Today I want us to go back to the Old Testament and the time that the Israelites were in captivity. Moses had been called to lead them out from Pharaoh and the Egyptian bondage. Pharaoh had refused to let them go....600,000 of them. Plagues had been sent by God--nasty plagues--frogs, locusts, blood. As bad as these affected the Egyptians (see, the Israelites were not affected by these), still Pharaoh would not allow their release. Finally, it was time for the tenth plague--the plague of death of the firstborn.
To me, when I consider this, I can't imagine the horror or living in this time. Trying to comprehend this is right up there of my trying to comprehend how Abraham could have carried Isaac to the mountain to sacrifice. I read in awe of the instructions given from the Lord to Moses to the Israelite people. They were to prepare the sacrifice just as he instructed.
On the tenth day of that month, each household was to take a lamb to sacrifice. If the household was too little for the lamb, he and his neighbor were to take it. It was to be a lamb without blemish, a first year male taken from the sheep or from the goats. Each house was to keep it till the fourteenth day of that same month. On the evening of that day, they were instructed to kill the lamb.
Instructions were clear that the family were to take the blood from the lamb and strike it on the side posts and the upper door post of their house where the lamb would be eaten.
The Israelites were instructed to roast the whole lamb with fire and eat it all that night, eating it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Nothing was to remain from the lamb until morning and if it was, it was to be burned with fire.
It was to be eaten by the people with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staffs in their hands. They were instructed to eat it quickly. It was the Lord's Passover.
The blood on the doorposts was to be a token on the houses where it was put and when the God saw the blood, he would pass over that house.
The Scriptures go on to say that "When your children say to you, What mean you by this service?" And it says you should say, "It is the blood of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses."
One thing stood out to me in this reading in Exodus. It says, "and the people bowed their heads and worshipped."
At midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn of the Egyptians and a loud cry was heard in that land.
This event was the reason for the celebration of Passover. It was a celebration of the Lord's deliverance from Egyptian bondage of the Israelites.
Consider Passover....
