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The festival year begins with Passover,
in the beginning of spring.
“In the fourteenth day of the first
month at even is the Lord’s Passover.”
Lev. 23:5
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The Lord gives a single verse of instruction for
Passover since the children of Israel and Moses had recently
celebrated it.
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So in Lev. 23 God merely gives Passover its date,
which is fascinating in itself.
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God’s calendar is a lunar calendar based on
the phases of the moon rather than the earth’s revolutions around
the sun.
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→ Back to the meaning of Passover; it is surely the
feast of salvation.
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On this day, because of the blood of the lamb
(without spot…perfect lamb) the Hebrew nation was delivered out of
bondage.
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In both the Old and the New Testaments
the blood of the lamb/Lamb delivers from slavery, the Jew from Egypt and
the Christian from sin. |
The Passover Service introduces us to the first of the annual "appointed times"
on God's calendar.
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We are familiar with the account of the Passover in
Exodus. God passed over the houses of the believers who had obeyed
God’s command to apply the blood of a literal lamb to the lintel and
doorposts of their houses. |
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The Almighty God spared the lives of Israel’s
firstborn, but authorized the Destroyer to kill all the firstborn of the
Egyptians.
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“And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord
smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of the
Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that
was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the cattle.
And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the
Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house
where there was not one dead.”
Ex. 12:29-30
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Few
of us are aware of the implication behind the plagues:
it was a cosmic war against the powers of darkness!
The Rod of Moses
Before we start with the plagues, let’s start with the “Rod and the Serpent”
(Ex 7:8).
We all know the story.
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Rod to serpents
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Water to blood |
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And the frogs at least well enough that
Pharaoh was unimpressed. |
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However, when it came to the lice, they were
shook up. They recognized it to be the "finger of God."
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It is clear they had powers to a certain point
but, once they could not imitate anymore, they were rattled.
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Am I saying that they had supernatural power? YES! Does that make
you stop and think?? |
Satan 's Counterfeit
"For they cast down every man his rod,
and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods."
Ex 7:12
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How many of Pharoah's men cast down their rods?
Two.
How do we know this?
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"Now as Jannes and
Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth:
men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith."
2 Tim 3:8
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Paul was commenting on those that
confronted Moses. He mentioned two names, Jannis
and Jambres: Paul somehow knew their names and that
they withstood Moses.
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Always ask these questions of miracles:
In whose authority are they
done?
Who gets the glory?
The
issue is not the miracles themselves or the supernatural!
The Ten Plagues
Most miracles are
natural phenomena.
The Ten Plagues were notable exceptions.
There the laws of nature were turned upside down to help free the Hebrew
Children.
1st:
Waters Turned to Blood
The supernatural pollution
of the waters of the land was a humiliation to the gods the
Egyptians worshiped.
2nd: The
Frogs
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The second of the plagues further proved
the powerlessness of the gods of Egypt. The land was covered with a
plague of frogs in such abundance that they infested the Egyptians'
houses and beds.
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One of the principal goddesses of the land was Hekt, the wife
of the "creator of the world," who was always shown with the head
and the body of a frog. |
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The frogs came out of
the sacred Nile and Egypt's devotion to them prevented them from
dealing with them. They soon had decaying carcasses throughout
the land resulting in a stinking horror. It is interesting
that the magicians could increase the frogs (in Ex 8:7)
but couldn't make them go away.
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It is interesting that the climactic
war against God in Revelation is assembled by three frog-like spirits:
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"And
I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth
of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of
the mouth of the false prophet. (v.14) For they are the
spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the
kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to
the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Rev. 16:13-14 |
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These unclean spirits will lead the entire world
to war against God!
3rd: The Sand Flies
"Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is
the finger of God;…"
Ex 8:19
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There was something about lice that freaked
them out. They were able to deal with the serpents, the water
to blood, and the frogs. When it came to the lice, not only could
they not do it, they went to Pharaoh and told him that it was, "the
finger of God" So, what was the big deal with the lice?
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The priests of the Egyptian system had a
big thing about cleanliness. They wore special linen garments,
they shaved their head every third day. In order for
them to worship according to their system, they had to be
totally clean. The infestation of the
lice made it impossible for them to worship.
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The priests themselves could not officiate
in agreement with the system that they were following. The bringing
of the lice against them made them recognize that God was dealing
with them. They went to Pharoah to point out that this was
"the finger of God."
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This was an embarrassment to their great god of the earth, Geb,
to whom they gave offerings for the bounty of the soil. |
4th: The Scarabs
The fourth of the plagues were
"swarms" ("of flies" is not in the original).
The word is `arob, a swarm, possibly suggesting unending motion.
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The deification of the scarab beetle is
still noticeable - even today - in the jewelry and artifacts
celebrating ancient Egypt.
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Amon-Ra, the king of the gods, had the head of a beetle. Some
of the giant scarabs were even accorded the honor of mummification
and entombment with the Pharaohs. |
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This is particularly bizarre since the scarab is
actually a dung beetle. The insect is about the
size of a nickel and feeds on dung in the fields or the
side of the road.
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When animals defecate, these insects swarm from their holes in
the ground and collect the dung for future meals by forming it into
round balls about the size of golf balls, which they roll across the
ground to their underground dwellings. |
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Since they seemed to "come from nowhere,"
and perhaps because these perfectly round balls were possibly
associated with the sun, these beetles became associated with
creation. (Also, the Egyptians seem to have had the mistaken notion
that the scarabs deposited larvae in the ball, but that is not
true.)
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The plague of swarms of scarabs, with jaws that could saw
through wood and destructive qualities worse than termites, must
have caused extreme bewilderment since they were so revered and thus
were not to be interfered with! |
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Pharaoh called Moses, pleaded for a ceasing, hinted at the
possibility of compromise, and even asked to be prayed for. |
But
God doesn't compromise; the judgments continued.
5th: The Animals
The cattle of the Hebrews, of course, were not
touched.
6th: Boils
(Note from Kay: I've had personal experience
with boils. I've had four altogether and, fortunately, only one at a time.
The ones I had were VERY painful. They swelled up to the size of lemons.
I had to have them lanced and... don't read this if you are squeamish...they had
lots of purple and yellow pus in them.
They left large scars. Someone who had boils all over would not be able to
be touched where the boils were. They might not be able to sit down or to
lie down. They could be in such pain that they don't even want to eat.)
7th: Fiery Hail
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Egypt is a sunny land with practically no
rain. The seventh plague was a tempest of hail and fire.
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Where was Shu, the
wind god, and Nut, the sky goddess? Where was Horus, the hawk-headed
sky god of upper Egypt? |
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It is interesting to note that when Pharaoh
confessed his sin and the sin of his people, he even used the Hebrew
names for God:
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"I have sinned this time: the Lord [YHWH] is righteous, and I
and my people are wicked. Intreat the Lord [YHWH] that there be no more
mighty thunderings ["voices of Elohim"]."
Exodus 9:27-28
8th: Locusts
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Some of the earlier plagues may have been
separated by extended intervals, but the eighth plague followed
immediately on the heels of the seventh: locusts came upon the land.
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Every twig and leaf that had somehow escaped the hail and fire
was then taken by the locusts. |
Having
lost faith in their gods, rebellion was now in the air.
9th: Thick Darkness
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The ninth plague was a darkness that
could be felt! Josephus wrote:
"But
when Moses said that what he [Pharaoh] desired was unjust,
since they were obliged to offer sacrifices to God of those
cattle, and the time being prolonged on this account, a
thick darkness, without the least light, spread itself over
the Egyptians, whereby their sight being hindered, and their
breathing hindered by the thickness of the air, they were
under terror lest they be swallowed up by the thick cloud."
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The darkness,
after three days and three nights, was dissipated.
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10th: Death of the Firstborn
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And, of course, the well-known tenth
and final plague was the death of the firstborn in those homes not
covered by the lamb's blood on the doorposts or lintels. |
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We all know the story of the
Passover in Egypt, remembered by the Jews to this day.
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And, of course, John the Baptist
clearly marked out the person of Jesus Christ as a blood sacrifice
when he referred to Jesus as the "passover lamb" when he introduced
Him as "The Lamb of God". (Jn 1:29,36) |
It is no coincidence that our Lord,
Himself, was sacrificed on Passover.
Surprising as it may sound, that
awesome experience of the death of the firstborn in ancient Egypt was a:
In other
words, The God of the Universe's main purpose in staging such a
spectacular Passover display in ancient Egypt was His way of giving the
entire universe a "prophetic preview"
of His plan of the ages to
pass
over
and deliver His people in the closing
days of this age.
We do not keep the feast in
remembrance of the exodus from Egypt, since that was the mere shadow of
the greater redemption to come.
Passover
represents our salvation.
The
Lord Himself instructed us to:
“Do this in remembrance of Me."
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We do take communion, a part of the original
Passover feast, in remembrance of the Lord.
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For as we eat the unleavened bread and drink the
wine, the new covenant emblems of the Body of Christ, in truth we
are applying the Blood of Jesus to the lintels of our souls and the
doorpost of our hearts.
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The remarkable fulfillment of Passover on the
exact day illustrates a principle, which we will see with each of
the feasts.
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Our Lord fulfilled each feast on its appropriate
day with an appropriate action up to the point we have now reached
in His prophetic plan.
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We will see that all
seven
of the feasts have either been fulfilled, or are prophesied to be
fulfilled.
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Yes, The Lord God of Israel, in
the near future, is going to personally visit all the nations of the
world, and as before, pass
over all those who faithfully
display the Sign of His Son’s blood on the lintels of their minds and
the doorpost of their hearts!
References:
First Fruits of Zion
Chuck Missler
Yeshuat
Yisrael
The next feast we will study is:
In His Love
Shalom, bj
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