November 26, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Acts 19-20, Deuteronomy 20-22

Weekly Memory Verse: 2 Timothy 2:2

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Exodus 12:1-13 (NASB95)
¹ Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. ³ “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household. ⁴ ‘Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb. ⁵ ‘Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. ⁶ ‘You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. ⁷ ‘Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ ‘They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. ⁹ ‘Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, both its head and its legs along with its entrails. ¹⁰ ‘And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. ¹¹ ‘Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste—it is the Lord’s Passover. ¹² ‘For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the Lord. ¹³ ‘The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.^[1]

When you read through this passage, keep in mind that the preparation was being made without any knowledge other than the word of Moses and Aaron that the Lord was going to perform the Passover.  During all the other plagues, Israel stood my watching the show, but not becoming involved in the plagues.  In the last one, God changed the rules, he gave each one of them a job to do.  God is practical, it is possible that God instituted the ritual as a reminder; therefore it was necessary for them to be participants.  God had already demonstrated that He knew where they lived at in the previous plagues.  On the other hand, this may have also been a test to see who was going to comply with the instructions and who was not going to comply. 

The thing that continues to stand out to me is that they did not know that the Passover was going to happen, except on the word of God through Moses.  This is an act of faith, acting upon something that is not true as if it were true because God said it.  Think about that, during the short period of time that Moses returned and the nine previous plagues were administered, Israel learned what it meant to act on faith.  The plagues were not geared to generate a release from captivity, they were geared to generate faith in the Hebrew people.  God could have snapped his fingers and Israel would have been free from captivity, but they would not have learned what it meant to follow God or to act upon faith.

The Passover was to set the calendar for the new Year, this event changed the calendar for Israel.  Each month is set according to the lunar cycle, the first month of the Year for the Jews was "Nisan", which fell around March and April.  It is the point that they passed from the death of captivity into the life of freedom.  The nation was born again after being in captivity for 433 years.  This event was significant enough re-order their entire system.  Look at the specific instructions as to precisely the tenth day of the month they were to perform a Passover feast.  Remember, this is still in preparation for the Passover that is coming, they are still working by faith, and receiving instructions by faith. 

Another thought along this line, the nation of Israel has refused to die.  Several times in history it was taken into captivity, to be released or freed later.  Recently, the Jews were scattered to the ends of the earth, yet the nation of Israel was rebuilt recently, and is once again a world power.  In a way the release from Egypt has typified the Jews lives through the centuries, they are a nation of slaves, born into freedom through the passover.  It is appropriate that their calendar year was to start with a feast to remind them that they were released from captivity by Gods hand.

The passover sacrifice was a herd animal, it could have been either a lamb or a goat, the criteria was that it had to be consumed by the family.  If the family was too small they were allowed to share with a neighbor.  This lamb is significant, it was guarded and cared for from the tenth day to the fourteenth day. 

The time of killing the lamb is also significant; the time was probably around 3 to 5 P.M. according to the Bible Knowledge Commentary.  Jesus was crucified somewhere around noon, and had died somewhere around three P.M. Just like the Passover Lamb, His blood was shed as His arms were stretched out horizontal.  His blood was shed on the vertical and horizontal pieces of the cross, just like the Passover Lamb's blood was placed upon the doorposts and the lintel.  Jesus shed His blood as a payment for sin, to allow all mankind to experience spiritual freedom through Him, while the Passover Lambs blood turned the death angel away, providing freedom through the shedding of its blood from death, resulting in freedom.

Time is against me, so I am going to close here, if you have any comments that you wish to add, be sure to write in.

Father, as we consider Your word today, I ask that each of us are given a better feel and use for Your word in our lives.

In Him,

Joe Turner.

November 29, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Nehemiah 1-4; Psalms 140-142; Song of Solomon 1-2

Weekly Memory Verse: Proverbs 27:17

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Welcome back!  I have spent the last few days revamping the list on the Bible study; many were getting kicked back on a daily basis.  The old server instituted filters that would kick back anyone who emailed a large mailing list, ours is out to around 95 people now.  It was quite frustrating! Until the website pointers all point to the new server, we will be working strictly through e-mail.  Hopefully it will be up and running in the next few days.  I have heard from several of you that the studies are not coming through, hopefully this will offer a solution and we will all be able to return to studying God's word together.  I have elected to continue the crawl through Exodus for one more week, we may start switching back and forth again soon.

My wife is doing well after her brain surgery.  In the last few days a leak has developed in the stitches, the surgeon stitched it back up and is hoping that the hole will heal itself, and the cranial fluid will no longer be seeping out.  It’s serious business, but she is progressing well.  Her strength is returning, I want to thank all of you for keeping her in prayer.  God is answering them. 

Exodus 12:14-22 (NASB95)
¹⁴ ‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. ¹⁵ ‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses; for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ ‘On the first day you shall have a holy assembly, and another holy assembly on the seventh day; no work at all shall be done on them, except what must be eaten by every person, that alone may be prepared by you. ¹⁷ ‘You shall also observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance. ¹⁸ ‘In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹ ‘Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is an alien or a native of the land. ²⁰ ‘You shall not eat anything leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’ ” ²¹ 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. ²² “You shall take a bunch of hyssop and 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 two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning.^[1]

Please note that this is still all prior to God taking the lives of the firstborn.  Can you imagine the excitement and anticipation that is in the air.   The Feast of the Unleavened bread was implemented before the last plague took place, everything looked forward to the release of the Hebrews from captivity.

Pharaoh's oldest son, his firstborn was considered to be a god by the people.  Add to that "Min" the god of reproduction, and "Isis", the god of love were also shown to be false by this final plague.  The battle for the release of Israel was more than it seemed.  From the Egyptian view, God was bringing them to their knees in order to demonstrate to them that He is the Almighty God.  From the Hebrew view, God was demonstrating to them that He is the Almighty God, and that He was in control of their lives.  In both situations, God was basically doing the same thing, He was proving His existence. 

Romans 5:9 (NASB95)
⁹ Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

Ephesians 1:7 (NASB95)
⁷ In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace

Galatians 5:1-9 (NASB95)
¹ It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. ² Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. ³ And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. ⁴ You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. ⁵ For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. ⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. ⁷ You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? ⁸ This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you. ⁹ A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 (NASB95)
⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? ⁷ Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. ⁸ Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ^[2]

Christ Jesus paid the price through His blood for the redemption of the saints; He paid the penalty for our sin for us.  Paul took off on this statement in Galatians and explained to them that they were given freedom in Christ from the laws and slavery of following the old Law.  He had given them freedom to follow by the Holy Spirit and not by doing good things.  Somehow they screwed up and left this basic teaching in order to follow the old way of thinking. 

Leaven is symbolic of several things in the Bible.  One thing that it symbolizes is sin in the lives of believers.  As sin enters your life, it permeates your entire being, crippling you spiritually.  When sin enters a church, it quickly spreads to the entire church body, rendering the church as ineffective.  I like to bake bread, sometimes when I feel like messing with it I will start a sourdough starter and keep up with it so that we can have the delicious sourdough rolls and such.  A little yeast, water and flour is used to start the bread, then the yeast is allowed to work.  The yeast changes the properties of the water and flour so that it becomes a living entity, waiting for the opportunity to be baked into bread.  Sin works the same way, it permanently changes the way that we look and the way that we react.  The only way for it to be removed is by the grace and the goodness of God.  We have to go to the cross of Christ in order for the miracle of forgiveness to take place, He washes us white as snow, since He is our Passover lamb.  (Didn't mean to go off on a tangent.)

Matthew 16:18-19 (NASB95)
¹⁸ “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. ¹⁹ “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” ^[3]

Yeast can also symbolize the infection of the Gospel of Christ.  As we share our beliefs with other people, we spread a infection that will cause a permanent change in peoples lives.  They will never be the same.  This is an offensive move, where people aggressively go out to promote the Kingdom of God.  Consider the gates of hell mentioned in Matthew, gates are a defensive measure, not offensive.  As people get serious about following Christ, we will beat the door to hell down and literally rescue people from blindly following the devil into the flames.  Yeast, interesting to think about, from both perspectives.

Yeast in Exodus symbolized that the people were in a dreadful hurry.  There wasn't any time to prepare the bread properly, so it had to be taken without yeast, no time to work the delicate balance to create yeast bread.  Time was of urgency, God wanted the people to understand that it was a critical time and no unnecessary activities were to be taking place.  To honor this, a lasting ordinance was put in place for Israel to follow each year.  It took place following the feast of the Passover, which is significant.  Once the blood of the lamb delivers them from the Egyptians, then no time is left for the making of bread.  Spiritually speaking, when we have been forgiven by the sacrifice of the blood on the cross, it is time for us to make a determined effort to eliminate the sin from our lives.  We are forgiven by God, but there is an urgency to cleanse our lives of the sin that we have lived in.   

The gruesome task of painting the doorframe with blood is a vivid picture for all of us.  Imagine being in the shoes of the Hebrews, Pharaoh is very angry, and ready to start taking revenge on the Hebrews for the trouble that has been caused.  Moses and Aaron instructed them to paint their doorframes with blood, making a public statement of their faith in God.  I don't think that we even begin to have an understanding of the terror that was taking place in the land of Egypt. 

Exodus 12:23-51 (NASB95)
²³ “For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you. ²⁴ “And you shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and your children forever. ²⁵ “When you enter the land which the Lord will give you, as He has promised, you shall observe this rite. ²⁶ “And when your children say to you, ‘What does this rite mean to you?’ 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.’ ” And the people bowed low and worshiped. ²⁸ Then the sons of Israel went and did so; just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. ²⁹ Now it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle. ³⁰ Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no home where there was not someone dead. ³¹ Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel; and go, worship the Lord, as you have said. ³² “Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and go, and bless me also.” ³³ The Egyptians urged the people, to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, “We will all be dead.” ³⁴ So the people took their dough before it was leavened, with their kneading bowls bound up in the clothes on their shoulders. ³⁵ Now the sons of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, for they had requested from the Egyptians articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing; ³⁶ and the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have their request. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. ³⁷ Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children. ³⁸ A mixed multitude also went up with them, along with flocks and herds, a very large number of livestock. ³⁹ They baked the dough which they had brought out of Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. For it had not become leavened, since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves. ⁴⁰ Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. ⁴¹ And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. ⁴² It is a night to be observed for the Lord for having brought them out from the land of Egypt; this night is for the Lord, to be observed by all the sons of Israel throughout their generations. ⁴³ The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover: no foreigner is to eat of it; ⁴⁴ but every man’s slave purchased with money, after you have circumcised him, then he may eat of it. ⁴⁵ “A sojourner or a hired servant shall not eat of it. ⁴⁶ “It is to be eaten in a single house; you are not to bring forth any of the flesh outside of the house, nor are you to break any bone of it. ⁴⁷ “All the congregation of Israel are to celebrate this. ⁴⁸ “But if a stranger sojourns with you, and celebrates the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near to celebrate it; and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it. ⁴⁹ “The same law shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you.” ⁵⁰ Then all the sons of Israel did so; they did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. ⁵¹ And on that same day the Lord brought the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.^[4]

The Passover took place as predicted, and the Hebrews plundered the Egyptians.  The promises of God were fulfilled and they were given instructions as to how to implement the Passover feast in the future. 

I am going to close here, there is a lot of material left in this chapter, but we pretty well covered the high spots.  In order not to bog down, we are going to start our trot through the rest of the book of Exodus.  I hope to accelerate the pace a little bit, and to keep the text short.  If you with to add to the study, be sure to write in, I will be glad to post all responses.  Also, the website should be back up in the next few days, apparently the domain name is locked and has to be unlocked before it can be moved to the new site, that takes time.

Father, as we consider Your word today, we want to praise You for sending Jesus to be our Passover lamb.  Thank You Father for the forgiveness of sins through His shed blood.

In Him,

Joe Turner.