The 10th Plague & The Passover

After the first 9 plagues, God would send one more upon Egypt, and Pharaoh would let the people go. We cover that plague as well as the preparations for the Passover given to God's people to bring about their salvation. 

Transcript

 Thank you for listening once again to cultivating growth. We have been working our way this month through the Exodus. Really found in the Book of Exodus, kind of at the beginning of the book. Not necessarily an introduction into Moses, but certainly his relationship with God. We talked about a couple of weeks ago with him being called to go to Pharaoh and asked for the people to be let go.

And then last week we talked about kind of the first nine plagues on the beginning of that process, and today we're gonna talk about the 10th plague and all the surrounding circumstance around that, not just the plague itself, but also the Passover in Exodus chapter 11 and two and 12. So I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Let's get.

Well, Jeremy, you mentioned our discussion today is primarily going to stem from Exodus chapters 11 and 12, where the last plague is announced and carried out. And with that comes the institution of the Passover. And you and I were talking at the outset that if we try to keep these podcasts relatively short and taking on a discussion about both this 10th plague and the institution of the Passover, and that could also go into the foreshadowing that the Passover is to some of the New Testament relationships with Jesus and Lord's Supper and those kinds of things.

There's a lot that could be discussed around this. We're certainly not gonna do it necessarily justice in 15 minutes, but we'll do our best to kind of talk about some of the highlights of what takes place here. And so let's just begin with where we left off last week with that ninth plague leading into the 10th plague in chapter 11.

God makes it very clear to Moses. Verse one, I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh, and after that, he's gonna let you go. And so God, God knew exactly how this was gonna play out. He understood what this last plague was going to do and the horror that it was going to bring upon the Egyptian people.

And he knew that this would be the one in which Pharaoh finally relented it and let the people go. But as we talked about last week. The nine plagues leading up to this have just decimated Egypt and, and left them reeling in so many ways, physically, emotionally. I mean, their livestock has been wiped out.

I mean, they have just been absolutely. Beaten down through these plagues and yet here coming to the last one, the hardest one of all of them still awaits them. Yeah, I mean, it is one of those things that we talked about last week that I think is important. E even though we're not given a, a specific timeframe, you know, with each and every one of these plagues, certainly this didn't last decades or even years, right.

It is. For the most part, seemingly one after the other, you know, after the other. And, and to your point. Plagues one through nine, destruction upon the, upon the empire, absolute devastation. They, and, and the people themselves, they've, they've suffered physically they've had everything that they own and everything that they have destroyed, basically.

Mm-hmm. From their water supply to their homes being affected. Did with the hail and, and those kinds of things. Certainly their animals, their crops. I mean, all of these things has been affected in, in massive ways. And that's leading up to, you know, what will be Yeah. You know, ultimately this one. And so I, I think it is important that you, and I think you use the right term, they're, they're beaten down already.

And, and God, he does come right out and say, kind of at the outset as you read in verse one, I, I'm gonna bring one more, one more plague. And, and he knows, he knows the heart of Pharaoh. He knows the decisions ultimately that Pharaoh are going to make. God sees all of those things and, and he knows. One more plague.

And he knows the devastation that it's going to bring, the destruction that it's going to bring, the sorrow that it's going to bring and, and it will bring the world empire at the time to its knees. Mm-hmm. And it is, as we talked last week. The ultimate introduction to who he is. If Pharaoh is wondering who Jehovah is, as he asked Moses at kind of the outset of these plagues, I, I don't know Jehovah, I, I don't know who this God is.

And God basically is now saying, oh, I'm gonna introduce myself to you. The power that I have. I mean, he certainly has showcased that. Yeah. And, and God is going to, to make his point so strongly that it cannot be missed by bringing about the death of the firstborn throughout Egypt. But one passage that really stuck out to me was, was in chapter 12.

And verse number 12, because I think this really speaks to what you were just talking about, about God really making it known who he is and where his power lies because he says, when, when speaking about the land of Egypt, both man and beast, against all the gods of Egypt. I will execute judgment. I am the Lord.

And that is such a strong statement both to the people of Israel as well as to the Egyptians and to everyone who has ever read this since this moment. Judgment is the Lord's to execute. Mm-hmm. It belongs to him. And it always has. And it always will, and it is not our place to question it. And it's not our place to try to insert ourselves into it.

Judgment is the lord's to execute. He needed not just the Egyptians to know that he needed his people, that he was about to lead out of Egypt, to know that, and he still needs us to know that today. It, it's so easy to try to question that or to think, man, I don't know if I'd do it that way, or to try and insert ourselves into those discussions.

And, and God's blatant reminder to all of mankind. Is I am going to execute judgment because I am the Lord. And, and it does not belong to us. It did not belong to Pharaoh. And, and it is our job to submit ourselves to his perfect judgment. And even in situations like this where, I mean, this is a hard story to read.

I mean, this is terrible to read about, you know, the firstborn being killed and all of these things that have taken place throughout the plagues. But judgment belongs to the Lord. And so I have to be okay with that. I have to be thankful that he has taken that upon himself and not placed that on us. It most certainly is his domain.

And you know, it is interesting. You, you, you, you made the point, this is a, this is a difficult passage to read. I mean, it it is, it, it is interesting that, you know, seemingly, you know, when it comes to the 10 plagues, it is, you know, kind of a common story that we teach even our children. Mm-hmm. Yep. Probably because the very.

Visual. Yeah. Kind of nature of it. But when you sit down and you just read these chapters like seven to 12, it, it is a hard it's a hard text to, to get through, but it is God's world. This is his domain, and I think you make a great point. We're we're not in any position to question any of it, not, not even a piece of it.

And, and so we, we have to acknowledge that he is the Lord. He has the power, he has the knowledge base. He is the only one equipped. To, to throw out judgment in the way that he does. That's why when you get into the pages of the New Testament, it is so prevalent of don't judge. Mm-hmm. Be careful not to judge that this is his domain and certainly he's laying it down here in the book of Exodus.

Yeah. And with this 10th and final plague. Comes the institution of the Passover because as God has done with his people through the previous nine plagues, he's going to spare them. They are not going to be subject to the death of the firstborn, but there are some instructions that they are to follow both to avoid.

That as well as to be prepared to leave once this plague has taken place. And so chapter 12, especially the first 28 verses or so, really speaks to the institution of the Passover that God uses. This 10th plague as to kind of springboard off of, to create this Passover that is going to be a really a, a, a pillar among the Jews for generations and generations to come.

And it is really remarkable to me the level of detail that is recorded for us in chapter 12 as God starts to lay out the Passover and what it is to be both in that moment. As well as what it is to be going forward. And, and there was something else that I, I thought kind of tied into the point we made just a minute ago about God's judgment.

If you, if you read chapter 12 about this Passover feast and about all the preparations they are to make, it is so detailed that you can't help but miss the fact that when it comes to matters of life and death, matters of salvation, matters of what what am I supposed to do to be pleasing to God? God never leaves.

Situations like that or matters like that, unsettled or left to the judgment of his people to try to figure out for themselves. God tells us everything we need to know. He tells us exactly what he wants us to hear. He tells us exactly what he wants us to do. If he doesn't say it, it's because he doesn't want us to hear it or doesn't need us to know it.

Things like, and this isn't the only example of that, but this is one reminder of that to me as a Christian today, when I think about, okay, well what do I have to do to become a child of Gods? And we go to the New Testament and we can read that and we may have questions about some things, but if God hasn't chosen to tell us other aspects of that, then it's up to him.

But he has told me what I need to do. He's told me how I need to worship. He's told me what the church is supposed to look like, and he doesn't leave those matters open for interpretation. He gives us what we need to know. And that's exactly what he did for the people of Israel here. He told them what he needed them to know when it comes to this Passover so that they could both implement it here as well as preserve it moving forward.

Yeah. I reread chapter 12 this morning, and exactly what you were talking about is, what was striking to me is just the level of detail. He is all but provided step one. Yeah. Step two, step three, and, and, and he's even knocking off questions ahead of time. I mean, you see that really at the very outset, at the beginning of chapter 12, when he, he makes a point, listen now you need to get yourself a lamb, a lamb without blemish.

And he kind of sets up, you know, all of the things that come into that. And certainly the incredible foreshadowing, you know, with Jesus as the Passover Lamb. But e even in the midst of that, he, he'll kind of add in there if your house is too small for that. Yeah. Get with your neighbor and, and so he's almost, he he's even covering questions.

Yeah. You know, along the way. And, you know, I was thinking about, as I was working my way through chapter 12. It, it's easy to follow. Mm-hmm. They are step by step. They are specific they are detailed and, and it is life or death. It, it is the way to salvation. It is the way to victory. And you made, you made reference.

We see this through God, I thought about Noah, you know, in the book of Genesis. Yep. You know, here is your pathway to salvation. Yep. What we don't find in Genesis chapter six, build a boat. Right. Your pathway to salvation. Build a boat, right? I mean, it is the most detailed of plans, you know, laid out there.

You could go to, you know, Joshua chapter six, you're looking for victory or salvation from the people of Jericho. Go beat the city, right? No, I mean, no on, on one day. Gather everybody together in the way that you know they are. Walk around the city quietly. Then go home on the next day, do that, and you know, to the seventh day.

I mean, it is so detailed. And so again, to your point, when we get into the pages of the New Testament and we begin to see the way that he outlines how to have a relationship with him, salvation, specifically the church specifically, we shouldn't be surprised that he has provided pretty easy to follow.

Instructions. Mm-hmm. This is what I am looking for. And we shouldn't be surprised by that because he wants his people here in Exodus chapter 11 and 12 to be saved from this. Yeah. And so the best way to make that happen is to provide them with something that they can follow. Mm-hmm. You, you get for us today, he wants us to have a relationship with him.

He wants our sins to be washed away. That's what he wants. He wants us to be in heaven for all eternity. And so he. Then provides us an easy to follow, you know, way to make that happen. There's no confusion, there's no guesswork, you know, that you're going through here. You look at Exodus 11 and 12, there's no guesswork on on what needs to be done here.

It only then comes down to, I'm gonna do that. Yeah. Or I'm not gonna do that. And that remains the same for us. That's exactly right. That's the question all of us have to answer when it comes to, you know, these matters of salvation that we've discussed. Am I, am I gonna follow God's way or not? And it couldn't be more clear, certainly in the examples you gave, whether it's Noah or whether it's Joshua, or whether it's here with Moses and the people, if you choose not to do it God's way.

Destruction follows, and, and that's just the way it has always been. And so we should expect nothing different in our lives today that that's the way that this is going to go, because that's the way it has always gone. And there's another aspect of this too that I think is really important and this speaks more to the foreshadowing of, of perhaps what is to come later as it pertains to the Passover.

But the question is addressed in verse 27 of chapter 12. That, Hey, what about future generations? You know, what are we gonna tell them when they ask about this Passover feast and, and really what it's all about? And, and, and God provides them with an answer to that question. He remember you tell them about how God struck the Egyptians and how he delivered us from this captivity.

And that's, that's an important reminder to me that when it comes to things like the Lord's Supper, for instance, or really any, anything that we do spiritually. Children are going to watch what we're doing and they're gonna have questions about that. Why? Why do you do that? Why? Why do we go to church on on Sunday?

Why do we take the Lord's Supper? Why does somebody get baptized? We need to have an answer for that, and we also need to remember that God has given us all of these things. Yeah, for a very specific purpose, they're teaching tools and they're ways that we can teach the younger generation about God and about his love for mankind and about his desire to see people saved.

And we need to be prepared to answer those questions. And I, I just love that God kind of gave them the answer to that preemptively because we're talking years down the road before anybody's gonna an ask a question like this, but he understands questions will arise like this, and he wants us to have an answer.

I mean, that is exactly right. And listen, we're not gonna take the time here in this episode to talk about, you know, all the parallels that kind of, you know, land with with us in the New Testament, specifically with Jesus. You know, maybe we could talk about those next week when we have our guest with us and we can kind of dive into that a little bit more.

But it is, it's perfect parallels along the way and, and you see God. Providing a way of salvation for the Israelites here in Exodus 11 and 12, and you see in the New Testament, God providing a way of salvation for his people and it is life or death and it is follow God or not follow God. You made mention of verse 27, I thought you're gonna get there verse 28, but that you know, ultimately is the culmination of it.

Yeah. Verse 28, the children of Israel went away and did so just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. So they did. That was the decision they made. Mm-hmm. And so when God passes through the land and the Egyptians and all of their firstborn, including their animals were taken away, he comes into where the Israelites were, well, they had followed what God had told them.

And so that didn't happen to them. And so you see at the end of this chapter. I, I, it's just, it, it's incredible devastation and ultimately the people are let go. Yeah. Well, let, let's wrap things up with one of those instances in the New Testament where God calls our attention back to the Passover and connects Jesus to that.

There are several instances where this happens, whether it's John the Baptist in John chapter one, seeing Jesus walking down the road and pointing to him saying, behold the Lamb of God. Or more explicitly in one Corinthians chapter five, which is where I'm at now, and which is where we will end as Paul is going to connect Jesus to our Passover lamb In one Corinthians chapter five, in verse number seven, it says, for indeed Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness. But with the unloving bread of sincerity and truth. Thank you for listening this week. If you haven't already done so, we'd appreciate it if you would take just a second to subscribe to the podcast, whatever platform you're listening, rate and review the show so we can continue to spread the good news of Jesus widely and effectively as possible.

Thanks again for joining us this week, and we'll talk again next week.