Now we will review, in summary form, a number of instances recorded in the Word where the Feast of Passover was observed.
Exodus 12 gives the account of the first Passover which took place in Egypt, when the children of Israel were slaves, living in the land of Goshen. God gave them a Word, which involved a number of steps.
1. The Passover had the provision of God.
2. The Passover required preparation on the part of the people. They had to find a lamb and make the preparation.
3. They had to appropriate the provision.
4. They had to apply it, by putting the blood on the doorpost and by getting ready to leave.
5. Then God came back into the act, and performance came forth on His part. All the rest of their preparation would have been pointless if God had not followed through.
6. There was an obligation on the part of the people to move. God gave them instructions, and they prepared themselves; but after God performed His part of it, the responsibility rested on the people to get in and move in the name of the Lord.
In the land of Egypt, the death angel of judgment struck the firstborn of man and of beast among all the Egyptians. However, the Hebrews were spared; and when morning came, they were literally thrust out in haste from the land of Egypt. They went forth, delivered by the mighty hand of the Lord.
The next time the Passover was kept was the second year in the wilderness (Numbers 9). Again, God instructed them to keep it. This was not a Passover to deliver them from the slavery of Egypt; that deliverance had taken place the year before. This time they partook of the Passover lamb, not to be loosed from slavery, but to be sustained and guided in the wilderness during the transition period in between the state of bondage and the divine order that God had for them in the inheritance that was theirs.
In Joshua 5, we read that the Feast of Passover was kept again, but this time it was within the borders of Canaan itself. The day after the Passover, the manna ceased to fall, and from that time on they did not need the Passover lamb to sustain them. Instead, the Passover lamb became the strength of a mighty warring people who went forth to possess their inheritance and to take what was theirs.
So we see that the Passover lamb meant different things. It brought the passing-over of judgment and the release from slavery. It was sustenance for them when they were walking in the wilderness. It was also the strength that came to them in the form of the Captain of the host of Israel who appeared with a drawn sword and declared that He had come to lead the people of God into their inheritance and promise.
2 Chronicles 35 gives the account of the Passover that was kept under King Josiah. He became king at the age of eight, and when he was sixteen years old, he eagerly sought the face of God. When he was twenty-six years old, the lost law was found in the temple while it was being refurbished and remodeled.
After reading the law, Josiah set about to reform completely the worship of the people and to set them to serve God with all of their hearts. During the long and vicious reign of Manasseh, the land had become exceedingly corrupt. Josiah was perhaps the greatest reformer of all the kings. He removed all the witchcraft from the land and tore down the idols. God met the hearts of the people during the Passover and gave them new strength to carry out the reforms. Again we see that action resulted from the Passover.
2 Chronicles, chapters 30 and 31, tell how King Hezekiah kept one of the greatest Passovers there ever was. There had not been a Passover like it since the days of King Solomon. They could not keep it the first month because no priests were consecrated to kill the lambs. When they were finally consecrated, they kept what was known as the little Passover (described in Numbers 9) on the fourteenth day of the next month. After that followed a time of great restoration, as people turned to the Lord. There was destruction and a putting down of everything that was apostate.
Always the pattern is the same: After the Passover, we move. If there is no meaning to the Passover, we stand still. But if the Passover has its miracle significance, if the precious Lamb of God has been partaken of, then an action must follow.
In John 2 we read about the Passover that Jesus kept in the first year of His ministry. He went to Jerusalem for the Passover, and there He walked through the temple with a scourge of whips, overturning the tables of the money changers, and driving out the cattle and all the animals. After He kept the Passover, there was new courage, a new faith, a new anointing, a new boldness, a new strength.
In Acts 12, we read that Herod put James in prison and killed him with the sword. He planned to kill Peter also, after the Passover was completed. He saw that such an action would gain him favor with the people.
The night before Peter’s execution, the angel came and took him out of prison. After they had passed through the gates and Peter found himself out in the street, the angel disappeared. Peter stood there for a while rather surprised, and then he probably said, “Evidently I have been delivered.” He proceeded on to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where everyone was excited and pleased to see him. From there he went on to places of ministry.
Again we see the simple pattern. God makes the provision. Then we make the preparation to appropriate it as we go through a certain procedure that God says we are to follow. We believe God for it, but God has to bring the performance before we can move out.
If the Feast of Passover inspires you to get real busy, you could be making the mistake of your life. It is true—the Passover is to be followed by action: “And Away We Go.” When you have a Passover experience, you leave Egypt and go out as the Lord directs. But if you have not had that Passover experience, if God has not met your heart, then you had better not go anywhere.
In Exodus 32 we read how Israel sinned at the first giving of the Ten Commandments, which resulted in their being broken. God sent judgment upon Israel for making and worshiping the golden calf. Moses prayed and interceded that God would forgive them, and He did. But then Moses suddenly had some qualms about the situation. He prayed, “O God, if You will, forgive their sin—and if not, then please blot my name out of Your Book.” God answered, “No, whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My Book” (Exodus 32:32–33). Moses wondered what was going to happen.
He said, “Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found favor in Thy sight, let me know Thy ways, that I may know Thee, so that I may find favor in Thy sight. Consider too, that this nation is Thy people.” Exodus 33:13.
Moses was beginning to worry about God’s attitude. He realized that the people had not been faithful, and he did not know what God was going to do. God said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” Moses replied, “If Thy presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.” Verses 14–15.
The first Passover saw God give a total deliverance. Moses contended for one thing: “Not one hoof shall be left behind.” The Egyptians were not only persuaded; they were more than persuaded. They literally thrust the Israelites out of the land.
I want to experience a real Passover. I want to do more than just apply the hyssop and the blood; I want it to work. I want the restrictions of Egypt to be left behind. I want all the hindrances of the wilderness to be broken. I want the giants of Canaan to be defeated.
But it is not just the outward circumstances that I am concerned with; I want His presence to go with me. If He is not going with me, I do not want Him to involve me any more than I am right now. Let us mean business and be ready to lay down our lives. But we want to be assured that God is going to do what He said.
Let me share with you a prayer which has become very real to my heart. First it gives the negative aspects; then it points to the positive.
BE MY PASSOVER, LORD
Be my Passover, Lord, or I cannot move another step.
Be my Passover, Lord, and walk with me, or do not. carry me hence.
Be my Passover Lamb, real to my heart, or I will never be free.
Be my Passover Lamb, real to my heart, or I will perish in my own unworthiness.
Be my Passover Lamb, real to my heart, or judgment will consume me.
Be my Passover Lamb, or I will die in Egypt making bricks.
Be my Passover Lamb, Lord, real to my heart, or I will never be able to do Thy will.
Be my Passover Lamb, real to my heart, or my hopes and dreams will fade and die, and there will be no springtime of a new age in our times.
Be my Passover Lamb, O Lord, real to my heart, or I can never face another battle.
Be my Passover Lamb, Lord, real to my heart, or I shall never possess my inheritance.
Be my Passover Lamb, Lord, real to my heart, or every prophecy, every relationship, every bond that I have, every good thing in my life will abort or perish before fulfillment.
Be my Passover Lamb, Lord, real to my heart, or You will forfeit the simple trust of Your little children and abandon them to the heart-breaking frustration and the hopelessness of reaching for the God who was not there, the God who did not measure up to the hopeful expectations that His children had.
O God, be our Passover Lamb.
We plead with Thee: Be our Passover Lamb, real to our hearts, or Thy presence will never lead us, and our feet will never walk with Thee.
Be our Passover Lamb, Lord, or forgive our wasting and dying spirits for refusing further futility.
Be our Passover Lamb, Lord, real to our hearts, or we will never presume to advance again.
Be our Passover Lamb, Lord, and we will think and do and become the impossible thing.
Be our Passover Lamb, Lord, real to our hearts, and our dreams will solidify into the tangible and fruitful reality of the Kingdom.
Be our Passover Lamb, Lord, real to our hearts, and we will dance with Miriam on the seashore.
Be our Passover Lamb, Lord, real to our hearts; then the tears and moans of slaves will become the song of sons who have no limitations.
Be my Passover Lamb, Lord, real to my heart, and I will be free of every chain forever.
Be my Passover Lamb, Lord, real to my heart, and I will do Your will.
Be my Passover Lamb, and I shall plunder the Egyptians.
Be my Passover Lamb, and I will bring to fulfillment Thy every word.
Be my Passover Lamb, and I will prevail over adversity, whether it is demonic or human or circumstantial.
Be my Passover Lamb, Lord, real to my heart, and I will walk with Thee.
I am not an unbeliever, but the cry of my heart is this: “Lord, Your presence has to go with us, or else carry us not hence.”
From Passover onward, there must be on our part a deep appropriation of what the blood of the Lamb is to be. It has to be real.
Just because you observe the Feast of Passover does not mean that it will all happen. You could walk back into every frustrating situation you have ever known. This is a matter of the blood of Jesus Christ being very real to your heart. When we say, “Be our Passover Lamb and let this be real,” we must mean it. Let it be real. Let Him be God.
The last thing in the world that I want for myself and for you is to be motivated by inspiration to do something that will not work. There is no deliverance from Egypt, there is no release from Babylon, there is no end of frustration, there is no rising to victory—unless it is by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And it must be a real and living experience.
Do not be deceived into some motivation that will keep you existing and wandering in circles. You will never be free; you will continually be bound, until He literally becomes real to your heart as the true Passover Lamb.
Let us not be cocky, thinking that we are going to go out and move the world. We can—by His grace, by the blood of Jesus Christ, and by what He does within us—but without Him we can do nothing. This must become very real to your heart.
We must have the realization that reality is our goal—not inspiration. We do not want to stir up a hunger in people’s hearts that can never be met. We do not want to dangle something before them that they can never quite reach. By our own efforts or wisdom or inspiration none of us can attain, to even the smallest degree, the answers that are necessary; it will only be by the precious blood of the Passover Lamb and by His grace.
The solemnity of this must be on our hearts. We no longer want to be inspired, and then realize in the quiet of the night that we are still grappling with Pharaoh.
Perhaps that was permitted by the Lord for a time, but now He tells us that we are beyond Passover. We move. Away we go! This is not a word of unbelief; it is a word of real faith, in which we are going to take hold of the reality in God. He has made a provision. He has made a plan. We appropriate Him.