[0:00] As we continue in our progress through this section of Exodus, chapters 11 to 20, we pick up at verse 21, where, as we've established in the previous weeks in chapter 1, verse 21, this verse 21 represents the now putting into practice of the instructions given by God to Moses in the first part of the chapter, verses 1 to 20.
[0:25] But we said that those instructions themselves must, in terms of their place in the narrative, must be a flashback, as it were, to a time that needs must be placed between verses 20 and 21 of chapter 10.
[0:41] So in other words, before the plague of darkness kicks in, after the locusts have been taken away, and with a couple of days to go before the plague of darkness kicks in, because it's all got to tie in with chapter 12, verses 3 and 6.
[0:56] So four days later.
[1:13] Plague of darkness is three days. So you've got to have the day when the darkness lifts, and then the day itself, and then the night comes, and then at midnight, the angel of death comes and kills the firstborn.
[1:23] So it's quite a tight schedule. But at the same time, Moses would have to be giving these instructions a day or so before the time comes for the taking of the lamb.
[1:35] Because there's no point straight to them all, because Egypt's a big place, saying, right, okay, on the tenth day of the month, go and get your lamb. Say, oh, tenth, well, that's today. You know, what chance have we got? We'll never make it all in time.
[1:46] So they would need a few days, or a day or two at least, of preparation, in order to find themselves, each one a lamb, or a pit of the goats, or whatever. It would take a couple of days.
[1:57] So we've probably got two or three days between the locusts being taken away and the plague of darkness beginning, and it's there, at that point, that God is giving these instructions to Moses, and he is then passing them on to the children of Israel, the elders of Israel, as we find here now at verse 21.
[2:16] Because they have to find their lamb, they have to keep it all during the three days of the plague of darkness, and on the fourteenth day, the evening of the fourth day, they kill it. So then you've got the Passover, and then you've got the angel of death coming that night, and so on.
[2:32] Now, God's intention with the instituting of the Passover is not merely one of deliverance there and then, in that immediate context. Yes, he wants to get the children of Israel out of Egypt.
[2:45] That's part of his plan. Yes, but the Passover and the way of his instituting is not just, this is what I'm going to do, this is how we're going to do it, and it's just for the here and now.
[2:55] Well, and then that's it done and done. No, he intends that whatever is achieved in the immediate context, the establishing of this institution is meant to be the establishing of an event to be commemorated and observed and remembered as being of the very essence of what it means to be an Israelite.
[3:19] But for all the years afterwards, when the nation of Israel would self-identify and reaffirm who they are and where they come from, what do they do with the Passover?
[3:30] They do it with the remembrance, the reaffirmation of that night in which the Lord took them out of Egypt, by the miraculous intervention of the Lord Jehovah, on behalf of his nation of slaves that were going to be runaway slaves from the world's greatest superpower of the day.
[3:52] He delivered them by plague after plague after plague after plague, and then direct intervention. They couldn't do it. They couldn't do it themselves. This is the work of the Lord, and it is intended to be an event, commemorated, observed, and remembered as being of the essence of what it means to belong to the children of Israel.
[4:15] In much the same way, for example, a fellowship or whatever, a Christian perhaps gives their testimony. And we've all heard people give their testimony, and what they are doing is they are testifying to the work of deliverance brought by the Lord in their lives at a particular time.
[4:35] Anyone who gives a testimony is able to say, well, it might be they don't remember the particular day or hour or circumstances when their life changed, but there came a point at which they knew that it had.
[4:47] It is the work of grace done by the Lord at a particular time in their lives, or over a particular period in their lives. But the ongoing effect of that deliverance, that conversion, that work of salvation, is not confined to the day or the hour in which it took place.
[5:09] But rather, the Christian who is thus testifying, giving of their testimony, lives the rest, yet the whole, of their subsequent life in the light of that once and for all event.
[5:25] And their subsequent life story, their very identity as a person, as a human being, is defined by that act of conversion.
[5:36] Unless, of course, they fall away. And then their life is defined by their backsliding, by their falling away. Judas, tragically, is defined by the fact that having been an apostle, he betrayed the Lord.
[5:48] So it is possible to fall from the very closest position to the Lord's. But provided we continue with the Lord, our life is defined by that act of conversion, that work of the Lord's grace.
[6:01] So that we are primarily, our identity is primarily, not necessarily Scottish, English, Irish, French. Not even white skin, dark skin, black skin, whatever it may be.
[6:13] Not even male or female. This is what it all means. In Galatians chapter 3, verse 28, there's neither Jew nor Greek, born nor free, male nor female. He's not saying these things have disappeared.
[6:25] He's not saying they don't matter. He's saying these things are not your primary identification. He says that these things then take second place to the fact that you are in Christ or not.
[6:37] You are primarily identified. You identify yourself as a Christian, first and foremost. So that you have more in common and more of a bond with Christians on the opposite side of the world.
[6:52] Of different coloured skins and a culture you can't understand. And a language you can't speak. And people that you may never meet until eternity. You have more in common with them than you do perhaps with people you who are your extended family or relatives.
[7:07] Or that you've grown up with in your own culture, your own environment, your own village. But they are not saved. And they are not Christians. So you have less in common to identify with them than you do with your fellow Christians on the other side of the world.
[7:22] Because your primary identity is in Christ. And that is the thing that defines the Christian. It is Christ. Just as what defines the Israelites is their deliverance here at the time of the Passover.
[7:37] We are defined by that work of Christ in our lives. And thus for the ongoing life of the Christian. As for the subsequent life of the nation of Israel.
[7:48] We see the vital importance of enactment. Of practice. Of commemoration and reaffirmation of a people's relationship to their God.
[8:02] The Israelites were not simply to do the Passover at once. Right? That's us out of Egypt. Now forget about it. We can go off into the desert. We can inherit the promised land. That's fine. No. They were to commemorate.
[8:13] They were to reaffirm. They were to remember year by year. It was to be a reminder of God's relationship to them. Now what happened when they let that slip?
[8:25] And when they forgot about that? They slid into all manner of idolatry. They became indistinguishable from the pagan Gentiles round about that. It is necessary to put our relationship with the Lord into practice.
[8:43] And that is what the Israelites are being commanded to do here. To practice this relationship. To put into obedient observance. That which God has commanded them to do.
[8:55] A people's relationship to their God must be lived out. This is one reason why people say, Oh yeah, of course I'm a Christian. We can go to church or anything like that. Who needs to do that? It's all because of what Christ is about.
[9:06] I don't need to go to church to be a Christian. I don't need to do this or do that. It would be the next thing. Well, that is true. At a theological, at a principled level.
[9:17] But in practice, if you're not working it, just like a piece of land you say, This is my farm. Isn't it a beautiful farm? Isn't it fantastic? Look at all my land. But if you're not working that land, it is going to revert into the hillside.
[9:33] It is just going to become overgrown and weeds and indistinguishable from the land beyond the dike, from the field inside it. Unless it is worked on. Unless it is participated in.
[9:46] And this is what we are required to do here. And this people's relationship to their God is rightly seen to be needful for every successive generation.
[10:00] We cannot simply say, Oh, my granny was very godly. So that's okay. I'll be alright. Because she was always praying every night. And I know she was praying for me too. So that's me alright. If there is a heaven, if there is a God, I'm saved.
[10:12] No, every successive generation needs, must be reacquainted with this relationship. Verse 25, It shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Lord shall give you according to us.
[10:26] He hath promised that ye shall keep this service and it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say as the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when ye smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses and the people bowed their heads and worshipped.
[10:48] The putting of this relationship into practice. That is what we have here in these opening verses. Now, in verse 28, of course, we have the reminder again, the children of Israel went away, did as the Lord commanded, most of them, so did they, prior to the plague of darkness.
[11:07] It has to be done. It's a flashback. It's looking back to what they had already done, because by the time the night comes down, and the Passover has to be killed, and the angel of death is moving through the land, it's too late to have done it then.
[11:20] So they must have already done this. It's a flashback. But verses 29 to 36, in some ways, as we read them, yes, they are, they are verses of mighty deliverance, but you can't help, but have a grief of heart, and sorrow for the desolation, of the Egyptians.
[11:41] What we have here in these verses, 29 came to pass, that at midnight, the Lord smote all the firstborn, in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, that sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive, that was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle.
[11:57] Now we said in previous weeks, that this particular visitation, this plague, is no respecter of age, and it doesn't specify gender. So it's not just firstborn sons, it would be firstborn daughters as well.
[12:12] It wouldn't just be children, but it would be those of any generation, who happen to be the firstborn in their family. Now you may have been from a family of 12 people, and maybe three of them have predeceased you, but if you're the eldest, when this plague gets, that's you.
[12:28] You're going to be the one that falls that night. Even if you are 75, 87, it doesn't matter. If you're the firstborn of your family, you will die that night, when this plague hits.
[12:38] It means, tells us, as we mentioned in previous weeks, that Pharaoh himself, must have been at the very least, a second son. Not a firstborn. He wouldn't be the eldest son of his father, who's inherited.
[12:50] Something must have happened, to his older brother, or maybe his sister was the older in the family. He didn't die, but his son did. The children of the captives in the dungeon, the children of the other slaves, Egyptian slaves, their servants out in the fields, everybody, everybody, and all the firstborn of cattle, even the animals, are affected.
[13:12] We can't begin to enter to the life-draining, energy, stamping grief, and desolation of the Egyptians.
[13:22] All possible resistance has been destroyed. All the life force and energy drained away from a people for whom, even mindful of their long mistreatment of the Hebrews, are, you know, you can't help but feel sorrow for their grief.
[13:42] And you could say, yes, there is proportionality in what is happening here. Go back to chapter 1, verse 22, where, where we read, Pharaoh charged, all his people say, every son that is born, that's born to the Hebrews, he shall cast him to the river, and the crocodiles eat it, and every daughter, he shall save a life.
[14:02] So they had enacted statutes of wholesale slaughter against the babies and the children of the Hebrews. And now it was coming back on them that there is proportionality.
[14:15] There is a measure of justice with the Lord. In fact, there is perfect justice with the Lord. The difficulty for us is not that we, not that we, we worry we'll get more of a punishment than we deserve.
[14:28] The fear for us should be if we get exactly the punishment we deserve. There is justice here. And there is proportionality. But friends, justice is a fearful thing if it be not tempered with mercy.
[14:45] There is justice in it. Indeed, there is the sanitary and solemn reality of where opposition to and rebellion against the living God must inevitably lead.
[14:57] You could say, well, these people have been led by Pharaoh. It wasn't their fault. You know, they simply followed where their leaders were. Yes, they followed their leaders. They followed their pagan leader in seeking to oppose the living God of the children of Israel.
[15:11] Oh, well, it wasn't their fault. Well, we all make our own choices and we all must answer ultimately for what we do. And the Lord sees the distinction between responsibility and the responsibility of Pharaoh and those further down the food chain in Egypt.
[15:26] Nevertheless, we reap that in a sense which we sow. And the Egyptians here are left in this state because of rebellion against and opposition to the living God which must inevitably lead in only one direction.
[15:47] It leads to death. We rebel against the Lord. We oppose ourselves to the Lord. It leads to death. To the indescribable desolation and heartbreak of despair.
[15:59] Isn't that what God promised Adam and Eve? He said, don't eat that fruit. And the day you eat it off you shall surely die. And of course the serpent then puts the doubt in their mind. Well, you surely die or you surely won't die.
[16:13] He didn't drop dead that moment when he ate him but death into ruin. Death is separation from God. And the bitter end fruit of that separation is death itself in all its moments spiritual, temporal and eternal.
[16:29] So this is where opposition to the Lord leads. It leads to death. It leads to the desolation. It leads to the heartbreak of despair. Life without the Lord is what Egypt is now experiencing here.
[16:43] And life without the Lord is worse than death. which of these Egyptians in their broken and devastated families would not now wish themselves dead?
[16:55] Wish themselves dead if only it would bring their child back to life. Wish themselves dead if only it would bring the agony to an end. Their pain is such, their desolation is such, they just wish they were dead and it would all stop.
[17:10] Now of course we read in the Revelation that when the Lord's judgments begin to fall upon an unrepentant world, men do not repent. They are hardened in their attitude against the Lord.
[17:22] They shake their fists at heaven. They gnaw their tongues with pain but they are still firm and hard in opposition to the Lord. We read in Revelation chapter 9 and verse 6 that in those days men shall seek death and shall not find it and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them.
[17:43] They would rather be dead. Life without the Lord is worse than death. The phrase a fate worse than death is something we appreciate of course in our culture now but the fearful reality of a fate worse than death is that of persisting in our life without God.
[18:05] That is where it leads. You can see the end of the road. You can see where it's going to go. You can see the final destination. It is there for us. A life without God is a fate worse than death.
[18:19] You will long for death and it will not afford you any risk. This is what is affecting Egypt in these verses here. There is no enmity left in them.
[18:31] Pharaoh himself as we see in verses 31 and 32 he simply says, get you forth from among my people. O ye and the children of Israel. This is the first time he's referred to them as the children of Israel.
[18:44] Go serve the Lord as you've said. Take your focks, your herds as you've said and be gone. And bless me also. pray for us too. He simply wants them gone.
[18:56] The cause of his misery and for the Egyptians themselves and the brokenness of their bereavement. We might summarise perhaps verse 33. He said, they were urgent upon the people and they might send them out of the land in haste for they said we be all dead men.
[19:10] We could summarise that in what they might feel themselves. Just two words. Just go. We don't care what you want. You want jewels, you want gold, you want stuff.
[19:22] Just take it. Just go. Just get out. We don't want you here anymore and the brokenness, the devastation, if they've even got the energy for anger, which I doubt.
[19:35] It's just go. If these riches were given and received or borrowed prior to or immediately after the plague of darkness, then yes, you could describe it as they received favour in the eyes of the Egyptians, yes.
[19:50] But if afterwards it's more likely to be total desolate indifference, what use is the gold and silver to them now? Their children are dead. What use is it to them now?
[20:01] Their lives are broken, they are devastated, who cares about the money in the closet? Just take it, just go. Take the gold and the silver, take the garments, take all the fine clothes, just go.
[20:15] they just want them out. It is, what use are these things to us now if our hearts are broken and devastated? I remember once, many years ago, a young man, an acquaintance, who had, I think, something bad had happened in his life, I think possibly he had proposed to a young lady who had turned him down or something, he came to see afterwards, and he had, you know, because he had been working a good few years, he made plenty of money and he had a powerful flash motorbike outside the house and as we were walking away, I went with him to the gate and he squeaked his remote control, you know, remote control ignition and the lights flashed and I looked at it and he said, stuff, so it is stuff.
[21:05] What's that when your heart is broken, when you're feeling desolate, you fill your life with all these things, yeah, motorbike or money or a good car or whatever and yet when your heart is broken and your life is empty and desolate, it's just junk, it's just stuff, what use is it to you, what use are the golden clothes, what use are the witches to the Egyptians, it's just stuff, just take it, just go, you can imagine or perhaps you can't imagine how they must have been and what they must have felt, there's no resistance left in them at all and you've got to feel for them, you've got to have a measure of empathy for how the land of Egypt would be desolate and a mixed multitude went up also with them, verse 38, now the mixed multitude is not always a happy influence upon the children of Israel, we find them being a bit of a thorn in their side later on but the point is that no one was prohibited or turned away from coming with the children of Israel, you know we don't know whether this refers to other nations whom the
[22:11] Egyptians had also enslaved as well as the Israelites or whether it was perhaps some of the poorer class of Egyptians themselves who were so much at the bottom of the food chain and Egypt was already destroyed and they themselves remember that night would have perhaps lost one or more members of their family, perhaps they had nothing left to live for, perhaps they thought we might as well go with these guys because whoever their God is that's fighting for them or protecting them he's doing better for them and all the gods of Egypt are doing for us, we might as well be with them where they might be with some safety, so whether they were brutal Egyptians or whether they were those of other nations this mixed multitude, verse 38 that went with them means that clearly amongst the children of Israel were those of some perhaps many other nations as well who reckons this is where the future is, this is where the hope is, we have hope perhaps with them even if they themselves had suffered the horrendous pain of believing that very night, the loss of children in their own homes and perhaps adults amongst their own relatives, perhaps they recognise that it says in
[23:23] Hosea chapter 6 come let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us, he hath smitten and he will bind us up, after two days he will revive us, in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight, so whatever their reasoning they thought this is a better deal for us, Egypt is effectively destroyed anyway, so perhaps there is new hope, new life for this, new people rising up, leaving Egypt, wherever they're going, we want to go with them, if they were Egyptians they had lost everything anyway, if they weren't Egyptians now was a time to be free, but with the people of God they recognised there to be hope and a future, hope and a future, this is something that the Lord freely offers to any soul, whoever will have a hope and a future, we mentioned this morning about how if we don't have the
[24:26] Lord, and we meet up with old friends, we're always looking back, the good days are always when we were young, in the olden days, in the olden times, if we have cried, yes we're thankful for those years, but our best years are ahead of us, our greatest prize, our greatest goal is the future and the hope that we have in Christ, we read in 2nd Iah chapter 8 verse 23, that's it, the Lord of hosts, in those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, we will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you, we will go with you, because we have heard that God is with you, and that may be the motive here, for the mixed multitude, of all.
[25:18] Now, as a little digression, I don't want to get into it too much, but you know, verse 40 here, if you're interested, it is possible to calculate from the arithmetic of Genesis 5 and subsequent chapter verses throughout the book of Genesis, that the Exodus was 2,568 years after the fall, 2,568 years after the fall.
[25:42] Now, of course, I think, we're all sort of at the back of our minds, we've gone, oh, well, of course, it couldn't really be of that, because the earth is millions of years old, isn't it? Well, you see, the scientific evidence of the age of the earth points to a young earth, that's the scientific evidence of the empirical evidence, as opposed to the ideological theories that can't be proved, the actual scientific evidence points to a young earth, an earth much, much younger than the atheistic evolutionists would tell us.
[26:16] So, the age of the earth, I don't really want to get into, but 2,568 years from the fall, still quite a long time. If the Exodus was happening tonight, then in our day, then 2, 5, 6, 8 years back would take us roughly back to the time of when Daniel was in exile in Babylonia.
[26:39] It would be after the time when he and his three friends refused to eat the meat, it would be before the time when he's thrown into the lion's den. So, sometime in that time, Daniel was roughly in his 40s or thereabouts, in exile in the land of Babylonia.
[26:55] If that was the starting point, then the Exodus would be roughly where we are now. It's quite a long time ago. So, 2, 5, 6, 8 years, but I don't want to get into it.
[27:05] You can calculate the first and second quote here, but it would rather take us off on a tangent. You can calculate it from the different verses that we had. I'm happy to talk about that afterwards if you want to be guilty, but let's not get sidetracked here.
[27:21] Verse 41 then, and it came to pass at the end of the 430 years, even the same day, it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.
[27:32] Went out from the land of Egypt. I want you to stop and think for a minute about having gone out of the land of Egypt and what they're leaving behind them. All the lights and torches and so on they would take, but you can imagine themselves disappearing off into the desert, into the darkness.
[27:50] And what's left behind, you know, you've got the silent streets, of the slave quarters. You've got maybe a dog barking in the distance. You can hear the sound of the wind blowing through the streets because there's no other noise.
[28:03] There's just the wail of from house to house of those who are bereft. Nobody can move really because everybody is bereaved.
[28:13] Everybody has had the life drained out of just failing into space. I remember one of the placements I did in my train was with the mental hospital aspect of health care in Aberdeen.
[28:27] And I've probably used this illustration before, so apologies if you've heard it before, but one of the things they said which surprised me was that when people are really low, medical depression, then they're not so much of a suicide risk.
[28:41] But after the drugs and the medicines that they get begin to lift their spirit and the chemicals begin to work and they begin to get a bit of energy, their spirit becomes lifted a bit, then they're a suicide risk.
[28:52] I thought, how can I be? Surely if you're beginning to lift your spirit, you're feeling a bit better, you've got a bit more of a vent about you, then that's a good thing, surely your spirit is lifted, you're less depressed, surely the rest of the suiciders did know when you're actually at the bottom, somebody's just completely listless.
[29:10] They'll be staring at the space, they would sit in the same chair and just stare for hours straight ahead of them. They wouldn't get out of bed perhaps unless you made them do it. They're not interested in food. You can have somebody perhaps after say every evening or something terrible has happened, you might go to visit them and they're just sitting in the chair and they can't.
[29:27] The day gets dark round about and they can't switch on the lights, it's just too much trouble. Just stare straight ahead of them. But once the nurses and so on, once people have been given their medication that helps to lift their spirit and they've got a bit of energy and a bit of strength, now they can think about doing away with themselves.
[29:47] They couldn't do it before because they just had nothing. They had no energy at all. They were just completely like living dead because they had no energy. They were so down, so depressed.
[29:58] I think that's what we should imagine Egypt to be like, people just staring straight ahead, cradling their dead children in their arms or just not even thinking of possibly children sort of weeping over the corpses of their parents.
[30:12] Perhaps if mum and dad both happen to be the first born in their families, you've got orphaned children there who've also lost their brother or sister that night. No, it doesn't begin to bear thinking about it.
[30:24] The amount of sheer pain in the land and this is in the silence punctuated only by tears in a land which the darkness gives way to the dawn.
[30:36] And the Israelites are gone. Nobody's doing any work that day. Nobody's getting up to go about their business. Nobody's calling out bread in the marketplace. Nobody's doing anything.
[30:47] It's just desolate. And the eerie silence of nobody moving, but everybody's like the living dead. This is what they need behind when the Israelites come out of Egypt.
[31:02] In the same day, they went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt. this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations.
[31:17] Now, we read quite a lot of passages this evening. Verse 21 to verse 51. If you would take a key verse, if there is such a thing as a key verse out of all this passage, it is this verse 42.
[31:30] So I'd like you to remember this verse 42 and to think about it. It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord. That is a key thing for the Israelites, for bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.
[31:44] This is that night of the Lord. And that's the night in which he wrought their deliverance, in which he brought them out. This is that night of the Lord. The key verse in this entire passage.
[31:57] In the very depths of the darkest hour, and remember as we saw in verse 29, at midnight, the Lord smote all the first water in the land division. It is in the darkest hour, in the absolute depths of the night, came the very power and height of deliverance.
[32:15] And so it was likewise in the ultimate deliverance given for mankind when the Saviour died on the cross. Three hours of darkness from 12 noon, when the sun should have been at its height, right through to 3 o'clock in the afternoon when he finally died.
[32:31] And when he died, it had been dark for the longest. Three unbroken hours of pitch dark in the middle of the day. And then he died.
[32:43] And when he died and breathed his last, because we read that the darkness was over the land, from the sixth hour to the ninth hour, from 12 noon to 3 p.m.
[32:54] After he died, we must take it, but the light began to lift. The darkness began to clear, and the light lifted because the price had been paid, and the darkness began to dissipate.
[33:09] But it is in the darkest hour, at the desolate conclusion of three hours of supernatural darkness, the price of death was paid upon the cross.
[33:20] And as it was paid, as the saviour died, the darkness lifted, because deliverance had been accomplished. For all who would trust and believe in his name, it is in the darkness of night that deliverance takes place.
[33:36] That is the case for us at Calvary, if we are trusting in Christ. It is the case for the Israelites here. It is a night much to be observed unto the Lord for bringing him out from the land of Egypt.
[33:48] This is that night of the Lord. Friends, you may be going through a dark night just now. I don't know your individual situations, or your heart, or whatever you may be feeling.
[34:00] But if it is a dark night for you, remember that it is in the darkest hour of the darkest night that the Lord works his deliverance.
[34:11] he allows us to be brought to the lowest point, to the darkest hour, so that at that very point he may deliver us and the glory may be seen to be all his and none of us.
[34:28] We could not deliver ourselves. When the wise men saw the star in the sky, they rejoiced over it as it settled over Bethlehem. How are you able to see a bright star?
[34:39] unless the night is very black. How are you able to observe the stars unless it's night time? This great deliverance Christ coming upon earth and Christ dying upon the cross.
[34:52] It is all accomplished in the midst of physical darkness. And likewise darkness here when the children of Israel are brought out of Egypt.
[35:05] And we read then of this Passover. Yes, we read verse 46, neither shall you break a bone thereof. And we remember how Christ upon the cross, they broke the legs of the thieves, the other two, but they saw he was already dead.
[35:19] And it fulfilled this prophecy, John 19, where we read of how the prophecy is fulfilled. He that saw it bare record, and he knoweth that what he says is true, for these things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled.
[35:34] The bone of him shall not be broken. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, and not a bone of him is broken. Yes, his side is pierced, they shall look upon him whom they are pierced, but a bone of him shall not be broken.
[35:48] So likewise, as we go on, we read, all the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And to begin with, verse 45, it looks like foreigners and those who aren't racial Israelites aren't allowed to partake.
[36:01] But if you go down a little bit further, you see that's not the case. It's not somebody who's a racially born Hebrew who has the privilege of the Passover. Somebody who is racially Hebrew, but who has been lax in their religious observance, in other words, doesn't circumcise their children, is not going to be able to partake of that Passover.
[36:22] But rather, it says, when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, then let him come near and keep it, and he shall be as one that is born in the land, for no uncircumcised person shall eat their all.
[36:38] Doesn't matter if they're a racially born Israelite, doesn't matter if they're a foreigner, or a Canaanite, or from Tyre, or Sidon, or Egypt itself, if they will draw near, if they will have the Lord as their Savior, let their males be circumcised, in other words, it is the sign of the covenant which is the primary defining factor here, and not the racial birth of anyone here.
[37:05] The qualification for partaking of this remembrance, this Passover meal, is not racial birth, but rather it is the sign, the seal, the symbol of the covenant of grace.
[37:19] And you would need faith in order to undergo that particular ritual, yes you would, especially in that day and age. You would need commitment, you've really got to want to go through with it, if you and all your males, like Abraham and his day, are to be circumcised without anesthetic, without antiseptic, the health risks, the dangers, the loss of blood, all that would be entailed, you've really got to want to, but if you are prepared to do it, you will be exactly the same as one born in the land.
[37:52] They don't have any superiority over you. The thing is not racial birth or national identity, it is the sign and seal of the covenant. That is what brings people within the Lord's fold of grace.
[38:07] But the covenant relationship is seen to be all, it is everything, it is the Lord who is everything. There is no respect of persons there, just as there is no respect of persons later on.
[38:21] Anyone who will come and believe and receive of the covenant of grace may be part of it. One law shall be to him that is home born and unto the stranger that so dearth among you.
[38:34] Verse 49, same law for everybody. Why is that? Because we're all in the same condition. Romans 3 verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
[38:47] Nobody is immune from sin. Nobody is immune from their need of redemption. And so verse 51, it came to pass the self-sing day that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out to the land of Egypt by their arms.
[39:03] In one day, the Lord accomplished all the work of this great deliverance. Yes, many years in the preparing. yes, 430 years in Egypt and all the work the Lord did with Moses out in the wilderness of Sinai and settling with Zippor's family and the priest of Midian and then coming back and all the plagues.
[39:24] Yes, a lot of work, a lot of preparation, yes, but it is actually accomplished in one night, one day, in the self-sing day that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out of Egypt.
[39:40] It may be many years in the preparing, but it is accomplished in a day. It is probably no more than a month, perhaps two months at the outside because we don't know exactly how long the plagues went on for.
[39:53] We don't know exactly how long it lasts between each one, but it's probably no more than a month, two months at the absolute outside, from the return of Moses out of the desert into Egypt Egypt, to this deliverance from Egypt, to galvanise the Hebrews, to bring them out, no more than a month, two at the most.
[40:14] Of course, God had long been preparing for this event, but when it comes, it comes suddenly, it comes immediately, and with a finality which is nothing short of terrifying.
[40:29] Now, obviously, we're not simply talking about the deliverance from Egypt here, we're talking about when the Lord's judgment finally falls. It falls with a finality which is terrifying, and if it doesn't terrify you, with the greatest respect, friend, it's simply because you've never actually stopped to think about it.
[40:51] It may not be terrifying as long as you can keep it from entering or dwelling in your mind, but as soon as you do, that finality no comeback, no appeal, no alternative, no second chance, is, yes, it is terrifying.
[41:14] See, the Lord's day, which gives the second day, the Lord's day is a great grace and an opportunity which may be afforded to you thousands of times in a lifetime.
[41:25] You know, if you look to be 80 years old, then in that 80 years you will have had 4,160 Lord's days. You might not have been all that aware of the first couple of years when you're still a baby or a toddler or whatever, but as you grow up, of that 4,160 Lord's days, you'll be aware of most of them, and you'll see them come and go.
[41:45] You may observe them religiously and devoutly, or there may be a matter of indifference to you, but there they are. In a life of 80 years, 4,160 Lord's days. If you live to be 60, it's over 3,000 Lord's days.
[42:00] Thousands of them in a lifetime, but they're not for nothing. Each one is mercy, each one is reminder, each one is opportunity to draw near to the Lord, to close in with Christ, to give diligence, to make our calling and election sure, hundreds, thousands of Lord's days.
[42:21] weeks. But the day of the Lord, on the other hand, the day in which he makes an end of all things, the day in which there shall be time no longer, the day when the judgment is set and the books are open, when there will be no more days after it, no more opportunities, no more chances to go back and do better, if only the Lord would let me.
[42:47] You've had thousands of weeks. You will have thousands of Lord's days, but not thousands of days of the Lord. The day of the Lord will fall suddenly.
[43:01] The day of the Lord will fall only once. And our need, friends, is to use the time he has given us. Use the Lord's days he has given us.
[43:13] Use each day he has given us, the weekdays as well, to close in with Christ, to make preparation for that day for when it falls, there will be no days after it.
[43:25] There won't be any more time. There will only be eternity. That day of the Lord falls only once. Once and for all.
[43:37] Once and forever. Let us pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[43:49] Amen. Amen.