Abounding Grace

Voiceover: Next on Abounding Grace, a beautiful clear picture of Jesus and the cross in the Passover.

Pastor Ed Taylor: The Passover lamb is the greatest picture and type of Jesus Christ in all the Bible. Israel's life was changed by a lamb. Their very life and death hung in the balance with this lamb. Today our lives can be changed by a lamb. Jesus was the Passover lamb. And he doesn't cover sin; he removes it.

Voiceover: Welcome once again to Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor and our study in Exodus. So far in our series, the focus has been on our great deliverer, God. Now as we dig into chapter 12, the focus shifts to the deliverance, specifically the Passover. As you'll hear in a moment, it is a wonderful picture of Jesus. Here is Pastor Ed.

Pastor Ed Taylor: When you harden your heart, when I harden my heart as a believer toward the Lord, we move away from him. We're no longer abiding in Christ. Now I know you don't want God to give you up, and he's promised to never leave you or forsake you. But as you step back from God, that's a painful step backwards.

Which I'm so grateful, and I hope you can say this as well, but I'm so grateful for the conviction of the Holy Spirit. That God will speak to me on the inside. Sometimes it's a Bible study; sometimes it's a song. Sometimes the Holy Spirit sounds just like Marie, wouldn't you know it? That God will give me the right word, the right direction where God will bring conviction and remind me.

He'll stop me in my tracks. He'll redirect me. He'll confirm to me that, yes, Ed, you've hardened your heart, and it's time to humble yourself before the mighty hand of God. By the time somebody has enough courage to tell you that you're prideful and you need to humble yourself, the Holy Spirit's told you a hundred times, or five, or three. But that message coming from an outside voice is only confirmation of an inside work because God got to you a lot faster than someone else did.

And we are not in the position of Pharaoh, although some might be listening today that really do take a stand against God. That God really has given you over, and you're living a debased mind, a life. You're living a debased, upside-down, sexually perverse life. It's only because the Bible says the fool has said in his heart there is no God. And even today, the conviction of the Holy Spirit from the outside, God is bidding you to come and repent of your sins.

He said, "This is not the right way to live." And you almost can hear the voice of God echo through the ages: "Pharaoh, let my people go. Let my people go. Let my people go." And you can hear the same request today. It might sound like: "Come to me. Resist. Leave that sin behind. I invite you to follow me. I invite you to be a part of my family." God bidding you to come one time, two times, three times, but each time you harden your heart, and God says, "If that's what you want, then that's what I'll give you."

And yet he sends another messenger, another message. "If that's what you want, that's what I'll give you." But he's sending messengers in your life: friends and family, messages, the reality you might be listening to Christian radio right now. It's just from the Lord. That's God's gift to you. You're like sitting there going, "Why haven't I turned this off yet?" because you hear the voice of God through a man.

And God is calling you to himself. He's calling you to deal with the hardness of your heart, with the sin. He's asking you to come clean. "No, I don't want God." God gives you your request, but then you leave worse than when you came. That's Pharaoh here. And I'm grateful for the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

And so often the conviction of the Holy Spirit is not just from a friend, and it's not just from a spouse, and it's not just from some kiddos that might tell you the truth in your own home. But you know where conviction comes the most? Through the Word of God. In Psalm 119:9, it says, "How can a young man cleanse his way but by taking heed according to your word?"

There is a power in the Word of God where even as you're reading about Pharaoh and you're reading about a man thousands of years ago, and you're reading it, and then you feel that sense where the Lord says, "But I'm talking about you here." No, no, it's not me. And yet you're fighting the work of God. And God's saying, "Well, if that's what you want, then go ahead."

That's your flesh. It's not me because the Spirit's going to want what God wants. That's what the Spirit wants. When you're walking in the Spirit, you desire what God wants. It's actually a sign of being a believer. One of the signs that you can look for in your life as a born-again believer is you start to want the things that God wants and love the things and people that God loves. There's a radical transformation.

But Pharaoh's heart is harder still. And I find so many times on my own personal walk, as much as it hurts personally and as difficult as it is, I often find myself saying, "Yes, Lord, that's the way I have to go," and then making it right or doing what I need to do so that I can restore the joy that I have in my salvation that's mine by faith. It never comes by resisting, and it never comes by hardening my heart.

Back to the marriage thing, that's one of the reasons why the Bible tells us and instructs us: "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." Don't let it. It will not be healthy. It will not be good in marriage, in singleness, in life, giving it time to nurture so that you can just sleep on it, and yet you wake up angrier than you did when you went to bed. And you want to resolve things and let the Holy Spirit do that work.

Well, notice in chapter 12 now, verse 1. Fastest we've ever done a chapter in Exodus, praise God for ten-verse chapters. Verse 1, chapter 12: "Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 'This month shall be the beginning, 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 day 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's 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 month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.'"

So this is a big corner being turned now as we're reading through Exodus. In chapter 11, the focus up to chapter 11, I should say, has been the focus on the deliverer. But now we're going to see the deliverance. That's where it starts here in chapter 12. We've been looking at the deliverer, studying God as deliverer, but now we're going to see it. The Passover, the Red Sea, the power of God. He's about to do something entirely new for this nation that has been used to living in Egypt.

And the Passover is a glorious holiday. It's a high holy day for the Jew even today, but it's the clearest picture and type of Jesus upon the cross in all the Bible, the best description of him. And it's important that we grasp this substitutionary lamb so that the rest of the New Testament will open up before your eyes.

Jot it down: 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7, it says, "Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us." So let's keep the feast, Paul says, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Christ our Passover.

First Peter chapter 1 and verse 18: "Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." So the lamb pointing back to the Passover lamb. The Passover lamb is the greatest picture and type of Jesus Christ in all the Bible.

Israel's life was changed by a lamb. Their very life and death hung in the balance with this lamb. And today our lives can be changed by a lamb, the lamb of God. Maybe some of you don't remember, those of you that might be new to the Bible, there's a time in the Bible where this wild and faithful man known as John, John the Baptist, he comes on the scene and he sees Jesus coming. And he declares as Jesus is coming, he points to him and says, "He's the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world."

He doesn't just cover them so that every year a lamb... and we studied this in-depth; this was the whole essence of the book of Hebrews when we studied through Hebrews. But he doesn't just merely cover so you have to wait every year and offer a Passover lamb every year. No, Jesus was the Passover lamb. And he doesn't cover sin; he removes it.

I love this in verse 2, and I hope we can get through some of this, but I love this. It's just a little phrase, but he tells them: "This month will be the beginning, your beginning of months." This is a statement that everything's going to change for you. You're not even going to keep time the same way anymore. You're not going to keep the same calendar. You're not going to live the way you lived in Egypt. It is different. While the pagans generate their calendars by the crops, Israel's calendar will revolve around the Passover.

It's almost like God is saying, "As a slave, your time belonged to Egypt and to your masters. But now you're no longer on Egypt time, and you have a new master." Brand-new beginning. This is one of the most important steps in following Christ as a new believer. Maybe you responded to the gospel here recently, maybe took a little packet home or you were watching online, and you're a newer believer. Or perhaps a believer that's been walking with God for a while or having a relationship with God for a while, but you just don't seem to see that progress.

Here's the thing. This is an important step you must take and reaffirm, and it's this: "I am a new creation in Christ. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." You've got to believe that. That is the declaration over your life. That is what has happened spiritually.

But here's the thing. You make a response here, you respond standing where you're at, you pray, you mean it. It's everything. It's like the culmination of all that God wants, except that it doesn't feel all that different. I mean, you walk out the door and you're cussing on the way to the car and lighting up your cigarette or... you just you feel like the same person. You feel like the same person. Still dealing with anger, still dealing with frustration, still having a difficult home, still lonely. You feel the same.

The Bible says you're not the same. And the bridge between the two is believing God at his word. One of the important things I needed to believe when I was born again, and even though the pastor didn't say it in the Bible study, he didn't mention it at all, I don't even know the first time I ever heard it, I just knew intrinsically this needed to leave my life. And I needed to believe this from that moment on, and that was this: that God delivered me from drugs and alcohol.

In that moment, I needed to believe that. It was already true. Whether I believed it or not, whether somebody declared it over me or not, before I ever found the verse... I don't know how long it was before somebody shared with me Galatians chapter 2, verse 20: "I have been crucified with Christ; it's no longer I who live, but it's Christ who lives in me." I don't even remember how long it took me to find that verse. I didn't even know the Bible at all. I didn't even own a Bible.

But in the moment I was born again, I was delivered. That moment. That even if I chose to go back, and even if I had alcohol in the refrigerator, even if I had it hidden up in the shelf, even if I waited for Marie to go to bed so I could have a nightcap before I went to sleep, all of that was against who I was. I would be choosing to live against who I was already. God had already made me a free man.

Can you imagine these Egyptians as they are free from Egypt wanting to go back? Oh, you probably read ahead. That's exactly what they wanted. They wanted to go back to slavery. They're free. They know all about the plagues. They know the difference that's being made. They know the distinction that God made. They know the protection that God gave. They know the declaration of freedom.

By the time they want to go back to Egypt, they'd gone through the Red Sea, they'd seen the miraculous hand of God, they've seen the power of God through Moses, and they still want to go back to slavery? And you like, "What's their problem?" No, no, that's the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is, "What's your problem?" You're free. Oh, maybe you're not free like the freedom I needed, but you're free.

"No, no, you don't understand my... I've been angry, my dad was angry, my grandpa was angry, I'm just going to be angry." No, you're free. You can walk in the newness of life, but you've got to believe it. You've got to walk by faith. You've got to believe that God has the power to strengthen you in temptation. Right? You know the scriptures. This is what builds faith. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God.

The Bible says that no temptation's overtaken you except such as is common to man. And yet with every temptation, there's a way of escape. God has a powerful life for you. It's already yours. He doesn't want to change your behavior. He's not just looking at the outward of your life. He's working on the inside. And when you yield yourself to him, the behavior follows.

You grow in grace. You learn. I mean, how many times you're just going through there and you're like, "I didn't know that scripture was in there. I'm a new creation. What does that mean?" And then you begin to pray, "God, what does that mean in my life?" And the Holy Spirit begins to show you. "You're my son. You're my daughter."

Those of you with identity issues, your identity's in Christ. However you were treated or mistreated as a child or a family and you carry that trauma and pain, even carrying that trauma and pain, you have a new identity. God is going to show you what a real father's like. He's going to show you what real love is. He's going to reveal to you himself, his faithfulness in your life, and he's going to begin to heal the hurt that's in your heart.

That's God. And that happens the moment you're born again. You just continue to walk in it. You're justified, that means you have been at the moment of that you were born again you've been justified, which means you've been declared innocent and righteous and forgiven. And then the rest of your life you enter into the realm of sanctification where God is working on the inside and you're cooperating on the outside.

Right? Because if you do have that addiction and you have the temptation to go in that way, you have the temptation to move in that direction and the Holy Spirit says no, how do you cooperate? You obey. And that's when your will matches God's will. Even if you have a weakened will, "It's so weak, Ed. You don't understand, Pastor, it's so hard." Yeah, but the Bible says that God works in us both to will and to do.

So whatever desire you and I have to follow God, he follows that up with power: the ability. And then you do that for a minute, three minutes, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, 50 years—a lifetime of following the Lord. It starts in the moment you were born again. It's so good.

So here, this everything's changing for them. It's all brand-new. And then he says in verse 3: "Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: On the tenth day of the month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household." This is another word that can be translated differently. And here we have it in the English, "take," but it can also be translated "receive."

Now that changes things when God is saying to them to receive the lamb. Everything they have has been given to them anyway. So you kind of think, "Well, I'm taking it," but actually, I'm receiving it from the Lord. It came from him. And so imagine that as God's first command to the Jewish people is receive the Passover. "I've already provided it for you. I've shown you favor with the Egyptians. Hey, make sure your house is big enough."

And there's a proportion. You measure it, it says in verse 4, according to need, not according to greed. If your neighbor had no children, the couple's supposed to join with another. And there's just that already in the old covenant, that built-in... God has built-in humanity. It's built in our hearts to be together, physically to be together and share with one another. Make sure it's pure, without blemish. Why? Because it's a picture of Christ where there is no blemish, verse 5.

And they would kill it together because this would be done together. Notice verse 7. They'll take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they ate, where they would eat it. And then they shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted in fire, with unleavened bread; with their bitter herbs they shall eat it. Don't eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire: its head with its legs and its entrails. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it morning you shall burn with fire.

And thus you shall eat it, verse 11, with a belt on your waist and sandals on your feet and staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both men and beasts, and against all the gods (little 'g') of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord.

They were to put the blood of this lamb outside the door so that when the angel of death would see it, the angel of death would pass over. Even though they were inside the home eating the lamb, worshipping God in obedience. The blood would be placed in such a way where you can see the head of Jesus, the crown of thorns, his outstretched hands. You would be able to see the blood that's covering.

The lamb would be slain at the front door of every house. This would become the pattern that God is setting for his nation once they leave Egypt. I mean, think to the cross. It was a very bloody experience, very dramatic. The blood marked the blood of Jesus marked the soil outside the walls of Jerusalem, outside the gates, outside the city of the holy temple of God. The blood that was shed for us even as this shedding of the lamb would be very bloody, and it would be the blood that was recognized by God.

That's what he sees when he sees you. It's just unbelievable. When I look in the mirror, I don't always see the blood. I see the Ed. I see the mistake. I see how far I've got to go still. I see the wrestlings in the spiritual warfare. I don't always see the blood, but God, he always sees the blood. Always.

He always bids us to come with our weaknesses. He invites us to come with our whatever, whatever we're dealing with in the moment. We should have you give me a piece of paper and bring it up on a bucket here of all the things you struggle with today. And if I read them, you'd be shocked what's in this room. Or maybe not so shocked as you realize you're sitting in a room with men and women very similar to you.

And then of course I'd have to write mine in some red piece of paper so you could say, "Oh, that's Ed's, that's Ed's, that's Ed's," and then I'd pick it up and say, "I'm not telling you." No, whatever it might be. God always sees the blood, and then he passes over. Judgment does not come to those where the blood has been applied. And that's the Passover. The sacrifice. The sacrifice on our behalf.

Voiceover: You're listening to Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. If you joined us late or would just like to hear this message from Exodus again, turn to aboundinggraceradio.com, or you can listen through our app as well. Search for Ed Taylor in the App Store or Google Play.

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You know, the new year is a great time to kickstart or breathe new life into your devotional life, and we've got a book that can help. It's titled *Jesus Everyday* from Jim Cymbala. Each day brings its own set of challenges and events that can at times leave us dazed and confused. But in Christ, we can find the grace, strength, and peace to face those days with hope.

Living by God's unshakeable promises will challenge you to consider what your life might look like with Jesus every day. We'll send you a copy with our thanks for a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call 877-30-GRACE or visit our e-store at calvaryco.store. Tomorrow on Abounding Grace, we'll hit the pause button on our study of Exodus to bring you a short but powerful series called "Greater". It all starts Tuesday. Don't miss it.

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