Last Day of Unleavened Bread: Baptism of Israel in the cloud, sea, Messiah

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Ancient Israel passed through the Red Sea on the seventh day of the Chag Matzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread), described as “the salvation of the Lord.” Apostle Paul equated that salvation from the ensnaring error of Egypt via cloud and sea with the Salvation from ensnaring sin via the death and resurrection of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus).

Passages: 1st Cor. 5:6–8; Ex. 13:20–14:31; 1st Cor. 15:50–57; 1st Cor. 10:1–3

The Apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians 5 referred to the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as a time of “sincerity and truth,” cleanliness, purity and truth. Purity and cleanliness only comes from God. This feast is seven days long, and the number seven is a symbol of completeness. God has begun a good work in us and He will complete it. This is His promise to us. 

This is the day the Red Sea parted for the children of Israel. Leading up to the crossing of the Red Sea, they had to walk day and night for seven days to reach their destination on the edge of the sea. This would have been impossible in the physical. None one can function for seven days without any sleep but God supernaturally preserved them and they were able to survive this long travel time. 

Once the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, they didn’t walk day and night anymore but He still guided them with the cloud by day and fire by night. 

Their final camp site in Egypt was in front of בַּעַל צְפֹן Baal-zephon (Strong’s lexicon No. H1189), which means “ba’al/lord of the winter” or “lord of the north.” They backtracked to this camp, by God’s plan to deceive Pharaoh into assuming that the Israelites were floundering without guidance and were lost in the wilderness. 

The Israelites were trapped in the physical and were truly terrified. The Egyptians coming up fast behind them and only the sea in front of them. The books of the Torah are not about what happened historically but about the actions of the Creator of Heaven and Earth. He brought about this scene to His glory. 

God’s goal was to deliver the children of Israel. He told the Israelites that they would never see these Egyptians again. They are not going to be a part of their life ever again. 

God fought the battle for them. He specifically told them to hold their peace and stop their whining. 

How is God going to destroy this world in the last days? Atomic bombs? No, the book of Revelation tells us He’s going to use the plagues, many of the plagues recorded in Revelation are the same plagues as those that occurred before the Exodus as judgements against the Egyptians. The evil powers of the last days will be judged the same way. 

Once the children of Israelites were safely across the sea, God told Moses to close up the Red Sea passage. First the wheels came off the chariots and then the pass became muddy. After the Israelites walked on dry land, God started to revert the pass back to its original condition and drowned all the Egyptians, their horses and chariots in the Red Sea. 

God saved them from the Egyptians through no action of their own. When we come to this day, what are we learning? What is God saving us from? 

He destroyed the Israelites from their last enemy by utterly annihilating the nation of Egypt and they were no longer a superpower after this time. 

God has to deliver us from sin before He can give us the Torah. The Apostle Paul tells us that corruption can’t inherit incorruption. We will all be changed. Death can not inherit life. The mortal can’t put on immortality. We are seeing a picture that tells us a story. 

Just as the children of Israel were traveling under and by a cloud, Paul tells us that we, symbolically have done the same. The children of Israel were baptized in the cloud when the cloud went from being in front of them and over them to go behind them to hide them from the Egyptians. 

The children of Israel were also baptized through the Red Sea. 

The Israelites went through the Sea but got back up, while the Egyptians just got wet and drowned. There is a difference between true baptism and baptism for appearances and the difference comes from God. The children of Israel were baptized into Moses but we are baptized into Yeshua. Are you baptized in Yeshua or did you just get wet? 

God removed the Egyptians out of their world but yet it took them 40 years to get into the Land, in part because even though God destroyed Egypt’s threat to them, they still longed for Egypt even though Egypt was a life of difficulty and misery for them. God had to prune Egypt out of them during the wilderness pilgrimage. During that time, they were not circumcising their sons but right before they entered the Promised Land, God told the men it was time to prepare to enter the Land by circumcising their sons. 

Yeshua destroyed sin when He died on the cross and was resurrected on the third day afterward. Yeshua took away the sting of sin and death, yet there are times when we long for the prior sinful life and delude ourselves into thinking that prior life wasn’t that bad and we long to taste it again. Yeshua tells us that God will prune that desire from us as replace it with purity and truth in His time. 

Speaker: Richard Agee. Summary: Tammy Quackenbush.