Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Your kids might be at home today. In fact, as we're recording this earlier this weekend, one of the local guys, Pete Cus he works for WFAA, he's their weatherman. He was saying maybe even Monday and Tuesday, potentially schools could be closed because of the extent and reach of this storm and the cold weather. So, maybe you're still all at home as a family and you're choosing to, to get together and listen to this podcast and we just hope. That it warms your heart as we talk about the death of the firstborn, right? Right. Yeah. Okay. Anyways, yeah, it's supposed to warm up this week, so I imagine everything will get back to normal. We're planning to be back to church on Sunday again with you guys, but youth should be back on by Wednesday night. I assume plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps indeed. Proverbs 16, nine. We just went over that with my kids this past week. Yeah. Anyways. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that we live and do this or that. Is this still? Because yesterday I told everybody that we're not meeting for church. I was just saying that with your prophetic gift, maybe you ought to go and do some things. Get start a Facebook industry. Building a building. Dude, I think you need to prophesy a really large facility. I believe that somebody in the room is gonna donate $200,000 before we leave. Shut the doors. Shut the doors. The doors. Lock the doors. Not letting anybody out here, your directors. Anyways. Yeah we're looking forward to getting back into our routine this week though, but. We are in Exodus 11 and 12, and then the rest of Matthew 18. So Exodus 11. We have one more plague to get to and so you may have been counting with us so far. We've gotten to nine and you may know your bible well enough to say, okay there's 10, and so this final plague is going to be the one that finally breaks. Pharaoh's back, so to speak. And so if we look in chapter 11, it opens up with God's instructions to Moses and says, I'm gonna send this one last plague, and here's what I want you to do. I want you to have everybody go to the Egyptians on the way out, and I want you to ask them for gold and silver and jewelry and everything else. And I will give you favor with them. And so. The people are gonna end up doing this, and this is gonna be a way that Israel is, I think, gonna support themselves in part, on the, their wilderness wanderings and on their way into the Promised land. But it's also an act of victory of God over the Egyptians. It's a way for God to gain the spoil, even though it's not necessarily a military victory over the piece of people of Israel. But then here comes. The announcement, and he talks about this great cry. And the great cry that's gonna go through Egypt is because the firstborn of everyone, man and beast alike, is going to die. And he says, Pharaoh's still not gonna listen to you. And so this is going to be the ultimate result of this. This is going to be this final plague. And sure enough, in verse 10 it says, Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go outta the land. So chapter 12 is gonna lay out for us what's known as the Passover, because this is the death of the firstborn. Yeah, this is where, okay, let's back up just one quick second here. The Exodus is the most important significant salvation event in the Old Testament. The rest of the Old Testament will make reference to the Exodus as being kind of the paradigm for God's salvation over Israel and eventually our exodus as New Testament Christians from the land of sin and death into new life with God. So this is a paradigm for future salvation, and this is gonna be one of those keystones on which you hang the rest of the Old Testament upon. That said, one of the additional layers in this is the Passover, because the Passover is more than just a celebration. It's not even a celebration. You can call it that. It's a time of a wholly time set aside to, to make clear that. Egypt, not Egypt. Israel is saved by grace through faith. It doesn't say that, but I'm gonna go out in the limb here and say that's what the point of the Passover is. They're not saved by by just sitting there. They're saved by active faith. Putting the blood over the doorposts. I'm sure we'll talk about that in a moment here, but lemme just. Point out, these are really important chapters because they're a pattern for the rest of how you read scripture. And a lot of scripture as you read through, it's gonna point back to this. And so it's important for you to know what's happening here and to get a sense of its significant. It's gonna have ramifications for years to come. In Chapter 12, Moses is going to give the instructions to Israel as to how they can avoid suffering the same fit as the Egyptians. And it's worth note here that if they don't, then they would end up. This plague would hit them. Just like you made the point that some of the other plagues seem to have hit Israel as well. This would hit Israel too, unless they do what Moses instructs them. And this is where we get the imagery of the lamb. They're gonna take a lamb, it's gonna be a lamb without blemish. In verse five, they're gonna take that lamb and they're going to sacrifice that lamb. They're gonna take some of the blood of the lamb, and they're gonna cover their house with it. They're gonna spread it on the doorpost and the crosspost, the lentil of their house. And this is going to be a sign and it says there in verse the. 13. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. And so this is where we get the language of Passover. Now I had this backwards in my mind for so long. I always used to think this is the angel would Passover as in skipping that he'd see the blood and be like, oh I'm not supposed to visit that house. And he would skip over that house. But instead, notice the language that says. This is God speaking. I will pass over you and no plague will be before you, befall you to destroy you. When I strike the land of Egypt, this is a protective covering of God. That's what it is to pass over the family here. It's not the angel saying, well, I'm gonna skip that house. No, it's God passing over in the sense of. Covering them to protect them from this plague, befalling the house. And so this is God's deliverance by saying, I'm gonna get between you and the death. I'm gonna get between you and the judgment that's coming upon you, and this is going to be done. When I see the blood, when I see the sacrifice, this is what's gonna happen. So that's where we get the title of Passover. It's not skipping, it's more of a covering over in a protective fashion maybe. I don't know. I understood it the way you first announced it, and I think that's what it is. I'm gonna stick with that. Well look at prove it. Okay. Look at verse 23. Right. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians and when he sees the blood on the lentil and on the two door posts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer enter the house to strike you. Right. So. Doesn't that do the same thing? So the Lord is passing over to protect and not allowing. I think the agent is an angel that's being sent to execute the firstborn. And so the passing over, I think is the Lord passing over in a, covering, in a protection manner. The house to prevent the destroyer, the angel from coming in to take out the firstborn of the family. There. Is this, the angel of the Lord? Are we talking about one of these kind of I see your point. I get that. I think you can read it that way, but I think you can naturally read it the way that we have been reading it, and I think it works both ways. Sure. I just, that's where I'm drawing it for You asked why hold that? 'cause I think when it says the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter the house to strike you, there's that. The Lord is the defender, the Lord is the protector. And so in passing over to, to cover over the dean, I do see that. I do see that. I'm gonna have to chew on that. One thing that's worth noting here is. For the family to be saved, for them to experience the Passover protection, they had to take in this animal and it had to be with them for several days. Yeah, four days. I don't know about your family, but mine would probably be heartbroken when they had to destroy, and of course they would've named it. Yeah, they would've named the lamb or the goat and then it would've been awful. 'cause then it's like, well, hey, dad has to take this outside girls, young men, calm down. We're gonna, we're gonna have to do this. Yeah. And I think one of the important points there is that you, I can't see a better way to, to see this other than saying that faith is doing that. It's apprehending the agent of your salvation and taking it in your home and saying, this is mine, this is my salvation. And of course, Jesus being the Passover lamb. We don't just passively acknowledge him as our savior. We take him into our home. He's ours. He's my savior, he's my redeemer. My hope, and it should therefore also have a similar effect that you'd expect a family to have when they lose a beloved animal. When we lose our beloved savior because of our sin, we have a similar feel. It's not the same, but a similar type of response because he's our savior, our Passover lamb. So I think that's really cool. I'm not sure if that's exactly what Moses intended or what God intended through the Passover, but I see that. What do you see? Yeah, yeah. I have, I've thought about that in the past as well in the preciousness of the layman. And it is, they're the ones that are, this is a bloody event and it's still a bloody event. The Israeli, do you still practice this? No, but okay. I think in Israel this last year, they did they observed the Passover and there were lambs that are being slaughtered. Yeah, you're right. It's meant to the preciousness, the value and if nothing else, even just that. This was a cost to the family to give up this lamb, to give up something that would've provided them food down the road or, perhaps more food or the clothing from their wool and things like that down the road. This was a lamb that was without blemish. It was something that was precious. It wasn't the leftovers. And this was something that they were to feel as, as costly. And I think there's that connection there for sure. The plague comes, and this we pick up in verse 29. The Lord struck down at midnight, all of the firstborn in the land of Egypt. And there was a great wailing and it was also in the House of Pharaoh, by the way. You can go to expedition Bible on YouTube and you can watch a video that he's done on the Pharaoh of the Exodus where he makes a compelling argument for one of the pharaohs who was buried with his son, with his teenage son. And so there's an argument that the teenage son was the one that was taken out during the Passover. There. Fascinating video. You can go watch that on the YouTube channel. Again, expedition Bible. But Pharaoh's finally done. And so he calls Moses and says, fine, go. Just get out. And this time there's no questions, there's no conditions. Just go. And so God again, flexes because the Israeli is do plunder the Egyptians on the way out. And so God wins. And it says there in verse 37 that there were about 600,000 men. On foot. And now this was where we would get, and I believe you mentioned it earlier, that number of one to 2 million Israelites that are leaving here because this is simply the men. This is not factoring in the women, this is not factoring in the children. So if we take that number of 600,000, we multiply it by two or three, you can get to one to 2 million pretty easily there. So we've gone from 70 to nearly 2 million people and yet we also need to bear in mind that there were 430 years that has have transpired. Between the announcement of 70 people and the announcement of, one to 2 million people that are leaving Egypt. And so it's possible, especially with God's hand of favor upon them with the Abrahamic covenant that they could have multiplied to this level. I don't think we need to look at these numbers and say these are impossible numbers to sustain. I think this is very possible within what God had promised to Abraham. In the time that had elapsed there. But they're gonna leave. And then following this in the rest of the chapter, we get some of the instructions for what this is gonna look like for remembering this throughout their generations. And that's what this was going to be. And that's what it still is today even that God wants the people of Israel to remember this situation, to remember the exodus, to remember the deliverance. Like you said, this is the most significant deliverance in all of the Old Testament. And this was not just to be a blip on the radar, but something they kept it with. Them and taught their kids and taught their grandkids and generations to come about how God had brought them out from the land of Egypt. Let's flip over to our New Testament reading, which is gonna be Matthew 18. And we are gonna be in the rest of chapter 18 that we didn't get to hit yesterday. So we're gonna pick up again in verse 21. And this is the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. And this is really gonna drive home a lot of what we talked about yesterday, that humility and that understanding, and a lot of our humility before the Lord comes from understanding how much the Lord has forgiven us. When we get into this passage, you have a situation where a man with an insurmountable debt that would've, he never in, in a million years, we have been able to repay this amount that he owed. He is brought in before the king. The king does call him to pay his debt. He says, you do owe this, which is an acknowledgement of the fact that we do owe God absolute perfection and. The man says I can't do it. And the king says, okay, I'm going to forgive you. And so the man then leaves the presence of the king, goes and finds a man, a fellow slave who owes him a pittance in comparison. And he demands that man should pay him. And when he can't, he says, you're gonna go to debtor's prison. In other words, he's not willing to show the same degree of forgiveness to the one to the human. That he was shown by the superior, the king to his peer that he was. Shown by the king and the connection there is this, we've been forgiven so much by the God of the universe. When we hold grudges against one another, when we have a spirit of unforgiveness against other people, no matter what they've done to us what we're doing there is we're in essence saying that their debt is greater than what. Our debt was against God, and that's illustrated here by the fact that this man's debt was nothing compared to what the first man owed the king. And so this is why Jesus takes this so seriously and why he says so also, my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your hearts. Because a lack of forgiveness often betrays the fact that we don't really truly understand true forgiveness, and we may not have experienced it from the Lord to begin with. Yeah. Important to see that this whole section begins with Peter's question to the Lord. How often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? This stems from the conversation that they're continuing with Jesus in yesterday's podcast where we talked about church discipline, though, well, that also began with verse 15. It says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault. And so Peter's kind of working through the implications here and saying, okay, if I tell my brother his fault, that means if all things work out well, they're gonna ask me for forgiveness, and I'm gonna extend forgiveness. Lord, how many times do I really have to do that? What's your expectation? And Jesus' expectation is infinity. Yep. Which is instructive in several ways. First of all, it's this is I, he's talking to a church audience, or at least that's who he has in mind here. And that tells me that you're going to expect when you go to church that your brothers will sin against you. Let that sit on you, they're gonna sin against you. So often the church is charged with hypocrisy and that's not a fair accusation, but we own the fact that we are sinners, and that's the whole reason we are Christians in the first place, we need a savior. And so here, you should expect that Christians will sin against you. And secondly, you should expect that there will be Christians who sin against you multiple times. As many as 77 times Jesus predicts, and the expectation on our part that God has for those of us who are sinned against in the church is that we'll offer forgiveness. That raises so many questions because what if they're sin against us in the same way, the same, you know, in the same kind of pattern. Am I to expose myself to this person in the same way, at the same place at the same time, such that this brings abuse situations to the fore? Mm-hmm. Do I just forgive my spouse because they continue to abuse me? There's some complex questions there, but the heart of this is that Christians who have been forgiven will offer forgiveness. If you have not been forgiven, you won't offer forgiveness. In fact there's a small argument about this passage and I'd love for you to chime in on this Pastor pj, whether or not who is being talked about here is a Christian who is rebelling against God or just someone who's shown to not be a Christian in the first place. Where do you. Land on that for not forgiving. Yeah. So the person that Jesus describes here, the one who goes to his fellow servant and says, pay me what you owe. And then the judge throws him into debtor's prison and says, you're not gonna leave until you pay the last penny. And of course, because his debt is so large, he'll never pay it. I've looked at this as somebody who is. Yeah, it's hard to land hard on one way or the other. I think the thing that I've always taken away from this is if you are, have a persistent, hardened heart towards somebody such that you're not willing to forgive, I don't think you can have a whole lot of confidence in your standing before the Lord that you yourself have been forgiven. So in that case, I would say that this is somebody that is probably self-deceived into thinking that they're a Christian, but their lack of forgiveness is revealing the fact that they're not actually a Christian. I'd be inclined to agree. It seems here he calls him a wicked servant and then he says, this is how my father will do to every he'll help what he'll do to every one of you if you don't forgive your brother from your heart. So I'm with you on that. I think this is one of those litmus testes te testes. Te yeah. Tess says, this is one of those shibolet that shows whether or not you're a Christian. This goes back to my conversation yesterday about humility. Yeah. A humble person will know they have been forgiven far more. Than anything that they will forgive others for. And if that's their position, that's what their self-awareness draws 'em to. Then forgiving others is the natural consequence of that idea. Doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, here's a, here's another question. Do I have to offer forgiveness to somebody if they don't ask? Because here you have someone who says, mm-hmm. Will you forgive me? Yeah. And then Peter says I guess I have to forgive you up to 77 times. Yeah. Do I have to forgive somebody if they don't ask? This is where I've. Talks about it as there's a vertical component of forgiveness and there's a horizontal component of forgiveness. There's a vertical component of forgiveness where we have to be able to release the offense that has been committed against us to the Lord and trust that his justice is gonna be done no matter what, that he's gonna meet out exactly what needs to be done as far as the skills of what's right and wrong are concerned. And so we can forgive in the sense that we're turning that over. We're not harboring that saying, I feel like I've been robbed because I don't. Get my pound of flesh. I feel like I've been wronged because they've never come to me and asked my forgiveness, and so I don't get that moment of. Not gloating, but that moment of satisfaction I've let that go to the Lord. I'm trusting the Lord with that. That's a component of forgiveness. The horizontal component of forgiveness, that relationship, that earthly relationship that you have with that person that may never actually fully be restored. And you brought up cases of abuse and other things like that. And I'd say in those cases, even when the person does come and say, will you forgive me? I think Yeah, you're called by. In scripture to forgive, but that doesn't mean that you're called to then welcome that person back into your life in the same degree that they were in your life pre prior to that, or welcome them around your family or anything like that, that you're gonna be there's consequences for sin, and that could look like broken relationships. That, that remain broken in the sense that you, the two of, you're not gonna be close anymore, but should you still forgive that person? Yeah, you need to let that go. And that's where I go back to, I think the component of your relationship with God is the most important thing here is are you holding onto that saying, God, this is mine to take vengeance on it, or are you releasing that and turning that over to God and trusting that he will care for that. Yeah, that's a really helpful distinction. And I was taught. To define one as attitudinal forgiveness versus transacted forgiveness, and the attitudinal one being the one that you're talking about. Where between you and God, you released the person Erica Kirk famously forgave Charlie, Kirk's murderer on national, I don't know if it was national television. Yeah, but some major thing she says, I forgive you. Something like that. That's attitudinal forgiveness because I'm quite sure that the man who pulled the trigger didn't ask for it, right? So attitudinally, we are commanded by God to release those who sin against us, release them not as in, you're gonna get off scot free because God will ultimately settle accounts. And that's what allows us to do this. But the transactive forgiveness is the one that you pray for, the one that you want to have happen. That one only takes place when there's a I'm sorry that I sin against you or will you forgive me? And then the other person says, yes, I'll forgive you. That's transacted forgiveness that may not take place in this life. But attitudinal forgiveness that can always take place. And I believe God does command us to do that. Yep. Well, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Lord, we thank you for the the forgiveness that we have from you that has motivated or compelled us to say we want to forgive others. We thank you for the riches of your grace. We thank you for the deliverance that we have in Christ that we can even see as even greater than what we saw in the Old Testament with the Exodus. And so, God, we just pray that you would help us to live as those that are overwhelmed by your grace and your mercy that are compelled to forgive others that are compelled to live in light of the glorious reality of what we have all received from Jesus. So we thank you for this. We pray for a great rest of our day. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Stay consistent, guys. You're doing a great job. Keep reading those Bibles and we'll be back with you again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Please join us then. Bye.

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