Judgment and Mercy (Exodus 12:1-13; 21-30)
Billy Milton - September 25, 2005
Last week we left Moses and his family on donkeys making their way back to Egypt anticipating a none-to-friendly confrontation with Pharaoh. Quite a scary journey to make. Despite all his excuses, he had finally decided to trust God and, just as importantly, obey him. He was heading for a date with destiny! In Exodus 1, we are told that Pharaoh was forcing the Hebrew slaves into backbreaking manual labour and had even began to kill all the male children under two years old. You’ll remember the story of Moses and the bulrushes? It was a time of desperate hardship for the Israelites and in ch. 2:23-25 it says that, “…The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry…went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob (and) …he was concerned about them.”
God was concerned about his people so what he did was, during 40 long years in the wilderness, he equipped and trained Moses for just such a moment as this. From chapters 7 to 11 Moses and his brother Aaron repeatedly went before Pharaoh to tell him to let their people go out of Egypt and back to their own land. Pharaoh would agree and then change his mind many times as God brought plague after plague on Egypt. Each time a plague came Pharaoh would try to negotiate a bit more. Look at this squirming…
8:25 – “Go sacrifice to your God here in the land.”
8:28 – “I will let you go as far as the desert … but not very far.”
10:10 – “Let only the men go.”
10:24 – “You can all go but leave your flocks.”
12:31 – “Get out…lock, stock and barrel!”
If you remember that in the Bible Egypt almost always is a picture of the godless world you get some idea of how much Satan wants us to stay a part of Egypt. He’ll happily accept any compromise so long as it doesn’t actually involve us switching our total allegiance from this godless world and living in the kingdom of God. Don’t let him negotiate – get out of Egypt!
So Pharaoh lies and deceives – anything rather than lose his slaves. I want you to look at this PowerPoint slide. It traces Pharaoh’s disobedience over the whole series of plagues and to my mind it points to one of the scariest principles in the Bible. Look at this. [SLIDE SHOWS HOW THE WORDING CHANGES FROM PHARAOH HARDENING HIS HEART TO GOD HARDENING PHARAOH’S HEART. GOD WILL EVENTUALLY LOSE PATIENCE WITH THE REBEL SINNER AND BRING JUDGMENT. Gen 6:3 “God will not always strive with man” Rom 1:24 “God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts…” ]
But at last, in this chapter, as we saw in the DVD, God brings Pharaoh to his knees. In 12:12-13 he explains to Moses what he is going to do. READ IT and EXPLAIN. It’s from this phrase that the term ‘Passover’ originates. When I see the blood, I will pass-over you. And it’s from this event that the famous Feast of the Passover, and subsequently our communion service that we will be celebrating later, traces its origins.
God called his people out of Egypt but it was to prove a costly experience - many lives lost! Much blood shed. 12:30 tells us that all over Egypt during the night there was the sound of loud wailing and not a single Egyptian household didn’t have someone dead. Remember though that God had given them opportunity after opportunity to obey and they had refused. Remember also that the Jews had already lost the majority of their boys under two years old. This is a very difficult story to read isn’t it? Just because Egypt is the enemy it doesn’t make the monumental shedding of blood any more easy to stomach. After the bombing in Afghanistan I heard a grieving lady say in front of the TV cameras - “Afghani mothers love their sons as well, you know.”
But, despite all the shocking imagery of the chapter, we learn an awful about the character of God, some of which we are probably a bit uncomfortable with.
Firstly, the Passover reveals the faithfulness of God to his word. Back in Gen 15 when God was making his promises to Abraham about the land and the future seed that would inherit the land, he had warned Abraham that his descendants would endure a prolonged period of slavery, at the end of which, God promised him, ‘I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out with great possessions.’ More than once the book of Exodus repeats this promise, making it quite clear that God was a god who was faithful to his covenant and could never go back on his word. This is the God that we serve and proclaim to you this morning - he can be trusted…we have his word on that. He does not forget and whether the gap between his promises and the fulfillment is 400 years or 400 minutes it makes no difference. God is faithful. He will keep his word.
The second thing that this story reveals to us is the compassion of God for his people. The Lord heard their groans, listened to their cries for help, saw the misery they were in and had pity on them. The awful way they were treated could not fail to move a God of justice, love and mercy, so he took action to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians. You can be assured that this God, whom we also serve, still hears every cry of pain from his people today. That’s us.
Thirdly, it reveals to us the justice of God among the nations. By his actions here God revealed himself to be sovereign over all nations and not just his people Israel. Pharaoh was to learn to his cost that any power he had was given to him by God and God will move against all unrighteousness wherever it is found in this world. Gal 6 reminds us that ‘God cannot be mocked’ and no matter how despondent you might get about the state of affairs in some countries of the world, God will not be mocked indefinitely. I suppose one of the most recent examples of that would be the downfall and total discrediting of the communist regime of the former USSR.
Fourthly, the Passover reveals the power of God over his world. He didn’t enter into delicate negotiations with Pharaoh as if he were a politician on equal terms with him. No, Exodus 6:6 tells us that he moved against Pharaoh with ‘an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment’. God raised his ‘mighty hand’ against a totalitarian ruler without any fear that he had entered a contest that he might not win. He was and remains today a God of infinite power to be feared by those who would dare to oppose him. Its maybe not a view of God that we are desperately comfortable with today but still our God holds the whole world in the palm of his hand and he can close his hand whenever he chooses and there’s not a thing that we can do about it. We are not in control - he is.
So having seen how the character of God shines through in this story I want to take a quick look at what the Passover actually means. Although it had a very real and practical meaning for the Hebrews of that day, it also pointed forward to a future date when another Lamb would be slain.
Firstly, think of the timing. 12:6 tells us that the lamb had to be slaughtered at twilight which the rabbis took to mean between 3.00pm and sunset - the exact same time that the lamb of God, Jesus, was slaughtered on Calvary. This, I’m convinced, is no mere coincidence. God already had the exact timing of Calvary in mind when he gave these instructions to Moses. Doesn’t that just send shivers down your spine when you think of it?
Secondly, the object of the sacrifice was to be a 1 year old lamb without spot or blemish. Nothing less than perfection would do for God. And so it turned out 3500 years later at Calvary. No ordinary sacrifice would do for our salvation. He also had to be perfect.
Thirdly, blood was shed and applied. At the first Passover, when the time came for the lamb to be sacrificed, its blood was to be caught in a basin and then applied to the doorposts and lintels using a hyssop plant. It wasn’t enough that the blood was shed - it had to be applied. Blood left in the basin would have been nothing short of disastrous for that family. For many people in this world today the shedding of the blood of Christ at Calvary was a waste of time. Yes, Christ’s blood was shed, but for many it has never been applied. They have never claimed the salvation that the blood of Jesus brings. Have you?
Lastly, the flesh of the lamb was eaten. Just before Jesus died he took his disciples to a private room and instituted the feast that we know as Communion. He took the bread and broke it and said, “This is my body broken for you; do this in remembrance of me.” And then they all ate of his symbolic body. He knew that he was leaving that room to be betrayed and that within a few days the Passover feast would find its ultimate meaning in his death on behalf of his people. You see, the Passover was always pointing to the Cross.
So there we have it. An enslaved people freed; a holy God shows his power; an idolatrous people faced with the living God; a threatened people redeemed; an oppressed people saved; a holy people reminded that God is Lord. Judgment and mercy in equal measure. We need all of that here in Berkhamsted.
D’you know today, when the Jewish Passover meal reaches the point at which the great acts of God have just been recited, the leader encourages the people with these words: “Then how much more, doubled and redoubled, is the claim the Omnipresent has upon our thankfulness.”
What price our freedom? In view of the great accomplishments of the cross, I would encourage you this morning with these words - how much more, doubled, trebled and quadrupled, is the claim of Christ, the Passover Lamb, on our thankfulness this morning?