Jews had an “old life” that ceased to exist. It brought them into more than reaching the “Promised Land” it ushered in a totally new life.

When we come to Christ, the bible teaches us that our old life ceases and we also start a new one—a new way of life and lifestyle.

If anyone belongs to Christ, there is a new creation. The old things have gone; everything is made new! 2 Corinthians 5:17

When Israel departed Egypt (the old lifestyle) the Red Sea opened up ahead of them so that they could cross over to start that new life—but it also closed up behind them, indicating that  everything of the past was left behind. This included their sins and failures and the plagues that struck the land. It was God’s intention that they could never return or revert to their old ways and this is what the Gospel is about. When Jesus died, that old life died with him. When He was buried, so too was our old life. When He rose from the dead in triumph, we also rose with Him indicating that all the old life was gone and a new one emerged, just like a grub goes into its cocoon to emerge as a beautiful butterfly. This is the kind of thing Paul spoke of in Colossians 2:9-15.

The sacrifice of that Passover lamb was a once-only event. The sacrifice of Jesus was a once-only event. God has provided the means whereby we can remember both whilst looking forward to the new.

God commanded Jews to remember what He had done—to keep this ordinance in his season from year to year. It is similar to what Jesus told us in Luke 22:19 to partake of communion in an act of remembrance, not a sacrament. They do it once a year, but we can do this whenever we want. It may be old, but it is perpetually new.

After leaving Egypt behind, God instructed Moses to build the Tabernacle, establish the Priesthood and observe the Feasts of the Lord in their seasons, laying down prescribed ways of going about it. He told Moses to make sure everything was done in strict accordance to the pattern He had shown him. Jesus said that He would build His Church and it too must be built strictly according to the Divine pattern, but it seems that we have strayed away from that pattern. God has never deviated fom His plan and it is so that He can dwell with His people.

It is a progressively unfolding plan that in our present illustration, started at Passover. Worship was in a tent, then in the Temple and now the central core of our worship starts in our hearts. We are now the temples of the Holy Spirit. There is much more to this of course, but I hope I have revealed the principle. Let us now look more at the whole Passover event starting at Exodus chapter 2.

Verse 21 says that Moses was content to dwell in Midian. Stop here. Midian was Abraham’s son by Keturah. God had promised him a son by Sarah and that their children would be heirs of the promise. No mention was ever made about any other offspring!

We know about Hagar and Ishmael, but rarely think of Midian. The Hebrew meaning of the name is strife!

This further illustrates that when we try to help God, try to force issues, or do things that He never authorized (including ministry, or building a church) we can run into all kinds of problems. whilst there are some good connotations, some of those problems include compromise, pleasing yourself, making alliances with people we should never meet and so on.  The Hebrew word is yaʾal and it indicates that Moses was at risk of missing God’s call and was contented with his lot. He accepted an invitation to settle down and marry Zipporah. When they had a son, Moses named him Gershom that means foreigner. He admitted that he had been a stranger in a strange land when he named his son! He knew that he was not in the right place!

How many of us are like that? How many of us are avoiding God’s call on our lives and making feeble excuses? How many of us are doing things that God never asked us to do? This story has tremendous implications that we may not think of. Perhaps what I said about Moses is why God had to intervene and appear in the burning bush. Let’s see what happened.

After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The people of Israel groaned, because they were forced to work very hard. When they cried for help, God heard them. God heard their cries, and he remembered the agreement he had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He saw the troubles of the people of Israel, and he was concerned about them. Exodus 2:23-25

This indicates a change in season. We need to remember that there are seasons in God. It is hard at times, because we do not like waiting and want things to happen our own way and immediately, especially if we have a “promise from God”. I think it was approximately 350 years after Genesis when this happened. God does not forget, but the bible describes it as if He had and suddenly remembered. He had already told Abraham what would happen and it did, but it seemed to us that God had “forgotten” and someone had to jog His memory. It really is not like that. What we need to do is to start thinking on His wavelength and when we do, things fall into place.

Think of it as if God turned the page on His calendar to the place where He had marked, “Today is the day I will start putting this plan into effect”. If we think like that, it can make it easy to handle things better.

The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire—out of the midst of a bush. It got Moses’ attention! God was watching and waiting! This is very important. God did nothing until Moses responded (see verses 3 & 4). Perhaps God has been waching and waiting for us today? When Moses asked God who He was, the reply was:

God said to Moshe, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh [I am/will be what I am/will be],” and added, “Here is what to say to the people of Isra’el: ‘Ehyeh [I Am or I Will Be] has sent me to you.’ ” God said further to Moshe, “Say this to the people of Isra’el: ‘Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [Adonai], the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham, the God of Yitz’chak and the God of Ya‘akov, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered generation after generation. Exodus 3:14-15

God’s covenant names never change, because He does not change and He is to be remembered like that for generation after generation. I do not see any expiry date there, so wonder if this also applies to us today. Jesus came to us not to do away with The Law but to fulfill it and because we believe in His deity, we need to honor Him like that. The difference now is that He has made it “personal” to us. Although I have had many wonderful encounters and experiences with God and advocate cultivation of a deep personal and intimate relationship with “daddy”, there have been a few times when the meeting has been too awesome to handle and I dared not look up in case I saw something or found it impossible to describe! His name is His name forever...

Moses tried to make feeble excuses that God ignored, because when God calls someone He equips that person.

I’ve heard people say that Moses stuttered, because of his excuse in Exodus 4:10. He said that he was slow of speech, but that word can mean heavy and hardened. The man had been a shepherd in the wilderness prior to that. Imagine working with unsaved people for years and listening to their bad language and their unbelief! That stuff can rub off. We can become like the company we keep.

I’m not surprised with his excuse. Christians should not swear! It is not Godly.

When Moses and Aaron came to the king, he ignored them. They had “no clout” and he knew nothing about God, His ways or what He can do and refused to comply. I am becoming more convinced that if we really want to “win the lost” we have to show them more than we have, illustrating the reality of God and that there is good reason to want to know Him. This virus can be a good vehicle to reveal God’s hand, by providing real help in a time of need—supernatural help like protection and healing, or better yet—immunity.

He had switched off to religion, with his courts full of false gods and magicians, all his needs met and saw no need for any god and this is what we are really facing today. Something had to happen to get his attention and I am not saying we have to get freaky or do something silly. We must be different. It is one thing to say that we are building bridges to reach the lost, but are we, or are we becoming like them and no different? It is that difference that turned everything around in the early church.

Those plagues came just as Moses said they would, because he had been authorized by God to do so. I am saying this in an effort to show you how to pray the prayer of faith and make your faith declarations—that work. They will work when God gives us the specific word to speak and not something we like because pastor so-and-so says it. There must be that personal connection between God and the individual. It is not a simple matter of declaring a thing and binding enemy activity. We must have a basis, or a foundation to do this—and qualify to be able to do so.
I used to stand on faith and make all kinds of declarations and had partial success and wondered why it “worked” sometimes and “did not work” on other occasions. I am a faith preacher and needed to know why—to know how to pray like Jesus who always had His prayers answered (See John 11:41-42).

My mentor in the early days was Kenneth Hagin who majored on Mark 11:23-24 where we see that we can speak to a mountain and see it gone and we could liken this present crisis to a mountain or to a Goliath rearing his ugly head against us. David slew him, but we forget that Goliath had 4 brothers and an armor bearer to also contend with, so if we speak to this “Goliath” only, we might not get the results we desire! There is much more to praying and binding and speaking to a mountain. Jesus stated we can ask the Father anything in Jesus’ name and He will give it to us (John 15:16). In 1 John 5:14-15 we see that we can confidently pray and that our prayers would be answered but this does not mean that we can expect God to answer us if our prayers are out of line with His will. John qualified it by saying “according to God’s will” and that chapter revolves around the witness of God, of love, of keeping God’s commandments and of believing that Jesus is the Anointed One.

In my searching, the Lord led me to Job. We know of his dramas, but they were in essence self-inflicted. He said that the thing he feared most came upon him, so if this is a spiritual principle, which I believe it is, fear can help spread this virus. I am leading to something. Let us look at the passage the Lord led me to many years ago.

“You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you... Job 22:28.

Wow! What a promise. But wait... that’s not all of it. What preceded that is this:

“Yield now and be at peace with Him; Thereby good will come to you. “Please receive instruction from His mouth And establish His words in your heart. “If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; If you remove unrighteousness far from your tent, And place your gold in the dust, And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks, Then the Almighty will be your gold And choice silver to you. “For then you will delight in the Almighty And lift up your face to God. “You will pray to Him, and He will hear you; And you will pay your vows.

Getting answers to prayer appears to be conditional. It does not depend on how much, how long, how we say it or on any religious observance but on our heart attitude, motivation—and obedience. That passage of Job continues:

“You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; And light will shine on your ways. “When you are cast down, you will speak with confidence, And the humble person He will save. “He will deliver one who is not innocent, And he will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

Declarations are not to be made for selfish purposes. They have to line up with God’s intention of bringing everyone into relationship.

Job was “perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil” (Job1:1), so what happened?

In simplistic terms, he stepped out from under God’s umbrella of protection and this is what we must avoid doing. No one is exempt.

God did not promise total automatic immunity and that sickness would never come, but He did promise that when things happen, He would ensure we come out the other side. Sickness is real and it is here. The only time we shall be totally immune from any sickness will be when we leave this life and experience change—the change that happens when this mortality puts on immortality when we go to be with the Lord.

When other prophets and leaders were telling the people everything would be OK, God told Jeremiah the truth. He instructed him to tell the people to build houses, plant gardens and eat the fruit, marry and raise families—in Babylon when they were taken captive.

His instruction was to pray for their enemies, because when things went well for their captors, it would go well with them! He never asked them to pray for deliverance. Praying against the enemy in this instance was praying against God’s will! The good part followed. When that season had run its course, God promised a good outcome.

Prophets like them abound today, saying all kinds of “nice things” to us, but God gave Jeremiah a totally different message. He called them “false”, whilst one man dared be different. This is why we need to test the spirits and weigh up what anyone tells us today, no matter who they are.

‘For they are prophesying falsely to you in My Name. I have not sent them,’ declares יהוה. “For thus said יהוה, ‘When seventy years are completed, at Baḇel I shall visit you and establish My good word toward you, to bring you back to this place. ‘For I know the plans I am planning for you,’ declares יהוה, ‘plans of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and an expectancy. ‘Then you shall call on Me, and shall come and pray to Me, and I shall listen to you. ‘And you shall seek Me, and shall find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. ‘And I shall be found by you,’ declares יהוה, ‘and I shall turn back your captivity, and shall gather you from all the gentiles and from all the places where I have driven you, declares יהוה. And I shall bring you back to the place from which I have exiled you.’ Jeremiah 29:9-14

If and I say this again—If we pray against this virus, or make decrees and faith confessions unwisely, we might be sorely disappointed, If God is permitting it to happen. I am only suggesting this as one possible reason and not being categorical about it, but what if God is somehow, allowing this to happen? If so, then we could be praying with the best of intentions but praying amiss and contrary to His will. Consider what God said in Exodus 15:26, that is one of our core scriptures we quote concerning healing.

So Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When Moses threw the tree into the water, the water became good to drink. There the Lord gave the people a rule and a law to live by, and there he tested their loyalty to him. He said, “You must obey the Lord your God and do what he says is right. If you obey all his commands and keep his rules, I will not bring on you any of the sicknesses I brought on the Egyptians. I am the Lord who heals you.”

Did God “send” those plagues to Egypt? The Hebrew word suggests thay He did, but we say that God is a good God and never does things like that! Really? One meaning is very interesting as it relates to change. There is that change thing again! If God is indeed permitting this virus to hit, we should not be religiously rash or quick to pray against it, but determine the reason/s. Certainly, I pray for healing, but prefer to pray that there will not be any need to need to be healed. In other words, prevention is better than cure.

Many pastors are now starting to think that this might be a wake up call to the church and this is something I have been saying for years.

Perhaps, as a prelude to change, we might be witnessing something akin to the events leading up to the Exodus. This is a thought, mind you. Perhaps all this is a prelude to a blessing—a change—a new era for the church. Jesus said that He would build His Church and stated that the gates of hell would not have a leg to stand on. This was a literal, physical place that was regarded as the doorway to the underworld, or the gates of hell where goats were sacrificed to the false god pan. If you look carefully at what is happening now, we are facing a global PANdemic, where PANic, and PANdemonium is running wild. Jesus has not yet returned, so He is still in the process of building His Church and the implication is that it is right under the devil’s nose and, despite all of his efforts, nothing can stop it.

His Church, from the biblical description, is far from what we see today,  but one thing for sure, we will make it.

There have been several “Passovers” when supernatural intervention occurred. I still have to finish the reference to Moses, but consider what happened to Joshua. They had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because ten spies gave a bad report. They died out and only two were present when Israel finally “passed over” again into the Promised Land and the River Jordan opened up for them.

On the very day they crossed over—the manna ceased. The old gave way to the new. This seems to be a pattern that God employs. Nature reveals this in some way when we have the changes in seasons. In Winter time, many plants have no signs of life whatsoever. They look like dead sticks, but when Spring arrives, new life comes forth and in Summer the fruit is ready for eating. This is what the bible reveals. First the natural and then the spiritual.

In Joshua 6 we once again see a prescribed pattern to follow. Joshua was contemplating their next course of action before entering Jericho, when the captain of the Lord’s host appeared and told him that he was taking over.

There are patterns to be followed in the things of God and if we have strayed or deviated from them (which I believe we have done in the church) supernatural intervention is needed and is very likely. If the Church is about to be “raptured” we should not be surprised or alarmed at what happens as a prelude. I have taken you on a circuitous path perhaps to lead to this—Passover.