You Have To Do It

Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down (Shemot / Exodus 12:22,23).

Throughout the week of Pesach (Passover in English), several relevant portions of Scripture are read. At the beginning of the week is the passage that describes how the people were to prepare for the first Pesach.

God told the Israelites to apply the blood to their doorways, so that their firstborn would not die that night. I shudder to think what would have happened to those who neglected these instructions. I shudder to think what happened in each Egyptian household.

Unless the people followed these precise instructions death came to them that night. Yet there was protection for those who did what God said.

This is probably one of the greatest examples in the Torah of what it means to truly believe in God. God had come to deliver the people from slavery in Egypt. He sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to let the people go. Due to Pharaoh's stubbornness, God struck Egypt, until the people were allowed to leave. They themselves were not required to do much during this time. And even at this point, they were not given a difficult task. Placing lamb's blood on the sides and tops of their doorframes might have seemed strange, but it wasn't difficult. It wasn't complicated. They simply had to do it.

Those familiar with Yeshua know how fully this foreshadows what he did for us. It is as we apply his blood, referring to his death, to our lives, so eternal judgement passes over us, just like the Angel of Death passed over the Israelites’ homes that night. This too is not complicated, we just have to do it.

What they did that night was an act of faith. They had no way of testing what God was saying to them. They had never seen anything like it. All they had was his word. But they did it and were saved.

Note too that it was not the act itself that made the difference. Moses was not providing the people with a ritual or a formula to follow. At some other time when facing danger or disease, it would do them no good to smear blood on their doorframes. What made the difference here is that God told them to do it.

But for them to derive any benefit from this, they still had to do it. Thinking about it, discussing it, or appreciating it would do nothing to protect them. They had to do it.

So it is with whatever God is saying to us today. If we say we believe in him, then we must do what he says, or what he says will not make any difference in our lives at all.