Main Street Baptist Church

(Monday, May 19, 2008)  A few years ago a boy made a model sailboat out of wood. He worked hard at carving, sanding and painting it. He loved to sail it on a stream near his home. One day it got away from him, though, and was carried downstream. He tried to retrieve it but wasn’t able. He went home very sad over the loss. Several days later, while walking through town, he saw his sailboat in a toy store window with a price attached to it. He quickly got some odd jobs and worked hard until he was able to save enough money to buy back his own boat. What that boy did is what the Bible word “redeem” refers to. It means to “buy back” something that was originally yours. The word was originally used of a slave owner who had to buy back his runaway slave . That is a perfect picture of what God has done for us. We are his by creation but rebelled and ran away in sin, so He had to pay the price (Jesus on the cross) to buy us back (“redeem” us).

GENESIS & EXODUS Genesis shows man’s failure. Genesis starts with man walking and talking with God, but sin enters and by the end of the book man is in bondage to Pharaoh (a picture of Satan) in Egypt (a picture of the world system without God). In Exodus we see God coming to man’s rescue, to bring him out of bondage, to “redeem” him. It is done by blood (Passover lamb) and power (Red Sea deliverance).

THE PASSOVER LAMB Just as Genesis 12 is the key chapter in the book of Genesis (telling about Abraham being chosen, leaving all to follow God, and listing God’s eternal promises to him and his descendants), so Exodus 12 is the key chapter in the book of Exodus. It explains about the Passover lamb, the innocent blood shed to bring redemption. This is a beautiful picture of Jesus, the fulfillment of this picture (I Peter 1:18-19; John 1:29,36; I Cor. 5:7). The lamb had to be perfect and unblemished, a male in the prime of life. It died as a substitute for the people on the 14th of Nisan, about 3 in the afternoon (the exact day and time Jesus died on the cross). The blood was then applied to the doorpost of the homes of those who believed. The lamb’s death didn’t deliver unless it was personally accepted and applied. Those who were inside were safe from judgment. The blood on the doorposts, top of the frame, and sill (where the lamb was killed) was in the shape of a cross. Inside they ate the meat of the lamb (nourishment from Christ).

When the angel of death saw the blood he passed over for it was a picture that death had already come. The substitute died in the place of the guilty people. Thus they were “redeemed” by the blood of the lamb. God bought back with a price of infinite value that which was originally His by creation. In the early days of this country the pioneers were often destroyed by great prairie fires that would sweep across the plains miles across and destroy everything and everyone in its path. From the Indians they learned that when they realized such a fire was approaching they should set fire to all the grass around their homestead. Thus when the main fire came roaring through they were safe because, as the Indians said, “Where the fire has been the fire cannot come.” That is true of God’s judgment. When we accept Jesus as our Savior we are eternally safe from any judgment by God (Romans 8:1).

LEAVEN Because there wasn’t time to let bread rise, they quickly cooked bread without leaven and ate it. Leaven is used as a picture of sin in the Bible (Mt. 6:6,11-12; I Cor. 5:6-8; Gal 5:9). For centuries the Jews have celebrated this deliverance from Egypt by drinking the juice of the grape (a picture of the blood of the lamb) and eating matzo (unleavened bread). This was a reminder of God’s great deliverance of them, the key miracle in the Old Testament. Genesis 1 to Exodus 11 point to this and from Exodus 13 to the end of Malachi the Old Testament looks back to this event as the highlight of God’s work for His people.

In the New Testament Jesus takes this juice from the grape and unleavened blood and says that it no longer stands for physical deliverance but for spiritual deliverance form sin and Satan. Jesus teaches that the real fulfillment of these was in His very own body and blood, and that we are to now celebrate this as the Lord’s Supper, a reminder of God’s greatest of all deliverances.

THE TABERNACLE The other great teaching tool in the book of Exodus is the Tabernacle. It, too, shows all about Jesus (see series of articles on “The Tabernacle” by Jerry Schmoyer).

TITLE: Greek for “Depart, Exit, Way Out”

AUTHOR: Moses

DATE of WRITING: About 1440 BC

PLACE of WRITING: Desert wilderness

TIME COVERED: 1875 BC to 1444 BC

RECIPIENTS: Jews

KEY VERSE: So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey-- the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Exodus 3:8

KEY WORD: “Redeem, Deliver” (10 times)

PURPOSE: To show how Israel got out of Egypt (fulfill Gen 15:12-16) and received God’s law

THEME: Redemption of the believer pictured by the exodus

Spend some time reading this book this week.