ESOCS Devotional 15 April 2024 – Covered by the Blood
MEMORY VERSE: “Apply some of this blood to the lintel and the two doorposts. And none of you shall go outdoors until morning.” Exodus 12:22b
TEXT: EXODUS 12:15-29
Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you. 17 So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. 18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. 19 For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. 20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’ ”
21 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. 22 And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. 24 And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. 25 It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service. 26 And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 27 that you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’ ” So the people bowed their heads and worshiped. 28 Then the children of Israel went away and did so; just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
29 And it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock.
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Moses and Aaron had announced to Pharaoh the plagues that God would send upon the land, if Pharaoh refused to let God’s people go, after four hundred and thirty years of Egyptian captivity. The message, however, only made Pharaoh all the more stubborn, and he hardened his heart against the Lord. And so, God sent plagues upon the land. Through the first sixth plagues – the plagues of bloody waters, frogs, lice, flies, dead livestock, and boils, Pharaoh’s heart only became more hardened. Lord, have mercy! When God speaks to us, we ought to listen and take heed. God didn’t force Pharaoh to reject Him, rather, God gave Pharaoh every opportunity through these plagues, to change his mind.
Scripture reminds us it is God’s desire that none should perish. But as Pharaoh continued to harden his heart, God sent more plagues: the Lord God sent hail, then Locusts, then darkness upon Egypt for 3 days. Finally, God determined to send death itself to every firstborn male of man and beast in Egypt. Then said God to Moses, “I will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh and Egypt, after that, he will let you go.”
In Exodus 12, God instituted the Passover, which became and yet remains a High and Holy Jewish Holiday in which the Jewish people celebrate and remember their deliverance from Egyptian slavery by God.
For the Jews to be spared by the death angel passing through Egypt, God instructed them to take an unblemished lamb with no defects, kill it and place its blood upon the lintel and door frames of their homes. That night when the death angel passed through Egypt, they were literally covered by the blood, in that death could not touch them. Does this sound familiar? “This is my blood of the new covenant shed for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28).
The significance of the lamb was that in killing the lamb, Israel had shed innocent blood. The lamb was a sacrifice; a substitute for the person who would have died in the plague. From this night on, Israel would forever be reminded that an innocent life had to be sacrificed in their place.
May the blood of Jesus, which speaks better things cover and save us today and beyond in Jesus’ mighty name, amen.
- Keep yourself in the house sealed with the blood of Jesus so that you won’t experience calamity in your life.
- Father, I commit myself to your hands. Please hold me forever close to you so that I might not stray away from you.
Further Reading: Job 19:21-27; John 5:4-10; Revelation 1:1-8
ESOCS Devotional 15 April 2024
