Cornerstone Christian Fellowship Jacksonville

Passover to Tabernacles - Part 4

November 21, 2021 Cornerstone Christian Fellowship
Cornerstone Christian Fellowship Jacksonville
Passover to Tabernacles - Part 4
Show Notes Transcript

Ex 17:6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

Today we will begin to look at events beyond the death and shed blood of the Passover lambs in Egypt.

The full text of this message and supplementary study questions can be found on our website.

Sunday November 21st 2021
Passover to Tabernacles
Part 4

1). We will begin this morning by reviewing some of the significant things we have learned from our past weeks of study concerning the nation of Israel and their part in the fulfillment of God’s redemptive purpose and rulership in the Seventh Day – Ge 9:26 And he said: “Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem, And may Canaan be his servant. 27 May God enlarge Japheth, And may he dwell in the tents of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant.”

We have seen that God would work through just one of Noah’s sons, Shem, and it is established from the foundation that Shem and his descendants would be the only ones with whom God would have relationship and that all others can only seek access to God through this one lineage, through ‘dwelling in the tents of Shem’.
a). And this lineage we have traced from Shem, through Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob and Jacob’s twelve sons and their descendants – 
Ex 3:6……….. “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Ex 5:1………Thus says the LORD God of Israel…….

And it was ‘in Jacob’ that God performed a creative act that produced a son of God from Jacob’s descendants, the nation of Israel; a son that was then adopted as a firstborn son, to whom was given the rights of the firstborn; to be ruler over the father’s house, to be a priest in the father’s house and to have a double portion of the inheritance.
b). And only through this adopted firstborn son, who had come through the lineage of Shem, can anyone have access to God. This adopted firstborn son, the nation of Israel, is the only nation that has ever had a God. No Gentile nation can have access to God except by dwelling ‘in the tents of Shem’, going to the only nation, the only son, with whom God resides.
c). And from the beginning, God had distributed the Gentile nations throughout the earth, so that they could be evangelized by and ruled over by Israel, so that they could receive the knowledge of God, receive redemption, and receive God’s promised blessing – De 32:8 When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel. 9 For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.

And this is something Paul also drew attention to in - Acts 17:26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us………..

God’s adopted firstborn son, Israel, has been created to be the people through whom all the Gentile nations would have access to Him. And the nation has been called to be the instrument of this purpose - Isa 43:10 “You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. 11 I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior. 12 I have declared and saved, I have proclaimed, And there was no foreign god among you; Therefore you are My witnesses,” Says the LORD, “that I am God.

Isa 44:6 “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God. 7 And who can proclaim as I do? Then let him declare it and set it in order for Me, Since I appointed the ancient people. And the things that are coming and shall come, Let them show these to them. 8 Do not fear, nor be afraid; Have I not told you from that time, and declared it? You are My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me? Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one.’ ”

And it has always been God’s intention that through this one nation, with whom God resides, would come salvation for all the Gentiles who would receive it – Jn 4:22……for salvation is of the Jews. 

And this salvation can only be based on the death and shed blood of the substitutionary Lamb of God, who God had given to Israel to slay, the Jewish Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ – Jon 2:9………..Salvation is of the LORD.”

And these two irrevocable truths, seen in John and Jonah, have an inseparable connection to the feast of Passover, a feast, as we have seen, that places Israel at the heart of God’s redemptive purpose, a purpose whose beginning is recorded in Genesis 1:2, with commentary given to us in - Re 13:8…..the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Redemption for the Gentile nations then, to bring deliverance to them, was not only Israel’s calling but the purpose for the nation’s creation. A purpose that has not yet been realized but will be fulfilled in the Feast of Tabernacles, in the Seventh Day – Ro 11:11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. [the salvation of the soul having come to eternally saved Gentiles, the one new man in Christ] 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!

2). It is this one nation, the descendants of Abraham though Isaac and Jacob, with whom God resides, and through whom He sees all things, that sojourned in a land not theirs, ultimately being brought into bondage in Egypt until the pre-appointed time when God delivered them – 
Ex 12:40 Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. 41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—on that very same day—it came to pass that all the armies of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

God had provided the Passover and God had accepted the death and shed blood of the lambs as a substitute for the death of His adopted firstborn son. And by a sovereign act of His own will He delivered them from Egypt, bringing them to newness of life, through the Red Sea crossing, in order to bring them to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from which they were to fulfill their calling, accomplishing the purpose for their creation, and fulfill the promises to Abraham – Ex 19:4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

We had seen last week as we looked at these verses, that although no other nation can accomplish that which has been given to Israel, and that which God has said concerning the calling and purpose of Israel can never change, this first generation to leave Egypt, as with all subsequent generations, had to obey His voice and keep His covenant if they were to be the ones in whom God’s purpose for the nation would be fulfilled.
a). It was, however, only a few short weeks after leaving Egypt that the people began to complain against Moses and Aaron and therefore complain against the Lord – Ex 16:1 And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. 2 Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Ex 17:1 Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, “Give us water, that we may drink.” So Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the LORD?” 3 And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said, “Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

And as we know, the unbelief characterized through their continual complaining escalated into the golden calf incident and reached its zenith in the nation’s refusal to enter the land at Kadesh Barnea.
b). And between the beginning of their complaining and their refusal to enter the land, we find two complementary events that look ahead one thousand five hundred years to the death and shed blood of the Passover Lamb at Calvary.
c). Before we look at these events though, let’s establish some truth and some context. It remains true that the first generation of Israel, or the second generation or any subsequent generation, including those at the Lord’s first advent, could have acted in faithful obedience to that which God required of them and could therefore have been the ones through whom God’s purpose for the nation would have been fulfilled. Although this remains an unalterable truth, what is revealed in the foundation confirms that the possibility of bringing this to fulfillment was not going to be realized until a time that remains yet future even today.
d). To begin, God had established that there would be six days of work to be followed by a Seventh Day of Rest. And knowing that these days are one thousand years each in length did not begin when Peter penned the words. Rather God had explained through Peter the timeframe in which He had been working from Adam onwards.
e). With this in mind, as we come to the Exodus, we can see that these events were happening in the third day from Adam, not the sixth, still being three thousand years short of the Seventh Day.
f). And we can add into this timeframe the promise given in – 
Ge 3:15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

The promised Seed of the Woman is the Christ, but He was not manifested in the flesh until close to the end of the fourth day. When ‘the fullness of the time had come’. One thousand five hundred years beyond the Exodus.
g). And in addition to this we can also add – Ge 4:8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

The type given in this verse shows that the Christ, pictured through Abel, would be killed by His brother, pictured through Cain, when they were in the world together, and this did not happen until the Lord’s first advent. And although that pictured through Cain killing Abel was foreshadowed in the killing of every Passover lamb throughout Israel’s generations, it did not come in time until almost four thousand years from Adam, and still two days, two thousand years, before the Seventh Day.

Ge 22:15 Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

Then adding to the type seen through Cain and Abel, the sacrifice of Isaac shows the offering of the Son, the only Son, by the Father, again taking us forward in time to Calvary. And as the Lamb, the only Son that God the Father gave, was ‘slain from the foundation of the world’, the events of Calvary were always inevitable. And according to the sequence seen in the verses from Genesis Chapter 15, Israel could not and cannot possess the gate of their enemy before that pictured in the sacrifice of Isaac is complete.
h). Even as the first generation of Israel journeyed to the land of promise within the Theocracy established at Sinai, God’s purpose for His chosen people could not be realized before His Son was sacrificed outside the gates of Jerusalem, one thousand five hundred years later.
i). Then the giving of the seven feasts to Israel pointed prophetically to the fulfillment of God’s purpose for the nation within His established seven-thousand-year timeframe. And as such this has established that all must wait until Passover, and the other five feasts given to Israel, are fulfilled within God’s timing, before the gate of their enemy can be possessed in the Seventh Day, the last of the seven feasts, Tabernacles. And of course, all had to begin with the Passover in Jerusalem when the Lamb of God was slain.
j). And the slaying of the Lamb at Calvary has made possible the formation of the bride of Christ from among eternally saved Gentiles – 
Acts 15:14 Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name.

And made possible their rule together with Christ, typified in Adam and the Woman in the foundation. A work that is taking two thousand years to bring to completion.

2). And as Israel journeyed towards the land, so we come to the two complimentary events that foreshadow Christ’s death as the Lamb and that which would follow – Ex 17:4 So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me!”
5 And the LORD said to Moses, “Go on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel. Also take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 So he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”

And according to – 1 Co 10:4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.

The Rock that was struck at Horeb was Christ, and let’s remember what we read in Isaiah Chapter 44, Indeed there is no other Rock. And as such this takes us back in one direction to the striking of the Passover lambs in Egypt and to the striking of Christ on the cross in the other.
a). As the Rock was struck in Horeb, so water came from the Rock for the people to drink. And although this would have been a literal event with literal water coming from the Rock, we can see from 1 Corinthians Chapter 10, that there is a spiritual application to be seen through the literal event.
b). If we go back and look at the striking of the Passover lambs in Egypt, we will see this – Ex 12:6 Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. 7 And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. 8 Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

Once the lambs were killed and the blood applied, then the flesh of the lambs was to be eaten. After the death and shed blood there was to be an eating of that which had been killed in conjunction with unleavened bread.
c). Then in Exodus Chapter 17, after the Rock was struck, there was to be a drinking of that which came from the Rock, water. And as Exodus Chapter 17 reflects on Exodus Chapter 12, and vice versa, the eating of the lambs and the drinking of the water from the Rock must be seen as picturing one and the same thing. And both the flesh of the lambs and the water from the rock find a parallel in the manna – Ex 16:15 So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.

Again, we see that it is only after the Passover and deliverance from Egypt that God provided the manna for the children of Israel to eat. And in God’s provision to them of the flesh of the lambs, the manna, and the water from the Rock is His provision of the sustenance necessary to take His redeemed people from Egypt to Canaan, sustenance that was both physical and spiritual – 1 Co 10:3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink.

And that seen through God’s provision for His people following Passover provides great spiritual truth for us – 1 Co 10:6 Now these things became our examples [types]……………

Let’s look at a conversation Jesus had which is recorded in John Chapter 6 Jn 6:31 Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” 35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

The part of the conversation we are looking at here begins with a reference to the manna eaten by that first generation in the wilderness. And in the verses that follow Jesus makes it quite clear that He is the true bread from heaven. The manna in the wilderness was the type and He is the antitype.
d). And I am sure we have already noted that at the end of v35 Jesus said, ‘He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. Hunger and thirst, the two things the first generation complained of as recorded in Exodus Chapters 16 and 17.
e). And then, through a reference that takes us back to Exodus Chapter 12, Jesus said this - Jn 6: 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” 52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” 53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

To be sustained on our pilgrimage from the land of our birth to the land of our calling, so that we might have life for the age to come we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, God’s provision for our spiritual sustenance during the course of our journey.
f). And as we have seen from the types of the flesh of the lambs, the manna, and the water from the Rock in Exodus, this provision is only available following the appropriation of death and shed blood, following the application of the blood, and is therefore, only available to those who have passed from death to life. Those who have been raised by the Spirit to walk in the Spirit.
g). And just as the flesh of the lambs, the manna, and the water from the Rock all speak of the same thing, so eating Christ’s flesh and drinking His blood are two ways of saying the same thing also. And without doing this we cannot have life for the age to come. And because of the types in Exodus, eating Christ’s flesh and drinking His blood would only become possible after His death.

We will need to return to this next time though, if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.