We were illusory, Weakness to
receive, And by its holy priesthood, Those words are so good, it says,
O that we may read in characters of blood the wisdom, power, and
grace of God. The Lord make it so. Characters of blood. Passover. 2 Chronicles chapter 30. This true story is taken from
God's Word. This took place nearly 3,000
years ago, but is very, very current, very relevant. This is the story
of King Hezekiah, who sent out posts and letters to all Israel
concerning the word of God. And these were to be posted or
put up where they could be seen, where they could be read and
declared from one end of Israel to the other. And the decree, this was verse
1. Hezekiah sent to all Israel and wrote letters, Ephraim, Manasseh,
that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem
to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel. And he repeated this in verse
5, again I say, again it's written, from Beersheba to Dan, from one
end to the next, that they should come to keep the Passover unto
the Lord God of Israel." Unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem. They had not done it for a long
time, like it was written, like they were supposed to. So he sent these letters out
to all who heard and all who read. that they were to come. Come to the house of the Lord.
It was one place. One place set up by God from the beginning. One place set up to worship the
one true God. One place. Come, he said. Everyone who hears it. Everyone
who reads it. Come. Come. We're going to keep
the Passover. There's one thing needful, he
said. And we haven't done it. like the scriptures tells us
to. One pressing thing that every single person needs to do, as
we said, and I wrote this for everyone to hear, we need to
keep the Passover according to scripture. Now, as I said, this is very
current, this is very relevant. The Lord our God who is King
of kings and Lord of lords, has written his word. He has set out his word. The scripture says, The Lord
gave the word, and great was the company that published it,
set out with it. The truth. And it has been from
generation to generation, the truth has endured from generation
and shall endure to generation." The truth, the scriptures, the
word of God has been declared, has been posted literally. The
Lord wrote, gave it to Moses on tables of stone, came down. To one man and one people, he
wrote it on the wall with his hand. And through letters, through
the apostles, through his men, epistles, letters, he sent the
word. And all have heard, Paul says,
have they not all heard? Yes, from one end to the next.
That's what he said. Yea, verily, God's word, the
sound thereof, has been heard throughout all the earth. Let's heart it. What does God
say? What's the decree? The same here. Come. This is what God's word
says. God says, come to my Son. Come. Keep the Passover. Come
to Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
God spoke out loud twice, didn't he? What did he say? This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased. Hear ye him. Come. Look to him. Look unto
me. This is me, my son, the I Am,
God-man, Emmanuel, God with us. This is him. Look unto him and
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. That's what this book
says from cover to cover. But He's God, there's none else.
Jesus Christ is God. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among
men whereby you must be saved. You must, you must come to Him. He's the Passover Lamb. He's
the only substitute. You must, you must come to Him. You must look to Him. You must
cling to Him. Lay hold of Him. Trust, believe
the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. That's what this book says from
cover to cover. This is the message. This is
the decree. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. is the Passover lamb by whose
blood, and only by his blood, we have remission of sin. Only
through the shedding of Jesus Christ's blood, not lambs and
bullets, it's not possible, but by this man's blood. Now, one
offering that he had perfected forever, this one atonement that
Christ made, the death of Christ, the blood shed by the Lord Jesus
Christ, pays for, redeems, His people. Pays for their sin.
Only them. And the decree, the declaration
of God from cover to cover in God's Word is to keep the Passover. Come, observe, hear, see, believe,
worship, lay hold of Jesus Christ. This is the one thing needful.
The sum and substance of the gospel. Christ said, if I do
lift it up, This is the only thing that will draw men to God.
This is the only thing that will sanctify anyone as the priest
that needed sanctifying, the people that needed cleansing,
the people that weren't yet saved. The only thing that would do
it was this Passover, this blood. And our Lord said, as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up. Christ crucified must be declared,
always, at all times. This is the one thing they need.
He is the one thing they need. Christ is crucified. Keep the
Passover. And what this Passover was is
repentance toward God. We need a substitute. They were
coming to a God who was angry. They didn't hear anything about
the love of God. The word love is not mentioned in this text. In these letters, in these posts,
Hezekiah did not tell the people, God loves you and wants this
and wants that. He did not say that, not one
time. On the contrary, verse 8, he
said the fierceness of God's wrath is upon you. Fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. You know what, when we talk about
the goodness of the Lord leading us to repentance, that's Romans
2, the goodness of the Lord is to make you fear the Lord. At
Pentecost, Peter didn't preach, God loved
him, and they were convicted by the fact
that crucified the Son of God, and now they were in his hands
to do with as he pleased, and they didn't know what he was
going to do with them. The fear of the Lord. But that's
the goodness of the Lord. that led them to repentance.
Repentance involves fear. Repentance involves knowing that
you sinned against God, knowing that, like David said, against
thee and thee only have I sinned, and you're going to be right
when you judge me. If you cast me into hell, you're going to
be right. Lord, save me or I perish. Perish what? At your hands, in
your wrath with the world that you're going to destroy. And then it's to lay hold of
Christ, the substitute. Lord, here's my hope. Lord, forgive
me for the blood's sake, for Christ's sake. Christ came. You're
pleased with Him. You're not pleased with me. I
plead Christ's righteousness as my own. I plead His blood
as payment for my sin. I deserve to die, but Christ
died. Repentance toward God in faith.
Lay hold of the sacrifice. The horns of the altar. Christ
Himself. I lay hold of Him. Lord, Jesus
Christ is my only hope. Not my goodness. Not my worth.
Not even my repentance. Not even my faith. Jesus Christ.
I deserve to die. But here, would you accept Him? Not I accept you, but would you
accept Him on my behalf? That's what that means. And that's
the goodness of God, to lead a man or woman to fear Him and
to repent toward God. It says there up in verse 22,
it says the people are making confession to the Lord God. All
those days, confession. 14 days, confession. Why? Because their sins were
many. Because they were great sinners. And what they needed? At the hands of God. A holy,
righteous God who is angry is mercy. His grace is a perpetuatory
sacrifice of blood, bloodshed. This is missing today. They said they haven't done this
for a long time. This message of the blood. You
rarely even hear it today. But a holy God This world is perishing. God
is not pleased with this world. You don't hear that anymore,
do you? Why did Jesus Christ die? Because God is holy. Because
he will by no means clear the guilty, the scripture says. Blood. Without the shedding of
blood, there's no remission of sin. And God said, but God. Rich
in mercy. Sin. When I see the blood, I
will pass over. I will be merciful to their sin. The sins and iniquities I remember
no more. Why? How? If it's under the blood. So come. Come one, come all. Because all are sinners. You
better come. It's your only hope. You better come lay hold of the
sacrifice. You better come keep the Passover.
Sammy, that's what we're doing every time. We're coming to keep
the Passover. We're coming to plead Christ.
We're coming before a holy and righteous God who's going to
wipe this place out. And we're saying, by faith, we're
saying, Lord, the blood, the blood, the blood, the blood of
the land, the blood of Christ. Lord, cleanse me from all unrighteousness
through the blood of Jesus Christ, my Passover lamb. That's what
we're saying. That's what we're saying. Every
time. Look back at chapter 28 with
me. Chapter 28. They hadn't done
it for quite some time. Israel was in a mess at this
time. And as I said, we're going to
look at some of this chapter Wednesday night. But read, if
you want a blessing, begin in here and all the way through
chapter 31. But Israel, all through the Old
Testament, Israel are called the people of God. They worship
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That's Israel. They claim that that's their
God, the living and true God. But not all Israel was Israel,
was it? That's what God said. But there's
a remnant. And to make a long story short,
God divided the kingdom of Israel. There were ten or eleven tribes,
and they always had a bad king over them. But Judah, that was
the remnant. That's the scene of David. They had, not always, but usually
had a good king over them. Hezekiah was one of them, king
of Judah. And that's that remnant, according
to the election of God, said Judah. He chose Judah. in the seat of David. He wasn't. I'll make a long story short,
a long story. Genesis to Malachi is just Israel
and Judah. So they were separated, they
were divided. And Israel, they all were professing believers. They all professed to believe
the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
but they were idolaters. Read it for yourself. Here in chapter 28, verses 3
and 4, this wicked king and all the people burnt incense in the
valley of the son of Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire
after the abomination of the heathen whom the Lord had cast
out before the children of Israel. In other words, they were involved
in all sorts of idolatry just like the rest of the world. Not
worshiping the living and true God, the way God said in God's
Word. Are you with me? Alright? And he sacrificed, verse 4, and
burnt incense in the high places on the hill and under every tree,
anywhere and everywhere he did what they did, whatever they
felt like doing. Now did God say you could do
that? No, sir. He said it's one place. It's
one way. It's one truth. One word. One
faith. One place. One. Now you know
what I'm talking about. what he put the word in. This
one place, this one way, this one truth, there is no other,
is Jesus Christ and him crucified. He's the crown. But they had
gone off into all sorts of idolatry. Look at verse 19. Go down there, verse 19. It says,
The Lord bought Judah low. because of Ahaz king of Israel.
Judah was involved. He made Judah naked, literally. People were running around naked,
or practically so. The Word of God, Scripture says
the commandment of the Lord is clean. The Word of God. When it ceases
to be preached, when it ceases to be heard, all of it, every
line, then perversions come in. Idolatry, corruption, perversions
abound, and it becomes norm. These people are running around
naked. Does all this sound very relevant,
very current? No. And verses 22, And finally,
in time of his distress as king, he got in trouble. It was against
the Lord, his trespass. Verse 23, he sacrificed unto
the gods of Damascus who smote him. These enemies smote him.
He said, well, they're gods. They helped them, so I'll sacrifice
to them. Maybe they can help me. But they
were the ruin of him. And all Israel, everybody's saying,
well, let's try this one. Try God. Try this God. Try that God. And look at verse
24. It said, He gathered together
the vessels of the house of God, the holy things of God, cut them
up in pieces. Just butchered the things of
God, the ways of God. Are you with me? Are you moving
between the lines? Took the things of God, The way
God said, the exact order of things that God said that he
would be worshiped with, and he butchered them. And read on. He shut the doors,
verse 24, of the house of the Lord. And he made in every corner,
anywhere and everywhere, anybody wanted to worship any way they
wanted to, it was fine with him. We don't have to worship this
way. It's too strict, too narrow. We don't need all of that. We'll
do whatever is right in our own house. Mind you, God, there's
many ways, that's what he said, there's many ways, not this strict
way, but there's many ways. We all believe the same. If you're
sincere, we'll all get to God somehow. That's what he believed. And that's what he said. And
God was angry. Is this Romans 1? Is this not
Romans 1, which says they hold the truth, but in unrighteousness? Change the glory of God into
the corruptible man, make images of God into a man, and so forth. images and statues and pictures
and things like that, and begin to worship God any way or way
they want to, twist, pervert, butcher the Word of God, corrupt
the Word of God. Oh, that's not, that's what I
say, but that's not what I mean. Is it not? So God gave them over
to a reprobate mind to do those things which are against even
nature, pervert themselves and corrupt themselves until God
looked down on the whole place as a mess. Even professing believers,
a mess. Now more than ever, this post
needs to go out. Now more than ever, these letters,
these posts need to be declared for all to hear. You need to
come. and hear the one thing needful,
that there's one way, one truth, one life for every dead man. And that one is Jesus Christ. That one place where God will
meet with the sinner is the mercy seat, Jesus Christ. That one
truth of who God is and how God saves is Jesus Christ. And he
that cometh to him hath life. He that lays hold of him hath
life. He that believeth on the Lord
Jesus Christ shall be saved, shall not perish, but hath life,
and never see death. Come one, come all. That's the
message. That's the message. You know,
as a result of this idolatry, you'll read it if you read it.
That's profound, isn't it? You'll read it if you read it.
There were 120,000 people slain. 200,000 were captives. Judah. And today, people are dying like
flies without God, without Christ, without hope. Having a false
refuge, a refuge of lies in idolatry. This is not make-believe. This
is not fable. This is true. This is current. When I say current, I mean it's
happening right now. It's continuing. It hasn't changed
a bit. Why do we look at these old stories?
Because God hasn't changed. Because man hasn't changed. Because
the truth hasn't changed. The way hasn't changed. The truth
hasn't changed. There's one way, one hope, one truth, one faith,
one Lord, one hope of your calling. We're going to see in a minute
how that the ones who came, why did they come? It was the hand
of God bringing them. God brought them, this remnant,
according to His election, according to His power. Well, look at verses
9 and 10. So these posts went out. It was
the mercy of God, wasn't it? It was the grace of God to send
these letters out. He didn't have to. He could have
just wiped them all out, couldn't He? But He sent these letters
out. Come! And look at it. Verses 9 and
10 in chapter 30. He said, if you turn again unto
the Lord, your brethren, your children, shall find compassion
before them that leave them captive, that they'll come into the land
again and inherit the land. The Lord your God is gracious
and merciful and will not turn away his grace from you. Whoever
comes, whosoever will, he will not turn away. Whoever needs
mercy, he won't turn them away. Brother Kelly, he said, again,
didn't he? If you turn again, if you've
turned away once, come back. Huh? Again, again. Read Jeremiah, the first four
or five chapters for yourself. Why will you die? He said. Turn
again. Jeremiah said, turn us and we'll
be turned. But turn again and again and
again. He's merciful. He's great. He won't turn you
away. To whom coming? Verse 10, the post went out and
the last line says, they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. You know, what I'm doing right
now is preaching this old message of blood and sin and the wrath
of God and the need for a substitute because God is We're not hearing
that anymore, are we? You do. Some do. A remnant does,
always. And the world laughs at the scorn,
doesn't it? The world laughs and scoffs at
this. Peter prophesied of that. He
told us that in 2 Peter 3. In the last days, scoffers will
come, mockers will come. What are you talking about? We
don't believe this stuff. We don't believe that God is
angry with us. We don't believe the wrath of
God abides on us. All these hurricanes and earthquakes
and tornadoes and famines, that's not God. That's just Mother Nature. We don't believe there's one
way. There's many ways. We don't believe there's one
way of salvation. Blood, that's old-fashioned,
that's barbaric, that's archaic. Nobody believes like that anymore.
Yes, they do. That's not the truth. You think
you're right and everybody else is wrong? No! This is what the
decree says. This is what God the King wrote. No, we're not interpreting this. We're not telling people what
we think it says. What we're doing is just declaring,
Thus saith the Lord. There's one hope for dying sinners. A blood sacrifice. We don't believe
that. That's a bunch of foolishness. People dying like flies, as we
said, going into the face of a holy God, and they all find
it out too late. Is this the one thing needful,
or is it not? Do our children not need to hear this? But not all rejected it. Not all stopped and mocked. Some
mourned. Not all laughed. Some mourned. And they said, you know, we do need a lamb, don't we?
We have sinned against the Lord, haven't we? We do see the wrath
of God. We do see that. Is this true? That God is merciful and gracious? Yes, it is. Thus saith the King.
You'll come. He'll have mercy on you. Me,
the chief of sinners? Yeah. Oh, verses 11 and 12. Why? Look
at it. Verse 11 and 12, "...different
ones of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and
came to Jerusalem." Why? Because in Judah, that remnant,
the hand of God. It was the hand of God to give
them one heart to do this. If we come. We heard it this morning on the
radio, didn't we? It is God that worketh in us,
both the will and the do of His pleasures. It's not free will,
it's the will of God. It's not man's power, not by
might, not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. It's
the hand of God, the sovereign hand of God, the power of God,
the will of God, the purpose of God, the Holy Spirit of God,
wooing, drawing. No man cometh unto the Father,
Christ said, but by me. No man can come unto the Father,
he said, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. And God
Almighty, and mercy and grace, mighty God Almighty, one day
said to you, for a while and I'm not coming,
I don't believe that." He laughed at the storm and said, but God
in sovereign mercy said, you won't laugh now, you'll cry,
you won't mock, you'll beg, you'll plead and you will come and I
will be merciful to all your unrighteousness and I will accept
you in the blood and you have a sacrifice and all your sins
are gone. It's of God. Salvation is of
the Lord. It's in his hand. Salvation is
in his hand. And he gives it freely. All who
ask. Here's the mystery. All who ask
do so because he chose them. All who come don't come because
they decided to, they come because he decided to long before the
world began. Because God gets all the glory
and salvation. Not the will of man, the will
of God. Not the purpose of man, the purpose of God. Not the power
and decision of man, but the power and decision of God. He
gets the glory and salvation of the Lord. And they don't come
bringing anything? What were the people doing when
they came to keep the Passover? What did they bring? Did the
king say, now, God needs this, God needs that. You bring a little
bit, help them out. No, sir. What did they bring?
Nothing. The old song we sing is, in my
hands no price I bring, simply to the Christ of the cross I
cling. They'd come with anything. They
came to receive everything. They came to him who's all. There
are women that came, and I've got to . . . where am I? I'm
preaching the gospel, that's where I am. Well, it says . .
. oh, I like this. Look at this. Verses 13 and 14.
They assembled at Jerusalem. They're all assembled. They're
all gathered together at Jerusalem. And all his people come to where
Christ is, his church gathered, to keep the Feast of Unleavened
Bread and the Second Month, a very great congregation. And I keep
quoting that. Ephesians 1, 9 through 11. This is his will that he gathered
together in one. even in him, the Lord Jesus Christ,
both in heaven and on earth. Some of that all gathered, and
even now we all gather in Christ. And look at verse 14. It says, They arose and took
away the altars in Jerusalem, and all the altars of incense
took it away, and they cast it all into the brook. And you read
back earlier, Hezekiah is the one that found the serpent of
brass on the Pope. That's over in 2 Kings. But he
found that serpent of brass, remember? And the people were
worshiping that. Idolatry. And he grounded the
power. He said, it's no hushed in. It's
a worthless piece of brass. It's idolatry. And Hezekiah is
the one that did that. And he got all the stuff. There
was all sorts of stuff that they brought in. Remember, they took
out the things that God had ordained. And they brought in all sorts
of stuff. And they had stuff everywhere. Religious paraphernalia
everywhere. And they began to clean it all
up and threw it in the river. All of it. And would that God
Almighty would come in these places and clean them all out
and throw it in the big river. Huh? That's what it's going to
take, isn't it? And do one thing. And preachers
stand up. Look at verse 15. Then they killed the Passover.
They killed the Passover. And the priest of the Levites
says they were ashamed. These weren't proud and arrogant
men. They were ashamed. These men were ashamed. We have
several men, one sitting right there, who preached the gospel.
And some of them, years ago, didn't preach the gospel. They were in false religion.
Donnie Bell, Brother Mahan. And several, they were in religion,
just like these Levites of old, just going through the motions.
They weren't preaching the gospel. But God, through these letters,
through His Word, through a true man of God, like old Barnard
and so forth, came and revealed Himself to them and in them,
and they began to throw away all this stuff. And the Lord
taught them the gospel, and it made them ashamed. They were
ashamed of what they had done before. Like old Saul. Saul of
Tarsus said, everything I ever done in the name of God was rubbish,
dung, or loss. I was blaspheming God. Injurious. But now. He revealed his Son
into the truth. Now there's one thing, one thing,
so that's what Paul did. One thing, one thing we preach.
We preach not ourselves, but Christ, Jesus the Lord, and him
crucified. Look at verse 13, this is good,
15. So as they sanctified themselves,
how? Through the Passover. There's one way. Brought in the
burnt offerings into the house of God, verse 16. They stood
in their place by the gate. They stood where they were supposed
to be standing. They stood there. They were standing now where
they needed to be standing, doing what they needed to be doing
according to the Word of God, the man of God. What were they
doing? Sprinkling the blood. Now they're doing what they're
supposed to do, these Levites, these priests of the Lord. Now
they're doing what God called them to do according to the book
of God, preaching Christ. That's it. Nothing else. Don't
get away from there. Stand right there and declare
the Word of God. Sprinkle the blood. Sprinkle the blood. And I've got to quit. And it
says down in verse There were many not yet sanctified. And there are probably some in here, I'm
certain of it, who don't know the Lord, but there's one way.
I know it. I know there's one way. The Lord
saves people. It's not by the preacher's charisma,
or it's not by programs, it's not by fleshly things, salvations
of the Lord. And God uses the preaching of
Christ and nothing else. Nothing else. What I'm doing
here, preaching Christ to save them that believe, those that
he gives this gift of faith to. So that's what I'm going to do.
That's what I'm going to do. That's what I'm called to do.
Sprinkle the blood. So it says that Hezekiah prayed
a little short prayer. Oh, what a prayer. Hezekiah,
verse 18 and 19, prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon
every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God
of his Father, though he do not cleanse according to the purification
of the sanctuary. And you know what? The Lord hearkened.
The Lord heard. The Lord does answer prayer.
He saved them. And he still does. It says, they
sang, children of God, children of Israel, verse 21, at present
there to keep the faith with great gladness, they praised
the Lord. This is all about the Lord. All
about the Passover, day by day, singing unto the Lord. Verse
22, Hezekiah spoke comfortably to the Levite. He had a heart-to-heart
talk with them. Boys, you're doing what you're
supposed to do now. This is good. I know you're discouraged. I know you're ashamed of yourself,
but you're doing what I told you to do, and this is good. And it says they ate there, they
did this, they ate, they drank, they offered piss offerings,
they worshiped for seven days. confessing to the Lord God of
their father. And they enjoyed it so much,
Stan, seven days. They said, let's do it again.
Seven more days. Let's don't leave yet. So they
did. This guy said, okay. Have seven
more days. And they kept it with gladness.
How many messages have you heard? How many times have you come
into this place? How many times? This poor pitiful fellow has
brought nearly 5,000 messages in 20 years. That man, four times
that many. How many? We're doing the same
thing. We're doing the same thing. How
many on Sundays? How many on Wednesdays? Why? We keep coming to hear the same
thing. That's of the Lord. That's of the Lord. That's of
his mercy that you see your need of one thing, Christ. And so it says that Hezekiah
gave thousands, gave great gifts, thousands. There were lots of
people. Well, everybody had a lamb, John.
Nobody was without a lamb that came. Thousands. The congregation, verse 25, all
of them, the strangers that came, that is Gentiles, they came too.
And they all rejoiced. There was great joy in Jerusalem.
Since the time of Solomon, it was never the like. And the priests
and the Levites arose, blessed the people and their God. And
it says, and their praise, their singing, their worship, their
voice came up and to heaven itself, God heard it. They were doing it like he said
to them. And he heard them, and he blessed
them, and he forgave them all. Every single person, no matter
how bad and sinful, no matter who had done what, every single
person that came to keep that Passover, God said, forgive. I'm well pleased. And where is that? Christ. Alright, Brother Gabe. What is
that, 226? Sherry was playing it as a prelude
and we sang it. 226.