Chapter 7
Exodus 12
“Tonight,” said Mother, the following evening, as Sophy and Arthur sat beside her on the sofa, “we come to one of the most important chapters in the book of Exodus. In the New Testament it is spoken of as a picture of what the Lord Jesus was to do when He came into the world as the Lamb of God.
“There are so many things in this beautiful story showing us how God in His love has taken care of us in so many ways. We can think of God’s love, His holiness, and His judgments without being afraid, because we have put our trust in the Lord Jesus. He has borne the punishment from God for our sins.
“The Lord considered what He was about to do for them so important that He told them they must tell it to their children and grandchildren. Even after they got into the land of Canaan they were to keep telling the children about it, so that they would never forget their wonderful deliverance from the judgment on the land of Egypt, and also from the sufferings that were theirs while they were slaves in Egypt. He never wanted them to turn back their hearts and long for the things of Egypt. The very first thing that He spoke to them about was that they were not even to have the same kind of a calendar, to keep account of the days and months, as the Egyptians did. It had to be a completely new beginning. They were to start all over again and take another month as the first month of the year. It was to be this very month that He would bring them out of Egypt.
“What does this remind us of? Is it not like what the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus in the Gospel of John? He was a very well known and respected man for what he had done for the Jews at that time. But the Lord said unto him, ‘Ye must be born again.’ All that he had done would not count before God. He must start all over again just like a newborn child, and that is what all do who put their trust in the Lord Jesus.
“The children of Israel were to listen very carefully to what the Lord told them to do on this most important day. For what He was going to have them do, was that by which they would really belong to the Lord as His own people, and they would come under His protecting care. They were not left to their own thoughts or plans as to how this was to be brought about.
“The way in which this new beginning was to be brought about, was that they were to select a lamb, one year old, and they were to keep it penned up from the tenth day until the fourteenth day. Then it was to be killed. All this makes us think of the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God. His coming had been promised long before they were to be expecting Him, but they did not know the time of His coming.
“They should have been searching the Scriptures which told them of His coming, so that they would know Him when He came. But they were really very few who were looking for Him when He did come. Though they did not know when He was to come, God knew when it was to be, and He came in the fullness of time, or just at the right time according to God’s thoughts and plans.
“The lamb had to be without blemish; it could not be lame, or sick, or blind, because it was to show how the Lord Jesus was the only One who could be the Lamb of God to die on the cross for us. All others who were ever born into this world had some blemish upon them; they were afflicted with sin and could not be acceptable to God in our place.
“They were told that if a family were too small to eat a whole lamb that night, that they were to get together with another family to eat it. But they must not divide between the two houses; they all had to be in one house to eat it, and we shall soon find out why they were not allowed to each eat it in their own house.
“The lamb was to be killed and they were to take a bunch of hyssop, which is a very small moss-like plant, and dip it in the blood. They were then to sprinkle it on the outside of the door frame, at the top and on the two sides. The Lord told them that He was going to pass through the land of Egypt that night to smite all the firstborn of man and beast. But He said that when He passed through the land and saw the blood on the door posts, He would not allow the destroyer to come into that house. They were forbidden to go out of that house until the morning.
“After the blood was put outside the door of the house, those within were to eat the lamb. It had to be roasted with fire. It could not be boiled, nor could they eat of it raw. The roasting of the lamb was like the Lamb of God having to bear God’s judgment which we deserved. The judgment of God is spoken of in the Scriptures, as though it were a fire burning up that which it fell upon.
“The Lord Jesus loved us so much that He died for us that we might be saved. When they were eating the lamb, they were told to be careful not to break a bone of it. They were never told why this was forbidden. But the Apostle John in writing of the Lord’s death on the cross, tells us that the Roman soldiers could not break the legs of the Lord Jesus as they did of the two thieves who were crucified with Him.
“Those inside feasting on the lamb could eat without being afraid, because they knew what the Lord had said about His passing over that house. If they went out of the house, they were no longer protected by the blood. They were told that this was called the feast of the Passover.
“Along with eating the lamb they were to eat it with bitter herbs and with unleavened bread. These were not pleasant things to taste. It was not like the food of Egypt that they were used to. This was all part of the new beginning. The bitter herbs speak to us of the sufferings of the Lord upon the cross for our sins. The unleavened bread told them that they no longer belonged to Egypt, just as now those who know the Lord Jesus no longer belong to this world, and they are not to do the same things which the world does to obtain its joy here.
“They were told also about how to be dressed while they were eating the Passover. They were to be dressed for traveling, with shoes on their feet and a staff or walking stick in their hand. They were about to leave the land where they had been slaves and evil treated and were to go forth to the land of promise of which the Lord had told them.
“Then after the Passover another feast began called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which lasted seven days, and these two are spoken of as applying to the Lord and His people now as we read in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8.
“While the children of Israel were eating the lamb and were thinking of all the wonderful promises of the Lord to them, there was sorrow and crying in the homes of the Egyptians, where the angel of the Lord was carrying out God’s sentence upon them. We are told that all the first-born died—from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on the throne even to the first-born of the captive in the prison; and all the first-born of cattle died.
“Then Pharaoh and all his servants, and all the Egyptians, rose up in the night; and there was a great cry in Egypt for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
“So Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron that night and told them to leave his people at once and to go and serve the Lord as they had wanted to do. They were to take all their flocks and herds and be gone; Pharaoh even asked Moses to bless him also. The Egyptians pressed the children of Israel to leave their land in haste for they said, ‘We be all dead men.’
“Then the children of Israel before leaving did as Moses told them, and demanded of the Egyptians, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and clothes; we are told that the Lord gave them favor in their sight, and they carried away the riches of the Egyptians. But this was what really belonged to them because the Egyptians had never paid them for all the work they had done while they held them in slavery.
“So they started on their journey out of Egypt carrying all their things which they were able to take along, with their clothes tied up in bundles on their shoulders. They did not have time to prepare any food to take along, so they took their dough in their kneading troughs so that they could bake cakes along the way.
“They were a very large company, six hundred thousand men, besides women and children; and then they had with them also their flocks and herds.
“The Lord had told Abram in the book of Genesis when He promised him the land for his children’s children, that his children should be a stranger in a land that was not theirs, that they would be servants to these people, and that they would afflict them four hundred years.
“The time had now come when they should leave and it was the Lord who was bringing them out. That is why it was said that this night was one to be much observed by them all, by their children and their children’s children.
“Tonight’s story was a long one,” said Mother in conclusion, “but one I hope you will never forget. Now it is late, my dears, and you must get ready for bed.”