There Will Be Re-enacted the Events of the Passover and Exodus

Posted Mar 27, 2013 by Frank Klin in Commandments of God

The Bible itself is a better source of information about Moses than any movie, and more interesting, too. If the Bible is read with unbelief, it becomes boring, because doubt short-circuits practically every statement and paralyzes the understanding. But if it is read with heart-felt belief, it grips the attention. The Holy Spirit re-creates the happenings described there and you see it all in three-dimensional realism, a vividness that can never be forgotten, as a movie can be.

The tenth plague, the slaying of the firstborn, was the final judgment on Pharoah and the unbelieving Egyptians. When the "destroying angel" passed through the land at midnight of Passover Eve, there were two classes of people in the land: those who believed the word of God, and those who did not believe. No one was in between.

Momentous was the issue of believing or disbelieving! So today, everything depends on believing or disbelieving the truth of God. Someone may say, No, everything depends on obeying or disobeying the word of God. But outward conformity to rules (based on fear) that camouflages an unreconciled heart is not true obedience. Both the Hebrew and Greek Bible words for "obey" convey the basic idea of bending the ear down low to listen carefully. Believing the truth produces obedience and disbelief produces disobedience. The Israelites were told to kill an innocent lamb "without blemish" and splash its blood on the door posts and the lintel. Their doing so was an evidence that they believed what God had said.

What saved them in the Passover was their faith which worked. God had said, "When He seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door and not suffer the destroyer to come in" (Ex. 12:23). Not when He sees the obedience, but "when He sees the blood," the obedience being the evidence of faith in the blood of the Lamb of God.

The world today is "Egypt," and again there will be re-enacted the events of the ancient Passover and the Exodus. Let's be ready.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 9, 1999.

Too Great a Sacrifice to Follow Jesus?

Have you ever heard of the curfew that went into effect at sundown? You'd better be home by that time; and you'd better stay indoors all night. Not going out, even for a moment. This is Passover Night. Egypt has been oppressing God's people and the night of deliverance has come. Only because of the tenth plague will the government of Egypt finally relent and permit Israel to leave. The Pharoah, probably Amenhotep II according to history, has defied God to the bitter end. Now an angel of death is going through the entire land, and the firstborn of every home, from the Crown Prince of Egypt, to the firstborn even of the cattle, shall die, EXCEPT ... :

For those who believe God's plan of salvation, they can take a young lamb "without blemish," kill it, and splash its blood all over the door posts and the lintel. And when the angel of death shall pass by, if he sees the blood, he will not enter that house.

But Pharoah in his hardhearted unbelief, sacrifices no lamb; and at midnight the angel visited his palace, and the Crown Prince of Egypt dies suddenly, mysteriously. (It's interesting that Egyptian secular history records that Amenhotep's successor on the throne was not the eldest son as would normally be the case, but another son).

But what about the Crown Prince of heaven? In the Father's great Plan of Salvation, He did die. The sacrificial Passover lamb typified Him and His death on the cross. His death made our life possible, so that the angel of Eternal Death could "pass over" us.

The meaning is so simple that even a child can grasp it: you live today because He died for you. If He had not died for you, you would be dead-- eternally. Whether or not you are a Christian, the truth remains solidly true: you are in debt infinitely and eternally to the One who died in your place.

Do you think it is too great a sacrifice to follow Jesus? Think about that Passover lamb.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 10, 1999.