Bibles to Exodus chapter 11 for me. We'll read Exodus chapter 11 and then we'll get started with our topic. Exodus 11. the Lord said to Moses. So our study is over the Lord's Supper over the next couple of weeks, but as we unfold our studies, we need to really kind of start at the beginning, and that is with the Passover. Who's done a study on the Passover in depth in the recent past? Most people don't do a study on the Passover. relegated to ancient Jewish history. But as we study the Passover, we're embarking on a journey that answers a question really posed on every page of the Bible since the fall. And that question is, is God satisfied? Our study of the Passover is going to connect the ancient story of Israel's deliverance with one of the elements of the heart of our worship even today, and that's the Lord's Supper. It's a picture presented to the senses for the satisfaction of God through substitution. He shows us how he's satisfied through the substitution of his son. So we can't underestimate the importance of the Lord's Supper among us as Christians. For us, it's an act of obedience. It's an act of identification. It's an act of thanksgiving and remembrance. All of those things are swirling through our minds. We remember in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says it's an act of proclamation. We proclaim the gospel to one another in that event. And it's also an act of anticipation. We proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And so what we do on Sunday morning has very deep roots in this deliverance from sin and bondage that the Israelites experienced long ago. So the study of the Passover leading up to the Lord's Supper is not just really a history lesson for us, it's a way for us to really come to a more robust understanding of the Lord's Supper. the appreciation of the sacrifice, the elements that we use to memorialize that event. It's a picture of the complete redemption in Christ. And so over the coming sessions, we'll examine these things a little more closely, and I hope our hearts are prepared to worship a little more closely as well. As we unfold, we're going to look into things about bread and wine. What does it look like in Old Testament Israel when they celebrated the Passover up until Jesus' time? And so this study will help us, I think, appreciate God's plan of redemption and salvation. The Apostle Paul said this, Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. So he made that connection to the Old Testament Passover in a deep way, and he saw its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. So you may not be able to read that. I tried to make the font as large as I could, but if you have a handout, this looks like a mouthful and it is. We're gonna try to get through the first two points this morning, but you get to see kind of a brief overview of where we're going. We're gonna have an introduction about why we're doing this, an intro to the intro per se. And then we'll talk about the lead up to the Passover and the last plague. There is a ton of things we have to bring into our minds to understand the significance of the Passover. So if you have an outline, you can take a peek at that as we go along. So an intro to the intro here. What are our goals as elders and the path forward we want to take? As we consider doing this as a study, at Trinity, we considered the fact that it had really been a while since the church had been through a teaching on the Lord's Supper. I asked a minute ago who had sat through a teaching on the Passover. Well, those are so intimately connected. If you do a study on the Lord's Supper, you're going to say something about the Passover. Brandon's series on life in the kingdom included the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11. And so we thought it would be best to kind of break away that section out of the series and focus on this aspect of our worship very closely. Second of all, we also considered that there are many young Christians among us and new faces. And so as teachers in the church, you have to always be thinking about recycling things over and over again in the body of the church. And though we try to encapsulate this teaching on the Lord's Supper on the Lord's Day, we thought it'd be good to take some time and carve it out to really focus in on it. But third, we, there we go, there's my slides. Third, we, more closely than these two things, we really want to consider that time-tested and familiar phrase that should mark each of our lives as Christians, and it's that phrase Semper Reformanda. always reforming. We're always going back to the font, always back to the scripture, always back to the place where we can reform our thinking, reform our practice, reform our obedience. And so our project of sanctification, if you don't know this already, is not over until death. It's a lifelong thing. And we've been predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, as Paul says in Romans 8 29. So that's a lifelong project, not only in your lives individually, but also in the church. So I hope we, through this, come to contemplate Christ in a much fuller way, richer way. So what does this mean as we consider the Lord's Supper? It means a few things. We want to present the Lord's Supper to you in a more full and accurate way. So how do we present it at the Lord's table? Not only that, it's a consideration of the elements of the Lord's Supper. Can we be more accurate, more closely aligned with the biblical prescription, even the practice of the church down through the ages, and even what our own confession says? Our confession is very clear about those things. We think we can be. So it really boils down to this for us as pastors. We want to present Christ to you. We want to present Christ in such a way that as you feast on him, you do that more richly at the Lord's table. You remember him more frequently throughout your week, and you're encouraged and strengthened to live for him more heartily in the days to come. We want the gospel to be made even more clear to you. So the message that saves us, beloved, is the one that sanctifies us. We never get away from the gospel as Christians, never, ever, ever, ever, ever. It's not the first things only, it's everything. And so that's our aim. The teaching on the Lord's Supper is really just a tool to drive the gospel a little more deeply into your heart. So with that said, I do want to offer you some comfort up front as we begin to think through these elements together on the issue of the Lord's Supper, especially as we consider things like wine. We don't want you to feel like you're picked out, picked on, singled out, anything of that nature. We understand that there are a lot of opinions about these things, varying opinions, convictions even, concerning this topic. This topic even really especially among American Christianity has been widely debated and is influenced from cultural movements. Hope to maybe talk about that in the future. Though we may have differences, we pray that we're unified in our love for one another and that this study stirs our heart to get into the scripture a little more and consider these things. So that's our aim. That's our aim. We really want the gospel to be made even more clear to you. And so looking at the Bible, you know, how the churches used it, how our confession says it ought to be observed and get to the heart of the gospel in these things. Our path forward is really looking at the larger motif of the Bible. If you picked up on the introduction to the introduction, we're taking a really holistic approach to the topic. That's why I'm starting at the Passover. I'm not starting with obscure texts in the New Testament or cherry-picking texts in the New Testament. We think it's fitting to put the Bible together, to stitch it together holistically to kind of give you a larger perspective. With that said, there's also in the Passover a very specific foreshadowing of the Lord's Supper. So what that means, maybe this is going to be bad news to some of you, we're not going to get into the current Jewish observance of the Passover. They don't observe it according to the law of Moses anyways. We're not going to get into the Jewish cedar or whether or not we should eat boiled eggs or even observe the Passover. Recitations, even some Jews leave a cup of wine for Elijah the prophet who's believed to visit the home of those celebrating Passover. We're not going to get into all those Jewish obscurities. The words of the Apostle Paul I think are fitting. Those are shadows of the things to come. The substance belongs to Christ. and we have the substance. So the cross outweighs all of those things that a modern Jew would observe. The shadowy Passover has a final substance. It's Jesus. And the final Passover was celebrated on that fateful night when he was betrayed. None to be celebrated again in that same manner. And so it finds its end in Jesus Christ. So what about the lead up to this Passover? We're gonna look at kind of a real fast history from Genesis to Exodus 11.10, and this is where I'm biting off a chunk, so buckle up. The story of the Passover does have its roots from long ago. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they lost many things. The least of these is they lost paradise. That's the least of what they lost. The greatest of the losses was they lost communion with God. Upon their sin, that haunting question arose. Is God satisfied? And what did they do? They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. Noticing the shame of their nakedness, they made leaves to cover themselves. And it's a picture of everyone who goes about to establish their own righteousness. We do it in our own strength, in our own way. But God has always had another way. And so he slaughters an animal and covers the man and the woman's shame. As you know, this theme is then echoed throughout the rest of the biblical narrative at various times and in various ways. We read that in Hebrews 1. As we lead up to the Passover text in Exodus 12, we have to take a moment to kind of recount where the biblical narrative has been so far and what's the general theme or the thrust of the book of Exodus. It's just kind of stuck there without being connected in a way to the larger biblical narrative. If you remember, God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees in Genesis 12. to be a holy nation for God's own possession. The promise of God was that Abraham would have innumerable descendants and a land in which to live. You can see that in Genesis 12, 15, 17 as well. So God's promise stood sure as Abraham, even in his old age and as good as dead, he fathered Isaac. And Isaac fathered Jacob. Jacob fathered 12 sons or tribes, one of which is Joseph, and if you know Genesis, you know I am painting a very broad picture here. The book of Genesis ends with the story of Jacob's death and the reconciliation of Jacob to brothers, I'm sorry, Joseph, to brothers who attempted his murder. As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about many people that they should be kept alive as they are today. So by the time we reach Exodus 1, Abraham has died. All 12 tribes of Israel are in the land of Egypt. Jacob has died. Joseph has died. Both of those men took their last breath in the land of Egypt. And all of the text says in Exodus 1 that the people had favor in the land of Egypt. And as Exodus 1, 6 says, Joseph died and all his brothers and all this generation. And so there was a generation that was there that was in favor with Pharaoh and with the people. But here's the lead up. With the death of Joseph, the beginning of Exodus affords really a new twist in Israel's relationship with Pharaoh. The old leader in whom Joseph and Israel found Favor had died, you can see that in Exodus 1.8. Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them lest they multiply. And if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land. Therefore he set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. And so begins Israel's captivity. One commentator says, the Egyptian authorities had become pathologically nervous about this increase in the immigrant population and determined first on a policy of persecution but then on a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide. First it was, well, we'll just drive them hard and work them hard. Second it was, well, we just need to wipe out this people group completely off the face of the planet. Attempted genocide would come shortly after this when Pharaoh commands that every son born into a Hebrew family should be cast into the Nile. You can see that in Exodus 122. And that's one of the many parallels in Exodus of the life of Christ. As we know in Exodus 2, it outlines Moses' birth and flight into the wilderness in which God called him. And during those many days, this genocidal king of Egypt died. His plans did not come to pass. Why did they not come to pass? Because God's faithful to his covenant, faithful to his promise to Abraham. So it's recorded at the end of Exodus 2, God heard the people of Israel's groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. God knew. It's at this juncture that a significant theme begins to develop and emerge at the end of Exodus 2, which leads us right into Exodus 3. And it's this idea of covenant, specifically God's covenant with Abraham. Several significant themes tie into this idea of covenant, and that is the covenant name of God, Yahweh. We'll see that in just a moment. the theme of the lamb begins to emerge. And we see in really the first 12 chapters of Exodus, lots of echoes of Christ, just tons. We don't have time to really pick those out, but I'd love to take some time and show you all of those. I'll leave that to your own discovery. But there are lots of echoes of Christ in the first 12 chapters of Exodus. So the idea of covenant emerges, especially this one given to Abraham. It's the one that God says he remembered in Exodus 2. It's a solemn agreement. What is a covenant? It's a solemn agreement, especially this one, or promise, and it's accompanied by obligations made by God. This covenant is unconditional. It's divinely initiated by God. It has a binding relationship with the one he enters into covenant with. It has promises, obligations, signs, seals, and it was ratified in blood. Does that sound familiar to you? It sounds like the cross. It sounds like the new covenant. It has echoes of the new covenant in it. It is echoes of that great and singular future promised one made by Christ. So the entire story, as one commentator puts it, is a covenant narrative. This commentator says, the God who pledged himself to Abraham and his descendants remained the faithful God. He had made promises and intended to honor them, and when his moment came, honor them he did. So this first theme that begins to emerge in Exodus for us is the theme of the covenant. Covenant, I think we could say, binds Exodus and the whole Bible together. We've talked a lot about covenant theology here at Trinity. It's the theme that runs through the text of the Bible. It binds everything together. It informs how you see God's plan unfolding in history. There's another way of looking at the Bible, but covenant is the way I think God has revealed to us even in the Bible to show us how we view how history unfolds. So central to this idea of covenant in Exodus are really two other features. That's the covenant name of God and the Lamb. So we see really two great themes of the covenant name of God and the Lamb united in Jesus Christ. John 8.58 says that and several other places. So we receive in this covenant name of God really a mysterious and thought-provoking yet settling revelation. It's the divine name Yahweh. In your Bibles it's probably capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That's the translator's way of signifying to you this is the covenant name of God, Yahweh. Why is this significant? If you remember, if you were paying attention as you read Genesis 1 and 2, we can just kind of blaze through the creation narrative and really just pick out those six-day creation. He created this on this day, he created that on that day, and he created man, took woman from a rib. There's an unfolding of who God is in that narrative. Genesis 1-1 to 2-3 only used the name Elohim. It's like God Almighty. It's the only name used in the creation account from Genesis 1-1 to Genesis 2-3. It's a name that reveals himself as the antithesis of who man is. God is not a man, number says. God is spirit. God is creator. One has noted that this plural form of the name Elohim that we can call this the plural of fullness. He is all of his attributes. Elohim possesses the full and total range of divine attributes. He alone enjoys supernatural transcendence. That's the name revealed for the first chapter in a few verses, Genesis 1, 1 to 2, 3. Genesis 2, 3, however, discloses that this is not the total revelation of who God is, especially as he enters into covenant with man. If you look at Genesis 2, as God enters into covenant with Adam, he reveals himself differently. He unfolds it, and what's the name he begins to use? Lord God, Yahweh Elohim. It's the name that carries the narrative of covenant through the rest of the Bible. That is very, very significant for us to think about. Well, what do we find in Exodus 3? We find that God reveals himself as Yahweh, the Lord, capital L-O-R-D. And it's right on the heels of the remembrance of his covenant. Indeed, if you look in Exodus 1 and 2, the divine covenant name did not appear in the first really three chapters of the book. It was Yahweh Elohim who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. It was Yahweh Elohim who saw Moses turn aside and see the bush burning. It was Yahweh Elohim who called Moses. It was Yahweh who said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people, identifying them with himself. And then when Moses anticipates the people's question about, well, who will I say sent me to you? What does he say? I am who I am has sent me to you. And it's after that that Yahweh gives us the significance of the name once again, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. This is his name forever. This is the name that's carried throughout the entire Exodus narrative. Throughout the rest of the narrative in Exodus, it's the name by which he reveals himself as Redeemer. Yahweh, Exodus 6, 6. It's the name by which the sacrifice of Passover and its very name derive. If you saw the head slide there, there's a little piece of Hebrew. It's the Lord's Passover, Yahweh's Passover. It's the name by which he reveals himself as the giver of the law, Exodus 20, verse 2. The Lord, Yahweh, gave his law to his people. It's the name by which he dwells among us in Tabernacle, Exodus 29, 46. And we find that it is the very name that is revealed in John 8, 58 of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to show you something here. I'm not following my slides very well. So you see those things in Exodus. That name Yahweh reveals himself as Redeemer. It's the name he reveals in the sacrifice of the Passover as the giver of the law and the one who tabernacles or dwells among us. And it's the very name which Christ called himself in John 8, 58. I took some time last night. I was showing Stephanie some old Greek manuscripts. I want to show you something here. This is P75, P just stands for papyri. P75, it's from the third century and it contains John 858. And I tried to highlight the portion there that shows you John 858 and then at the bottom I translated into better Greek. You could read it with spaces and uppercase and lowercase letters. But that little highlighted portion at the end of that phrase, Ego I me. So he says there, Jesus says to them, amen, amen, I say to you, truly, truly, I say to you. Prin abraham genestai, ego I me. He says, before Abraham was, I am. Now what did the Jews do at the sound of that? They tried to kill him. They realized that when he said, Ego I me, I am, he was saying, I am Yahweh of the Old Testament. They tried to kill God. And so it's a very significant identification of the covenant name of God, so much so that Jesus said it of himself. If you look at Greek translations of the Old Testament, you see that phrase there, ego I me. That's a revelation of the covenant in Exodus. We see God's covenant name revealed to us. But also, another significant theme is the Lamb. Without the Lamb, there is no covenant. There is no Passover. Think about this, Adam's going out was by way of sacrifice, Genesis 3. God covered him with the skin of an animal. Abraham's going out was by sacrifice in Genesis 15. The going out of the people of Israel would be no different. Their going out of sin and slavery and bondage would be by way of sacrifice. So God says in Exodus 12, 13, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. If you're gonna get a tattoo as a Christian, get that one. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. So we'll save our more specific thoughts for that in Exodus 12. Is that me? Ooh, hot mic. So, what I'm getting at here is there are echoes of Christ throughout Exodus, all throughout Exodus. First 12 chapters are full of it. It's the binding together of the covenant name of Yahweh, this fresh focus on his name, and the blood of the Passover lamb whose death is propitiatory and substitutionary. It anticipates everything we see in the New Testament. If we don't get it right here, we're not gonna get it right there. So one commentator says, thus the point at which Exodus gives its new beginning to the Old Testament matches the point at which the New Testament begins its distinctive testimony, the divine name of Yahweh. It's the personal name of the Holy Trinity, and the Passover lamb is Jesus, the Son of God. So this makes Exodus an utterly significant book, and the Passover an indispensable event for us to understand. It begins really in the Old Testament, the normative way that God would reveal himself as to how he saves people. It was foreshadowed in Genesis. It underlines the nature of God as holy, humankind as sinners. It explains the meaning of blood and sacrifice. It's a book of grace, one commentator says, that reaches down from heaven. and of the law which teaches redeemed sinners to live in heavenly terms. So it's a very trend-setting book for understanding the rest of the Old Testament. So all of this sets up the tone for what we might rightly entitle Yahweh rules. So we're here at the last plague. It's what we read in Exodus 11. Yeah, Exodus 11, I'm sorry, I was looking at another passage. The last plague is The event that drove Pharaoh mad. It's the event that sunk his army into the Red Sea eventually. And it marked forever, you can see this in future prophecy in Ezekiel 29, it marked forever the beginning of the downfall of a nation. Ezekiel prophesied in Ezekiel 29 that Egypt would never again come back to its former glory. This event of the death of the firstborn in Egypt was the beginning of the downfall of a nation, and you can see it today. Egypt has not retained its glory. It was a major world power, and it is left to the dust. I promise I'm not doing anything. But you get it. This event of the last plague is, it is a very powerful event in the history of Israel and in the history of Egypt. It's the event, and the reason I wanna stop here for a minute, before we get to the Passover, I don't wanna rush too quickly, it's the event without which the necessity of the Passover, it's really not understood. The urgency of the Passover's not understood. The power of the Passover's really not understood. This event is the last plague, and so the story of the plagues introduces to us the sharpest conflict between heaven and earth in the narrative. There were nine other plagues that led up to this last one. Blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock disease, boils, hail, locusts, darkness. And the story of these plagues really show that sharp contrast, that sharp conflict between heaven and earth. These nine plagues reveal some important things about God and his dealings with the world. Number one, God rules. If you read the story of the plagues in Exodus, you just get this overwhelming sense, Yahweh rules, it screams the sovereignty of God. Pharaoh's initial response was, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I don't know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go. So over and over again, this resounding sovereignty of God to do whatever he pleases over nature and a nature that the Egyptians worshiped, it just flashes forth from the narrative. It reminds me of what God did to Nebuchadnezzar many years later. He humbled the king and made him eat grass like a beast of the field. And what was Nebuchadnezzar's final confession? The most high is sovereign over the kingdoms of men. He had to humble that proud man to get to that point. Number two, in this narrative of the nine plagues, we just learned, trust God's word. Moses was really an example of calm control in the face of Pharaoh. You know who he was before. He was a man who was very impulsive. He killed an Egyptian. He was even afraid to speak. But as God began to work through him and call him to service, he seemed to exert this calm and control and a deep trust in the word of the Lord. He's undoubtedly a type and shadow of the one to come. And finally, we learn in these dealings in the nine plagues to pay attention to God's dealings. It kind of makes me wonder, why were there nine plagues before the last? None of them were effective in changing Pharaoh's heart. None of them changed Pharaoh's heart. The question of why, one commentator says, is exacerbated by the fact that from the start, the Lord knew it would have to come to a contest of the firstborn. He knew from the very beginning. So why then did he not cut to the chase, this commentator asks. Why the prolonged agonies of nine ineffectual acts? I think God does this for several reasons. He does it to demonstrate his power, his sovereign power, and in speaking in human terms, how he feels about disobedience. We know the scripture in Romans 9, the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this purpose I have raised you up, what? That I might show my power in you. That's a sovereign God at work to demonstrate His power. It's also to give the wicked warnings. Nine plagues leading up to this final cataclysmic plague is to give the wicked warnings. Think about it. If we were to compare each of these plagues, if we were to compare each of these plagues, none of them compare to the death of the firstborn. They're nothing compared to that last plague. And each that came before it was a warning shot over the bow. It was a warning shot to Pharaoh. Wake up, open your eyes, bow your heart, repent and trust me. Let my people go. We could say the same thing about us. We could have everything stripped from us, all our wealth, all our goods. but it would be nothing compared to the death of a child. In fact, Amos 8 says that God compares his judgment to be as bitter as the mourning of the loss of an only son. Out of all the things God could say exemplify the bitterness of my judgment, he says here's an earthly example, the loss of a son, the loss of a firstborn. So what would a man give back? To have his firstborn back, he'd give everything. So this is warnings to the wicked. It's a warming up to this thing where God just finally has to drop the hammer. It's also to give the weary mercy. God is a God of intense and fiery holiness. You see that in the Exodus account here. We don't deal well with a God of wrath. One commentator says, we have a problem with the plagues simply because we step back from the truth of the wrath of God against sin and the judgment of God upon sinners. We would prefer the bliss of a kingdom of God without moral absolutes. presided over by a God without wrath and entered through a Christ without a cross. We just don't like the topic. And so when God deals with sin in these nine plagues and finally in the last, he was dealing with them in a fiery holiness. And this is really the heart of the matter. This tells us much about the cross of Christ. We get an estimation of his love there for sure, but we also get an estimation of his holiness and judgment upon sin. And so Habakkuk 3 says, O Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years, revive it. In the midst of the years, make it known in wrath. Remember, mercy. And so he gives the weary mercy. Well, so all the plagues before highlight these things. You liked that graphic, didn't you? I've worked on that. blood, frogs, lice, fire, or flies, livestock, disease, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness. But it's in this last plague, and I think we're going to have to stop here and cover the last plague next time. We're out of time. In this last plague, the death of the firstborn, we find some very striking differences than the other plagues. And there are several things we'll discover in our next time together. But before we close, do we have any questions on what we've discovered so far? That was a mouthful. Well, so if you would, maybe for next time to prepare a little better, read the first 12 chapters of Exodus. If you don't wanna read first 12 chapters, read Exodus 12 itself. Read 11 and 12, and that'll give you a really good picture of where we're going the next time. All right, let me pray for us. Lord, we ask you to Help us to remember the things we've learned here just as a warm-up, as a context to the Passover and why it is so significant. I pray that you would grant us to think more holistically about the Bible and not just in pieces and chunks, but to tie it together to see the grand narrative of the revelation of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I ask that you would glorify him in our worship today. Holy Spirit, enliven our hearts to worship him in truth with reverence and awe. You are a consuming fire. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.