Why God Separated Israel: The Meaning of the Blood on the Doorposts

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. And good afternoon. It's good to have everybody here, and for those of you on television, we want to again invite you to just be part of our class. This is an informal class. We don't claim to put on any airs or try to be theological. We're just going to teach the Word as we trust the Lord has revealed it to me. And I tell people so many times—in fact, I had a call from the Colorado audience the other day, and she said, you know what I like about your teaching is you don't just go by what men say, you try to go by what the book says. And I said, that's exactly. And I've always attempted to have this approach. Even if people don't agree with me, if I can just get them into the book—and that's what happens a lot of times. If you kind of stir their nest and you say some things that they can't agree with, at least they're going to get into the book and see why they don't agree. And then that, of course, many times brings them around to our point of view. So again, just remember, those of you out in television, this is informal. We don't hew to any denominational line. We just teach the Word as we see it, and we trust you'll be blessed by it. All right, now for those of you here in the studio audience, I'd like to have you turn to Exodus. I said chapter 12, I think, but let's go back for just a moment to chapter 10, because the last time we were together, we had more or less gotten to the place where Pharaoh was obstinately refusing to let the children of Israel go, and God would bring in a plague. And I've always felt it wasn't necessary to spend a lot of time on the plagues individually, because most people know at least a little bit about what took place in the plagues on Egypt. But I would like to make one comment about them. Always remember that if you don't have any problem with the plagues in Egypt—and most people don't, and again, so much of history now confirms the fact that Egypt indeed was in a shambles by the time the Jews left. They were destitute economically in every which way, and most people can agree to that. But when you get into the book of Revelation, they shy away, and they just say, oh, you know, I just can't believe that things like that could ever happen. But always correlate that many of the things that took place back here in Egypt under the plagues will repeat themselves in the tribulation, only on a worldwide scale instead of just local as it was here in Egypt. And another thing I always like to remind you about is that so many writers, secular as well as even theological people, will always try to somehow associate these events in the book of Exodus—the plagues and how these things happened—they try to associate it with natural phenomena that just happen to happen. For example, I was reading one just here tonight. They said it's not unusual at all for waves of locusts to come into that part of the world. Well, that's true. But when God sent a plague on Pharaoh, it wasn't just a happenstance, natural phenomena. It was a miraculous act of God. And they'll try to explain away the parting of the Red Sea. And I know many of you have read of it, and you've heard of it, that it was up at the shallower end up there near the Mediterranean Sea, and they went through water 18 inches deep. Well, again, the article I was reading the other night, he explained that away by saying, and of course the chariots couldn't be drowned in 18 inches of water, but again, that area of the world so often has great tidal waves coming in off the Mediterranean, and that could have drowned the Egyptians. Well, you see, that's all just—excuse the term, but in my language that's hogwash. That's just bilge water. Because all of these things are the miraculous, powerful working of an Almighty God, and this is the way we have to take it. All right, now then, if you'll come back with me for just a moment, as Pharaoh is now coming under the pressure of all the plagues, and he's trying to do some compromising with Moses—and I don't think we covered him in our last study, but I'll just touch on him. He offers three compromises. One I know we touched on, and that is, he said, well, now if you want to leave, go ahead, but don't go too far. Now what did he imply there? Well, don't let yourselves go so far that I lose control of you. Go for a day or two, worship, and be right back. Well, you see, that's exactly how Satan deals with the lost person. The lost person may start getting an appetite, and the Holy Spirit may be wooing him and bringing him under conviction. And what's the first thing the old devil says? Well, you can get a little religious, but don't get carried away with it. Go ahead and go to church Sunday morning, but forget about it the rest of the week. See, that's Satan's ploy even today. Then secondly, Pharaoh comes back, and he says, well, now, how many of you are going to go? He said, I'll let your men go, but I want to keep your children. And isn't that again exactly how Satan works today? Oh, you know, every parent loves to see their kid get the best of everything. We want to see them be successful. And in our day and time, in this materialistic world we're living in, all we're doing is giving in to, again, the compromise with Satan. Well, yeah, I guess I'll let you have my kids, because after all they've got to make it in this world. They've got to do what everybody else is doing. But listen, that isn't the Lord's idea. That isn't His approach whatsoever. And then, of course, Pharaoh finally comes to the place where he gets so put out with Moses and Aaron—now if you'll look at the Scripture with me. He says in verse 28 of chapter 10, Get thee from me. And he said, Take heed thyself, you'll see my face no more. For in that day that thou seest my face thou shalt die. And it's almost enough to bring a smile to your face, Moses' response. Moses knew, because—see, God had told Moses way at the very beginning that the last plague was going to be super special, and this, of course, would be the plague of taking the life of everything that was first born. And so when Pharaoh makes this statement now, Moses just comes right back in verse 29, and he said, Thou hast spoken well. Pharaoh, you've just said a mouthful. I will see your face again no more. All right, now then, we get into chapter 11, and God encourages Moses, and He says, Yet I will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt, and after this one he'll let you go. And, of course, we know that's exactly what happened. And He says down in verse 5, And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits upon a throne, even to the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill, and all the firstborn of what? Even the beasts, even the livestock. Now imagine what that would do to a society or an economy. It just wrecks it. And verse 6, God promises, There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more. And then verse 7, But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move. Now, you know, it's interesting that throughout Scripture we get little tidbits of information how that God is even in control of the wildlife or the animal kingdom. Now here He's going to make sure that even an Egyptian dog won't bark when Israel gets moved out. And then it always takes me up into the New Testament. You know, when Peter was concerned about tax money, what did Jesus tell him to do? Go down to the seashore, and there will be a fish with enough money in it for your taxes and mine both. And what does that tell you? He's got control, even of the fish, of the animal kingdom. He is totally a controlling God. All right, so He says, Even a dog against man or beast, verse 7, that you may know how that the Lord doth put a—what's the word?—difference. Now, a lot of times I repeat myself. I know I do, but I do it for a purpose, because some of these things, they just don't sink in until we get it hammered and hammered and hammered into us. Now all the way up through Israel's history, beginning, you might say, with Abraham, God is constantly reminding them that they are not like everybody else on the planet, but they're what? They're different. They are His covenant people, and they were never to intermarry with anybody but those of the nation of Israel. They were to have no real social contact with the pagan people around them. Naturally, they had to do business with them and so forth, but socially they were to remain a separated people. And I always like to emphasize—and this shocks people a lot a bit—never did God instruct the Jew to go out and proselyte the Gentiles. You know that? They were never instructed to go out and win the Gentiles even to their religion. And this is kind of hard to accept, because, you know, we're of the opinion that God wanted those people. Of course He did, but He didn't want it by virtue of the Jew proselyting, per se, or evangelizing, because He was dealing strictly with this covenant nation of people who He is going to set aside, and He's going to make them different. Now I'm saying all this to get you ready for someday when we get to the New Testament and when the apostle Paul begins going to the Gentiles, how did the Jews feel about it? Oh, it upset them. See? Who in the world has the right to go to those pagan Gentiles? Well, now, we don't want to come too hard on these Israelites because of that, because after all, for almost two thousand years, God has been telling them and proving to them that they were different, they were His separated people, and it took them a long time to get that out of their system. And that's why, of course, Paul and Peter in Galatians chapter 2 have the confrontation that they had, because, see, Peter just couldn't get that out of his system, that he could go in and sit down and maybe have a ham sandwich with those Gentile believers up at Antioch. And so when his fellow Jews came up from Jerusalem, Paul says, what about Peter? Hey, you withdrew. And Peter went right back to that old mentality that, after all, Jews could not fellowship with Gentiles. But, you see, that's the beauty of the church. Now in the church age, Paul especially emphasizes that there is now no difference, see? And it all has to be brought back to the Old Testament where now God says, there is a difference, and let's not forget that. All right, now then, verse 8, And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee. And after that I will go out. And he went out from Pharaoh in a great anger. And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh will not hearken unto you, so that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel out of his hand. Now we're going to let Pharaoh go for a little bit, and we're going to come into chapter 12, which again is a benchmark chapter, I think, much like Genesis chapter 12, because here we have the introduction of Passover. Passover. Now, we've just come through the Passover season, and if you've been reading your daily papers and other areas, you know that the Jews, the Orthodox Jews at least and some of the other areas of Judaism, have been making a big ado over Passover. They're still practicing it. They still cleanse their house of leaven from top to bottom, and it all goes back to this institution of Exodus chapter 12. Now let's look at verse 1, and the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month, which is now the month that we call April, this month shall be unto you the beginning, or the first of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. In other words, the Jewish calendar now is set up in such a way that April is the first month of their religious year. You know, I don't like to use the word religious, but it's the best one that fits. Now then verse 3, Speak you unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month, the first month of your year, in the tenth day you shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. Verse 4, If the household be too little or too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it, according to the number of souls. Every man, according to his eating, shall make your count for the lamb. In other words, there is never to be a shortfall. There is always supposed to be enough. Now he doesn't say so much about that which is left over, because he tells how to deal with that, but they had to make sure that there was not a shortage, and of course the lesson is coming in just a moment. Then verse 5, Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats, and you shall keep it up, or pen it up, until the fourteenth day of the same month. Now what you've got here, of course, is a beautiful illustration of whom? The Lord Jesus. Now He, too, was, according to our Bible, without spot, without blemish, without sin. But in order to prove that He was spotless, in order to prove that He was sinless, how long did He minister? Three years. And so as this lamb was kept up for three days to be completely observed, the household was to look for any blemish, any sign of poor health, any sign of anything that may have been wrong with it, and if at the end of those three days the lamb was whole, then they could kill it for the Passover sacrifice. Now it's the same way with Christ. He spent that three years up and down the land of Israel. He was under complete scrutiny by the religious authorities, more or less by the ordinary man in the street. He wasn't hidden from anyone, and yet no one could ever point a finger at Him and accuse Him of a wrongdoing. He was without spot. He was without blemish. He was blameless. All right, now then, after they had proved the lamb, then verse 7, they were to take of the blood and strike it on the two sides and on the upper doorpost of the houses wherein they would eat it. Verse 8, and they shall eat the flesh in that night roasted with fire. Now here again comes that beautiful illustration of what His death on the cross really amounted to. The verse following says that they were not to eat it raw, nor sodden at all, or boiled in water, but it was to be roasted with fire. Now the fire here as I see it was indicative of judgment, that just as sure as Christ went through the fires of judgment as He hung on that cross in order to bring about our salvation, this Passover lamb also was roasted with fire. It was not to be fixed any other way but this which indicated a judgment. Now you remember that even as we go on into Israel's religious experience, what happened to all of their sacrifices that were offered upon that brazen altar? They were burned. They were burned with fire. It was the place where sin was being judged. Now I know we're living in a day and time where we hardly ever hear anything about sin anymore. We don't even know what sin is. It's just gotten to the place that every man does whatever he thinks is right in his own eyes. You know, I was telling somebody just the other day, I'm always reminded of that last verse of the book of Judges. You might want to look at it and mark it down, because it is so appropriate for the day in which we find ourselves even today. The whole set of circumstances around us fits this verse, or this verse fits us. Judges chapter 21, verse 25, and remember the book of Judges is the account of Israel's rise and fall, rise and fall. She would go down to the very depths of sin and rebellion and cry out for help, and then God would raise up a judge, and then He would bring them out of it, and they'd be rather spiritual for a while, and then all of a sudden down they'd go again, and that's the whole account of this book. But as the book ends, verse 25, in those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. You know what it was? It was almost anarchy. It was a spiritual famine, and Israel was destitute, because there was nothing to guide them. And see, we're getting there so fast within our own social fabric. I have to feel that this is the problem of so much of our inner city, is that these kids are being raised with no direction. They are being raised with no restraint, and consequently their attitude is, I can do whatever I want to do, because no one is going to make me account for it, and it's going to do nothing but lead us to more and more trouble as I see the whole picture. All right, now then, if you'll come back with me to Exodus once again. They were to now roast it with fire, and they were to stand at the table as they were eating, and they were to have all their clothes on, verse 11, Thus shall ye eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's house over. Now again, let's just get a brief picture of the Jews now. They're in Egypt, and they're in their little huts of one sort or another, but evidently they had a tent or a cabin door, and they were to apply the door to the two side posts and to the lintel. Now I'm convinced that no Jew in Egypt understood what was going on here, but I am just as convinced that God already had the final picture in mind, and that was He was drawing an outline of the cross, because He doesn't say just put the blood on the door. The implicit instruction was on each side post and on the door top, or the lintel. And then He says in verse 12, For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods, plural of Egypt, will I execute judgment. Now I guess I haven't made a point of that, but you want to realize that every one of the plagues were directed against one of the gods of Egypt. In other words, God just proved that their pagan worship had nothing to do with Him whatsoever. He could destroy them at will. And always remember that. And I've stressed it ever since we've started our study way back in Genesis, that ever since the Tower of Babel, the whole human race, until Abraham, was saturated in paganism, in polytheism, in other words the worship of many gods. And so when Israel comes on the scene as His separated, different covenant people, they are the only people on earth. Now I know that at that time the populated earth was there along the Mediterranean area and on into the Middle East and maybe on out to China. But that area of the populated world, every human being except these now coming out of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are pagan worshipers of the many gods. Now that's kind of hard to swallow, but it's the truth of history that all these people of the world are steeped in paganism, and Israel alone is that little group, that little nation that has a knowledge of the one true God. And I know the first thing we say, well then why didn't God send the Jew out into those pagans and enlighten them? Well He wanted to in time, but again He's going to instruct them first. He's going to prepare them, and until they're ready, of course, He's not going to give them that permission. Now there were exceptions, of course. You know He sent Jonah up to Nineveh, that Gentile city, and He certainly responded to Naaman, the Syrian general. But other than that, He has nothing to do with these pagan, non-Jewish people, as He's dealing only now with the house of Israel. All right, so now on the night of the Passover, the death angel is passing throughout Egypt, and it is killing every of the firstborn of man and beast. But verse 13, God says to the nation of Israel, And the blood that is on the doorpost shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, now if you don't mind marking your Bible, underline that, because that's the crucial point. He doesn't say if you behave yourselves. He doesn't say now if you've been living relatively sinless. He doesn't say if you worship Me in a particular way, or if you do this. He says only one thing, and what is it? When I see the blood. When I see the blood, what will you do? I'll pass over you. Now if you can picture in your mind for just a little bit the gross darkness now that has come upon the land of Egypt, and yet up there in Goshen every Jewish family has put the blood on the doorpost as they were instructed. And as the Scripture said they would, as they heard, and even old Cecil B. DeMille, you know, in his movie Ten Commandments, he made that rather accurate, they could hear the weeping and the wailing and the mourning going on throughout the whole communities of Egypt. And yet every Jew who was behind that door with the blood applied was totally safe. They had nothing to worry about. They had nothing to fear. They were absolutely secure, not because of anything they had earned, not because of their goodness, not because of anything except one thing, and what was it? The blood on the door. Now that, of course, was an act of faith. If they didn't put the blood on the door, if they would have scoffed and said, well now wait a minute, what's three little globs of blood on my house door going to have to do with me seeing what God is able to do to the Egyptians? Would they have been safe? No. They would have also lost their firstborn. But evidently, because the Scripture gives us no indication that any Jews were lost, but evidently every single Jewish household in Goshen had the blood on the door, and they were safe. Now, I haven't got time in this program. We're going to have to do it in our next half hour. We're going to be going into the New Testament, and we're going to see that you and I as well, if we are under the blood, we're safe, we're secure. And of course, I always have to qualify that. That doesn't give us license. Never does that give us license. But if we're under the blood, just as sure as those Jews in Goshen, they were safe. They didn't weep and wail and say, well, what if? I haven't been like I should have been the last week. And you know, they were sinners just like we are. But yet the blood applied, made them totally safe and secure. And like I said, I haven't got time in this program, but we're going to in the next half hour, we're going to go into Romans and Ephesians and some of these others, and we're going to see how that this whole exodus from Egypt was God's redemption of the nation. And it was based first upon a person, which was Moses in his case, and it was upon the blood, the Passover lamb in this case, and thirdly the word is hour. We're going to come to that in some future moment when the power of God is going to be exercised not so much now in all the plagues that have come on Egypt, but when Israel stands before the Red Sea and with no way out. And then what happens? The power of God moves in, and the sea opens up, and that's why we have to again take for granted that it was not at some easy place of crossing, but it was where it was the deepest, and they went across on dry ground. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time.