G'day.

Welcome to stories of a faithful God.

I'm your host, Dave Whittingham.

Waiting can be hard, can't it?

Waiting for something exciting, like a special holiday or a wedding.

It can be kind of thrilling, but after a while, you just want to get to it.

What about when you're waiting for something to end, like sickness or an injustice that

you've suffered or unemployment? These can be especially hard when you're not

really sure if they will end, or at least end in a good way.

Sometimes we can feel frustrated or overwhelmed.

Sometimes we want to pray the words of psalm 13.

How long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

The promises of God in the Bible are so good, they give real hope, a guarantee of better

things to come.

In the time of waiting, it can feel like that

hope can start to fade.

In Egypt, the Israelites have been waiting for

a long time.

In today's story, the thing they've been

waiting for happens suddenly, literally overnight.

It happens so quickly that they don't even have time to make their food properly.

And the promises we've been seeing, as we've looked at Exodus, the wonderful promises of a

faithful God are fulfilled in the blink of an eye.

The waiting is over.

It's only the beginning, though, because what

we see in this Bible passage is just a taste of something even better that God has in

store.

And so I present to you episode 16 of stories

of a faithful God.

At the end of the last episode, talks between

Pharaoh and Moses had completely broken down.

Nine plagues had come on Egypt.

Nine signs showing the power of the God of Israel, his power over the gods of Egypt, his

power over nature, his power over pharaoh.

The plagues have shown his faithfulness to his

people.

As Egypt's destruction becomes bigger and

broader, more and more we've seen Yahweh protecting his people.

When the egyptian magicians had boils on their bodies, Moses stood tall.

When the egyptian animals died, the israelite animals were safe.

When the Egyptians were shrouded in darkness, the Israelites were basking in the light.

The plagues have shown Yahweh's justice and mercy, justice as he's highlighted and

punished the egyptian crimes of brutally enslaving the Israelites, of tossing their

baby boys into the nile, of rejecting the true and living God who made them, of worshipping

false gods.

And yet the punishment has always been like a

pulled punch.

It's a taste of punishment, but never fully

what they deserve.

Yahweh has been mercifully revealing himself

to them and showing them who the right God to follow is.

Hes been giving them a chance to put their trust in him.

Pharaohs refuse to learn the lesson.

Sometimes he just hasnt responded to God.

Sometimes hes tried to bargain, giving some concessions to the Israelites, but always in a

way that would force them to return to Egypt.

Finally, in a fit of rage, he tries to put an

end to all discussion.

In chapter ten, verse 27, he yells at Moses,

leave me.

Make sure you never see my face again.

For on the day you see my face, you will die.

As you have said.

Moses replied, I will never see your face again.

It's a disastrous moment.

Not for Israel or Moses or Yahweh, but for

Pharaoh.

He's sealing his own fate.

Pharaoh's had no power to stop the plagues.

And so time and time again, he's had to come

to Moses to ask Yahweh for mercy.

Yahweh has listened to the prayers of Moses.

Without Moses, Pharaoh and Egypt are doomed.

In the 21st century, lots of people want to

say that there are many ways to God, many paths to know him, but actually, because of

our sin, we have no access to God.

Just like Pharaoh had no access.

Thankfully, just like for Pharaoh, God's provided a way.

A person who prays for us, intercedes for us.

Someone even better than Moses.

Not a saint or a holy person from the past, but none other than Jesus, the son of God

himself.

Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, his

father.

And if you trust him as your king and saviour,

he's interceding for you so that no one can hold your sin against you.

Pharaoh, though, has just told the one who intercedes for him to never see him again.

Disastrous move.

As we hear this story in the middle of the

heated argument, we get a break to hear what God's told Moses.

He's told him about the final victory, the final moment that's about to happen, where

Pharaoh will give in, the Israelites will be freed and they'll plunder the Egyptians like a

conquering army.

He's saying that everything he's promised is

about to happen.

Here's what Yahweh tells Moses in chapter

eleven, verse one.

He says, I will bring one more plague on

pharaoh and on Egypt.

After that, he will let you go from here.

When he lets you go, he will drive you out of here.

Now announce to the people that both men and women should ask their neighbours for silver

and gold items.

And then we're told what God's already done

for his people and for Moses.

They're not seen anymore as a worthless slave

race, as tools that can be abused and then thrown away.

Verse three says, yahweh gave the people favour with the Egyptians.

In addition, Moses himself was very highly regarded in the land of Egypt by pharaohs

officials and the people.

Back in the throne room, before leaving

Pharaoh, Moses announces the final plague, the final punishment on Egypt.

Its devastating.

Nothing thats happened so far has even come

close to this one.

Its a punishment that even now, three and a

half thousand years later, makes us reel back in horror.

And yet, as with any punishment that God sins, its a punishment that fits the crime.

The plague is the death of all the firstborn males in Egypt, as the Egyptians had killed

the males of the Israelites.

Now God turns it back on them.

This is what Moses tells Pharaoh in verse four.

He says, this is what Yahweh about midnight I will go throughout Egypt and every first born

male in the land of Egypt will die.

From the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his

throne, to the firstborn of the servant girl who is at the grindstones, as well as every

firstborn of the livestock.

Then there will be a great cry of anguish

through all the land of Egypt, such as never was before or ever will be again.

But against all the Israelites, whether people or animals, not even a dog will snarl.

So that you may know that Yahweh makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

All these officials of yours will come down to me and bow before me, saying, get out, you and

all the people who follow you.

After that I will get out.

And he went out from pharaohs presence, fiercely angry.

Any Egyptian in the room whod come to believe Yahwehs word, theyd be feeling a chasm of fear

open up in front of them all.

The same themes are there that we've seen

before, the distinction between the Israelites and the Egyptians.

The way class and power make no difference.

The king and the slave girl are equally

affected.

It's something so big that it's never happened

before and it never will again.

It's all familiar from the previous plagues,

and yet it's so much bigger, so much more painful.

It shows the foolishness of standing against the living God who gave us life.

It shows just how terrible human evil is, that this punishment is justified.

We mustn't think that God gives people chance after chance after chance.

And he's just waiting for everyone to ask for forgiveness.

He isn't.

God's come to Egypt to bring justice, to show

the world that he is the God of justice, and he has put stubborn pharaoh in place so that

he can demonstrate his justice.

In verse nine, we read this.

Yahweh said to Moses, Pharaoh will not listen to you so that my wonders may be multiplied in

the land of Egypt.

Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before

Pharaoh.

But Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he

would not let the Israelites go out of his land.

Of course, whats a moment of justice and judgment for Egypt is also the moment of

salvation for Israel, the great moment of joy and rescue that this has all been leading up

to.

It is the moment of hope fulfilled over the

next couple of chapters.

In Exodus, God jumps between telling the

Israelites what they need to do in Egypt on the night hes going to rescue them, and then

also how to celebrate and remember this event forever after.

It's the great salvation story of the Old Testament, one of the key events that comes to

define the Israelites as a people.

He starts by telling the Israelites that from

now on, this month is going to be the first month in their year.

Their calendar is going to revolve around this momentous event.

Then he tells them what they need to do.

They need to select a sheep or a goat from

their flocks for their whole family to eat.

Think more of an extended family.

And God's really specific.

He says, if the family's too small for a whole

animal, they need to team up with another family so that there's just the right amount.

In other words, there shouldn't be any leftovers.

And he's really specific about the type of animal.

In chapter twelve, verse five, he says, you must have an unblemished animal, a year old

male.

So a young, perfect male lamb.

This male lamb is going to take the place of the firstborn of the Israelites.

They need to select it on the 10th day of the month and keep it until the 14th day of the

month at twilight.

On the 14th day, as the sun's setting over the

horizon, every israelite family is to slaughter their lamb.

They then take some of the blood and smear it around the door of their house, on the sides

and at the top on the lintel.

They go inside, shut the door, and don't come

out again.

That night with the whole family in the house,

they need to cook and eat the meat again.

Yahweh is really specific about how they have

to do it.

He says, from verse eight, they are to eat the

meat that night.

They should eat it roasted over the fire along

with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling

water, but only roast it over fire.

Its head, as well as its legs and inner

organs.

You must not leave any of it until morning.

Any part of it left until morning.

You must burn.

Here is how you must eat it.

You must be dressed for travel, your sandals

on your feet and your staff in your hand.

You are to eat it in a hurry.

It is Yahweh's passover.

One of my memories as a child is going on very

long drives.

For our family holidays.

We'd have to leave early in the morning while it was still dark, which, as a kid, had this

sort of mysterious fascination to it.

But it meant we had to go to bed with

everything ready, the car was packed, the clothes for the next day laid out so you could

just jump into them and go.

Breakfast was a quick meal.

It was easy to prepare.

Everything you did on the day before was

framed around the fact that you were leaving, and leaving quickly.

That's what it's like for the Israelites.

They've been in the land for over 400 years.

But on this night, they're having their last meal before they leave Egypt forever.

Up until this point in Exodus, God hasn't asked the Israelites to do anything.

He's been the one fighting for them.

He's been the one gaining victory over the

Egyptians.

We haven't seen them do anything since chapter

six, before the plagues kicked off.

And then they were grumbling.

They didn't think God could rescue them.

And they told Moses to get lost, go away, stop

making their life harder.

Now God's asking them to do something.

It's not something that'll secure their release.

They play absolutely no part in their rescue.

That's all on God.

No, the thing he's asking the Israelites to do is trust him, have faith in him, believe that

he's about to rescue them the next day, have the trust that they didn't have before they

saw God's power through the plagues.

On this evening of the 14th day of the month,

everything in Egypt is going on as it normally does.

There aren't any other plagues going on.

There's no obvious sign of danger or change.

There's no indication that Pharaoh's about to change his mind.

The only thing the Israelites have to go on, that they're all about to leave Egypt, is the

word of God.

So will they trust him and do what he's asked?

The stakes for whether they trust God or not are life or death.

When God comes to strike down the firstborn in Egypt, he'll enter every house except the ones

with the blood on the door.

He won't go into the houses of the people who

believed his word and so have done what he asked.

Let me read you what he says from verse twelve.

I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the

land of Egypt, both people and animals.

I am Yahweh.

I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt.

The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you.

When I see the blood, I will pass over you.

No plague will be among you to destroy you.

When I strike the land of Egypt, notice a couple of things there.

Just like he has at other times in this book, God pauses to say, I am Yahweh.

Remember, Yahweh means he is.

You have to watch to see what he is, what he

is like.

Here, he is showing that he is the judge.

A lot of people want a friendly God who never punishes anyone.

They wouldn't normally phrase it like this, but what they're actually asking for is a God

of injustice.

A God who doesn't care when people lie and

cheat and steal, when we treat our maker like a plaything, or when we treat people as tools

to make ourselves feel good.

They want a God who doesn't act when men beat

up their wives and girlfriends, when people gossip and backstab.

A God who doesn't care when countries are invaded and people are bombed, and when little

baby boys are thrown into the river.

That's not Yahweh.

Yahweh is the God of justice.

And when he comes to judge, it's terrifying

for everyone who faces his righteous anger.

Also notice who he's punishing.

He says he'll bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.

The people of Egypt would rather worship a cat than the person who made the cat.

They'd rather worship the sun or the river than the person who created and formed them.

Because the sun never tells you to do anything.

The river never commands you to love your enemies so you can do whatever you want.

The moon and the stars won't judge you for committing genocide.

How easy is it to worship made up gods? But they don't own the world.

They don't set the rules.

It was Yahweh who established the world in

love and justice.

And he won't let this rebellion continue

forever.

And yet, at the same time we're seeing his

justice, we also get to see his mercy.

Later.

In the Bible, Joshua warns the Israelites not to worship the gods their ancestors did in

Egypt.

In other words, the Israelites are guilty of

this crime as well.

So how come their firstborns are going to

survive? It's because the lamb dies in their place.

It dies so they don't have to.

When God sees the blood, he'll accept that the

death that's owed has already been paid, and so he'll pass over that house.

God then tells the Israelites how they need to celebrate this event every single year.

Theyre to celebrate how he rescued them from Egypt, and theyre to do it with a feast called

the feast of unleavened bread.

You leaven bread by putting yeast in it to

make it rise.

So unleavened bread is flat bread that hasnt

risen.

And theres a long description about how they

need to remove all the yeast from their houses.

Ill give you just a taste of it, no pun intended.

In verse 17, God says, you are to observe the festival of unleavened bread, because on this

very day, I brought your military divisions out of the land of Egypt.

You must observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent statute.

You are to eat unleavened bread in the first month, from the evening of the 14th day of the

month until the evening of the 21st day.

Yeast must not be found in your houses for

seven days.

If anyone eats something leavened, that

person, whether a resident alien or native of the land, must be cut off from the community

of Israel.

So the stakes are pretty high.

Why is God so concerned about yeast? Does he have shares in a flatbread company?

No, it's because on the night he rescues them, they're not going to have time for their bread

to rise.

It's going to be that sudden.

And God wants them to remember the power and suddenness of how he rescued them.

And so Moses gets all the elders of Israel together, and he explains what they need to do

with the lambs and the blood.

He explains how God will pass over their homes

when he sees the blood.

And he tells them how they and their

descendants should keep this ceremony.

And then in verse 25, he says this.

He says, when you enter the land that Yahweh will give you as he promised, you are to

observe this ceremony.

When your children ask you, what does this

ceremony mean to you, you are to reply, it is the Passover sacrifice to Yahweh, for he

passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians and he

spared our homes.

Of course, Yahweh Hasnt actually done any of

this yet.

And as I said before, the last time we heard

from the Israelites, they were hardly trusting their faithful God.

They were grumbling, complaining that Moses was causing them problems.

They didn't believe that God could rescue them.

But in between then and now, they've seen the nine plagues.

They've seen God turn the nile to blood and summon gnats from the dust and send locusts

throughout the land.

They've seen him protect them.

When the Egyptians were in darkness, they were in light.

When the Egyptians had flies, they didn't.

God said he was going to do all these things

so that people would know him.

And that's what's happened.

When Moses tells the ISraelites to do all these things, they don't grumble.

Verse 27 says, so the people knelt low and worshipped.

Then the Israelites went and did this.

They did just as Yahweh had commanded Moses

and Aaron.

And so the stage is set for the judgment of

Egypt and the salvation of Israel.

Imagine the mood of expectation that afternoon

as everyone gathers into their houses.

As the sun goes down, the knives are drawn and

the prepared animals are brought out and sacrificed.

Someone in each home takes a plant called Hyssop, dips it in blood, and paints the

doorframe with it.

And then they go inside and close the door.

Verse 29 says, now, at midnight, Yahweh struck every firstborn male in the land of Egypt,

from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner who

was in the dungeon, and every firstborn of the livestock.

During the night, Pharaoh got up.

He, along with all his officials and all the

Egyptians.

And there was a loud wailing throughout Egypt,

because there wasn't a house without someone dead.

As pharaoh's, overcome by the sounds of screaming and crying and wailing, he finally

knows he's lost.

Just like God promised.

This plague is the last plague.

Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron.

And this time, he doesn't try and bargain.

He doesn't try and exert any power.

He knows that his power is nothing next to Yahweh.

Get out immediately from among my people, both you and the Israelites, and go worship Yahweh

as you have said.

Take even your flocks and your herds, as you

asked, and leave.

And also bless me.

When we first met this pharaoh, sitting in all his power and grandeur, and he heard the

message from Yahweh to let the Israelites go.

He had responded in arrogance and pride.

Who is Yahweh that I should obey him by letting Israel go?

He said, I don't know Yahweh, and besides, I will not let Israel go.

Now he has met Yahweh, and he is begging the Israelites to leave immediately.

He even asks Moses and Aaron for a blessing.

God has shown his power.

He's also shown his faithfulness.

He's humbled pharaoh, just like he said he

would.

That's just the beginning, though.

Really.

Quickly we see everything God said coming to

pass.

Fulfilment after fulfilment after fulfilment.

The faithfulness and power and salvation of God on display for the world to see.

Just like Pharaoh, the Egyptians are desperate to get rid of the Israelites.

So we read in verse 33.

Now, the Egyptians pressured the people in

order to send them quickly out of the country, for they said, we're all going to die.

So the people took their dough before it was leavened, with their kneading bowls wrapped up

in their clothes on their shoulders.

No time to properly make the bread.

It's all happening too quickly.

Just gotta grab the dough and run, just like

God said.

Later, in verse 39, we're told the people

baked the dough they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened loaves, since it had no yeast.

For when they were driven out of Egypt, they could not delay and had not prepared

provisions for themselves.

Yahweh had also said that they'd plunder the

Egyptians like victors after a battle.

He said they'd just have to ask and the

treasure of Egypt would be handed over.

And so verse 35 says the Israelites acted on

Moses word and asked the Egyptians for silver and gold items and for clothing.

And Yahweh gave the people such favor with the Egyptians that they gave them what they

requested.

In this way, they plundered the Egyptians.

They didn't need to hold a sword or fight a battle or win a war.

Yahweh fought for them.

And though they've been slaves, they're

leaving as a conquering, treasure laden army.

And they're described as an army.

We're told in verse 37 that there are 600,000 able bodied men on foot besides their

families.

So an army of 600,000 men, once you add in

their families, you could be looking at somewhere around 2 million people, or possibly

more.

Remember, when the Israelites had first

entered Egypt, there'd been 70 of them, not 70,070.

And despite the hardship, despite the slavery, despite the whipping and hard labour and

attempted genocide.

There's now this vast number because that's

what God promised to do.

He told Abraham, who at that time had no

children, that his family would be like the stars in the sky.

And God's been faithful to his promise.

Verse 37 says a mixed crowd also went up with

them, along with a huge number of livestock, both flocks and herds.

Their flocks and herds haven't been killed in the plague, so they leave with this mobile

farm and also this mixed crowd.

They could be Egyptians, they could be all

sorts of other people who'd been in Egypt, either as immigrants or slaves.

These people have decided it's best to throw in their lot with Yahweh and his people.

He's obviously greater than Egypt and her gods.

It's another fulfilled promise.

God had said to Abraham that through him the

whole world would be blessed.

And now here we see a crowd much bigger than

the Israelites joining in the blessings of Israel.

And then we see one more promise fulfilled a long time before this.

Back in the book of Genesis, which well cover one day on the podcast, God willing.

In Genesis, chapter 15, verse 13, Yahweh said this to Abraham.

He was reassuring him that his family would come to own the land of Canaan.

But something had to happen first.

He said, know this for certain, your offspring

will be resident aliens for 400 years in a land that does not belong to them and will be

enslaved and oppressed.

However, I will judge the nation they serve,

and afterward they will go out with many possessions.

Well, Exodus chapter twelve, verse 40 says the time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was

430 years.

At the end of 430 years, on that same day, all

Yahweh's military divisions went out from the land of Egypt.

Yahweh has done everything he said he would.

He truly is the faithful God.

An event as momentous as this needs to be remembered, not for the sake of the event, but

so that people can remember the God who made the event happen.

On the night that the Israelites left Egypt, God vigilantly watched over them, vigilantly

protected them.

And so the Israelites continued to have a

night of vigil as part of their annual celebration.

Annual remembrance verse 42 says, this same night is in honour of Yahweh, a night vigil

for all the Israelites throughout their generations.

It's interesting that at the Passover festival on the night before Jesus died, when he and

his disciples walk out to the garden of Gethsemane, he asks Peter, James and John to

watch and pray.

That's what Jesus does.

God the Son is vigilant in honouring God the father, but the disciples fall asleep.

Jesus is shown to be the perfect Israelite.

Then God gives instructions about which non

Israelites are allowed to eat the Passover celebration meal.

I presume it is mentioned here because of the crowd of non Israelites who have come with

them.

We live in an age where virtually anyone can

do virtually anything, so it can seem weird to us to restrict who can celebrate the feast,

but God does it for a really important reason.

Basically, God says you're either fully in or

fully out.

If you're not an israelite but you want to

join in the celebration, then all the males in your household need to be circumcised.

Circumcision is a reminder of God's promise to Abraham.

And if you want to celebrate the Passover, if you want to share in those promises, you need

to commit to being one of the people of God.

Theres no fence sitting even today, a lot of

people love fence sitting.

I like going to church occasionally.

I like these parts of the Bible, but not those parts.

I pray sometimes when times are hard, as though you can dip in and out of a

relationship with God as the mood takes you.

Just to be clear, none of those things I just

mentioned give you a relationship with God, just like circumcision didnt in the Old

Testament.

We have a relationship with God by turning

away from sin and putting our trust in Jesus.

But those things are evidence of the

relationship you have.

When it comes to the relationship, theres

absolutely no room for fence sitting.

John chapter three, verse 36 says, the one who

believes in the son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life.

Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.

If you dont believe, if you dont commit to

Jesus, trust him and follow him, then youre rejecting him.

Theres no halfway point.

Youre either in or youre out.

Youre either with God or against him.

You have to make a deliberate choice to be

with him, and so did these people who are traveling with the Israelites.

God also gives instructions about how the meat is to be eaten.

Verse 46 says it is to be eaten in one house.

You may not take any of the meat outside the

house and you may not break any of its bones.

The bit about the house makes sense because in

Egypt, on the night of the Passover, if they left the house, they'd die.

The bit about not breaking any bones, though that may seem like a completely random,

pointless detail.

It's not, though.

It's absolutely essential to the history of the world.

We'll come back to it in a little bit.

Then God gives another instruction that'll

have massive implications, because at the Passover, God didn't kill the firstborn males

or animals of the Israelites.

God says that their ode to him theres a debt

that needs to be paid for the firstborn animals.

You get a choice.

You can either sacrifice the animal to God or

you can redeem it.

Redeem means to buy it back.

You cant just keep it for free, though it doesnt belong to you.

For your firstborn son, theres no choice.

You cant sacrifice him.

You have to buy him back.

You have to redeem him again.

Hold onto that thought.

Well come back to see how significant it is.

Well, finally, God tells them what to do in the future.

He reminds them of their future hope.

They've been saved from Egypt.

But there's more to come.

God's going to give them the land of Canaan

when they get there.

They need to keep remembering what God's done

to get them there.

In chapter 13, verse three, Yahweh, remember

this day when you came out of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

For Yahweh brought you out of here by the strength of his hand.

Nothing leavened may be eaten.

Today in the month of Abib.

You are going out when Yahweh brings you into the land of the Canaanites, hethites,

amorites, Hivites and Jebusites, which he swore to your ancestors that he would give

you, a land flowing with milk and honey.

You must carry out this ceremony.

In this month, for seven days, you must eat unleavened bread.

And on the 7th day, there is to be a festival to Yahweh.

Unleavened bread is to be eaten.

For those seven days.

Nothing leavened may be found among you, and no yeast may be found among you in all your

territory on that day.

Explain to your son this is because of what

Yahweh did for me when I came out of Egypt.

Let it serve as a sign for you on your hand

and as a reminder on your forehead so that Yahwehs instruction may be in your mouth.

For Yahweh brought you out of Egypt with a strong hand.

Keep this statute at its appointed time.

From year to year, he keeps going with the

idea about how they have to teach their children what it all means.

Chapter 13, verse 14 says, in the future, when your son asks you, what does this mean, say to

him, by the strength of his hand, Yahweh brought us out of Egypt, out of the place of

slavery.

When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go,

Yahweh killed every firstborn male in the land of Egypt.

Both the firstborn of humans and the firstborn of livestock.

That is why I sacrifice to Yahweh all the firstborn of the womb that are males.

But I redeem all the firstborn of my sons.

So let it be a sign on your hand and a symbol

on your forehead.

For Yahweh brought us out of Egypt by the

strength of his hand.

Remember, remember.

Remember.

You might think they need to remember in order

to be thankful, to remember that everything they have, the salvation, freedom, peace, it's

all because of Yahweh, their God.

And it is.

That's a really important part of it.

But there's actually something even more

important.

Even though they dont realize it yet.

God set up the Passover to point to an even greater moment of salvation, a greater moment

of promise keeping.

The faithful God who controls all of history

was guiding this event in Egypt so that it would point to the greatest event which

Near the start of John's gospel, John the

Baptist sees Jesus.

John's been telling people about how someone

greater than him is coming.

And when he sees Jesus, he says to those

around him, in chapter one, verse 29, look, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the

world.

That's a strange title for Jesus, the lamb of

God.

They were expecting someone with the title

Christian, which is a kingly title, but lamb, that's an animal associated with sacrifice.

It's a title that gets picked up elsewhere in the New Testament, though in one Peter, one

verse 19, Peter says the blood of Jesus is like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.

In other words, he's a lamb like the sort of unblemished lamb they were meant to use as the

Passover lambda.

Well, fast forward a few years and Jesus is

sitting down in Jerusalem to eat a meal with his disciples.

The Passover meal, this great meal to celebrate the way God had saved his people in

the past, except Jesus, totally transforms its meaning.

As Matthew tells us about the meal in his gospel.

He says in Matthew 26 26, as they were eating, Jesus took bread, you know, the bread, the

flat bread, the unleavened bread, the bread that commemorates when they were saved from

Egypt.

So suddenly they didn't have time to make it

properly.

So Matthew says, as they were eating, Jesus

took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples and said, take and eat.

It. This is my body, his body.

remembrance and making it about him.

And then he goes on.

Matthew tells us, then he took a cup and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said,

drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for

many for the forgiveness of sins.

His blood.

Blood is central to the Passover.

It's what the Israelites had smeared on their

doors, the blood of the lamb.

It's what made sure that the firstborn in

their homes wouldn't die.

Now Jesus is saying something much bigger.

His blood, the blood of the lamb of God, is going to be poured out so that people's sins

can be forgiven, so that they can be washed clean.

He's going to restore people's relationship with God so that we can have eternal life.

Just like John the Baptist said, he's the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Well, fast forward again to the next day.

Jesus is hanging on the cross.

The darkness that we talked about in the last episode has come.

We talked earlier about how God's justice and salvation are often seen at the same time.

Justice on the Egyptians was salvation for the Israelites.

Well, it's the same at the cross.

On the cross, Jesus takes the justice, the

judgment that we deserve, so that we can be saved.

And then Jesus takes his last breath and dies.

That's really unusual for crucifixion.

People could linger for days up on a cross.

The jewish religious leaders don't want the

people on the cross after sunset.

They believe it would defile the land.

And so they ask Pilate to break their legs, to kill them quicker and then take them down.

And he says, yes, Jesus is crucified with two criminals and they're still alive.

So the roman guards smash their legs.

Now, do you remember that tiny detail that God

mentioned about how the Passover lamb was meant to be eaten?

The detail that seemed almost like a throwaway line.

He said, you must not break any of its bones.

It seemed pretty unimportant, didn't it?

But God was setting up a situation where you could recognise the true lamb of God, the true

Passover lamb.

John tells us this in his gospel, in John

1932.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the

first man and of the other one who had been crucified with him.

When they came to Jesus, they did not break his legs, since they saw that he had already

died.

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with

a spear and at once blood and water came out.

He who saw this has testified so that you also

may believe his testimony is true.

And he knows he is telling the truth.

For these things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

Not one of his bones will be broken.

The great salvation event of the Old

Testament, as great as it was, was just a taste of what was coming.

God was setting up all the ideas, all the pictures, so that when Jesus came, we would

know what we were looking at.

First and foremost, Jesus didn't come to save

people from physical slavery or human oppression.

He came to save us from the greatest problem in the universe, the sin that lives in our own

hearts.

That sin means we owe a debt to the judge of

the world.

We owe our lives.

We've forfeited our lives by trying to rule our lives.

We can't pay off the debt with a smaller price.

We can't find a loophole that gets us out of the debt.

We can't redeem ourselves like the Israelites had to redeem their firstborn sons.

But God himself offers the price, the only price that can redeem us.

God offered his firstborn son to pay the price we owed God the Son Jesus offered himself as

our perfect, unblemished Passover lamb to purchase our lives for God, if only we believe

and trust in him.

If we dont try to sit on the fence, but put

our lives into the hands of the faithful, God, let me make one more link here.

You could pretty much talk about the whole Bible from the Passover, and so im trying to

restrain myself, but these things are just so exciting.

So here we go.

The millions of Israelites who walked out of

Egypt were a miracle.

They were a fulfillment of the promise that

God had made.

When he took Abraham outside at night and said

in Genesis 15 five, he said, look at the sky and count the stars.

If you're able to count them, then he said to him, your offspring will be that numerous.

It was so exciting when the people who'd entered Egypt, numbering 70, left Egypt in

their millions.

But God had something much bigger planned, a

bigger fulfillment of that promise to Abraham.

Because those people who'd been saved by the

blood of the Passover lambs were only a taste of the number of people who'll be saved by

Jesus, the true Passover lamb.

In revelation, right at the end of the Bible,

the apostle John gets to see into heaven.

He sees God on his throne, and God's holding a

scroll with his will written on it.

The things he's decided will happen on earth.

The problem is, no one's worthy.

No one's good enough to open the scroll.

No one's good enough to read it.

And John's crying.

He's desperate for someone to be worthy of God.

And then he sees a lamb, a lamb who is worthy of God, a slaughtered lamb that's alive.

And listen to these words.

Listen to what the voices of heaven sing about

this lamb.

In revelation five nine, they sing, you are

worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slaughtered and you

purchased people for God by your blood from every tribe and language and people and

nation.

You made them a kingdom and priest to our God,

and they will reign on the earth.

The true sacrificial Passover lamb didn't just

purchase or redeem people from one nation.

He redeemed people from every tribe, every

language, every people, every nation.

And while the Israelites were going to the

promised land of Canaan, the followers of Jesus, those who have been redeemed by the

lamb, you, if you're a believer in Jesus, are heading to a much better land.

Later, in revelation seven nine, John says this.

He says, after this, I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe,

people and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before

the lamb.

They were clothed in white robes with palm

branches in their hands.

And they cried out in a loud voice, salvation

belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the lamb, when he's talking to

an angel about who these people are.

The angel said, these are the ones coming out

of the great tribulation.

They washed their robes and made them white in

the blood of the lamb.

For this reason, they are before the throne of

God and they serve him day and night in his temple.

The one seated on the throne will shelter them.

They will no longer hunger, they will no longer thirst.

The sun will no longer strike them, nor will any scorching heat.

For the lamb who is at the centre of the throne will shepherd them.

He will guide them to springs of the waters of life, and God will wipe away every tear from

their eyes.

We talked at the beginning about how it can be

hard to wait.

But just like in Egypt, it's worth the wait.

Just like in Egypt, the God who's made his promises will keep his promises.

He has kept his promises.

He's passed over the sins of his people when

Jesus died on the cross.

And now we're on our way to the promised land.

Back in Egypt, as the Israelites stream out of the land carrying the empires, wealth, Pharaoh

and his officials are starting to think, what on earth have we done?

Why did we let them go? That thought will lead to one final showdown

between the power of Egypt and the God of Israel.

But thats a story for next time.

If you have any questions from this or any

other episode, send them in@faithfulgod.net.

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We have one more episode in Exodus and I can't wait to share it with you.

Bye for now.

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