourteenth day of this month. Do you realize that that lamb was killed between the two evenings at about three o'clock in the afternoon on the fourteenth day of Nisan? And you move forward fifteen hundred years, and you see the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, and he died on fourteen Nisan, between the two evenings, exactly the same day of the same month as the Passover lamb was killed some fifteen hundred years before. So clear, so exact is God's picture that we dare not miss a detail of what God is saying. So it is with your spiritual birth. In John chapter three and verse five, except a man be born. Birth is the beginning. And the moment you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior, you receive him by faith, you begin to live because you were dead in trespasses and sins till that moment. That was John chapter three verse five says is the exposition and the explanation and an exegetical description of what took place in Exodus chapter twelve. It's astonishing. It's amazing to us. In second Corinthians chapter five verse seventeen, if any man be in Christ, all things are passed away and all things are becoming new. Why? Because it's a new beginning. It's a new beginning with God, and Israel on this occasion is experiencing a new beginning with God, and God's intentions throughout the book of Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and Joshua was, all things are to pass away. The leeks and the garlics and the onions of Egypt, passing away. The slavery, passing away. And all things were to become new. New direction, new guidance, new provision, new promises, new covenants. All of these things are new, just as it is true in the gospel today. God's plan is exact. We mark natural birth, but the spiritual birth is by far more important. We make a big deal of birthdays naturally. Can I say God makes a big deal of spiritual birth because it is life transforming, and it has eternal consequences for us as we believe the gospel and allow the spirit of God his great work of transformation. It is for us a very important thing. And so God gives us his life in the same way that he gave his life to Israel, and the cloud of his presence dwelt with Israel, and it continues to be available to Israel individually, but will be collectively when he again rules and reigns from New Jerusalem as the Shekinah glory over the whole earth, and Israel will not be the tail of the nations, but be the head of the nations. The target of the tenth of the f- of the tenth plague was the firstborn. Why is that? The target was the firstborn of man and of beast, says God. And if the blood is on the doorpost and on the lintel, I will pass over, and the firstborn will survive. Again, we can go to the New Testament, and we can see, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. His firstborn from the dead, says First Corinthians chapter fifteen. The parallel is exact. The firstborn in the Jewish nation was their glory. In the Egyptian economy, the firstborn was the chief. He was the most important member of the family. He was their pride and their glory, their desire, their strength, their best, their hope for the future. And in the Jewish economy, as in the Egyptian economy, there was a spec- a place of special privilege and special blessing. In the Hebrew economy, the oldest son got a double blessing. He got twice as much because he was the firstborn. And God chose in this judgment and in this deliverance to focus on the firstborn. Because he would have wiped out in all of Egypt where there was no faith and no obedience, all the firstborn. And it was like sucking the soul out of every family, and the weeping and the wailing that would have taken place in the land of Egypt for the death of the firstborn was far greater than it would have been for the second or third or fourth. And so God says, I put my finger on your most prized possession. And, says God, in our salvation, he said, I give to you my firstborn, my own beloved son, my only begotten son. Of course, Jesus Christ was a different kind of firstborn than the Egyptian or the Jewish firstborn, but it was the prize. It was the proclamation of God's salvation, that it was centered in the firstborn. It was centered in their glory and in their pride and in their hope for the future. God's center of attention is Christ, the Lamb of God, which bears away the sin of the world. And my brothers and my dear sisters, if we look at this chapter at all, as we will do again this evening, we will find the parallel so exact, I, I would, we wouldn't miss one word. Every word is pregnant with meaning that helps us understand our salvation, and it should cause us to bow in worship and adoration and thanksgiving for such a great God who gave us such a great salvation, centered in such a great Savior. It is astonishing to us. If we dig deeply, we will find the Holy Spirit drawing out of his treasure things old and things new, and it will cause us to say, oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Shall we pray? Father, we stand in awe of who you are, and the more we examine, the more we look at, the more we consider and try to understand. We say thanks for your unspeakable gift. We stand in amazement, and we say, so great salvation. We thank you that it was reported unto us by the prophets and now has found its fulfillment completely and fully in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you again for reminding our eyes that as we look at the lamb in Exodus chapter twelve, we see the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for opening our ears that when we hear the cry of Israel, we hear the cry of our world. Thank you for satisfying our minds with these great truths which cause us to stop and stand still and see your salvation. Thank you that, as you were patient with Israel, so you are patient with us. So you have caused us to hear and to see of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Thank you for directing our attention to him whom the king delights to honor, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we give thanks. Amen.