All right, turn with me over
to Exodus chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12, let's read
verses 26 and 27. Exodus 12, 26 says, And it shall
come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean
ye by this service? That you shall say, It is the
sacrifice of the Lord's Passover. who passed over the houses of
the children of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians and
delivered our houses and the people bowed the head and worshipped."
That's holy, isn't it? I think it's important for our
children to understand why we do this. We do this every so
often, as often as we do it. And he said, when they ask, what
mean you buy this service? Be ready to give them an answer.
So I believe it is very important for our children to understand
why we do this. But I know that it is just as
important that we ourselves understand why we do this. The reason is
because Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11, Whosoever shall eat this
bread, we have some unleavened bread here. Leaven is sin, pride,
self. None of that goes into what happened
in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we have unleavened
bread here and he said, Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink
this cup, this cup of wine. This cup of the Lord unworthily,
whoever does it unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood
of the Lord. But let a man examine himself,
and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, For he
that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation
to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." Not understanding
what this truly means. not confessing what the heart
must confess in this concerning the Lord's body. So it is of
eternal importance that we understand why we're doing this. All right,
go with me over to Genesis chapter 3. Now on the radio this morning,
I was in Genesis chapter 3. And the first place we turn to,
I believe it was the first place we turn to in the message this
morning, was Genesis chapter 3. And here we are back in Genesis
chapter 3. We know that God made everything
perfect and Adam and Eve sinned. All right? We know that. Now
listen to this. Adam and Eve murdered nobody. Not physically. They murdered
nobody. They did not commit adultery
on each other. They did not lie openly, physically. They did not steal openly, physically. What they did is they ate a piece
of fruit. They ate a piece of fruit. Genesis
3 verse 23 says, Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from
the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man And he
placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming
sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of
life. Absolute separation and outcast
because they laid hold on a piece of fruit and ate it that God
said do not eat that piece of fruit. Couldn't that have been
overlooked? No. God is holy. God is holy. That's where this
whole thing starts. God is holy. There are people everywhere who
consider themselves to be fine Christian people, people who
never murdered, people who never committed adultery, never in
their eyes lied. I know of a couple of people
that I believe they believe in their heart. They've never lied. never stolen, which we know is
totally untrue based on this heart. Everything applies to
this heart. What they don't realize is there
was enough sin in the cry that they had as an infant. We have
a little infant now. And it does not take an infant
long to realize, I am not happy. I want what I want. You know
what that is? Sin. That's sin. There was enough sin in that
to eternally separate us from God. Forget about your teenage
years. There was enough sin in that to earn us an eternity of
hell. Sin is not what we do. Sin is what we are. I am not a sinner because I have
sinned. I sin because I am a sinner. Now Genesis 3 verse 21 says,
unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of
skins and clothed them. We observe this table. Why do we do this? We observe
this table because we are remembering the fact and confessing the fact
that we need a lamb. That's why we're doing this.
We need a lamb. God killed a lamb, covered them
in the skin of that lamb. And the whole reason we're doing
this right now, the whole reason he had that Passover, was to
remember the fact that we need a lamb. We need a covering for
all of this sin. Look over at Leviticus 17 with
me. Leviticus 17 verse 11 says, For
the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to
you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh
an atonement for the soul. It's blood that makes atonement
for the soul. Without the shedding of blood
there is no remission of sin. We need a lamb. That's what we
need. We need a lamb. Now go with me
over to Exodus chapter 11. Back towards Genesis to Exodus
chapter 11. That's the first reason we observe
this table. We are confessing we need a lamb. That's what we're doing. Alright,
Exodus 11 verse 4 says, And Moses said, Thus saith the
Lord, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt,
and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from
the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even
unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill, and
all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry
throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it,
nor shall be like it any more. But against any of the children of
Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast,
that you may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between
the Egyptians and Israel. We observe this ordinance because
we are remembering and we are confessing and we are giving
thanks for the fact that God chose us. That's what we're doing. We are giving thanks. We are
acknowledging that God chose us, but for the fact that God
chose to set us apart, make us holy. We need a lamb. And that lamb
was not for everybody. Every soul needs a lamb. Every
soul doesn't have a lamb. Death fell on the whole land,
it says, but God chose us. He chose us to give us this precious
blood of the Lamb. I was sitting right there just
a minute ago thinking, I hope the Lord allows me to enter into
this. I hope the Lord will just let me understand just a small
piece of what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me. For me. Can you believe God chose you? It's amazing love. He said in
chapter 12, verse 13, Exodus 12, 13, 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. We needed
a lamb. We had to have a lamb. And God
chose to give the lamb to us. How wonderful. Verse 14 says,
And 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." Well, then why aren't we doing
that? If that's what it says, why aren't
we doing that? Why are we not sacrificing a lamb and making
a feast out of the meat? That's what they used to do. Why are we doing this instead
of that? Go over to Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10 verse 4 says, For
it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should
take away sins. Lambs are not the lamb. They're not the lamb. Animals
could not put away man's sin. It took a man to do that. A man
had to do that. No man was worthy to pay for
my sins. He had his own sins to deal with.
You know that? There was no man worthy to stand
before God on my behalf because every man has his own sin to
deal with, but one. There was one man who was worthy. Verse 5 says, Wherefore, when
he cometh into the world, unto us a child is born. He said,
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared
me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come in the
volume of the book. It is written of me to do thy
will, O God. He prepared himself a body. He
entered that body. He became a man. We needed a
lamb. God provided a lamb and He gave
it to us. John the Baptist was preaching
by the River Jordan one day and all of a sudden the Lord Jesus
Christ came walking up and He pointed His finger and said,
Behold the Lamb. Behold the Lamb. Hebrews chapter
9 verse 11 says, But Christ But Christ, verse 12 says, neither
by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. Our kids just started learning
about the tabernacle in their class downstairs. Hannah just
went to Rocky Mountain, she got a bunch of stuff. visual aids
and things like that, and they're going to start learning about
the tabernacle and what it means that he went in by himself into
the holy place. Isn't that a wonderful thing
for our kids to learn? What it means that a man was worthy to
go into the holy place, bringing the blood of the only lamb that
could redeem. forever satisfying that payment.
Paul wrote, he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no
sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
I love how the Ethiopian eunuch, he was reading Isaiah 53 where
it said he was led as a lamb to the slaughter and he asked
Philip, who is he speaking of? Is he talking about himself or
some other man? Who is he talking about? Philip
said, let me just start preaching right there to you. Let me pick
up where you are. And he preached the Lord Jesus
Christ. We observe this ordinance because
our Lord himself said, this bread is my body, which was broken
for you. This wine represents my blood
which was shed for you. He said this do in remembrance
of me. We do not observe this to add
anything to his perfect death. We just don't. We do not add
anything to it. Not one thing. We observe this
to confess that his death was the only thing that could pay
for all sin. The only thing that could wipe
our slate clean, and the only thing that could satisfy our
God. The only thing. Now before we take this ordinance,
let me ask you this. We have established that Christ
is the Lamb. Christ is the Lamb. Here is the
question I want to ask myself, and I want to ask you. Is He
your Lamb? Is he your lamb? Brother Tony
and I were just talking in my study just a minute ago about
how the Lord really opened our eyes at some point and made these
things effectual. And I've asked two men tonight
to read from Psalm 22 and he was telling me that that scripture
was one of the scriptures the Lord used to open his eyes to
what Christ did for me And I told him that I remember having the
same experience with Psalm 27. There was a point in my life
when I read Psalm 27 and it was as though I was reading my own
writings. That was my chapter. Is he, we know he's the lamb,
don't we? We know he's the lamb. My question
is, is he my lamb? Is he my lamb? Is he all of my
hope and all of your hope? Clinging to his body, his blood
alone. We observe this ordinance to
confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is my lamb. We needed a lamb. God chose us. Christ is the lamb
and he's my lamb. He is my lamb. All I desire is
to be a partaker of him. That's it. That's all I desire.
My only plea before the throne of God is that I died in my lamb
and my lamb lives in me. That's the only plea I have.
And he's made me to be a willing recipient. I want to take this
tonight. And the reason is because I want
Christ in me. And this is not transubstantiation. That's not His body and that's
not His blood. But this is me confessing, I
want His body and I want His blood. That's all I want. A willing
recipient of His precious body and His precious blood. That
is discerning the Lord's body. It was all. It was all. Alright,
back to Exodus 12. Verse 26 says, And it shall come
to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by
this service? That you shall say, It is the
sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of
the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and
delivered our houses, and the people bowed the head and worshipped. And the children of Israel went
away and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so
did they. Our God commanded His people
to keep observing that sacrifice until Christ came, didn't He? Up until they did that. As a
matter of fact, the Lord attended the last Passover. They kept
it up until Christ came. And when he came, he put away
the first that he may establish the second. Put away the law
that he may establish grace. And now he has commanded us to
observe this ordinance till he come. Isn't that what it says?
I love the thought of that. He said, I want you to keep sacrificing
lambs, and you keep sacrificing lambs until Christ came. And then he came. And now he
said, I want you to, as oft as you do it, you eat this bread,
you drink this wine, till he come again. Till he come again. in obedience and confession and
thanks. As often as we do this, we'll
do it in remembrance of Him. Now, I've asked Brother Tony
and Brother Bob to come read for us out of Psalm 22. And as
they do, let's understand and see if the Lord will let us enter
into the fact that this is Jesus Christ speaking. This is the
Lord Jesus Christ speaking. Okay, Brother Tony, you come.