I many times in my life have purposefully made a fool of myself and done innumerable shenanigans in front of people to get a rise out of people and have enjoyed that for the most part. When I stand before the Lord's people, that is not what is on my heart. I don't ever want to disgrace the Lord or in any way bring a reproach upon His name because what we are doing tonight is one of the most important things in your life. We are opening the word of the living God together. This is not just a book. This is the Word of God that tells us about the God of the Word. All that we know about Him comes from this book. Anything that we know about Him that does not come from this book did not come from Him, and it is not trustworthy. But everything that comes from this book is indeed trustworthy. And everything has been put here for a purpose, from the mind of God through the pen and the heart and the mind of His man. When we find ourselves tonight in Exodus chapter 13, continuing our look at the exodus of Israel from Egypt, not merely the exodus, but all that took place in it. And the Lord has recorded this for us, that we might know about it, that we might remember it. The Lord has recorded what he has done for posterity's sake, to be able to know him and to recognize how to serve him, how to honor him. And we get a glimpse into his heart. We get a glimpse into the heart of Yahweh tonight here in Exodus chapter 13, verses 1 through 16. I hope that we are able to get through all of it tonight. There is tremendous, tremendous fodder here for This is tremendous benefit for us to know what is in the heart of God, because we by nature tend to think of God as some impersonal force somewhere, but He is not an impersonal anything. He is a being. He is the truest being in all of the universe, and He has a desire for relationship. He didn't merely save people and send Christ here to save His people merely to have trophies of grace in heaven. He is going to have trophies of grace in heaven that are relational beings related to Him. He has created man in His image, and part of that image-bearing capacity is the capacity to have relationships. And we see coming out of his heart here that he is not an impersonal, immovable, unappeasable force in the heavens. He is a tender and compassionate, caring. He cares what we remember, and he cares what we do in response to him and to what he has done for us. And I'll tell you what else, he knows us and knows what we need well enough to be able to prescribe for us what is best for us. Not as a punishment, but as a protection and a provision for us. And it is good for you, and it is good for me to remember. We've already spoken tonight of things that some of us remember from the past, and I've recounted to you things that have happened to me. And when we find ourselves in groups, we get together with family, we remember and we think back to different times. And sometimes we remember it in a little bit better light than it actually happened, but that's how our memory works and that's okay. But when we want to look back at what the Lord has done for us. Every year at the Thanksgiving holiday, we take time to look back over the year to remember and to proclaim what the Lord has done for us and to praise Him for the things that He has done for us. Not for everything that He's done for us. We would never have time to do that in a service like that. But we want to offer Him praise in remembrance and in memorial. Well, the Lord actually desires for us to do that. He wants us to remember. He wants us to recognize what he's done for us. Now, most people want you to remember things that they've done for you for their own credit. You remember what I did for you? You remember? You remember what I did? Just gonna remind you. I know it was a long time ago, but you better remember. Because one day I'm gonna need something from you, and you're gonna need to remember what I did for you, and maybe you can reciprocate. Things like that. We want credit. We want credit. Give me credit for what I've done. Well, that very often is a prideful, personal ambition. But when the Lord tells us to remember what He has done, it is for us to remember in a way that brings him glory and for us to remember in a way that does us good is for his glory and for our good it is for our good and in many many ways it is for our good at least in in this these terms it is good for us to remember where we have been and where he has brought us from and what he has done for us in spite of what we deserve and that is what he is telling the israeli people here in exodus chapter thirteen this comes on the heels of the people leaving. The exodus has been recorded here in chapter 13, beginning in verse 33. We come to chapter 13, and Yahweh is telling Moses what they are to do in response to this. And he's telling Moses what he wants done as a memorial in the future for what he has already done in the past. Now we need the Lord to tell us things like this because we want to honor Him and to participate in memorials to Him in a way that is acceptable to Him and in a way that is honorable to Him. Gentlemen, I'll just give you a little advice. I'm older than some of you. I'm younger than some of you. But I know this, from my own experience of watching other people, that if you want to do something nice for somebody, make sure you do something that is nice by their standard and not merely by your own. Case in point, it's your wife's birthday, and you want to take her out to eat. Don't take her to your favorite restaurant. Unless you're fortunate like Joe and others where your favorite restaurant is her favorite restaurant. But if your wife likes seafood, or really, really likes fine Italian food, don't take her to a Brazilian steakhouse for her birthday, because you like to eat meat. I mean, who doesn't like to eat meat, right? Hey man, I didn't get many on that, but I like a meat coma every now and then. It's pretty, it's an enjoyable experience for me. But I wanna do what, if I want to express to my wife, my affection for her. I must do it in a way that is meaningful to her. And if I want to express my praise and honor and adoration to Yahweh, I need to do it in a way that He will accept, in a way that matters to Him. And the only way that I'm ever going to know what meets that criteria is by coming to His Word. And the Israeli people are about to go into, and many of these people would have wanted to come up with a way to memorialize what the Lord is doing for them, but they would have no possible way to know how to do that. Because until the Lord reveals it, they're all gonna do their own thing. And honestly, some of them would probably do things in a way that they learned in false religion in Egypt, and attempt to honor the Lord through false religious practices. Can you imagine doing that? There are people that do that today. Well, I want to honor the Lord with my life, so I'm going to keep this list of rules. Okay? Problem is, the list of rules turns into the authority in your life, and you no longer are concerned as much with honoring the Lord as you are concerned with honoring this list of rules, and the Lord gets put in the periphery. It's very dangerous ground to be on to attempt to try to honor the Lord your own way. But there's a remedy for that. It's this book, and knowing this book. And I don't mean reading it through a couple of times till you know a lot of cross-references. You need to know this book, and the way that you know this book is the same way that you know your spouse. You continue to get to know your spouse. I've been married to that woman for 26 years, and I'm still learning stuff about her, and I expect it's going to continue that way till the Lord comes. Because I don't need her to learn a whole lot more about me, so he needs to come soon. Or he may just ruin this whole thing. She's finding out that I'm not maybe all I thought I was when we got married. But we want to honor the Lord in a way that truly honors Him. And the Lord has moved here in chapter 13 to tell Moses how they are to conduct themselves in memorial of the exodus that He has provided for them. I've titled tonight's message, Yahweh's Exodus Memorials. The memorials that he set forth. Let's read verses 1 through 16, then we'll come back and pull some of this apart and put ourselves in this place. We want to go back into this first-person perspective and to put ourselves in their shoes. so that we might understand what is going on and be able to take those principles and apply them to us now. Then Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, sanctified to me every firstborn, the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and beast, it belongs to me. And Moses said to the people, Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery, for by a strong hand Yahweh brought you out from this place, and nothing leavened shall be eaten. This day, in the month of Abib, you are going out. And it shall be when Yahweh brings you to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall do this service in its month. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to Yahweh, unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days, and nothing leavened shall be seen among you, nor shall any leaven be seen among you in all your borders. And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, it is because of what Yahweh did for me when I came out of Egypt. And it will be as a sign to you, on your hand, and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of Yahweh may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand Yahweh brought you out of Egypt. Therefore you shall keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year. And it will be when Yahweh brings you to the land of the Canaanite, as he swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you. And you shall devote to Yahweh the first offspring of every womb and the first offspring of every beast that you own. The males belong to Yahweh. But every first offspring of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. But if you do not redeem it, you shall break its neck. And every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. And it will be when your son asks you in the time to come, saying, What is this? Then you shall say to him, With a strong hand, Yahweh brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. And it happened when Pharaoh hardened his heart with stiffness about letting us go, that Yahweh killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to Yahweh the males, the first offspring of every womb, but every firstborn of my sons I redeem. So it will be as a sign on your hand and as phylacteries between your eyes, for with a strong hand Yahweh brought us out of Egypt. We speak of the exodus maybe with the idea of just this day when they woke up to the Egyptians throwing them out of Egypt. But if we want to be fully honest and clear at this point, I say honest, we want to be clear at this point, he's talking about the exodus being from the time that they began to experience the heaviest of persecution when Moses went to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said, not only will I not let them go, I'm going to kill them here. They'll never be out of my grasp, just a diabolical man. From that day until the day that they cross the Jordan River and move into the land of Canaan, what had been in mind here, But from their perspective, they had no idea how long that's going to be. That's going to wind up being much longer than they anticipate. The Lord knows it's coming, but Moses doesn't know. The people don't know. They just know that there is a time that they're going to leave from here and wind up in the land of Canaan. It should have taken them a year and about two months. That's about how long it should have taken them to get into the Promised Land. It took him a year and about two or three months to get to the Jordan River and to reject what Yahweh told him to do and then to spend the next 38 years wandering in the wilderness. But he has in mind for them to remember what Yahweh has done for them as the years progress, do not forget what I've done. Begins in verse one with Yahweh's announcement. Verses 1 and 2. There are three words here that you can kind of hang your hat on. One is personal. In verse one, we see that this is personal. Yahweh spoke to Moses. This address is coming from him. This instruction is coming from him to the people. He is speaking to Moses. He has not been petitioned. He is, in a very personal way, telling them, this is what I want you to know, and this is how I want you to act. I want this to be from me to you. He announces to Moses, as I've already said, how he wants it to be done. Because there are some people that are going to be very sentimental and are going to want to remember this day and they're going to want to set up a holiday. The Lord tells them ahead of time, I want it to be a holiday, I want it to be a memorial day, but it has to be this way. He's telling them before it happened, And it is a blessing and a benefit to us for the Lord to tell us that this is how, this is what he will accept, and this is how he will be honored in your life. We need that. Otherwise, we'd all be out doing our own thing. And you think there are a lot of religions today. There'd be innumerably more. It's personal. Second word is precise. Look at the beginning of verse two. He has some very precise things to tell them. I want it done precisely this way, sanctified to me every firstborn. The idea of sanctifying something is to set it apart, to set it apart for the honor of God, ultimately, if you want to really take the word biblically to its fully intended meaning, set them apart in honor to me. We don't practice that, what he's about to describe, we don't practice this in the Christian, in the church. But at this church, we don't practice it beyond this. On Father's Day, we have a child dedication for, usually for children that have been born in the preceding year. And it's an act by a family to say we are, We are honoring the Lord with our children. We want to raise a posterity for his honor and for his glory. He is telling them in the beginning, the first one that is born, you are to set aside for me and set aside to me. And what are you to set aside? One of your children? Well, that would be a little harder to do, especially if you have a bunch of kids. It's easier some days than others, I'll be honest, but it'd be hard to pick a kid to hand over to the Lord, so we just try to do that with all of our children today, but what he says here is this, sanctify to me every firstborn. Now, the firstborn here, he's speaking of the first to open the womb, the first offspring of every womb, the first to open the womb, what is the firstborn? Verse 12, he's more specific. At the end of verse 12, he says the males belong to Yahweh. So it would be the firstborn male of every womb. So if you had several daughters before, this wouldn't apply to the daughters, it's going to apply to the firstborn son. It's not been that specific until now, and when it speaks of the firstborn of every person and of every animal, back in chapter 12, it's not that specific. But here he's, in verse 12, he's a little more specific. Every firstborn of every womb, both of man and of beast. Now this is gonna take some work. This is going to be a lot of work, as we'll see. First word, personal. Second word, precise. The third word is possession. He wants them to get the edge of what he is saying. Look at the end of verse two. It belongs to me. Now, to be clear, everything belongs to him. But what he is telling them is, the firstborn belongs to me. There's a symbolic aspect to this, because especially in that day, still in many cultures today, the firstborn child is the most important member of the family. The firstborn son is the most important member of the family in many places in the East. And the idea is that your most prized possession, the most prized person in your family is your firstborn. He told Pharaoh that Israel is my firstborn. Among all the peoples, Israel is my firstborn. They were not the first of the people. He is putting Israel in the place of the firstborn. and what he did ultimately he he allowed moses to to contribute waving of the stick in and and speaking of words in bringing the first nine judgments on israel on egypt but the last one he told moses you go away in the house boy i'm gonna handle this myself and he brought the death of the first born it took God that no one could duplicate it took an act of God that no it wasn't that a plague hit and that 40% of the people died in Egypt overnight it wasn't like that it wasn't like some epidemic it was the death angel and very precise action moving through sweeping through in one evening just imagine going through opelousas and going to every house if you just had to go stop and take a picture of the front door of every house in opelousas how long would that take you You ain't gonna do it tonight. But the death angel passed through the entire country of Egypt in the night, and he did it in such a hurry that before the night was over, Pharaoh was up and throwing the Israeli people out. There was no way for anyone to come up with an excuse for how that happened. God moved. It was the strong hand that he promised Moses he would exercise. And he is telling them that the firstborn belongs to me. Now, he's gonna give us a little more specifics on that in a few verses here. Yeah, the firstborn already belongs to him, but this is an acknowledgment by the people that the very best of what they have, and in conjunction with that, everything that they have is being given to Yahweh. This is a A token. The firstborn was the most important member of the family. And to give of the first one, and to give of what would become the principle of firstfruits, it is symbolic of the whole. I'm giving you the best that I have, and that is symbolic of giving you all that I have. You're all familiar with Proverbs 3. Honor the Lord with the firstfruits of all your increase. It doesn't say honor the Lord with all of your increase. It doesn't say to give everything you have to the Lord. says, honor the Lord with the firstfruits of all of your increase. You're giving this as a token or a pledge that all of it belongs to you. That's why it is the first. If you're gonna give your firstborn of anything, you don't know if anything's coming after that. But you honor the Lord with it. It's going to get a little more graphic in a minute. We're going to get to verse 12, and I'm going to tell you what he's actually talking about here, what he's describing. It's not merely symbolic. This is something that they're doing in reality. It is a real action with a real responsibility attached to it because it has a It has a real memorial in mind. That's Yahweh's announcement. Verses 3 through 10, Moses really is reiterating to them here what is expected by God as a memorial in a yearly activity. This is to go year to year. universe ten you'll keep this statute and it's appointed time from year to year there is a time that you to do this this is how it's going to happen is going to start uh... the the month is i'll be but before the babylonian captivity the month is miss on after the babylonian captivity from the tenth of our people miss on they're gonna bring the lamb into the home on the fourteenth of miss on they're going to to slaughter that lamb at twilight and that is going to begin the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That is to be a memorial every year on those dates without variation. It is to be a yearly activity. There's a memorial address, memorial action, and then we'll see there is a memorial acquaintance that is attached here in verses 8 through 10. Verses 3 to 5 we see a memorial address. Moses is speaking to the people. Yahweh has said this to Moses. Moses goes to the people and he begins with this reminder of the The expectation of a memorial. Look at the first word that he says, remember. Remember this day. And you say, preacher, you've been talking about remembering what God has done. It seems now for two months that's what you talk about every Sunday night. You know why? Because that's what keeps coming out of these passages. I'm not just hung up on a broke record. This is what God continues to tell me, you need to remember. You know why he tells you to remember? Because you're forgetful. And we're easily distracted. Somebody said something this morning about how slow life must have passed for people before they lived in this day and age with all the distractions that we have. If that were the case, you wouldn't have to tell people to remember 3,500 years ago, but if they needed to remember then, we certainly need to remember now because our attention span is about that long. I'm sorry, what were we talking about? That's how it goes. He tells them remember. Remember. this day in which you went out from Egypt. They didn't leave Egypt because they were moving to get a better job for their family. They didn't leave Egypt because they were interested in exploring the land of Canaan. It wasn't like Lewis and Clark set out to go find Oregon. or wherever they went. No, look what it says. Remember this day that you went out from Egypt from the house of slavery. This is real easy for you and I to put ourselves in these shoes. There was a lot of reaction this morning in this morning's sermon as we remembered this is what the Lord did for us in spite of who we are, in spite of who we were. And as we remember that, we remember that slavery to sin that we were born into, and the newness of life that we have in Christ because of what another has done for us, unsolicited and unannounced, for His own glory and for our good. We remember. He brought you out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand He brought you out from this place. And when you remember, Nothing leaven shall be eaten. You're to go back and to eat unleavened bread. This day, in the month of Abib, or you could put Nisan there, I told you why the difference between the word, it's the same month. This day, in the month of Abib, you're going out. Then he gets even more specific. He starts talking about the people that they're going to dispossess. Yahweh shall bring you, not when you get there, not when you go, not when you arrive. It shall be when Yahweh brings you to the land of the Canaanite. Now he's announcing where they're going to go, but he's not telling them to go. He says this is where Yahweh is going to bring you. He starts naming people, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivite, the Jebusite, he's going to bring you to that land which he swore to your fathers to give you this graphic an interesting statement a land flowing with milk and honey how many of your kids like chocolate milk grandkids like chocolate milk the only chocolate milk i really like is bourdon chocolate milk i'll drink some other one i don't really necessarily like to make my own at home i know We're talking about somebody in church the other day that drinks a glass of chocolate milk every night. Make their own with the Nesquik powder. They didn't have Nesquik powder. And there was nobody named Borden. And most likely they were drinking goat milk more often than they were drinking cow milk, which is an exercise in agony all its own. But I'll tell you what. They didn't have sugar like we have today. They didn't have cane syrup or corn syrup, but they could find honey. And I'd rather honey and certain things that I consume over any of those other things. A land flowing with milk and honey. He's speaking of this to these slaves. This would have been the type of beverage that would have been available to their overlords in Egypt. This was not something that slaves ate. This was not something that was just there for the consumption of the slave people. He said, you're going into a land that is going to be a land of plenty for you. You're going into something you never expected. Yeah, it's kind of scary because you don't know exactly where you're going. You were just thrown out of Egypt. Remember, they didn't say, hey, we're ready to leave. God said, I'm ready for you to leave, and now you're leaving. They wanted him to get the Egyptians off their back. He wanted to get them out of Egypt and into the place that he promised them. And he says, when you get there, it'll be a land flowing with milk and honey. It's the land of plenty. When you get there, end of verse five, when you dispossess all of these people, don't forget, you will do this service in its month. When you get there and you find yourselves effectively in the lap of luxury, when the 10 spies go in a year and a half from this point or so, a year and a couple of months, you remember what they come back with? Says they came back with grapes that they had to hang on a rack between two men. Now I always thought about it being grapes the size of a basketball. That's just kind of what I had in my head. They just had a cluster of grapes that were all that big. Maybe it was, probably was not. It was probably that the land was that fertile that the cluster of grapes was so long that they had to hang it that way to bring it back. Either way, this is something they've never seen, they've never heard of. This is the land that God has prepared for them. On top of that, these were not wild grapes growing out in the woods. This was coming from cultivated ground that another group of people had prepared for them. They're stepping into a land that is all—they don't have to be pioneers. They're not going to have stories about Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett and Lewis and Clark and the conquistadors. They're not going to have all of these stories of Europeans that came to this continent and had to bring shiploads of animals to be able to feed the men. They're coming into a land that is ready, it is already settled, and God has allowed 400 years of the Canaanites to prepare the land for this people to be brought out of slavery and put into a ready-made place of success by God's hand. That is the picture of salvation, not crossing the Red Seas that we'll get to soon. It is crossing the Jordan River that is the picture of salvation, into the promised land, into the land of provision, a land flowing with milk and honey. This would have been fantastic words. This would have been fantasy-like to these people. He says, when you get there, and things are easy, and you become spoiled to what I've done for you, don't forget who did it. Don't forget. I brought you there for my glory. Don't forget. It's another word I have for these antinomian free grace people. Don't forget how that grace got here. Don't forget the one that provided this gracious place in which you stand. Don't forget that Romans 5.1 didn't fall out of the sky. It is what God provided for you and it is God's provision and it is not to be trifled with. Verses six and seven Moses tells them what they are to do. What is the memorial action? We've been over this pretty much in the last few weeks for seven days you will eat unleavened bread It is a memorial on the seventh day. There will be a feast to Yahweh They'd eat unleavened bread, but that I have a feast Verse seven. This is very important part of this. It's not merely that they don't eat unleavened bread. I Unleavened bread shall not be eaten throughout the seven days and nothing leaven shall be seen among you Nor any leaven seen among you in all your borders There's not to be seen anybody with leavened bread, and there's not to be seen anybody that has any leaven in their possession in all of your borders. They're to get rid of it. That's why I told you someone's responsibility on the day before the Passover, their responsibility was to go through the house and find all of the yeast, all of the leavening agents, and get them out of the house the day before so that when the day comes that the leaven has to be gone, they don't have to start looking for it. It's already done. It was that important. Remove the leaven, and you do it again. Again, and again, just like you've been thrown out of this it's to be a reminder You were thrown out of Egypt without time to leaven your next stock of bread Verses 8 to 10 You see a memorial acquaintance there. There's to be this memorial that they are acquainting themselves with and acquainting their children with and posterity as they go through. This is something that they are going to be expected to become more and more familiar with as they go through. Look at verse 8. And you shall tell your son on that day. Why are you going to tell your son? Because he's asking, why do we do this? You kids ever ask you that? Why do we do this? Why do we have to go to church? Sometimes they ask that. Why do we do this? My kids have yet to ask me why we pock eggs and why we hunt for Easter eggs. I don't have a real good answer except that people like to do it and it's okay. But they're gonna ask this. Okay, man, look, this is a hassle. You imagine the hassle of having to eat unleavened bread, having to rid the house of it, you gotta go seven days without it, and you know what you're thinking that seven days. Man, where am I gonna find some more to start this over? I am tired of eating crackers and pita bread with everything. kids are going to be the first ones to ask that you have a responsibility to pass this on to your children they're gonna see in deuteronomy six is still the expectation you will tell your son on that day what day the day that you do this and he asked why are we doing this again you're to say it is because of what you always did for me when i came out of egypt he's telling his first generation of people tell them this is what you always did for me this is what you always did for for me and for these people this was a real thing that happened in a moment in time, it is a reality that we memorialize and remember. And then that person is to tell his son and to tell his and to tell his, and this is to be every year done so that they don't lose sight of the reality of why they are who they are. Then he says this, it will be a sign to you. What is the antecedent to it? The Feast of Unleavened Bread. This, and you talk about the Feast of Unleavened Bread, it refers to the entire seven days. The Passover, eight days. Passover, seven days of unleavened bread, and then the Feast of Unleavened Bread at the end. They just put that all in one, as the Israeli people refer to that as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It, this memorial feast, will be a sign to you. You know what a sign is? A token or a remembrance. This is a remembrance of what he has done and it's a remembrance that is to be conducted his way. You know what happens when you come up with a sign or a token of remembrance on your own? What happens when people come up with their own way of doing this? The token or the sign often becomes the focus rather than the one that the token is supposed to point to. Are you familiar with Gideon? Judges chapter eight. Gideon, threshing grain in a wine cellar. Well, in a wine press. Lord takes Gideon and brings him 10,000 men and says, suit up. Wait, first take a drink. Oh, you got too many. First thing he did is said, okay, y'all all here. Anybody scared? Go home. I went on an interview with the chief of police one time. He told me, boy, I was with my daddy, Mr. U.S. Marshal, you know. They didn't even know his name. They knew his nickname. They just knew how he was known. And he said, son, I'm going to tell you this in front of your daddy. If you're scared, I don't want you on my police force. If you're scared, you can't patrol in this neighborhood or that neighborhood. If you're scared to fight or think you can't fight, I don't want you here. Gideon effectively says that. All right. Everybody's scared, go on back to mama. Bunch of them left. Now you take a drink of water. The Lord said, you watch them and you only, don't tell anybody what's my criteria, but the only ones that meet my criteria will do this. 300 of them did it. He's gotta go against an army of over 200,000 people. And they're gonna kill 200,000 of them in that first night, in that first battle. Then he's gonna pursue the rest of them. And he's going to overtake the two kings and bring them back and he's going to kill the two kings. Then he tells all the people, look, I want you to all give me an earring. Well, they had killed 200,000 Ishmaelites, or 120,000 Ishmaelites. So they brought him the earrings and it was 1,700, let's just say 1,700 shekels or something like that. I'm not looking far enough down. Yes, 1,700 shekels of gold in verse 26. Besides the crescent ornaments and the pendants and the purple robes that were on the king of Midian, he took off the metals and the things that they had on their camels. He collects all of that and he makes an ephod, verse 27. Gideon made it into an ephod. An ephod is a vest. And to be worn in religious, it's like a religious vestiture, it's just a vest that he had emboldened or emblazoned with and embroidered with all of the gold that they took, he made this memorial vest. He decided to memorialize what the Lord did to the Midianites and he decided to do it his way. Came up with his own way of, his own token, his own sign of remembrance. And that token became, The focus, rather than the one that actually should have gotten the praise, verse 27 of Judges 8, Gideon made it into an ephod and placed it in his city, Ophrah, and all Israel played the harlot with it there so that it became a snare to Gideon and his household. That's what happens when we attempt to make a memorial and a sign of our own. That is why it is imperative that the Lord tell us what it is that will be profitable for us and honorable to him. He makes this statement back in Exodus 13. It will be a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes. Now do you think, what do you think that means? I'll tell you what people turn it into in a moment. But what he means by this is you're to wear the feast of unleavened bread on your hand and your forehead. Is that really what he means? Let me put it in a little more modern vernacular. I know that road like I know the back of my hand. It's as clear to me as the nose on my face. That is the expression that he uses. He said, I want you to do this with such regularity and with such clarity of understanding that you remember what I have done for you and are as familiar with what I have done for you as the back of your hand and the nose on your face, as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes. That the law of Yahweh may be in your mouth for with a strong hand Yahweh brought you out of Egypt now up to this point They don't have the law of God yet. Do they? He's telling them they're gonna And you're to do it at its appointed time in verse 10 year by year Verses 11 to 16 Take verse 1 and give a little more clarity to that. Yahweh here demands adherence to what he says to them, verses 11 to 16. Yahweh's adherence is demanded. I got to keep to the YNEA. Doesn't matter unless you're a note taker. Verse 11 to 13. He tells them about their future responsibility. Just like he did in verse 3. Remember this day. It shall be, in verse 5, when you get there. Look at verse 11. And it will be when Yahweh brings you to the land of the Canaanite. There's a future responsibility for these people. When you come into the land of the Canaanite, as He swore to you and to your fathers, when you come into it and He gives it to you. You will get there. He says, when you arrive, you're going there. You will arrive. And when you get there, do this. This is not to begin to take place until they get into the land of Canaan. In the wilderness wanderings, they're not gonna do this. They're really gonna need time to build up their flocks to be able to do some of this, but this is a future responsibility. Verse 12. You shall devote to Yahweh the first offspring of every womb and the first offspring of every beast that you own. The males belong to Yahweh. As God prospers you, as He prospers you with children, as He prospers your animals with more animals, the first one to open the womb is to be dedicated to Yahweh. Well, verse 12 says in... LSB says devote. What does it say in ESV in verse 12? You would devote to Yahweh the first of all springs. Is that what it says? Devote? What? In verse 12? Okay. The exact term would be to pass over or pass through to Yahweh. It is very graphic language, it speaks of a burnt offering. Every sheep, every bullock, every clean animal that is born is to be offered as a burnt sacrifice to Yahweh. You've already got this once a year thing you have to do in Nisan, now every firstborn male has to be consecrated and separated from me. Devoted to Yahweh the offspring of every womb the males belong to Yahweh Gives a little bit of a caveat that needs a little explanation here in verse 13 But every first offspring of a donkey now, why does he say a donkey of all the animals that they have? Why does he say a donkey? Because the donkey was not a sufficient sacrifice to the Lord You shall redeem it with a lamb and The idea of redeem is the idea of rescue. You redeem it with a lamb. You trade a lamb for the donkey. You provide a lamb as the burnt sacrifice rather than the donkey. But if you do not redeem it, then you will break its neck. You're going to kill the donkey one way or the other. You just don't offer it as, you don't put it through the fire as a burnt sacrifice like you will with a calf or a lamb or a kid goat. But he's not done. Because you're thinking what I'm thinking. The males of every womb, man and animal. Okay, you redeem a donkey, so what am I supposed to do? Take my firstborn son and burn him? Come on, man. At the end of verse 12. I mean the end of verse 13. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. Now he uses the same term, redeem, but in redeeming a lamb, the expectation, redeeming a donkey, the expectation was you paid for the donkey with a lamb. Redeeming the firstborn son, you brought an offering of, a financial offering to the Lord. You redeemed him in rabbinic tradition, you redeemed the firstborn son by a monetary offering to the priest. You didn't bring a lamb. You're on the eighth day, and by Jesus' day, on the eighth day, they went to the temple to have, or to the synagogue to have the child circumcised. And they brought the offering of the turtle dove and they brought the, whatever they, almost like bringing a dowry. But every firstborn is to be ransomed and to be redeemed this way. This is a future responsibility, as I said, but in verses 14 and 15 we see that it is a fundamental responsibility. And it's fundamental because in this you are to pass down to your children an acquaintance with Yahweh's expectation. There's 14 and it will be when your son asked you in time to come saying what is this you imagine your kids gonna ask that Why are you doing that? Why why did you do? Why did you kill that donkey dad? Because I don't have a lamb What difference does a lamb make because if I can't redeem the donkey with a lamb I have to kill the donkey because it belongs to Yahweh. Why? Are you doing this? You will say to him, verse 14, with a strong hand, Yahweh brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. Out of Egypt from the house of slavery. Out of Egypt from the house of slavery. Out of darkness into light. Out of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. Out of slavery to sin and to service and slavery to Jesus Christ. For you and I today. And it happened, continuing to talk. The rest of this is what is to be said from the parent to the son. 14, 15, and 16. He's going to say the same thing in 16 that he said in verse 9, but it's different, because it's the parents saying this to the child. Parents speaking verse 15, this fundamental responsibility to pass it down, it happened when Pharaoh hardened his heart with stiffness about letting us go, that Yahweh killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast, therefore, This is what answers the question in verse 14, what is this? Why are you doing this? Therefore, I sacrifice to Yahweh the males, the first offspring of every womb, but the first offspring of my sons I redeem. This is the practice that we do. We look at this and say, man, you gotta make more sense than that out of that, preacher. No, I don't. You know what faith is? Yes, faith is believing the impossible. No, it's not. That's stupidity. Faith is believing what God said. Sometimes what God said is impossible for men, but God didn't say go out and make up something impossible and challenge me to do it He's not like your frat buddy It's not a dare you dare me to do it and see You know how we are fellas. I'm getting a little old to be taking people on dares, but Because I don't heal real well now, but you know how we are don't dare me to do it Don't tell me I can't These people are gonna do it to God right away. Oh, did he bring us out here to die? He can't get us water out here. They're actually gonna do that That's not what's going on here Sacrifice the Yahweh I redeemed the firstborn of my sons Verse 16 parents still speaking It's the idea of a faithful responsibility, a future responsibility. It is a fundamental responsibility. There is no way out from under the responsibility to do this. It is fundamental from the mouth of Yahweh to these people. Verse 16 is to be a faithful responsibility. Parents speaking to the son this faithfulness from the parent to the child being passed down from Yahweh to the parent to the child Who becomes a parent to the child who becomes a parent on down the line? So it will be what is antecedent to it again? It is this memorial of redeeming the firstborn It will be as a sign on your hand and as phylacteries between your eyes and For with a strong hand Yahweh brought us out of Egypt. What does he want to be on their hand and the phylacteries on their head? What does he want to be there? What does he want to be there? That Yahweh brought us out of Egypt by a strong hand. Phylacteries technically would be bands tied around. It turned into a box, a leather-bound box with leather straps that they would strap to their forehead. Oh, man, that was an ignorant thing to do. And it wasn't enough that I've got a box and Dawn doesn't, but I've got a box bigger than Matt's box. But both of us are getting outdone by Ricky. I don't know how he stands up with that joggy. It looks like a refrigerator ought to be in Ricky's phylactery. That's how it would come out. That's how it came out in these people. That's what Jesus said. They enlarge the phylacteries and they elongate the tassels on their robes. There were four tassels on the robes that represented something spiritual, but it wasn't good enough that I have tassels on my robe. I have longer tassels. My tassels, like motorcycle guys have those things hanging down like pigtails on their handlebars. Mine are longer than yours, like a bunch of children. That's what they did. And they took this, ripped it from its context, took what they liked and ignored what they didn't like, and they turned it into a contest between themselves to try to outdo one another when this was all figurative language. I want you to be so familiar with this that it's like it's written on the back of your hand and it is in the front of your mind. It is on the forefront of every thought that you have. Like the idea of Jesus being the Lord of your life. That's what I said this morning. You can make a chart for everything in your life. Does it honor the Lord or does it not? I'm so concerned with honoring Yahweh that it's like I've got it written on my hand and I'm wearing it on the forefront. He didn't want these people to walk around with this cumbersome box attached to their head. They would strap him on their arm and had this intricate way that they tied it on there. You know who came up with that intricate way of tying it on there? Some rabbi somewhere. Not in this book. So I told you this morning, if it's not here, then it doesn't have authority. And he tells them, remember, Remember what? Remember His strong hand. His strong hand. Remember what He has done. Honor Him when you do this. Honor Him with your life at every moment. And be so familiar with your honoring of Him, and what is coming to them will be the law of God. Now what they did when they put these boxes on their head is that they would write on papyri or whatever they had for paper and they would write and they'd roll it up in a little scroll and they'd have a little verse or a passage from an Old Testament book and roll it up and tie it and they'd put it in this box so they had this ridiculous little wooden box full of scrolls on their head. And if you go into an Orthodox Jewish home today, you will walk in and they will have scrolls attached to the top of the doorpost because he says to have it written on your doorpost and over the door as you go in. Again, that is figurative language. Now, if you have Bible verses hanging on your wall, I'm all about it. I like it. We're talking about the business in town that one of the brethren here operates. You walk in that place, there are gospel-centered verses on the walls in there. I'm all for that. But that is not what he's talking about here. He is looking at your heart. He's not looking at your house. When he has your heart, he has your house. He can have, you can say that you've given him your house and try to keep your heart for yourself. He's not interested in that. He doesn't need your house. The heavens are his throne and the earth is his footstool. What can you do for him? You can give him your heart. But I'll tell you this, this was something startling. I wanted to get to the end here because I wanna leave you with this. We see all this expectation of memorial and this external display that the Lord references here that is, I think, unmistakably merely a figurative expectation. He doesn't expect them to encumber themselves in life with things written in boxes carried on their hand and on their forehead and tied to their arm. He's not trying to encumber your life by making service to the Lord more cumbersome than it would be without service to the Lord. But the devil understands this idea. He's privy to this as well. The devil knows the power of a constant reminder. And don't ever forget that he is a counterfeit. He has never had an original idea in his life. He's looking around at what God is doing and how can I imitate that? Revelation chapter 13 tells us about a future reality, a future person, a man that the scripture denotes as the Antichrist. Chapter 13, speaking of the Antichrist in verse 16, this beast from the earth, two horns like a lamb, speaking like a dragon, exercises all the authority of the first beast, makes the whole earth and those who dwell on it to worship the first beast whose fatal wound was healed. I'm wondering how much artificial intelligence plays into that, by the way. Does great signs so that even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. Deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which are given to him. This tells us the devil's got power. Telling those who dwell on earth to make an image of the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. It was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast would speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. Verse 16. And causes all the small and the great, the rich and the poor, the free men and the slaves to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead. to be so devoted to him, that their devotion to him and what they do in their life is a sign on the back of their hand and between the frontlets of their eye. And that no one will be able to buy or sell except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. The Lord said no one, no one can participate in Israeli culture as an Israeli if he is not circumcised and if he does not participate in the Passover and does not keep these memorials that we've just read in chapter 13 of Exodus. And he says, when these things happen, they will be assigned to you on your hand in a memorial between your eyes. And the devil says, you know what? You're going to worship me like God. You're going to put my name on your right hand and physically on your forehead between your eyes so that you never forget. Every time you buy, every time you sell, everything you do in your life, you're going to have to acknowledge that I'm in control. That's what the devil's gonna do one day. He's been working toward it for a long time. And he's ever closer. He's closer every day. I was told today that tomorrow is this eclipse everybody's worried about. And then, by the way, there's a cicada plague that's coming as well. The 13-year variety and the 17-year variety coincide this year. What are we going to do? We're going to have a bunch of noise outside at night and probably hit a few on the highway. The way the communists are trying to make us eat bugs, maybe we ought to try to eat some cicadas while we have a plentiful supply. We can cook them in different ways, you know. In Europe, they've made this underground tunnel where they are Trying to get two atoms to collide to create what they have deemed to be the God particle. They're trying to recreate the Big Bang to prove evolution. And their plans are to make that collision happen tomorrow. Oh, is it going to create a black hole? I don't care. Might do nothing. Might act like an atomic explosion. That would be poetic. Just blow the whole place to smithereens. Good job, smarty pants. The dud particle is what that turned out to be. The devil is moving closer and closer to this position, and what he wants is everyone to worship him like God, even to the extent that he's making all of his people physically take his name on their hand or on their forehead. Now, some of that could very well be John just saw what they were doing in a retinal scan or a finger or palm scan to tell who you are that's in a database somewhere. But the reality is every time you buy something, every time you sell something, every time you do anything, you can't ignore the fact that the devil is the one that you're putting your trust in to keep you alive. Because to go against him is to die. But I got to tell you, for the Christian, there's no fear in death. Old preacher walking in Chicago, cat come up, put a gun to him, said, your money or your life? He said, boy, you can't threaten me with heaven. I don't want to leave my beautiful wife and this beautiful family and all these little girls that just make my life so enjoyable. I don't want to leave them behind without a dad. But I think the Lord can provide for them better than I can anyway. But for me to go to heaven, That's not a threat. That's not a threat. That's relief. But it's not to those that are outside of Christ, and the devil will find easy prey to fall in line with that. when that day does come. And he didn't just make up, put it on your hand and your forehead. He is going all the way back. God said, I want you to be so familiar with what I've done for you and familiar with my ways that you know them like the back of your hand and the nose on your face. And the devil's going to take that and twist it around as he always does in some twisted, perverted counterfeit. on that day. I hope that this has been not just informative but instructive for you and that you see your ability and need to honor the Lord with your life. And I pray that he will be honored by our time here this night. Father, we thank you for the time. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your spirit to give us clarity of understanding and application of this. And I pray that you will bless your people. Lord, mold us into the image of Christ. Make us More ready for heaven than we've ever been. Protect us as we travel home this night. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.