This morning's message is entitled
Cross Examination. Our scripture text is 1 Corinthians
5, verse 7, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. This morning
I want to do a serious examination of the cross of the Lord Jesus.
That which most occupies scripture must most occupy our thoughts,
and there can be no question that the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ is the primary focus of scriptures. From God's promise
that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent
to the book of Revelation, the Bible is an exposition of Christ
and Him crucified. In the Old Testament, we see
this truth set forward in prophecy, promise, and picture. Our Lord
left no doubt as to the purpose of Old Testament scriptures when
He said, ìYou search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life. These are the scriptures that
testify of Me, but you will not come to Me that you might have
life.î The Gospels give us a biography of our Lord and the history of
His work. Acts shows us that the apostles
went out preaching Jesus as the Christ. And the letters from
the apostles are made up of the testimony of Christ and Him crucified,
and how that truth is to affect our lives. How far have many
professedly Christian churches gone afield of what they're supposed
to be doing? They entertain, preach feel-good
messages, engage in moralizing and socializing, and even drag
the filth of politics into their pulpit when they're supposed
to be pointing people to the green pastures and still waters
of the gospel, setting forth the glories of the Lord Jesus.
Charles Wesley wrote, Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my
great Redeemer's praise, the glories of my God and King, the
triumphs of His grace. Would to God there was in every
pulpit even a single tongue guided by a heart abounding with Christ,
and that God would send a thousand such tongues into the churches
of the United States of America. One thing is for certain, such
preaching would drive the modern-day money-changers and religious
hucksters out of the popular pulpits of American Christianity. Such preaching would bring the
revival we so desperately need as men and women would see their
great sin displayed on Calvary along with the full revelation
of God's great grace. We will attempt to do just that
today, to set forward the great theme of Christ and Him crucified
as it's revealed in the Jewish Passover. Then we'll ask several
important questions in light of the cross of Calvary. Let
us remind ourselves of this great event by which God redeemed his
people out of bondage and called the nation of Israel as his people.
The Jews had been in Egypt and for some of that time had been
treated as slaves, forced to make bricks for Egyptian construction.
God sent Moses to Pharaoh with this message, the Lord says,
let my people go. Pharaoh answered, who is the
Lord that I should listen to him? Through a series of 10 plagues,
disasters sent by God, the Lord showed Pharaoh exactly who he
is. The last of these disasters was
the judgment of the firstborn, which we call Passover. God decreed
that on a certain night, He would pass through Egypt and kill the
firstborn in every household. Note carefully how God worded
this. He did not say He would pass through the Egyptians, but
through Egypt. You may wonder what significance
there is to such a minor distinction. Had God said, I will pass through
the Egyptians, there would have been no need for the Passover
sacrifice to shield the Jews from judgment. But seeing that
God said He would pass through Egypt and kill the firstborn
of every household in Egypt, the Jews were in as much trouble
as were the Egyptians, for they were in Egypt. Already we see
a picture of God's salvation in this story. All of us, even
those chosen by God, are worthy of God's wrath, and all will
receive that wrath one way or another. We are all children
of wrath, and that just wrath must be satisfied. But even though
the sentence of death was passed on the Jews as well as the Egyptians,
God had said He would make a distinction between Egypt and Israel. This
distinction was not to be found in them, for they were of no
greater character or conduct than the Egyptians. This distinction
was marked out in blood. God made this distinction by
doing several things for the Israelites He did not do for
the Egyptians. He did not tell the Egyptians
of the coming wrath, but He did tell the Jews. Nor did He tell
the Egyptians of any way to avoid experiencing that wrath, but
He did tell the Jews. Nor did God move in the hearts
of the Egyptians to believe His Word and follow His command,
but He did that for the Jews. He told the Jews to select a
yearling from the flock a few days before the appointed day
of wrath. They were to observe the lamb for those several days,
to be certain it had no spot, blemish, or deformity. Now this
is a picture of our Lord Jesus, who is our Passover lamb. For
He was examined, tried in every point just like we are, but without
sin. He did no sin, He knew no sin,
and there is no sin in Him. Now this qualified him to be
the substitute for sinners. You see, one sinner cannot stand
in the place of other sinners. Only a righteous man can be a
substitute for sinners. So Peter wrote this, that we
are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot, and as one without sin Christ
also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,
that He might bring us to God. At twilight on the night of Passover,
the Jews were to kill the spotless Lamb. The Scriptures tell us
that the wages of sin is death. Seeing that God laid the sin
of His wandering sheep on the Lord Jesus, He received this
horrible wage of death, and He received it in the full. We sinned
with all our being, therefore Christ suffered in all His being.
The physical sufferings of our Lord we might imagine, for we
know what physical pain is, even if we have never experienced
at the level of those who have been crucified. But the Lord
Jesus endured suffering that we cannot imagine, for it was
spiritual suffering. That our sin was laid on Him
at all must have been a horrible experience for one who knew no
sin to be numbered with the transgressors when you love righteousness and
hate iniquity is in itself a horrible thing. Add to this that as part
of his suffering, he endured the abandonment of his God. You
know, we spend so much of our lives unaware of God, we would
hardly notice it if for a while God removed His loving presence
from us. But it was not that way with
the Lord Jesus. God delighted in Him and He in
God, but on the cross, He was cut off from God. He says, my
God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There is a hell of hells
in those words. And Christ suffered such a death
for his people. On Passover, after the lamb was
killed, some of its blood was to be applied to the doorposts
and lintel of the house. This blood was to be a token
to those in the house, a testimony of God's promise through the
blood. And the promise was this. When God passed through Egypt,
He would pass over any house on which was found the blood
of the Passover lamb. There are some important things
to note about the blood on the door. First, centuries before
crucifixion was even invented by men, God symbolized the death
of His Son in the pattern in which He told them to apply the
blood to the door of their homes. Second, the blood of the lamb
was neither shed nor applied to the doors of the houses by
the ones who were saved by that blood. Fathers served as priests
in their homes. So it would have been the work
of the father to kill the lamb and apply its blood to the door.
But it was not the father who was saved by the blood, it was
the son that was saved. And so it is with us. We did
not kill the Lamb of God, nor do we apply His blood to the
door of our hearts, as so many say. It is God who killed the
Lord Jesus, and it is God who has applied His blood to the
house of His people. You see, each of those Jewish
houses in Egypt pictured the entire Church of God. Third,
on Passover night, A person's comfort may lay in his ability
to believe the blood was on the door, but his safety lie in God
seeing that the blood was there. The promise was not, when you
believe with all your heart that the blood will shield you from
wrath, I will pass over you. Rather, God's promise was, when
I see the blood, I will pass over you. Our seeing and believing
on the blood of Jesus Christ is not what actually shields
us from the wrath of God. It is God seeing and accepting
the blood of Christ as a sufficient payment for our sin that shields
us from God's wrath on the day of His wrath. The death of Christ
was a Godward act. Hebrews says that Christ offered
Himself without spot to God, not to us. This popular notion
in modern Christianity that we must accept the sacrifice of
Christ ignores the fact that the sacrifice of Christ was never
offered to us. We can neither accept it nor
reject it since it was never offered to us. It was offered
to God for His people. And on that day, when God sweeps
through this world in wrath, He will look for those who are
under the blood of His Son, the Passover Lamb. and He will pass
over those with the blood, for that blood will serve as a testimony,
wrath has already passed here. So Christ is our Passover, for
He is the spotless Lamb who was slain for His people, whose blood
was spilled by God, and accepted by God, and applied by God as
the payment for the sins of His people. and the just God will
never visit His wrath twice upon the same people. Christ suffered
for His people, so in God's eyes, wrath has already passed on them,
and it will not come to them a second time. Now let us ask
and answer a few questions in the light of Christ's sacrifice.
First, what does Christ's suffering say about you and me? It declares
in no uncertain terms that we are sinners beyond our ability
to fix that problem. God does not waste His efforts,
nor would He waste the blood of His Son. When we see what
great suffering it took to save us, we learn just how great our
problem is. The hymn writer said, You who
think of sin but lightly, Nor suppose your evil great, Here
at the cross may view sin rightly, Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed, See who bears that awful load. Tis the Christ, the Lord's anointed,
Son of Man and Son of God. Powerful medicine is used only
when the disease is great. What horrible sinners we must
be that nothing less than the slaughter of God's own Son was
necessary to save us. Second, what do you think will
happen to you if in the day of wrath the blood is not upon you? Look at the suffering of Christ
and understand the spiritual nature of it, and you will learn
what will become of you apart from Christ. Christ suffered
what His people would have suffered apart from Him. So if you are
apart from Christ, you will suffer what He suffered. So I urge you
with the very words of our Lord Himself, flee the wrath to come. Third, seeing such great suffering,
does it not seem clear that it would be sufficient to save one,
even as sinful as you are? I say with all soberness that
nothing less than the suffering of Christ can save you, and I
say with all joy and confidence that nothing more than the suffering
of Christ is needed to save you. If you want to flee the wrath
to come, flee to that place where wrath has already been, Christ
and Him crucified. Fourth, is there any good reason
for you to refuse to come to Christ for salvation? You may
have your reasons for not coming to Christ, but none of them are
any good. You might say, I'm such a great
sinner. Well, yes you are, but He's a greater Savior than you
are a sinner. You might say, but I do not know
if He died for me. Well, God never called on us
to answer that question as a prerequisite to coming to Christ. God set
forth Christ as the sacrifice of atonement through faith in
His blood. God has set Him forth as a Savior.
If you see Him as such, then run to Him and find salvation
in Him. You have Jesus' own word that
is the will of His Father that He would not lose any of those
who look to Him and believe on Him. Leave it to God to sort
out the secret things of His sovereign will. You act on what
He has revealed, and what He has revealed is that you are
a sinner in need of a Savior, and His Son is just the Savior
you need. May God give you grace to look
to the Son and believe on Him. May Christ indeed become your
Passover Lamb.