LISTEN AND LIVE

LISTEN AND LIVE

 

 

Welcome back, friends. We want to consider today what I have titled: Listen And Live.

Listen And Live.

Last week, we considered, Look And Live. Our text is taken from Exodus 12.

Exodus 12, reading at verse 1.

 

Ex 12:1-13

Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire — its head with its legs and its entrails. 10 You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. 11 And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

Look at verse 12 –

12 ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. 13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

 

Shall we pray.

 

PRAYER

Father, we come now, as we look into Your Word, asking for understanding and for clarity…in Jesus Name. Amen!

 

Last week, we examined an object lesson from the bronze serpent that Moses erected at God’s command to save the lives of Israelites beaten by the fiery serpent. We saw that the Lord Jesus was and is antitype – that is, the fulfillment of the type – that is, the object lesson: because, in John 3 verses 14 and 15 Jesus says,

 

John 3:14-15

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

 

Believing that Jesus went to the cross in your place would give you eternal life: the life of God, instead of the state of spiritual death you find yourself in now.

Today, we turn to another object lesson in the experience of the Children of Israel. And that is the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb which we just saw in Exodus 12.

First, notice that this experience changed the calendar of the Israelites. In verse 2, the Lord said, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. The Passover experience became a new beginning of life for them.

When you encounter Christ, the Passover Lamb, you will,

  1. Have a new beginning,
  2. According to 2 Corinthians 5:17, old things will pass away, and all things will become new for you.

Second, notice their progressive relationship with the Passover lamb as the following expressions in verses 3 – 5 bear out:

  1. a lamb – that’s verse 3,
  2. the lamb, verse 4,
  • Your lamb, verse 5.

To many people, Jesus is a Saviour, a lamb; to others He is the Saviour – the Lamb. The question is, is He your Saviour? Until you can say with conviction and with sincerity: Jesus Christ is my Saviour, you do not have eternal life. We cannot overlook the qualification of the Passover Lamb. It was to be subjected to what I call purity test. In verses 5 and 6 we read, Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.

They have to keep it and observe it for a number of days to make sure that that lamb was spotless. Jesus Christ the Lamb of God was subjected to a purity test for over thirty years. Satan could find no faults in Him; even those who sentenced Him to death could find no fault Him, either.

In Luke 23:4: Luke 23:4, we read:

 

Luke 23:4

4 So Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowd,”I find no fault in this Man.”

That’s Jesus Christ. In Egypt, the Passover Lamb was a spotless lamb; on the Cross of Calvary the Lamb was a spotless lamb. This is why our Sinbearer had to be God Himself: for God could find no spotless man to pay for the sins of the world. So we read in John 1:1:

John 1:1-2

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (Even though some people have changed it in their bibles). And in verse 14,

John 1:14

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

That’s Jesus Christ: the Lamb of God.

It’s no wonder then that the hymn writer Cecil Alexander, in 1848, wrote, in the hymn, There is a green hill far away. In one of the stanzas he says,

There was no other good enough

To pay the prize of sin.

He (that’s, Jesus Christ) only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in.

No other good enough to pay the prize of sin.

 

Thirdly, the Passover lamb was killed, and His blood applied on the doorposts and on the lintel of the homes of the Israelites; and the flesh eaten, roasted with fire – verses 7 and 8.

The nomenclature or the name Passover is a descriptive term for the objective of the exercise: for God said, in verse 13 of that Exodus 12,  13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. (That’s where we get the word Passover); and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

Any firstborn, Israelite or Egyptian, that was not covered or sheltered by the Blood of the Passover Lamb came under the sentence of death. Today, anyone who would not accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God suffers a fate worse than physical death – eternal separation from God: and that is hell.

What type of sign was the blood supposed to be? In verse 13: the blood shall be a sign. It was a sign of faith. Israel’s obedience to the Passover Command was an act of faith. Your obedience to accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for you is an act of faith. It is by grace through faith that anyone is saved – Ephesians 2:8.

Let me conclude by addressing the question in the minds of those who do not quite get the connection between the Passover Lamb and Jesus Christ. I will do this simply by citing one or two scriptures.

 

John 1:29

 

John 1:29-30

29 The next day John saw Jesus [that’s John the Baptizer] coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

But more precisely still, 1 Corinthians 5:7b and verse 8,

 

1 Cor 5:7-8

For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.   Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Have you accepted Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins? Why not do so now? And if you have, then stay away from sin; for the power of the Holy Spirit within you is for that purpose, to keep you away from sin, and much more.

 

Let us pray.

 

PRAYER

Father, we thank You again for Your Word today. We bless You. I commit into Your hands as many as are yielding their lives to you now. I say bless them with Your salvation and much more of Your heavenly blessings. In Jesus Name. Amen!

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