The following message was recorded at Antioch Presbyterian Church, an historic and charter congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America, ministering to upstate South Carolina since 1843. Come and visit us at the crossroads of Greenville and Spartanburg counties. Experience our past and be a part of our future. For more information, visit AntiochPCF.com. There's a popular saying, a bit of sage advice, in whatever circumstance you may find yourself in, day by day or week by week. It's even been in the Lion King movie. Be prepared. Be prepared. Now, to be prepared is easier said than done, and some people who lack wisdom, I think, take it to an unhealthy extreme, and they seek to be prepared for every possible contingency, every possible event that might take place. But I think for most of us, we tend to go along in life without really thinking about what we're doing and how we should be prepared for the unexpected. What are you going to do if on the way home tonight you get in a wreck? What are you going to do? Are you prepared for a catastrophic medical diagnosis? Are you prepared for the test that's coming up in a couple of weeks or to get back your term paper covered with red ink? Are you prepared for these things? Are you prepared even for the work week that's starting tomorrow? Be prepared is easier said than done. And really, who can prepare for the unexpected? Were any of us really prepared for Hurricane Helene last year? Were our friends in Jamaica and Cuba and the Dominican Republic and Haiti, could they have possibly been prepared for an historic hurricane which they just faced last week? Would you or I be prepared if there were a nine-point earthquake here in the upstate of South Carolina? How could we be prepared for something as unexpected as that? We have a hard enough time preparing for that, which we know is going to face us in just hours or days. As seen as our passage today, this is not an uncommon feature of daily life, is it? We must be prepared for the unexpected. And even when things are preannounced, God has just said in chapter 11 that he would pass through Egypt striking down the firstborn of every household from Pharaoh on his throne down to the handmaiden behind her millstone. And as we will find out later on, he's going to reiterate that in a different expression even. From Pharaoh on his throne to the convict in his jail cell, the firstborn in Egypt will be struck down. Do you think the Israelites were excluded from that. Not at all. They, too, needed to be prepared. But what we see in our text here this evening, what I want to show you from this text, is that the Lord provides the salvation that you need to be prepared for the coming of His power. He did that for the Israelites of old. He does it for us today. Whenever the gospel is preached, the Lord provides the salvation you need to be prepared for the coming of His power. And dear ones, we're looking forward not to a Passover in ancient Egypt, but to the great and terrible day of the Lord, that day of judgment, when our faith will be made sight, but when Christ The Lamb of God will come as a lion in power and glory to judge the quick and the dead. To lay waste to the vain ambitions of men and to judge nations and gather to himself all his elect in preparation for that day. He provides to us these reminders. the call of His Spirit, of the gospel, that Christ Himself is the salvation which has been provided. So let's consider that this evening from our text. We'll do so under three headings. In the first place, the Lord provides in verses 1 through 7. And then in the second place, the Lord prepares in verses 8 to 11. And thirdly, the Lord's power. In verses 12 to 13, the Lord provides, the Lord prepares, and finally, the Lord's power. In verses 1 to 7, we have given to us a gathering of, you might say, tools or materials for something that is about to happen. And we can gather tools and materials for projects around our house or around the church, maybe, in a variety of ways. We can borrow them, as I do from Mr. Daines on occasion. We can receive them as gifts, as I have in the past from well-meaning friends. Or we can buy them, as I do sometimes multiple times during a project when I don't have a good enough list at the beginning of it. And what God does here is He Himself is giving very graciously to His people that which they need. And He provides to them three things in verses 1 to 7. He provides to them time, a sacrifice, and critical direction. God gives time, sacrifice, and direction to his people in these verses. Look at verses 1 and 2. Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, perhaps this is something he had said to them before they even went in for that final audience with Pharaoh. Or it's something that God said to them as they left Pharaoh's audience. I tend to believe it's the second of those two. But this is what he said, this month shall be the beginning of months for you. It is to be the first month of the year to you. And what God is doing there is he's providing to them a reconception of time. Time is slowing down, as I said a couple of weeks ago, as we come into this final judgment in the land of Egypt. And as it does so, it's being redefined. You see, the Israelites, like many in their day, would have accounted as the beginning of the year harvest time, in the autumn or fall, by our perspective. But here, in what would have been our springtime, in March or April on our calendars, God is saying, now this, shall be the beginning of months for you." Time is being redefined. It's not that the fall is no longer significant for them. Indeed, it is. It's just that now, overlaid onto that maybe agricultural calendar, they have what we might call a redemptive calendar. Time takes on a new significance. Lest you think this is all that odd, we do the same thing, don't we? We have baseball season, the beginning of the baseball season. We have football season, beginning of football season. They overlap a little bit, but they're two different calendars. We have a fiscal calendar, a business year, and then we have an academic year. And we, of course, have our calendar year, which in our culture begins in January. And all of these things are overlaid upon one or the other. And then each of us individually, in our culture, though less so in ancient cultures, We take our own birthdays as the beginning of a year, a time for us to reflect and make resolutions, even though the day is significant only to ourselves. And so God redefines time for them. He gives them a new significance for their time. And as he does so, now he's going to give them what they need to mark this time. He gives them a sacrifice. Look at verses three through five. Speak to all the congregation of Israel saying, On the 10th of this month, they are each one to take a lamb, literally an animal of the flock, so a lamb or a goat kid. and they are to take them for themselves according to their father's households, a lamb for each household. 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. Your lamb shall be an unblemished male, a year old, that is fully grown, and you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. God here is providing to His people, even the poor and diminutive households of His people, what He will regard as an acceptable sacrifice to set them apart now from the Egyptians. They had been distinguished from the Egyptians before in that they had not suffered the same devastations of the hail, of the darkness, of the locusts, of the pestilence, but now there's going to be a ritual that is performed, a sacrifice taken and given for them to set them apart and distinguish them for the Egyptians as a sign both to them and to God, as we will see in the passage. God provides for them this sacrifice as he defines not just the time, but what is acceptable, making provision even for the poorest in the community. And the third time he gives them now, tightly connected to this sacrifice that he provides, is direction about what to do in verses six and seven. He says, you shall keep it. until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to sacrifice or kill it at twilight, that is literally between the evenings. at dusk. 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." God doesn't leave them wondering what they are to do with this little lamb that they've taken in to be a part of their family. This lamb which they have been careful to ensure met all of the requirements of God in being unblemished and a year old and a male. being useful for many purposes, but set apart for this particular purpose, so that they might be set apart as a people from the judgment that is being visited on the Egyptians, on those who are without faith, those who will not heed the word of direction which God so graciously provides. There is something that is greatly required and called for if you would escape the judgment of God at the coming of His power. But what is required, God so graciously provides. Harkening back to the phrase or the saying attributed to Augustine, Lord, Provide what you require, but require what you will. And so too, God provides to you exactly what is needed in order to escape His judgment and to thus enjoy His blessing. This is the great privilege of being a Christian, dear one. And so if you're here this evening and you do not yet identify as a Christian, if your household is not marked by the name of Christ in the blood of the Lamb, then cry out to Him and cling to Him and belong to Him and take to His Word to yourself and apply it in your own life. For the unbeliever, That looks like receiving the Lamb of God who was provided and resting upon Him alone, forsaking all your own efforts to one-up God or to manipulate Him into doing as you desire. But to the believer, there's something as well for you here, isn't there? What does it mean for the Christian to identify ever more fully with Christ? Well, keep that which has been committed unto you. Keep and hold on to that which you've received, which you receive week in and week out from the reading and preaching of the Word, day in and day out, as you meditate upon the Word. Hold fast to that Word of life which God has given to you, which you have at once received, and which is still yours today. Do you find that it grows monotonous? that it grows old or cold as you read it and open it up. Why is that? This is the word of your salvation which is given to you. Take it and cherish it. Now is the time, whether at the first or in a continuance, to hold fast to the word of God. And tomorrow is too late. In years and in times to come, when this, that, or the other thing happens, when you have a chance to do other things or to spend time on other things, that's far too late. God provides the time. And the time is now. The season is now. This is the day of salvation. And so too, in these details of a sacrificial rite, we should consider what it is that God does in our lives, and what His purposes are in providing time, a sacrifice, and direction to His people for their salvation. Now, what does this salvation look like? Well, it looks a bit like education. What do I mean by that? It's that the Lord doesn't just provide three things, but He also prepares His people in two ways, much on the same plan as any kind of education. In seminary education, for example, you are prepared in two dimensions. You are sanctified through the trials of seminary academically, but also in the consideration of holy things. And you're also equipped to handle the Word of God, to rightly divide it, and to prove your own progress as you prepare for the ministry. And so, too, in our own grade school education or in our home school curricula, this is character formation that's going on, which involves both the sanctification of the heart and the equipping of the mind. And so the Lord prepares in two ways as well, kind of along the same sort of blueprint. He's consecrating his people and he's calling his people. He's performing a consecration as He makes known His vocation for them. He's instructing them in their vocation as He's giving them directions for their consecration. That is, they're being set apart unto Him as a royal priesthood, as a kingdom of priests. Look at verses 8 to 10 with me. We read there, they shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with flat bread, or unleavened bread, and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roast it with fire, both its head and its legs, along with its entrails. And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning you shall burn with fire. Now, in Exodus 19, 5-6, we're told that God's purpose with His people is that they would be a royal priesthood, that they would be a kingdom of priests. Exactly the wording is as follows, we read in Exodus 19, 5 and 6, God says to them, now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel. And Peter in 1 Peter 2.9 picks up on this same image, and he, the apostle, says there in 1 Peter 2.9, You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Isn't that what God is doing with the Israelites in Egypt? Calling them out of the land of darkness into the light of his presence, keeping them out of the miraculous darkness of three days by giving them light in their homes, but now calling them out of that land which is, fallen in spiritual darkness, dominated by idolatry and the oppression of Pharaoh, and shining the light of his countenance upon them, as in the Aaronic blessing, may the Lord shine his face upon you and give you peace. That's what God's purposes are for his people there, and it's characterized as this kingdom of priests or royal priesthood. Now, the connecting point between the Passover And what God says in Exodus 19 and what He says through Peter in 1 Peter 2 is the similarity between this particular sacrificial rite and the sacrifices that were offered at the consecration of Aaron and his sons. They are very, very similar. You see there's a sacrifice of an animal of the flock. In Aaron and his son's case, it's a ram. Here, it's a lamb. And there's an application of blood, in Aaron's case, to the earlobe and the big toe. Interesting details that we'll consider when we get there. But in this case, to the post and lintel of a doorframe, the portals of somebody's house or little house of your body. And there's a meal that is shared between God and those who are performing the sacrifice, where they eat the entire animal and whatever's left over is burned up and given to God and not left over for the following morning. All of these correspondences, these similarities speak to the fact that in the Passover, It's not merely what is called an apotropaic right, that is a right that wards off evil or that puts up some kind of prophylactic defense against judgment of some kind, but it's a consecration right. That is, the Passover isn't just about God passing over his people, but it's about God consecrating his people, the blood having been their expiation, the removal of sin, for they were a sinful folk as well. And for the propitiation of God's wrath, the satisfaction of justice, that he might, instead of being their judge, would be their protector through the night. Do you see? And they would then be set apart as holy unto their God. Now, this consecration is not the only thing which the Lord prepares for them. He moves on in verse 11, as you look at it with me, to also call them, to give them a vocation to this people whose life was bitter in Egypt, represented perhaps by these bitter herbs, a people who had a life that was Spartan in nature, perhaps represented by the flat bread or unleavened bread. But now God shows them the meaning of all of these various details. Now you shall eat it in this manner. With your loins girded, as it were, your belt about your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. Typically, traditionally, the Passover was eaten while standing up even. that you might, at a moment's notice, be ready to leave the house. That's the picture that we have here. It's not that they didn't know when exactly they were going to be summoned out into the wilderness. All of this God had timed out, but God was catechizing them by these images. He was preparing them vocationally for the life that they would then lead in the wilderness as a people who would follow after God as journeymen. Those who could not settle in the wilderness, but were on their way somewhere else. That is the vocation of an Israelite. That is the vocation of a Christian. We are a pilgrim people. And God communicates this in concrete, tangible terms, sacramentally so, that the point would not be lost to them, to their children, or to us. The Lord prepares them through consecration and for vocation. And when you come into worship, for the Passover was an act of worship, you see. It was a ritual. It wasn't something that needed to be done in exactly this way, except that God called for it as an act of worship in the community. As you come into worship week by week, do you recognize that you're coming to a spiritual feast that has involved in it a vocational quality reminding you and instructing you in what the Christian life looks like and what your life should look like? Here, like any good parent or guardian, The Lord God has purposes here at Antioch in our worship services. The Lord our God has purposes for you and for me and for each of us. You must expect God to do something to and in you in corporate worship when you come into his presence. He is preparing you for your ministry as a believer. He is consecrating you for the week ahead, and he is calling you and all of us into his service. his people, as his pilgrim people. For the Lord your Savior, the Lord your God, has a purpose for you in all that we're doing here. That purpose is not in vain, but it is glorious to take our minds off of the things in the vanity of this world and to transport us to heaven our home as a foretaste thus impelling us and invigorating us spurring us on forward to endure in the race that is set before us to run and in that race we walk and we walk closely with Him so that we might then dwell very nearly to Him forever. Is this not a glorious purpose that our Father has in worship? Is this not a glorious purpose that God had communicated here through Moses and Aaron in the Passover? to prepare a people to dwell with Him, that they would not grow attached to the things of this world, but would long for heaven and the comforts of God's presence. That they would long, in their case, for the promised land, which for us is a picture of that heavenly Jerusalem to which we strive and to which we make our way. But between our pilgrimage and our settlement, in the new heavens and the new earth is the coming of the Lord's power which we now consider in verses 12 and 13. And if you've ever had the unpleasant experience of going into a courtroom as a party to a case, I know some of you have. Or if you're called into an employer's office, or the principal's office in school, or in front of your parents, having done something wrong, or a report about you having been filed with one of these authorities, you're coming into contact with power. Power rooted in particular authority. But then there's a different kind of power, the sheer power of a volcano, of an earthquake, of a hurricane, of a whirlwind, of a meteor crashing into Earth, of an atomic bomb. There's sheer power, the physical forces of nature or of man-made destruction, of unbearable heat or crushing water pressure. And that power is not due to authority, but just due to essential facts of physical reality. Well, with God, His power is both due to authority and due to His amazing and wondrous essence as God Himself, who's infinite in power and unchanging in power, who can stand before Him. When the Lord comes in power, we know He comes to judge the living and the dead. And what we see in our passage here is His coming in power is coming to punish sinful humanity, but also to protect those for whom He has provided and prepared the sacrifice and the consecration. His punishment is seen here in verse 12. He says, for I will go through or pass 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, I alone, am the Lord." This is the first time that declaration, I am the Lord, which is so common in Ezekiel, rather rare in the Pentateuch, more common in Deuteronomy than elsewhere. It's the first time this statement is given to us in the Bible. It's a very significant time. It's given in connection to what? His judgment on the false gods of Egypt who We already know we're powerless to do anything, who haven't even been dignified with a name, even their representative Pharaoh is never named himself. He's just titled as Pharaoh or King of Egypt. God comes to judge these defiling influences, not just on the Egyptians, but, as we know, on the Israelites. For later on we read, when they come into the promised land, there's a recommissioning of them, if you will. And there's a warning that they not return to the gods of the Egyptians, which they, their fathers, served in their enslavement. And so God says, I am alone, the Lord, judging the Egyptians. Many, rightly so, see in this verse the theme of these opening chapters in Exodus, this narrative section, perhaps even the whole book of Exodus, that God himself is sovereign in judgment over all the so-called supposed gods of the Egyptians. Are these gods of the Egyptians fallen angels or demons? I don't think so. I think they're just the vain man-made religion of Egypt, born out of confusion, ignorance and sin. And there's no power to them at all. And God reveals their true nature, in that they are nothing. They are no God. But He, He is the Great I Am. And He will judge. He will punish. How does He punish them? By executing the firstborn, He executes His judgment. But the Israelites, who were complicit in the idolatry of Egypt, The Israelites, they're implicated in this idolatry, in this sinfulness. So they too are in God's crosshairs, as it were, for punishment. And so he continues in verse 13, to describe again and assure them that He comes to protect them as they obey Him in this particular sacrificial rite. He says in verse 13, the blood, the blood of the Lamb 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. That is, I will pass over, but also I will protect you from the plague of devastation. No plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. He will protect his people in the Passover. We all struggle with various sins, the gods of this present evil age, sins of lust and greed, of vain ambition and avarice, of discontent and malcontent, but God himself has power over all of them. So come to God, our powerful creator and maker and deliverer from sin and the giver of salvation. salvation from all the consequences of sin, namely separation from His goodness, grace, and glory, that which is pictured in this plague of Egypt, which God shelters His people from. Isn't it interesting how these two concepts get rolled up together, this idea of God Seeing the blood and passing over, but also God assuring his people the plague, the destroyer, the destruction will not be visited upon them. And so God who passes over is also God who protects. And these two ideas come together with this mysterious and comforting force that God is for us, who can stand against us. What power on earth or in heaven can resist the awesome and infinite power of God, our protector, the punisher of evil. This God, He alone is the power source. He alone is the power, the might. He alone has the authority and willingness to save and so lay hold of Christ. You must be born again in the blood of the Lamb, washed whiter than snow, marked out as one of His own. And those of you who have been and already are, well then you are to improve upon your baptism, as our confession says. That is, you have been marked with the blood of the Lamb, you have been consecrated to God, and so you are to be ever mindful of your vocation, that to which you've been called as one who has been set apart by God, for God, through Christ Jesus, who is the Lamb of God. One day the kingdom of grace will give way to the kingdom of glory when Christ, when He comes in power to judge the nations of the world and bring all His people home to Himself. Are you prepared for that great day of revelation and wonders? Are you ready for it? That day which Joel and Amos and the prophets declare will be horrible and terrible in judgment and fire and flame. That day which John tells us in Revelation will be the day when the merchants and kings of the world will seek a mountain to hide under, for it will be so horrifying. Are you prepared to make that a day of rejoicing at the revelation of Christ? A day of reception and welcome? Well, the good news of our passage this evening, as we've considered it, is that the Lord provides the salvation you need to be prepared for the coming of His power. That is, the Father has sent the Son, and the Spirit now calls you to lay hold of the Son, Christ Jesus, your salvation, so that you too would be prepared washed clean of sin and consecrated to His service. On that judgment day, God's wrath and destructive power will pass over all those who have been sealed in Christ by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who have been identified with Christ and laid to rest in the grave with Christ and then brought out of the grave with Christ in His resurrection for our justification that we would be right before God and not subject then to the destruction which comes to all those who reject Him and all those who persist in their rebellion against Him. And so we read this passage with all of its details about the first Passover, and our hearts, they should be enthralled with the provision of God for our every need. That He doesn't leave us in our sins to wallow in them, but rather He washes us in the blood and marks us out for salvation. What a great God we have! And so we proclaim this Christ and Him crucified to the ends of the earth as His pilgrim people on this mission with this vocation, with this ministry that He gives to us, knowing that this Jesus is ours for we are His and we have been bought with a price, the price of His own blood. Brothers and sisters, we should be all the more now inspired to bear this message of salvation to the ends of the earth for considered the unprepared masses even in our own neighborhoods around us. Can they who have never heard the gospel and so know not Jesus Christ nor believe in him be saved by their living according to the light of nature? In other words, is there any other way to be prepared for that great day? Our larger catechism tells us, they who having never heard the gospel, know not Jesus Christ and believe not in him, cannot be saved. Be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature or the laws of that religion which they profess. Neither is there salvation in any other but in Christ alone, who is the savior only of his body, the church. Oh, may we seek. as a consecrated kingdom of priests to go out to share the gospel so that our neighbors and friends and those far off would be prepared for that day. And may that be our resolution at this beginning of the months, as it were, as God gives us the time for it. Let us stand together for our prayer of application and dedication. O Lord, our God in heaven above, you are glorious and great, and greatly to be praised, and awesome and terrible in your judgments. And we pray that you would give us zeal to herald forth Christ and him crucified, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We pray, Lord, that you would put us along the byways and the highways, to share the gospel with meekness and humility, but also with boldness and insistence. In every situation and on every occasion, being ready to give a defense of the hope that is within us. Lord, you've provided for us all that we need to be prepared for that day of the coming of Christ's power. And we pray that you would prepare our loved ones for the same. Now, Lord, we dedicate ourselves to your service. We ask for these divine appointments. We pray for energy and for wisdom and patience as we pursue them and grant to us, Lord, joy in doing so, even and especially when persecution comes. And we dedicate to you a portion of what we've received for the ministry of the word. that you, Lord, would be glorified in all the earth. In this we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you for listening to this message from Antioch Presbyterian Church. For more information about Antioch, visit us at our website at antiochpca.com.