← ArchiveExodusSunday, May 28, 2017DateMay 28, 2017Speaker—TextExodus 12Passages in this sermonExodus 122:00Exodus 12:1311:56Romans 8:2013:00Matthew 1020:08TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00"Moses. Moses. Your fathers called me God, and I am you. I have made you an orphan of grace. I have sustained you in the house of the King. Now see your purpose. For I have heard the cries of my people. I have seen the weight of their oppression. And I have come down to deliver them.0:23And I will stretch out my hand against Egypt, and guide my people to a land I have prepared. I will make you my mouthpiece. I will make you a shadow of one greater to come. I will lead you as I have blessed you. Now go!0:50And you will see what I will do to Pharaoh." All right. I don't know if I introduced myself during the welcome. I'm Brad Tollison. I'm the associate pastor here, minister of students.1:08And a lot of youth pastors call this Youth Pastor Sunday. It's kind of an inside joke for us, because most youth pastors across the nation are preaching this morning because the pastors are on vacation. So here I am. And it's an honor. It's always a joy to be in the pulpit. I enjoy being here. It's kind of my element.1:33And so we're going to look at chapter 12 of Exodus. We're going to continue the series. That's one thing that I love about Pastor Josh is he goes through a series of scriptures and through books. And I love going through the series with him. And I want to stay on track and stay true to the series. And so we're going to be in Exodus chapter 12. Here's the thing about Exodus chapter 12.2:00We could probably go weeks, if not months, on just this one chapter. And so I've decided this morning to go a few hours. Just kidding. I know it's Memorial Day weekend. And so some of you, even if you go back to the lake, it's going to rain today. So sorry. But anyway, we're going to spend a few minutes here in chapter 12. Stories and experiences shape our lives. Think about your own life. Think about the things that have happened to you that you will never forget that have shaped your life.2:29As a youngster all the way up until an adult, there are things that happen to us that just kind of shape who we are. Maybe moving to a new location. Maybe getting that new job or that promotion. Maybe proposing to your wife that changed your life. Beginning the first day of college or holding your first born child. I'll never forget that moment in time when I held Luke for the first time and he opened his eyes and I made eye contact with my bro.2:57And so we have just been awesome ever since. And so that was a life changing event for me. In the book of Exodus chapter 12, God changed an entire calendar of the Israelites because of this thing we call the Passover. And so it was a very, very significant event in history.3:24And I want to try to give it as much justice as we possibly can today. So God changed the entire calendar of the Israelites. In the United States, significant events happen that have changed events in history. And we've marked it on our calendars. And so we celebrate these different things. We take time each year to celebrate Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day. And tomorrow we'll recognize, not celebrate, but we will recognize Memorial Day, those that have fallen.3:52So these days are a time to remember of what happened in the past. And they're also to look forward of what's coming next. And so there's these different days and different times that have happened to us in the past, even in our nation. In Exodus 12, we find God doing something on a much grander scale than the world has ever seen. The night of the Passover was probably one of the most dreadful nights in history.4:20And all of the previous plagues leading up to that 10th plague was pale in comparison to what's about to happen. And so I want to kind of run through the plagues to kind of get us to kind of set the table, set the stage for this morning. And then we're going to kind of look and see what it might be like as an Israelite in those days. And so we look at the first plague. Aaron spreads out the staff over the waters of the Nile, and they turn to blood.4:49Water, the very source of life, and the pride, by the way, of the Nile, is now turned to a symbol of death, blood. The second plague, the staff spreads out, and frogs come up out of the water onto the land. There's frogs everywhere. Who in here likes frogs? My boy, Luke, loves them. We went fishing yesterday, and he will pick out a frog among grass.5:14I don't know how he does it. He goes, "Oh, look, a frog." And he just picks it up, and he just plays with it. He puts it in his pocket, tries to take it inside to show mama, and she flips out and chases him out of the house. And so he found a little bitty baby frog yesterday. And he said, "Daddy, can I keep it?" I'm like, "No." "Son, we can't keep it. Can we fish with it?" "Technically, yeah, but we're not going to do that, son.5:38We're not going to sacrifice this frog because the fish aren't biting anyway. So we're just going to..." So frogs, who likes frogs? And imagine of them being everywhere. I mean, you couldn't step without possibly hitting a frog. And so, slimy little creatures that they are. And the third plague is gnats. And at this point in time, the Egyptians concluded finally that this must be the finger of God.6:06Gnats were everywhere. The fourth plague, we start to see a distinction between Egyptians and the Israelites. We're going to kind of make that distinction today. The plague of flies. We can imagine these frogs are probably dying out and then all of a sudden these gnats are taking over and the flies start to come up. The stench was probably unbearable. Flies are covering all over the Egyptians, but they're not covering the Israelites.6:35They're not covering the Israelites. The fifth plague, livestock. Livestock in Egypt die. The livestock among the Israelites, guess what? They're in the land of Goshen. They're untouched. The sixth plague, Moses throws some ash up into the air, and all of a sudden all of these Egyptians are covered in boils. Setting the stage for the seventh plague. If you have boils all over your body, let me explain what a boil is.7:03These are pus-filled infections that cause bumps under your skin. Nasty. If you have boils all over your body, guess what? You don't want to get hit by a hail falling from the sky. Because then you're going to have those things popping everywhere. I mean, could you imagine? Just the uncomfortable. I mean, we look at this and we kind of snicker. But just the devastation that they must have been going through at that point in time.7:29So then you have hail falling from the sky. Which, by the way, can tear things up. I've had a really good garden until hell come along and just destroyed everything in that garden. Then we have plague number eight. If the garden wasn't destroyed by the hail, it was destroyed by locusts. They eat everything that's green. They devour it.7:57Plague number nine is the plague of darkness. And there is no electricity in that day. And so it's dark. And there's light of the day over where the Israelites are. All of that leading to the plague, number 10. When God says to Moses and Aaron, to tell Pharaoh, "At midnight I will strike down the firstborn of every single house, every man, every animal. Firstborn we will strike down."8:26Over and over and over and over again, Pharaoh's heart is hardened toward God. He is resisting God. He is asserting his own lordship and submitting to the lordship and not submitting to the lordship. Of Yahweh. And so before we get into this chapter, let me open this up in just a word of prayer. Lord Jesus, thank you so much once again for the opportunity, Lord, to open up your word.8:53And I pray, Lord, that when we leave here this morning, we would have a better understanding of this chapter. We have a better understanding of not only your wrath, Lord, but your grace. Your grace that has bestowed upon us, Lord. And Lord, we thank you, Lord, for this text. Lord, I pray, Lord, that you would open our hearts up and open our minds up to your word this morning. And in your name we pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen. But look at verses 3 through 13. It tells of the institution and the arrangement of the Passover, particularly in verse 3.9:22It says, "Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's house, a lamb for a household." Now, just give a little application here. My boys, Luke and Lane, wanted a puppy. We resisted this as long as we possibly could, until their aunt got a puppy. And it's like, "Oh, you just messed this up for me." And so they got a little puppy, and so my boys were like, "Come on."9:51So we got them a puppy. We broke, caved in, whatever, and got them a puppy. And we have tried to love this puppy as much as we possibly could, through all the heartache and all the things that have tore up and everything, and trying to train it. And so, if you can imagine just for a second, you bring a lamb into your house, as a pet, for four days. And your children play with it, and they care for it, they feed it, they provide for it.10:20And then they bond with it, and all of a sudden, God says in verse 6, "And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month." Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. After four days, you kill Lambie. Imagine being a child of one of those households, four days, with this nice lamb, and then mean daddy takes the lamb and kills it.10:44And then he takes the blood, and he smears it all over the doorposts. I mean, the devastation of that six-year-old is going to stay with him. It sticks in his mind for a long time. I mean, you go up to your daddy and you say, "Why did you kill this lamb? Why are you putting his blood all over the door?"11:12And the father would have to say, "This little Jewish boy is a substitute. The lamb is a substitute. Death would come to our house and our family if this lamb did not die instead of one of us." And when you look, son or daughter, at the doorpost, you see the blood of the lamb over there. And you can know when every other house in Egypt is crying because death has come,11:39we have been saved because of the blood of the lamb. That's the picture God is engraving into his people at this point in time. And this is the word that is used in Exodus 12:13. We see a picture of a destroyer. Verse 13 says, "The blood shall be a sign to you on the house where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you,12:08and no plague will befall you to destroy you. I will strike down the land of Egypt." And I want you to key in on that because I'm going to talk about the distinction there, the difference there in a little while. It's going to come to every single house, Israelite and Egyptian alike. No one is immune. All are sinners, all are sinful men, women before a holy God.12:37So the picture we see here, the judgment of God is a serious, severe, significant way that God is going to deal with those people in Exodus 12. Ultimately, all suffering and struggle and death of this world is a result of sin. Romans 8:20, "For creation was subject to futility."13:00And so we see this. We see the sin and the destroyer that's going to come and the consequences of that sin. Verses 14-20 is the preparation for the celebration of the unleavened bread. Verse 14, it says, "This day shall be you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord.13:29Throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast." We go on down to verse 17, it says, "You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. For on this day, I brought your host out of Egypt, out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, a statute forever." I think it's really interesting here. In these verses, particularly verses 14, if we go down to verse 17, the Lord is giving instructions to Moses to give instructions to the Israelites13:55on how to remember and celebrate a victory that has not came yet. This has not came yet. It hasn't happened. And he's telling them to celebrate while they're still in slavery. I mean, isn't the Word of God awesome? Isn't our Lord awesome that he can tell us, "Hey, this is what's going to happen. Trust me. Trust me." The Lord is wanting them to count their victory while they're in the midst of slavery.14:24And I think that is very true for us as believers today. He wants us to count our victories in the midst of the slavery that we may be in to sin. And so we need to remember that, that it's about the blood of the Lamb. So in the midst of our struggle, in the midst of our difficulty, I think the Lord wants us to count our victories. In the midst of the sting of death, even the battling with sin, the Lord wants us to count our victories.14:53Our victory over sin and suffering is not based on our feelings. It's not based on our circumstances. It's based on the blood of the Lamb. Man, we forget that.15:22We forget that. We struggle and we push on and we get in this rut and we forget that the blood of the Lamb has covered us. It's covered us. Yes, we are going to struggle. Yes, you are going to sin. Yes, there's going to be death. But because of the blood, because of Jesus, we have victory.15:49We have victory. We have victory. You could just imagine. Think about the anxiety and the fear that's going through that land in that day. God has told the Israelites, this is going to happen. And imagine one afternoon, that afternoon, a daddy is spreading the blood over the doorpost, over the lintel there.16:18And he sees his neighbor doing the same thing and he walks over and he talks. And they're both standing there and they're talking. One of them looks at the other and says, man, I have to be honest with you. I'm really struggling with this. I mean, have you seen what the Lord has done to the Israelites? And he's telling us to do this. Man, I'm really struggling with this. And the other Israelites looks at him and says, so why are you struggling with this?16:46He goes, man, I haven't been a very good father. I haven't been a very good daddy. Man, I have so much hatred toward those Egyptians and the way they treat us. My heart's just not right. His neighbor looks at him and says, have you done what the Lord has required of you? I have a question for you.17:15Which one's firstborn son dies that night? Which one of the daddy's firstborn sons dies that night? The one that doubted? The one that was secure? Which one? Neither. Because of the blood of the lamb. That's all that was needed. That's all that was needed.17:44Was the blood of the lamb. The victory over death is counted on the grounds, on the basis, on the foundation of the blood of the lamb. It is the object of our faith, not the quality of our faith that gives us hope. So, sir, if you're struggling, it's okay. You have an opportunity to repent. You have an opportunity to seek forgiveness.18:13Because of the blood of the lamb. The victory should never be measured in terms of current circumstances, self-fulfillment, the absence of suffering, or even the present struggle with indwelling sin. Suppose an Israelite daddy had said this. I refuse to take part of this bloody ritual. This is ridiculous. I mean, really? We have to cut a lamb open and put this blood on the, smear it all everywhere?18:43I mean, I'm not doing that. What's going to happen to him and his firstborn son? Death. Death. Suppose another Israelite, his daddy is like, you know what? I'm probably going to do this, but I'm just going to put it on the inside of the door. Because I want my house to look like all the other Egyptians.19:10I want to mess my house up. I'm just going to put it on the inside of the door. You know, I may sprinkle some in the back, but nobody can see it. Because I really don't want them to know that I'm really, really all the way into this. What happens to that firstborn son? Death. Death. Could that have happened? I don't know. But here's what I do know.19:39The Lord had said that the blood was to be openly displayed where the world might see and know. But here is an Israelite ashamed of the faith of the way God has provided for his salvation. The angel of judgment and death will look upon the blood of the doorsteps and lentils and will not find it. This is what Matthew 10, 23, 32.20:08Matthew 10, 32 through 33 says. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father in heaven. Our salvation, ladies and gentlemen, calls for an open stand for Christ, whatever the cost. Whatever the cost. To be a secret disciple of Christ is an impossible thing.20:34It's impossible. To be ashamed of Christ is to be unworthy of him. To refuse to confess him is to deny him. To deny him is to be lost. If we love him and trust him, we must openly obey him and take his side by him. As the sprinkling of the blood of the Passover lamb was on the doorpost, on the lentils, on the front of the houses, for all the world could see and know.20:56So our faith in Christ must be open, it must be public, and it must be displayed. And it must be radical. And so my question for you, does your friends, does your neighbor know? Do they know that you're a believer, blood-bought, that you believe that Christ died for you?21:21Do they know? Is there enough evidence in your life to convict you of being a Christian? I used to do accident reconstruction before I surrendered to ministry. In accident reconstruction, there was an accident, and it was really an awesome thing.21:53It was kind of a forensic-type thing. If you're into the CSI stuff, we'd have to do all that kind of stuff and everything, and reverse engineer an accident. And what's really interesting about accidents is there's always a collision, and then you work your way backwards. So the point of impact is your starting point, and you work your way backwards. So something has to happen.22:22Something has to change. A trajectory has to be altered. Speed has to be altered. And sometimes life-changing things happen in that moment, that crash. Has there been a crash in your life? Did something change in your life? And is there enough evidence that supports that that actually happened in your life?22:47Something to think about. Something to think about. As we look at this chapter, chapter 12, it's something to really think about. The only people that were exempt from the judgment of God on that dreadful night in Exodus 12 were the people who believed that by having blood over the doorpost, they would be saved. Through faith, it was applied to them. It's not because, don't miss this, it's not because the Israelites were better people than the Egyptians.23:13It was because they believed in the sacrifices God has prescribed for them, and they trusted in the blood of the Lamb. It's all about the blood. I think there's a song. It's all about the blood. Christian victory is dependence on Christ, who has purchased the victory on our behalf.23:39If we look at verses 21 through 28, particularly verse 24, this is the celebration of the Passover. Verses 21 through 28 is the celebration of the Passover, and he gives some instructions here. And in verse 24, I'm going to key in on this verse. It says, "You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and your sons forever."24:03And you come to the land that the Lord will give you, future tenants will give you, and has promised. You shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, "What do you mean by this service?" You shall say, "It is a sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses."24:26And the people bowed down their heads and they worshiped. Everything that is happening here then becomes about the next generation. It becomes about those children that are going forward. Remembering this victory that the Lord has given. It is remembering the victory that is theirs by the means of the blood of the Lamb that becomes the entire point of the celebration.24:55And when you say, "Dad, are you ingraining in your children who Jesus is?" Do they look at you and do they see that evidence that's there? And I'm a youth pastor.25:24And so I have to work with youngsters and teenagers. And I have dealt with some teenagers that have just been angry. That have grown up in church. They're just mad. They're angry. They're confused. And this is what they'll say, "Brad, Brad, I don't get it. I don't get it. I come here and I don't see this lived out.25:54I just don't see it." And that's disheartening for me because I'm like, you know, I know your parents. They come here. They attend. And then you get to know mom and dad. And you realize they struggle just like the rest of us do. And we have to work together as a faith family to mull over what it means to be a believer.26:23What it means to raise our kids in a Christian home. And we all need to help each other with that. Because our children are watching us. They're watching us celebrate victories. And I hope those victories are godly victories.26:50Verses 29 to 31 is the actual plague. Verse 29 says, "At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. From the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon and the firstborn of the livestock."27:12Verse 30 says, "And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt. For there was not a house where someone was not dead." Verse 31 says, "And then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, 'Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel, and go, serve the Lord as you have said.'"27:42I want to talk to two different groups in this room before I close. The first group in this room is if you're an unbeliever. And let me specify what that means. If you're uncertain. You may have grown up here.28:11But if you're uncertain right now, only you know that. If you're just not sure, you're like, "I'm just not sure." This is for you too. But if you're just an unbeliever, you just know. And you're honest enough to say, "You know, I just don't get this." In the passages we read earlier, there was a significant difference between Egypt and Israel. And we see the difference all through the Old Testament.28:40And this is what will be said, "Eat this. Don't eat that." The Lord will say, "Be like these people. Don't be like these people. Fellowship with these people. Don't fellowship with those people." And so there's these significant differences all through the Old Testament. The Lord will make and draw a distinction, but when His wrath gets ready to pass through and go through Egypt, He chooses sovereignty to make one distinction between two.29:02Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not?29:31Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not?30:00Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not? Is there blood on the doorposts or not?30:29You don't know what I did this week. It's about the blood of the lamb. You don't have to be cleaned up. You can come and confess him as Lord. Unbeliever and believer, the grounds of our victory over sin and death will be and must be about the blood of the lamb.30:56That is the gospel in Exodus chapter 12. That is the gospel. Motivated by nothing else than his love for his people, he gives his son to us. And this is the context of this chapter. This God being motivated not by these sinful Israelites in and of themselves, but by motivated by his love to love the people, to pursue them.31:23Now the second group in here, the believer. How do we walk in confidence of our faith? How do we walk in confidence of our faith in an unholy land? In a place when you turn the TV on, all you see is sinfulness. In a place where there's seemingly just less of us. How do we walk in confidence of the Lord?31:54How do we do that? How do we walk in a way where people can see Christ displayed in our life? And so how does the sufficiency of the blood of Christ help with the woman who lost her husband? How does the sufficiency of the blood help with the man or the woman who is struggling with indwelling sin? How do we do this?32:20How do we walk in this world? To every man and woman in this room, no matter how dark or sinful your past is. No matter how guilty your conscience is. No matter how filthy your past is. When you are trusting the blood of Christ of your life, you are saved in the presence of God. And you are set free from the power of sin. Do you believe that?32:50Because I'm going to be quite honest with you. There are some people that are struggling. Believers that are struggling in some areas. I talked about a young man this morning. That passed away. Confessed Christ. But just couldn't shake the sin in his life.33:19Satan's goal is to steal, kill, and destroy. It's a three-fold strategy. It's a very good one. But what's awesome is the victory's already been won. The victory's already been won. We just need to embrace that victory. The ultimate question today is do you trust in his blood?33:51Are you trusting in him right now? We leave this glorious truth behind and we begin to live our Christian lives like our acceptance before God is based on how we perform, how often we become the church, and how many good things we do. If we leave this truth behind and we just do those things. If we leave this truth behind and we just do those things. And let me get something straight here.34:21Obedience flows in a relationship with Christ. Don't miss this. Obedience flows from a relationship in Christ. Your acceptance before God at this moment is still totally based on the blood of Christ over you, not on how many times you come to church. Now I didn't say you can miss out on church, but your love for Jesus is going to show on how many times you want to be with the fellowship.34:39Your love for Jesus is going to show how you give. Your love for Jesus is going to show your relationships that you have. Your love for Jesus is going to show what your friendships look like.35:06Your love for Jesus is going to show teenagers. There's not many in here. You guys are off the lake. It's going to show what's on your playlist. What you listen to. What you watch on the screen. Your love for Jesus is going to reflect how you dress. Your love for Jesus is going to reflect how you eat. Our love for Jesus should be everything to us as believers in Jesus.35:34Yes, we struggle. We're going to. But we need to have confidence in the fact that he's with us. We have confidence in the fact that his blood is spilled for us. We have access to God. When the adversary comes to you with condemnation,36:03you trust with confidence in the fact that you are in the blood of Christ. Free from condemnation. You have been forgiven by the blood of the sacrifice. Covered by the blood. We have access to this God through Jesus Christ. What Old Testament saints long for we experience in a glorious grand way. And we need to have peace and rest in the fact that we're forgiven.36:33Let's pray.← Previous in ExodusSunday, May 7, 2017Next in Exodus →Sunday, June 11, 2017More sermons on Exodus →
