EXODUS 12: 1-28
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SO FAR WITH MOSES AND HIS LIFE?
Today, we are going to learn about the first Passover.
What are we going to learn about?
EXODUS 12: 1-28
The Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread
1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover. 12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. 14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD—a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do. 17 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.” 21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. 23 When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. 24 “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped. 28 The Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron. 29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.
ATTENTION GRABBER!
Tell your students about yeast.
“Yeast is leaven”; and in the Bible, it represents sin in our lives.
Explain to your class the concept of “leaven” and how a little sin can lead to a lot of sin.
_____________________
Your glorying is not good.
Know you not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
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Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
LESSON TIME!
In today’s lesson, we will look at the first “Passover.” God would establish a yearly feast or celebration to remember this important event—
the deliverance of His people from Egypt. The Passover is a beautiful picture of our deliverance in Christ, our Redeemer.
It is the most mentioned feast in the New Testament.
As we remember, God was ready to send the last of the ten plagues upon Egypt. This plague would cause the death of the first-born in the land of Egypt.
We know that all the first-born in the land of Egypt died, and yet the first-born of Israel was delivered from the Angel of Death.
Why were the Egyptians killed and the Israelites spared?
God’s word gives a beautiful illustration of justice and mercy meeting together—an awesome display of the grace of God.
In verse one; the Lord speaks to Moses and Aaron. The Lord told them that there was to be a change in their calendar. "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you."
They had previously begun their year from the middle of September,
but now they would begin in the middle of March. The Passover was such a big event that God had the Israelites change their calendar.
This day would begin their year, similar to our New Year’s Day.
3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.
On the tenth day of the month, each Israelite family was to select a lamb; but, if the family was small and not able to eat an entire lamb, they could share the meal with another family.
The lamb was to be a male of the first year, not too old, and not too young.
They were to keep the lamb for four days, to make sure it had nothing wrong with it.
We see here a type or a picture of Jesus Christ.
As the Passover lamb was singled out from the flock and observed for four days prior to its death, so, Jesus, the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world (John 1:19), was observed during His public ministry for 3 1/2 years and was found to be without spot or blemish.
Jesus died on the cross when he was not too young and not too old but in the fullness of His prime-age (about 33 years old).
As the Passover lamb had been appointed for death before it was actually slain, so Jesus was appointed for death before He was slain.
In Revelation 13:8, Jesus is referred to as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
Remember that nothing except a perfect sacrifice would satisfy God’s requirements, for He Himself is perfect.
In 1 Peter 1:18,19 we read, “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
On the fourteenth day of the month, the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel was to kill their lamb in the evening. A lamb was to be slain by each family in the entire congregation.
Who is our lamb of God?
7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.
13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
22 Take a bunch of hyssops, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. 23 When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
After the lamb was slain, each family was to take a bunch of hyssops (a branch from a type of bush) and dip it in the blood in the basin; then, they were to strike the lintel and two side posts, and no one was to go out of the door of his house until the morning.
The hyssop was a shrub that was widely used in Israel's rites of purification. The door of the house was to have the blood on the lintel or the cross-piece of the door (the overhead part) and on the side posts.
A picture of Christ on the cross--blood above, where the thorns pierced His brow and blood at the side, from His nails in His hands.
Why did this innocent lamb have to be killed?
All people are guilty of sin. God was going to pass judgment on the land of Egypt that night and death would come to the guilty unless an innocent substitute was offered.
The Israelites were to put the blood upon the doorposts and lintel of their houses that night. Without the blood of the perfect lamb applied to the outside of the door, the Angel of Death would enter and the first-born of every house would die.
When the Destroyer saw the blood upon the houses of the Israelites, he passed by, or passed over the house.
The innocent lamb had died in place of the guilty, and justice was satisfied.
No matter what type of house, as long as the blood was applied, it was spared from God’s judgment.
So, it is with us who believe in Jesus--regardless of our background, we are forgiven, spared from judgment, because we have applied the blood of Christ to our hearts.
The Bible says by faith, Moses sprinkled the blood upon the doorposts (Hebrews 11:28).
So, by faith, we rely on God’s promise and provision in Jesus for salvation.
8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it.
Here we see specific directions for the preparation of the lamb. It was to be "roasted with fire, even its head along with its thighs and entrails." It was to be undivided or whole so that neither head nor thighs were cut off and not a bone was broken. It was to be roasted, in order that it might be placed upon the table undivided and unchanged. Again, we see the picture of Christ the lamb whose bones were not broken. John 19:36 refers to the prophecy of the Messiah in Psalm 34:20; none of His bones were broken. They were to eat it with pure loaves, not fermented with leaven. Leaven causes the dough to ferment. It is symbolic of sin and moral corruption and thus is always excluded from the sacrifices as defiling.
Bring unleavened bread or tortillas for tasting. Also, bring some conventional bread so your students can compare. Let them touch and smell the differences.
Show and Tell
Matzah (plural matzot) ~ is a flat, unleavened bread made of just flour and water. This bread commemorates the haste with which the Israelites fled Egypt, which meant they had no time to wait for their bread to rise.
Tortillas ~
Leavened Bread~
They were also to eat bitter herbs with the meal.
The bitter herbs were a remembrance of the bitterness of life experienced by Israel in Egypt.
The bitterness was to be overpowered by the sweet flesh of the lamb.
The sweetness of our Lord Jesus overpowers the bitterness of the world in our lives.
The lamb was to be completely eaten wherever this was possible; but if any of the lamb was left, it was to be burned with fire.
It was to be eaten the same night it was slain.
The sacrifice was to be completed in one night.
So was the work of Christ: Jesus said from the cross, "It is finished."
11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover.
The Israelites were to eat the meal ready for travel.
They were to have their "loins girded" that they might not be hindered in their walking because of their long robe and have "shoes on their feet,"
They had to be ready to walk on hard, rough roads, instead of
barefooted.
They were also to have "staff in hand," the staff was a
sign of pilgrimage.
They were to eat in haste; for at any moment, they may be called to go out of the land of bondage.
So must we be ever ready to hear the Lord's call for us.
In Ephesians 6:14-17, we read that we are to
be "girded about with truth...and have our feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace...to take the shield of faith and
the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
It is important to note the truth of verse 11, "It is the Lord's
Passover." It was appointed by Him and to be kept for Him.
The slain lamb was a substitute for the people so that the children of Israel might live. How it must have been a joy to Him that His
people would be spared.
Jesus was our substitute on the cross so that the Father could rejoice that His children would be spared His judgment for sin.
12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
Here, God explains the Passover. In that night, God would pass through Egypt and smite all the firstborn of man and beast,
executing judgment upon all the gods of Egypt, and "Passover" all the Israelites.
For the Israelites, the blood upon the houses in which
they were assembled would be a sign and pledge that the Lord would spare them and no plague should fall upon them to destroy them.
14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD—a lasting ordinance.
“Passover Day” was to be kept as a memorial— “a feast to the Lord"
consecrated for all time as an "eternal ordinance" for all ages.
God set this up as an annual feast so that the Israelites would always remember His faithfulness.
It is important that we remember- times when God has been faithful.
Recalling God’s past faithfulness gives us courage and faith for our present difficult situations and hope and comfort that God will sustain us in the future.
How has God been faithful in your life?
Should we be thankful for God’s love for sending Jesus to die for our sins?
The Passover was also a celebration of their birth in the new life of fellowship with the Lord.
Being delivered was the beginning of their redemption from the bondage of Egypt and becoming the nation that God had called to be His people.
God’s work was only beginning for the Israelites as our life.
Our life begins once we are saved; God will unfold His wonderful plan for us.
MEMORY VERSE
EPHESIANS 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ.”
Ok, Next Week We Will Look At:
THE EXODUS; EXODUS12:31-51
Snack Time
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