Alright brethren, let's go to
Exodus chapter 12. We have a lengthy passage, 14
verses, so I'm just going to take it verse by verse this morning. This is the last night of Israel's
bondage in the land of Egypt. The children of Israel stand
as a type of God's elect, the Israel of God. We were born into bondage, born
into sin, had no way to free ourselves. So these Israelites
in bondage in Egypt with no way to free themselves is a good
picture of us. But we read here in Exodus 12
and verse 1, And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land
of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning
of months. It shall be the first month of
the year to you. Their whole calendar was about
to change because God was providing the Passover lamb. You know, everything that God
says in the book, he brings to pass in time. And in the year
of our Lord, which is what A.D. means, in the year of our Lord,
when Christ was born, the calendars changed. And it became a new calendar. Just like the Lord pictured here
He was about to give them a lamb and redeem them from Egypt. He
said the calendar is now going to change. That's what God did
in time when Christ came. That's what He did. Exodus 12,
3, He says, Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying,
In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every
man a lamb. according to the house of their
fathers, a lamb for a house. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
pictured here as the lamb, the Passover lamb. He's presented
throughout scripture as the lamb of sacrifice throughout the Old
Testament. The Passover lamb is a type of
Christ. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
This needs to be established right up front so you see who
we're looking at here. 1 Corinthians 5, verse 7. Paul says, purge out therefore
the old leaven that you may be a new lump as ye are unleavened. How do we become unleavened?
For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed or slain for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast,
not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and
wickedness, but with this unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
So Christ is our Passover. He's the one being pictured here
in this lamb. And he said there to them in
verse 3, he says, take a lamb, every man a lamb, according to
the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. Verse 4, and if
the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor
next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls. Every
man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.
That is, everybody had to be provided a lamb. Everybody in
Israel had to have a lamb. And they had to partake of the
lamb. And the spiritual picture, or the picture it's, the spiritual
thing it's picturing is, God has provided every chosen child
of God a lamb. He's provided us all with Christ. Every one of his elect. will
have Christ the lamb, God's provided. We all eat this same spiritual
meat, Christ the lamb. Verse 5, your lamb shall be without
blemish, a male of the first year. You shall take it out from
the sheep or from the goats. The lamb had to be without blemish.
You know, in order to be a fit sacrifice to God for his people,
Christ had to be without sin. If he would have had sin, you
or I couldn't go and lay down our life for one of our brethren
because we're already sinners. So he had to be without sin.
That's why he was born of a virgin. He was not born of man's corrupt
seed like you and I are. He was holy from his mother's
womb and he came forth holy. He had no sin of his own. None
at all. He went about, lived a perfect
holy life, holy in heart, no thought was ever wrong. In all his deeds, everything
he did was righteous according to God's holy law. And even when
he bore our sin on the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ never was
himself corrupted. He remained holy, spotless in
his faithfulness to the Father. 1 Peter 1 18 says, for as much as you know
that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers, but you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He's the spotless
lamb of God. always was and always is the
spotless Lamb of God. The Lamb was a male. The Lamb
had to be a male. Our first head and representative. God made the first head and representative
of His people to be a male. This was God's doing. He made
the first head a male. And everybody that would be born
of him is who he represented. All his family. And Adam was
their head. He was a male. One of Satan's
efforts right now in this world is to totally blur the lines
between male and female. In dress and all these different
things. Trying to blur the lines between
male and female. Only a male can produce children. Only a male can represent his
family. Only a male Give me the legal
head of the family. And he, whatever he, everything
I did, this is how God sees it, and how God sees it is how it
is. Everything that I did before I ever had Emma or Will, everything
I did, they did. And everything that Adam did
while we were in his loin, we did it. All his children did
it. That's why we broke the law when
he broke the law. See, the reformed folks make
this to be just legal. You were legally represented
by Adam and he makes you legally sinful. Well, that's not it. That falls short of it. Levi was in Abraham in his loins
when he paid tithes to Melchizedek and so Levi actually paid tithes. He did pay tithes in Abraham.
He's a seminal head and not just a legal head, not just a federal
head. We were in Adam. That's what I was trying to preach
down there in Florida. I was trying to show you when Adam
sinned, I was there in that garden. I did that. And the good news
is for all that God put in Christ, when Christ walked this earth
perfectly faithful and holy to God, I walked this earth perfectly
faithful and holy to God. I was in Him. Paul said, I am
crucified with Christ. I was on that cross. I was crucified
with Christ. It's not just God charging you
with righteousness and treating you as if you're righteous. Scripture
nowhere presents it like that. Scripture always presents it
as being, you are dead. And your life is hid in Christ,
in God's right hand. You are. It's a done thing. You were in Him. It's a fact.
It's done. So this last Adam had to be a
male, just like the first Adam, to represent his family. And
the Lamb was a male of the first year. That meant he was in the
prime of his life. Christ died when he was 33 and
a half years old. Prime of life. That's to show
us that he laid down his life. No man took his life, he laid
it down. He was healthy and strong and he laid down his life. And
then it says that the lamb could be taken from the sheep or from
the goats. When you look through the old
covenant ceremonies, there's so many parts of those ceremonies
that represent Christ. And Christ is, there's so much
in Christ that it takes a lot of different things to try to
represent Christ. And so a lamb and a goat represents
Christ. The lamb represents Christ who
knew no sin. The lamb represents Christ without
spot or blemish who died the just for the unjust. But the
goat represents Christ made sin for His people. Remember on the
Day of Atonement? The atonement lamb without spot
and blemish had the sins of the people laid on it and it was
slain. The scapegoat had the sins of the people laid on him
and the goat took the sins away into a land not inhabited. It
died. It went away into a land not
inhabited. That's the picture of the land
not inhabited. Christ has taken our sins away
as the scapegoat, and they're gone as far as the east is from
the west, buried in the bottom of the sea, because he hath made
him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. So a lamb or a goat, God said
both of them picture my son, you can take it from either one.
Verse six, and you shall keep it up until the 14th day of the
same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel
shall kill it in the evening." That lamb was kept, and here's
the point of the 14th day of the same month, the lamb was
kept until an appointed time that God had set. That's the
importance of it. God set the time. He set the
time. God told him almost to the, I
guess to the year that he was gonna bring them out. He told
Abraham how long they would be in bondage. And God brought them
out at that time. You know, we went a long time
before Christ came, but in the fullness of time, when it came
God's appointed time, Christ came forth, born of a woman.
He walked this earth and men tried to kill him and they tried
to harm him. And it says, John 7.30 says,
they sought to take him but no man laid hands on him because
his hour was not yet come. God has set a time when every
one of us is going to die. Will asked me the other day on
the way home, he said, what if I'm one of God's elect and I
die before God ever calls me to faith in Christ? I said, God
appoints the time, and if you're His elect, you're not going to
die before God sends you the gospel and calls you to faith.
God's in control of everything. He sets the time, and He set
the time Christ would die. When it came time, Jesus answered
them saying, the hour has come. It's come now that the Son of
Man should be glorified. So this is to show Christ was
in full control of His death. He was in control of the time.
No man took His life, He laid it down of Himself. And He raised
it again of Himself. And then it says here, the whole
assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the
evening. They all shall kill it in the
crucifixion of Christ. Why was Christ crucified? Why
did He have to die? Because He was bearing the sin
of all God's Israel. Scripture says all Israel, natural
Israel, are guilty with the blood of Christ because they all killed
Christ. That blood is on His hands. They even said it, let
His blood be on our hands, and it is, God said. But you and
I who are God's elect, Christ died because our sins were made
His sin. That's why He died. It was all
our doing. We're the ones who were the cause
that He had to die. Verse 7, it says, and they shall
take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and
on the upper door post of the houses wherein they shall eat
it. It was to put that blood, catch
it in a basin after they killed this lamb. Without shedding of
blood is no remission of sin, God said. Life's in the blood. So the only way sin can be put
away is for one to take that person's place. in every regard
and die the death they were to die. Life's in the blood. So
they were to take this blood and put it on the outside doorposts
on each side and they put it on the lid all over the top.
Look down. Who did that? Who put the blood
on? Look down at Exodus 12, 21. Then Moses called for all the
elders of Israel. That's the head of the house.
The head of each house was the elder. And he said unto them,
draw out and take you a lamb according to your families and
kill the Passover and ye shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip
it in the blood that's in the basin and strike the lentil and
the two side posts with the blood that's in the basin. And none
of you should go out at the door of his house until the morning.
You see, Christ's blood, it not only has to be shed for His people,
and only Christ could do it, only Christ could shed His blood
for His people, but His blood also has to be applied to His
people. And Christ is the head of the
house, and He's the one that applies the blood. He applies
the blood. You and I don't apply the blood.
Christ applies the blood. He gets the glory for applying
the blood to you and I. He's our everlasting Father.
He's the head of the house. Go to Hebrews 9.14. I quote this
a lot, but it's just so important. Hebrews 9.14. It says there, If those bulls and goats and
all those sacrifices of old, if they ceremonially cleansed
people in type and shadow, He says, verse 14, How much more
shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience? That's
within. Purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God. Look down at verse 19. Well,
who applied the blood in all those Old Testament sacrifices?
He's showing us how the Old Testament was a picture of what Christ
does. Who applied the blood in all that old covenant? When that
covenant was ratified, who applied the blood? Look here, Romans
19. I mean Hebrews 9, 19. He said,
let's look at verse 18. Neither the first covenant was
dedicated without blood, for when Moses, see Moses did it,
when he had spoken every precept to all the people according to
the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats with water
and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book and all
the people saying, this is the blood of the testament which
God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled with blood
both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry, and
almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without
shedding of blood is no remission." And he goes on to say, but it
was necessary that the things of heaven, God's elect people,
they had to be purified with something better than the blood
of bulls and goats. But my point to you is this.
When Moses, when he dedicated that first covenant, it's a picture
of the everlasting covenant being dedicated, being written in the
hearts of his people. When Moses, he was the one God
said, he was the head of Israel. And God said, Moses, you sprinkle
the blood on him. And that pictured Christ, who's
the head of His people. And Christ not only shed His
blood for His people, God gave Him the glory to sprinkle the
blood on His people and to say, this is the covenant I've enjoined
unto you, the everlasting covenant of grace. And He gave us a picture
of it. We're going to take the Lord's
table today. When He instituted the Lord's table, remember what
He did? He handed them the wine. And he said, this is a picture
of my blood which the new covenant is written in, the New Testament
in my blood. That's just like Moses when he
sprinkled it all and said, this is the covenant of God dedicated
to you. He writes this word in our hearts
and sprinkles the blood upon our conscience through the Holy
Spirit and Christ says, this is my covenant I've made with
you. I'll never turn away from you to do you good, ever. Christ
gets the glory for applying the blood. Well, there's a song that
we sing, I can't remember the title right now, but Charles
Wesley wrote it. And he talks about us taking
the blood and applying the blood. And that's, you know, that's
fine, but that's how most people preach that, that Christ, that
you have to apply the blood to the doorpost of your heart. Christ
gets the glory for doing that. Now then, after that, after he
applies the blood, then we come to see our faith in Christ. Now
look now at verse 8, Exodus 12, 8, and they shall eat the flesh
in the night. Now here's a picture of faith,
eating the lamb. and they shall eat the flesh
in that night, roast with fire and unleavened bread, and with
bitter herbs they shall eat it." That's a picture of faith by
which we live before God, depending on Christ. When the Holy Spirit,
when Christ has sent the Holy Spirit, when He sprinkled our
conscience with the blood of Christ, now we're given faith
to eat Christ's body and drink His blood. This picture is faith.
Go to John 6, John chapter 6. Putting the blood on the lintel
and on the doorpost, that picture is the work of Christ through
the Holy Spirit in regeneration, applying the blood in our hearts,
new heart. This, eating the lamb, is a picture
of faith. John 6.53, Then Jesus said unto
them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh
of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in
you. Whosoever eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I'll raise him up at
the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father
hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me,
even he shall live by me. Now that's a picture of faith.
That's a picture of faith. When they took the blood and
the bread, I mean the wine and the bread on the night that the
Lord instituted the Lord's table, when they ate that bread and
drank that wine, that was a picture of faith. Living on Christ Jesus,
our bread and our wine. But look here now back in Exodus
1. Exodus 1 and verse, I mean Exodus
12, I'm sorry, Exodus 12 and verse 8. And look here, that
lamb, God said it had to be roasted with fire. Had to be roasted
with fire. That's picturing the fire of
God's wrath that Christ Jesus endured on the cross of Calvary. When He was made sin for His
people, then He was made a curse for His people. Because He bore
the sin of His people, He bore the curse of God. And that curse,
the curse of the law is the wrath of God, the fire of God's justice. And He bore the fire of God's
justice and He consumed the fire. He put the fire out for His people. That's what He did. And look
back there, Exodus 12, verse 8. He said, They shall eat the
flesh in the night, roast with fire, and unleaven bread. Unleavened
bread. This bread we're going to have
in the Lord's tables. Unleavened bread. Because God,
He commanded that night, and see the Passover feast, the observance
of Passover ended the night that Christ instituted this ordinance. And so they were eating unleavened
bread. Bread was unleavened. Leaven
is a picture in scripture of sin. Sin, you put leaven in bread,
it makes the bread rise. Sin is what puffs you and me
up in pride and arrogance and tries to make out ourselves to
be big and God to be small. That's sin, and that's what leaven
is a type and a picture of. And so God says all the leaven's
got to be taken out of the house. Wine, T.P. Simmons wrote to the
U.S. Department of Agriculture one
time on this question of wine or grape juice at the Lord's
table, and they said wine, I mean grapes, have a natural leaven
on them. And that's what, no leaven has
to be added to grapes to make a grape ferment. You crush the
grape, it's got leaven in it already. And in that climate
with no refrigeration, immediately it starts to turn into wine.
And within three months, you got wine. It's wine. And when
he talks about wine on the leaves, the leaves in the bottom of the
wine, that's that leaven that's been killed by the fermentation
process so that wine doesn't have any leaven in it. Grape
juice has got leaven in it. Grape juice is full of leaven.
Men would get all in a tizzy about having wine at the Lord's
table, and I wouldn't dare drink it. Then they'd go home and eat
a vanilla cake or a lemon cake that's made out of lemon extract. It's got four or five times the
alcohol in it that wine does. But it's unleavened. That's the
picture. Unleavened. There was no leaven
in the house. No leaven in the house. What's that picture? Go
back over there to 1 Corinthians 5, and look at verse 7. It shows us what Christ did for
us when He went to the cross. This is what He accomplished.
1 Corinthians 5 and look at verse 7. Purge out therefore the old leaven
that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened. You see that? You are unleavened. What He is saying to them is
don't bring any more leaven back in to the church service because
you are unleavened. So purge out that sinful Sin,
that's sin. For, here's how we became unleavened,
even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep
the feast. This feast right here, gathering
together and worshiping Christ. Let us keep this feast as well
as the Lord's table. Everything we do, let us keep
this feast. Not with old leaven. Not with
the old works and legal works and neither with the leaven of
malice and wickedness. That's in the heart. Neither
with that. But with the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth. Being born of God, purged in
the conscience, that new man is unleavened. And we worship
God in the heart, in the new man that He's given. With unleavened,
with sincerity and truth. Alright, Exodus 12. And they
were to eat it, it says, verse 8, they were to eat it with bitter
herbs shall they eat it. And that bitter herbs is just
a picture of that along with this faith that he gives, whereby
we eat the lamb, also comes the bitterness of repentance, where
we turn from our works and we turn from our so-called righteousnesses
and we confess that our sin is what crucified Christ. Zechariah
12.10 says, by the Spirit of God's grace, he says, the believers
shall look upon Christ whom they have pierced and they'll mourn
for him as one mourns for his only son and be in bitterness
for him. As one that's in bitterness for
his firstborn. Repentance is not just a man
being made of himself to change and to turn from his work. Repentance
is wrought by making you behold Christ. Everything is by beholding
Christ. Faith is wrought by beholding
Christ. The bitterness of repentance is wrought by beholding Christ.
That's when you repent, when you see you pierced Him. Your
sin pierced Him. You know what makes a believer
hate sin? You know what makes us mourn the fact that we still
sin and makes us hate it? Because our sin is why Christ
had to die. Our sin is what pierced Christ
on the cross. That's why we hate it, because
it's against our Redeemer. Look back now, Exodus 12, 9.
Eat not of it raw, nor sodden it all with water, but roast
with fire his head with his legs and with the pertinence thereof.
And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning.
And that which remaineth of it until the morning you shall burn
with fire. And why does he say, eat not
of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire?
Why does he say that? This was the only way they could
partake of this lamb. It had to be roast with fire.
What's the spiritual meaning of that? The only way that our
sin could be dealt with and be put away and God remain just
and justifier was for Christ to bear the sin of His people
and go under the fire of God's holy wrath. That's the only way.
There was no other way sin could be put away. No other way. It
had to be through the death of Christ on the cross. The only
way. And he says here, you eat it all. You don't leave any of
it. Believers are to receive all
of Christ. And we're to do so not half-heartedly. We're to entirely, without any
wavering, without any doubt, cast all our care on Christ and
trust Him alone to save us and to do everything necessary to
save us. The Lord hates lukewarm commitment
to Him. Remember what He told the church
at Sardis? He said, I know your works, you're neither cold nor
hot. I would thou were cold or hot.
So then because you're lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I'll
spew thee out of my mouth. He calls on His people and draws
His people to be fully consecrated to Him, fully committed to Him,
totally committed to Him. He tells them at the end, as
many as I love, I'll rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore,
and repent. Be zealous. You and I don't like
half-hearted commitment, do you? If it's something really important,
you don't like half-hearted commitment from somebody. God says, I'll
spew you out of my mouth. Be zealous. Be zealous for Christ. And notice this, whatsoever was
left, whatever they had left over after the feast, they were
to burn it, burn it with fire, get rid of it. When I was down
at, when I was down at, Brother Kevin and I were down at Rocky
Mount, Paul Mahan has Ralph Barner's Bible. And, you know, we all love Ralph
Barnard. He's one that the Lord used so mightily to bring the
gospel of God's sovereign grace back in this country, back in
the 40s and 50s. And he has Ralph Barnard's Bible. And so he pulled it out and he
was showing the men, you know, and one of the men said, let
me see that. He took it and was looking at it. Another one came
up there, let me look at that. He took it. They all began to
crowd up on to look at Ralph Barnard's Bible. And one of the
men said, we need to burn that thing. And that's the point. Remember the brazen serpent?
After the Lord saved them by making them look to the brazen
serpent, they began to worship the serpent, the brazen serpent,
the brass serpent. The Lord said, it's nested, it's
a piece of brass. He said, burn it and sprinkle
the ashes where they can't find them. There's nothing holy about
going to the holy land as men call it. That's idolatry. We don't worship crosses. We
don't wear crosses and worship crosses. That's idolatry. The
only reason this cross is on the front of this building is
because we just haven't been able to get it off yet. But it's coming off. Or
either we're going to paint it orange and tell people we just
root for Tennessee Volunteers, one of the two. But we don't worship, you know,
those things. Have you not felt this way after
you partake of this bread and we observe the Lord's table?
I've felt this in my heart before. Oh, we ought not. Be careful
with that bread, you know. That's bread of the Lord's table.
Don't just eat that bread. Go home and eat it if you want
to. I like it. I go home and eat it. It's just bread. That's
all it is. It's used to picture Christ.
But after that, we're not to worship that physical bread.
And that's what he's telling them. Burn whatever's left because
if you don't, you'll end up worshiping that rather than Christ who it
represents. Now, here's zeal in this next
verse. Look here, Exodus 12, 11. He
says, and thus shall you eat it with your loins girded, your
shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand. You shall eat it
in haste. It's the Lord's Passover. And
that's how we're to partake of Christ all our lives. As we walk
through this earth as a pilgrim and a stranger in it, we need
to be ready to leave at any moment. Somebody was telling me one time,
I heard this I think recently on a message. Scott Richardson
went to stay at a hotel. He was preaching somewhere and
he was staying at the hotel the church had provided for him while
he was there. And one of the men came over to visit. And he
looked up and there was a picture on the wall that was crooked.
And he went over there and straightened the picture up. Brother Scott
said, you don't have to straighten up the picture. I'm not staying.
He said, I'm going to leave here pretty soon. I'm not worried
about that picture. And that's our attitude about everything
in this world. We're not staying here. We're
leaving. We're just pilgrims. So he says,
you have your loins girt about. Ephesians says, you have your
loins girt about with truth. And feet, he says, your loins
girt about, shoes on your feet. We're to have our feet shod with
the preparation of the gospel of peace. He said, and your staff
in your hand, the staff of faith. And he says, and you partake
of Christ in haste, hastening to the day that our Lord returns,
waiting for our Lord to return. And he was telling them this
because he's bringing them out that night. I mean, they're not
staying there. We're going to see that in a
minute. But here's our motivation. Right here, this is our motive.
Verse 11, it's the Lord's Passover. Salvation's of the Lord. See,
the reason he told them to be ready to go, this is the Lord's
Passover. There's no doubt that what God
purposed will fail to come to pass. Because this is the Lord's
doing. And that's true of us, brethren.
Christ chose the Lamb. I mean, God chose the Lamb. He
slew the Lamb. He applies the blood. He gives
gifts of faith and repentance. He makes us willing to eat the
Lamb. The glory belongs to Him. The salvation's of the Lord.
So if you believe Christ, He says you partake of Christ being
ready to go at any moment. Any moment. Verse 12. Here's
why. For I will pass through the land
I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and I will
smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast,
and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am
the Lord, and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the
houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will
pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy
you when I smite the land of Egypt. Look down at verse 29.
Exodus 12, 29. It says, And it came to pass
that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land
of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne,
unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon, and
all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night,
he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians. And there
was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there
was not one dead. Can you imagine that? Can you
imagine that? We think about firstborn, I think,
sometimes, and we think about, like, the firstborn little children.
But we're talking about, I'm a firstborn, Rob's a firstborn,
AJ's a firstborn. We're talking about firstborn
men died too. In every house there was a dead
person. And that firstborn was the heir. That firstborn was the one that
carried on the name of the father. That firstborn was the one who
carried on the kingdom and the estate of the father. And by
killing the firstborn, he put their name out of existence.
That's what the picture is. When Christ slew Satan on the
cross and crushed his head, he extinguished his name. That's what he did, and that's
what Christ did. But those under the blood, those
that were under the blood, the Lord said, when I see the blood.
He didn't say when you see the blood, he said when I see the
blood. I know believers who have gotten up in age and got dementia
and got Alzheimer's, and they didn't even know themselves,
much less be able to know Christ. That's not the important thing.
God knows Christ and God knows His people in Christ. He said,
when I see the blood. That ought to tell us that we're
not trusting in our faith. One day you might not even know
anything about faith or who to believe. But when God sees the
blood, and He said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. So Christ, all the firstborn
in Egypt died. All are guilty. All must die.
The firstborn are the first fruits. They represent everything that
comes afterwards. And they were all guilty, the
firstborn were guilty and so was everybody in the house. God's
going to execute judgment on all sinners, brethren. Even those
He saves have to die under the justice of God. The difference
is God provides the lamb. He provided His Son for His people
and Christ died in our place. He died in our place. And those
that are brought by God to believe on Christ, they live and they
go out free as God's first fruits, as His firstborn. In Christ the
firstborn, you know what we are? We're the church of the firstborn.
Every child that God saved is a firstborn son of God, just
like Christ the firstborn. What the firstborn is, all the
rest are. And what Christ is, that's what
His people are. Look down at Exodus 31, I mean, verse 31.
Look here. This is what God said was going
to happen. He called for Moses and Aaron by night, verse 31.
Pharaoh did this. He called for Moses and Aaron
by night, and he said, Rise up, get you forth from among my people,
both you and the children of Israel, and go, serve the Lord
as you've said. Also take your flocks and your
herds as you've said, and be gone, and bless me also. And the Egyptians were urging
upon the people that they might send them out of the land in
haste, for they said, We be all dead men. And the people took
their dough before it was leavened, their kneaded troughs being bound
up in their clothes upon the shoulders. And the children of
Israel did according to the word of Moses. And they borrowed of
the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment.
And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians,
so that they left unto them such things as they required. And
they spoiled the Egyptians." Everything that God said came
to pass. He brought it to pass just exactly
like He said He would. He said, when I get done, Moses
is going to beg you to go. And that's what he did, he said.
He thrust him out. And that's what Christ came to
crush Satan's head. And when he binds the strong
man and he enters into his child, when he binds Satan and he enters
into his child in regeneration and gives you faith, he thrusts
you out. The devil thrusts you out. And
you become Christ, lock, stock and barrel. There's therefore
now no condemnation of them which are in Christ Jesus who walk
not after the flesh but after the Spirit. This is all to the
praise of the glory of God's grace wherein He's made us accepted
in the Beloved. Look at verse 14. This day shall
be unto you for a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to
the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it a feast by
an ordinance forever. But on the night of the Passover,
when Christ, who is our Passover, took that Passover feast, observed
that Passover feast, just like Christ fulfills all the law,
He fulfilled that Passover ceremony and put an end to it. Just like
He fulfilled all the law, put an end to it. And Christ instituted
this supper. The bread and the wine represent
His broken body and His shed blood. And he says, now as long
until I return, long as you're in this earth, this do in remembrance
of me. You do it looking for my return.
You're showing forth my death until I return. And so we keep
this feast. We keep the feast of this preaching
of Christ and Him crucified without leaven. We're not adding man's
works to Christ's work. We're not adding anything in
justification or sanctification or redemption or wisdom or anything. We're declaring it's all of God's
own Son, Christ Jesus the Lord. And in our means we use and in
our service we don't add any leaven in that either. We're
not trying to coerce sinners into a profession, we're not
trying to water down the gospel, and we're not trying to do appealing
things to get people to come and join us. None of that. We
preach Christ and Him crucified. And at His table, we use unleavened
bread, we use pure wine, because it pictures Christ. It's the
best thing to picture Christ, our sinless substitute who broken,
gave His body to be broken for us and shed His blood to redeem
us. And we do this declaring He is the righteous, holy, successful
Redeemer. Now listen to me. Only those
under the blood of Christ shall be saved. Only those under the
blood of Christ shall be saved. Have you eaten of His body and
drank His blood? The only way to do that is through
faith. through heart, faith, and sincerity,
and in truth. Have you partaken of Christ?
Have you eaten His body and drank His blood through faith in Him?
It's only those that trust Christ only for salvation to whom God
says, when I see His blood, I'll pass over you. The rest are going
to be like the Egyptians. They're going to meet God one
day, You're going to be out from under the blood. You're not going
to have anybody to answer justice for you. And when you meet God
that way, you're going to have to answer justice. That's why
God will cast them out in the outer darkness and they'll be
wailing in the icing of teeth forever. Because you and I can't
ever satisfy eternal justice. We'll suffer forever. But Christ
did. You trust Christ. You make God
trust in Christ. He says, there is therefore now
no condemnation. There's no sin. God says, what
sin? I blotted it out. It's gone. It never existed. Where do you want to be found?
Under the blood? Or in the Egyptian's house? I
pray God give you The wisdom, make Christ your wisdom to behold
Him and what He's done, that you'll cast your care on Him
and be found in Him. Not having a righteousness of
your own, but His alone. That's my prayer for her. Now,
for you that have believed on Christ and continually believe
on Christ, and He's all your hope, your only hope, He says
to us, His commandment to us, you notice there when God gave
this commandment for them to observe this Passover Feast,
it wasn't an option. He said, you do this. And for
you and I who have been redeemed, come into His table and partaking
of his table is not an option. It's a command of our Lord, this
do in remembrance of me. The only fitness for this table
is the same fitness we have to have for heaven. That's Christ
himself. If he's your fitness for salvation,
he's your fitness to come to this table. He says come and
remember me. All right. Brother Rob, you and
Kevin pass out the elements.