Back to Matthew 26. Matthew 26. Title of the message, The Last
Passover. This is the last Passover. As I said Thursday night in the
meeting, there are times when an event happens to a person or to a family or even to a nation when things will not be the same
anymore. You know, you can just mention
9-11, everybody knows what that's about. Pretty much everyone knows
what that's about. This nation hasn't been the same
since. And when God saves a sinner, it will never be the same. That
sinner is chained for the rest of his or her life. Things will
not be the same. But what we have before us this
morning here in Matthew 26, some of the writers call it holy ground. This is holy ground. The Passover
is about to happen. And the true Passover, all those
years, for 2,000 years roughly, Israel was given the Passover
back in Egypt when they came out of Egypt, and they kept this
Passover. And all those lambs that were slain in the Passover
pointed to this one lamb. John the Baptist said, Behold
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Here
is the true Passover lamb about to be offered. And this event
right here has changed the world and it was never the same since.
It's never been the same since. It hasn't. This world that sat
in darkness has now seen a great light. After our Lord was crucified
and after He was risen, right before He went back to glory,
He said to the disciples, Go into all the world and preach
the gospel." Good news, good news. Now before our Lord was
crucified, Israel, now don't you think about this, Israel
was the only nation that had the Word of God. They were the
only nation that had the pictures and the types that pointed to
the Lord Jesus Christ. They had the gospel in type and
they were the only nation that had that. Let me read something
to you here out of Ephesians, I believe it is. Let me read
you something here. In Ephesians chapter 2, let me just find the verse here. In
verse 11, listen to this, because he's talking here about the Gentiles,
and that's us, Gentiles. And he's speaking here to the
Ephesian church, those whom the Lord had saved. Paul says, "...Wherefore
remember that you, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who
are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision..."
That is, the Jews called us the uncircumcision in the flesh made
by hands. "...that at that time you were
without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel." and strangers from the covenants
of promise." Those promises that God gave to Abraham. He said,
"...through thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
having no hope and without God in the world." That describes
the Gentile world before Christ was crucified. That describes
the world. They were without hope and without
God and without Christ in this world. But now he says, in Christ
Jesus, you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the
blood of Christ. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ
and Him being buried and rising again has changed this whole
world. It's never been the same sin. Why are we here? We are
here because of Christ. We are here because Jesus Christ
was crucified and the gospel was sent to a people throughout
this whole world. God said, I have a people, I'm
going to save a people in every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation
under heaven. He said, I'm going to save them.
I'm not going to try to save them. I'm not going to go to
this nation and that nation and offer them salvation. I'm going
to save them. I'm going to save sinners. God's
going to save sinners. Christ died to save sinners,
and sinners are going to be saved. And I thank God for that because
this is one of them. Now our Lord here finishes His
teaching, His disciples concerning the question they asked Him,
and you that have been here through this Bible study, They ask him
the question back in chapter 24 on the destruction of the
temple, when it was going to happen, when he was coming again,
when he was going to set up the kingdom and all this. And for
two chapters, he's been teaching them and instructing them when
the temple was going to be destroyed, that he was going to die, and
that he's coming again, his second coming. But now here's what he
does. He brings their minds back to
the present situation. He brings their mind back to
the one thing needful, which is the Lord Jesus Christ and
His death. The Apostle Paul said when he
went to the Corinthians, he said, I am determined not to know anything
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And that's the one thing needful,
is that we never forget, we always hold in front of us Christ and
Him crucified, Christ and His substitutionary character. John
said when he was taken to the third heaven, he did not say,
I saw Jesus Christ sitting on a throne with a crown on His
head. He said, I saw a lamb as it stood in the midst of a throne
as it had been slain. He saw Christ when He was taken
to the third heaven in His sacrificial character, even there. So what
He does here, He brings them back to the very heart, the very
message of the gospel, which is Christ and Him crucified.
No one will be saved. No one will be saved without
the shedding of the blood. The Scripture says, Without the
shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. So this has
to happen. This has to happen. Now Christ
tells them here again of His death. This is about the fourth
time in just a few chapters that He tells them of His death, because
this is the one thing that's really it. This is the pinnacle
of all of it. This is the pinnacle of the gospel.
This is the good news of the gospel. I have a substitute.
I have one who died for my sins, therefore they're gone. They're
gone and I don't have to answer for them. He put them away. Paul wrote in Philippians 3,
Verse 1, he says, "...Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord,
to write the same things to you." In other words, to write to you
about the gospel over and over and over again. He said, to me
it's not grievous. It's not grievous for me to stand
here week after week, Sunday after Sunday, and preach Christ
to you. That's a joy. There's nothing that I enjoy
in this life more than telling you of the Lord Jesus Christ
every week. And Paul goes on to say, he said, to me indeed
it's not grievous, but for you it's safe. It's safe. The safest thing for you, when
you come here, is for me to preach Christ to you. Christ in all
His glory, Christ in His priesthood, Christ in His sacrifice, Christ
as the prophet, Christ as the king, Christ is through all the
Scriptures. This whole book is about Jesus
Christ. If you read this book and you miss Christ, this is
the purpose of this book. It's about Him from Genesis to
Revelation. After the fall of Adam, God spoke
to them and He said that the seed of the woman will bruise
the serpent's head. Who is that seed? That seed is
Jesus Christ. So, we come back to here and
Paul says, you know, to me it's not grievous and for you it's
safe. Let me tell you something. God cannot just forgive me just
because I ask him to. He cannot forgive me just on
the grounds of me asking. There must be satisfaction to
God's law in order for God to remain a just God and save a
wretch like me. God is the God of law. He has
law. He has justice. He has order. And if He just forgave me on
the basis of just forgiving me, He would offend His own justice.
He would offend His own law. So what does He do? God himself comes into this world,
takes upon him flesh, takes my place, and suffers the justice
of his own law. He suffers for the sins that
I ask forgiveness for. And now God can forgive me. He
can forgive me of my sins because they've been paid for. They've
been paid for. He says here in verse 1 and 2,
he says, After he finished his teaching, he said, after two
days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of Man is betrayed
to be crucified. Before the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is God in the flesh, before He can sit on His throne of glory,
He must hang on a cross of shame. He must. It has to happen. Before
He can wear the crown, He must hang on the cross, because I
deserve the cross. And for Him to bring me to glory,
He's got to take my place and take what I deserve. It has to
happen. Why, you ask. Some of you, I
know, I would ask why. These are questions that a thinking
person will ask. Why did Jesus Christ have to
die such a death? Why did he have to die such a
death? Well, first of all, it was ordained of God. It was ordained
of God. You can read that throughout
the whole Old Testament. It's ordained of God. You know
it says in Revelation 13, 8, that Jesus Christ is the land
slain from the foundation of the world? Do you know why when
Adam fell, when Adam fell, that there was not thunder and lightning
and destruction? When you read Genesis, after
Adam fell, Adam heard the voice of God walking in the garden
in the cool of the day. That sounds so peaceful. You
know why? Because God had already taken
care of the matter. The matter had already been taken
care of before the foundation of the world. I want you to understand
something here. The fall of Adam did not take
God by surprise. Jesus Christ being crucified
is not plan B. It was not and never will be,
or never was, plan B. God is a God of order. Now we
don't know the secret things of the Lord. His thoughts are
higher than our thoughts and His ways higher than our ways.
We can't comprehend that. We can't comprehend God's level.
But I do know this, that God has ordered everything. Christ
crucified was not plan B, it was plan A. God is going to save
a multitude of sinners and bring them to glory and make them just
like His Son. He's going to multiply. He's going to fill that new earth
with a people just like Jesus Christ. Holy, harmless, undefiled. That's what He's going to do.
Now, for Christ to be my substitute, He's got to die the death I deserve.
And in Christ crucified, I have that death that God demands.
God said, the soul that sinneth shall surely die. I have died. I've died. Paul said to be absent. He's talking about a believer.
To be absent from the body is to be what? Present with the
Lord. I've said this to this congregation.
I'm not going to die. I'm not gonna die. You'd say,
you're nuts. You're nuts. You could look at
me, you could tell I'm growing old. You know, I get sick. My body's dying. That's what
Paul calls it, a house. I live in this house. This is
a house I live in. It is decaying because of sin. They're gonna bury this body,
but they're not gonna bury me. I will go to be with the Lord.
And in time, when He puts an end to all of this, I'll have
a new body. It'll be raised from the grave.
A new body. A spiritual body. Scripture calls
it. I'm not going to die, because
I already died in Christ. I'm telling you, my death is
over. My death is over. Now while He's telling His disciples
what must happen in two days, the chief priests, scribes, and
the elders, they all get together to plot His death, His murder.
They're going to murder Him. These are the religious people
in town. There's nobody more mean than a bunch of religious
people. Religious people without Christ
are the meanest people on this earth. There's no one, and I'm serious,
there's no one meaner than a self-righteous person. Those Pharisees, they
caught a woman in adultery. And what did they do? They brought
her and threw her down at the Lord's feet, knowing that the
law said to stone her. Well, they don't realize the
lawgiver is standing in front of them. He's the lawgiver. And they said, now what does
the law say? Because they thought they was going to entrap him.
And I love what he did. I love what he did. He stooped
down and he wrote on the ground. And then he looked up and he
said to the crowd, you that are without sin, you cast the first
stone. And then he stooped back down
and one by one, he emptied that place. It says one by one they
left. And there was nobody there left
but him and her. He took away all her accusers.
That's exactly what happened at Calvary. God took away all
my accusers. There's no one there left to
accuse me. It's over with. It's done. My case, my case has been settled. My case has been settled. That's good news. Now these chief
priests, they all gather together And I want you to notice something.
This is not a coincidence. They didn't just happen to get
together. Remember how many times we've read in the Gospels here
in the past that they wanted to kill him, his hour had not
yet come? They couldn't touch him. One
time they was gonna kill him and it says he walked right through
the midst of them. They was gonna throw him off a hill. This is not a coincidence, this
is providence at work. God rules and overrules, and
we need to understand this. If we're to have any real comfort
in this life, we need to understand who's ruling it and running it.
It's not the Democrats and Republicans. It's God Almighty. Jesus Christ
on the throne is running. He's ruling and reigning over
all this. The earth is the Lord's, the
fullness thereof, and they who dwell therein. There is a king
sitting on the throne and he's ruling and he's reigning, not
over just the big things, I mean over the fall of a leaf as it
falls to the ground. He controls that path. Now that
kind of God, I can go to bed and sleep. Because I assure you,
every crook in this county can break the locks on my door. But
if God says, you don't go there, if God puts a hedge about me,
if He puts a hedge about my home, then ain't nobody gonna touch
me. Nobody. Now the true Passover is about
to take place. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians
5-7, he says this, Christ our Passover. In the Hebrew, password means
to leap over. Leap over. If you, and many of
you are, you know what Exodus 12 is about. It's about the Passover.
God said, when I see the blood on the doorpost and the two side
posts, I'll pass over you. I will leap over you. Death will not enter your house.
I will not kill you. When I see the blood, because
I tell you what, the blood says this, death has already entered
that house. It entered that house whom I
substituted, Jesus Christ. Christ, our Passover, sacrificed
for us. Now notice something else also
here. God's overruling power in this, as well as all things. God rules
and overrules all things. They said, now listen, this is
the governing body of Israel. Just like our Supreme Court.
They said, not on the feast day. Not on the Passover. We're gonna
kill him. Let's kill him, but let's not,
as I told you Thursday night, this is how stupid people can
be. I mean, that's not a good word to use, but that's like
saying, let's shoot him on Monday and not Sunday. I mean, like that justifies it?
Like that justifies it? Let's do it. Why do it on Sunday
when you got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, do it on? They said not on the feast day. You know when they did it? On
the feast day. Because he's going to die. This
is the Passover. The Passover. Jesus Christ is
the Passover lamb. And they said, well, let's not
do this on the feast day. Well, two days later, he said,
the Lord said, in two days, they're going to betray me and I'm going
to be crucified and will be killed. God rules and overrules all things. I mean, everything, everyone
is under his power and control. God, let me tell you something. God doesn't have wants. I get so sick of hearing that.
God wants to do this, God wants to do that. God's never had a
want. God has a will and a purpose,
and He's accomplishing that will and purpose. He said in Isaiah
46.10, listen, that He's declaring the end from the beginning. God's
declared the end from the beginning. And from ancient times are things
that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I
will..." He doesn't say, I want to do my pleasure if you'll let
me. You and I have no let at all
in this. He said, I will do all my pleasure. God Almighty is the Sovereign
and He's never given that up. He's still the Sovereign. He's
a merciful, merciful sovereign. He delights to show mercy. He
delights to save sinners. But he's the sovereign. And also
notice his calmness and willingness to die. You know, in one place
he said, he said, I laid down my life for the sheep. No man takes my life. I lay it
down for the sheep. I lay it down of myself. He said,
I lay down my life for myself and I take it again. This thing
is under, this thing is between the father and the son. You know,
when the Lord Jesus Christ died on Calvary's cross, who did he
offer himself up to? Me. Did he offer himself to you?
He offered himself up to God. The offering, the sacrifice was
made unto the Father. Jesus Christ offered Himself
up to God that He might be able to be a just God in saving me. A sinner. A sinful man. A sinful man. That's the gospel. That's the
gospel. Now this woman, let me close
with this. As he's telling this, he goes
to this particular house. There's a man named Simon. He's
called Simon the leper. And there's a woman that comes
in. They're in verse 16 through 13. She comes in, and she has
this very expensive ointment over in Mark, I think it is.
It's called spikenard. It's actually about a year's
wages. And they said it's worth 300 pence or like a denary. Well, one denarii was about one
year's wages in that day. Very expensive stuff. Very expensive. And she comes in and she anoints
him. She pours it over his head and his body. Now, this woman
did this from her heart. It was an act of love. There are some of you here this
morning. You're here out of an act of love. You're here out
of an act of love for the Lord Jesus Christ. You want to worship Him. You
want to hear of Him. You want to feed on Him. You
want that. It's sheep food. Christ is sheep
food. And this woman pours it up on
his head, and she does it deliberately. You know, true worship of the
Lord Jesus Christ is deliberate. Never accidental. It's deliberate. We, this morning, deliberately
worship the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our all in all. He's my
life. As I told you the other night,
He's not an add-on. Jesus Christ is not an add-on.
Jesus Christ is not an insurance policy. Keep you out of hell. Jesus Christ is my life. He's
my life. And this woman did this without
fanfares. She wasn't looking for any recognition
whatsoever. And it was an act of faith, as
all true worship is. It was an act of faith. She believed
Him to be the Christ. She loved Him because He forgave
her of her sins, whatever. Some think this might have been
Mary Magdalene of whom He cast out seven devils. I don't know.
It doesn't give her a name. But I do know this. She did it
as an act of faith. She did it out of love. It was
self-sacrificing. I believe she gave everything
she had. Remember that woman that went into the temple and
she put what we would consider one penny? And the Lord says,
she gave more than all the rest who have abundance. This woman
here, she gave all that she had. It was self-sacrificing. And
the fragrance of it filled that room. It was spikenard over in
Mark. He calls it spikenard. It was
very fragrant. Listen. When love for Christ
is expressed, It fills the room. It fills the heart. It fills
the life. You know, one time they looked
at the disciples and they said, they took note, it says, they
took note that they had been with Jesus. It's evident when
someone walks with the Lord. I mean, it's evident. It's evident
from their graciousness, their kindness, their love. That's
what it is to be like Christ. It's not saying, no, I can't
take a drink of that. No, it's the love. Love your
enemies. Love your enemies. I was an enemy
of God at one time. You know, the scripture says
that we are born with a natural mind. Everybody here, everybody
in this world is born with an enmity in their mind. You know
what that word enmity mean? I looked it up this morning.
It means hostility. We are born with a natural hostility
toward God Almighty. Not the God of our imaginations,
but the God of heaven and earth who is the Sovereign, who sits
on the throne. We have a natural hostility toward Him. And not
until He saves us by His grace do we actually fall in love with
Him. Not until the love of God is shed abroad in the heart do
we fall in love with Him. Not until then. Until then, we want nothing to
do with the God of heaven and earth. the God of our imagination
that we whittle out, and he said, you thought I was altogether
like yourselves. But I tell you what, when he makes himself known
to you, you realize you and God ain't nothing alike. God is light,
I'm darkness. God is holy, I'm sin. And notice here also, her attention
was on him. She felt that she owed him everything
for saving her soul. I owe him everything for saving
my soul. I couldn't do anything about
it. Not a thing. He was all her hope. She had
no hope but him. And I tell you this, it's not
hard to give love to one you love. Is it? It's not hard to
love someone. It's not hard to give. It's not
hard to obey. It's not hard to sacrifice anything
for the one you love. And she was not ashamed to express
her love to the Lord Jesus Christ publicly. Publicly. There are no secret believers.
There are none. And then last of all, when the
disciples saw this, they were angry. They called it a waste. Nothing done for Christ's sake
is a waste, no matter what others say. We cannot give too much,
do too much, or worship Him too much. Judas is the one who started
this indignation. You can read that in John 12. Because he held
the bag. He was a treasurer. He's like,
oh man, I could have had a good weekend. We could have took this and sold
it and look what we could have done, give to the poor. He wouldn't
have give to the poor. He didn't want to give to the
poor, he wanted to give to himself. And Christ defends her. He says,
she's wrought a good work on me and wherever this gospel is
preached, this will be said as a memorial. It's written in the
scriptures. He had it written in the word of God. True worship
is always commended by our Lord, and it's always recognized. The
least thing done in His name, truly done in His name, He recognizes
it. He said, if you give a cup of
cold water in my name, He never forgets it, never. All right, let's pray. Our Father,
bless Your Word. Bless Your Word. worship you,
help us to believe. Lord, take that message and put
it in my heart. Christ's name I pray and amen.
Now we're going to sing a song and after that we'll take a break,
short break, and at 12 o'clock we'll have the wedding. Then
we'll go downstairs and eat. Everyone stay. We don't need to take all
that stuff back home. Take your appetite downstairs.
All right.