Rabbi Schneider - Passover Present - Part 1
The same Spirit that redeemed Israel out of Egypt, the same Spirit that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, is at work in your life and my life today in present form. When I say Passover present, I'm not speaking of present as being a gift. I'm speaking of present as referring to the now-the spirit behind Passover working in our lives in present time in the reality of the now. You see, many of us when we study scripture, without realizing it, we're studying it historically. We're thinking back in time as to what God did for His chosen people, to the patriarchs, or even how He worked in the lives of the apostles. But we don't recognize sometimes as fully as we ought how the same Spirit that redeemed Israel out of Egypt, the same Spirit that parted the Red Sea, in fact, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, is at work in your life and my life today in present form.
You see, the truth is, if you look at your life, if you're really clinging to God every day, if you're talking to Him all the time, you're being transformed. You're not the same person this year that you were last year. You're not even the same person this month as you were last month. Why? Because the same Spirit that delivered Israel out of Egypt is transforming you. We're talking today, beloved, about Passover in the present. What I want to do is I want to begin by laying the solid foundation of the historical narrative. I want to just review today what God did for His chosen people, His first covenant people 3,500 years ago. And now what I want to do is to apply the lessons that we can learn from that story, the story of the Exodus, how we can apply that to our life today and recognize once again that the same spirit that was with Moses is with you in present tense.
We know the story most of us. Israel found themselves enslaved in Egypt. This was actually prophesied years before by the Lord to Abraham. When the Lord spoke to Abraham in a vision of the night as Abraham was put into a trance, and the Lord said to him, "Your people will be enslaved to a people and in a country that is not theirs for 400 years". And sure enough, the prophecy came true when Israel found themselves in Egypt where originally they were welcomed there, but eventually, when a new Pharaoh arose, he became threatened by Israel's fruitfulness and began to subject them to slavery and to oppress them.
It's interesting, by the way, that the same thing that happened to Israel 3,500 years ago in Egypt where they began to prosper in Egypt, and as a result of them prospering, Pharaoh or the government became threatened by Israel, and so he, in response to that fear of them, began to subject them to slavery, it's interesting that that same phenomenon has repeated itself over and over and over in history almost wherever Jewish people have gone. They went to different countries, different countries in Europe, they began to prosper there, they began to arise, they begin to become affluent, they started learning trades and learning professions. And all of a sudden what happened? The government reacted, they said, "These Jews are going to take over. These Jews are going to take over the world".
And as a result of that, they were persecuted, programs were assaulted against them. They were driven out of lands. It was very similar to what happened to Israel in Egypt. And so Israel was there in Egypt, Pharaoh becomes threatened, he begins to oppress them. They're slaves there for 430 years. Finally, we know the story. And it's an interesting story, because the Lord says to Moses, "I've heard the cry of my people".
Now, to me what's kind of something to ponder is that here they were, they'd already been slaves for approximately 400 years, brutal slavery oppressing them, and then the Lord says to Moses after the 400 years, he says, "I've heard the cry of my people and I've come down to deliver them". And in my puny, human nature, I've often asked myself, "Father, thank you that you heard their pleas. But what about the people that died before you rescued them"? And it just kind of an interesting phenomenon that the Lord was hearing, and He cared, and He had compassion, but He waited 400 years until He acted. And that's a bit of a mystery. And I don't understand the mystery of why the Lord didn't just immediately as soon as Pharaoh started to mistreat Israel, why the Lord didn't immediately crush the forces of the Egyptians. But He waited. He had a timing. And the only thing that we can say is when we don't understand God's ways, we have to trust His heart. God had a purpose in it. And He did respond.
So He spoke to Moses and He said, "I'm going to use you to deliver my people out of Egypt. They are my people, and I want you to bring them to a place in the wilderness where they'll be able to worship Me and sacrifice to Me". We know the story. Moses goes before Pharaoh, he says, "The Lord says, 'Let my people go.'" And Pharaoh scoffed at him. Pharaoh resisted. As a result of that, ten huge plagues fell upon the Egyptian people. The plagues got worse and worse and worse. Finally, after the tenth plague, Pharaoh said, "Okay, that's enough. Go, go. Get out of here". And as soon as Israel left Egypt, it wasn't long before Pharaoh changed his mind and he ordered his people to begin to pursue Israel to bring them back. The truth that we need to understand from this is, that is how Satan is. Satan only understands, beloved one, one thing. Power.
You see, Pharaoh said, "Okay, let them go when," God's power was so heavy that Pharaoh had no choice. When Pharaoh lost his own firstborn son and all the other Egyptian families in Egypt lost their firstborn son, the power of God caused Pharaoh to drop to his knees. But as soon as the plague lifted, Pharaoh was right back where he used to be; he wanted to go get Israel and bring them back to slavery. Satan only understands power. And this is what we see in Pharaoh. As soon as the power was off, as soon as there was no more plague, bam! He's right back in that same satanic nature, that same satanic heart that he had been in, pursuing and oppressing God's people.
So you need to understand, beloved, Satan is never going to understand you in the sense of showing compassion to you. Satan is never going to have empathy for you. Satan will never respond to your reason. The only thing that the powers of darkness respond to is power and truth, truth and power. And what this means is that if you and I are going to be free, we're going to have to learn how to take authority in the power of the truth to subdue the powers of darkness because they will not submit to us or to the Lordship of God's Spirit in our lives any other way. They will not feel sorry for you. They will not stop tormenting your eye until we make them.
And so the story goes on in Israel's journey out of Egypt. Israel has left. They're on their way towards the promised land. Now, once again, Pharaoh changed his mind, so the Egyptians are hot behind them. Israel is moving forward, they come to the Sea of Reeds or the Red Sea, and now they're trapped. Most of us know the story. They can't go forward. The huge seas in front of them; they can't swim across. They can't go backward. Why? Because Pharaoh and the armies are behind them. So what happens? God puts a barrier between the Egyptians and His people Israel, and He says to Moses, "What are you doing? Stretch your staff over the sea". And Moses stretches his staff over the sea, and the sea parts. This, beloved, is a symbol of the rapture. Why is it a symbol of the rapture? The ten plagues had already hit Egypt, Israel was still in Egypt, just as the church will be in the world, as I've said many times, through much of the tribulation. It's only when the final wrath of God is poured out, right before the final wrath of God is poured out that His people will be rescued.
This is what happened in Egypt. God took His people through the sea and then He poured out His final wrath on the Egyptians by drowning them as they tried to follow Israel through the sea. Likewise, the church will be in the world through much of the tribulation that's described in the book of Revelation. And it's only before the bowls of wrath are poured out, which are the last seven judgments. It's only right before the seven bowls of wrath are poured out that God will take His people out of the world. Just as God's people took His people through the sea in the ancient times, so He'll part the sky, take His people through the clouds, rapture them into His own presence. Then He will pour out His final wrath upon the world even as He closed the sea upon the Egyptians and drowned them once and for all.
This is Passover present because you and I are moving into an age where the plagues that are coming upon the world will continue to increase. We're going to have more problems with the climate change. We're going to have more problems with depression. We're going to have more problems with suicide. We're going to have more problems with rogue countries getting their hands on nuclear weapons. We're going to have more problems with censorship and Christians and biblical values being censored. The problems will continue to increase, the judgments of God will continue to increase. But finally, what's going to happen is before God is about to release His undiluted wrath upon the world, He is going to redeem His church out of the world in what is called the rapture. And we are moving presently towards the rapture.
And so the story continues. Israel gets to the other side and God said to them, "You're never going to see your enemy again". He drowned them on the sea. But before I move forward today, I want to take a few steps backward and talk about when the Lord delivered His people out of Egypt, how did He do it through the blood of the Passover lamb? We know the story. God spoke to Moses and He said to him, "I want you to tell my people, every family, to take a lamb, an unblemished male lamb". Then they were to examine the lamb, make sure that it was unblemished. The Lamb actually lived with them. And then after the lamb had spent time with the family, the family inspected it, saw that it was unblemished, each family then took the lamb, put it to death, and then they took the blood of the lamb and put it on the doorpost and lintels of their doorframe.
But wait a second. Let's think about it. They took the unblemished lamb that had become one of their own family because the lamb had lived with them before they sacrificed it. They had to eat the lamb. And when the lamb was slaughtered, before being prepared, it wasn't just that the father took the lamb behind his house in private where the children or wife couldn't see because it was too gruesome for them to see. No, instead, what happened is everybody in Israel, every family member had to take a part in putting that lamb that was going to save them to death. The entire family, every Israelite family, every family member had to take part in putting that lamb that was going to be their redemption to death.
Think about that. It speaks about Jesus who became one of us. Just as that ancient Passover lamb was living with the family before he was sacrifice, so Jesus came to live amongst us. And then what happened? Was it just the Romans that put Him to death? Was it just the Pharisees that put Him to death? No, it was each one. You and I put them to death. Even as every member of each Israelite family had to take a part in playing the role of putting that ancient lamb to death before they slaughtered it, and prepared it, and ate it, so too, beloved, it was your sin that put Jesus on the cross. Jesus said, "No man takes my life from me; I lay it down by my own initiative for the sin of the world". It was my sin. It was our sin that put Jesus on that cross.
When they put that spear in His side and the blood flowed out, that spear represented my sin and your sin. It was our sin. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And by His chastisement, we are healed. Passover present. Passover now. This Jesus that I speak of, He's with you right where you're at. If you're in your living room right now, He is with you in your living room. He feels your very breath. He's in your every thought. In other words, every thought you think is present to Him. He's with us now this Redeemer of the world. So every Israelite family, going back to the ancient story, put that lamb to death that was one of them. Then they had to eat him. Jesus said, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in yourself".
Of course, some have taken this to be that we're supposed to drink the literal blood of Jesus and eat His flesh literally. This, for example, is the doctrine of the Catholic Church. As Protestants or evangelicals, we don't believe that we're literally drinking Jesus' physical blood in taking the Lord's Supper. We believe Jesus was telling us of partaking of Him spiritually. God is Spirit. Jesus said, "My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink". "...the words that I speak unto you," Jesus said, "are spirit and life". But every day we need to be receiving Jesus in the spirit, taking His flesh, drinking His blood in the Spirit. And when we take communion or the Lord's Supper, which was actually part of the Passover meal... Did you know that?
The Lord's Supper or communion was part of the Passover meal that Jesus celebrated with His disciples immediately before going to the cross. Every time we take the Lord's Supper communion, we're taking of the Passover lamb. We're eating His flesh. We're drinking His blood. We're taking Him into ourselves by drawing and into our soul through our desire to have Him in our life. And as we open our heart up to Him, beloved, by talking to Him, by sharing our heart with Him, by asking Him to come in, we fulfill Jesus words when He said this, "Behold, I stand at the door of your heart and knock," in the book of Revelation, "If you'll open the door and invite me in, I'm going to come in and fellowship with you, sup with you, and we'll have fellowship and life together".
So, Jesus, the Passover lamb is present every day. He's waiting, He's knocking, waiting for us to invite him into our life. He's given us free will. He loves us, He's right here, but we have a free will. We have to respond and share our life with Him and receive Him. I want you to think about this. The Israelites then they took that lamb, going back to the narrative, they put that lamb to death, they ate the lamb. Then they took the blood of the lamb and put it on their doorpost. You see, it wasn't just enough that the lamb was sacrifice and its blood was shed. It wasn't enough that when that ancient Passover lamb's blood was shed, and collected in the basin, that we read about in Scripture 3500 years ago, it wasn't enough for the blood to be in the basin. The Israelite then had to carry that blood that was in the basin and put it on the doorposts in the lintels of their doorframe.
In other words, it needed to be applied to each one of their lives. And then they would go in their home. And when the angel of judgment or the Angel of Death moved through the land of Egypt, he passed over every home that was marked by the blood of the Passover lamb. But get my words. It wasn't enough for the blood of the lamb to be shed for ancient Israel, for God's people. They had to personally take that blood and apply it over their lives by putting it on the doorframe of their home. The Bible says we're saved by the word of our testimony and the blood of the Lamb. We must take his blood and apply to our lives by identifying with Jesus.
How do we apply His blood to our life? By identifying with Him, by living for Him, by loving Him, by thanking Him for what He's done for us, by believing in what He's done for us, by believing Jesus words when He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man come unto the Father but through Me". And so as we celebrate Passover present, I want to ask you today, are you clinging to God, the Lamb of God in the now? He that's born of God overcomes the world. This Passover season is a marked season. And it could be marked for you if you and I will yield to the ever-living Lamb of God, surrendering to Him in every area of our heart, inviting Him in, fellowshipping with Him, and walking with Him all through life. You will be delivered just like ancient Israel was.