Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Good morning, everybody. My name is Andy. I'm a guest preacher today. Let's take our Bibles this morning and open them to the book of Exodus chapter 12 and verse 21. I'm going to try to cover today verses 21 through 28.

As you might have noticed, I haven't been here for three months. My elders were gracious enough to give me a sabbatical, but they did write up a policy. They said, "When you come back, you need to give a report of what you've done." If you don't mind, I can just give you my report.

Here it is in a nutshell. I'm going to start with the fun stuff first. We're going to start fun and work our way down to less fun. You see there four pictures. Bottom right was what we did for part of June. We went to SeaWorld of San Antonio. You see some suspicious characters there; you might see our youth pastor in the background there, Ashlyn Morris. So that was fun.

Then if you look upper left, I'm not sure if you guys can even see that, that was a trip we took to Southern California in the month of July. My mother, who's 90, is taking care of my brother right now, who has a diabetic ulcer in his foot. We tried our best to help in that situation.

Then if you look at the catty-corner pictures, right top and bottom left, that's how we escaped Houston heat in August. We went to Alaska. We went on an Alaskan cruise. Bottom left, you see the helicopter. We did a helicopter ride to a glacier. I thought, "If the Rapture happens today, I can get a head start on it." That was an interesting experience.

As the speakers were presenting throughout the summer months, I was there in my living room listening to all of them. This is the verse that I thought of. It says in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 5 through 8, "Who then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, and Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor."

To me, it was just exciting to see all of these different speakers come through here. They all have different styles, different communication styles, different teaching styles. They all have different burdens and emphases, but it all comes from the same God.

Moving on into the work side of it, I was able to continue a lot of the ministries that I've been doing. We continued our Watchman’s Call broadcast, which you guys are paying for, by the way. It airs on KKHT 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. every Tuesday. It's just a half-hour concentrated Bible teaching. We were able to continue our Pastor’s Point of View podcast and a lot of the interviews and things I did, I was able to continue.

We were able to continue some of our conference times. I had a chance to do an interview or be interviewed by James Kaddis in the month of July when we were in California. I continued with participating in the Abraham to Armageddon conference in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in early August. Then I made a trip to Bayside Community Church in mid-August. It was a time of rest, but it was a time of workful rest, if that sounds right.

Something I'm really excited about: we were able to put the finishing touches on a commentary on the book of Daniel that's soon to be released. Fabi Morris has been my project manager. Judith Penn, who you may know from Holland, comes to our conferences. She said, "I took your Daniel series, and I want it to be in Dutch." I said, "Well, that's great. Can you translate it into English so we could have it, too?" We're on the precipice of releasing this commentary on the book of Daniel soon to come out. We're excited about that.

One other thing is I had surgery. I have a receding gumline issue, so I've had to learn new vocabulary like periodontist. They said, "You need to go to a periodontist." I'm like, "What is that?" Boy, those people do good work. So that is on the up and up. That is the sabbatical in a nutshell. Let's give the Lord a hand on all that stuff.

A lot of you might be saying that's just TMI, too much information. With that being said, let's turn in our Bibles today to the book of Exodus chapter 12. We're going to try to make our way through verses 21 through 28. Do you guys remember we were studying Exodus back in May? What is God doing in the book of Exodus? He's redeeming a nation. He's taking a nation, his nation, out of the 400 years of Egyptian bondage that it was in and bringing them into freedom.

He's largely doing this through ten plagues. We've covered every single one of these plagues thus far in this series other than number 10. 10 is coming. It will be the death of the firstborn all over the land of Egypt, brought in by the hand of God. Once this happens, Pharaoh, who has been very reluctant, unwilling, and recalcitrant to let the children of Israel go, will finally say, "Okay, enough is enough." It's through the 10th plague that Pharaoh's back, so to speak, his will, will be broken and Israel will be finally emancipated.

What has happened is God, in Exodus 12, before this 10th plague comes, has given Moses instructions. He's told Moses that this event, plague number 10, is going to be so monumental for Israel that I'm, in advance, telling you how you're going to celebrate it throughout the generations. That's in verses 1 through 20. There are going to come out of this two feast days for Israel, the first two feast days on the calendar that will get more development later on in the book of Exodus and Leviticus. There's going to be something that comes out of it called Passover, which Israel will celebrate in perpetuity from this point on, and then there's a related feast day called Unleavened Bread. The instructions for those are given in verses 1 through 20 as God is instructing Moses.

Then Moses turns around in verses 21 through 28 in the passage that we're looking at this morning, and now he's going to take God's instructions and give them to the nation of Israel. He is instructing Israel concerning what they are to do concerning plague number 10 and the death of the firstborn and how they can be exempted from that plague. Then he's also instructing them on how to celebrate it once it is accomplished from this time onward. It's not so much God instructing Moses anymore; it's now Moses instructing the nation of Israel.

Here is an outline that we can use as we look this morning at Moses' instructions to Israel concerning the death of the firstborn that's coming and plague number 10. First on our list here is there's going to be the death of a lamb. We pick it up here in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 21. It says, "Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them..." Notice here: elders, leadership, authority. This is how God works. It's how God worked in Old Testament Israel; it's how God works today. He works through his established leadership structure, his established leadership hierarchy. It says, "Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, 'Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families and slay the Passover lamb.'"

Instructions for the Passover lamb have already been given in verse 5. It's to be a genetically pure lamb, we might call it. Down in verse 46, which we haven't gotten to yet, none of its bones are to be broken as it is slain. You might say to yourself, "Oh my goodness, this is so mean, this is so cruel. What did the poor lamb do wrong?" Answer: nothing. That's the point. God is demonstrating how he will forgive sin. God's nature is such that he just can't wink and pretend like sin doesn't exist. He is a holy God; he must judge sin. But at the same time, he's a God of love that loves us too much to see us fall into his condemnation.

How is the holiness of God and the love of God reconciled? Answer: an innocent scapegoat, an innocent lamb. "I'm going to pour out my wrath for your sin on an innocent party." That's how a holy God can unconditionally forgive sin and still not violate his character of holiness. This is what happened in Eden, all the way back in Genesis chapter 3, verse 21. Adam and Eve, our forebears, fell into sin, and they were trying to clothe themselves to fix the problem. God says, "That's not how you're going to fix the problem. Here's how it's going to happen." Genesis 3 verse 21, it says, "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and he clothed them." You will not clothe yourself; I will clothe you. You will not fix the problem; I will fix it for you.

Where did these garments of skin come from? Did they just drop out of the sky? No, obviously, what happened is God took an innocent animal right there on the spot and he killed it. He took the skins of that innocent animal and he clothed and he covered Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve, I believe, when they saw this happen, were just as shocked as anybody because they did not understand what death was. There was no death in Eden. As far as I can tell, there was no animal death in Eden. Mankind at that point, and you'll see this around Genesis 1:28, was herbivorous; they were not carnivorous yet. Humanity does not become carnivorous or meat eaters until the covenant with Noah, Genesis chapter 9, verse 3. You're dealing with people that had no concept of what death was. They didn't even know what it was. Yet sin happened and, boom, God kills an innocent sacrifice and uses those skins to clothe Adam and Eve. If that didn't get Adam and Eve's attention, I don't know what would because now they saw for the first time this reality of death.

The first thing you're to do to exempt yourself from plague number 10 is you're to kill the innocent Passover lamb that must have the specificity that I have called for. It must be genetically pure, and you must not break any of its bones in the process. Then what do you do with the blood? You apply it to your doorposts. That's explained in verse 22. He says, "You shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the doorposts, and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning." Apply the blood to the doorposts and stay inside. Those were basically the instructions that God provided.

Ed Hindson, in his commentary on the book of Exodus, says something absolutely fascinating describing these verses. He says, "The blood of the sacrificed lamb was to be stained on the two side posts and upper doorpost of the home in which the lamb would be eaten that evening. At either corner where the side posts met the lintel, the bloody stain would have formed a cross." Wow. This is all a type of the cross of Jesus Christ that we just celebrated and commemorated at the Lord's Supper earlier. Right down to perfection of the Passover lamb, Jesus was a sinless sacrifice. Right down to none of his bones are to be broken, we know that Christ's legs were not broken by the Roman soldiers as the other thieves had their legs broken because Christ was already dead. What you see over and over again in Scripture is this pointing to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that when Jesus instructed the disciples about these matters on the Emmaus Road after he had resurrected from the dead—he's walking with them on the Emmaus Road and their hearts were burning within them because he was opening their minds to the Scriptures—in this case, the only Scriptures they had at that point, Hebrew Bible, sometimes called Tanakh, we sometimes call it the Old Testament—but he's opening their minds and their eyes to these Scriptures, their hearts are burning within them as they're walking on the Emmaus Road. There's no doubt in my mind that this would be one of the things that he would talk about.

Luke talks about this Emmaus Road walk in the New Testament. It says, "Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures." What scriptures? The only scriptures they had, like things we're reading about here in Exodus. Then down in verse 44, it says, "Now he said to them, 'These are my words which I have spoken to you that while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me...'" And then he starts to give the three major divisions of Hebrew Bible: "...the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled."

What is the Old Testament? The Old Testament is the preparation for Jesus Christ, things like what we're reading about here concerning the Passover lamb. Well, what then is the New Testament? The Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are the manifestation of Jesus Christ. The book of Acts is the propagation of Jesus Christ, how the message went out. The Epistles or the letters are the explanation of Jesus Christ, and the book of Revelation is the consummation of Jesus Christ. All sections of Scripture are pointing towards Jesus, whether it's the preparation, the manifestation, the propagation, the explanation, or the consummation. He's revealing here the purpose of Hebrew Bible, which is to point towards him. We certainly see this, do we not, in this Passover lamb analogy.

Notice verse 23, continuing on with our outline here: the Passover itself is described. Look at verse 23 of Exodus 12. It says, "For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over—that's why we call this Passover—the Lord is passing over in judgment when he sees the blood applied to the doorposts." In other words, this judgment's coming. I'm taking out the firstborn all over Egypt, but when I see the blood applied to the doorposts, my judgment won't hit your house. Just make sure you're inside and you've applied the blood properly. When my judgment comes—and he doesn't give an option here, maybe it's going to come, maybe it's not—it's inevitable. It's coming. But when I see the blood on your doorposts, my judgment will pass right over your house and, yes, there is going to be great sorrow and mayhem in Egypt, but you are going to be exempted from it. You're going to be spared from it.

"For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and also on the doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow..." Watch this very carefully, "...the Destroyer to come into your house to smite you." Boy, there's a lot to unpack here, isn't there? Can you see Jesus in all of this? This is the preparation for Jesus. John the Baptist saw Jesus coming and in John chapter 1, verse 29, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." John the Baptist, the greatest prophet of the Old Testament age, knew that all of these things that are types of Jesus would be ultimately fulfilled in him. They're shadows of the greater reality to come. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7 says, "For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed." All of this is a type, it's a prefigurement of Christ, our ultimate Passover Lamb. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 19 says, "But with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Jesus Christ."

The truth of the matter is judgment is coming. Destruction is coming. And those that have the blood of Jesus Christ applied to them, sprinkled with his blood, as 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 2 tells us, will be spared from that judgment. That's about as simple a message as you can find in this world. Judgment is coming. It's going to be imposed. It's inevitable. But there's a way out. The way out is the blood is metaphorically applied to you the moment you trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior, who was our ultimate Passover Lamb. 1 Peter 1, verse 2 says, "According to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood." Has that happened to you? That's the most important issue in your life. May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.

Now, what's this business here about the Destroyer? Who is this Destroyer? I was taught very early on as a Christian that the Destroyer is the angel of death. In fact, a lot of the study Bibles that you use and the outlines and the notes, it will say this Destroyer is the angel of death. But you know what, folks, there is no angel of death here. Certainly God can use angels to carry out his judgment; he certainly does that in the book of Revelation. He certainly did that with Sodom and Gomorrah. But not here. There's no angel mentioned here. Meaning God himself is going to impose this judgment.

Dr. Ronald Allen, one of my professors that I had the privilege of studying under at Dallas Seminary, is so good on this issue. He writes, "The term 'the Destroyer' in Exodus 12:23, a Hebrew participle from shahath, seems to suggest that the agent of destruction is someone other than the Lord." I mean, you read this the first time and the Destroyer can't be God. The Destroyer can't be the Lord. The Destroyer can't be Jesus. But then he says in parentheses, "But compare Exodus 12:12 and Exodus 12:13." Drop back for a minute to verse 12 and tell me, is there an angel of death there? He's not there. Exodus 12:12 says, "For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night and I will strike down..." See the "I" there? God is speaking. "I will strike down the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt I..." No angel of death. "...will execute judgments. I am the Lord." Look at verse 13. "The blood shall be a sign for you on the house where you live when I see the blood, I will pass over, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt."

God himself is imposing this judgment. You know why? Because God is upset. Egypt was playing games with God's firstborn son. Exodus 4:22, we saw it earlier in our series if you can remember back that far. The nation of Israel is called God's firstborn son. Remember what God said to Abraham: "Whoever curses you, I'll curse. Whoever blesses you, I will bless." Those are very literal promises. You mess around with my firstborn son, Egypt, I'm coming after yours. And Pharaoh, I'm starting with your firstborn son. And when this happens, there's not going to be an angel that's going to get this task delegated to them; I'm going to do it personally.

So if that's true, then who in the world is this Destroyer? Dr. Allen goes on and he says, "But compare Exodus 12:12 and 13. Who then is the Destroyer? It seems that only with New Testament revelation may this conundrum be solved. The Destroyer, a term which should be spelled," he says, "with capital letters, appears to be none other than a reference to the pre-incarnate Jesus." This is Jesus before the manger, as the Angel of the Lord.

Now, there are times in the Bible where an angel appears, and I know it's not a run-of-the-mill angel. It's not an ordinary angel because in Joshua 5, around verses 13 through 16, the angel is worshipped, and we know that a true angel will never receive worship. John was so enthralled with the angel that gave him what we now call the book of Revelation that two times he tries to worship the angel, once in chapter 19, a second time in chapter 22, and the angel says, "Hey buddy, knock it off. I'm just a fellow servant." But you have a situation in Joshua 5 where people are worshipping the angel and the angel receives it. That shows me that you're not dealing with an ordinary angel there; you're dealing with the Angel of the Lord, Jesus before the manger, a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ, sometimes called a theophany, sometimes called a christophany. And that's exactly what's happening here. That's who the Destroyer is.

The Destroyer is Jesus. It says, "The Destroyer, the term should be spelled with capital letters, appears to be another reference to the pre-incarnate Jesus. This also, we believe, to be the better solution to the meaning of the term the Angel of Yahweh." Exodus 22:30. I mean, how many sermons have you heard recently in modern-day church life about Jesus the Destroyer? I mean, we just don't think like that. We think about Jesus as had no... the Son of Man had no place to lay his head. Sweet Jesus there, manger scene, Jesus reaching out to the prostitutes and the tax gatherers and showing grace to the woman at the well. And is all that Jesus? Of course it is. But there's another side of Jesus that most of us are extremely uncomfortable with. He is the Destroyer.

Ron Allen says, "Certainly many will cringe at the notion of Jesus being described with this dark title, 'The Destroyer.'" I mean, put that on your Christmas cards this year and see how far that gets you. "But they cringe as well at the picture of the Savior in Revelation 19." Have you read Revelation 19 lately? Jesus is the Destroyer there. So why can't he be the Destroyer here? Revelation 19, around verse 15, says, "From his mouth..." This is sweet little Jesus that we read about in the Gospels. "From his mouth comes a sharp sword so that with it he may strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty." Wow.

I shouldn't be surprised if he's the Destroyer because the book of Revelation, New Testament, calls him the Destroyer. Ron Allen continues, "Perhaps the same image is intended in the account of the Angel of the Lord with a drawn sword in his hand standing over the infamous Balaam. Numbers 22:31. Watch this very carefully. Scriptural categories should not be established by cringe quotients." Exclamation point. Amen and amen. I don't develop my doctrine of Christ by what gives me the warm fuzzies of the day. I develop my doctrine of Christ based on the totality of God's revelation. Is Jesus a man of grace? Of course he is. Is he a man of justice and judgment? Of course he is. And we better get aware of both components of this or we're going to walk away with a very lopsided Jesus, lopsided view of the Jesus that we worship. Many times what we're doing with Jesus is we're creating a golden calf. We love the parts of Jesus that make us comfortable, but the parts that bring justice, destruction, judgment—ah, let's push those out of our minds. And we have a very warped, perverted explanation and understanding of who Jesus is. We need to worship him for as he is, not based on how I would like him to be or want him to be or prefer him to be.

Ron Allen concludes, "Scriptural categories should not be established by cringe quotients. There are many and varied portraits of the Savior-King in Scripture. Here is a neglected one: the Destroyer." We're putting our doctrine of Christ together. God of love, check. God of mercy, check. Our provider, check. How about this one: the Destroyer? That's part of it, too. And fortunately, as this destruction is coming, there's a way out. The one who's coming to destroy shed his blood so that we could be spared from the destruction. That's the big picture. And that's what's being revealed here in verse 23.

So what is going to happen is there's going to be dead people all over Egypt. If you apply the blood to the doorposts, then your firstborn will be saved. And this is going to be such a monumental event pointing to the ultimate fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ that I want you, once this happens, to set up a ritual. I want you, just like we studied at communion a little earlier, I want you to set up a memorial. I want you to set up a ritual because when this happens, God says to Moses, ultimately to Israel, "I don't want anybody to ever forget this. And I want this truth to be handed down and passed down through the generations. And the way this is going to happen is I'm going to set up a ritual called Passover." And you see that establishment of the ritual described there in verses 24 through 27.

Three things. Number one: you're to practice it forever. Verse 24. Number two: you are to practice it in the land. What land? The land you're going to. "Well, Lord, we're not in the land yet." Oh, just give it a little time; you'll get there. Once you get inside the land, I want you to practice this ritual. And number three: he says, "I don't want this taught from the priest," although certainly priests talk about this. "I don't want this taught in synagogue or temple," although certainly temple yet to be built, synagogues yet to come, will deal with this issue. Watch this very carefully: "I want it taught in the family. I want this to go from parent to child."

So notice first of all the first mandate: "I want you to practice this forever." Look at verse 24. "You shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and your children forever." Passover is a big deal. "I'm passing over the homes that have applied the blood on the doorposts, which look exactly like a cross, by the way. The Destroyer's going to come, but when the Destroyer sees the blood applied to the doorposts, he will pass over those homes and judgment would not be imposed on them. And I'm going to create a ritual. It's going to be the first feast day, holiday, whatever you want to call it, on the Jewish calendar, and I want you to do this not for 24 hours, not for 48 hours, not for a week, not for a month, not for a year, not for a decade, but I want you to do it forever."

Now, I don't know how you guys read this, but that is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy because here we are 3,500 years later and it's still being practiced in Judaism. That's an amazing statement that he makes here. He's making a statement that once this is practiced, it will never lose its momentum. I mean, it's still practiced today. Prophecy.

Jesus said this in the upper room, John 13 verse 19, "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am he." John 14:29, "Now I have told you before it happens so that when it happens, you may believe that I am he." You want evidence that Jesus is real and this Christianity and the Bible that we proclaim and teach regularly is real? I mean, how can I trust a book like this? One of the reasons you can trust it is it predicts things before it happens. There is no other holy book that man has come up with that does the same thing. It is fulfilled with prophetic content. It is fulfilled with predictions given before they happen, which can be documented that they did happen. One of them you're reading right here: Passover's going to be practiced forever. That's happening. 3,500 years later, it's happening. Another one on the Emmaus Road: Passover pointing to Jesus Christ. That's happened as well. That's why when Jesus is on the Emmaus Road opening their minds to the scriptures and their hearts are burning within them and he's showing them that Hebrew Bible points to him, I'm thinking, "Lord, I need a download of that sermon." I mean, nothing frustrates me more than to read about this sermon that Jesus gave these guys on the Emmaus Road, but I don't have the details of it. I mean, is there an audio recording? Is there a video? Is there a download? Can I get a flash drive? Can I get a CD? I've got to hear it. I probably would crawl over broken glass to hear that sermon.

I mean, how did he do that? From what I've been told, the Emmaus Road walk is not terribly long. I've been told you can do it within an hour. How did Jesus fit all of Hebrew Bible into 45 minutes to an hour as they're walking, communicating to them over and over again, scripture after scripture after scripture, how it was fulfilled in him? I mean, how did he teach that? How did he do that? When I die and get to heaven and see Jesus, that's, to be honest with you, that's the first question I'm going to ask. I'm going to say, "Lord, just for little old me, can you do a redo?" I mean, I would love to hear that. "Hey, Peter, John, can I ask you a question? As you were walking with the Lord on the Emmaus Road and he was opening the scriptures to you and your hearts were burning within you, how did he do that sermon? I mean, did he use PowerPoint? Did he have an outline?" I've just got so many questions.

And yet this is what happened. He's explaining to them how Hebrew Bible points towards him, and he's, I'm thinking, making different stops along Hebrew Bible. There's no doubt in my mind he's going to talk about the blood on the doorpost presented like a cross. So I want this practiced forever. And when you practice it, I want you to practice it once you get into the land because you're going to get in there, Israel. You see that in verse 25. "When you enter the land," not if, "which the Lord will give you as he promised you, you shall observe this rite." Do it forever and start when you get into the land. "But Lord, we're in Egypt now, we're not in the land." Well, you're going to get in the land. It's just a matter of time.

What land? The land that God promised to the nation of Israel given through the Abrahamic Covenant. That land. Genesis 15:18-21. "On that day..." now this would be six centuries before this event that we're reading about transpired, "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, 'To your descendants I have given this land...'" "Well, can you give me some dimensions for the land, Lord?" And the Lord says, "I'm glad you asked. It's going to go from the River of Egypt as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, the Kenite, the Kenizzite, the Kadmonite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Rephaim, the Amorite, and the Canaanites, the Girgashite, and the Jebusite." The land that the Canaanites are in, you get. Because I, through Joshua, am going to evict them from the land.

I mean, it's the land that you read about in the news all of the time that everybody's fighting about. That land. In fact, what Israel has today is but a small sliver of everything that's promised to them from modern-day Egypt to modern-day Iraq. That land. It's already been given to them. And you're going to get in it. It's already been given to them. And you're going to get in it. Not if, but when. And once you're in, I want you to celebrate this ritual of Passover forever because I don't want anyone to ever forget how I took you out of Egyptian bondage and broke Pharaoh's will through plague number 10, and I don't want you to ever forget this preparation that's coming because there's going to be someone that's going to show up later on in history named Jesus Christ and he will fulfill all of this imagery to the letter. And if you're a little slow and you can't get it all, don't worry about it because I'm going to walk with you on the Emmaus Road and explain the whole thing to you.

Folks, we've got the greatest book in the world. I don't know of any other book that does things and says things like this one does. Now, you might be saying to yourself, "Land, shmand. I don't care about land. I'm a New Testament Christian." You ever heard people say stuff like that? "Don't talk to me about land; talk to me about the body of Christ." Well, let me tell you something about the land: you better care about it because God cares about it. And what God cares about, you should care about. Amen?

What does Leviticus 25:23 say about this land? "The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is mine, for you are aliens and sojourners with me." You think that land belongs to the nation of Israel? No it doesn't; it belongs to God. God bequeathed his land to them in the Abrahamic Covenant. And you know, there's a thing about God: when he says it's his land, he keeps watching it. He keeps looking out for it. That's in Deuteronomy chapter 11, verse 12. "A land for which the Lord your God cares." Do you care about the things that God cares about? We should. He cares about the land. "A land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it from the beginning even to the end of the year."

"Land, shmand. I'm a New Testament Christian. I don't want to talk about land." Well, we should talk about land because God cares about the land, and every day of the year he's watching it because it's in that land he will fulfill his promises to the nation of Israel ultimately, I believe, in the Millennial Kingdom. And I look at the Jews in the land today, trickling in, and I just say, "Praise the Lord." Now, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, they're all upset about it. Not me; I love it. And the reason I love it is because it shows me that God keeps his word. We're seeing the initial fulfillment of it, we're seeing the firstfruits of it, and if God is not going to forget his promises to the Jew, that means he's not going to forget his promises to you because he's a covenant-keeping, promise-keeping God.

Why would you be angry about the Jews in the land? It's satanic. It's demonic. It's Satan trying to get our attention away from our promise-keeping, covenant-keeping God. In fact, if you don't understand the land of Israel, I don't really know how you can understand the Bible because the Bible is all about the land of Israel. What did God say to Abram? "You're going to be out of this land, Genesis 15, Canaan, you're going to go into Egyptian bondage, you're going to come out of that Egyptian bondage 400 years later, and I'm going to bring you right back into this land that I'm speaking to you in." There's the prediction, and you know what? You've got to wait for the book of Joshua for that to be fulfilled.

And then the nation of Israel is in the land for 800 years, and they got very, very disobedient. So God says, "I'm going to kick you out of the land. You're going to go to the east in a place called Babylon, modern-day Iraq, for 70 years, and at the right time you're going to come right back into this land." That's predicted in Jeremiah 25 and Jeremiah 29, and we have to read the book of Ezra and Nehemiah to see that promise fulfilled. And then God says, "Watch this one: you're going to be kicked out of the land again and you're going to move into worldwide dispersion. You won't just be in Egypt anymore; you won't just be in Babylon anymore. You'll be in what's called the Diaspora. And according to Ezekiel 36 verses 24 through 28, God says, "I'm going to take you out of the Diaspora at the right time, recycle you from the nations in which you have been pushed into because of what the Romans did to Israel 40 years after the time of Christ under a general named Titus, Titus of Rome. Pushed them into worldwide dispersion and at the right time I'm going to recycle you back into the land."

And we look at the land of Israel today, and that's exactly what God is doing. He's been doing that since 1948. Now, what we see there is not the final product. There's coming more in the Millennial Kingdom. But when you look at this chart, I have no tolerance or patience for so-called Christians that say, "I don't really care about the land. I'm a New Testament Christian." You don't care about the land? Then you don't know the Bible. The Bible is all about the land of Israel. So you're going to go into the land under Joshua and I want you to celebrate Passover forever, is what is being said here.

And when you teach this, I want it taught in the home. Verses 26 and 27, because your kids are going to ask you a question. The children are mentioned in verse 24, you see the word "children." But look at the question that God says the children are going to ask. "When," not if, "When your children say to you, 'What does this ritual mean to you?' Hey, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma, we're doing this Passover thing, celebrating it. Why do we do it?" And then God says, "Here's your teaching moment. Here's your opportunity to explain what this means to a generation that never saw it happen."

And that's how the truth of God's Word is going to be handed from one generation to the next. This is why God is into these monuments, memorials. Joshua 4 verse 21 concerning the 12 stones that the Israelis were to take out of the Jordan River and they were to assemble a monument. Why would they be told to take stones out of the Jordan River once the Jordan River dries up? We have an answer. It's in Joshua 4 verse 21. "He said to the sons of Israel, 'When your children ask their fathers in time to come saying, "What are these stones?" then you shall inform your children.'" Once they ask, "What are these stones doing stacked up here? Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa," now's your teaching opportunity. Tell them what God did at the Jordan. And don't stop there. Back up a generation and tell them what he did at the Red Sea. And this is how truth is to be transmitted from one generation to the next.

So when the children ask the question, here's the answer that they're supposed to give. Verse 27. "You shall say, 'It is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians but spared our homes.'" I mean, here's your chance to explain the whole thing to them. "Yeah, the Destroyer came, and the Destroyer came to take out all of the firstborn all out of Egypt, but when the Destroyer saw the blood of the Passover lamb applied to the doorpost, his judgment passed over our home." And that's what this ritual means.

This is God's intention for spiritual truth being transmitted through the generations. This is the great Hebrew Shema, which means listen. "Hear, Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. These words which I am commanding you today shall be upon your heart. You shall diligently teach them to your sons. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up." That's parental. That's family. There's no talk here about outsourcing this to a professor or a pastor or a youth pastor or a book or a theologian. Thank God for all those things, by the way, but they're not God's primary mechanism for transferring truth through the generations. It's supposed to go from mom and dad to children, and that's what these memorials are designed to inculcate. They're going to get your children to ask questions and now's your teaching moment.

Folks, I'll just be honest with you. If you're not teaching the things of God to your family, to your children, to your grandchildren, let me just ask you a question. Where else are they going to hear these truths from? I mean, maybe they're going to be lucky enough to stumble into a Bible-orthodox church like this one and hear these truths, but have you looked at the state of the church lately? I mean, the churches out there aren't teaching anything other than kind of psychological theory and things like that. The truth of the matter is if your children and your grandchildren are not hearing these things from you, particularly mom and dad as the leaders of the home, they may not hear these things at all. I mean, God knows they're not going to get it from TikTok and all these other places. And we wonder why we're losing Christianity in our world. We're ignoring what God told us to do: memorials, mementos, questions, answers coming from parents.

And then when they hear this, what does Israel do? They respond. Two responses. By the way, I know I'm running out of time, believe it or not, but this is a New Testament truth also. "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord." No youth pastor mentioned there. A youth pastor—and we thank God for youth pastors—the best they can do is reinforce what's happening at home. If it's not happening at home, you're living outside of the design of God. Notice we're not to provoke our children to wrath; boy, that's easy to do. Put so many legalistic restrictions on them they can't even see straight. Tell them that they're worthless and will never amount to anything. I can't tell you how many people I know live in family environments like that. That's not the calling of God. We're not to provoke our children to wrath, but we're to nurture and instruct them in the things of God. Proverbs 22 verse 6, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he's old he will not depart from it."

So what does Israel do? They respond by doing what? They're worshipping. Look at verse 27, second part of the verse. "And the people bowed low and worshipped." What is worship? Worship is a response to truth. That's the best definition of worship I've ever heard; I got it from my professor, J. Dwight Pentecost. Worship is not about the liver-quiver of the day and the good feeling we might receive. It's not whether the band is playing my favorite tune. It is a response to truth. These people heard truth and they wanted to worship God.

Jesus in John 4 verse 23 and 24 says, "An hour is coming and now is when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth." See how worship is connected to truth? "For such people the Father seeks to be his worshippers. God is spirit; those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth." And you see how physical this is? I mean, these people are actually bowing down. This is embarrassing. You know where I talk to God? I talk to God with my iPad and on the comfort of my couch with my channel-surfing mechanism nearby. I mean, I have become, I'm embarrassed to say, so cozy with God, so comfortable with God. "God's rad and he's my dad" kind of mentality that I really can't remember the last time I changed my bodily physical posture, either through kneeling or bowing down in worship to God. We've lost a lot of what the concept of worship even means.

So they worshipped the Lord and then the last thing they did is probably the most important: they obeyed the Lord. You see that in verse 28, which we'll conclude with here. "Then the sons of Israel went and did so just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did." There's no debate here; they just did what they were told. God spoke, they worshipped, and they responded in obedience. You know, the blessings of the Christian life, they don't come from reading the Bible; they come from obeying the Bible. Jesus said in John 13 verse 17, "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." James 1 verse 22, "But prove yourselves to be doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves."

Jesus, in his first miracle, water to wine, his mother said this when this crisis occurred: "Whatever he says to you to do, do it." Folks, let's just be honest here. If we're here today just taking in Bible and truth and it's not changing the way we worship and it's not changing the way we obey, then quite frankly, what good is it? I mean, the goal of the Christian life is not just gathering information; it's changing our whole perspective on worship and obedience. What is God pleased with? With the Christian that reads and hears and studies—that's part of it—but if you want the blessings of God, it's "do it." And every person here within the sound of my voice, me included, knows something in our lives that we're not doing that we ought to be doing. And if you have some question marks on that, just ask God; he'll show it to you like lickety-split. May the Lord help us to understand the meaning of worship and obedience as we study the ritual of Passover, which ultimately points towards Jesus.

Shall we pray? Father, we're grateful for your word, grateful for your truth, grateful for the fact that the blood has been applied to us. And when you come as the Destroyer, your wrath will pass right over us. If anybody here is here today, Lord, and they're unclear whether the blood has been applied to them positionally, I ask that for them today would be the day of salvation, that they would understand the simplicity of the gospel. Such simple instructions: apply the blood. How do we apply the blood? We trust in what Jesus did for us 2,000 years ago where he shed his blood in our place. Help many, many people within the sound of my voice to be trusting in that provision because the Destroyer is coming. Judgment is coming, and yet in your grace, you've given us a way out. We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name, and God's people said, amen.