yeah you know as we go to talk about uh Passover a little bit but we have said such a long history of changing and understanding our relationship with Arabs you know it's going back the first the first Arab Jewish reconciliation meeting I was in was in 1979 i mean think about that that was before a lot of you were born here but and it's been a very difficult road to try to understand it and it's a road that uh takes a lot of revelation or a lot of humility you know and I remember just so many I mean hundreds of little mountain peaks to get to that and one of them I remember just reading that uh Abraham had just been asking for his a son and he didn't have it and the last thing that happens before Abraham has a son is he prays "May Ish live before you." And I realized that you know our whole desire here is to see our people come to know the Lord and that's that's our baby you know and it was like I was just so wait a minute that doesn't happen it's got to happen to the sons of Ishmael first we we come after that and I was just sitting that whoa and so many things of seeing us just to come to love them and to be as a family and uh humbling humbling ourselves first one of the things also we learned in that was that um the grace to be confident enough about who we are to go to them and lift them up first instead of being defensive because a lot of over these decades we Jewish people have been Messianic Jews have been defensive about who we are and so we've all tried to go in and just say "Listen we don't need to do that we we're coming to lift you up." And uh I remember the first meeting when we came to um when we came to uh Egypt and it was it was tense i mean we had the secret police around and all that kind of stuff and uh and then there was tension between tension between everyone and they couldn't even say the names we were they said "Well we we have a guest from somewhere that we think you know where it is and if you'd like to meet there's maybe a room over there that you were." So I thought "Well nobody's going to get there." I got there and everybody was there just everyone showed up and uh first thing I did was just say "Look I have something to tell you you know and you could feel the tension you could feel the mistrust you know and I just got down on my knees and said you know they're our brothers we're sorry for whatever ways we've hurt you you know and we just want to lift you up and just serve you and come to an end and you could just feel people you know beginning to melt the walls beginning to crack and just it would just you could almost hear it in the spirit you know the walls coming down and and uh so it's been a long road of just uh love and humility and appreciation and uh realizing how much physically we're the same family you know and uh anyway that's a good introduction to what we want to talk about Passover which you have a lot of the I mean talks about the destruction of Egypt so we'll go and look at that for a minute well let's uh this is uh we're coming into the Passover season so uh I want to talk a little bit where we're at here in in Passover and talk about a little bit of the kind of the Jewish historical background to the Passover um and you know I remember there's so much connection between the the of course the Passover story and the story of the death and resurrection of Yeshua there's so many i remember when when uh when we started teaching years ago that it was uh we've got one of the things we talk about uh Messiah and the Passover and we would just go through the Passover each thing and you if you go through the Passover seder there's something about Yeshua in every single little part i'm not going to do that today one part I'll show you in but but it's uh the whole background is there it's so much it's so much the same it's uh it's amazing and of course it wasn't that that's a coincidence yeshua was crucified and raised in the Passover that was part of the Passover it wasn't a coincident that there's these two parallel holidays you know that's not what's going on he is a Passover you know and um just uh one thing we always used to teach about Yeshua being the the afikomen you which is the piece of matzah you get at the end where it's broken and then it's hidden and at the end it comes back up and then you eat and it's I mean the symbolism is just it's overbearing you know you think hey you could be a little more subtle here God but u but I I heard a teaching recently from an ultraorthodox rabbi here who doesn't like Yeshua but he was saying that uh this is interesting The word afikomen means uh really is like the dessert the part that comes at the end of of the and he said what happened was that uh even the time of the temple the the Passover lamb was very uh like expensive it wasn't like people came and ate this big meal with all this lamb in it because they they would kill a lamb and they would spread it out to people so what according to the tradition now I don't can't see this in the Bible what they say is you would do the whole Passover seder and the whole meal and then you would get and you wouldn't that wouldn't be the part where you actually eat the lamb at the end of the meal they would pass on everybody would take a little bit of the lamb and that's when you would eat the Passover part of the lamb at the end of it and he said and that became the afikomen that the afikomen was the part that where they would eat when the exile came they would eat that at the end to say you are eating This is what they say the ultraorththodox you when you eat the avioman you are eating the Passover sacrifice now and you think about Yeshua taking that hymn and saying this is my body giving fruit i mean it's just I mean the narratives are going on and they can't even see it one another it's so it's so overwhelming i was also thinking about the whole thing about um you know in all every door here in Jerusalem you can see you know there's a mizuza on the right side of the door when you go in tilted slightly inwards so it's when you go and you touch and where does that come from we call that the muza well that's not a muza the muza is the door lentil and if you go to the Passover course uh you put it on the top and then on the lentil and the two and the two door post so it's you have three so whenever people come in Orthodox Jews you'll see them they will always reach out and touch and kiss and kiss the mus as they come in but really since was up on the on both sides what they really should do is kiss it like that you know but but I wouldn't I wouldn't say anything that you know it wouldn't would I mean the whole parallels are just so outrageous that it's going to be I mean it's going to be such a shock to everybody on the Christian side and the Jewish side when God just reveals this when it all comes together and uh you know wow in any case but that's not what I'm talking about today what I talk about let's pick it up in uh the place when one way to see the start of the Passover story is in uh Exodus chapter 2 verse 23 [Music] um and the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage and they cried out and their and their cry came up to God because of their bondage and so God hearing their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob so what you have here is two things that people were groaning out because they were in slavery and being abused and they began to cry out how much of that according to the text how much were they really crying out with that knowledgeably that they were crying out to God or were they just sort of crying out in their pain it's not totally clear but anyway they cried out and God took it as a prayer isizak that word yizak is the same word when like Morai Mori was was crying out to God when it looked like everybody was going to get killed it's it's a deep deep cry it's a deep cry to God when the people were crying out to him so you see God had to bring them down to a point and and it it even says in Hebrew it's from the from the um the narrow plate the dire straits I called out from the Lord and the word dire straits there is the same name as the root of Egypt mit if you can hear that it has to do also with the Nile River coming up into its straits but in in in soy symbolically they're crying out from that place and God had to bring our people down that low so that they would cry out to God and we believe that's what God's going to do in the end times he's moving us into that position that the opposition that we see now is small i mean it's going to get much worse until our people cry out to God now our people are really starting to cry out to God we've had a half a revival since the outbreak of this war uh the attack from from Gaza and from Iran and the Hutim and from the in Iraq and everything but but we and the people are crying out so we have had a half a revival here the country is turning i mean you can see people down people reading the psalms on the on the streets and everybody's talking about God atheists talk about God praying i mean the atheists pray here i don't know why it's really a revival now we haven't haven't seen the the the the uh of course the revelation of that excuse me in Yeshua so much but that's the next step so God's bringing us this point of crying out it's really it's really amazing thing but then he says that God remembered his covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob now remember this is several hundred years after that 400 years 300 years depending how you count on it but it's it's saying that the the the difficulty that they were having in Egypt God came to them because he remembered his covenant with Abraham like if you remember God told Abraham "You're going to go down to Egypt and then I'm going to have to come and save you afterwards in a in a couple in four generations i'm going to come down." So but from God's point of view what happened with Moses and the children of Israel in Egypt was just following up on what God already did with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and it was a God said "I have a covenant with you and it's continuing on and each time when you come ready that you're ready to step into the line of the covenant I'm going to be there for you and so the the uh we need to realize now you and I we're stepping into that same line we were just praying here uh with some some of our pastors here from Israel and one of them the pastor from I don't know if you saw Leon was brilliant he said he said "Well I realize what we're doing here we're just stepping in to the same storyline it started with Abraham Isaac and Jacob we're just stepping into that so it doesn't start with Moses it started there with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and then it came in and then this is the fulfillment and then it goes on in each generation and then it comes up into the time of Yeshua and Yeshua comes to be the Passover lamb and to redeem our people and you know we said "Listen I'm the Passover remember you had the you ate mana in the wilderness and then you died but now I'm going to give you bread that you're not going to die." I mean he saw himself he was stepping into the line of the covenant coming up from Abraham Isaac and Jacob to Moses to David and he he was walking in that history of course he was also there as an angel of the Lord beforehand but so he comes in that and we today and you as you have made covenant with the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob through the son of God through Yeshua the Messiah you are walking into that as well we are all stepping into that covenant i was just thinking here that uh and I have I haven't heard this this is just the Holy Spirit speaking here but when God made a covenant with Abraham and he said "I'm going to send your children into Egypt because Egypt was the great empire covering the whole world at that point." Kind of like when God sent the Apostle Paul to Rome he had to go to the capital of the empire of the world at that point the empire of the world was Egypt and so he said "I have to send you because you're here to influence the whole world and so I'm going to send you into the place of the center of the world empire which was which was Egypt so I have to send you down there so you can be there now I'm I'm going to make a covenant with you in in Israel in the land of Canaan because this is where I'm going to bring you back to this is where I'll set up my kingdom will be here from the land of Canaan but right now the world kingdom is there i've got to send you down there and so they he went down their children went down there and of course the one who basic primarily went there was Jacob's son Joseph and when Joseph was there God blessed the nation of Egypt so much so because of Joseph they did not become the richest nation in the world they had all the money in the world there wasn't any money anywhere else except them that's more than being wealthy because of Joseph Joseph gathered all of the money in the world to come in and that was blessing this Egyptian kingdom and and the people of Israel were there i mean they were his they were his family and I just realized now I I don't know if I can prove this i'm just hearing this in my heart but we can check it in the scriptures later that what happened was I'm realizing that the Jewish people there became to be the elite of Egypt they be I mean these were these were Joseph's relatives they became the wealthy the elite the they were the and and and that caused jealousy and anger among the Egyptians so then in another generation if they forgot Joseph they went to enslave the people now that was their sin but it was also God saying I'm just kind of imagining this here as I know our people that when we went became wealthy and elite and all that guess who we forgot someone we forgot someone god didn't forget you know we forgot someone and God said "Well you got you forgot me well maybe we need to do a little something else to lower you down until you cry out to me." Now I haven't forgotten well when you get down when you cry out to me then I'll remember the covenant i haven't forg the one that's forgotten not me you're the one that's remembering that and when you come out and when I bring you down to that level then I can come in and save you on the basis of that and then he went and then to brought and bring them out but he was following up on the covenant and he went and he started the covenant with Abraham sent them down into the world empire now at that point of course we see that he's brought the Jewish people out in a certain sense he just brought the people he brought the church out because there were people from all different nations that came there that started to believe in the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and so really was that the people of Israel or was that the eklesia it was really the same there wasn't any different today there isn't any difference either that's been divided culturally in history that's not true in God's eyes was one people of God so they see he went to bring the people of God out of the world empire at that point which was Egypt now it also means God is revealing his hand here of coming in favor of an oppressed people group forget for a moment that they were Jewish or believers in God whatever but this was he's coming to redeem a group of people that had been brutally oppressed by by by a tyrant dictatorship by a demonic government the the government was so demonic we can't even imagine how demonic this was i mean you you may not like certain politicians but they don't go around wearing snakes on their heads i mean these guys were really demonic and they had cabinet meetings where they would you know throw sticks on the ground and turn them into snakes i mean these guys were bad you know so but then God God delivered them delivered and oppressed people and God saying now I want you to know who I am remember he came to Moses you never seen me this way there wasn't an opportunity of that word said you've you've known me as El Shadai now you're going to know know me as Jehovah he said I'm going to come in here and you're going to watch and I am going to take down single-handedly through you Moses and he's going "No no find somebody else i'm going to take down the entire world empire and bring out the oppressed people the slave people." I mean it it's a story of of deliverance and the poor being rescued from the hands of tyrants i mean it was it I mean it's it you know the the the black spirituals in the United States were all they saw themselves as goland you know coming out and being delivered every poor every poor people group that's being suffered by tyrants they should look at that story that's there that's the great story of liberation of any people group anywhere around the world and so God said now you're going to see what I'm like I'm going to take down the world empire and I'm going to deliver the oppressed people that's God that's the God we we serve What an amazing thing so that was part of the pro the part of the Passover was to was to bring them out of that now when Moses went in there it's hard to figure out exactly how much time it took as I look at it the 10 plagues you know maybe they maybe they were about a week apart maybe so it maybe was it 3 months something like that there was a process of time where this huge empire collapsed before this one man coming in this was the greatest empire of the world maybe greater than any empire we've ever seen since then they were they ruled for hundreds of years and he came in and he prophesied to them and and he he brought that empire down so there was not there was the story of spiritual deliverance but there was also the story of destroying the empires of this world it was an empire clash i mean this was like Star Wars you know it's it's coming this is a clash of the kingdoms all right which brings us to next let's go up this now let's look at uh let's go to Genesis to uh um Exodus 12 now Exodus [Music] 12:12 on the other night for I will pass through the land of Egypt and on that night I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment so what happened here there was two levels of of the judgment that was coming one was on the people of Egypt for their sin and the other one was the was the gods of Egypt no they're not gods what he means with the gods in that language is fallen angels who who the people of Egypt worshiped and they became the the gods over the over the land of Egypt and through Egypt they ruled the whole world so there were demonic principalities of darkness ruling the entire world at that time and also had all the money that Joseph brought into them and God said now I'm going to come in and I'm going to punish the people but I'm also going to bring bring judgment against the gods the gods of this world and so what he did each of the 10 plagues was a judgment against one of the gods of Egypt so it was he was breaking down and he was what he was destroying that demonic religion step by step bringing it down and he was educating both the Egyptians and the Israelites and the multi multitudes of people he was executing judgment upon them to be able to set them free now that's what God's going to do in the end times god's setting this all up again so that God's going to bring judgment to the demonic powers and principalities of this world and he's bringing into this case i mean we we realize that uh you know I I wrote this in a hashtag you know love Arabs hate hate jihad you know we love the Arab people we hate the demonic spirits that are overbal and kamas and the ayatos and the and and that's not Arabs those are demonic spirits we want to see our Arab cousins set free so that but they have to have these demonic spirits broken off of them and of course those demonic spirits attack more Arabs than they do Jews i mean the number of Jews have been killed through through jihadism is less than 1% of the number of Arabs that have been killed in the Middle East i mean it's not even one I mean it's not even onetenth of 1% i mean jihad is is killing Arabs more than it's killing Jews we love them we the more we really loved Arabs i mean I think about it if we could as much as we love Arabs if we could love them even more we would want to just whip Kamas and and whip them to shred shreds to set the people free the reason why there is freedom in Lebanon to preach the gospel right now is because they've been terrified by for the last 30 years they haven't been able to do anything and now what happened was thank God by our army we took down their power they don't the people they're not afraid of them anymore and they weren't afraid of them up until two months ago and and but not only that that was our but there's two levels of the warfare okay that was our bombers but it was your prayers that took down the demonic the demonic forces that were over there the air is clear there now the air has been cleared out they don't feel the we could come back we have to keep fighting but the thing is we need to take down the demonic forces that are there with now there's also an expression in rebbitic Judaism he said the last redemption will be like the first one meaning that what's going to happen in the end times it will be deliverance like it was in the time of Egypt that you have the the pharaoh is an antichrist figure the demons there will be judgment coming and then setting the people free uh my friend Dan Jester wrote a great book about that called the Passover key um Revelation describing the book of Revelation comparing it to the story of the the Passover but so there is coming God wants to punish the people of the world that have sinned but also bring judgment against the demonic powers of this world and bring that judgment so that the people can get set free so that they can be brought out from that um and of course all this happens with blood it happens by the blood of Yeshua he gave his blood for us look these are powerful forces these are not just some lukewarm prayers we're going to get are going to beat this you're talking about Yeshua gave his blood and soldiers have given their blood and hostages have given their blood and and people and Arabs and Jews have given their blood here arab Christians have given their blood and it's it's this is a bloody situation blood blood being poured out has a spiritual power that can bring down demonic strongholds and it's by the blood of Yeshua but when we believe in it I mean you're to say you believe in the blood of Yeshua is saying Yeshua said will you drink the cup that I drink I mean you you're saying I'm putting my blood on the line if I believe in this this is stuff this is a this is a a bloody battle you know and a lot of people are going to get killed and and we need to realize it but that's part of breaking these demonic strongholds and setting people free so there was also here a clash of a kingdom now okay so when the people of Israel came out God would have sent them immediately into Israel but they weren't ready they weren't ready to fight they weren't ready to fight so they had to go wander around the wilderness until they're ready to fight i feel that with me i mean there's things as you know I came to the Lord to love you know i mean it was it was just kind of I like to love you know i I didn't come up I didn't come here to fight you know it's but he said "Listen if you you're not willing to fight it's you can't bring the kingdom." But after they learned that then they came into the land of Canaan what happened was there was the the evil empire and out of that evil empire God took a people and brought them into the promised land and set up a different kingdom which became the kingdom of David to which the Yeshua was born to do you see that it's a clash of kingdoms the word comes in to the people in the evil kingdom that are willing to hear they become an ecclesia they become a group of people who can taken out of the evil empire of this world the evil empire gets destroyed they're brought into the promised land and set up a new kingdom which is to rule the world in the end time in the in in the early days that was of course David's kingdom but now that was just a physical model of what God wants to do to bring out of the evil kingdoms of this world a people of God and we will set up his kingdom and Yeshua will be ruling but he's also going to be ruling from here that's why we have this place so you can see where he's going to come to where he's going to come back to and where he's going to rule from right out of this window that window right there is where he's going to come back to that window right there is where he's going to rule from but but we So the what happens is there's an evil empire ruling over the world god wants to crush those evil empires and make a people of faith a minority people of faith in all those empires and then bring them out and so out of Egypt came Israel and set up the Israel empire under David and all the people of the world now are going to come out and join the eklesia and join themselves to Israel and come in and we will come here and set up the kingdom for Yeshua to come and rule and reign that's the story of what's going on it's a clash of kingdoms to bring the kingdom of God upon the earth now we're not we're not so much in a political war or a military war that's secondary we have a political war and a military war but it's secondary we first have the war you know in the heavenlies but Yeshua will come back when Yeshua comes back he fights a war it's the same two levels i'm learning a lot here i haven't just Thank you Lord hallelujah when Yeshua comes back he comes in with an angel angelic army and he first fights the war in the heavenlies he defeats the the demonic ang the demonic armies and then he comes down and defeats the human armies that are that are coming against you so he he fights both of those battles coming back and to set up his kingdom uh upon the earth so there is there's this there's this clash of the kingdoms that happens in the Passover and for that to happen comes out of the the Passover lamb to bring the redemption so he's got to come to bring the pass he's got to be the Passover lamb to be able to to bring the redemption as we sang this morning he came as a lamb he's coming back as a lion now I remember I was the second or third time that it was in in Egypt that uh uh we were at a place right on the Nile River and uh at 3:00 in the morning the Lord told me "Get up i want you to go down to the Nile River and pray." You know so I said "Is he sure that to you Lord?" But anyway I so I got I kind of went down went down and sat on the bank of the Nile River and just making a prayer i said "Okay Lord what do you want to show me here?" And uh I don't know if you ever been to Egypt but the Nile is a beautiful river oh my goodness it's huge i mean you know the Jordan you can basically spit across the other side of the Jordan but this is a big beautiful river you know and and I'm looking and I'm saying I thought you know it doesn't make any sense this big river egypt ought to be incredibly wealthy nation how can you have this big huge river this wealthy river running through the center of Egyp Egypt and you go out a couple hundred meters from it and then everything turns to desert i said "It's like there's a curse on this thing." And I'm looking at the water i said "You realize that there's bones of Jewish babies still on the bottom of that river?" Ah oh my goodness the blood of the covenant god hasn't forgotten that and he said "Well let's start to play let's start to pray and let's try to break this curse off of Egypt." We brought together Messian Jews from Israel and local Arab Christians we began to pray to break those curses off and so we we want to see that but it's got to come by faith it's kind of gone by real faith you know and but God wants to bring things into this world to break the curses of this world and to bring the kingdom the the the you have the first Passover and then you have Yeshua coming and bringing us eternal life but all that is leading to the point that in there's an end times Passover story coming that is a clash of kingdoms that will be that is is huge now um so really in some ways the first empire the world empire the first empire was Egypt the second empire was Israel what was the third empire do you remember israel was conquered by huh assyria and then and then Assyria was conquered by Babylon and then Babylon was conquered by the Persians and the Persians were conquered by the Greeks and the Greeks were conquered by the Romans and then Islam conquered the Roman Empire and then and then so all this is a clash of kingdoms that started there now the Passover the Passover seder I'm going to do one more thing here and we'll close the Passover Seder ends up with a little children's rhyme i don't know if you've heard that it's called Anybody that's was brought up Jewish knows it because anyway it's a little children's story and it goes like this the father bought a kid goat with two with two coins and then and then it says "And then a cat came and ate the kid the kid goat and then a dog came and beat the cat and then a stick came and beat the dog and then a fire came and burned up the stick and then water came and put out the fire and then an ox came and drank up the water and then the butcher came and killed the ox and then the angel of death came and killed the the butcher and then the holy one blessed be he came and killed the angel of death that's a song that we sing it's kind of fun because it repeats and you got to repeat it real fast isn't that kind of cute you like that here's what it here's what it means in mystic Judaism this is a mystic story most people don't know it this is is it's a it's a mystic it's a it's written by it's come from a a mystic understanding here's what it is the father that brought the kid is the heavenly father the little goat is the people of Israel the two coins are the two tablets of the law at Si father bought a little kid the two coins and then the cat came and killed the goat israel was attacked by Amalcch and then the dog came bit lit the cat and then Assyria came and conquered Amalcch and then the stick comes and hits the dog which is Babylon conquering Assyria and then the fire burns up the stick which is Persia burning up Babylon and the water comes and puts out the fire which is Greece conquering you know Alexander the Greek conquering Persia and the and then the ox comes which is Rome coming and drinks up the water then Rome conquers the world that's right when Yeshua was born then the butcher comes that's Islam coming to kill and then the angel of death comes that is Gog and Magog who come to kill Islam now actually there are two ways of looking at that the other one is that it's not Gog and Magog but the angel of death is Christianity that's how it's seen in the in the Orthodox Jewish world you know so and here they get confused so well is this is this Christianity or is this Gog and Magog or what is it and it's and it's it and then and um but then the the the so you saying what what if you look in Gog and Magog who is that part of there was it's interesting also that uh the uh there's another uh this is very mystic but see if you can get this when when God kills the angel of death this is not Christian thought this is Jewish mystical thought so try to it's a different set of logic he He kills him as a butcher meaning he cuts him in half and who was the bad angel the angel of death the bad part gets killed and then the good part comes out and he becomes the angel of life comes out of killing the angel of death and he becomes and that's the coming of the Messiah coming out i'm thinking something is going to happen here i mean there's a revelation coming to our people but uh what I want you to see here is that um how our people see it see history as just a series of persecutions our people see it only as a series of persecution against us there's other things about that which I don't have time to get in that today but there is a series of persecutions in it against the Jewish people but it's really against the kingdom of God there's a clash of kingdoms that the kingdoms of this world are always trying to destroy the kingdom of God but in the end there's going to come this huge clash which will yes end up at the time of the whether you want to call it Gog or Gog and Magog or Armad Armageddon and the last great war when Yeshua comes back it's going to de this is where the human history is heading for a huge clash of kingdoms that's going to be like and God is going to bring the judgments of this world why do you think that there is talk in the book of Revelation about plagues coming again this is the whole what God did to Egypt in ancient Passover he's going to do the kingdoms of this world in the end times and there's going to be the Antichrist is going to just be a Pharaoh multiplied hundred over and he's going to take over the world and there is going to be a a a clash of kingdoms but we as the people of God we need to stand there in faith like the like not to not not not get taken out of here and live in heaven come on we're going to be in goan land will be protected by God during this time so we can pray so we can stand like Moses and Aaron and we and we will be praying to bring the righteous judgments of God against the kingdoms of this world and the demonic godheads that are over them so that the people of God will be revealed and take the kingdom and that's what Passover is all about amen amen so father Amen and father we just thank you that this story that begins with Abraham and you are goes up through Moses through David through Yeshua through the spread of the gospel around the world coming back to the restoration of Israel the reestablishment of the messianic movement that joining into one of Israel and the church in the olive tree and then releasing your world revival in the end times and breaking down the kingdoms of this world we thank you for that we thank you Lord that we get a part to play in this storyline hallelujah in Yeshua's name amen amen amen thank you amen