This message is a survey of what the Feast of Passover can really mean to us. There are many deep spiritual principles we need to understand, such as the principles of transference, substitution and appropriation, immunities, and the entering in to deliverance on the material level, which the children of Israel experienced. They not only escaped, but they walked out of Egypt wealthy. When they left, they were no longer slaves; they were decked from head to foot in all the riches and jewels of Egypt. In this day, God wants us to make the glorious exit out of everything of bondage into the liberation and sufficiency that He has for His children. Haven’t you felt at times that God’s people, to whatever degree they are loosed from the bondage of Egypt’s sin, still have quite a bit of the reproach that is almost unbearable? But the day is coming when God will give favor to His people.
The Feast of Passover reveals so many blessings that we can claim. We claim first our salvation experience as a born again believer: “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” But by the blood on the doorposts in Egypt, more than just an individual soul was saved; families were saved. Even beyond that—their possessions, all the herds and flocks, everything that pertained to them was saved. When they left Egypt, they weren’t just believers walking in an alien land, but every Egyptian showed them favor. They were not only people who were delivered, but they were people to whom the blessing was flowing and they were greatly enriched in a material way.
This means that the Feast of Passover not only represents deliverance from sin in the elementary salvation experience; it represents the sum total of our salvation and deliverance as a people, as we move out from every vestige of bondage and restraint into the liberty belonging to the sons of God. All creation groans, waiting for that glorious liberty of the sons of God.
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Exodus 12:1–2. The Passover was a feast of beginnings. It was the beginning of many things: of deliverance and the responsibilities of freedom, of new territory, new circumstances, new environment continually. It was the beginning of a sustained life; of God’s dealings to teach the people: to lead and prepare them for the destiny that He had given them to fulfill.
All of us feel, every once in awhile, that we’d like to have a new beginning. We examine the receding hairline, the hair turning gray; we mark the mad pace of keeping teeth repaired; we notice aches and pains that we’ve not noticed before and suddenly we want a new beginning. The Lord can give it to us. The Feast of Passover can be a time of rejuvenation, strength, and renewal in the spirit for us.
The children of Israel did more than get out of Egypt. They walked for a long time without their feet swelling, their shoes wearing out, or their garments growing old. Several of them passed through the forty years of wilderness wanderings with their strength undiminished. Caleb, at eighty-five, was defeating giants and taking high-walled cities; for he had strength and vigor as when he was forty-five years old. In this day, God would like to bring some new beginnings to us, which we would also like to have.
Jewish people now observe the New Year at Rosh Hoshanah. But in the Book of Exodus they were told that the ancient month of Abib was to be the beginning of months to them. The Passover represented the beginning of everything as they emerged from slavery to become a free people. Count your time from the day that Christ set you free; before that you just existed. You begin to live the day that the Lord Jesus Christ, your Passover Lamb, sets you free. That’s the beginning of days.
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. Exodus 12:3. This verse implies that God wanted to transfer, by the Feast of Passover, His dealings on a family basis, to bring His covenants, His preparations and His deliverance for the homes and the families of Israel. They were all to be brought in, just as surely as God honored Rahab the harlot and delivered her and all those within her house when the walls of Jericho fell. He is a God who delights in saying, “a lamb for a household.” The Feast of Passover means that to us today, too.
…if the household be too little for a lamb, then shall he and his neighbor next unto his house take one according to the number of the souls; according to every man’s eating ye shall make your count for the lamb. Exodus 12:4. The Feast of Passover showed that you could have faith to include your neighbor as well as your own family in all of the redemptive blessings that God was going to bring to them in that night which was mingled with both judgment and deliverance.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old: ye shall take it from the sheep; or from the goats: and ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at even. And they shall take of the blood, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel, upon the houses wherein they shall eat it. Exodus 12:5–7.
The greatest truth we have to learn in the Feast of Passover is the principle of identification that has existed so long in the Bible. Identification can do so much for you. Not only do you identify yourself with the death of Christ, but you can identify yourself with every victory He has ever won; it can become your victory. Few people understand the riches of grace that can be theirs through a simple understanding of identification.
I would like to illustrate what would happen in our house if we kept the Passover as it was in Egypt. If we were to keep a little lamb from the tenth until the fourteenth day of the month, by then it would be the family pet. The grandchildren would be so attracted to it. They would play and jump and scamper around with it, and everyone would love it so. Then the time would come to cut its throat and catch the blood in a basin. There would be four little children standing by, crying bitterly, because their pet lamb was being slain. Next would come the skinning of that lamb, the tying of its legs to the cross pieces over the hearth and the beginning of the roasting process. That lamb would be identified with all of our needs and become a source by which God would minister immunity to everyone of us in the hour of judgment.
Redemption of sin has always been a bloody thing, even in symbol. In Solomon’s temple, for example, they offered thousands upon thousands of bullocks and sheep in countless sacrifices. The smell of blood was almost unbearable. Cries and shrieks of the animals would strike terror to their hearts. The people were coming into an identification: their guilt was being identified with those animals. They were going to be free, they were going to be clean. They were not going to go with the stigma of past failures and sins upon them, but they’d confess their sins over the head of an innocent lamb or bullock. We often picture the priests in their beautiful robes. This was true of the high priest, but not of the slaughter crew; they were dripping with blood, and had to come to the laver to wash. Imagine the stench of the burning hides and entrails. Was God accepting that kind of worship? Yes, because the next step in the worship was the altar of incense, and the pungent fragrance of incense pervaded until all the stench of death was taken away.
What did God do with our Passover Lamb? He let Him be slain for us. From His wounds came the blood that meant our redemption, the key of our overcoming Satan. Substitution took place right there. All of our guilt was laid on Him in the fire of God’s wrath, and all of His righteousness was transferred to us. That is the basis by which we worship. We want to serve the Lord, and we can because His righteousness, the capacity and nature to serve God, is transferred to us. The key of the Bible can be understood when we see that God can take care of all the wickedness in the heart of man by transferring it to Christ in judgment. All that I ever will be can come about because God is able to take His glorious attributes of eternity, love, faithfulness and kindness and transfer them to me. Everything I am as a human being is laid upon Christ as a human being, so that everything that He is as God can be transferred to me as a son of God. What a plan of redemption! As we stand at our altar of incense offering up worship, it goes up to God as a precious fragrance from a people redeemed. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. I Corinthians 6:20.
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roast with fire; its head with its legs and with the inwards thereof. Exodus 12:8–9.
This does not mean that they did not clean it out; but the organs, like the kidneys, the heart, and the liver, were to be a part of that which was roasted in the fire, the completeness of all that Christ represented. It was to be roast with fire, for fire is a symbol of judgment. Jesus Christ suffered the judgments of fire for us, and we partake of Him in the same manner. The bitter herbs were to be a reminder to them of the days of bitterness, the days of difficulty. No Jew would eliminate the bitter herbs from the Passover Feast, for that is a symbol by which they remember the bitterness of bondage, and that’s a good thing to remember. I doubt if any of us come into any great answer to prayer or blessing of deliverance from the Lord without God first requiring that we know some measure of bitterness. Then we appreciate what He’s bringing. It is good to remember the pit from whence you were dug. It is good to remember the whip that lashed your back when you were slaves. It is good to remember the bitterness of that which God has removed from you forever—just a little remembrance of it, just a little taste. But the big thing to remember is the strength of the Lamb.
We thank God that we’re forgiven, but the Passover is speaking of much more than forgiveness; it is speaking of divine enablement. The Passover means that I am leaving slavery—leaving the chains. I may be weak from all my years of slavery, but I stand eating the Lamb so that I will be strong. The blood not only cleanses, but Christ strengthens me to do His will. It is the Christ dwelling within me that enables me to go on. The past is dead and buried; it is identified with Christ. I was not that sinner; Christ was made sin for me. He who knew no sin was made sin for me that I might become the righteousness of God in Him. II Corinthians 5:21. That is transference.
The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5. There is so much that Christ wants to mean to you.
And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; but that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. Exodus 12:10. When the new day dawned and they moved out in the wilderness, then they ate unleavened bread for seven days. Soon after they were fed by manna. It’s as though all that Christ wants to mean to us has a time limit on it, and there will come a day soon when those who have not partaken of Jesus Christ will find the consequences inescapable. Everything about the end time speaks of that. When the door is shut, then they will begin to say, “Open the door to us.” But it can’t be opened. All the parables taught this truth: there’s a time limit. You can be glad that you’re taking advantage of it, seeking the Lord while He may be found.
And thus shall ye eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord’s passover. Exodus 12:11.
They were prepared to travel, as though they were saying to the Lord, “I am ready to move on. God has something really good for me: I’m eating the lamb; and as I digest it within my inner being, it gives me the strength to change my whole environment, my residence, to move into new areas of glory and blessings that I have not known heretofore.” In the Communion, we partake of a new covenant of His blood for our cleansing and purification before His sight, and as we partake of the body of the Lord we are continually feeding upon Him. He becomes the source of the strength by which we forge ahead in everything that God has for us. We cannot do it in our own strength, but we can do what Paul said in Ephesians 6:10: Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might.
They were told to eat in haste. “Why—what’s the big rush? We’ve been here four hundred and thirty years to the day (Exodus 12:40). We have plenty of time—after all of those other plagues, something is liable to blow this one too and we won’t get out of here; we’ll probably be here the rest of our lives.” Is this what you are saying? “I’ve been praying for deliverance; I’ve been praying for God to do certain things and they just don’t happen.” Remember, when God starts moving, He moves so fast that you better be girded ready for travel. Don’t linger on; eat hastily. Have an eagerness, because you know that once you really keep the Feast of Passover in its dispensational significance in this day, deliverance will come so rapidly, that you won’t be prepared for it.
For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall no plague be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord: throughout your generations ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. Exodus 12:12–14.
Why do we call it the Passover? Because in that night, where God’s provision had been fully appropriated and was in evidence in the blood upon the door. God promised to pass over that home. Upon man and beast there was judgment that night, beginning with Pharaoh’s house, down to the lowest slave. Not even the Israelites themselves were exempt if they had failed to put the blood over the doorpost. When God begins to judge, don’t think that there is any immunity for a Christian just because he has been a Christian. The prophecies say that in the end time when the judgments come, God will judge the circumcised and the uncircumcised alike. Judgment begins at the house of God. I don’t doubt that the death angel passed over the houses of God’s people in Goshen first; and where the blood was applied, the judgment passed over. Then the angel proceeded to seek out every home in all of Egypt, and the slaughter was exceedingly great.
They were also told in Verse 15: Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was kept for seven days.
Paul tells us in I Corinthians 5:6–8: Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ: wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
God is dealing deep in our lives to get rid of the leaven. Deep repentance and the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth is to be our portion during the Feast of Passover days in a very real sense. God has led us to purge out the old—that is always a necessary thing—God never leads His people into anything new, without first searching their heart and bringing a removal of the things that are hindering them.
One of the great truths we see is the fact that when the children of Israel came into the land of Canaan, the whole process started again. They had to stop and have a day of circumcision to be sure that everyone was sanctified before the Lord. After they finished the circumcision, there stood a man with a drawn sword. Joshua took one look at him and said, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” And he answered, “As Captain of the host of the Lord have I now come” (Joshua 5:13–14).
When God starts to work a circumcision in your heart, for a little while there is a question in your mind, “God, are You for me or against me? Are You trying to help me or ruin me?” But it becomes evident that God is leading you on into the conquest of the land of Canaan. Your Jerichos will fall. The thirty-two nations will come down because God loves you and He is blessing you. Keep the Feast of unleavened Bread; let the Lord search your heart. Come into the days of repentance. They are not an end in themselves; they are a preparation for the great days of victory. We are on the march to possess the things God has for us.
Fear not little flock, fear not you poor of this world. God has made you rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which He has promised. In the day that the conquerors finally stand before the Lord, their testimony will be—they overcame by the word of their testimony and the blood of the Lamb. The Passover Lamb and the shed blood is the means by which we enter from one victory into another.