“Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the sacrificial lamb’s blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the door frame. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning,” Moses said to the people of Israel. Why? Why were the Israelites told to stay in their houses? Was it for their safety and protection from the angel of death?
The Israelites had been in captivity for 430 years, but they were about to be set free. However, not before the Lord had already sent nine previous plagues against Pharaoh and the land of Egypt. “Let My people go,” the Lord had said. But Pharaoh refused. God regarded the nation of Israel as His firstborn, and because of Egypt’s extremely harsh assault of the Israelites during their captivity for four centuries, God was about to do something so unprecedented, so unheard of, that it sent Egypt reeling when it happened.
At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon. Not a house escaped. That night the firstborn son of every family who did not have the lamb’s blood on their door frame was killed. (This foreshadowed the protection of the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, who died for the sins of all people.) Every firstborn of the Egyptians died, but not so with the Israelites. They were spared because the blood of the lamb had been placed on their door frames and the angel of death passed over their houses. They were under the blood of the lamb.
And so begins the story of redemption.
Redemption means “to buy back.” That is the way God chose to redeem us; to buy us back by offering His Son in exchange for us. It was a tremendous price to pay! We could never pay the debt of all our sins. Jesus Christ, our substitute, the sacrificial Lamb has already redeemed us by His death on the cross. When Jesus did that, He cleared the way for us to begin a relationship with God. Our part is to trust Him and receive His gift of eternal life.
At midnight on Friday, March 29, 2020, all of us received the order to “stay in your house.” Is the mandate set in place for our safety and protection? Yes, but it also serves a dual purpose – that of trying to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus in order to give hospitals and those workers on the front line time to gear up for the next assault of the virus.
The Exodus account is not an allegory, but rather a parallel. I’m wondering, is God about to do something unprecedented in our generation? Could He be close to delivering His people? Are you ready? Are you under the blood of the Lamb?