Plagues, Promises & The Passover
April 8, 2020
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Dear Visionary Leader:
We are living in a time of plagues, promises and the Passover. Just before us is, “Good Friday” and Resurrection Sunday. In Hebrews 11:27-29, we read:
“By faith, Moses, when he was come to years refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the red sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.” Life is short. Death is sure. Sin is the cause. Christ is the cure. We need to understand that the malady of this world is indeed sin. We are by nature, by birth and by practice all sinners. We may be rich sinners or poor sinners; we may be educated sinners, ignorant sinners; we may be religious sinners or irreligious sinners; we may be baptized sinners or not baptized sinners, but by birth, by nature, and by choice, we are sinners and need to be saved from sin.
 America needs more than a war on poverty and more than a war on coronavirus. She needs a war on sin. Did you know that the costliest thing around is sin? It brings poverty. Now, I wouldn’t expect anybody to stand up in Congress and say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the problem is sin.” I wouldn’t expect anybody to stand up in the Pentagon and say, “Our enemy is sin.” I wouldn’t expect anybody to stand up in one of the great laboratories in one of our universities and say that it is the sin factor that has caused so much pain, moan, groan, woe, and heartache in the world today. Yet, we never ever deal with the problem because we never ever make the right diagnosis. I’m talking about mankind in general. We spend all of the time sweeping down cobwebs rather than killing spiders. We need to understand that the cobweb is the result of the sin.
Where is the answer going to come from? It’s going to come from truth first taught thousands of years ago.
Message Continues In Visionary Coaching
   Faith That Leads To A Definite Decision
In Hebrews 11: 27, we read, “By faith, he,” that is Moses, “forsook Egypt.” Egypt in the Bible is symbolic of sin. And the king of Egypt who was Pharaoh is symbolic of Satan. And when Moses forsook Egypt it symbolizes Moses forsaking sin. Egypt is a picture of the bondage of sin and Pharaoh illustrates Satan.
Pharaoh did not want them to go. Satan never gives up anybody, anything without a fuss, without a fight, or without a struggle. In Exodus 8, I want you to notice some clever compromises that Pharaoh, who represents the devil, offered to Moses to keep Moses out of the promise land. In verse twenty-five, Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, “go sacrifice to your God in the land.” This is the compromise of salvation.
 Pharaoh meant that there was no need to make or break with Egypt. If you want to be religious, Moses, go right ahead. If you want to worship your God Moses, go right ahead; but Moses, do it right here in Egypt. What he was saying to them is the same things the devil going to say to some of you. If you want to be religious, that’s quite all right. Just tack your religion on to your old sinful life. Just add a little religion in there and it will be quite alright.
The devil tries to get us to be religious, but lost. The devil had rather you substitute education for regeneration. He doesn’t mind it if we have culture rather than Calvary. The devil had just as soon send you to hell from this pew as he had the gutter. He doesn’t mind if you’re religious, so long, as you stay in Egypt.
However, Moses said, “Pharaoh, we’re not going to stay here in this place. We are coming out of the land of bondage.”
In verse twenty-eight, Pharaoh said, “I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away.” If the devil cannot convince us to compromise in our salvation, he will tempt us to compromise our separation. God had not called them to the wilderness. God had called them to the promise land. God had not called them to a rocks and sand and rattle-snakes, God had called them to milk, honey, pomegranates, grapes, hills and valleys, waterfalls and rivers. However, Pharaoh says “All right, if you’re going, just don’t go very far.”
 If the devil cannot keep you from going, he’ll try to keep you from going all the way. He’ll try to make you a wilderness Christian. He’ll try to make you a carnal Christian. God wants us to be different. The Bible says they were to go all the way. In Exodus 11:27, we learn that God makes a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. God makes a difference. We ought to be different. A Christian ought to stand out in this world like a gardenia in a garbage can.
We ought to be different. We ought not to be the same. The Bible says in Second Corinthians “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.” Are you separate? Are you different, or have you taken the devil’s compromise? Can those people who look at you tell the difference between you and a real child of God?
 Moses said look, Mr. Pharaoh, we’re going and we’re going all the way. Well, he doesn’t give up yet.
In Exodus 10:8, we read, “And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh and he said unto them, go serve the Lord your God, but who are they that shall go? And Moses said, we will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herd will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the Lord. And he said unto them let the Lord be so with you, and I will let you go and your little ones, look to it, for evil is before you, not so, go now ye that are men and serve the Lord, for that ye did desire.” What was Pharaoh saying? Pharaoh said Moses, if you’re going and you’re going all the way, tell me who is going? Moses said, we’re all going. Pharaoh said, now wait a minute, don’t take your families with you, just leave your children behind. It might be dangerous out there. Leave your wives behind. If the devil cannot convince us to compromise our salvation or separation, he will tempt us compromise our soul-winning.
Moses said look, we’re going, we’re going all the way and all of us are going. The devil hates family religion. Yet, the Bible teaches family religion. I don’t know how anyone could be content to go to heaven and leave their loved ones behind to go to hell. Now, I know somehow God’s going to make it alright, but I don’t understand how I could be in heaven and my children go to hell.
I cannot understand how anybody in this world could be content to go to heaven and leave their loved ones behind. Moses told Pharaoh, “We’re going and we’re all going. We’re not going to leave our children behind.” The Bible teaches family religion.
 Nevertheless, devil doesn’t give up yet. Here comes the fourth compromise. In Exodus 10:24, we read:
“And Pharaoh called unto Moses and said go ye serve the Lord, only let your flocks and your herds be stayed, let your little ones also go with you.” Alright, if you’re going to take the children, go ahead and take them, but now, you just leave your flocks, leave your cows and your sheep and so forth behind. Moses said, you must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. We are not going to go out there without a sacrifice to give to God. We love our God and when we go, we’re going to worship him with these things, our flocks, our herds, they’re going to be the means of our worship to God.
Moses is emphatic when he says, “There shall not be a hoof left behind.” If the devil could not get them on the salvation compromise, on the separation compromise, on the soul-winningcompromise, he tried to get them on the stewardship compromise.
Some of us are going to heaven, but the devil has our businesses. You have never taken your substance, you have never taken your business and dedicated it to Jesus Christ. Therefore, there is a dimension in your worship that is failing because Moses said look, we need these things to serve God, to sacrifice to God. Our pocketbook belongs to the Lord Jesus. Our bank account belongs to the Lord Jesus.
Moses made a decision. He forsook Egypt. Moses said, “Mr. Pharaoh, I want you to know, we’re going. I want you to know we’re going all the way. I want you to know we’re all going and I want you to know we’re going with all we’ have. We are taking our flocks with us and not a hide, not a hair, not a hoof, not a horn is going to be left behind. If we are going to get ready for the Passover, we need to understand there is a decision that needs to be made.
Faith That Leads To A Divine Deliverance
In Hebrews 11:28, we read, “Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.”
 It wasn’t enough just simply for Moses to decide that he’s going to forsake Egypt. If that’s all Moses had done, he would have done like so many of us and just simply turned over a new leaf.
Moses determined to be and do better. With the decision there must be a dynamic. What is the dynamic that delivers us from the power of Egypt? It’s one thing for us to repent, but the Bible teaches repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. What kind of faith? Faith in his shed blood as is exemplified by the Passover.
When God led the children of Israel out he taught them to slay a Passover lamb. That Passover lamb was a picture, a prophesy of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the Bible tells us in the New Testament that Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us. That Old Testament lamb represented God’s lamb.
In Exodus 12:1, we read:
 “And the Lord spoke 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. Speak ye unto the congregation of Israel saying, and the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers a lamb for an house, and if the household be too-little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.”
Notice, “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats and ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month.” This lamb was to be a sacred lamb. Take a male of the firstlings, a lamb without blemish that is, a pure, a spotless, an unblemished lamb. This lamb pictures the Lord Jesus Christ.
They were to keep it up for three days. They were inspecting that lamb. They would look at every bit of that lamb. If they found one blemish, that lamb was disqualified. Why? The Old Testament rabbis would even examine the eyelids of that little lamb. One blemish and it was disqualified. Had Jesus Christ not been the perfect Lamb of God, absolutely sinlessly perfect, he would have been disqualified.
 The rabbis started raising lambs out in the fields of Bethlehem, the fields of Boaz. They were special Passover lambs. They were raised only for the Passover. When Passover is getting ready on a special day, the shepherds take those lambs and they bring them into the city of Jerusalem by the sheep gate. On the same day that those lambs were coming into the city of Jerusalem in Jesus time, on that same day that they were coming in there to be examined, Jesus Christ, God’s lamb was also coming into the city of Jerusalem on that same day, what we call his triumphal entry.
Even Pilate said, “I find no fault in him.”
Jesus could look at them and say which of you convict me of sin. The Sadducees examined him. The Pharisees examined him. The priests examined him, Pilate and the civil leaders examined him. However, all of them in their heart of hearts knew that there was not one sin against God’s sinless lamb. The Lord Jesus was a special lamb. In verse six, not only was he a sacred lamb, he was a slain lamb. We read, “you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it until the evening.”
There was a special time when this lamb was to be slain. There was a special time for the son of God to be slain. He came in the fullness of time. He was God’s slain lamb. On the fourteenth day of April, that’s the Jewish month that’s spoken of here.
It is our April, the father would take the little lamb, that spotless lamb in his house and he would pull the chin of that lamb up and take that keen razor sharp knife to cut throat of that spotless lamb. The little lamb would not even make a murmur, as his blood was gather in a basin.
 Imagine the scene of the Lord Jesus Christ at his crucifixion. Bethlehem’s lambs are coming into the city and Bethlehem’s lamb, the Lord Jesus, was coming into the city. Those little lambs were examined and the Lord Jesus was examined. Then, on Mount Moriah, where Abraham was about to offer Isaac, he saw a ram caught in the thicket. The Bible says Abraham saw Jesus and was glad.
What was so significant about that ram that Abraham saw caught in the thicket? When Isaac and Abraham were getting ready to go up that mountain, Isaac was supposed to have been the sacrifice. Isaac, asked where is the lamb? Do you remember what Abraham said? The Lord will provide himself a lamb. Notice carefully: Not the Lord will provide a lamb for himself; the Lord will provide himself as a lamb. Jesus was the Lord providing himself. The Lord says I will be that lamb. When John the Baptist saw, Jesus coming there by Jordan, John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God.”
And as those Levites were there pulling back the throats of those little lambs there on that Passover day and were slitting those throats, Jesus was on that cross dying in agony and blood. God’s lamb was dying and he bowed his head and he said, “It is finished.”
Faith That Leads To A Declared Demonstration
The lamb was a slain lamb and became a saving lamb.
In Exodus 12:7, we read, “And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door posts of the houses wherein they shall eat it.”
 In verse thirteen, “And the blood shall be to you for a token upon your houses where you are and when I see the blood I will pass over you.” Judgment was deserved, but God says, when I see the blood, I will Passover you.
They were to take the blood and strike on the two side posts. Can you see the father as he dips his cup in the blood, that basin of blood? Can you see him as he strikes it, not just rubs it, strikes it on his doorposts? Then
he takes it and strikes it on the lintel of the door.
Do you see it? Do you see the cross? Do you see the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as that blood drips from that lintel there upon the threshold? God says, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. This pictures the blood of Jesus Christ, for the Bible says the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s son, cleanses us, from all sin. Can you imagine a little Hebrew boy back in the time of the Exodus? The boys, says “Dad, Moses says we’re to get a lamb and we’re to kill it and we’re to put the blood on the doorpost of our house and if we don’t do it the first born in the family going to die. Dad since I happen to be the first born, do you mind if we check it out one more time?”
And so, he says “Dad, have we done it according to the word of God?” “Yes, son,” says his Dad.
“Dad was our Lamb without spot, without blemish?”
The Dad says, “Yes, son.”
“Father, did we put the blood upon the side post and the lintel of our house?”
“Yes son, we’ve done everything we supposed to do,” says Dad.
“Thank you, dad, good night dad.” the son says.
 He goes to bed and he sleeps so soundly that night because he’s just trusting the word of God and the work of God.
Now, there’s another little Jewish boy. And he also has a fine dad. He says Dad, “You know, I’m the first born in our home. So, I just want to check things out Dad, I want to ask you a question dad, did we get us a spotless lamb?”
“Yes son, we did,” says the Dad.
“Did we kill it as God said?” “Yes, we did?” Dad says.
“Did we apply the blood specifically as God told us to apply it?”
“Yes son, we did?”
“Well, Dad, all of this sounds good, but I’ll tell you, if you don’t mind I’m just going to sit up and pray all night. I, I don’t think I can sleep a wink tonight.”
The death angel comes and he passes over the first house and he comes to that second house and he passes over that one too. That poor little boy worried all night for nothing.
Some people are going to heaven first class and some people are going to heaven second class. The blood makes us safe and the Word makes us sure. When you take the Word of God, you rest in what God says and God cannot lie and, and so you might as well rest in the finished work of the Lord Jesus!
Let us imagine a third boy. This is Pharaoh’s little boy and Pharaoh’s little boy says, “Dad, you know this guy, Moses. He is making all kinds of predictions and they’re coming true. They’re all kinds of plagues and now he’s saying that the plague of all plagues is coming. Why, he’s saying that if we do not place the blood of a lamb upon the doorposts of our house a death angel’s going to come in and destroy the first born. I am the firstborn.”
Pharaoh says, “Son, don’t worry about it. Listen son, I’m Pharaoh and we’ve got many religions here in Egypt and they’re good religions. We’ve got the best priest money can buy.”
 His son responds, “Dad, but we’ve got lots of lambs.”
Pharaoh, says, “Don’t worry about it. Moses is a religious fanatic; don’t worry about that blood of the lamb stuff. Go to sleep son. Daddy loves you.”
However, at midnight there’s a flash and a gasp and a scream and Pharaoh’s son is cold and dead, for the death angel has come. In Hebrews 9:22, we read, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” God said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Had they taken a live lamb and tied it to the door it would have done no good. Salvation does not come by learning lessons from the life of Christ, but by receiving life from the death of Christ. Had they taken rubies and diamonds and gold and silver and poetry and adorned those lintels it would have done no good. God said, “when I see the blood I will pass over you.”
This lamb was a special lamb. This lamb was not only a saving lamb; this lamb was a shared lamb. The Old Testament predicted the coming of the Messiah. Jesus was an Old Testament shadow. Jesus Christ is our Passover; he sacrificed for us.
 In verses eight and nine, we read that they ate the flesh in that night, that is, the flesh of the lamb, roasted with fire and unleavened bread and with bitter herbs. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what thought must have gone up over Egypt when they are quarter of a million lambs are being barbequed in one night. I mean, there it is. Can you imagine the aroma that must have filled the air as they are roasting these lambs and these people are feeding upon these lambs?
Do you know what was happening then? A group of slaves were becoming a nation and a bunch of sinners had begun to fellowship with God and one another over a lamb. Not only was it the lamb that was delivering them, but it was the lamb that was energizing them. For Jesus Christ gave himself for us that he might give himself to us. The Bible speaks of Christ in you, the hope of glory.
The next morning, each family left Egypt by walking under the blood with a lamb on the inside! How do we get to heaven? We go to heaven from this earth, under the blood with the Lamb of God on the inside.
When a person sinned in Genesis, it was one lamb per person. In Exodus, it was one lamb per family. In Canaan, it was one lamb per nation each year. When John the Baptist came preaching, he said, “Here comes the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!”
We are living in a time of a modern plague with promises of divine deliverance as we enter a time of Passover. I encourage you to ponder and pray this coming Good Friday. Until The Last Person Has Heard,
 Dr. James. O. Davis
Founder/President
Global Church Network
Cochair / Global Networking
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