As most of you know, I go to
bed pretty early, fairly regularly. But the other night, it might
have been on Thursday night, Lisa and I stayed up and a famous
Australian author and art critic called Robert Hughes died, I
think it was last week, and they replayed an interview he had
with a man called Andrew Denton. who has some interest in spiritual
things, and I'm sure if you go to the ABC and look it up you'll
be able to see it. But anyway, one of the things
that was interesting for me is that, many things interesting
in the whole thing, but anyway, about 20 years ago he nearly
died in an accident in Brewe. He was driving a car, he was
up there doing some fishing and he had a head-on collision with
another fellow and they showed pictures of his car and it was
a terrible ride off. Denton often asks questions about
spiritual things and he asked Robert Hughes about that. And
he said that as he was sort of falling into unconsciousness,
the figure of death appeared before him. I think Luther might
correct me if I'm wrong, but the figure appeared to be sort
of a young man dressed in a suit and he as it were, sort of opened
his mouth and then his mouth just sort of opened wider and
wider and wider until this huge chasm to swallow Robert Hughes
up. And he talks about fighting it.
And Andrew Denton's sort of question was whether this would lead him
to any sort of spiritual things in his life. But most people
have been in those circumstances. They're terrified for a while
and then slip back into their old ways, don't they? The reality is that your death
is pictured in the scriptures as a person almost, isn't it?
when sin entered the world, then death through sin, and in 1 Corinthians
15, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. So today I just have
one simple message. We're going back into Mark Chapter
14, again to look at the events of the Last Supper and particularly
verse 26, the Lord Jesus going out after that sung a hymn going
out to the Mount of Olives. And I just have one desire in
mind is that God's children would, because of the grace of God and
because of the promises of God and because of the wonder of
who the Lord Jesus is, they would find themselves by faith sheltering
under that blood, waiting, knowing the promises of God, and trusting
the Lord Jesus to go out and do battle, and to win the battle
against all of their enemies. See at the end of the day people
like Robert Hughes can have visions which are caused by indigestion
and all sorts of other things and the Bible in Colossians specifically
tells us not to base anything on visions. We base our activities
as Christians in this world on what God has revealed in his
word and not on our dreams and visions. But behind whatever
illusion it was for Mr Hughes he now has had a week to contemplate
the reality of life for eternity outside of the Lord Jesus and
what that means. And so we come to the scriptures
and we come to our God who is a great refuge and a great shelter
for His people. Each week we finish our service
or have somewhere during our service we have these two simple
things, don't we? Some wine which represents the
blood of the Lord Jesus shed for His people. And we have just
a small piece of unleavened bread and the unleavened bread is a
representation of a body without any leaven of sin in it, a perfect
undefiled body, and a body that was broken, a body that was broken
and crushed for us. And so as we go through today
I just trust that that whole memorial, that whole remembrance
of the Lord's Supper would be something that just becomes more
and more real to us. See, Passover was a feast that
marked the beginning of a week-long festival for the people, for
the Jews. But the Lord's Supper is the
commemoration of something which looks back to Passover, but looks
forward to something spiritual and fulfilling. So the Passover
was a meal that sustained people, but we're actually no longer
celebrating Passover, but we're celebrating the Lord's Supper.
There's not enough food or drink in it to sustain us. We're actually
drinking and eating spiritually on the Lord Jesus. Passover was
a meal for the body to remember what God had done. The Lord's
Supper is a meal for our souls to remember what the Lord Jesus
has done and remember what he is doing. Okay, let's go back
in our scriptures to Mark chapter 14, verse 22. And as thou art eating, Jesus
took bread, blessed, and broke it and gave it to them and said,
take, eat, this is my body. Then he took the cup and when
he had given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank
from it and he said to them, this is my blood of the new covenant
which is shed for many. Assuredly I say to you, I will
no longer drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when
I drink it new in the kingdom of God. And when they had sung
a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." Exodus is a passage of scripture
which rewards reading again and again and again. As I was looking
at it again this week, it's one of the things that's extraordinary
that comes repeatedly in Exodus. is that the fact that the cry
of God's children came up to God. Chapter 2 verse 23, now
it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died,
then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage and they
cried out and their cry came up to God because of their bondage. So God heard their groaning,
and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and
with Jacob. And God looked upon the children
of Israel, and God acknowledged them. Chapter 3, the Lord said,
I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt,
and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know
their sorrows. Verse 9, now therefore behold
the cry of the children of Israel has come up to me and I have
also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. God seems distant. These people had now waited 430
years. It seemed to them that the one
thing that wasn't with them, the one person who wasn't with
them, was God and his promises. But when Moses goes back to them, he says, children go. Israel is my son,
my firstborn son. And he says in verse 16 of chapter
3, Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them,
The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac
and Jacob, appeared to me saying, I have surely visited you and
seen what is done to you in Egypt. The scriptures continually show
us pictures of God's way of saving his people. On Thursday night,
I had two fundamental messages for us. One is that assurance
for God's children is that we have the God as he is described
in the scriptures come to us. And secondly, that we have the
God of the Scriptures saving us and dealing with us as He
saves and deals with His people in the Scriptures. And so when
we see the Scriptures confirmed in our lives, confirmed in our
experience, We actually then are caused to turn to God again
and say, He is faithful. He is faithful. He does reveal
to us what it is to live in this world. And He does reveal His
ways of rescuing us out of it. And His way of rescuing His people
is a beautiful, beautiful way. where God's children get deliverance
and God himself gets all of the glory. And as Simon said to us
earlier, God's children are born into this world as children of
Adam. We're all the same sinners living
in a world of sin. We are held captive by Satan
to do his will. All that we ever do is sin. And God's children have something
else in this world. All of the people of this world
groan in one way or another. But God's children, for God's
children, the groaning is a spiritual groaning. It's a sense of our
bondage, a sense of the fact But we, like the children of
Israel, can do absolutely nothing to sort our problems out. We
can do nothing to open the prison doors. We can do nothing to bring
light into the dungeon that we live in. The religions of the
world tell people to do, do, do. The beginning place for God's
children is a sense in which we are absolutely helpless and
there's nothing that we can do. And so Exodus is a beautiful picture. The Exodus story and that institution
of Passover is a beautiful, beautiful picture of the way the Lord God
saves His people. And it requires Remarkable pictures
of our Lord Jesus. There is no salvation outside
of who Jesus is and what he does for his people. As we saw last week, a lamb had
to be selected. A lamb had to be set apart and
separated. A lamb had to be the basis for
separating Israel from Egypt. It is good to remember that this
first Passover, in this first Passover, the Egyptians were
not told a thing about it at all. It was just a Passover for
the children of Israel. But the only difference between
Israel and Egypt, the only difference between God's children in this
world and the rest of the people of this world, and it bears constant
repetition because we're so prone to forget it, the only difference
between us who are believers and them is the blood. It was the blood that night that
made the difference. So the blood had to be shed. The lamb had to be separated. The lamb had to be one with the
family. The lamb had to be slaughtered. But there's something more that
was required to save people that night. The blood had to be sprinkled. of salvation, the blood of the
Lord Jesus has to be applied to our hearts. That blood in
Exodus speaks of deliverance. Exodus 12, 13 says, now the blood
shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are. And
then we have this wonderful promise from God. And when I see the
blood, where's the blood? The blood is on the outside.
Where are the people? They're on the inside. When I
see the blood, I will pass over you. I will pass over. and the plague shall not be on
you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." Just before I go any further,
many of us spend times when we struggle with assurance and things
and no doubt as people like myself get older and you have sort of
visions of your memory failing and your brain sort of fading
away into sort of a blurry fog. It's really wonderful to remember,
isn't it? The blood's a sign for us. But
who has to see the blood? I may not see the blood. I never see the blood as clearly
as I'd need to see the blood of the Lord Jesus. But God sees
it. When I see the blood, says God,
He will pass over." And the blood was a separating
blood. The blood is a protecting blood. The blood was a shield. When
that sword of divine justice went through that land of Egypt, They were protected. They were
shielded under the blood. And the judgment that fell on
Israel was a mediated judgment in the sense that it could have
been much, much worse than it was. The blood protected Israel. But the blood that protected
Israel signified judgement for Egypt. And the blood of the Lord
Jesus, this blood of Passover, was a blood that signalled deliverance. It was a deliverance out of the
bondage of Egypt. I gave Egypt for your ransom,
says God in Isaiah 43, 3. From out of the prison of bondage
to a place of worship and a place of service. So I thought it might be profitable
for us to spend some time just looking at all, some of the aspects,
and there are many, many more that I can't touch on in the
time we have, but just to look at some of the aspects of what
it is for this blood to be shed for us. For us each week, symbolically
to take this blood into ourselves, as we feast on the Lord Jesus. We read that hymn a little while
ago, the psalm they sang as they left. Then in verse 26, there's
a remarkable word, isn't it? In Passover, the one thing the
people had to do was stay inside their houses. To go outside of
your house that night was to meet with death. Just look at
verse 26 down there. That last Passover, what happened
on that last Passover night? Jesus went out and everyone else
was sheltering in there. The Lord Jesus went out. He went out as a shield. He went out as a conqueror. He went out to the Mount of Olives.
He went out to the place on the Mount of Olives where they killed
the red heifer, that sacrifice that cleansed the people of God
from contact with death. So he went out to the place of
death and danger. that God's children would never
go there. The Last Supper is much, much
more than Passover. It's food for our souls. It was brought to us by God with
a word of blessing, verse 22. He blessed the bread. brought to us by God with a word
of thanks, in verse 23. He took the cup, and when he'd
given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And it's a cup, and it's a memorial
of his death. And it's a sign and a seal of
the new covenant that Simon's been talking to us about. All
the benefits that God's children ever receive are benefits that
are won for us entirely by the Lord Jesus. And as we saw last
week, it's a meal that's instituted so that we would look not at
what's around us, but we would look away to heaven. And so that blood, that blood
of the Lord Jesus, that Lamb of God, it brings good news. It brings good news of grace
rather than wrath. It brings good news of mercy.
rather than vengeance. It brings good news of peace
returning, not peace departing. And in its shedding, Acts 20,
28 says that this blood, by this blood, the Lord Jesus purchased
his church. take heed to yourselves and to
all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers
to shepherd the Church of God which he purchased with his own
blood." It's interesting, isn't it? The scriptures speak so much
of blood. One of the reasons I wanted to
deliver this message is that we can just get so familiar with
it but we forget We can forget things that are familiar, we
can forget the significance of them. It is the most precious
item that was ever spilled upon this earth, was the blood of
the Lord Jesus. It was powerful. He bought a
church with it. The most significant thing that
we can do in this earth is to worship God. And the place where
God promises to come and meet with us is in places like this. It's in churches where he's promised
to meet with his people. Because he's purchased the church
with his blood. It's his church. It's not my
church. It's his. He owns it. He bought it. They are his. The blood of the Lord Jesus brings
atonement because the redemption price has been paid. The word atonement means to cover.
The wrath of God, the holy broken law has been covered by this
blood. We've been brought near to God,
Ephesians 2. Remarkable, isn't it? We who
spend our lives running away from God, trying to build a refuge
of lies, trying to build someplace, like Mr Hughes did, to find safety
in his own activities from that destroyer. We who are far off
have been brought near. God has come near to us. and we've been brought near to
God by the blood of the Lord Jesus. Colossians 1.20 says that
we now have peace. He's made peace through the blood
of his cross. Peace with God. Peace with our fellow man. We leave them in God's hands. We don't have to enter into their
world and their disputation. We have peace with God. Peace. We are pardoned, completely
pardoned. We are justified, we are made
right with God by His blood, Romans 5.9. Justified by His
blood. The justice of God is satisfied
on my behalf because of the blood of the Lord Jesus. If you turn
in your Bibles to Revelation 8.14 there's a remarkable picture
of the washing that God's children
have. 814, 814 isn't it? I've got the wrong,
I have the wrong verse. They have washed their robes.
Yeah, sorry Colin, thank you. They've washed their robes. They've come out of the Great
Tribulation. They've washed their robes and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb. It's remarkable, that word white is the whiteness of the Lord
Jesus' garments on that day and that Mount of Transfiguration
when those three apostles saw Jesus as He really is, in His
glory. We are washed in that whiteness. We've washed our robes and we've
made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The same whiteness
is a reference to that great white throne judgment in Revelation. You see, if we go to God with
our robes washed as white as that, what's going to happen
to people who are dressed like that on that Day of Judgment
before that great white throne? God is going to declare them
holy, is he not? Is he going to bring any judgment
on people who are dressed the same way as the Lord Jesus, who
are covered by his blood? For God's children, the day of
judgment is a day of vindication of what the Lord Jesus has done.
The Day of Judgement is not something that God's people should be whipped
about to perform and make themselves right. We are worthy to go to
that throne. We are worthy on that day. The
blood of the Lord Jesus makes God's children as beautiful and
as glorious as Jesus is. That's what it is to be washed
in this blood. As I said from verse 26, the
Lord Jesus went out to conquer, and he conquers on our behalf.
Again, all of salvation is all of grace. In Revelation 12.2,
the saints, The saints are victorious, 1211
I think it is. 1211, I'm sorry. I was talking
about glasses with Meron earlier, I need to get some sorted pretty
soon. And they overcame him. They overcame their accuser who
stands before God. accusing them. He accused them
before our God day and night. He's been cast down. He has no
accusation to bring against God's children. And they overcame Him
by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. Their testimony is the Gospel.
And they did not love their lives to the death. We don't overcome
by our own activities. We overcome the things, the enemies
that we have all around us, just like those people did on that
Exodus night, that Passover night. They sheltered inside, the blood
on the outside, and they lived that night. They lived because
the Lamb had died and they lived on the Lamb. Now Lord Jesus goes out for us. He goes everywhere that we have
to go. He goes ahead of us. He goes
even into the holy of holies in heaven. If we're going to
be right with God, we have to go into the holiest of holies
in heaven. They're not with the blood of
goats and calves, says Hebrews 9.12, but with his own blood
he entered the most holy place. Once for all, having obtained
eternal redemption, it was his eternal redemption, he bought
the church with this precious blood. For if the blood of bulls
and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled the unclean sanctifies
the purifying of the flesh." There was a sense in which that
red heifer sacrifice purified their flesh and they were allowed
then to participate in the service of God in the temple. They were
no longer defiled, that week-long ceremony. sanctified their flesh. How much more shall the blood
of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without
spot to God? Cleanse your conscience. I don't know about you, but I
live with an accusing conscience, because I live aware of my weakness. I live ashamed of my sin. Isn't this remarkable? God cleanses
us internally. Participating in the Lord's Supper
is a means by which God's children are reminded that they are perfectly
clean before God. not just clean on the outside
that people can see, but we are clean on the inside. Our consciences are cleaned,
cleaned from dead works, works that never achieve anything,
to serve the living God. And we serve Him by faith, by
trusting what He has done. We enter in to the holy of holies
with boldness now. We go to the most holy place
in all of creation with boldness, dressed as the Lord Jesus is
dressed, robed in his robes of righteousness. It's the seal. The blood is the seal of the
everlasting covenant. Just over a couple of pages in
Hebrews to Hebrews 13. Remarkable verse. Now may the God of peace who
brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd
of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
Verse 21, make you complete. The word is perfect. In every
good work to do his will. Working in you what is well pleasing
in his sight. Through Jesus Christ to whom
be glory forever and ever. Amen. See the blood has done
its work and continues to do its work. What a remarkable statement
from our God. He's made us complete in every
good work to do His will. And He works in us what is well-pleasing
in His sight. Who is well-pleasing in His sight?
Jesus is well-pleasing in His sight. This is my beloved Son
in whom I am well-pleased. The Lord Jesus dwells in us and
works in us and works through us and God is pleased. And the blood of the Lord Jesus
protects us. It's our security. When God sees
it, he'll pass by. It's remarkable, isn't it? He
passes by and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you. I still remember the day and
I still remember the spot where I suddenly, by the grace of God,
realized that death is finished for me. It's the most remarkable
thing, isn't it, to think that death has touched our Saviour
and it cannot touch me. Robert Hughes was fearful of
being consumed. I'm not fearful of dying. Jesus has died for me. God's
children eat the bread. and drink the wine celebrating
the fact that that great enemy of us, death, is defeated. God sees that avenging sword
and sees the blood of his son and he must pass by us, he must
pass over us He must only bring to his people love and good things
for our souls. And its power never finishes. It continues to rescue. It continues
to redeem. It continues to purify. It continues
to reconcile. And if it was good enough for
Paul, who was the chief of sinners, then surely it's good enough
for sinners like us. If it's good enough to rescue
the backsliding, surely it'll rescue us. It's good enough for
the weak. It's good enough for the weak
ones amongst us. It's good enough for the ones
who were wavering and fearful. And how many of Israel that night
applied that blood and had that meal, and they were wavering
and fearful. And yet, what for them was a
fearful prospect became a wonderful celebration the next morning. The plague shall not be upon
you. Justice can't take God's children
to court and accuse them and execute them. The law of God
cannot come against God's children and accuse us of sin, because
the Lord Jesus has taken it away, taken our sin away, born it in
himself. Satan no longer has power to
accuse us. The one thing that Satan can
bring against the children of God, the children of men, is
a broken law of God. He can say to Colin Jeff, this
is what God says, Colin, and this is what you have done. And
God's children say, yes, this is what I have done, but this
is what Jesus has done. He's dealt with that law. He
says, I have paid for all of those sins. I have borne the
punishment of all of those sins. There is no plague that can come
upon us. So the message of the Last Supper,
the message of Passover, is flee to a place of safety. Hide. Hide your life in the Lord Jesus. Find peace in Him. Find refuge
in Him. No matter what it looks like
on the outside, hide in the Lord Jesus. As we have that supper,
as we have this supper now, let it be a reminder that God has
cleansed us. He's made his people to be before
him just as holy as the Lord Jesus. We are sanctified, made
holy. Therefore Jesus also that he
might sanctify the people. He sanctified us. To eat this bread and to drink
this wine is to say, because of Jesus, I am holy. Because of Jesus, I am righteous. Because of Jesus, I have peace
with God. And I'm just going to keep hiding
in Him. I'm going to hide from this world. I'm going to hide from myself.
I'm going to hide from Satan. I'm just going to hide in Jesus.
That's wrist for our soles. Let's pray.