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- First, we were given the Passover tradition of unleavened bread. Now we’re given a direction for when the Lord brings them into the Promised Land.
- They are told to set apart to the Lord all the firstborn males whether human or animal.
- The firstborn male child is not to be sacrificed, but is to be consecrated, made holy, set apart to the Lord by redeeming it. A price has to be paid.
- This ritual is honoring God, remembering His strong arm delivering His people out of Egypt and saving them when the firstborn of all Egypt was killed.
- They had been passed over and it was a protection bought with blood.
- In time God would give His own firstborn son to be the sacrificial lamb, to redeem and buy back a people for Himself, to set them apart as holy, to make them His own.
- Again, we are told this also will be as a mark on their hands or on their foreheads.
- There is no command to write these things down and put them in little boxes and tie them onto your hands and foreheads, which becomes a tradition among the Jews.
- What is the mark?
- The mark is the remembering, the believing, the showing of those things by the obeying of the command.
- Your head is your thoughts. Your hand is your actions.
- When Jesus sent His only Son because He loved the world, it was so that whoever believed in Him would be saved. How do we show we believe?
- We obey His word. If we don’t live by His word, then it shows we don’t really believe it.
- How are you marked for God?
- You remember, trust, and obey.
