God introduces a “sign for you”

0:00Not, I like that, but the way you breathe and think of what's happening in it is really incredible. And I am so proud of how активily developing our homochex COME and makes these efforts naturally, in this sounds really plante. This is here. But I remember we like even saying this. This song is so amazing special. It's a new original music story, alongside the lucid very eventually. Keep losing weight. Welcome to Faith is I'm Pastor Rick Stevens and this is the place where we stretch toward God's high calling, where we recognize that God is asking us to stretch in His direction and so we do. We also recognize that God is inviting us, calling, challenging, you can

1:00describe it several different ways to have faith in Him and so we do. We have faith, absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. Now I don't know if you've looked around the world lately. I'm kind of amazed. I guess we should say kind of horrified, kind of, you just got to shake your head sometimes and you don't know hardly what to say. When week by week things happen that just we can't ever imagine that they should happen, but they do. I mean we've seen legal stuff, we've seen criminal stuff, we see stuff around the world and every time it seems to occur to us that we've never seen anything like this before and I guess that's true. Things just unfold and evil has a way of surprising us, but we're not going to be dismayed by evil. I get disheartened now and then by the behaviors of people you probably do as

2:06well. I have said to some of my friends recently, I thought we had grown out of middle school behavior and they all look at me and say you haven't been around an HOA lately or things like that, but they all agree that we should grow out of middle school behavior. So because life happens, because all these things happen, because we do find ourselves dismayed and sometimes disheartened, how do we actually have confidence in God? How do we have faith? How do we help ourselves have absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God? Well, there's a lot of things we can do. I don't pretend, don't hear me saying that there's a simple, easy, somehow magical path to getting to the place where you never are surprised by life or never knocked off balanced by life.

3:11That's not what I intend to say, but what I do intend to say is that we can grow in God's direction and we can develop absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. Now I've had that in my life challenged recently over the years, it regularly happens. So recently I was thinking about this and I was thinking, you know, a lot of people hear me say that and they somehow think that they aren't spiritual enough if they have some of these challenges, anxieties, worries. There are things that make us concerned. I mean, when you have somebody in your family who gets an illness or needs surgery of some kind, I mean, you get concerned. When you hear of somebody having an accident, you get concerned. There's all kinds of reasons that life happens and we get concerned. So I don't want to suggest that you will never have a moment of anxiety. I don't

4:15think that's the point at all. I think the point is we have to learn to get past our anxious fears so that we have confidence in God. Now some things have happened recently that kind of took away some of my peace, shall we say. So stretch me to have absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. Now I was thinking, why am I not handling this better? Because sometimes I have, life has taught me and so I've learned to handle things better. But what happens when all of a sudden things just kind of spin around and you wonder what in the world then it occurred to me that the real problem that I was having is I wanted to fix it somehow or to respond somehow in a way that satisfied me, shall we say. I don't remember really thinking I wanted to get even,

5:16but I wanted to have some kind of response because I didn't think these things should go unanswered. And then I realized the only thing we have when life puts us on tilt, the only thing we have is our response. And I can't fix the problems most of the time you and I, we just can't. Most of the time God does not miraculously intervene to fix the problems sometimes He has, sometimes He does. But every time no matter what I can always manage my response and I have determined that's what I want to do. I can be disheartened by something, I can be discouraged by something, but I can manage my response and refuse to park in that discouragement. It doesn't matter how you describe how you feel in response to something, you don't have to park

6:24there. In fact, maybe that initial response is a signal you want to follow to say, hey, wait a minute, this is a no parking zone. And so I am determining that I'm not going to get stuck there and I'm not going to let somebody else's nonsense determine my perspective on God or life or other people. There are always reasons to give thanks. There are always reasons for hope. There are always reasons to keep going and I'm not going to park in somebody else's nonsense. Perhaps that will help you think about how you can stretch in God's direction and develop absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God because I know that in spite of all the things that happen, all the crazy things that happen, God is not surprised, God is never on tilt,

7:25God is never off balance, God is never any of the things that we often are. God knows, God is with us and the peace of Christ is ours. We simply need to rest in that confidence. We may not like the circumstances, we might wish we could change them, but in those moments, those are our opportunities to demonstrate by our response that we have absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. I hope you will do that. No matter what you're facing, I hope you will realize that all you have is your response, but that response is powered by the grace of God and He is with us and He will help you just trust Him. I remember a little course that

8:27we sang years ago. I'm kind of surprised how many of these little songs snippets come to mind for me. I mean, I've always been interested in musical things for a long time, but I just never really expected to remember some of these things, but I've been reminded of a little song that went like this. God can do anything, anything, anything, God can do anything but fail. And sometimes that helps me to remember simple things like that. When times get challenging, I remember and I can rest that God has got this, and while I may not enjoy the season, I know who holds the world in His hands, and I can trust Him. You can too. What we're going to talk about, one of the most interesting, impactful Bible stories and all of the scriptures. Now, I say that and then I'll turn around and call another one. This is the

9:27greatest Bible story ever. The stories in the Bible are absolutely instructive and inspiring. And if you are not familiar with the Bible stories, I want to urge you, I should I beg you, I want to plead with you. Get a Bible story book. Even if it's a kids Bible story book, don't don't be so proud that you're unwilling to read a kid's story book, they have pictures. And most of the time, the pictures are in color, and that's good. See, I still remember the days when we had pictures in books, and then we got older in the next grade in school. Suddenly, we had fewer pictures, and then suddenly we didn't have books with much colorful stuff. I know that's changed. Now, there's a lot of graphic stuff out there, but get something that you can read that you can listen to that will help you learn the stories of the Bible. And we're going to talk about absolutely one of the most important and riveting and instructive stories and all

10:29of the scriptures. Before we get to that, though, I want to remind us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. God has admonished us to do that. And let me remind you, you're not praying just so Jerusalem will be free of conflict or war. You're not just praying that the peace of Jerusalem will be characterized by the absolute well-being of the people there. You're praying for Jerusalem's peace because so many of the world's tensions and challenges intersect in Jerusalem. And I think it's in the brilliance of God that he admonished us in the scriptures to pray for the peace of Jerusalem because he knew that Jerusalem would represent so many of the tensions and challenges in the world. And if we can resolve them in Jerusalem, maybe that can spread to other

11:34places. But without God's help and resolution, we don't have a chance for peace. So pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And by the way, I was just listening to a webinar just earlier today. And the question came up on the webinar because it was talking about a trip to Israel. And the host, the person who was responsible for the trip, looked at the camera and said, without flinching that it's safe in Israel. Now she cited some State Department guidance, travel guidance, and that's helpful. But she also cited her own experience from traveling in many places in the world. And I was surprised what she said because I've been to these cities as she mentioned. It's not been there for a while to one of them, but she said she felt safer in Jerusalem than she felt in downtown Detroit or downtown Orlando. That really struck me. Well,

12:40one of the reasons it really struck me is because recently I was in Orlando actually just outside Orlando in a pop-cope. It's a suburb of Orlando. And then I had to drive more into the city to the hotel where I was staying. But I was marveling here it is after dark, oh, 839 o'clock at night. And I'm driving through one of the world's foremost cities, certainly one of the United States' biggest, most dynamic cities. And I'm thinking to myself, well, I'm using my GPS to make sure I make the right turns. But in a general sense, I knew where I was going because I've been there enough times and I had confidence I could get where I needed to be. No problem at all. And I've remarked to my wife about that when I got home and still kind of smile and think who would have ever imagined a kid from Ohio would be doing that one day. But I was. And then when she mentioned that Jerusalem is safer, she felt safer there than in the downtown areas of Detroit or

13:44Orlando. I thought that said a lot. Now, I don't want to pretend that Orlando is particularly unsafe. I don't know. I didn't have any sense of a safety problem where I was for sure. But I think that comparison was instructive. So anyway, just just a little perspective on the world as we know it. Don't be so afraid. There are a lot of more safe places than we realize. So well, anyway, let's get into the Bible story. I just have been the last few years been so struck by the absolute significance of what we in general terms describe as the story of the Exodus. That's the story of God leading his people out of slavery in Egypt. Do you remember the was it Charlton, Heston movie, you know, where they crossed the Red Sea, all that stuff? Rather dramatically portrayed. And I don't know how it actually happened, but but at least it told us

14:45the story. And we want to we want to talk about some of that today and reflect on that because it truly is the quintessential salvation story in the Old Testament. You know, I was really reluctant to say that. I'd been thinking that for a while, but I happened to be at an event where one of the world's foremost Old Testament scholars was speaking. And so I asked him, I said, am I getting this wrong? That the Exodus story is the quintessential salvation story from the Old Testament. And without hesitation, he said, no, absolutely right. Well, the more I've studied it, the more I've convinced myself. And thanks to him, that it is true. So let's let's talk about some of those events. Now a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the life of Joseph and how God engineered events. My goodness, Joseph went through a lot of downs and some ups. But ended up in Egypt, ended up second in command to the Pharaoh, ended up saving much of the known world of that time

15:49from the devastating effects of a famine. In fact, he saved and you probably remember this from from the story. If you don't, go back and read it. He saved the life of his family because his brothers had sold him into slavery. They thought they were rid of him because they were jealous and angry because he told them all the amazing things that God seemed to reveal to him. Well, they needed food. They came to Egypt. He recognized them, put them through the ringer, you could say, without hesitation. But they ended up going home after they reconciled and after Joseph said to them, what you did, you meant for evil, but God meant it for good. What an attitude. Talk about absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. Joseph shows us that. Well, he sends them home and they bring the whole family, all the relatives, Joseph's brothers and their father, the whole household. And they come at the invitation of Pharaoh and they settle in an area of Egypt called

16:52Goshen and they thrive there. They do extraordinarily well. They just the whole bunch just multiplies and God bless them. They were prospering in Egypt in a great, great way. Well, Joseph dies, time passes, and yes, you know the story. A new Pharaoh came to power. And that king did not know Joseph or what he had done for Egypt. All he could see was this thriving, prosperous group of people. And he saw them as a threat to him, to his household, to his throne, to all the people of Egypt. And he decided he would neutralize the threat by enslaving them so that they would not have the

17:53strength to overcome, to conquer his people. Now there's no evidence that I've ever seen or heard about that they were intent on conquering Egypt. They were living their lives as far as we can tell. But he was afraid so he enslaved them and began to oppress them and they suffered under that slavery for a very long time. Well, God kind of had enough of that because the Pharaoh had been doing some really outrageous things like, for example, he instructed the midwives that cared for the women who had babies in Israel, Egypt, Goshen, I should say, the Israelis, the people of God. He instructed the midwives to throw the boy babies in the Nile and kill them. Well, it's outrageous. Well, a couple of the midwives stood up to that and didn't do it,

18:55and they gave an excuse when called to account. And God blessed them because they didn't obey an immoral order. Well, people kept having babies and Moses was born. We know his name is Moses, his mother cared for him, tried to keep him quiet, but there's only so much you can do to keep a baby boy quiet. And eventually she realized she had to do something else in order to save his life. So she put him in a basket and floated him out on the Nile where Pharaoh's daughter would find him. You remember that story? Sure enough, Pharaoh's daughter discovered the baby. When she discovered it, Moses's sister had been hiding and watching and went rushing out and saying, oh, you like this baby, would you like me to find a nurse to take care of the baby for you until the baby is able to come and live with you in the palace with Pharaoh? Well, yes, she liked that idea. So who do you suppose Moses's sister went and found? Well, of course, Moses' mother. And so Moses' mother then had the opportunity

19:59protected by the favor of the Pharaoh's daughter to raise Moses until he was old enough to go to the palace to live, which he did. He continued to grow up. And yet he did not forget who he was. He knew who his people were and he knew they were enslaved. And he was out in about one day. And you remember the story of this, too, don't you? Well, a couple of Egyptians were oppressing a member of God's family, one of Moses' ancestors or relatives, maybe you should say. And so Moses killed the guy. Well, that's a pretty strong response, whether he was right or wrong or not. We can debate that, but he did it. And he suddenly realized that his life was in danger because of that. So he ran for his life and got out of there. Well, smart move because he survived. He went to a place called Midian and he started his life again. Totally different environment, but he started over

21:04had a family, had flocks. And he was out one time taking care of the flocks. You remember that story for sure, don't you? And he saw a bush that was on fire, but it was not being consumed. Well, if you're out wandering around taking care of your sheep, your goats, you look up and you see a bush that's on fire, you probably would go to investigate. So Moses did. And lo and behold, God speaks to him from the fire of the bush. Now, that would also get your attention. I don't think many of us have had God speak to us from a bush, whether it was on fire or not, but it got Moses's attention and and God said, Moses, you're on holy ground. And you remember the story, take off your sandals and Moses reverently listened to God and God said to Moses, listen, I got something for you to do. I want you to help

22:04me out. And I want you to go back to Egypt and I want you to go to Pharaoh and I want you to tell him to let my people go so they can worship me. And Moses of course said, wow, that's a great plan. Let's go do it. Can I leave today? Well, no, that is not what Moses said. In fact, Moses acted, reacted, responded to God pretty much like most people respond to God when God says, God, something I want you to do. They find an excuse not to do it. Now, Moses was quite reluctant. We don't know all of the reasons for his reluctance. It's not all spelled out in the scriptures, but there are some concrete reasons that God gives or that pardon me that Moses gives to God, where he says, I really can't do this. God persists all the way through that. Now, I want to add here, before we get to the rest of the story of Moses, that I've seen this in the church

23:10all my life as a Christian leader. From the time I was a music director to the time I was a youth pastor to being a pastor, that the church, God asked someone to do something. And they're first and almost always response. I mean, it's so consistent from person to person is, no, I couldn't possibly do that. Rarely, the someone say, you know, I'm convinced God has uniquely gifted me to do that. So, yes, I'm going to step up and I'm going to help out. That almost never happens. It's always, oh, no, I couldn't do that. Now, sometimes to be sure, people will say, well, could I have some time to think about it? Could I have some time to pray about it? Well, understand that. Life has a lot of competing challenges, shall we say, things to get our attention. So, I respect that.

24:10But the most amazing thing is how often people say, I don't think I should do that. And when you say to them, well, God really needs you to, they'll say, well, if God wants to get it done, now they don't always say in this word, these words, okay, but this is the, this is what you hear. If God wants to get it done, he'll get it done, whether I do it or not. Well, that really isn't what's going on here with Moses, is it? God didn't say to Moses, okay, Moses, if you don't do it, I'm going to go find somebody who will and you'll miss out on the blessing. He didn't say that. God just continued to press Moses until Moses agreed with God. Now, I don't know how much God might need to press you, but God has consistently gotten things done in our world because people have been willing to serve and step up and do what God needed done. So, if you're considering something or people have

25:18asked you, will you help with something? Maybe it's time to say yes instead of, oh, no, I can't out of some sense of false humility. Well, we're going to take a break and you think about that. We'll be right back on Pastor Rick. I'm Dr. Kelly Victory with the Wellness Company and I know this personally. I exercised a to healthy diet and had no symptoms when a routine mammogram resulted in a cancer diagnosis. It revealed a hard truth. Even healthy people can get cancer and much of modern medicine is reactive, not preventative. So, I began asking a different question. What can we do daily to support the body before something goes wrong? That question led me to formulate shield. Shield is a two-part nutraceutical system designed to support immune balance, antioxidant defense, and cellular health. A chemical-free cocoa mix and soft gels containing medicinal mushrooms, turmeric, green tea extract, olive leaf, burberry, and black seed oil.

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31:32All right, we're back on Pastor Rick. And this is faith is the place where we stretch in God's direction. And by the way, in case I haven't mentioned this for a while, I am a pastor of a church in Cape Coral, Florida, diplomat Wesleyan Church. So we are in the daily nuts and bolts of following Jesus just like you. We are some super bunch of saints. We're just doing our best to remain faithful. At least most of us, we do have our challenge this sometimes. Some people don't want to be as faithful as God is calling them to be. But anyway, that's kind of where we left Moses and where I left you with this idea that God calls us, ask us to serve in some way or another in the kingdom. And we're too quick. Most people are simply too quick to step back and say, no, I can't possibly do that. If God wants to get it done, he'll find a way to get it done. And God is saying,

32:32huh, no, actually I had you in mind. I'd like you to do it for me. And we still struggle. And I have often thought that that was some misguided sense of pride that people denied that. But it's really, in many respects, foundationally, a denial that God has called and gifted us to do certain things. So let's go back to Moses while you ponder your response. And so God and Moses went back and forth a little bit because Moses was reluctant. We understand that. And the most amazing thing that I noticed, and they didn't teach this to us in Sunday school years ago, the most amazing thing I noticed is that when God and Moses got finished talking, Moses just finally said, I don't want to do it, send someone else. Now most Bibles don't quite say it that plainly, but that's what Moses said.

33:35Well, when you're God and you met up your mind, you don't let Moses talk you out of it. Instead, God relented a little bit and sent Aaron to help Moses, which that was good because that was a good partnership most of the time. There were some challenges later on. But Moses did finally follow God's call and got to work. I hope you finally follow God's call and get to work. I see too many people that just don't ever get there. So I hope you will. Okay, so Moses heads on down to Egypt and his family goes with him, Aaron goes with him and he goes in and he talks to Pharaoh and he says, God has sent me and here's his message to you. You're to let my people go. They need to go on a three-days journey so they can worship me. And so Pharaoh said, hey, sounds like a

34:38plan. They could use a vacation. Let him go. I know, of course, he didn't say that. Pharaoh said, this is the most striking thing to me. Pharaoh wouldn't let him go, but he said, who is this God anyway? Well, that tells you a lot about what's about to unfold in the story. It also tells us a lot about God and his revelation to Moses because back at the bush, Moses, and he had that same conversation about how the people would know that God sent him and God says, I am. Sometimes in English translation it says, I am that I am. God was declaring that he was the one true God. And Pharaoh was saying, I don't know who this God is. Now, remember Pharaoh thought of himself and all of Egypt thought of Pharaoh as divine as a God. So that was not beyond Pharaoh's mindset. And Pharaoh doubled down on, we might say stupid, because he hardened his heart and wouldn't let the

35:44people go. Well, God says, okay, we'll see. Now, a series of plagues unfolded and you've heard about the plagues, various different plagues including the water turning to blood and all those kinds of things, darkness covering the land except the area where God's people lived. And when you look at this carefully, and we're not going to go into each individual plague, when you look at this carefully, you begin to realize that what's going on here is that that this is a battle between God and the small G gods of Egypt. We today might call this spiritual warfare. Now, people get all cranked up about spiritual warfare. Let me just suggest if you are interested in learning about spiritual warfare, study this section in Exodus and just watch what God does. It's not so much in Exodus about what Moses did, Moses represented God,

36:46but God was fighting the battle against Pharaoh on behalf of his people. And I think that's kind of an instructive way to look at this. So anyway, it turns out that this battle between the gods of Egypt and the one true God resulted in, well, Pharaoh just doubling down repeatedly and saying, no, I'm not going to let the people go. In fact, he made conditions worse for the people. And they suffered even more. And it caused quite a little kerfluffle, you could say, between Moses and the people because they start to recognize Moses. You said you're getting us out of here, but now look at us. Look at us now. We're worse off than we were. Things are worse than we had them before. And so Moses and God have to talk about this a little bit. And yet God persists and things continue until finally they reach the final point. And God says to Pharaoh, okay,

37:51I'm going to give one more plague. And you remember what that is. God says I'm going to go through Egypt and I'm going to kill the firstborn and every family and the firstborn of all the livestock. And you'll know, you'll know that I'm God. Well, Moses delivered that instruction and Pharaoh wouldn't listen. And God gave specific instructions then to his people to get ready for that fateful night. We call that night Passover. And I want to read a little bit about this from Genesis chapter 12. There are several passages that talk about specific things with Passover. But this one is just a good summary of all of that, even though it mentions it other places. It's all the same ideas. Exodus chapter 12 started with verse one from the Christian standard Bible. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month is to be the beginning of

38:55months for you. It is the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, they must each select an animal of the flock according to their father's families, one animal for family. Okay, let's just pause there and say, is it interesting that God has now entered the story with this people by beginning to place time before them? This month is to be the beginning of months for you. And in some ways, this is God communicating. You're about to have a new beginning. And that's good. In other sense, it's God saying, you're about to get rid of Pharaoh because I doubt and we don't know how to prove this, but people who study this say this, that likely as slaves, they had no real sense of time because one day was like the next. They were worked half to death. So now God is entering in and saying, we're going to have this new beginning. And this is the month. And then he gives them specific instructions

39:58on the 10th day of this month that they're going to select an animal according to their size of their household to get ready for a meal. And the meal part will unfold in just a moment. So there's supposed to select an animal according to their father's families, one animal per family, verse four, if the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house, are to select one based on the combined number of people. You should apportion the animal according to what each will eat. You must have an unblemished animal, a year old male. You may take it from either the sheep or the goats. You are to keep it until the 14th day of this month. Then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals that twilight. They must take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts, two doorposts, and the little of the houses where they eat them. They are to eat the meat that night. They should eat it, roast it over the fire, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or

41:03cooked in boiling water, but only roast it over fire, is head as well as its legs and inner organs. You must not leave any of it until morning, any part of it, left until morning you must burn. Here is how you must eat it. You must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry. It is the Lord's Passover. I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every first born male in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. I am the Lord. I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Well, that is quite an event. Yes, we focus on and understandably so

42:06the fact that the first born were killed and they were in Egypt. But there is a little bit more involved here that we should not miss. It is really quite curious. I do not know whether we fully understand all of it, but notice how specific God is with his instructions about this meal. Notice that this meal, this eating, was connected to worship. Remember the request was that they could leave Egypt to go a three-days journey and worship God. Well, eating has some interesting connections in the Bible. Let us make one for sure with not Exodus, sorry, Genesis chapter 3. What did God say there? Well, there is plenty for you to eat here, but this one tree, it is off limits. Don't eat from it. Of course, I did and the rest is history and we are in trouble because of it, but eating was significant. I made a significant connection to whether they were going to live as God

43:09instructed them to live. Now in this story in Exodus chapter 12, God is giving them specific instructions about the meal. He says, here is the entree. Now they have to select this animal on the tenth day and then four days later they slaughter the animal and prepare the meal. Interesting that there is that time lapse where there have to give special attention to making sure that selected animal doesn't become damaged. They have to take care of that carefully, take it into their household probably. Then they are told here is how you slaughter the animal, here is what you do with the blood. Here is how you fix the meat. Here are, he even gives them, here are the sides, you are spoke to eat with the bitter herbs. He talks about unleavened bread, what we usually call unleavened bread. Now some people who study this say it is more accurate to say flat bread because when we say unleavened it has a negative context because it is something left out. They say that

44:16in the original language it was not a negative, it was simply a description. So flat bread, they like better. I am not going to argue that because we have this idea of leaven throughout the scriptures and it is used as an illustration. So we are not going to eliminate that. But I do want to mention that flat bread is a preferred by some of the scholars way of translating that idea of unleavened bread. So anyway, God gives them this specific meal. He even tells them the dress code for the meal. Be dressed ready to travel, he says. That is really interesting. He says, eat it in a hurry. Now how many of us we like to enjoy a meal, we don't want to rush through it, especially if it is a big deal meal like this one obviously was. We want to enjoy it, we want to enjoy our family, our friends perhaps. But God says no, this quickly get rid of travel. So he is

45:17very specific with the meal and he is very specific with what they are to do with some of the blood from the slaughtered animal, the two door posts and the lentil on the outside of the house. He gives them that instruction because he says when I see the blood there that that will be a sign for you. Now you know people look for signs all the time. I mean they ask Jesus for a sign and he said you only get the sign of Jonah. I will read that story, that is an interesting one. And today we get sometimes so terribly caught up in I want a sign of some kind or another. And people seem to be sometimes inordinately fascinated with the idea that God would give us a sign. I mean I'm regularly surprised, disappointed that when some world event happens people will always ask me

46:21is this a sign of the end of time. Well the Bible doesn't tell us that. The Bible tells us to be ready. I mean you've heard the expression signs and wonders that get people's attention. Jesus certainly did some things that we could call signs. But here there's what God calls a sign for you. Now God had a sign for himself. You probably remember that. God put a rainbow in the sky at the end of the flood and said that's going to be his message to himself, his reminder. Some people said it's God's post-it note in the sky, his reminder when he sees the rainbow that he's never going to destroy the earth by flood again. Now when you hear all of the climate change people and of all the the earth is warming and we're rapidly going to kill ourselves and it's going to flood us then that gets everybody's attention and people wonder what's going on and all that.

47:23Well one thing I can tell you for sure is that you don't need to be afraid that the world is going to be destroyed by flood because God said no I put a reminder out there that I'm not going to do that again. I'm pretty sure God didn't need that but he put that there and he told us why. But now he says this is a sign for you and the sign for you is that putting the blood on the door post and over the top of the door the little. A sign for you. Well it's a sign for us to obey God and assign for us to retreat into the house and allow God to pass over our house. Now everywhere you go and everywhere you look and all of the English translations describe this as when the destroyer goes through Egypt they passed over the house. Well let's talk about that destroyer what does that

48:24mean. People have wondered what mechanism was that all about because it talks about very specifically God says I'm going to take care of business and then some people get a little squeamish that God might do that but there's no sense in the text that I can see that God how should I say outsources that chore to a demon of some kind or some kind of evil entity. The entire sense is that God is taking care of business because God is a God who judges evil and he will punish evil and bring correction and make the wrong things right. So every sense is that God is doing this but the other really interesting thing is this idea I will pass over the house. Well that's a good description and I wouldn't want to take that away from us. I think that's a helpful way to think about it but really the people that study this get into this and they say you know there's more to it than just passing by. What God is really saying is I will protect the people inside from the destroyer.

49:34It says though God Himself has said I will stand watch outside and make sure that death and is not enter this house. That's a pretty big bold statement by God don't you think? And I really like that description that God Himself is going to stand there and protect His people. It's not a passive thing. It's God actively saying you're not getting mine. These are mine. Go away. And I think that's a good vivid illustration for us to remember. Now it's also very important to realize that the sign for you is that you have followed instructions and you put the blood where I can see it. Now God knew where His people lived. I mean all the plagues and all the things that unfolded you remember the darkness the plague of darkness has described that that Egypt was plundered and plunged into darkness but but where God's people lived there was light. How God did all that?

50:37I don't know but it was clear that's the description so God knew where His people lived. God didn't need something to tell Him that no this address is is one of your guys. He knew. He also knew who followed His instructions and who didn't because he knew that by whether the blood was placed on the doorpost. Now we don't see anything in the text that says us some people didn't some people didn't. We don't know that we don't have any idea that the sense is that everybody cooperated and did what Moses told them at God's direction. But we do know this they weren't saved from death because they were part of the people of God that had come there when Joseph and his family moved into Egypt. They weren't part of a special group. They weren't part of an identity. They weren't anything like that. The only way they were protected was because they put the blood on the

51:37little end doorposts. You know sometimes today we think that we're okay because we go to this church or that church or because our family has done this that or the other thing or you fill in the blank but God is very clear that is the people that are protected by the sign that they put on the doorposts. The sign that they slaughtered the animal that they ate the meal that they are now putting themselves under God's protection. Now the message for you and me is that recognize that this is a beginning of God's revelation that he will one day send the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world so that we can remember the expression hide ourselves in him so that we can be found protected by Jesus' sacrifice. The justice that Lamb became the sacrifice so that a first

52:40born did not have to die in the household. Jesus became the sacrifice so you and I do not face death. See Jesus recognized what we all recognize is that everybody has sinned and that the covenant that God started with Abraham had been badly violated not by God but by us and we all recognize that when they made that covenant they agreed that violation of the covenant meant the death penalty. And so along comes Jesus who says yes I know they deserve death but he entered into our world. He became human. He lived a sinless life and became the perfect sacrifice and he inserted himself into the covenant by becoming human and saying I'll handle this and so when he died and he became as the Bible says sin for us he became that sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world. The only remedy for sin

53:45is to confess, to change your life and to follow Jesus to be found in him. There is no other remedy for sin. There was no other protection in Egypt from the destroyer. God was clear about that. The only protection was to hide behind the sign that God gave for us to put on our doorposts and our littles. The only protection for us today is to be found in Christ the one who became the perfect sacrifice so we didn't have to die. See that's connection that sometimes people miss. Now Passover has become a lot of things and it has developed over time but it has been the consistent annual celebration that God said to his people. You need to remember this night and teach it to your

54:48children so that they understand. And so God was doing this in the desperate hope that they would understand what was going on in Egypt and celebrate the great deliverance God had given them so that they would accept the Lamb of God when he came to deliver the world from evil. Well you know how that story unfolded and not everybody did not everybody does. But please understand this. This is God's gift to the world, this gift of salvation. This was well illustrated in the Exodus from Egypt that this God who was the one true God fought the battle with evil, a spiritual battle between God and the Pharaoh and his gods who thought they were so tough.

55:50God defeated them, delivered his people from evil in the same way that on the cross Jesus defeated the powers of the evil one and delivers us from that evil. A lot of people try to justify themselves well I'm a pretty good person or I'm a pretty that or that or that or that. But the Bible is clear the way of the cross leads home and we need to find ourselves forgiven and free and following Jesus. If you aren't I hope you will. And do it today without the Lamb of God.

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