Remember Your Day

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Welcome to Hope for Today, a weekly Bible teaching program that will bring you hope for every day. Hello and welcome. Thanks for joining us. As we continue our study in Exodus, it is encouraging to hear from God and learn more about him in the Bible. This happens no matter which book of the Bible we are focusing on. This is not just a book. It is alive and in every section of the Bible there is more for us to learn. We look forward to what J. Mark will teach us from Exodus and how these truths will teach us more about God and how we can live for Him. Let's give our attention to J. Mark now. [00:00:53] Speaker A: Everyone has certain special days in their life. I'm sure you have them too. Your birthday, or maybe your baptism or a graduation or a wedding, or perhaps some other day that's marked on your calendar as a special day for you or the country where you live. Did you know that the practice of honoring special events on certain days comes from the Bible? Yes, it does. And one such day to remember is recorded for us in Exodus chapter 13 and verses 1 through 16. So I invite you to listen as I read that portion of scripture, Exodus chapter 13, beginning with verse one and the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, sanctify unto me all the firstborn. Whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast, it is mine. And Moses said unto the people, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt out of the house of bondage for by the strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place. There shall no leavened bread be eaten this day you came out in the month Abib, and it shall be when the Lord shall bring you into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore unto your fathers to give you, and a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall keep this service in this month seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days, and there shall be no leavened bread to be seen with you, neither shall there be any leaven seen with you in all your quarters. And you shall shew your son in that day, saying, this is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt. And it shall be for a sign unto you upon your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that the Lord's law may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand has the Lord brought you out of Egypt? You shall therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year. And it shall be when the Lord shall bring you into the land of the Canaanites, and as he swore unto you, and to your fathers, and shall give it to you, that you shall set apart unto the Lord all that opens the womb. And every firstling that comes from a beast which you have, the males, shall belong to the Lord. And every firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb. And if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. And all the firstborn of man among your children you shall redeem. And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, what is this that you shall say to him. By strength of hand, the Lord brought us out from Egypt from the house of bondage. And it came to pass, when Pharaoh did not want to let us go, that the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that opens the womb, being males, but all the firstborn of my children I redeem. And it shall be for a token upon your hand and for frontlets between your eyes. For by strength of hand, the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt. In this text from the Scripture, we have a word from the Lord regarding a very special day for the people of Israel, both in the past and in the present. In that special day, the Lord emphasized several remembrances, such as, so they would never forget what he had done for them. These remembrances can be helpful to us also to remember our day. Just as the children of Israel were instructed to remember your day, so let's look at these remembrances. The first one is, remember the day of deliverance. Moses spoke to them about how they were brought out of the house of bondage. And you can read about that bondage in the earlier chapters of the Book of Exodus. The people of Israel were very much oppressed and suppressed. That is, they were held down. They were not even citizens of the country. They were simply slaves. They had no legal rights and they had no freedom. They were in bondage. And Moses said, remember the day of deliverance, when the Lord brought you out of the house of bondage. So Moses reminded them that it was not their strength that brought them out of that house of bondage. No, no. It was the hand of God. For by strength of the hand of the Lord, he brought you out of this place. And so, by all considerations, Israel needed to ascribe their deliverance to the Lord. The strength of the Lord God. He brought them out of bondage into freedom. He spoke about the land, the new land to which they were going. Land that was currently possessed by different nations. The Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. And so a new land and a new relationship were to be theirs. For the Lord said it was to be a land flowing with milk and honey. Even so, they were to keep this remembrance in this month. Seven days of eating unleavened bread instead of normal bread. And it was to be a joyous seven day feast, because it reminded them of that day of deliverance. And, and it symbolized a complete newness of life. I'm happy to tell you there can be a deliverance for everyone because the Lord's hand is still strong enough to deliver. The prophet Isaiah, speaking for God, once said, the hand of the Lord is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor the Lord's ear heavy, that it cannot hear. So the reason people are not saved and the reason the Lord doesn't seem to hear is, Is not his fault. It's their sin that separates them from him. Yes, there can be a day of deliverance for everybody. A day of deliverance for you, my friend. Because God, in the strength of his hand will deliver you just as he delivered his people in those ancient days. And then Moses gave them a second remembrance to remember the law of the Lord. You know, I am so thankful that God has given us his book, the Holy Scripture. How awful it would be if we didn't have some word, some revelation from God. But when you have a word from God, when you have a word from the Lord, you carry a certain responsibility. And that responsibility is to remember the word of the Lord yourself, and then to tell it to your children and to your grandchildren. I find in Moses counsel to the children of Israel a very important emphasis. I'll call it family religion. You can never expect your son to be any more religious than you are. And so the Lord laid a responsibility on the Father here in this message. The message was, remember the law of the Lord. Because when your son asks you, then you are to tell him what happened. You are to relate to him what God did. You are to say, the Lord did this unto me when I came forth out of Egypt. But then there is more than just telling it, there is also doing, and that is setting an example. And so the Lord said, this shall be a sign unto you upon your hand, if you are so Controlled by the word of God as having it on your hand, then that will sanctify everything you do during the day. It will change the way you look at your work. It will change the way you look at your leisure. It will set you apart. It will sanctify your labor and whatever you do and give it greater purpose. And then he also says, you are to have this as a memorial between your eyes. So it screens your vision. You know, our eyes are a marvelous part of our body. And when you have the law of the Lord between your eyes, it will screen your vision. Look at the world and look at life through God's law. And then he said, the law of the Lord shall be in your mouth. If you have the law of the Lord in your mouth, it will affect what you say. It will affect how you respond to other people. It will make your speech much better. So remember the law of the Lord. Tell your son about it, and then show him by having the law of the Lord prominent in your own life. Show your son that you live by what the Bible teaches. And then God said, this ordinance shall be to you from year to year. An ordinance carries with it the idea of an inscription or something like an engraving on stone. And so he said, this ordinance is to be inscribed or engraved in your heart. Remember the law of the Lord. And then Moses expressed a third remembrance. Remember the saving of the firstborn. In God's program for Israel, the firstborn was special. He put it this. Sanctify unto me all the firstborn. And that means to set them apart. When you sanctify something, you take it out of its ordinary setting and you put it aside for holy use. That's setting it apart. Now notice in verse 12, they were instructed by Moses. That is, the people were instructed by Moses. And you shall set apart unto the Lord all that opens the womb. The firstborn is not like the second or the thirdborn according to the word of the Lord. To remember the salvation of the firstborn means to acknowledge that the firstborn is sacred to God. Now, that was true under the old covenant. That is not true under the new covenant today. No matter what the birth order, all are regarded equal in God's sight. But Moses went on to tell the people, it is a sacred responsibility to communicate this to your son, to your family, because he said, it shall be. When your son asks you in time to come, saying, what is this? Or why do you do this? Then you will tell him that the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt when we were about to come out. Therefore, the firstborn of beasts we must sacrifice, and the firstborn of the children must we shall redeem. To redeem something means that something else must be put in its place. Something must die in its place. In fact, Moses instructed them to redeem an ass or a donkey with a lamb. In other words, sacrifice a lamb that the ass may live. The saving of the firstborn Remember it. Moses instructed the people of Israel there is saving for the firstborn because God set them apart as special, separated for holy use. The remembrances then may also come to you and me today, the day of your deliverance, the law of the Lord, and the saving of the firstborn. You can make all of this real and meaningful in your own life and family. God wants you to enter into this by faith in him to help you remember your day. [00:12:12] Speaker B: Thank you J Mark for this teaching from Exodus. And we thank you for joining us as Christians. It is a privilege to serve and trust our God, Our God who is above every nation as his people. It is good for us to remember the important principle in Daniel 4:17. It says that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdoms of men and gives it to whomever he will, and sets over it the lowest of men. This verse teaches, our sovereign God is over the kingdoms on earth. What happens here among our leaders is known and directed by Him. We don't always know how this can be and when I don't, I usually tell God. I don't know why this is happening or why you are allowing it. But I trust you and I pray that your people will stay faithful, be encouraged in this story from Exodus that our God was in control and the same God who was in control back then is still in control now. Do you have any thoughts from today's teaching? If you want to share them with us, here are a few ways you can contact us. One of the best ways is via email. Our email is hopeheraldsofhope.org if you don't have email, no problem. Our address is HopeFor Today, Box 3, Breezewood, Pa 15533 or you can connect with us on our website. Our website is heraldsofhope.org While you're there, please check out the Listen tab and listen to to our other teaching again. The website is heraldsofhope.org this brings us to the end of today's program. Thanks again for being there. Please join us again next week for another lesson from Exodus. Go with God this week and know that he is big enough for your circumstance. Trust him because the Most High rules in the kingdoms of men.