Light on the Hill

Guest (Female): Thinking God for all that he's done for us. Next on Light on the Hill.

James Kaddis: He knew that there would be something that we would need, that there would be salvation because he also knew that we would die and go to hell in our sins. He knew that.

So in his perfection, he gave of himself. He suffered the ridicule, he suffered the consequences, he suffered the judgment of our sin, our sin, not his, ours.

And he took it upon himself that we might have salvation. Folks, I don't know about you, but that's something that should cause you to walk in great gratitude.

It should cause you to say, "Lord, thank you for what you've done for me," and to look to him and say, "You are so good, God."

And to really look at what he's done and to say, "Lord, thank you for all that you've done." To say, "Thank you." I think there's something special about that, folks.

Music: I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. 'Cause all I need is you. All I need is you. All I need is you.

Guest (Female): It's time to get your house in order today on Light on the Hill in Exodus chapter 12 with Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: If you ever want to see what can happen when we harden our hearts toward God, just look at Pharaoh. When he did this repeatedly, he and the people of Egypt suffered the worst thing imaginable, the death of their firstborn, unless they listened to and obeyed what God said.

There's something we can learn from that. Here's Pastor James. You never have to teach your kid how to lie, lie, lie, deny, deny, deny. You never have to teach your kid how to run a hustle. They're all exceptional at it. They're very good at it.

I think that as they get older, the level of deception that they deploy is remarkable. It's unbelievable, but it's all a reflection of the fact that we were born with sinful natures. Christ wasn't. He was without spot or blemish. Okay? The world did not affect him to become a more sinful man. He never sinned.

And he was also born in that condition. He was born in the condition of no sin within him because the the gene of sin was not passed down to him, if you know what I mean. So it's a very interesting thing when you think about that, he had none of it.

Now, it's interesting because people say, "Well, that must have been really easy for him to live a life without sin." Really? Ask Adam. Ask Adam if it was easy to live a life without sin.

Adam started perfect. Adam had the perfect environment. It wasn't like he was born in the ghetto, okay? He had the perfect environment. He had everything. He was literally the richest man that ever lived. Why? Because God told him he owned everything. He could have access to anything that was around him. The only thing he didn't have access to was the fruit of that one tree.

But he fixated on what he didn't have instead of was blessed by everything that he did have. So, if you think about it, there was no real advantage that he was born with because he messed it up. If he messed it up, that means you could mess it up, I could mess it up, we all could mess it up.

So the idea that Christ is born into this world in the condition that he was into, but then continued to keep that place where he did what he did is a remarkable thing. It's not anything. Look, he's God. Yes, obviously, and that's a, you know, a big part of seeing the victory that he had, but it is remarkable when you think about it. It's it's a completely amazing thing to think through.

So, again, you're looking at this lamb and when you look at the book of Hebrews and it speaks about Christ being our superior sacrifice, then drawing these parallels with the Passover is very, very important because the author of Hebrews himself does it. And that's why I'm drawing these parallels because they are unique and they mean something.

So, he says this in verse 6, he says, "And you shall keep it up until the 14th day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening." Now, this is an interesting thing because the the lamb was supposed to have been gathered on the 10th day of the month, and then it would have been killed on the evening of the 14th day of the month.

Now, it seemed obvious to me why this was the case. I looked at other commentaries. So let me let me just tell you how I do things when I study the Bible without getting into a lot of detail. I go through my process of studying what's in the text. I come to my conclusions, and when I'm done as kind of like the cathartic process of the study, right? As sort of the easy, fun part of the study, then I read commentaries.

I don't read commentaries to come to conclusions, I read commentaries after I come to conclusions, and often times I'll listen to studies being taught concerning or whatever. In an overwhelming majority of all the commentaries that I read, this whole thing of the 10th day and the 14th day got ignored. There were a few guys that did comment on it, but basically said they had no idea what the significance was of the lamb, of course, being picked out or chosen on the 10th day, and then on the 14th day the lamb being killed.

But to me, it seems obvious. And I don't think it's a stretch. I think it makes a lot of sense because if you think about it and you go back to the life of Christ and you look at what he did and what happened to him, remember, when he came into the city triumphantly, when he came into Jerusalem, he did that on the 10th day.

I want everybody to see that, right? He rode it on the 10th day. And you could probably guess what I'm going to say next. He was killed on the evening of the of the 14th day.

So, if you think about it, and you look at the events of the week and you look at the calendar that was associated with that time, of course, there was a that was the year that Christ died was the year of the special Passover, which is a very important thing to to be able to note. In other words, there were two Sabbaths that happened, two Shabbats that happened. There was a Shabbat on that Wednesday night and the Shabbat on the or sorry, the Shabbat on the Friday, the Shabbat on the Saturday, the way we would look at it.

But it's just interesting to think about that, and remember Shabbat starts from evening to evening. So that would have started the evening of Thursday night. Thursday, of course, being the fourth day, or the 14th day. So, when you just look at the calendar, you realize that this is all pointing to Christ. That God told them to pick out the the lamb on the 10th day and to kill it on the 14th day because that's exactly what was going to happen with Christ when he gave his life for the whole world.

I think there's something pretty spectacular about that, folks. And I couldn't think of a more fitting thing to think about on a day that we're going to have communion. I mean, can you imagine? It's such a powerful detail, one that I think is often times overlooked because, you know, sometimes it's a trap to get involved in looking at the numbers and the significance of the numbers. In this particular case, I think it's a pretty significant thing.

So look what it goes on to say, "You'll kill it in the evening, verse 7, and they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses wherein they shall eat it." By the way, it's interesting because there's going to be a discussion about how this lamb should be prepared later on as as Moses goes to the elders. One of the things, as you've probably already noticed, is that this lamb could not be cut up in pieces and thrown in a boiling pot, that when it was prepared to be eaten, as we're going to find out yet again, that it had to basically be warmed a whole.

It could not be cut up and thrown into a bucket and boiled. It had to be basically over a fire. I'm assuming like some kind of rotisserie arrangement where they basically tied it on a stick and and twirled it around and and bake it whole and that's exactly what God had instructed for that to happen. And they were required to eat it all up, but not only were they required to eat it all up, but whatever was left over, meaning the inedible parts, had to be burned completely incinerated by that time that God had prescribed. And there's a lot of significance to all of that, but it is interesting some of the things that you'll learn behind what's being instructed to the children of Israel.

So, verse 8, "And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleven bread, and with bitter herbs they shall eat it." By the way, the unleven bread, the bitter herbs, they all recognize, or they all describe something very, very significant. Of course, the unleven bread speaks very distinctly and specifically of the fact that there is no decaying variable that exists within the bread that they're eating, which in essence is an acknowledgment of the fact that we have chosen to receive the better word. We've chosen to accept the sacrifice being made for our family and that involved no sin.

And so that's interesting because the imputation of our sin upon Christ is something that's a very powerful principle for us to always be focusing on, and the idea that he took on our sin and then we took on his perfect life is such a powerful picture. So when you start getting into the bitter herbs and the bitterness of the moment that they're in and you start speaking about unleven bread in that the perfect sacrifice made for us had no sin and and there's an active denial of that sin, the decaying agent that destroys, it's it's a very, very powerful picture that's being created here. And so, it's kind of a heavy thing.

So look at this, "Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water." In other words, you can't boil it, right? "But roast with fire, his head with his legs and with the purtenances thereof." In other words, that thing is supposed to be roasted whole, just as I had mentioned. "And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, and that which remaineth of it until the morning, you shall burn with fire." So, if in the off chance, you couldn't eat it all, then you need to burn it with fire. It needs to be completely gone.

Why? Because it was a sacrifice that was specifically made for you not dying. And of course, if you think about this, this is this is a very powerful picture because when we start talking about the Tabernacle, which we'll get introduced to later on, in the same book, remember that there was a specific offering that was made to God that once you ate with God, in that process, offering up or sacrificing your animal, then the next thing was to burn the rest of it all all the way, completely through.

And the idea here is that God is the one that receives that sacrifice and what you don't eat of that sacrifice, the rest God gets. And the idea here is that you share it with nobody else. You don't sacrifice it to anybody else, you don't hand it to anybody else. It's a holy, sacred thing that is done in the name of the God that created you. You take in as much as you can take in, and whatever you can't take in, that gets burned and given to God. The idea here is that God deserves it and nobody else. And that's the picture.

You don't go and give it to the homeless, you don't go and, you know, take it and give it to some animal that's hungry. You don't do any of that. You burn it completely up and you give it to the Lord for his consumption. So that's the the picture that's being drawn here and it's a very, very powerful one.

So, it says in verse 11, "And thus shall you eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover." So give you a little bit of a secret, and we did this for years and years and years and years and only because my aunt was able to find some recently, I've been doing it again as of late, but in our home, in the Middle Eastern culture, when you go to bed, you go to bed with a thing that looks like a nightgown. It's really not a nightgown. We call it a Galabia in Arabic, and it's basically a robe.

And it's interesting because if the robe is done the way that it's supposed to be done, it almost touches the ground, okay? If it's cut right, if it's the right thing, it almost touches the ground. And so men wore these robes back in this time, and so when it talks about your loins being girded, this is King James language, what it's basically talking about is the position that the men had to put themselves in when they had to be in a place where they needed to move quickly or they needed to work.

And so what they would do is they would take the robe and they would basically fold it under in between their legs and kind of run it in a way where they would take like their, it's it's hard to describe but it's like a belt. That's what we're calling it, it's not really. And they would basically tie it up in a way where they could run freely because if they ran with the robes down, undoubtedly they're going to fall on their faces, right? So they would have to basically get themselves in that place where they were in that position to be able to move quickly.

This was something that you would often times see. Like if you see a depiction of people walking around doing their work like a shepherd, for example, and they're standing in their fields and the shepherd's Galabia is all the way to the ground, then it's probably not an accurate picture because if you saw shepherds during that time, you would see them girding themselves in a way where that is actually different. Nowadays, in the modern Middle Eastern world, you'll see those cut a little bit short and men wearing pants under them.

But the reality of it is, in the culture, what they were doing, what they would do is they would gird themselves in that way. In other words, they would take that robe, they would run it under themselves so that they basically could move quickly. And of course, in this case, God is telling them to put on their shoes, and the whole idea is, get ready to go. That's the idea. The idea is, "I've delivered you. Now get to work."

And I think that there's something very special about the message that we should learn from that. And that is, when God intervenes in our life and God delivers us and God brings to us the victory that we have been hoping for and that we ask for, and he does the work that he wants to do, it does not mean that it's time for you to sit back and relax. The idea here is it's time to get going.

When you've been delivered from bondage, run away as fast and as hard as you can from the bondage that you were in. Don't do anything where you flirt around with the bondage that you started off in. And I think that that's a very powerful statement. It's a super heavy statement and it makes a lot of sense, right? That we basically gird ourselves up and that we get ready to run. We get ready to go because as God is doing the work where he's getting ready to free us, then it's our job to just run and to get going, right? Get away from the very thing that gave us that bondage or that put us in that bondage.

So, I think that's a great picture that he's drawing. Look at this verse 12. "For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite 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. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations, you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever."

Which by the way, just understand this, this is still to this day practiced by Jews all over the world. The the feast of Passover. And as a matter of fact, they do these beautiful special Passover dinners that involve all of the elements that you read about in here, and it's amazing how they do this. And again, it's something that God commanded them to do. God commanded for every generation to know what that is.

And if the Passover is done correctly or the way that God intended for them to do it, then the Passover would be done in a way where as the dinner was being had and the the celebration was taking place that the leader of the household would explain what everything meant, what everything was symbolic of. And I'm I'm I'm thinking that one of these days we'll do a Seder type dinner for you guys where you guys can see this and understand all the elements and why it works. We've done it a few times over the years, and it's always been very eye opening for some people, because there's some remarkable symbolism that exists here.

But God is saying, "This is going to be something that you're going to celebrate every single year." You're going to recognize that I delivered you, that I delivered your children. You're going to recognize that I delivered you, that I'm the one that brought you out of this and they're going to honor me for it. And that's what God's picture is. That's why this celebration is happening to this day. It was designed to remind the Jews of the very special hand of God in delivering his people, even in the hardest of times. And that's a pretty heavy thing.

So, let's continue on. And it says this, "And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you." I'm reading it again, but that's okay. "And the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations, you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever." And that's why I got a little confused because I didn't talk about memorial, the word memorial.

Memorial is an interesting word that's being utilized here. I think it's a good translation. The original Hebrew word carries a very strong connotation. And you've got to keep this in mind because when you think about the idea of what a memorial is, it is designed to cause your memory to awaken in the moment that happened for the children of Israel. And the idea behind a memorial, anytime we do any memorial anywhere, is to cause people to develop a remembrance or an awareness of the event that they're seeking to memorialize.

And it's really important that you understand that the Passover was not just a feast or intended to be just a feast where everybody had a special meal and did a bunch of things that they didn't understand what it meant. It was designed to be a tool that God would use to remind them of the fact that their lives were spared. By the way, when we have communion, it's very similar to the same thing we'll talk about it when we have it today.

Look at this in verse 15. It says, "Seven days shall you eat unleven bread. Even the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses, for whosoever eateth leaven bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel." God, I think, means business when he says don't eat unleven bread here, right? Like that's very, very serious to him.

"And the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation to you. No manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, only that be done for you. And you shall observe the feast of unleven bread, for in the self same day, I have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, shall you observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever. In the first month, on the 14th day of the month at even, you shall eat unleven bread until the one and 20th day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses, for whosoever eateth that which is leaven, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger or born in the land. You shall eat nothing leaven in your habitations, shall you eat unleven bread."

You think he meant something by talking about no unleven bread? Look at how many times he talks about that. No unleven bread, no unleven, he said it five different ways. 15 different ways. I'm exaggerating, but he said it so many different ways. He said, "You shall not eat unleven bread. Don't do it." Like this is the command. You're not supposed to eat it. Why? Because it represents something that's pretty significant, isn't it?

You see, the celebration of Passover was predicated upon the idea that one gave his life who had no sin. He had no sin. And when Jesus took the bread during the celebration of the Passover with his disciples and he said, "This is my body, take and eat," he took unleven bread, folks. That's why God meant what he meant. That's why he made a big deal of it. He picked up that unleven bread, he gave it to his disciples and he said, "This is my body. Take it and eat as oft as you gather," and he says, "Do it in remembrance of me." So the picture here is really significant.

Christ was without any sin. And it was important to God that when the people celebrated the Passover, which of course points to the Lord, points to the Messiah, that they don't ever use a tool that mischaracterizes who Jesus is. The idea here is if you were to eat bread that had leaven in it, you would basically mischaracterize the Messiah because he had no sin. There was no leaven in him.

And the reason why this was so important to the Israelites is because they obtained their salvation through believing in the Messiah coming. Just like we obtained our salvation in receiving the free gift that the Messiah gave us because he's in the past. You see, they were looking for him in the future, we're looking back to him who did it for us in the past. Either way, it centers around the Messiah, the one who had no sin, the one who lived his life perfectly.

And so the idea here is this, they were not to eat any of that bread. Why? Because Christ had no sin. And that brings me to the most remarkable point of all of this, and we're going to get into this a lot more in depth as we go over the next few studies in our studying Exodus, but this is where it gets really remarkable to me. It gets really remarkable.

Because it's astounding to think of the fact that we have a God who literally lived a perfect life while he was here on this earth. He did literally nothing that was wrong. He lived perfectly. He had no reason to intervene in our lives. He had no reason to come and become or walk around amongst the bottom feeders. He had no reason to do what he did, yet he did it because he loved us with an everlasting love. He cared about us.

He knew that there would be something that we would need, that that would be salvation because he also knew that we would die and go to hell in our sins. He knew that. So in his perfection, he gave of himself.