this morning i invite you to turn in the bible to the second book the book of exodus as we finally come to the 10th plague and the day of israel's freedom we'll be looking together this morning at verses 29 through 42 of exodus chapter 12 such a glorious section of god's word this is the word of the Lord. Exodus 12 beginning at verse 29. At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night he and all his servants and all the Egyptians and there was a great cry in Egypt for there was not a house where someone was not dead then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said up go out from among my people both you and the people of Israel and go serve the Lord as you have said take your flocks and your herds as you have said and be gone and bless me also the Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste for they said we shall all be dead so the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians and the people of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Succoth about 600,000 men on foot besides women and children a mixed multitude also went up with them and very much livestock both flocks and herds and they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt for it was not leavened because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves the time that the people of israel lived in egypt was 430 years at the end of 430 years on that very day all the hosts of the lord went out from the land of egypt it was a night of watching by the lord to bring them out of the land of egypt so this same night is a night of watching kept to the lord by all the people of israel throughout all their generations. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. What if today was it? What if today was the end? The last day? The separation is going to happen at about midnight. It'll all be over. It'll all be over. The Egyptians who have troubled you, you will see no more forever. And God will bring you home once and for all. God, in all of his promises that he ever made and that you have been preached to for years and years and years, that you've heard, will finally be realized. And judgment on the wicked will begin. The day that you believed in, but wondered if it would ever really come has arrived. It seems that one of the greatest challenges of our generation is simply to believe in the physical return of the Lord Jesus Christ on the clouds of heaven to judge the living and the dead. Well, that, as anticipating that final event, We see this unfold, this very thing in Egypt before us this morning. You have a detailed description of what the final judgment will be like. In the last section, the Lord himself said to Pharaoh, I'm coming, Pharaoh. I'm coming for you. And I'm coming and I'm going to strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. In the midst of this, you had, and you saw it in the text, the emphasis on unleavened over and over and over. The Lord kept telling them, get ready, get ready, it's time. Get ready, we're going to go soon. The day is at hand. It's come. All my promises, everything you believed, everything you've been patient in believing for 430 years, you are now going to see with your eyes. You're the generation to see it. You're going to see salvation. You're going to see judgment. You're going to see judgment on those who have treated you so harshly and hurt you and harmed you and martyred you. What is this this morning? The striking thing about all of this is that it's telling our story. Everything that we've believed, everything that we have faced, again, I remind us that there has been no generation in the history of the church that has seen more martyrs than ours. Everything that we have faced, these people so many years ago lived. And they're a witness to us. They're telling us, this day will come. This day will come. The separation is about to begin. The great separation. And that is before us this morning, the goal to increase your faith as you listen to this in God's gospel promises, to believe everything that he's told you and everything that God has promised will soon be fulfilled. And we're going home. The message, he will protect you. The message, he will shield you through it is right here this morning. And so the Lord is telling us, be ready, that day is at hand. This morning, we see this in the execution of, if you're taking notes, the execution here of this final judgment on the land of Egypt which will culminate in Pharaoh and his armies going into the sea. We see the execution of the judgment. We see the protection in the midst of the judgment and you see the release of Israel in the midst of all of this. The execution, the protection, and the release. 400 years, 430 to be precise, they have been there. The defining moment has now come of everything that God had promised to Abraham that he would bring them back. Now he was setting them free. This midnight cry and what they were about to experience would be spoken about for years to come. And all the generations of Israel, they would sit down and they would teach their children this. The destroyer came at midnight. And those who had prepared, which you can't help but think about Jesus' parable of the ten virgins. Those who had prepared, those who had the blood of the Passover lamb came out to the Lord. Those who did not face the judgment. This was so clear to Israel. They were taught and were experiencing the blessings of the single great story of Scripture that the Lord had been telling all the way back from Genesis 3.15. They were seeing this unfold. They were seeing God work in history and telling this story, unfolding this story, which is the story ultimately of what Christ would do when he came to the cross. Israel had the gospel preached to them. Israel was learning the gospel. They were told it all. That one day, the blood of a pure lamb would come and He would shed that blood on the tree, on the wood, and those who believe in Him would be passed over and brought to Him and they would not face death. They'd escape. The whole study of Israel's deliverance from Egypt is the story of salvation. That's why we do this. That's why we go through the Old Testament. The Lord's been telling us this story from the beginning of time. But it's also a warning to all of those who don't have a covering. and so as we see this unfold this morning i want you to step back with me in time if i can say that and i want you to put your put yourself in the shoes of the average israelite as you're experiencing this as you're going through this nine plagues had just unfolded in front of them just been unleashed on this most powerful nation of the world ever to exist. God was doing it for them. God was coming to get them. They had just started to celebrate the Passover. They took that lamb without spot. They had shed its blood. And they took the large hyssop plants and they dipped it in the blood and they painted it over the doorways of their homes. It was the night of their deliverance. Nobody slept that night. As they celebrated, coinciding with the unleavened bread, they did it standing up. The Lord didn't want them sitting down. I want you all standing up for this meal. Because in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Lord had told them, it's time, be ready. At a moment's notice, you're out. You're going to be thrust out. to teach them that as soon as the angel of death had come and passed them over and that they were covered with the lamb, they were free. They were finally free. They were free from Egypt. And they were immediately to get out of there and not look back. Their whole existence was now to be thought of as unleavened. Every year as they would celebrate the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, immediately they would always be reminded and they were to teach their children that God had delivered them that day through blood. And they had a brand new beginning. It was brand new. This was the new month. This was the first of their year they were to think at. As they chewed the bitter herbs, they thought a lot about all those years of bitter sorrow, the word that the Lord chose to make them remember that, to remember how bitter their bondage was, How hard that bondage was. How miserable that bondage was in the life that they formerly had. This is the last night of sorrow. Tomorrow they're free. Tomorrow they walk. Tomorrow they come home. Can you imagine? The night, that night they're sitting there. What do you think went on in the average Israelite home? You know, as they're sitting there thinking this is it. all those years of hardship think about the death of grandparents and how hard it was to see their loved ones suffer in such a way all of those years to go through all of that the think of the blood of the martyrs the seat of the church think of it for them think about seeing that there at the mills think about them being beaten down by all and that's what it said in chapter one they were beaten severely in Egypt by the taskmasters. The sufferings, the agonies, all the years of blood spilled. Babies flung into the Nile. Must have been hard to process, I'm thinking. Can you imagine what they felt? Can you begin to put yourself there? I'm no longer going to be in this anymore i'm gonna be free i'm gonna be brought to this god who has loved me like this i'm gonna get to go worship him in freedom the lord is setting us free tonight well at this point moses had just explained to them how it was to go and the meaning of it Now they're about to experience it. If you're in their shoes, you've just been told by Moses that the angel of death is about to come. You witnessed God's power for the last several months as the nation of Egypt is in shambles and every other nation on the face of the earth is talking about this. They know what's happened. Everyone's scared to death of Yahweh. So you've finished the Passover. You're dressed and ready to go. You have your belt on. You have your staff in your hand. You have your sandals on. You are ready to go. No one's sleeping that night, by the way. Giant hyssop has been used to put blood on their doorposts. No one's laughing. It's the weekend. Youth aren't down at the Nile River. The angel destroyer's coming tonight. Death is about to hit. They've been told this for years. No clocks are in Egypt. Those wouldn't come around for a couple thousand years. No one's yawning. And then it happened. Verse 29. At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of the livestock. I'm not quite sure how that went. It's darkness. It's silence. The Lord comes Himself and gives, as He said He would, the final blow. Each family of Egypt, the Egyptians went to sleep that night. No one took it very seriously, it seems, because it says that they woke up in the middle of the night to find their firstborn dead. The angel of death makes his way over the homes. this destroyer, as he's called earlier, we read that the Egyptians went to sleep, but he makes one standard. There's one standard. As he goes over every single home in all of the region, he stops at every home and he inspects the doorframe. Was there blood there or not? That was it. That was the standard. If there was blood, he passed over the house. If there was not, he entered in and struck. You're Israel. It just started. In the distance, just outside of Goshen, you begin to hear cries. And they're not little cries. You've seen in communities when one child dies, the agony that the whole community faces. There was not a house that was not struck. And the greatest one, the son of Ra himself, had his son struck the heir to the throne, which is the big hit that night. Even the son of Pharaoh got hit all the way into the lowest dungeons of the prisoners. God was no respecter of persons. Think of the dread of that. What prisoner down low could put up blood? Can you imagine the anxiety if you're an Israelite? It's dreadful silence and then wailing. You think Israel's praying at the moment? In the homes? Oh, I do. Probably things like Psalm 102. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Let my cry come up to You. Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline Your ear to me. Answer me speedily in the day when I call. My heart is struck down. I'm forgetting to eat my bread. Because of my loud groaning, my bones are clinging to my flesh. It has to have something to do with the tears that the Lord will wipe away at the end. It's awful. This was judgment day. The Lord had told them what to do. The Lord knew that as He passed over, they would be scared to death. So what did He do for them? He said, I want you to put up blood on your doorpost. I don't know if you caught it last time in chapter 12 but he said as a sign for you how kind i want you through this to have absolute confidence in my love for you i want you through this to know that as you look to the blood i'm not going to strike that night i'm sure every father clenched his firstborn The fear and anxiety must have been overwhelming, especially when you start reflecting on what I said earlier to Rachel about their later sins. But that was not something that started out in the wilderness. The Scriptures tell us they were worshiping the same idols in Egypt as the Egyptians were worshiping. Can you imagine starting to reflect upon your life and starting to think about, we're no better than them? Through it all, what did God say to them? He said, I want the blood on the doorpost as a sign for you. That's the way you're going to escape. That's the way the Lord made a difference that day. It was the blood of the lamb put up on the doorframe. If someone didn't have it, it didn't matter who they were. This is what's so important. It didn't matter how good or bad they had been. It didn't matter. All that mattered was when the Lord came and inspected, was there blood there? The crucial verse in this whole thing, the verse that I had to stop and think, this is absolutely wonderful, is verse 42. Look carefully at it. It was a night of watching by the Lord to bring them out of the land of Egypt. So this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout all their generations. this was a night of watching by the lord as the destroyer came notice their capitalized letters the lord the same name from the burning bush the one who is a consuming fire came down and the imagery that he wanted israel to have and us to have in generations to come to have is that he came and he stood and watched over his people through the whole thing it was a night of watching his watching watching who he says it it was a night of watching to bring them out he wasn't letting any of them get hit he stood by them what was the difference faith was it you either put the door blood on the door post believing or you rejected it he wanted faith they were called to believe him they were called to trust him that the blood of the lamb would cover them and and the entire time he had been had been saving them he loved his people what a god you ever stop and think about how good he's been to you it really isn't all that good until you really understand the judgment that is righteous and deserving on this world and on you and he's your whole life given you none of it he has he has loved you he has cared for you and he's instructed you in the gospel to make sure you understand that love see the character of your god i mean this is what inspired the psalmist this is this is what drove them to write things you you're finally getting to understand the story in the psalms which is the same story when the psalmist would write things like this. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I will trust, for He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilent. He will cover you under His wings. He goes on. You will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror by night nor the arrow that flies by day nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, 10,000 at your right hand, but it won't come near you. Boy, did Israel experience that. You will only look with your eyes and see the judgment on the wicked. No evil shall befall you. No plague will come near your tent. Psalm 91. You could go on. He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. The Lord doesn't go to sleep in the middle of the night. He doesn't take a nap. Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil. He shall preserve your soul. He's your protector. This is why Jesus kept telling people that anyone who has him, even though they die, they'll live. Death can't touch them. This was his whole message. Do your sins scare you? I think to myself, all the millions of people who have ever lived and sinned against God, and what about my own sins? What about your sins? You're no better. Not one of his sheep were left behind. Not one. And then, notice what happens. He released them. This is so beautiful in verse 31. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron by night. Rise, go from among my people, both you and the children of Israel, go and serve the Lord as you have said. Take your flocks, herds. He had tried countless times to stop. Exerting his power over each emphasis there, flocks and herds, he says, you take them all as you have said, be gone and bless me. Complete surrender. Complete bowing. And then you read the glorious statement. In the next breath, what does it say? And the people journeyed from Ramses to suck off. Egyptians were urgent to send them out. They pushed them out. They forced them out. They grabbed them and they said, out, take whatever you want. We're all going to be dead. Go, go. a mixed multitude went up a bunch of egyptians had come to believe the gospel and were brought out with them much livestock flocks and herds you'll notice in verse 39 they baked on leavened cakes of the dough they had brought out of egypt for it was not leavened because they were thrust out of egypt they could not wait nor they prepared prepared any provisions the time of the people of Israel they lived in Egypt was 430 years on the after the end of the 430 years to the very day they went out and the Lord wanted every generation to stand back from this and look at this and say everything that he said to Abraham everything that he promised Abraham it happened and not one day went longer not one day after he did it to the very tee of what he had said they were out you You think about all the things that now you stand back and look at of what the Lord did for them. They had gone down with 70. The Lord had promised to Abraham it will be a multitude no man can number. That will be the ultimate fulfillment of this. Already from 70 to go down, now you have mentioned 600,000 men on foot. Read it as it is. People try to explain it away. 600,000! and then add in the women and children and all the Egyptians that came out, you probably had 2 million people walking out of there. A mixed multitude went up. After all that oppression, when it was all said and done, look at the Lord work. You never saw it through all the affliction. You never saw it through all the hardship. Look what he just did. And God wanted us to feel the effect of this. God wanted us to really understand the effect of this. They didn't even have time when he put it to Pharaoh to let their dough rise. They were to go out immediately. It was freedom. You ever seen images when a prisoner is released from prison and the big giant gate comes down and it hits the ground? Prisoner looks back and he looks out at all of the space in front of him. He doesn't even know what to do. Freedom for the first time. Imagine the Israelites standing there as all those years behind them, they're leaving Ramses, they're leaving the place of the kings, they're leaving all the affliction and in front of them is the vast wilderness. God was bringing them home. The tyranny of Pharaoh was done. And in the next scene, he's about ready to drown them like right to the bottom of the Red Sea. Mom, Dad, where are we going? Where are we going? Children, the Lord's freed us today. The Lord set us free today. We're going home. Older generations walk out, carried probably many of them. We're going home. We're seeing it with our eyes. The salvation of our God. Imagine the emotions. Pharaoh the fool. Last words are, bless me. What a reversal. Where the last time anyone had blessed a Pharaoh was who? Jacob. Jacob had stood before Pharaoh, and Jacob gave him the blessing. Remember? Pharaoh said to him, how old are you? Jacob said, the years of my wanderings have been 130 years. Small in number and full of sorrow have been the years of my life. And Jacob gave Pharaoh his blessing and went out from before him. Think of the reversal. Bless me, Moses. He won't do it. Pharaoh's the greatest fool in Scripture. He didn't take seriously all the calls from the Lord. It was too late. Pharaoh's about ready to go into the Red Sea. The final judgment. In the end, no one's going to be able to say, let me come now, bless me now. One pastor said Pharaoh's speech stands as a warning to anyone who chooses to resist God. Why do it? Why would you do that? Now I said at the beginning, this is your story. You should be very familiar with this story. Do you know the story yet? Have you put it together yet? It's the story of the cross. You say, how so? Explain that. think of it the lord has told you from the beginning you're all slaves slaves to your sin slaves to your carnal desires slaves because a heart that is desperately wicked and who can know it slaves to sin and you were all dead in it you were all reveling and being dead and trespasses and sins and the lord came down one day set apart a man and made promises to him i'm going to set apart and save a multitude no man can number and i'm setting him free all those years of sorrow and waiting you know where revelation says christ was crucified sodom and egypt the place of the old testament of god's severe judgment the night in which christ was betrayed blood went on wood And God was telling us about that being the central event of all of history. That whosoever would believe in Him would be set free from sin and death and be forgiven. And those cords around people's necks, those heavy weights in people's lives, those burdens that they carry and can't get out of, swimming around in their misery and sin, He would shatter. And he gave you the truth, and the truth set you free. And he kept telling us, he keeps telling us throughout the entire New Testament. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a brand new creation. Old things have passed, all things have become new. Assuring you that when judgment finally happens, you'll never have to face it. Judgment Day can't touch us. This is why Paul said, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed against that day. So putting it together, the whole story is the story when someone comes to Jesus, you have a new calendar. You've got a brand new life. You've got a new beginning. You celebrate it every year. You celebrate a night of solemn remembrance forever on Good Friday. When Christ, on that day, said, it's finished. And what do you have now in your life? He is committed to tell you, I'm watching over you the whole way. I don't slumber or sleep. This is where the stories come together. The Passover was celebrated in the month of Nisan. Your judgment day happened. And AD 30, in the month of Nisan, the very day of the Exodus, the very day when the Passover was celebrated, when on that day in history, Jesus hanging on that wood said, it is finished. And then He rose from the dead and He passed us through death, the Red Sea, baptizing us. What should that do for you? What a question. There was a man on the cross, next to Jesus. Knowing he was dying, hands tied up, said, Lord, would you remember me today? Full of fear, full of a life of rebellion, knowing what he deserved, Jesus looks at him and he says, today you'll be with me in paradise. On what basis? On what basis? The blood! That was it. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. And now you understand what God does for you. Every week you come together and you're a wreck and a mess. And with David we say, purge us with hyssop and I shall be clean. Purge who? Us. Take the branches and cover us in the blood. Wash us. And the Lord says, I've got a sign for you. I've got a sign for you. I've got a sign for you that I love you. And I'm not going to put you through that. Kind of sad when we say we could get tired of it. I don't know how. I've got a sign for you. I always like to remind people of how this practically plays out. Do you know what he does for you daily? Dean Tony, our brother, and his daughter go into surgery this week, and they are totally helpless, by the way. They have no control of anything. Your daughter's going to be the one who provides the kidney. You know, you think about that. Would you let your daughter do it? No control. I had to remind him, you've never had any control. And then we prayed. Pastor, would you pray for me? As we're right there when this football team comes out of about 20 people ready to do this surgery. And we prayed. And I thought to myself, how much does the Lord help us at times like that? When he tells us, I don't want you to be fearful for anything. Anxious for nothing. Dean kept saying, I have to keep reminding myself of Philippians 4.6. Don't be anxious for anything. But with everything, with thanksgiving and prayer and supplication, make your requests known to God. And what does he promise he's going to do for you? There's a promise in this. He will guard your heart and your mind in Christ. It's a military word Paul chose. He's setting a garrison around the heart and the mind. He will guard it. What is God doing? He's guarding His people through it right here in the text. It's a day of watching by the Lord. Your whole life He's watching. God's standing there guarding the heart and the mind. Think of what the Lord says to us this morning. I've brought you out. Anyone who knows their past and knows what they could do or what they've done understands what that means. I've brought you out. Sin shall no longer have dominion over you. You're free. Stand fast, Galatians 5, in the liberty by which Christ has made you free. And don't be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Where does that come from? He's looking at the Exodus. it's galatians 5 you see we're about to study right now israel heading out into the wilderness traveling to the promised land you know that's where you are right now in 80 30 when he said it's finished that's the day of your release and by faith in that blood you're set free and now you're brought into the thick of it what do i mean you're brought into wilderness life you're going to learn a lot about wilderness life in the coming months. Pharaoh's about ready to be drowned in the Red Sea forever. The devil has no power over you. Moses is about to sing a song of triumph. We sing the song of the lamb because we've overcome, says Revelation, by the blood of the lamb. When he himself purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, telling us Christ is your Passover. I have to say this in closing. There is a judgment coming. At midnight, a cry will be heard again. All who are not covered, all who don't take Him serious, all who play fast and loose and don't believe in Christ are going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and it will be too late. You can't look at mom and dad and say, bless me mom, bless me dad. Too late. And this is why Christ said, come today. Believe in me today. I offer you true freedom. You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. You're not free in Egypt. Look at what he offers you. The Lord stands watch over your life. The Lord is your keeper. He wants you to believe his promise. He will bring you home. Believe him. Leave behind the things to which you're now ashamed. And having these promises, he says, beloved, Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh. You know what that is. Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh. You're unleavened, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. That's the wilderness journey. Let's pray to him this morning. Gracious Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for you instructing us in the Word. And forgive us that in being superficial with Your Word, we think this is a set of morals and how to climb the ladder to be a good person. What a tragedy that that has dominated the land. We need much more than that. We need the blood of the Lamb. And without that shedding of blood, there's no remission. So may everyone come to Christ. May everyone see the promises. May everyone see what You did and what You've done. And that now you're committed to bring us home. Let us stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and let us never be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. We need your help to do it. We can't. And so give us your spirit to be strong in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that we would be washed and cleansed with hyssop and forgiven and know that you will watch over our lives all the way to the end. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.