(Exodus) Exodus 12:3-4

Now, we're going to watch God make bricks with plenty of straw. He has a lot of individuals, and the Passover is the oldest religious holiday known to man. It's not a national holiday in the sense that Yom Kippur is, the Day of Atonement, but it is a religious holiday, and it was a family affair.

God redeemed the individual in the family. Now, this is to be, though, the birthday of the nation. This is the beginning of months, and the zero hour has come.

Here is where the countdown begins for the exodus out of Egypt. And notice now what he says in verse 3, "...speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house." Now, there are two prominent points of emphasis in this verse here. You can see it's a family celebration that we're going to have.

First is the blood, and the second is the house or the family. The lamb speaks, of course, of the blood that will be put on the doorposts. This is a great emphasis.

Now, God's putting on the family, though they've become a nation, and He'll deliver the nation, but He does it by families and the families by individuals. Notice, "...every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house." You see, this is getting it right down to the family, to each house. Now listen to this verse, verse 4, "...and if the household be too little for the lamb." Well, it doesn't say anything about the lamb being too little for the household.

That wouldn't happen. The lamb is sufficient, friends. The way this is presented, the lamb is adequate.

"...if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls. Every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb." Now God goes right down to the individual in the family. "...every man shall be counted in on this." You take the lamb for a family, but here's a man and his wife.

They are childless. They have no children, or maybe their children are married and moved off somewhere else. Well, then he joins maybe with his neighbor who's in the same position.

It's just he and his wife. So they get together and they divide the lamb according to the individuals that are there. Now, it may be that there is a man next door that's got half a dozen or maybe a dozen children.

Well, before you decide to bring those two families together, make sure that each individual will get part of the lamb. You see, this is to be a personal, private matter. The redemption is for the nation, yes, but it centers in the family and it must be accepted and received by each individual in that family.

The Passover, I said, is a family affair. And then notice how important that is. God gives them here just the modus operandi by which God saved individual Israelites.

It's not because they're a member of a nation or belong to a family, but an individual. You remember, we have the story, and this ought to throw light on many problems and many questions that come to us here. And one is, well, was the family of the Philippian jailer saved because the Philippian jailer believed? No, each member of his family had to have a transaction with the lamb, had to partake of the lamb.

That was true here. Every member had to exhibit his faith in this way. Or he was out, by the way.

And so when we say that the Philippian jailer and his family were saved because of the faith of the Philippian jailer, you just didn't read that verse right. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved and thy family. Well, somebody says, it says then if you believe your family.

No, your family will have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and they'll be saved. Here is the picture of our redemption, and let's look at the picture. Each member, every man according to his eating, shall make your count for the lamb.

Each one will have to participate and partake of it in order to come in under the blessing, you see, and the redemption of the blood that's out on the doorposts of the family. Now, this is a fateful night in Egypt, and it's the last of the plagues, by the way. And the land of Goshen, you remember, was spared during the last three plagues.

God's people were delivered from judgment. But you see, they're not redeemed, and they have to now be redeemed and exhibit faith in the blood. That evening, Israel was doing a very odd thing.

And if you go inside any of the homes that night where the blood was sprinkled on the doorposts, you'll notice something's taking place.