So, please turn with me to Exodus 12. Tonight we're going to see an interesting example of instruction. That is the form of knowledge, not necessarily the essence of knowledge. That would be understanding. Now this is principally the same thing we try to do with our children. We catechize them with knowledge in hopes that they will fill that structure with the understanding as they practice and experience these truths. As these become more than mere theory, as they become the experiment of life, we see the Lord doing the same thing here in this passage. He's catechizing the fledgling nation of Israel. Remember, there is no Torah yet. There is no scripture at all. They might know some of the stories of Genesis, but they are living Exodus now. And they see his deeds and are starting to receive his ordinances. But if they stop there, they will never know him beyond his form. They must meditate on his deeds and commands and implement the principles from them that they may know not just his form but his essence. Tonight I was going to say that I couldn't imagine a better setup than the sermon Brother Mike gave us the previous evening service. But now I have to admit, the morning service seemed to fit rather well in tandem with it as well. But Mike left us with a great summary. Be imitators of God. Wake up and take this formal knowledge to a true understanding, to practice it, and to experience it. Now, if you would please read with me chapter 12 of Exodus. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each can eat. You shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take from it, or you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. And you shall keep it until the 14th day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lentil of the house in which they eat. They shall eat the flesh that night, roast it on fire. With unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roast it, its head with its legs and its inner parts. and you shall let none of it remain until morning. Anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it, with your belt fastened and your sandals on your feet, and with your staff in your hand. You shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on your houses where you are. 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. This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations, as a statute forever. You shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. And you shall 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 statute forever. In the first month, from the 14th day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall not eat anything leavened in your dwelling places. You shall not eat unleavened bread. Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, Go and select your lambs for yourselves according to your clans, kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in blood that is in the basin. Touch it to the lentil in the two-door post with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out from the door of his house until the morning, for the Lord will pass through and strike the Egyptians. And when he sees the blood on the door of the lentil in the two-door post, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. You shall observe this right as a statute for you and your sons forever. And when you come into the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when the children say to you, what do you mean by this service? You shall say, it is a sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he has passed over the houses of the people of Israel and Egypt when he struck the Egyptians. but he spared our houses. And the people bowed their heads and worshipped. And then the people of Israel went and did so, as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. So they did. Please bow your heads with me. Well, great and mighty king, we thank you for your goodness and your mercy toward us. Not only do we not deserve it, but we have earned your wrath. We should never be passed over. We thank you that you have been gracious and merciful to us. We ask you to teach us what is in your word here and give us the understanding of what it means. Conform us to the image of Christ. Please, shut up my opinions and my thoughts. Let only what is true in your word come out here. We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Mediator and King. Amen. So, starting with verse 1. This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. This would be the month of Nisan. Now, it had a different name before the Babylonian deportation. I can't remember what it was. I think it was a bib. But their calendar is not one-to-one with us. Our calendar, our Gregorian calendar, is a solar calendar based on how long it takes for the Earth to go around the Sun. And this Hebrew, this ancient Hebrew calendar, is a lunar calendar. And there, it's a lunar calendar, so it has a different amount of days in their year than our year. There is a five-day difference per year. As such, it requires that every 19 years they have a leap year where they add an entire month to the year. So this year in the calendar, their calendar begins on our March 30th. Isn't that interesting? Yes, it is. Here's why. This month, just next Sunday, Nisn will begin. Because of the changes that God institutes, Adar will become the last month of their calendar in their distant future. They will begin to celebrate Haram on this month. And so we have this celebration of God's deliverance of the Jews from the Babylonians through Esther. Okay, so we have the last month of the year, celebration of God's perseverance of his people, or preservance of his people through Esther. And now in the first month of the year, we have a celebration of God's redemption of his people. So this gives us a wonderful image of the Christian life. We are redeemed in the beginning, and then we are preserved to the end. And what's really interesting about that tonight is that the Purim just happened. March 13th, 14th, the sunset of the 13th and the sunset of the 14th. And now Nisan will begin in, let's see, 21 days. So we are as close to the Sinner Sunday as possible of both of those days. And if God allows, the next time I preach, when we finish this final plague, the actual Passover, it will be on Easter weekend. So God has ordained all of this to work out in a way that I never could. Because how many times do we constantly change the calendar for who's preaching? Can somebody fill in for me? Can somebody take this? And so I think God is really highlighting this for us tonight. We need to observe this very closely. And because this is also a real date, Scripture gives us connection point that reminds us of this real historical time, this real historical event, this real definite place. This is a particular and real people. 3,471 years ago, in 21 days, Israel would experience its first Passover. I don't think it's a mere coincidence that I'm preaching this sermon as close to the center of these two dates as we can possibly get. But as we mold our lives to the standard of Scripture and submit to its life-altering power, we should be careful to not forget These are the lives of real people. This is someone's story. They experienced this. This is not just something spiritual for us today. What good is it to think in a merely, now I said merely, spiritual way in our tangible world where we physically interface with other persons? There are spiritually dead people with whom we are called to interact and pass on the living word of God through the physical means of gospel proclamation, through the physical means of service. We do things for people, and they notice we're different, and we tell them about the gospel. There is a material interaction between people. We are not merely spiritual. God has given us a material, tangible world that elevates our finite understanding and informs us with magnificent displays of those difficult-to-comprehend aspects of the truth. The historical events of Scripture not only proclaim in words, but display in types and patterns and images the sovereignty of a real and living God. His omnipotence, his omniscience, his wisdom, his omnipresence, his mercy, his justice, his wrath towards sin, and so on. Things that we could never understand with merely a spiritual existence. Everything that we see in this world is pointing to those realities, the truths about God. Even the contrast in the things that we would see as negative, God is showing us what He is not. As we have been observing in Exodus, what good is a God who can't do, doesn't see, and doesn't hear? Why should we want a God that is dead? In all of Scripture, the Lord poses a question by way of demonstration. And that is why, O foolish man, will you desire Baal, or Molech, or Dagon, or the 1,500 useless gods of Egypt? When I reach into your world and show my love to you, why do you continue to pursue vain imaginations?" And so, what is he teaching us with Passover? How is He trying to pull our attention away from these vain imaginations? What is this now fulfilled material sacrament called Passover Pointus 2? We can see in the first month this season is the image of a new beginning. Nisan, or March to us, is the first month of spring. It is quite literally a new season. Israel is being brought out of the dark, cold, immobile death portrayed in winter and into the vibrant, verdant, energetic life of spring. Israel's promise to be released from the bondage of suffering and death in Egypt is on the very cusp of fulfillment. All of the dominoes are in place, just waiting for the first one to be tipped. And the people have heard this is the last plague. And I imagine the general attitude was, hey, we're basically free. Let's go pack. And can you imagine, as Moses announced, what they're to do? The Lord says, tell the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of every month, or on the 10th day of this month, to go and choose a lamb according to their father's house, a lamb for every household. Wait, what? One more plague and we're going, right? What's this 10 days thing about? And Moses goes, no, you still misunderstand. It's 14 days. In the 10th days, you're going to select the lamb. The 14th, we're actually going to sacrifice the lamb. So, slow your roll. That night will be Passover, and the next morning, they'll kick us out. Can you imagine this, right? Everything that's happened so far, you've witnessed the power of God. You know this is the last one. It's time to go. Nah, we're gonna wait for two weeks. We're gonna observe something about God first for two weeks. So what are we seeing here? What is this 10 days about? Well, there's just too much here. Why is the sacrifice selected on the tenth day? Well, there are several aspects of this. Practically all of the Passover details have multiple facets, and we would be here for days if we tried to uncover them all in one sitting. We cannot even survey all of the details on a top level tonight. So here's the ones that I think we need to consider as important right now. The 10th day. present us an image of responsibility. If you remember in the beginning of the plagues, we talked about the 10 plagues pointing to responsibility. The 10 commandments show us a responsibility. We have a responsibility to God's law. God has a responsibility to enforce that law. And the ten plagues show us God is taking responsibility to fulfill His promise and bring Israel out of Egypt. And so we continue to see this image of ten reflecting responsibility through Scripture. And so what does that mean for us right now with this lamb? What does that have to do with this lamb? Well, one, I think we have, for these people at this time, this 10 days creates a baked-in reminder of the 10 plagues themselves. So every time there's a Passover, they think about the 10 plagues in Egypt, where the Lord did specifically take responsibility to redeem them. And then, not only is this a reminder of his mighty deeds to keep his promise and redeem Abraham's line, as everything in the Old Testament is a shadow of Christ to come, it also shows us an aspect of Christ's work when we look backwards through the lens of the gospel. With 10 being the number of responsibility, it hints at while it is God who saves us by his grace, Those who reject His sacrifice are responsible for their own choice. We must accept this substitutionary sacrifice or take the punishment ourselves. In other words, we are called to repent of our sins and believe in Christ, in which case we accept that He has taken responsibility for our sins. and the consequences of our sins, or by rejecting Him, we are taking up responsibility for ourselves. And then we see that this is directly pointing to the work of Christ. Whether He will take responsibility for our sins, or we will. And so, if it's about Christ and what He's done, why are they given the option to choose between a goat and a lamb? Isn't the Lamb of God the sacrifice? What's this goat thing about? Why is that acceptable? And we think of the church today, you have the sheep and the goats, these are opposite worlds, they don't belong together. Why can you choose a sacrifice of a sheep and a goat? Again, there are a lot of aspects we could look at here. But I think one of the most prominent is that it reveals substitutionary atonement. Again, it's true that the Lamb of God died in our place, but what should have been in that place was the goats. It should have been us. We are not sheep from the beginning. We are made into sheep, but first we are the goat. We are under the curse of sin and we reject Christ. It is only after his gracious act of regeneration that we become sheep. So the Lamb of God died for the goats to transform them into sheep like himself. So we can see a representation of the punishment that should be ours. the goat, and simultaneously an exhibition of the suffering Christ would endure for us as the lamb. So we see basically both sides of the coin. And so at this point you might be thinking, if 10 days matters, what about the four-day period? Well, you bet it does. If I brought it up, you knew it does. No detail should ever be ignored from the recorded Word of God. 4 was always my favorite number as a kid, and now I think I understand why I instinctively latched onto it. 4 is the number of restoration. Think of it as the opposite of 2. Now I know here you're saying, Caleb, 4 is not the opposite of 2. Hold on. I do have reasons. 2 is the number of division. I want you to think of this phrase, rent in two. Or think about Genesis 15, 10, where Abraham is receiving the covenant with the Lord, and he tells him to go get all of those animals and to prepare them for this covenant ceremony. And then he brought all of these animals to him, and he cut them in two and laid each half opposite the other. It did not cut the birds. We have this brokenness. Two is always this breaking apart. We see this division a lot with Scripture. And then four is the number of justice, like restoration and repair. For example, we can remember how just a little bit further in Genesis 15, God talks to Abraham about how the land would be given to Abraham's descendants, but not yet. The Amorites, their sins are not, what was the phrase he used? Their sins are not complete. So what he's saying is, It's not time for my justice to be poured out on the Amorites yet. And what he tells them is, the land will be given to your descendants in four generations. So you see that this amount of time, this four generations, pointing to the justice of God. And then in Luke 19, 8, we read the story of Zacchaeus, When he stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold." So you see this number four showing justice and restoration. And so knowing that, when we look at the land that would dwell with the people in their home for four days, what is that? It's the restoration work of Christ. This is a billboard for Emmanuel, God with us, the reunification of God and man, both natures, God and man, distinct and without mixture in one man, a mediator walking beside us, eating with us, living with us, communing and fellowshipping with us. There's a picture of how humanity would experience him in this life for a short time, a period of restoration work. and then be physically separated by his sacrifice as he pays the legal demand of our sin to God. He makes us just in the sight of God. You see the justice before. It becomes plainly obvious now as to why this land must be without blemish, why it must be a year old. It must signify the perfection of our sinless Christ the son of man who gave himself for us in the prime of his sinless human life. Now God can pour out grace upon us and at the same time not be unjust to do so. The demands of justice have been met so that his grace can be displayed. And there is even a significance to the killing of the lambs at twilight. You remember the events that are recounted in Matthew chapter 27. It says, now from the sixth hour, in verse 45, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. And that is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, This man is calling Elijah. One of them at once ran and took a sponge and filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the other said, Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. And Jesus cried out again, and with a loud voice yielded up his spirit." So we see here, while it wasn't twilight, It was dark when Christ gave up his spirit. It was, in fact, a supernatural darkness. Astronomers are adamant that there was not a solar eclipse at this time. Before more people than merely Matthew and Luke wrote about this, there are extra-biblical writings about this appearance. Now Dionysus the Areopagite, yes the same Areopagus that we've been going through in Acts, he describes the moon as coming across the sky in the wrong direction. It eclipses the sun and then it turns around and goes back the way it came. I don't know about you, but there's never been a natural event in history that I know of where the moon has changed directions. Now, let's leave the skeptics and atheists to argue about this impossibility. The entire point is it is supernatural. By definition, it is above nature. It is not the normal way of things. Yes, we know it cannot happen. That is the point. It is these miraculous works that prove who Christ is. When a true impossibility occurs, it can only be the supernatural work of the God that they foolishly refuse to accept. And so we see twilight prefiguring an impossible, miraculous detail of Christ's victorious crucifixion. The literal dark day. And then in verse 7 and 13, it talks about how they shall take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts and the lentil of the house in which they eat. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. 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. Now, if you've grown up in the church, You may already have the notion that if you connect the two posts in the lintel, it forms a cross. The blood on the wood beam signifies to us the way he would die. And to that I say, yes, but what do you mean by the cross? If you are referring to merely the object, that is a comparatively minor thing. But if you're referring to the objective of the cross, that is a different thing altogether. The accomplishment of the cross is massive. The core of the image is that the entrance of this house itself is marked in blood, that they have entered a structure that covers them. Think about the imagery in the Old Testament where God sealed the door of the ark for Noah with his own hand. where Rahab and her family were safe so long as they were behind a window marked with a red cord. The very window that was used as a door by the spies. Remember in Genesis 15 in God's covenant with Abraham when the Lord walks between the bloody halves of the animals. Think of the images of the priest sprinkling the blood on the altar, which represents our access to God. and now realize that we don't merely have an altar of the cross, as Hebrews 13 says. The New Testament tells us that Christ is our high priest. He is our sacrifice, and he is our altar. From the words of John 10, 9, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and he will go through and out to pasture. This symbol is, sure, it does tell us how Christ would die, but it's pointing to more than that. It's pointing to what He was doing with His death. It's less about the item of that cross and more about the implications of it. He has made a way, He is the way. By passing through this bloodstained door, this gate, this opening, you will be shielded against the wrath of God towards sin. Just like Noah in the wake of the flood, and Abraham, or excuse me, Rahab in the midst of utter destruction, and just like we will see later with the Hebrews and the angel of death, the Lord also says, the blood over you will be a sign for you. You remember that? The sign, we're always talking about signs as Presbyterians. It's a reminder of the covenant. It's a sign, what's he say, for you. doesn't just mark you out for mercy, it's a visible reminder for you. It is your assurance that when He sees the blood, He will pass over you. It is your assurance that in like chapter six, verse five, talking to Israel, we're still in Exodus, I have eternally remembered my covenant with you. New Testament language, when I see you in Christ and your sin blotted out by the blood of the sacrifice, my wrath will not merely pass over you, I will eternally remember you are in covenant through Christ, and I will count you as my heir. Then moving down to verse 8, We see that the Hebrews are commanded to eat the flesh the same night of the killing and roast it. No leftovers are to remain. They must be burned. So the meat must be fresh. It must not be allowed to see any decay, whatever. Doesn't that sound familiar? About Psalm 16, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your Holy One see corruption. Did you ever notice the hint of a resurrection this early in Scripture? Sure, we've seen the promise of redemption, absolutely, of putting things right, reversing that curse, but of the resurrection specifically? I can't remember one sooner than this. No part of the sacrifice is to be raw or boiled. Now this, this is in stark contrast to heathen feasts that were all around it. They very often had raw meat. How everyone didn't get sick and die. Old Testament history, I guess. But they would eat raw meat at these feasts. Somebody thought that was a good idea. We see a glimpse of sanctification here. Of being set apart and different from the world around us. They don't just seem different, they don't look different, they are doing different things. something diametrically opposed to the world around them. And then we have the hyssop, right? They're applying the blood to the door with the hyssop. Now what is it about hyssop? Does that matter? Yes, of course it does. If it's named in scripture, it matters. So we have this hyssop here now. Hyssop has medicinal qualities. It, in and of itself, is restorative, specifically toward the lungs and the respiratory tract. Don't ask me how that works. I'm not a nerbalist. But I know another interesting thing about it is one of the compounds in it is actually an anticoagulant. So by dipping this in the blood, The blood is not going to want to dry. We see an image of this blood being always fresh. Doesn't that sound familiar? A sacrifice that is always fresh, grace that is always enough, always sufficient. And then, very interestingly, it shows up in what we just read. where Matthew marks the reed that they give Christ the sour wine on the sponge with, John tells us it's not a reed, it's a hyssop. And so we have this imagery being fulfilled in Christ's crucifixion. It's not just an empty detail of the Old Testament. It's pointing to the restorative work of Christ. And it's pointing to the sufficiency of His sacrifice. Now, I don't know if you've noticed this or not, covenant language is absolutely peppering this text. Have you noticed all of this? Their father's houses, a lamb per house, the four days of keeping or literally guarding the lamb of sacrifice, the feasts, the covenant meals to be observed forever, a statute to be observed forever, and so on. This idea of a contract between a greater power and his charges Where the basic form is, if you keep guard my commands, I will keep slash guard you. Are you in this covenant with God? Do you recognize your sin in God's holiness? Have you by grace alone placed your faith alone in Christ alone? The one and only door to salvation. When we are in Christ, he molds us and our desires into righteous ones. And then we keep or guard his commands. You notice that they keep the lamb in their house. This is what this is referring to. We are keeping Christ in our house. We know Him. We don't know Him with a sense of academic head knowledge. We don't know the form of Him by knowing all of these facts. We know Him. We read His Word. We pray. We have a relationship with Him. We are in covenant because we are keeping His commands, because we love Him and need Him. And the wonderful thing about that covenant is He keeps us. So we obey Him in the joy of who He is. We are keeping and guarding this covenant as if it's a treasure. We're not observing a legalistic requirement. We're practicing these ordinance to take them beyond a head knowledge. into an experiential knowledge. And that hopes that we will also take them beyond these walls, out into the world as we are instructed to do, to witness to the world around us and to make them into disciples as well. And so in summary for tonight, I know we didn't get a lot of details. We'll try to get to some more on the next go-round. But in summary for tonight, we can see in the details of this Passover, God is mighty to save. He keeps His promises. He will redeem His people. God's people will have new life by accepting the substitutionary sacrifice and entrusting in the Lamb of God to take responsibility for our sins. We will be sanctified and Christ will dwell in peace with us because we will be heirs with our Redeemer. And like this Passover was a catechism for Israel, a starting point in understanding, we too must not merely know it like you know medieval history or cold, clinical, matter-of-fact knowledge. We must know it in an intimate sense. If like David, we don't meditate on the knowledge of God day and night, if we don't practice it, we haven't known its essence. When Scripture speaks of knowing God like this, it is in the same intimate sense when it says, Adam knew his wife. So if we don't Meditate on the knowledge of God. Like David, if we don't know it, if we don't practice it, and we haven't known its essence, Christian, it is up to you to pray, to read His Word, and to dwell in it. Do not simply know about Christ. Know Him and commune with Him.